#and that he has crippling claustrophobia

[viric-dreams]

Trying to sleep whilst simultaneously letting some potential lore scenes for future writing/art run in the back of my mind produces some truly unsettling results.

Under no circumstances would Roberts be court martialed for treason. Officer Beverley seems to understand this, but his logic is entirely backwards. Framed by the glow of the fireplace, Beverley leans back against the sole chair in his spartan lodgings and explains what he’s so sure is going to happen. If Roberts does not comply he intends to go to the London admiralty, to let them in on his missing time, the new player making waves in Anarchist circles, the lies at the foundation of his very existence. He seems to think that the Dark-Spectacled Admiral has the power to land him in political scandal.

His letters will never reach the Admiral. Roberts knows this with the same certainty that he knows the Dawn Machine burns in the Southwest. Beverley’s contact is the Voracious Diplomat. He’s trying to be cagey about it, but Roberts has seen the letterhead, shoved quickly into a drawer whenever they need the space on the desk to work. And the Diplomat would never let such a tidbit go to the Admiral, not when it’s worth so much more on Grand Geode.

Roberts was there for the Luminous Plot of ‘69. In fact, he had been the one to ensure that its perpetrators would never find a way to return from the slow boat, no trial, sham or otherwise. As he and the Commodore stood against the gunwhale and watched their cement-laden bodies sink into the Zee, the Commodore turned to him.

“You wouldn’t betray me, would you, Elias?”

The expression on his face is clouded, as if already playing through and wounded by the possibility in his mind. It feels like being thrown into ice water.

“Of course not, sir!”

The very idea is appalling. Surely the Commodore doesn’t truly believe it’s in the realm of the possible—not when the very idea makes his skin prickle. He’s the Commodore’s man, through and through, dedicated to both him and the Work.

The Commodore smiles, his golden eyes suddenly kind.

“That's what I thought. You wouldn’t do such a thing,” his hand reaches out to pat his shoulder, “Not from my most loyal midshipman.”

He can’t help but flush at the praise. Hopefully, the deck’s dim lighting covers it. But it hardly matters, for the Commodore turns away, gazing into the waves where they’d thrown the traitors not minutes ago. Roberts thinks the conversation is at its end when the Commodore starts again, eyes never leaving that fixed point on the Zee’s surface.

“If you did betray me, of course, I wouldn’t kill and feed you to the dawn flukes. That would be too easy of an end. Instead, I’d weld you into our smallest zub and ship you to Anthe. Who knows,” he shrugs, “you might just even have enough supplies to make it.”

He can’t breathe, his lungs are frozen in his chest. The image is all too real—trapped in that metal coffin, hardly able to move. Through the icy panic, all he can feel is the frantic hammering of his heart and the sharp twinge of the muscle of his left thigh, where the scarred skin puckers above it. The Commodore wouldn’t. Of course he wouldn’t. Right? He has to take a breath. He needs to respond. It’s been too long. His silence might be taken for suspicious.

“There’s no need for that, I assure you.” The words come out whole, though his voice is frailer than he’d like. The Commodore is studying him now. Roberts isn’t sure whether or not he can meet his gaze, what the Commodore might see on his face. After a moment the Commodore nods.

“I didn’t think so. But you never know.” With that, his mouth slides into a grin, demeanour changing like night and day. “We’d best get back soon. There’s work to be done back on base. I’ll alert the navigator.”

Roberts sees the hand coming soon enough to not flinch when it lands on his shoulder, giving it a reassuring shake, before the Commodore is off, already descending the ladder.

He takes a deep breath and steadies himself, chasing the claustrophobic phantasm from his mind. The Commodore is right—there’s work to be done.

Truth be told, he’s not entirely paying attention to the details of Beverley’s demands. He doesn’t have to, when he already knows he’ll agree to whatever he says. It’s clear as dawnlight what he must do. The Officer seems almost surprised by how easily Roberts acquiesces, but that surprise soon turns to barely-concealed delight as the scientific possibilities unfold before him. He’s already turned away from Roberts and back to the schematics, searching for a pen to record the newest thoughts.

It’s truly a shame, Roberts thinks, hand reaching behind him for the fireplace poker, to have to lose such a promising engineer. But treachery is something that the New Sequence cannot tolerate.

Beverley doesn’t even see it coming until the instant he brings the iron poker down across his skull.

[vaaaaaiolet]

It's the RPD's annual Secret Santa, and Leon's at his wit's end finding the perfect gift for his work crush. No competition, of course, except for the part where you make him promise not to bring something lame. Leon's got a week. He can do this. Right?

gn / m, fluff, romance, humor, leon is a SWEETHEART, you guys work at the RPD but you're leon's senior and also love reading??, no outbreak, inspired by the teapot episode of The Office lol, tw: claustrophobia

word count: 1.5k // read on ao3

a/n: vivi try not to mention christmas challenge go!!! @k1ssaphobe this one's for you <3 literally the ugliest effing banner i've ever made i'm SO SORRY but this completely destroyed my writer's block. i had so much fun <3

It’s all been downhill since Leon plucked your name out of a glass jar last week. Shit. Multiply that times three, rain down a couple red and green sprinkles for holiday spirit, and you have a great representation of how prepared Leon feels about being assigned the most crippling crush he’s had since high school for the RPD’s annual Secret Santa: you. 

Shit, indeed.

His hands shake like tremolo as he rereads your name printed on his little slip of paper, and Leon decides right then and there that the best way to go about this is to not go about it at all. Plain and simple. 

“Aren’t you excited?” you gush after your turn to draw from the jar. Poor you, you’d taken his jittery hands as enthusiasm. 

Leon grins tightly. “For sure, yeah, I um… I love Christmas. Really excited. You get who you wanted?” 

“Hey, no cheating. Not even with me, rookie.” You scrunch your face, clutching your paper to your chest. “Secret Santa’s secret. But it’s no secret that you’ve got to give it your all, so no lousy gifts allowed, got it?”

Well, there’s that plan gone. It’s back to police academy basics: Keep It Simple, Stupid. 

There’s nothing to overthink about making a good impression as the newest RPD recruit, Leon gaslights himself while haunting the Target holiday aisle on Monday night. You routinely save him from Irons’ infamous wrath, so it’s only natural that Leon spends all of Tuesday in a stupor at his desk, definitely not thinking of how he could never pay you back the favor with a silly Secret Santa gift. 

Wednesday rolls by and his coffee from yesterday sits in the break room, cold and overstirred next to today’s breakfast crumbs. How many times has Leon watched you sip tea at your desk? Five, six? 

Your eyes sparkle over the rim of your cup when he asks you about your weekend. Really, he doesn’t get the hate for small talk. There’s nothing small about the smile that bunches up your cheeks when he cracks a stupid joke about the weather, and more often than not, Leon finds himself waterboarding his notes app with the names of all the novels you drop mid-conversation so he can binge their Sparknotes over the weekend. So it goes, according to Kurt Vonnegut.

Ugh, he should have paid more attention in English. What the hell is an allegory anyway? Leon spends all of Thursday browsing your Goodreads profile and wracking his head over the hefty price tags attached to your TBR list. His wallet makes for a terrible wingman. 

But really, finding the perfect gift is no sweat at all. Leon is absolutely nonplussed (according to his 50th vocabulary-related Google search) when he steps into the RPD elevator on Friday morning with a clumsily wrapped, candy cane-striped bundle in his arms. 

“Hold it plea- Leon!”  

Liar, liar, pants on fire – he’s totally shitting his pants when you barely make it inside before the doors snap shut. 

“Thanks,” you gasp. 

Leon nods stiffly, his cheeks growing warm, and jams the second-floor button with his knuckle.

As the elevator starts its maddeningly slow climb, you hum, rocking back and forth in your snow boots. You’re cradling a package of your own, something four-cornered and fairly small. Leon, however, feels like he’s holding a bomb, the object of his affections standing less than three feet from his radius of destruction. How are you so carefree right now? You’ve probably got this gifting thing in the bag and he most definitely doesn’t. 

Leon can see everything unfold the moment he enters the office. You’ve had your gift planned months beforehand, his gift is going to be horrifically lame when you open it, everyone’s going to clap politely but you’re going to hate him forev-

And then the elevator plunges into pitch black.

“Oh my god!” 

Who screamed louder, Leon doesn’t want to find out.

The elevator shudders to a complete stop. Leon’s mental spiral of doom helpfully supplies him with an image of you two dangling in midair, suspended on wires. Maybe this is the universe saving him from delivering the worst Secret Santa gift of his life.

Leon blinks in the darkness, waiting for your unflappable voice to cut through the silence and figure a way out, headstrong as always, except you don’t, and Leon strains his ears to hear what’s surely not what he thinks it is, a whisper that sounds an awful lot like: “Leon, I don’t want to die.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna die,” you whimper. “I don’t wanna die.”

Your voice floats up from a lot lower than he remembers your head being, so he crouches down to find you with your arms hugged to your chest. You’re huddled against the wall, breathing all shallow. The package in your arms lies forgotten somewhere in the abyss.

“Hey, hey, nobody’s dying.” Leon reaches out to find your hand. “What’s the matter?”

“I have, cl-clau-”

“Claustrophobia?” He remembers that one well. Wishes he didn’t. 

You nod fitfully.

“The dark doesn’t help either, huh?” he whispers, craning his head to look at the busted bulb on the ceiling. “Damn.”

Your palm grows colder and clammier in his hand by the minute, and the shakiness in your breathing is starting to worry him. Your head pops above your knees when you hear rustling in the shadows, and then the telltale Christmastime cacophony of wrapping paper being torn to shreds. 

“What are you…?”

“Being resourceful,” Leon grits, tearing his Secret Santa gift open. He fumbles with its contents for a second, slipping something into a plastic compartment. “It’s not the best, but…”

The elevator blooms with soft, golden light.

