#because lies clog up your ears with the weight of lead and they will kill u if you let them!!!!!

[statboyz]

i honestly think every "political theorist" trying to "educate" mfs on the internet should try to write 5 sentences abt mutual aid and if i don't like what they write i should get to stab them in the foot :)

[altcvnningham]

1, 3, 5, 15, 18 and 20 😳😳😳😳

thank you for the ask!!! (also superior url omg 👁👄👁🤲🏻)

also my answers here are suuuuper long, because i’m a rambling idiot who’s way too involved in my OC’s. so uhhhh sorry in advance,,,,,

1. what radio station(s) do you listen to?

Vana’s a Samurai stan. She wishes she wasn’t. But, y’know, Morro Rock it is. Once upon a time when she was an even angrier teen, though, she’d listen to shit just like Ritual FM.

(My music taste is all over the place, and though blues is technically my fav bc i love old music, i never listen to it in 2077. So I switch between Body Heat, the Dirge, Vexelstrom for like 2 songs, and ofc, Morro Rock. But of all stations, there’s at least one song that i HATE so I can never stick to one for a whole ride sknsksjsjs)

i think i got the names right?? Idk yall i dont have it in front of me ndndndndhjs

3. how did you feel about Johnny that first night in the apartment, and how does it differ from what you feel now after everything?

so i’m gonna cut a read-more here because i decided to just lore dump Vana x Johnny here so uhhhhhh rip also //SPOILERS//

Vana is an extremely, seriously private, guarded person. Before Johnny, Panam, Kerry- Jackie was the only person she’d ever truly let near her, to get to know her. So obviously waking up to someone else living inside her fucking head was one of the worst things that’s ever happened to her. Her past is also something she’s not particularly proud of, so Johnny getting to witness all that is traumatising. Getting Johnny out of her head was priority number one, even if digging the chip out would kill her.

But after getting fucked over by the VBs, and both of them thinking she was gonna die, Johnny takes her to that abandoned hotel in Pacifica- it’s the first time he’s given her even a sliver of kindness, and the first time she’s ever openly expressed her fears to him, even if he could already sense them before. Oaths and promises are something she holds to incredibly high importance, so obviously when Johnny gives her his dog-tags, ‘proof of my promise’, she never, ever lets them go, never takes them off. (she still doesn’t. they keep her grounded. holding them to calm herself has become a reflex, for whatever reason.)

Everything just seemed to slowly change after that. For two people who hate vulnerability, it’s the only thing that helped them actually see each other. As the Relic continues to take over, they both understand each other more, feel each other more- and eventually it becomes hard to discern where Vana ends and Johnny begins. In cliché Johnny x V fashion like yeah duh it goes further,,,, cockwhore!Vana,,,,,, but with that they also start to become extremely possessive and jealous over one another- Johnny immediately on the defensive about whoever comes close to her, Vana selfishly hiding and keeping Johnny’s existence to herself, even if it slows the hunt for a remedy to the chip- to the point of seriously toxic co-dependency. It’s full of volatile ups-and-downs, fights and make-ups, and Vana almost comes to like the fact that she never has to explain nor hide what thoughts and feelings pass through her mind, no matter how dark or vulnerable. She prefers most things to remain unsaid, but values the fact that they both have a clear, transparent understanding of each other regardless.

But there's also... softer moments. When Johnny puts aside his ego for once, he learns to like the quiet that Vana does, brief as it can be sometimes. He'll sort of just... stay around the room, even if just to procrastinate retreating back into her head, because they realise they like each other's silent, wordless company. He'll wake her up from nightmares, hold her neck and kiss her back to sleep, or until the sun comes up, if she can't. It's all tender things they often pretend doesn't even happen, out of pride, I think, but they both know deep down that those are really the best parts.

Comes to a place where she suddenly hits a wall, and realises, I don’t want him to leave.

She’s never the same again after Mikoshi.

(But uhh anyway fuck V I’m horny on main for Keanu so i was here for the whole riiiiiide yeeeeeee)

5. how do your loved ones (LI, found family, etc) feel about you being a merc? or if you’ve given up the life now that everything’s finished, what was their reaction?

Vana grew up in a rich corp family, and after all the shit she’s endured just to appease her father, don’t think anyone could hate corps more than she does (some details of her past here!!) So when Arasaka kicks her out and Jackie finally convinces her to start merc work, it’s amazing how quickly she slips into the role, almost like she was made for it- an anonymous face within the city, free to roam and drift as she wants, relying on herself and herself only.

Vana works quickly and quietly enough (though not at all with clean hands), relying on stealth and netrunning, so she doesn’t cause too much of a noise that’d have her loved ones (rare as they are) all too concerned. Judy isn’t scared Vana’d be caught in gunfire, because when Vana works, her targets rarely know she’s even there. She’s smart, cunning. Panam appreciates that these skills have helped her out, so she can’t complain. River- who is unfortunately more fond of Vana than she is of him, given that she’s not too comfortable at accepting affection- isn’t too happy about the life she leads, but hey, it’s her skills as a merc and as one of NC’s most adept netrunners that he even stood a chance of finding Randy as quick as he did, so he feels indebted to her for that. Kerry thinks it’s fuckin awesome that she gets to do as she wants and provides for herself, bestieeees

Given she isn’t all that close with many people- keeping her distance and all- the only people who seriously worry about her are folks like Vik, Misty, and Mama Welles, especially the latter two, who knew how much Jackie meant to her, and how easily she cracks under the weight of grief. The only thing, really, that concerns everybody around her, is how insatiable her bloodlust becomes, and how much she'd throw away just to try and quell it.

Johnny’s just in it for the ride. Rather she work for herself than a filthy corp, anyway.

After Mikoshi, losing Johnny, making it to the major leagues, she fuckin... just doesn't care anymore. She hates the big glass house that was practically forced onto her (reminds her too much of her stifling corp childhood), she hates that she has 20 cars that clog up her garage and not just her trusty red Yaiba Kusanagi, hates that folks keep giving her all this shiny golden shit that she doesn't want, like any of it's worth a damn. Since then she's hardly in one place- never at home if she can help it, and either wanders aimlessly around the streets and crashes over at Kerry's to sleep through grief. It isn't the merc life she wants to leave, but major leagues turned out to be a glittering pile of dogshit she wants no part in. She only really stays there because Jackie would've wanted it.

(i’m a lazy bitch like i don’t wanna be a merc. i wanna be one of those cute npc’s with the glowy earrings and bunny backpacks and skimpy plastic skirts, who picks up noodles on the way home to go watch watson whore. in my ideal life i am NOT the main character snnsmsnsks)

15. which NPC is your bff?

Kerry. Kerry is Vana’s ride or die. No fucking questions asked. Kerry’s the only person (besides Johnny, i guess) as close to her as Jackie was. He’s really the only person that ever gets her to smile, like really, stupidly, goofily smile, and despite being almost complete opposites, they just understand each other so well. Whenever they need something, they're the first person they'll call. Happens so often that just as Vana sifts through her contacts to find his, Kerry's already calling for her first. They're practically joint at the hip.

They both live loud, fast lives, but also know how to make time for silence and introspection, something they both need to stay grounded. Vana doesn't buy into his zen-wellness-yoga crap, but sure, she tries copying a couple moves while he's doing it on a lazy afternoon, before scoffing how this is fuckin' dumb and retreats back to the couch. Also, as much as she hates being reminded of the wealth that came with her corpo upbringing, she loves using up all his expensive products, and tends to klep a bottle of his shampoo when she runs out. Cute how she thinks he doesn't notice.

After what happened in Mikoshi, she practically lives at Kerry's place, just dozing away miserably as he lounges by the pool, or curl up on the couch to mindlessly watch his old Samurai tapes (he doesn't like it much, but if it helps her through whatever shit she's going through, he's not gonna take that away from her). On better days, when she actually pulls herself out of bed, he teaches her to play guitar, slipping in a couple tricks Johnny taught him. Funnily enough, the whole thing helps him find some closure too.

