#and just /survive/ even if some are considered to be beyond the grasp of whatever controls the city. once in venxian you're

[enruint]

𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐍, pt. 1:    a study in hostile architecture, expansion and reduction,  the unseen and assimilation into the strange

what makes venxian so scary    is not the supernatural creatures    that live there and are part of the society.    people are aware they exist,  humans and supernatural creatures co-exist in so far that it's possible or keep to their own sectors in the vast city.   nothing scary about that.    what's so unsettling and quite frankly eerie and puts the people within venxian ( including the supernatural creatures ) on edge is what they all can't see.    what moves beneath the city,   the force that keeps the inhabitants all trapped within the city - state.    whatever is in the air that whispers in their ears,   that presence in    the dark waters   that creeps closer and closer,   and rises higher   &.   higher,    intent on drowning venxian.    it's the city itself that seems to shift,   to move,   breathe and groan.    the streets that move upwards and further in upon themselves,   stairways that go down into the deep where it feels like you're actually going upwards into the nightsky instead of downwards. it's quite   impossible to navigate the city   because everything about it feels so wrong.    nothing looks right.    not the many bridges that connect the various levels of the city with one another,    the ones that creak and bend in impossible angles,    not bringing you any closer to where you want to go.    not the tramcars that stop at stops that don't exist and their eerie rumble shaking the shoddy buildings of the lowe-city to their core.   the signs,    if there even are any, refer to places the inhabitants don't even know exist but the city claims it does and it's best you just go along with whatever the city demands lest you become part of the scenery yourself. and lastly:   the inhabitants themselves are quite simply odd as well.   they are and unsettled by the place they call home and    are unsettling themselves in return.   to outsiders the inhabitants don't make sense whatsoever,    the things they accept are ridiculous:    why is the sound of a child crying seen as normal in that particular alleyway ?   why does the crying becoming softer the closer you get to it and louder when you run away ?    why is there is no sun and is the city covered in perpetual darkness ?    what do you mean the lanterns on the street protect you from the dark waters but only in so far the city thinks is fine ?   the inhabitants just live their lives in a place that is uncanny at best and horrifying at it's worse and they are part of it   ( whether they want to or not,   whether they're aware of it or not ).    they play as much of a role in the unseen horror that keeps this city in a choke hold.   most exhibit strange behavior and accept the strangeness of the city as well.    the museum with no doors,   the town square that seems to call to something no one can hear,    the annual festival near the piers where it's custom for families to sacrifice a living thing to the water because of course !   don't want to make the sea angry and have it swallow up another piece of their already shrinking land right  ?   best ignore    the squelching mass in the thirteenth alleyway   because it's regurgitating whatever the walls have eaten before or   better yet feed it your neighbors for good fortune. the people are off,    the city is off and the true horror is that no one knows what's going on,   what has   settled in this place and the sea   and what it wants, the rot that spreads across the streets    &.    eats at the walls.    the rot that infects people:   killing some and completely changing others.   the   unknown and the unseen   is what makes venxian such a horrifying place.   the way it seems to expand yet shrink is terrifying. and not the creatures that inhabit it,   they're just as much of a pawn as the humans are.   the horror is the city itself.   and the horror is what the city has made the inhabitants become.   you can't escape it when you live in it,   you're part of it's odd game when you visit it.   the city has a mind of it's own:   and it's just gotten started.

[transformers-spike]

just a suggestion, but imagine TF: one Sentinel having a Voyeurism kink. especially towards humans because with human coupling, there's so much "detail" to the act that goes beyond than just the act itself. so he likes to watch his pets engaging in it.

again, just a suggestion, do what you will with it, K♡😘

Oof this thing's been on my mind for a while. Got very dubious tho TW:Dubcon

His new pets are expensive. Unimaginably expensive.

If he had the Matrix, things would have been easier. Alas, whatever crumbled it in his very servos would rather have miners suffer than give him what he’s owed. 

Zeta Prime, despite his ignorance, arrogance and constant pontifications, was apparently “worthy”, all thanks to his status. The first of the Thirteens, forged before Sentinel’s spark was even a flicker in Primus’s core. Obviously, it must have been some grandiose lie – the Primes obviously tricked him and hid the real Matrix in some Primus-forsaken pit! A stupid failsafe in case those under them got sick of their rule and decided to take things into their own servos! He would have found it by now if only the Quintessons weren’t upping their demands every other cycle…

Once he figures out how to crush those organic freaks they won’t be wrapping their filthy tendrils around him anymore.

Ugh. He’s getting ahead of himself. No use dwelling on them when he’s got two pretty human specimens in his grasp – a “male” and a “female”, whatever those terms mean. They weren’t particularly… eager to be sold, a fragging wonder considering their previous owners. But they’ll like him soon enough.

The expenses don’t end at a simple purchase. The little things require particular fuel and plenty of oxygen to survive – fuel printers and oxygen cartridges are costly, and he’s yet to pay this new debt. He’ll fix it. Somecycle. Whenever that will be.

For now, he’s got two exotic pets to play with, and he’ll enjoy them to their full extent until their short lives expire.

Their bodies are terribly soft, their fuel pumps going into overdrive as he simply instructs them on their tasks. They cling so easily to each other, but never to him. Little more than frightened animals. Still, it doesn’t stop him from wrapping his digits around his spike as he watches them interface. They’re stiff in their movements, wholly unable to act normal in his presence. And yet, even when he’s missing they refuse to touch each other this way.

Disappointing to say the least…

Whatever. He can make his own fun. They seem much more receptive when their servos are rubbing up and down his spike. Their expressions, usually twisted in fright, betray shameful pleasure as his glossa works them up one by one, his digit between the other’s legs. He’ll make them take his spike next.

With a bit more training, they’ll be eager to serve him. Just as he’s served his Primes.

[catgirlxox]

I absolutely loved your video talking about Ben’s character in season 3 of alien force. I think Ben as a character gets a lot of shit flung at him for being immature, when he’s usually just acting like a sixteen year old boy. A pretty emotionally mature one compared to the boys I knew at sixteen.

Im wondering how you factor in Ben’s potential trauma into how you analyze his character. Ben basically becomes child police officer and Bens silliness really seems to be some kind of response to this pressure. I love the conversation the team has with ten year old Ben in the forge of creation. “Maybe that’s too much to have in your head when you have to win, maybe if you treat everything like a big joke. When the time comes I’ll be able to do what I have to do.”

The thing that stands out to me is that he describes it as “too much” that in some way this pressure does get to him even when he was ten. That pressure carries into AF, and he seems to get better at managing it or hiding his nerves as the series goes on.

I also thinks it’s interesting that in A New Dawn Ben says that he assumed the Omnitrix wouldn’t let him die. It seems to imply at some point to push past fear he’s had to tell himself he can’t die, or he thinks he couldn’t have survived this long without such a fail safe. I’m not sure the fail safe is even confirmed, but I could just be forgetful.

I think Ben’s bond with the Omnitrix is pretty heavily shaped by this, it’s the tool that allows him to overcome danger but also the thing that invites danger. There also the nightmare he has in one episoide about humungosaur being tiny, making him unable to fight off a threat. Not to get all psychoanalysisy, but that seems to be as a pretty direct relationship between Ben’s safety and the Omnitrix. Also part of why he takes it off sometime between 11-15 is due to losing Feedback, losing the security that the Omnitrix wil always get him out of a bad situation.

Apologies if the wall of text is daunting, I ended up having a lot of ideas. Basically, I’m curious how you view Ben’s trauma and how it shapes him as he grows up.

resisting the urge to say my new videos are going to be 100x better thank you and sorry this took a while <3

I would factor in a lot of the points you've brought up yourself tbh. I think his trauma and experience navigating his life as the wielder of the Omnitrix continuously shapes his character. I take this into account in every analysis because it’s like, the most influential reason he is the way he is. 

For example, like you said, he definitely had to grow up faster than normal kids. Part of being what is essentially a "child police officer" is his need to adapt to his circumstances quickly. Everyone depends on him and that ensures he’ll be able to "do what he has to do" (as stated in "The Forge of Creation"). 

“Managing the pressure” is really also a requirement for his job because if he couldn’t do that, he straight up couldn’t handle the job itself. Of course that would lead to some form of a coping mechanism or resolution to the problem. Ben is a great problem solver, great at improvising, and easily grasps new alien abilities sometimes in the middle of battle. Naturally, he would take on the necessary persona to deal with the pressure of his responsibilities.

Or, in other words, adapt. Whether that is taking on a “Max-like” leader persona in early Alien Force, or relaxing a little in the later Alien Force and being “more like himself” since Max came back into the picture.  

Hell, he even excelled at pretending to be evil in "Above and Beyond." He knows how to step into the role he needs to play so well of course he would use it as a crutch to get him through the worst battles. And considering his powers quite literally involve transforming into whatever form is best for the task at hand, it fits his character almost poetically. 

This method of managing the pressure definitely comes from his bond with the Omnitrix. This particular set of skills (improvising, adapting to his circumstances mentally and physically, being who he needs to be to do what he has to) is something he developed through his years of doing this job, and they become very integral to who he is as a character. 

[bathic]

6. Maybe it will be if you survive.

Word count: 3.4k

The worst thing wasn’t finding out that you had been stumbling around in circles the entire time after you had run off. Or even that, if you had just taken a moment to get your bearings instead of blindly wandering through tunnel after tunnel, you would have seen just the smallest traces of light pouring beyond the edge of one of the corners. The exit— or Northward Entrance was right there behind the outcrop of the wall.

That might have nicked your ego. Reminded you that despite your poorly executed escape from above, just barely making it on the whim; luck wasn’t on your side and the chances you thought you had were slim to none in the pit.

Perhaps going on the fly wasn’t the smartest thing, another hasty decision brought on by a spur of the moment decision during a small window of opportunity. One that, yes, you completely fumbled with your impatience. And now the consequences surrounded you with rusted bars and splintered floorboards which creaked and groaned every time you shifted. The man who had snagged you from your errant bumbling stood at the bottom of a well-worn staircase adjacent of the prison cell he shoved you in. He looked no older or younger than you, with a shapely jaw and wispy brown hair that laid flat against his forehead and hung longer where it was tucked behind his ears. Saddled with a beige peasant shirt fastened with a strappy holster in a darker washed leather, black trousers and clunky boots. His wings, brown and fuzzy, fluttered every so often against his back; the rounded ends reaching the crease of his knees where his shoes stopped (or began depending on where you considered a shoe started— at the toe or the tongue).

Something red smudged along the outer corner of his left eye and temple.

Not a single word passed through his lips since he brought you here, not even when you tried to pry him apart with a futile game of twenty-something questions. He remained as stoic as a fountain statue, tight-lipped and unblinking. The only bit of him that moved were his wings and the perimeter of his chest— inhale, exhale.

“Seriously? I’m beginning to put together a theme amongst the men here. Threatening and abducting innocent people because, let me guess, a completely hare-brained assumption about some absurd thing called a birdling— am I right? You can tell me that I am because I really can’t seem to grasp at the loose threads those other two idiots were rambling about aside from that.” You pause to catch your breath, resuming momentarily despite the man across from you not seeming the slightest bit interested in what you have to say. “Which I’m not for the record. I don’t even know what that is— a fucking birdling. Sounds stupid and childish and exactly like something the short one would have made up.”

You watch and wait, shifted forward onto your knees in front of the cell door, hands wrapped around the lower bars. Yet despite your attempt at trying to get him to at least tell you to shut up, he didn’t so much as sigh or twitch in his spot.

“Are you… some kind of law enforcement? Is that what this is, I’m being detained for something I didn’t even do. If anything, you should have those idiots put in here!”

Nothing.

The silent treatment was beginning to chew at your nerves, not that they weren’t already bitten to the high heavens from everything that has transpired within the last… well, whatever amount of time has passed.

Then it occurred to you of an aforementioned person of caliber, someone with a title and a rather demanding personality— at least you’ve gathered as much from that singular exposure out on that rickety landing.

“I want to speak to your captain.”

It wasn’t much, and to be fair it could have just been the slight of sight, but you swore you saw the corner of his mouth twitch. Like he was nearly tempted to snap back at you.

“That’s who we’re waiting on, right? I heard the little chat between him and the other two. Got to say, he’s a bit of an asshole—“

“You talk too much for your own good—“

“Don’t waste your breath, Yeosang. The weak only babble out of fear… as they should.” A new voice, and yet not so new at all suddenly drawled somewhere along the stairs obscured by your position and the shadows casted from the outcrop of the ceiling.

Each heavy booted foot landing on the wooden planks felt like the impaling of a nail into the line of your spine. You had to tighten your grip of the bars to keep yourself from flinching, the sound all-too familiar to the beast of a man that you lived with— every echo lingering like a ghost. The saliva that pooled into your mouth was every bit as bitter as the glare you were met with the moment the boots hit the common ground floorboards. Only difference between the two was that your spit was warm, and his eyes held nothing but a cold edge.

Truly when needed, the will to keep your mouth sealed shut seemed to elude you.

“Who are you?”

His head tilts to the side, causing the fawn-colored fringe hanging over his forehead to sway. “Who am I? Why, shouldn’t you know— you were insisting on speaking to me just seconds ago.”

Beneath the dim lights of the brig stood the very captain— a face to the voice of the hologram, a body to match the snide comments made by Wooyoung, the concept and the product molded together into a singular and very real person. Brown leather boots folded over at the tops worn by wear bled into baggy trousers decorated with varying buttons and fastened chains. An open shirt untied at his collar bones beneath the heavy sag of a trench coat layered by unrecognizable patches with odd symbols and miscellaneous intricacies amalgamized into a peculiar mixture as far as fashion went. Something very pre-of today yet you could with a bit of thought digging find some similar echoes of the same exact style worn by the younger crowd in town. His hair hung longer in the back with sides shaved short, ear sporting varying pieces of rudimentary jewelry; some gold, some bronze, some silver. Like he was indecisive and figured the best outcome would be all of the above, that reflected on his choice of rings lining both hands as well. The casual sway in them as he strode nonchalantly towards the cell caught every bit of light and made every other jewel glint like a visual warning.

You clear your throat from an invisible obstruction, "Ah, the captain..."

A single shapely eyebrow pulls upward, "Yes, the captain. The one you've deemed as 'a bit of an asshole'." He watches the way you wet your lips out of discomfort, the corners of his own seeming to curl at the action.

"Slip of the tongue."

"Of course, most baseless assumptions are."

