#brutal. while still always being sympathetic

[asthevermincrawls]

black sails really changed the game of gay representation for me. i dont want safe clean sanitized gay rep i want my gay rep to bash people's heads in with cannon balls

[anniflamma]

Trigger warning: topic about SA, aka Im gonna rant about the suitors plan

----

So, I’m going to talk about something I actually dislike ALOT in Epic: The Musical. The whole subplot about the suitors wanting to gangrape Penelope. The more I think about it, the more I realize how unnecessary this addition to the story is.

If you removed it, it wouldn’t change the outcomes of the story at all. Odysseus would still kill them. Nothing has ever stopped him before— neither the infant, Polites’ ideology, nor the fact that he willingly led his remaining crew to certain death while always ensuring his own safety above theirs. But somehow, a group of 20-year-olds is the line he can’t cross????? Like, “Oh no, they’re just rude guests, I can’t kill them!🙁” It doesn’t make sense. Odysseus would kill them either way, they don’t need to be wannabe gangrapists to motivate him. It’s entirely in character for him to do so without additional justification.

I understand why Jorge added this to the story, is to raise the stakes. Odysseus has just defeated the personification of ruthlessness itself (Poseidon) by using a fucking jetpack and punching the god really hard. Symbolically, Odysseus has taken the title of “ruthlessness” for himself. So, what can the next threat be that’s stronger and more menacing than Poseidon? Ah yes.... it's the gangrapists /s

For me, it would be more thematically fitting with Odysseus’ ruthless nature to not have a justifiable "motivation" to kill the suitors. Imagine instead if they were portrayed as having the same youthful energy as Telemachus. Like a bunch of rude young men! And then the story could show an adult man brutally murdering a group of young people with no mercy. Then, the song ends with Odysseus seeing Penelope’s horrified face as she looks around the throne room splattered with the blood and gore of her guests. At that moment, Odysseus realizes he’s messed up, putting his biggest fear, which is Penelope rejecting him (something he expresses in Keep Your Friends Close) at risk of becoming a reality. And then, the musical end with Odysseus begging Penelope to accept him despite what he has become. Like what I said, the outcome will still end up in this moment despite with or no sexual violence. I mean, the suitors wanting to kill Telemachus is enough as a motivation. Ody don't really need that much.

I dunno , I think this would hit harder, rather than "Ahh you saved me from the rapist my husband! Thank you!~😍 " "All for you baby girl~~ 😘"

The gangrape plotline only exists to make Odysseus look good for the audience, making him into the good hero who saves the damsel with zero screentime, and reassures that the suitors are antagonists. But it does also puts Penelope in a position where she has to take Odysseus back, or else she risks being seen as “ungrateful” by the audience. I promise you, if Penelope were to reject Odysseus after he saved her from the suitors, most of the fanbase would despise her for it. Of course, that won’t happen, Penelope will accept Odysseus no matter what he does, cuz that is what her characterization is. She is Odysseus' happy ending, if she rejects him then the story wont have a happy ending.

The sexual violence just isn’t necessary. Especially when Jorge went out of his way to make the relationship between Odysseus and Calypso as vague as possible. There’s no explicit statement in the musical that Calypso assaulted Odysseus, and I’m Not Sorry For Loving You is even depicted in a sympathetic light. That was a deliberate choice. So, why remove and downplay the sexual assault from the original story with Calypso, only to add a sexual assault subplot towards Penelope that wasn’t in the original?

It’s unnecessary. Just let Odysseus commit cruel and ruthless deeds without a "good justification" or feeling bad about it afterward for once.

However, the last saga isnt out yet, so there is a possibility that Jorge have rewritten it. I do hope that he removes it, but at this moment, it looks like it will be in there. Welp, maybe he pulls the rug under my feet with a twist or some sort. We can only wait and see!

[writingwithcolor]

What Makes an Ethnic Villain "Ethnic" or "Villainous?" How Do You Offset it?

anonymous asked:

Hello WWC! I have a question about the antagonist of my story. She is (currently) Japanese, and I want to make sure I’m writing her in a way that doesn’t associates [sic] her being Asian with being villainous.  The story is set in modern day USA, this character is effectively immortal. She was a samurai who lost loved ones due to failure in combat, and this becomes her character[sic] motivation (portrayed sympathetically to the audience). This story explores many different time periods and how women have shown valor throughout history. The age of the samurai (and the real and legendary female warriors from it) have interested me the most, which is why I want her to be from this period.  The outfit she wears while fighting is based on samurai armor, and she wears modern and traditional Japanese fashion depending on the occasion. She acts pretty similar to modern day people, though more cynical and obsessed with her loss. She’s been able to adapt with the times but still highly values and cherishes her past.  She is the only Asian main character, but I plan to make a supportive Japanese side character. She’s a history teacher who knows about the villain and gives the protagonists information to help them, but isn’t involved in the main plot otherwise.  Are the way I’m writing this villain and the inclusion of a non-antagonist Japanese character enough to prevent a harmful reading of the story, or is there more I should do?