( me,, I need a girl like Panam in my life to endorse all of my stupid ideas )

18. what’s your dream cyberware (either something that was shown in lore that wasn’t available in game or mental creation of your own)?

I don’t have access to the tabletop lore stuff rn so i’m gonna pull this out my ass jsjsns

Anything that helps Vana become more deadly at stealth and netrunning. The most eddies she’s ever blown are on increasingly powerful cyberdecks, cooling systems, netrunning gear she can comfortably slip on under a jacket and boots- she likes convenience and functionality, but she needs it to be comfortable, too. She’d fucking kill for anything that lets her scale silently up walls and across ceilings, though- like a spider- and anything that lets her get her hands reeeeal bloody, but quietly. Guess that’s just called a knife, though.

(Me?? Fuck uhhh man i just want synth-skin that looks normal but also shimmers all pink n cute. Literally wanna be an edward cullen sparkly lookin mf. Also, i’m sorry but scanning shit w Kiroshi’s are so dope that’s literally all i want?? Idk i’m boring and mantis blades freak me out uhh)

20. is there anyone you’re crushing on that’s unavailable? (yes this is the “what romance option(s) are you foaming at the mouth for” question)

Answered here :)

(And i’ll say it again, PLACIIIIIIIDE,)

[emotional-support-salad]

soulmates

written for @tyrias-library‘s valentines day event.

afritan/moldark; moldark belongs to @commander-twig. somewhat of a continuation to this. 

.

Afritan leans against the center post of the porch, arms crossed over his chest, watching Moldark demonstrate his axe throwing to a haggle of Norn children. They flocked to him, eager and wide-eyed despite the early hour. 

In the naked light of a Hoelbrak morning, the broad-shouldered sylvari blends in seamlessly with the black pines dotting the mountainside. His movements are slow and controlled; his gaze honed in on the practice dummies lined up a few yards from where they are standing. The children cheer when the axe splits the crudely-painted bullseye in two with a loud hollow thud. Afritan smiles, but the corners of his mouth are aching. 

He shouldn’t be here.

According to Evert Forsberg, one of the lead archivists back at the Priory, the disease will eat away at his lungs and clog his windpipe with wet white flowers until he chokes on petals and blood and bile. Unless he confesses, and the feelings get returned. Asuran scientists first discovered the disease in two of their sylvari test subjects. Other races are immune, in as far anyone can be immune to love. Afritan remembers how gently the box-faced Norn told him this, how his warm hand dwarfed the span of his shoulder and clamped down carefully; a comforting touch. 

It’s masochism, plain and simple. To covet the company of the person who will unwittingly kill him, but the alternative seems somehow worse. It’s possible to have the flowers surgically removed, with as side-effect that the memories of his soulmate will also disappear. Afritan prefers to waste away. He presses a fist to his mouth as the first cough wracks his frame, and ducks into the cabin when it’s apparent the fit won’t stop. Another bullseye accompanies his abrupt departure, and he slams the door shut behind him in afterthought. 

His shoulders are shaking violently as he bends over double, hands on his knees. On the verge of collapse, he retches into the untouched silence of the living room. Wet, scrunched flower petals stick to his tongue, to the roof of his mouth; his throat scraped raw. 

Why isn’t Moldark’s friendship enough? 

The pressure stacks in his chest, and the breath gets snatched from his mouth when he vomits all over the black bear pelt spread out over the cedar floorboards. His vision swims with fresh tears when he witnesses the sight of the flowers strewn over the rug, like teeth on the ground after a back-alley fistfight. Afritan slides down helplessly, sobbing softly into the heel of his hand, legs akimbo. 

The door creaks open, and the onslaught of pale sunlight reveals the absolute mess he’s made of the rug. Moldark stands there like a statue, backlit and beautiful and entirely out of reach. Afritan’s chest aches, simultaneously full and hollow, hurt. 

“What’s going on? Are you--are you alright?” It’s the first time he’s heard a sense of urgency in Moldark’s toneless voice. 

He lifts his head, leans into the sound like a sunflower to the sun. A weak whimper leaves his abused throat when Moldark kneels down at his side and examines his tear-streaked face with hawkish eyes. It takes fistfuls of self-control not to burrow into the crook of Moldark’s neck and cry freely, because it isn’t fair how gently those powerful hands hold him, hands that have killed for the court, that have killed to serve and to protect and to save. Moldark frowns when he dissolves in another bout of tears, but doesn’t leave his side, doesn’t budge an inch.

After the worst of his tremors subsided, Afritan sucks in a deep breath and murmurs softly, “I’m s-sorry about y-your rug.”

“Nevermind that. Do you want to tell me what this is about? Do you.. do you need anything?” He withdraws his touch, and Afritan sniffles petulantly, rubs the snot from the furled bark of his nose.

His gaze flicks between his friend and the blood-stained bear pelt. About five months after he discovered that Moldark was his soulmate, he started hacking up entire flowers: white carnations. A whole sink of them in the Priory dorm’s lavatory. The symptoms were severe enough to diagnose him with third-stage Lover’s Rot, as it’s called in the common tongue. Considering the atrocious state of his lungs, it would be a miracle if Afritan made it to next winter. Moldark cocks his head and narrows his eyes at the lack of response, then slowly turns to look at the flowers. 

“Will you at least tell me who it is?” 

Afritan draws his knees to his chest and rests his chin atop of them; a gesture that makes him look young, small and terrified. A thorny coil of hair slides down his forehead in front of his right eye. 

The facade he painstakingly tried to maintain in Moldark’s company lies in ruins around him, and he can finally allow the pain to show on his features when he speaks.

“It’s you. It’s always been you, I’m so sorry, I. I just couldn’t--” here, the dam breaks. Afritan starts to ramble, his punctuation worsens, and he stutters every other word, voice cracking at the end of a sentence. “I didn’t want you to resent me, to pity me, to.. to treat me any differently, but I can’t help it, that I love you. Because, I do. I really really do.” 

Moldark settles down cross-legged and drops his big hands between his legs, elbows propped up on his thighs. Any other man would’ve come across defeated or weary in this position, but he merely seems self-contained and pensive. His lips are slightly sprung, as if he’s on the cusp of saying something, but he shuts his mouth again before a hush of breath could escape. It’s a lot to take in: the blood and the flowers and the sudden confession and the enormous weight of the knowledge that his feelings decide over life or death. Yet, his posture remains rimrod, his shoulders straight. 

“I’ve never, hhm.” He pauses, looks down at his hands. Back to Afritan. “I’ve never been in a relationship with someone. I don’t, I don’t think I know how to. There’s never been a time and place for it in my life…”

Afritan can hear the petals of a flower unfurling between his ears and despairs. It’s what he deserves, it’s what he deserves for holding onto that one thread of hope that somehow, someway he’d be worthy of Moldark’s love. 

“You’ve sought me out, cared for me. You didn’t--” a shake of the head. “I ran from the Grove and traveled to the other side of Tyria to be accepted as a person and not a former courtier, but you never needed prompting, didn’t need the distance to see me. Really see me.” 

The sunlight recedes to the modest entryway, slides over the gleaming iron-wrought coat rack next to the front door. Afritan hugs his legs tightly, watching the other attentively. Hope rears its ugly head, and he swallows back a bloody cough.

“I’d like to try... I’d like to learn how to--you’ll have to be patient with me but I think, I know, I want to learn how to. How to love you,” Moldark admits softly then, tilting his head as he turns his undivided attention to the other sylvari. His eyes are narrowed to slits, like a drowsy cat’s in the afternoon sun. 