You shift to stand, facing him eye-to-eye through the bars of your cell. "Speaking of assumptions," Swiping at the stiff grime-soaked fabric of your jeans with your sweaty palms didn't give you as much confidence as you wished for the feeling of dirt rubbing along your skin reminded you of how utterly gross you probably looked, "I have been wrongly accused of being something without any proper evidence by two of your idiotic friends. Not only that, but they jointly decided too not only man-handle me but also bring me here against my will. Now, I will ask kindly that you let me go without any trouble in exchange for my silence in regard to whatever lack of human ethics-"

“Let you go?” His question was trailed by a burst of laughter, one that rocked his shoulders and caused the wings that blended into the color of his coat to flare out to the side. They shook like leaves in the fall and emitted a soft whoosh.

You spared a glance over to the other man, seeing his expression just as blank as it was before the captain had appeared.

Had you been paying attention, then you’d notice that the laughter had stopped and the hand hurling down onto one of the bars right in front of you. The clang of metal hitting metal sounded off and startled you enough to stumble back. The captain stood closer to the cell; his face perfectly lined within the space between two of the bars. He looked at you like you were something insignificant, a nasty piece of nothing that deserved just as much— nothing.

“Bold or simply stupid, I can’t really decide on which of those fit your pathetic demands more.” His dark eyes look you over, nose scrunching in a show of disgust.

It wasn’t like you purposely chose to roll around in dirty street water.

“Tell me, what is so important about you that those two idiots would go through the trouble to bring you here? Hm, do you even know where here is?”

“Nothing… there’s no importance surrounding me. So, you are just as much in the dark as I am. And no, I have no idea where I am— I wasn’t even aware that the pit wasn’t just a big giant hole!” You throw your hands up only to let them fall down onto your thighs with a plap.

“Pit? Speak clearly for I have no patience for childish runarounds.”

One of his rings, on his right middle finger had the head of a wasp on it with emeralds for eyes. It was perturbing to look at. And to have looking at you.

You parted your lips to retort but several rounds of steps rushing down the steps not only hooked your attention but also that of the other two men. Yeosang turned first, greeted by the sight of a blonde head of hair and another mop of brown with chunky highlighted strands.

Both unfamiliar to you.

“I told you both to stay in the war room.”

“Jongho told Wooyoung, Yunho and Seonghwa that you were down here with the… whatever it is.”

“And? That required the both of you to come running down here— to what? Fight the unknown? Well, there it is.” A hand jerks in your direction and their attention follows it, landing on you.

The shorter blonde approached first, peering at you through the bars like an animal at the zoo. To be fair, you were beginning to feel like it.

“Could use a good bath.” He whispered, staring at you like one would upon seeing a dirty stray. Although with less pity and more casual nonchalance.

“Don’t get too close, Sannie… we don’t know if it’s a biter.” The taller of the two, with the discolored bits of hair sidled up beside the other with a hand wrapped around his bicep.

Yeosang scoffed, “Hardly a fighter let alone a biter, Mingi.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”

Hongjoong stepped forward and latched a hand onto both men’s shoulders, yanking them back and to the side with a huff. This was to be an interrogation and yet all he has gotten so far was something about a pit and knowing how the meddling of San and Mingi would go, certainly nothing of use would be gained.

“You spoke of a pit… what is that and how does it correlate with you being here?”

“Yes, the pit… big, giant hole in the wheat fields up above. Couldn’t miss it unless you were blind.”

“Above?” San turned to Mingi who turned to Yeosang who simply shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you take me for a fool?” Hongjoong was once again pressed against the cell with a knit to his brows. He took no kindness to being made out like a brainless idiot.

You squinted at him, “You don’t believe me— how can you want answers when you refuse to acknowledge the one’s that I give you? A pit, large and wide from above, what is so hard for you to grasp? You are literally inside of it!”

“Never heard it called that before, do you think it has multiple names?” Mingi whispered to San from the side.

“I could ask you the same thing, how can I acknowledge any truth to your answers when you give me such incompetent ones? Truly, does it look like we are in a massive fucking hole?”

“Of course not! At least not in here, in whatever this room is. But out there… sort of.” You frown, realizing that no, nobody could tell they were in a ginormous hole even when on the landing or in that string-light city.

“Sort of?” He chuckles dryly, “Right, tell me more. How did you end up in all of this pit nonsense, hm? Take a tumble, hit your head, get a bit scattered.”

The man was openly mocking you, sneering through the bars of your prison with such contempt.

“You talk about me making you out to be a fool but what you are doing is the exact same thing.”

“That’s where you are wrong— I don’t need to do or say anything to make you what you already are… a blabbering liar, not even a fool could make up the utter nonsense coming from your mouth!” His hands slam against the bars, the echo of metal on metal hardly audible over his harsh breathing. Surely if a mirror was held before him, he would have a rapid dog reflected back.

“Captain.” Yeosang wasn’t exactly interested in stepping between his leader and the target of his ire but things were beginning to derail and unless he wanted to be held back to clean up a mess he’d rather avoid entirely (that and returning to his wing-bound covered in freshly spilled blood would set Seonghwa off into a frazzled state of clean-up mode), interjecting while the coals were barely starting to shift in temperature would right everything back on course.

“She was found wandering through the tunnels, not too far from the Northward Entrance. Yunho and Wooyoung couldn’t have been—“ But his relay in information was cut short by the captain's own voice, tone bearing no sort of interest in what the moth had to say.

“I don’t really care what and where those two might have been. Considering this,” Hongjoong juts a finger in your direction, the black polish on his nail catching your eye briefly. “Was their issue to sort in the first place and rather than keep a leash on her, they let her run in circles while fucking off in the whacon. So now, I will have to once again clean up the mess of two irresponsible idiots.”

Yeosang pursed his lips, decidedly accepting the decision to keep his mouth shut. San placed a hand on his shoulder as a silent means of solidarity.

“It could have been a simple mistake. Plus, wasn’t Seonghwa sent to get them? Perhaps they got distracted by his sudden appearance. You know how Wooyoung gets around him.” Mingi tried his own hand at appealing to the irate captain, his wing-bound, while also choosing to ignore the way Yeosang shifted in his peripheral. Perhaps that little detail could have been spared.

Hongjoong was silent, staring you down as you slumped against the back of the cell. It looked like he was pondering something, not exactly looking at you but rather through you at an indecipherable spot. And then his head tilts, one dangling earring pooling over his jawline. The curl of his lips made the hair on your arms stand on end, rising in salute of the goosebumps littering your skin. He was, in no other word, scheming. You could see it just by the sudden wicked gleam in his eyes.

“So, what I hear parting from my beloved Mingi’s lips is that Seonghwa is to blame, is that right? Hm?” His voice carries the same saccharine tone you’d heard him use on the landing, artificially sweet to coat the poison bubbling beneath.

Mingi’s eyes widened, quickly looking over at Yeosang. San still had his hand on his shoulder, but you could see the way his knuckles had turned white, and the grip made the peasant shirt he wore bunch up. Yeosang might have kept his features neutral but there was a fire in his eyes and a tick in his jaw. His own hands balled tightly at his sides.

“No— No that’s not what I’m saying—“

“Then I should scalp him of his pretty little wings and have him hang by the wounds from the Southway Bridge for being such a distraction to my crew. Seeing as nobody can seem to fucking function in his presence then I’ll just get rid of him entirely. Is that what I should do, Mingi? My wing-bound, my soul, my heart in every living beat…”

Every single word that fell past Hongjoong’s lips solidified one thing in your mind. That he was absolutely insane, a mad man far off of his rocker. San gripped Yeosang with both hands now, one around his waist and the other falling to his upper bicep. He seemed to tremble under the entrapment of his rage.

Despite the captain’s verbiage being directed at the tall man behind him, his eyes never strayed from you. Like the threat he was making against someone else wasn’t just dedicated to them, but to you.

“You are fucking sick.” You glared at him through the bars, planting your hands flat against the wall behind you.

Hongjoong’s lips peel back to reveal a perfect set of teeth, ones that he quickly swiped over with his sharp-tipped tongue.

“I wouldn’t be the notorious captain that I am if I wasn’t just a little bit depraved… birdling.”

You froze hearing that word, the accusation to start all of this mess, realizing that he had probably heard everything you had said to Yeosang before his abrupt arrival. He knew to an extent of why you were even in the tunnels in the first place, what had Wooyoung and Yunho insist on dragging you from the stringed-light city to be brought before their captain. You knew that word was spoken negatively, like an omen or some unspoken enemy shared between them.

You, in their eyes, were that enemy.

Suddenly the sound of metal clinking together tethered your attention into focus. Hongjoong had a keyring in his hands, gold in color, with several intricately shaped keys of varying sizes. One was shoved into the lock on the cell door. You looked up to see that he was no longer sporting that devious grin but rather a serious countenance devoid of his earlier sick-humor.

The door creaked open within his hand; eyes unreadable as he gazed at you.

“San,” Said man’s head jerked to attention, “Grab her and put her on her knees. I wish to see the wings that I plan to put above my bed.”

San hesitated for a minute second but ultimately did as he was told, letting go of Yeosang and beelining it to the cell. You knew this was a fight you couldn’t win. Not by a long shot. But you had to try. What was the point of getting this far without that— trying. Could you even consider this point as far? Maybe it will be if you survive.

════════════════════════════════════

Masterlist

[joz-yyh]

DDMonth ▪️ Day 8: Prayer 📿 TITLE: Of Monks and Monsters - (Preview) SUMMARY: Role Reversal AU. What if Damian was a wechuge and Bigby was a traveling monk who got lost in the woods? After spending some time together, Bigby must make a choice. Will he save the monster that abducted him or leave him to die? No beta. Read at your own risk. RATING: T (blood / violence / horror) PAIRING: Flagellant x Abomination WORD COUNT: 1,400+ A/N: (A little teaser for a project I've been working on that's not yet been published! If you want to know more, click here + here for concept art + here for a cute snippet of them bonding.)

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Damian trusted him enough to let him wander outside the nest, far enough to forage, but not far enough that he would breach another's territory.

Bigby is grateful to stretch his legs, for the change of scenery. He'd spent too many hours inside the creature's den, surrounded by rock and bone, under its scrutiny. 

The young monk preferred the taste of berries to whatever questionable meat the creature sustained itself on, the discarded remains leftover from his numerous hunts painting quite the macabre tale.

Once again he thanks the Light for its protection, that he didn't wind up like the others that came before, that he was spared it's wrath, although a willing captive to this place. 

He's thought about it, running, betraying the same wechuge who gave him this small semblance of freedom. 

“There's no point in trying. He'd find me, just like last time.” 

He's talking to himself, picking from the cluster of mushroom caps he found, using his robe as a pouch to harvest them.

“I don't even know how far away the town is. Who's to say I’d make it?”

He sighs, sitting on haunches, staring down at his humble collection. Was this enough food? Should he pick more? How much longer was he planning to stay?

“Maybe, I can convince him to show me …”

His green eyes seem to be asking the foliage around him, but the forest can do no more than offer a quiet ear.

“Would he let me go? I mean, he left me out here alone.”

His grasp on ethics and morality are beginning to blur, spun around the longer he stays here, as twisted and cursed as a bramble bush. 

Why should he feel bad for an evil spirit? So what if he was manipulating him for his own survival? He was the victim here, forced into captivity, isolated from the world. Despite these internal arguments against Damian, Bigby couldn't bear the thought of leaving, not yet. 

He's too absorbed in his own head to notice the jagged shadow approaching, not expecting an ambush in the middle of the day, especially so close to what he considered safety.

A crack of sound and now the dark-haired boy glances up, a familiar figure just beyond the trees, too distant to make it out clearly.

“Damian, are you trying to scare me?” 

He chuckles, taking steps toward it, about to meet the creature half way. After being practically inseparable, almost suffocatingly so, he doesn’t expect to rejoice at his arrival, but the closer he gets, the more he realizes something is wrong. 

Damian would never think of parting with his chains, but there are none there, this beast's antlers are stripped bare. Its robes too are off, rags dusted with umbra instead of the splatters of vibrant red he was used to.

And those eyes, there's something sinister in them, leaving nothing to the imagination of what it intends to do. 

Fear shivers down his spine, cold, nauseating.

“You're … you're not Damian …”

He trails off, frail words swallowed down into the pit of his stomach. 

He never considered the possibility that there would be others like Damian, this encounter being the unfortunate result, cowering from it, slowly.

The creature must sense his fear, its movements erratic, crazed, drawing near with barely repressed hunger. Surely, if it possessed a tongue, it would be licking its chops, salivating before the meal it's about to consume.

“Please, take all the food I have. Just … don’t hurt me.”

He sets out his spoils across the ground, a modest haul, a deterrent in hopes that this creature will spare his life in exchange for this pious offering.

As he kneels there, in the dirt, he wonders if this was foolish, laying himself out for slaughter, debating if he should run, praying silently with all his might. 

'Damian, please save me.’

He can feel the creature darken the sun, chilling the very air around him, an eerie chitter reaching down into his core.

Just as he did that night, Bigby won't face his demise, head bowed in prostration, clinging to hope, denying all else. 

A sharp pain, a rush of air, grunting, growling, two figures rolling amongst the forest floor, sticks and leaves kicked up as they tussle.

Bigby eyes blink open, still alive, still breathing, touching over his body, finding that his face stings, his fingers coming back red. 

More hissing, groaning, the monk looking toward the source, friend and foe locked together in conflict, one set to destroy, the other bound to protect.

Damian has the opposing wechuge impaled upon his antlers, but their enemy grips him back, prying him off, slashing at his eye sockets. 

Bigby’s body moves on it’s own, turning his back on the horrific scene, fleeing further away, into the woods.

What was he doing? How could he be this selfish? Damian had answered his prayer, saved him just as well as any guardian angel would. He couldn’t leave him to die, even if it meant being a prisoner to his whims. 

Donning his courage, the monk turns back, seeing that his friend had lost the upper hand, the enemy on top of him, skull rammed into his gut.

Amidst the rush, an idea is born, spying a fallen branch amongst the brush, big enough to resemble a wooden bat. 

“Hey,” the boy shouts, distracting the entity long enough to take a swing.

Even with his puny musculature, it does the trick, the creature falling limp to the side the moment his weapon connects with a bony head, bark splintering from the impact.

He’s huffing with adrenaline, heart hammering against his chest, in disbelief that he'd managed to overwhelm an opponent much bigger and stronger than himself.

A pained chitter, this cry for help getting his attention. He tosses the broken stake in his hands, shuffling over to Damian’s side, collapsing on his knees.