Why Does Your Villain Exist?

This makes me feel old because David Anders plays a villain with this kind of backstory in the series Heroes starring Masi Oka. 

I think you want to think about what you mean when you say: 

Villainous (In what way? To whom? To what end?)

Harmful (What tropes, narratives and implications are present?)

I’m relatively infamous in the mod circle for not caring too much about dimensions of “harm”. The concept is relative and varies widely between people and cultures. I don’t see much value in framing motivations around “What is less harmful?” I think for me, what matters more is: 

“What is more true?” 

“Are characteristics viewed as intrinsic to background, or the product of experiences and personal autonomy?”

“Will your portrayal resonate with a large audience?”

“What will resonate with the members of the audience who share the backgrounds your characters have?” 

This post offers additional questions you could ask yourself instead of “is this okay/not okay/harmful.” 

You could write a story where your antagonist is sly, sadistic, violent and cold-blooded. It may not be an interpretation that will make many Japanese from combat backgrounds feel seen or heard, but it’s not without precedent. These tropes have been weaponized against people of Japanese descent (Like Nikkei Japanese interned during World War II), but Japan also brutalized a good chunk of Asia during World War II. See Herge’s Tintin and The Blue Lotus for an example of a comic that accurately showcases the brutality of Japan’s colonization of Manchuria, but also is racist in terms of how Japanese characters are portrayed (CW: genocide, war, imperialism, racism).

You could also write a story where your character’s grief gives way to despair, and fuels their combat such that they are seen as calculating, frigid and deeply driven by revenge/ violence. This might make sense. It’s also been done to death for Japanese female warriors, though (See “Lady Snowblood” by Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura here, CW: sexual assault, violence, murder and a host of other dark things you’d expect in a revenge story). 

You could further write a story where your antagonist is not necessarily villainous, but the perceived harm comes from fetishizing/ exoticizing elements in how her appearance is presented or how she is sexualized, which is a common problem for Japanese female characters. 

My vote always goes to the most interesting story or character. I don’t see any benefit to writing from a defensive position. This is where I'll point out that, culturally, I can't picture a Japanese character viewing immortality as anything other than a curse. Many cultures in Japan are largely defined by transience and the understanding that many things naturally decay, die, and change form.

There are a lot of ways you could conceivably cause harm, but I’d rather hear about what the point of this character is given the dilemma of their position. 

What is her purpose for the plot? 

How is she designed to make the reader feel? 

What literary devices are relevant to her portrayal?

(Arbitrarily, you can always add more than 1 extra Japanese character. I think you might put less pressure on yourself with this character’s portrayal if you have more Japanese characters to practice with in general.) 

- Marika. 

When Off-Setting: Aim for Average

Seconding the above with regards to this villainess’s story and your motivations for this character, but regardless of her story I think it’s also important to look specifically at how the Japanese teacher character provides contrast. 

I agree with the choice to make her a regular person and not a superhero. Otherwise, your one Asian character is aggressively Asian-themed in a stereotypical Cool Japan way (particularly if her villain suit is samurai-themed & she wears wafu clothing every so often). Adding a chill person who happens to be Japanese and doesn’t have some kind of ninja or kitsune motif will be a breath of fresh air (well, more like a sigh of relief) for Japanese readers. 

A note on characterization—while our standard advice for “offset” characters is to give your offset character the opposite of the personality trait you’re trying to balance, in this case you might want to avoid opposites. You have a villainess who is a cold, tough “don’t need no man” type. Making the teacher mild-mannered, helpful, and accomodating would balance out the villainess’s traits, but you’ll end up swinging to the other side of the pendulum towards the Submissive Asian stereotype depending on execution. If avoiding stereotypes is a concern, I suggest picking something outside of that spectrum of gentleness to violence and making her really boring or really weird or really nerdy or a jock gym teacher or…something. You’re the author.

Similarly, while the villainess is very traditionally Japanese in her motifs and backstory, don’t make the teacher go aggressively in either direction—give her a nice balance of modern vs. traditional, Japanese vs. Western sensibilities as far as her looks, dress, interests, values, etc. Because at the end of the day, that’s most modern Japanese people. 