It’s eerily quiet inside the cabin until Afritan slowly moves. The sound of his knees scraping over the floorboards underscores the fragility of the situation. He wraps his arms around Moldark’s neck, tucks his face away against the column of his throat, breathing in his scent and soaking up the comfort of his presence. They stay in this position for a while, not bothering to fill the space with more words. Eventually Afritan breaks away, wiping at his tired eyes and stands upright.

“I’ll clean up,” he offers with a watery smile. By then the smell of blood pervaded the air like a virus. 

Moldark cradles his chin in both hands, fondly staring up at the other. “And I’ll help you.”

.

[mrsunderhill678]

Me? Writing? Never

“My heart's grown frail, as if it's elastic and everyone's looking to pull it back and snap it.” - Gloria Gothenburg

“To my husband, I still love you so. I know I'm but a pale flicker of me, but would you still hold my scarred and tragic hand? Would you still gently kiss my pale and bruised skin? Would you still love me past this terrible gait; past the way my skin clings to my bones and my clothes hand to my skin? Would you still kiss these chapped lips? Would you still dig your fingers into the notches of this rotted spine? But most importantly of all, my love, would you still crave for the gasps in my breath as you press your lips against all of me? Would you still love these broken pieces of me? And to my lovely daughter, would you still call this skeleton your mother? Would you still call this tragic thing, this morbid vessel of pale flesh and bruised lips your hero? Would you still step on these tired feet as we dance under the kitchen lights? Would you still feel safe in these arms that cling to little more than bone? But most importantly of all, my daughter, would you still love these eyes that are lost and this mind that's gone mad? To my love, to my darling daughter, would you accept these apologies, would you forgive me for becoming all the things I'm not?”

“Some people get inta dis way'a thinkin' that if they're hurt, they're innately flawed and don't deserve love. But mate, mistakes make you 'uman, so fall, and trip, and bloody stumble until you feel alive. Bruises, scrapes, scars and all. Because it's da life well lived dat makes you bootiful. Da 'eart dat 'as been broken is da 'eart dat has been loved before. So break, crumble, become sumfin' new so long as it's you. Stay awake and count da stars as you lay your 'ead down on a soft green pillow, wrapped in a blanket'a night and shad'a. Walk on da tightrope and touch da sky wif da tips'a your fingers, blow a kiss to da wind and press your lips against your mistakes. Fall in love and dance with life, my friend. Because it is beautiful, and it is young, and it is bold. It is ugly, and it is old, and it is cowardly. Life, is everything dat evah could be, everythin' dat evah will be, so make of it wot ya will and dream of all da things you could be. Only ta open your eyes and realize they're all da things dat you are.” - Katerina LaSavannia

“I breathed the name of my savior in my hour of need; and it tasted like a forgotten sound on my tongue. Because all my prayers landed on deaf ears and everything around me came crashing down like great big splats of rain.” - Finch Mathers

“My son tells me I tried the best I could, I just gotta hold on. But ever since my dear Evangeline passed away it's felt like there's no real reason ta hold on. I'm at the edge of a cliffside and there she is at the bottom, smilin' that pretty smile'a hers', singin' that beautiful song'a hers's. And I get ta thinkin' it wouldn't be so bad, ta fall. Ta take one step toward my salvation on wings I never built and meet the one I love at the end'a my plummet. But I always pull back because I fear I would weep as I fall from the heavens, that my tears would become prayers floating in the air and they'd fall on sorrowed, listening ears of those who knew me.” - Finch Mathers

“I hold power over myself, I am my own messiah, my own martyr. It is myself I crucify, it is myself I drown under baptism.” - Felix Cuttle

“Gentle, sorrowed and true I withered away, peeling back and opening up like a dying black rose. And away from myself I soared, watching mournfully and tragically as I grew further and further away; until I was hardly anything at all.” - Felix Cuttle

“I, my friend, am but a vulture in the skies, beady eyes peering down at the weary as I wait for them to drop. And they do indeed. And as they do I swoop down with bloodthirsty talon and tongue, and I tear away at the memories like flesh until the living become the dead and the dead become the forgotten.” - Felix Cuttle

“Power is a double edged blade and it sinks into the hearts of he who is targeted and he who wields the sword.” - Felix Cuttle

“To defy destiny is to become nothing at all, my friend.” - Felix Cuttle

“I was raised in the town peace forgot, and as bastards and blood ran through the streets I came ta realize ya can't rely on higher powers for mortal matters.” - Crivler Wulv

“Thing is, I ain't a hero. I've watched men go down in sprays'a buckshot after I pulled the trigger, sunk inta puddles'a blood as I grasped at survival, drunken my life away and passed away a day or two at a time. But I'm tryin', damn it. I'm tryin. And that's more than most broke back, killin' bastards do nowadays.” - Crivler Wulv

“ The human race ain't built on cruelty, the rule'a man ain't blood for blood or violence for violence. We are built on the tremblin' back'a love, and she lifts us up despite the weight's our sins on her spine. Cause she loves, and she loves, and she loves, even when it hurts. Even when it kills. Cause that's what love is. Ya can't love just in the light, you gotta love the dark, too. Cause if it weren't for the shadows in the night sky, them stars would never shine.” - Crivler Wulv

“You know, they always describe Icarus' fall as something beautiful. They say he fell, laughing and grinning with glee as his skin burned with righteous fury. They romanticize the way his breath left his lungs as his broken body hit the water. They make poetry out of the way the water filled and clogged his veins, they make songs and melodies out of the way he sunk, and he sunk, and he sunk. And they say it was divine. But as I watched that man fall, it was ugly, it was crooked. He grasped at the clouds screaming, tears falling from his eyes as blood left his body. He hit the water like a stone; but he did not ripple across the surface. He sunk, and he sunk, and he sunk as a silent scream ripped through his throat; and all his prayers were filled with saltwater; and like wine passing through water, the color of his identity was altered.” - Kurt Shaydow

“We're just puppets to life, dancing and jerking through the crowd; contorted and ugly because of the way our pain breaks us into shape.” - Kurt Shaydow

“You know, I get to wonderin' where all the days of childhood went. All the green hills are dry, the gardens have withered and died, the forests are nuthin' but oak and brown leaves scattered across ash; and all that was beautiful has met it's death to time.” - Kurt Shaydow

“I was just a whiskey drinkin', cigarette lullaby, wonderin' when his better days would come. But when I had my daughter, when I heard her laugh for the first time, I found some odd redemption swimmin' in her eyes, and it was that young girl that set me free from this prison'a flesh I'd found myself in. And as I look ta Felicia, and see her eyes twinklin' with joy and some smile ya just can't kill, I know I rolled my die and got myself a pair'a sixes on the table.” - Chester Abe

“Felicia took broken pieces'a me and called em masterpieces, my daughters wrapped a cape 'round my shoulders and called this tired soul a hero.” - Chester Abe

“I was at rock bottom starin' at the sun from the darkest place on Earth, but as I made my climb and the warmth trickled inta my bones I wept; cause I knew I'd been saved. And my tears created little footprints in the soil, and with my tears'a joy and redemption I paved a path that I would walk for the rest'a my days; hero's cape flyin' in the wind, sun high in the sky as I make my way ta a thing I call life.” - Chester Abe

“I think, when it comes to pain we have two choices. We can store that pain deep inside a locked box we never explore, miles and miles of rusted chain coiled around the locket, in a place we'd never dare explore. Or we can let it build us as it flows through us. We can let the scars hurt; so long as we let them heal.” - Kaylie Scarrow

“It must be such a sad existence, to hate, and to hate, and to hate until you can love no more. The truth is always gonna find us, like light in the darkness and darkness in the light. It waits, like a wolf stalking the rabbit and the rabbit creeping up on the dandelion fluttering in the soft Summer breeze. The truth is a matter of perspective, to some, it's the darkness and the wolf, to others; it's the light and the curious rabbit. In the end, it's always going to find us, and whether it kills us or empowers us is entirely up, to us.” - Kaylie Scarrow

