#and on some level recognize that he did a horrible thing to her

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Maybe the truth at the heart of Shadowstruck is the importance of family. Because the most compelling stories in this universe are about what happens when you tell parents that some of their children have no right to their love, care, and protection. It destroys what should be the strongest and most natural bonds of love, and that simple horrible thing leads to all the complicated problems in their oppressive society.

[secretlyobito]

Arranged marriage! Itachi x reader

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Itachi defends his wife

Contains: mentions of violence, harassment, eventual fluff and comfort.

Part 3 to this

“Itachi! Itachi!” ever since she informed him of her boss’s atrocious actions, Itachi had spaced out in anger. His mind was running a million miles an hour thinking of all the horrible things he was going to do to that boss of hers for laying a finger on his wife. “Itachi!” his eyes snap back to hers, he didn’t realize he had zoned out. He takes in a deep breath as he grasps her shoulders, pulling her closer, “He did what?” “He touched me….here” her hand reaches up to the collar of her button up shirt, pulling the fabric aside to show her cleavage. What he saw made Itachi’s face flush with white hot anger, a large bruise in the hazy shape of a man’s handprint marked her right breast. “He groped my chest so I hit him but it hurt my hand and then…….” Itachi had stopped listening at this point. His rage reaching an insurmountable point.

He jumps to feet without sparing another minute, grabbing his cloak as he storms towards the door. His destination? Her office. His mission? To teach the head of the intelligence department a lesson on respecting women. She didn’t need to be told, Y/N knew exactly what Itachi was going to do and as much as she would love to see Itachi pummel the sleeze that touched her, there were things at stake. “Itachi please don’t! I’ll lose my job!” she chases after him frantically as he crosses the distance to the front door in long strides. “Stay here” his voice is loud and authoritative, it doesn’t leave any room for argument. She sits on the step of the foyer in resignation and panic, she was totally going to lose her job which contrary to popular opinion, she didn’t get through her connections to her grandfather but through her hard work. She already socked her boss in the face this afternoon and now, her husband was on his way to fold him in half as well. Great just great. She had clawed her way to her current position at work, it took years of enduring slander and proving herself to reach the level she has now. So she knew the man had harassed her and there was no reason for her to want to keep it on the low but, the sad reality is that things rarely ever go well for victims of work place harassment when they speak out against their aggressor.

The entire room was in chaos, papers were strewn around, furniture scattered and the workers of the intelligence department left in shock as they watched the famed Uchiha Itachi of the anbu walk into their office calmly and nearly dislocate their boss’ jaw with a punch that sent the intoxicated man halfway across the room. A collection of gasps and screams could be heard as the man is sent flying across the room, his body crashing through furniture and eventually skidding to a stop. Itachi simply steps over the furniture and objects in his path as he heads towards his target again. By this time, the remaining workers left in the office are yelling for Itachi to stop while others leave to get help. Itachi pays none of them mind as he gracefully lifts the man up from the ground up by his throat “What kind of animal would grope a woman so hard it leaves a bruise?” his voice is eerily calm and menacing, Itachi wants him to feel shame for his actions. The room is dead quiet now, Itachi glances around and notes the looks of unease on some of the women’s faces. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this boss of theirs was a serial harasser, but unfortunately for him, he crossed the wrong woman and her husband today.

Itachi recognizes the man, Sei Fujioka, the newly appointed head of konoha’s intelligence agency. He had met him several times during missions, he seemed like any other regular person, Itachi would’ve never guessed the despicable things he was doing to women in his workplace. “Do you know the value of a woman? Most of these women standing here today are the backbone of this disgraceful agency. They strive and suffer, putting in more effort than you could ever muster but yet you bury their efforts and blame their success on nepotism and privilege” The man gapes at Itachi not knowing what to say, the pressure on his neck is almost unbearable and he has to support his weight by occasionally kicking his feet, his cheek stings both from Y/N’s hit earlier and Itachi’s this evening, but nothing compares to the sting of shame he feels. He knows Itachi’s words are the truth, he found pleasure in keeping the women in the agency under his feet and harassing them because he knew they couldn’t speak out easily but, he certainly wasn’t going to be convicted to change his ways because Uchiha Itachi gave him a speech. However, being pummeled and called out like this in front of all the people he dehumanized over the years definitely achieved Itachi’s goal of making him feel the same shame he repeatedly subjected his victims to.

The leaf’s police arrive soon after and take down the details of what happened, with the help of a respected member of the anbu like itachi’s confrontation and testimony, the women were finally able to come out and testify against Fujioka for his crimes against them. That evening Sei Fujioka was led away from the building in handcuffs to jail, where he would await his trial for multiple counts of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the workplace.

It had been at least two hours since Itachi left and Y/N was worried sick. At one point, she considered going down there herself but the thought of seeing her boss’ face again after what he did to her made her sick, so here she was waiting for Itachi to return. She was no longer worried about losing her job, what good was staying at a job that put your physical and mental state in jeopardy, now she was more concerned with her husband’s safety. Itachi was more than capable of handling himself but still, she couldn’t help but be worried. She must have been deep in thought because she didn’t notice Itachi had come in till he was standing in front of her, he smiles at her lack of awareness before reaching out a hand to gently shake her out of her thoughts. Her heart drops in fear as she realizes Itachi has been here for a while now, she chuckles clutching her heart as she calms down from the fright. Itachi wastes no time in recounting the events that happened upon his arrival at the office.

Tears gather in her eyes as she watches him speak. If she wasn’t sure she loved him, she was sure now. This man in front of her singlehandedly went to her office in the middle of the night, beat the crap out of her boss for touching her, and put an end to the years of systemic harassment her and her coworkers faced in one night. She tackles him into a hug, causing him to stumble as he quickly recovers, hugging her back with just as much vigor. “I love you Tachi” Itachi’s eyes widen as he feels his heart drop into his stomach, he got so carried away with their little love story he completely forgot the implications of his health on their relationship. Please don’t love me, it’ll only hurt worse when I have to leave. Itachi sighs as he pulls her face out of his chest “I’m sorry about earlier Y/N, when I first met you, I too accused you of nepotism, if I had known what was going on in your workplace I wouldn’t-“ “Its ok Itachi, trust me you’re nothing like that asshole” she hugs him once again but as soon as she does, her smile drops. Only a fool would miss how he didn’t say I love you back, she decides to drop it for tonight, maybe he didn’t hear her but If she told him she loves him again and he didn’t respond then she would definitely probe further.

“ow-owwwww it hurts!” “Of course it hurts, you hurt you pretty hand because of that disgrace of a man, you should’ve left the hitting to me” Itachi comments as he cleans up her busted knuckles on the bathroom counter. “He deserved it” “of course he did but you got even more hurt in the process, come straight to me next time ok flower?” Itachi finishes up with the cleaning and swiftly wraps the hand in a bandage, placing a small kiss on it to ‘seal his love’ he would always say. He leaves her on the counter as he disappears into the room to retrieve one of his shirts for her to change into. He returns a few minutes later and hands her the shirt. For one reason or the other, they hadn’t done the dirty so she definitely felt shy changing in front of him. Usually she would ask him to turn around but today she was far too exhausted, so she let her hands start to undo the button up. She glances at Itachi to see if he would look away but he stares intensely instead. She chuckles too tired to feel shy as she throws the button up off her shoulders leaving her bare before him. Itachi’s demeanor darkens as the bruise Fujioka left on her chest comes into view again.

He can feel his anger coming back but suppresses it for her sake, she must be extremely tired. His hand reaches to cup the boob where the bruise was located, gently caressing the bruised skin. His inspection goes on for minutes and she squirms under his attention feeling exposed, Itachi notices her squirming but his need to make sure she’s ok greatly outweighs her shyness. He sighs as he finally pulls his hand away “we’ll get some ointment for this tomorrow ok?” he reaches for the shirt he brought to pull over her head when he suddenly grabs his chest. He cries out in pain as he vision blurs, he can feel the familiar tightening of his respiratory tract followed by the inevitable spew of blood from his inflamed blood vessels. Y/N watches in horror as Itachi collapses to the ground holding his mouth, blood spilling from through his fingers.

“Itachi!!!!!!!!!!!!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ The long awaited part three ya'll, even though it's just been 3 days. Sei Fujioka may or may not represent a man I used to work for but this chapter is dedicated to all the women who have faced harassment in our workplaces just by virtue of being a woman, you are not alone♡♡

Also, the next chapter will be the last, will it have a happy ending? Will it have a heart stabbingly sad ending? Stay tuned to find out!!!

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

Full hcs for the m6 with an MC that has chronic pain (I looked through the masterlists and didn't find anything, but it's totally possible that I missed something O///O)

The Arcana HCs: MC with chronic pain

Julian

He devotes his full care and attention to every person in need of a doctor he meets and you are about to get 200% of that

Will do a full examination as soon as you're able to talk to him about it. Give him your medical history, past diagnoses, personal opinions, potential causes, and any other detail you have

Listens to every word, writing them all down so intensely that his handwriting is even less legible than usual

In the moment, there's not much he can do beyond suggesting a few alternate ways of handling it and covering you with kisses and careful, all-encompassing sympathetic hugs

In the long run, chronic pain starts to rival (if not surpass) hematology as his field of study and expertise. Pain management does get easier over time as he learns and applies more

It has also changed how he speaks about pain

The earliest example of which was when he told you that he was "intimately acquainted" with it and you misinterpreted that as him saying that he suffers from it too - you still tease him for that

Your biggest medical advocate & never loses sympathy for you

Asra

They didn't really know how much you suffered from it until your first weeks back, and then they watched as you had to relearn how to live with it. To call it nightmarish would be an understatement

So, so, so many pain easing spells and potions. His collection was already impressive for Nadia's migraines but now it's tripled

Curious to the point of almost seeming insensitive about the sensations you experience. They did, with your permission, try linking to you enough to take them on once

He didn't like it. He can handle physical discomfort well enough but he hates it with a passion and this was a horrible realization

Thoughtful and protective of your right to comfort and access to accommodation, to the point that you sometimes have to remind them that you really can handle it

Asks you every morning and through the day how your pain levels are and will adjust accordingly. Bad pain day? Leave the shop to him, here are some meds, he'll bring you breakfast in a bit

Has been known to use pain transfer spells on rude customers during your flareups - it's two birds with one stone!

Nadia

Had a hunch that it was something you experienced from the moment she met you, if only because she was dealing with constant migraines at the time and recognized the pain

Does her best to hide it from you because she doesn't want to make your pain about herself, but gets frustrated beyond measure about it. She's a fixer, and this is something she can't just fix

She does everything she can for you, of course - opening the Palace doors to anyone with knowledge on the subject, stocking up and giving you access to all of her pain management methods

But it still gnaws at her when she knows you're having a bad pain day and the most she can do is encourage you to rest and have your meals sent to you and try to get extra time to spend with you

Even more proud of you than you can tell (which is very proud). Living in pain the way you do is no easy thing and that pain being largely "invisible" only adds to what you must be going through

Very respectful of your needs. It doesn't matter if she doesn't understand why you need something right away, if you need it, you need it

Muriel

It's not something he'll confess to until you're close enough and he's comfortable admitting it, but he has his own chronic pain from his Coliseum injuries. It's not constant, but it flares up regularly

A poorly healed fracture in his wrist. Some mangled nerve endings from blunt force trauma to his ribs. A wrenched knee that never fully healed and keeps coming back like a sprain

There's another layer to the days he spends hiding in bed, lifting nothing heavier than his tiny carving tools

He never really got much medical attention when the injuries were fresh and he certainly hasn't gotten any for the pain since, but he'll share all the knowledge on natural medicine he has

And nobody knows how physical pain can get into your head like he does. He doesn't always know what to say, but he is dedicated to listening when you're struggling and helping where he can

A little slower at accepting support for his own pain (it's months, if not years, before he's comfortable with being seen for it by a doctor) but he's with you every step of the way. You're not alone

Portia

Portia is excruciatingly empathetic to you and this is not something easy for her to understand or relate to

Pain? Physical pain?? Which you can't control, or point to an obvious/visible/curable source for??? How do you not act like you're in constant pain? How have you not found a cure?

(To say that she cringes when she remembers peppering you with these questions is an understatement. What matters is that she learned and she never doubted you for a second)

She still has difficulty fully comprehending what you're going through, but once she's dragged you to her brother and gotten some action items to follow up with, supporting you gets easier

Checks in with you several times a day on schedule and keeps a list of useful questions to ask so she can understand your pain levels

Always has at least two pain meds on hand in case of a spike or flare up and will scour the markets for any ingredients that she hears will help with pain/nerve damage/inflammation

Will bring Pepi to loaf and purr on you for hours when you need to stay in bed for the day and leaves treats on the bedside table

Lucio

He relates to this more than he wants to, but his own experience is so all over the place he doesn't know how to talk about it

Sure, he had chronic pain when he was a count, it's hard to have an emergency amputation done by an inexperienced student and then a decently weighty metal prosthetic for 20 years without it

But back then he had plenty of doctors and the kinds of resources to make managing it almost easy, not to mention the parties and pleasures he indulged in constantly to distract from it

And then for three years he felt nothing - nothing at all

At this point, he'd choose the pain over the ghost form any day, but that doesn't make it easy. Hearing you talk about your pain openly helps him realize it's possible to live with, even though it's difficult

So that's what he does. He'll live with his pain, and you'll live with your pain, and you'll both wake up to it with each other for company. He can do this

He'll still go as far as threatening any medical experts he finds with their demise if they refuse to see either of you and you're not there to stop him, though

[innerfare]

Angsty Sabo Headcanons 

Summary: A collection of angsty Sabo headcanons

Genre: Angst

CW: None // SFW

———

Sometimes, Sabo can’t stand the sight of his scars, especially the one on his face. It’s actually the reason he has a little skincare routine. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t overcome his early childhood education, which taught him that men like him are such horrible monsters. He thinks he looks like a monster.  