Sometimes, the most difficult representation of a character of color is making a character who is really average, typical, modern, and boring. 

- Rina

[inbarfink]

I mean, the thing is that fiction about aliens is almost always going to be about some sort of Other on some level. Whatever it’s about demonizing or fear-mongering about some sort of Outsider Group or trying to get the audience to sympathize with the Other via the metaphor of a lovable alien. 

And Invader Zim is kind of an interesting spot there because, like, it’s not just ‘Bad Outsider Out to Destroy Our Beloved In-Group’ or ‘Poor Sympathetic Outsider Being Put-Down by the In-Group’. First thing first because Zim is kinda both. He is both the Outsider secretly hiding inside the in-group plotting their destruction - but the narrative and framing also sympathizes with him and supports his view of the in-group (that humans are stupid and gross).

So he can’t really be A Scary Demonized Outsider when he gets so much narrative sympathy and support, but also… he is a murderous little world-conquering bastard and most of his suffering is generally just him gets exactly what he deserves so he can’t be your classic sort of Sympathetic Outsider either. 

And the other thing is that the in-group is not even really involved in Zim’s conflict. Zim’s biggest challenge in conquering the earth is Dib, another Outsider. Often, despite being a human and thus part of the literal in-group, Dib is an even bigger Outsider to humanity than Zim is.

Zim and Dib are both Outsiders, and Zim isn’t just an Outsider as an Alien on Earth - among his own people he is in the same situation as Dib is, an Outsider in his own in-group. (Not that he can ever admit to himself that is the case). So these two Weirdos are fighting to protect/further the goals of two in-groups that will never actually accept them. 

And so often their main weapon against each other and the primary danger and the source of their suffering for themselves is the same thing; the in-group conformity and enforcement of social norms. 

Dib’s main evidence that Zim is an Alien is, most of the time, just the fact that he looks and acts weird. But also he himself is constantly bullied for looking and acting weird.

And Zim’s most constant source of anxiety while undercover on Earth is the fact that he’s going to get caught being Too Weird and then not just fail his mission, but get brutally dissected and experimented on. But his best defense against being exposed is… basically just to point out just how much Dib also Diverges From the Norm.

It’s the story of two Weirdos trying to get the other punished for being weird in some way, while the Normies just kinda look on and laugh at them both. And the actual thing they want, recognition and acceptance from their in-group is the one thing they are doomed to never actually get. 

And honestly, I think that's actually what makes a lot of real-life Outsiders cling to IZ, especially while we’re teens. I think, in a way, the fact that it’s kind of a messy Outsider narrative makes it more relatable to the messy middle-school/high-school experience than something more neatly crafted to be uplifting to the Weird Kids.

I mean, I certainly see the obvious value in fiction that’s actually trying to create a positive narrative for queer teens or autistic kids or maybe just scene kids or any combination of the following. This sort of media is very good, and can be just as important to some folks.

But... also the truth is that when you’re an edgy teen wrecked with self-loathing for Weirdness you don’t even fully understand “There’s nothing wrong with me and all the people making me feel like they are Bad!” can be a hard message to really believe in. Sometimes it’s easier to start from “Maybe I am all the terrible things people say that I am but.. still deserve love and sympathy, I can still be the hero of the story”. 

And because, sadly, the problem of Weirdos attacking each other for being Weirdos using the same rhetoric that’s used to hurt them, just for the sake of approval and recognition from in-groups that are never going to treat either of them as nothing but a joke - is not a phenomenon exclusive to the Silly Alien Invader Nicktoon.

And Dib and Zim’s rivalry is a great basic framework to explore it both in analysis of the canon and in fanworks.

[paganminiskirt]

haii gooseberry number one fan here. whats yr thoughts on phylis ... i lov lov lov yr posts abt picking apart coyles character and lore hehe

“You're too delicate! You're too precious! You can't go!”

Well first of all, I love that she’s fat, in part because you can bet your ass that if she wasn’t, she’d be overeroticized and made the object of those shallow copy-pasted “awoooooooga step on me mommy” screeds that fandom regurgitates to avoid having to put coherent thought into female characters. Much like queerness and the role it plays in Coyle’s storyline, fat characters that are conceptualized to act as fonts of horror have traditionally reinforced fatphobic social norms. And because of the gory, grotesque conventions of horror as a genre, these cases are often distinctly more damaging and offensive than, say, a fatphobic character in a sitcom. (You can read more about this topic here and here.)

