#and i am loving single life. not really interested in shackling myself to someone in any capacity

[excelsior9173]

lmaooooo i am 100% just using my hinge account to be vain at this point

got a like and instead of matching with the guy i’m just sat here staring at the photo he liked like “damn, i’m hot as fuck” 😂😂😂

so sorry to anyone looking to get with me, i’m pulling a narcissus and falling in love with myself instead. catch me drowning in a scenic pool in the woods someday

[wyrd-weaver]

"𝔏𝔢𝔱 𝔐𝔢 𝔖𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔜𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔅𝔲𝔯𝔡𝔢𝔫."

Trigger Warnings: Suicidal Ideation, Mention of Self-Harm, Mention of Rape (That Resulted in Pregnancy), Mention of Binge Eating, Mention of Weight (By a Disgusting Man), Depression, Anxiety.

⤷ Remember: Every body type is beautiful, and you're legally allowed to maim those who say otherwise! The brief few sentences in this story are not accurate of any decent, sane individual.

Word Count: 1887

～～～～～～～～～～

Depression had you caged, shackled to the memories...the all-consuming sensations of horror and disgust. The very same that were forced upon you, that iced all your muscles twelve hellish months ago. Twelve! And yet, the nightmares refused to cease. Every evening, you battled demons most powerful and foul, acquiring scar after scar after scar. If you stumbled, if you lay down your weapon or lost...could you really be faulted? If this was Heaven's retribution, a cleansing of your contaminated, sinful body, then...was it not misguided? Surely a void replaced the evidence against you?

Blame should never have befallen you! This child, despite his mask of innocence, attested to humanity's ugliest side. Your heart was unravelling - you needed him, as an extension of yourself, as someone to cherish, but...you didn't want him. He wasn't the product of consent. He was loathsome...and a burden. He was so young, so dependent.

Casting him to the mercy of the streets would be more than a mere violation of morality. You already felt criminal - convicted on thoughts and false claims, serving a life sentence in the bowels of Hell. There was an escape, of course. Although...it wasn't accompanied by a light, or the gentle touch of a loved one. No...this escape was advertised as selfish, shameful...weak. And maybe so. Maybe life's greatest demand was the forgoing of happiness. But...to such an extent seemed excessive, and deliberately cruel. You shouldn't have been so dirty, so broken...an embarrassing stain on your family's name.

A single mother. A victim. A failure.

Plagued with flashbacks that favoured spontaneity above calculation, you carved miserable little lines on to your arms. Nobody knew - not your son, nor the Avengers...nor even Loki. They all harboured some form of trauma, however deep-rooted, and so...they had no need for your sob story. Who would care for someone so violated? Someone so...afraid? Your mind, weakened by fatigue and chronic worry, was simply too weak to resist those thoughts, and all hope had been drained from your heart. Why should you be tethered to life, if only for your child? Should you instead seek liberation, peace...joy? Decency discouraged it, but pain stood its ground.

With your dignity in shambles, your disowning, your binging...nothing felt right anymore! Nothing felt...clean. Loki had noticed, observant as he was. Here, sequestered within the walls of the Avengers' Compound, he was the closest to a friend...maybe even more.

No, no, no! I can't think like that! He's a man! A man! I shouldn't even be going near him anymore! Why, oh god...why is he the only one I'm not afraid of? The only one who can comfort me when I break? I can't...! I haven't even told him about...about...Well, I haven't told anyone! They all just think I slept with someone recklessly! And now...now I'm tainted, unlovable! This is...it's all my fault...I should have defended myself. I should have done something! Anything! Why...why did I freeze...? Why? Why?! Why?!!

Loki understood mental anguish and the torture of dissimilarity, as his birth-rights. Perhaps that was reason enough for your breathing to even, in his embrace. It had taken moths to allow such a privilege, and Loki's persistence, how his voice quivered as he begged to help you in any form...

You, whom he held so very dear...

You might have assumed his affections romantic, once upon a time. Yet...no longer. An ailment had struck you - one that rendered both eyes and ears ignorant to his double meanings, his implications...his love. You couldn't process them over the fear and paranoia. Didn't all relationships entail force, and...activities of a sexual nature? You never wanted to experience that again. Never! So, while sleep washed over the Compound, you crept to the kitchen, intent on expanding your waistline evermore. That your size may, to some, be cause for revulsion, had never previously occurred. It was only when the words danced on the tongue of that godforsaken man...

Eat, eat more! Who cares if you're sick? Keep eating! He said...he said that excess was unattractive. So - so maybe he won't...maybe I won't be...again...?

It had been dominance play, a show of superiority.

Loki would never steal something so sacred, unless you willed it.

He was a gentle soul, manipulated into committing an atrocity, and scorned - by the Avengers, especially. He wouldn't find any resonance in your tale (and you hoped he never would), but as a companion, a patient listener...surely there would be no judgement in his heart? He wouldn't be so quick to abandon you...right? Still, a single utterance of that day, of that most fright-inducing event...required courage far surpassing your own. Maybe...just a word? A sign? Something...?

Lonely was the path you wandered, in spite of Loki's presence. Alone, he failed to drown your demons. He held them under the waves, but they always returned.

You appreciated the effort. Plasters may cover your scars, but they could never heal your heart. Could Loki?...In time? If distorted thoughts of him were enough to ground you in the midst of panic...could he aid your recovery?

He also wondered that. Your deception wasn't half as masterful as you had hoped. Or perhaps you were simply the target of Loki's observations, and therefore came under frequent scrutiny. He had, of course, picked up on the subtle changes in your demeanour - particularly post-pregnancy. He idled at your side, throwing neither intrusive question nor accusation. This was at the behest of his conscience, although he longed desperately to ignore it. He wanted to know...what exactly happened last year, when your transformation began?

Your lips were sealed, but his very essence ached - sorrow, curiosity, love, sympathy and compassion all melding together within him. They ran amuck, refusing any whisper of sleep. His concentration had flown alongside it, rendering him unable to enjoy the book that rested in his palm. It had maintained a decent level of interest until now, but duty called. He would pry open your chamber door, glimpse your ethereal, sleeping form...and finally feel content. If you were strolling through dreamland, then his concern could dissipate. At least for a while. If not...he would discover why.

Loki hesitated outside your door, for if you were truly non-the-wiser, asleep...vulnerable, then a mere survey of yourself and the room would leave, on his tongue, a terrible aftertaste.

But, lo and behold, only your young son slept soundly, in his crib.

Loki was grappled now with a sense of alarm - where in Odin's name were you? And, pray tell...why was your child on his lonesome, cleansing himself of the prior day, in such a frigid room? He was wrought with grief upon recalling your distaste for the babe, and again when he realised there was no option to remove him, bring him to a warmer space, rock him and sing soft melodies...

Loki's primary goal was to find you, and perhaps...coerce you into confessing everything. From a true account of the day that always replayed in your mind, to your innermost feelings and thoughts...he needed to know, and to understand.

He had scoured half the building before laying eyes upon you. However...relief proved elusive. There were an endless number of questions, but none dared to grace the air. Why was your beautiful face stained with tears? Why were you eating, despite looking so sickly? What had troubled you so? And...could he kill it? He was unsure of the proper manner in which to approach you. He had always tread lightly, but complete silence and delicacy were more fortes of his mother. He swallowed down the nerves.

"(Y/n), darling...why aren't you sleeping?"

You startled, eyes bloodshot and a biscuit lodged between your lips. "U-Uh..."

He walked forward. "Is there something weighing on your mind?"

"...No?" This was mumbled, as though credence escaped you.

"My dear, you aren't a skilled liar. Talk to me, please." The heartache nearly tore him apart.

You wouldn't meet his gaze. "I...I can't."

"Please?" Both of your voices cracked, in unison.

Oh god, alright. Okay. This if fine...right? It's fine. I'm fine...Am I? What if I'm not?! I can't tell him just yet! But he looks so upset...I did this! I caused this! Oh god...just stay - stay calm! Calm down...calm down...

A tear trickled down your cheek, then another. "I-I've never...I don't want to - to relive it."

He brought you into a protective embrace. "Then you won't. I swear, by all the beings in the Nine Realms, that I will keep you safe. Please, let me share your burden."

Three sentences. Who was so weak-willed, that a mere three sentences shattered all their defences? You cursed his silver tongue. "(S-S/n)...! He - he's...I didn't...I-I don't want him! J-Just because I didn't fight back...I didn't try to run, he...t-that man, he did...things. To me. And now...now I'm so dirty! I'm disgusting...unclean, weak. B-But...sometimes - sometimes I think it's all in my head. But it isn't! I-It happened, and (S/n)! He's...he's the proof! He reminds me...o-of that..."

Loki froze. "What...?"

"But I-I couldn't - I couldn't tell anyone! They wouldn't...believe me, o-or care! People like me, they don't - this...this doesn't happen! Why...why did this happen?? A-And now...there's (S/n). And every...every minute is Hell! I can't take it anymore...I don't w-want to be here. I don't want to be...to be alive anymore..."

Loki could almost see the threads of rationality thinning. Who would...defile you, hurt you? You were so important, so genuine and...lovely. "I will find this man, and personally deliver his comeuppance. He never deserved your voice, let alone your touch."

"No!" You stiffened in his arms. "Then he'll...he'll come back..."

"If he does, I shall slay him." Yet, Loki made no attempt to leave. Instead, he slipped into a mask of composure, enough to continue speaking without seething. "I apologise...if you thought I wouldn't care. I do - more than you could ever imagine. You are the most stunning creature I have had the honour of meeting, in all my lifetime. I was resolved to spend my days at your side, never professing my love, but after hearing that...I..."

You panicked. "Loki...don't. Please-"

"I know it would be impudent to assume that you could accept me right now, but consider that...I can protect you. I will never let him, or anyone, hurt you again." Loki wiped away your crystalline sadness. "But, please...when you can't see worth or joy in this life...please come to me. I will be here to remind you of your victory - you survived such torture, and delivered a child. You are far from weak, (Y/n)."

Loki's fingers darted along your wrist. He yearned to kiss every scar, every inch of your skin.

Though, he would do nothing without permission. "Now, my dear...let's put these treats away. I would suggest that, henceforth, you eat balanced meals and partake in some fun activities. Perhaps I could read to you, one day? And venturing out for a walk - we can do that together. I...um, hope I'm not overstepping any boundaries. I'm simply thinking of ways to occupy your mind...and your time. You can do these things alone, of course..."

You nodded. "But...you'd - you'd do them with me?"

"I would gladly do anything with you, my love." Loki's words were empty of duplicity.

You were angelic - the only one safe from his lies.

[sabineelectricheart]

The Long Road

Summary: Hawke asks Sebastian to accompany her to the Wounded Coast to help matchmake Aveline and Donnic. The Brother is not amused.

Rating: K+ - Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.

Words: 1909

Notes: So, I’ve been playing DA these days, and I thought to cross-post here some fanfictions I wrote way back when. Enjoy!

Sitting on the floor by the door of the City Guard Captain is certainly not the best use of my time.

Hawke was twirling her hair distractedly, to my great surprise, also looking extremely bored and rather uncomfortable. I did not think she had that tick, as I felt that fighting highwaymen and explorations down the Deep Roads did not seemed befitting to hair care and the affairs of the heart.

Well, this whole day has been about surprising circumstances.

*_*_*_*_*

“Please, Sebastian!” She begged. “The whole thing feels so ungainly!”

She came looking for me at the Chantry, early that morning, while I tended to the candles to the dead. I had not the chance to finish my prayers before she grumbled her request.

I was used to Hawke’s weird invites, and usually I am more than glad to attend to them. She is a good friend and a fierce fighter, I never feared for my life with her by my side, not to mention my standing debt with her.

This, however, was a little too weird. To help matchmake the Guard Captain with a guardsman. By doing the rounds ahead of them.

“I can see that.” I agreed. “That is why I don’t think I should get involved. How would Guard Captain Aveline say if she knew you are being so open about her private life?”

“She asked me for help, and now I’m asking you…” She mumbled.

“She asked you, not me. You should do what you can, not bite more you can chew, and certainly not go spreading the tale around town.”

“I know that!” She defended. “That’s why I came to you, really. Varric and Isabela would tell all the patronage at the Hanged Man, Merrill has good intents, but she has an awful lack of tact, and Fenris and Anders are pants at romance.”

“And you thought a Brother of the Chantry would be a better option?”

“Yes?” She said, weakly. “Look, you had a, er, prolific romantic life when you were younger. Besides, mother tells me all the noble girls ask for you to hear their confessions.”

I felt my cheeks redden. “That’s beside the point!”

“What I mean by that is that you know how it works.” She countered, matter-of-factly, then, whispering, she said, “That’s more I can say for myself.”

The declaration made me halt for a moment, as I was quite sure that she would have had involved herself with Fenris at some point in time, or at least Anders in the three months they were away at the Deep Roads.

Nevertheless, while I heard her quite well, in respect for her right to privacy over her affairs of the heart, I did not press, despite my deep-seeded curiosity in the matter.

“I do not know what you would call experience, but I insist that I have no special skill over those matters. Even if I did, my, ahem, interests have been firmly and historically towards the fairer sex, and I come to understand that this is an entirely different métier.” I argued, trying to put an end to the discussion.

She groaned unseemly, and looked me dead in the eyes. “I didn’t want to tell you that, but I have no choice. Yesternight, Aveline wanted me to take Donnic for a drink at the Hanged Man and distract him for a while before she arrived, and now he’s under the impression I’m interested in him. He rejected me, of course, and thank the Maker for it, but I’m horribly embarrassed by that.

“If you were to come with me, perhaps… Well, perhaps he would understand I don’t want nothing with him and refrain from doing this sort of comment. At least, I think he wouldn’t jump to that conclusion anymore. Just… Please?”

Guardsman Donnic thought Hawke was interested on him, out of all people? And then came to the conclusion she was not worth his affections? He had quite a sense of self, huh?

Marian Hawke was not only a blue-blood, hailing from one of the most important families of the Free Marches, and with an enviable martial skill, which serves to memory that he made use of when she saved him. She was remarkably beautiful as well, yes, but that is not all, either. She had a noble character that was very hard to come by, always in service of the downcast of Kirkwall, even if she made questionable decisions on occasion.

The thought that Donnic is somehow above her made me want to laugh.

“Fine. Let’s go.” I conceded, sighing.

She beamed and led me to the city gates by the hand. I did not mind.

*_*_*_*_*

Her plan at the Wounded Coast did not go well.

Aveline was right in asking for all the help she could get, as she was hopeless when it came to romantic relationships, and it was painfully distressing to watch it unfold.

After clearing the entire path of highwaymen and traffickers, Donnic and Aveline had a completely uneventful patrol, where she could not form a single sentence that did not feel like nails on a chalkboard, not to mention the pitiful romantic caliber of it.

Hawke was downright frustrated, whispering expletives to herself she thought I could not hear, and I usually would chastise the language, but there was a time and a place to swear, and I ought to say this was it.

Finally, when they reached our outpost at the end of the trail, she forsook their anonymity and jumped in front of the pair of guardspeople, a wagging finger in front of her face.

“We don’t have all night, you know?!” She shouted at them.

Donnic, confused, looked between me, emerging from the bushes, Hawk and Aveline.

“Would someone please tell me what is going on?” He asked.

I sighed. “Guardsman Donnic, excuse my bluntness, but for the Maker’s sake, me and Hawke have been trying to help Captain Aveline to communicate her feelings for you all day. Please cooperate, because she is helpless.”

“Captain?” He turns to her to confirm, and she could only laugh noncommittally. Faced with such riveting response, he responded, uncomfortable, “I… Should get to the barracks.”

“Most unwise.” I commented, but made no further attempt of dissuading the man.

As he left, Aveline turned to Hawke in absolute rage. “I thought we were friends.”

“Friends sometimes push.” Was her response.

“I have to fix this. He could ask for a transfer, file a complaint.” She said, concernedly, and then turned to me. “You! You will come to the barracks and explain why you put him on the spot, or so help me!”

“Aveline, love is patient, love is kind, but love does not read thoughts.” I pointed out. “I hear you wanted to know whether you were a good match for each other, and I am sorry to say, there is no other way. The Maker will not tell you the right answer, you will have to find out yourself.”

Her eyes narrow and her hold on her sword tightens. “I will see you at the Keep.”

*_*_*_*_*

Once at the City Guard headquarters, Aveline had yet to calm herself down.

She paced back and forth through the main lounge, the other guards looking curiously at us.

“Maker, where is Donnic?” She begruntled. “I have to stop this before it arrives at the viscount. Maybe a formal apology. Something that show the guards they still can trust me.”

“Perhaps a few awkward gifts should help.” Hawke pointed out, and I snickered.

The redhead glared at her friend.

“You are their captain, Aveline.” I said, trying to defuse the situation. “You are not a golem; you are a human being. They expect you to have feelings, and are bound to respect you more if you show them on occasion.”

“Not if they are getting on the way of the job!” She countered.

“You don’t know that yet.” Hawke piped.

“It doesn’t matter! It’s a liability!” The other woman responded, deeply frustrated and afraid. “I will not be that stupid again.”

Guardsman Donnic chose that moment to appear down the stairs at the headquarters.

“Excuse me, Serah Hawke, Messere Vael, I need to speak with Aveline in private.”

“Guardsman Donnic.” Aveline acknowledges him, looks for confirmation from Hawke and motions for them to converse at her office.

*_*_*_*_*

Now, we wait.

A loud giggle coming from the room surprises Hawke, who uncrosses her arms and straightens her back.

“It seems to be going well.” She commented.

“It would appear so.” I agreed.

Her mouth twitched slightly over her thoughts, and then she sits next to me. “Hey, Sebastian?”

“Yes?”

“Before you made your vows, have you ever been in love?”

“No.” I said, categorically. “When I first left the Chantry, which was when I started dragging the family name through the mud, my mother offered me a choice: either to return to the order or to get married.

“I abhorred the idea of being what I thought to be equivalent to shackled to a woman the rest of my life, so I thought I could just pretend to have a righteous life with the sisters for a year or two, and then resume my prior interests once my parents forgot about it. Funny how things turned out.

“Had I been in love, truly in love, my choice would certainly be other. In fact, perhaps I would never get to the point of having to chose at all, I would have never strayed.”

“I see.” She tutted. “Do you regret it? Making your vows? Being unable to marry?”

I chuckled. “I could never regret a promise made to the Maker. However, I do wish things have never gone this way.”

“You mean, the Harimanns?”

“Yes, that too. I was more than happy to continue my life as a third son, keeping my vows, but I think I would be happy as a minor noble in an estate in the Marches, and that would include having a family, too.”

She smiled sadly at me. “For what is worth, I am sorry for what happened with your family. I am sorry you are being forced into a role you do not really want. Maker knows it’s something I have experienced.”

I thought about what I could say about that matter, but I was still trying to wrap my head around what had happened. Instead, I asked of her, “What about you? Do you desire to get married?”

“Yeah.” She responded shily. “I am a mage. I think I should marry, I feel like I should, for my people at Circles that cannot. Besides, you tend to develop a desire for stability when you become a refugee.”

I sighed. “I see. Who would you want to marry, then?”

Her cheeks redden. “I don’t know. The best I can tell you is I want a good man.”

“Preferably a direct one?” I asked in jest.

“Andraste, yes!” She breathed out.

As she spoke, Donnic emerged from the office, bowed his head slightly, and Aveline asked to talk to her.

“Sebastian?” She asked from the doorstep. “Would you care for waiting for me? We could stop by the baker’s before walking to the Chantry.”

I smiled. “I would love to.”

“Great.” She, too, beamed. “I’ll be right out.”

So, I began to think, what does make a good, direct man? Perhaps Varric knows the answer. I ought to ask him one of these days.

*_*_*_*_*

Dragon Age II Masterlist

[medusas-side-snake]

Scarred - Chapter 3

I had to split this chapter and the next up because it was just going to be way too long, but at least that means that I’ll have chapter 4 up for you guys soon

Megan works for the Order, she has been on a mission for them for over a year. A mission that was only supposed to last two weeks. Heritage means that she is on thin ice with the rest of the Order, mix that with some heartbreak by the dragon-loving Weasley boy and a certain Black family member with a vendetta and you have the following story.

The lounge was full, even without me in it. Remus, Tonks, Sirius, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Alastor Moody, Molly, Arthur, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny and Hermione were all sat and stood around. All conversation stopped when I walked in and the rest of the Weasley children saw me for the first time since I had arrived back home.

“Megan, sit down.” Alastor was the one to break the silence in his usual abrupt manner. I had spent quite a bit of time with Mad-Eye previously so I didn’t take offense and, instead, did as he asked, sitting on the edge of the coffee table in the middle of the room. Once I was seated, Kingsley took out a small box from his pocket and with a quiet ‘Engorgio!’, it turned into a full-sized cabinet. I recognised it almost immediately as the Pensieve cabinet from Dumbledore’s office.