Sometimes when he gets undressed and turns the shower on, he stares in the mirror while he’s waiting for the water to heat up. He ends up focusing on his scars and wondering if he deserves them. A small part of Sabo thinks he does deserve them. Despite fighting to abolish the system that teaches kids they were born wrong and recognizing it is, in fact, the system that is wrong, Sabo just can’t escape the feeling that he was born wrong. 

Sabo didn’t attack Dragon that day because he wanted to take a shot at the strongest guy on the field, he did it because on some level, he sensed something paternal coming from the man, and it made Sabo lash out; he wanted to kill Dragon like Ace wanted to kill Whitebeard.

“I’m sorry he died, but at least he didn’t die in handcuffs.” This is the only thing that Dragon said to Sabo about Ace, and Sabo latched onto it. At least he didn’t die in handcuffs. He repeats the phrase over and over in his head, a mantra he chants internally every day. He keeps hoping it will make him feel better, but it doesn’t. It makes him feel worse to know the best his brother could have hoped for was to die like a man and not a dog; he shouldn’t have died at all. 

Sabo knows Ace died thinking Sabo would be waiting for him on the other side. He tries to comfort himself with the thought that Ace will be waiting for him, but it doesn’t help. It makes him feel selfish to think Ace died first. It should have been me. 

Sabo doesn’t feel good about having cheated death. He feels like a fraud, a phony, a mistake. He feels like he should be dead. And no matter how many battles he fights and wins, no matter how many enemies he defeats, no matter how many adventures he goes on, he can’t escape the feeling he’s wasting his second chance. Ace wouldn’t waste it the way I am, he tells himself. 

Sabo has nightmares about Ace’s death. The worst part about them is that he has no idea if they’re accurate. Is that how it happened? Is that what it looked like? Is that what adult Ace’s voice sounded like? Is that what Luffy’s scream sounded like? He has no fucking clue, and it tears him up inside. 

A doctor gave Sabo some pills to help him sleep dreamlessly through the night, but taking them makes him feel guilty, as if he’s escaping the punishment he rightfully deserves for not saving Ace. 

Sabo hates sleeping alone. He grew so accustomed to sharing with Luffy and Ace, and even after suffering amnesia, never got used to being alone in bed. Sabo will show up at Koala’s door sometimes at two in the morning and ask if he can sleep with her because being alone reinforces the feeling that he somehow abandoned his family.

When he gets his memories back, Sabo starts sending a little bit of money every month to Dadan. He views it as recompense for the pain he’s certain he caused her by not protecting the boy she raised from the cradle. He won’t go visit her because he’s terrified she’ll scorn him for Ace’s death and turn him away from her doorstep. 

Sabo has a page at the back of his journal where he writes down all the jokes he thinks would make Ace laugh, in addition to other things he wishes he could tell his brother.

———

Hope you enjoyed it! If you want more, you can check out my masterlist here!

[eddiegettingshot]

i know everyone ignores 6x14 because their favorite white boy wasn't the centre of attention for once but. - not to be controversial on main but I think a lot of takes come from either people who genuinely haven't watched some of the eps/entirety of season 1 and watch via gifs and those who are so deep in the ao3 sauce that canon has kind of become null. Just look at how people still talk about Chris as a little kid or the Diaz parents. Eddie, despite functioning fine by himself, has been attempting to put himself out there because we know its not what he wants. He's a "nester", he likes being married etc. Thats what makes this sl more fucked. He's messy but has at least been attempting to move forward.

no i fully agree lol i feel like people have been consuming the show solely through gifs and other people’s meta instead of actually watching it, which is why “eddie’s trying to check the boxes” and “eddie’s relationships haven’t worked out because he’s been trying to recapture what he thinks he had with shannon and subconsciously replace her since she died” - the latter being an internal issue that he has literally never even recognized as being a thought pattern let alone a problem - has turned into “eddie is actively and knowingly hunting down (a large number of) women and pursuing them with the sole intent of making them christopher’s stepmother, then discarding them when it doesn’t work out that way, to the extent that christopher realizes that this is happening and feels shame and anger over his father’s behavior.”

like this is not what’s happening! at all! if you actually watch the show and pay any attention to his interactions with people who aren’t buck this is very clear! this is also why it annoys me so much when people try to make his panic attacks over ana about him being gay - HE WAS PANICKING BECAUSE HE ACTUALLY DIDN’T WANT ANA TO BE CHRIS’S MOTHER AND HE DIDN’T WANT HER TO BE HIS WIFE, HE JUST THOUGHT THAT WAS THE EXPECTATION HE NEEDED TO MEET (AGAIN, SUBCONSCIOUSLY, AFTER NO LESS THAN 3 PEOPLE PUSHED HIM INTO THE RELATIONSHIP)!!!!!! HE SAYS THAT OUTRIGHT TO BUCK WHEN HE SAYS HE’S NOT READY FOR A READYMADE FAMILY!!! i know the show likes to rewrite some things but what is happening right now?

that’s also why i’m so confused about people acting like buck’s (and even chris’s) first instinct should be to get angry and turn eddie away and call him out for being awful - maybe that would be the response if eddie did have a habit of going through women and cheating and leaving them for the next pseudo-shannon. but actually the fact that eddie is lying to his best friend and cheating on his perfect girlfriend and risking putting his kid in a bad place is indicative of a real crisis-level issue with his grief and trauma (which buck has had a front-row seat to) in an unbelievably fucked up one-in-a-million situation. cheating is obviously fucking horrible and wrong - eddie is doing it because he’s being self-destructive and not thinking rationally! ANYONE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS HIM WILL KNOW THIS!!!

i literally hate this storyline and i understand that it’s controversial and that’s fine, but genuinely some of the takes i’ve been reading suggest unironically that a lot of people DO actually need to watch the show. because wtf do you mean eddie needs to learn to be alone?

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 9/17/2024

come take this very very friendly little man out of my bathroom! he is fiv+ and we are in houston tx! i am willing to drive a couple hours for the right home! he is a good boy he's just orange! more details here!

listening

emily jeffri's DENY off my spotify recommended weekly playlist: i can only describe it as "throbbing". immediately attention grabbing lyrics:

What kind of lover does your mother want? I'll do whatever, oh but you could not

very distinctly indie electronica. this would be the song in a cyberpunk/80s hacker movie where the chase takes you through an goth/alt fashion show where the models are actively giving blood as they walk or something.

i love the spotify daily mix for me and my bestie bc there's a guaranteed four bluey songs on it and it's a nice jumpscare. i know my mental health is taking a turn for the worse when a lot of mother mother starts popping up, i know my bestie's is taking a turn for the worse when a lot of girl in red starts popping up. suicide-watch-level sapphic angst singer-songwriter, generally. except for this song! extremely fun! didn't even recognize it as her! DOING IT AGAIN BABY is a more traditional selling-you-a-dodge-charger car commercial song and it's such a startling departure from her usual work that i wonder if it was a commercial commission? hard to immediately find out tho

I'm on a new level Something's got me feelin' like I could be inflammable And I might be I'm gonna light it up Nothing's gonna stop me if I say this is what I want

-

reading

i read twilight (yes that one) at the behest of my bestie and bc my mental health could not have gotten any worse in that moment. it has led to some uncomfortable realizations about my high school experience i will save for a therapist. i am mostly putting it here to remind myself that i read this book this year.

^ this is some silly goofy nonsense. not that i think people shouldn't be recognized at their retirement, but what happened to giving people nice watches instead of a thousand dollars in plaques

Saying that, the records did reveal something actually interesting: although the individual contract I sent a request related to was for a few thousand dollars, an attached blank purchase agreement (BPA) says that “the government estimates, but does not guarantee, that the volume of purchases through this BPA will be $360,000.00 over the term of the BPA.” So, a lot more than a few thousand bucks.

-

watching

Hang 'Em High (1968, dir. Post). certainly not clint's sluttiest role but really up there. i do wish he kept the fucked-out little rasp for the whole movie :(

When an innocent man barely survives a lynching, he returns as a lawman determined to bring the vigilantes to justice.

it has a typical bizarre shoehorned romance that (i think) deeply undercuts the theme it wants to explore, but there is no on-screen rape. the bar is on the FLOOR with westerns and yet i DNF so so so many.

hell of a whump film. literally everything happens to jed cooper. i will trumpet this again from the rooftops: that character needs cbt both ways.

-

playing

HIGHWATER, a 2022 adventure/turn based strategy thing from Rogue Games, courtesy of Netflix Games, whose game library is a fucking nightmare to navigate on mobile.

i loooove a water-based postapoc. the boat does in fact handle very poorly and like a horrible inflatable raft on mobile, which is both charming and frustrating.

i do not love a turn-based combat. despite the vibes off the charts, including a very well integrated "pirate radio" station as the game's soundtrack, i am not patient enough to muddle through complex turn-based combat. i'm sure someone had fun fighting off six guys and two bears (who aggro anyone and can one-hit anyone) and then a further three guys who show up for backup but i gave it the good old college try over two days and wasn't able to swing it. it would be nice to have either a difficulty setting or some way to spectate the ideal fight, but alas. a lot of fun environmental stuff in the fights you can use to your advantage, like the bears and these trees you can flatten your opponents with in a much earlier fight. there's a fun mix of different characters with different abilities and different weapons you pick up and keep during fights. i have no specific beef with this game's choice to make this the way you move through the game, it's just not my preferred genre.

a lot of book and newspaper collectibles in this one that i feel of several minds about. it feels less like environmental storytelling through newspapers and just the devs telling me their opinion when they provide little book summaries like this. also i wish The Industry as a whole was more thoughtful about using the word "insurgent".

not a game for me, i have once again confirmed that i cannot tolerate a turn-based combat no matter how much seafaring postapoc you drench it in :(

-

making

got a Phantom Menace era curtain panel for $4 at the thrift, and i was convinced it was fabric someone had made into a curtain panel until i got home and discovered it was an officially licensed product with bafflingly generous seams.

it's about two-ish yards of a 50/50 cotton/poly blend, which i feel like i haven't seen in a while? i think the current fashion leans more 70/30 or 100 poly for curtains i've purchased. after i finish unpicking the seams and pinking it, i am going to throw it in the wash again with some vinegar and see if that softens it up any, or if it makes the transition between the wear lines on the seams and the body of the fabric any nicer.

thinking about what kind of dress to make that 1) shows off this extremely large scale pattern 2) does not look like i am wearing a paper bag, and 3) does not look like the late aughts craft trend of sewing a twin flat Star Wars sheet to a tube top and calling that a dress, bc that's how hard up we were for feminine merch. much to consider. maybe it Will be a maxi skirt with pockets and i can wear one of my seventy black tees on top?

[defire]

Chapter 34: The Worst Day of my Life

Content: execution? Manhandling, shackles, slavery, fantasy racism, beating, public humiliation, whipping, rebels

The whole morning felt like it was going to kill Nife before she even got to the execution.

Nife  was dragged out of her cell and at every hobbled step the guard's club came down on her shoulder. She held her mouth shut and took the blows silently. No doubt it was all part of Striker's plan to publicly humiliate her.

After they'd gotten three levels down in the tower, she looked back into the guard's eyes. He appeared to be irritated at the whole thing, and when he saw her looking at him, he raised his stick, then paused, as if her expression was a painful reminder that she was just another human.

He grimaced and lowered the stick, choosing to jab her forward with it instead, which was much less painful.

Now that he had desisted, Nife managed to find a rhythm in the trip down the stairs to the outside, but as soon as they were in the public view, the shoving started, which made her feet yank at the short chain between her ankles until she fell, over and over on the way to the square.

A cold wind blew down from the tops of the buildings and sent curling twists of leaves and garbage flying off the patios, sweeping the square harshly and lifting Nife's sweaty curls off her forehead for a moment.

The heat from how hard she was trying to keep up with the guards soon whisked off in the cool fall breeze.

Nife soaked it in one more time, trying not to think about whether she'd ever see another fall.

No matter how much she tried to believe in Kit, all Nife could feel was a rising sense of hopelessness, now giving way to panic as she reached the cobbled square which had been built on a set of sunken condos. 

The square was full of hundreds of people packed into corners, patios and filling the street so much that the guards had to create a tunnel through the people.

The crowd was unusually quiet, and unusually docile. And except for a few Banes close by, the majority of them were Druids, low-class ones at that.

A shove with the butt of a spear hit her in the spine and she tripped on her shackles and fell to her knees on the stones, cursing.

"Get a move on, blue-face." The guard growled.

Nife's ankles throbbed around the shackles. It felt like the bone was bruising horribly. 

"Get up!" Another guard kicked her in the rear.

"If you want me up, don't push me fucking down!" She snarled, getting to her feet.

The guard's response to that was to take her by the hair and shove her forward the next couple steps, forcing her to bruise her ankles several more times, nearly losing her balance before he yanked her back upright.

"Horizons..." She hissed, swallowing as he let go of her.

If she was going to die anyway, she'd die using whatever the hell curses she liked.

"What kind of person parades around in something like that?" Some noble Bane whispered.

"And then she dares to look you in the eye–" The person responding shut their mouth as Nife sent them a sarcastic glare.

"What are you looking at?" The first Bane shouted.

Nife's glaring was interrupted by a cuff to the back of her head.

"Eyes down, slave."

"Fuck you." Nife whispered, casting her eyes down.

They must have heard her, because another blow to her back sent her to the ground again, and several more strikes landed on her back.

When she finally staggered back to her feet, grimacing in pain, she looked out into the crowd.

She did a double-take when she realized that one of the nearest faces was Caboodle's, under a mask. She recognized his gentle eyes.

Her chest tightened and she flushed. Then she realized that he wasn't making a judgment, just looking at her with... compassion.