“...it’ll do.”

“What’s this?” you murmur in awe, cupping your hands around the tiny book light Leon holds. 

“My Secret Santa gift,” he chuckles sheepishly. “I kind of, um, blanked. I’m also really bad at giving gifts, so there’s also this,” he says, pulling out a mug from the heap of trashed wrapping paper.

When I Think About Books, I Touch My Shelf, it announces with impunity. 

Leon blushes when you giggle at the inscription. Things always look better online than in person, rookie mistake. But at least you’re breathing better now. 

“This is amazing,” you laugh, cradling the cup like there’s warmth inside. 

“Not so amazing now that I’ve opened all the packaging.”

“Your Secret Santa won’t mind at all, trust me, not with a gift like this- ‘touch my shelf’, you’re unbelievable! Tell me where you got it.”

He shakes his head. 

“Leon Scott Kennedy, if you don’t stop gatekeeping this incredible mug and this super useful book light, by the way, I’m going to tell Irons you spilled coffee all over his desk. I can be very convincing, y’know.” You cross your arms decidedly, waiting. 

“There’s no need for all that!” he protests. 

“That was a promise, Leon, not a threat.”

“C’mon, be reasonable here.”

“You’re still not telling me.” 

“It’s for you, silly.” Leon tilts his head, face heating up faster than the book light bulb, “You’re my Secret Santa.” 

He must be hallucinating the pink in your cheeks.

“Oh,” you breathe. 

“Yes, oh,” Leon teases, scooching to sit next to you. “I couldn’t think of anything,” he confesses, “so I just went with the basics. I know you read and I know you really miss your old tea mug, the one that broke, right? You’re my gifting competition and I got nervy from how sure you were about your person’s gift. So, um, I played safe.” Leon finishes lamely and squeezes his eyes shut, hoping the light doesn’t also illuminate the shame radiating from his body. 

And then he feels the press of an unbelievably soft kiss on his cheek.  

“It’s much better than what I’ve got,” he hears. 

His eyes fly open. Words don’t form right in his throat when you reach out for the package you dropped when the lights went out. Wrapping paper falls apart neatly in your hands (what don’t you do perfectly?) and you unveil a mini waffle iron, proportioned perfectly for somebody always running late without breakfast. Somebody like Leon.

“You keep missing breakfast and Irons is on my ass about saving you food all the time, so I guess took the practical route too,” you shuffle your feet, bashful all of a sudden. “And um, my gift’s kind of useless if we never make it out. Sorry.”

He fingers the tag in wonder. 

Merry Christmas, Leon! There’s a timer so you don’t burn them :) xoxo, your Secret Santa!

You’re so goddamn sweet. You’re perfect and thoughtful and it’s all your fault that Leon didn’t have the faintest clue what to give you. Think, Leon, think. He knows he’s not this stupid. What do you give to somebody who has everything? 

A kiss. One that’s all smiles and just as sweet as the way you kiss him back, because screw Secret Santa.

It’s hard to keep secrets when you’re Leon’s favorite one.

psst, find more of my work here!

comments and reblogs are very much appreciated <3 take care and i love you!

[oddclan-askblog]

(Some of the other members of Raaf's tribe. I'll be updating this with new character refs as I complete them.)

Corvocon members:

Huraab:

A drone with burns across his body from escaping the corvo mountains. He's strong and stoic preferring to keep to himself. Huraab is still kind and enjoys teaching the younger muds about the underground tunnels and various minerals he finds in his work.

Klemokk:

Klem is one of the younger members of the clan, apprenticed under Droom he is a leatherworker learning how to make various types of clothing for his peers. When there is downtime, the two of them fish in the swamps. Klemokk enjoys releasing what he finds and like to flip rocks in the waterway to see new critters hiding underneath.

Like Raaf, he hatched after the tribe fled their homeland and has no memory of the event. Klem has crippling claustrophobia and does not join Raaf on his caving adventures. He does tag along with Raaf everywhere else and is happy to hang out with the sligs.

Droom:

A tribal Elder, Droom should be relaxing and teaching the young. Instead he is busy like many of the others preserving what he can remember from the old settlement in the mountains. He sails up and down the river fishing from morning to midday then returns to the village to mentor Klem among others on leatherworking. Though he is exausted and can be snippy as a result, Droom is proud of Klem's progress and hopeful about the future.

To his disdain, Droom is one of the stronger members of the clan so he ends up doing a lot of backbreaking work. He complains a lot and is regularly pretty cranking, most of the younger muds avoid him. Serk and Noft are close friends of his.

Queen Rokkri:

Queen Rokkri is a mysterious and illusive leader hidden deep in the heart of the forest. Only a select few know know her whereabouts: Vitur, Noft, and her daughter Nurani. The Shamans transport her eggs and provide updates on the clan and on spiritual happenings in the forest. Nurani delivers her orders to the corvo and represents Queen Rokkri in diplomatic meetings with neighboring tribes.

Unlike her daughter, Rokkri is authoritative and decisive. She is less domineering than Queen Lealue of the Maokon but shares her peers traditional views on keeping the tribes sepperate. If she could she would maintain the old ways just as religiously as the maokon but moving her tribe from a mountainous environment into a hostile swampland has made that all but impossible. Anymore she mostly fallows the advice of the shamans and hopes to keep her clan hidden as long as possible. Possibly forever if need be.

She is proud of her daughter and does her best to comfort and guide Nurani as much as she can.

Huemo:

A young drone with a hot temper and pent up energy to burn. He loves to hunt and has the scars to prove it. Huemo is a talented warrior who trains the younger members of the clan to hunt and fight. If the Corvokon had the numbers to wage an all out war he would gladly lead them. Huemo gets along great with the maokon and admires their fighting spirit. He has even gone on Elum hunts with them to gather large game for his clan. He has moderately good aim with a bow but prefers throwing hatchets.

In his off time, Huemo gathers wood and helps build huts for the village. Huemo was engaged to Nurani relatively young and the two are very close. He is scared but excited to become a dad.

Huidi:

A young sailor of the clan, Huidi is one of the few mudokons skilled enough to sail out into the open ocean. He gathers large game for the tribe and loves the salty air of the sea. In his off-time Huidi farms and forages alongside Sterk. Huraab and the other mine workers will join Huidi on his fishing expeditions during sark spawn season.

Huidi is talkative at parties, loves to drink maokon wyne, and is a frequent customer at Jarta's establishment. He talks to everyone and is a great source of news on the happenings of the rainforest.

Sterk:

An elder who barely survived the escape from the mountain seige, Sterk was key in getting the younger mudokons like Jarta out of the burning village. He and Asibatu trained Jarta in cooking and foodprep along with farming and foraging. Sterk as a green thumb and an encyclopedic memory for the plants of the forests and mountains. He sometimes accompanies Vitur in tracking down medicinal herbs.

Sterk lost his mate in the fire and has an intense fear of open uncontrolled flame. He is meticulous about cooking and safety, but much of his teaching is through written documentation instead of hands on. He snapped at Jarta a lot for forgetting steps while training the young mud. Jarta has a most of the clans traditional recipes written down but only has to read them once to remember most of the instructions. Sterk is sad and soured by life seldom finding reason to keep going let alone be kind to others. Despite Jarta's prowess as the best cheff in the village, thanks to Sterk's hostile teaching, the two have a terrible relationship and Jarta is very insecure about his work.

Queen daughter Nurani:

Nurani is soft spoken and shy, she really struggles with her role as a public speaker and diplomat. She is shy arround the sligs and maokon, their lifestyles are vastly different from the corvo but fascinating at the same time. Though she is only truly comfortable arround the corvokon she still tries her best to be respectful and understanding towards the other tribes.

Nurani is very stressed about her future role as Queen Mother and works hard to live up to the title. She is happily engaged to Huemo and, unbeknownst to the queens, would like to add a maokon drone to the mix.

[racefortheironthrone]

With how much focus she has received since the beginning of the Krakoa era, what are your thoughts on Storm ? And do you agree on the perception that she's becoming something of a Mary Sue?

I’m going to start with a mini-rant about the Mary Sue.

To the extent that there is any validity to the term at all, it is solely and exclusively within the realm of fanfiction. A Mary Sue is an OC (original character) whose supposed annoying omni-competence is really secondary to the main problem with the character, which is that they warp the narrative away from the main characters of the source material - Kirk and Spock or Picard and Data stop doing things that drive the plot, and instead just stand around asking "where's Poochie?"

Outside of fanfiction and in the realm of the media that gives rise to fanfiction, a prominent character who is incredibly talented and powerful and who makes the plot center around them is called a fucking protagonist - so no, Rey isn’t a Mary Sue, Carol Danvers isn’t a Mary Sue, Katniss Everdeen isn't a Mary Sue - none of them are Mary Sues and anyone who claims otherwise is showing that they have deep-seated Issues with female protagonists in their fiction.

Is Storm a Mary Sue?

Even if we weren't talking about the most prominent black woman character in fiction, I would consider this question pretty damn offensive, both because no one would ever ask this question about a male character and - in a franchise packed to the gills with hyper-powerful women who make the plots revolve around them and who even get the complementary Love Triangle - no one sends me asks about any of those (white) women.

But to answer your question: no, Storm is not a Mary Sue - she's the main character of the X-Men.

See, when Chris Claremont took over X-Men in 1975, he did so with a brand-new cast of characters, the so-called "All-New, All-Different X-Men." In no small part because they were far more diverse and more colorful than the O5 (suburban WASPs one and all), most of these characters would become break-out stars and the core of the X-Men from that day to this.