“You’re hurt,” he sobs, seeing the extent of the damage, brutal gouges that gush with fountains of blood.  

Damian offers another weak churr, body seizing, spasms driven by pain.

“This … this is my fault. I never should have wandered off.” 

Now wasn't the time for self-pity, it would do neither of them any good. Instead, Bigby puts pressure on the wounds, staunching the flow, not having enough hands to cover all the gaping holes.

In what might be his final moments, the crimson glow in Damian’s eyes flickers, fading, but still holding such warmth, all for his precious mortal friend.

A claw reaches up, touching the tiny human’s face, addressing his injury, saying what words couldn't.

“I am alright. Don't worry about me.”

It was a harmless scratch by comparison, hot tears slipping down, making the slash marks burn with salt because this just wasn't fair, but there was a way he could make it right. 

Bigby rarely called upon his powers, a well kept secret, having no idea if they would work on a demon, but however small the chance, he would try. He owed Damian that much. 

“Lie still, I am going to heal you.” 

With eyes closed, he lifts his head, exalted, voice beckoning the sky to fulfill his wish, hands holding back the hemorrhage of blood.

“Merciful Light above, hear my plea: lend this penitent vessel your strength. Let me heal this waning soul in your name, embody your forgiveness always and forever your servant in this life and the next.” 

There's warmth under his hands, as heavenly as it is golden, the wechuge’s ghastly white complexion looking more human, bright with color.

This proved that the creature could be saved, that there was goodness in him, the Light had shown him such truth, solidified it within this holy act.

“Light be praised,” Bigby cries, pulling back to see the miracle himself, the wounds mended, staunched of the gore that once was. 

Damian reaches for him again, much steadier now that his faculties had returned, admiring, caressing, showing Bigby how dear to him he was, even if he couldn’t say it aloud.

The monk hugs him, cradling a mantle of chains and antlers in his arms, spurring a trill of happiness for his trouble, the wechuge completing the circle, wrapping lanky arms around him. 

“I am glad you’re OK too.” 

His voice is breathy, thick with relief. Even his face swells with emotion, the smile he gives, effortless.

As warm and reassuring as their embrace is, the possibility of the other creature awakening looms overhead, driving Bigby to cut their affectionate moment short. 

“C’mon, let's get out of here.”

He takes Damian by the hand, helping him up, his pale fingers so small by comparison to spindly claws, leading them back to his den, a place he’s starting to call home.

{End Preview}

[iwoszareba]

revised backstory for Avinsin. I did some major changes (they have an actual dnd lore “patron” now!) and added more details to connect all the elements better

a bit over 2000 words

cw: horror themes, murder and angst

___

“I may have mentioned before that I was born in Menzoberranzan, the gem of the Northdark, the great metropolis, the City of Spiders itself. However I don’t know when exactly. Or to which of the drow houses for that matter. 

What I recall with crystal clarity is how faerie fire would make the giant mushrooms of Qu'ellarz'orl shift hues as I was leisurely strolling the empty pathways. How that was the only time things felt… peaceful.

Oh, if you are not familiar with the city, Qu'ellarz'orl is also called The Place of the Nobles. I must have belonged to one of the actually important houses. Few other people would be allowed to just loiter there.

I was one of the girls from birth selected to serve Lolth as a priestess. That alone should paint you a picture, but if you were hoping to hear a story about being one of the unfortunates who act only out of fear or obligation, I’m sorry to disappoint. I believed truly and without reservations.

So eager to prove myself. To be tested and have my worth finally recognised. 

I thought that moment was within my grasp when our house received a vision from the Spider Queen herself. She discovered a location that emitted an aura of Ghaunadaur’s power so immense, whatever was there could become a serious threat, if it fell into hands of its cultists.

And out of all the drow in the city it was me and my brother who were chosen to lead the expedition to neutralise that danger.

I wonder have you even heard Ghaunadaur’s name before. Its influence rarely extends beyond the caverns of Underdark, which is something you should be thankful for. That Which Lurks, The Elder Eye, The Lord of Slime. It grants nothing beyond madness and hatred that fuels further destruction it always hungers for.

But, I was speaking of the expedition. Even before our actual task could begin, we had to carefully consider the journey itself. You may think that in our adventures you already got a taste of the dangers that lands below have to offer, but what you’ve seen is nothing compared to terrors which inhabit the darkest depths of Lowerdark. It was no small undertaking.

So I’m sure it’s easy to understand why I wanted the co-leader to actually do his job. My brother… He was always a cynical malcontent, but he also was a talented wizard and somehow managed to straddle that fine line between ‘thorn in everyone’s side’ and ‘undeniable asset’.

He thought little of the honour that was bestowed on us, instead he turned to drink and other excesses. When confronted, all he had to say for himself was that if family wishes to send him on a suicide mission, then the last thing he is owed is a chance to dance at his own wake beforehand. And nothing would change his mind.

So I gritted my teeth and took care of all the preparations myself. Trying to scour for any piece of information that could be of use, trying to recruit every person that would help our chances of survival.

In the end we were around a hundred men strong, but there is only one person that bears mention for the purposes of this story.

She was a warrior of faith who had worked for our house for many decades. Skilled, dependable… beautiful. Her dedication to Lolth was beyond doubt and we were intimate with each other. I hoped to use both as leverage, but she hardly needed any convincing at all. She wanted to join us, made assurances that she would do anything for the mission to succeed and I could sense no deceit in her words.

I’ll spare you any descriptions of the gruelling journey. Some of us survived, many had died. That was to be expected.

The actually surprising part was that me and my brother made for compatible leaders. I suspected he may try to renegade or at least shrink his duties, however his flippancy disappeared the moment his life was on the line. He was prone to witticisms still, but even in that he made for a good advisor. His arcane talents also helped on many occasions.

The last section of caverns and tunnels we had to traverse was truly maze-like. Navigating them felt maddening, like we were going in circles or maybe space around us simply did not make any sense. Creatures we encountered there were corrupted, mindless and oozing. Proof of Ghaunadaur’s influence. 

When we found a passage where the stench of decay was far worse than anything we’ve experienced before, every surface covered by thick, dark slime, without a doubt that was our path forward. However the air there was so noxious, it took all my will and concentration to weave a layer of protective magic that could keep two people safe. We had to leave the rest of our group behind while me and my brother, shielded by Lolth’s power, ventured into the heart of this darkness.

I never thought that simply walking could be so strenuous. I don’t mean the difficult terrain, rather the effect that place had on the mind. It started innocuously, a slight lapse of perception, a small thought that came from somewhere other than yourself. A sudden suspicion that gradually turned into hatred-fueled paranoia. I tried to resist it, reason with it, but it wouldn’t stop gnawing at me until it was all I could feel. 

And I made my magic recede. 

As I heard a squelching thud behind me, knees falling to the ground, I kept walking. As my brother pleaded for me to stop, I kept walking. As he cursed me with the last of his breath, I kept walking. The sounds of choking were drowned out by the word ‘arrive’ echoing over and over in my head.

What I found was no mere shrine, it was an unholy site not due to ritual and faith, it quite literally contained the divine. Vile energy so overpowering I started to weep in awe and terror. It was a fragment of Ghaunadaur itself. Lost or discarded, I do not know. 

How could I even describe what merging with it felt like? How do you put into words knowledge and power that was not meant for mortals? It was monstrous, it was sickening and worse still: it was exhilarating.

The relief of finally leaving that place was immense, surpassed only by joyous anticipation of all the destruction that would follow. I- we? doesn’t matter, quickly slithered through the tunnels and arrived at the entry point again. Killing everyone there was like snapping fingers. Some turned on each other in feral anger, some started to claw at their own bodies, some simply ceased to be.

Except for her. Seeing her gave me pause. 

I offered to... consume her… that way we could rule together. Our reign would be final and complete… as none would survive it. 

Through all my demented ravings she just looked at me with grim determination. When she unsheathed her weapon her whole form started to radiate with energy so disgustingly familiar, stronger than anything I’ve ever received. Lolth wanted me dead, there could be no peace. I lunged forward.

I… did not win that fight.

Here.”

Your minds connect and you see a large drow woman standing over what takes a while to identify as your companion. Even with a myriad of eyes distorting their face you can read their expression as pained, their breathing laboured.

“I don’t understand… why I wasn’t strong enough… I did everything…”

The warrior takes out a hidden dagger and kneels down cautiously.

“Shhh. You performed most admirably and your house will be rewarded accordingly.”

Tip of the blade is placed right above where you assume a heart should be. Countless eyes widen in a sudden realisation.

“You knew... You knew this would happen.”

The look they exchange is so full of bitter sadness, neither of them is able to speak for a long moment.

“What you saw… It was impossible to destroy in its pure form. But when merged with a vessel, while still extremely dangerous, it also became mortal. Your duty was of utmost importance… but now it’s over. It’s time to rest.”

Quick plunge of a dagger and as the vision goes dark your minds disconnect.

“...That’s how I died.

To think I gathered people to go with me on this accursed mission and saw them as nothing more than necessary sacrifices. I was above them, chosen, each death was not a loss but confirmation of my status.

Yet in the end we were all the same.

If my brother was still alive he would serve me the most seething ‘I told you so’ and it would be within his right.

I'm sure now you are wondering how it is possible for me to tell you about all this.

Well, while my body melted away and most of Ghaunadaur’s power dispersed as intended… I still retained some of it. Enough to keep me alive in a form of deadly ooze. But I wouldn’t call it life exactly. Everything about it is a blur. Whole world made of only two notions: exist and consume. Time did not factor in anything, it could have been weeks, it could have been years.

It would most likely stay that way, until someone strong enough could put me out of my misery. But as luck would have it, what I got instead was a group of druids too curious for their own good. From what I was told we did in fact fight, but they were so surprised by detecting traces of thoughts, or perhaps memories, in what should be a mindless ooze, they decided to capture and study me instead.

Their initial examination uncovered that the memories, while fragmented and hard to read, most certainly belonged to a humanoid. Now the question was if they belonged to the creature itself, or were somehow absorbed by it from its victims. Riveting stuff to hear about yourself after the fact, I know.

They brought me to the Neverlight Grove in hopes that myconids' telepathic talents will help discover the truth. It was surprisingly effective. What song of myconids opened and soothed, the druidic magic could heal.

Admittedly they never put me together quite right, but considering the circumstances, what they did was beyond impressive. As the mind coalesced, the body also found a way to morph and regain regular form of a drow. Give or take a few extra eyes.

The pure confusion of being startled by your own hands is truly something to experience. Having a solid body? How unlikely. I jest, but missing memories and the overall brain fog did not make my reintroduction into the world of living especially pleasant.

It took weeks before I could even start forming full sentences. When the druids first asked who I was, all I could say was ‘avinsin’ over and over, which they assumed to be my name. Actually it’s drow word for ‘doomed’. Of course they offered to fix their mistake later, but I didn't remember my previous name, nor did I care for it, so it might as well be Avinsin.

It’s honestly bewildering how much outside effort was poured into dealing with my predicament. You could try to brush it off by saying that transformation and new beginnings are at the core of the Circle of Spores ethos. But, the simplest truth is that they were good people and offered me more care and understanding than my real family did in over a century.

When I was able to stand on my own two feet again, they showed me their ways and welcomed me in their midst as one of them. It was great. For a time. But like most things in life it couldn’t last. Or maybe I just didn’t allow it to. I’m not sure anymore. 

You see, my memories were slowly returning, not all of them, pieces here and there, but eventually it was enough for me to realise what actually had happened. The theory my fellow druids had was ‘transmutation magic gone terribly wrong’, my gruesome visions were ‘trauma response caused by prolonged time spent as an ooze’. You can’t exactly blame them for not being specialists in eldritch arcana on top of everything else. Honestly, I liked when it was just that.

You must understand that even under the assumption that I was no longer a threat, keeping me around was not safe. I know I reek of this power, it would take only a whiff for bloodhounds to start the pursuit. It wouldn’t matter if it was Lolth’s faithful trying to finish what was started, or Ghaunadaur’s cultists with a wish to extract what’s left of their god’s essence. Neither would care about the collateral damage, they would revel in it.

As I saw it, I had two options: explain everything and hope for the best, or leave for everyone’s sake.

I’ve been on the move and on my own ever since. Of course you stumble onto people in your travels, that’s true even in the Underdark, but I always tried to keep such things brief and non-personal. I took pride in it. Made an identity out of it. To be no one bound by nothing. That way I didn’t have to question the choice I’ve made.

But now that the circumstances forced me to be part of a group again… I’m also forced to acknowledge how soul-numbingly lonely it was. 

What’s life if not a perpetual cycle of being wrong about things.”

[insearchofthesuns]

On Speakers

Speakers, or Gote’van in their native tongue of Ziman, once had stable forms. What researchers have discovered so far is that the Gote’van once had humanoid forms, and dwelled in a palace they refer to as Xane, the Oasis Beyond. They possessed a culture of brilliant scholarship and exceptional occult understanding. According to their songs, Xane possessed great feats of engineering we only now grasp, inventions such as chemical tranquilizers, pressurized fluid conduits, and mechanical looms. The Speakers were peaceable peoples in that time, and spent their days focused on the pursuit of yet greater artifice.

And yet they are a people given over to speaking in metaphor and lush poetry. This fact is largely a result of the Wer’an-Kir-Rin, the Great Devouring Dark. At some point in their distant history, the Gote’van reached out to a power from the deeps, which many speculate might have been one of the mythic Sovereign Demons (though any speculation is just that, until such a time as either the Princes of The Pit refute the idea or the Speaker Conclave offers material proof of the claim.) Regardless of its nature, the Great Devouring Dark assaulted their mythic homeland in a total war of annihilation, scouring them with icy winds and “flensing songs,” slaying a great many of their people in moments.

Those that survived however, did so under the guidance of the Qiral, the Great Maker. This prototypical god-sovereign taught them the method of tricking the Great Dark by shedding their skins like serpents, leaving behind hollow bodies to sate its hunger while safeguarding their Ruh-Aquir, their Soul-Light. This method seems to have been successful, for there are still Speakers in the modern Night, though their Great Maker disappeared (there is no known method of killing a Speaker, even amongst their own people, so all assume he left or was taken, all Speakers assume the Qiral still lives, and will at some point return,) at some point in their long odyssey from lost Xane, leaving behind the six Bir, the memory-keepers. These Bir each had their own method of carrying on the teachings of Qiral, a poetic document no outsider is permitted to see known as the Koda-Axaft, and thus once safe, the Bir separated their followers into the modern Families. It is these Families that have redefined what it means to be Speaker in the modern age, while deftly keeping their histories and lore in the form of poetry, art pieces, and even a surprisingly robust food culture.