It was surprising to find that compassion was a thing. If she were to take her parents’ treatment as a rule, people should tell her to stop complaining and try not to look injured. But apparently not everyone was like that.

Glancing around, she saw someone that matched Kit's build wearing armor and a helmet with a visor. He was close enough that she was pretty sure she recognized him.

Biting her lip, she looked away.

She didn't want them seeing her like this. It could ruin everything. But maybe everything was already ruined.

[here's Kit's theme song! :D ]

Kit watched as the prisoner stumbled before the last step and leaned over her bruised right ankle, muttering that they'd forced her to break it.

"That's close enough," Striker made a disgusted sneer at Nife on her knees before him. He beckoned for a man with a whip to approach. He drew up behind Nife.

Kit looked around furtively for the DJ that was supposed to signal them to fight. The Souls were going to take advantage of the confusion to rescue Nife, thanks to Warren's work. He could make out the man, who was leaning out over a roof parapet with his hair in a bun right up between his horns; that was how he was to be identified, Warren had said.

"Now, Nife Raizden," Striker said, referring to a kind of crumpled piece of paper as he spoke. "You can confess to these charges and get off with a lighter sentence,–"

"Don't pretend you're not gonna kill me." Nife's voice scraped out.

The whip snapped across her back, forcing out a choked cry, followed by a small groan. Kit's vision flashed white-hot with rage. He stuffed the anger back down into his chest, telling himself Nife had it handled, grateful for the helm he was wearing because it covered his outraged face. 

Of course she didn’t have it handled! Who had this shit handled? 

He knew how it cut in like a knife when one was struck with a piece of leather that was much shorter, and this one was long and braided.

It wasn't fair. She couldn't fight back.

"You're just degrading yourself further at this point," Striker said loudly. "Now you can make more pain for yourself, or you can confess to these citizens what you've done."

Striker looked over the crowd as he spoke, and when his eyes landed on Caboodle he hesitated, eyes opening a little wider. 

Kit felt a sudden comprehension through the bracelet as he connected with how Striker felt about Caboodle–he was his third favorite nephew, but still family, and Striker didn't want the kid to be here right before shit went down.

Kit cursed under his breath, raising his visor slightly as he turned to Warren, who was just on his left, masked and hooded.

"He knows something." He whispered.

Striker turned and looked right at Kit, eyes narrowing as the boy dropped the visor and Warren, who was wearing a mask and hood, nonchalantly fixed his gaze somewhere in the group of soldiers behind Striker.

Kit suppressed a huff of annoyance at his own inability to whisper.

Well, if he couldn't tell anyone, he could still plan.

As Striker began his demoralizing speech again, Kit reached into his pocket for the last page of the newspaper, which he usually kept for later reading.

He beckoned at Caboodle with his finger, who came a little closer. He reached into Caboodle's pocket and pulled out the pencil next to the comb he always carried, then wrote on the paper--

"Maybe trap. Striker knows. Check streets for reinforcements. Signal from the roof."

He handed it to Caboodle, who read it with widening eyes, then nodded and gave Kit his precious paper back. Kit gave him his precious pencil back.

Caboodle eased away from the main crowd and toward the streets to the east where the DJ sentry was.

"...Nife Raizden, you are accused of inciting violence against state officials. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Pf–you don't want to know." She said with a slight chuckle.

The whip snapped down again. And again. Kit flinched at every blow.

Striker was watching everyone in the crowd. 

The man whipped her until the scream finally escaped her. Then he lowered it and stepped back, and Kit saw with horror that a small chunk of skin had ripped back and was dripping blood. They were going to outright flog her, he realized. He couldn't let them do that. He had to do something. But fuck up the chance they had to save her? Not that.

Nife’s breaths were fast, panicking, and she was closing her eyes tight, like she was trying to shut out the world. She had to hold out until the rebels got the signal.

"You can confess, or he'll whip you till you do." Striker said, reaching under his coat and resting his hand on his hip, where the handle of a weapon stuck out. He stroked it absently with his thumb as he waited for Nife to give a more coherent answer. Her body lurched with sobs, shoulder blades pressing together, muscles forming tight ridges on either side, as if to protect her back.

She sniffled, looking up to the DJ sentry that everyone was waiting on. She had already picked up what his role was, true to her typical cunning.

"Nife Raizden." Striker said impatiently. "Do you confess?"

"Well, I do confess..." She mumbled.

"You'll need to speak loud enough for everyone to hear."

"Sure, I confess." She said a little louder, pointing her face toward the ground so her answer was muffled.

Fearing more lashes for that, Kit glanced up at the sentry again, and his jaw dropped as he realized the sentry wasn't there.

The sentry was gone.

No one in the square knew what to do.

But this was Nife. Kit reminded himself. She wasn't the type to just mumble words for no reason. Nife had to be doing something clever.

Striker grabbed her by the beads on her chest and shoved her up to the top step of the dias for everyone to see.

"Tell them so they can hear it." He said in a gently threatening tone. His voice, even though it was calm, carried far through the square with unnerving power.

Kit was close enough to see her shiver. He was also close enough to see the welts rising on her back and the bruising around the tight shackles on her ankles.

But when she stood, she straightened up, and what had looked like a shuddering bony mass of human flesh extended into a tall, lean girl with a crooked smile. Somehow in that moment, she transformed into the magnetic Nife Raizden everyone knew, with nothing but a smirk and a little dancing motion with her fingers. The bruises and blood didn't matter, neither did her scanty outfit. They only added to the imperfect appeal of a girl who could sway a throng with a few words.

"Alright," She said, this time loud enough for everyone to hear her voice, which was gravelly from the screaming. "I confess. I'm inciting violence. I'm inciting violence right now, actually."

There was a stunned silence, in which she raised her left hand and twirled that knife he'd given her in her fingers, above her head where everyone could see her bony arm expertly flipping the steel. She turned and looked down at Striker, who was a few steps behind her, slightly frozen as if in disbelief.

"Striker, I am your equal." She said.

The words dropped into the hush like a hot sword into the quench and the voices rose like a huge hiss.

She was a female. A Druid. A child. A slave.

Fingers twirling the knife, she turned her smiling face to the populace once more.

"I confess, it appears we'll have to get violent." She shouted so they could all hear. "Let's get violent against our so-called betters!"

The roar when she released her spell and lowered her hand was white-hot.

Kit drew his father's sword and surged forward. There was no going back now.

First chapter: Last chapter:

Taglist: @tildeathiwillwrite @mimostic @fleur-a-whump @a-n-j-a-maria per Tumblr's content policy, this is the non-nsfw version, but you can find the canon Dance of Death on Amazon and ao3 (which I'm updating shabbily as fast as I can). Also if you want, it would mean so much to me if you leave a review or comment while you're there.

[solitaireships]

selfshiptober day 13: party / magic

I'm doing a couple of prompts from some different writing events this month, but I wanted to make sure I got at least one from this prompt list! I was able to combine both of the prompts for this little ficlet, of course about Anders bcs my brain is so latched onto him right now

Rating: Teen

Genre: Fluff

Words: 726 words

Divider by animatedglittergraphics-n-more

Content warning: alcohol/drinking, sort of suggestive content

The Hanged Man is always full of life, but tonight in particular, it seems to be so loud that Romilda can barely think. She never liked visiting the bar all that much— she doesn’t drink alcohol, so the only reason she ever comes here is to spend time with friends. And while tonight’s party to celebrate Abigail’s birthday is fun, it’s also started to get a bit overwhelming. The music being played by the musicians in the corner is too loud, and everyone’s overlapping voices and laughter only makes it harder for her to process anything. 

Romilda does at least enjoy seeing Anders have fun. Ever since she’s found him, it’s always seemed like a dark shadow’s been hanging over him between Justice, the situation for mages in Kirkwall, and all his all the other responsibilities he has at the clinic. She likes getting to see her enjoy herself, grinning as she makes her way around the party. Eventually he makes his way back to Romilda, face red and smelling of alcohol. 

Anders wraps her arms around Romilda, hugging her like she hasn’t seen her in months. “I was looking for you, my love.”

“I’ve been right here most of the night, baby,” she replies, hugging him back. “How much did you have to drink?”

“Enough. Justice isn’t happy about that, though,” he says with a laugh. 

“I can’t imagine he would be. This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he would approve of.”

Anders pulls back enough to look at Romilda, arms still tight around her. “We should get out of here.”

“You want to go home?” she asks. 

“No.” She gives her a quick, messy kiss, mouth half missing Romilda's. “I want to enjoy some time alone with the loveliest woman at this party.”

“Then maybe we can find somewhere in the back,” Romilda says.

She wouldn’t mind a break from the crowd. And a break with Anders at least should help her ease some of the tension in her shoulders from all the noise and people surrounding them here. 

Anders takes Romilda’s hand, guiding her through the crowd and back to one of the Hanged Man’s back rooms. He doesn’t bother knocking, backing into the door to push it open and pulling her along with him. 

As the door swings closed behind them, Anders all but wraps herself around Romilda. He plants kisses all over her face, his breath warm against her skin. 

“I love you so much,” she says. 

“I love you too,” Romilda replies, hugging him tight and managing a kiss on the side of his neck. 

She always thinks it’s adorable when Anders gets affectionate like this. She’s always sweet, but it’s nice to see some of the passion in her that she loves so much. Every brush of his hands against her is grounding, leveling out the anxiety that hangs over her from the overstimulation of the party outside. It's a reminder of what she's here for, and it's a reminder of better times.

Though the brush of electricity against Romilda’s exposed arms does send a shock through her. It’s not uncommon for Anders to use a bit of magic when they’re intimate with each other— she likes that they’re both mages, and she likes getting to flex her magical abilities. Romilda will reciprocate most of the time, always happy to see how entranced Anders is by her magic. But right now, they’re in a place others can easily walk into, and not everyone here might look kindly on such a brazen display of magic. 

“Don’t get too bold. We’re in public,” Romilda chides. Someone catching them making out in a backroom would be embarrassing, but not anything too horrible. Someone being able to recognize the smell and feel of magic in the air could spell disaster for the both of them, though.

“That’s part of the fun of it,” Anders replies, going in for another kiss. His hands keep roaming over Romilda’s body, pressing her flush against him as he enjoys as much contact from her as he can. 

“Just remember to behave yourself,” Romilda says. 

Anders grins, bringing her face close enough for their noses to bump together. The spark of magic flows between them again, more subtle now, a faint hum between them that only they’ll be able to notice. “Anything you want, pretty girl.”

[bread-squid-uwu]

THANK YOU @dizzybevvie LMAO 🩵🩵

So, just a DISCLAIMER that I'm talking about my rewrite with some splashes of canon influence but I'm mostly just ignoring canon Dante for this, anyway

The main songs I associate with Dante are:

I'm A Natural Blue.

Obviously because of the title being a reference to Awstens blue hair, and the associations of blue with negative types of emotions and such. In my head, Dante has naturally black hair but despises that - so he dyes EVERYTHING blue and hopes it's convincing enough. He wants to look as different from his brother as possible.

The lines about seeing that your idols aren't who you once assumed them to be, seeing the truth rather than seeing someone to admire.. everyone knows Dante really really admired and looked up to Gene, who was never the best person. I see this as Dante recognizing that, finally seeing that his big brother was actually cruel and even dangerous.

Dante going through that world shattering realization that the person he trusted the most, looked up to, and even based himself off of for so long.. was horrible. And, perhaps, going off of that - looking at how he had tried so hard to copy and be like Gene, perhaps he too had done horrible things.

The struggles of trying to break from these ideas, having seen the reality of everything happening. The struggles of trying to figure out who he is without trying to base himself on who he thinks of as cool or popular.

The frustrations of realizing he was so blind to it all for so long, the ways that idolizing and loving Gene must've looked to people who knew everything Gene had done.

I could go so much more in depth, line by line, but I'll stop here for now!! I love this song in this context.

We Need To Talk.

Clover. - a danvis fic written by me, based on this song.

It Follows.

Dante canonically has a lot of anxiety around actually getting into relationships, we see this multiple times. Obviously this was very different back in Phoenix Drop High, but we also know that Dante hasn't been in a relationship since he was in high school - said by Garroth.

"I think with my heart, and love with my head." Seems like a very fitting line for this fact.

"Kiss me like nobody would when I was fifteen." We know in high school he was never very genuine with his relationships and, I think as an adult he wants something real - something genuine, where they can actually care about each other. Instead of the "haha player😎" he was before.

Looking at S2? Well...

"I've spent some years rewinding, but I'm still just me." This line I feel like is about finding himself relapsing into those previous non-genuine behaviors from high school, finding himself repeating those mistakes. I'm not talking about the situation with Nicole and Jenna, he was never actually dating Nicole, he did not cheat on her. I'm talking about him going around and flirting with many different girls on the beach. Eventually, I think he'd pull himself from this and realize that he slipped backwards, and feel guilty over finding himself repeating the mistakes that defined a version of him he previously tried so hard to bury - which is going back to the ideas from "I'm a natural blue" - when I describe this as a relapse I'm not exaggerating. Knowing those behaviors stem from Gene? I think it warrants being called a relapse.

The rest of the lines, however, I do think are about Nicole.

With the context of him struggling with his past, his sense of self, the guilt, and of course.. Gene being around? I think the situation between Nicole and Jenna would get to him on a much deeper level.

"If I could find my something to burn out these feelings, I'd cut them out completely and I'd stop this reeling. I think with my heart, and love with my head. Do you see the problem here? You rip me to shreds. I think with my heart, you fuck with my head." I see about him feeling like he's never truly changed from high school. With Nicole making the claims that he was cheating, etcetera, it gets into his head.