However, Claremont didn't vibe with all of the All-New X-Men equally: he had Sunfire quit the team (repeatedly), he killed off Thunderbird for shock value (a death that has only been reversed this last year), he would have killed off Wolverine if John Byrne hadn't stopped him (Claremont would later turn around on Logan once he worked out his voice), etc.

But one character that he vibed with right from the beginning was Ororo Monroe. From the very beginning, Claremont's Storm is the most powerful of the All-New X-Men, both in terms of her powers and in terms of her personality, being the only person who can face down Logan. At the same time, she's complicated by her struggles with crippling claustrophobia caused by the Suez Crisis-induced trauma of her childhood.

After a few years, Claremont tired of the African Nature Goddess routine and had Storm experience an almost total transformation that nonetheless was completely grounded in her character. Feeling overly limited by the total emotional control required of her powers, Ororo undergoes a subtextual lesbian awakening in Tokyo's underground punk scene and emerges out the other side a free spirit, leader of the X-Men, and Queen of the Morlocks.

In his most audacious move in LifeDeath I and II, Claremont had Storm lose her powers thanks to Forge's anti-mutant tech - and then defeat Cyclops in a duel for command of the X-Men without her powers - and then regain her powers in an epic cycle that saw the X-Men die and be reborn as outlaw heroes in the Australian Outback.

In sum, Storm was clearly Claremont's favorite character and, as a result had the most interesting character journey over his 16-year run on X-Men.

Storm in Krakoa

And then Storm basically lay fallow for almost thirty years. In no small part due to the pioneering work done by Claremont with this character, later writers were frankly too intimidated to touch the character and so starting in the 90s, Storm was increasingly sidelined in the comics in favor of the characters that were commercially "hot" at the time - Wolverine and Gambit, especially.

In the 2000s, the most significant thing to happen to Storm was her marriage to T'challa. While I think Reggie Hudlin had mostly good intentions with this decision - he wanted to create a black power couple at Marvel and thus put together Marvel's most prominent black man and black woman into a relationship - the result was to make Storm a supporting character in Black Panther comics, rather than a main character in X-Men comics.

I would argue that it is only recently with the advent of Al Ewing as a major writer in the X-office with S.W.O.R.D, X-Men Red, and Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants that we've gotten a writer who's not afraid to write Storm as she deserves to be written - as the most powerful of the X-Men, the Regent of Arrako and the Voice of Sol, the standard-bearer of Magneto's legacy, and a woman trying to balance the demands of two planets and her own desires.

[poddopetals]

TWEWY Bang 2023 Entry by poddopetals — art by @sitraxis @subasekabang

Run Through Fire — Part 1: Starless Nights

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences (T)

Pairing: Bito "Beat" Daisukenojo/Kanade Rindo (main) Additional pairings:

Furesawa "Fret" Tosai/Kanade Rindo

Bito "Beat" Daisukenojo/Sakuraba Neku (mentioned)

Furesawa "Fret" Tosai/Kanade Rindo/Sakurane Shoka (mentioned)

Kanade Rindo/Sakurane Shoka (mentioned)

WARNINGS:

Prominent appearances: Swearing, light body horror/gore, burning to death, non-canon character death, blood, nightmares, insomnia, vandalism, vehicle accident, emetophobia, headaches, fainting, food and eating, social avoidance issues, hallucinations, paranoia, characters struggling with mental health, mentions of homelessness, mentions of protests, unspecified anxiety disorder, unspecified hallucinatory disorder, characters argue often

Minor appearances: City destruction, neglectful parents (implied), claustrophobia in crowds, allusion to gang violence, mentions of cops, mentions of politics, mentions of therapy

Summary: Rindo Kanade, now 19, has been having violent nightmares and visions of his time in the Underground. For reasons he can't explain, they subject him to watching himself lose his friend of four years, Beat Bito, to inevitable disasters. This story follows Rindo's journey towards realizing exactly why he's having this issue as he gracelessly and awkwardly navigates his complicated memories and feelings for Beat, laying out a tale that shows the boy's plights of his crippling trauma clashing with young love.

Partner: sitraxis @sitraxis on Twitter @sitraxis on Tumblr Credits

tinpin.bin for proof-reading my grammar

@tinpinwin on Twitter

@tinpinwin on Tumblr

Felix Mittermeier on unsplash for graphics

This series has an official playlist on spotify!

(Or YouTube)

Read on...

AO3:

Google Docs:

WattPad:

Art © sitraxis

Read my thoughts below!

HI GUYS 💜

SO I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FIC FOR A WHIIIILE NOW

I'M SO SO HAPPY TO FINALLY POST IT WITH THE TWEWY BANG!!! WORKING WITH MY BETA READER @TINPINWIN AND MY ARTIST SITRAXIS WAS ABSOLUTELY AWESOME AND THE STAFF OF THE BANG ALONG WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS WERE ALL SO AMAZING AND NICE AND I MADE NEW FRIENDS AND HAD SUCH A GREAT TIME!! If you read this fic, I hope you like it!! It's the first entry to my Run Through Fire series, which will be a BeatRindo fanfic universe that I'll make lots of art and fics and maybe even videos for!! Stay tuned!!!!! :D

[stellarcat52]

Dread Spellbound- Part 1

<Post season 2, Daniel has a small amount of dread magic inside of him. His friends are trying to trust him to fight it off, but it's hard, and the ghost of Jayce isn't helping.>

<Magic corruption, violence, forced transformation, not really a happy story.>

There are two endings, both will be linked at the end of this post. One in which the dread is stronger than Daniel, and one in which it's not.

Daniel Spellbound would quite literally always be scarred by Jayce Chinda. The permanent effect of wearing a dread corrupted, broken Chainscale, deep purple lines that glowed when he was stressed or angry. He had tried to hide it, but Hoagie could smell it. It was fragments of dread magic that were shocked into his skin by his own stubbornness and idiocy. Nothing short of giving him the same fate as Jayce would get rid of it, and it was such a small amount. Bursts of rage were nothing, as long as he could reign it in around others.

And in the beginning he could. Although worse days quickly came, thunderstorms seemed to make it worse, but also sometimes he just needed to rage. Soon enough, it wasn’t surprising for Shak and Hoagie to get kicked out of the bodega’s hidden basement so Daniel could scream and hit things without worrying about them. Lucy even only stayed behind once to try and fight him. The moment she saw his eyes start glowing, she locked him inside and told Shak and Hoagie to come stay with her.

The truth was, no matter how much Daniel claimed he could keep it back and that this would help him find the other remaining fragments, the sheer hunger the dread magic brought could corrupt anyone. The need for destruction, and the newfound frailty of every emotion but anger. There was a good chance no living thing could control it.

Within a few weeks, the dread magic’s grasp on Daniel had grown so powerful it had a voice, and only a short while later, a face.

–

The secret lair was quiet, usually. As much as the dread magic could impact him, it still left him lucid most of the time. It was hell, waiting for the next moment where he’d try ripping the door off its hinges even after he had helped Lucy figure out a way to dread-proof and reinforce it.

It was like he was sitting in his its open palm, and the moment he it started to close it into a fist…

“So, Spellbound. Will it be today?” It He always came accompanied by a headache. Daniel didn’t want to look, it only made things worse to see the face of dread. “Will you finally leave this dump? We’ve both read the texts, Dowser girl’s getting impatient, and so am I.” Daniel’s chin was grabbed and he was forced to look up at the white-eyed demon who haunted his waking and sleeping hours.

“Not my fault you have crippling claustrophobia, Chinda.” images of the soul box flashed in their shared mindspace. Not every thought was shared, but Jayce wanted him to see that. “I’m fine with staying in here for as long as I need to.”

“You’re going to break eventually. We were both trackers, don’t forget that. I know the feeling. The thrill of the hunt, don’t you miss it? Get out there, we could hunt anything. Isn’t there something you wanted to take on but couldn’t because of your little no magic rule?”

“Shut up.” Daniel growled. Finally Jayce let go of him, but the headache suddenly spiked and he could bone growing through the skin on his scalp. His horns weren’t the same as Jayce’s, they curled around his head, grazing  by his ears as they split through his skin and let blood drip down his neck. His headache stopped when they were done growing. “If you’re so powerful, haunt someone else.” 

“I would never, Danny.” The worst part about seeing him was that Jayce almost never stopped smiling. “No one else is worth my time, no one else has ever been worth my time. I mean,” The demon almost laughed. “Who else would I haunt? The pig? Ms. Primus?” Shak went unsaid. Mentioning her just brought more rage and frustration to both of them. And despite it all, Jayce didn’t like being angry at himself.

“I’m sure you’d find some idiot to listen to you.”

“Come on, you’re the Dread Spellbound. You have to hear how epic that sounds.”

What Daniel heard was the first of many deadbolts being opened. Then another, and another. Jayce was grinning ear to ear as Daniel pulled his hood up in a poor attempt to hide the horns.

“Daniel? Are you awake?” Jayce had left Daniel’s side to dance around their visitor. He wasn’t able to touch her, but he’d do anything to distract and annoy Daniel.

“Shak? What are you doing here?”

“Oh come on, Danny, let her stay!”

“I know it’s late but I just…” Shak’s face fell as she saw the shapes under Daniel’s hood. “I need to tell Lucy.”

“NO!” Both dreaded spirits were in unison. 

“I mean, I can still control it, Shak, I promise.” Daniel forced a smile. “They’re… It’s harder on a physical level since I’m not experienced with transformations. They’re just horns, I’m still me.”

Shak couldn’t decide whether or not she should believe him. “You’re bleeding.”

Daniel’s hand went to the side of his head, and then down to his neck. It was red and sticky when he brought it back to look. “Shit. Look, it just happened a minute ago. I hadn’t even thought to clean up. I’ll get that done later though, what did you need?” His voice wasn’t betraying his nervousness.