“I used to be a real angry man. Angry at the world, at the face in the mirror, at the way fate rumbles and thrives and kills. But as Spring danced her fingers against my skin little blossoms of color began to appear where all the bruises used ta hide. When she pressed her lips 'gainst mine for the first time I felt as if I was finally becomin' human after all these years of bein' no more than a vessel'a anger and hurt.” - Phil Scarrow

“The way I see it, we're all human, we got misbeliefs and lies in our hearts that drive us down the path too familiar, but it's the truth that sets us free. It's the road unpaved the leads us ta who we're meant ta be.” - Phil Scarrow

“With rifles, and blades, and pistols, humanity's digging it's own grave, shoveling gunpowder over an open casket.” - Ezekiel Sistek

“This world is still worth fighting for, so I pick up my pistol and I pull back the hammer, knowing this bullet is carved with the names of all the warlords who thought they could control the people before.” - Ezekiel Sistek

“You can't silence the voice of revolution.” - Ezekiel Sistek

“My mind's an echo chamber where my sadness tends to lie.” - Euclid Keterbaun

“Human cruelty has gone far beyond the bounds and limitations of man.” - Euclid Keterbaun

“We stare up into the eyes of the gods and the roots of heaven, looking on idly as the roots burn; watching carelessly as the eyes go bloodshot with anger and red rain falls like tears from the sky.” - Euclid Keterbaun

“Humanity has dug it's own grave and our shovel was the slow and steady discovery of who we are.” - Euclid Keterbaun

“I was just a man who wanted to change the world, oh the places I thought I would go, oh the things I thought I would change! But it wasn't fortune I built with these wicked hands. It wasn't any change worth having. There's emotion caked under my fingernails, emptiness slathered across my hands, and all around me the dust of human empathy twists and swirls; like the serpent who told me to sin.” - Euclid Keterbaun

“I put my armor on and strapped wax wings to my back; only to fall away from the sun, grasping at the fingers of the gods as I fell, laughing and howling because I knew this was it. This is how I die. And I did, I most certainly did, but I lived, I lived, and there's something so fucking painful about that.” - Euclid Keterbaun

“We pulled a mask over our faces, a skin tight mask, and we stitched it together with little gifts of empathy, with little threads of emotions we don't want to feel. And we wore a thousand faces, and we wore a thousand faces more, a dozen different smiles spread across our lives, a hundred different hearts beating in our broken little chests. And we run from who we are, bumping into five hundred different identities in the crowd because who we are was never worth being. So we fill a needle with ourselves and inject them through our necks and hope the bruise makes it easier to be somebody we're not. But we didn't alter a thing, we didn't create anything new, all we did was control our own sorrow.” - Euclid Keterbaun

“This war of change is unwinnable and I'm just clutching to the rifle that killed me.” - Estarla Vagabond

“Isparlia looks into my eyes and tells me I can change, she places a hand on my cheek and tells me this love is still alive; but I'm an unlovable wolf with red claws and teeth, knowing whosoever chooses to hold my heart will succumb to the innate darkness in me.” - Estarla Vagabond

“I'm not the kind of woman to be loved, I'm not the kind of woman to love. Isparlia reminds me of the days we chased each other through the woods as we tried to catch the butterflies in our stomachs with nets and jars; but I caught a roaring fire in my looking glass. She was beautiful, at first, looking at me with a longing desire, but her wings began to darken and her skin began to pale. Until all that was left in her once loving eyes was a burning hatred for the thing, the creature who made her the way she is. And still I pound my tiny fists against the glass, wondering when the cracks will begin to appear. But I'm just a butterfly who's wings were ragged and torn, who's transformation was not so beautiful.” - Estarla Vagabond

“My heart longs for Isparlia, it beats rapid in my chest and it tries to reach her with greedy claw tipped fingers; but I lock it back in my ribcage. I swallow the key. Because a love that hurts is no love worth having, and as I shuffle away from the crowd, eyes still locked on the one I love, I know my heart would kill her. Because this heart has teeth and it bites down on the hand that holds.” - Estarla Vagabond

“If you spend your days running from who you are you'll end up collapsing, tired, broken down, ready to throw the fight. But when you accept who you are, when you stop running from her, it's like all of a sudden everything falls into place and the curtains draw back to reveal a round of applause.” - Espekarla Killovitch

“We're all scared of change, because it hurts, it always does. But it's okay to hurt, it's okay to be broken down, so long as you rise up from that hurt somebody worth being. So long as you accept that heartbreak comes, but so does the healing. So does the acceptance after the change.” - Espekarla Killovitch

“I was just a princess running from her kingdom, tripping and stumbling through the witching hours of the night wondering why everything was so dark. But I found me at the end of the path standing strong and confident, tiara worn sturdy upon her head gown worn with an unkillable confidence. She was me, she was me, she was me, and as she pulled me into her embrace and I melted into the arms of who I was meant to be, it began to feel as if love is ever shifting, evolving to grow with those we love and those who love us in return.” - Espekarla Killovitch

“You see, people get themselves locked inside this little idea, this lie, rather. That they just ain't worth the trouble, that the strong survive and the weak die off one by one. But it ain't like that.” - Cody Scarrow

“Have you ever fought so hard for sumthin' you needed only ta find it were a mirage that faded away the moment you pressed the tips'a your fingers against it? Have you ever let hope settle down in your bones only for it ta stick a knife in your damn back? That's the thing about life, it's cruel ta the people who do good by it. But we love, we fight, we endure.” - Cody Scarrow

“We fought bloody knuckle and broken teeth, we ain't goin' this far only ta be cast back down. I am Cody fucking Scarrow, I don't back down from a fight and though I'm a lover, damn brother, you best fear this old dog's snarl.” - Cody Scarrow

“Tell me, oh powerful ones, can you hear our prayers, can you hear our screams? Tell me, when you see us at your gates, what protection will your throne offer? What safety will your crown give? When we're knocking on your door what advice will your fear whisper? What lies will your anger scream? When the oppressed rise up, tell me, what offer will your power give you? What mercy will life strip away?” - Cody Scarrow

“As I shuffled down the street, baggie of blessings and sins in my hoodie's pocket, I created a monster in me. It sits in the corners of my eyes and the edges of my smile, following me wherever I go. And it smells like cigarette smoke, feels like a broken bottle on my lip, looks like sugar on the edge of a credit card and "I'm sorries," spoken too late raining from the fucking sky.” - Estebad Vanem

“You know when there's a hole in your chest? When it feels like you've got nothing left? So you just shove whatever you can into that blackhole, thinking that'll satisfy you. But it never does. So you fill a needle up with your sorrow and inject it in your veins, or you fill a glass with your anger and try to swallow it down. But it burns and it burns and it burns until it riles up in your stomach and falls from off your tongue. I guess that's just life in all it's grand, fucked up irony.” - Estebad Vanem

“I tried everything I could to regain who I am. I kissed lips I didn't love and drank away nights I'll never remember. But I'm still this vessel of sorrow that murmurs and stumbles through the day, tossing and turning through the night. So let's throw a fucking party, right? Let's celebrate the scars and say thank you to the monster that swallowed me whole. That's what we preach, right? Thanking the pain and telling it that it helped you grow. So we romanticize the deaths of who we are and wonder why we feel so love blind and foolish; dancing with sirens who's tongues taste like blood in our mouths.” - Estebad Vanem

“Here's the thing about life, and love, and death, they're all bound to come. We can't avoid em, we can't run from em, cause they sit like memories on the wall that we just can't bare to scratch off. So we let em come, we accept that heartbreak comes, but so does love, so it's worth it in the end, ain't it?” - Ermello Vikaro

