#also a carcass is the dead body of an animal. not a person but nice job dehumanizing rhaenyra so alicent is the perma-victim

[jessescatorccio]

this tag on a post about rhaenyra being commanded to bring her newborn to ~the queen~ lmao. rhaenyra literally is the victim in this scenario. how would it have looked if she did any of those things, disobeying a direct order from the queen? alicent wanted to humiliate her and she did. but that’s cunning and a good political move i guess not motivated at all by her grudge against rhaenyra

[aeoki]

Seven Bridges - Hate Control: Chapter 8

Location: Cafe Characters: Adonis, Kouga, Arashi & Hitsugi

TL Note:

Show-era pop or kayoukyoku (歌謡曲 / lit. pop song) is music from 1920s Japan. It’s a sound that’s a combination of western and Japanese styles from that era. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ< Ten or so minutes later. At a cafe next to the underground live house. >

NEGI: “So?”

Kouga: …………

NEGI: “If you’ve got something to say to me then just say it.”

“I’ll listen at the very least. I couldn’t very well call what I was doing earlier a performance.”

“You guys took care of my little brother. So I don’t want to treat you badly. For the most part.”

Arashi: Your little brother…?

Kouga: So you really are related to that Hitsugi Kurone kid?

NEGI: “Yeah, we’re siblings.”

Kouga: That so? You guys twins or somethin’? You got the same face so you just look like the same person up close.

But you’re wearin’ a girl’s uniform.

Arashi: Hm~...? But what? They look way too similar.

NEGI: “I don’t care. Mind if I order something to eat?”

“I get pretty hungry when I perform.”

Adonis: I know the feeling. You should order a lot. The meat they serve here is delicious.

NEGI: “Haha. Sounds like something a guy would say.”

“I don’t really like meat that much. It’s the carcasses of an animal, anyway.”

“But my little brother will probably like it. We don’t really talk about our favourite foods or stuff like that.”

Arashi: (S-She seems hard to figure out… Reminds me of when I first met Adonis.)

(Taciturn, expressionless and I can’t tell what’s on their mind. But they’re definitely thinking about something and it makes me anxious because I don’t know what that is.)

(Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem to think of us as enemies so I’m glad she’s talking to us in a normal manner.)

NEGI: “If you’re not going to tell me what business you have with me, then I’ll go ahead and ask my question.”

“What did you think about that song, Arashi Narukami?”

Arashi: Wha? Me?

NEGI: “Yeah. I sang it for you.”

“How was it?”

Arashi: Uh–

Kouga: Hey, I’m the one who’s got business with ya. Let’s talk first, uhh, should I just call you NEGI?

NEGI: “Feel free to. It’s not like I gave myself that name.”

“The dead don’t have the right to give themselves a name. By the way, it’s NEGI because it’s derived from the first and last name, apparently.”

Arashi: Oh, you’re right. Hitsugi Kurone so NEGI in short, huh.

Wait but you’re Hitsugi-chan’s older sister and a separate person from him so…?

NEGI: “What business did you have with me, puppy?”

Kouga: Who’re ya callin’ a puppy…? Imma kill ya if you get ahead of yourself – doesn’t matter if you’re a girl or not.

Arashi: Kouga-chan, manners.

NEGI: “Haha. You’ll kill me? I’d like to see you try.”

“You can’t do it. I’ve been dead for a long time and I’ve been performing my music in a dangerous neighbourhood.”

“My body remembers. Bring it on, puppy. I’ll play with you.”

Kouga: That’s more like it – I’m not a dog who just howls and bar–

Mmphg!?

Adonis: Oogami! Have a sandwich!

NEGI: “I want one too.”

Adonis: Right. Have one, eat a lot.

Oogami, eat a sandwich and calm down. You’re irritated because you’re hungry. And violence is never the answer, no matter the reason.

Kouga: I know! I already decided that I won’t hurt another girl!

NEGI: “That’s anachronism. Sexism.”

“But I was at fault too. Sorry for provoking you.”

“I also get scared when big men surround me, so that’s probably why I feel so on edge.”

Kouga: R-Right… I’m also sorry for yellin’.

NEGI: “You’re fine. Must be nice to be full of energy.” *Munch munch*

Kouga: What a weird person… Anyway, the business I have with ya isn’t a big deal that we need to sit down and talk about.

NEGI: “Is it about how I’m breaking into your territory?”

“But you’re barking up the wrong tree. There’s an even bigger audience wanting to listen to my songs, not yours.”

“It’s lame to get angry just because someone stole your crowd, puppy.”

Kouga: It ain’t that. It’s the merit system of this neighbourhood – What you said was right.

Sure, it bugs me but if I’m angry about that, then I should be gettin’ angry at myself, not you, huh.

NEGI: “Yeah. Nice, I like that part about you, puppy.”

Kouga: …What I’ve got a problem with is the contents of your music. You’re singing your own arrangement of Show-era pop[∗] songs, right?

You got the permission to do that? If you’re doing it without the proper permission, then I’ll never acknowledge what you’re doin’.

It’d be a crime. That underground live house is like my saviour and a friend – It’s a place a senior of mine ran.

It sounds like he’s left it to an acquaintance to run it now, but you’ll only be bringin’ them trouble if you cause trouble in the underground live house.

And a tiny live house like that is only gonna get shut down if there’s some sorta scandal.

Especially since the live houses around ES are gettin’ merged. A declinin’ live house would be targeted immediately..

I don’t want an issue happenin’ and one of my homes disappearin’. You get me?

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂  Next Chapter →

[thenixkat]

decided to finally start reading the comic. So first thing I noticed is less action in the opening compared to the cartoon

we open with the orange lizard kaiju mid being killed instead of seeing it arrive and folks get there and then kill it also the PPE in the anime is better designed for the monster clean-up crew. These bitches don't even have fucking respirators in the comic like? there's def fumes from dead monster guts yall need some N95s like you need respirators for more than just working intestines with the shit. Using a chainsaw on fucking bones and flesh would create so many aerosols and particulates that would fuck up yer lungs

as a person who's been shoveling shit for a living for 3 yrs now, I still think Kafka shouldn't be that fucked up working intestine duty after at least 12 yrs, like my guy you should be used to the smell of shit by now

also it's not like the rest of the body would smell that much better than the bowels once the meat has been sitting there for days as yall disassemble the carcass like meat will stink bad bad after several days in the sun i see what folks ment by the mangaka having designed this comic for scrolling type reading specifically since it was originally released digitally

i do like this style better than some of the other scrolling comics that really only have one or two panels per 'page' like these are actual pages but the readability is good with scrolling also still fucked me up that Mina and Kafka's friendship apparently went cold when he just wasn't physically able to pass the test for 12 yrs straight b4 he aged out. Like man had to actually be trying to keep at it year after year. Just sometimes folks cant physically do the jobs they want to, it's fucked to be mad at Kafka for not being up to it cause feels like he tried very hard. again Kafka pls clean yer apartment

get roasted by a teenager and a same-age coworker in different ways at the same time

very intense teenager

that's another difference in the cartoon this was changed to the site manager telling Ichikawa about how Kafka would have made a good officer if he'd been able to get in

here man's just thinking to himself

i'd find it hard to believe that there'd be a declining birth rate in a country where giant monsters can randomly pop out the ground at any time and start eating people. That kind of fear and uncertainly tends to lead to people fucking like rabbits

yeah giant monsters just fucking pop out the ground at random. Yer telling me folks aren't throwing caution to the wind and fucking to forget their woes? Having babies with the partner to have something to remember them by in case the worst happens? getting married young because who knows when you'll die?

reflexes

like that's some decent athleticism

nice monster

ok another difference, Kafka got to actually by some time and run for a bit in the cartoon. In the comic he gets swatted pretty quickly the dragonfly isn't as cute in the manga.

less tube and length also a lot smaller too. Nah the anime had the right idea, force that man to deepthroat a python

hmm, i will say Kafka's monster form has more texture and looks craggier in the comic. Would prefer if the glow was consistently on more than just the arms and abs. Still think the teeth could be more interesting with a tweak to the canines. Like make them notably longer or better yet tusks just don't make them damn near uniform with the rest of the teeth

huh the spidermen were parasites on the big lizard that fell off and tried nomming humans

[strangebiology]

Why I don't Worry about Being a Gross Vulture Person

One of the agents I was talking to about my book proposal for "Carcass: On the Afterlives of Animal Bodies" was asking me if I had a more personal take, rather than "here's what happens to dead animals."

How does my personal journey work into it? It's a science book... I really couldn't think of anything, until later when I'm a bit boozed up and going on about my Tragic Backstory (ok it's not that serious, let's call it...Things That Informed my Behavior and Personality.)

When I was younger I believed in sort of a narrow definition of success, as was generally defined by my family and school: get good grades, go to good college, get good job. There's sort of a uniform, linear path that we all follow and some get higher on the ladder than others. If I do well at these pre-specified things, I'll get accolades and attention and happiness. Beyond that, only very lucky people can have very good lives, and I'm not lucky.

This turned out to be pretty wrong.

I joined track and field and I LOVED it. And I was very good at it. I set the all-time school record for the 100M hurdles. Track was very important to the formation of my beliefs and values, which is weird because it's just running in circles.

Here's where it went wrong (or...right?): my parents absolutely hated track. I started coming home with a medal or four every weekend or so, and they wanted me to quit. They successfully sabotaged two invitationals and called the school to make them pull me out (now they say they were just faking the phone call, and they didn't pull out their star hurdler/jumper, so IDK.)

I thought "How come I'm not getting appreciated for doing something objectively well?"

Years later, I was running at one of the beautiful spots the track team had shown me. I went into a ravine. I found cow bones.

I started finding more bones of other animals. Sometimes a little fleshy. I learned more online about cleaning. Posted about them here. I processed a few fresh carcasses.

Of course my parents thought it was gross and weird and wanted me to stop. I can't blame them, being disturbed by dead animals is a very culturally normal opinion. And you know, if I had been in a different timeline, I might have said "you're right, this is objectively gross and weird, and because I respect your opinion, I will stop."

But that's not how it went. I just said "Oh, please, you hate everything I do. Regardless of how normal it is."

They could have stopped me, but they wasted their judgement on something completely innocuous, and it's worthless now. I only got more invested in dead animals as the years passed.

The lovely thing is, and I can't speak for anyone else, but I really don't have social trouble because of my interest in dead animals. It's only been good for my career, it brought me this blog, it got me 171,000 followers on TikTok, I write about bones professionally a lot, and I'll probably write a book about it soon. People I meet are generally either fascinated or they just go "oh that's not for me." I've been told one(1) time "oh this will eliminate you from large portions of the dating pool" but I literally have no interest in dating someone who is gonna be that put off by a weirdo. I'm a weirdo at heart even without the bones. I'm so happy that I don't have to fake normalness, and everyone I care about, and most of the people who follow me online, are either neutral or they love it.

I do want to express my gratitude to everyone who has either supported me, said anything nice, bought bone merch, or followed. And I also want to thank the people who do hate dead animals, understand that their personal ick factors don't dictate morality, and proceed block or scroll on by.

[evolutionsvoid]

Logger Sharks are, well, sharks but not the kind you may think of! When most people hear "shark," they think of the toothy saltwater variety, the swimming meat grinders that devour all! Of course this is all hyperbole, sharks are not the crazy bloodthirsty creatures that story likes to make them out to be. They eat meat just like everything else, so lets just all calm down about it. Back to my point, Logger Sharks are not found in the ocean but, rather, inland where fresher waters lie! That's right, Logger Sharks are a freshwater shark that is also amphibious. Their gills are capable of dealing with air, which means these little guys can march their way right onto dry land! This also is allowed because these sharks have grown a set of legs! Their fins have morphed into appendages that can work well on both water and land, which is perfect for their amphibious lifestyle. I am sure this sounds utterly terrifying for the ignorant, but do not fear! First of all, they aren't that big. They grow to about four feet in length. and their dorsal fin reaches about two feet. Second, they have better things to do then gnaw your leg off. You see, Logger Sharks get their name for a good reason, and they work hard for it! If you get past the fact that they are land sharks with legs, you will notice that they tend to go after non-meaty things. The thing they really like to sink their teeth into are trees and other woody vegetation! It turns out that super sharp teeth can do more than slice through flesh! Logger Sharks possess the same fast-growing, replaceable teeth as their ocean brethren, though theirs has a longer journey. The teeth grow in the back of the jaw, then slowly move forward as more erupt. They slowly travel towards the snout, until they exit the mouth entirely! The lower jaw of a Logger shark has a special, spiraled root that allows the teeth to move out of the mouth and down their chin. This creates a toothy circle saw, which is quite good for carving through bark and woody materials! When Logger Sharks find the perfect tree, they clasp on with their forelimbs and use their spiraled teeth to rasp away! Obviously their size and equipment aren't suited for slicing clean through the tree, instead they slowly wear away at it from all sides, counting on the height and weight of the tree to finally topple it. I now realize I kind of made it sound like these guys are chewing down redwoods, but really they are going after smaller thinner trees, because they have to be able to carry them home! After chopping down a good sized piece of lumber, the Logger Shark will use their jaws to chew it into workable pieces. Too big, and they won't be able to carry it. Too long, and they will hit every rock, tree and bump on their way back home. So careful cutting is needed, and once it is done they grab it in their jaws and march! They adorably plod their way back to some pond or lake where they live, as these sharks still prefer to live in water! They like non-moving water bodies, as they don't like to fight the current when they are building! You see, Logger Sharks use this chewed up lumber to build lodges for themselves, where they may eat, rest and groom away from the bothersome outside! They use wood and mud to slap together these little huts, and slowly form an inside chamber to live in. These lodges are furnished with grass and dead leafy vegetation, adding extra comfort to their home! They also sport multiple entrances and exits for speedy getaways and easy access. They don't just build houses, as sometimes extra construction is needed if the water refuses to stop running. Dams and blockages are constructed to bring up the water level and create a personal pond for them to live in! Quite the clever little fellas, though the folks downstream may not appreciate the craftsmanship. 

The other interesting thing to note about Logger Sharks is the fact that they are quite social. This species lives in family groups and work together to build their perfect home! They tend to interact a lot with their own kind, be it felling trees together or staking their claim. To tell others that this territory is theirs, they will use extra rough patches on their body to rub against vegetation. This acts like sandpaper and wears away at the outermost layer of plants. It also is infused with their special marker, which other Logger Sharks can detect. If you ever notice multiple trees having strange worn patterns near the base of the trunk, it is a good sign that Logger Sharks are about! The other tell is the short barks they let out to call to one another, either warning of danger or calling for extra help carrying their haul! Living in temperate climates means that winter is bound to appear, so how do these little guys make it through the cold? Why, they stockpile food and make their lodges nice and cozy! They build special entrances and exits so that they can get through the ice when need be, but most of the time they sleep in their homes. They are able to go into torpor for long periods of time, occasionally waking to snack on some food before going back under. When spring arrives and the ice begins to melt, they are back at it again, making repairs and moving thing around so that the fading ice doesn't cause any damage. Cripes, I just realized I haven't even mentioned what these creatures eat, I have been so caught up in their antics! Logger Sharks are omnivorous, though a hefty portion of their diet leans towards greens. They eat leafy materials and aquatic vegetation, as well as the bark and chunks that come off of fallen trees. For meat, they target smaller prey, like worms, bugs, grubs, frogs and other critters. Their sharp teeth make short work of anything they go after (this includes fingers of fools who can't keep their hands to themselves)! Logger Sharks have been seen feeding on carrion, but honestly pretty much everything does that. Show me an animal that willingly passes up a free meal! This scavenging is what gives people the wrong impression of these guys. Someone will walk through the woods and see a group of them tearing into a deer carcass, then stupidly assume that they killed it. Logger Sharks do not go on feeding frenzies and they do not tear apart large prey! They just don't! Enough with this nonsense! Logger Sharks are a species of shark that give birth to live pups. They do so in the safety of their lodges, where the mothers can look after them and the family can bring them food. They will grow under their watchful care, until they may be strong enough to strike off on their own and build their own future!   With their love for chewing down plants, I am sure many are wondering what us dryads think of them. They eat trees, surely they must be despised! First of all, they don't go after old trees, those are way too big. They prefer younger growths and tree saplings, something they can actually carry. Fallen limbs and branches also work too, as they are fine with scooping up pre-cut supplies! Second, they do not like busy areas and places with lots of people in it. Of course these little guys aren't going to come plodding into town to eat our homes. Honestly, dryads are fine with Logger Sharks because most communities know how to deal with them. This species likes to chew and work, but they won't pass up free meals! What dryad communities do near Logger Shark territory is plant fast-growing tree species that provide Logger Sharks with the materials they want. They may also discard unusable pieces of lumber and wood near these territories, so the sharks may use them instead. When they are provided with plenty of resources, they have no reason to come after our own crops! Do be warned, though, if you live on the outskirts of these territories and collect firewood. If you keep your logs and kindling outside, the Logger Sharks might scurry in to nab a few! Keep them contained somewhere safe, or store them high up! It isn't just our views on trees people wonder about, they also ask if Logger Sharks attack dryads. We are made of wood, after all! Do dryads have to fear bodily harm from Logger Sharks? No. This species is used to working on stationary trees that don't scream or fight back. They get spooked pretty easily, so I can't see any dryad letting one of these things chew through their leg unchallenged. Maybe an incident happens every decade or so, but most of the time it is just a bite or scratch from a scared animal. To have one chew all the way through a leg and then carry it off? Cripes, they must have guzzled a bottle of Napellin Cobalt to let that happen! If that did indeed occur, I would not use that against this species. I mean, how many drunk people have died to horses, and people are still fine working with those? Since I am talking about interactions with these critters, I would like to take a moment to inform folk of a few things. The first, is telling people not to go knocking down Logger Shark dams without proper precautions. I understand some communities get impacted when their river is blocked up by these guys. I would implore you to take a moment to think through the situation and find a solution that won't cause unnecessary harm. I know some folk just run in there and smash the whole thing apart without a second thought, and those people are absolute idiots. If the dam is broke that fast, the rush of water released will sweep away the lodge and any poor pups trapped inside! Also, that wall of water is headed straight towards your stinking town, genius! Hope no one is near the river when that battering ram of water and debris comes hurtling by! So instead of being stupid, why don't you relocate the Logger Sharks elsewhere, or at least drive them away and then slowly dismantle the dam. Bring it down little by little so that the water is slowly released. The other thing I wanted to mention is that Logger Sharks are absolutely adorable, wonderful and are certainly not pets. These animals are very social and need the company of their kind to properly function. I admit myself that I wish I could keep one, but it isn't healthy for them and they don't do well with it. Not to mention what will happen if you somehow own furniture! Logger Sharks should stay wild and stay with their families. The best option, if you want their company, is to be neighbors. Happy, but safely distant, neighbors. I have spent quite a few evenings after a long day's work sitting by the shore and watching them work. It is quite soothing and entertaining! Enjoy them from a distance, and I guarantee you will love every second of it!     Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian --------------------------------------------------- I realized my world didn't have any sharks in it yet, so I figured I would fix that. Also been reading and seeing how sharks always get the violent evil image, so I wanted my first species to at least be something different than the cliché crazed meat shredder. Took some thinking on how to make a unique shark, but than the epiphany struck! Beaver sharks! I had to draw them up the second it hit me! This is one of the designs I am super proud of, despite the fact I probably say that about every other creature I make. Sharks! Formation! Sticks in jaw, snout in line! Colonel Bogey bring that tune to the 1,2,3 and MARCH!

[pokelec]

A Dead By Daylight Novice Reviews All the Killers' Trailers (and makes suggestions for what they'd change)

Reveal trailers are paramount for an audience's first look at new characters. First impressions are everything, so your trailer for your shiny new character needs to be perfect for what's in store for the video game! I started playing DBD a month-ish ago but watched all the trailers for the killers before I started playing, and watching some of them got me to thinking about how I would have changes some of the trailers. Some require no changes, while others I think need an overhaul.

Disclaimer: This is in my personal opinion, is not objective at all, and I'm only doing this because this is something I've been thinking about for a month and need some sort of release or else my brain will implode.

Under a read more bc this gets long.

The Trapper - The first trailer! For a first trailer, I think this one is pretty spot on. It follows a lot of beats of slasher movies, in terms of following a survivor that's gonna be killed, her encountering dead bodies, and the suspense of the killer looking for her. Considering Dead by Daylight is effectively a playable horror movie, I think this is a perfect intro to the game. As for what this means for the Trapper, aka our Jason substitute, I think it showed him off alright! We saw his bear traps and got a good look at him doing this thing. Pretty good, all things considered!

The Wraith - The Wraith, Hillbilly, and Nurse all features gameplay as the means of showing off what the killers can do. The Wraith's isn't too bad, since it does show off his Wailing Bell power enough for people to understand "This is a killer that can turn invisible, and you may not know he's right next to you until it's too late". I wish it has a more cinematic style, but I'll be forgiving here because DBD was still young when this was made. I also thing it showed the new map, Autohaven, pretty well. I'm not too big of a fan of ending the trailer with his mori, but that could be because I don't find his mori exciting.

The Hillbilly - Next is our Leatherface expy! This one feels shorter, still using gameplay to introduce our new killer but at least shows off his chainsaw wielding and hints at the map associated with him. I like the shot of him revving his chainsaw underneath the tree with the animal carcasses! I don't mind the ending with his mori here because even if it's off screen, getting cut with a chainsaw is brutal enough to leave a lasting impression. Again, I wish it had the cinematic style, but it's fine.

The Nurse - I think the Nurse's trailer is the weakest of the three gameplay-focused trailers. The text intro is... fine, but I honestly think it fits the Doctor more. It does an okay job of showing us her Blinking mechanics, but it also doesn't? Like we see her teleporting to Nea, but it feels lackluster. I do like the ending shot of dead Nea as the Nurse just blinks away. I'm not quite sure how to change this trailer to be more effective in my opinion, if I'm being honest.

The Shape/Michael Myers - Our first franchise killer, and a perfect trailer. The first second in, we hear John Carpenter's legendary Halloween score. Even non-horror fans will quickly pick up which killer this is. The suspense of Laurie see Michael, Michael coming up the stairs, and especially the shot of Laurie and Michael being on opposite sides of a door is *chef's kiss*. We see enough of the Shape to be satisfied and eager for his release. It's the perfect trailer for him AND Laurie imo.

The Huntress - Ah, the Huntress. She is my favorite killer to play as, and I probably have the majority of my playtime on her. Unfortunately, I think her trailer leaves a lot to be desired. It's the start of the 'let's look at the killer from different angles, have them turn around to the camera, and then attack the viewer' trend of DBD trailers. I call for a complete rewrite! Here's what I would have done:

The map is Mother's Dwelling. Two survivors (David aaaand idk Dwight?) are running and hides behind some trees. We hear the Huntress's lullaby get louder, and we see the bottom half of her and her axe as she walks past the survivors. The lullaby gets quieter, and the survivors take a sigh of relief. Then, a hatchet is thrown and lodged into Dwight's head! David screams and runs. We then see our full look at the Huntress as she picks up the body. Her signature lullaby continues as the trailer ends.