Really looking at the situation, he was already struggling with himself - and he was already struggling with Nicole as well. Knowing his apprehension towards relationships, his anxiety towards Nicole, and the fact that the two were never official on top of him desperately wanting to end the flirting and such with her? Well, "So tear into my heart, and love with my head. Do you see the problem here? You rip me to shreds. I've fallen apart, I'm missing your breath. Can we stand to break the fingers pointing the blame, Or will they always follow me?"

Stupid For You.

Danvis.

"I'm color-coding my moods, you're yellow, I'm natural blue

Let's get together and be green like my insides

At least I'll match your eyes, jealous and hypnotized

Let's match our faces and be equally in love. "

I don't think I need to say anything else lmao

THANK YOU BEV FOR THE EXCUSE TO POST THIS,,,

i'm always open to waterparks dante questions so uhm, feel free to ask for more or ask about this or something!!!!

[drakaripykiros130ac]

I don't understand how anyone can like the Greens in the series. I like them in the books because they are good villains, specifically Alicent. I would have given anything to see her come to life on screen rather than the pathetic thing we were treated to. That doesn't help with the fact that apparently Ryan Condal has finally confirmed he's team Greens... I'll never understand this guy. How could he read the book and say that no, the Greens were justified in any way ?! Also, the guts you have to have, even within this fandom, to openly say you support the group of misogynistic and blood purist usurpers... In the sense of saying that they are completely right or that Blacks are just as horrible! But in what universe ?! Ryan Condal would also have said that we would probably change preferred camps in season 2... Man, you can still dream, even with your stupid supporting documents for TG everyone still prefers the Blacks team. It's distressing that the director of the series himself doesn't understand anything he's adapting and that so many people are going in this direction. The number of idiots who tried to explain to me that both teams were equally horrible, that the Greens can't be pure villains because GRRM only writes complex characters, it's obvious. Like GRRM has never written a pure villain ? Are you sure you've read the books he wrote ? No but I swear that since the release of the series, asoiaf fans are worse than before in their unjustified hatred of the Targaryens... These people think they are moral by wanting to put the two teams on the same level or by saying that the Blacks are worse. That revolts me.

Essentially what neutrals think ;

“Yes, it’s not good what the Greens did, but the Blacks are no better seen as they dared to fight back for their rights.”

Like... What dimension did I land in ?!

Just last time, I received comments from someone supposedly accepting that the Greens were worse, but trying to explain to me that Daemon groomed Rhaenyra (which is false book or series), that the murder of 'a Greens child is unjustified (while the Greens shed blood first and we are in a feudal context) that Lucerys taking Aemond's eye is unjustified (Wtf ?!) ah and the best thing was to me say at face value that Daemon was not a gray character and that he was like Aegon IV... (Again... WTF ?!)

https://www.tumblr.com/darklinaforever/701570671006875648/i-hate-when-people-say-greens-and-blacks-are-on

(Afterwards I wasn't gentle in my answers either, but I'm fed up with this type of people)

I personally never liked the greens in the book. To me, they were always the villains. Always. I never viewed Daemon and Rhaenyra as pure innocent angels, don’t get me wrong. I recognize the few mistakes Rhaenyra makes in the book, as well as Daemon’s many, many faults.

For instance, yes, Rhaenyra should not have had Vaemond murdered (even though what he spoke was treasonous and threatened her position as well as the lives of her children). She should not have gone so far with the taxes during her reign (even though she was left with no choice).

However, in this story, despite all their faults, I always felt Rhaenyra and Daemon were perfectly justified. Because their good qualities kind of eclipse the bad stuff. The Blacks are the anti-heroes of the story. They have done some questionable things, but all of them have been justified/done with good reason and good purpose.

The Greens are a whole different story. Everything they have done (mainly Alicent and Otto), they have done out of jealousy and pure greed (hence why they were given the color “green” - the color of greed and envy). 95 % of the war crimes are done by the Greens. Literally the only thing the Blacks are to be held accountable for is B&C. Other than that, every crime was courtesy of the Greens.

To me, the Greens have always been split between those who are anti-villains (Aegon, Helaena, Daeron), and those who are pure villains (Alicent, Otto, Aemond).

For the anti-villains: The one time Aegon presents some goodness is when he has reservations about usurping his half-sister. Other than that, he is pure evil; Helaena can’t be considered a pure innocent soul either. She has good qualities, but she is extremely underdeveloped as a character in the book and we don’t know her thoughts, her motives. She didn’t protest the usurpation and accepted the position of queen consort easily; Daeron is somehow given a free pass by certain people because he is “the daring”, and while that’s true, these people forget how he burned a whole village of innocent people alive.

For the pure villains, not much need be said. Alicent and Otto are a bunch of opportunistic hypocrites and vicious upstarts. I haven’t sensed any bit of goodness in them. Aemond is a psycho with zero redeeming qualities.

Now, in the show, I don’t feel as if the Greens are portrayed better than they have been in the book. I feel like the show writers (mainly Ryan Condal) are trying to come up with lame excuses for them, and it’s just not working. The great majority of the viewers still hate Alicent as much as they did in the book, regardless how many times she presents those “doe eyes”, and the great majority still believe the Greens are in the wrong.

In the show, when it comes to the Greens, there’s always some sort of “reason”, some sort of “accident”. Alicent didn’t mean to shoot her mouth off and convince Larys to murder the current hand, Lyonel Strong, so that her father could return as Hand (even though that is exactly what she wanted). Aemond didn’t mean to let Vhagar know that he wants Lucerys dead (even though his pursuing and direct attack showed his intentions to murder the boy). Crispin somehow didn’t mean to crush Beesbury’s skull in that ball, even though he acted aggressively towards the man for simply speaking the truth and nothing but the truth at that treasonous Council meeting.

These excuses the show writers make for the greens make no sense whatsoever. They should have stuck with the actual canon portrayal, because it’s just ridiculous at this point.

So what if the two sides are not evenly matched?

They’re not supposed to!

GRRM doesn’t write purely good vs bad in his universe, that is true. He loves the complexity of the characters and the stories. However, that does not mean that he intended for the Blacks and the Greens to be evenly matched in this story.

He himself admitted that he wrote the book more in the Blacks’ favor because that’s how he felt (ironic, considering that Fire and Blood is told from the point of view of green supporters). It’s his story. I have seen people accuse him of being biased, always in favor of the Blacks.

Yes, he clearly wrote the Blacks as the protagonists, with better developed characters, with the best allies, the most heroic/epic deaths, most dragons, most Houses supporting them.

I mean, the Starks are TB, while the Lannisters are TG. That alone should give you a clue as to which side you’re supposed to be rooting for.

Clearly GRRM is Team Black, but who says he can’t be? Who says that the sides have to be evenly matched? It’s his story! If he says the Blacks are right, the Blacks are right.

TG stans are just in denial at this point.

[altschmerzes]

THE 13 BOOKS I READ IN 2023 IN ORDER FROM BEST TO WORST + THE PROTAGONIST'S SUPERLATIVE. PART 2.

6. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engel. a timeless classic that i love love love. meg is such a fun protagonist and i really enjoyed experiencing this as an adult again. the whole like… helpless devastated rage she feels when she realizes that adults can't just. fix everything? that sequence will always rattle me around like a mason jar fulla beans. she's such a like… man. the way the narrative was like. this isn't fair. it isn't right. it's happening anyway. i'm so sorry, but it's happening anyway. that really got me.

Protagonist: Meg Murry. Most Likely To Have A Profound And Life Altering Impact On Adolescent Weird Girls Who Read Her Book.

7. Whiskeyjack by Victoria Goddard. third book in the series, slightly less fun than the others but only very slightly. i cannot emphasize enough how difficult it was to rank like, 2-8. had some VERY fun stuff with like…. things you learn that then go back and recontextualize everything else. ended on a scene that made me fucking sob which is always a plus in my book. themes of FAMILY and LOYALTY and SACRIFICE. my fucking beloved. yes please. the pov character continues to have a horrible little time. also love that.

Protagonist: (again, series has dual protagonists, so switching back) Peregrine Dart. Most Likely To Be The Unwitting Conduit Of The Deus Ex Machina. Deus Ex Dart.

8. One By One by Ruth Ware. just a really good classic mystery thriller. i love a mystery thriller, and ruth ware seems to always hit for me. managed to pull off a pov switch between two pov characters one of whom had a massive, MASSIVE secret without it seeming completely nonsensical once revealed or relying on the pov character talking in deliberately obtuse or evasive ways that would be really tiresome and insulting if carried through. there was a set of tech bro startup characters that were obnoxious and infuriating in exactly the way that those people are in real life, so points for that for SURE even though i did wanna throttle them.

Protagonist: Erin (Lastname). Most Deserving Of A Tropical Vacation.

9. The Ritual by Adam Nevill. this is the most brutal book i have read in recent memory. possibly at all. this guy gets put all the way through the wringer physically and emotionally and it is visceral in the way it is described. the protagonist was a profoundly unpleasant person a lot of the time but this was deliberate and really engaging, honestly. there were some moments of stark self-reflection from him about the ways in which he did not like who he was and the things he did, and when he recognized how like. unfair and cruel he was being to the others in his head. wasn't as good as the movie, imo, but the changes that they made between the book and film made total sense given the sheer level of interiority in the book. and boy howdy how much interiority. whoof.

Protagonist: Luke. Most Surprising Survival.

10. I Am Not Who You Think I Am by Eric Rickstad. i think the most damning thing that can be said about this book is that i literally can't remember almost anything about it. it was compelling in some ways and there were a few very specific moments that i was really gripped by but most of it was like. a really flat letdown. it was interesting enough as a mystery that i finished it but i don't even really remember why, now.

Protagonist: Wayland Maynard. Most Forgettable Guy.

11. The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. just. ugh. dystopia ya in a bad way. too complicated and not well established. dumbass colour coding system. it could've been so fun, i love traumatized teenagers with powers and an evil government in all sincerity but this just did not do anything good with it. it looked like it COULD have but it DIDN'T. the love interest character was a DICK. there was some weird gender takes that popped out of nowhere. jump-scared by gender. did enjoy watching the movie though because it was fucking insane and gave me a scene where the protagonist and the love interest shared a passionate embrace over what fully appeared to be the dead body of the love interest's theoretical best friend. amazing. no notes.

Protagonist: Ruby Daly. Most Likely To One Day Decide She's Tired Of Being Nice And She Does Want To Go Apeshit Actually.

12. Reputation by Sarah Vaughan. [VIDEODROME PRESCREEN AUDIENCE REVIEW WHERE THEY JSUT WROTE 'SUCKED' AND GOT SO UPSET ABOUT HOW BAD IT WAS THEY MARKED THE WRONG GENDER] this book was BAD. the writing was bad. the characters were bad and not on purpose. the politics of the book were uh. whoof. what if white girlboss feminism was a novel. points for some of the hardest i've laughed tho at Nice Dick Mike the journalist that the protagonist cannot respect after she sleeps with him and Lady Cop With Bangs, the traitor to womanhood.

Protagonist: Emma Webster. Most Likely To Submit An Extremely Long Post To Reddit Dot Com Slash Am I The Asshole That Leaves Out A Lot Of Like, Extremely Critical Information That When Uncovered All Makes Her Look Really Fucking Bad While She Seems To Still Think It Was Entirely Irrelevant And Honestly Unfair To Even Consider. Gd Forbid Women Do Anything.

UNCATEGORIZED: 21st Century Jocks: Sporting Men And Contemporary Heterosexuality by Eric Anderson. there was simply no way to rank this among the others, it was too completely different. they were all very different books but this was just. entirely different. had a wonderful time with it though!! gave me a lot to think about as someone who thinks a lot

thank you for joining me on this journey. i loved reading books again this year and would wholeheartedly recommend anything ranked 1-9 on this list, provided you like the genre/vibe.

[j-l-kepler]

Baldur's Gate 3 Tav Ask List

1, 19, 23, 52, 89, 90, 91, 104 xx

(@bladesandbhaalspawn)

OHOHOHOHO THANK YOU FOR THE ASK PROMPTS

I wasn’t sure which of my Tavs was being asked for, so I’m using Briar Lockren, my half-drow Gloomstalker Ranger since I haven’t posted much about her while the Twins have quite a few deets about them! Plus, these questions felt like they applied to her best (and you may get some deets on her Dark Urge companion as well…)

[ANSWERS BELOW THE CUT]

1. What is their backstory and why did you choose it?

Some OOC background about Briar, I didn't originally make her as a Tav. I made her months ago as a fake Companion Quest called The Weary Ranger. I made a full Companion Guide with fake screenshots as a creative exercise and got very attached to her. This is one of those screenshots:

Like with all of the REAL Companions, I based her backstory on exploring the theme of abuse. The other companions focus on different aspects of parental abuse, abuse of power structures, sexual exploitation, systemic exploitation, etc., so I decided to focus on abuse in romantic relationships and dealing with an abusive ex.

[CW for abusive partners, implied coercion and sexual abuse, violence, etc. - I'll also be brief with her backstory and try to be specific when necessary]

Briar was raised in Luskan by her single father in the Cult of Cyric. Her dad was a full drow while her mother was 3/4 drow. Basically, Briar's mom had an affair with a half wood elf and left Briar in her husband's care before eloping, so Briar's dad was never really keen on actually taking care of her. His hands-off approach mixed with the prejudice against her in the Cult made it tough for her to accept their teachings.

Her closest friend was a boy her age named Ronan Amberclaw (I think I called him "Rowan" elsewhere, my bad lol). He was the underachieving son of the sect's leader, so the pressure was ON. Ronan and Briar were basically inseparable growing up.

Skip ahead a few years to when they're in their late teens - Briar's basically left the cult while Ronan's decided to stay. They've been friends forever so Briar doesn't hold the cult thing against him (the start of her blinders). They enter a rose-tinted romantic relationship. Briar (a rogue at this point) is persuaded to help Ronan's activities because they're fighting Banite uprisings. Briar's able to justify her involvement because, to her, it's the lesser of two evils.