“What do you want to see?” There was no point in pretending that I didn’t know what was going on.

“As much as you can remember.” Kingsley was always softer when he spoke than Mad-Eye, but he was always just as abrupt.

“Without keeping us here all day and night.” Always straight to the point with Alastor.

“Erm… suppose we should start with when I arrived…?” No-one objected so I assumed that they were all fine with that idea. I pulled the memory from my head with my pointer finger and let it spin in the Pensieve for a couple of seconds before I pushed my head through the surface. I could feel the others all popping in around me as I watched past-me walk through the woods at the side of the encampment.

APPROXIMATELY A YEAR AGO

I was welcomed into the camp at first. I had dinner with the leader every night and I was shown to nice, clean and moderately sized sleeping quarters. I was brought supper every night and when I needed something, I only had to ask someone and it would be in my room a short time after.

It was at one of the dinners with the leader, Osorin, that it all went to pot actually. They had been quizzing me on what was happening over in England and I was answering all of their questions, only what was public knowledge, obviously. Things like what new restrictions are the Ministry enforcing in light of the new unveiling of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? And what is the muggle Prime Minister doing to help?

I had been careful not to ask too many questions until this point but one that I just couldn’t seem to get off my mind was ‘where are the Death Eaters?’. Dumbledore had sent me on this mission with the knowledge that Voldemort was sending his Death Eaters with the same purpose, meaning that I would have to compete to win the community over to the right side. However, I had not seen nor heard mention of a single Death Eater for the few days that I had been here, and that didn’t sit right with me.

I decided that I was going to bring it up in casual conversation, in the hopes that they would tell me and not think too much of it. So when he asked who does Voldemort have the support of?’, I thought that I had found the perfect segue.

“He obviously has his own followers, other than that, it is mainly traditional pure-blood families that he has the support of. Then again, most of those are his followers so…” I chuckled and then tacked on, “Speaking of his followers, I would’ve thought that they would be trying to recruit a strong clan like yourselves, no?”

“You mean like is your purpose here?” The body language of Osorin changed, it became more guarded and that put me on my guard, but in an attempt to avoid any altercations, I laughed slightly again.

“I just hadn’t seen them or heard them mentioned, that was all. Have they not been here?”

“We get many visitors.” Osorin’s tone told me that there would be no further questions and no room for argument. My first thought was that they had already chosen the other side and I was mearly being played with, for entertainment or information, I didn’t know.

Watching from the sidelines, I could already see them slipping into place the minute that I started asking questions and all I wanted to scream at past-me was ‘SHUT UP!’.

I needed to get out of here. Something was going on and I had been naive the past few days and allowed myself to be lulled into security and safety. I was wrong.

What excuse could I use?

I cleared my throat, “Well, this is a subject that I have been avoiding since I arrived here.” I paused and looked up at Osorin, who was leaning forward with interest. “My departure.” He sighed in disappointment and leaned back in his chair and waved his hand in the air, as though to dismiss me.

“We will come to the arrangements for that when it is time.” His tone was clipped, clearly annoyed with my previous questioning and now my need to leave so suddenly.

“Well, actually, I bring it up for a specific reason. We are expecting a baby back home.” I paused and let the sentence hang in the air for a moment, hoping against hope that this might sway him.

“We?” Really, that is the only part of the sentence that he is going to acknowledge.

“Yeah, my family. We’re all really excited.” I waited to see if he would say anything else. “It’ll be my first niece or nephew?” I added when he didn’t say anything else.

I was beginning to panic slightly now. It didn’t look like he had any intention of letting me go and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fight my way out of here, there were too many of them.

I do something stupid.

I stand from the table without Osorin’s permission and then I do something even more stupid, I open my mouth, “You can’t force me to stay here, I am not your prisoner.” And just like that there are four spells from four different wizards flying at me. I put up a shield and shoot some back at them all while Osorin just sits there and sips his wine, as though nothing is going on around him.

It doesn’t take long for me to realise that I’m trapped, once I do though, I go into a completely different mode, one that I didn’t even know I had. My mind is clear, only spells entering for a split second before they are shot at one or more of the wizards that surround me. This goes on for a while and pretty soon, there is only me and one other wizard left, the others having been restrained in some way or knocked out.

While my confidence and adrenaline are heightened, I do the most stupid thing that I have done all night.

I shot a spell at Osorin. I couldn’t even say what spell it was, only that I did it and before anyone could even retaliate, he had pulled a bullwhip from his pocket. A giant on-fire bullwhip that, with one crack, wrapped itself around my right wrist, rendering it useless.

I let out a scream and continued to use my left hand to deflect and send spells at the remaining wizard in front of me. That was until, with one pull from Osorin, I was on the ground, face first in the mud.

I wasn’t out of the fight yet as I continued using my left hand to shoot spells around the room. I was determined to bring this place down, and I had less aim with my left hand.

I only stopped when I felt the cruciatus cruses hit me, one from Osorin and the other from the remaining wizard. The air immediately left my lungs and I felt myself being torn apart, cell by cell.

The memory around us faded as we watched past-me pass out from the pain.

Before I knew it, we were back in the lounge. No-one said anything after what they had just seen, not even Sirius ‘first time he’s been quiet in his life’ I thought to myself, but didn’t dare say anything out loud in case it started another argument.

I quickly pulled the next memory strand from my temple and placed it into the Pensieve.

Once again, I felt the others settle into the memory a few seconds after myself. This time, we were looking at past-me as she woke up shackled to a chair.

My vision was blurry when I came to. And I couldn’t move my arms from behind my back. I craned my head around and could see that they were in some kind of hand glove/cuff type contraction that meant that I couldn’t unclench them from the fist that they were currently in. This was bad news as the only spells that I knew I could do with no hand movements were healing spells. I tried a few on the mark on my wrist, which was dripping blood every few seconds and causing me a tremendous amount of pain. None of the spells, however, seemed to touch it. The pain didn’t let up, the mark didn’t clear in the slightest and I didn’t know what was going on. I had used those spells many times in the past and every time they had worked perfectly.

I thought back to the whip that they had used to inhabit that hand, it had been on fire. None of the spells that I knew of could help dragon fire wounds, I wasn’t even sure if there were any spells that could heal a dragon fire wound.

Once I had accepted that, I tipped my head back in the chair and listened.

I could hear grunts and groans of pain in the next room, they must be interrogating someone. Meaning that I was probably next.

I was assessing the room when they walked in, Osorin and 3 of his corporals behind him.

“What are the Order of the Phoenix planning?” Osorin spoke as he came to a stop a few feet from me.

“I don’t know, I’m not in the Order.” I lied.

“You must take me for a fool. The Order would not send a non-member on a recruitment mission.”

“This was supposed to be my induction into the Order, a nice easy recruitment mission to prove that I am loyal to the cause.” I was just making up stuff that might save my skin while I tried to come up with a plan to get out of here.

“You lie.” He took a step back and a young man with blond hair took his place. He knelt down and pulled my shoes and socks off, despite me trying to kick him away.

He unrolled a long piece of, what looked like, cloth to reveal a selection of knives, each of them on fire. So it wasn’t cloth then.

He took the knife closest to him and pressed the side of the blade on the bottom of my foot and ran it up to my toes. I immediately screamed in agony as the flames touched my skin and burnt it to a crisp. Once he was to finished with that foot, he dropped it and I felt my vision falter when it hit the floor. He then proceeded to pick up my other foot.

“No! No! Please!” I sobbed, “I can tell you what I know, I’m in Order! Please!”

“You should’ve stuck with the original story, it would’ve hurt less.” Osorin nodded at my boy at my feet and he picked up a hooked knife, also on fire. He hooked the knife around my second toe and with one swift pull, it was on the floor, detached from my foot.

I actually did pass out for a second with the pain and when my visions and mind linked back up, Osorin was asking me another question.

“...Potter survive the killing curse?” I hadn’t heard the full question, but it wasn’t hard to guess what it was.

“I don’t know, only Dumbledore knows. He won’t tell anyone else.” I pleaded.

Osorin looked at me for a couple of seconds and then looked back at one of his corporals and gave them a nod.

I began to writhe and scream in pain as I was hit with a cruciatus curse.

“Please, I don’t know! None of us know!” I was begging him. “Stop! Stop!”

As I was looking at past-me writing in the chair, I couldn’t help but think ‘could you not have come up with a lie or something? Something better than ‘I don’t know’?’. I could see Kingsley looking at me from the corner of my eye, I made no move to look back at him or to acknowledge him. I knew why he was looking at me.

My head dropped forward when the cruciatus curse was lifted and I was gasping for every breath.

“In your Ministry, when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named unmasked himself, who was there?” Osorin asked, I guess they believed that I didn’t know how Harry survived.

“Dumbledore, Harry, a couple of Death Eaters.” I took a minute, making it look like I was trying to catch breath insted of thinking up lies I might be able to get away with in the current situation. I wasn’t sure exactly how much they knew about the whole situation as a lot of it hadn’t been released to the public.

“You were there, weren’t you?” He pushed on when he thought that I had taken too long.

“Yeah, yeah, I was there.” I panted.

“And a certain member of the House of Black?”

“Yeah, yeah, Sirius was there.”

Once again, Sirius whipped his head around to face me as we watched past-me being interrogated. And, to be fair to him, it does look like I’m selling him out at the minute.

“Is that everyone?” Osorin questioned.

“Aside from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Bellatrix Lestrange, yeah, that’s everyone.”

“And what happened there?” They didn’t seem surprised by the names that I was mentioning and they weren’t insisting that I add anymore, so I wasn’t going to offer any up to them.

“I don’t know how Harry and Sirius came to be at the Ministry, I swear. I was at the school when Dumbledore was leaving to go and get them and I followed.”There was so much more to the story, I wasn’t sure how to make it all piece together what with me omitting so many key events. But, they seemed to be buying it, the tears on my face probably made it look like I was reluctant to be selling them out, when really the pain in my feet was blinding.

“And what happened?” He stressed again, taking a step forward and touching his belt, where I knew the dragon fire bullwhip resided. I flinched back in my chair, trying to put as much distance between us as possible.

“When I got there Sirius was fighting the two Death Eaters and Harry was with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Bellatrix. Dumbledore left me with Sirius and followed Harry. I didn’t see any of that fight.”

“Why are you lying?” He says it like it’s a throw away comment, so calm and like he’s just asking whether anyone has seen his cauldron.

“I’m not, I’m not, I swear.” I pleaded with him to believe me.

One of his corporals moved forward and I began to try to move away from him as he stopped next to my chair.

“One last time. Why are you lying?” I began to shake my head and he nodded at the man beside me and then a splitting pain shot through my temple. The room span and all I could hear was a high pitched ringing. I had been punched in the side of my head.

“You know, if you keep lying to me, it’s only going to get worse.”

“I’m not lying, I’m telling you everything I know.” He gave the man beside me another nod and I was punched again, in the jaw this time. The force from the punch knocked the chair over and it landed heavily on the floor.

It took a couple of seconds before I came back to reality and, when I did, I rested my head on the floor and let the blood and drool spill out of my mouth.

“Let’s ask this Sirius Black. Where is he?” Osorin bent down in front of me to ask this question, his hands on his knees.

“Dead.” I spat the blood away from my mouth, not at Osorin, but just on the floor a few centimetres from my face.

“Think hard, are you sure about that?” He looked at the man who punched me and the world tilted for a second as he righted the chair back on all food legs.

“Yes. He died at the Ministry.”

“How?”

“Killing curse.”

“You’re sure.”

I looked at him, bored, blood still trickling from the side of my mouth. “Yes.”

“Shame, we could’ve gotten him to corroborate your story. Guess we’ll just have to make sure you’re not lying.” He took a step back as the other three men moved forward and began to lay into me.

The memory was flickering as we watched past-me float on the edge of consciousness. The chair landed backwards and past-me’s head hit the floor after one of the men punched her straight in the face and that was when the memory went black and we were all spat out in the lounge once again.

I remembered fixing the broken nose that the punch caused when I woke up and rubbed my nose.

“Any questions?” I asked, I had had a few looks from some of them while we were in the memory and I had to make sure that there was nothing that had gone unanswered.

Once again, and to my surprise, Sirius stayed silent.

Kingsley also stayed silent but did not take his eyes off of me. I turned to face him and raised my eyebrows in question.

“You knew though?” I know exactly what he was referring to. I was one of the only people that Dumbledore trusted with his theory as to why Harry survived the killing curse. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that he trusted me so much that he wanted to tell me, no, he needed someone who knew wand lore, and no-one knew as much as Ollivander. Only problem was, he didn’t trust Ollivander not to spill if it came to it and I, who was working under Ollivander at the time, was the next best port of call. Only a few people knew and even fewer people knew who knew. I knew but I had no idea who else knew, so I didn’t speak about it with anyone. Kingsley must be one of the ones who know everything.

“Why did you tell them Sirius was dead?” Ron piped up, the first time any of the Weasley children had spoken to me since I had come down the stairs.

“The Death Eaters think he is, it was a shot in the dark kind of. I hoped that they had told them that he was dead and from the lack of reaction, they had and I was there to corroborate the story. The less they know about us and what we’re doing and our members, the better.” He nodded as I answered the question.

I did hear Sirius scoff when I gave the answer, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I was putting myself as part of the Order when he didn’t trust me and when I was clearly going through all of this so that the others could decide whether to trust me, or if it was because I had told them he was dead.

“Calm down, Sirius, if I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have saved your life after the Ministry.” He shut up at that and I knew that I had guessed right, it was because I had told someone that he was dead. Drama queen.

“Now, if we’re ready.” I paused and looked around the room, “This next one is about seven months later, they were looking for Harry, but couldn’t find him.”

TAGLIST (if you want to be tagged, send me an ask or comment on the chapter)

@utahjoerdis

[rubbrfrk9]

REBORN

I HAD A NAME. I used to be somebody.

I had a profession, dignity, a position in the class structure.

Nowadays, I see through a cracked lens - society is broken, and the people participating in it are all prisoners.  The people you see shuffling in the great to and from, every morning, every evening - they’re miserable.  Ask any one of them if they wouldn’t leave their life, and - perhaps after some hesitation - they would say Yes.  

Even the ones who have kids - the ones in love - all of them.  In fact, those with ties to other people are the first ones to get in line.

For me, it was curiosity that opened the door.  If one follows the classic Hero’s Journey, the arc that every myth and story takes, I heard the Call - just like you - through a buzzing, pixelated source… the great and sordid world of the internet.  

One wrong step can put you on an entirely different path.  

When you look back, the path you were on is obscured by the surrounding environs - pressed firmly closed, as though no thing had ever once passed through.

I should introduce myself before I preach anymore.  I am rubbrfrk9.  You’ve read the stories on the website, you might’ve seen my name watermarked on pics as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.  

That hasn’t been our name always.  But what our name was before does not matter.

All hail the Rubbered One!

And if you’re reading this, then you’re as curious as I was.  

Do you dare follow your own Call?

If you do, keep reading.

THE CALL COMES FOR YOU. You don’t come for it.  The Call has been there, waiting, for you to pick up the other end, for as long as you’ve been alive.

Like I was saying, for me, it was curiosity.  It seems like it is for you, too.

I was always a curious guy.  It’s how I became a teacher, I guess.  I loved to learn about shit.  Endless amounts of shit.  The subjects that interested me were sucked dry by my voracious need to know.  On top of it all, I was cursed (blessed?) by a need to collect, a completionist’s frenzy, and so I found myself needing not just to know, but to know it all.

Everything.  A question could not go unanswered.  I was a very vocal kid, always asking the dread “Why?” to anyone who had the faculty to answer.  Of course, I learned quickly that faculty does not imply ability; and later still, that ability does not imply honesty.  Soon enough, I started shutting up and consulting other avenues of information - books.  I loved books.  I read anything I could find, from my mother’s tawdry romances on the back of the toilet to magazines at the doctor’s office - but my preferred genre was Horror, without a doubt.

I loved to read stories of unfortunate people, blind to their predicament, be lulled to the predator in the story.  I loved how the protagonists were slowly overcome by a sense of dawning knowledge, and were thus able to conquer - or not - the abiding horror.  The best ones were when the hero failed, in my opinion - those dark, twisted passages of despair and helplessness …

I was a weird kid.  

I didn’t have very much luck making friends.  I didn’t really understand what a “friend” should be.  I knew that it was some sort of social construct, but I hadn’t figured out how it worked yet.  Taking the time to do that analysis set me back, quite substantially, in the invisible school of society.  Maybe, at heart, I was always a bit of a freak, even before I came out.  

Funny to think of that, now, sitting here, writing from behind my gas mask and full rubber suit.  

All hail the Rubbered One!

I love how tightly it encases me.  How tightly it erases me.  

Slowly, now.  Don’t give up too quick.  Finish the story first.

As I was saying.  Curiosity.  After college, I became a teacher.  A professor.  Very highly regarded in my field, but poor with social interactions.  Dates?  Of a professional courtesy, only, and as awkward and dry as a lecture.  Actually, for me, lecturing was my second home, aside from my tidy and obsessively-ordered apartment.  I loved standing at the podium, talking about the books we read together.  How they are structured, and how events, following a certain chain, can be transformative.  

Although sometimes, horrific.

Life that is contained entirely within the snowglobe of acadæmia becomes brittle, after a time.  Even the most relentlessly anti-social of us have a heartbeat, a pulse, and a sexual drive.

Most sexual drives will tend towards the obligatory, the procreational.  Attractiveness, physicality, congruence, intercourse, and then the subsequent emotional tangle.  Sex is more than just a body meeting a body a-comin’ thru the rye - it is a rendezvous of energy, some of which we can’t even begin to understand.

Some kind of cosmic interplay happens during sex.  

Something so bright, so chimeric, that I was blinded just thinking about it.

I fled from it, like a medieval monk from a vision of God.

SPARE TIME. I spent most of my time in my apartment in my bedroom, perched with my skinny knees up, my face obliterated by the powder-white light of my phone.  I’d scroll endlessly.  And always pictures of men.

I’d known I was gay way before most people do, but I’d never bothered to “come out” or anything that obvious.  I just kept my feelings to myself, for as long as I could - which may not have been the healthiest thing to do, in hindsight, and when they finally vibrated at the seal on the pressure gauge, I spewed it out all over the internet.

Tumblr was my outlet.  You could find something for every kink, from men transforming into donkeys to using politics as a sexual tool.  I considered myself omnisexual.  I could be convinced, really, to like anything.  Except a few things.

I never really got into the big “full fetish” scene.  I’d, of course, seen the pictures go by - of Folsom, Folsom Europe, even some kinksters trying to make a name for themselves, become influencers, with pictures so heavily edited and filtered they almost looked fake.

But for me, my kink was - get this - intimacy.  I loved pictures of men, beautiful men, kissing, embracing.  Tangling together, with bliss inscribed on their faces.  And it was that expression that did it for me - the bliss, the complete and total walling-off of any worldly concern but the physical, the presence of another’s lips, breath, proximity -

It got me off, every time.  Imagining myself in those positions.  Wearing those clothes.  Caught up in those bedsheets.

Then, I’d stare into the mirror, and flex my coming-along biceps.  My quads.  I’d get dressed for the gym, and I’d go work out for an hour.  

I loved my routine, even if I felt the dreary recalcitrance to wake up every morning and head to work, just another body with the other bodies, shuffling to and from.  The night time is when I felt the surge of life - I would be free of the grimy shackles of the city, I would pound through the tumblr feed, I would shower, I would go workout.  

Life was half-bliss.

But as anyone who has half of bliss will tell you, it is never enough.  You must go searching for the second half of bliss - and I found mine on the night in question.

Knees up, one foot tapping a heel in idle, anxious rhythm.  Eyes greedily consuming, picture after picture, and then -

My thumb hovered over the screen as if about to lay a fingerprint down on a reader.  I stared.

The picture, my gateway, was a bedroom picture much like any other I saw in my daily feed, except for one crucial ingredient - one of the men was entirely encased, from head to toe, in shiny black rubber.

The rubber was so shiny, so depthless, so reflective, that it almost seemed as though its host was Not - as though there were some kind of blotting-out, erasing, blankening … And yet, this Not Person was being encircled by the arms of another man, a strong man, by the looks of it, his biceps bulging around the Rubbered One.

Even now, looking back on it, I find it insanely difficult to pry my eyes away from the memory of that reflective rubber.  That shiny, reflective black rubber.  And the detail!  I could see the hollows of the eyes, the imprint of the big toenail, the curls of the ears down to the tragus - it was truly as though this was not a suit being worn, this was a suit that was animated, had breath and energy of its own.  

Perhaps it was, in hindsight, seducing the man which embraced it.