The Hag - The Hag's trailer also follows a similar formula to the Huntress' trailer. There is an animation bump, so we get to see the Hag's emaciated appearance in full detail. I'm not too mad about that, since the Hag's appearance is unsettling enough to cause viewer distress and curiosity more than the Huntress' would. However, because this is a DBD original killer, we need to see what her deal is with her trailer. Thus, I propose this:

On the swamp, Ace is repairing a generator but hears another survivor (Dwight?) get hooked. Ace goes to rescue him, but we see as he steps on a rune in front of the poor survivor. The illusion of the Hag pops up, jumpscaring poor Ace (and the audience) but disappears. Ace then rescues Dwight for real, but Dwight quickly runs away. Why? Because the real Hag is behind Ace and lunges at him, biting his neck. Trailer ends.

The Doctor - I now realize that my taste in writing DBD trailers is 'have the survivor do a thing, they think the killer is near, they then relax, and only then are they attacked by the killer'. It's a bit stereotypical, but again, we're dealing with a game centered on the horror genre, so that's why I'm okay with it.

I mention this because that's effectively the story beats the the Doctor's trailer follows. Instead of attacking Feng, however, the Doctor just looks at her run and stares menacingly. Even though we don't see the Doctor's shock therapy powers here, I think the long look at the killer is still effective because of his design. A first reaction I (and other reactors) experienced went from the initial "OMG the killer is here, run girl!" to "Why tf are his own eyes and mouth held open like that A Clockwork Orange scene?!". We also don't linger for too long on him either, so I think this trailer works well enough.

The Cannibal/Leatherface - Another franchise killer, this time good ol Leatherface! This trailer is a little different, using text to draw up suspense. I do like the reveal of "What is his mask made of? YOU.", but I would've loved to have seen some actual Cannibal action, or at least his in-game model doing his Texas chainsaw massacring thing.

The Nightmare/Freddy Kruger - Oh, c'mon, we got one of the most well known characters in horror in this little video game, and all we get for his trailer is some scratch marks and a 'killer does nothing but stand there menacingly and attack the camera' trailer?! I do like the detail that when we see him, it's DBD's version of the dream world, but we could've at least featured a survivor falling asleep and then seeing him for themselves.

(Also kinda sad it's the reboot version of Freddy instead of the Wes Craven version and the survivor is Quentin instead of Nancy Freaking Thompson, but I guess we should be happy he's in the game at all)

The Pig - Largely, I think this trailer is pretty good. I'm not too big of a fan of Amanda just standing there menacingly near Dwight, but I do like everything else. I especially love the security camera shot of the famous Saw bathroom and the cutaway when Dwight's reverse bear trap activates (but we still see a good bit of gore!). It feels very Saw-like.

The Clown - This trailer is pretty good! Even though we don't see the Clown in much action, we get a lot of visual storytelling with the bottles, the circus, and the ring of fingers, all leading up to the reveal of his face. The diagetic music from Kate is a nice touch, too.

The Spirit - This one is alright. There is a lot of focus on Adam, but it does build up tension to when the Spirit reveals herself. My biggest problem with it is the ending card that is used for her. Yes, I know that's traditional for the end of these trailers, but her pose and expression is kinda meh after the face she makes when she's about to attack Adam. Seriously, that couple of seconds haunts me (sorry) otherwise.

The Legion - My other favorite killer to play! It's so funny how I didn't like Legion when I first heard of them but now they're my favorites. I love how the trailer emphasizes that the new killer(s) looks similar to survivors and the brutality of when Frank reveals himself and stabs Jeff. However, the trailer does a disservice to the other members of the Legion. C'mon, that's their whole shtick!

My recommendation would be to end with a shot of Julie, Joey, and Suzie joining Frank (and obviously getting a good look at them) and surrounding Jeff right before they all stab him. This is a little disingenuous since you can't play as all four of them at once (unless you count that one Blighted skin...), but you also can't disguise yourself as a survivor, so... Yeah. They are The Legion! They act as one! Treat them as such in their trailer, dammit!

The Plague - The Plague's trailer is interesting. Even though we don't see her in action, I think it's fine because seeing her puke on people during her trailer might be a bit off-putting. Just a bit. We still get some storytelling with her whispered prayers, the candles and incense thingy, and, of course, her face. I think because the Plague's design is inherently unique among all the killers so far, she can get away with the 'let's just tease the audience by looking at the killer and nothing else' trend.

The Ghost Face - Not too much I can complain about with this one. I do like the wtf factor of 'wait, why is a DBD trailer at a modern day warehouse???', especially if you're watching a trailer playlist like I first did. It all makes sense when you learn it's Ghost Face, though! Also, justice for that poor cashier.

The Demogorgon - RIP Stranger Things DLC. I don't watch this series, but I really like the Hawkins Lab map and I'm going to be sad when it's gone. :(

I love this trailer! When I hear the Stranger Things music, it actually gives me chills. I'm legitimately so sad the DLC will be gone from the stores, but I do own them myself. I need to actually sit down and play Demo, Steve, and Nancy one of these days. Why am I crying? No, I'm not kidding, why is this trailer making me cry? Renew the contract, Netflix, please! I don't want this stuff to disappear forever!

(Is it weird that I've been nagged on for years to watch Stranger Things but it's Dead By Daylight that's actually convincing me to watch it?)

The Oni - This is an interesting case. The "main" theme of this trailer is the contrast of modern day Japan's Yui and her motorcycle vs the literal ancient samurai Oni. I think it works out, and again, I think the presentation makes up for us not seeing too much of the new killer.

The Deathslinger - Oh boy, do I love my cowboys! This trailer is nearly perfect. We establish the western setting quickly over the sounds of some poor bastard in pain. The reeling in of the chains and the closeup of The Redeemer is so great. My biggest complaint with this trailer is that we linger a bit too long on the Deathslinger's face at the end. Yeah, he's creepy with his eyes and his disjointed jaw, but you can only look at a horror for so long before you want to move on.

The Executioner/Pyramid Head - I like this trailer! I haven't played Silent Hills, but I'm at least somewhat familiar with the premise and Pyramid Head. I love the shot of him passing the classroom door window and the sword cutting a rift through the ground. Yeah, my lack of SH knowledge makes me unable to recommend any changes here.

The Blight - I have no changes to suggest. The Blight's transformation is super horrific, reminding me of the typical depiction of Jekyll and Hyde. Honestly, he is so much more terrifying in his trailer and in lore than in gameplay.

The Twins - No changes needed. BHVR is really starting to hit their stride with these trailers! Seeing Victor come out of Charlotte's body is amazing.

The Trickster - We depart from all of the other trailers by using an K-POP music video style. It does a good job at referencing some of his story beats (namely torturing/killing people, recording their screams, and using them in his music), but it doesn't really make me afraid of the Trickster. Sure, it fits with his theme, but I would have preferred seeing more of him, y'know, instead of just looking pretty and making faces? I still wouldn't change the art style of the trailer, though. It's fitting enough for him and a breath of fresh air from the doom and gloom.

The Nemesis - No change needed, mostly because I'm not too familiar with the Resident Evil series, but seeing Jill, the twink Leon, and Nemesis on-screen is a very cool moment. Also can we get an F in chat for Meg?

The Cenobite/Pinhead - This is a perfect trailer. We got the Lament Configuration, we got the chains pinning up Dwight, we got Pinhead himself! What more can I ask for?

If you actually made it this far, thank for reading? I don't think I really contribute anything to the fandom with this analysis, but DBD has been living rent free in my brain for the past month, so I may as well write something, eh?

[morgana-ren]

Empty

Another small short for Shigaraki this time. I’m sure it had a point originally. Yandere Shigaraki and his captive darling and him being a real dick about proving that you’re better off at his side under his protection than you are on your own in the cruel, cruel world. After all, better the devil you know that the devil you don’t.

Warnings: Kidnapping, allusions to death, rotting corpses and rot (indiscernible animal), noncon, captivity, Shig being fuckin’ mean as usual, purple prose again, whump I guess? (In my sister’s words “It’s sad. Is it supposed to be this sad?”)

Rating: Definitely E on this one.

You can tell a lot about someone by their eyes. 

Eyes are how we see the world, but in equal capacity, it’s also how the world sees us. Someone’s eyes, unlike their mouths, don’t have the same capability to lie. They can be a tell-all when we’re reluctant or can express the things we don’t have the courage to say. The things you can learn can be overwhelming. Sometimes you see too much. Sometimes not enough.

And when you looked into his eyes, it was like there was nothing inside them. Nothing at all. 

His eyes were beautiful, even if you couldn’t see any of your own humanity mirrored back at you in your reflection. Stark red and violent, an open wound bleeding contempt for the waking world and everyone in it. 

It hurts you more than you care to admit to know that you’re included in the group he believes to be the scum beneath his ruby red shoes. 

Even as he watches you now through narrow lids with a casual sense of detachment, every bone in your body longs to see something in those eyes other than carefully concealed disgust. Something. Anything. Some shining light of pride or care or even just simple recognition that you aren’t just a parasite that clings to him for some sick sense of purpose, even if he is the one who has bound you here.

But you know that’s impossible. Even if he wanted to. Even if he had the capability. 

Truthfully, you’re not sure what it would be like if he did.

The closest you will ever get is that he allows you to ride his coattails alongside the dirt and mud, slowly shrinking in the darkness of his shadow as you follow behind him and stare resentfully as he eclipses the sun and all the light it brings. It’s impossible to bloom without nurture and care but somehow, like a weed, you’ve found a way to stay alive in an environment that wholly starves you and deprives you of love and affection. He makes you whole. He makes you real. 

He makes you sick. 

Worms and maggots crawl across a dead something or other, blood matted fur giving next to no indication of what the small mammal might have been when it was living. Small pieces of bone are visible through the rotting muscle tissue, mangled limbs sitting limply beside the body. It’s a tableau of death he wants you to witness; decay that makes your still living flesh crawl. 

“That’s what happens,” he states matter of factly, pale, thin finger pointing at the carcass as the other squeezes the side of your waist tight enough to make you seize. “When you die. You rot in the ground and no one will remember or care.” 

The sick crawls up your stomach, bile resting uneasily at the low of your throat. You don’t want to look anymore, but you know if you try to look away, he’ll make you look again. There’s still tender bruises on your skin from the last time you tried to defy him, and you know what happens if you make him angry. Your tears mean nothing to him and you swear you see the ghost of a smile twitch on his lips as he watches your eyes well up.

He’s not giving you a simple organic chemistry lesson, of that you’re completely certain. He wants you to know the power he holds, wants you to understand that if he so chose, he could easily expedite the process of your own fragile form’s decay.

He didn't used to be like this. He used to be Tenko. Used to have a soul. 

But he sold that soul the day his daddy took a step too far and then overtook the devils throne and used the contract to wipe his hands clean of the blood. Tenko doesn’t exist. He’s made sure you understand that. Any mention of the boy he used to be is enough to get his fingers twitching and ready on your throat. 

He watches as you cry with an expression that’s equal parts elated and aroused, not bothering to conceal it from you any further. Desperately, you shove down your sorrow and keep your back straight against him; your pain is an aphrodisiac for him. Wipe the tears from your eyes and cast them bitterly to the floor. Swallow the hiccups and sobs that bubble in your gut and keep a trembling straight face despite your every instinct longing to curl at his feet and hide your face in the dirt.

It’s far too late. 

Anytime you concede to the power he wields, it re-energizes him, and you’re his favorite little power source. He’s learned to tune you like a fiddle until you play whatever song he desires and he’ll dance with you until your feet bleed and your body crumples. He’ll step on the arch of your back and use you as a pedestal to reach the greatness he knows he’s destined for and punish you if you falter under his weight. 

It’s a mock symbiosis you live in, neither wholly at peace but each one needing the other. You’ve tried to leave, tried to run. He finds you, dragging you back to him kicking and screaming and clawing at the ground. With a gnarled hand twisted through your hair, he tells you how pretty you are, puckers your ruddy cheeks with his nails and kisses you deeply as the tears stream down your face. 

‘Don’t kid yourself. You couldn’t survive without me, idiot. Where would you go? Who would take you after I have?’

You hate it, you despise him, but he’s right. Who could ever accept you after you’ve allowed him to have you time and time again? Where in the darkness could you hide that he wouldn’t find you? Even if you did find someone who would care for you after your body had been tainted by his touch, Tomura wouldn’t stand for it. He’d find you as he had time and time again, seek out the source of your light and snuff it out. 

“Don’t you care about me?” He’d say, leading you away with hands still stained red. “Don’t you want me to be happy?” 

And when you start to cry again, he’d simply wipe them away with a filthy thumb, smearing the grime across your cheek. 

“Don’t worry. I forgive you. But don’t do it again.”

Long have you given up your silly dreams of freedom, but still he likes to drive the nail further, either out of necessity or malevolence. So he drags you far from home into places you could never find on your own to show you the pitfalls of life without him. Cold and shaking, you’ll follow wherever he leads you because when he asks you nicely to come, there is no other choice. He’ll take you on a personally guided tour of the horrors of the world, horrors he orchestrates just for you and watch gleefully as your vision tunnels and your view of life becomes even darker and more damning until it’s as cynical and deprived as his own and you cling to him for safety.

Only when your eyes clouded and your outlook bleak will he pull you into the dirt, touching you in places that contrast starkly against the misery you feel and coaxing a bliss from you that makes you bend to him all over again. He’ll kiss you softly as he pushes your face harder against the floor, letting the leaves and the muck tangle in your hair, forcing you to face the maggot ridden corpse not far from your entwined bodies. In this moment, he offers you only two choices: Pleasure or pain? Him or death. 

Sometimes you wonder how long it will take before you finally shove him off and opt to let him touch you for the last time, placing five fingers down instead of four and watching as you rejoin the Earth as newly formed ash. And that’s if he decides to be merciful. You doubt he’d give up his favorite plaything so easily.

But apparently you haven’t reached your breaking point yet, because you let his fingers wander lower, arching into his touch and keening against his bony shoulder as it digs into your own. Quickly enough, your clothing is cast aside and he marvels in your flesh like it’s the first time all over again. He leaves you bared before him, vulnerable and quaking beneath his cage of limbs. Brand new bruising patterns over the old in a myriad of colors as his hands grip just a little too tightly for comfort wherever he can reach. He holds you callously down, as if you could run even if given the option, and soon his pants are pulled down just enough over his hips to allow him to violate you the way pleases him most. 

He pushes inside of you, stealing your bodily warmth for his own. It’s the closest he comes to removing the mask that is his personality now. His mouth slacks and his eyes close and you can forget, if only for a moment, that the man who has chosen you is incapable of loving you, and equally incapable of letting you go. When you can no longer see your reflection in his apathetic eyes, it’s easier to stomach that you’ll be stuck in the suffocating purgatory of his desire until you perish. 

It becomes easier to play pretend that he actually cares. 

He goes through the motions and hits all your sweet spots, but you know this isn’t for you. It’s for him. He prides himself on being able to feel whatever it is he wants you to feel, and even though you know damn well he’s manipulating you, it’s almost impossible not to take the tenderness when he offers it. Though you are fully aware he is conditioning you to favor him and his cruelty over the world and its cruelty, you are beginning to relent. You can only struggle against the tide for so long before you have to acknowledge that you will never make it back to shore. 

So you’ll allow his kisses, sometimes even returning them when you lose yourself enough in the moment. You won’t hold back the noises he wants you to make because the ones he will coerce from you if you do will be less kind. You’ll lock your ankles around his waist and follow his rhythm because he will get what he wants, one way or another. 

No matter how uncomfortable, no matter how filthy, you’ll allow him your body because it’s easier when he asks rather than when he takes. It’s better to try and fool yourself into believing that his are the gentle hands of a lover rather than a captor. You’ll revel in the one simple time you are allowed to mark him, and that’s when your nails dig into his skin, pulling him closer. You’ll croon into him and say his name in a manner that’s genuine, because in the moment, it is. 

You’d give anything for him to love you. Not to own you, but to love you. Maybe then, just maybe, you could find contentment in your place in his world.

There may come a day when he no longer wants you. There may come a day when the indifference in his eyes might seem a gift in comparison to boredom or irritation. On that day, you might find yourself wishing that you had been a little more convincing in your act, or perhaps that you had been a little less difficult. Maybe if you had scooted closer instead of running away, he wouldn’t have tired of you. 

Or arguably worse, perhaps he’ll never tire of you at all. Perhaps he’ll keep you caged until your wings have lost the ability to fly entirely and even when offered the chance, you’ll cower at his side. Perhaps he already has. 

Chances are that you’ll never know, because when he’s finished and your thighs are slick from his completion, he’ll lead you back home and you’ll follow despite there being no tangible leash that pulls you along. You’ll lie in his bed and eat his food and find false comfort in his arms even as your mind screams to the wind for freedom and you pray for some deus ex machina to set you free. 

But even as he sleeps soundly and those empty red eyes aren’t focused on you, you can hear his voice in your head. 

‘What would you do without me? Where would you go? Who else could love you?’

Maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s better to accept your fate with a sense of dignity than to fight against him and drown. 

Maybe this is where you’re meant to be.

[redstaratmorning]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Astarion

Ahoy there me hearties! It is time to embark on yet another long voyage into the seas of discovery and character exploration, to fill in the details of the blank map with speculation and musings alongside the occasional sea serpent drawing! Tonight we are once more focused on Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3, and we set sail with navigation logs that include Scents And Sensibilities, or more specifically how both taste and smell might impact Astarion as a vampire and his perception of the world. The second major topic of speculation would be the one that gave this post its title: amnesia possibilities with speculations on the influence of torture and starvation for induced memory loss. This is of course all speculation based on early access content, so beware of spoilers upon the horizon! Content warnings include discussion of food items, consumption of food, consumption of rotting food, graphic descriptions, maggots, insects, emetophobia, vampirism, blood, dark backstories, abuse, torture, horror, and other themes typical of the Baldur’s Gate 3 setting. Spoilers for both Baldur’s Gate 3 and some spoilers for Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: Justine included. Google story details of the Amnesia series at your own risk, these tags are intended to be reflective solely of mentioned elements in this essay, not of all potentially disturbing content in those games.