The voice acting carries all of her appearances, too. Her now infamous cocaine song is the first example to come to mind; that overwrought, wavering tone she adopts makes it sound like she’s always on the brink of breaking down entirely. The sustained anxiety created a harsh juxtaposition between her tone and the lewd lines share’s parroting (“fucking and fighting.”) The quote that I highlighted at the top of the post also shines. Gooseberry’s great vocal performance is cool not least of all because the last major fat antagonist in the series, Chris Walker, didn’t get a lot of lines. I’m midway through replaying the first Outlast, and I think the game treats Chris Walker with a lot more pathos and significance than many games treat fat characters of his kind, although that assessment falls apart once you get to The Murkoff Account.

Chris is the main villain of Outlast. He’s portrayed as brutal but also competent and deliberately ruthless, which implies that he’s capable of complex thought in spite of the dehumanization he endured as a variant. The contradiction there underscores the game’s main theme & the overarching tragedy and atrocity of Mount Massive. In the end, Chris is brutally murdered on screen, and you could argue that the imagery incorporated in his death scene - that of expanding and blowing up - has fatphobic undertones. But unlike Rick Traeger and Eddie Gluskin, who meet similarly grizzly fates, the audience surrogate Miles directly suggests that the viewer should sympathize with Chris after his death. Somehow, Chris emerges as the least monstrous of the three, no matter how much abuse was piled onto his body and mind, and no matter what crimes he committed under that duress. Overall, Outlast presents him as a relevant, memorable, and fully autonomous character. Not bad, for a game that came out while The Biggest Loser was still airing on NBC.

But the comics have a lot less time to develop Chris than the game did. In The Murkoff Account, his main purpose is to act as a human example of broader institutional cruelty, much like Billy Hope did in Outlast. That position naturally invites the audience to view Chris as victimized and, to an extent, sympathetic, but his only notable characteristic outside of that victimization is a childish inability to control his aggression or prevent himself from being bullied. Those two details seem to form a paradox, right? Chris is a former military police officer, he brags about knowing judo, he should be able to get his coworkers to shut up and stop making fun of him. But he lacks the drive, conviction and strength of will necessary to do that. He’s basically a big baby, characterization which is reinforced by the comics’ art style.

Compared to the thin characters, Chris isn’t allowed to act with nearly as much autonomy as he did in the game. What happens to him in the comics could happen to anyone, and the only distinctions relevant to him as a person are crass stereotypes revolving around his body. The cost of expanding on the game’s lore was that the main villain got whittled down to the latent antifat tropes which had always lingered just below the surface - Chris doesn’t get to be a mad doctor like Trager or an abhorrent admirer like Gluskin. Instead, he’s the stout strength trope, he’s the fat idiot trope, and he expands on the pig imagery. Not great times.

And Gooseberry was probably influenced by Chris. She’s fat, she’s strong, she’s associated with an animal, and to an extent, she’s infantile! Although I think that her characterization as hysterical and not fully in control of herself is less a manifestation of fatphobia, as it was with Chris, and more a direct allusion to antiquated perceptions of mentally ill women. “Goose” is itself old-world slang for a silly or witless person. If one thing has emerged from my thoughts on Coyle, it would be that the writers of Trials are a lot more conscientious of social perceptions and stereotyping than the writers of Outlast were. It’s natural for a series that’s been going on for this long to begin to develop redundancy, but Trials’ 1950s setting and new game mechanics help gloss over that. Phyllis’ asserted sexual relationships with in-game characters struck me as unnecessary, but fat women (like dark skin women) are often depicted as masculine and drained of eroticism, so. You win some, you lose some.

You can read Gooseberry as a sort of a combination between Chris and Eddie, with her body and maturity interconnected to present her as disturbingly naive and immature in contrast with the great violence she enacts. This is a concept also explored with Eddie Gluskin: his hand-wringing need to preserve his would-be victim’s “chastity” becomes bizarre and unsettling when pushed up against the graphic, vindictive misogyny. Similarly, one reason the chases with Chris are so unbearably scary is because the sound of his clinking chains gets louder and louder as he gains on you, but he also does this laborious breathing when he runs which emphasizes his weight. When Phyllis chases you, you hear Futterman’s drill and the sound of her mindless shrieking - it’s terrifying in a way that doesn’t incorporate her fatness into the fear factor. Love that. The same unfortunately can’t be said for her implied DID, a demonization which is unfortunately very common, very old and very damaging all at once. (You can read more about that here, and in tons of other places.)