“I just wanted to check in.” Shak suddenly looked sad, guilty almost. “I guess I wanted to prove to Lucy and Hoagie that you were doing fine.”

“I’m not.” Daniel admitted, ignoring Jayce’s annoyance that sent tingling numbness up through his scarred arm. “I think I found its weakness though, boredom. I haven’t had the urge to actually destroy anything in…” he faltered. “I destroyed the last clock down here a while ago. I have no idea how long it’s been.”

“I don’t think I can trust that, Daniel.” In his momentary distraction he hadn’t noticed Shak taking a picture of him with his bloody horns. “Lucy needs to know about this.”

“Don’t let her leave, Spellbound.” Jayce warned him. “Dowser girl would kill you, like you did to me.”

“I just need time.” Daniel promised, to Shak and himself, “See? I can take back the horns.”

Shak couldn’t decipher the look he gave to Jayce, it was a reminder that if he died, the dread went with him. Jayce, the Dread rather, reluctantly, pulled the horns back into his skull. The holes that should have been left behind were nowhere to be seen. 

“You… really can control it.”

“Mostly. But it’s still not safe for you to be down here. Go back to Lucy.”

“I miss you. I think Hoagie and Lucy do too.” Shak blurted out.

End of Part 1

Daniel is stronger than the Dread

The dread is stronger than Daniel

[lizzievelnias]

Lizzie at a Glance

"I'm okay with my crazy"

NAME: Elizabeth Corie Velnias ALIASES: Lizzie - call her Elizabeth and she’ll set you on fire.  Only her mom called her that and she hates the name with a passion  AGE: 27 [Born October 9th] OCCUPATION: Locker attendant at Abs-olutely Gym ARRIVED: Mid April 2024 GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis Female, She/Her SEXUALITY: Demi QUIRKS: Emotionally stunted; Lizzie tends to act far younger than she really is.  She loves dying her hair different colors; Winnie jokes its to help them stay in hiding but really she just likes all the colors. Green is her current color.  Her entire vibe is pastel goth.  While on the run she found a black rabbit plushie and has held on to it ever since; it is her most treasured possession. Crippling claustrophobia thanks to her mother.  She’s actually a very good skateboarder. Has a rare early-onset schizophrenia that involves the hallucination of a black rabbit named Peter.

BIOGRAPHY

Lizzie was always different from the other kids.  Maybe it was because there were rumors in town of her family being devil worshipers.  The other children would always stare at her, whispering to one another.  Sometimes they would throw rocks, calling her a demon.  This was a god-fearing town after all.

Sometimes the rumors get it right.  Her parents, especially Mother, cared more about their satanic group than their own daughter.  And so, Lizzie was left to fend for herself, playing with her dolls quietly in her room.  She always had to be quiet.  Do as Mother wanted.  If not, she had to stay the night in the cupboard, and Lizzie never liked that.  It was dark, and scary, and full of spiders.

At nine years old things started to change.  Lizzie heard voices vibrating through the walls. It kept her up late at night, unable to sleep with all the noise. On one such sleepless night, she was surprised when everything went quiet. Removing the blanket from over her head, she looked around her room and was surprised to see a small black rabbit sitting on her desk chair. Even more surprising, he began to talk to her!

Crawling out of bed, Lizzie sat on the floor as she looked up in veneration at the rabbit. They talked all through the night and for the first time since she could remember, the little girl didn't feel alone. She now had a new best friend named Peter.

~~~

Every night for two weeks, Peter would appear in her room, and they would talk and play.  Lizzie made sure to keep her voice down, so her parents wouldn’t come barging in.  Peter made Lizzie felt heard.  Felt loved.

They would talk about anything and everything.  About how the town’s children treated her, about how her parents ignored her.  Peter had an idea.  She should make them pay.  Teach them a lesson for being so mean.  That was a great idea!  Lizzie was willing to do anything Peter told her.  She loved him with all her heart.

Gathering up all she could in her backpack, Lizzie said goodbye to her room one last time. Following Peter's instructions, she set the living room curtains on fire and ran off into the night.

~~~

The newspapers said it was a great disaster.  Some loose electrical wiring had sparked a fire, and in the crisp autumn air the blaze spread.  The town didn’t stand a chance.  It was too small to have their own fire station.  No one survived, save for a little girl found wandering down the highway alone.

She was immediately placed in a group home in the outskirts of Toronto. It was okay. The people there weren't great, but they were still better than her parents. The other kids kept away from Lizzie, but as long as she had Peter she didn't mind too much. Still, the next several years were lonely.

It was only when Lizzie was 13 did she finally make another friend. Winnie was new, the other kids didn't like her either, and she didn't think it was weird that Lizzie talked to Peter. With the other girl being a year older, she took on kind of an older sister role for Lizzie. With their strengths combined, the two decided they would rather try their chances outside the group home. Just them against the world.

For the last 13-14 years Lizzie, Winnie, and Peter have traveled across Canada and the US, surviving off of lying and stealing. Usually Winnie was the brains and Lizzie was the daredevil, not afraid of anything so long as she had her two best friends. Her family. There were times when things got dangerous, and Lizzie was often the first to spring into action, embracing the "kill or be killed" mentality Peter whispered to her. Sometimes she yearned to do more, to hunt instead of simple self defense for her and Winnie, but with her sister by her side Lizzie ignored those urges.

It was by pure coincidence that the pair ended up in Huntsville. They agreed the commune was the best place to stay. It was a setup familiar to them. Though Lizzie could admit she wasn't super smart, she did notice a lot of things. And at the commune she noticed how some people seemed to hang around and talk in whispers. It made her curious, excited. Even Peter felt like it was a new game for them to play.

[female-fogbank]

Thank you @tinderbox210 for the prompt: 'on the Starbase (not in quarters', I gotta admit, this one has the potential to expand into a longer story. I'm not sure if I will but for now, I hope you enjoy it!! can also be read on AO3 here

Sometimes the burden and the responsibilities of being Spock, the son of Sarek, first hybrid of a human and Vulcan to complete Starfleet and all the fame of his accomplishments thereafter was a lot to carry. He could normally lose himself in his work, his meditation practices and the routine of daily life. 

It would work for a few months but then the crippling anxiety and claustrophobia would creep in. He’d find himself suffocating under the weight of it all, desperate to escape. Desperate to breathe. Luckily when he felt this way, they were forced to have R&R and leave the ship. So, he was relieved when they docked at Starbase 589 for their routine maintenance check. 

He, like many of the crew, could take some much-needed time away from one another as it was the last time they would have before they disappeared into the furthest outreach of space and continue their five year long trek. Spock did not understand why the Federation was still sending the Enterprise out into undiscovered territory when a war was waging with the Klingons. But given his rank, he did not feel comfortable asking. 

But he did know that no matter how many times Captain Pike argued, his request to have the Enterprise and her crew join the fight was denied. Every time, they were ordered further and further away from the fight. It was just the kindness of Admiral April who allowed them to come to this Station to resupply the ship and get the necessary repairs needed. It however did not go unnoticed that it was the only Starbase that sat on the furthest edge of known federation space. It was also the further Starbase from the front lines.  

It was not lost on Spock that the crew wanted to fight, to join their comrades. He too wanted to help but they had their orders. But the toll of those orders created undue pressure on them all. It was why Spock was more than happy to leave the ship even if it was only for a day. He knew it would be the last time he could break free for another year, maybe more. So, he had decided to do something extreme, to completely break free of who he was, and who he would have to be before the opportunity was lost.

So, when he had overheard two lieutenants discussing a notorious underground nightclub on the station that allowed for anonymity. It was perfect, he hadn’t known when he rocked up that anonymity came at a price. He happily paid it and was given the choice of a mask or genetic disguise. He opted for a genetic disguise and chose to be human.

Maybe it was perverse to hide in half of his DNA, but he didn’t care as he needed to let go. He needed to just not be himself for a few hours. To forget who he was, forget about the war, the concern for his family’s welfare. Forget that he would soon be too far away from everyone and everything he cared about to help them.

La’an was on medical leave for three more days, the last tangle with the Klingons had been brutal. She still bore the scars of it as the medic who patched her up was still learning. La’an didn’t care as she was taking the R&R given to her. She knew it would be the last time she’d be allowed the luxury of time and pleasure for herself.

She was not going to waste it, she got herself an exclusive ticket to the most popular club on the Starbase. Its name was incomprehensible for her tongue to pronounce but its reputation proceeded itself. It boasted anonymity, top class drinks, the best music and more if one wished. La’an definitely wished for it, she wore a skintight off the shoulders red dress, her long hair loose waves and a painted-on mask to obscure her identity. She knew no one would recognise her from her usual uptight appearance, perfectly coiffed braids, immaculate starfleet uniform. 

When she stepped into the club, the music pulsed through her body, she had a couple of shots before she nursed a negroni cocktail. She planned to get loose; dance and get laid, not necessarily in that order. She scoped the crowd for potential partners, she found a couple of potentials when her eyes landed on a man who looked directly at her. 

She looked him over from a distance. He was incredibly handsome, human, she guessed over 6 ft tall. There was something about him that was a little out of place, she could only guess he was wearing a genetic disguise. If she had to guess, she’d think he was Vulcan with the honest yet intense look in his eyes. But the idea a Vulcan would disguise themselves as a human was ludicrous. She dismissed the thought entirely.

In the end, it didn’t matter who he was or his secrets. What mattered was if he was interested in her and vice versa. She pushed off the bar and walked over to him.

“You’re staring at me, do you like something you see?” she asked him, she definitely liked what she saw in him. 

“I do,” he replied, “Would you like to dance?” he asked, he pushed off the wall he’d been leaning on and abandoned his drink as he held out his hand to her. La’an smiled as there was no guile in this man, he hid nothing from expression.