So with the starting fact of how closely the senses of taste and smell are in real life, what does this mean for Astarion and other vampires in DND when it comes to how things smell versus how they taste? Referencing another of Pjenn’s fine posts regarding everyone’s favorite local vampire spawn, Astarion has a line regarding consuming a treacle tart from Auntie Ethel’s cottage: “Hell’s teeth! Was solid food always so foul?” [click here for a link to said post]  Now this could just be because Auntie Ethel is a hag and cooks horrible food, and according to tumblr there are poisonous apples to be found at her place as well. [Alas no post citation to confirm the poisonous apples.] If Astarion’s reaction isn’t due to Ethel being a terrible cook, and is more to do with the fact that he’s a vampire, then that’s a horse of a different color. Presumably, through speculation based on his surprise and lack of disgust prior to consumption of foodstuffs, standard humanoid foods likely still smell or at least smell similar to how they used to smell to him when he was alive. An apple still smells like an apple, as it were. It may just be that instead of Astarion feeling hunger at the smell of an apple, it might be more akin to smelling pleasant like apple-scented perfume or such though for him...curiously, that would suggest that he did not try or more likely could not try to eat anything of the sort under Cazador’s rule. On that note, it would be a certain flavor of tragedy for regular humanoid foods to still smell appetizing and edible to Astarion but taste like ash in his mouth, or worse. But how does food fit for vampires smell to Astarion? Namely, blood, of course. Though one might wonder at rare steak or other cuts of meat still bloody to the taste—could he eat beef tartare and enjoy it, for example? Sashimi or other raw seafood? That’s straying into headcanon territory though. Back on topic, in the one camp scene where everyone is feeling ill with the beginning sensations of ceremorphosis, he mentions “I can smell the blood in your mouth” on one dialogue branch. It could be that the two are standing awfully close together while discussing matters, and/or the MC’s bleeding a pretty significant amount and the scent is quite noticeable, or Astarion’s got a pretty keen sense of smell, or a combination of the above. It probably smells pretty good if it tastes as good as Astarion’s reactions and comments would strongly suggest, and if we’re going to go wild with fun fantastical interpretations, I’d put forth the idea of Astarion being able to smell the difference between different people’s (or animals’) blood at close range. If Larian puts the following datamined not-present-in-game-yet scene in, the former idea would tie in very nicely with how Astarion speculates on how the different companions’ blood might taste, from this datamined text post once again kindly provided by Pjenn. [click here for text post link, bottommost “tastingparty” section] Transcription of some of the possible lines in question (not in the game at time of writing, and possibly may not appear in the final game): “Take Gale, for example. He strikes me as someone whose blood is rich, refined like a well-aged brandy.” “Take Wyll, for example. A man of the people, very palatable, like a sweet cider.” Above lines chosen for their more descriptive wording, thus why the other party members (both current and future as of this time of writing) are not added in the above examples. Astarion is quite colorful in his descriptions of how he thinks some of the companions’ blood would taste, based off of their personalities. So what does everyone’s various MCs’ blood taste like? There could be delightful variety based on the details of the various MCs’ personalities and personal life histories, I’ve seen some explorations on the dash here and there which is delightful, and I’d shan’t say no to seeing more. It is a beautiful opportunity for character exploration regarding the MC, Astarion’s perception of them, the reality of who they are (and perhaps Astarion shifting said perception of them), and all around a great potential moment to have some fun writing descriptive prose if one is so inclined. One internet search later, I will say that it appears that reddit and other google search sources do seem to suggest that in real life the blood from various different species of animals looks and tastes different from one another, even without going into factors such as age and health’s impact on blood. If we as normal humans are able to tell the difference in that, it seems reasonable to think Astarion would be able to do that and more with supernatural augmentation as the basis for that line of thinking. What do people smell like to him? Different from one another one might suppose. Is that part of what informs his imaginings and wonderings about how their companions’ blood might taste? Individuals tend to smell unique to some degree, due to body chemistry among other factors. One would expect blood to be a factor in that, seeing as that’s how many hormones and such get sent about the circulatory system—which might mean Astarion (and our potential future weregnome companion) may have more of a time having to deal with the whole party foregoing soap for better or for worse, unless Gale or Shadowheart have a Summon/Conjure Soap spell, or perhaps the MC is a ranger who can find a soap plant. Not a great time to have a sensitive nose potentially, though foregoing soap and thus additional layered scents like floral infusions and such might be beneficial. One can only imagine hunting might turn out better for the entire party’s dinner-scrounging efforts by not alerting the local wildlife that there’s someone about who smells like a potpourri bowl...though that’s another idea, does Astarion volunteer to go hunting moreso for the party in order to be able to drain blood from the kills? One would bleed and gut a carcass anyway as part of the processing, so who would know if he drank it dry versus bled it out with a knife from a tree? Moving on though, imagine what it must’ve been like the first time after he rose up from being turned and he smelled another living person’s blood, only to feel his mouth suddenly start watering. Was he confused? Repulsed? Horrified? Startled, but accepting? There’s potential ripe for the picking to interpret that in any number of ways, including conflicted and complicated in multiple directions all at once, which his actions and emotional depictions might suggest so far in early access. Imagine the torment of being ravenous every night—and I am personally impressed that Astarion actually can keep his mental faculties and presentation together well enough to seduce someone given potential speculation of his physical state,—and knowing only a meager portion of the most putrid, rotting rat flesh awaited him back at Cazador’s mansion, while he had to interact and seduce with people who smelled just so good to his vampiric senses. Consider the added twist of the knife in Cazador’s torment of Astarion with the fact that one can consider saliva to be filtered blood—if one headcanons Astarion as actually being quite physical with his seduction up to and including kissing of any kind. Consider also, the fact that if Astarion has shared a kiss with one of the unfortunate victims-to-be, he might have more of an idea of what they might taste like but must also now sit and SMELL their fresh-spilled blood right from the vein, right there in front of him, and watch while Cazador enjoys his own supper, while being forced to down a disgusting rotting carcass under threat of punishment. [in-post content warning: Graphic description of rotting dead rat carcass, food, maggots, etc in the next paragraph] Did Astarion throw up the first several times? Cazador would’ve surely punished him for so “rudely” rejecting a dinner all set out especially for Astarion and everything. To get to the point where one can consume let alone look at and smell a plate of rotting food,—specifically a dead rat with the fur still attached, the guts bloating up and putrifying from within, that very well might have live, wriggling maggots in it,—and not vomit? It must be one hell of a potent cocktail mix between primal hunger-driven desperation and fear of punishment applied over a prolonged period of time for Astarion to actually be able to consume that, let alone look upon it. This essay by the by will not be doing any in-depth exploration of the overarching situation relating to the victims’ point of view, as I feel that’s been implied in previous meta posts by both myself and others on Astarion, in the “Clearly The Other Victims Have It Bad Too And No One Deserves To Suffer Cazador” thread of implications.  We are however acknowledging that all of this experience for everyone else, aside from Cazador, is Fucked Up And Very Very Bad. Continuing past acknowledgements of the large moral cluster of ideas over yonder, let us move forward into the “present” time when Astarion has joined the party, and no one is as of yet aware that he is a vampire. Consider the scenario where he can smell their individual scents, but it’s nothing he hasn’t handled before, even if he seems to be...curiously free of the immediate need to get back to Cazador right away, while still wrapping his head around this bizarre new reality of walking in the sun. The inescapable reality of how different everything looks bathed in the all encompassing colors of sunlight, compared to moonlight and lantern light. Be it the blinding yellow, white, and blue of the noon time sun, or the violent golds, oranges, reds clashing against the violently deep blue shadows of night’s approach during the fall of twilight, or the brilliant and mellow pale grandeur of all the world’s color coming to life as the dawn breaks forth...it has been so long since last he saw any of that. Do you think he sat up specifically to watch that first dawn, while the other companions slept? It’s a beautiful thought. But I would follow that with the unfortunate potential consideration that he is starving—and when hunger eats away at one’s mind for long enough and in a demanding enough fashion, it can be remarkably difficult for a person to feel much of anything save very faint echoes of emotions or on the other extreme end only the strongest emotions, and more often than not those emotions are very likely to be the negative ones. Just about nobody’s happy when they’re starving after all. Astarion may very well feel awe at seeing the dawn again, but how deep does that feeling go, when instinct is screaming and gnawing at his very bones to insist that he is hungry? Famished. Starving. Appreciation for beauty is a privilege that is hard to enjoy at all in any degree of depth when the basic needs are wailing inside one’s head so loudly.  And he can smell his companions’ blood, even when they’re not bleeding. He has also smelled their blood spill out into the open air too, during fighting. How does that eat at him, how does that sharpen his appetite so? Does it make his stomach twist in pain to smell what his senses are clamoring for and labeling as food so close, so near, as he slowly loses his mind waiting all day for the party to break camp so he can try to slip away and hunt? Does he catch anything? He does find some animals canonically in some encounters, but there is no guarantee he will find enough without expending strenuous effort, assuming he finds anything at all on a given night. And his luck does run out eventually it would seem. One night he just doesn’t have any reserves left in him to go hunt down another animal, to take another gamble that’s stacked even higher against him with how badly off he is. Does he feel an uncomfortable chill set in, cooling his blood and rendering his flesh even colder than his normally low body temperature standards as his undead form slips just a little bit closer to a semblance of true death, whether or not he can starve to death as a vampire? Do his hands shake? Can he think at all as thoughts fade in and out from hunger-induced weakness? Can he think through the haze of sensation and awareness if he breathes in through his nose, his open mouth, inhaling a lungful of the smell and taste of living blood right there? The smells that he’s grown familiar with over these last few days? The companion origin for Astarion definitely seems to spin it towards needing to know if he can resist Cazador’s orders now, but consider this thought: imagine the progression of realization that Astarion might have as he considers the idea that he could resist Cazador’s rules, with the lack of magical-compulsion to return to Cazador’s side right away. That if Astarion himself is no longer bound by those supernatural, unyielding, magically-enforced laws, he can also drink the blood of thinking creatures. He can drink the blood of people. He can drink the blood that he’s been smelling the enticing scents of this entire time. The blood that is right. There. And he is starving. Imagine how that must feel, that pupil-dilating moment of realization as muscles tense and the next breath comes in as a sharp inhale at the instantaneous, primal understanding that you can have food, real food, good food, right then and there when you feel like you’re dying for something, anything to stop the hunger from eating you alive from the inside out. And all you have to do, is take it. Humans in real life can potentially have very predatory responses to hunger at times, especially when it comes to hunting down prey animals, and when it comes to spotting an easy meal when one is working on empty reserves. Imagine how that can scale up for a vampire...and for Astarion, this is the first time he’s been free to actually choose to act on those instincts. Cazador’s rules have always been the backbone holding him in place as surely as the mindflayer prison pods kept everyone well and truly trapped—until our merry lot was broken free. Now though? The only thing standing between Astarion and his sleeping, delicious-smelling companions’ blood, is his own will and choice. That has to be equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. He’s never been free like this—free, with vampiric needs clamouring for his attention. Free, as a vampire, spawn or otherwise. But does he want to? I would actually suspect he feels conflicted about that on multiple levels, given a possible line Auntie Ethel might say should you fight her. ”You’re one thirsty night away from betraying everyone!” [One of Auntie Ethel’s taunts when using Vicious Mockery during her potential fight, linked here in astarions-ears’s post.] On the one hand: the power to take what he wants, what he needs, is at his fingertips. Much like how the power of the tadpole is. It could help him protect himself, be stronger, do whatever he wants...just like the tadpole power. This whole situation is a mess of temptation in the long term for Astarion in so many ways. On the other hand though...I suspect based on that line from Ethel above, assuming it makes it into the final version of the game, given that it’s used during a casting of Vicious Mockery, I would say there’s fair grounds to assume Astarion does have at least reservations about betraying the party, at the very least with the hesitation given rise from self-serving desires such as wanting to have a group of people in his corner. I would say though, it wouldn’t cut so deep, and wouldn’t be so vicious a mockery, if he didn’t care that it was betrayal. I think it safe to say that if he truly didn’t care in some shape or form, Ethel would’ve ended up mocking some other aspect of Astarion’s personality or insecurities, likely something along the lines that everything he does is futile as he will still end up killed or enslaved by either Cazador or others (such as the party and MC having so much sway over his life and choices), rather than needling him about betrayal of all things.  Another reservation he might have from lack of experience is that he’s never hunted other people for his own food before. He might never have hunted for someone personally of his own free will before this point, either. That little nuance could be a hook on which he hangs onto for dear life—or unlife—in order to keep what remains of his perceived identity. Who does he want to be, and among those details, what must he be, in order to survive? What can he avoid doing? Does he want to be what he perceives as a monster? Is he hoping not to become a monster, to validate that he isn’t one already, based on his conversation after you catch him trying to steal some of the MC’s blood? “I’m not some monster!” There’s also the line from the post-Raphael first meeting, “If I keep the tadpole, I risk turning into a monster.” which all seem to imply that Astarion draws a line between what he thinks is and isn’t monstrous, much like in the first meeting with Astarion where if you tell him about the tadpole, he laughs bitterly and goes, “Of course it’ll turn me into a monster.” Isn’t that an interesting turn of phrase? It implies so much fertile ground for speculating on what he thinks of both his own vampirism, and what precisely makes someone or something a monster. The MC has come into Astarion’s life at such a fascinatingly crucial point in time, beyond just Astarion’s sudden new freedom, however fragile, from Cazador. Because of that freedom, this is also the time of exploration and self-definition for Astarion to decide who he is, and who he will be, a coming-of-age if you will, which is hysterically ironic and well-played by Larian Studios in my opinion given that he is almost assuredly going to be the chronologically oldest member of the main party. This dovetails so very neatly into the MC’s already obvious potential influence on how Astarion views his condition, other people, the world around him, his own self and morality...it’s really just so rife with potential. This particular part is nothing too new, just added detail and layering on top of previous musings in past posts, but there are elements of interest to examine I think. Personally, I was inclined to guess Astarion as being older, even as elves go, based largely on the fine lines one can see upon his face when he’s emoting, some elements of his attitude and dialogue—(“A fine effort, but I’ve seen it all. I was walking this land while your ancestors were learning to crawl.” - said if you fail a skill check during his recruitment scuffle)—but looking at some of these other elements has me reconsidering that. Perhaps he was more on the young adult side of the elven age range, rather than middle aged prior to being turned? If he can retain scars as a vampire under the living conditions Cazador subjected him to, perhaps he also has stress-related aging tells, since it seems from other DND materials (Curse of Strahd I believe has a vampire locked in a basement that’s largely starved of blood if I recall correctly? I am uncertain of the details regarding the situation unfortunately) that vampires can at least show physical deterioration when it comes to being starved for blood. It would be an entertaining take in my personal opinion to see an older character having a coming-of-age growth type arc, since those are almost always strongly associated with a relatively narrow range of ages from teenaged-to-middle-twenties-ish protagonists and characters. Whichever way Larian goes with it though, it is looking quite promising just based on the overall quality of the various game elements so far. To build on that possible theme interpretation though, there is another element that I think ties into Astarion’s uncertain age as well—how much he remembers of his life before Cazador, and how much life there was to remember to begin with. One might generally presume that the older a character is, the more time they’ve had and thus more opportunity to learn, to be exposed to life experiences, to garner wisdom. Often, this also tends towards a certain amount of cementing of a person’s outlook, personality, and other core traits along with potential varying levels of self-awareness regarding those elements. It goes without saying that people do still change sometimes dramatically other times gradually over the course of their lives, but typically the more easily-influenced vibes commonly go with younger and/or more naive character builds, though not always of course. Without addressing significant or otherwise notable exceptions, specific nuances or variations though, there is something of a vague expectation and template starting-base that older characters and personalities are typically more “put together”, “collected”, and less likely to be outright mutable. Astarion though? As a character in an RPG that is built upon the foundations of choices, in a DND world where choice IS the defining feature in both character expression and storytelling? His core will remain as himself I’m sure, but by the very nature of the game attempting to make this an enjoyable experience for the audience, odds are very good that Astarion will be heavily influenced in his outlook into a set number of branched endings based on what the MC chooses to say and do. But I have some potential suspicions now that Astarion might actually be a touch more malleable in some parts of his outlook and manner beyond the influence of just the aforementioned elements above. Consider the following lines Astarion currently has in Early Access, including one mentioned previously: “Hell’s teeth! Was solid food always so foul?” [Said in the previously posted link above when eating a treacle tart for presumably the first time, stolen from Auntie Ethel’s before illusion is lifted.] “I’ve seen so little of the world. Still, there’s time now.” [Looking at a globe, post linked here, from Pjenn’s blog] “I haven’t spent much time with helpless old ladies. Was that normal?” [If you kill Mayrina’s brothers and Auntie Ethel disappears into thin air. Video from Danaduchy on youtube linked here] “Probably wise. No one gets that old and crooked playing by the rules.” [Same conversation as above mentioned in the video regarding Auntie Ethel if the second option “I’m not sure. We should watch ourselves around her.” is chosen in response to Astarion’s question.] While one could certainly retain youthful or what one might call immature or dramatic inclinations even through to one’s golden years, I am on the fence on how far Astarion’s presentation is strictly personality-based versus influenced by a possible lack of diverse life experiences. Nature versus nurture, as it were. The first of the above quotes seem to suggest he hasn’t done much traveling, and may have some wanderlust in him (potentially hinting at moon elf wanderlust leanings?), but then why wasn’t he out traveling? Why did he become a magistrate? There is much life to be lived in great depth and diversity when one stays in one place, true. But we really know so little about Astarion’s past before Cazador, all in all, and that intriguingly puts him back in step with most of the other companions at this point of backstory reveal, I’d say. If we include Cazador’s influence, I’d say we’ve seen quite a bit more of his story than most of the others because there’s a lot more visibility and immediately-threatening emotional tension in his story, even when compared to Gale’s, surprisingly, followed by Wyll’s, Shadowheart’s, and then Lae’zel’s as of what I personally have seen of their stories (my knowledge may be lacking, even as far as Early Access content goes.) To be fair though, Astarion is the one who thus far shows the most visible, dramatic expressions of fear and trauma regarding his backstory than all the rest, so that would be a major factor as to why it feels like we’ve seen more of his tale, among other factors. Regarding life experiences within a more geographically limited area though—that puts some of Astarion’s comments as even more markedly odd to me. Specifically those comments of his after Auntie Ethel poofs away into thin air, should the party slay Mayrina’s brothers for Ethel, “I haven’t spent much time with helpless old ladies.” Perhaps his specification is the helpless part, but even if he was spending time with powerful old ladies, who asks “is it normal for the elderly to disappear into thin air like that?” He must have met some older people, ladies included, as Baldur’s Gate is not a strictly elven city, according to the wiki its demographics are mostly human but widely diverse. [Link to wiki page here.] This is especially strange if he’s of a noble background and was ostensibly working with other government officials, one would expect a range of ages with plenty of older individuals present both in his work and social circles, even if only in passing. That’s just not adding up, especially if it’s a genuine question, which his expressions and tone of voice during his inquiry in addition to his responses afterwards to the MC’s various dialogue options all seem to suggest if not confirm. If that question was coming from a young character who hasn’t seen the world, one would assume they were just incredibly sheltered. What does it mean coming from Astarion? What’s even stranger is that Astarion is the one who baits the MC into a trap using a similar disception upon meeting—”Hurry, I’ve got one of those brain things cornered!” One would think Astarion would recognize a ruse like that as one of the oldest tricks in the book: pretend to be helpless to get someone else to do the dirty work for you. Such a trick often is pulled off well especially when the pretender is either a) pretty/handsome, b) innocent looking (young or otherwise), c) dressed in a uniform or clothes that have helpful connotations for snap judgements in one’s favor (e.g. wearing good-aligned clergy garments), d) helpless looking (young, old, specific subgroups depending on culture, disabled, etc), or has other elements to their advantage there. If Astarion doesn’t recognize that particular ruse, which he doesn’t seem to, that has additional implications going on for him. If he did recognize the ruse, one would expect his reaction to be much more in line with Shadowheart’s. If he recognized it and was hiding it, one would think he wouldn’t want to play stupid, if only for pride’s sake—for all that Astarion has done things that have unquestionably humbled him, his penchant for verbal wit and criticism (various insults aimed at the MC and others regarding their intellect/stupidity) and touchy ego makes playing stupid seem like a very emotionally taxing and potentially painful thing for him to do, and thus not worth the mental/emotional effort in what looks like a very low-stakes situation. He seems too impulsive and reactive to be planning out a long-term con of hiding his intelligence, he makes far too many quips to pull that off at this point. Assuming Astarion does indeed not recognize the ruse beforehand, some of the possible implications for that could speculate on his overall awareness of his techniques when it comes to deception and manipulation. He definitely can spot it on occasion based on a narrated internal monologue line presumably from his origin— *I gave her a hard look. Never play a player.* [Linked to the audio of this line here from scionsandsinners’s blog] That he spots it in the potential origin line above, but presumably not with Auntie Ethel, might suggest that his experience is likely limited to within certain restricted lanes of behavior, likely seduction were one to guess based on what we know of his backstory and some datamined emotional directions/descriptions for voice acting, along with speculation based on his in-game behavior and demeanor. That would potentially push him moreso towards appearing when being manipulative to be doing so out of either self-perceived need (e.g. defending personal interests, inquiring after information of interest, etc), learned response, social norms, and other short term motivations that are more situational than long-term planning. I admit I’m still personally not of the opinion he’s playing a long-term game, and is playing it by ear as he goes—both honestly and not-so-honestly, as mentioned in previous posts on the subject. [Mentioned past essay post of mine linked here] In regards to short-term machinations, I think they’re all largely emotion or survival driven, as far as we’ve seen. I would include the voice acting direction for the romance scene where it’s noted that this is a power game for Astarion and that he’s an old hand at seducing others. Specifically from the synopsis: “For Astarion, this is a game of power - one he’s played many times before in the taverns of Baldur’s Gate, trying to lure people back to his master. He’s an old hand at seduction, very self-assured at first, but the player might not go along with the script he expects them to follow.” [Link to Pjenn’s post here.] I’ve seen intriguing, angsty, and fun takes on what this might mean all around tumblr, so allow me to offer up an additional one that might either compliment some of the already circulating pre-existing ones, or stand on its own depending on personal preference. Consider what power means to Astarion in the context of seducing someone specifically when it’s to lure them back to Cazador’s mansion under orders. It truly isn’t power in the sense of anything one might consider meaningful even under broad definitions. It’s a short-term deception, appealing to someone enough to get them to do what he wants for a short time, likely just enough time to flirt and then bait them back to Cazador’s estate (we’ll be skipping over speculation of anything else Astarion and company might get up to between point A and point B in this essay for simplicity’s sake, though there is much to consider on how it might impact his behavior and outlook there.) One of the specific words of interest I would say is the use of “script” in there. I’m sure others can hear it too when they listen to his dialogue during the party romance scene, but it really does sound like he’s putting on a tried-and-true act that might come across as a little over the top in romantic-dramatic-flair. One potential inference that can be gleaned from this might be some of Astarion’s expectations regarding how people perceive him, and most specifically how people perceive him in a desirous way. I will admit, Astarion’s romance scene makes me laugh, I'm impressed he and the MC both can avoid laughing at his lines in-scene, no disrespect intended. To me, he sounds like he ripped those lines straight out of a torrid romance novel, the kind where women might have a momentary description of heaving, delicate bosoms barely constrained by their bodice laces, while the men have had their shirts ripped open to display rippling muscles in a moment of romantic daring do. It makes me wonder if someone will go with a modern AU idea of BG3′s main crew that includes Astarion moonlighting as a much beloved romance/erotica writer under a nom de plume—the man has lines and characteristics that would shift well in such a verse-transposition. With that comparison in mind, I would suggest that Astarion is very, very used to playing the role of the illicit lover, the tempter of passions and other archetypes wherein he is the one confidently enticing people to cross the line of propriety with him for the implied, unspoken promise of a night filled with unparalleled ravishment. It might be he is fully, intentionally playing up to people’s fantasies about the passionate lover who falls madly in love with them at first glance. The fantasy of being so madly desired, as put forth by some romance stories. Then we have this other portion of the acting direction for the scene, “... very self-assured at first, but the player might not go along with the script he expects them to follow.” Isn’t that interesting? “Very self-assured at first,” why only at first? What changes? Does he have little doubts springing to mind then, because the realization that he knew, but didn’t really know until this moment when he feels the difference, that this isn’t just another routine night like all those other countless nights over the past two centuries where he had to tempt some poor, unfortunate soul back to Cazador’s waiting clutches? That this is someone he’s picked to spend the night with, solely for his own motivations, with no one else pulling the strings? Is it another moment of the realization of freedom, wherein he feels a touch terrified? Suddenly there is no script, there is no expectation of what he’s seen happen time after time after time after time to each person who’s looked at him the way the MC is looking at him now. Is it anxiety? Is it trauma? Is he feeling a moment of distant, cognitive dissonance that this time, this time, this person whom he’s picked, won’t be dead at the end of this? That he doesn’t have to hold them at arm’s length with the they’ll be dead soon or worse mentality he may have had previously...but can he afford to care? Does he dare? Whether he does or does not, it could be such a scary little moment of epiphany, that he even has the option to do so without immediate, horrendous repercussions. But can he really care, even without Cazador looming overhead as an immediate threat? Even if Cazador is slightly more distant now...there’s still the matter of the tadpoles. There is so much uncertainty potentially. Could this be the last chance he gets at having as close to a normal night of fully consenting, fully aware, mutual passion with another person as he can ever have, as a vampire spawn? Astarion could be interpreted as a character who is very strongly ruled by his emotions, in particular his fears and his desires. Does it befit his fears or his wants more to engage as he does in the romance scene? I’d guess moreso his fears, but it’s a fun back-and-forth he’s got as a character, zigzagging between those two extremes. He fears trusting as denoted in the dialogue from him if you fail the persuasion check asking him to trust you and to talk about who he dreamed about, but since you can persuade him...does that mean he wants to trust? If he speaks truthfully in this following scene, he does trust the MC to some degree out of necessity and/or the want to trust, as mentioned if you use the illithid powers in the camp bite scene where he’s revealed to be a vampire. He has likely been alone among the crowd of Cazador’s other spawn, given the lack of mention of anyone else, friend or otherwise, in his banter with Shadowheart regarding if there was anyone waiting for him back in Baldur’s Gate and other general conversations and discussions. That’s rather concerning truth be told, to go two hundred years with what might be a complete lack of positive or healthy social connection. Another thing Cazador has ripped away intentionally, it would seem. Does he want connection, meaningful friendship or otherwise? The fact that his approval rating has an impact on his manner of address of the MC or other selected origin character seems like it could be read as a suggestion that he does show whom he likes and dislikes openly in fairly standard socializing behaviors. That he does want to spend time around people whom he likes, who like him back. What would’ve been terribly clever of Larian (said without being able to compare all the different levels of approval shown via dialogue general greetings from the different companions), is if they had a character whose greeting was still amicable, polite, and most importantly friendly even when their approval of you was low. What if such a theoretical character’s greetings never changed, or changed very little aside from some variation at higher approval levels? That could be a great little twist of game mechanics to show either Something Isn’t Right, or that the character is a great liar, through meta knowledge on the player’s part of comparing all these disparate little details to compare and contrast. That kind of tell could be used to show that a character lacks either a degree of empathy and care for the main character, or that they are keeping the MC at arms’ length regardless of what the MC does (barring some potential high-approval impact and side-quest-completion that leads to influencing such a character, who might otherwise be a betrayer, into remaining loyal.) Seeing as Astarion lacks those major tells as of yet and that he does engage honestly either through persuasion or eventual revelation (such as if you fail the first dream-convo persuasion check, you find out from when he wakes up from nightmares regarding Cazador “reading poetry” what his dreams really were about), one could assume he does, in spite of all he’s been through, despite all the reasons he’s been given to fear, all the repetition beaten into his head to never trust another person ever again or to ever be trusted ever again... ...in spite of all that, perhaps a part of him still wants to reach out and engage with others. That some part of him still wants to interact as most if not all people do, in an emotionally meaningful and honest way. He says to the MC that he thinks they want to be known—and as I’m sure many of you clever lot who are in the shipping business alongside the rest of us have already thought or written out into fic, it very well may be that Astarion wants to be known too. Not just in the romantic or impassioned-love-affair manner of speaking, but simply for who he is, with both the MC and the rest of the group too. Accepted. Does he enjoy the little quips and barbs (assuming he actually is allowed to drink humanoid blood) such as from Shadowheart regarding his vampirism? Does that feel like a new, pleasant normal to him that he likes after a while? A joke between friends? Like the line “You know? I’m a little proud none of you were stupid enough to trust him!” [Linked here from scionsandsinners’s blog] while definitely still sporting his current insultingly low bar of expectations, it could be a nice potential build towards actually getting attached to the group on the whole as friends. Did he have that before he turned at all? Did he want that before? It seems likely given what we’ve seen of his raw emotional drive, that his potential desire for meaningful connection however obscured behind quips and barbs, that those elements were always a part of him in some way, shape or form. Does he remember, though? Or is it potentially something he’s forgotten, to some extent or other? Does he remember vaguely what friendship was like as another hollow memory among many, after so many years of torment wearing away at his mind? Do his friends from life if any still live? That could be bittersweet, if he did leave someone behind from when he was alive, that we might meet in Baldur’s Gate. He calls that Before—that time when he was still alive, before he lay dying and accepted Cazador’s offer of eternal life and was thus turned into a vampire spawn—so long ago it’s ancient history. “Everything before that is so long ago it’s ancient history and everything that came after…well uhm–I’d rather not reflect on it.” [Link here, from scionsandsinners] In some lines, tentatively guessed as post-vampire-status-reveal casual dialogue regarding his past before Cazador, relating to his days as a magistrate, he says he can’t remember what happened too clearly. “I…can’t remember much, truth be told–centuries of torment will do that to you.” [link from scionsandsinners blog]  According to google searches on the internet for DND rules regarding the turning of vampires and vampire spawn, they do seem to retain the memories of their life even into undeath. Astarion certainly could be obfuscating and lying about how much he remembers from back then...but consider this alternative as a possibility: What if he isn’t? [Spoilers for some of the Amnesia game series ahead, specifically Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and the DLC Amnesia: Justine.] What if he does have a certain degree of memory loss? Enter the comparison of Daniel and Justine both from Amnesia: The Dark Descent and the game’s DLC. Astarion, unlike the main character for Amnesia’s main campaign Daniel, did not technically volunteer for memory loss...unless one counts agreeing to take Cazador’s deal as volunteering, specifically without full and knowing consent of what he was getting into. Daniel in comparison knowingly and willingly ingests a potion to erase his memories, and leaves a note to motivate himself and thus the player to follow the course of ensuing events that make up the game. Justine does so in a similar fashion to Daniel, but her memory loss is intentionally temporary, whereas Daniel seems to have meant for it to be of a more permanent fashion. What if part of Cazador’s intentions regarding torturing his spawn, including Astarion, was to break down memories of happier times until those spawn could only remember that they had ever been happy once, not the actual memory, not the actual feeling—only the bitter, hollow forgetfulness and knowledge that they had known, once? Starvation is devastating in many, many, many ways. Ways that are so rarely fully explored in fiction beyond the feeling of extreme hunger. Few, after all, would consider the impact of malnourishment or a constant caloric deficit upon mental faculties unless they have observed it, experienced it, or studied it. It is possible to suffer actual physical brain damage from starving, so one must ask is it so surprising that the ability to think, comprehend, and process information, memory or emotion also falters when under the very real physical stress of prolonged famine? The brain eats up at least a fifth of the baseline caloric intake required for the average person’s bodily needs. It does not compromise well for less without the person in question suffering consequences for most if not all individuals. We know Astarion has not had more than enough to barely survive under Cazador, and the quality has been well below subpar at best. What if, after all he’s been through, with the exhaustion of constant fear and extreme pain, of unending ravenous hunger, and so much more...what if Astarion can’t remember much of before at all? What if he has forgotten chunks of his past? He does remember large, broad brushstrokes yes, the shape of ideas and what he once knew. The home he might long to see that he has not laid eyes upon in centuries [mentioned in the conversation with the Ornate Mirror if Astarion is the one talking to it (or does it require he be the chosen main origin?) I have no source available at this current time alas.] How much of that home does he remember in full? I’m sure he can recall some details...but are they the abstract knowledge of those details of what he knew they were like, or the actual memory?  Can you imagine the added layer of pain for an elf, if Larian is working with any of the racial features involving trancing, or the Reverie, if it’s built based off of the 2e DND Complete Book of Elves excerpt as mentioned in the following linked thread? [Posted by Remathilis, key word phrase is “The Reverie” or “The reverie is akin to sleep”, linked here] Specifically if these elements are at play:  “The reverie is akin to sleep, yet is very much unlike it. When elves enter this state, they vividly relive past memories, those both pleasant and painful. Like the dreaming of humans, elves have no control over which memories rise to the fore when they relinquish their bodies to the reverie. Occasionally, elves do actually dream, but this is not a frequent occurrence and mostly occurs only when they truly sleep.” “Although the reverie provides rest, it is primarily an important memory tool that helps the elf maintain a strong sense of identity. Since their lifespans are so great, elves must periodically recall the events in those hundreds of years that were integral to the making of their personality.”  This is from older versions of DND rules it’s true, but if it still applies, and applies to Astarion? This man has had over two hundred years’ worth of memories full of suffering and torment that, if he’s having traumatic PTSD nightmare episodes also helping to induce a higher frequency of recalling his torment at the hands of Cazador both during those centuries and afterwards, are potentially shaping his personality not only through the channels we can recognize in both fiction and the real world in psychological and physiological terms, but also supernatural or magical influences due to his being an elf and potentially shaped by the influence of what memories his reverie might dredge up. And the larger the number of traumatic, dark, fearful memories he has, the more likely he is to encounter them, especially if they’re coupled with a constant, ongoing fear of knowing these memories will be made anew each night unto infinity if he is stuck bound to Cazador’s service forever. Who wants to bet Cazador knew about this aspect of elven psychology/biology? Or at the very least speculated it, as far as having elven vampire spawn went? It will be interesting to see if there are other elven vampire spawn among Cazador’s underlings—either for the route of Cazador taking a particular extra pleasure in breaking elves because they are supposedly harder to influence in such a manner if he had others before Astarion, or if Astarion was the first elf Cazador turned, then perhaps Astarion received particular, special attention for being seen as an added challenge due to being an elf. Alexander from Amnesia however had to use a slightly defter touch to manipulate Daniel, having not so concrete a hold over him as Cazador over Astarion. But the torture of others, of fleeing to Alexander’s or Cazador’s promise of safety from an impending horror or threat of death, followed by a descent into the dark, unyielding despair of what Daniel or Astarion have done to survive? They do have potential parallels enough to make for a possible AU exploration in fics, certainly. One question that arises in this scenario of comparison though, is how much is Astarion aware of? How much of Cazador’s insidious influence does he recognize, in particular the more subtle parts that have seeped in over the years? Consider then the added layer of stark, blinding contrast, that he now has new memories, of new people, new experiences, in particular ones that are not torture or the anticipation of said torture, and it’s all in the daylight. Memories of daylight the likes of which he’s not had in two hundred years. Consider the mere color contrast from the lighting difference of daylight versus night time, like in the line where he asks  “Was the sky always this blue? It’s magnificent…” [Link here to the audio, presumed triggered after vampire status reveal] If he dreams in reverie and the memory that comes to mind is set in the daytime...would he feel a bit safer in hoping that it will be a safer, better dream, than if it’s set in the night time? Consider how much of a horrible, terror-inducing surprise it might be to dream of a sun-filled garden, only to see an idealized version of Cazador show up, a la the tadpole. That has to be the meanest surprise-twist Astarion could have for a dream setting there. But on other nights if he does not have memories of Cazador or tadpole dreams plaguing him, does he dream of the camp, the companions, the MC, the actions their group has undertaken? What does he think of those dream-memories? Are they only relatively restful compared to the other dark memories lurking in his head, or are these new daylight-filled memories actually objectively restful for him? Perhaps one additional group of reasons he’s willing to join up with the party, is to get away from the memories. With people, there is the added unknown factor of complexity and chemistry, of lives and histories not his own added to the mix of any situation they come across. Of interaction. Of not being left alone to his own thoughts and nightmares. This group’s members aren’t victims meant for Cazador’s fangs and thirst, nor are they Cazador’s spawn, fellow damned souls and torturous devils both who alternate suffering upon the rack and potentially being the ones to turn the rack’s wheels for whoever is tied down upon it that night. Mayhaps Astarion wants to remember more of the things he’s forgotten in the darkness of all the years he’s suffered under Cazador—to make new memories of things he would associate with living, with being free. To fill in the hollowed out abstract memories with fresh, new details of life lived in the sun, in the here and now. Is he aware of just how much he’s forgotten? Even if he isn’t fully cognizant of the full tally of all that he’s potentially lost...it must still hurt to have an idea of how much he’s lost even if he’s only partially aware. In this, he might hold more comparison to Justine from Amnesia’s DLC moreso than Daniel, depending on what choices Astarion makes if he’s the chosen origin, or on the MC’s choices if it’s a custom origin playthrough—with Justine, her choices are all setup and intended to be an exploration of who she is as an exploration of character, to find out if she is capable of mercy and compassion still—while exercising a great deal of monstrous cruelty for her own amusement. With Daniel there is still the solid comparison of thematic elements in that his quest is a desperate pursuit of revenge while trying to outrun a great evil, all while acknowledging that he himself is horrifying as well. Justine’s story would parallel Astarion far more so on the dark path through Baldur’s Gate 3, naturally, whereas Daniel, if one selected the Revenge Ending at the end of Amnesia, has more in common with Astarion’s tentatively projected good route—revenge, while also ending a greater evil than himself. The parallel with Daniel may possibly even include a comparison to Amnesia’s Good Ending depending on what direction Larian takes Astarion’s story in. I doubt Larian would have Astarion become self-sacrificial, but I could see him potentially becoming much more inclined towards helping his friends and party members on a good-aligned path, as he seems at least not entirely unwilling to engage in do-goodery, particularly if bribed enough. There’s also certainly the idea of comparing Daniel being “tainted” as Alexander put it by the Shadow to Astarion’s potential point of view on his vampirism, given some of his expressions at times in emotional scenes relating to it. Then also the comparison of all the horrors Daniel has inflicted upon people, as have Justine and Astarion, and the fact that after the amnestic-influence of their specific story elements in this build, they are ultimately all able to be influenced towards better or worse endings dependent upon more immediate influences, namely the people surrounding them, and less so from long-standing influences of their past such as tradition, upbringing, and other core elements of identity that memory so often brings to the table, or at least helps formulate the detailing of. Justine admittedly does not really have “better” endings, but her horror story’s core could be interpreted as “was truly a monster at heart all along” from start to finish. Will Astarion prove to be similarly corrupt at his core, something that had always been true deep down regardless of Cazador’s influence on him, ultimately sowing harm and ruin upon the world and people around him, like Justine? Or will he turn out to be leaning towards being more of a good-inclined, flawed character with a bloodstained history he regrets and seeks to overcome, like Daniel? As a disclaimer though, Daniel is not a Good-aligned personality. He did many horrifying things to preserve his life, and Astarion certainly has done terrible things canonically under Cazador’s direction, though we still wait to see what Astarion did back when he was free to choose. With the attention to detail Larian Studios is applying as is to just what we’ve seen in Early Access, I would expect a fairly nuanced backstory for Astarion with murky morality, based on what we see of his opinions and character traits now. Another idea just to let loose an additional fox among the chickens: Consider the added layer of potential morality conflict in the scenario where Astarion might actually have very well been pursuing his idea of justice as a magistrate— coupled with his low opinions of others which he may have had before Cazador turned him, along with his racist/discriminatory comments and behaviors (re: Gur, Goblins, Gnomes, Kobolds, etc), likely suggests he could very well have been very biased in his perspective on how he meted out justice. I would not be surprised if Larian Studios kept the story idea that he was selling criminals off, but I also would not be at all shocked if they added details where it made what Astarion was dishing out closer to overly-harsh street-justice—he makes a fine murder-hobo adventurer as it is when the watchword of the day for many an adventuring party is “Murder Is An Acceptable Solution If Words Aren’t Working.” I also wouldn’t bat an eye should we find out he was as judgmental and cynical before Cazador as he is now, albeit perhaps with a different bend to his outlook from life experience influences. This all really ties in well with the usual game build of everyone starting at level one, as brand new, green adventurers—barring past adventuring experiences for backstory like Wyll, Lae’zel, and Shadowheart do or potentially have—at the start of their journey, off to explore the world and grow into the world-savers (or world-enders) they’re destined to be in a given campaign. Astarion fits this very well on many levels, among them given the fact how new everything is to him with this sudden change of the rules altering the very fabric of his existence. He has to deal with figuring out how to deal with his vampirism under his own agency and all the ensuing complications that come with that, has to figure out how to socially interact with others in all new ways, has to level up to go on his personal quest to save his own hide and eventually his friends’ and the world—it’s all so new and different, even the things he’s experienced before with such a drastic perspective shift and a change in power. It ties right back into his tagline so nicely too if that ends up being a possible theme of his, the whole memory-loss/memory-informing-his-identity element of being an elf: “ Astarion prowled the night as a vampire spawn for centuries, serving a sadistic master until he was snatched away. Now he can walk in the light, but can he leave his wicked past behind?” Can he leave those memories behind and forge himself into a better version of himself, if that is what he wants? What choices will Astarion make, if he does indeed have warped memories due to Cazador’s corroding influence to the point of some degree of memory loss? How will this flood of new sensory and social experiences change him as he goes forward? Who will Astarion choose to be, at the end of the day when they reach the road’s end? Will he let those dark memories twist and shape him, or will he try to make new ones among new friends, and follow their lead back into the sunlight? So many potential questions! Speaking of potential good-versus-bad-paths, this line isn’t in the game yet, but I feel it suggests Astarion might have a certain tolerance or perhaps even willingness to at least consider going out and saving the world, beyond lines we’re all familiar with already at the Tiefling celebration party: “Don’t you think we have other priorities right now? We need to save ourselves before we can save the world.” [Link here from Pjenn’s datamined post, dialogue theoretically occurs after a currently locked-off from Early Access encounter with a drow servant of the Absolute in the Underdark] It makes for a lot of intriguing possibilities, I dare say, all of which could make for marvelous variations in core character trait builds and influences for different interpretations of Astarion as a character. So many choices and gradients to play with, he and all the rest of the main cast have such nuance, it’s fantastic. The cast of characters all so far seem to have a wide variety of wants and motivations, and Larian seems like they might be quite determined to blur the line and inspire more rich exploration opportunities regarding perceived morality among many other potential topics of discussion—we have good characters with on-going flaws and darker motivations, evil characters with recurrent virtues and sympathetic appeal, and quite a few in-between when non-party-member NPCs are included in the mix. I do think Astarion along with all the rest of the party fit into those kinds of complicated-morality situations we’ve seen play out and be hinted at so very nicely, and it will be such fun to see how they grow through these experiences! It’s marvelous writing, directing, animation, acting, and just straight up work all across the board it looks like from over here. Anyway, thank you all for coming along on this literary ramble with me, I hope you had a fine time and that you all have a lovely day or night as befits your current timezone. Happy tidings to you, and stay safe everyone, and see you next time! :D