Michel Foucault used a two-pronged framework to examine popular narratives about The Plague and pandemics in general. Within this framework, there is one “political” story model which is defined by a controlling environment and another “literary” dimension which is defined by a collectivized, frenzied environment. Perhaps because Outlast: Trials was developed amidst a pandemic, I think Foucault’s framework translates nicely to examining Trials’ narrative about the cold war and the red scare. Some common themes include mass hysteria, xenophobia, heightened interpersonal suspicion and a seemingly unprecedented increase in government control.

On the surface, Coyle would represent the “political” dimension of Trials’ horror, acting as an exaggerated, kinda ridiculous extension of the extreme social control that white supremacy & patriarchy enforce. Within this dichotomy, Gooseberry would represent the “literary” dimension of the game’s horror, acting as a chaotic dissolver of all social barriers rather than an enforcer of them and creating a frenzied, carnival-like effect within anyone who comes under her spell. The children who watched her old show and took to violence and drug consumption come to mind; regardless of background, parenting or culture, Phyllis changed them. She didn’t even have to see them in person. She did it over the TV.

Gooseberry [hosted] a children's variety show known as 'The Mother Gooseberry Hour” [produced by Futterland Studios] which started airing in 1951. Following Dr. Futterman's death, the cause of which is still unknown, she had a hysterical episode and began experiencing dissociation. The tone of the Mother Gooseberry Hour shifted accordingly. Throughout her tenure on the show, she used her television platform and mail-order "dental drops" business to get children addicted to narcotics, violence, theft, and possibly murder. Over the years, the children watching her show became cult-like, engaging in immoral behavior, drug use, and other shenanigans, leading to larceny and assault. In 1955, Futterland Studios was raided by the police, after which she was charged with racketeering, kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder. The raid left two police officers dead and five others injured, as she escaped into the tunnels beneath the set to attack them with drills. It is unclear exactly what was inside Futterland Studios, but police captain Stanley Hoad described the contents of the studios as "The most grotesque architectural perversion since H.H. Holmes’ Chicago Murder Castle.”

Trials is the first Outlast game to allow us to have character customization, and unlike the previous protagonists (who both get stand out from the other characters by being in some way Special within the setting,) the Reagents are intended to act as an endless supply of nameless, faceless grunts, the vast majority of which will die gruesome deaths during the guinea pig stage. In this game, we play as the people who would’ve been those nameless, faceless heads we see on the shelves in Outlast, or hanging from a tree branch in Outlast 2. The game’s customization elements are justified in-universe by the notion that they’re so addled that they can’t even establish a stable perception of their own features: an example of the collectivizing, depersonalizing nature of the literary dimension if I’ve ever seen one. As the popularity of the customizable character feature ebbs and flows, other franchises pull it out just out of laziness in the creative department. With that in mind, I’m really glad Trials did something cool and innovative with the concept instead of just dumping in RPG elements for no reason.

Phyllis’ multiple personas mimic the changeable qualities of the Reagents themselves, though they’re grounded in her stated backstory: there is the doll, the dead abuser, and there is her, the child-turned-woman reenacting that trauma seemingly without fully grasping what’s doing. We’re left with this character who’s genuineness we’re always unsure about, in hard contrast to Coyle’s blunt, undisguised self-servingness and complete lack of conscious guile or shame. The first time the player gets up close with Phyllis will be in the kill animation, where she nods at the puppet she thinks is her father before slaughtering you unceremoniously. Who can say for sure, if Phyllis is more malicious or misguided? Not us, not the other Reagents, not Murkoff, and least of all herself. I’m glad she was included.

[arguablysomaya]

please, elaborate on merlin bbc propaganda and stuff

okay basically:

bbc merlin is a show taking place during a genocide

camelot for 20 years has been genociding and ethnically cleansing everyone who can use magic, including magical creatures. They were all either exiled, fled, live in refugee camps or in hiding, and a great many were executed and slaughtered. Generally speaking, life is inhospitable in camelot for magic users.

And the show makes no attempt to hide this fact, either. We see multiple times over the death and destruction this genocide has wraught, and how radicalized most of the remaining magic population is because of it. For the past few decades, camelot has essentially been doing 2 things: persecuting magic users, and defending itself from vengeful/liberationist magic users

the king (uther) believes that magic users are (stop me if you've heard this one) corruptive, shifty, and evil. he's always paranoid that a magic user will take their revenge on him. and in a way, he's right: there are in fact a lot of magic users eager to kill him, but given the whole Great Purge and literally drowning children thing, you'd thing the show would be a bit more sympathetic to their plight. Nope.