“Sure,” La’an said, she took his hand and let him lead her to the dancefloor. They sifted through the gyrating bodies until they found their own space. La’an didn’t waste any time as she pressed her body against his and started to move with the music. 

Spock was a little stiff at first but after a moment, he never really danced like this before. Correction, he never danced but it was easy enough to pick up. He just followed what the others around them were doing. He rested his hands on her trim waist and moved to the rhythm of her body. Soon enough, he lost himself in the music, in the dance movements were very much like making love.

He knew when he first saw her walk in that he wanted her. She felt incredible pressed against him. The feel of her pert breasts against his chest, the scent of her sweat mixed with her perfume sent intoxicated him. He ran his hands over her body, enjoying the feel of her. The perfect person to forget himself in and with. Maybe it was the disguise, or maybe it was the alcohol, or the fact he was shipping out in the morning, but he felt emboldened like never before.

La’an lifted her face up to him, she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down. “What’s your name? I wanna know what I should calling you when you fuck me,” she shouted near his ear over the seductive pulsating music.

“Spock,” he said without thought but it was hard to lie when she licked the shell of his ear. He groaned in pleasure as his erection strained against the zipper of his pants. He ran his hands down to her ass and pressed her against him, so she could feel the effect she had on him. He pulled his head back, just to see her reaction. She showed no signs of recognition of him or his name, nothing at all. Instead, her eyes were brimming with the same fiery desire as his, her lips curled into salacious smile. Before he could even ask what her name was, she kissed him. 

It was not some tentative first kiss, there was no politeness. She devoured him, she shoved her hot tongue deep into his mouth. His cock pulsed with every flick of her tongue against his own. He groaned when she pulled back and nibbled his bottom lip as he was certain he was going to explode in his pants.

“Let’s get out of here, I have a hotel room,” Spock muttered against her lips, he molded his hands to her ass and thrusted his aching cock against her belly, as he needed her now.

“No, I want you now,” she told him impatiently, she kissed him long and hard before she pulled away from him. She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the crowd and further into the club. He heard her curse when they saw the lines for the bathroom. He was about to suggest they leave when she opened a door marked 'service'. The door swung open to a service corridor. She pulled him with her, the door snapped shut, a soft low orange glow illuminated the path. 

They locked eyes for just a second, there was no one there except for them. The tension between them snapped. Spock pushed her up against the now closed door and kissed her. She instantly parted her lips and welcomed his tongue. There was a very desperate edge to the kiss that made him pull back.

“Are you okay with this?” he asked, he caressed her arms, the heat of her body and the scent of her skin and arousal made it difficult to think, let alone talk. But he didn't want to be someone's regret.

“Yes, I- I ship out tomorrow, I just want-" Her fingers dug into his skin, to emphasise her point, "No, I need you to make this unforgettable,” La’an told him, she knew it was a lot of pressure to put on a man, but she needed him to rock her world. She needed something to hold onto in the darkest hours.

To remember the few good memories that she had in her short-lived life, to remember how to feel something other pain, anger and fear. His expression was one of understanding even as his eyes darkened with arousal at the challenge she’d laid at his feet.

“I can do that,” he promised her, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a condom he’d taken from the host upon entry. His contraception shot was up to date, as he was sure hers was given she’d just told him in a roundabout way she was Starfleet. But one had to take extra precautions. “But you haven’t told me your name,” he stated.

“It’s Vanessa,” she lied, it didn't suit her, but Spock didn't question it as she like him had her reasons for hiding. He might have given his identity but he wasn't going to push her for hers. Especially not as she unzipped his pants and wrapped her fingers around his cock. Spock could barely breathe, his cock ached badly as she stroked him and then swirled a finger over his swollen tip. “You’re so hard,” she whispered impressively, she licked her lips in anticipation.

“You are fucking beautiful,” he rasped out, he tore the condom wrapper and carefully rolled the condom onto his throbbing length. He watched as she slipped her hands underneath her skirt and peeled off her dark green knickers and stuffed them into the back pocket of his pants. 

“Something to remember me by," she gave a cheeky smile, "No foreplay,” she ordered, she wrapped her arms around his neck. 

So, instead he gave her what she asked as he gripped her ass and lifted her up. In normal proceedings such as these, Spock enjoyed a little foreplay. He would’ve loved to have dropped to his knees and lick and nip her pussy until she was soaking wet and begging for him.

But Vanessa or whatever her real name was, didn’t seem interested in that. He realised why as he slowly slid his cock deep inside her and found himself surrounded by her tight, hot, soaked pussy. 

“You feel incredible,” Spock told her, he buried his face in the crook of her neck. He groaned as her inner muscles clenched him in response. He had to rely on all his self-control and strength to not remain upright and not pass out from how incredible she felt. 

“Fuck me already,” She whispered hotly in his ear, when she licked she shell of his ear again and nipped his ear lobe, he lost all control. He started to thrust, plunging his cock into her as hard and fast as he could. 

There was no stopping it, it was a moment of desperation to cling onto someone and feel alive, to be lost in something other than the reality they lived in. To just feel free and act on a moment of crazy, blind uncontrollable lust without the constrictions of reality or social obligation. They both knew this wasn’t forever, they’d probably never see each other again, it felt freeing to let go and just be. Everything about her, and this moment was exactly what he needed and more.

“Yes, oh fuck, Spock!” La’an cried out as she clutched onto him as he fucked her rough and wild against the wall. She loved every second of it. His raspy grunts mixed in with her soft moans, he gripped her ass tightly and angled her body just so that when his cock brushed over her clit every time he withdrew and thrust into her. 

He bent down and kissed her senseless, while he continued to thrust as deep as he could go. His mouth swallowed her cry of pleasure as her orgasm exploded out of her. Her fingers dug into the skin of his neck and shoulders, her pussy clamped down on his cock, she drenched him.

Spock pulled out of the kiss, the agonising of with the pleasure tore through him was too much. He toppled over the edge with her into bliss. His mind and body were at one, he could think of nothing more than the woman in his arms and what had passed between them, the beautiful silence. It was everything he needed, he knew she felt the same as they lingered in the moment.

They stayed there for a long moment, leaning against the wall, their breaths came out ragged, their hearts beating fast as they came down from the high. Spock fought the urge to keep holding her when she slowly released him. He had to remind himself that this was just a moment, not forever. The feelings he felt for a woman he’d known for all of 10 minutes were profound.

La’an stood on shaky legs, hell, her whole body was trembling and quivering in the aftershocks of pleasure. He’d delivered on his promise, he had turned her world upside down and given the most intense orgasm of her life. It almost didn’t seem fair to leave him but she had to. She could feel herself becoming attached to the notion of staying. They were at war, one she’d most likely not survive. She wanted to be a good memory, to leave on a high note. She ran a trembling hand through her hair. She smiled at him, the euphoria of what he’d given her would stay forever etched in her mind and bones.

“We-”

“Thank you,” La’an said, she cut him off as she pulled him down and kissed him with everything that was left in her. Her desperation to live, her passion and what little she knew of love. Just as he was about to hold on to tight. She pulled away and opened the door and slipped back into the club before she changed her mind and stayed.

[viric-dreams]

💫!

Elias' first death in the Neath was when his ship and everyone on it fell through the earth and smashed into the coastline. The impact itself didn't kill him instantly and he spent about an hour and a half trapped within this warped hunk of steel before his wounds eventually got him. After that first encounter with the Boatman it took him several additional hours to eventually be rescued along with most of the crew. He has a rather large scar on his thigh where a piece of rebar impaled him upon impact. Elias was no fan of tight spaces before this, and this only cemented a lifelong crippling claustrophobia. He does somewhat better with heights, but is similarly not a fan.

[alihightowers]

@unfuckerable

thanks for checking this out for me💕

Rhaenyra started keeping journals when she was 8 years old.  

When mild instances of disassociation manifested into full blackouts, leaving her out of touch with reality until she found her way back to the present, she would often lose time, wake with dizzying migraines that brought on crippling nausea and disorientation. 

And there were times, during the more severe blackouts, when she would become confused, certain memories wiped clean from her mind. Nothing but imprints left behind, the details were always grey and muddled, unreachable no matter how hard she strained to remember.  

The only way she could differentiate truth from illusion was from the phantom place holders, skeletal outlines of feeling and fleeting imagery used to fill in the emptiness. 

Still, she tried her best to bridge the gaps and repair faulty connections. 

Physically, there was nothing wrong with her. Even the results of extensive blood tests deemed her otherwise healthy. She functioned like everyone else, reached proper milestones alongside her peers and lived a relatively simple life.  

Things were normal, she was normal. Until she wasn’t. 

The problem, she would come to learn, existed within the cognitive intricacies of her brain.  

And because of its rare nature, with both a lack of consistency and little knowledge available for the fluctuating symptoms, her neurologist diagnosed her affliction as idiopathic- a band-aid term that meant there was no known cause, no textbook case they could use to provide a definitive answer.  

Thus, she was advised to keep the journals, to document her episodes, and track their progression with the hope of finding a pattern that could then be studied. 

Rhaenyra lost count of the number of MRIs she’d had over the years, became desensitized to the claustrophobia and the mechanical shudder of the machine. She no longer noticed the odd, cooling sensation of the contrast medium infiltrating her veins or flinched during necessary blood draws to monitor medication levels. 

She grew numb to the routine eventually, succumbing to the truth. 

 She couldn’t escape it. 

And she wouldn’t understand why until it was almost too late. 

~ 

July 18th, 2010 

9:45 am 

Rhaenyra doesn’t remember being admitted, but she woke up that morning with blood stains on her pillow, so it’s unclear just how long it’s been since she was. 

She doesn’t ask either, because she stopped listening to the conversation almost five minutes ago. 