But as time goes on, Ronan begins to lie about his activities more and more, and becomes more and more possessive. He gaslights, belittles, coerces and controls her, and does so in ways she can justify to himself. She continues to enable his activities, turning her blinders on full.

This goes on for years, until one night Ronan does what he's basically been primed to do his entire life: murder his father and take over the cult. This gets him recognized by Cyric, and he becomes his Chosen. Briar can't exactly excuse that - nice, decent people don't get recognized by Cyric, that just doesn't happen. Ronan, in the blink of an eye, drops his pretenses and makes it very difficult for Briar to look past his intention. She bolts, but not before receiving a brand of Cyric on her arm. Ronan's cursed her.

What does this curse entail? Metaphysical levels of horrible luck, the kinds of bad luck that can leave a happy village smoldering. Ronan visits her in nightmares, wraiths haunt the edges of her vision, and life SUCKS. Making connections means people die. Settling down means people die. Briar's options are go back to Ronan, or wander around until she dies.

Ever the optimist despite everything, she takes up the mantle of a Ranger, inspired by stories of similar souls who have ovecome impossible odds (such as Drizzt). She vows to hunts the beasts she attracts. In her mind, she's being selfish since she doesn't want to return to Ronan, so she vows to be strong enough to make up for the harm she causes.

Three years later, while wandering around Cloakwood, she gets picked up by the Nautiloid and spat out about a tenday away from Baldur's Gate. The tadpole in her head cuts off the effects of Ronan's curse and his ability to spy in on her.

Mielekki's race that was long.

19. What's your Tav's personality like at the start of the game? Does it change as the game goes on?

At the start of the game, she's fresh off the heels of 3 years of nightmare-fueled insomnia, so she's pretty lethargic and spacey. She's so used to a life out of her control by this point that she's quite passive, but also emotional and observant. She carries herself with a quiet sensitivity, and is deceptively capable when she's actually lucid. Underneath it all is a deep self-hatred and a desire to be stronger. She's constantly ensuring she pays for her past passivity, believing her lot in life isn't the result of a vindictive asshole but rather some kind of divine judgment. It's easier than actually pinning blame on the person who's been hurting her all this time.

Though her moral values don't change much, her personality and outlook on life become a lot more outwardly optimistic quite quickly. She becomes louder and easy to fluster, she's receptive to conversation and far more courageous and outspoken (I don't have any specific art of that lol)

She's already a moral guide for the Dark Urge (after all, he's the main character of the save Briar's in), but she's much more ready for it. As she encourages him to fight his Urges and live for himself, she internalizes the lessons she teaches and has started learning to advocate for herself too.

Basically, she's learning the answer to "do all my friends secretly hate me or do I just need to go to bed" is "you just need to go to bed". Quality of life really does improve when you can get 8 hours of sleep instead of having to run on 2 hours a week because your evil ex boyfriend is haunting your dreams with evil God magic.

23. What's their opinion of Emerald Grove? Do they help the tieflings or side with the druids?

Aha see this is one of the questions I was like "oh this is MEANT for Briar".

Siding against the tieflings was never an option for Briar. She knows what it's like to have no place to turn to, and she would give anything for safety and comfort. However, Briar's also quite familiar with Druidic circles thanks to her time spent in Cloakwood. Hell, at that point in the playthrough, she was a Ranger-Druid multiclass of Mielikki (I changed that once I recruited the hireling Dyven since he's a cleric so I didn't need an extra healer anymore). She's run into nicer circles AND the Shadow Druids, so Kagha's dogma struck her as odd for a druid of Silvanus. Something didn't smell right. She and Durge investigated further and were able to liberate Kagha from the Shadow Druids AND stop the Rite of Thorns!

52. What does your Tav think of Dame Aylin?

Dame Aylin is everything Briar wants to be, and everything she is. Briar adores Dame Aylin for her strength and resilience. She wants to have her fury and is inspired to reflect on her own situation. It's thanks to that that Briar is able to start allowing herself to be angry about what Ronan's done to her.

But on the other hand, Briar sees the exhaustion too. Just like Aylin, she's tired of having to fight against those who would see her victimized. She wants rest, peace, tranquility.

She wishes to be as strong as Aylin, and she wishes for the day neither of them have to be.

ACT 3 SPECULATION TIME

So this playthrough's only reached Act 3 recently, so the rest is speculation or how I think the playthrough ought to go based on what I know and how the characters have worked out thus far! OBVIOUSLY, SPOILERS FOR ACT 3 AHEAD

89. Does your Tav side with the Emperor or do they free Orpheus? Do they become Illithid to use the Nether Stones or does one of their companions do it? Do they give the Nether Stones to the Emperor/Orpheus?

The team already doesn't really trust Emps. Seeing as their whole arcs are about defying the odds and breaking free of their shackles, Durge, Briar & Dyven aren't exactly keen on Emps' strategy involing keeping Orpheus sedated and under his control to be exploited. How convenient that freeing Orpheus just... isn't an option. Hm. Interesting.

Since this is a no-Companion run (that is, the main 6), there won't be any companions to turn Illithid. I can't see Durge letting Briar throw away her future to become illithid, and I can't see Briar letting Durge do the same so.... sorry, Orpheus.

As for the Nether Stones, that's a bit of a blindspot for me. I can't imagine they'd give them to the Emperor if Emps isn't keen on cooperation.

90. Do they betray the Emperor/Orpheus/their companions for the Absolute?

ABSOLUTE-LY NOT. That's not even a question for her. Any ideations she has on the idea are on the same level as "What if I murdered my terrible boss" - she's not seriously entertaining the temptation. That kind of power just isn't worth it to her. Not after she's seen what power does to decent people (note: I don't think Ronan was ever really a decent person, but her perspective is a bit different from mine in this regard).

101. Did your Tav recruit Minsc? What's their opinion of him?

I wanna circle back to #91 in just a sec.

The Weary Ranger is a HUGE fan of the Beloved Ranger. Though she's more obviously inspired by stories of Drizzt, Minsc's exploits have always enchanted her. Actually meeting him is a dream come true. His blunt, optimistic and straightforward approach to every situation is exactly the kind of influence she needs. After all, her other mentors up until then have been a bunch of morally-conflicted dadfailure-coded sad sacks (and Halsin), so having someone who can cut through the bullshit and do good for the sake of it is refreshing!

91. Does your Tav get a happily ever after?

I think she will. Considering the relationship between Cyric and a certain skeletal freak at camp, I can absolutely see her curse becoming a non-issue after the story proper.

I think she and Durge will go their separate ways on good terms, and I think she'll follow Halsin. She'll settle into a home for the first time in forever with someone who she loves and is loved by.

I don't know if she'll stay there or if she'll get up and explore the Sword Coast on her own terms someday. She's not particularly maternal, nor do I know if she ever will be. But she's young with a whole life ahead of her to decide what she wants - and the room to do so on her own terms.

The scars of her past won't go away. Her brand will be gone, but the twisting remnants of her curse mark will stay tattooed to her skin. Her nightmares will be mundane and they might never go away. She will grieve the boy she fell in love with and think about him every time she stares up at the same stars they used to give stupid names to as kids. Someday, she’ll let him go, and every day until and after that will be a struggle.

But I assure you: she will be happy.

ANYWAY Thank You For These Awesome Ask Prompts!!

I had lotsa fun with this~ Briar is a character who is very near-and-dear to my heart. Not only is she a remake of my first D&D character, she was extremely cathartic to write while dealing with a pretty severe low point in my life.

ALSO SORRY IF THIS WAS WAY TOO LONG AND ALSO NOT THE CHARACTER YOU WANTED TO LEARN ABOUT LMAO

[cornie-heesan]

Part One: "Leave me out in the forest to rot"

Staring| non idol! Bang Chan x fem!reader

Featuring| Other members of stray kids as supporting characters

Started| April 30, 2024

Ended| ???

Part| 1/???

Word Count| 789

A/N| This is going to be a multi-part fic where each chapter will come with it's own set of warnings to adequately fit each one.

pt. 2| All of my writings are works of pure fiction. In no way are they representative of the idols mentioned in them. If you don't like them, don't read them.

pt.3 The writing style of these parts will vary depending on the situation. Some parts may be written in 3rd person 'You' form or through the perspective of a narrator.

WARNINGS| none really, besides cussing because I am the way I am. This part is short. Trying to ya know, set the scene with this series lol

There are certain things that some would consider the simple joys in life. For example, reading a book, painting a picture, or even listening to a favorite podcast. However, those who do not enjoy some of these activities would rather you suffer a horrible day and spill an entire hot pot of coffee where coffee is not intended. 

Y/N is one of those simple pleasure kind of people- whereas her coworker Jeongin is one of the world’s biggest haters of her happiness. This is how the three opening baristas of The Cup House start their morning. Agonized screaming, cursing, and a whole batch of coffee wasted.

“Yang Jeongin, I swear to god when I get my hands on you- your ancestors will detest your very existence!”

“Fucking bite me, Y/N! I am not listening to that stupid podcast anymore!”

Felix watches in pure horror as the youngest of the baristas throws a dirty dish rag at Y/N- only adding fuel to the fire. From his couple of months working here, Felix has determined that the relationship between you and Jeongin borders on homicidal siblings. If one of you is worked up, then the other is right there to make it worse than it needs to be. 

“Guys! We literally open in two minutes!” Felix tries his best to start cleaning up the coffee around the two of you bickering- next thing he knows you’re standing behind the counter in nothing but the lacy bra you told him about over the weekend. 

“I swear to go Jeongin when I tell Mr. Kim about this bullshit he’s revoking your access to the fucking tips.” 

All the commotion leaves all three baristas too distracted to hear the bell above the door. Y/N and Jeongin are bickering back and forth as Felix tries to hand Y/N a dry shirt to cover up with before any customers, let alone their boss see what’s happening.

“Wow… When Han said there was interesting service here, I didn’t think he meant this.” There’s a low whistle that causes the baristas to freeze- before turning to the two men on the opposite side of the counter. Jeongin and Felix recognized them as two of the employees from the music store across the street- a place they frequented often on their shared days off.

Y/N tries to keep her blush at bay when her eyes met those of the purple haired customer- he grins sheepishly trying to keep his eyes at a respectful level. Damn this man and his cute fucking dimples. Y/N snatches the shirt from Felix before glaring at Jeongin "Fuck you, Innie," her shoulder checks his as she storms by- blush crawling up her neck.

"Did we just witness a breakup?" Changbin snorts leaning against the counter "If I ever dated Y/N- I want someone to leave me out in the forest to rot." Jeongin scoffs before turning towards the kitchen to make a fresh batch of coffee. Chan watches him wide eyed before meeting Felix's already exhausted eyes- "They are friends through Y/N's younger brother. So like, by proxy they have to dislike one another."

Chan slowly nods, "but, why was her shirt off?" still confused about what The Cup House was all about "IN, spilled an entire batch of black coffee on her. I didn't stop their fighting in time to stop the strip show, unfortunately." Felix sighs grabbing the cups for their regular orders.

"I'd smash" Changbin smirks in the direction Y/N wandered off towards before a heavy slap landed on the back of his head "Shut the fuck up Bin,"

"Wait," Han stops the music playing throughout the store "You guys walked in and Y/N just had her shirt off?" He can't believe that "The one day I don't offer to go get the coffee!" He yells before getting a response "Dude, she didn't even spare me a glance. I doubt she would've noticed you with the way she was going in on Innie," Changbin snorts

"But she's so mommy when she's yelling like that" there was no hesitation with Han's response. He's always had a bit of a thing for women who yell and degrade him. Chan's eyebrows furrow as he looks away from his laptop. "You two need professional help," he says while grabbing his headset to pull over his head.

"Goooood morning, ladies and gents it's Chan,"

"Binnie"

"And ya boy Han- thanks for tuning into 3racha. All things music and a little bit about our personal lives," at this Changbin snorts "More like ninety-five percent our personal lives and five percent music."

"So, here's my first question out for the twitter audience- how would you react if the cute barista across the street was just serving you in her bra?"

So, this is part one. I wanted to use this as an introduction to the series. Also, to introduce the personalities- somewhat- of all those involved. You'll learn a bit more about the personalties of Chan and Y/N the further we get into this.

[raaorqtpbpdy]

The Undead Adventurer (1)

When an interrupted resurrection spell leaved Danny halfway between life and death, his adventuring career should have been over. But Danny Fenton won't let something as minor as being regularly mistaken for a member of a zombie horde, or kidnapped by an unknowable monster of death stop him from becoming the strongest adventurer in the world with his best friends by his side.

For the following prompts:

His head spun. He couldn’t see past the light above him. What was it? [from @q-gorgeous]

Fantasy/rpg setting. Danny died, but the resurrection spell went wrong, and now he’s trapped as something not quite dead but not fully alive either. Not that he’d ever let that stop him from becoming an adventurer, even if he does get mistaken as a resident dungeon monster by other adventuring parties every now and then… [from @lexiepiper]

Danny catches the eye of something he shouldn't. (Eldritch affection or soft horror encouraged) [from Ventisette Stars]

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: Incantationus Interruptus (next chapter)

[Warnings for death, mentioned violence, and some explicit language]

Something felt... wrong, as Danny woke up. His head spun. He couldn't see past the light above him. What was it? The sun? He'd been in a dungeon a moment ago, but... it was surely night time by now. The moon? No. It was too close.

"Uh... Sam... I think you fucked up the spell."

Tucker?

"Me? I can't cast resurrection spells! All I did was teleport us out of there so we could take him to town for a resurrection. He should still be dead!"

Sam?