[silverhyenaart]

Alright, I'm fairly new to the "Reader Insert" style of writing, but I thought I'd give it a try. So, I have yet to do a little sketch of Lester (I did draw his two brothers,) However, I did have this idea for a sick-fic, where Lester finds the reader on the side of the road. Now, I wrote this with a female reader in mind but please feel free to imagine it any way you see fit.

Roadside Attraction Part #1

No one would ever argue that the tiny, reclusive town of Ambrose was a quiet place. The occasional group of tourists or stranded motorists made for some excitement, but there hadn't been any new visitors in over a month.

A crooked smile crossed Lester's face as his old truck ambled along the backroads.The morning was still plenty young. Bo was more than likely sleeping off a night of one too many beers. Vincent was surely working on The House of Wax's next great masterpiece in his basement studio lair. That left Lester to do what he loved. Gather up the roadkill! However... the youngest Sinclair was about to get more than he ever could have bargained for.

"Still plenty cool outside, huh Daisy?" Lester muttered, scratching at his flannel shirt pocket, "hopefully we git some meat befer the sun ruins it."

He was answered by a curious chiding as the tiny raccoon in his pocket peaked out.

There were so many things besides the animal carcasses on the side of the road. And while yes, half of a deer that had yet to be tainted by maggots and Louisiana heat was indeed a fine prize to return home with, Lester had also found the occasional wad of cash, various coins, jewelry, and his personal favorite, the woodland creatures that he'd take home and foster. (Always making them promise that they'd stay away from the roads before releasing them back into the wild.)

But instead of the usual gorey animal corpse splattered in the road or abandoned wrecked vehicle, Lester saw what was unmistakably a human body in the ditch near a heavily wooded stretch of road. Your body!

The brakes of the rickety old truck screeched on the pavement. Quickly, Lester put the truck in reverse, stopping as close to your prone form as possible. There was no telling how long you'd been left out there in the Louisiana backwoods, but it was obvious that you'd been severely mistreated before being dumped out here. In fact, one could have easily written you off as dead. Bruised, dried blood caking in places, old, sour vomit in the grass near your mouth, and your wrists bound behind your back tightly with course rope.

"Well Daisy, ain't sure there's nothin' more ta do then give 'er ta Vinny," Lester mused, quietly as he examined what he thought was your corpse, "Poor thing, won't do no good no how bringin' er to the pit. Sure Vinny'll fix 'er up real nice."

When his hand touched your hip to turn you over for a better look, that's when a weak moan escaped your chapped lips and your eye cracked open. Lester jumped back a little in surprise. You were still alive! Albeit in dreadful shape. But breathing nevertheless.

"Hey... hey there now. This ain't no place fer a nice young lady like ya ta be," Lester said, reaching for the Bowie knife on his belt.

Upon seeing the glint of steel in the morning light, your unfocused eyes widened in fear. With your entire body feeling like a led weight, struggling was impossible. After spending an entire day out here in your already terrible condition, just moving made you feel like your already empty stomach was going to purge once more.

Then the ropes binding your wrists snapped, giving your painfully raw skin welcome relief. Dirty yet gentle hands helped you to your feet. While it was difficult to focus, you could tell that your rather smelly but kind-hearted guardian angel was one of those backwoods redneck sorts. If anything, his accent alone gave it away.

"That's it now, com'n, sweat pea, I-I'ma take ya somewhere safe."

Lester helped you to his truck's passenger side, letting you lean heavily against him. He smiled, having been unable to recall the last time he'd had a woman of any sort willingly be this close to him. Usually it was his big brother who got the pretty ladies.

"Y-you can jus' call me Lester, now, darlin'," your rescuer continued.

As Lester guided you toward his beat up old pickup and opened up the passenger side door, you could feel your already upset stomach doing flip flops. You stumbled a little, clinging to this man as though he were your only remaining life line... and then your body betrayed you.

You trembled, eyes wide with horror, able to make out that you'd just thrown up all over your savior. Before you could squeak out an apology, you were doubled over as more bile forced itself out of your already sore throat, leaving a sour taste in your mouth.

"W-well now, sweat pea, better ta git it out now..." shrugged Lester, taking a red handkerchief out of his back pocket and handing it to you.

Even after you'd accidentally barfed all over him, this man was still taking care of you. Once you were cleaned up a little, Lester grabbed a very messy towel out of his truck and wiped himself off. Daisy peaked out of his pocket, quickly retreating back to safety when you let out a low groan.

"S-sorry m-mister..." you rasped, nearly staggering to the ground you were so weak.

"I-it's alright. You ain't hurtin' no one... jus' git it out," Lester said, "That's it, now."

He hesitated at first, then began to gently rub your back and hold your hair out of the way. You couldn't lie to yourself, it felt good. The first bit of tenderness you've been shown in a long time.

Once you were through purging your painfully empty stomach, Lester gave you some lukewarm water from a questionable looking plastic bottle and helped you into the passenger seat. It wasn't until he closed the door that your tired eyes noticed that there was no way to open it from the inside nor was there any means to roll down the window.

Was this man actually helping you or taking this opportunity to kidnap you? At this point, you were too sick and exhausted to care.

Another crooked grin crossed Lester's face as he scratched his little raccoon's head. After settling into the driver's seat, he checked on you again before the old truck's engine rumbled to life.

"Don'cha worry none, sweat pea. I'ma take ya home a-an' gitcha somethin' ta make ya feel better. "

Home... you didn't have one anymore. Slowly, you nodded your head, leaning against the dirty window before closing your eyes.

* * *

Yes, I love the idea that Lester takes care of orphaned baby woodland critters he finds on the side of the road. A lovely individual in the discord group I'm in suggested it and told me to roll with it so I did! (Daisy seemed like the perfect cute redneck name so there's that!)

I do plan to make more parts and post the whole thing to my AO3. The stinky roadkill man deserves love! He also strikes me as the friendliest of the three Sinclair brothers.

[sirensmojo]

Scar - Geralt Of Rivia x Reader

Summary: You’re a creature chased by Geralt Of Rivia for a week now, but he couldn’t find you. What he doesn’t know is that you were spying on him since the beginning, when another creature attacks him you stand by his side which causes you to stick with him until he decides if he should follow his feelings and keep you alive, or do the job and kill you.

Warnings: fluff, mystical creature, fights, magic, terror & horror

Word Count: 2,757

 Masterlist

Geralt set a camp in a forest, the same he was told not to cross as humans never came back alive from, but he doesn’t have anything to risk. He isn’t a human, maybe this forest was for mystical creatures only. At first, everything went well. The sun was still up, stick to a blue sky sprinkles by the tips of highs bushy and leafy trees. It was boiling hot, he took off his armor, and his body flopped in a vivid sleep near his horse. It founds him well as it has been, three days in a row of sleepless nights.