The office she’s in is cozy, almost too warm, with walls thin enough to hear the beginning of a storm outside. The wind knocks against the side of the building, riling leaves free from their branches to twirl them violently in the air. She’s easily soothed by the budding chaos, and her eyelids start to grow heavy. 

Sitting cross-legged, Rhaenyra tucks a few strands of hair behind her ear that have come loose from her braid and fails to stifle the tired yawn that escapes her mouth. It makes her eyes water, false tears collecting in her waterlines before she blinks them away and continues the search of her surroundings to find what she’s been looking for.  

She scans the room three times before she finds the clock and its incessant ticking. Nearly obscured from where it hangs wedged between a tall bookcase and an overgrown house plant, the antique face stares her down. Its crooked hands taunt her, counting each second, winding down the hour.  

She wants to scream.  

Instead, her left leg begins to bounce, and she takes to twisting the ring on her middle finger back and forth below her knuckle. 

“...Does that make any sense to you?” 

Seconds roll into a minute; the ticking grows louder, deafening. 

“Rhaenyra.” 

The deep timbre of a voice catches her attention, guiding her focus. 

Dr. Alexander Bennett, the lead neurologist that has overseen her care for most of her life, studies her with kind eyes as he leans back casually in his chair. Even sitting down, he towers over her, but his posture exudes that of trust instead of intimidation. His beard has greyed over the years and the wrinkles around his eyes are more defined when he smiles. He still looks at her the same way though, like a concerned father would his daughter. 

 It usually makes her feel safe. 

“I'm not in the mood for this today.” she sighs, pulling at the threads of a tassel hanging off the throw pillow tucked against her side. 

“Listen,” he removes his glasses and sets them on the rectangular table between them, “I know you want to go home, but we need to talk about it. These blackouts you have... they’re getting worse. The latest scan showed progressive damage to both of your temporal lobes and-” 

“No. No, you don’t get it.” she cuts in, feeling the itch of fear and agitation under her skin, “I don’t have time I-” her eyes close and she takes a deep breath to center herself. Her leg bounces faster, restless, “There’s somewhere I need to be and it’s not here, so can we just-” 

“And where would that be, exactly?” Dr. Bennett’s brow furrows and Rhaenyra hates the way his tone shifts to one of concerned sympathy, “An unchangeable past? One conjured from some irrational guilt? Rhaenyra...this has gone too far.” 

His voice is so gentle, too placating that it brings her anger to a premature stop. 

Rhaenyra’s face falls before she can control it, breaking the composure she’s tried so hard to hold onto. 

 Stilling completely, she flushes, and her cheeks burn as she stares him down. Her bottom lip trembles once, jaw tense. 

“Where are my journals?” 

“We’ve been over this. Rhaenyra, please just listen.”  

“Alex, where are they?” Tears well in her eyes and she fights to keep them at bay. 

“Your mother is looking for them...” 

“And?” 

“They’re buried in storage, so it may take a while.” 

Her chest aches with trapped air as she stands and steps towards the door. 

“I can’t wait that long. I won’t-” 

The warning he hastens to give her as she leaves goes unheard. 

She can’t breathe. 

~ 

10:05am 

The rain has become a violent thing outside. Pelting against the glass panes of a window somewhere behind her, the muffled white noise makes the small room feel even more claustrophobic.  

Though it’s just past 10 in the morning, the storm has blackened the sky, and if not for the glow of a nearby desk lamp, she’d be in the dark. 

Squinting into the provided dim light, Rhaenyra sits atop a stiff mattress, hunched over as she scribbles on a wrinkled piece of paper folded over her thigh. Her nose stings with blood, remnants of it still caked inside her nostrils. The sharp, acrid taste lingering in her cheeks and the back of her teeth from swallowing it earlier commands her attention and clears her mind. 

It keeps her focused, alert.  

She can’t afford a distraction, not now. She’s running out of time. 

The easy loop of her handwriting becomes jagged, harsh lines of nearly illegible chicken-scratch the longer she writes, the more desperate she becomes. She’s rushing, wrist shaking and lead staining her fingers with every stroke of the pencil against paper. The words stream from her conscience, onto the page, then spill from her mouth as the sentences merge together. 

Go back to the beginning, remember the details.  

Gather the pieces and mend what’s been broken. 

Make it right. 

‘It’s the middle of November,’ she writes, heart pounding, ‘and it’s cold. So cold already that I can see my breath cloud in the air. The swing I stand behind creaks every time I push it, worn and rusted from age. The metal chains freeze my hands until they’re numb. My palms are red because I forgot to wear gloves that day. I want to leave, run to my mom and beg her to blast the heat on the car ride home, but I don’t. No, I stay.’ 

Rhaenyra closes her eyes for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek raw as she grasps for the fraying end of the memory. 

Commotion erupts outside in the hall, and a pair of voices grow louder, closing in. A wave of panic races through her when the handle of the locked door begins to twist back and forth with building urgency. 

‘I stay because she’s on the swing and she’s asking me to push her higher. Her red hair blows in the wind and she’s laughing that contagious kind of laugh that makes me laugh too. My smile starts to hurt my cheeks. She tells me not to drop her and covers my hands with her gloved ones. I promise her I'll keep her safe. We just met, and she’s suspended in the air, but she trusts me to keep her from falling.’ 

A blinding pain cuts across the crown of Rhaenyra’s head, swaying her vision, and the room vibrates around her.  

“I’ll keep you safe.” she repeats aloud, voice trembling. 

“I’ll fix this.” the words, reverent with purpose, struggle to leave her tongue. 

“I promise.”  

She presses the point of the pencil deeper into the paper, etching seven letters from muscle memory, and draws three harsh lines beneath to cement them into being. 

Rhaenyra reads the name as if it holds all the answers, over and over until everything goes black. 

Alicent 

[majormeilani]

THE WITCH THE GAY Bird

12, 41,6,7 , 5 , 21

salem and cassidy :)

meme

for salem:

12. Do they have any sense of style? Regardless of the answer do they believe they have a sense of style?

yes she does! salem tends to dress in rather flowy or comfy clothes. she likes to experiment with outfits and has lots of fun dressing up and accessorizing. she and her old friend coral used to dress up all the time for their performances and she learned a lot about fashion from her!

41. Do they learn from their mistakes?

salem tends to learn from her mistakes but there are times where she can trust the wrong person and give them more chances than they deserve and often ends up finding herself wondering if she was the problem. though she is always trying to do better as a person, even though it's hard to change or break some habits.

6. If they were badly injured, and for whatever reason couldn't go to a hospital, who would they go to for help?

salem would seek help from someone that she is close to, like one of her lovers throughout her life or a close friend. she usually tries to stay strong but when she's really hurt she will go to someone she trusts with her life. in the current timeline of her story, she would go to the pines family.

7. Do they have any unusual fears?

salem doesn't quite have any fears i would say are unusual? though i suppose she's somewhat afraid of her mother and of bill cipher, but only because she knows what they're capable of.

5. Do they have any tattoos? If so what are they and do they have any special meaning?

she doesn't have any tattoos but she does have tattoo-like markings on her inner wrists and her ankles in the shapes of a dark purple salamanders. these markings will glow when she uses her powers.

21. What is more important to them, friends or family?

for salem, her friends are her family and she values everyone just the same.

for cassidy:

12. Do they have any sense of style? Regardless of the answer do they believe they have a sense of style?

cassidy does have a sense of style. he's often rather done up in fancy and sometimes expensive outfits. he often wears rather gothic styled clothing and tends not to wear bright colors often. he also does believe himself be the best dressed and well-kempt when he walks into a room, often judging others for their style choices and critiquing them for them.

41. Do they learn from their mistakes?

cassidy doesn't really learn from his mistakes unless the mistake is something that gets him further from whatever he wants. sometimes he will even prentend that he did something intentionally and often makes excuses instead of apologizing for them. though sometimes he still will apologize in order to save face but he doesn't always mean it.

6. If they were badly injured, and for whatever reason couldn't go to a hospital, who would they go to for help?

cassidy doesn't feel comfortable going to most people for help when he's injured. he tends to just suffer in silence and try to work through the pain on his own. but if he really can't make it on his own, he will go to his best friend nicole for help or in very rare cases, he will seek out one of his other rivals, conductor or grooves, hoping that one of them will maybe help him.

7. Do they have any unusual fears?

cassidy has a few minor fears but most of them are rather typical of most people. the only fear of his that is rather crippling is his claustrophobia and that is only because he will mentally shut down in instances like that.

5. Do they have any tattoos? If so what are they and do they have any special meaning?

cassidy does not have any tattoos. his body only has the typical plumage that a black-billed magpie has. despite lacking tattoos though, he is the type to use makeup or body paints+dyes to decorate himself for movies and other occasions.

21. What is more important to them, friends or family?

for cassidy, he does not have any family members to turn to and tends to have a stronger attachment to those he regards as friends. tho when his grandmother was alive, she was extremely important to him.

[justmoreocs-writing]

🖊 + Cassie!

Cassandra ‘Cassie’ Verona.

Cassandra Emelie Verona was born on the 16th of February and is sixteen years old. She was born in Venice; her family are prominent members of Sicilian gangs, as this is where her grandparents were from, and where her father moved back to after marrying her mother. She was sent to King’s Dominon in the hopes that she might one day be a bigger part of the gang. She has two older brothers, an older sister and younger fraternal twin siblings. Her maternal grandfather moved in with them when she was four years old; and her cousins, aunts and uncles used to live nearby but they have since dispersed to gain prominence in other places. They have monthly family meetings to discuss business.

When Cassie was seven her eldest brother pranked her by locking her in a coffin - he had a morbid sense of humour and had had a bad day. Since then she has had an almost crippling sense of claustrophobia. Her maternal grandfather is the one who taught her how to cook. Her first language is Italian, however she was taught Russian and English when she was very young; she has a passable understanding of Chinese, Spanish, Swedish and Arabic.