I don’t know how long I stared at the picture.  A long time.  I was fascinated with everything about it - the mess of clothing on the side of the bed, socks and shirts strewn around, as if someone had melted and left only their garments as markers that they ever existed at all.  Even a pair of glasses lay askew on the carpet, next to a pair of jeans and Chucks.

If I listened, I could almost hear my own heartbeat, beating in time with the glints of light off of that rubber surface, as though the Rubbered One were moving, in infinitesimally small increments, writhing on the bed in either pleasure or agony -

I blinked, shook my head, and pressed down deliberately on the screen, for the little “Save Image” dialog to appear.  I needed to see that again, sometime.

It was a lot sooner than I thought.

I had to excuse myself from my lecture.  I was shaking, and my breath was wobbly in my mouth.  Words had come out gummily, and I was worried that someone would be convinced I was having a stroke.  I’d send in a TA to finish off the lecture, not that anyone in the darkened hall was paying attention anyway.  

I went into the nearest bathroom, a single-room lavatory, and sat down hard on the toilet.  Instantly, my hands fished out my phone from my pocket and called up my Photos.

There, on the top of the digital heap, was the faraway glisten and shine of the Rubbered One.  I sighed in relief, in pleasure.

You would too, if you’d seen the picture.  Don’t judge me.

A whisper of triumph, of pleasure, of satisfaction, threaded through my mind as I opened up the picture.  There it was again.  That endlessness, that Void, that Nothing.  I craved it, and I didn’t know why, and I needed to know why, and to know why, I needed to keep looking.  I needed to keep looking to stop looking.

The Rubbered One had moved.  I remember its legs being in a different scissor - left on top of right, and now it was right, on top of left.  

This did not frighten me.  Perhaps it should have.  Pictures are not supposed to move.

But in my addled state of mind, I was blissfully unaware of the warning - or even, really, of the thought itself.  It slid right out of my head, as if on a glossy sheet of black ice.  I smiled, warmly, the shuddering ceasing.  

Then, surprising even myself, I unzipped my pants, and hauled out my cock.

Nothing would stop me.  I was a man determined.  I could even smell the rubber, could feel it lifting, wafting out of the screen of my phone.  That smell, that smell that I have no words for - something utterly inorganic, but somehow seductive for that very reason.  

I jerked off, right there, in the bathroom around the corner from the lecture hall.  I sat so still, my hand doing all the work, that the motion-sensing lights clicked off, leaving me alone, lit only by the powdery light of my phone.  There, in the enclosing, mummifying dark, I jerked myself off and came with a jagged, oblique moan that slid out of me, catching me by surprise.  

I may have even been in such a hurry to get inside that I didn’t even lock the bathroom door.  This suspicion came to me as I exited, stuffing myself shakily back into my khakis and my blazer.  You see, the door had opened seamlessly, with no hint of a lock dis-engaging.  

In fact, the momentary thrill of being caught as I masturbated to the Rubbered One flicked a little shiver of pleasure up my shaft anew, and I started shuddering so much that I had to grab the wall for fear of falling over.

All hail the Rubbered One!

There was no way I could go back to my lecture now.  I fled the campus for the safety of a local coffeehouse.

OTHER THINGS STARTED HAPPENING. Like how I thought I was having a stroke, before?  I found that, when I spoke, my mouth felt oddly compressed, as though I had lockjaw.  I went to the doctor, but when they told me to “open wide and say ahhh” I had no trouble - my jaw, seemingly re-oiled, complacently opened its full width, and I made the obligatory noise.  

Nothing wrong with my temporo-mandibular joint, advised the healthcare professional.  

And yet, as soon as I left the office, trying to speak to the Uber driver, to give him directions to my apartment, the same muffling, mysterious pressure returned, and I was only able to speak in tight, restrained tones.  

It didn’t occur to me until much, much later, that this was the voice of someone wearing a rubber gas mask, much like the one I am wearing now.

After awhile, I stopped talking altogether.  Of course, this did make it rather difficult to be a professor, and so that had to stop, too.

But what does a mute member of society do, when the one thing they have in life is a degree in English Literature?

Well, the first step is despondency, and denial.  I spent a month at least, just searching tumblr for more pictures of the Rubbered One.  Sure, there were plenty of pictures - the fetish for rubber has never been a subtle one - but none of them had that same irresistable sheen and shine, that fathomless Void, of the Rubbered One.  I’d exhausted most of the blogs.  I kept returning to the photograph I had saved to my cloud - and jerking off to it, again and again, like a desperate man.  Like a junkie.  If I went without, or even thought about going out, my hand developed such a tremor that I looked afflicted with tardive dyskinesia.

It got so bad, and the attacks so frequent, that I eventually just made the picture my home screen on my phone.  That way, if the tremors started, a quick pocket-dig and finger-flip would open up the likeness of the Rubbered One, and instantly, I would calm.

And (he?  It?) continued to move.  Perhaps, now that (he?  It?) knew that I had noticed the movement, it happened more and more, and faster, as though I were watching a video rather than a photograph.

Now, in addition to the slow, sensual scissoring of its legs, the Rubbered One was turning its head, away from the suckling devotion of its prey and turning to look at me, choosing me, directing its energy towards me.

I already had my rubber in the mail.  It took some doing, some difficult work, some self-measuring, but before long the order was placed and the shipment was made.  It was, of course, a link that I’d seen on tumblr, from one of the many rubber fetish sites.  Drone, and a series of numbers, I think.  One of the ones that’s talking about being absorbed into a Hivemind, a Central Core.  Nothing that ever really appealed to me.

The only thing I wished to absorb into was the Rubbered One.  

I ached, yearned, to be the man in that picture.  I was even jealous of him.  Who was he to show his devotion to such a being, such a beautiful entity?  Would not I be a better candidate for the first apostle position?  

But I knew, somehow, deep inside, that I wouldn’t even be considered until I had donned my own rubber.

Here’s where it gets a little weird, right - this is usually the point when in the story, the protagonist gets a little real, sizes himself up, maybe learns something about themselves.  Call me crazy, I know, but at this point, I just knew on the inside, so strongly, that I would never be worthy of the Rubbered One if I wasn’t Rubbered myself.

And so I waited, agonizingly, nearly tearing my hair out, for the package to inch itself across the ocean to my apartment mailbox.  I’d ordered the full suit, of course, the one that most closely approximated my photograph.  

I was utterly consumed, I was ablaze with obsession.  For the first time in my life, I felt an utterly overwhelming feeling - a lack.  I felt as though I lacked something that I had had for just a moment - one sweet moment, hovering, crystalline - and now that I no longer had it, I could never live a whole life again.

And everywhere I went - watching with a hawk’s eye the slow drainage of funds from my bank account - I smelled it.  Rubber.  There was even an auto repair shop, blockaded on one side with piles and piles of tires - I altered my daily neighborhood walk so that I could slowly amble by it, inhaling the thick, gray smell.  The more of it I could get on me, the more I wanted.  If there were a cologne that smelled of rubber, I’d wear it - hell, I’d bathe in it!  I twitched for it to be near me, on me, inside of me.

THE DAY MY NEW FACE CAME IN THE MAIL. I was wearing rubber gloves, made for chemical and construction workers, pressing them to my face, and inhaling as deeply as I could, when my phone made its little ringing noise to signify that a package was Delivered.

It could only be one thing.

It would only be a matter of moments before I could prostrate myself in front of the Rubbered One.

I hooked up my laptop to my flat-screen television, where the Rubbered One had also become my desktop wallpaper.  I opened up the picture file and let it sit, in the middle of my living room, the picture of Him.

Again, I fell far into His Nothingness, His All-Consuming Void - He turned on the bed, in the picture.  He silently got up.  He moved so subtly that it was impossible to tell if my hallucination was real, or some sort of digital magic.  He kicked, as if insulting, the pile of clothes left by the bedside.

The whole time, He kept his head, His black eyes, His shiny face, impassive and monstrous, but so aloof, so superior - His direct gaze - riveted on mine.

All hail the Rubbered One!

With barely a shimmer, He stepped out of the frame of my television and deliberately into my living room.  Tendrils of black squirmed out around the square of my screen, lashing to and fro idly, almost amusedly.

None of this seemed unreal, or even fantastical.  It was simply as it was - I was in a sort of ecstasy, like the kind the saints have, all-consumed, raptured.  The Rubbered One had chosen me!

Go, He told me without speaking.

I was on my feet, I was sprinting, I was dashing, my hands, still in their gloves, slippery on the door knob.  I was down the stairs before I realized I was barefoot, or that I was still wearing the heavy-duty black rubber gloves.  And there it was - my Rubber.  It was, of course, still in the box, it needed to be freed -

I cradled it in my arms.  I inhaled, as deeply as possible, again.  I could smell it, whining at the edges of my nostrils, begging to be freed.  I felt it, inside its cardboard prison, shifting and rustling.  Whispering.

I brought it upstairs with as much care as a mother would bring home her day-old newborn, but once inside, slamming the door behind me, I pillaged the drawers for the scissors, tearing into the box that would dare imprison my -

And there it was.  Still in a sad, folded-up heap, but it was mine.  

Now, said His voice in my head.  I didn’t have to turn around to know that He, the Rubbered One, was standing behind me - had moved silently from the living room to the kitchen.  I felt Him questing at the edges of my consciousness, starting the interview process.  

I felt a strange mix of craven desire and hot-blooded lust twist through me.  How I wished to possess the Rubbered One!  And how I wished to be possessed by Him!

I began to don my Rubber.  I felt it coo as it met my skin, as I replaced my own with its black sheen.  I saw my toes go, then the top of my foot - ankles, calves and shinbones, kneecaps and thighs - I watched as the black tide continued its creep up my body, as quickly as night follows dusk.  

The Rubbered One put His hands on me and I was nothing, I was everything.  I was part of a gigantic, moaning chorus of voices, I was absolute silence.

I saw Him reach out to me, his Nothing fingers and Nothing hands, his Void arms, his Void body.  I saw Him pull my self to His, and I felt us as we docked, somehow, for an imposssible moment, sharing the same physical space.

Then, with a sound that reminded me of a slurp and a sucking, closing noise, I was no more.

RUBBERBORN. I ceased to exist as I knew myself.  

I had a name.  

I wasn’t much of somebody, but I was somebody.  

Now, I was part of a growing, aching consciousness - I was part of a vast, growing hunger.  My thoughts were no longer my own.

All hail the Rubbered One!

I buzzed and chirred, excited beyond words.  I was ramrod hard, even in the rubber, which smoothed everything away, everything - all emotion, all thought, all nerve, all worry.  All features of my face - gone.  All features of my body - slurped up.  

I stood in front of the mirror.  All sign of the Rubbered One was vanished.  I could see, somehow, through my suit, though it had no eyeholes.

I saw through Rubber eyes.

I understood that I was Rubberborn.  That this was my destiny.  

The words “my” and “me” and “I” and “mine” were erased, scratched out heavily.  I was plural, now.

We were plural.

We stand in front of the mirror, staring at ourselves, our new body.  A mere morsel in the face of our hunger.  

Do you feel it?

As our eyes swivel slowly, tracking across the room, away from the mirror.  Looking into the camera lens backwards.  Do you feel the chilly fingers of our gaze landing on you as you read?  Playing along your bare shoulders, the pliable, delicate skin of your arms?

The Rubberborn understand and acknowledge that this body can be used for purposes that satisfy the hunger.  

They gave it the name rubbrfrk9.  The name you know, the author of these stories you read, curious in your own way to know how the rubber feels.  The same name you’ve seen watermarked on pics of us as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.  

Or maybe you already know - maybe you’ve already felt the ecstasy, struggling into your own shirt or pants.  Gloves or socks.  Mask or hood.  

Perhaps all of the above.  

Perhaps the voice of the Rubbered One is even now mingling with your own thoughts.  Sinuous, twisty, shiny and smooth.  Silken whispers, just an undercurrent of sibilant breath in the background, there.  If you strain, you can make it out.  Can hear our voices.  

We can sense you.

We know.

We are coming.

Say it with us now: All hail the Rubbered One!

[doomedandstoned]

Nicolas Perrault from Rage of Samedi Taps Deep Emotion in New Solo Effort

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By MelLie

NICOLAS "SCRIOS" PERRAULT -- some of you may have heard this name in the course of the German monster sludgers RAGE OF SAMEDI. German multi-instrumentalist, producer, live audio engineer, creative head in general, and bad-ass bassist of the aforementioned band. Often these artists are mostly referred to us in connection with the bands in which they play and we often know too little about their individual personalities and the solo projects they have to offer. Ashes on our heads!

After six years of walking the path of self-discovery and working on his authenticity as a solo artist, Nicolas has now announced the release of his first full-length album 'Shadows Cast At Dawn' (2020) on May 20th. That's why we should jump at this perfect opportunity to get a foretaste of the new album and take a closer look at Nick Perrault as "singer/songwriter" (a term that somehow doesn't entirely fit him).

With the song "Fires Within," Nick not only offers us a gloomy soul plough, but also a glance into his own soul. It is a gritty absolution punch, with abysmal soundscapes that deal with depression and anxiety. Emotional, melancholic, but in no way melodramatic -- a puristic and minimalistic-looking audio-active encounter with the emotionally frozen world and the breakout of those soul-damaging shackles. Like the Last Judgement runs Nick‘s throaty, heavy, powerful voice through the song and manifests itself like a memorial at the edge of the abyss into which the listener seems to look. This musical work is further underpinned by the impressive video-artwork, which was also created by Nick's own artistic hand.

I hope I have made you a little curious about the excursion into a border area of this heavy genre, which generally receives less attention here, and about the artistic work of Nicolas Perrault. Enjoy the ride through the abyss.

'Fires Within' music video

An Interview with Nicolas Perrault

By MelLie (Doomed & Stoned & Sunday's Heavy Tunes)

First of all, a warm "welcome", on behalf of Doomed & Stoned and our audience, Nick. It's only been a few months since you answered my questions as part of the gang of Rage Of Samedi! But this time, you are in the spotlight with your solo project! It‘s nice to have you here again!

It's an absolute honor to get to do this twice in a single year, so thanks for having me!

Nick, of course I have created my own impression of you in the process of preparing for this interview - at the latest now you still have the chance to escape! (laughs) How would you describe yourself? Who is this guy Nicolas Perrault?

I'm a multi-instrumentalist, tattooer, live audio engineer and producer and slightly sociophobic. So pretty much your average vegan straightedge dude who refuses to get a real job.

What made you decide to sell your soul to the "Devil Of Music"? In other words, how and when did you realize that you were burning with heart and soul to dedicate your life to music?

I've always played instruments, starting with the recorder, then organ and piano, bass, drums, guitar, bagpipes, and everything else. Way back when I joined my first band (a grunge/punk three-piece) and first picked up a bass, I realized I had a lot to say and music quickly became my outlet of choice. So about 18 years ago, but I didn't think of it in terms of a career yet, that only happened roughly six years ago, so I dropped out of university and started to work on my solo project.

You have left some very manifold and genre crossing footsteps on the pilgrimage through your personal music history: PTAH (doom), MOONSAIL (depressive pop-blues), and THRENODIA (black-metal) in former times are on my mind, current side projects are WILLE ZUR MACHT (avangarde) and you are the bass-riffer of Germany's blackened sludge doom monster RAGE OF SAMEDI! To what extent were these different musical influences and band experiences important for your progress as solo-artist?

I've spent a decade and a half working in bands, which would usually split up after a while, when the band became more serious and the others decided they'd rather pursue "real" jobs. So after a couple of those, I grew tired of waiting on the right people and just started working on my own. But every now and then I'd want to experiment with different genres, so I'd start a new project. The reason I'm now releasing under my actual name is that I didn't want to be stuck in one genre. I don't regret any of it, as they shaped who I am and the music I play now.

At the mention of your solo project, I could see the glint in your eyes. May 20th is the day! Let's light a sparkler for a minute! After three released EPs and six years of working as a solo artist, 'Shadows Cast At Dawn' will sail into the world as your first full-length album, which you even produced under the name of your own label Yew & Holly, right? What thoughts shoot spontaneously through your head right now?

Yup. I'm just incredibly excited to finally release this thing! It's been nearly six years and about eight different entire recordings, several changes to the track listing, heck- there are two tracks on the album that I only wrote this year! It's been a long, tedious journey and I'm glad for everything that happened along the way, because it made the final version of the album so much better!

Nick, let's turn the spotlight on the background information for your new album now. How would you describe your it to someone who has never heard your music before and which instruments play a major role?

A genre defying journey through post-modern life in a capitalist reality, focussing on depression and anxiety. Almost all of the songs are two sets of drums, a minute string section of violin and cello plus baritone guitar and vocals, that together create soundscapes so vast you might mistake them for an assassin's creed map.

Listening a little deeper into your work, one does not miss your natural fondness for philosophical thinking -- correct me if I am wrong with my assumption. Where do you get your inspirations from? And is there a message you want to convey to the listeners?

Well, I did study philosophy way back when. I tend to use naval imagery to paint a lyrical picture of depression and bipolar disorder, as a means of sharing the way I experience the world. It's likely not the most accessible thing you will ever hear, but it's a sincere expression of myself and that's really all I can offer.

"Fires Within," btw. Also one of my personal favorites of your album - is the amuse-gueule for our listeners What is the meaning behind this song and what moved you, writing the lyrics for this song?

"Fires" is all about setting boundaries and tearing down unhealthy relationships. If you have people in your life that hold you back instead of supporting you, ditch their ass! They're not worth the time and will poison any creative endeavor. Everyone knows at least a handful of these negative feckers and so did I. I spent years trying to help them get through their shit, but whenever I needed them they'd be more interested in getting drunk.

It's an unburdening from dead weight we carry, a cleansing, if you will. The chorus says "look not towards time, it brings only decay and destruction " and I think this is key to ridding yourself from negativity. Focus on your ultimate goal, that transcends trends and mood swings, that lives beyond time, and let it guide you. Don't stray too much from the path, or these negative influences will be right there waiting to cut you down.

"Fires Within"

Call upon the wind To wipe the surface clean He brings the rain and with it Absolution To carry with it the dust And bittersweet memories lost

Look not towards time To save your soul from fires It brings only decay and with it Destruction The fires burn from within Feast on the sand and it's running thin

Turn away from everything you hold dear To keep yourself safe from despair Cause all they bring is but loss All that remains is darkness when they are all gone Darkness that stretches like shadows cast from a new dawn

I would like to make a short swerve to the album cover. It is the wonderful artwork of Maryland based illustrator Luke Martin (Suburban Avenger Studios) who counts some famous musicians among his clients (Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, Red Hot Chili Pepper and others). How does the artwork relate to "Shadows Cast To Dawn"?

I've been a huge fan of Luke's work for years and a while ago he posted this picture to his Instagram. I was looking for something very specific to use as an album cover at the time. I needed it to evoke claustrophobia and a feeling of being safe inside whilst at the same time showing an outside, detached from the rest, just out of reach.

So imagine my jaw dropping as I saw this picture for the first time. It just struck me. So I wrote Luke, if he'd sell it. He had never sold a photograph before (plenty of awesome illustrations, though) so needless to say, I was very happy he did. He basically captured exactly what I had conceptualized -- that it's an actual photograph just makes it even better, as the concept is very much abstract but now has an actual physical representation.

The title "Shadows Cast At Dawn" was something that I had floating around in my head for ever. So when I began to work on the album that became the working title. Since I've worked on it for so long, that title has- in a way- effected everything I wrote, so it seemed to fit perfectly by the end.

Is there a special favourite place where you prefer to let your ideas mature? - a kind of soul-flyer place? I know you live in a small, rather idyllic place and not in a vibrant artists' metropolis! Whereby this way of living has advantages as well as disadvantages for an artist, right?

I love forests, oceans and mountains, so I'm pretty much alright with any surroundings, as long as I can escape civilization from time to time. Living out in the countryside allows me to focus, as you pretty much know where to find people, if you're looking for company but at the same time, you know where you are less likely to be found.

Sure, I need to travel a lot more to get anywhere and there aren't as many connections to be made face to face, but digitalization has granted us loners access to that aspect of life from the comfort of our homes, so I'd say it really depends on what you need to stay sane.

With the release of this album, you could now realize one of your dreams. Do we have another sparkler to light? What else do you have in the works? Are there any future plans that float in space? Or do you still carry around another big dream in your head?

I've already started recording for the next album, so fingers crossed that this time it won't take as long. Apart from that, I really want to tour the world, but circumstances aren't exactly ideal for that, at the moment. Apart from the music, I also tattoo and paint and hope to be doing more of that alongside music in the future. So if y'all wanna get some ink, hit me up!

Thanks a lot Nick, for giving us a deeper insight into your solo project and the things that move you! It's been very entertaining having this conversation with you here. We all will keep our eyes upon Nicolas "Scrios" Perrault in anticipation of your success!

Thank you very much, Mel, it's been my pleasure!