in come merlin and gaius, our two main magic users. merlin is the protagonist, and gaius his benevolent mentor, so the audience is primed to be on their side. only one problem: from bascially the beginning of the series, these two are nothing more than agents for the very state carrying out the genocide. they devote their time to wholeheartedly defending camelot, especially from magic users, something they are rightfully called traitors for. they actively intervene to prolong the lives (and therefore regimes) of both arthur and uther, despite neither king showing any real interest in freeing their people. gauis represents the "diversity" of a genocidaire state; as someone uther only keeps around so long as he shuns any involvement with magic except what helps uther carry put his genocide, gaius hides and rejects every marginalized part of himself that threatens his access to power. even as a member of the oppressed class, he aids and abets the oppressors every step of the way. merlin, as an extremely powerful agic user in hiding, follows suit. the thing is, like so many other minority collaborators, this doesn't actually buy them safety, since they are Other, they still have to walk around on eggshells knowing one wrong move could get their heads chopped off. but this action of defending a regime that would kill you without a second's hesitation is presented as noble and heroic in the show, when in reality it's stupid at best and evil at worst. merlin and gaius might save a token kid from being brutally murdered, but they will never let anyone take action, let alone take action themselves, to proactively stop the brutality.

merlin is literally the most powerful sorcerer alive. if he wanted to, he could create a more fair, more just, better world in a blink. instead, he spends his time pretending to be a hapless servent, messing around with his war criminal friends, and killing any freedom fighter who dares to even look at the prince or king. why? well, he believes in the institutions (and a prophecy that never comes true... lol). ultimately, merlin and gauis hold the same prejudices and stereotypes about magic users that uther does: that they're untrustworthy, dangerous, and that it would be better for everyone if all but themselves (the good ones) just died or left.

and all the people they're defending the empire against... are other oppressed magic users. the VAST majority of antagonists are either magicians or magic sympathizers. even in the context of a genocide, the show takes the firm stance that the architects of genocide (the literal kings who order it to happen) are just flawed human beings who still don't deserve to be killed, while when the people they seek to wipe out fight back, our protagonists will happily mow them down. the show has no problem with killing people,and even killing innocents is only worthy of a fingerwag. it's fighting for liberation that the show makes the real problem. even when uther finally dies the show plays it like something sad, as if anyone is supposed to feel anything but joy that this old tyrant genocidaire finally kicked the bucket after having been saved a million times over from getting his comeuppance. Every magic user that has genuinely good reasons to want to tear down the kingdom are all painted with the "crazy evil person" brush.

another thing is that this show likes to get ~quirky~ with their agents of the state. along with arthur and merlin come a colorful cast of characters like the knights that you can laugh and cry with. the only problem is that despite how lovable these people are, they're still actively carrying out and enforcing a genocide. it's a bit like those tiktoks of IDF soldiers dancing or proposing. i can't feel for these people because despite seeming like relatable people, they're still engaging in something horrific. you can't escape the fact that these people can only exist in the relatively easy capacity that they do because the empire they work for is brutally repressing and eliminating entire cultures.

but the thing is, this strategy actually works. the fandom is often so taken in by fun character interactions and shipping moments that you can often witness people literally look past, or even praise their acts of genocide. these characters are so charming with each other that you can look past how awfully they treat oppressed people. yay! the prevalence of merthur brings up too many idf pinkwashing parallels it's actually insufferable. i had hoped we left oppressor/oppressed person ships behind in the 2010s but guess it's still around

by the time he takes over as king, the "great, kind" arthur is essentially an IDF soldier who only realized that Killing Is Bad Actually when he's got crosshairs on a random kid. now Reformed (TM), he takes the brave stance that he should only kill the angry bad magic users who try to exact their revenge for the whole genocide thing on him, and the peaceful (more often than not, harmless) magic users should accept the merciful counterplan of ethnically cleansing themselves from the region, or continuing to live in refugee camps, but this time with less threat of massacre. in this show, the only acceptable answer to being genocided is to either lay down and die, hide forever, or displace yourself hoping the empire doesn't come and kill you anyway. fighting back, getting revenge, defending oneself, trying to change things: these are all reserved only for the genocidal state.

in other words, bbc merlin is the exact type of genocide obfuscation that most modern genocides engage in. the suffering of oppressed peoples, even innocents, is a footnote. when they suffer, sometimes it's presented as sad, and other times it's presented as deserved. meanwhile, the suffering of the oppressors, no matter how justifyable, is always landmark and deserves our full attention and sympathies, because the thing about the oppressors is that it's always their story.