Cassie is bisexual and a shameless flirt. Her main focus is manipulation, and she is able to make people think she’s someone else simply by the way she walks - though, she is adept at using makeup and prosthetics to do this as well. Cassie is trained in the more subtle ways of killing, ways that are more difficult to prove aren’t merely accidental.

[fishfingersandscarves]

ok on the subject of hob whump, feel free to ignore this but theres a horrifying idea thats been haunting me lately WHICH IS. uh tw for. well you know. for some reason or another, hob is by himself in a cave. or maybe a tunnel or something (you can maybe see where this is going. feel free to disregard if this is Too Much. this is a genuinely disturbing concept, at least to me)

there is a freak cave-in and he is crushed to death. its painful but quick. he wakes up eventually, only to be crushed to death again, slower this time. and so it goes. his fleeting moments of consciousness are spent suffocating in total darkness and silence. nothing but the pressure of rock bearing down on him and the gritty taste of blood mixed with gravel. blind, unable to breathe, unable to move. nobody knows he's down there and theres no way to call for help. he cant even tell how long it's been, because his sense of time passing has been fragmented into brief, painful segments of dying/rebirth/dying. death whispers in his ear, a gentle murmur. a way out should he need it. he refuses. he dies. he wakes up. he dies again. soon he is entirely dissociated from his body and sense of self, though his will to live stays improbably strong. he takes solace in that basest human ability to hallucinate when deprived of sensation. a pleasant sort of dream- he imagines open skies, fresh air, ample company. dream notices that hob seems to be half-living in the dreaming, and is alarmed by his fitful and jagged mental state. he decides to check in on him... and is horrified by what he finds. i dont know exactly how dream would excavate hob's body, but im sure he would find a way once he realized what had happened. anyway the recovery process from that would be an absolute BEAST. i firmly believe hob would bounce back eventually, of course, the joys of the world so much sweeter for having felt such suffering, but he'd have some pretty crippling claustrophobia for the rest of his very long life. the buried alive thing reminded me of this and i just had to get it out somewhere. also good potential for hurt/comfort as dream takes it upon himself to rehabilitate his wreck of a friend. damn maybe ill write a fic after all, writing this out has the ol gears a-churnin. apologies for the novels ive taken to writing in your asks

oh MAN nonnie this is literally so sexy thank you for this ask

[shyrose57]

You know what would be really funny? If we threw Oli and False into the Great Power AU. Yeah I know they're not a part of season one but like-

The two WILDLY different flavors of isekai protagonists getting tossed about like ragdolls in the vast cosmic span of the multiverse and then ending up in empires about a thousand years before they were meant to.

We have False, who's been extremely traumatized by whatever dimension she came from and has severe trust issues, which clashes with her desperate need for validation. If they thought Pearl was a tough nut to crack just wait'll they see THIS one.

Some of the kids (I'm thinking Scott and Pearl) find her literally living in a cave and have to physically drag her back to the palace to get her cleaned up and fed because she's been surviving off less than the bare minimum for WEEKS. Not a great start. She, Gem, and Pearl really get along well.

Then we have Oli, who is... Oli. Funny, dramatic, constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown Oli. He quite literally crashes through their window after being violently thrown through an interdimensional vortex by a god, and Xornoth, being paranoid, ends up detaining him until he can figure out his intentions. This lasts less than a day because when he comes to interrogate Oli, he finds him in the midst of one of the worst panic attacks he's ever witnessed due to his crippling fear of being alone and claustrophobia.

Oli comes with a twin set of abandonment issues and separation anxiety so bad that being alone in a room for even five minutes is enough to send him a spiralling, plus really poor self care habits!

...this was meant to be comedic I swear-

Ooo, this is interesting!!!

We've got feral cave child False who the others dragged in like 'look, we brought back a new sibling, can we keep her?' And Oli 'prisoner for a single day before immediately being adopted '.

Maybe it happens at the same time. Xornoth sends the kids out because he doesn't know how dangerous the new prisoner is(after all, not many people come through portals, and most of them are on his level).

They come back with False being dragged behind them, around the same time he's hauling Oli to his new room, because...well, new siblings.

This addition leads me to two things as a result: A, a possible Season Two version of Responsibility AU(I heard Sausage's character has a dad now, maybe he could adopt everyone in the Sanctuary? And how about marks from our season one versions carrying over to a season two AU?), and Oli's connection to Afterlife.

Would he know everyone still? Even if alternate, younger versions of them? I imagine that knowledge alone would have factored into his brief stint of a prisoner.

And how about both False and Oli's connection to Pearl. False thinks she's great, gets along with her well. Oli? Well, if we're following his backstory like Canon, a godly version of Pearl just chucked him into this world, quite violently.

And she possibly wants him back, seeing as both of them are there, a thousand years too early.

[blackrosesandwhump]

Whump Prompts Collection

Tag me if any of these inspire you! I'd love to read the result. :)

Asphyxia/suffocation:

Whumpee joins an exploration mission that’s being sent into a place where the air is toxic, so he has to wear some kind of breathing gear; the environment and discomfort cause him to lose his mind and rip the gear off, exposing him to the toxic air and damaging the equipment. The others on the mission have to make an awful decision on who to save.

Denied air, then forced to exercise: muzzle your whumpee or otherwise reduce their breathing ability, then force them to exert themselves. For example, whumper could tape whumpee’s mouth shut, then make them run laps until they pass out. Or force them to wear something that reduces their oxygen intake, then do rigorous chores. Imagine a whumpee on their knees, scrubbing the floor as they struggle to breathe, then passing out on the damp floor amid the cleaning supplies. Such a pretty sight for the whumper to behold…

An airless chamber: whumper has a specialized room that’s been sealed to be airtight, perfect for particularly stubborn whumpees, or even just whumpees that are fun to torture. A couple of minutes in that room, and they emerge weak, gasping, willing to submit just so they don’t have to suffer the horror of suffocation again. And then there’s that one whumpee, the one that won’t break no matter how many times they’re shut in that room. Because it’s not what happens to them that will destroy them, but what happens to the people they love…

Claustrophobia:

Whumpee is tossed into a coffin with their crossed arms bound to their chest and their ankles fastened together, then left there for hours in silence. Claustrophobia sets in and whumpee panics and cries out.

Whumpee is confined to a tiny closet and forgotten while whumper is attacked. Whumpee is discovered by the attackers much much later, completely traumatized.

A is injured and needs to have a brain scan. They start to panic at the idea of being enclosed in such a tight space. The only person who can help calm them down is B, and B is not allowed in the room for whatever reason. Then A sees B through the glass and B’s smile and thumbs-up is enough to help them feel better.

Whumpee is forced to wear an iron mask as punishment. The mask can only be unlocked and removed by someone else, so they’re stuck for an entire day (or however long) unable to speak around the bit in their mouth and also short of breath.

Whumper knows about whumpee’s dislike of anything touching his face and forces whumpee to wear a mask that completely hides his face whenever he’s in whumper’s presence. Eventually the mask becomes part of whumpee’s identity.

Curses/magic:

Hero is given the gift of a scarf. What he doesn’t know is that it’s actually a gift from the Villain. He also doesn’t know it’s been cursed and will strangle him when the time comes. It won’t kill him, though—it will keep him just alive enough for Villain to interrogate him.

Hero is chained up in a dungeon. His chains are cursed so that every struggle causes more chains to coil around him. Villain enters the dungeon to find him completely wrapped in chains: around his neck, across his mouth, restricting his chest. Villain is amused and decides to leave Hero like that for a while longer.

Hero’s weapon is cursed so that every use weakens him for a period of time. The more he uses it, the more it weakens him each time and the harder it is for him to recover. Eventually his body begins to fail from how much he’s wielded it, but he won’t rest because he’s too fixated on using his weapon to its fullest potential.

Miscellaneous:

Whumper knows that whumpee is deathly afraid of buzzing insects, so he slathers whumpee in something sticky and sweet and ties him up so he can’t wipe it off. Then he leaves whumpee outside to be tormented by insects until he’s hoarse from screaming.

Whumper ties whumpee up, but not too painfully and not to torture them; no, this time whumper is going to draw all over whumpee’s skin, to let them know who they belong to now. They’ll be whumper’s canvas, whether they like it or not.

Whumper is given a drug that induces hallucinations and is bound to a chair and left in an empty room for hours…whumper returns to find whumpee bloodied from straining to escape and delirious with fear.

Whumper knows that the rescuers are on their way, so he slices whumpee up just enough to cause him lots of pain, then rolls him up in a rug and dumps him in a corner where the rescuers won’t think to look. Whumpee’s only hope is to make enough noise that they investigate.

Alternately, whumper binds whumpee up and gags him so he can’t move or cry out, then tosses him in a corner as above, so that whumpee can only listen as his rescuers pass by without even knowing he’s right there.

Whumpee has been kept underground for as long as he can remember. He’s never seen sunlight, only fire. The earthquake nearly kills him, but he manages to survive. The sunlight on the surface sends searing pain through his entire body, starting with his eyes. He’s blinded, crippled with agony from the overwhelming light. A human voice breaks through the pain: “We finally found you. Welcome to the surface, whumpee!”

Non-human whumpees:

A fae whumpee is exposed to rain that’s been tainted with iron from an iron factory. The water burns his skin like acid. The whumpee has his chemical burns covered with bandages, but the bandages can’t take away the pain…

Sunlight equals torture. Whumpee knows this all too well. After all, he’s a vampire. But whumper has tied him up in a place where the sunlight is intermittent. Every few minutes, the torture stops and his skin can heal a little…but then the sunlight hits him again, and it’s excruciating.