All Speakers are similar in form when seen “bare” of their clothing. Their physical forms are formed from scintillating shades of vivid color compressed loosely into the form of a delicate humanoid. In their unbound form, Gote’van can speak, can see (by whatever strange sorcery allows them to function without recognizable organs to speak of,) and can locomote by gliding in an uncanny parody of a walk, but are incapable of interacting with the physical in any meaningful way. All six Speaker Families have a vested interest in being perceived and interacting with the tangible world however, and so they compress their forms into various wrappings, garments, and armored suits. These exterior “shells” lend them the ability to physically interact with the world and help conceal the light of their glowing forms, a safety measure that remains quite necessary in the otherwise dark expanse of The Evernight.

House Baz consider themselves the rightful inheritors of the Koda-Axaft, and express the legacy of the Qiral through exemplifying his service to others. House Baz believe that honor and sacrifice are the only true method of honoring his sacrifice. To this end the Baz are often seen in elaborately worked suits of armor, serving as bodyguards and protectors for hire. It is commonly said that a Baz once hired will stop at nothing to defend their charge. For those that can afford them, the warriors of House Baz are worth every coin. Despite the astronomical fee, Baz guards also protect hospitals and temples free of charge, enforcing neutrality on their grounds as the only real fee. They maintain that this is their method of “giving back” to society, and by keeping the healing of the body and spirit free of factional squabbling, they nurture their own Fire in turn.

House Zih are merchant princes. They interpret the code of the Qiral through their sharing of his many gifts. All sorts of enchanted devices and mechanical marvels pass through the stalls of Zih brokers, for exceptional prices of course. The Zih maintain from behind their elaborate silken veils and robes that nothing in the code forbids profit, and that the gifts of their people are best served by those who have the coin to appreciate them. This mercenary approach to the sacrifice of their people has led to a general mistrust of the Zih, though none can dispute that their goods are always genuinely excellent. The Zih want a bank charter more than anything, and petition the People’s Parliament for one every few months, only to be soundly rejected each time. Banking is a bridge to far many argue, for these reclusive merchants to be trusted with, especially as their own people seem to avoid them wherever possible.

House Mar are scholars and artists. Following the original legacy of their people, they dwell in elaborate incense clouded riads and practice their poetry, their music, and their beautiful calligraphy. Mar provides scriptorial services to those without access to (or respect for,) the new mechanized printing presses, recording or copying documents, illuminating manuscripts, and binding books for a surprisingly modest fee. The real payment, as they take care to explain, is that any document that passes through a Mar scriptorium is copied again, that copy making its way to the House’s own archives. In this way the Mar retain a neat advantage over other scholarly groups, and practice their most beloved art. Which is not to say the jewelry covered Mar value their other gifts less. Mar musicians and singers perform at many of the most lavish functions in the realm, and Mar made fine art is considered some of the most beautiful and imminently collectable of its kind. The Mar in recent years have begun to move into the business of the honey trade, not as investors, but as competition, unveiling a wide variety of inhalant drugs of their own proprietary design. This has displeased the Honey Barons, but every night another smoking parlour opens hanging the golden knot of the Mar above its doors.

House Seh see the lesson in the deceit. They gave up their physical bodies to dupe the Great Darkness, and now they seek to repeat the trick on a much grander scale. Seh is a house of spies and secret brokers. On the surface, the elegantly appointed Seh operate upscale dining halls and taprooms for the beautiful, just below, every bottle could hide poison, every plate covers a coded message, and every tilt of a Seh waiter’s elegantly masked face is a conversation. The Seh see and hear everything, but see their work as a great game. They display no great ambition, they do not bribe the powerful, they do not seek public office or authority, they sell their secrets to anyone willing to pay for them with no care paid to who they do business with. To the Seh, the act of learning the secret is the point of the thing, what happens after is of little importance.

House Sik are almost a sister to House Seh. House Sik also derives their method from the great duplicity that allowed their escape from Wer’an-Kir-Rin, but to them, the message is in the safety that comes from having shed their forms, not the trick itself. The Sik are changeable. They cycle between the latest fashions, feathers, beads, bells, yard upon yard of imported silk, chains and nets, even (one memorable season) Human teeth. The Sik are mercurial by nature, seeing the idea of remaining one thing as anathema to their teachings. Their kin change clothes, genders, addresses, even names at the drop of a perfectly made hat. Nothing that has become stale is permitted to remain, nothing is precious save one’s own Fire. To this end, the Sik are at the cutting edge of fashion, and operate countless businesses that help to enable their natures. They haunt clothing shops, cosmetic companies, hair salons, even more serious operations such as tattoo parlors, piercing houses, and medical clinics specializing in a unique, house specific blend of alchemy and surgical craft that allow others to enjoy the same mutability of form and expression that they enjoy.

House Rev are peacekeepers. While the other Bir saw division, Bir Rev’Annil called for union. It is a union she continues to call for to this very night. The Rev operate in all things to bring unity to disparate peoples. Humility and service are the hallmarks of their house, and while the Rev are by far the poorest Speaker Family, they are some of the most universally beloved. Rev operate as counselors for those in need, mediating marriage disputes, helping to navigate grief, offering advice, and generally offering a listening form to anyone who might need one. The Rev keep no records, lest the unsavory attempt to breach someone’s deep fears and concerns. They ask only what a person can pay, and seek only the funds needed to sustain their lifestyle and pay their rents, relying on donations by the willing to afford any small luxuries they might accumulate. The Rev often masquerade as other Speaker Families as well, so as to better assist those who may be threatened by going into a house of healing; nobody thinks anything of a chatty bodyguard after all.

While the Speakers as a whole seem overt in their goodwill, it is as always important to remember that no culture is a monolith. There is little stopping a Rev who seeks to weaponize someone’s fears, save the outcry of their own peers. There is little to stop a Baz from slaying their own protectee if offered more by a rival, or to stop a Mar from taking persistent advantage of an already weak addict. This is not to say the Speakers are malicious either! It is only to urge that in all things, one must make informed decisions about who they trust based on the character, not the reputation, of the People in question.

Until the pages next turn…

[allterrribleideas]

TADC Ep 2 Rampant Theorybaiting

Is this all spoilers? I guess I'll just spoiler it all. It's probably not even relevant though!

So the fun theorycrafting discourse from this episode that isn't centered around whether the purple psychopath rabbit is redeemable is who in the cast may or may not be an NPC. Caine seems to suggest he has no method of determining this, and I'm willing to accept him at his word since he doesn't ever seem actively malicious. With that in mind here's my absolutely straw grasping theories on who may be an NPC. It should also be said that since we don't know what magic technology this world runs on, there might not BE any difference between a 'human' and an 'npc' beyond like, I dunno, admin rights? They might all get simulated the same way but humans only get so and so treatment while npcs get this and that, I dunno, it's episode 2, let me have my fun damn it.

Pomni: Seems very unlikely to be an NPC owing to her knowledge of the outside world and ability to curse. Caine also explicitly identifies her as a human, so if she's an NPC, she was created by some other entity and we haven't really gotten any evidence there's anything 'above' Caine yet apart from whatever originally built the world. So she's pretty likely human.

Ragatha: Technically I feel like she's confirmed human via Kinger, who I didn't talk too much about but is my favorite character. Also she got obliterated by the abstracted Kaufmo and I feel like an NPC wouldn't have survived that? I get the idea (from Gummigoo exploding) there's not actually any blood or gore, and everything is censored like German TF2, so when NPCs 'die' they just turn into confetti or some other kind of fun prop, and Ragatha definitely had a bunch of times she could have 'died' but survived, so she feels pretty safely in the human camp.

Kinger: My gut says it's unlikely because of the existence of the Queen human character that was seen briefly in the first episode (well, her room, at least). NPCs don't abstract as far as we know, and it would be weird to have a king and queen chess piece but one is human and one is an NPC. It also wouldn't make sense to me that a character that's been around for 'years' who is considered to be 'old' would be advanced enough AI to pretend to be human for this long. Then again Caine is (probably) an AI and is pretty advanced. I also don't think Kinger being an NPC really changes much for him, it wouldn't be a super important reveal without more backstory for him.

Jax: I've already gone over most of the evidence for why I feel like Jax could be an NPC, but my gut again mostly says he's not. This is more for narrative reasons though, I think his character 'works' better as a cruel and hateful human than as a one-note poorly motivated NPC. Wouldn't surprise me if there's a reveal but he's got enough bits and bobs pointing in that direction I could see it happening. I don't think it'd be good for the story, though.

Gangle: My number 1 NPC pick! Gangle exhibits a lot of strange behaviors that are NPCish. She has probably the weirdest body of the cast apart from maybe Zooble. Her gimmick doesn't make sense- we haven't seen anyone else be 'affected' by changes in their appearance, why does her mask control how she acts? That's how an NPC would behave! Jax TREATS her like he treats NPCs too (though Jax treats everyone like garbage so maybe not a big point there). I think it's worth keeping an eye on her! My FORBIDDEN HEADCANON that I will believe until it's definitely proven wrong is that Jax dragged Gangle out of an adventure because she's specifically so easy to bully and abuse. Like he seems like the type of person who would keep a pet just to have something to take his urges out on. That is INCREDIBLY unlikely though, I'm just throwing it out there because it's particularly cruel and interesting to me.

[musingsofaleaf]

Kohl's fall to Hell. Kohl is a Sinner OC. Non-binary. In this fic they haven't yet revealed their name. --------------------------- “No.” As obstinate with their last breath, as with their first piercing yowl. They died in defiance. They clung to their refusal. 

There was darkness and nothing… 

So much nothing. Disembodied. Their thoughts arrayed in the black limitless void. They tried to reach for their memories, precious flashes of something in the darkness. 

An old man hunched over his work desk—sparkling bits and bobs all in precise places.

The brightest thoughts. Joyful pieces, true delight, and the repulsive bits. The middling memories, thoughts, and fears had no spark. They were left to drift. 

Coal fires in the distance, smokey stacks over the dusky sky…and a lady leaning over her balcony. Vacant eyes.

Everything they were is scattered in the void. Their living name and all the nicknames are kept a guarded secret.  Slowly over ages untold, they grasp at the brightest bits…and then…

They’re falling. They feel, heat and air. They can breathe! The sweet memories of breathing and muscles moving reignite, but it’s all jumbled and feels like a …

Some things have been rearranged, and gaps have been filled. It’s a natural form and yet not the original. 

A flash against the darkened red sky is mostly ignored by Hell’s denizens. Whatever mechanism transforms and transports souls at least ensures a safe materialization. The landing on the other hand is a gamble.

Watching the city get closer with great alarm. The nameless denizen waved their arms frantically. Adjusting their descent only minimally. No wings for this sinner. “Haha…I’m gunna fuckin’ die again~! Fuck~!” There’s no time to adjust to gangly new features or to account for the changes they’ve taken on beyond the coal-black hands frantically trying to cling to the air. A bright roof is now directly below them. Some sign sparkling bright but they can’t really take account of what it says because they’re trying not to smack headfirst into the building. Trying to twirl in the air to fall feet first to an equally dead-death. There’s a near-sonic boom as the streak slams into magic and material. New structures creak and split as they careen through the upper floor and the next and several others. Face down on a cracked floor, arms and legs akimbo. The fact they can feel every fracture, tells them they survived. Charlie and Vaggie are the first to find the sinner, passed out and twitching in the 2nd floor. There are layers of holes through which Vaggie observed the red-tinged sky. “Oh my gosh!” “Wait Charlie, what if they’re bad news?” Vaggie holds her spear at the ready. Her eye narrowed while she tried to piece together what was going on. The noise and commotion has already alerted other residents. She can hear Angel and Husk coming up the stairs. 

Charlie pulls the sinner free of the depression on the floor. “We can’t just leave them.” “What the fuck?” Husk stays back, drink in hand. Angel Dust steps towards Charlie, his head tilted to the side as he observes the twitching Sinner. “Holy shit! It’s a baby Sinner. Fresh off the choppin’ block!” The spider cracked a wide grin. Grabbing one leg as Charlie and Vaggie grabbed the other. With some help from Husk, the poor dude was freed and laid out on the floor. 

“How can you tell? What if they just got punted across the city?”  Vaggie logically doubts the passed-out Sinner purposefully crashed into the hotel. The chances of a new Sinner falling into the hotel were even slimmer. “Don’t Sinners materialize on the ground or closer to it? Considering the damage, this Sinner had to have come from high up.”

“Nah, the smell says it all. Like they have a strong absence of anything to them. Also the fact their clothes look like they’ve shredded to accommodate their new form.” Folding his second arms and planting his first on his hips Angel was certain in his deduction. Husk swiped a piece of tin foil and paper from the floor. He sniffed it and tossed it at Charlie “ Earth chocolate bar wrapper just fell outta their pocket. ‘Less they got some strong connections, most folks just stick to Hell equivalent brands. Ain’t worth the effort for Earth brand.” Charlie knelt and tapped at the side of the Sinner’s face with her palm. “Vaggie!” Charlie's eyes blew wide open, excitement racing through her. What if they could be the first contact this Sinner had in Hell? What if they could reform a new Sinner before they were influenced by bad experiences in Hell? “Howdy down there…odd weather we’re getting. Ha! Hah?” From above Lucifer peeked through the layers of holes. “If you’d wanted a skylight all you had to do was ask.”  Slipping down the holes and landing on the 2nd floor Lucifer brushed off some invisible dirt. “Oh? Is this a new guest Charlie?” Snapping a finger the holes sealed up and some of the debris arranged itself. Charlie bounced up and grabbed Vaggie in a hug. Her arms draped over the angel who smiled fondly. “Dad! It’s a baby Sinner! We’re going to look after them and raise them to be redeemed.”

Observing the body on the floor Lucifer, nodded his head, a smile in place. “Well if anyone can do it, it’ll be you Apple Pie. But can I make a tiny, eensy little suggestion?”

“Oh course Dad~! Your advice is always appreciated.”

“Maybe…get the Sinner bandaged up and out of the hallway?”

“Oh…”

A groan of pain rumbled from the twitching  Sinner on the floor. 