(the last thing is a common fantasy problem, which is that when you create stories where different classes have actual, material, biological distinctions, it can end up justifying the oppression. in the real world, there is a very limited range of innate human abilities, and people from across the world are largely evenly matched. but in merlin, a sorcerer actually does pose an increased threat to those around them. in terms of allegory... kinda not the best thing to so without any real refutation to the idea that magic corrupts)

so yeah. that's why i don't fuck with this show even though it's enjoyable to watch.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

i think Helaena can be autistic but also a happy and joyful girl , autism ≠ depression. the way the portrayed the only neurodivergent character on screen as unstable, shunned depressed, and with no importance to the plot feel very ableist and weird , but then they're the ones who made the guy with a foot disability a feet fetishist 🫠

Hi OP, finally answering this because the trailer dropped and still the only Helaena shots we have are from her Jaehaerys' funeral. There is also one still photo of her. If you haven't seen it, here she is, apparently sewing the funeral shroud for her little boy:

So it seems like season 2 is going to continue on this trajectory for Helaena as a character who exists in order to suffer beautifully.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad that the show is going to wring the full emotional effect from Blood and Cheese, not just shock value. The audience will feel the real horror of a six year old child brutally murdered in his own home and the psychological torment of Helaena. It should be terrible, it should be devastating, and I hope they do not pull any punches.

What's disappointing about how the show has handled Helaena is that they didn't really put any effort into building up her character before her tragedy. It's all well and good that she likes bugs and she's touch averse, but what are her opinions? Who is she closest to? How did she react to becoming a mother so young? To what extent does she understand her visions? What does she value? She can be happy and cheerful, or she can be frustrated and angry, and hell, she can be depressed too, but I need to know why. It's telling that I can describe the basic internal motivations for each of the male children, including Luke who was a glorified plot device, but I cannot for Helaena. Aegon wants to feel loved, Jace wants to prove he's as worthy as any trueborn heir, Aemond wants what his brother has, Luke wants to be free from his family's expectations. Helaena? Fuck if I know. I guess she wants not to die horribly.

The ableism is an issue. F&B is full of women who were deemed "simple" -- Gael, Daella, Jaehaera-- without being given much else to define them, and HotD adds another (there's something, I think, to the way the "simple" Targaryens are always women and how disability kind of used as a way to remove them from the narrative and shunt them aside, often tragically). And while it's great to see an autistic person represented on screen, the show consistently has an issue with treating representation as characterization. "Autistic girl who likes bugs" is not a personality. Autistic people, (even those with horrifying prophesies I assume), do have hopes and dreams and feelings about things. The one peek we get into Helaena's life is at the in episode 8 when she roasts Aegon and even that scene is open to interpretation (and gets taken wildly out of context). Now, I can read a lot into the actor performances, but ultimately, lines that could have given a glimpse Helaena personality were cut. It's as if they're afraid that if they give her an opinion on anything she would lose that (frankly kind of infantilizing) "pure cinnamon roll too good for this world" "i would die for her" sympathy from people who are not inclined to be sympathetic for her family as a whole.

(And anon, you're right about Larys. And let me say, turning Larys' clubfoot into the punchline of an OnlyFeet joke also does not inspire confidence that they'll handle Aegon II's eventual disability with any sensitivity either, especially when Mushroom's accounts of his last few months are incredibly mean spirited. We need to start that discourse now so they get the memo).

Sadly, I don't think the show really has any intention of course correcting with Helaena in season 2. I imagine at most we'll have her try to warn Aegon and/or Aemond about Blood & Cheese but they won't understand her warning, and then this will be a vehicle to further their guilt and grief. And while we do need to see Aegon's guilt and his grief, I also want to know if Helaena blames herself, if she wishes they'd run away when they had the chance, if she thinks Aegon could have done something, if she is angry at Aemond for killing Luke, if she wants revenge. I do think, with the public funeral for Jaehaerys, they are going to show that the smallfolk are fond of Helaena, and hopefully that will be expanded upon this season and in season 3 because her death is the catalyst for the revolt that sees Rhaenyra driven from the city, and we should understand why her death has such an impact before she actually dies.

[inagetawaycarxo]

Can you write a solo sikoa fluff/angst (if you write for him). Where roman threatens her and solo defends her plzzz.

The Protector ❪ Solo Sikoa ❫

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢꜱ: Solo Sikoa x F!Reader

ꜰᴇᴀᴛᴜʀɪɴɢ: Solo Sikoa, Roman Reigns, Y/n [Reader/You], Paul Heyman

ꜱʏɴᴏᴘꜱɪꜱ: The only time Solo defies Roman is when Roman threatens y/n his S/O.