“You know, I still remember cutting away at long hair and rubbing all my makeup off as I stared in the mirror; wondering if I'd ever be me. Wondering if life was just another lie, and I was just a ghost haunting a poor girl's body with my sorrow. But all it took to bring me back to life was an accepting smile and a softly whispered, "It's okay, son, so am I." - Ermello Vikaro

“You know, as I look around me, I see all these accepting people. My basketball coach, my mother, all the nuns who wooped and cheered when I came back home limping, chest covered in bandages, and I come to realize that so much of who we are is dictated by the people we surround ourselves with. If we cover ourselves in fake smiles and people who don't got our best interests in mind, we're gonna be the ones used as a shield when the bullets rain down. But if we surround ourselves with people who love us, with people that we love, we might still end up the shield, but it'll be a choice of our own.” - Ermello Vikaro

“Everyone has something they cling onto, an old, threadbare stuffed bear, a locket with memories pressed into the metal. But I have power, and I hold onto it like a fine woman's heart.” - Epson Drogot

“You see, we all get a hand of cards when we're born, some people get jacks, other people get jokers and twos. But people like me were forgotten on the table and told to build an empire off of nothing. And so I worked, and I worked hard, and I broke my back for people who didn't care. Until I'd had enough. I found my power as I held life and death in my hands, all it would take was a little push. One little lie and all this pain would mean something. So I succumbed to the greatest show and let life slip so gently from my hands.” - Epson Drogot

“Welcome to the nightclub, my friend. Where the fools praise the sirens and the poor throw what little they have at silver tongues and misty eyed beauties. Dance, my friend, let the music contort your body and warp your soul as you close your eyes and lose yourself to the madness.” - Epson Drogot

“Life is a gamble, death is a chance, so dare you wager your life for extra years on the table? We're all going to die, it's simply a matter of when. So why not live a little wild, why not live a little free? Don't you want to feel alive, my friend? Take a chance on the pole and sway your sins back and forth until they feel like religion. Tap your feet against the blood slick floor and flaunt your misery until it feels like tranquility. Close your eyes and sing loud and clear about what hurts until it feels like a reason to celebrate. Because we're all damned here.” - Epson Drogot

“My heart whispers a single question forevermore, "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" But I shall be me nevermore.” - Envy Hellensfield

“I'm just a complex thread of emotions tumbling through chapped lips, knowing it isn't from my tongue I speak.” - Envy Hellensfield

“If this wicked science is to be the death of me, let it kill me. Let it well and truly kill me. Let me transcend past my existence and find peace in the end of life. Because there's no other way to give peace of mind to this heart that knows humanity all too well.” - Envy Hellensfield

“We can call this knowledge all we want, but we're hiding behind power's spine, ripping emotions from minds just to gift ourselves our dreams. But we're like the giving tree, giving away pieces of ourselves again and again to the boy who just keeps on coming back, shoving our emotions down his throat to create an antidote to all that he is. And when we stand naked, stripped and bare he'll come to learn that he will never rid himself of the vile curse of humanity. He'll always feel the stinging loss as our leaves fall at his tap dancing shoes, he'll always shed a tear as our bark is stripped away and we become no more than naked bones. And that's his curse. To live forever with the knowledge of what he's done.” - Envy Hellensfield

“I want to feel peace, and I have found that the only way to achieve my dream is to fall back into the black and let my soul roll gently back into death's open palm.” - Envy Hellensfield

“I've overstayed my welcome here, and this body is not my home.” - Envy Hellensfield

“My mother once told me that when your since of wonder is a little tired, and you find yourself broken down, to rely on the people who make you feel a little less lost. A little more valued. A little more like a person you wanna be.” - Emily Scarrow

“The darkness was the most comforting thing I'd ever known.” - Mark Mayweather

“I'm stuck sleeping in a stranger's skin, and all my words come out red; and truthfully, I don't think I've been me ever since I discovered secrets wriggling and writhing like worms in the dark.” - Mark Mayweather

“Everyone's got their dark side, right? Little things they think that they'd never do. Those little thoughts began to thread their way through my veins, carefully stitching themselves into my identity until they cut like spool through my fingers and pulled this merry little marionette through a stage of his own delusions.” - Mark Mayweather

“My mind's just another broken grenade that went off too soon.” - Mark Mayweather

“This darkness under my skin is all I have, why would I let it go when it's been so beautiful to me?” - Mark Mayweather

“My eyes roll back and I return to the place of my birth. The walls hold memories of pain like cigarette smoke, my cries and screams still bounce and echo off the ceiling. It seems the world looked at the monster it made with pity and shame until it learned to put down the dogs that bite.” - Mark Mayweather

“If I could pinpoint the exact moment I lost my mind, I fear I'd be staring at a full corkboard, polaroid's scattered across my desk, needles and pins everywhere a memory could go on the wall. - Mark Mayweather

“I sit at the stream, starin' inta the ripplin' eyes'a sorrow and betrayal, always askin' myself the same old question. "How could I've let this happen?" I were 'sposed ta be my brother's protector, but as I look inta his eyes all I can see are the mistakes I made and blood drippin' from a knife dug deep inta his memory. It's as if I shoved a blade inta my own back and called it salvation, givin' a feeble smile as I sputtered up black blood and promises.” - Bob Mayweather

“I ain't a good man, I ain't a good brother, cause I let him fall. I let his pain consume 'im when I could'a reached out a helpin' hand. But I was too damn busy with my own problems ta realize slowly but surely, he was fallin' off the edge; and my ignorance were the boot that struck down on his fingers.” - Bob Mayweather

“Ya know, life just seems ta be a single repeat'a the same mistake. I'm like old film, projected again and again, never changin', always flickerin'. And I just can't tell who I am. And so I take this old revolver from out it's holster and press a weary thumb 'gainst the hammer, knowin', as I aim it my way, that every bullet's got a name. And every one of em's my own.” - Bob Mayweather

“In times of pain, in times of sorrow, you have to be your own warrior, even if that means taking a step or two back so you can launch yourself forward.” - Daffy Estelle

“The mind is a liar, believing false truths fed to it through experiences that shape who we're not.” - Daffy Estelle

“Experience is not a reflection of who we are, but a steady scalpel, trimming and carving away at our shape until we look just like our pain, just like the things we've seen. But we can always build ourselves anew. We can always start again.” - Daffy Estelle

“I want to transcend past who I am, to find solace in the person I could be. But change is just another thing that brings about pain, and I don't have the courage to dive through these scars that make me a person I'm not.” - Emmi Grudges

“As the world began to fall, and I ran from my life, I knew I'd never be me again. I survived on bare bones and little scraps of who I'm not, until they became all that I am. And as I stumbled back to my father, bruised and bloodied on the inside, I stared at him with eyes I no longer recognized.” - Emmi Grudges

“I never dare fight this person I've become. She stands strong and confident because she drew first blood, and as I throw my feeble fists she just laughs; because she knows she won the battle.” - Emmi Grudges

“Some people are born monsters, some people want to be, but people like me were broken down like clay and sculpted into a horrible and ugly shape; baked, hardened and put on a shelf where forever we'll lie; with eyes that scream and tongues that bleed.” - Emmi Grudges

“My future found me in the eyes of my past.” - Emma Flockhart

“I was just another woman stumbling through life, wondering when her happily ever after would come. And truthfully, it didn't, because I'm still alive, I'm still here; and the ending's far from near.” - Emma Flockhart

 “I was just skin and bones until she gave me my heart back.” - Emma Flockhart

“In that town sat a wolf, dressed in blue, pellet teeth blasting through the air as he pumped that old shotgun of his and pulled the trigger. But I won't give him the power he wants. He's a man built off of lies that save him, so I have to wonder if my blade is the truth.” - Emma Flockhart

“Come one come all to the carnival of broken hearts. Here, we keep our eyes blind to reality and stitch thin lines of oddity through our lips to keep the truth silent. Do you want to be everything you've ever wanted to be? Do you want to become all you could be? Then this is the place for you, my friend. This carnival of rioting souls and hearts that don't know how to stay quiet.” - Elvin Jones