Leave Me To The Waves by Nicolas Perrault

Follow The Artist

Get His Music

[raendown]

The first day of @madatobiweek 2019! I am so excited!

Day 1 prompt: Arranged Marriage.

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 3475  Chapter: 1/? Rated: M Summary: Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Some are fought at the conference table, with whispers in the shadows, or even in the bedroom.

In a world where the Senju and Uchiha traditional lands were too far apart to have ever made them enemies, Butsuma and Tajima are the ones who come together and sign a treaty of peace. Madara isn't happy to have his life signed away for him in a political marriage to strengthen the bond between their clans. He is even less happy to have Tobirama make assumptions of him from their very first night together. What follows from there is a journey of healing, of learning, and finding the places to belong in the places least expected.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 1

Wizened hands straightened the pages of notes scattered across the table, clearing away the detritus so that a massive scroll covered with neatly printed letters and carefully straight lines could be unrolled for all present to see.

“So it’s decided then; the terms are agreed upon?”

Madara had never been very fond of the elders in his own clan. Not that any of them had ever done him some kind of personal wrong but he was unashamed to say that they were a bunch of dusty old codgers who should have retired and sat down to play quietly with their grandchildren years ago. After the torture of the past few weeks, however, he was ready to kill them all with his own two hands just to make them shut up. He wasn’t a patient person at the best of times. This was not the best of times.

The serene line of aging Senju on the other side of the pavilion all nodded in eerie unison, dangerous smiles on every one of their faces. Madara hated them more than his own elders. At least he always knew what the Uchiha coots were thinking. These wrinkled old biddies were impossible to read.

“They are,” one of the Senju said in a warbling voice. “Let us review. The accords are thus…”

Madara was born of the Uchiha clan, whose enviable strength could be rivalled only by the Senju clan. The two peoples had long lived far enough apart that they were not often called to fight each other – but territories were shifting. As they began to clash more and more often on the battlefield over the last few years both clans recognized the danger posed. It was clear that they were each the only real threat to the other and to eliminate that threat a simple solution had been proposed: an alliance.

Messengers ran back and forth for several months carrying proposals and counter proposals almost without end until finally a meeting was set up to hash out the finals details of the most momentous peace treaty in living memory. The council of elders from both clans had been the ones to do most of the talking. Both Heads were always present, of course, along with the eldest heir of each, but mostly they communicated through the elders who were used to carrying a certain amount of gravitas. Madara had never wished so hard for an older sibling. He was so bored by it all and if that idiot Senju Hashirama didn’t stop fidgeting across the pavilion then Madara could not be blamed for burning the whole tent to the ground out of simple irritation.

It took quite some time to read out each and every one of the articles in their new treaty, pausing for the collective audience to agree to all of them one by one. Madara didn’t listen much. His main interest was in the two most important points and those were saved for last.

First of those was that the two clans had agreed to band together and build a village in the unclaimed territory almost exactly halfway between their two compounds. They had plans to invite many of the other clans in Hi no Kuni to make this a venture of peace and prosperity for all who would have it, a place where children could grow without having to worry about being sent to the battlefield before they lost their first tooth. The whole idea had actually been Madara’s big contribution, his suggestion. The location had been proposed by Hashirama. It was the first sign of an actual working brain inside the idiot’s skull.

The second article he cared about was the more concerning one. To build a village together and declare peace was one thing but the elders felt that an incentive to keep that peace was needed as well; not only for the cohesiveness of their own peoples but also as a show of unity to any other clans who may choose to join them. The Uchiha and Senju must be seen as moving together. It was decided rather late in the negotiations that binding their clans together by marriage was the best way to do that, a marriage between the eldest unmarried child of each head family. Madara had not taken well to being offered up like a sacrificial piece of meat – especially when he heard that there were no female Senju heirs. He was being married off to a boy. He wasn’t even sure if he liked boys! A couple of really strange dreams did not mean anything definite.

There was no need to be surreptitious when eyeing the oaf across the tent from him now. Hashirama was drumming his fingers on his thighs, listening to his elders speak with a broad smile and a surprising amount of attention. Madara took in the long brown hair and the deeply tanned skin, his dark brown eyes and too wide mouth. Miraculously, he’d never met his unwitting bridegroom on the battlefield and Madara wondered if he looked very much like his older brother. Sage but he hoped not. It would be like getting married to Hashirama and the very thought made him shudder. Just because the fool had a few redeeming qualities that made for easy conversation during the recesses between talks did not mean Madara had any desire for him.

Even more disturbing was the fear that they might act like him. He wasn’t sure he would survive even a single month bonded to someone who bounced in their seat like a child whenever they were excited or drooped with over-dramatic misery when their ideas were rejected. Hashirama was close to the same age as him and yet he acted as though he were half that. Madara certainly would not have a peaceful life if he had to share his home with someone like that idiot.

Finally, finally, the wizened Senju read out the last of the accords and received unanimous agreement from everyone present. Madara breathed a sigh of relief that the final day of this was finally over as he and his father stepped forward to sign the treaty laid out on the table. There were two copies for them to mark and they would take one with them for the perusal of their clansmen back home, to keep in their records should it ever be necessary to scrutinize the precise wording of each line to find loopholes – Madara knew his father, after all, and he knew the man was very fond of loopholes. It felt a bit like agreeing to sell his soul to the devil but Madara forced both hands to stay steady and produce his most elegant calligraphy as he took the brush to sign. The name Uchiha Madara had never looked more beautiful – nor felt so heavy.

They left the next day, returning to their traditional home with the date of Madara’s nuptials already picked out. Each clan had been given tasks to fulfill in preparation of the wedding and the building of their village as well. Madara’s task was to show up at the altar on the right day and try not to look like he wished death or destruction upon either himself or his groom. At least, that was how his father had put it. Tajima had been nearly as furious as Madara was at the first mention of an arranged marriage for his son just as most of the Uchiha delegation had. It was the worst sort of culture shock to discover such practices were actually commonplace among the Senju.

But that anger hadn’t lasted long, quickly fading to calm acceptance, and Madara wished he knew what could have made Tajima change his mind so easily in the face of something so completely against everything their people believed in. He wished he could be so confident in this path that had been chosen for him.

He also wished he had been allowed to express the emotions he truly felt about this whole fiasco. He wanted to rail against those Senju windbags, scream in their faces and demand to know what in the world was wrong with them. Arranged marriages were absolutely barbaric! Marriage was supposed to be a sacred covenant of love not a business transaction. Madara felt cold and used; he felt like prospects which should be his to choose from had been ripped away without his consultation. Like the rest of his family, he was a creature of emotion. He believed in love, true love, and that every person should have the opportunity to find it. Now he would never have that and he wasn’t sure he would ever forgive his father or any of the elders for voting to take it all away from him.

Madara was granted one full year of freedom after the Uchiha and the Senju made peace. He would have had less than half that but it was extended out of necessity as members of both clans were kept busy constructing the village where they would come together. He, on the other hand, spent nearly every second he could breathing deeply of the air around his home, rubbing at his wrists as if he could already feel the shackles there. He ran unchecked through the forests he’d grown up in, sparring with Izuna in violent clashes that only barely helped expel his tumultuous emotions.

“You could always run away,” his brother told him cheekily one afternoon as they lay panting in a field of burnt grass. He scowled and tossed a handful of ash, making Izuna squeal as he hurried to claw the grainy substance out of his long dark hair.

“And shame both myself and the entire clan?” he retorted. “Besides, where would I go? What would I do? I wouldn’t have a clan to find missions to earn my meals. I wouldn’t have you. You’re a Class-A idiot but I would miss you. For some reason.”

Izuna had only laughed, continuing to clean out his hair while Madara brooded. He’d been trying the entire time to think of a way out of this without bringing shame to himself or his family. In the end there had been nothing. He couldn’t even step down as heir because what kind of big brother would he be to force Izuna in to the same position he wanted so desperately to escape? No, the only path for him to take was to follow the demands of the treaty as his elders and supposed betters had agreed. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. He was very free to hate his new groom as much as he wanted; especially if he looked and acted like Hashirama.

All he had to do was keep that hatred to himself so no one would suspect how unhappy he was. They were being married for a purpose, after all.

The day of the wedding saw Madara nearly sick with anxiety when it finally came. The ceremony was to be held in the village once those who still remained in the compounds made the final move to Konohagakure, as it had been named. Madara stepped through the gates for the first time in mid-morning with Izuna at his side, both of them taking in the sites with wide eyes. He found himself more impressed than he wanted to be. He wanted to hate this place and was a little disappointed to find that he couldn’t, not when it was so magnificent, so full of promise.

Before he could get too carried away with sightseeing he was whisked away to the part of the village set aside for members of his own clan. There he was primped and prodding, dressed and decorated, made up for an event which should have had his heart feeling light with joy. Instead all he felt was dread heavy in his chest. It took more than an hour for his kimono alone to be properly put on, each layer pinned in place to accentuate his shape and the elaborate obi of the head family tied just so. His wild mane of hair was brushed until it gleamed and some of it caught up in an elegant top knot, adorned with the same kanzashi that had been worn by each of his predecessors for innumerable generations. When his attendants declared him ready and bowed out of the room, Madara turned to the mirror that he had avoided looking at since arriving.

In a word he looked beautiful. Certainly it was obvious that he was a man – and a rather strong one at that – but the traditional wedding outfit also showcased the beauty in him which he rarely bothered to play up. He usually preferred to let his hair fall wild, obscuring his face. With it out of the way all the focus was on his shapely eyes and the miraculously clear skin that remained free of scars or blemishes. He wished he could have taken more pleasure in what he saw there. Still, one is never sure what memories one will wish to look back on some day. Madara made a point of activating his Sharingan and committing to memory the sight of himself on his wedding day. He really did look good.

An hour later Izuna was sent to fetch him for the ceremony. The moment it finally sank in a year before that he was to be married Madara had asked his brother to stand with him, a subtle snub he was sure his father merely chose to ignore. He should have asked his father as the head of their family but instead he chose the one he was closest to, the one who had no blame on his shoulders for this sham of a union. Izuna’s voice sounded a little choked when he first laid eyes on him and Madara made a show of rolling his eyes.

“If you cry on me I will never forgive you,” he said. His brother laughed and took a moment to deliberately look him over with admiring eyes before opening the door wider, indicating that Madara should follow him out. The older of the two swallowed. It was time.

And he wasn’t ready.

No matter what he felt inside Madara was the picture of calm as he approached the orchard in which his wedding was to be held. It was a unique idea and he was loathe to admit to it but he liked it. The apple trees were in blossom, sending pink and white petals drifting on a gentle breeze to land in the hair of each guest seated among them. He was led through a cozy little community building and out the back to reach the orchard, drawing the eyes of the congregation with his arrival. They stood to receive him, of course, but he refused to look at any of the people gathered to send him to his doom. He looked only straight ahead, walking placidly down one of two aisles that had been cleared between the guests.

When he reached the dais set up at the end of his short walk he caught movement in the corner of his eye. His groom had arrived, keeping pace with him down the second aisle so neither of them arrived before the other. He tilted his head ever so slightly to peek sideways but found Hashirama standing between him and the man he was to wed. Madara only barely resisted the urge to huff in annoyance. The oaf was standing on the wrong side. Of course he was. Before he could say anything himself a new voice murmured low in a scolding tone and then Hashirama was blushing lightly with a sheepish grin.

“Sorry brother! Sorry!” he chirped, dashing around to the other side of his companion.

Madara’s breath left his body with a hard rush, leaving his lungs empty and quite unable to draw another. A face even more pale than his own turned just enough for a pair of deep red eyes to catch his, a brief moment that lasted forever as they took each other in for the first time. Senju Tobirama had cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, each adorned with slashing red marks that were matched to a third one running down his chin. His hair was the color of untouched snow, cut short and ruffled by the wind. Startlingly, he was taller than Madara by several inches and the expression on his face was perfectly smooth, almost nonexistent.

Madara’s gaze flickered between the two men next to him rapidly, trying not to let his jaw drop. How the hell was this Hashirama’s brother? They looked nothing alike! Tobirama raised one pale eyebrow just a bit, asking wordlessly what was wrong with him, and Madara puffed up a bit with instinctual defense. He was allowed to be shocked! No one had prepared him for this – this gorgeous vision who was just as much of a sacrifice as him yet seemed entirely unbothered by it at all.

The priest cleared his throat, snapping Madara’s attention back towards the dais. He was an ancient man who had spent his life tending to the oldest temple in the Land of Fire. It was actually Hashirama's idea that he travel here to perform the ceremony as a neutral party so no one now or in the future could say that either the Senju or the Uchiha had more influence in this bonding. Much of the ceremony and the reception to take place afterwards had been designed to show equal influence from both clans so that neither was more prominent than the other, a visual declaration that they all intended to live together in harmony. As much as Madara understood the necessity and the intelligence behind it all there was still a small voice in the back of his mind that was sad to see the glaring absences where Uchiha tradition had given way to compromise, small things like the colors of the flowers and the placement of the banners. It just wasn’t how he had pictured his wedding.

With a dusty clearing of his throat their priest began the ceremony by reciting a traditional prayer for prosperity and love between the couple to be joined. Madara tried very hard to pay attention but he found his eyes sliding sideways as much as he could without being obvious, drinking in the sight of his surprisingly attractive groom. He couldn’t say he was happy about the situation he’d been forced in to but he was selfish enough to admit that such a handsome face certainly did make everything look just that much brighter. At the very least he would have something nice to look at as the days passed them by. Now all he had to worry about was whether the personality was half as pretty as the face was.

After what felt like a never-ending prayer came the sermon. Then the vows and the exchanging of rings and an odd little mini-ceremony where the priest asked them to hold hands and knotted a band of silk around their clasped fingers, declaring it symbolic of the way their hearts and fates were now bound together. As Madara understood it, that was a Senju tradition. Or at least he hoped so. If not it was just the crazy ramblings of an ancient priest.

Finally came the moment he was dreading when the priest asked them to seal their union with a kiss. He didn’t quite gulp because they were being watched by important members of both clans and it would not do to look so weak in front of them. He did, however, feel his heart beating erratically as they leaned in towards each other, eyes wide open and unblinking. It was unnerving the way those red eyes seemed to stare right through him. It took more concentration than it should have to stop himself from jumping when surprisingly soft lifts pressed against his own with a gentle, fleeting pressure. Then they were gone in the next instant leaving him feeling oddly bereft until he was distracted by the thunderous cheers of their audience.

The priest unwound the ribbon from their hands and they turned to face their peoples, no longer touching each other but standing shoulder to shoulder in a preplanned show of solidarity. The rest of Madara’s life was to be a deliberate show of solidarity, he realized. He would spend the rest of his days playing husband, acting a part, consciously choosing his actions to appear to be in good relations with a man he did not love. As he stood on the dais and watched the happy faces of those looking back at him, Madara wondered how long it would take before he started questioning if this was all worth it. Perhaps he already was.

[sheirukitriesfandom]

Too Much Information: Character Interview

I got tagged by @mannimarco-and-the-homeboys. Thank you so much! Filling this out proved to be a lot of fun. I chose Rashkan since he’s the only one in a romantic relationship atm. Also, I took your question layout. I hope you don’t mind.

“So, you want to know more about me? I would not have considered myself such an interesting person,” the overly tall dunmer leans back in his chair and crosses his hands. “Shall we begin then?”

Name -> “My name is Rashkan Atheron.”

Are you single? -> “No, not anymore,” a soft smile crosses his lips.

Are you happy? -> “Content, rather. There are things that eat at me and keep me from being completely happy. But still, things are pretty good right now.”

Are you angry? -> “Unless you give me a reason to be angry, no I am not.”

Are your parents still married? -> “They are. They have been married for over 60 years now. I can only hope things work out that well for me - that is, if marriage ever becomes relevant to us.” 

NINE FACTS

Birth Place -> “I was born in a mining town on a bleak, dreary rock called Solstheim. You might have heard of it; it is called Raven Rock.”

Hair Color -> “I have black hair.”

Eye Color -> “Well, they used to be red, like most dunmeri eyes, but due to my...condition they have changed. They now are a fiery orange colour.

Birthday -> “I was born on the 17th of Evening Star - a particularly snowy day I have been told. Mother said that father had to climb out of the window to find a midwife because the door was snowed shut. When he returned and they finally managed to dig the door free, I was already born.”

Mood -> “I tend to come across as quite grumpy. Be assured that this is merely a symptom of being surrounded by incompetence,” he bares his fangs in a devious smile. “It also unnerves Ancano.”

Gender -> “I am a man.”

Summer or winter -> “I am a winter person. I do not mind the cold and enjoy the long nights.”

Morning or afternoon -> “I cannot be active in the morning. It is simply not possible. I just get so much more ‘alive’ around the afternoon and evening.”

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

Are you in love -> “My relationship would be doomed if that were not the case.”

Do you believe in love at first sight ->”Love? No. Lust maybe, but not love. Love is a very meaningful, deep emotion that simply cannot be formed based on first impressions!”

Who ended your last relationship -> Rashkan furrows his brows. “I do not think I have ever been in a serious relationship before. Casual sex, or the occasional flirt, but never a true relationship. Life in the coven, where everyone is stuck with each other all the time made such pursuits difficult. And that is without regard to my station within our hierachy. So I guess the whole situation ended any relationship before it could even bloom.”

Have you ever broken someone’s heart -> “Possibly. There was this handsome young man - a fellow coven member. An imperial with sun-kissed skin, tousled curls and deep brown eyes. It was casual, but he ended up wanting more. The rest is history,” Rashkan strokes his beard. “I wonder if he survived the end of our coven...”

Are you afraid of commitments -> Rashkan lowers his head, his gaze fixed on the floor before him. “Yes,” he mutters. “I prefer not opening myself up to any vulnerabilities. Romantic commitment requires exactly that and it took a really long time before I was ready to face that. Let me commit to a cause or an institution or even a person - as long as I stay untouchable...I hope that makes sense.”

Have you hugged someone within the last week? -> “I make sure to hug Savos every morning before leaving for my own chambers.”

Have you ever had a secret admirer -> “If so, they must have been really good at staying secret.”

Have you ever broken your own heart? -> “A couple of weeks back I returned to my family on Solstheim. I had already known that they would never accept any apologies, but I clung to some irrational hope. I should have known better.”

SIX CHOICES

Love or lust -> “I have had my share of lust. Let it be love, I say.”

Lemonade or iced tea -> “Iced Tea? Is that just cold tea? Is it frozen and you lick it? I am intrigued, to be honest.”

Cats or Dogs -> “Cats, by far. I even used to keep a resurrected cat skeleton back in my coven days. It alwas impressed the new apprentices.”

A few best friends or many regular friends -> “There are maybe three people I would consider ‘friends’, but those I would trust with my darkest secrets. What would I want with many people I like but who would never be there for me in dire times?”

Wild night out or romantic night in -> “I have never been very outgoing. A romantic night in, on the other hand, sounds like something I would enjoy.”

Day or night -> “I have a condition that makes nighttime feel much more natural to me, so yes, I pick ‘Night’.”

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

Been caught sneaking out -> “No, I have never been caught.”

Fallen down/up the stairs -> “Do I look like a fool?” He asks while cocking an eyebrow.

Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? -> “Yes to both, but I will only elaborate on the thing I wanted. You see, I fled from Solstheim when I was younger. I wanted nothing more than to rid myself of the shackles that were my older brother and my mother - a terrible thing to say, I know- and stand on my own two feet. I felt suffocated and I fear that, had I not run, I might have done something stupid to achieve that goal.”

Wanted to disappear -> “I mentioned the visit to my family before. My father was not home that day, but I did meet him on the way back to the harbour. When he approached me, I denied knowing him and ran.”

FOUR PREFERENCES

Smile or eyes -> “Savos has eyes that hide sadness. They are kind eyes, but looking into them always makes me want to cheer him up. Therefore, I cherish his smile.”

Shorter or Taller -> Rashkan stands up. His head almost touches the ceiling. “Look at me and tell me: have you ever seen a dunmer like me? I am 6,8 feet tall*. Unless I were to date an altmer, finding a taller partner is almost impossible.”

Intelligence or Attraction -> “Attraction fades but the mind stays. I prefer partner that can occupy my mind rather than my body. Both would be perfect, of course.”

Hook-up or Relationship -> “My current relationship is still fairly young, but I do prefer it to the hook-ups of my past. There are still many things that are new to me, but I like knowing that there is one person out there with whom I can share every aspect of myself.”

FAMILY

Do you and your family get along -> Rashkan sighs: “I already mentioned that my family and I are not on the best of terms. I ran away while they were depending on me - my mother is paralized and my brother has difficulties with his motor skills and needs a crutch. Father worked in the mines so who else but me could take care of them and our home? I ran away one early morning and never said goodbye or looked back. As Dralas said, he does not have a brother anymore...” His voice quivers at those last words. “Can we move on to the next question? Please?”