"Are we entirely sure he isn't?" Tucker asked. "If it wasn't your spell, maybe it was that lich we were fighting. What if it brought Danny back as a zombie? What if he's evil now?"

"'M not evil," Danny groaned.

His eyes were slowly adjusting to his surroundings. It was, in fact, night time, and it should have been dark, but Danny could see everything as clear as if it were daylight, even the stars. The blinding light above him, it seemed, was Sam's staff, lit up so they could see their surroundings, but it looked far, far brighter than Danny could ever remember it being before.

"Well... if you're not evil, then was it a true resurrection spell that got fucked up when Sam's teleportation spell interrupted it?" Tucker asked.

"Or was it a monster resurrection spell that got fucked up when my teleportation spell interrupted it?" Sam asked.

"What are you talking about?" Danny asked.

The last thing he could remember was getting hit with a devastating magical lightning attack when they were fighting a lich, then waking up all but blinded by Sam's usually dim light spell.

"Well..." Sam dug around in her various pouches and pockets for a while before finally taking out a small, shiny, round object that Danny recognized after a moment as her compact mirror. "See for yourself."

She handed him the mirror, but when he looked into it, the face he saw was not his own. His dark hair had turned white, his eyes glowed green like those horrible zombies in the dungeon they'd just been fighting in.

"Am I a zombie?" he asked. "But... I can still think and stuff. I'm still myself."

"Yeah," Tucker agreed. "That's what we were wondering about, too."

"We should take him into town and try to find a high-level wizard, or a magic researcher, or something who might be able to tell us what happened to him," Sam suggested.

"Agreed," Danny said.

He tried to get to his feet, but when he pushed up off of the ground, he began to float. He flailed his arms and tried to come back down, but it was as if gravity didn't want anything to do with him anymore.

"Uh, guys?"

His companions stared at him, shocked for a moment, until Tucker stuck out his bow for Danny to grab onto and pulled him back down to earth. Once his feet were on solid ground, Danny felt gravity return to him, and when they walked to the nearby town, Danny made sure to keep at least on foot firmly on the ground at all times.

The nearest town was called Casper, and thanks to it being situated so near a difficult dungeon, it had plenty of magic users and shops offering magical services. More than most towns this far in the middle of nowhere would have.

When they entered the town, and everywhere they went, people stared, gasped in fear and generally did their best to avoid the trio. It seemed Danny's new appearance wasn't exactly putting them at ease. In the townspeople's defense, he did look like an undead monster now. That was kinda the problem they were trying to solve in town.

They went to three different people in search of answers, Star, the grand wizard's apprentice, although the grand wizard himself was away at the moment; the old, and confusingly named, wizard Lancer; and lastly to a magical researcher called Sidney Poindexter. The first two had never seen anything like Danny and couldn't offer any insight into his condition. The third had never seen anything like him either, but was at least willing to run some tests.

Sidney Poindexter possessed only weak magical powers, but was apparently an unrivaled expert in magic relating to death and resurrection, which was why he'd moved to a town so near a dungeon with a lich. So when Lancer first directed the adventurers to him, he sounded like the perfect person to ask.

"Wow, what happened to you?" Poindexter asked when they walked in, staring openly at Danny.

"We were hoping you might be able to answer that," Danny told him.

"Oh, well, in that case, why don't we find out!"

Poindexter's study was cramped and crowded, full of books, scrolls, and strange equipment. He sat Danny on an empty stool, and spent the next several hours running various tests and taking various readings. He had Danny attempt certain tasks, like flying, turning invisible, and passing through solid objects, all of which he managed with surprising ease, considering they should have been impossible.

Sam and Tucker had fallen asleep on the floor by the time he finally had anything to report.

"I believe I have a conclusion!" Poindexter announced at last.

The two snoozing adventurers jerked awake and sat bolt upright.

"Wh-what is it?" Tucker mumbled out, tiredness giving him a bit of a stammer.

"You say whatever resurrection spell was cast on your friend must have been done so by the lich in the dungeon, correct?" Poindexter asked.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed.

"I believe the lich was trying to resurrect him as a Zombie General, rather than a regular Zombie," the researcher explained. "There are many different kinds of resurrection spells, but the three main ones are true resurrection, soul resurrection, and monster resurrection.

"True resurrection brings the deceased back exactly as they were in life, both body and soul—although it cannot prevent them from developing psychological problems related to their death. Soul resurrection brings the deceased's soul back to life, apart from their body, creating a ghost. And monster resurrection brings the body back to life without it's soul, creating things like zombies and skeletons and the like."

"Yeah, that's common knowledge," Sam said. "Can you get to the point."

"Sorry, after a certain level of expertise, I realized I couldn't count on myself to know what knowledge was common and what was obscure, so I just explain everything, just in case," Poindexter apologized. "As I was saying, however, there are other types of resurrection besides those three. One of them is monster lord resurrection, which brings back the deceased as an especially powerful undead monster, such as a Zombie General, or a Skeleton Leader, which have higher intelligence, and the ability to control other undead of the same type."

"So... Danny was brought back as a Zombie General," Sam reiterated, "and that's why he looks like that but is still himself?"

"Not quite."

Sam and Tucker groaned. It wasn't that they weren't grateful for Poindexter's help, but they were tired, and kind of hoping for a shorter explanation.

"A monster lord resurrection spell consists of two parts," Poindexter continued, unperturbed. "First, a modified true resurrection spell, and second, a mind control spell. For best results, these two parts should be performed simultaneously, but double-casting is a skill only a handful of mages in all of history have possessed, and it looks like the lich in the nearby dungeon isn't one of them, because it seems it planned to cast the resurrection first and then the mind control, but couldn't get all the way through the resurrection before it was interrupted somehow."

"By my teleportation spell," Sam supplied.

"Yeah, that'd do it," the researcher agreed. "When the spell was interrupted, it ended up reviving him with his whole soul because there wasn't enough time for the spell to break off the pieces of his soul that would resist the mind-control spell. As for his body, well, you can see how that was effected. Now, he's trapped somewhere in the middle, not quite dead, but not entirely alive, either."

That, at least, was true. Though his outward appearance had changed, and he appeared to have some of the abilities an undead would have, he wasn't rotting like a zombie, or incorporeal, like a ghost. His motor control was unaffected, allowing him to move without the telltale jerky motions of most corporeal undead.

Tucker shook his head in confusion.

"Why?" he asked. "I mean, why would the lich try to make Danny a Zombie General instead of just making him a regular zombie—or just letting him die?"

"I don't know," Poindexter admitted. "Did any of you happen to kill a zombie that seemed more powerful, or acted more intelligently than the others?"

"Yeah, actually..." Danny said, suddenly remembering. "It was dressed in rusted armor, and carried a sword. I thought that was weird for a zombie, but even weirder, was the fact that it actually had the motor control to use its sword. As soon as I stuck it down, the lich screamed and shot lightning at me, like it was suddenly pissed for some reason."

"Well there you have it," Poindexter said. "When you killed it's general, it suddenly had to control all those zombies by itself, which is extremely taxing on the mind, so it decided to kill you and resurrect you as its new general."

It... sort of made sense. It followed the sort of logic an angry undead mage from hundreds of years ago that was slowly losing its mind would follow.

"One thing doesn't make sense, though," Danny said. "Zombie's can't fly or pass through walls or turn invisible. Why can I?"

"Botched resurrections can have all kinds of side effects," Poindexter answered with a shrug. "Those three are some of the most common, I can do them too. An old partner of mine tried to resurrect me after I was fatally injured during my studies across the continent, and messed it up so badly I stopped aging. I'll be ninety-six this year, you know, but I don't look a day over twenty."

"Really?" Sam asked. "I would've guessed younger."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Poindexter said.

It really wasn't one. Poindexter looked like a dweeby teenager who hadn't grown into his fact yet.

"In any case, it's not common, but it's entirely likely you'll run into some people with similar powers from resurrections that didn't go quite as they were supposed to."

"Is there any way to fix it?" Tucker asked.

"If there was, do you think I'd still have this face at ninety-five years old? I can't even grow a beard! What kind of respectable, well-established magical researcher doesn't have a beard?"

"I'll be okay, though, right?" Danny asked. "I'm not gonna, like, slowly waste away or anything am I?"

"Well, no, you should be able to live normally..." Poindexter said, with a tone that strongly implied a 'but'.

The three adventurers stared at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"But..." Danny prompted.

"If you die again, there's no spell that can bring you back," Poindexter said. "After you've been the target of a failed resurrection spell in any capacity, you become an undead for all intents and purposes, and undead creatures can't be resurrected again. That's why I almost entirely retired from field research after mine."

"So, you're saying... if Danny keeps adventuring...." Tucker looked at his friend, his face a mask of concern and pity. "He could die for good next time?"

Danny had died before. They all had, at least once. Of the three of them, Sam had died the least. They always tried to protect her as best they could, and she was usually quick with a teleportation spell if they got in over their heads. She couldn't perform resurrections herself, but you could buy one in almost any town, and she came from a wealthy family that would never let her die, even if they didn't approve of her lifestyle.

Of the three of them, Danny had died the most, with a whopping six deaths since they started adventuring four years before. He was physically the strongest of the three, although Sam was also deceptively athletic for a mage, but he was also the first to throw himself in front of danger to protect his friends. Plus, though there was no way to prove this, he suspected that of the three of them, he also had the worst luck. And this was just the latest in a long string of evidence.

"Fine," Danny said. "But I'm not retiring."

His friends looked alarmed by his decision, but it was the only decision he could make.

"No, Danny, there's too much risk now," Tucker insisted. "You're on your last life."

"It's too dangerous to go running around adventuring with no safety net," Sam agreed. "We... we don't want to lose you."

"Adventurers have been around way longer than true resurrection magic," Danny pointed out. "Any time we raid a dungeon, or take on a quest, there's always a chance we'll die for good, either our bodies will be too far gone for resurrection, or they'll be lost in a bottomless pit, or there will be a monster that renders magic ineffective on a corpse. True resurrection was never a perfect safety net anyway.

"I'm not retiring."

His friends did not seem happy with this decision.

"We're not gonna change your mind, are we?" Sam guessed.

"No, you're not," Danny agreed. "Besides, even though I'll have to be more careful not to die, I've also got some cool new powers out of the deal. It would be a waste to quit now."

Tucker sighed, but didn't try to argue. He hadn't won an argument against Danny yet, and he knew he wouldn't win this one. His friend was one stubborn guy... well... one stubborn zombie, now.

"We should at least slow down," Tucker said. "No more charging into dungeons way out of our league. We stick with stuff at our level and only take on more difficult jobs when we're already strong enough to handle instead of taking them in the hopes that we'll luck out and rank up fast."

"Boring!" Danny groaned, but at the looks both Sam and Tucker gave him, he knew it would be unreasonable of him to argue. Really, that was how they should have been adventuring all along. "Fine. I accept your terms."

[visenyaism]

Ever since I watched HOT D I have felt conflicted about Alicent's character because I can't figure out her motivation. At the beginning it's clear she's only doing what Otto wants but later on... What is the reason she wants her son to be on the throne so bad ? ( When it doesn't seem to me like she cares about having power )

The only thing that I see is that she is extremely bitter and angry that she had to be this perfect woman when she was still a child and marry and have children with and old man. Meanwhile her friend is just fucking around not respecting any of the value she has to uphold.

But idk is it really only anger at Rhaenyra that makes her want this ?

one of the reasons I like alicent as a character so much is the 8 layers of cognitive dissonance she processes everything through at all times. She’s constantly trying to convince herself everything will be fine and also not allowing herself to really want anything for herself. She’s not a rational actor because she was robbed of the ability to emotionally mature past the age of 15 in a lot of respects, but it makes her a compelling (and confusing!) character.

I think it’s safe to say that on a fundamental level she at least wants a) to be close to Rhaenyra b) for her family to be safe and for her father to be proud of her and c) for someone to acknowledge her suffering (she cannot conceptualize a world where what she went through didn’t have to happen, she just wants anyone to recognize it as painful.)

She thought that Rhaenyra was also going to be suffering in a loveless marriage alongside her, and they’d have that in common. To see her “breaking the rules” that have made Alicent’s entire life completely miserable is just too much. She got her life destroyed by this system and by Viserys wanting sons, and he doesn’t even care about them OR about her, he only loves his eldest daughter even though SHE “breaks” all of these “rules.” That’s super emotionally devastating, and Alicent decides to pin that on Rhaenyra instead of her father or Viserys because if she did that, she would actually have to deal with the years of emotional trauma and violence that she’s been repressing. She can’t see a way out, so she just projects the rage she cannot internalize onto Rhaenyra.

Her father spent decades trying to convince her that Rhaenyra was going to be a threat to her family in the event of a succession, an idea he stood to gain a lot from, but it also isn’t totally crazy. Aegon Aemond and Daeron WERE threats to Rhaenyra’s claim. Putting Aegon on the throne was the only pathway that Alicent had been drilled to envision for decades, and the only one she thought would keep her kids safe. Also- if one in her life is going to acknowledge what happened to her was horrible and wrong, then at least everything she’s went through has to be worth something. Aegon’s coronation was also the culmination of that idea for her.

She doesn’t want power because she cannot even conceptualize having power as an option for herself- she’s never pictured herself on the throne, and she’s only trying to make a window in the wall of her prison. I don’t think she ever envisioned what her life would be like after she got Aegon on the throne, so I’m real excited to see what she’s going to be doing in season 2. TLDR it’s not about getting specifically Aegon on the throne that’s important, but more about following the rules she’s been taught will make her happy and safe and successful, even though on some level she knows that all it’s ever done is hurt her. Free alicent from the narrative she knows what story she’s in and she knows there’s no way out💚💔

[96percentdone]

In Defense of Tearer

Character writing, not the uncountable crimes

AI:TSF Nirvana Initiative is a very divisive game, for many reasons, some of which I’ve discussed before even. With its twists and split storytelling, and a horrible no spoilers policy that leaves fans of the first game with no connective tissue that respects the time they spent with those characters in the first game, it was destined for controversy, no matter how many good ideas and interesting characters it contained. And make no mistake, Nirvana Initiative has many interesting, even consistently well executed ideas. There are some things in Nirvana Initiative that I think are better than they ever were in the first game, like the serial killer at the center of it all.