“Inside of my chest, a wonderland of horrors slowly started to fester, all that was red began to blacken, all that was kind began to die, and out from myself I rose; a beast gorging on the flesh of his greatest horrors.” - Elvin Jones

“I can't change. I won't change! I'm a serpent slithering through the veins of the weary, and I am no longer addicted to reality. I much prefer fantasy, my friend. So drink from the goblet and let insanity's red wine pour like death down your throat; staining your teeth like blood.” - Elvin Jones

“Oh rest in peace, Elvin Jones, rest in peace I say! There is nothing left of him, all but his devious little eyes and the twinkle in his smile that reeks of ill intentions hidden by dazzling fire lights and torch bugs twinkling with colors of festivity and madness. So I implore of you, weary friend, to shake the ring master's hand. And away I shall lead you to a Wonderland of beauties and horrors hidden by the rivers cold and deep, deep, dark. But what shall drown you first? Your expectations or your demons?” - Elvin Jones

“My heart spills like blood from my throat.” - Elmium Crueldow

“I've been waiting patiently in the shadows of who I am, but I fell from myself, clutching at pipe bombs and fucked up realties, knowing only one of us would make it out alive and it weren't me.” - Elmium Crueldow

“Trust is a knife and our blindness is the bones on which it sharpens it's steel.” - Elmium Crueldow

“I've been damned and forgotten by powerful people who get their fucking way, and when I die, ain't a soul gonna remember my name. Cause I'm just another unwell bastard traveling the halls of a cemetery, knowing each grave is marked with a name society forgot. You know what they do to people like us? They shove us in a cage and they call us hearts, locked away behind skeleton keys and a city of shadows.” - Elmium Crueldow

“Ain't no change gonna come, the sun rises on the same old people telling the same old lies, and the moon rises on the same old sinners, whispering the same old prayers. It's funny, huh, how he who proclaims himself saint is often a sinner, and he who claims himself a sinner's got a good heart in his chest? All be it marred by the shadows of other men. We lie to ourselves in an attempt to build who we are, but our tongues are scarred with all the truths we didn't speak, our history scarred by all the changes we never made.” - Elmium Crueldow

“I stand in a bad light, the only path ta follow the road unfamiliar, and as I walk, bones crunch 'neath my boots.” - Brayton Oakes

“Deep in the mountains I met a family'a devils, led by an iron fist and chains. And as the blood'a their kin were spilled, they came down on the heads'a justice, like red rain fallin' down on an angel's choir.” - Brayton Oakes

“It ain't never been heaven knockin' at my door, it were always grief, it were always greed, it were always my sins sittin' like shadows in my keys.” - Brayton Oakes

“How many times does God listen ta the same prayer before he answers? How many times does God forgive the man who don't change? And how many feathers does it take ta rebuild a pair'a broken wings?” - Brayton Oakes

“The only solace I got is Thomas. Sumthin' about 'im makes me want ta be better, but I hardly got the courage ta open up my heart. What a sin it'd be, ta stain his hands with blood as he holds my furious heart. How terrible it'd be, ta love a sinner and taste death and gunpowder on his lips. And so I let my heart sit in my ribs like a shadow that sticks and stays around. Cause ain't no one can love the sheep who grew claws, ain't no one gonna love the wolf who bleated sheep.” - Brayton Oakes

“As I stand in the dark, I begin ta fear the light would be blindin'.” - Brayton Oakes

“I was born in a coyote's maw, swinging back and forth like an outlaw from the gallows, and so I whispered, "If it kills me, so it kills me. Let me taste life, or give me death." And in a fur black coat and a burning cigar he came for me, and sank his yellow teeth into the life in me. And slowly, as if it had never been there at all, my humanity bled from me.” - Kylo Haverden

“Death has no age limit, he comes for the young, he comes for the old, and our souls roll back into his hands as he steadily threads us back into his robe. And it would seem one by one he's fixing his tatters. Stitch by soulful stitch.” - Kylo Haverden

“People look at the pup and laugh at his bare gums, and so they spare him, never thinking of the wolf he's meant to be.” - Kylo Haverden

“When given the chance, you should bow to this kingdom of wolves, because rebellion's a guarantee that you'll meet death in the eyes of Justice and his many snarling wolves. And wouldn't it be such a shame, to die when you could've lived? They say there's no greater glory than plummeting when you were supposed to be soaring, but does that apply to life and death?” - Kylo Haverden

“My father once told me the world would make me a weapon and tell me to find peace, and so with claws of steel and a voice of song, I seek to find the divergence between chaos and silence; knowing in the calm hum of the red river, peace can be found.” - Amira Von Sparrow

“I was just a fragile girl looking for her happily ever after, but this world turned my cowardice into bravery, my scars into strength, my sorrow into a reason to fight on. And so a wolf I became, of quiet midnight song and a hide laced with scars of yesterday that bleed into tomorrow.” - Amira Von Sparrow

“All I seek is peace, and when Cago says my name, it begins to feel as if it falls from off his tongue. In his smile, I begin to see another reason to fight. He's a fool, it's true, but he's a fighter, too. And when he speaks my name, he says it with a deep respect, as if he were a wolf turning his head to the moon and leading the pack to their howl. And in that chorus, our love is heard.” - Amira Von Sparrow

“In my head I face a war of emotions, knowing there's a monster in me that scratches at the corners of my eyes and the edge of my blade. And her name is survival. She tells me I'm starving, and so I must feast. She tells me I'm thirsty, so I must drink murder's red wine. She tells me it's kill or be killed, so I must pick up my blade once more. And it's her blood I bleed. That black wendigo's blood. But I am loyal to me, so with a blade in hand, I shall cut survival down and let who I was stain the white snow black until all that I was becomes a distant memory. Until who I am is peaceful. Until no longer am I a weapon.” - Amira Von Sparrow

“I was just another lonely woman drunk off the idea that she could forget if she just downed one more bottle, if she just smoked one more cigarette. I was dancing on drunken feet, stumbling town to town and bar to bar, until I met my fate, covered in gossamer, and silk, and all the things I'd come to love and cherish. But underneath that old table with flickering candles, and red wine, and strangers, sat a fuse, lit every so slowly by the lies we told. And as that man revealed the shades of our hearts one by one, I knew I'd never be the same. But Ickabod's brought about his own down fall, and from the names he's broken he'll be cast, clutching at all his lies as they float like un-answered prayers in the sky, fluttering ever away from him as he makes his final plummet.” - Demalla Peackock

“We all pick our poisons, they say, and Ickabod's chosen his. And it looks him in the eye every time he digs back into his memory. It coats his tongue every time he speaks our names.” - Demalla Peackock

“I look into the eyes of my father, and wonder where my hero went. Most people look at my father and call him just another cigarette smoke, whiskey filled bastard. But they never see the smile that used to creep onto his face when his daughters came home from school, they never saw the way he danced with his wife under pale lights, not knowing that his kids were on the top of the stairs finding peace in the fact that mom and dad were okay. I don't care what people say about him. I don't care if people think he's some bad man doing whatever benefits him most. He's my hero, and he always will be. Because past all that pain in his eyes, I can still see the black, scratched up leather shoes I'd step on when my father took me to the father daughter dance. I can still hear the way he cried when our first dog died. He's got a heart of gold... It's marred by hurt, is all. And he's blinded by the fog trouble brings along.” - Ellena Nixon

“The church bells ring for men like my father, the angels sound their trumpets, because redemption lives in the hearts of all men who have flaws.” - Ellena Nixon

“We can't let other people dictate who we bloody are. We can't let words sink deep inta our hearts where they quietly fester as lies that change the definition we tried to hard ta achieve.” - Elizabeth Lovell