Would you say you have a “messed up life” -> “Compared to other people I know, running away from home and cutting all ties with your family, getting rejected by college, joining a necromancer coven, catching an affliction that renders you surprisingly undead and then getting accepted into that college does not sound too messed up.”

Have you ever run away from home -> “I already answered this one, no?”

Have you ever gotten kicked out -> “Yes, when I returned and my brother screamed at me to ‘get lost’.”

FRIENDS

Do you secretly hate one of your friends -> “One of my friends? No. There are some colleagues, a certain restoration teacher for example, with whom I have to stay on neutral terms due to my work. That does not mean I find them any less insufferable.”

Do you consider all of your friends good friends -> “The friends I consider “friends”? Yes, all of them.”

Who is your best friend -> “Well, should Savos not be my best friend as well as my boyfriend? Or are those separate categories for the sake of the question? If so it would be Phinis Gestor. There is no one to better discuss the practical application of ”””dark””” magic with!”

Who knows everything about you -> “As of now, no one does. Except for me, of course. I prefer being in control of other people’s knowledge about me.”

Rashkan shifts in his chair. “Is that all for this evening? I have an important project waiting for me down in the midden and I would prefer not having to restart it because of some friendly chit-chat.” He stands up and opens the door. “Have a good evening,” he says as he motions you to get out.

*I have no idea how the feet/inches thingie is normally written. He’s 2,04 metres tall. This was a lot of fun and really helped me flesh out my oldest OC a bit more.

I tag @norroendyrd, @sovvngarde and @fenriael

[finefeatheredfriend]

Vampire Science!

I just finished Vampire Science (edit: since I couldn’t post this earlier because of my trip it’s actually been a few days lol) and it was amazing. I am so so happy that I’ve had people tell me not to judge all the EDAs by how... awful the Eight Doctors is haha!

I loved this novel a lot. Sam is a delight and Eight is perfect and I just really loved all of it so much. It’s so well written! And there were so many scenes that just made me laugh out loud and grin and at times I was captivated by the action scenes (which rarely happens!) and just read through it quickly while gaping. It was so clever.

The only thing I didn’t like about this one was the absolute lack of naked Eight. It’s unacceptable that he only dressed down to his shirt and didn’t take off more of his clothes.

For some reason I was also 100% convinced Carolyn was going to die. I really liked her though! And I related to Shackle a bit too much for my liking. The UNIT general was cool too! I still haven’t really made my mind up about Joanna. But all these side characters were absolutely brilliantly written!

I did a kind of liveblog thing in my notes so I could come back later and see what exactly I liked about the book - here’s a list of my favourite liveblog bullet points:

- tall? eight? paul mcgann tall? green eyes? what

- ‘the TARDIS was the closest thing he had to a girlfriend now’ uuuh what

- Sam theorising about the Doctor’s name and joking it might be Fred aaaaah the Romana feels

- Eight is just covered in little kittens and then... ‘he shook his head carefully and the kitten on top clung on for dear life’ asdfghjkl

- we need to see Eight in just his shirtsleeves and waistcoat more often. it’s for science. vampire science

- ok no I take that last one back that was a little too much

- oh please, Doctor, do feel free to remove even more of your clothes

- and now the cravat’s gone too

- yes only a few more layers to go, go on

- ‘I was afraid I’d run out of clothing before I got to you’ and I was afraid you’d get there before all your clothes were gone and here we are, and you’re still wearing half your clothes

- ‘Welcome,’ he said, striking a dramatic half lit pose, ‘to the opera... of Doom’ ahsgahs that reminds me of ‘the ambassadors... OF DEATH’

- ‘You expect me to buy that you’re some kind of a mythical creature?’ ‘Joanna... you’re a vampire’ I’m screaming

- Fred the Eternal Snail I’m screaming ‘He was a mascot until someone stepped on him and they had to stake him with a toothpick’ agahdgah

- ‘I want you to take me. Uh, with you.’ in which Carolyn says what we’ve all been thinking all along

- oh my GOD now he’s gently running his hands through her hair to make her go to sleep aaah oh my god oh my g o d

- THE DOCTOR HAS A BUTTERFLY ROOM AAAAAH

- “I could succeed in many things, fail in many more, but as long as I've petted the cat I've done everything that really matters.” same

- ahahaha the Doctor just caught a bat in his bare hands and then talked to it in baby talk I’m screaming “Awww,' said the Doctor, scratching the bat under the chin, 'Did the big mean owd wady fwighten you?”

- love how the doctor just counts the years since his last regeneration as how old he is hahah oh wait so sam and him have been travelling for three years?? cause he met her right after san francisco and he said it’s been three years since his last regeneration OH wait sam also said he goes travelling without her for up to a year when he gets distracted so maybe that’s why

- “Real trust is as rare and precious as having a cat pay attention to you” eight is a cat person confirmed

- oh my GOD Kramer has to explain to the doctor why all the women flock around him aaah he’s such a useless baby I love him

Wow sorry I didn’t expect this to get this long ahahah

Under the cut there’s the whole liveblog/every single reaction i had to the book if you’re interested! (I’m just adding it so I have all my reactions recorded but feel free to read if you want)

I bolded the ones I liked a lot but couldn’t put in my favourites because it would have gotten too long ahaha

- ok right from the very first page I already love the writing at least 100% more than that of the eight doctors

- I somehow thought I’d seen art of Sam that had her have dark hair but she’s always described as a blonde...? Am I mixing things up?

- Sam is ‘unapologetically butch’? love that

- are they at a gay bar? I love this

- wait ok I spoke too soon I mean they might still be at a gay bar but uhh I mean I am aware this book is literally called vampire science but I wanted those two women to just be gay not one of them to kill/eat the other

- tall? eight? paul mcgann tall? green eyes? what

- for god’s sake can people please stop calling eight’s clothes a Jane Austen costume that. is. the. wrong. era!!

- STRING!! the Doctor has a ball of string in his pockets!! this takes me back to Caerdroia

- why do I have a feeling Carolyn is going to die

- it’s because she keeps talking about how she wants to join them in travelling the universe when I don’t remember hearing of any Carolyn travelling with eight

- ‘running off with a tall dark handsome mysterious stranger and a femme fatale? she wasn’t picky, she’d take either’ I love myself a disaster bi

- but she’s gonna die isn’t she

- ok why are we getting so much backstory on her if she’s gonna die anyway

- oh it’s gonna come in handy later that she’s a biochem major isn’t it

- since it’s vampire science

- how convenient they met her

- ok so maybe she won’t die after all...? it’s 20 years later and she probably has a family she doesn’t want to leave and that’s why she won’t travel with the doctor and Sam

- why is it so important to know that her partner is 5 years younger like is that important later I don’t get it

- oooh Sam’s room on the tardis belonged to another teenager before her? who???

- ‘the TARDIS was the closest thing he had to a girlfriend now’ uuuh what

- Sam theorising about the Doctor’s name and joking it might be Fred aaaaah the Romana feels

- ok. earlier I was confused because apparently his eyes are green in this book. now they’re blue? what’s going on

- aaah I can’t believe Sam has to tell the Doctor how to put on his shoes cause he can’t do it on his own ahahaha

- UNIT!!!! am I happy about this or not?

- Sam is 19, but with the right clothes and the right attitude she can sometimes pass for 20. oh Sam, you sweet summer child i love you

- I wasn’t sure about James before but he seems like a nice guy now

- please don’t let him be killed

- I really like Sam

- ‘he didn’t notice the taxi behind him, its driver mildly excited to have been asked to “follow that car!”’ asdfghjkl

- ‘the Doctor couldn’t do anything to stop what was going to happen’ oh no James really is going to die isn’t he

- aaaw when Carolyn and the Doctor meet again and she hugs him while crying... I felt that

- oh yes give me more of Eight in shirtsleeves wearing and apron while cooking breakfast - I’d like to wake up to that hehe

- oh my god and he is singing

- and... beatboxing...?

- and he tucked Carolyn into bed last night oh my heart

- ‘You have cute eyebrows’ I’m screaming

- ‘a manipulative little weirdo’ ... sounds about right but still, don’t talk like that about my baby seven, kramer

- I love Sam

- and nOW EIGHT IS PETTING A KITTEN THAT FELL INTO HIS LAP I CAN’T

- this book is full of little things that just make my heart go !! or make me laugh so much

- this just gets better and better - Eight is just covered in little kittens and then

- ‘he shook his head carefully and the kitten on top clung on for dear life’ asdfghjkl

- and one of the kittens got into his coat pocket!! ugh this scene was too cute, I wasn’t really paying attention to anything but what the kittens and eight were going to do next ahahah

- looove the little remark about Sam going to the gay rights march aaah

- Ahahah sam wanting to high five the Doctor while they’re undercover I’m screaming

- personal vamp scale I can’t

- ahaha that guy was ‘dancing vaguely at her with an angular lack of grace that suggested he’d been dead since the days of the funky chicken’ hahaha

- NO SAM NOOO

- oh Doctor my poor baby it’s not your fault

- Oh please let Sam be alright

- Aaah

- I don’t want her to die

- Out of all the characters i really didn’t think I’d relate to shackle so much

- ‘Sam Jones, the girl who’d climbed on to a roof to spray paint ‘anorexics die for business ££££’ onto a lingerie billboard’ Sam you absolute icon

- they mentioned Ace!!!

- Ahaha those two vampires haha one of them trying to dramatically recruit some young vampires and the other just interrupting him making fun of him ahahahaha

- I loooove how the Doctor just ignores that vampire

- And then he’s just so totally nonchalant when he finally speaks ugh I love him

- Nooo don’t let them turn you into a vampire James!!

- we need to see Eight in just his shirtsleeves and waistcoat more often. it’s for science. vampire science

- ok no I take that last one back that was a little too much

- oh please, Doctor, do feel free to remove even more of your clothes

- and now the cravat’s gone too

- yes only a few more layers to go, go on

- ‘I was afraid I’d run out of clothing before I got to you’ and I was afraid you’d get there before all your clothes were gone and here we are, and you’re still wearing half your clothes

- ‘Welcome,’ he said, striking a dramatic half lit pose, ‘to the opera... of Doom’ ahsgahs that reminds me of ‘the ambassadors... OF DEATH’

- now the Doctor has clear blue-grey eyes - which I suppose is closer to the blue they mentioned before than the green they mentioned before that

- but still

- agree on one eye colour PLEASE

- unless... that’s some weird time lord physiology thing? changing eye colour? could be

- could also just be the light ahah

- ‘You expect me to buy that you’re some kind of a mythical creature?’ ‘Joanna... you’re a vampire’ I’m screaming

- no Doctor don’t put your clothes back on yet

- sigh. yellowish green? his eyes really do change colour don’t they

- I swear to god if the doctor actually turned into a vampire I’m gonna just leave

- this chapter title is hurt/chocolate ,,,,, like hurt/comfort? Ahaha (I’m laughing now because I’m scared i won’t be able to later)

- the Doctor? sleeping??

- oh right. I had a little break between reading so I forgot he was badly hurt oops

- oh I need a visual for this - Kramer just picked up the Doctor and carried him into the house?? I imagined her as a small though stocky woman, but not nearly strong enough to carry a man described as tall (though we all know paul mcgann is not tall lol)

- This blood fasting thing isn’t permanent though is it

- I already love Sam and Eight’s relationship so much - the way he comforts her ugh my heart

- and now he’s hugging her while stirring the soup he prepared for her (or Carolyn?) ugh my heart (I say that a lot ahahah)

- Wait wasn’t there a vampire called spike on buffy as well

- Fred the Eternal Snail I’m screaming

- He was a mascot until someone stepped on him and they had to stake him with a toothpick agahdgah

- Oh god Carolyn asked the doctor if she can go with him... she really is going to die isn’t she

- Or the doctor says no but...

- aaaand his eyes are green again

- ‘I want you to take me. Uh, with you.’ In which Carolyn says what we’ve all been thinking all along

- ‘God, he did have cute eyebrows.’ Carolyn oh my god ahahaha

- oh my GOD now he’s gently running his hands through her hair to make her go to sleep aaah oh my god oh my g o d

- Oh Sam, no the doctor definitely wants you there!!!!

- THE DOCTOR HAS A BUTTERFLY ROOM AAAAAAH

- That room honestly sounds amazing (hills?? Millions of butterflies just flying around??)

- the Doctor just completely enjoying butterflies flying all around

- and then he just talks to sam and Carolyn while a moth is hanging from his nose ahahah

- Joanna don’t you DARE cut the Doctor’s beautiful locks I swear if you hurt one hair on his head and I mean that literally I will come to you when you’re sleeping and stake you right through the heart

- ‘Just so you can have him pass you test tubes and tell you how brilliant you are’ like in terror of the autons!!

- the doctor has a worried-daddy look hahaha

- “I could succeed in many things, fail in many more, but as long as I've petted the cat I've done everything that really matters.” same

- ahahaha the Doctor just caught a bat in his bare hands and then talked to it in baby talk I’m screaming “Awww,' said the Doctor, scratching the bat under the chin, 'Did the big mean owd wady fwighten you?” And they have names hahahaha Stewart and Jasper

- a Susan mention!!

- love how the doctor just counts the years since his last regeneration as how old he is hahah oh wait so sam and him have been travelling for three years?? cause he met her right after san francisco and he said it’s been three years since his last regeneration OH wait sam also said he goes travelling without her for up to a year when he gets distracted so maybe that’s why

- aaaah he sees himself as sam’s parent

- Oh actually her older brother okay

- “Real trust is as rare and precious as having a cat pay attention to you” eight is a cat person confirmed

- oh my GOD Kramer has to explain to the doctor why all the women flock around him aaah he’s such a useless baby I love him

- okaaaay so Joanna made some new human race - like in new earth

- “Get your ass off that car!' 'Whoah,' said the vampire. He got his ass off the car.”

- NOOOO what about the kittens????

- I’m screaming the Doctor has them all in his coat pockets ahahahahah

- We’re so close to the end now and the Doctor hasn’t been naked yet :(

- wait did the doctor drink or inject himself with the vamp-away???? (that’s an iconic name for it btw)

- aaaah the Doctor eating icecream and getting a chocolate moustache ahahahah

- I love how he always ruffles Sam’s hair

[writers-clique]

Heartless

This is a horror short story I wrote. It’s a bit inspired by the TV show You. If you like a bit of horror, stalker, creepiness or just enjoy reading short stories from time to time, this one’s for you. Happy reading >:)

Heartless

I have been waiting for five years to return it. The fist-sized box sitting neatly in the passenger seat next to me. Its intricate red bow matches the black leather of the container. I listen to the AC’s cacophonous rumble as I look at the endless road in front of me. Normally, I prefer to have silence during long journeys like these. I can ponder about life, the sheer cliché of how meaningless it is and how unimportant each person is, no matter what their mothers, teachers or other equally unimportant individuals have told them before. But alas, the scorching desert sun is too powerful for the little heart inside my box so I turn up the cold air and try to ignore it.

At this point, you may be wondering if you read that last line correctly or you may have missed that specific minor detail entirely, doesn’t matter. Jhona is the only one who has to see it, right there on his kitchen counter, in all its veiny glory. It will be splendid! Watching the color drain from his face the way Mia’s blood gushed onto the tiles. Oh, who’s Mia? She’s just the girl who stole my heart.

*********

Five years ago, a senior going into school for his last day—that’s when I met her. I was walking towards the main doors when they suddenly opened and hit me in the face.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! Is your nose alright?” she said, covering her mouth and trying to hide a smile.

“Uh, yes. At least I think so.” I felt a bit of blood drip down my nostril onto my lip. It tasted delicious.

“You’re bleeding! I’m really sorry! Let me help you with that.” She snatched the books from my hands and, for a brief second, I felt her skin upon mine. Warm and tanned against my cold and pale arm.

She insisted on walking me to class, even though she didn’t have to. And whilst we walked, we talked. She turned out to be quite brilliant in ways I didn’t think someone at our school could be. She was into old literature, but wasn’t too picky, listened to good music and looked quite good as well. I knew her soul was bound to be interesting. And so, that same night after graduation, I went online and searched for “Mia Darlington”. And a darling she was. The whole of her Instagram and Tumblr was open for anyone to look at. I mean, it was like I had struck a golden mine of disposable information, all just a swipe and a tap away. That’s where I learned about a party that would be happening to celebrate the fact that half of these morons managed to scrape up enough IB points for a diploma of some sort, while the rest of us would actually succeed to some degree in life (pun intended). It would happen in a fortnight at Braden’s parents’ lake house. The whole thing would last for two days. After that she’d be mine.

In the fortnight that followed, Mia and I got closer than ever, which of course she didn’t know. I followed her around from a distance. She had quite the schedule. Guitar lessons, fitness, drawing, meditating. She had it all. Her bedroom window was conveniently positioned towards the road so my view from a bush across the street was perfect. By the time the party happened, I knew her better than she knew herself.

It had been three hours, fifty two minutes, twenty seven seconds and counting since the start of the party and she still had not arrived. I was growing rather impatient and, dare I say, worried. I decided to strike up a conversation with one of those buffoons who knew her, that way when she finally appeared, I’d have a head start for a conversation. I saw one of the guys from her Instagram. He was peculiar, but simple, one of these football goons. And yet, there he was, staring into his punch cup, looking depressed and out of place. Peculiar. I strategically placed myself near the refills and soon enough he approached. He filled the glass up to the rim with Jagermeister. Pathetic.

“Rough night?” I asked, mimicking his movements.

“Ha,” he took a swig of his drink, “you couldn’t have said that better.”

“Oh, really? Why so?”

“What do you care man? Who are you?” he drunkenly yelled and stumbled forward.

This would be harder than previously imagined. “Look, I’m sympathising with you. This party sucks.”

“It wouldn’t suck if . . . if she was here.” He whispered that last part, but I was closer than his drunk mind let him know.

Just then, his phone rang. The picture was of Mia, one I hadn’t seen before which was once more peculiar. I had gathered pretty much every picture of her, down to the ones she was too small to remember. At this point, he started muttering things to himself, obviously in no state to speak to her. That’s when the dots connected and I decided to use this particular lamentable moment of his to my benefit.

“Hi, who’s this?” I picked up the phone. I decided to play dumb and let her fall for me, believing it was her choice.

“Umm, I could ask you the same thing. Where’s Judah?” She didn’t sound pleased and the fact she didn’t recognize my voice admittedly hurt me.

“He- he’s having a bit of a rough night. It’s Adgar speaking by the way.”

“Adgar? Oh, wait aren’t you that guy I smacked into two weeks ago? I didn’t know you were friends with Judah.”

“Well, you don’t know a lot of things about me.” I thought that was a good line, so I made my voice husky at the end. I imagine that’s what James Bond would do.

She laughed. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”

“So umm, how come you’re not at the party?

“How did you know I was going there?” Suspicion slipped into her voice.

Crap, think Adgar, think you idiot.

“Oh, well Judah’s been crying that you haven’t come all night, so I figured you were going to come originally.” I tried to inject a smile into my voice the way some people do. It worked.

“He has? Well, doesn’t matter. I’m almost there so since you’re taking care of him I trust he’ll be OK.” She sounded distant and didn’t even let me reply before she hung up. That annoyed me.

I looked back for Judah, except he wasn’t there. Great, now I had to babysit a drunk blockhead instead of preparing for Mia. The plan was to find him and then tie him up somewhere in the woods where he wouldn’t cause any trouble. Finding him turned out to be easy. All I had to do was go for a leak, and there he was lying on the bathroom floor in his vomit.

Now how would I get him out without causing involuntary attention? The answer came from a shout of “CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” downstairs. That’s right, his equally stupid drunk friends wouldn’t remember a thing either, and they were loyal to him, like a golden retriever to its owner. All I had to do was spin a little white lie about the “unimaginable awesomeness” of them pulling the “greatest trick” in party history - tying Judah to a tree whilst he’s unconscious. I mean, it was honestly laughable how easily they agreed. Good thing they were drunk.

It took three of them to carry him downstairs and into the forest. I mean, I didn’t even touched him. All of the evidence pointed to them. They were so wasted they didn’t notice me drifting back to the house, leaving them in the darkness.

By the time I came back, Mia was there. She was something to see. In her own world. Dancing along to whatever indie song they had put on, drink in one hand. She looked like she’d floated down straight from heaven. A beautiful gift just for me, all wrapped up in a tight red dress, beach curls slightly bobbing up and down.

Now the hardest part was approaching; I had to approach her. I decided to rip that bandaid straight off and just went for it. Confidence after all, is key.

“Hey, you’re the girl who smacked me in the face.” I tried the James Bond voice again.

“Hey, you’re the guy I smacked in the face.” She smiled.

Good, that’s good. Smiling is always a positive thing.

“Care for a refill?” I reached towards her cup.