Swiftly, his body stiffs, eyes snapped open, looking far away, when they finally lock on something unusual. He gets up on his feet and waits, quietly, his eyes following each shadow it can find.

It is when he glimpses of it, in the distance. His head tilted, eyes squinted, a mere inhuman shadow, only visible from where he stands. The beam lights were stopped by the trunks of trees here and there, making it impossible to keep an eye on the form. It was almost as if the thing vanished from one tree to another, Geralt was confused, his brow narrowed at the vision of horror that played before him. One minute it was there, near a bush, the other, right behind a high branch. Nearly human, but not human enough to make him feel comfortable or make sense of it. A grunt escapes his dry, plump lips as the taste in the air changes, Geralt was cold, all of a sudden. He is not yet sure of what presented in front of him, but until then, his sword will stay on the ground.

A high-pitched tone shrill springs out the dark, an animal he concluded. But what sort of animal does this noise? Add to that the pace of the shadows getting quicker and nearer, a peculiar form lurking in the trees. The leery breath of the man started to thicken as his lips parted. If he doesn’t feel at the mercy of anything dangerous, why can’t he control his breath? Or his pounding heart? At each sound, even the slightest, he can’t help but gaze in that direction. His golden eyes flickered from a point to another by the time he notices the settings have changed.

The leaves had left the trees to encounter the ground that it’s covered in white thick peach fuzz. He put one knee on the soil with a hand-dipped in the white sea. It was indeed snowing. An umpteenth grunt slips out his throat, blowing his warm breath in the cold dark. Moreover, his eyes don’t accommodate to the darkness nicely. Not enough to be able to discern reality and imaginations, not sufficiently to put words and reasonable thoughts on what this animal was, not enough to ease his, now, edgy self. Why the beast doesn’t attack? Or was it even a beast? The Witcher came to that conclusion because the feeling in the air has been always more dense and thick, when there’s a mystic creature in the areas, he senses it. Now all he could sense was leather and woods, for some reason. He pinches his nose, quite annoyed by his helplessness, closes his eyes for a demi-second and inhales deeply, which lead to some unwanted noise caused by his half blocked nostril due to the low temperatures.

“Fuck” He whispers.

Not a single sound reaches his ear after that breath, not a single shadow seen. When his eyes open, his whole body is on alert. His arms tense, his torso stiffens, whereas his legs were hammered in the dense white veil covering the spot. Something was approaching. It even passed by him in a fury. His blood boils in his veins. Even so, he feels like each cell weighted ten times its weight in silver. Geralt heard a last shrill noise nearby by the time he fought with the last drops of strength flowing into his body and reach out for his sword. As he struggles to lift it, a jaw closes on his shoulder. He winces in pain, spitting a deep growl towards the shadows. Gauging by how fast the pain spreads locally, the mouth of the creature must be his main weapon. When it backs off after its first bite, the Witcher figured out the thing will not kill him straight, it isn’t hungry or extra. It utterly wanted to play with his prey, him. He felt like his hands paralyzed, but also shook the most, he’s unsure if it was caused by the frozen or by the bite. His black eyes sprang out, revived thanks to the ache emanating from his dysfunctional shoulder, as it gives him a full ability to discern what attacked him.

It looks like a woman with large spider-like legs coming out of its back. Its body resembles a grisly exoskeleton more than the pulpy features of the human woman he spent the last night with, indeed. That thought, making the Witcher smile.

Despite the new ache focus blooming all over his body, the man was still standing on his feet, springing his sword at the neck of the still unknown yet hideous creature when it jumps back at him. The man heard a terrible screeching sound as the creature crawl about a large boulder. Behind him, rustling bushes and a thud, as if something has slid and then dropped down from the trees behind. Yet still, he can’t look back or the spider-looking thing will take enjoyment in biting again, and he knew well he would not survive another bite. He was encircled by weasel creatures that let him an interval to swallow that today is the day he’ll surely die, in the gelid forest, where hours ago it felt as hot as burning coals. The blood dripping from his huge wound was abnormally overflowing, damping his whole white tunic. On top of that, his death comes in the middle of nowhere, far from his pathetic life.

Perhaps in the next world he have peace of mind?

He can’t even comfort his spirit with this thought because as wicked, cold, and evil as this place seems, he preferred to rest under its ground for the rest of life rather than facing the endless void he thought was waiting for him behind the veil.Although the beast was aggressive and agile, the Witcher still tries to aim its back with clean and neat sword movements. Even with one arm left, the battle was not yet determined, but the white-haired man stays confident, patiently looking for an opening. On which occasion he knows he will not hold back his blow.

***

There is blood pooling at your feet and welling up from your throat. There are thousands of bodies around you, all with these same holes burned in their jaws. You woke up abruptly, with the boorish stench of rotting corpses winding each portion of your body as if you weltered in a bath of death. Besides the smell, the knife in your stomach that you see is a dull pain. 

You scratched your lids and opened your eyes again. “Holy crap on a cracker,” you whistle. And fear clouds your every thought, every movement and action from now on. Your heart beating in your chest warning you, he got enough of these for a lifetime or so. All you can think at this moment is how this foulness occurred. Because you are sure you don’t remember the hammered knife in your guts, nor falling asleep in the waters. Your voice instinctively tries to reach out for a name, “Geralt!” you continuously weep, tired of seeing blood and wounds every so often. Where did you go? He asks himself. Usually, he would think you just wanted to go back to your life, but something in his guts told him this isn’t right. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he heard your voice calling for him. He sprints through the forest, lungs burning as he calls you back. The more his breathing grew louder, the more he knew he was near. He can’t hear his desperate breaths, can’t even hear the pounding of his own heart. All he could hear was the soft melody drifting across the wind before him.

“Y/n,” Geralt muttered near your head. You try to lift your hand to his face, but instead, he grabs it and passes it around his neck, helping you to stand. “You turd!” You whisper, almost out of breath. The golden-eyed man looked over your face and grunts, as a sign you got his attention. “Can’t you see the knife?” you teased with a breezy voice. You wonder if you were still dreaming or if all of this was real. Thus, when the pain in your belly starts to prickle. “Just put it out,” you spat some blood. “I’m bringing you somewhere safe,” he riposted. But by the flimsy laugh leaving your weak body, he rolled his eyes and dropped you carefully at the feet of an old tree. His gaze was sinking so deep into you it almost ripped out your soul.

You wanted to say something, but the overflowing blood of your injury got in your head, making you feel dizzy. The face of Geralt is blurry, so is the forest, and again your eyes shut to join a dimension that you swear is your personal hell. There is blood running down the corner of your mouth. You’re invited to look down by the putrid odor, noticing the dead pile of carcasses on which you sat. You began to yell. “Oh, no-no-no. Please no, don’t tell me that… Oh gods, no,” your voice resonated like an echo. Each of your words coming back at the place that sets them free.

You knit your brows as your orbs open. “You finally up?” the deep and raspy voice of the Witcher resonating in your ears. “I haven’t slept in days… Anytime I close my eyes, I feel it reaching out to grab me,” you spitted curtly. The long-haired man, standing and turning his back at you, only grunt as an approval. ”‘Feeling what?’ I heard you asking,” you add. “Did I?” Geralt looks over his shoulders, squinted towards you. You nodded, ready to spread out another layer of drama at the top of your current situation. “Those blackened claws… They’re coming for me. I am the blackened claws,” your solemn tone caught the attention of the Witcher, that slid to sit on the log beside you, holding you a flask of water. He exhaled deeply, avoiding your eyes.

“All I know about you is that you miraculously healed from a knife in the guts. I didn’t see any claws, even less blackened,” the man sings, proud of himself. You choked on your drink and hassle to pat your stomach, even ripping your cloth to the side to be able to corroborate his words.  “What the goose?” You sputtered, the tip of your finger seeking your wound in vain. Your eyes wide, you lift your gaze to the sour complexion of the man. “The goo- what?” he repeats, one eyebrow lift to you, which you ignore. “What else has happened?” you reluctantly ask, not sure you wanted to know other eerie things you may have missed about yourself. “Well,” he tilted his head in a chuckle, a smirk graces his face. “It’s that bad?” you cut him off brows narrowed as your gazes lock. Geralt tensed his jaw, a grunt slips its way out, seeing the worry in your eyes. “Can you stand?” he asks your way. You slowly let go of the soil in your hands and lift them to the sides of your body, then you push on your legs, and, as if it was the first time, you throw Geralt your warmest smile, glad. He stands up on his feet and slips on the cloak he just grabbed. You confusedly looked at him. The weather was so hot and humid. You wondered why he needed this cloak. “Come, on,” Geralt cheerfully purrs, motioning that you follow. You executed, quietly walking beside him. When Geralt stops, your two looks drop at the same thing, your feet. Your narrowed eyes describe plainly the conundrum displaying in your head. You kneel and spread your fingers above the white veil before you clench your fingers in a fist, imprisoning the substance in it. You stand back up, still looking at your fist as you open it. Geralt observed the scene with cautious eyes, he surmised you had something to do with the snow, but not quite sure if so, why you were mesmerized by it as if it was the first time you touch it. “Is this familiar to you?” he motions his hand toward the areas.

Indeed, it is familiar. The day before, you saved his life while he was fighting with a deadly injury here.

Geralt hears rustling bushes behind him, followed by a thud. You, now, stand near the scene you were observing from above. Eyes flickering between the watcher and the Cipher, he was staring at, crouching in the shadows. You thought you had each of those bastard creatures. Apparently, one remains. “On your knees,” you commended. Hearing your sassy tone, Geralt looked over his shoulder, and what a surprise he has. Two creatures for the price of one. Solely, you were not the same species that assaulted him. Your eyes constantly drip a yellow ooze, your paces utterly silent as you neared him.

A loud and shrill, high-pitched cry comes from behind a boulder as the wind comes in blasts followed by hailstorms, and thundershower. This tempestuous weather buried a sweltering atmosphere, seizing Geralt by the throat. Him, that refused to kneel before you find himself forced to. The wind is sweeping every greenery leftovers, and rain is draining down any hope of survival.

In the distance, the Witcher shields his eyes with his hand against any projectile and watched as you and the Cipher jumped high in the air with stabbing shrieks and subsequently collide in a mystical twirling of both magic energies. He cringes as the yellow ooze drips from your eyes into the bite holes in the jaw of your victim, infecting her. In a rush of gloom, everything stops. The rain freezes in midair, and the wind hushes. The mist vanishes behind the trees, the dusty sky, making room in an azure and bright one.

Even the heat, passionate mild settles back as if nothing has happened, the only evidence of the previous chaos being the spruce firing body on the ground. “You should fetch more woods that is dry if you don’t want this flames to die” You solemnly let out towards Geralt. “Bloody hell, that rhymes,” you heatedly cheer yourself up. Though the warmth mastered the air again, the snow still envelops each section of the brush like a soft thick blanket of ice and drifting snow. It is an eerily beautiful sight the golden-eyed man is lucky to witness. Geralt lids fluttered in incomprehension for a brief instant, he suddenly stands back up and hassled his hand to his wound shoulder, only to find nothing. The injury completely healed, single marks of sharpening teeth as scars left in there. “How?” he grumbles.

“I can put it back if you want?” you suggest, lifting your eyes brows. Geralt that was still searching for his nonexistent wound stops on track and glared at you, a grunt emanating from the deepest of his throat. “What?” you shrug. “I can slap you… with a wet fish,” you added, gauging his reaction. “Maybe it wasn’t me,” you shrug to him, not knowing what else to say. “Don’t it help your memories flow back into your mind?” asked Geralt as both of you stood near the gathering ashes of bones who initially was the Cipher you killed.You shook your head and mutter. “No, it’s still as dry as a bad piece of lettuce” Geralt glances at you as soon as the words left your mouth. “Hmm,” he grunts.”But Y/n, it is your doing,” he maintains, your weird comparisons comforted him most in his assumption.

[alientoastt]

can I please know more about the Minecraft ocs they look cool and I'm curious

so our friend group discord has a bedrock smp server, and we haven’t played dnd in months due to Circumstances, and the minecraft has turned into rp. in-character stuff is on wednesday nights, but honestly conversations between ocs happen outside of that so long as it’s not like. Large Group Stuff. we have fun here! the characters thus far are, in no particular order;

THE DRYAD she/her: a lass who died protecting her village from siege who fused with a tree upon her death. several centuries old, but not as old as her tree. hates the soldier for their role in the siege, but does want to see them less tormented by their past in a sort of “fuck you but i don’t want you dead” way. @tempulian‘s oc

THE NOMAD she/they: a magma cube hybrid who came to the overworld for a new life; she’s the baby of the group. very angry. very sweet. made a deal with the baron and gave her soul; it’s unclear what will happen if she dies, now. she’ll be okay. adopted by icarus and the wisp because cod fucked up and called icarus their dad, and when he had to explain what a dad was, nomad decided wisp is a father figure. they go fishing together, by which i mean whack each other with fishing poles. it’s genuinely really cute. @axiliern‘s oc

ICARUS he/him (occasional any): a traveler from distant servers, cod’s warlock, a farmer, and a hubristic idiot with wings. i dunk on him because, playing cod, he’s the one i know the most about- i can’t say too much without spoiling things for friends who follow me but. i love him a lot and he deserves a hug. died the first time in his mid 20s, now several centuries old. has a healthy amount of beef with the baron and visitor. @trashymayhem‘s oc

THE BARON he/they: a businessman working for the visitor. deals in souls. actively trying to escape the visitor’s grasp. cod hates him on a very personal level, but does want to at least see his recovery. Will doesn’t have a tumblr but he is very cool and lovely

THE VISITOR they/it but also just don’t refer to them: fucking isolation of capitalism incarnate i hate their stupid void guts. a businessperson from The End. stole the body of what was once THE COWBOY (he/him, press f to pay respects). keeps making deals with people and fucking them over. manipulative piece of shit. raymond if you’re reading this i love you so much thank you for a cathartic villain you’re a wonderful creator! played by @rayczintosart

COD they/she/he: mine! a faerie cursed for crimes against annwfyn to be stuck as a calico cat; mistaken for a god (see: portmanteau of “cat tod” was interpreted as “cat god”) by several characters early on, and just rolled with it artagan-style until they registered that lying to the people theyve come to consider their friends feels Very Bad. not particularly good at being a faerie (see: neurodivergent). travels servers with icarus, this one just being their latest adventure- much later, it’s icarus who uncurses them, and the two end up as romantic partners. like, get-married-on-every-planet-they-live-on partners.

NAUTILUS he/him: just a wet lad. both he and mof are new and also very confused by the rest of their neighbors being at eachother’s throats. he’s a drowned mob. he’s very sad. i like him. i think he’s... older?  @larkkspuur‘s oc!

MOF he/they: a mushroom faerie lad who’s a bit ominous, but i don’t think it’s on purpose. doesn’t even know the names of his neighbors. age is... they’re a faerie. @erroraceart‘s oc!

THE FROST she/her: a fairy princess (from somewhere different than cod, who is also from somewhere different than mof), a catgirl, a 90s anime girl, and in the words of Jill, “just anastasia (movie).” she has a huge castle and, while she’s aware of the drama around her, remains generally uninvolved. @feyrien‘s oc!

THE WISP he/they: a very confused dude with a dead dragon egg that screams at him and dragon wings and scales that grew overnight. the egg has been named Jorts and uses she/her. needs a hug. lives with cod, icarus, and the nomad in a house that is. hhh. it’s a repurposed minion carcass. minions are extinct megafauna. wisp and icarus are hellbent on studying them. the worst part is that the minion house has really nice interior design. the illustrious peebert hilbert @peitalo‘s oc

THE SOLDIER he/they: a vampire. an ex-soldier. originally the main antagonist but then the visitor showed up and everyone has been distracted; all this started because SOMEONE kept dying their cauldrons yellow (pissing in them). this is a very serious server as you can tell. @jojenis‘ oc, Xander i know you never use tumblr but mwuah

(this post is subject to change as more information is more widely known about these characters to the rest of the discord!)

[hollowfaces]

A ctivities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

enjoys simple things like holding you while you guys talk or venting about his day. if you’re interested however he really enjoys teaching you about all his medical knowledge and seeing how you do. sometimes give you random pop quizzes on which medical equipment do what to keep you on your toes

B eauty - What do they admire about their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

since he can’t exactly see you, he really admires your hands. loves when you cup his face or tightly squeeze his hand. also really enjoys softly rubbing your hands with his own and just basking in the moment

C omfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

jack is very comforting person for several reasons. he has both a very calming voice and a very calming aura. whenever you’re feeling down he’ll try the most logical way to help you feel better, but if you just want some cuddles or some space he’ll be happy to oblige

D reams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

his future with you is honestly just keeping things the way they are. he doesn’t want kids and doesn’t do well with actual pets so just keeping your guys’ loving relationship is what he wants

E qual - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

he’s rather dominant in regards to your safety and his possessiveness but passive in most regards of your actual relationship. jacks very whipped when it comes to you and you find yourself getting away with a lot of stuff no one else would be able to get away with

F ight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

one of the worst people to fight with since he isn’t the type to really yell or display any body language. when you guys fight he remains rather calm which makes you feel like he doesn’t care that much about whatever you’re fighting about. but luckily you guys don’t fight very often, jack is level headed and does his best to solve issues by talking to you

G ratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

extremely grateful. he knows being with him is hard for several reasons and appreciates you so much. also very aware of all that you do for him and makes sure to praise you for it

H onesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

he doesn’t really hold secrets per say, but he hasn’t told you everything about his past and probably never will. he completely trusts you but it’s just not something he likes to think about, much less talk about. greatly appreciates when you understand and don’t press on the subject

I nspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

you’ve definitely helped him overcome certain personal issues. he had a lot of issues with his self worth and wondering if he deserved anything good in his life. you didn’t just magically solve everything when you came into his life but you stayed with him through the process and supported him

J ealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

jack is honestly a very possessive and overprotective person. he knows the type of people he hangs out with and never wants you to meet them. he doesn’t want them to ‘taint’ you in any way or hurt you. jack also keeps this attitude for any regular person as well

K iss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

i’m gonna be totally honest with you, your first kiss was pretty awful. jack hadn’t had any experience since he was a human and now he had to make sure he didn’t accidentally hurt you with his teeth so your first kiss was really awkward and chaste. eventually gets the hang of it and gets more trust in himself to not hurt you

L ove Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

he goes total old school and writes you a note. since he has trouble writing nicely he actually typed it out on an typewriter he has, which just adds to the charm of the letter really. even seals it with a nice wax seal he has. when he hands the note to you, you’re more than shocked and a little concerned. first of all, his hands have the slightest tremble to them which is very rare for someone as composed as jack. not to mention how uncomfortable the silence makes him feel as you carefully read over each word. he keeps shuffling his feet and coughing to aid the silence. when he hears your elated acceptance after you’re done reading, he swears he could combust right there. partially from happiness from your newfound relationship, partially from the huge wave of relief coming from his body since the silence is finally over.

M arriage - Do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?

he would not want to get married. he thinks it’s really stupid and plus, you guys can’t even actually get married, no one wants to officiate a demons wedding. if you convince him enough though, he may do a faux proposal with a ring pop

N icknames - What do they call their s/o?

it’s really cheesy but he enjoys calling you baby and angel. he mostly calls you angel though. jack thinks it’s really adorable if you call him pet names too but not for the same reason that you probably do... he just enjoys it for the simple reason that it’s very funny to him hearing you call him, a organ eating demon with no eyes, your adorable little sweetie pie

O n Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

it wouldn’t be overtly obvious unless someone really knew jack. like jeff won’t be able to tell but his closer friends like toby and tim can pick up on the subtle changes. like how he laughs at bens stupid jokes more, or how he isn’t as moody when he has to fix up toby when he hurts himself again, or when he isn’t as pissed when jeff annoys him. he just seems happier in general and his friends can’t help but feel a little happy themselves

P DA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

doesn’t brag about you but isn’t afraid to show affection in front of others. it isn’t embarrassing to him and as long you keep it reasonable he doesn’t care. sometimes kisses you or pulls you into his lap in front of the other creeps so he can laugh at them making fake gagging and vomiting noises

Q uirk - Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.

not sure if this counts as beneficial but since he’s a demon he can scent you. this is mainly to let any other demons know that you’re taken and keep them away from you. this also means he rubs against your neck all the time which means he gives you a lot of affection too!

R omance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

jack tries to be romantic but demons don’t exactly have the same standards of romance that humans do so it often comes off wrong. likes giving you pretty stuff he finds in the forest like pretty rocks, old snail shells, abandoned trinkets, and sometimes even live animals. (he brought you a dead one once and quickly regretted it when you cried over the mouse carcass he had presented you). definitely reminds of you a bird sometimes so he’s creative in his own way. also likes trying romantic things you want like picnics or dancing in the kitchen. does whatever he can to make you smile and gets excited when you bring up new ideas for you guys to try

S upport - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

believes in you 100% and will do anything to help you achieve your dreams and ambitions. he’s super proud of you no matter what it is and is your biggest supporter

T hrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

jack just kinda goes with the flow. if you wanna try something new he’s usually down for it but if you just wanna sit at home and cuddle he’s down for that too. that being said, he does like trying new things with you. if you wanna try to cook something new, jack will be there with you every step of the way. if you wanna try painting, he’ll be there trying his own painting. you do have to get used to his criticism on new things though, even if it hurts

U nderstanding - How good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

remembers just about everything you’ve told him about yourself. is very observant as well so he’s also picked up on your social cues like when you’re nervous or excited. so it’s safe to say he knows you extremely well. and while he may not always understand your emotions or where you’re coming from, he’ll do his best to understand what you’re going through and give you adequate care

V alue - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

your relationship is worth everything to jack. he doesn’t let himself get close to people often so the fact that you were not only able to break down his walls and squirm your way into his life, but also that you’ve made yourself a permanent fixture in it as well is impressive. you’re a very important and precious fixture in his life. and he’ll do anything to keep you happy and by his side

W ild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

jack really enjoys solving conspiracy theories and ARG’s with you. loves finding out how all the puzzle pieces fit together and you both find yourself excitedly awaiting the next update. you guys haven’t actually solved anything yet or been right even once but jack still has hope!

X OXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

in the beginning of your relationship he’d be more conservative and nervous to initiate touch with you, but as time grows on he’ll start getting the insatiable desire to crush you against his chest or wrap his arms around your waist and hold you for dear life. will always wait until you’re comfortable with affection though, and once you are comfortable, you are never leaving his grasp. loves cuddling with you and hugging you from behind, giving you a quick kiss on your hairline. really just loves feeling you against him in the most pure way

Y earning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

he can go a regular amount of time without missing you too much but if you guys are separated for any extended period of time he will hate it so much. on the outside he’ll look perfectly calm, not saying a single word about you to anymore or seeming like he misses you at all. but on the inside he’s dying a bit without your gentle touches and wet kisses to his forehead. hugs his pillow tighter at night when he misses you and tries to keep his hands occupied all the time

Z eal - Are they willing to go to great lenghts for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

not in the regular sense but he will do just about anything to keep you happy. let’s you touch his face, tells you somewhat about his past, keeps seedeater around to protect you, would even disguise himself in public for you if he needed to. would fight any other demons if they ever got too close as well

[sasorikigai]

(( I wanna see reactions of three muses for this ask. Hanzo, Kuai, and Fujin )) Aren't you tired of being nice? Don't you just want to go APE SHIT?