Apparently, Tearer is controversial. Some think he is lesser than Saito. Less presence. Weaker. Uninteresting. Irrelevant. They think his only purpose is to provide a motive for Amame, who is actually the interesting culprit. But I believe all of that is incorrect. It misunderstands what makes Saito compelling, what makes Amame compelling, and most importantly, for my purposes, why fucking Tearer fucking rules. Tearer is critical to the fundamental nature of not just AINI’s plot, but it’s themes; he is essential to the conversation about love, determinism, and trauma and without him this game is weak and flavorless, and all the other things you like about it would be worse. Under the cut.

Part Zero: S**TO

AITSF is about love. It’s in the title. Water is wet. But for the sake of drawing clearer parallels, let’s actually talk about Sejima Saito.

Saito cannot feel love or happiness from anything from murder, because of a brain disorder, or more accurately, he would have been able to if even one person loved him to begin with. I say this because Date exists within the same body, and he’s able to get by on medication. Because people cared about Date, and wanted him to be happy; they loved him. But Sejima Sou, the world’s worst man, does not care about Saito. His son killed animals, and he did nothing. His son killed his mistress, and he covered it up, but didn’t look into the root issue. He doesn’t care. On a literal level, Saito cannot feel love because of a brain disorder, but on a thematic level, he cannot feel it because no one ever offered it to him. He does not know what it is. (From this perspective, you could say that Saito is a victim of ableism and not only just. A problematic trope, although like it’s all definitely like still here)

And the sad thing is, Saito does not know what love is, he cannot understand it, yet he still wants it from his father! He’s on record saying this is why he killed Manaka because she stole him away. Sejima does not care about him, and he recognizes that, and it bothers him. He wants what he cannot have, so he kills instead. He has to rip that which his father loves away from him. That’s why killing her makes him happy! Are you seeing the bigger picture? The dopamine rush from killing is just the literal read; Saito derives pleasure from murder because he is ripping love away from others, a thing he wants but thinks he cannot have.

Saito switches into several different bodies that do not have the same brain disorder that his did, but this doesn’t make him understand love, because the problem isn’t actually the brain disorder. It’s that at this point, he has gone so long without ever being loved, without ever knowing what love is, with wanting it but never being allowed to have it, that he absolutely refuses to conceive of a version of himself where he could be happy and capable of it. He looks at Date, in his body, who is happy, and living a life full of love, with people who care about him, and its incomprehensible to him. That should not be possible. Date is using that body wrong because to be Saito is to be without love.

Saito has defined himself as loveless, as someone who could only ever be happy when he’s making everyone as miserable as he is. Sejima did not love him, and did not support him, but even once Saito became an adult with the resources and wealth that name possesses, he did not seek out happiness elsewhere, away from the people who failed him. When he gets second chances in different bodies, he does not seek out love, no matter how false it may be. Instead he uses whatever love someone might have for whoever used to live in that body as a tool to carry out his ends, because he is determined to stay as he is. He was not loved, so he will never be loved, and so no one else should ever be either.

This is how Saito is used in the narrative of the first game. In a story where love saves and redeems, about the connections we make with others no matter how fleeting, and the strength it gives us to pull through, the antagonist is someone who was denied it, and because he was denied it is now determined to destroy it for everyone else.

Now that we’ve laid the groundwork, by talking about Saito, let’s move to the main event.

Part One: Forsaken | Child

Carrying on the thematic torch, we get to AINI, and like with any sequel, the discussion about love has shifted. To simplify things, the discussion in the first game is “love good not loving bad.” Characters you’re meant to like are filled with love to give and are loved in return, characters who aren’t well...aren’t. It is good to love. I agree. But AINI takes this theme a step further: who/what do you love, and how? What does love mean to you?

This question shows up at multiple points. Komeji loves his family so dearly, but his pursuit of his dream he loves just as much keeps putting them in danger and costs him his wife and later his life. Shouma struggles to admit he loves his father, constantly fighting with him, until it is too late, and he’s gone, and there is nowhere for this love to go. At the cathedral Ryuki has to pick between Date and Tama: who does he love more? I could go on like this (we will get to Amame), but this all comes back to one source: Tearer. So, who does Tearer love, and how? What does love mean to him?

Tearer loves one person: his ‘mother’, Shigure Tokiko, the world’s worst woman. (I promise we’ll get to Amame when we fucking get there.) Like Saito, he is desperate for the approval and love of his parent, something he too does not get, but there are several fundamental differences. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is that while Sejima Sou is Saito’s literal father, and has not legally forfeit his parentage over him no matter how garbage and bereft of love he may be, Shigure Tokiko is not Tearer’s mother in any sense of the word. She did not give birth to him, she didn’t adopt him, she does not raise him with love or compassion—no. She and her partner/ex Horadori Chikara (the world’s other worst man) kidnapped him and keep him trapped in the fucking basement so they can harvest his fucking organs and body parts for their biological son they gave up but actually love, Furue Jin.

And as obvious as saying that might be, it’s actually pretty critical to begin here. Both of these environments are loveless. Sejima is implicitly neglectful, and I don’t like need to tell you what’s wrong with what Shigure and Horadori are doing, yet the results are fundamentally different. There are two reasons for this. The first is that Saito was always a Sejima, and his life began in a house without love, thus he never knew it in the first place, Tearer was once a little boy not unlike any other, happy, innocent, loved up until the day he was kidnapped. For a brief moment, he knew what love was, and that will always matter.

And this difference leads to the second, which is far more interesting to me. Saito decided that if he could not have love then no one could, that he would destroy every instance of it within his grasp with his bare hands out of spite purely because he could not have it and never knew it, and never once attempted to know it himself. But every single thing Tearer does is all in the name of love. He wants the world to laud him as a hero and savior, to recognize him as important. He does not care that he killed Komeji, or that he is going to kill billions of others, because from his point of view, he believes he is bringing them to true freedom. An act of service for humanity at large. This, as warped as it may be, is a version of love, and a request for reciprocation. He is obviously wrong to think like this, even if he himself cannot understand or comprehend it, but even if he somehow did, it’s secondary to his real motive, which again is for his ‘mother,’ who he loves more than anyone else in the world.

Everything he does, with the exception of trying to convince Amame of his totally based and epic gamer plan to wipe out all human life that also involved murdering her dad, is for her. That plan he came up with is based on her beliefs about the world that he dedicated himself to because she taught them to him, and he is devoted to her without question. Shigure may say that Naix is more scientific than a cult, and is thus better than whatever Horadori is doing, but Tearer is their #1 worshipper, and that is because he adores her. He wants to prove her beliefs correct, to brings everyone to Moksha, because yes everyone will love him and worship him as a hero obviously and his endless pain and torment will end and be retconned into having not happened, but mostly because it would make her happy to be right, and if he makes her happy, then surely she will love him in return, right?

Nonentity Incognito is a somnium about Tearer’s absolute desperation for Shigure to love him in the same way she loves Jin. He wants to be her son. He cries to be let out, somebody, “MOM HELP ME,” but she won’t, and no one else will. They take his ideas, his work, his organs, his skin—everything from him, while they leave him locked in a rusty cell in a basement with a door that cannot open from the inside, and yet he still cries from the bottom of his heart “I love you so much! Why won’t you love me? Why, mom, why?” But he knows exactly why she won’t. Because Shigure loves Jin, or at least she did at one point (she doesn’t anymore care much anymore given she’s all for Tearer’s plan that killed him). As much as he screams and cries and begs, she will never love him. She never has loved him. To her, he was just a child with the right DNA that could be used to save the kid that mattered to her. When asked if Tearer is her son, even when he is right there, she does not answer; the silence speaks for itself. Nothing he does will ever make her love him. He will never be her son, no matter how much he wants to be.

Some may wonder then, with this level of horrific abuse, why would he even want to? Especially since he hates Horadori and Jin for his torment, something that is no secret and is clearly illustrated within and outside his somnium. I mean he explicitly picks both of them as targets because he hates them that much. Horadori only tortures him, and Jin gets not only what Horadori takes but Shigure’s love, the one thing he wants, but why does he want it? Why does he want her love?

Part Two: Damned | Destiny

Shigure Tokiko has given Tearer exactly one thing. Not freedom, not remorse, not even a half-hearted apology, no she didn’t give him anything for his sake, but she did give him something. She taught him about her shitty cult ideology. Shigure believes the world is a simulation. Nothing is real, so there is no pain, and no sorrow, and no unhappiness if we just leave this false prison. She promises him that if he follows her, they can leave this fake world together, where true happiness, paradise, lies. . She does not tell him this because she feels sorry for him, it’s not for him, but because his obvious suffering is a confrontation of her guilt. He is in constant agony because they steal his literal body from him and keep him trapped in a dingy prison in the basement living off preserved food in a broken refrigerator, and if his torture is real, then she is culpable for it. It is her fault he suffers, so it cannot be real. This world where something this horrific happened, where she is enabling and partaking in something this cruel because she loved her son she gave up, Furue Jin—she cannot accept it. She promises him a world where he does not feel pain, and she does not feel guilt.

This obviously is just like shitty, and evil, which yeah, she runs a cult and kidnapped a child, of course she is shitty and evil, but he would not see it that way. To him, an orphan kidnapped overnight who routinely has had his organs taken from him by one of his abductors for another child who gets to be loved (or at least receives some approximation of it) instead, this manipulative bullshit looks like kindness. He’s so young. They took him when he was only six, and now this woman is promising him she can take him to a world where not only will he not be in pain anymore, but it will have never happened.

No one comes for him. He cannot escape. Even if he could somehow get the door open, they’ve taken enough of his lungs he has trouble breathing when he sleeps, so imagine every other physical challenge he could face in a body they routinely steal from. Of course, he clings onto her promises, her teachings; He has to believe her. What choice does he have? He just wants it not to hurt anymore! He is trapped in a cell, and she is telling him that they can leave it if they leave this world behind. He can be free. He doesn’t have to hurt. He will never hurt again. What she has to offer him is insincere, it is not helpful, and it is not even truly for his benefit (they even steal his work for Naix, insane, cant have shit in horaken), but who else is there to offer him anything? Shigure Tokiko does not and will never love him; she will never view him as her son. At most she sees him as a brilliant tool to further her agenda, a convenience as well as an organ donor, but he cannot leave. He is their prisoner, trapped, so her self-self-serving ‘kindness’ is the only thing he has.

They don’t let him go outside, cause obviously their unwilling organ donator can’t escape, and he’s only allowed to learn and do the things they think would be useful to them, (quantum mechanics, molecular biology, electrical engineering, Naix’ fucking teachings, etc), he has no friends or actual family, he’s lost his name, he’s lost half his face and body—what does he have that is his own? What can he have that is his own? What choices can he make that are truly his, when he has so little freedom? What else can he do?

This is where determinism comes into play. Because Nirvana Initiative is not just about love, it is about choices, and how those things often intersect and tie together: the things you do for those you love, the things you do to get it, how far you’re willing to go in its name. Tearer was willing to end the world in the name of Shigure Tokiko, because he loves her. He loves her because he has no choice but to love her, because in the situation they put him in he can make no choices at all.

When Horadori Chikara and Shigure Tokiko made that decision to abduct the child with the right DNA to save their son from his half body tumors, they sealed that child’s fate. Their love, however warped it may be, damned him into being Tearer.

Regrettably for literally everyone besides Shigure, this means he kills people, takes people hostage, blows up a building, tries to commit world genocide, dresses like a clown, and all in all just kind of sucks and posts cringe 24/7. My poor little meow meow lmao. He is the principal antagonist of the game, even if he turns out to be fucking dead for half of it. This is in part, of course, because this fucking unhinged maniac has no hobbies outside of Zero Escape and vaporwave and designed all of his plans to work with or without him being alive, but like Saito in the first game, Tearer is also representative of an idea. You may have already figured out what purpose he serves already, but if not, I think it’ll become much clearer once we talk about how he affects the story as the antagonist.

Talking about every single detail in AINI would take too long and waste a lot of time, especially since not everything that happens in the game is ties back to the HB case (hence some of the controversy), so our purposes we will focus on the characters most affected by Tearer: Ryuki Kuruto and Doi Amame. Ryuki first!

Part Three:  Fractured | Mind

Now, to be completely fair, ya boi Ryuki was already going the fuck through it before the half body incident even started. Ryuki’s became a psyncer because of a childish sense of justice he cannot let go of because of the horrifying way he lost his twin brother, who was hit by a truck in pursuit of a criminal and half of his body was crushed beyond recognition. It was his brother with the heroic dreams, Ryuki is just carrying the torch. While the localization uses a reference to My Hero Academia, in the original Japanese, his catchphrase is an Anpanman reference, a superhero show for small children. He wants to do good, he wants to be a hero, to help people, but those naïve ideals can be easily twisted by his trauma and his grief, most notably into a profound hatred of criminals.

So, imagine you’re Ryuki, it’s the time of year your brother died, and now there’s a serial killer going around killing people by leaving half bodies: how do you think that’s going to go? And yeah! It goes like shit! He makes mistake after mistake after mistake, he’s constantly dissociating, memory lapses, he’s vibrating with anticipating waiting for Tama to give him the okay to kill some guys he thinks are tied to the incident, Ryuki shoots an unarmed civilian because he thinks they might be Tearer! He cannot separate his trauma from the case! And frankly, how could he be expected to?