“Danzell's a good man, full'a heart and joy for a world that demands he gives it his bloody all. And he does. And together as friends, we'll walk this path sturdy, payin' no mind ta the skeletons littered on the outskirts'a the dirt, but findin' beauty in the roses and knowin' even if one day, this road leads to death, that it was the one that was worth it in the end.” - Elizabeth Lovell

“You see, mankind have this funny little idea about redemption that it's only for he who's committed petty sins, not for he who's truly fallen away from himself. But redemption is freedom for all who seek it. Peace of mind is for all who truly want to grasp it. Dare not reignite the torch of Salem in search of retribution, dare not stir the falsely accused in their graves as you set about a witch hunt on the broken and cowering.” - Elijah Varkenmunn

“The mark of the foolish man is the same mistake twice, the mark of the brave man is the mistake made only once, and a new mistake made in the morning.” - Elijah Varkenmunn

“If we never erased the rough draft, we'd never have a novel, my friend.” - Elijah Varkenmunn

“It's almost strange, isn't it, how in search of change, we ourselves, change?” - Elijah Varkenmunn

“I cut away at strips of my human flesh, revealing the red fur underneath my humanity.” - Edward Shawcross

“I've always known there was a monster in me, teeth stained red, heart all but full. And so I wore my mask, my human mask, and I smiled with empty eyes. No one would've suspected the boy with a heart of gold to run deep into the forest with a bucket of paint and a brush, remnants of gold trailing behind him like blood, slathering his darkened heart in lies so come morning; everyone would believe that charming smile.” - Edward Shawcross

“It was in the presence of death that I felt the most alive.” - Edward Shawcross

“There's no greater pleasure, after all, then clipping an angel's wings and seeing how far he can fly.” - Edward Shawcross

“As I walk into the light, allow me to introduce myself. I fear you've already heard the story. I'm a reflection of every killer life ever coughed up, no different from Jack the Ripper or Countess Bathory. I'm a vessel through which murder can see, just as the Zodiac, just as Ted Bundy. And as you shake my hand, and a shiver runs like death down your spine, try your best to remember, I am not death. I've lived past it.” - Edward Shawcross

“Between my fingers, I hold strands of spool and thread, and carefully, I lace it through the spines of the poor, unfortunate and weary. And as I offer them a helping hand, know it is nothing more than another way to reach the strings on their back.” - Brian Ickabod

“There was once a time I knew a little decency, a little grace. I was but a boy looking for direction in a world that seemed so black and white. But I saw something that changed me. In the eyes of a criminal I saw a flickering fire, and it looked like the spark from a cigarette, like the gunpowder from a revolver. And as he ran into the night, telling me to stitch my mouth shut, I knew this world didn't operate off of mercy. It operated off of silence. Off of lies. And so I ran a thin line of fate through my lips, and I've been silent forevermore. In the grand scheme of things, life's just a game, and we're playing for extra years on the dot.” - Brian Ickabod

“I etch death onto paper with ink and quill, recording history as it happens.” - Brian Ickabod

“If you were to ask me my grandest sin, I'd tell you it's a rather simple one. It's not the lies I've told nor the secrets I've kept in the dark. Nor is it the blood on my hands or the way I pull the trigger and say a different man held the gun. It's that truthfully, I feel no remorse.” - Brian Ickabod

“I used to walk in a field of flowers and look for the weeds, suffocating everything good because I was convinced I didn't deserve it. All around me were people telling me I wasn't good enough, and there self doubt sat in my skull, feasting on my thoughts like a little monster that spoke from the tongue of my pain. But in the end, we all have our own monsters, it's our job to put them on a leash and learn to live alongside them. To tame them. Because often, the angel and devil on our shoulder is one in the same, only difference is one is the past, the other is the hopeful future.” - Adonna Silky

“As the sunlight hits my face and warmth trickles through my bones, I begin to understand what all those poets meant when they used the word beautiful.” - Adonna Silky

“I take a drag from this cigarette, watching the hallucinogenics drift with the smoke and curl into the rain. You know, I always said I was nobody's property, I always told myself I'd never kneel to someone who thought they had more worth than me. But as that man hit a fist against my cheek and let his hate envelop him, I began to feel as if to kneel was my only choice. He declared his power in booming voices and fists against the table, and I knew fighting back was a foolish choice. But as my son walked home, whiskey on his breath and anger in his eyes, I had an odd little feeling that death had visited my abode and marked it's name in broken bottles and shards of bone. Most people would damn my son, for killing that man. But after you've been under someone's shadow for so long, you don't mourn for them. You celebrate as you live past them. Because in some way, forgetting their name is the best revenge.” - Linnete Carlzburg

“I've been a sorrowed soul for most my days, cheeks dripping with liquor, breath dripping with smoke, but as I met a woman on the edge of chance and fell in love with the way her heart danced with mine, I began to feel as if I could finally be me. Manaya's a beautiful soul, and when her fingers intertwine with mine, I know home exists in her gentle kiss and the way I lose myself in all her curves and all her edges.” - Linnete Carlzburg

“I've been reading a grave with my name for decades, only to realize it was my sorrow's name after all.” - Linnete Carlzburg

“Once you're a dreamer, you're always a dreamer, no pain, no doubt, no end or beginning can change that.” - Lashonda Hoppers

“Hearts collide in the strangest of ways, but when two souls connect, there's nothing that can stop them from drifting closer.” - Lashonda Hoppers

“Don't give up who you are for people who never cared to understand you.” - Lashonda Hoppers

“You don't know true sorrow until you watch someone you love, someone you fucking looked up to fall from the heights of hubris and pain, not too unlike Icarus. She tells me again and again, "This is who I am, this is who I am, this is who I want to be," but I can see the cracks of pain behind her sinner's smile. I can see the tears in her eyes that begin to look like her own blood. She was my hero, but how can I possible look up to someone who kills and laughs all at once? How can I love someone like her? I want to hold on, I want to call her my sister, my family, but it begins to feel as if I'm just a fly caught in the spider's web, and it stares back at me with eyes I used to look up to, with a smile I used to love. I just don't think I'll ever understand why she fell the way she did, dragging a blade across the morning sky as she plummeted, turning the day into night and the light into shadows.” - Edin Falk

“I've become a whisper, where I once had been a defying shout against those who wanted to beat me down. But I'm just a whimpering dog now, looking to a wolf who used to be my guardian angel.” - Edin Falk

“I don't know who I'm supposed to be past all this betrayal, because there's a knife on my back and in my throat, and every time I speak my sister's name, it digs a little bit deeper.” - Edin Falk

“Every now and then I get to wondering who I am. And that is such a dangerous thing. It's as if there's a dead man in my heart, fingers curled around the trigger that killed him.” - Duke Benson

“All throughout me, a numbness begins to trickle. Like the cold in my bones, like a distant murder of crows on the stormy horizon. And I become this man of blank emotion, firing blanks out of his fucking chamber that feel all too much like himself.” - Duke Benson

“To a certain extant, I'm Duke Benson, but I lost myself on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and when the storm begins to brew I swear I can see that joyful man I used to be, falling like tears from the sky.” - Duke Benson

“I'm caught in an emotional dance, my memories sitting like tears in my eyes, gunpowder bleeding from my fucking chest. And as I twirl, fingers intertwined with the ghost of who I am, it becomes apparent that this mask I wear's a transparent, cracked little thing; and everyone can see the emotions I bloody hide. These guilty feet have no melody, no rhyme, no reason, they just tap against the battlefield of brittle bones I break.” - Duke Benson

“I step in a puddle of blood and fall deep into another man's veins, like a ghost lurking in his trigger.” - Duke Benson

“Being a Benson has always been such a sorrowed thing, for we're just the bloodline war followed like a hungry, loving dog. We've fed him full for generations, and his teeth are made of pieces of us.” - Duke Benson