Random Inbox Shenanigans || anonymous || always accepting! 

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || Hanzo Hasashi feels unspeakably lonely, and he feels drained, despite all that he has strenuously worked for, as the Shirai Ryu Fire Garden’s reconstruction had just been completed. In a blank state of mind and soul he cannot fathom to describe, he thinks, it would not make any difference. Also, it is a very private sentiments he has - that of melting into a perpetual nervous breakdown, despite the solemn austerity of Grandmaster Hasashi’s physique remains evermore unyielding and unbending. Perhaps he was still questioning what he further wants to do, who he further wishes to be; which part of him, exactly, are still functioning properly. It is always a fight to triumph, with righteous justice served scorching with his purified hellfire, with no compromises or in-betweens. Nevermind the sprawled heap of bodies, the bloodshed, the detritus of burns and wounds and faces carved of hurt and agony. If Scorpion’s wrath still was embedded in Grandmaster Hasashi’s soul, then he would have let his unfiltered and unfettered inferno wake and spread like wildfire, consuming and devouring everything in its wake. Now no longer afflicted by rage and vengeance as he moved beyond such one-dimensionality of spiked viscerality of such vices, Hanzo Hasashi simply stares; lest shrapnel of doubt still resides as his poison. Pure, potent, and permanent heat embedded within the intensity of his hazel. “魚心あれば水心, there is a proverbial saying that If a fish is kind to the water, the water will be kind to the fish. When a person shows kindness to someone else, their kindness will be returned. It is simple and easy to remember and is a good reminder for all of humanity to show respect and honor to others.” ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || 

❄️ || Loneliness feels so much like humility and shame; like being capsized with an audience of passing boats, eyes leering and watching his body bounce up and down in the merciless vicious current as they slowly drift away. It is the way a reflection is like a picked scab; forever pinked and raw, a wound to fester, to invite more sickness to its core. Loneliness is like every tongue twist, every wrong word catalogued and revisited like an indictment, like carrying a dead carcass on his back, like punishment that keeps blood moving in his veins, even after he had bled them like a riverbed. Kuai Liang has always learned, that one who is kind is sympathetic and gentle with others. He is considerate of others’ feelings and courteous in his behavior. He has a helpful nature, for kindness pardons others’ weaknesses and faults, as does his own. Kindness is extended to all – to the aged and the young, to animals, to those low of station as well as the high. The social hierarchy, and multitudes of restrictions and prohibited human connections other than the brotherhood of assassins served them as soulless lap dogs of numerous Grandmasters, and as Kuai Liang’s protean awareness and perception increased along with the untapped cryokinetics, he had seen just how immorally corrupt the burrowing darkness had been, forcing not only his world, but the entire equilibrium of Earthrealm to hang on such precarious balance. “The scope of my ice exists to be extended against the throes of corruption and darkness. And I will not hesitate to retaliate against such usurption should anyone threaten the sanctity of humanity with ravenous vices of power, greed, causing agony and torment upon those who seek peace and serenity.” ❄️ || 

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🌪️ || The most important thing in life may be happiness, contentment, zeal, and peace of mind, for nothing in the world matters more than serenity. No tangible acquisition can make any mortal nor immortal feel content in their life; it is elation, just elation. Endearment, or what he knows as love, could be the most beautiful thing that could offset the throes of perpetual ravaging war, realms being torn asunder and reconstructed, as annihilative destruction viciously immortalized by the sanguineous torrential flood. The catalytic propellent of love mitigating agony and despair will heighten the benevolence of love and sacrifice, which becomes the greatest feeling for one to ever experience. It is not difficult to say that one will be delighted beyond stars to know that there is someone that will go out of one’s ways to preserve humanity’s sustenance and survivability. Fujin had both endured the disintegration, as the might of the kamikaze wind scattered beyond recognition under the irreversible vortex of Soulnado, and having been sucked into the abysmal nothing, as the naught of his existence left his brother as the sole divine being who would protect the Earthrealm. The Wind God had long relived all the lost promises, and yet, his halcyon, empyrean optimism continues to etch the pearlescent depth of his divine gaze, as Fujin’s lips imperceptibly curl into a crescent. “The wind will penetrate, ravage, and scatter even the mightiest forces of evil, for the flurries of my blades will exact righteous justice. As kamikaze carves inspirations into the realms, the Earthrealm will write its story, amidst all the duality of passion and tragedy.” ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🌪️ ||

[fan-clan-fun]

History of VineClan

Please don’t steal this idea! I’ve been working on it for more than 4 days!

I’ve left this in my inbox for  bit trying to understand what you meant by steal your idea. Im assuming you still want me to post this publicly, since you submitted it to me, but in future if you are afraid of someone stealing ideas perhaps maybe you can send a personal message and we can talk things through and discuss your ideas privately! Im always open to dms.

Formation- Vine was a loner who ran away from his father and then met a small group of cats who needed guidance and became their leader and taking them to the Trees of Time.

Many moons ago, BadgerClan, ShadeClan, the lost clan, SunClan, and the other clans, SnakeClan and StreamClan were dead. But now a new dawn is rising.

Thats quite a start, a new clan rising from the ashes of the old ones! Do the current day cats know much of the clans? Or are they basically starting over from scratch?

Rivals- After Vine and his group left the Woods of Water, another group, the Rogues of Roaming moved in and injured one of Vine’s best friends, Blue.

There was almost a war but Blue stopped it. The area is now known as the Roaming Rainfalls.

Always good to have some rivals. Do the rogues become their own clan as well?

Age- VineClan is old. Vinestar and Bluestar are remembered and celebrated every 12 moons

Old is... not quite a helpful descriptor. Perhaps a better way to indicate the age of a clan is through how many leaders have reigned, and for how long, or how many generations have passed. 

Shaping Events- The elders told the story of how Blue stopped the war and the tales of the lost clans are less told than the founding of the clans which is very often. The bold and faithful BadgerClan, the tricky yet helpful ShadeClan, the sharp and qualified once missed SunClan, the passionate and quick SnakeClan and the kind and courageous, water-loving StreamClan

Okay so I see here that some stories of the old clans still survive, but there is still a lot of info you could expand on the old clans and the current association with Vineclan. How does Vineclan see themselves? Are they still the only clan now?

Heroes and Villians: All the living peaceful medicine cats, warriots and kits want to be like Bluestar and all the battle-hungry warriors and kits want to be like Rainstar. The villains are the Rogues of Roaming and VineClan’s greatest enemy.

Each side has the Hall of Fame.

There’s the Hall of Heroes and the Hall of Villians.

I’m glad to know you are thinking of some of them, I would love to hear the stories of your favorites!

Territory 

VineClan’s territory Slope Woods by Day Twowalkers and the Twilight Twowalkers. Fires always come in the greenleaf and floods in leaffall every 48 moons. In those times, they go live in the Fire’s Flood Field (A Shelter Place). Some common animals are bugs, frogs, snakes, lizards, chipmunks, or squirrels. There may be foxes, raccoons, or porcupines as well. Look up in the trees, and you may see birds or bats.

Sounds like standard North America, although choosing a specific region might help you come up with details especially for some fun unique names. 

On RainClan’s territory there is Training Valley, The Hunting Hills, the best place for hunting, Harmony Hills, every moon there is a truce where cats can talk and have fun and they share news and advice. The medicine cats go to the Star Cave with the Moon Crystal. Cats who are not medicine cats go to the Star Hollow and meet their ancestors with the Lightstone. It only works in the daytime.

Ah okay I see here that there is a second clan. There is also a lot of information to unpack in this paragraph. I do like that there are different ways to interact with your ancestors and that your average clan cat can still commune with Starclan, and the Day/night motif of spiritual connection here as well. 

Camp

The camp is hidden in the slopes. Climb up it and you hop in it. It is guarded throughout the day. Over there is the nursery, the biggest den, the one with the huge sand wall. Cats have to leap over it just to get in. Only VineClan cats have that kind of strength and speed for that. The other smaller sand den goes into an underground cave where the apprentices sleep. Scouts sleep on top of the slope or the trees. Guards sleep in a pile of sand with there breathing devices called Sand Breathers so they can sleep and breathe easily. Hunters sleep underneath a pile of prey, so they always get first pick. That big pile of sand and leaves with a small sand wall. The Sand Gem is where the leader gives meetings and the leader glows whenever they sit on it. On top of the gem is where the leader sleeps with the rest of his family. The medicine cats sleep underground. There are two types of herbs, Sand Herbs, that can be kept underground, mostly for wounds and diseases. Sky Herbs are plants that are supposed to be kept outside, in the Green Den that’s open but protected with a bright surface that you can see through it. Poison Plants are spread out all over in the Roaming Rainfalls and the darkest, deepest corners of the Slope Woods.

I see a lot of interesting concepts here! I am fascinated by the implication that these cats have some form of technology or magic, to create the Sand Breathers and the hard clear surface (glass?) protecting the Green Den. I would love to hear more about those aspects, since technology and magic are things I tend to enjoy. As for the hunters sleeping under prey, that sounds a bit uncomfortable, I certainly wouldnt like to sleep under a pile of carcasses which might bleed or be dirty or stinky. So why did they choose to do that? Are they afraid their clanmates will steal their food?

Build: Cats that were born from Guards have a remarkable amount of strength. Cats who are born from Scouts have an unbelievable amount of speed, an average amount of both is how they become a Hunter and anyone who was born from a certain rank (Hunter, Guard, Scout) always is born with that ancestry. 

I see you have gone for a more Tribe-like divisions of skills and build. If you have a certain build are you basically destined to be in that position, or can cats choose?

Pelt: Black cats are considered lucky and white cats with any other eye color than blue are considered unlucky. Any cat with a white pelt and blue eyes is not blind but very powerful and will be automatically chosen for deputy and given 12 lives if they’re evil and want war, 15 lives if they’re average and like a regular leader, 18 lives if they want everlasting peace and is good and kind.

I dont quite understand this. When white kittens with blue eyes are born, are they basically destined to be leader? What happens if there are two in the same clan at the same time? What is the significance of the number of lives? How does the clan or even Starclan itself decide how many lives to give them? Can they read their minds and intentions? Whats to stop a cat who says they want peace from getting those extra lives and then causing chaos? How does living that long affect those cats, or do they die of old age? While this is an interesting concept in theory, you might want to think this through a bit more, you dont have to discard it completely, but you do have to consider the ramifications and consequences. 

Clan Roles- 

Leader 

The leader is voted for every 48 moons and if they are a white cat with blue eyes, there is no vote needed. If they are a white cat with blue eyes that’s good, they get to be leader for 144 moons. If they are voted again, it’s 96 moons.

Ah some more info, but still very confusing. If leaders are voted for every four years (48 moons) normally, what happens to leaders who havent lost their nine lives by that point? Do all leaders (other than white cats with blue eyes) get regular nine lives? Why do white cats get to be leaders for so long, and do their extra lives sustain their bodies that long? Are you saying a white cat with blue eyes could live and rule for 238 moons (almost 20 years, 144+96 moons)?

Deputy

The deputy is the leader’s Vice President and is chosen by the leader.

Medicine Cat

They follow the Code of the Stars. An apprentice is chosen with a trial. A trial starts at 5 moons. There are two tests: Intelligence and Heart. Intelligence shows how much you know. Heart shows how much you’re into it.

In order for kittens to pass this trial, are they all taught basic information and knowledge about herbs? What qualifies a cat to be chosen as medicine cat apprentice?

Elders

The elder’s average age is 65 moons. The oldest elder is The Protector of the Knowledge, the second oldest elder is Head Elder and reminds elders of their duties like their Daily Walk guarded by 1 Scout and 2 Guards and their Ceremony Seats and the Head Elder is like the deputy’s assistant who helps with everything and The Protector of Knowledge tells knowledge whenever needed.

I feel like I am missing a lot of info here, that there is a lot more to dive into. Its really nice to see Elders having their own positions and duties though at least!

Warriors

There are Hunters, Guards, and Scouts. Hunters are average, Guards are strong and Scouts are quick.

Okay, well Im not sure why Hunters are considered average, since that sounds a bit demoralizing, but I suppose that if the Guards and Scouts are elite warriors it might make more sense.

Queens

The Kitter is the cat who has been in the nursery for the most and assigns Kitsitters who take care of the kits after the age of 4 moons and stop at the age of 9 moons when a kit moves out of the nursery and into the apprentice den, so the queens can go back to their original role. The Kitsitters are mostly former queens or their fathers. The Protector of Knowledge mostly takes on an apprentice and there are called The Apprentice of Knowledge and they teach the 6-9 moons, the Way of the Warrior.

I see your cats are considered kits for longer than canon. Are these intermediate moons kind of like school? Why are medicine cat apprentices chosen so young before their schooling even begins?

Apprentices

They are apprenticed to 15 moons. The Protector of Knowledge mostly takes on an apprentice and there are called The Apprentice of Knowledge and they teach the 6-9 moons, the Way of the Warrior. The requirements to become a hunter is to hunt the most prey from sunup to sundown. Guards have to fight each other and the Top 3 becomes a guard. Cats who have failed have to take the test next moon and if they fail till they’re 18, they become a hunter. Scouts go into a race and the Top 3 becomes a scout and the 4th, 5th and 6th placers become Trial Scouts and if they fail their mission, they become hunters.

So I notice that there are two different ways to become a hunter, but they seem a bit contradictory. You mention that to become a hunter you need to hunt the most prey. Does that mean only one becomes a hunter? Or is there an amount each cat needs to hunt to pass their trial? And failed scouts still automatically become hunters without having to pass the same trial as regular hunters?

Kits

Kits are raised by their mothers from the age of 1-3 and their Kitsitters from the age of 4-9

Code of Conduct

The regular warrior code.

Laws

Punishment is placed in front of the StarClan Court and if it was minor it’s mostly cleaning out the elder’s den. Middle is suspension. Major is mostly banishment.

Mates

There is a ceremony for mates who want to be together forever.

Leader: Welcome, cats of VineClan who have wanted to be with (male cat) (rank) and (female cat)(rank) and today: we thank you for being here to share this extraordinary day. You may sit. Now, (male cat) do you, of your own free will, take (female cat) as your StarClan watched mate, to cherish and defend—as long as you both shall live?

Male Cat: I do.

Leader: (Female cat) do you, of your own free will, take (make cat) as your StarClan watched mate, to cherish and defend—as long as you both shall live?

Female Cat: I do.

Leader: With the promises you have made and with the power invested in me with all of StarClan watching, I now pronounce you mates for life. You may touch noses the bride.

(They touch noses and some purring may be made and that’s when the kits and apprentices leave.)

I see you have drawn heavily on modern human marriage ceremonies for your mateship ritual! But are there provisions if the cats break up? Or marriages where the cats aren’t strictly male and female?

All the other ceremonies are the same. Here’s two new ones.

The Protector of Knowledge Ceremony

Leader: You are the oldest cat (name of cat) and hereby should be known as The Protector of Knowledge for as long as you live. 

Head Elder Ceremony

Leader: You see the second oldest cat (name of cat) and have proven your loyalty many times over and you are hereby known as Head Elder until the Protector of Knowledge hands over his/her power to you.

Naming: The kits are named after whatever the queens want their names to be.

Afterlife: Cats can go into whatever age they want too in the afterlife and there’s plenty of prey and instead of a dark slope there’s a light sunny field.

Thank you for sharing about your clans! I think there are a few things you might need to expand on and think through, if you would like we can chat in private as well if you are worried!

[littlemonstersau-blog]

The Feels Awaken Part 1: Return of the Memori

Written by @jkl-fff, illustrated by me

PART I (you are here)  - PART II

———————————————————————————————–

The lone wolf sat and watched, and that was an excellent development; the creature was learning to wait patiently, even though it was a wild, apex predator and doubtlessly could have ripped the dead squirrel from the hands of a teenage boy with ease (under normal circumstances, at least). Of course, since Bill was only wearing the clone of a teenage boy, he probably had an advantage in training the lone wolf. It could sense him—the real him—inside the clonesuit, and therefore was wary of making any aggressive moves … Animals always were around Demons, unlike most humans. Another instance when instinct trumped intellect …

So, instead, the lone wolf sat and watched patiently while Bill swung the dead squirrel around by its tail. Sat and waited for Bill’s conversational monologue to end.

“You’re prob’ly wondering why I haven’t eaten your soul like I did Chatterface McBurymynuts right here. And why I’ve taken to feeding you the soulless carcasses of my victims in person instead of just leaving them out for you. Well, I got three reasons. One: I like your aesthetic; you’re nearly all triangles in shape—really angular all over your body—and I really dig that. You’re relatably triangular, and I wanna see more of that in the world. Two: you’re endangered; if I let you live, there will be more wolves (so more angular creatures) in the world … and also more werewolves, which would be weird and awesome. And three …” Here, with a grin, Bill tossed the dead squirrel high and watched as the lone wolf snatched it out of the air. “Yeah, that’s right, wolf it down—heh heh! The third reason is, I’m gonna partially domesticate you and train you to pull me around in a sweet-ass chariot! Doesn’t that sound rad?!”

Having swallowed the last of the squirrel, the lone wolf turned and padded away into the woods.

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk more about how awesome my idea is later!” Bill called after him. “Just think a bit about what a fair exchange it would be! Actually, it’s a great deal for you! Tasty treats just for letting me occasionally ride you into battle like a chaotic, Norse deity! We can workshop ideas about the chariot’s design next time!”

On a nearby branch, a bird chirped.

“No, I think the wolf’s gonna seriously consider my offer,” Bill replied optimistically. “This is all just part of the deal-making game, which you’d understand if you weren’t a dumbass robin.”

The bird chirped again, then flew away.

“… Welp, that killed some time. Guess I’d better go back to the Shack and find some other activity to pass away the seemingly endless seconds until I get to skyelp with my Dipper …”

While he was tromping back through the woods, however, Bill was distracted by an unusual, yet strangely familiar sound. Juddering and throaty, then sharp and quick, then juddering and throaty again. Repetitive, too, though intermingled with a soft noise almost like keening or … no, exactly like whimpering. Then it clicked for Bill, even though he hadn’t heard that sound in over thirty years. It was the sound of a grown man sobbing. And not just any man, either, but Ford.

Softly, Bill crept towards him, eventually looking through bushes to the stump of a felled tree. Ford sat on it, hunched over and alone, crying as though he couldn’t hold back his own tears … as though he were too weary to hold them back anymore … That was probably why he’d come all the way out here in the woods, Bill suspected, where no one could see his moment of emotional vulnerability. Or so he had believed, at any rate, not knowing Bill was out here …

On Ford’s lap was an open book with brightly—even garishly—colored pages. One of the many scrapbooks Mabel had made. In between bouts of sobs, he slowly turned the pages and murmured things like, “Can’t believe she came b-back with a whole handful of it … So t-tough, even though always so sweet …” and “Terrified, but he f-faced it down anyway … for me … And I was s-so … so proud …” and “Heh! That f-fashion show she put together for Pacifica, made us all t-take part in … Can’t remember when I laughed so h-hard …” and “Oh, here’s that Jack o’Mellon he carved like the Gremloblin … from m-memory … So t-talented … And then they went trick-or-treating together both as the protagonist from that one game series—Myth of Hilda, or something like that?—Moses, it was adorable …” to himself. With each turn of a page, he was reminiscing about something different from the past summers: family game nights, hikes and fishing, short roadtrips, and on and on and on … Ford himself summed it up succinctly when he finally closed the scrapbook, buried his face in his hands, and whimpered, “Damn, I m-miss those kids!”

For a moment, a spark of bitter satisfaction flared up in Bill (“Good. Let that asshole suffer.”). And yet, it was soon doused by empathetic pity and sorrow (“I feel the same, though—we all feel the same … We all miss those kids …”). Then came a splash of feeling surprised, because of all the pity and sorrow; they were still such strange emotions for him as to be almost foreign. Following that, a bit of meta-emotional introspection at realizing he was feeling about feelings. Fortunately, before Bill could become too confused and horrified by the idea that he had become so human as to have feelings about having feelings, Ford stood and slowly trudged back home. After a safe amount of time had elapsed, Bill did the same.

Inside the Shack, sitting on the card table in the living room, was the scrapbook (no doubt left there by Ford on his way down to his lab). Along with several more of them. Picking up the most recent one, Bill began to flip slowly through its colorful pages filled with photos, stickers, notes, and miscellaneous memorabilia.

And as he did, he began to flip slowly through his own memories …

****

Terrified screams as he burst forth from his prison of a stone statue, rose up over them out of his shell (“Did you miss me? Admit it, you missed me!”), and tried to … tried to …

Bill shuddered to think of what he had almost done—what he surely would have done, if he had had enough power at the time. “Thank all the Gods that ever were or will be that that failed …” he muttered to himself.

Making little overtures of friendship—or at least not-malice—to Mabel until he got her to listen to his spiel about wanting to understand how he lost to them and to change and blah blah blah. Ford’s utter disbelief that the others could be so easily suckered. Entering a clone that first time and devouring that delicious little bit of soul in it (“Yum! Tastes just like mangoes and fear!”).

“They shouldn’t have. Ford was right that I was plotting their doom back then … Not anymore, but they all took a huge and stupid gamble, and just happened to get lucky … We all did …”

Steel slicing through paper and ink, dumping the scraps of bodies left, right, and center and relishing the screams of surprise (“Hehehehehe! What, you didn’t like my joke? You wanna … piece of me? Hahaha! Well, take your pick, there are plenty of pieces of me there on the floor!”). Sharpening his teeth to fine points to chomp at people. Gouging out his own eye. So much edge and shock at play, cold and hot at the same time, hilarious ticklings of pain.

“Such a waste of clonesuits,” Bill sighed. “And … all for the sake of just shocking them? Taking advantage of their love of Dipper? Stupid—can’t believe I thought that was funny at the time … So much time wasted during those first few weeks of the summer. Don’t wanna remember that, not anymore … wanna remember something else, something happier …”

Jokes so bad they made everyone groan, which made everyone laugh. Fireworks made of lasers. Taking part in an impromptu fashion show for the newest line of summer sweaters. Watermelons carved into jolly grotesqueries, lit with candles, and eventually tossed from the roof to splat. Making muffins with apple and cinnamon. Uncontrollable laughter at a rock shaped like a dong and after arcs of water accidentally melted another clonesuit. Wonderous eyes aglow with uncontainable excitement and the soft light of an everadiant crystal. Warmth of a shared blanket and the fun betrayal of an ambush of tickling underneath them. Kisses snuck around corners, behind doors, within shadows, inside the safety of a Nice Place.