[rafor]

EXTRA - Chapter 31b - There isn't a villain - The Glitch

The dark lord, Novar, was a master of speeches, an individual with the best ideals that could ever be believed of, ideals that were impossible to reach, but beside everything, he always believed that one day he could change the world, explore the universe, get past the limits of a planet, and share his acknowledgement for a greater good, yet he was just a mortal; even if considered by some as an everliving dragon, he wasn't, and fate was unavoidable even for him. "Today, I stand before you to declare that the countdown has commenced for us. Our visions are transforming into reality. The entity that was destined to bring about our demise has arrived, and we must find a resolution. Those greater than us have labeled us as adversaries, as a blight to be erased from existence. But fear not, for we still have the opportunity to redeem ourselves. I pledge to guide each and every one of you, along with our brethren across the various realms, towards a brighter future.

We possess advanced technology, placing us millennia ahead of our time. Now, more than ever, we must remain concealed, unconventional, and wise. Though our discovery is inevitable, this creature bears a curse that also afflicts me. It can perceive our lands, manifest in our territories, and peer through them accidentally while dreaming. However, rest assured, it cannot see you. I alone will be visible to it, and I will employ this to our advantage.

This creature is immortal and impervious to death. Unless we can suppress its powers, it may find solace, motivation, or guidance from another source. But I do not believe such an outcome is necessary. We do not seek enemies, despite the perception held by all. Should you encounter this individual, this human who goes by the name of Raphael, do not engage in combat. Do not reveal your darkest side. Instead, be wise and reasonable. Convince him that you are not the monster he perceives you to be. If required, direct his animosity towards me but not towards you. As I am nearly immortal, I will discover a means to return. However, I cannot guarantee how long I can sustain this ability. If you witness my disappearance, do not lose hope. Continue to evolve, seek a new leader, survive, and venture forth to find a new world. Our objectives are not far beyond our reach.

I apologize for displaying vulnerability, but we must face reality. The world is in peril, and we must ensure that this creature does not succumb to its monstrous nature. When all is said and done, if we emerge triumphant, we will share our technology, establish new principles, and bestow upon all the gift of eternal life. The fear of aging and mortality will be eradicated. We will depart this existence only when we choose to do so. And if, even after my words, you feel compelled to depart, then heed me further. Resist. The afterlife remains an enigma to us. We can only speculate on whether it is benevolent or malevolent. However, I assure you that it is wiser to adhere to what we already know. This reality is within our grasp. Despite being trapped within it, we can interact, transform fantasies into realities, express ourselves, work, evolve, form families, and revel in novel forms of amusement. As previously stated, anything is possible.

Now, press onward. Do not let my words fade from your memory. Write them down, and I will do the same for you. I will aid in forging a new order, formulating new strategies, and discovering definitive solutions to our fresh challenges. We shall endure, just as we always have. The darkness will not engulf us indefinitely. We will restore equilibrium to the world and beyond, whatever it takes. We will accomplish this!".

[glknight]

The Unspoken Oaths

What if the dark gods you knew from all of fiction were based on something else? The Cthulhu Mythos, Tash, Morgoth, Sauron, The Endless, Slaanesh. All these beings and more, just a pale personification of another set of entities entirely.

(Cernunos, The Dark God Of The Wilds by Harvey Gumayan Heinrich)

What if these dark foundational gods, more primal than any other sort, existing well before the notion of words was even a spark of creation, were always there? Watching. Waiting. Ready to offer us a trade. To offer us a deal. A challenge.

And the only thing they ask for in return... is an OATH?

This is what The Unspoken Oaths are. Those offerings of actions and words by those beings far too profound to be comprehended with. The only thing one can do is either offer their agreeance, accepting the terms they set forth, or to rebuke the offer and face a frightening penalty. And survival is entirely up to you.

These beings, the OATH MAKERS, are very much not the sort that are bound by laws and limitations except for those they purposefully put into place. And in that way, there are a set of guided notions one must remember when dealing with them.

These are the rules by which you must abide.  Do not forget them. Do not ignore them. For they will not, and you will be held to them.

1. TAKE NOT THAT WHICH YOU WILL NOT GIVE. 2. GIVE NOT THAT WHICH YOU CANNOT BE WITHOUT. 3. DO NOT PROFANE TO MAKE OATHS THAT YOU WILL NOT KEEP. 4. DO. NOT. BREAK. THEIR. OATHS.

If you still wish to walk the paths of the Oath Makers, then the journey is easier than you think. The Oath Makers reside in places other than the groves of ancients and the dead. They are within the earth, within the waters. They are below you, around you. They are above you and beyond you. They reside in the places we consider ours, for they allow us due to prior oaths.

Some places to consider if you so dare:

-Jadhat resides in those areas that The Scavenger In The Dark prefers, deep within umbral woods and abyssal places. -The Snow Mother resides in the frozen places, where her frozen tears may flow and glacial growth may propagate. -Dehdet, False Giver and tricky thief of vows prefers the blighted lands where death is but an entirety. The Bloat Blight, -Avinaz, prefers the depths and all it can do to soak and ruin whatever may be touched by its flow. -Drazuk prefers the tumult from on high, hungering for the destruction left in his wake as The Storm Feaster.

These five are the easiest to get to, but none are unreachable. Though many claim there are certain times which grants that which lies beyond freedom, that is a blatant lie. The walls between ourselves and that which lies beyond are tangential at best by Oath Maker design. We believe we are safe, when we are really within their grasp.

THEY are the ones who are truly free.

THERE IS NO IGNORANCE TO PROTECT YOU. THEY HAVE JUST NOT HAD A REASON TO CHOOSE TO SPEAK TO YOU.

So, what say you? Are you ready to hear their offer? They are looking forward to learning what you are willing to give up for their oath...

[stormtide-leviathan]

You stare at the strange thing floating in the water in front of you. It looks like the kind of worm you usually eat but… odd. Wrong. It’s the wrong color. It has a strange glean to it you’ve never seen before. It isn’t moving like a worm usually does. And what is it doing floating up here? Usually you found them by the floor of the ocean.

But hey. Times are tough and food is food. If you don’t eat it, someone else will come along after you and snatch it up, and you’ll still be without supper.

You swim up and bite the thing. Ow. Something jabs your cheek. It *tastes* odd too- Less… meaty than it should be. You tug on the thing so you can swim along, but for some reason it resists you. You tug harder, grabbing it tight between your jaws, but the thing won’t budge. Suddenly you’re yanked sunward, unable to let go. You remember, too late, the tales of your childhood. Of strange prey that you should never eat, or you’ll find yourself transported to an unfamiliar and horrifying world beyond the sea, with unnatural creatures surrounded by mounds of the dead and dying.

Sure enough, you shoot out of the water and dangle above a large bizarre rock floating on the surface, no color or shape of rock you’d ever seen before. You can’t breathe. You flare your gills but there’s no water to take in. You hear birds overhead, which normally would terrify you but right now you have more pressing problems.

Something reaches out and grabs you, and you feel something removed from your cheek. You get your first good look at the monster that will surely be your doom. The thing is massive, compared to you. You’d seen other creatures that were much bigger- you are rather small yourself, all things considered. But you’d seen nothing so strange. It stands upright, with what appears to be its head balanced precariously on top of its body, instead of in the front where it should be. It has no scales like you, instead bearing smooth dark brown skin on its face and limbs that look like eels with tentacles protruding where a head should be. The rest of its body was covered some shell on the rest of its body that appears soft and flexible unlike any shell you’d ever seen. It is stared at you with large brown-and-black-and-white eyes, then opened its mouth and you feel a loud sound reverberate through your body. You hear an equally loud sound return.

You flit your eyes around the rock, desperate for any chance of survival. You are quickly running out of breath. You see several smaller rocks, all hollow, all filled with mounds of the dead. These are large creatures, ones you’d consider formidable, even a threat. And they lay dead and helpless in a piles upon piles of corpses. You feel sorry for them, knowing you’d soon join them.

Momentarily, two more creatures appeared at its side, all looking at you. Your eyes flit back from the dead to the monsters in front of you. They all open their mouths emitting sounds from inside, quieter than the first. Eventually, the eyes of the beast holding you in its grasp roll in the thing’s head, and it moves the limb holding you, releasing you from its tentacled grasp and casting you back into the water.

You open your gills to let water flow through them. Did it… release you? Why did it not cast you into the piles of corpses you saw above? The shadow of the rock floats next to you, disconnected to the ground unlike any rock you’d ever seen. You swim quickly away, knowing your freedom would quickly be taken again if you did not get away from the horrible place as quickly as you could. “Safety” is gone from your mind. No matter where you go, those things could always be at the surface, with their strange forms and strange rocks, luring you in with strange food. And they might not release you next time, whatever inscrutable reason they did today. For now, you’ll just have to accept “away”.

[linkspooky]

Eren Jaeger’s Final Words

So there are many people unimpressed with the final statement given by Eren’s character, either finding it inconsistent with the build up to this point, or too ambiguous a motivation for trampling all over the world. I’m not really here to talk about the quality of the story, whether it was good or bad, because I don’t really care. However, I think it’s fascinating what the text is trying to say about Eren’s character and his motivation. 

This is why, “I don’t know, shrug” is both an answer and not an answer to why Eren did what he did in the end. For making my point in this analysis, I’ll be talking about Eren’s character from Marley on showing both the Eren that appeared before Reiner, the one that talked to Zeke, and finally the one Armin saw are all the same person. 

1. And Now for Something Completely Different

Before I even begin though, let’s talk about something entirely different. My favorite episode of Doctor Who is from the 4th Doctor Era, entitled “Genesis of the Daleks” first broadcast around 1975. What makes this episode my favorite episode is both the premise, and the question it asks. If you haven’t watched Doctor Who the basic premise is the main character is a time traveler who can go everywhere and everywhen in the universe. One of his common enemies is the Daleks, a race whose goal is to kill everything else in the universe. The Time Lords order the Doctor to go back in time to the era the daleks were created, and prevent their creation in order to prevent every person they would eventually kill. 

He goes do the Dalek homeworld, and meets the scientist who created them Davros. Eventually, the doctor fails enough that he’s not able to prevent their creation, but he could, wipe them out when they were just newly born children and completely innocent. The doctor decides not to kill them right then because that would be a pre-emptive genocide, and the Doctor is a pacifist. When Davros witnesses him making this choice it prompts this conversation one of my favorite in all of television. The link to the clip is here if you’re interested. [Source.]

Davros: "Now, future errors will be come victories. You have changed the future of the universe, Doctor." Doctor: "I have betrayed the future. Davros, for the last time, consider what you're doing. Stop the development of the Daleks." Davros: "Impossible. It is beyond my control. The workshops are already fully automated to produce the Dalek machines." Doctor: "It's not the machines, it's the minds of the creatures inside them. Minds that you created. They are totally evil." Davros: "Evil? No. No, I will not accept that. They are conditioned simply to survive. They can survive by becoming the dominant species. When all other life forms are suppressed, when the Daleks are the supreme rules of the universe, then you will have peace. Wars will end. They are the power not of evil, but of good." Doctor:"Davros, if you had created a virus in your laboratory, something contagious and infectious that killed on contact, a virus that would destroy all other forms of life, would you allow its use?" Davros: "It is an interesting conjecture." Doctor: "Would you do it?" Davros: "The only living thing, a microscopic organism reigning supreme... A fascinating idea. Doctor: "But, would you do it?" Davros: "Yes... yes..." [ Davros raises a hand as if holding the metaphorical capsule.]

Davros: "To hold in my hand a capsule that contains such power, to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure of my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything... Yes, I would do it! That power would set me above the gods!

Davros’ motivations seem at first brush look one-note and evil, just another mad scientist playing god. However, what makes the conversation great is the context it takes place in. Here is the choice offered to the doctor, kill a race that he knows will go on to make war and kill innocents in the future in their infancy before they have done anything wrong, or don’t kill them and ensure the future you know will happen. 

The Doctor isn’t saying that his choice is the right one. He’s not saying he’s doing good by choosing not to slaughter an innocent race. He’s saying, he can’t bring himself to make that choice. In that situation he chooses not to choose, because it would be against his pacifist believes to choose either way. Which Davros at first, takes to mean the Doctor siding with him. However, when they begin to debate it, notice how they’re not talking about what is the philosophically correct choice to do. The doctor hammers in this point, would you do it? Would you do it? After getting Davros to admit that yes, he would do it, his motivation becomes much clearer, he doesn’t actually care whether his actions result in a good thing or a bad thing, he simply wanted to be the one who got to choose. 

What does Davros want? The power that surpasses a normal human being’s ability to choose. Davros himself is basically written to be pure evil, but his desire itself is a little more complex. Davros is a person lacking in agency, if you tear him away from his support system he’ll die within thirty seconds. He designs what he believes is the perfect race capable of conqueringthe universe which are reflections of him. They’re soft little squid creatures in mechanical shells which are inpenetrable. Davros himself cannot seize that power, he is inferior because he’s attached to the life support system (in his own mind), so the power he wants instead is the power to make the choice to unleash them upon the world. 

If the Doctor by failing to make that impossible choice in the situation, by not wanting to even hold the capsule in his hands and have that ability to choose remains a man, then Davros chooses to throw away his humanity (which he ties to his inferiority and weakness) and becomes a god instead. To tie my long tangent which just shows how much of a geek I am back to Eren, Eren’s choice wasn’t actually about bringing a good result or a bad one at all. He simply wanted to choose. People who are lacking for agency, who feel powerless and inferior to tend to grasp for it. They try to fix external circumstances instead of internally facing what is within them, because they can’t bear to face it (hence the complex about being inferior in the first place). 

People often compare Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul to Eren because their stated motivation bears some resemblance “we were doing this all to protect our friends”, however, it’s important to grasp that Kaneki and Eren are liars and unreliable narrators both. Their stated motivation isn’t necessarily true. I don’t think the final chapter is as clear as it could have been in nailing down the finer points of this, but Eren does in fact change his stated motivation from “I was doing it all to set up you as heroes of the world” to “I would have done it anyway even if you didn’t come to stop me” to “I don’t know. I just wanted to.” So, the fact that Eren will directly lie about his motivation and try to rationalize his actions and even switch stories in the space of one conversation is at least established. 

So to bring the comparison back to Kaneki, both Eren and Kaneki lie about their external motivations that they are doing this for their friends when really they act because of unacknowledged internal motivators. They are secretly selfish, while presenting their actions as some kind of great sacrifice they’re making for the sake of others. The deepest we ever dig into Kaneki’s head he makes this statement. 

I’m going to do something that will make everyone love me. Good, bad, it could be anything. After that, I wanna die heroically!