“I've lived my life under a shadow, and she takes the shape of me. I could run my fingers over my shadow's skin and press my lips gentle against my shadow's scars, but she kisses her knuckles before they touch my cheek and as she runs her lips across my scars she bites down to the bone and leaves little nips and bruises where madness tends to fester. She has hungry eyes and a sharp tongue that feels like barbed wire in my mouth, and I am falling in love with the way I fall apart.” - Druvella Villenkaiser

“In the shadows of lust I met a devil, and he spoke in poetry that sounded of love. Of desire. Of peace. But he was just a wolf in man's clothing and where his lips trailed across my body, madness began to bruise.” - Druvella Villenkaiser

“I've made love to the worst parts of me and left the rest of me on an empty bed, wondering where her lover went.” - Druvella Villenkaiser

“It's not my blood I bleed, it's not my tears I cry. I'm just whiskey and liquor dripping from the corners of my eyes, knowing as I run my hands across the scars on my face that I'd hardly be me without this pain.” - Ruby Hallows

“These days I'm just a bullet in the West, a new name carved on me each day, stuck into another target by the time the sun sets in the West.” - Ruby Hallows

“I run my hands across damned names and cruelty in paper eyes, taking the sinner from off the boards and promising I'll watch him fall. I've pulled this trigger a thousand times and painted the sun set red with outlaw's blood more times than I can count. And that's the killing woman's curse. To watch another man go down, to dig another unmarked grave in the West.” - Ruby Hallows

“The West is home to many a sinner's bones. She swallows the sinner's and the saints alike in her maw of dirt and bone. She's the empty we greet upon the retribution of death and she's the pistol that brings a man to his knees. When I am to be laid down to rest, lay me down in a field of black roses and plant a white rose over my unmarked grave. So all who walk past my garden of Eden in the West may know despite all the darkness beating in my chest, my heart remained a pale white rose in a garden that had decayed so beautifully.” - Ruby Hallows

“I sit inside the belly of the beast with nuthin' more than a match ta guide my way ta it's downfall.” - Grettleburg Vila

“Don't make no sudden moves, don't make a sound, cause you gotta wait for that fuse ta be lit so your revolution can burst in colors'a shrapnel and heretics risin' up against the hangman's shadow.” - Grettleburg Vila

“I shall greet his funeral with a pale white rose and a heathen's knife washed in the blood'a the wolf in sheep's clothin'.” - Grettleburg Vila

“I've been a soldier all my life, and everywhere I went, corruption sat in the cracks. And it's the job'a men like me ta live in those little cracks'a corruption and push through their concrete like a determined little weed.” - Grettleburg Vila

“I stare at my reflection, and know that I fight another war'a self. I used ta run my hands through long hair and look inta mascara filled eyes and blushin' cheeks. But as I run these hands 'cross this old dog's reflection, my fingers begin ta run with blood.” - Myka Sandbright

“I can hear the silence comin', and damn, it hits me like a bullet and leaves me gaspin' for air.” - Myka Sandbright

“I hold my own name on the tip'a my tongue, my throat's become a prison for the words I speak, and small pieces'a me leave with my breath.” - Myka Sandbright

“My brother and I are just fadin' bullets fired from another man's chamber. We never choose our targets. We just burst through the air and land wherever we're fuckin' aimed.” - Myka Sandbright

“I've gone through a cycle'a broken reflections. I used ta hide from the mirror cause it din'it show me who I am, and then, I was able ta look at it once more as I slowly became me. But these days, I shift my eyes down, cause who would want ta look murder in the eye?” - Myka Sandbright

“It would be much crueler of me to live than it would be to die.” - Albus Kirk

“My father used to tell me I would build fortune for the weary, but all I've built was my own misfortune; everything else, I brought crashing down.” - Albus Kirk

“I'm just a husk of a man, transparent and ghostly as I drift through an afterlife too many claim reality.” - Albus Kirk

“For too long, the inside of my skull's been just another Pandora's box, wrapped in chains of thought, locked away by perception's key. But my memories begin to scratch at the inside of my skull, and it begins to feel as if there are many small monsters in me that go by the names of my emotions. Joy's beady eyes stare into me, Sorrow sharpens her teeth on the edge of my spine, Anger batters his knuckles against the inside of my chest. And as Greed comes on by, tap dancing shoes clicking against the red carpet, my emotions bow, whispering and passing around the name they've gifted my heart. And that is my battle, my devious, envious battle against me, myself and I.” - Albus Kirk

"I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, and that is my lie. My wicked lie that keeps me safe." - Graham Davidson

"I think I'm starting to surrender to the monster in me." - Stintley Hatchenvork

"Life ain't a fair game. You got cheaters and fools layin' cards on the table while the good hearted folk are left ta wonder why they're losin' the war. But it's simple, really. The only way ta get ahead is ta lie bout who you are and put a few cards up your sleeve." - Ferdinand Simmerfritz

"The monsters in this world don't hide under the bed, they don't sit in the corners of our closets with claws that look like knives; they shake our hands with human fingers and flash us a smile full of pearly white teeth." - Marv Arrowpierce

"Rage only lasts so long in the watchful eye of cruelty. It'll sputter and fade, and what you'll be left with is an emptiness; much like looking up at the empty midnight sky. And it'll kill you." - Bernard Whittle

"I know the way fate unravels; that is enough." - Bernard Whittle

"I don't think you understand the sheer magnitude of this grave you've dug." - Bernard Whittle

"You know how it is; you fall once and you just don't rise." - Derrick Vibeck

"Again and again, I crawl back to the life I said I wouldn't live in, because the past is the only place I feel warm. My sanctuary sits in a place I no longer reside, as if I walked a long and winding road only to turn back and not recognize the ghost town I came from." - Emory Hatchenvork

"In the silence you can begin ta hear little secrets appear, like willow wisps leadin' the way through the blindin' fog." - Alec Snow

"I feel like I would hardly recognize me in the crowd." - Eugene Arrowpierce

"That poor bastard's just a starving dog on a chain, scarfing up bits of his own tail and survivin' off'a pools'a his own blood." - Messiah Romez

"Life, and death, and everything in-between lives inside that man's heart." - Katter Goldnelius

"If my life is to end, I want it to end with no glory. I've chased it long enough." - Kai Gruval

"Only thing I fear is man. And you ain't that, son." - Kai Gruval

"After all, you wear a thousand different faces ta appease the public, who's ta know what of ya's real and what of ya's just spool and thread?" - Rory Sinvater

"You see that there? The way you grit your teeth and tighten your grip on your protection? I've made you angry, haven't I? You see. Power over someone's an easy thing ta gain, All you gotta do is give em a reason ta get mad, and I mean real mad, sweetheart. You've already controlled a part of em. Anger's just fear hidin' behind it's prayers, Miss Butchermay. I already got what I wanted. Tell me, who has more power? The man in cuffs who sends a shiver down the spine of the wolf, or the wolf who has ta put a sheep in chains?" - Rory Sinvater

"You like them horror movies righ? Well, the thing about real life, is, there ain't no music queue, there ain't no final girl, ain't no last hurrah. The heroes fight, the heroes die, the survivors go on, but they don't fuckin' live." - Clive Nixon

"Word'a advice? Don't never try ta be a hero. It saves others, but God damn, it kills you." - Clive Nixon

"Have you ever heard the tale of Jörmungandr? It was said, that he was able to bite down on the end of his own tail, and in turn; swallowed himself whole. He's not too unlike sanity. It wraps itself around your mind like a twisting Midgard serpent and bites down on it's own tail, consuming, and consuming, and consuming, until there is nothing left in the skull but the faint whispering ghost of what was, but never will be again. My friend, I am your Jörmungandr." - Rolf Lambs

That night we learned there ain't no God to judge the wolves of their own sin." - Sampson O'Connel

"He never faced the consequences, but we did." - Sampson O'Connel