“Heh …” Bill couldn’t help but smile to himself. “Even when I start out with all the others, too, it always comes back to him … But maybe I should focus more, not just look at the flashes and snapshots of memory? Delve in deeper to some memories? After all, what’s the point of perfect recall if I hardly ever use it? But, um …” Looking around the currently empty (though perhaps not for long) living room, he closed the scrapbooks and stood up. “Maybe up in the attic, where there’s a little more privacy …”

****

It was one specific memory that detoured his chain of thoughts, as memories tend to do.

Dipper. Sitting on a couch with Ford standing behind him, reaching over the couch to him. Flushed with simple happiness as Ford tousled his hair and praised his monster hunting work from that day. “Good boy, m’work! Er, I mean, good work, m’boy!” he had said, making Dipper smile so big and bright that the room had practically glowed with it. Bill’s insides certainly had.

Déjà vu, though, he had felt it then, too, remembering it. Almost exactly déjà vu … So Bill decided to follow the tangential thread of it now.

A young Ford, seventeen or eighteen, maybe—not yet out of high school. Sitting on the couch of his childhood home. A young Stan standing behind him, reaching over the couch to him.

“Oh, yeah … That’s why it’s so familiar; I watched it in Sixer’s memory and then more or less reenacted it for him. With him. Whatever, twice. Back when we were still working together, back when we were still friends …”

A young Ford flushed with simple happiness as Stan tousled his hair and praised his shipbuilding from that day. “You’re such a good cabin boy! Good work, me ol’ cabin boy!” he had said, making Ford smile so big and bright that—here the déjà vu ended and became simple memory— (“Pff! Why am I the cabin boy?” “Duh. ‘cause I’m the captain!” “Why do you get to be captain?” “Heh. ‘cause I can do this!”) Stan had swung over the top of the couch to drape himself across Ford. Pinning Ford down, while both brothers trashtalked and giggled and squirmed … and then gradually began to kiss …

“Was this the first time Sixer and me …? Ha! Yeah, it totally was! The very first time I set Sixer’s mindscape stage and played a part for him to work out some of his many, many issues. First of many … How’d it go, anyway? How’d we even get to this point? Need to rewind …”

Bill blinked, and the scene formed. Ford’s mindscape as it once had been: an endless field of strange but beautiful flower blossoms stretched to the horizon in every direction, with gleaming structures like the lovechildren of marble-cut temples and glass-and-steel skyscrapers rising in the distance-yet-closeness-of-thought like the aspirations of some new deity of science-fiction-becoming-science-fact, bold and untainted by the conformist conventions of old; swirling slowly overhead, so close one could have climbed up and touched, was a vault of stars, galaxies, quasars far larger than they appeared from earth and blazing so brightly that the field below them was as illuminated as a comfortable reading room; stairways made of books and journals ascended high to viewing platforms made of solid theories, equations, and blueprints all like shining neon signs.

Bill blinked again, and he saw himself chattering away about whatever had been their project. There was Ford, a late-twenties man and cutting-edge weirdologist in a weatherworn trenchcoat. Unusually subdued that day, though … Normally nigh manic with energy and enthusiasm, overflowing with ideas and theories and observations and cornball jokes to contribute to or even to drive the conversation … but not that day … No, that day, he barely listened to Bill or looked at the images and organizing visual aids Bill had mentally conjured for their brainstorm together. And when Bill turned to see why, he found Ford’s back was to him as he gazed away out across a sentimentally altered portion of the mindscape: salty sand strewn with bits of trash at the edge of a turbulent sea, all under clouds that were dusky and dusty from reflecting the dying daylight, and a sailboat at the center of Ford’s attention and therefore of his mind … listing and sinking into dark waters, the name on the prow all but lost to the waves—“Stan o’ War” now just “Stan”.

Bill watched the rest of what had happened as one might watch oneself on camera.

“Oh boy … I smell emotional issues …” he muttered before floating up beside Ford’s shoulder. “Got something on your mind, Fordsy ol’ buddy? Besides me, that is.”

“S-sorry, I just, um, got distracted,” Ford stammered apologetically. “I’ll try harder to focus. Won’t happen aga—”

“Because of your brother? It’s the anniversary of the day he got kicked out of the family, right?”

Ford gaped in shock for a moment. “… You … You know about that? But how?”

“For one thing, all the trash ‘round here is crumpled or torn up calendar pages for the same date. For another, I’m your Muse,” Bill replied, as though it should have been obvious. “I’m literally inside your head with all your memories at my fingertips, looking for anything I can use to help inspire your success.”

Blanching white, Ford asked, “All of them? You can s-see … all my memories?”

“Yep times a thousand! So I know you and your brother were—heh—close before that incident.”

Ford blushed.

“So no wonder you get distracted thinking about him today. Wasn’t that the last time you ever saw him?” Bill continued conversationally.

“Um, I … Maybe I m-might’ve seen him once after that. During my college graduation, but … Don’t know, honestly,” Ford admitted sadly. “Might’ve just imagined him being in the crowd.”

“Wishful thinking? ‘cause you got some stuff to get out of your system with him?” Bill waggled his eyebrow, making Ford blush a second time. Before he could respond, though, Bill suggested, “Y’know, I could help you unpack some of that emotional baggage you’re lugging around. Which’d help us get back to productive work sooner—get you from distracted back to tracted.”

“First of all, that’s not a word—”

“It is now that I’ve used it! Tracted, adjective, the state of being that comes after one has been distracted but is focusing once again.”

“Second of all … How could you help with that?”

“Why, with a little bit of roleplay. I know how much you love to roleplay, Fordsy ol’ pal.”

“I don’t know …” Ford said uncertainly. “This isn’t exactly a D&D&MoreD campaign. Besides, this is hardly an appropriate setting, and … well, no offense, but your voice and mannerisms aren’t exactly reminiscent of Stan (or most humans, for that matter). I doubt I could get into it.”

“Heh. You’re just saying that ‘cause you ain’t never seen what a good actor I can be. Goes with the territory of being a MASTER OF THE MIND! Watch this!” Bill clapped once, then suddenly multiplied into a dozen more Bills.

“Whoa! What the—”

From nowhere, the original Bill pulled a megaphone, a chair with the words “Director” and “Leading … Well, Not ‘Man’ Per Se, But Close Enough” on its back, and a thick script. “OKAY, YOU SUPER SNAZZY STAGECREW,” he projected through the megaphone. “LET’S GET THIS STAGE CLEARED AND READY FOR A NEW SCENE! LET’S MOVE! AND SOMEONE GET ME A TWO-CREAMS-ONE-SUGAR COFFEE AND A MAPLE LOG! What about you, Fordsy? You want anything? Same thing, yeah? DOUBLE THAT ORDER! ONE FOR ME, ONE FOR MY COSTAR!”

Slack jawed at all the activity flurrying around him—one Bill pulled a rope from nowhere, causing the seascape (while waves continued to toss, clouds continued to billow, and the ship continued to sink) to part down the middle like a theater curtain and swish away; another Bill pulled a massive pushbroom from nowhere and cleared away all of the beach (sand, trash, and salty odor) to leave a hardwood platform beneath; several other Bills were now wheeling away the endless fields of flowers that stretched to the horizon (plus the phantasmagorical buildings standing among them) like scenery backdrops painted on squeaky canvas frames—Ford could only mumble, “Costar?”

“Well, duh, Fordsy ol’ chum. We’ll be centerstage, you and me, and in the spotlight together—me as Stanly, you as yourself. If that doesn’t make us costars, I don’t know what does!”

“BOOOOOO!” another Bill shouted from behind them, seated in a newly revealed spectator section with boxes of popcorn. “Directors shouldn’t play parts in their own productions! That’s a crass and masturbatory act of egotism that invariably cheapens the production! BOOOOOO!”

“Just ignore heckling critic me,” the original Bill told Ford. “Now, speaking of the spotlight … LET’S GET THE LIGHTING AND SOUNDCHECKS DONE, MES! TIME IS MONEY! AND WHERE’S OUR COFFEE AND DONUTS ALREADY?! WHAT AM I PAING YOU FOR?!”

Yet another Bill came trundling up with a long rack of costumes that looked exactly like the contents of Ford and Stan’s old bedroom closet. While going through them, he pointed out, “You’re not paying us for anything, babygorgeous, because we don’t actually exist. We’re just visual constructs you conjured to represent the complex yet entirely abstract process of manipulating a mindscape into a specific scenario Stanford can experience (or reexperience in the case of actual memories) so it feels to him as if it was entirely real. This whole setting is, too. Also because you’re extremely melodramatic, overly theatrical, and crave being the center of someone’s awed attention, sugardumpling.”

“One more smart-alecky remark like that, and you’re fired!” the original Bill snapped.

“No! Please, angelpie, I need this job! I need the money, or they’re gonna break my legs!”

“Fine. Just go get the makeup equipment already. AND WHERE ARE WE ON THE LIGHTS?!”

Ford looked up to see a span of catwalks and electrical equipment overhead. The Bill up there gave a thumbs up. “Good to go, boss! Same with sound, too!”

A new Bill came running up with a platter. “Here’s your coffee and donuts, sir!”

“Freakin’ finally!” the original Bill exclaimed, passing over one of each to Ford before snatching the others for himself. “I’d have you dragged into the alley behind this soundstage and shot for taking so long, except we’re not actually in a soundstage and you’re just too darn cute to kill.”

“Oh, sir, you’re gonna make me blush!”

Taking a bite out of his maple log with his eyelid, the original Bill snapped, “Stop being so cute and go find something useful to do.” Then, turning back to Ford, he continued lightly, “Yep, costars, you and me! Collaborators! Partners in … What? There something on my face?”

With a gulp, Ford asked, “Is … Is that how you eat? With your eye?”

Bill smiled despite not having a mouth. “Only when I’m in polite company.” Then he took a sip of his coffee—a long, slow sip while looking right at his weirdologist friend (who spazzed reflexively at the sight of coffee washing into sclera). “But now that mes have cleared the stage, we should really pick the scene we’re gonna roleplay. So what you wanna do, Fordsy ol’ mate? Relive a memory, act out a hypothetical conversation/argument to get some words off your chest, or experience a fantasy in real-body-stimulating intensity? Whatever you want, I can do for ya.”

“I, um …” Shaking his head, Ford admitted, “There’s just … so much. When I think about him. About everything that happened then. And before. And after. And I … I just … can’t process it enough to … y’know, make sense of how I feel about it all? Gah! Can you understand that, Bill? The only thing I know for sure right now is … is I miss him … even if I don’t know what I’d do if I saw him right now …”

Bill blinked a bite off his maple log, then chewed thoughtfully, ignoring the other Bills (“Hey, guys, wanna see something funny? MacBeth!” “Don’t say that! It’s bad lu—” A sandbag smashed into that Bill from above. “Hehehehehehe! I got more!” Then he whistled sharply. “Argh! You can’t do that either, it’s also bad lu—” A light fixture exploded, blasting the Bill on the catwalk off so that he kersplatted onto the platform. “Hahahahaha! How about this one? Good luck during the performance!” “No, you fool, you’ll kill us all if you say—” “Guys, you think this pyrotechnic equipment still works?” a different, oblivious Bill asked right before pushing a button. The bad luck would’ve been spectacular had anyone paid attention.) now milling about the visual construct of an empty stage which represented a mindscape ready for shaping. Eventually, he suggested, “Tell you what, Fordsy ol’ comrade, let me choose for you this time. I think I know what you need right now to feel better, and it’ll be an actual memory of a good time you two had together. Something … positive and fun and a little whacky to help you get out of this slump. Whaddya say? Trust me enough to follow my lead in the roleplay?”

A glum shrug. A passive affirmation. “Sure, why not?”

And then original Bill was broadcasting through his loudspeaker, “OKAY, LOOK ALIVE, TRIANGULAR TROOP! LET’S GET THE STAGE SET FOR SCENE #618: ‘CABIN BOY AND CAPTAIN NOBEARD, THE COUCH PIRATE’!”

Ford blinked. “Wait, what?”

“I WANT IT READY TO PERFORM IN—”

“BOOOOOO!” the spectating Bill suddenly shouted, spraying popcorn everywhere. “That choice is a cliché and uninspired piece of saccharine hackery! Also, it’s practically meta-theater, which always sucks because only self-inflating, pomposity-spewing fartbags think it’s clever to make plays that are ham-fistedly obvious metaphors for making plays! BOOOOOO!”

“So it’s perfect for our director,” one of the Bills stage whispered, making the others giggle.

“I HEARD THAT!” the original Bill snapped. “DON’T YOU HAVE PROPS TO SET UP?! ACTION IN FIVE, MES! AND WHERE’S THE ME FOR COSTUME AND MAKEUP?!”

“Right here, angeldoll! And ready to get Starford suited up!” That Bill wheeled a vanity piled high with brushes, pencils, and cosmetics right to them. He then pulled an outfit off the rack, scrutinized it, put it back, pulled out another, nodded his approval, and zoomed over to slap it onto Stanford’s body. Right before assaulting his face with a blur of all the cosmetic products—powder, rouge, eyeliner, etc. All of it happened so fast Stanford didn’t even have time to protest, and when the air cleared and he stopped coughing, that particular Bill was adjusting a mirror before his face. “What do you think, honeydear? Don’t you just look divine?”

Breathless with astonishment, Ford touched first the mirror’s surface … then his own face … “Incredible!” he breathed. “I look seventeen!”

“If I did my job right, teddypearl, you don’t just look seventeen. Your whole body (or astral form dream body, technically, sweetiedumpling) should be seventeen down to the smallest of details. Now, if you want, I could also do your nails and hair so you look even more divine than you did at seventeen, darlingpeaches.”

“Nope, we want his ratio of divineness to undivineness to be exactly as it was then, thank you,” the original Bill dictated abruptly. “Now let’s get me suited up for—oh, Azathoth’samygdala!” Snatching up the megaphone, he bawled, “TVS GO IN FRONT OF COUCHES, NOT BEHIND, YOU IDIOTS! AND YOU’VE GOT THE BACKDROPS MIXED UP! C’MON, YOU MES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE MORE PROFESSIONAL THAN THIS!”

Ford tore his eyes from the mirror and looked onstage. The living room of his parents’ house was being formed by a bunch of Bills pushing frames of painted canvas (reproductions of the walls) and setting up prop after prop (a couch, a rabbit-eared TV, old chairs, side tables with doilies, framed photos, knickknacks, bric-a-brac, that hideous lamp with the more hideous curtain shade he had always wanted to smash to bits, etc.); it looked exactly as he remembered … No, it looked more accurate than he remembered … He could even smell the dusty, musty carpeting and hear the tacky windchimes outside the window …

“There, treasurebear, you look ready for your big part. And divine, too! Simply divine!”

“Thanks, me. Looks like you won’t be fired today,” the original Bill decided.

“I can’t believe you could recreate the old place. Every little detail—” Ford turned to Bill, then felt his knees buckled beneath him; he had to grab onto a corner of the vanity not to fall over. Standing before him in a dissipating cloud of face powder was the seventeen-year-old version of his twin brother. “… St-Stan?”

Bill grinned with Stanly’s cocky, crooked grin. “Or close enough. Oh, sorry.” Clearing his throat, he then repeated in Stanly’s husky voice, “Or close enough. Right, Sixer?”

Stepping forward, Ford laid his hands on the shoulders of the boy in front of him. They felt real. Solid and strong through the t-shirt, with the kind of ropey muscles regular boxing gave a person. Same for the arms and the chest, although there was a little pudge on top of the muscles there (just like Stan had … or had had the last time Ford had seen him for certain) thanks to a nervous tendency to overeat … It all felt so real … so achingly real …

“Done feelin’ up the merchandise yet, Sixer?” Bill-Stan teased. “I could flex for ya, if ya want.”

“How … How are you doing this?” Ford whispered, his voice almost trembling.

As one, all of the Bills dropped what they were doing and turned to face him, then clapped and spread their hands. A rainbow spread between every set of palms. “THROUGH THE POWER OF IMAGINATION, FORDSY OL’ COMPADRE! AFTER ALL, I AM YOUR MUSE!”

Fingers clenching into the fabric of the t-shirt, throat constricting, Ford said, “Stan, I … I …”

“You’re not gonna start blubberin’ on me, are ya, Sixer?” Bill-Stan asked coaxingly. “Not before all the fun even starts?”

“N-no … No, I’m in c-control. Ahem! Of myself.” Ford composed himself, feigned brushing some dust off his clothes, then resumed, “So, um, you said something about following your lead in a roleplay?”

Grinning more widely than before, Bill-Stan took him by the hand (sending a jolt of long ignored and even half-forgotten emotions through the weirdologist) and led him onstage …

The thing about a person’s mindscape (or about a person’s dreams, since they’re the same thing, essentially) is they’re completely immersive. To the brain, they’re almost as real as reality itself; every ganglia involved in processing sensory input for the one is equally involved with the other. Which explains why dreams usually feel real enough that a person can forget they’re dreaming. Which explains why a true master of the mind can manipulate a person’s mindscape enough that, with just the right triggering image (such as walking through a conjured doorway or stepping onto a conjured theater stage), the person can believe what they’re experiencing is real, and even actually find traces of the mental experience on their physical body afterwards.

Especially if the person really wants to dream, to believe, to be manipulated by the master …

That was why Ford knew with certainty that he was sweaty and dirty after hours of working on the Stan o’ War, knew with certainty he was trudging into the living room of his family home, and collapsed onto what he knew with certainty was a sagging couch likely as old as he was (seventeen years). He also knew with certainty that he heard the jangling of the house phone in the hallway, and then the voice of who he knew with certainty was his twin brother answering it. That knowing certainty was manifest in every gesture he made; it even shone in his eyes.

A moment later, Stan was leaning over the top of the couch. Sweaty and dirty, too, since he’d been working on the Stan o’ War, too. “Heh. You look beat, Sixer. But if anyone’s got the right, it’s you. I mean, after all that hard work today? And figuring out the waterproofin’ stuff, too?” Then Stan reached over the couch and tousled his brother’s hair. “I guess what I’m saying is … You’re such a good cabin boy! Good work, me ol’ cabin boy!”

Ford beamed with pleasure at the praise and the loving gesture, yet still retorted (because having a brother means living in a perpetual argument, at the very least as a matter of principle), “Pff! Why am I the cabin boy?”

“Duh. ‘cause I’m the captain!”

“Why do you get to be captain?”

“Heh. ‘cause I can do this!” And then Stan swung himself over the top of the couch and dropped down onto his brother, draping himself over his brother like a heavy, sweaty, noogying blanket. “How do you like it, cabin boy? Huh? I said how do you like it, nerd? No, wait, cabin nerd!”

“Ghaha! Get off me—haha!—you’re gross from the beach!” Ford half-spewed and half-laughed beneath his twin. He was pinned against the cushions now, squirming but unable to get free.

“Heh heh! You don’t get to give the captain orders, cabin nerd! That’s not how it works aboard this ship!”

“W-we’re—hehehe!—not even on a ship!”

“Sure we are! The S.S. Couch, and I just boarded it! And you!”

“You did not have permission to come aboard!” Ford giggled, still squirming, now trying to push his twin back with his hands.

But Stan caught them both at the wrists and pinned them against the armrest, too, bearing down with his whole body. “That’s ‘cause I’m a pirate captain! Arrrrr, me matey!”

“Pff! W-what do they call you?! Nobeard?!”

“That’s ‘Captain Nobeard’ to you, cabin nerd! And I’m gonna be lootin’ yer booty!”

Ford threw his head back and laughed at so corny a line. But the laugh turned to a surprised gasp when he suddenly felt his brother (on an impulse) press his lips against Ford’s throat. It was like being hit by a single raindrop right before a spark of lightning—a single spot of warm, wet skin, then an electric jolt through his brain and body that left him rigid. Or perhaps made him realize he had been rigid already? And that his brother’s counter-squirming had taken on a decidedly grinding motion … Or had it been a grinding motion already? Ford moaned, “Aaah, St-Stan …”

“I told you, that’s ‘Captain’ to you, me ol’ cabin nerd,” Stan countered into his twin’s neck. “And I’m gonna shiver yer timber.” With that, he gave an extra hard grind, groin against groin.

“Mmmmoses! Oh … B-but, wait … What if … Dad and Mom walk in on us … like this?” 

“Heh. You can be pretty dumb for a nerd, sometimes,” Stan teased. “They went to Grandma’s today, remember? And that was them on the phone just now, callin’ to say they made it there. Even if they head home right now, it’ll be at least two hours afore they get back. So relax, okay? Just … follow my lead …”

“Y-yeah, I can … Wait.” All at once, Ford stopped, because that phrase … He suddenly didn’t know with certainty what was really going on here, nor where he really was, nor even how old he really was. Intently, he peered at the face of the boy on top of him. Was there a golden gleam in his irises, where there should only have been brown? A twinkle in the eyes, but different than the twinkle normally there. He thought he could remember who this boy actually was. “… Bill?”

Stan grinned. “Only if you’d prefer havin’ a triangle in a tophat grind against you instead of your brother.”

Ford looked around, and remembered he was on a stage. A stage that had been set by multiple copies of Bill, and that he was now pinned beneath the original Bill who was mimicking his twin down to his cornball double-entendres, the smell of his sweat … and the exact length and girth of his hardon, currently pressing down on Ford’s own hardon (the thought of which made him blush a shade deeper than he already had been—did he really remember his twin’s member that well?). In the spectators’ seating, there was another Bill now distantly shouting, “Boooooo! You ruined the flow and the affect of the whole scene! The momentum’s gone and can never be gotten back! Boooooo!” and Ford found he desperately hoped that was not the case.

“You okay, Sixer?” Stan asked. No, not Stan. Bill. Bill mimicking Stan’s voice and manerisms. Bill mimicking Stan’s body so they could …

Ford cleared his throat. “Y-yes, I am. But, er, I just want to… to make sure that you are. This, uh, scenario doesn’t … doesn’t bother you? At all?”

“What? Why would … Oh!” Stan-Bill exclaimed suddenly. “You mean ‘cause we’re not just crossin’ a bunch of taboo lines in your meatbag culture, but went a mile past ‘em and are now buildin’ a small but charmingly perverted, summer cabin we can visit at our leisure?”

“I, um … suppose that’s one way of putting it …”

“Heh heh! It’s funny how awkward you are about this!” But before Ford could get defensive, Stan-Bill continued, “Sixer, I’m not human. I’m a Muse, here to inspire you to break through arbitrary human conventions (like the restrictive barriers they are) to something higher, purer, and truer. So all the arbitrary moral codes you meatbags make for yourselves, especially where sex is concerned? Don’t apply to me, don’t affect me. Whatever you desire, whoever you desire, however you desire (no matter how weird, complex, or how many parts it needs performed) I can play out for you here in your mindscape so well it will feel real. I can give you the psychological or sexual release you need to get tracted again on our oh so important work!”