Eren and Kaneki aren’t the same because they’re brave people who fight for their friends, it’s because internally they’re pathetic and unlovable. They’re so starved for agency and attention that they’ll do anything for it, and they just don’t care about the consequences for their actions. Kaneki also, later on in the manga engages in mass slaughter for once again what is a pretty bad reason. It’s not to protect someone or for the sake of someone else. It’s because he’s lonely and wants comfort. 

Kaneki doesn’t care about what he’s doing or the consequences of his actions, he’s desperate and wants to do what will immediately gratify him in the moment. He doesn’t even realize what he’s doing will unleash mass slaughter and have greater consequences because he’s not thinking about that. 

Compare this to the doctor’s choice. The doctor knows the direct result of his actions, if he does not abort the daleks he will fail to prevent the deaths of innocent people. Knowing those consequences he says he still won’t make the choice because he believes his pacifist principles are something he won’t bend on. Kaneki, and Eren both have on principles, or no reasons. They just do whatever in the moment, and make up a reason after the fact. For Touka, For his friends, because he wanted to, because of freedom, because why not? 

Kaneki and Eren can construct no good reason for their actions, and no principles behind their actions, because unlike the doctor, they don’t have a developed enough and they’re not capable of making measured choices. They steal away agency because they’ve been deprived of it, they want the feeling of power and control that comes with making the choice, but they don’t want the responsibility for it. The doctor knows if he doesn’t choose to wipe out the Daleks he’s responsible for that choice, but can’t bring himself to kill. His actions are pacifistic. However, Eren and Kaneki choose to kill in the same situation, and their actions inevitably cause the conflict to accelerate. The Doctor remains a man, Kaneki and Eren do not. 

What kind of person would want to become a god anyway? 

A person pathetically, incapable of feeling alright as a human being. 

That’s why Kaneki and Eren make the choice to become monsters, because they’re incapable of living with themselves, or their actions as people. Either way they can’t live with it, hence why, Kaneki’s stated motivation is I’ll make everyone love me and then I’ll just die. Hence why the person who is making this statment is a childish version of him. 

There is no good reason for what Eren does. That sounds like a cop-out answer after making you read all this long, but what is a good reason for killing people? This is a lot of rambling but I hope I’ve at least established that Eren’s internal reasonings make no sense, his internal mechanisms at least do. The reason he doesn’t come up with a reason is because he didn’t actually care about the result of his actions, he just wanted to be in the position to choose. He wanted absolute agency because he was denied agency like a child, and as a forever stunted child, he never grew up to realize that most people in the whole world eventually make compromises and live on with sadness instead of getting to do whatever they want. 

Words that Eren was told again and again but failed to listen to. He’s not the only person that suffers in the world. He’s not the only person that’s lost people. He’s not the all-suffering protagonist of reality, he’s just one personin the greater scheme of things. However, the ability to compromise like that. To realize that other people exist besides you, that they have feelings separate from yours, that you are not the protagonist of reality is what an adult does, and what Eren can’t do. It’s easier to become god apparently, throw his whole life away as a child soldier making the ultimate sacrifice then just try growing up. 

What’s the point of writing a character with such a pathetic motivvation? It’s because it’s human. 

To badly misquote Jung, most people assume they are nice people when really they are in fact jerks. The reasons can be very complex, but sometimes it’s just as simple as not being able to look past your own ego and understand people feel differently than you do. Eren cannot accept other people, whether they be his friends, the comrades he’s fought with this entire time, the adults trying to guide him, he is just so incapable of accepting them that he regresses into a child making selfish demands of the world. It seems inhuman but imagine Eren in a completely different setting. What if Eren were just a shut-in? Just a teenager who didn’t leave his room. A fundamental ability to accept other people would sabotage all his other attempts to grow up and leave his room, and he’d choose to remain a child forever. The stakes are different, the situation is different, but the internal mechanisms are unmistakably human. 

2. All Erens is the Same

Okay, here’s where I actually try to prove that Eren’s character arc is consistent with the story. What was revealed in 139 at all wasn’t a 180, and wasn’t a reveal that secretly Eren had good intentions all along. He never had good motivations, or selfless one. From beginning to end he was a selfish child, and his reasoning was always that of a stunted individual unable to understand the feelings of others but placing his own feelings as far more important.

What Eren does in 139 is rationalizing and changing his answer, which he has done several times before that point anyway, and is therefore consistent with his behavior up until that point. It’s important to acknowledge that Eren models himself, not after Grisha, but rather Eren Kruger. The foil to Grisha and the reaction to Grisha’s bad parenting is Zeke. The person who Eren makes similiar choices to is Kruger says the reason he picked Grisha is the eyes he possessed in childhood. 

The thing about Kruger is, textually, Kruger fucking sucks. He says it himself. He claims he was doing it for the sake of helping others, and yet, all he ever felt like he was doing, was torturing people, and throwing them to the dogs. He kept saying he had good motivations, but his actions were repeated brutal violence, over and over again. He contributed more to the conflict than he helped to resolve it. 

At the end of his life, Kruger says once again he doesn’t believe what he’s done has changed anything, and doesn’t believe he himself hs changed. He’s still the child with hatred in his eyes. His reason for passing it onto Grisha is because he knew Grisha wouldn’t grow up either, and would keep that inside of him. Kruger failed to grow, Grisha failed to grow, in a way that mattered, in time to make an actual change. They only ever made things worse, and that is, the model we are supposed to parallel Eren to. 

Now this is at the same time that the Attack Titan’s future vision powers are shown to us. The question a lot of people are asking is if Eren had free will in his choice, or he was fated to make that choce all along. The answer is. No. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not at all. The fact that Eren was destined to do it, is yet another excuse, the like seventh change of motivation that Eren gives us. “I saw it happen in the future so I did everything I could to make it happen, but I didn’t think I had a choice this was the only way to make you guys hero,” Eren says, and then five seconds later. “I didn’t know what would happen , I probably  would have done it anyway even if I knew you guys were all going to die and fail to stop me.” 

Eren is once again making excuses, and avoiding all kinds of responsibility. If he is the chosen one, if his actions are controlled by fate, if he’s a god, if he’s a devil, he is not human and therefore he is not responsible. Eren wants the power to decide the fate for the world, but will do anything but accept responsibility for that choice. Eren wants to be Eren the bloody conqueror, but he’s not even self-aware enough to see himself as a bad person he can’t even own that so when confronted on his actions he reduces himself back to a child, and evades responsibility. Eren’s own motivation, his stated motivation is for no reason, however, the reasons he avoids the guilt like this are complex in their mechanisms as I wrote about above. The simple question is if Eren saw this future why did he not try to stop it? The simple answer is because he did not want to. 

There are a million and one excuses Eren has for why he thought the future could be avoided, but his actions tell a different story. He didn’t lift a finger to try. He spent the next four years making rationalizations for what he eventually would do. I will now establish, Eren was actually given several oppurtunities to stop, and then he just did not stop. 

In the Reiner and Eren scene while Tybur is speaking in the background, Eren is offered a choice. Quite literally, Tybur is narrating the same story that Eren wants to set up. Become the devil that tried to destroy the world, so the heroes (his friends) will defeat him. He’s given the chance to be genuine and talk things out with Reiner and what does he choose. 

He chooses to accelerate. He could have stopped. Remember how Reiner was practically begging him to talk things out? Not only that but Eren sees that Reiner’s stated motivations for doing what he did were, completely fake, just rationalizations made up in the moment. 

Eren is presented with the reality of who he really is, a child who hates himself, who wants to kill himself rather than take responsibility for his actions, and he chooses the narrative Tybur offers him. Rather than be hismelf, stop the story here, he chooses to move the story forward.And the conflict accelerates when they could have reconciled. Not because there was no other choice, Reiner was begging, crying, and holding Eren’s hand at the same time asking for peace and forgiveness but because Eren chose to accelerate the conflict. 

Eren’s choices are always that of an accelerationist. When given the oppurtunity to stop, he chooses instead, to always make the conflict worse. That is, the result of Eren’s myriad of choices made throughout the arc. Everything is worse now, and more people are dead. Nothing good is achieved through these means because Eren wasn’t trying for good. Eren didn’t care about good results, he just wanted to be doing something. Easier to be an all powerful demon, than a powerless child which is what he sees Reiner as in the moment.

The only time I believe that Eren was putting on an act was when speaking with Mikasa and Armin. The rest of it wasn’t acts, it was just who Eren is, who he sees himself to be. The thing is most people don’t read Eren’s kind of behavior, constant masculine posturing, war mongering, accelerating the conflict, throwing himself into fighting, as childish and toxic when it is. The point of Eren’s masculinity is it’s a performance. Reiner crying and begging in front of Eren is embarrassing and pathetic yes, but it’s also how he felt in that moment, it’s a human vulnerability. Whereas, Eren’s outer persona is entirely empty of love and vulernability, of every emotion besides anger, and violence. However, because it’s empty, he just acts, empty... Great wording there I know. Eren when posturing in front of others basically has no personality. He is just guy who fights. 

Eren performs the role of a ruthless soldier in front of others, because it prevents him from being vulnerable. Remember who Eren is posturing in front of, Reiner, and then later Zeke. What were they doing? They were both at the moment trying to appeal to his human side, Reiner by crying and begging for forgiveness a show of vulnerability, and Zeke by tryig to show Eren what their father did to them was wrong.

Calls for violence, posturing, warmongering and rhetoric, Eren’s every response when Zeke tries to examine his humanity. Eren insists over and over again, you see I’m not actually a human being. It was impossible for father to reach me because I was simply born that way. However, the kind of person Eren pretends to be is empty, someone incapable of feeling anything. The only way he knows how to be strong, is to simply not have feelings, to deny all human emotion and become something else and that’s just lame. We also know, that Eren himself is not like that because he contradicts his stated motivation that the only reason he killed those slavers was for the concept of freedom itself when he takes too long trying to look at Mikasa.

Eren denies himself empathy, he denies himself udnerstanding, and therefore no one will ever see his emotional wounds. That way, he can be invulenerable forever, but at the same time he denies MIkasa and Armin.

We return again to the motif of the story. It’s the same repeated image, someone tells Eren to stop, Eren says that it must not stop, the story must continue. 

Both of Eren’s foils and family members,Zeke and Grisha  tell Eren to stop this. That they do not want this. The whole world yells at Eren to stop, and he does not stop. Stopping would mean, accepting some measure of helplessness so Eren does not stop. 

To be honest, what Eren says in 131 is far more telling than literally any of the excuses he came up with in 139 which is why I think it should be interpreted not as the final word on Eren’s character but rather, showing what his waffling actually looks like to an outside observer - not heroic at all but rather pathetic. 

Eren’s childish desire to be this powerful, to stand up above everyone like a god while ignoring the suffering of the world around him - is pretty telling enough of Eren’s true motivations that he needs no further elaboration. Eren does not become god for the sake of his friends, he does not do it because he thinks it will make the world a better place, he does it because of childish delusions of grandeur and his inability to let go of his childish feelings of entitlement. The world isn’t the way he wants it to be and he can’t comrpomise with that in any way. Eren is more like a caricature of the most petty person on earth when you put it that way, but this is... a fictional story. Thematically Eren is a good example why ideals are ideals, and people are in fact, people, ulitmately very disappointing and falling short of those idealse. So once again moving past this. 

Eren, you can literally just stop. Eren is basically given every choice in the world to stop, everyone else in the story tells him to, and he just doesn’t. The author does go to a painstaking extent to show that Eren in fact could have stopped. Every single time he is given the oppurtunity to stop he instead chooses to accelerate the conflict.

It is interesting to show the one time Eren actually did stop though. It wasn’t for Mikasa, it was Mikasa’s decision. 

When Eren puts the decision on someone else, he can stop. Eren has feelings for Mikasa, but rather than confessing to her he makes her speak up about what her feelings are, even when everyone around him just, straight up tells him. 

Why is he capable of stopping when it’s someone else’s choice? In those cases, Eren succesfully avoids responsibility. When he makes the decision to run away in the possible alternate reality he’s doing what Mikasa wanted. 

The other time is when he decides to accept the result of whatever Mikasa decides. In both cases, Eren rather than accept responsibility for his actions and the results of his actions, just, puts it all on Mikasa. 

Is he doing this for Mikasa’s sake? To set Mikasa up as the hero of the world? No, he can’t even face Mikasa and explain himself or his feelings. Eren makes the choices to... put the ultimate decision on Mikasa, and run away without explaining himself because, that’s easier than taking repsonsibility for his choices. Every choice Eren makes, is to either make the conflict worse, because stirring the pot makes him feel powerful and in control, or throw control away to someonee else or some other reason (predestination whatnot) because he can’t bear the responsibility of what he’s doing. He wants to kill a bunch of people, but like... he doesn’t want to feel like a bad person about it (hence the excuse, he was doing it for his friends and yet later in the same conversation him saying that if he had killed his friends and they failed he still would have done it anyway). 

Therein lies the rub. Eren is not doing this for his friends, because he takes the one path that is guaranteed to take him out of their lives. He doesn’t do it for Mikasa because he does the one thing guaranteed to destroy her. 

I love this girl so much, that I created this elaborate scenario where the only way she could save the world was to horribly behead me, the one family member left from her childhood after she spent her entire life trying to protect me from fear of losing her family - yeah that sounds completely insane.

It is meant to be. Eren is thinking jack all about what his friends are feeling. His feelings for Mikasa, his desire to keep her safe and away from everything else trump everything even the idea that his love might be returned. He loves at Mikasa. He’s not in love with her, he’s projecting his love upon her. “Why didn’t he just tell her about his feelings if he secretly loved her all this time?” the point was, he couldn’t. Eren’s ego isn’t developed enough to love another person, that requires actually caring about their feelings which Eren doesn’t do to well.

 There’s a reason Eren and Mikasa’s connection keeps lingering back to the small kindness they showed each other as childhood,it’s because literally despite spending their entire lives growing up together, their connection hasn’t grown at all since then, because they can’t grown. 

At the end of the series however, Mikasa makes the opposite coice of Eren. If Eren’s choice has been to remain a selfish child all this time, to make other people suffer rather than face his own hurt feelings. Mikasa makes the choice of selflessness, to grow up, beyond the child who loved Eren into the adult who knows that even if you love people, one day you might lose them. 

Eren’s choices only ever make the conflict worse. Mikasa’s choice finally stopped the conflict that Eren kept accelerating. It didn’t save the world, it saved the world from Eren. 

I think it’s important to remember that Eren didn’t see what MIkasa was going to do, that her actions were going to end up breaking the curse. He literally had no idea what was going to happena fter the massacre, all he saw was the massacre and decided to do what he could to bring it about. 