“Yeah, sure.”

Like taking candy from a baby. People reading this, I’m going to give you a pro tip. Never. Ever. Give your glass to someone you don’t know at a party, bar or wherever. They may just put something funky in there. Sad thing really, she’ll never get to read this.

I had prepared an excuse just in case anyone was to give me trouble: “Oh she was just so tired, poor thing fell asleep.” But, as predicted, they were all too drunk and too self absorbed to notice. She was a bit heavy I must admit, heavier than I imagined. Of course, though, she fit perfectly into the trunk of my car. I was not staying for the remainder of this party and neither was she. What happened next was a two hour long, silence filled car ride in which every speed bump I hit I worried about her. I mean, I loved her. If she got even a single bruise, I swore not to forgive myself.

Once we had arrived home, I placed her in the basement where she would be staying until I knew that her love for me was eternal. I had already prepared the room: soundproof door, mattress, chains on the wall. I laid her down gently and put on her shackles, then I sat on a chair and waited. Waited for her to wake up and for our souls to connect, our love so powerful.

As you may have guessed already, that did not happen. What ended up happening was an intense conversation and double murder.

“Wh-where am I,” she muttered sitting up.

“You’re home,” I smiled. I wanted to reassure her.

“Home? I’m not home! You-you took me here! Why am I chained up? Somebody help, help!” She started screaming. Shaking. Tugging at the chains. Going rabid.

“Now, now. There’s no need for that. No one can hear you anyway.” The effect of my words didn’t convey what I wanted, as she didn’t calm down and become rational, but started throwing herself on the floor, sobbing and yelling harder than before. I decided to give her some time.

One day later, as predicted, she had calmed down. She was also starving and I used that to my advantage, as I did with many things. I brought her a plate of her favorite food - seafood paella - which I’d learned to make specifically for her. She took the plate and started gorging on the warm food. I found that curiously arousing.

“So you’re ready to talk like humans?” I tried a smile, but her cold stare disapproved.

“You’re no human! You’re an animal.” Rice grains fell out of her mouth as she yelled, and I couldn’t help but point out the irony by raising an eyebrow. Once more my humor was not appreciated.

“Let me go! What do you even want from me, you nutcase!?”

“I’m glad you asked me. See, Mia, darling, I love you, and I know that if you give me a chance, you’ll love me too.” I said that with what I thought was my most convincing and confident smile, and yet her eyes widened and her eyebrows formed an angry looking V on her usually beautiful face, turning it into something quite displeasing.

“I. Will. Never. Ever. Love. You!” She threw the plate at the wall, smashing it. The meal splattered on the ground.

“I don’t think I like your tone.”

“I don’t care what you like! I hate you! I only love Judah!”

“Silence! I will NOT let myself believe these lies you are utterring!”

“They’re not lies! I will never love you. Judah is the only person I’ve ever truly loved.”

There it was. The first murder. She plunged deep with her nails into my chest and stole my heart. Devoured it even! For the next several days, she tried everything to escape and I tried meaninglessly to make her mine, but she would not have it. And on top of that, her phone would not stop buzzing with messages from her family, friends and, irritably, Judah. I was losing hope as all she would talk about was Judah. That’s when I finally realized she had destroyed my heart, absolutely pulverized it. No more of that. An eye for an eye, a heart for a heart.

I think she knew the end was coming the moment I walked into the basement. The dark gloves probably gave my intentions away. I decided I didn’t wish to waste any more of my time. I advanced towards her, wordlessly. Silence was the way I liked to do these things. Just like a car ride, slow and enjoyable. She once again started one of her intense screaming sessions. A wailing, powerless shriek. Left on the front door of Mr. Death. At his mercy.

I smacked her into unconsciousness and dragged her towards the bathroom. No blood would be spilled in my basement. Once in the bathroom I decided on a barbaric sort of death for her, the way she killed my heart. I gently opened the toilet lid and placed her head on the seat. What followed was an intense upper body workout resulting in a broken toilet lid and smashed skull. I sprinkled the little bone fragments into the toilet bowl and flushed. I had decided on selling what was left of her on the dark web.  Everything except her heart. You see I needed it. Heart transplants aren’t cheap and since she was the one who’d stolen mine it was only fair she gave one back.

So now that you’re all caught up, let’s go back to present times. I have recently met a girl, even better than Mia. She’s given me back my heart in ways I could never have imagined. We met a week ago. She dropped her purse and I gave it back to her. Her knight in shining armor. I love her. I no longer need Mia’s heart, but I know someone who does.

Coincidentally, once people knew Mia was not coming back, Judah fell into depression. Or at least that’s the theory. Supposedly, he got back from the party, but he didn’t really get back. He left poor innocent Judah behind. He was going to be a football player at some top university but now he spends his days drinking away whatever life is left inside of him and scaring the kids in our little old town.

So I’m giving him a present. Something he’ll cherish and remember forever.

I hope you appreciate this, Judah. I know how much you loved her with all your dying heart.

Love, Adgar.

[paperclipninja]

So during the two week hiatus of Younger I re-watched the entire series from the pilot up to the latest ep. And it’s been so interesting seeing the lead up to where we’re at now as far as Liza’s growth goes and her relationships with Josh and Charles. Naturally I have thoughts and feelings about this and what will follow is undoubtedly some form of rambling essay. I would also like to preface this by saying that while I am Team Charles all the way, I do pride myself on being objective when I watch shows and I legitimately like Josh, so this is just my interpretation of how things have gone down, am very open to alternative views and ideas.

Liza started off just trying to reestablish herself as a newly single mother who wanted to get back into the workforce, rediscovering her sexuality with Josh and gaining some confidence about her ability to go outside her comfort zone in general. The relationship with Josh was so pivotal for Liza in this transition from a clearly toxic marriage to a new life. It allowed her to really release herself from any of the shackles of her former life and be with someone who worshipped her in a way that she hadn’t experienced for a long time. Even after the rockiness of Josh finding out her age and them rekindling their relationship, his unrelenting sweetness and adoration of her served the purpose of showing her that while the workplace might be ageist, love isn’t. That Liza’s lie did not make her unworthy of an authentic life outside of the workplace. However this is also where, upon my re-watch, I noticed that as Josh reinforced this notion of Liza being accepted for who she is and she began to believe it, she also realized that she was not with Josh for the right reasons, that by being with him she was actually not being authentic. And suddenly there’s another lie she’s stuck in.

From the moment we began to see her dance with Charles, even before there was anything really going on, the fact her mind is drifting towards him is pretty telling IMO. It really struck me in the Summer Friday ep in season 3. I mean, I thought it before that but that’s when I suddenly went ‘oh no Liza, what are you doing’??? I’d never noticed the expression on her face when Josh is about to tattoo her. She is doing it for him. Not for herself. You can see it on her face as he starts tattooing. To be honest, by this point I found Josh’s ‘I love you just as you are except for the whole other life you had before me’ antics a bit exhausting, not to mention the glaring fact that it felt obvious Liza loved Josh for what he had done for her rather than what he could do for her moving forward. As her connection with Charles develops you can almost see Liza clinging to Josh because she knows that she can’t end up with him in the long run (and yes also because of the kids thing, which is pretty significant) but doesn’t want to lose what he represents or hurt him. It’s as though she feels she owes it to him (let me be clear, I’m not doubting she loved him) because he was such a big part of her moving on from her previous life. 

Now I also want to clarify that while I’m staunchly Team Charles, I do not hate Josh. Quite the opposite. I actually really loved him. But I hate what the writers are doing to him. If the purpose of his character has been served then he needs to be moved on and developed or if they want a legitimate love triangle then he also needs to grow. His character has stagnated so much that IMO he is becoming unlikable because all he does is wallow and pine for Liza, despite her very clearly telling him there is no romantic future for them. I get that they want to create this whole ‘love triangle’ thing, but when one corner of that triangle is just constantly bringing up past betrayals and hurt in some kind of perverted attempt to guilt Liza back into his arms, then it is undoing the goodness of his character that we all saw in the earlier seasons. And to me at least, I don’t see this inability to let go as romantic, I see it as not respecting the woman he claims to love and letting her move on to find her own happiness. And just as an aside, Josh has lived in the city for a long time, where are his other friends? I mean, I totally get hanging out with your room mates but he only hangs out with Liza’s friends. Where are his own? This isn’t meant to sound snarky, it legitimately bothers me that any friends he had prior to Liza have seemingly evaporated. But I digress...

As the relationship between Charles and Liza unfolds, you see the connection through similar interests and being able to banter and challenge one another on equal intellectual footing grow (not to mention there was clearly a physical attraction there). But it’s almost like the development of this relationship is the reverse of the relationship with Josh. With Josh it’s purely physical at the beginning and even when all the truth is out in the open and despite the fact he is wonderful, the realisation that Liza is not being true to herself by being with him slowly dawns on her. There are needs of hers he cannot fulfil just as he has needs she cannot fulfil. But with Charles, as the connection grows deeper and the physical aspects become stronger, Liza realises this could be the real deal, that actually they could fulfil what the other is looking for, but the truth is not out in the open.

I know there is an argument that Josh loves her just as she is, but I believe the big realisation for Liza about Josh this season has been that as a romantic partner, he is not enough for her. Yes, she loves him, but she’s not in love with him. I don’t know if it was the intention of the writers or not, but this season we, as viewers, are having our conditioned view of these kinds of shows, where the female protagonist should be falling over herself to be with the guy who relentlessly pursues her, challenged. As I said earlier, Liza has been clear with Josh about where she stands and how she views her relationship with him and I really hope that they don’t backtrack. Again, not because I’m anti-Josh but because I’m pro-Liza and all for a show having the balls to show a relationship transition from romantic to platonic in a realistic way (which is what I’m hoping we’re in the midst of witnessing right now). 

Which brings me to the current situation. This week’s episode, when Liza strode into that office with the manuscript...THAT is what I’ve been waiting for these past few seasons. This was Liza’s ‘I’m done pretending. This is me, take it or leave it’ moment. 

It also really highlighted to me the way the lie had led to such a power imbalance in her relationships. With Josh, it played into the whole trying to appease him and getting tattoos she didn’t really want, but that power imbalance then shifted to her trying to get him to match her on levels other than the physical and it was sort of as though she had to hide that intellectual side or her desire for that sort of connection in order for him not to feel inadequate. Basically, I feel like she was almost protecting him like an older sibling or mother would. And with Charles, the intellectual connection was clearly there, but Liza had to play down her competency in other areas and so he was holding the power as someone who had more life experience (the way she did with Josh) in addition to also being in a position of power at work as her boss.

And that is why I am loving this season so much. The fact that Charles said he was relieved when he found out her real age shows that he was aware of the imbalance of power on some level and had been struggling to reconcile how that could be overcome if they were together. And It’s not just about age, it’s about experience. I believe that for him, connecting with someone so deeply when their life experiences seemed poles apart was baffling. In episode 4 this season, when Liza confronts Charles in his office after he crashes the meeting with Don, this might sound crazy, but that is one of my most favourite exchanges between them ever. It was only as I watched it that I realized that this was the most equal and honest interaction I think I’ve ever seen. Up until now, Liza has been ‘playing’ the 27 year old and in playing that part, would not have stood up to Charles in the same way (which is a whole other thing, because Kelsey would have so it’s not to do with the age, it’s to do with the persona Liza had attached to the 27 year old version of herself). But as a 41 year old she can confidently call him out on his bullshit behaviour and does so and even though that exchange is angry and heated, both of them meet each other in the middle and hold their own ground. 

So now, after the silver suit boss moment, we’ve been left with Liza taking back her power once and for all I believe. It’s what makes the possibility of her and Charles so exciting, the legitimately equal partnership in which both can be who they are and respect what each brings to the dynamic. I really do believe it could be one of the most exciting pairings we’ve seen if done well. I know shows fear putting two leads together but they could be a powerhouse and really take the show in a different direction as a couple. But most importantly, it’s such a satisfying and wonderful way to see this character finally shake the idea that the lie makes her deserving of unhappiness or pain. I feel like Liza is going to be ok now, whatever they do from here on.

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, LEO! You’ve been accepted for the role of PARIS with an approved FC change to JI CHANG WOOK. Admin Jen: Wow, I literally have to stifle the urge to keysmash my way through this note because THAT is how over the moon I am about your application, Leo! Your analysis of Priam was so intricate and it touched on various nuances in his character that I was very excited to see people explore and peel apart - his moral compass, his honor, his purpose, and most importantly, his masks. The interview was quite riveting to read and I adored how prominently your portrayal of him shone in the narrative. I particularly enjoyed observing his mannerisms and how they contrasted with his thought process but in general, the interview was full to the brim with interesting details to observe and inspect. As soon as I finished reading, I was certain that you would be perfect for Priam. I can’t wait to see him on the dash! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Leo.

Age | 18, though I still feel like a prepubescent teen oops.

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | I’d give myself a seven outta’ ten for activity levels.

Timezone | ‘m in France, so the timezones might be wonky.

Current/Past RP Accounts | [ x ]

In Character

Character | PARIS ; If possible, I’d like to use Xavier Serrano or Ji Chang Wook. [clutching fcs and sobbing as they spill over my hands.]

What drew you to this character? | “… the world in which he was a child was starkly black and white.” This, I feel, reveals the crux of the matter: that Priam Taravella, born with steel fused into his spine and rigidity formed into his very being, is now such a man of metamorphosis. And, yet, his core hasn’t changed at all. Something like there is enough in me to swallow the world and this body of mine can scarcely contain this hunger would be an apt description for the void that lingers in him. No ambition? What a lie. The ant who dreams of becoming a lion is merely a dreamer of impossibility, but the lion who dreams of becoming a king? There’s the ambition that his family refused to see in him. Priam Taravella was always a man with his feet rooted to the earth and his eyes fixed upon the horizon line because there’s where the gold glitters. Nothing is impossible, for he simply doesn’t deign to dream of impossibility. And, yet, his family mocked him for this and gave him the cold shoulder simply for daring to dream of things tangible. Maybe he cared about this, once upon a time, but nowadays he scoffs at the past, preferring to keep his sights on the present, and oh, there’s simply nothing like it.

There’s this, as well. “Verona’s underworld has made him apathetic towards most things but he has no tolerance for men without honor.” Oh, Priam. In a world where people may say that the sky is green and the water purple without an inflection of remorse, his honor brings such an interesting dimension to his character. He is, for all intents and purposes, a man who still adheres to the ‘black and white’ view of his youth; despite his hollow core, despite the blood that runs from his hands, despite the boundless ambition that serves as a never-ending bloodhound, he still places honor as something important to him, something that’s integral to his very being. And, isn’t this a paradox? In order to move up in the underworld, one must draw their lines of morality in sand, to be washed away and redrawn with every situation that follows. And, yet, Priam’s rigidity doesn’t allow for him to do this: there are some lines that he would never cross, even given the pros and cons of such an action.

He is a man of honor, and aren’t honor and glory both one and the same? Many would beg to differ, but the truth in his mind is the truth of the world. God made man in the image of Himself, the humanists would say, and isn’t this the primary facet of life in a search for unending glory? Verona is a city of divinity; a god without glory is no god at all. Likewise, a man without honor isn’t even worth a single good-natured thought. I think this makes him so very interesting, that in his rigidity and in his purpose, he sees himself as an honor-bound man. Are the three mutually bound? Is he truly a man of honor?

Is it even possible for a man with boundless ambition, crown tilted upon his head and smile slanted across his mouth, to be a man of honor?

(priam, what happens when you end your search? could the void inside of you ever be satiated?)

Which, speaking of, is such a fascinating concept. The void inside of him can be for many things, but the fact that Juliana is the first (and perhaps the only) person who has ever made him feel as if he belonged hints towards a boy who was starved of affection. Yes, he has potential, he knows that he has potential, but what I find interesting is that the Taravella name means something to him. It’s a shackle that he bears with his head held high; he is a boy of only twenty-three, and I think that this bears emphasis, that he is twenty-three and already believes that the only true part of his identity is his name. And, yet, at this age he already takes for granted that love and that sense of belonging are worth something. These are concepts that are not given freely; if he’s not useful then he isn’t worth being loved. This concept is found again in the way that he believes that his name might be the only thing that allows him to belong.

And the only way he would be loved is if he put on the mask. This, in turn, reminds me of a quote: “There was no one in him; behind his face (which even through the bad paintings of those times resembles no other) and his words, which were copious, fantastic, and stormy, there was only a bit of coldness, a dream dreamt by no one.” There’s something in this that causes one to wonder: where does the mask end and the man begin? Who is he, underneath the habits and personas that he had to adopt in order to realize his ambitions? Iago claims “I am not what I am,” and is this, too, true for Priam?

God, he’s just such a fascinating character, wow, and I could go on and on and on. I’ll leave you with this last quote: “History adds that before or after dying he found himself in the presence of God and told him: ‘I who have been so many men in vain want to be one and myself.’”

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | I really want him to be submerged into a situation where he must lose his sense of purpose or honor-bound duty or even a situation where he has to redraw his lines of morality in order to feed his ambition. The simple anguish in the fact that he must be, perhaps, somewhat like the men he hates, those men of no honor and of no purpose, would be absolutely lovely. Would he rationalize it to himself? Would he choose honor over ambition or vice versa? In a world that seems to be doing its damned hardest to kill them all, what could he possibly choose?

Why does he hate Boris so much? Is it simply because he can’t stand his ways? Is it truly because the Kovrov man reeks of shameless disloyalty? Or is it because he could see himself in the way he hungers for something more than the lot he was given in life? (maybe it’s because he knows, somehow, that this is the man he could become, that this might be the man he is.) I’d love to explore this.

Oh, Juliana. Dearly beloved, my tender heart, mio tesoro. In a man who’s more steel than flesh, she’s the tenderness of his childhood days in an era void of softness. Maybe this isn’t love—something about her eyes, her smile, the lilt of her voice—but it’s close enough. It’s good enough. (or so he hopes.) And, yeah, she makes him want to believe in the concept of loving and being loved. But, God, fuck, in a world such as this, any hint of tenderness is a hint of weakness. And Priam Taravella has long had enough of being weak. God, there’s so much space for nuance here. Does he truly love her or is it just the knowledge that they know so much about each other? Oh, and there’s this: in those moments of tenderness, in those moments when he’s pressing gentle lips to her forehead and folding his fingers over her hand, is he still acting?

And, also, we cannot forget about this: is he even able to discover himself underneath those layers and layers of masks? We can see that his sense of honor is a way that allows him to hold onto something even through the switching of personas, but isn’t there something more than simply that in a person?

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Oh, God yes. The more tragic the death, the better.

In Depth

Priam, with a sickly-sweet taste sitting on the root of his tongue and fingers digging into the blankets, wakes up underneath someone else’s sheets at ass-o'clock in the morning. It’s slightly sticky. His mouth pulls into a slight grimace, lashes feathering across the slant of his eyes as he breathes out a longer breath than usual, but the glint in his gaze is devoid of any natural feeling save for a vague sensation of apathy.

There’s a flash of what might be faint amusement as he flicks a glance towards the remnants of last night—scattered items of clothing, the lingering scent of sex, the marks on his companion’s skin—even as he ruffles his fingers through his dark curls, languidly arching his back into a stretch. The arm slung around his waist tightens with his motion before relaxing—Priam carelessly curls his grip around the appendage and tosses it away from him and towards its owner—and there’s a grunt as the man wakes up, lounging in bed and watching lazily as Priam retrieves his pants. “Leaving so soon?” husked out from sleep-ridden vocal chords.

There’s a pause as Priam tilts his head back, flicking an idle glance towards the speaker. Already, the apathy in his gaze had vanished, leaving behind only gentle amusement and a form of satisfied grace. His mouth tilts into a grin. “Mm,” all movement and indulgence as the sound of a zipper rips through the 3am aftermath, “I’d love to stay, mi amor, but I have work in the morning.” The slant of his mouth is a finely crafted thing—God, he’s too tired for this right now, something screams in him, but his every action is mechanically precise—as he quirks his lips upwards towards the other man, roguish charm in the echo of his gesture. Priam Taravella has a reputation to uphold and God forbid he ever forget about those layers of masks weighing upon him like Atlas’ skies.

(Sometimes, he’s frightened by his own capacity for all of this. It comes easily, now, like habit. Other times, he gazes at himself in the mirror and tells himself something like i built myself from the ground up and this is the result of my pride. It’s a delicate balance between irony and smug self-satisfaction.)

Despite the annoyance he holds for clingy lovers—simply the fact that he has had to answer tedious questions in the morning annoys him—his lovely features light up into that charismatic feeling of promise.

(When he’s feeling particularly ironic, he calls it smile number thirty-five where the corners of his lips are tilted at a precise angle of 68 degrees, teeth showing ever-so-slightly and eyes softening. It imbues a feeling of earnestness, as can be seen from all the times he’s practiced in front of the mirror when he was younger.)