I am not going to lie to you and pretend that Tearer designed the half body incident to trigger Ryuki’s personal issues deliberately. He didn’t. That guy doesn’t go outside lmao. But like Ryuki’s brother, Tearer too has been halved, and so he halves Horadori and Jin as punishment for what has happened to him. What is his catharsis is Ryuki’s trigger, and this inevitably leads Ryuki right into his grasp to be used, where the real shitshow begins.

Tearer has sabotaged Tama. He will kill her if Ryuki does not do what he wants, and what he wants is for Ryuki to kill Date and deal with any other minor nuisances in the meantime. And Ryuki shoots Bibi with a stun bullet, even if it worsens Bibi’s heart condition, because he loves Tama. He cannot bear Tama being destroyed, no matter how much Bibi screams at him, no matter how much she hates him.

He is under Tearer’s thrall up through to the cathedral, and he has one job. Shoot Date. Shoot Date, and Kizuna and Tama and everyone else in the cathedral gets to live! Seems easy, right? Even Date says he should shoot him. But despite this. Despite everything, despite all that is at stake, he can’t. Ryuki cannot shoot Date. It is the guilt of having shot Bibi, yes, but he loves Date. How could he ever shoot him? How can Tearer ask him to choose between the two people he loves more than anyone else in the world? How could he ever make this choice?

He can’t, so Tearer makes it for him, because Tearer has been making his decisions for him ever since he took Tama prisoner. He blows up the cathedral, and Mizuki loses her eye, and Kizuna is paralyzes, and Date is ‘killed,’ and Ryuki never moves on from this. He spends the next six years drinking into oblivion, his PTSD worsening, unable to forgive, unable to forget, unable to move forward. When ‘Jin’s other half’ drops he throws himself back into the case, still a wreck, still hallucinating, still having manic and dissociative episodes, to the point he doesn’t even seem to know what year it is, often interacting with others like it is 2020.

You might remember he caught TC-Perge, the bioweapon Tearer had Horadori Institute make, but the literal elements of a text are never just literal. When Ryuki dissociates or he hallucinates, it comes in the form of glitches to the matrix. Tearer believes in simulation theory, because of Shigure. She and Horadori kept him imprisoned, and she taught him the world itself is a fake they must escape from. For him, this virus is an escape attempt, but like how cutting people in half is cathartic for him but triggering for Ryuki, TC-PERGE is his prison.

Tearer is dead, but it is what remains of him haunts. It lingers, it possesses, and it does not let Ryuki forget or move forward. Ryuki is stuck in place, in February 2020 during the Half-Body Incident, because since it kept triggering him he ended up trapped, forced to do the bidding of the one that reminds him most of his trauma against those he loves most. He is trapped in the time Tearer stripped his agency from him, used his love against him, and that love is now his cage. It has transformed into guilt.

Who do you love, and how? What does love mean to you? Ryuki loved his brother, to the point that he choose to live the live he should have had, to uphold his ideals of justice. For Ryuki, love is grief is trauma. It is a list of reasons for him to hate himself. Tearer only adds to that list. He puts Ryuki in the same place he is, unable to move, clinging on to your own self destruction. For Tearer, it is the Nirvana Initiative, and for Ryuki, it’s the alcoholism, and the self-loathing, and the belief he has to solve and fix it all himself or die trying because it is the only way he can possibly atone. He takes a bullet for Date, even after he gets the pep talk from them and told they forgive him, and the only way he can atone is by working together to move forward. It seems only by taking it does he find his way out.

Ryuki gets cured. He will heal from his gunshot wound. Tama is free from Tearer’s clutches, and Date is fucking fine, and Ryuki will be okay. There was a way out of this hellish nightmare Tearer put him in, and it did not involve making the villains and himself pay forever indefinitely, it involved forgiveness. It involved accepting the love offered to you, because it should not be a prison, but freedom.  

But the other person was not so lucky.

Part Four: Choose | Correctly

Okay to just take care of this, Tearer thinks he’s thinks he’s in love with Amame, but what’s actually happening is he hasn’t like seen a human woman who isn’t his ‘mom’ for like two decades, and his maturity levels are out of wack cause of the human experimentation prison cell thing, so his hormones are just going crazy. I have nothing further to say about this aspect. It’s just sad, and a little gross, and it’s not interesting. We’re moving on.

Determinism and causality already haunt Amame before Tearer kills her father. Doi Amame is a girl split in two. Every decision presented to her, every choice she makes is logged deep within her heart and kept perfectly preserved in bubbles, and sometimes she takes them out and rotates them, let’s the light distort their colors into something new. What if she stayed with her father during the divorce? What if she worked a different job? Less hours? Part of her is always in the past, ruminating on what could have been if only she had done something different, maybe it would have been better. In that sense, she and Ryuki have a lot in common, and it’s also why Ryuki should have been the protagonist full time, but this is not that essay.

We will briefly have to talk about Komeji, the king of bad decisions. If there were ever a reason for Amame to be constantly thinking about the consequences of her actions, it would be looking at her dad and going “Jesus Christ.” He loves family dearly, but he consistently makes short-sighted decisions that sound great in the moment, but get him and the people he loves further in hot water. This is why he thought it was a great idea to blackmail the serial killer with the body he found and stole, cause he was wasted, and hey it’ll get him money which he can pay the loan sharks with and then his kids will be safe right?  WRONG. SO WRONG DUDE. Guy was a hot mess, and he pays for it with his life.

It because of that Amame and Tearer meet. Amame hides Furue Jin’s left half in the freezer in Brahman, and she shows up at Studio Dvaita just in time for Tearer to be finishing up arranging her father’s corpse, although she does not know it’s his at first. Their fates are now inexorably intertwined. “I met the person of my destiny.” Amame discovers her father in the body-bag.

While Tearer develops a bunch of fantasies about her over the course of six years, because what else is he going to fucking do I guess, Amame grieves and mourns. Her pile of capsuled choices only grows with every minute of every day, and she spends more time looking at them. Thinking about them. Wondering which choice was the correct one. Maybe she should have stayed with her father. Maybe she should have told the truth and worked less hours to come home early. Maybe she should have comforted him when Furue Jin’s body dropped on Face to Faith, because she knew he needed it. Could she have saved him then? Would he still be alive now? Yes, Komeji was a hot mess, but he was her dad! She loved him! And now he’s gone, forever.

Maybe she could have made peace with that, had her encounters with Tearer ended there. While it would never be fair, or right, knowledge that Komeji never made good choices, and that it was another bad choice that lead him to Tearer could be made peace with. With a lack of specifics about what Tearer was even trying to do before or after her father got involved with his plans, she could fill in the blanks herself, tell herself similar stories like the what ifs she conjures because there are no answers to her questions. But that is not what fate has in store for her.

Amame gets a phone call from Tearer. He wants to meet with her, because he is convinced, for reasons we will get to in a second, that she will understand him. And Amame, although she knows she hates him, knows she cannot forgive him for what he has done to her father, knows she is plagued by the decisions she has made that she can never undo, she does not call the police. She does not tell anyone. She accepts his offer, and she goes. She just wants to know what he has to say, right? She just wants answers. Only that. Then she’ll leave. Finally, an explanation for why her father was killed.

And she gets it!  And it’s the worst explanation she’s ever heard in her entire life! Simulation? Moksha? Nirvana Initiative? What the fuck is he talking about? Her dad died for this? She asks him if he remembers what happened on February 13th, 2020, the day her dad was murdered. She is trying to gauge if he remembers what he did to her father, if he even cares at all. And all he has to say is “That was the fateful day I met you.” Her father? He doesn’t matter. Komeji died because he needed a body to put at Misetan since Jin’s other half was never returned, and Tearer considers this entire thing a performance and a game. It wasn’t personal, like Horadori, or Furue Jin. It meant next to nothing to him. Her father died for no reason. He just moves on! He laughs! He’s blathers on maniacally about his plans to destroy all life on earth in the name of liberation or whatever, right in front of a woman whose dad he killed that he doesn’t remember or consider important!

He thinks she thinks this is super based, and that he’s like the smartest guy ever, and that he’s going to save the day, and that it’s an honor she is getting the chance to work with him, that she is considered intelligent and special enough to know about their ideals. Why does he think this? Is he delusional? Has he lost his mind? Well, yes, obviously, that happened like ages ago when they started stealing his organs and trapped him in the basement, but there’s another layer. Shigure Tokiko does not love him, but she only ever validated him when he supported her cult ideology, and his other relationships do not exist. She is his only frame of reference. He wishes to connect with Amame because he wishes to connect with another human being and be understood, and Amame was there, but he only knows how to do that through this shitty cult he is thoroughly indoctrinated in to the point he kills people and plans genocide for it, and with all that in mind, the result is inevitable.

It was bold of him to turn his back to her. She was never going to understand him. Enda Amame knocks him out with a wrench, drags him to the slicer, and kills him in the same way he killed her father. Another decision she can never take back. But she was not alone. Shigure saw her kill him, and now she is under her thrall. She has to move not just his body, but hers, or else her secret will get out. So she helps Shigure with her plan, to keep her secret, and lives the next couple of days quiet and somber, lost in her what ifs and her grief. She cannot bear this weight much longer. Not just her loss, or the weight of the secret she now keeps, but the ever-mounting regrets that began years ago.

“I did what was best for me! I don’t care if people attack me for it, I have no regrets! I have no regrets!” Amame cries at the end of Nightmare Irreconcilable, a Somnium that plays through each of her regrets, and the things she could have done instead. She wants so desperately to believe this, because while she can imagine going to see Komeji instead of Iris, or picking him in the divorce, she can’t picture not killing Tearer, even though her regrets all lead her to that point. Even though killing him did not bring her father back, but just took her away from her brother, and Gen, and her other best friends.

When Tearer calls Amame “the person of his destiny,” he is correct, but not for the reason he thinks he is. Before him, Amame’s life is full of people who love her, and of people who love her in return. Yes, her father is a mess, and the divorce was hard, but she’s okay. She has support, and she’s kind and self-sacrificing and a little eccentric, but that just makes her lovable. The choices she makes matter but they are not a fixation of hers. The world is open. She is free.

But that day in Dvaita, the world starts to close up. She is still loved, and she still loves people, and she’s still gentle and eccentric, but she’s starting to close off. Her dad’s decisions lead to the slicer. What does that mean for her? Was the world always so small? He’s gone, and there are no answers, just a hole that will never heal, no matter how much people love her, or how much she loves in return. The pathways for her get narrower and narrower and narrower, leading her directly to that dingy cell that seals her fate. And just like the man she killed that was trapped down there, she too is treated as another disposable tool by Shigure Tokiko, and is currently trapped in a cell, not unlike where he used to be.  

To talk about Tearer is to talk about Amame because to talk about Amame is to talk about Tearer. They are direct responses to one another. Tearer was damned into being so at age six. His ability to choose, to love, to decide were all taken from him when he was stolen from that orphanage. And this monstrous cruelty contaminates everything it touches. Tearer desperately tries to escape to a world where his trauma never happened because it is all that he is, and like him she fixates on imagined possibilities where things are better, because the pain of her loss is too much to bear.

The world was available to Amame, until it was infected by him, by what he had no choice but to become. He killed her father, and although the world was still available to her, she was still free, she could not see it. All she saw was the past she could not undo, the family she lost forever, and the man who was to blame. For that one moment, Amame threw out all the love the world still had to offer her because she hated him more, and immediately regretted it. It’s the cycle of cruelty, of abuse, of trauma.

Conclusion: Trauma | Symbolism

This is why Tearer fucking rules, more than anything else. He is the embodiment of trauma, the breathing symbol of thematic horror the cast is trying to overcome. That’s why half his body is literally fucking chitin, a visual representation of the wounds that do not heal. That’s why his personality is entirely formed by the horrific experiences he had at the hands of Horadori and Shigure, and why everything he does is motivated by that experience, down to his fucking name! He was literally trapped because when you’re traumatized it often feels like you cannot move from where you are. He clings to Shigure and her idealogy because she stands for nihilism. She promises all those that enter her grasp that this world is meaningless and the only real way to find happiness is by ending it all: a death wish. He never leaves the narrative, even after he’s killed, and killing him cannot defeat him, just perpetuates the cycle. Amame only comes out of that even more traumatized, more guilt-ridden and horrified, it adds to her trauma. Trauma is not something you kill. His plan to kill everyone is to make people destroy themselves from the inside out, by ruining their minds so they cannot interact with one another without inevitably causing pain.

The only way to stop him is through unity and attempting to mend bridges, by process the things that hurt you instead of bottling them up. Accept the love that people give you. Embrace the opportunities that the world still has to offer.

Bonus: Somezuki Uru

You must have one question left. How come in this entire essay, I never once called him by his real name? I even pretended for a second he lost it forever somehow. Well, that’s because…Tearer is an idea, isn’t he? He is entirely shaped by the horrors forced upon him. Like I just said, he is trauma. We don’t know anything about Somezuki Uru, other than he was orphan, a normal boy, and honestly based on knowledge of Sejima’s cursed dick and balls, his brilliance in technical achievement as Tearer is probably an indicator of something significant going on in his brain that just isn’t to the same degree as cancer or the oxytocin deficiency. My money is on autism (source: autistic). Everything else we get is shaped by the horrors, and I just talked about those at length. But if I still have you here…

It is 1996, and tucked into his bed at Aioen orphanage, Uru wonders what tomorrow may bring? Rain or sunshine? Outside the open window, the moon that hangs high in the half-clouded sky has no clear answers. The breeze smells wet. Maybe it’ll rain after all. Didn’t Mr. Chieda get that new game for the computer….? That might be fun to try. He yawns. The breeze smells dry again, but he’ll worry about it tomorrow. This great big world full of possibilities isn’t going anywhere.

I hope the world you live in right now is kind to you. Thank you for reading this.