“I did all of this for you guy.” 

Backtracking, five seconds later, and making excuses it all would have happened anyway. 

It’s the same behavior consistently shown throughout. Eren could have stopped. Eren did not stop. Afterwards, Eren wants to reconcile the guilt and believe that his motives were good, when his actions were the actions of a bad person. It’s the same as Reiner’s crying and begging after years of guilt and failure to reconcile his acitons with who he is. Eren can’t understand why he did what he did, he just knows he did it, and he can’t accept responsibility for any of it. So that’s why Eren throws the choice away. 

Eren can’t understand his father’s words, because in the end, being born, living his life, growing up, falling in love, making friends, losing some of those friends, growing older, getting weaker, all of those things are things Eren doesn’t want to do. Eren begins his life with “You were born into this world, you’re free to live hwoever you want” and ends his life wishing he was never born, and that’s the utlimate tragedy of his character arc. Not that it was inevitable he would eventually do these things, but beause it wasn’t and Eren chose to do them anyway instead of choosing literally anything else. Therefore, despite claiming Mikasa and Armin as the reason behind all of his actions, they weren’t, because he was inacapable of making the simple choice to be with them and grow up with them which is all they ever wanted from him. 

[rebrandedstoryline]

Rebranded - 3 - Seeking Security

Sun and Moon continue to explore the world, and are confronted by some realities of life.

Word count: 1,324

The following days proved just as frightening and just as awe inspiring as the first. The animatronics ventured further away from the Pizza Plex under the cloak of night.

Whatever shelter they might find before dawn - if they managed to find it - they would settle down to wait to begin the journey again. But shelter wasn’t always something that could be so luckily stumbled across. Buildings which had human inhabitants needed to be avoided.

Sometimes a building appeared empty upon being found. They would settle into it to hide, only to be forced to flee when the inhabitants of the home abruptly returned. As a result, no man made structure could be considered safe. They needed time. More time. Time to determine which places were the least likely to result in human interaction.

The bulk of the time they found themselves subjected to the mercy of the elements. Which was not quite as bad as it sounded. Their bodies were waterproof. Neither heat nor cold could be much of a bother to them. They could feel it, yes. But this region was not known to produce weather extreme enough for the heat or the cold to pose risk to their robotic bodies.

In a way, being unable to find a suitable place to stay was something of a blessing. This was a vast world. One which had been completely unknown to them up to this point. Now. it was at their fingertips. Gone were their childish misunderstandings of the environment. The cartoonish depictions of trees and wildlife could not compare to the reality of the world beyond silly, childish illustrations.

There was a peculiar comfort in having their perspectives warped and shattered in such a way. Under no circumstances would they have ever been allowed to see these aspects of the world. There were so many pieces of reality which had been intentionally kept away from them. For no other reason than to maintain their usefulness. Granting them this knowledge would not serve useful to their creators.

They had been designed to entertain. Designed to look after children and to clean. For those reasons they could sing and they could dance. They could read and they could draw, but they could not write. The capability was there, but the skill associated with neatly spelling out the letters was completely foreign to them. They had been made wise in such a wide range of things. But only the things that could be made immediately useful. Only what could be useful when it came to fulfilling their intended purpose.

Once they drew far enough away from civilization to feel secure during the day, they relaxed. Only then did they become content to explore the wonders of the world around them at their own pace.

Meanwhile, the world remained content to continue about its business as though they were not there. The wildlife showed some interest in them, for they were strange in comparison to any other creature to be found. Some proved curious enough to touch and allow themselves to be touched. Others were not so at ease. Not so content to allow themselves to be touched. These timid ones only drew near enough to gingerly brush the animatronics with their noses before moving on.

Nothing appeared to perceive them as a threat. It was as if they were invisible onlookers studying the realities of a foreign world.

Which unfortunately meant that they would find themselves equally confronted by the darker aspects of that reality. Before having been abandoned for so long, these machines had never quite been able to grasp the concept of survival. They escaped their prison as a result of having come to understand what it meant to want to survive. And even then, they understood the concept poorly.

Out in this open world where the animals viewed them with curiosity and indifference, there was nothing to prevent them from seeing what it truly meant to fight for survival.

In one instant the pair might observe a butterfly enjoying a nice drink of nectar from a pale flower. In the next, that butterfly was being held and consumed alive by a peculiar insect. One that they could not immediately recognize.

The sight induced an emotional reaction from the animatronics. One that was difficult for them to fully understand. Death was such a constant risk in the world beyond humanity. A constant race for survival that these animatronics had never been able to properly confront. Yet something as simple as a butterfly being caught and consumed by a praying mantis would force them to face that confrontation head on.

It was distressing.

Yet it was beautiful.

Sad but also joyous. The life of the butterfly ended to assure that the carnivorous insect could continue on. The world was not as black and white as the children’s books would make it seem to be.

To the three little pigs, the wolf was surely a monster. To the wolf, it was a necessity. Monsters were few and far between. If they could exist beyond the realm of man at all.

For as gruesome as it seemed to watch the butterfly be eaten alive, struggling in the grip of the predatory insect, its death would serve a purpose. The mantis was fighting for its life just as it took the life of the butterfly. To lose its grip would mean to lose its meal, and possibly its life in the process. A horrible fate? Yes. But the mantis was no monster. The mantis was just another creature trying to survive the only way that it possibly could.

Real monsters did not behave as such. Real monsters were the ones who would enact these levels of savagery upon others. Not because they had too, but simply because they could. Because they wanted to.

The wolf which devoured the lamb was only doing what it needed to survive. The man who raised a hand to his child did so because he could. Because the child was smaller and weaker and could not fight back.

Monsters were not wild beasts lingering at the edge of darkness waiting to consume those who failed to escape them in time. They held true to no rules. They could not be kept at bay with silly little tricks. The real monsters were the creatures who sought out the weak to overpower them. Not out of any need for survival, but simply because the act itself brought them a sick sense of gratification.

As extensions of the hand of man, machines were equally as monstrous.

If enacting the will of the wrong person, a machine could become a monster.

Once upon a time these animatronics had been one and the same. They had been two sides of the same coin. One for the day. One for the night. The Sun and the Moon.

Once upon a time, before the monsters came to hunt, they had been blind to the realities of evil.

Once upon a time they had only known what it meant to protect children.

Then the monsters came for them. The Moon could not escape their clutches. The Moon became subjected to those horrible evils. And so they set out to enact the will of the monsters which controlled them.

The Sun could do nothing but try to keep these evils at bay. All the while they struggled to keep from suffering the same fate. They struggled to keep from finding themselves smothered by the hands of malice which reached to corrupt their minds.

Their realities had become twisted. Their perfect cycle was thrown off its center. The light became the only chance for salvation. The dark became their doom.

Until one day the flames came to consume it all. To purge them of the horrible fate that they had become forced to endure.

A sweet but temporary death.

A momentary mercy which saved them from the monsters. If only for a while.

[lrissa]

You’re Easier To Kick When You’re Kneeling.

summary: you and eren were both titan shifters, getting your ass beat in the court room by humanity’s strongest

warnings: violence, swearing,

✧ ೃ༄*ੈ✩

“Good luck!”

Where the last words Hanji spoke before shoving you and Eren into the court room. Tension penetrated the air as the Survey Corps gave hard glares to the Military Police.

Spinning around you saw everyone looking to you and Eren. Embarrassment and fear crawled through your nerves, gazing to Eren as he looked just as afraid.

“I’m scared..” You whispered to the brunette, he turned to look down at your lightly shaking physique.

“We’ll be fine.” He gave you a small smile, his eyes creased softly, he wished he could reach out and pat you on the shoulder.

Straining yours eyes forwards you bit down your tongue readying yourself mentally. You noticed two long metal pillars beside eachother, gulping.

“Step forward.” An office spoke as he shoved the barrel of a gun into Erens back. Urging him forwards forcefully, quickly you walked to catch up with him.

Two officers pushed you and Eren apart. Snapping your head to the brunette, he nodded his head to you calmly, his eyes gave you comfort as the man shoved you to your knees infront of the pole.

Together the men picked up the metal and ordered you to place your hands stretched behind you, doing so they let the pole fall back into place. Having you directly connected to the pole and squatted down.

You hung your head low as the hair on your shoulders fell forwards to conceal your face. Your eyes had dilated and your body shook. Fear. Worry. Anxiety.

A door opened followed by footsteps and a chair scraping across the stone as someone seated themselves. The judge.

“Well then, let us begin. Eren Jaeger and Y/N L/N, yes?” He’d adjust his glasses and stare at the small paper in his fingers before continuing. “You are soldiers, sworn to sacrifice your life for the public good. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Eren answered as he stared bug-eyed at the judge, “Yes, sir.” You repeated after Eren and tilted your head up.

“This is an exceptional situation. The tribunal will be held under military, not civilian, law. The final decision rests entirely in my hands.” The white haired man looked from the paper to us, “Your fate will be decided here. Do you have any objections.”

Looking to the floor you squeezed your eyes shut momentarily, opening them wide again. “No, sir.” You and Eren spoke simultaneously.

“I appreciate your perception. I will be direct. As anticipated, concealing your existence has proved impossible. We must make your existing public in some form, or a threat to humanity other than titans will arise. What I will decide today is which force will have custody of you.”

“The Military Police,”

“Or the Survey Corps?”

“Then, I ask the Military Police for their proposal.”

Your head shifted to the Military Police, watching as a man readied himself before speaking vibrantly.

“Yes, sir, I am Commander of the Military Police, Nile Dawk, I will present my proposal. After a thorough investigation of Eren and Y/N’s body, we believe they should be eliminated immediately.”

Your eyes expanded as he said this. This man hardly knew either of you, not a single fucking thing. Your eyebrows furrowed into a scowl while your hands contoured into fists.

“It’s certainly true that their titan power overcame our pervious peril. However, now their existence threatens to spark a civil war. So we ask them to die for humanity’s sake, leaving behind all information they can.” He finished

Your stomach churned as he spoke, did everyone seriously wish you dead?

“There is no need for that! They are an invasive pest! They have deceived the walls that embody Gods wisdom! They must be killed at once!” A preist yelled at the top of his lungs as he pointed to us with crazed eyes. Freak.

“Preist Nick. Order, please.” The judge calmly stated before shifting his attention to the right side.

“We’ll hear the Survey Corps’s proposal next.”

“Yes, sir. I, 13th Commander of the Survey Corps, Erwin Smith, will present my proposal. We would welcome Eren and Y/N as an official member of our forces, and use their power to retake Wall Maria... That is all.”

You stared at the Commander, that’s all. That’s all? Yours and Erens life were on the line and he couldn’t conjure up another defense statement.

“That’s all?” The judge questioned suspiciously.

“Yes, sir. With their power, we can retake Wall Maria. We believe it is clear what our priorities should be.”

“I see. And where do you plan to begin this mission”The judge stated, “Pixis, the Trost wall has been completely sealed, correct?” He added.

“Yes, it can never be opened again.” A bald man retorted.

“We would like to set out from Karanes, in the east. From there, we will proceed to Zhiganshina. We will determine the route as we go.” Erwin confidently spoke as he stared to the judge.

“Wait a minute!” shouted a man, whipping your head over, “Shouldn’t we seal all the wall gates once and for all? The Colossal Titan can only destroy the gates. If we can strengthen them, we needn’t endure further attacks!” His planned seemed smart but there where missing pieces and it would most likely be difficult to achieve.

“Shut up, merchant dog!”

“With those titan powers we can return to Wall Maria!”

“We can no longer indulge your delusions of grandeur!”

Argued two men as they yelled at one another from across the room, ‘So annoying’ you thought.

“You talk a lot, pig.” A dark voice rung throughout the court, turning your head up you spotted Levi. Behind his tough physique he was actually a bit funny.

“Where is your proof?” Levi continued, “that the titans will wait while we seal the gates? The ‘we’ you speak of are only those you wish to protect, your ‘friends’ who help line your pockets. The people who starve because there isn’t enough land to sow don’t even figure into the thoughts of you pig.” Levi finished as you stared at him with wide eyes, was he seriously protecting you from the Military Police?

“We just thought that we could survive by sealing the wall gates—“ The merchant began, “Silence!” Yelled the priest beside him as he slammed his hand on the railing, nearing the mans eyes. “Impious traitor! Mere humans altering Wall Rose, walls that were a gift from God? Can you truly see those walls? Gods work far beyond human capabilities, and not understand?”

The rest of his words drowned out as your mind took hold, thoughts of the future plundered your head as you squeezed your eyes shut.

The judges taps of his desk brought you back to reality and you snapped your head up, “Silence. You may discuss your personal philosophies and opinions elsewhere.”

“Jaeger, L/N. Can you continue to serve as a soldier, using your titan powers to benefit humanity?”

“Yes, I can!” Eren spoke clearly, the judges cold gaze shifting to you, “Yes, sir.”

“But the report on Trost’s defense says this... ‘Immediately after turning into a titan, Eren swung his fist at Mikasa Ackerman.’” You sucked in a breath and looked to Eren, his eyes extended as he looked to Mikasa. Of course, he doesn’t remember.

“Is Mikasa Ackerman present?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“You are Ackerman? Is it true that, as a titan, Jaeger attacked you?” The old man questioned her.

You sighed softly, ‘As if he can control it yet’ you thought angrily in your mind.

“Yes, its true.”

Gasps of terror rung throughout the court, all eyes falling on Eren in a deathly glare.

“I knew it... He’s just another titan.”

“What about the girl!” Another protested as your head whipped to them, sending a glare to them.

“But, on two previous occasions, Eren saved my life in his titan form. The first time, mere seconds before a titan would have had me in its grasp, he stood between us, protecting me. The second time, he saved Armin and me from an HE shell. I would like these facts to be considered aswell.”

“I object,”

“I believe these comments are greatly colored by her personal feelings. At an early age, Mikasa Ackerman lost her parents and was taken in by the Jaeger household.” Well haven’t you done your homework, you pondered with a small frown.

“Our investigation had also revealed a surprising fact about the underlying events. At age nine, Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman killed three robbers who tried to kidnap her.”

More gasps could be heard as the news entered their ears, you shook your head. ‘What stupid fucking evidence to have, like they had a choice’ you considered furiously in your mind.

“Even if it was self defense, I must question their fundamental humanity. Is it right to entrust humanity’s fate, resources, and lives to him?”

Whispering and arguing broke out between the different sides, turning their heads to their fellow comrades to spew hatred. What a loss. Losing to this mans ugly mouth. You hung your head and sighed quietly.