Though overwhelmed by the possibilities, Ford still maintained, “That’s not a real word …”

“Like I said before, Sixer, if you wanna relive a memory, act out a hypothetical conversation or an argument with someone (like your brother or your parents or an ex or that one bald professor you loathed), or experience a completely new fantasy altogether … I’m down. Let’s do ‘em all.”

Ford gulped. “Y-you’re sure … it doesn’t bother you? At all? I mean, this is … er …”

Stan-Bill sighed in almost-exasperation. “Look, Fordsy ol’ friend, my true form doesn’t even have sex organs. Not that you’ll be able to tell when I change shape in your mindscape and go to town with pleasurin’ you, ‘cause I’m just that good an actor—can act like I’ve always had ‘em and got tons of experience usin’ ‘em to turn people specifically named Stanford Filbrick Pines into puddles of contented, post-coital bliss—and always happy to put on a show for a friend.”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on he was having a hard time breathing regularly.

“Plus, I come from a species that has roughly millions of genders, so homosexuality doesn’t bother me in the least. If anything, it radically simplifies things. You wanna get it on with a guy? I can do that. Two guys? Ditto. A guy and a gal at the same time? No prob. An entire roomful of different people? Sure, it’ll be a nice stretch of my talents. Something or somethings that aren’t remotely human? Well, if either of us can imagine it, I can make it in here for you to fuck.”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on that he was practically vibrating with excitement.

“And as for what you meatbags call ‘incest’, well,” Bill-Stan shrugged. “Far from the weirdest kink floatin’ around in the collective unconsciousness of humanity. But it is just weird enough, luckily, to keep me invested in any—heh heh—boldly transgressive or unapologetically perverse theatrical performances you might want to try here on the mindscape stage. So c’mon, brother,” he added emphatically, positively dripping Stanness now. “Just follow my lead … We got hours ‘til Dad and Mom get home …”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on that he was sorta surprised the couch hadn’t caught fire around the two of them. Another low moan escaped his lips as he felt Stan-Bill’s lips press against his throat again … as he felt Stan-Bill grind against his bulge again … as he felt Stan-Bill carry him back into a more fulfilling moment than the present reality could ever hope to offer …

“You like that, cabin nerd? Huh? You like when I do that to ya? Go on, say ‘Aye-aye, Captain’.”

Though his hands were still pinned against the armrest of the couch and his body born down into the cushions, Ford arched his hips into the grind.

“C’mon, cabin nerd, go ahead and say it … Become a part of my couch pirate crew …”

Giggling, Ford turned and offered himself up for a kiss. It was long and warm and wet and deep, and so very, very sweet. It left him breathlessly whimpering, “Mmm, Stan … Bill …”

“Who’s this Bill?” Stan-Bill asked teasingly. Then, as if to punctuate every following sentence, he humped slow and hard at the end of it. “Someone I otta be jealous of? Someone I gotta go beat up? Someone who’s gotta learn that you’re mine … my brother … my lover … and no one else gets to touch ya but me?”

“Ah! Yes!” Ford cried out.

And, distantly, the Bill in the seats shouted, “Boooooo! Going off script like this is for amateurs! Improv in an established piece is for hacks who can’t remember their lines! Boooooo!”

That was when Bill (not the original Bill playing Stan, nor any of the copies playing stagehands, but the real Bill in a clonesuit stretched out on the bed in the attic) snapped out of his fascination and decided it was time to stop reviewing memories for a while. Especially this one in particular. Not because it wasn’t nostalgic or entertaining or sexually titillating for him (it was very much), not because he couldn’t remember what had happened next (his recall was still just as perfect as the rest of him—heh heh!), but because …

Because it just wasn’t worth watching the rest. Both in Ford’s memory of the actual event with his brother, and in the slightly altered reenactment Bill had performed with Ford, it hadn’t been more than another minute or two of cornball dialogue, couch grinding, and rough kissing before they climaxed. And why not? Ford and Stan had been horny, pent up teenagers way back then … and Ford had been a horny, pent up adult back then (what with his tons of emotional baggage and sexual frustration) …

“Not worth getting wound up over,” Bill muttered to the cabin ceiling. “Not when jerking off won’t be enough to take the edge off the horniness I’ll feel afterwards … And besides, if I want to feel wound up and horny, there are much wilder memories I could perfectly recall than that. With Dipper or with Sixer …”

His hand came up wearing a sock puppet Mabel had made to look like his true form—or, at least, as much like his true form as a sock with a hand shoved in it could, (though, honestly, it looked less like a dapper triangle and more like the bastard lovechild that would result from a wild night of passion between him and Kermit the Frog)—and said, “Funny how you didn’t even realize how good a thing you had with ol’ Fordsy, isn’t it?”

“How do you figure that?” Bill asked his sock puppet. “Working and hanging with him was a ton of fun, and I missed the 79 Hells outta it after he sided with this mudball … Still do, actually …”

“I mean all that wild, limitationless, mindscape sex you had with him. Back then, for you, it was just the fun of weird playacting (and manipulating a gullible meatbag); you didn’t appreciate any of the physical side of it.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Of course, y’know, I kinda couldn’t appreciate it back then.”

“The beginning of the summer was a lot like that, too, with Dipper and Mabel and all the others,” the sock puppet continued matter-of-factly. “You didn’t appreciate any of the emotional side of spending time with them, what with how full of hate and plans for vengeance you were.”

“… No, I didn’t,” Bill admitted.

“All that time spent with them, and you didn’t even realize how good a thing you had.”

“… I kinda couldn’t appreciate all that back then, either, in my defense.”

“You could now, y’know.”

“What, you mean … relive the memories? Actually, that could be a fun way to pass the time,” Bill mused to himself. “Might not feel quite so bored or lone … Cthulhu’s cartilaginous cranium, I could go through all my memories with Ford! Maybe there’s something I filed away in there—something I didn’t think was important at the time, something that could spark another thought—that could help get me past the bubble!” he exclaimed, bolting upright. “And back to my Dipper!”

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant …” the sock puppet pointed out.

But it was rather futile; Bill was on a role now. “The bumblr crowd could even help with this … Them asking the right questions might give me some direction, instead of just prospecting—”

“HEY! LISTEN!” the sock puppet shrilled. “I meant you could be having a good thing right now with all the people here at the Shack. Emotionally and such. Enjoying it fully. But you’re not. Even though you want to.”

Looking away from the reproachful, googly-eyed gaze, Bill muttered, “Kinda hard to with Ford setting such a grim mood for everyone here any time he walks in on me and someone else.”

“You’re wasting time,” the sock puppet stated irrefutably. “Like at the beginning of the summer, when you were too busy being … being not nice—being mean—to everyone, especially Dipper. Now you’re wasting time being bitter at Ford.”

“He’s wasting time being just as bitter at me!” Bill countered defensively.

“And when was the last time you really tried to do anything about that? Huh? When you bought everybody gifts, maybe, a few months ago?”

“… Honestly? I guess so, yeah.”

“Go try again. You wanted to, anyway, since you saw him in the woods crying ‘bout how much he misses the Twins, too,” the sock puppet affirmed. “It’s the reason you turned away from remembering that time on the couch before the climax, too; you’re not in the mood for sexiness, not deep down, but for sappiness. You can appreciate that emotional side of things now, so stop wasting time not enjoying ‘em.”

“What if … What if he doesn’t want to stop being bitter? What if he doesn’t want to move on?”

“Then at least you’ll have tried. You won’t be wasting time being bitter. And you get to spend more time perfectly recalling individual memories to see if you can find something helpful to escape, so win-win for you.”

Bill sighed. “I’d argue with you, but you are me, so I know I won’t win … Well, let’s go …”

[thoughtswithoutatheme]

The Butcher

First few pages of a story I’ve been working on

Jennifer Davies had never even see what the inside of a dead pig looked like, let alone how to carefully prepare it for sale. The closest she'd ever been to a pig of any kind was either ham sandwiches or the stuffed toy of a piglet she had as a child. Knowing a real, greasy, slimy, slippery, fleshy hog inside and out had been more enlightening than a whole term at university. You don't really question or even think about life and death, your place in the world, religion and how fleeting out lives are until you elbow deep into a large supply of vital organs, blood and pus. The smell will definitely make you question the existence of god.

She had worked at her Uncle Roger's mortuary during the previous summer and she had no real problems with it. She was responsible for make-up and tidying up corpses before the big day and found the work fine, though all the dirty work had been performed before she got a hold of the bodies. She sometimes worried about the family of the people she made up, thought about what the person had been like, and always felt some despair when working on someone close to her own age. It was a simple job and allowed her to work in peace.

She assumed working at a butchers shop would be similar, just a bit more messy and with less attachment. Unfortunately, there were much more guts, blood, entrails and goo that she couldn't even begin to describe. Messy had been an understatement. That didn't even cover how everything in the shop looked dangerous. Knives, cleavers, skewers, grinders, hooks, sharp pieces of bone, saws and a few other tools she couldn't even describe.

Working at a butchers shop wasn't something she had really wanted but it was time Christmas and she had to step up. The season always brings stress, debt and work but it's all (probably) worth it in the end. She had three younger brothers, a little sister, a mother and father, all four grandparents, many uncles and aunties who were very close, several cousins she saw regularly, and a great auntie in Australia. Not to mention a bevy of friends, from both childhood and current day, dorm mates, people she sat near in her lectures, her lecturers and maybe even the nice porter at her dorm. She liked all of them and wanted to get them all something nice for Christmas and a student loan isn't going to cover it.

She had limited work experience and being half way through a philosophy course wasn't going to put any money in the bank any time soon. Her Uncle suggested he could take her on again but she wanted to work somewhere close by, avoiding the train then bus journey to the mortuary. Luckily, she saw the advertisement for the butcher's assistant post in the local newspaper, showed up the next day and was covered in blood by noon.

Her family better be grateful after what she's going through. A part time job in the local butchers seemed simple but she was excepting to be working more on the front side of the shop. Jennifer foresaw taking orders, serving customers, putting carefully cut and sealed pieces of meat in carrier bags and then giving the customer a happy smile and wishing them a nice day. Much of her first day alone, however, consisted mostly of learning how much force was needed to smoothly remove the limbs off a cow.

This would be all worth it in the end, she supposed. She was actually earning the extra money needed to buy presents and cards for those she loved. Her parents had reminded her constantly that she was missed while at university, so she could cheer them up with some great presents. The job itself was also providing a skill and you can't put a price on that, but you can spend an evening getting blood out of your shoes. She was also developing an iron stomach and that would be useful for any future Saturday wine night binges.

Two weeks in and things were going well. The pus and viscera was starting to get stale (figuratively) and the nightmares of the ghosts of every farmyard inhabit haunting her (even in an odd instance, the farmer himself) were fading. Being surrounded by sharp objects never really lost its edge though. She was getting better at the job and soon found herself to be enjoying it, on a small level at least, thanks to her boss.

The butcher was Mr. Baker and he was a friendly chap. He'd been a butcher (and a Baker) his whole thirty-eight years and was the seventh generation of Bakers to be in the profession. He grew up around the carcasses of dead animals and consumed from them the necessary nutrients to grow strong enough to remove a calf's head with one heavy thwack of a knife. He was good at his art and was more than happy to do it his whole life. He had a lovely wife and his son would eventually become the eighth Baker to become a butcher. They all lived together above the shop. He regularly saw his father and they discussed their trade until the cows came home, which were then cut up and ready to be served. He was stout and strong, as per the job requirements, with a round, friendly face.

Mr. Baker understood the process to a great level, being able to identify any cut of meat, tell you which animal it came from, the best way to slice and prepare it, and he can weigh it in his mind that gave the best deal for both him and the consumer. He had worked with many people both his senior and junior in his time and loved imparting generations worth of knowledge on potential new butchers. He eagerly awaited for when his son was old enough to take up the trade and he first Baker to give tips of the trade to none Bakers. Mr. Baker felt that his family secrets were not to be kept amongst the family bloodline but to be shared. Their motto was “A Better World, Made by the Butcher” and it adorned their family crest, a red banner complete with a sheep, a cow and a winking pig on the top. Needless to say, the pig didn't have a body.

When he advertised for a part time worker to help him through the holiday season, he hadn't expected a skinny, pale woman who looked like she'd already seen the inside of a sheep's stomach, but he wasn't going to turn down the only applicant. Things had been slow but Jennifer took to the job faster than anyone he'd ever met. He had even bragged to his father about her. She truly was an honorary Baker.

The job was only for a six week period from early November to mid-December, but in that time both butcher and apprentice had got to know each other well. Jennifer had discovered that Mr. Baker was a fan of sixties/seventies rock music and was once in a band, that he collected vintage plates, that he met his wife at a butcher competition and she'd left the butcher from Allanson for him, that the Baker family remained fit and spritely well into their eighties, that he could recite Pi to 15 digits and he almost lost a finger the first time his father let him hold a butcher knife. Jennifer had opened up to his new boss, telling him about her dreams to travel, how she was allergic to cinnamon, that she once won a town wide children's singing contest when she was five, that she has a strong and unexplained dislike of rubber bands and that she collected ceramic horse figurines.

What they learned wasn't just things about each other. Obviously, Jennifer was acquiring the knowledge of the butcher trade from Mr. Baker but he was also imparting many more life skills. He told her the best place to get a car loan, thought her how to tie and untie multiple types of knots, the right way to clean a smartphone, where to find fresh nuts, how to stroke a dog just right and the easiest way of getting a seat on a crowded train. Jennifer told him how to colour code clothes, who are the best current rock bands, how to move through a crowd, how to make space on his phone, how to find a bargain in a market and why olives are superior to grapes.

Despite being supportive, many had worried Jennifer's decision to study philosophy. She had been questioned (repeatedly) by friends, immediate family and even distant family on why she chose to study it of all things. They said she should look into becoming a nurse or career, that business studies pays for itself, joinery is a skill set for life, why not just try an IT degree and just get an office job, you'll thank me later. Uncle Roger was ready to get her a name plaque to put on her desk at the mortuary. Her parents were always confident and trusted their daughter but they worried about her future employability.

It was only Mr. Baker that supported her Philosophy degree. During her time working with him they had discussed Descartes, pondered Plato and considered Kant, all while making sure the dead animals were ready for their audience. Jennifer spent too much of her time thinking. She would meditate her decisions and those of others, stress over what was the best solution or the worst outcome and so decided to do something with this. She would either get a better understanding or herself and the world around her, or at least maybe focus her errant thoughts. Mr. Baker was always happy to listen.

No no ever called her Jenny, except Mr. Baker. Normally she disliked the nickname, but felt affection when called it by her boss. She had built a vault of trust with him, so much so she even left her spare house keys at the shop. Maybe he'd show up and surprise her with some ham sandwiches one day. He'd say it's important to have an abundance of trust someone in a job with so many dangerous items around. He described how working together like this is exactly what he wanted with his son when he's old enough, if he wanted to become a butcher of course.

It was the 17th December and Christmas was all paid for. Everyone who shared even a similar drop of blood to her had a present literally with their name on it. All of her school and uni friends, and even her old penfriend in France, were all in store for a nice surprise. The last gift she bought was for Mr. Baker. He'd done so much for her and they had become close, so it seemed appropriate. She struggled at first but realised that a a vinyl copy of Black Sabbath's War Pigs would be perfect.

Wrapping all the presents had been easy, especially thanks to her new knot tying skills. Each one was adjourned with a bow. Wrapping up these gifts was infinitely easier than packaging cuts of meat and a lot less slimy, so she was able to enjoy the long hours it took to gradually complete the task. Jennifer had to be thankful for the bonus Mr. Baker had given her though, as the cost of all the paper, string and whatnot added up quickly. It may have worked out cheaper to rent a forest and make the packaging herself.

All of the gifts had been delivered and were under their recipients' trees and there were a fair number for her under the family tree. She, her siblings and her parents had decorated the house thoroughly and Christmas films were being watched. Christmas music was already getting to the point of being overplayed. Her family were happy to have her around for all of this, making it a true family Christmas. It wasn't snowing but it was dull and freezing. Scarves and woolly hats had become essential, and Mrs Davies was adamant everyone wrapped up.

Jennifer was done with university for the term and her time with Mr. Baker had finished, she had to ask herself what came next. Did she continue working at the butcher shop while balancing her time at university? It would be annoying to keep going back and forth, but she'd get to see her family more often and they always say they miss her when she's gone. She could simply say goodbye and focus on her studies (and heavy drinking, which almost goes without saying). It'd be less money, but simpler. While debating these ideas with herself as her own Symposium, a new problem was waiting on her doorstep.

She had just been into town to do some general shopping and buy some extra wine, as you can never have enough at Christmas time. The bottles didn't even make it into the house though, as the bag hit the floor and broke, wine spilling on the concrete. It flowed down the sloped paving stones to the plastic snowman holding a 'Santa Stop Here!' sign, which now stood next to a pig's head.

It wasn't carefully cut or prepared like the animal heads Jennifer grown used to seeing. The remains of its neck were not even or crisp, instead it was raw and jagged, with nicks found around the cranium and ears. Blood was leaking from underneath it and had slowly crept towards the gate before freezing solid, some had started to mix with the wine. One of its eyelids was open, resulting in a morbid wink. Jennifer's nose was too blocked up to smell anything, for which she was eternally thankful.

She took a moment to compose herself and tried tried to think of what to do. Her brothers and sister were at school and her parents were out for the day, so she had some time to figure this out before they returned home. She took a deep breath, carefully placed the bag of now empty wine bottles to the side and left the garden, making sure the gate was properly shut. As she ran down the street, the pig head continued to wink at nobody.

She arrived at Mr. Baker's butchers about fifteen minutes later. She had ran as fast as she could, but stopping at ice patches had slowed her down. Mr. Baker was in the process of cutting chunk of ham using the largest cleaver she'd ever seen.

'There's a pig's head.'

'Yes, in the window. I know.' replied Mr. Baker.

'No. At my house. On the step.'

'Taking your work home with you, are you?' Mr. Baker chuckled.

'No.'

Mr. Baker immediately stopped what he was doing and sat her down on a stool near the door. Jennifer explained the whole visitation, including details about the wine she'd bought. This was partly out of her total confusion and also because she'd got such a good deal on them she wanted to brag. Mr. Baker was silent throughout, simply nodding and making understanding noises until she finished.

'Deary me, that's strange.'

'Did anyone buy a pig's head from you at all in the last few days?'

'No.'

'Have any gone missing?'

'Now you need to relax, young Jenny. While this certainly is a stage situation, we don't want to start speculating.'

'Then where did it come from?'

'I think we can safely ascertain that somewhere a pig is messing it's head. Now come on. ' Mr. Baker helped her to her feet. 'Let's go and get rid of it.'

The whole mess was sorted within the hour. Mr. Baker, completely unfazed by the sight of the head, still winking, still in it's frozen pool of blood. He had it cleared it away in minutes. He bagged it up, then put that bag into a bag, and in another and so on. They both cleaned away any slime it left. Hot water and the drain took care of the icy blood and wine. They put down some disinfectant and hoped the lingering smell would leave of its own accord. Mr. Baker left with a faint smile, taking the evidence with him. Jennifer was finally able to sit down inside, heating turned way up, as she contemplated the day so far and what she would do next. She abstained from any wine and stuck with tea. Staying on at the butchers was now an even more confusing prospect, but she expected she was going to see more of Mr. Baker in the coming days.

Her parents were home later that afternoon. Marsha and Brian were in their fifties and still very much in love. They had been doing some last minute shopping and then taken lunch. They were laughing when they entered the door and surprised to see Jennifer sprawled out on the settee, her eyes deadly focused on nothing.

'Hard day?' asked her mother.

'Hnnn.'

'Oh, dear. I'll put some tea on.'

Jennifer barely moved for the rest of the night. Even as her brothers (Mark, Andrew, Liam) and her sister (Elizabeth) arrived home from school, bouncing off the walls at the excitement that they'd finished for Christmas. Their happiness wasn't as infectious as Jennifer had hoped though, as she never really snapped out of her mood. She ate, she watched the evening quiz shows and soaps, but she couldn't get the winking pig out of her head. Who could have put it there? Why would anyone put it there? Was it some sort of initiation rite by Mr. Baker? No, it couldn't be. He wouldn't do anything like that. He also seemed surprised and concerned by the whole thing. If it wasn't him though, then who?

Jennifer stopped going around in thought circles eventfully and went to bed. She was surprised she fell asleep so easily. Very little of her dreams involved pig heads, but the one time it did caused her to be wide awake at 4am. It took half an hour to get back to sleep and nightmares resumed.

When she got up in the morning, her mum had breakfast (cereal, toast, orange juice) in front of her within seconds. It was eaten just as quickly. Mrs. Davies was glad her daughter was home for Christmas and wished she hadn't moved to halls closer to university so she could keep an eye on her. She knew something was wrong with her daughter, but she also knew better than to pry. A similar thing had occurred when Jennifer was fifteen. Jennifer had gone into herself and Marsha Davies had bothered her daughter and constantly asked if she was okay, if she wanted to talk and so on. This led to Jennifer becoming more detached. Mrs. Davies would discover what had happened over social media, as it turned out Derrick, Jennifer's boyfriend, had cheated on her with Melissa. Melissa was supposed to be going out with Dave, but she'd been with Alan the week before, so she can't be trusted, yeah? But Derrick claims he was and so on. After a few days, her daughter opened up again and went back to normal.

When Jennifer failed her exam to get into university, she did the same thing. The Davies parents decided to wait and and trust their daughter. Within the week she'd explained everything to them and they were able help her get a retest. Marsha Davies knew her daughter and whatever was wrong, she'd come to her eventually. Either that or forget and instead focus on Christmas. Only six days to go! I best finish the wrapping, she thought.

The next few days grew easier for Jennifer. Nothing of note happened, other than her uncle Roger brining the family over for a few hours. He was eager to talk about recent mortuary goings on. Jennifer caught up, laughed and talked about TV with her siblings and nephews and even found herself video gaming with them. Chocolate, cake and biscuits were aplenty, so her mood began to lift. She had been thinking about the head less and less, instead she just felt a perpetual tinge of dread and unease. She even had a glass of wine.

She managed to visit Mr. Baker on Christmas Eve and give him his present. He was busy slicing us sirloin but appreciative of the gift. He indicated that there was something for her behind the till. She took the square box, about a foot long with her and put it under the tree, which at this point was lifted off the ground because of the swell of gifts. She was definitely curious as to what it was, but it wasn't head shaped, didn't smell of decay and no blood was dripping from it, so she felt it would be something good.

After a night of laughter and fun, she went to bed on Christmas Eve and slept peacefully. The event was starting to feel like something that happened to someone else. It was best to forget about it. It was probably someone crazy person doing something random. It's not her business. It's over.