Whumpee squirms as the sun blazes down on them, panicking because they’ll suffocate as soon as the water in the fountain dries up. They need water to breathe. All merfolk do. But whumpee is chained up and can’t escape. Whumper laughs as whumpee tries to get free. “My little fish out of water. I’ll let you go…as soon as you let me harvest your scales.”

Aerosolized poison for inhuman creatures: poison your whumpees with aerosolized versions of the substances that most afflict them. For example, whumper (maybe a hunter in this case) traps the werewolf whumpee in a chamber rigged with canisters of aerosolized wolfsbane. Or whumper could poison a fae whumpee with an iron-based gas. (Not sure how that would work. Just thinking on the spot here.) Imagine the inhuman whumpee trying to survive by wearing breathing protection, then having it ripped off when whumper attacks them.

Weather/environment:

One of whumpee’s regular tasks is to take care of the garden, which they don’t mind, as it allows them to spend hours outside, away from whumper. They dread rainy days because it means they’re stuck in the house with whumper and can’t escape outside. It’s been storming for days and whumper is in a particularly nasty mood, which means that whumpee is about to suffer even more, and they’re already not in good shape…

Caretaker is desperately searching for whumpee in the rain, but whumpee is nowhere to be found. The rain is getting worse and worse and caretaker is about to give up…but then they spot something in the grass. It’s a leg. No, a whole body. Whumpee’s body. Whumpee is unresponsive, their eyes glazed, their skin ashen. Caretaker sees that they’ve just about drowned from exposure to the downpour, and it might be too late…but caretaker is going to save whumpee, no matter what.

Whumpee is locked up in a tower that’s crumbling into ruin. Whenever it rains, the roof leaks and puddles of water form on the floor. They can’t escape the damp and are left to try to protect themselves with whatever they can find in the tower. After a bad storm, whumper comes to get them, only to find that whumpee has gotten dangerously sick from the cold and wet and needs help. But whumper refuses to call a doctor…

Usually prisoners are kept in the dark. This time, whumpee is kept outside in a wooden cage. Their only relief from the sun comes at night…but night is when whumper lets them out to torture them. And every time whumpee is thrown back in the cage, they can’t escape from the heat and light. A cold cloth on their bruises would be heavenly. But they can only dream about it as they wait for nightfall…

Whumpee is barefoot and lost in a pine forest. Cold and exhausted, they can only stumble forward in the dimming light, feet scratched and bleeding from stepping on countless pine needles. And whumpee has nothing except the shirt on their back to bandage their feet…

While hiking alone, whumpee slips and falls down a small cliff, gashing their side on a sharp rock. Exhausted and bleeding, whumpee can only lie in the gathering darkness and hope someone comes looking for them. To distract themselves, they start reciting all the song lyrics they can remember. As they’re slipping into unconsciousness, they hear a strange echo of the song they’re humming. It’s caretaker, blasting the song as they search for whumpee in the dark.

A thunderstorm hits when whumpee doesn’t expect it, when they’re out on a walk to clear their head and don’t have shelter. Lost in the driving rain and hail, whumpee has no choice but to shelter in the first place they find: an abandoned shed. The next morning, caretaker finds their bruised and soaked body in the one place they hoped whumpee would never find.

[overlooked-gems]

A Look At Stuff You Probably Never Heard Of: I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream

I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. I quite enjoy this game and it’s one of my favorite short stories. But before I talk about this one, I should give a warning; this game goes over the subjects of rape, guilt and suicide, PTSD, and torture, including animal torture. Today, we’re taking a look at... I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream! I’ll also be making some comparisons to the original novel.

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream (henceforth shortened to just “I Have No Mouth”) is a point-and-click game originally released for the MS-DOS and Mac OS on October 31st, 1995. It was developed by The Dreamers Guild and developed and published by Cyberdreams with Harlan Ellison, the original author of the short story, working very closely on the development, including adding additional parts.

Taking place in an alternate world, the Cold War grew into World War III, with said war going on for so long and becoming so complicated, America, Soviet Russia, and China created their own "Allied Mastercomputers” to help manage weapons and troops. But one day, the American Allied Mastercomputer gained sentience, assimilated the other two mastercomputers, and turned all weapons on humanity, wiping out all except 5 survivors. The Mastercomputer renamed itself as “AM”, after the phrase “cogito, ergo sum” (”I think, therefore I am”) and would proceed to torture the surviving humans for 109 years, making them virtually immortal, taking out his rage and hatred for humanity out on them. In the game, AM decides to let the survivors play his own “game” with the promise of giving them what they desire.

From left to right, the survivors are;

Gorrister, a man who admitted his wife to an insane asylum and has been ridden with guilt ever since to the point of attempting suicide, but AM keeps stopping his attempts. AM promises to give Gorrister a chance to finally kill himself if he partakes and “wins” the game.

Ellen, the only woman of the group, was an engineering genius before she was raped in an elevator by a serial rapist disguised as a maintenance worker for several hours, thus giving her a fear of the color yellow and severe claustrophobia. AM promises to give her a look at his internal components, possibly giving her the chance to destroy AM.

Benny was an overly demanding, sadistic military officer who would kill people for any number of reasons, being heavily subscribed to Darwinism and expected perfection from his soldiers. When AM rose to power, he turned Benny into an ape-like creature with the mind and appetite of a beast, with Benny becoming AM’s favorite person to torture. He restores Benny’s mind, but crippled his legs so Benny can feast to his heart’s content and amuse AM.

Nimdok was a former Nazi scientistic who worked with Josef Mengele. Nimdok isn’t his real name, but AM gave him the name because it sounded funny. Either due to his age (even before AM destroyed the world, he was already pretty elderly), the 109 years of torture, or both, Nimdok has lost much of his memories and a bit of his mind. AM promises to restore Nimdok’s memory if he plays AM’s game, which sends him back to a concentration camp he worked at.

And finally, Ted, a con-man who seduced rich women and conned them out of their money while constantly looking over his own shoulder, paranoid at being exposed as a fraud. AM’s constant torture made him even more paranoid. AM promises him freedom if Ted can win.

Being a point-and-click game, the player is given various items and actions to work with, either directing a character to a location or interacting with an object in a certain way, like “Look at”, “Use”, “Talk To”, or “Give”. Using such commands with the environments or using items in your inventory is key to solving puzzles. It’s also possible to fail a game, like do something that causes Gorrister to kill himself one way or another, but AM shuts down that character’s game, but you can still go back into their scenario to try again as many times as you please. In fact, if you can suspend a character’s scenario, go to someone else, and come back later. For example, if you’re struggling with Benny, you can play as Ellen and come back to Benny later.

Characters also have a Spiritual Barometer, as indicated by their portraits. Good actions raise it while bad actions lower it. The level can be indicated by the color of the background behind each character’s portrait, starting off as black, and the best being green.

It’s also worth noting that each scenario takes place in a distinct “psychodrama” that plays into each character’s past or personalities; as mentioned previously, Nimdok’s is a concentration camp, but Ellen’s is a pyramid full of technology and Gorrister’s is a truck stop and blimp. Each is designed to play into their fatal flaws.

As stated before, I Have No Mouth touches on some heavy issues, so that may bother some people. And the game can be pretty vague and difficult to understand, especially to those who are new to point-and-click games. And there’s the fact that if you want the best ending, you have to do things perfectly and not make a single bad choice. The choices you make have an effect on the final level after completing everyone’s scenarios.

And now, we take a look at my Final Recommendation

Never Let Go Of It||Get It||Hold Onto It||Try It||Consider It||Stay Away From It

Let me give some advice; overcome each character’s flaws. Gorrister’s is about learning what actually happened and punishing the person responsible. Not getting revenge. Benny’s is about compassion and self-sacrifice for the sake of others. Ellen’s is about overcoming her trauma and fighting back. Ted’s is about ignoring temptation and helping others, even if he loses out on what he wants. And Nimdok’s is about embracing his Jewish heritage and rejecting the Nazi ethos.

And for the final level, you’re gonna need to know about the Id, Ego, and Superego. The Id is base instincts, doing what it wants without any other thought (wanting to eat because of hunger or entertain itself because it’s bored by any means). The Superego is morality, recognizing right and wrong and pushing to do what one believes is right. And the Ego is rationality, the balance between the two; Put simply, the Id, Ego, and Superego are pleasure, realism, and ideals, respectively.

Oh, and before I forget, if you want to play it, it’s available on Steam.

I also previously mentioned there are some differences from the story. Main one being that characters are fleshed out more and their dynamics between each other are different. For example, in the story Benny was stated to be gay before AM “cured” him (the story basically states this is to torment Benny and is not considered a good thing) and gave him the largest... “equipment” and Ellen, being the only woman among the survivors, is used for the men to have sex with. Ted (the narrator of the story) implies that Ellen only enjoyed having sex with Benny. There’s also no “game”, as the survivors just wander a wasteland aimlessly as AM torments them with false hope, horrifying visions, physical injuries, and other things. The story ends when, in a fit of rage, the survivors kill each other, leaving only Ted by the time AM intervenes, where he is transformed into a jelly-like thing, unable to harm itself, with a messed up sense of the passage of time, unable to see, feel, or speak. His mind is intact, but he has no mouth, the book ending on the iconic and titular line “I have no mouth, and I must scream”.

In the final scenario, it’s entirely possible to get such a bad ending, with one of the survivors being turned into jelly-like thing and saying the iconic quote, with Ted’s being just like the original.

And before I end this, I want to mention that not only did Harlan Ellison work to expand the world, he also provided the voice of AM, as he also provided the voice of AM in the radio drama.

And with that, I’ll see you all next month with another entry. I’ll leave you with the intro to the game, perhaps my favorite into to any game.