“So is she. Do we know if we can trust her!” Referring to you as he pointed. “That’s right! Just to be safe we should dissect her too!” He looked to Mikasa next.

“Wait!” Yelled Eren and looked up to the man, “I may be a monster, but they have nothing to do with it! Nothing at all!” Eren defended as you watched, his spit flying from his mouth as he spoke from his soul. Your heart clenching in pitifulness as you frowned sadly.

“We can’t trust that!”

“It’s true!”

“If you’re covering for them, it means they’re one of you!”

“No!” He screamed and slammed his handcuffs against the metal pole, looking down in defeat, “I mean, you are wrong. But you’re simply coming up with theories that fit, whatever it suits you to fit.”

“Eren..” You said softly as you stared at him, your eyes in pain for him. He was so much braver than you and it gave you courage to see him so persistent.

Looking up you began to speak, “Besides, all of you people. You’ve never seen a titan! What are you so afraid of? What is your point if you do not have the power to fight? If you’re afraid to fight for humanity’s survival then, help us!” Your voice getting increasingly louder as you glared at the pathetic people who called themselves the Military Police.

“Just shut up and trust us!” You yelled your last statement and looked up to the judge, your chest panting heavily as you meant every word.

“Weapons ready!” The Commander of the Military Police shouted while his cadet set his gun on the railing and pointed it to you.

Until your face snapped to the right and pain shot through your nerves, your vision blurred instantly. Metal was all you tasted. A tooth had even managed to fall from your mouth and rolled onto the ground. You blinked to dimish the haziness and looked to your striker.

Levi Ackerman

“Huh?—“

His steel pointed boot slammed across your face again. Your back slamming against the pole behind you. Blood trickled down your nose and down to your chin, dropping onto the floor. Your blood had even splattered small droplets along the stone flooring.

Levi grabbed your collar and shoved you forwards to him. The handcuffs clanging against the pole as Levi stared down at you, his frigid glare locking eyes with your beaten ones before slamming his knee into the side of your head, sending it flying.

Pain. So much pain. It was burning you alive from the inside as all you could do was endure it. Tch, this guy’s a dick.

“Y/N!” Eren screamed from the opposite end. Hatred and worry evident in his tone as he struggled against his own cuffs, “Stop it!” Eren attempted again as all he could do was watch his friend get beaten to the brink of death.

Levi continued to sock you with his boot, giving you zero remorse as he beat the girl below him. Mikasa glared and got ready to jump the railing before Armin held her back.

Blood streamed down your face, a large puddle had began to form under you. You gasped for air before Levi lifted his leg high and stomped down on your head into the puddle of your demise. Grimacing at the filth and pain, all you did was lay there. If someone wasn’t looking hard enough, they’d assume you were already dead.

Croaks of pain left your body as his boot remained on your head, struggling to breath as blood trickled down your nose and into your mouth, unintentionally swallowing.

“This is a personal opinion. But I believe pain to be the best way to train someone. What you need is to be trained like a dog, not a man.”

Your rigid breathes left your mouth as you stared straight at Eren, his eyes meeting yours as he seemed to become visibly furious. Bruised and cuts tracked your once pretty, soft skin. Blood now coating all the crevices in your face.

“It’s easier to kick you while you’re kneeling, too.”

Levi lifted his boot and slammed it into the side of your head once again, giving you no time to breathe he stomped it back onto the cold ground again. Repeating his tourtue when he kicked your head all over again.

Strangled breaths was all you could muster, along with the rattling of the handcuffs as you were thrown around like trash, filling the silence of the fearful court room.

Kick. Kick, Kick.

All anyone could do was watch your doom, “Wait, Levi...”

Your head was pushed against the pole with his boot flat on your face as he turned his head to the one speaking, “What is it?”

His boot fell from your face as you hunched forwards, croaking as you gasped for air, blood trickling down the sides of your mouth.

“That’s dangerous... What if she gets angry and turns into a titan?”

You slowly tilted your head up to Levi, hair falling away from your face and resting on your shoulders. The raven head stared at you for a moment, then shoved his boot back onto your face and slamming it against the pole.

“What are you saying?” Levi dropped his leg again and gripped a fistful your hair, violently pulling you to his face as your eyes struggled to remain open from extreme bruising.

“Aren’t you going to dissect her?” He dropped your hair and stood straight, peering down to your defeated and beaten figure.

“When she turned into a titan last time, she killed twenty other titans before collapsing. If she is an enemy, her intelligence makes her a more formidable foe. Still no match for me, of course.”

Levi gazed to the Military Police, “But what will you do? Anyone persecuting her should also consider that fact. Do you really think you can kill her?” Levi spoke cooly as he stood infront of you, staring you down.

From afar you heard others speak, but your heartbeat clogged your ears as it deafened any other noise. Staring at Levi’s boots infront of you, you noted your blood coating the bottom before gently shutting your eyelids.

You could only hear Levi as he spoke from ahead of you, “I’m certain I can kill her. The only problem is I doubt I can do any less.” Levi proposed.

Hearing the pound of the desk above you, the judge made his decision. But you’d never make out what he proposed.

Footsteps stepped back from ahead of you as new ones came from behind you, uncuffing you and lifting the pole.

You tumbled forwards onto the unwelcoming ground, cautiously opening your eyes to the glaring sunlight that entered through the windows.

Eren ran to you, crouching down infront of you as you saw him shout words at you. He picked your head up in his hands and cradled you in his lap, checking for your pulse.

Your eyes began to shut again, your head lulling to the side to spot the raven head. Levi stared at you from afar, his arms crossed over his chest. The last thing you saw was the ravens dark gaze before your eyes rolled and all you saw was darkness.

be real, we all wish we were the ones being kicked

[falling-pages]

Sun and Moon: Tamakyo

If I had to suffer, then so do all of you.

-

Kyoya refuses to die without Tamaki by his side.

-

“I supposed as in life, we would cross this threshold together, and perhaps meet again on the other side.”

"It's time to go, Kyoya."

“Perhaps we shall be reincarnated as the sun and moon.”

-

Kyoya Ootori x Tamaki Suoh

Genre: Happy ending angst, established relationship

Warnings: Double character death, car crash

-

Silence was the most unnatural part of death, but it wasn’t unwelcome.

It throbbed like bass between his ears, slipping him an unholy cocktail of drowsiness and pain. The world was muted, smothered by the white light seeping into his vision. He wondered if he had gone blind and deaf, but that wouldn’t explain the numbness in his body.

Kyoya knew he was alive, at least in some sense. He felt the vibrations in his fingertips, drumming into his thigh from his leather seat, so he knew there was a world around him. But he drifted, felt his spirit lean back and float in the pool. His fingers skimmed the water. Some current toyed with him, curled one finger around his body and enticed him forward, away from shore, into the warm water stretching beyond infinity. He couldn’t see it, but he sensed it, felt the peace and rest and silence beckoning for him, just out of his grasp, the palm of his hand.

His soul chuckled. Peace and rest was not something he was acquainted with in life. And ever since Tamaki came into his life, he hadn’t known silence.

Tamaki.

As warm as the water felt, as gentle as the hand was that cradled him, as chillingly enticing was the voice that called him forward, he couldn’t go alone. The silence was wrong without him. Kyoya couldn’t sense another soul out on the water, so he sat up, sputtering in the mist, pushing away the hand that grabbed him.

Tamaki?

The silence ended like the snap of a whip, and the air filled Kyoya’s lungs to the point where he felt he’d suffocate with too much. Suddenly sober, the morphine drip ripped away. He gasped as hard as his fragile lungs could and opened his eyes.

The white subliminal space was gone, replaced with the present he had so peacefully been taken away from.

He saw the blood first. How it dripped from Tamaki’s nose, gushed from his mouth. His head smashed forward on the dashboard, neck billowed by the white airbag. It, too, was stained with him, a flowery design etched into the cloth, like a painting, the most grotesque, accidental painting.

The sight should have shocked him. To be yanked from the edge of peace and confronted with the harbinger should have made his soul cry out. But it may have been the smoke, or the pain so strong it diluted everything else, or even just dangling on the edge of eternal collapse that just...allowed him to see. Like his soul was half-way out the door, tugging him by the hand and yet allowing him one last look.

One last look to say goodbye.

Is this how it ends? Two lovers in a crushed car, dangling over the precipice of life and death? After all they had been through, was this to be their destiny?

Tamaki was alive. As Kyoya’s ears began to ring, his lover poked out a tiny smile. Though his eyes were bruised shut, he inhaled through his mouth, lips upturned like he had just woken up from a delicious dream. Kyoya wondered if he were in the liminal white space, too, and if he had returned to life just to find him again.

It all started with a smile, and now it ended with one.

Kyoya had always considered life to be a straight line. Different for everyone, sure, but in a way, still the same. You had to have a plan to be successful, and too many options could destroy a monument of plans. Everyone in their order, everything in its place. It was the Ootori way, his way.

Until Tamaki blasted through those plans like dynamite. That smile was a more deadly weapon than any man could create.

It had annoyed him in life, but he had learned to adore it. Now, it comforted him in death.

Tamaki’s head was twisted towards him, exactly how he laid in bed. Whenever he hadn’t wrapped them in body heat and blankets, Tamaki liked to lay on his side and look at him, eventually falling asleep like that. It made for quite the vantage point for Kyoya. Able to see his back rise with every breath, eyebrows furrow so cutely, lips slightly parted to allow air and drool--yes, the King drooled--to escape. It didn’t help Kyoya sleep, but it did help him relax. It gave him peace.

He looked the same here. Despite the blood, despite the smoke and haze, Kyoya imagined them back in their bed. He moved to kiss that beautiful brow, pull the blanket up further around them. Tamaki couldn’t sleep cold, else he’d have nightmares and whine and cling--

But as he reached, a cutting pain wove around his wrist, and he jerked away from the jagged edge of machinery in his path. The hiss of some gas or heat squeezed his ear. He tried to move away, but the pressure on his neck was too great. The force of the crash had thrust him forward; something had pinned his left elbow, while the seatbelt cut against his throat, choking him of the little air he had left. Weight settled against the back of his neck, tilting his face up until his delicate Adam’s Apple jutted into the steering wheel.

There was no coming back from this.

Miraculously, his glasses remained on, though one lens had shattered. Kyoya felt the shards on his cheek but couldn’t brush them away. He felt the blood drip on his hand, but everything else below his neck was numb, likely paralyzed. Waiting for the pressure against his spinal column to squeeze the rest of his nerves to asphyxiation, to snap and choke the life out of him.

He sunk his head into the steering wheel, awaiting the inevitable. He had no regrets about leaving the white space to find Tamaki, but now he was ready to go back. Ready to rest, be at peace, out of pain.

Once his breaths grew shallow, he mustered his last kindling of strength to gaze one last time at his beloved. Tamaki still hadn’t opened his eyes, but that dopey grin still stretched across his mouth. He reached out for Kyoya’s hand and caught it, intertwining their fingers. Intimate moments splayed through their minds, where they had clutched hands and cried, laughed, kissed, loved. And Kyoya didn’t know who to thank for allowing him this last mercy, but he thanked them anyways.

- - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When they appeared in the white space, they were still holding hands.

The light was just as blinding as before, and everything was the same. Just a vast expanse of nothingness, a blank page, no definitive land or water, but they felt it, all the same. They knew if they took one more step, the current would pull them into whatever came next.

Tamaki squeezed Kyoya’s hand. Or, rather, his soul did. When Kyoya looked down, he saw no body, nor the blond he traversed Death to retrieve. But he felt his spirit, and as long as they were together, he didn’t care what happened.

The first thing he heard was Tamaki’s laugh. It pierced through death’s cotton and filled his ears and lungs with mirth, and when Kyoya breathed in, all he could feel was light, bright and happy and airy, so pure and beautiful he wondered how he had once survived on oxygen alone. The unadulterated essence of his soul, spouting from the one standing beside him.

“Kyoya, you mean to tell me that you left this?” Tamaki’s soul cried, tugging him to the shoreline.

Kyoya tripped suddenly, but Tamaki’s grip kept him stable as they rushed. He wanted to tell his beloved to wait, that they had all the time in the world and then some, and once they enter that sea, there’s no going back, but he knew even in death he was unlikely to listen.

He considered Tamaki’s question, then shook his head and allowed himself to be pulled forward. “What is there to leave?”

“Such beauty! Such radiance!” Tamaki resumed, his soul twirling around. “I saw your spirit leave, and then it came back...you left this for me?”

They reached the edge of the water. Though it all remained a vast expanse of white, Kyoya felt the warmth lapping at his toes. He jerked Tamaki’s hand back. Unsure of what was going to happen when they stepped in, he wanted to hold on to his last shreds of mortality, to keep Tamaki’s spirit close before eternity separated them.

“I know how you hate going places alone,” he said. “I supposed as in life, we would cross this threshold together, and perhaps meet again on the other side.”

Tamaki’s soul burned brighter, if that were even possible. Though he could not see him, he felt real, as palpable as the earth. He asked, “Tamaki, what does my soul look like to you?”

“Hmm.” The spirit dulled in thought. “I can’t really see you, but I feel you near. You feel...cool. Like shelter. Like a raincloud, or the moon. You are a Shadow King, my love, softer now than you were in life.”

Kyoya swallowed, hearing the curiosity in the next question. “What do I look like?” Tamaki’s soul asked.

“You are a ball of light,” he said. The spirit flamed. “You are warm beside me. You light my way. You have always been the light to my path, and I would be lost without you.”

Like a supernova, Tamaki became blinding, enough to hurt the eyes, a sign of the times, but Kyoya absorbed it, breathed in every bit of his lover’s happiness.

“Come,” Tamaki said, tugging Kyoya’s hand. They entered the water, and Kyoya heard the siren song once more. “Perhaps we shall be reincarnated as the sun and moon.”

They waded further into the white space. Once they hit waist-depth, Kyoya stopped again. He breathed it in, the last memory of his life, all he had done, all he had loved. Did he do enough? Had he succumbed to the pressure of his family? Had he matched the love Tamaki so selflessly poured into him?

His world was ending, and all he had accomplished didn’t matter. It couldn’t save him from pain, from the seatbelt cutting his arms and Death’s kiss against his neck. All his wealth scattered to the wind, his reputation buried with him, every business deal as worthless as the dirt beneath his feet. Was he enough? Had he done enough?

Tamaki’s soul squeezed his hand. “It’s time to go, Kyoya.”

Yes. It was enough.

-

Kofi