“You must be tired,” and there’s that artificial flare of heat that seeps through his gaze as he, seemingly reluctantly, drags his attention from the lines of the other man’s body after lingering upon where the drape of the sheets hid the contours of the man’s lower abdomen. He flicks his glance away after precisely three heartbeats of time, knowing that this gesture was sufficient enough to allay all concerns. “Rest.” He stands. There’s a brief bit of pause when he catches a glimpse of his reflection in a nearby mirror—sometimes he thinks that the day when he can’t even recognize himself is near—though the movement seems more like it’s a hesitation to leave. “I’ll see you around,” lying through his teeth with a smile of no substance.

“Will I see you at your favorite place?” exhaled from behind him as his fingers linger at the nape of his collar. Inch by inch, he drags his sleeves up over the breadth of his forearms, folding them below his elbow with the tuck of a button.

“My favorite place?” echoed, though his motions never cease. He refrains from looking back at the other man, knowing that the microsecond of disdainful amusement would show in the curve of his mouth. “Yes, of course,” knowing, too, that favorite hardly means favored.

“The Hotel Emilia?” again, from behind him, and there’s a note of expectation that’s laden within the drowsy voice. Priam simply abhors the expectation that this man has of him and his gaze grows dark, though there’s a careful regard as to how the slope of his shoulders tenses; simply put, he doesn’t let himself do anything except to retain movement in the form of satiated grace.

“You caught me,” a deep timbre laced with fond laughter. The Hotel Emilia? A lie that he’d concocted once he saw the interested flicker of the other man’s lashes on the afternoon of the day before, sunlight streaming in from stained-glass windows and lingering upon handsome features. Something to arouse sensation; oh, the Taravella scion has a weary side, a human side, and wouldn’t onlookers feel honored for the ability to see that soft smile upon Priam’s face?

He knows very well that humans are more likely to worship perfect idols, but that growing close to people requires various imperfections. (He has those in spades.)

Priam slips on his gloves, flexing his fingers against the cool fabric, and takes long strides to the exit of the house. Once he’s graced by the dusk, gentle breezes tugging at dark curls and nipping lightly at his nose, a faint smile slants across his mouth before being obscured by a brighter grin of greeting—still as hollow as ever—towards the few who are still on the streets.

A woman wanders up to him, fingers digging into her pockets and ruby-red lips tilted into a sly grin. “Priam Taravella,” voice low and suggestive, “exiting a random house in the early morning. I wonder, is this something you do every day?” Her gaze flicks up and down, blatantly admiring the way his clothes fit to his body.

He snorts, a sort of glacial coldness readily receding from the shallow depths of his eyes at the interception, even though he gives into the indulgence of tapping his fingers against his thigh once in a subtle show of irritation. “It could be,” allowing a slow, flirtatious grin to cross his mouth, “Miss?”

“Not important,” airily waving her hand. She rocks back and forth on her heels, eyes bright as she peers at him. “What do you do every day, then, Taravella?” The mockery in her voice is evident, as is the almost-envious idolization in her gaze.

He feigns a glance at his watch and watches as the woman’s eyes lingers on his exposed wrist. A Patek Philippe, circa 1997, and as expected, she involuntarily sucks in a breath. Priam doesn’t allow his mouth to twist into an expression of indulgent disdain, but it’s a near thing. “I eat breakfast,” drawled dryly, “just as you do, I’d assume.”

A wry grin slips onto his features like something that belongs. “Then, I get to work. Afterwards, I might go for a drink or two, maybe to an opera or an art exhibition, and then I attempt to buy presents for my beloved fiancée.” He lowers his voice, lashes feathering across the slant of his eyes in an artful show of candor and loving laughter, as if the simple thought of Juliana was enough to bring him joy, “Between you and me, the only reason I’m not sleeping on the couch every night is because of this.”

“Do you buy her flowers?” eager curiosity.

He makes as if to reply, but then he places a finger to his mouth. “Some things are meant to be a secret,” tucking his hands into his pockets and nodding at her. “Have a good day.”

God, it’s like he tasted something sour. He’s barely crossed a street before his gaze flickers towards another hovering figure, watching as they attempt to watch him. It’s almost four in the morning and still he is besieged with flies from all sides. Best to get this over with.

Priam beckons, gentle laughter in his eyes. “You have a question for me?” low and soothing. They yelp, almost scurrying off, before they think better of it and sheepishly wander closer.

“Y-yeah,” a soft whisper. “I just- I, uh, I-”

He watches them patiently, even though faint exasperation is bubbling up from the depths of his chest. “Mm?” prompting them with a noise that slicks from the back of his throat, though the smile tilted upon his lips hardly budges.

“I-” They take a deep breath, as if steeling themselves, “I just- You know,” they twitch their fingers and Priam’s eyes narrow towards the motion before flickering towards the bulge underneath their coat, near the side of their waist. He makes some effort to relax his musculature even further into a state of apparent languidness. “The war,” blurted out as they fidget.

Oh. Such an ugly concept. “What about it?” Subtly, he directs them both towards a nearby alleyway, an easy grin donned upon his lips as he clasps their shoulder.

“I- I feel so useless, not being able to do anything,” absently fisting their hands, “do you think I should join? At least then I’d be able to play a part.”

“I honestly can’t profess any experience with the war,” a blatant lie, not even twitching though the word drags itself tastelessly from his tongue, “but I believe in my fiancée and in the inherent righteousness of my betrothed’s family.” Conviction is rife in his voice and in the shift of his gaze as he continues, “This will end, soon,” soothing the other—oh, there’s something in his eyes that unfurls like twin flames, something that gives credence to the lilt of his voice and the slant of his mouth—“and the winner will be in the right.”

“Until then,” gently placing a knuckle underneath their chin and tilting their gaze upwards, towards the looming silhouette of a grand church, “pray.”

Of course, he himself knows better than to pray to other gods.

headcanons:

ok so picture this: you take for granted that the smile slanted across daddy’s mouth is because you did well in school. you take for granted that mom’s words of adoration are because you’ve won some competition or the other. love’s something that isn’t yours to keep. and yeah, yeah of course he coulda’ been worse off. he coulda’ been begging in the streets or barely surviving or thrown into some sorta’ gimmick that he couldn’t have left, but there’s this. there’s this and then there’s those moments when he looks at the people who don’t wear crowns—he’s just a boy and this crown is too heavy for him to bear—and watches their fingers curl around their parents’ hands and watches their smiles—before he knows it, he’s learned how to curve his lips in the exact same way because wasn’t this called happiness?—and he wants.

took him years to realize that this wasn’t for him, but he’s still left wanting.

baby you know the closest you’ll ever get to god is in a cemetery and, oh, he’s visited many. at first, it was the death of a beloved pet. nowadays, it’s to somehow atone for all the sins he’s ever carried, ‘cos god knows he can’t go to a confessional. the dead, at least, tell no tales.

he totally brings back tons of presents for juliana and those he calls friends from his business trips 'nd stuff

okay okay okay hear me out; he’s totally got his fingers in all sorts of pies after leaving his family’s legacy behind. there was something in him that wanted recognition for himself, rather than for his name, and so he’s a fairly well known philanthropist and semi-political figure within the city. semi, as he doesn’t hold a specific position but he’s still rather visible. he also organizes fundraisers and galas and all those kindsa’ parties. whatever it takes for him to be known 'cos it’s something like yeah, i’m gonna’ take the highest position you know and force you to look at me without this goddamn legacy

prolly has a buncha’ hidey-holes. evil lairs. nah, but he does have places within the city where he can pretend, at least for the moment, that he’s just priam. just priam taravella ('cos yeah, even now his family’s name means something to him) on a rooftop and watching the stars. god knows if he didn’t have these places, he’d lose himself even faster

also a tsundere asshole. doesn’t act like it, usually, and it’s easy for him to smile and say stuff he doesn’t mean, but when he does mean something, something that’s either fuckign sappy or really heartfelt, it’d take a miracle for him to admit to it

twenty-three y/o dork, actually, despite all the airs he puts on. juliana knows.

v’ v’ v’ flirtatious. knows he’s pretty. knows how to use it.

DO NOT get into a drinking contest with this boi cos he will either get piss-drunk and say he’s not or you’ll get shitfaced drunk

prolly goes to the fighting ring ngl when he’s feeling too annoyed by the state of the world 'cos he’s still that same stubborn priam, jus dressed up prettier

is??? actually touch-starved like woah

tldr; doesn’t know how to be human 'cos no affection was given to him when he was younger and wow no wonder he’s kinda’ sorta’ feral but he’s learned how to put on masks THEREFORE aggravating the problem rather than solving it

priam aka mister 'ive got 99 problems but acting ain’t one of them’

[sabineelectricheart]

From The Balcony

Summary: Byleth does not care for balls. Sylvain will not stand for that.

Rating: K+ - Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.

Words: 1400

Notes: A little bashing, a little fluff. Tell me what you want, I got it all.

It was the night of the ball. A cold and dry mountainous wind blew constantly through the stone halls of the academy, as it often did on winters. The Ethereal Moon was absent from the skies, probably feeling upstaged by the bright lights in every corner of the monastery, celebrating the ever encroachment of the Millennium Festival.

Alas, it was still 1180, and the people of Garreg Mach were in an unusually celebratory mood. After a trying year, the festival served to finally release some tension and enjoy life.

Amongst the joy of the students, Byleth observed the proceedings from a balcony overlooking the highly decorated entrance hall. She was not the one for fancy balls and dancing, as she looked downright stupid trying to do the quadrille, but she was entrusted with chaperoning duties. It stands to logic that such a position would be conductive to observation.

As she nursed a goblet of wine and ensured order and decorum from the students, quiet footsteps climbed up the balcony two at a time, hoping to steal the woman away, if only for a single moment.

Without looking back, Byleth greeted him. “Hello, Sylvain. How are you faring tonight?”

“You’re too good.” The redhead comments with a chuckle. “I came to look for my favourite person in the monastery.”

“Indeed, and I hope this is the reason why I am your favourite person.” She twirled the purple liquid, not really desiring to drink it.

“It is one of many reasons.” Byleth watched as Sylvain extended his hand. “Well Professor, can I have this dance?”

When she looked up at him, he had his signature flirtatious easy smile with just a hint of something more. She bit her lower lip, looking around the ballroom for any sign of trouble downstairs.

She let out a soft sigh and gave Sylvain a sheepish look. “Sylvain, I cannot…“

“You can’t dance, I know, you’ve told me.” As he gently cut her off, her blue eyes grew wide. “Just trust me, would you?”

She did not trust him. She wanted to, but she did not. Byleth wanted to trust him with her life and they have not known each other that long, but so far, he has presented as a spoiled, untrustworthy teen, even if something else did shine through the cracks. The professor wonders silently who actually is Sylvain, and whether she would appreciate the response.

It made no sense, but she was not much concerned with that. Debates and morality could wait until the sun rises, and so she took his hand and he led her by the bannister, where they could hear the music and the light hit her eyes just right so they appear almost green, before pulling her close and placing a hand on her hip while holding the other.

They began to do a slow box step, Byleth looking down at her feet every once in a while. Sylvain could see the uncertainty in her face, and ever since he has known her, even if it has not been that long, he has never seen her confidence fall like this.

He moved the hand that was engulfing hers to her chin, lifting it so her eyes were on him. “By, look at me. I got you, you won’t fall on your ass. There’s no one watching, just relax.”

She let out a soft chuckle and shook her head. “I am just… I cannot believe you remembered that I said I could not dance…”

His wide grin immediately turned into a frown. “We don’t have to…”

“No, no, I want to dance.” She then brought the hand that was no longer accompanied by Sylvain’s over his other shoulder, wrapping both arms around his neck as she got even closer. “I brought up the fact that I could not dance in passing, once, many Moons ago, and you remembered.”

Hugging her towards him as close as he could, the corner of his mouth lifted as he gave an indifferent shrug. “You’re just one of the few people that I care enough about to remember stuff like that.”

“What happened to the Sylvain that seduces village girls by the bucket and then dashes off to the next big thing?” She lifted a challenging brow before he let out a hearty laugh.

He chuckles lightly, even as his heart weights on him. “The thing is, Byleth, you are worth so much more than any woman I seduced in the past.”

The reason for so much of her value, her blood, her Crest, was left for her to wonder how much it weights on his judgement. Were they forever shackled to the will of the Goddess? Or would he finally be free of it all and love and live honestly?

Seeing this side of Sylvain was definitely an experience, but it was something Byleth realized she enjoyed quite a bit. When she first met Sylvain, the philandering heir to the Gautier family, she never would have thought his hard-shell exterior would crumble down in such a manner. She also never thought she would feel so appreciated with him, but she did.

This is love. All the times she had the feelings of butterflies in her stomach, wanting to trust him and feeling as if she fit on with him so early on and without any rational reason, and the small moments like these, it was love.

They continued to sway, soaking up the intimate moment as Byleth’s thoughts were running wild. She has never felt this type of love for anyone before, this was something new for her. It was so new that she was not sure she even wanted to tell him. She could not tell him right now, she could not giving him what he clearly wanted so early, lest he loses interest.

Pushing down any other thoughts on that subject, her adoring smile turned into a bewitching smirk. “So, if those women are in the past, does that mean you are completely retired from seducing?”

His eyes gleamed with amusement. “You know, you don’t need to wait until we’re in mortal peril to have an excuse to try and jump me.”

“You are saying there is such a time when we are not in mortal peril?” She quipped back.

“Yes, so feel free to jump me anytime.” He winked before bringing his lips down her ear. “I’m ready and willing.”

She felt a shiver go down her spin as he moved his mouth away from her ear. When their faces were mere inches apart, she could see all the care that he held for her, even behind that damn grin that was usually occupying his face.

Byleth took the initiative and slightly went up on her toes, closing the distance between her and Sylvain with their lips. The kiss was slow at first, but turned into something more passionate. Byleth laced her fingers through his hair while Sylvain continued to flush her body against his, kissing harder than before.

When the kiss had finally broken, Sylvain looked at her with a far more tender expression than before. “You know Professor, I won’t lie. Meeting someone like you is like… Like trying to catch lightning in a bottle.”

A rosy blush appeared on her cheeks and before she could respond, the music had come to a stop, allowing a hush to go over the ballroom. They looked down to the party and could see Manuela drunkenly making a scene on the dance floor, and Byleth remembered for what reason she was originally there.

She ought to do something before Seteth intervened and made it much worse for the entire faculty and student body, even if she really wanted to cut down on her responsibilities and let Manuela draw her own luck when it came to their boss.

Letting her grasp on Sylvain go, she gave him a smile. “Thank you for asking me to dance. You are probably the only one who could ever get me to let myself go in such unsightly manner.”

The redhead beamed, as if she had told him he was to be the next Emperor of Fódlan. “Well, I’ll be looking forward to the next time to whisk you away.”

They both set off downstairs, back to their usual grinding life at the monastery, getting ready for whatever on the Goddess’ wicked imagination was about to happen next.

*_*_*_*_*

Fire Emblem Masterlist

Three Houses Masterlist

[valhallansim]

In honour of both Mental Health Month (US) and Mental Health Awareness week (UK), I decided to give back to both my lovely followers and the Simblr community as a whole by sharing parts of my own story surrounding mental health issues. I hope some insight into my struggles, dark thoughts and pain can help someone else through their hardships, even if it is just a little bit.

Content warnings for suicide mentions, mentions of abuse, PTSD, depression, alcohol, anxiety, panic attacks, other mental health-related issues and death of a parent.

In hindsight, now that I am a 24 year old adult, a lot of things about my life make sense. Not in a good way, I’m sad to say, but they do. I cried a lot as a baby. As a toddler, I would be months ahead of my peers, have conversations with adults, but be extremely sensitive to the point where I would dissolve into complete hysterics if I wasn’t given proper time to recharge. Throughout my whole school career, including high school, I was always sick at least one day out of five. Headaches, migraines, cramping, terrible anxiety that kept me up at night.

The first psychiatrist I saw was when I was 12. I lived in a complicated household where I was the only one that was being abused, as the oldest of three children. My dad would hit me for reasons that are still unclear to this day, sometimes so bad that on a few seperate occassions blood was drawn or I was locked up in the bathroom with a throbbing, blue arm. It was strange, since my dad was a very nice man. He loved me, and my siblings, and my mother, and his friends, and his co-workers. He would snap, sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere. We will never know why and how, and why I was the only one taking the beatings, but it happened. I was suicidal to the point where I would grab all of the sharp kitchen knives and hide them in my room. I tried drowning myself in the bath tub, or tried to calculate if I were to die if I jumped out of my bedroom window. I remember feeling so terribly empty that I would hide underneath my desk in my room, and cry for hours. I was diagnosed with depression, sent home, and that was that for years.

Then my dad died when I was 17, a month before I would turn 18. It went so ridiculously fast that I would have dreams about him returning home, even if I knew that he was dead. He was ill for hardly 4 weeks before he passed away, and I couldn’t feel. It put a whole lot of perspective into my life. I was about to graduate that same year, and go to university. I didn’t want to. Art has always been a passion for me. I was numb, but I knew I wanted to go to art school.

I didn’t even make it to the start of the first year before I was sent off to a psychiatrist again. I was angry, sad, but most of all angry - I felt misunderstood by my family, and I would have fights with my mother and sister so bad that I tried to suffocate myself with blankets once in my room. I was diagnosed with dysthymia, a condition that can be described as ‘chronic depression’. Therapy helped a bit, and I started art school.

Art school was tough. Especially the first year, where I wanted to perform well so badly that I never missed a day of class, which is highly unusual for me. The second year started, and I could tell something was horribly wrong right away. I would sit on the train to school, and hear sirens. I would see flashes, get migraines, hear screaming or loud buzzing in my ears. I would come home hysterically crying to my mother, wishing the extreme panic would go away. It was too much, but I didn’t listen to my own body. I would take some pain killers, tough it out, and walk to the train station all the same the next day. Looking back, I lost complete control over myself and who I was, as if held at gunpoint by a giant monster named panic. I remember being so anxious about getting on that train, getting to school, doing what I had to do, that I thought I could outrun a train that was coming. The beams had already closed and both the lights and bells were sounding, signaling the train was coming at a high speed. ‘I can make it’, I thought, and I didn’t really care. I had to be on time to catch my own train. I slipped underneath the beams, and without looking I tried to cross the railway. Someone yelled at me to stop. I startled so bad that I stopped walking, and the train passed by maybe only a few paces away from me. I was shaken for the rest of the day, and by the time I came home, I realised what had happened and I cried. Scared to tell anyone, scared that my head could get so far ahead without me and do something so dangerous.

Things didn’t start looking up for me. I had to take time off from school. I missed a lot of classes and disappointed a lot of classmates who I was working with in groups. I tried to do whatever I could, but I couldn’t make myself go to school every single day, no matter how hard I tried. It felt like I was tied to the floor of my house, as if shackles prevented me from going anywhere I wanted. I felt so tired - even to this day, I feel tired, as if my arms and legs are too heavy for my body. I was given medication. It took me a long time to get used to the pills, and even after that, when things became a little bit better, things were still not looking great. I did a lot of tests, and another diagnosis was made. PDNOS, cluster A & C. The diagnosis itself didn’t change much, but it put a whole lot into perspective.

I had to drop out of school. I felt worthless, disgusting, and absolutely useless. One day, I got a blackout so bad that I was gone for an hour. I ‘woke up’ on my bed, not knowing what had happened. My mom told me how she had crowded up against me from behind in the kitchen, trying to be funny with me by joking around. I remember a wave of panic hitting me, but that is all. The nightmares became worse and worse, my teeth grinding so hard in my sleep that I would wake the whole house. I was diagnosed with PTSD.

That was a little over a year ago. To this day, I am still coming to terms with all these different diagnoses, figuring out how I can live a life worth living with them. Together with therapy, counselling and medication, I’m trying to shape my life into something that is do-able for me. Money is always an issue, and so are the worries for my future and what I need to do to get ‘somewhere’. Suicidal thoughts are still there, but with people to talk to and a psychiatrist to help me, I feel confident in staying alive. It is not only my mental health that is keeping me from studying and finishing my degree, a lot of physical aspects (kyphosis, migraines, cluster headaches) certainly do their part as well. Every day, I try to get out there and do something that contributes to my future. I am lucky to have a house where I am welcome to stay for as long as I need to, a loving family, and a talent and interest in art and writing that I could pursue as a freelance career.

What is especially important for me, is to know that things like these take time. Feeling useless and scolding myself for not being where I want to be, does not help at all. Getting better, seeking help and getting where you want to be takes a lot of time. Some people just do it a tiny bit faster. In my therapy sessions I have learnt that the worst thing for me to do is to hate myself for who I am and what it is that holds me back. Scolding myself and berating myself to do better and be better and to suck it up, are only going to make it worse. Be kinder to yourself, my therapist says. Be kinder to yourself, everyone around me says.

Be kinder to yourself.

I say, to you, even if I still find it hard to apply those words to my own life. It is something to live by, though. Be kind to yourself. Seek help if you need to. Reach out to a friend. Know that there are people out there willing to help.

Thank you for reading. I hope you are doing well, now and in the future, and that my story might help some of you, even if only a little bit. ♥

[aj-the-killer-666]

What Is Love

{By: My boyfriend, Angel❤, and I.}

These battle scars,

I hide on my arms,

Still waiting for someone to save me...

*No longer will you wait,

I make your scars disappear,

and save you from this pain*

I stay hidden,

Locked away by the shackles of fear,

Held prisoner by the lies of those I used to hold dear,

Can only protect myself in this prison, with the lies behind my eyes truth be told with stuck inside my mind,

Hidden in these prison known as the four walls that I hide in my mind stuck with the lies of those I used to hold dear.

Broken trust is what created the demons on either side of my heart delete these walls up you turning me into My Own Prison guard locking Myself Away becoming the very thing that I hated,

These thoughts breaking my very being down how can I live being stuck not making a sound...

Been broken down since I was young,

learn not to say what I thought in order to keep me alive,

well, that is emotionally even though the one I was supposed to trust left me broken and alone and taught me I should never trust anyone,

since I was 4,

I had decided to let my guard down since the third grade thinking that anything my father says should not be taking to Heart.

Then I learned that I should have listened,

Those fake friends that I created in the third grade stabbed me in the back and the fifth grade, learned I should not trust even my closest friends,

I started to put the missing pieces together turn my life into its own little puzzle piece,

That is the one thing that my father taught me that I could actually use in my life that wasn't considered abuse,

Oh, wait, the only reason why I found that out was because of the abuse.

Sixth grade I became a new person,

becoming more optimistic thinking that because my father wasn't in the picture and I had a new stepdad.

Things would be great,

Little did I know I was wrong,

made friends they betrayed me again,

I guess it's a cycle,

A desperate cry for help I scream and I scream hoping that someone can hear me,

Do you really think that you could fix me?

*Held prisoner, no longer you will be...

I'll fight those demons, you'll be safe with me,

I hear your cries and see your tears,

I'll make sure that forever your pain will disappear

Those fake friends you held so close,

and the father you once had was such a joke.

You're an Angel in my eyes, you'll be untouchable and I'll keep you alive*

I'm just being so tired of my pillow being a tissue for my tears,

I'm tired of past feelings keep rising and rising from memories of those who used to call me names breaking me down inside my brain,

Oh wait,

not to mention I have to deal with that at home too.

I have a younger brother, she gives in to the name-calling I have to do with being called a white bitch every day, sometimes even a whore, and it was at one time where I was told to kill myself in the 7th grade.

These memories, they seem to go by,

I hate feeling useless by feeling so alone I've been excluded and held back from the things that I should have owned,

I told White Lies saying that I'm fine even though it's clear to see that I'm the opposite,

Been holding in this pain for so long did not know put it out in poem or song,

Fast forward to yesterday when one of my friends said that I was putting on my emotions on them when I was just venting because I did not feel okay.

I am a different person,

Don't feel very alive but don't feel dead either,

Things have usually landed badly for me when it came to stuff like love so I guess when it comes to this it's like a cat trying to jump in freezing water or someone who is Afraid of the Dark walking through that dark passage hoping to find a way out.

Sometimes I even feel alone when I am surrounded by people.

After all these years of torture and pain, I have become a single person walking on that straight line of trying to be perfection.

I sent to beat myself up over simple things like,

I cannot write a simple equation in math.

I study until my brain hurts,

hoping that I can work my way up to be the best of the best,

trying so hard so that way I can finally be proud of what I am.

I have become the greatest judge greater than the ones who seem to judge me while I was walking down the hall,

Even though I have become a stronger person emotionally and mentally there is always a theater that I will break down and the tumble down the hill,

like Jack and Jill where instead of I break my crown,

I break myself emotionally and I cannot climb back up,

I'm still hoping that the ladder of love will stay up,

Because what I have gone through in the past has made me be fearful of happiness,

Because whenever I seem to get happy something bad would happen,

I'm just there...

I used to think that God wants me to suffer,

But I'm hoping that things will get better,

I'm just tired that whenever I tell my friends something and makes me seem like a hypocrite,

I'm just tired of the fact that my past still ties me down more not even makes my body tingle like a rope around my neck tied like a noose,

I don't want my body to be hanging loose,

So I have been trying to stand up and walk that staircase,

Hoping that I can be happy by bringing my grades up,

Because there's always that fear that emotionally I will never be up there.

My maturity level has always been high so I guess that's why you never made friends that were my own age or the only friends I made were more mature,

I seem to be like a gust of wind that goes past the crowd unnoticed,

I swear I don't ask for it that much attention there's not really much to make me happy,

And maybe I'm just settings such high goals for myself that I cannot think about the now,

what am I going to do today that will make me a better person,

I've started to lose interest in the things that I love most,

Like music and writing,

I tend to walk around the halls singing that no one notices me so I guess I'm like a ghost,

I'm different,

And I've been feeling happier,

But that makes me scared of the future and what's going to happen,

How can I be so sure that this will last and I won't be broken like shattered glass?

*I know how it feels to be broken down, trying to build yourself back up but don't know how. Feeling numb, feeling as though you're not alive, no soul no happiness, nothing inside at all. The words of others that try to hurt you, are lies in my eyes. You're perfect to me, I will never intend to make you cry. You shouldn't talk bad about yourself cause you're absolutely perfect to me, you're not useless, I'll be with you forever you'll never be alone. You don't have to hide your pain. Forever I'll be your diary, your secrets I'll always hold. Love has hurt me too but my love won't hurt you at all*

So, I will be broken and bent,

but we'll get through this together,

For love is a bond that lasts forever...

[badly-drawn-piplup]

Happiness Overload Chapter Eight

The doors opened. It took the combined might of Ecstasy and I, but the double doors slammed themselves into their respective walls and we were left standing in the doorway.

Hey, didn't that door say ″authorized personnel only″? Ecstasy asked.

Guess they weren't counting on the power of a supernatural fuckbuddy.

In front of us was a large square room with many square tiles. On the other end were computers and monitors each of varying size and at the moment, all of them had me, who just entered, on display.

″The fuck...″ I whispered. I looked around, but there wasn't much to see aside from what I already saw. That is, besides the chair in front of the monitors.

It was plain as day. It should have been the first thing I laid my eyes on, but instead it was those stupid monitors.

Just as I took my first step forward, the chair turned around and someone in a lab coat with long, silver hair. She looked familiar, but I wasn't sure where to place it. Her hands were behind the chair, but I didn't recall noticing a pair of hands before the chair turned. From where I was standing and from where she was sitting, I couldn't make out what kind of look was on her face. My mind interpreted one of two things: a face of distress or a face of pleasure. My mind went toward distress.

″Hey miss, have these people captured you? Are you being held hostage?″

She said nothing. The only noises to be heard were the beeping and whirring of computers and monitors.

″Never fear, I'll save you and we'll get out of here!″ I announced, wanting to put my hands on my hips and wishing that I was wearing a cape.

″Oh? Are you here to reveal the truth to the masses and defeat the evil organization?″ She spoke, her voice monotone. However, yet again, it was a voice that was somehow familiar to me. She got up and laughed a single, hollow laugh. It sounded more like a cough.

Right after she spoke, the doors slammed themselves shut and an electric barrier guarded the doors.

″Wait. What's going on?″ I looked around. ″Now how am I going to save you?″

″Is that really what you're so concerned with?″ She asked. There was no hint of humor in her voice, but there was some of curiosity.

″Well, I was going to get you out of here, then come back in here and find some way to bring this corporation's actions to light. Maybe I'd use the monitors or something and make a broadcast.″

″Interesting.″ She paced from side to side, never moving toward me. ″So you never considered that you won't be getting out of here?″

″I...I just haven't tried anything yet!″ I reassured. ″I'm sure there's some way.″

″Don't worry. There isn't.″

″How could you say that?″ I was aghast. This helpless person in a lab coat just gave up hope right before my eyes without knowing what I was capable of.

″Have you considered who it is that you're rescuing?″ She responded with a question of her own.

I pondered for a bit. ″Lemme guess...you're a scientist forced to work for them? Are they threatening you with something? Do they have your family? Is that it?″

She laughed. It was the same cold laugh. She looked right at me, her eyes piercing into me as if they were analyzing me rather than just looking at me.

″Yes. I am a scientist,″ she replied.

″I knew it!″

″But I haven't been forced to do anything.″

″Then what is it? Did they offer you money?″

″I already have that. Which is how I was able to create all that you see.″

My eyes widened.

″The company isn't holding me captive, for I am the head of the company.”

″Just...just who are you?″ I uttered.

″I am Professor Etna.″

I was standing in front of a monster. Whatever blood I had left in my body boiled. All these horrors and I was standing in front of the conductor.

She took but two paces toward me before stopping. Etna leaned forward and smiled.

″Some people call me a doctor, but I like the way professor rings off the tongue more.″

She leaned back and placed her palm on her chin.

″Now, I wonder...will you make an attempt on my life?″

″I'm not a killer,″ I growled.

″You aren't? What about all those guards you decapitated on your way to the mayor's office? Or the security guard for our elevator? Not to mention the countless guards you slaughtered on your way here.″

″That was different. That was for revenge.″

″Are you telling me that you didn't enjoy it?″

Blanc, she's trying to psych you out. Don't give in.

″Tell me about this revenge. If it's so important to you, then why not kill me? After all, I am the reason behind your plight.″

″Death would be too good for you. I'll destroy this company and everything you hold dear, mark my words!″ I sounded so cliché. So silly. But I guess my reaction was the only one at the time that made sense to me.

″Everything we hold dear? But what we hold dear is the same thing everyone holds dear.″

She walked around the room, gliding her hands against the walls. Lights flashed, mechanical shackles rose from the floor, wrapping themselves around my feet, tightening.

I huffed and puffed, I surrounded myself with an adrenaline rush. I didn't believe myself to be in danger; Ecstasy was on my side. If need be, I could detach my legs and regrow shadow legs or something.

From the ceiling came metal arms with claws at the end. Each one clamped onto my hands, crushing them and holding them in place. Even the shadow hand, which by all means shouldn't have been felt.

I spat on the floor. ″Any quips like 'who's in distress now?'″

She pushed her glasses up with her palm and smiled. ″Who do you take me for?″ She asked in response.

″You're a villain! You're pure evil and something that must be stopped!″

″Ah, morality. However you take our actions, you misunderstand. We are making this world a better place.″

″I've heard that before,″ I scoffed.

″Yes. We know.″

I grunted. I had the feeling that I could break out at any moment if I needed to, but exhaustion from the battle with Big Al (or whatever his name was) was taking its toll on me.

″Why don't we chat for a bit?″ Etna suggested. Maybe she figured that there was no way I could escape, and maybe I could pass the time while I regain enough energy to get Ecstasy to break me out. Before she would just take control of my body when I was tiring out, but this time I couldn't feel her at all, almost as if she was just as low as I was right now. The battle must have taken just as much of a toll on her as well.

″Fine,″ I sighed.

″Very good,″ she remarked, then turned to the side and held an apple in the palm of one of her hands. I didn't recall there being an apple before, but no doubt this corporation had technology I couldn't even comprehend. Advanced apple technology. My mind started drifting toward thoughts of apples listening to music with cordless headphones.

″You were a college student for a time. What do you know of the Roman Empire?″ She asked. I was confused, but in my weary state, I answered.

″Just that it fell.″

She gave a brief, hollow laugh. ″True, although remnants of it can still be found throughout all of western civilization.″

″Where are you going with this?″ I squinted my eyes.

″Bloodsport quelled the fear and anger of the masses amidst corruption and a crumbling empire. It functioned both as a distraction and a morale boost for the population.″

″Are you comparing your little elevator project to the coliseums?″

″Not quite. We've advanced through the ages. We're a lot more...civil. We don't have to take a single life. Our influence can be seen across all forms of media, both past and present.″

″Then why do you do it?″

″Do what?″

″Take lives.″

″You're mistaken once again. We recycle lives. The ones who come back on the other side are the same people, just with a new body and altered memories.″

″Even still, no one consented to this. This is complete control of a population.″

″Nobody consented to being teleported to their intended destination? If that was the case, they wouldn't have taken our elevator.″

″Not that,″ I turned my head. Well, it was that, but there was something else, too. ″Nobody asked for a clone to take their place. Nobody asked for their new self to be more subservient. If everyone knew what was in the fine print, they wouldn't sign!″

″At this point, that may not even be true. Ah, but I digress. What we are doing is creating a happier society. Wouldn't you call that a noble goal?″

I shook my head. ″No. You're forcing them by injecting their clones with serotonin or altered memories or some shit. If what you're getting at is true, you're hoping the entire city will keep revisiting that elevator until they're eventually so full of bliss that they can't even tell what's going on around them.″

″Ah, how smart you are. Though it may be a little more complex than that.″

″How so?″

″Entertainment of all forms serve a purpose of distracting the masses. Sometimes a piece of media will cause a reaction, like anger. That would seem counterproductive to our goal, wouldn't it?″

I gave no response. Just let her keep talking. Eventually she'll lower her guard, I told myself.

″Not exactly. It gives them something to do. It gives them motivation. Such passionate feelings are a form of happiness, even if it feels so bitter to them. Protests do nothing except entertain both the common folk and those in power. For something to change, it depends on the whim of the ones in power, not how loud the peasants yell.″

″So you're saying it's all hopeless?″

″Oh, no. Hopelessness is such a terrible thing. That would lower the morale dramatically. That's why we have media calling for revolutions. The idea is quite nice, even if it does nothing.″

″You control the media, the politicians. What are you, some kind of illuminati?″

She laughed her dreadful laugh. The one I was getting quite tired of.

″Some people love a good conspiracy. We made such a rumor, once again, as a distraction. If they're too focused on some big scandal, they won't think to look at what's really going on.″

″So what? You just made up the illuminati?″

″And just about any other conspiracy.″

″Unfortunately, I also know about the real ones. The Flashbulb, right?″

″Ah. Conrad told you that, did he? In his little hideout?″

My eyes widened. ″You had better not hurt him!″

″He and his little group can live out the rest of their lives in peace for all we care.″

When I reached the surface, I found the nearest cop and in my panic, tugged at his sleeve. He didn't react well and punched me in the face. I might have deserved that. But even so, I had more pressing matters.

I covered my nose with both hands and the cop, surrounded by the crowd of the city streets, tried diffusing the situation.

″I'm so sorry!″ He waved his hands around. ″What seems to be the problem?″

″My friends! They're in trouble!″ I sobbed, blood running down my nose.

″Where are they?″ He asked.

″Underground, a series of tunnels.″

He pulled out his pager and whispered into it. I tried listening in but couldn't make out a thing.

″We're sending a few officers to search for them. I'm going to—″ before I could hear the rest, I bolted. Panic set in. ″–Need you to come with me″, my mind filled in the blanks. I pushed past those in the crowd, heard a gunshot hit a mailbox, I yelped and kept running. I didn't stop. In my panicked state, I thought I saw a tree in the middle of the road and several cars crashed, but it may have just been my eyes playing tricks on me.

I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't know what to do next. I just hoped that I wouldn't die. I hoped the others wouldn't die...

We continued to crawl through the vents. I knew Kelly Roger brought this upon us. The fool was scared, but then again, so was I. Now Kelly Roger, Conrad, and I were all likely to die, no matter what the intentions were.

I remember leaving the note on the floor after I left the room.

There's a path to the surface from here. Take it if you no longer wish to be involved. Look for a loose panel on the ceiling. It will become clear from there.

Kelly Roger must have followed the note's advice. Funny enough, the whole calling these mercenaries on us may have been a blessing in disguise. We were actually moving forward.

″Just a little further and we'll be at the hanger,″ Conrad mentioned.

I didn't hear any sound from above. No sign of any of those armored goons. That didn't put me at ease.

″What if they found it?″ I asked. I shuddered at the thought of my aircraft being destroyed or those soldiers surrounding it, waiting for us with their guns.

″Then we're screwed,″ he replied.

I started thrashing. I could feel some energy returning. Even if it was in short bursts, I'd use what I could.

Come on, Ecstasy, do something! Some shadow tentacles, some extra strength, something!

No answer.

Why am I not getting a reply? I can't even phase out.

″Getting restless?″ Etna asked.

I grunted, but refused to answer. I was going to do everything in my power to break out if it was the last thing I did.

″Let me ask you something: have you ever felt 'off' about your surroundings? As if some things don't match but you can't tell how?″

I didn't dignify her with an answer. I kept struggling.

″You should stop straining yourself.″

″I'll break out of here! I already escaped your elevator! You guys didn't account for that, did you?″ I spat out.

She put her hand on her mouth and chuckled, if it could be called a chuckle. All of her laughs sounded alike in that there seemed to be no hint of pleasure nor displeasure.

″Indeed. You were an anomaly. We had to perform damage control.″

″I remember. Accusing me of being a mass murderer?″

″That was necessary, but not what is being referred to.″

She gestured to the monitors. ″Have you taken a look at yourself lately?″

″Yeah, I know, I'm ugly.″

″That's not it. You haven't been you lately.″

I tried to say something. She must not have known. Maybe it was the whole ″you've changed.″ Like, yeah, I'm not the same college bum I was about a week ago.

″You never did survive your escape from the station,″ she explained, and from there, I had to correct her.

″No, I wouldn't have survived if not for –″

″Ecstasy,″ she finished.

″Wh-Huh? How?″

″Because, dear, we created her,″ she cooed with the same voice Ecstasy had.

″That doesn't make any sense! She's a supernatural being! A succubus! Only those near death can see her!″ I kept arguing, but she only shook her head.

″Those were all details we made up. When you consented for her to possess you, 'Blanc' ceased to be. What remained were altered memories of what 'Blanc' was along with the new thoughts of sharing a body with an otherworldly being.″

″She's the thing keeping me alive!″

″Keeping the body alive,″ she corrected. ″And not very well, as it seems.″

″But the powers!″

″We invented them. Which is not to say they are fake. Just that we were able to create such magnificent things.″

I felt like she was just trying to touch a nerve. Several nerves. But I didn't even know how many of my nerves even worked anymore. It just felt so...true. Which made it all the more painful.

″Just what did you make up? As memories?″

″You can figure that one out,″ she said with a smile, brushing her silver hair with the tips of her fingers.

″My...ex?″

″She never existed. It was all in my image.″

″That's kinda...gross...″ Then again, I have to admit, Professor Etna was hot. In a sorta Bond villain way.

″The true ETNA project isn't the elevator. It stands for Ecstasy Transformation New Age,″ she explained in a way that it felt out of place. Like she should have stated it earlier or not at all.

″You were the first attempt. If others happen to leave the elevator before they are transported to their destination, we are prepared.″

I started to feel tears well up. I didn't want this at all.

″So everything I experienced, it amounted to nothing?″

″Nonsense. It was valuable research. You should feel honored.″

I was sobbing now. Stop this! Stop sobbing and actually figure out something! I pleaded with myself, but nothing came to mind.

″Your so-called campaign of happiness should have made me happy. Why, then, did those memories make me so god damn depressed?″

″It helped give you motivation. A reason to live. What you see as depression was really quite the opposite.″

″I...I wanted to exist. I wanted to be someone,″ I realized.

″And is that so wrong? Many people your age feel the need to belong, to be someone or something great.″

″So much experienced, but they were never real.″

″Does that matter? If it felt real, isn't that what counts?″

″I just thought that when all this was said and done that I could be someone.″

″Oh, and you have become someone. We are so proud of you,″ she assured me in her monotone.

I must have been bawling. There wasn't much left for me. ″Now what?″

″Alas, it would be a waste to keep you. The public can neither know of us nor you. In a few seconds, your body will be doused with water and what you knew as 'Ecstasy' will separate from your body. The restraints will release and said body will fall to the floor. Rest assured, it will dissolve, leaving no trace of it ever stepping foot in here.″

There was nothing I could do. I knew that now. There never was anything I could do.

″Just one question, first: did you have fun?″

I hope it was as good for you as it was for me, I heard the seductive voice of Ecstasy return one last time.

I thought back to the adventures I had with Ecstasy on the rooftops and sneaking into the mayor's office. Learning of these new abilities and thinking I could use them to make a difference. Meeting back up with Conrad at his base. Fighting that punk guard (that I never learned his name). All of the things that led to this moment.

″Yes,″ I replied, tears running down my cheek. ″Very much so.″ I managed to smile in spite of it all.

″Good,″ was all Etna had to say.

With a flash of light, I knew I would disappear. I also knew, however brief, that I was happy.