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: Roman being an asshole as always, angst? fluff, kissing, threats, protective solo, first-time writing for solo, errors I missed.

AUTHORS NOTE: I DO NOT give consent/permission for my work to be copied and pasted on other platforms. However, I highly encourage feedback, likes, reblogs, and comments.

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 530

Tensions were high. Roman was on edge than usual. Even more demanding. You would even say he levelled up on being a self-centered asshole.

You never liked him. He always belittled you. When you tried to interview him, he would just scoff at you and walk off. Solo would shoot you a sympathetic look.

Sometimes Roman would just turn to Solo and tell him “Why are you even with her?” that hurt the most, what hurt more was how Solo didn’t say anything.

Solo tried to justify Roman’s actions, but you always told him he says and does those things because “he is a cunt,” which often leads to Solo giving you a taken-back look.

This time when Roman and you interacted, he was more brutal… He believed you were a threat, a distraction to Solo, and he needed Solo focused.

Roman gave you a malicious smile. Like always. Making your skin crawl. It was just him, you, and Paul. No Solo in sight.

“Let’s be real here, y/n, you are nothing. You think sleeping with Solo will get you to the top, and that might have worked in getting your college degree, but this is different. I will ruin you; I will hurt you in ways you can’t even imagine. Stay away from Solo, you are tying him down, you are distracting him from what’s important, end it before I end you,” Roman spoke. Smiling as he saw tears fall from your eyes.

Roman was about to say more venomous words but a voice spoke beside him.

“LEAVE HER ALONE, just because my brothers…your cousins betrayed you, doesn’t mean you have to take it out on my girl like that,” Solo spoke. This was the first time Solo ever defined Roman. And it shocked everyone.

Solo moved in front of you. Blocking you from Roman’s sights. Solo continued to stare down Roman.

Roman’s jaw ticked as Solo continued to stare him down. It was clear to him that he needed to do more work for Solo to drop you.

Roman plastered a tight lip smile on his lips. Though Solo saw right through it.

“Come on, Wiseman, Roman ordered. Roman flashed a fake smile before he left. Paul follows him. Solo still stared down Roman, though technically staring at his back. Roman was out of sight now.

Solo turned towards you. his hands cupping the side of your face ever so gently. The hard expression slipped away. Turning into a look of worry.

“I will always protect you,” He spoke. Making you smile slightly. His thumb caressed your cheeks ever so gently.

Solo closed the distance between him and you. His forehead pressed against yours. Your breathing hitched as the both of you kept eye contact.

Solo’s eyes closed as he pressed his lips against yours softly. Kissing you passionately.

Neither Solo nor you were aware of prying eyes. Those eyes were Roman and Paul. They were both hidden behind a wall. Head poking out to see the scene happening in front of them. Roman’s eyes narrowed, while Paul look disgusted. Roman felt anger course through his veins, you were a problem and he needed to get rid of you…

I highly encourage feedback, please leave a comment.

[melit0n]

Delicate is the Flesh - Chapter 1

- Synopsis: On the brink of the bustling new city of Rosholt lies a forgotten palisade of abandoned homes, shops and streets that sit mummified after a chemical outbreak in the 70s, leaving the city uninhabitable.

Over the years however, the place has become a hotspot for urban explorers and crime junkies alike.

Whispers of reanimated bodies stalking the dead streets and brutal murders worm their way into your friend's ears and, having nothing to do on your Winter break, you reluctantly agree to go exploring the abandoned city with them.

What could go wrong, right?

- Chapters ->

Prologue

Chapter 1: For whom the Bell tolls (you're already here!)

Chapter 2: Corvus and Krater

Chapter 3: Belly of the Beast

Chapter 4: Something Forgotten

Chapter 5: Citrus and Cinnamon

Chapter 6: Mumbling Conscious

Chapter 7: Heavy is The Head that Mourns The Past

Chapter 8: Be Not Afraid

Chapter 9: Eye for an Eye

- Status: Work In Progress.

- Obsessive! Demon OC/Reader

- Word Count (for chp): 11.7k

- Warnings (for chp): Nightmares, description of past truama.

- Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55444003/chapters/143071153#workskin

Glass crunches quietly underneath twisted and trembling hands. Digits that looked more like misshapen claws than human fingers. Fingers that shouldn’t be bent at that angle. Fingers that quiver with every hoarse breath you take. Fingers that you’ve been able to move your whole life, yet now they sit as still as the grave. No urge from your muscles brings any applicable movement. Just trembling. Trembling and shaking. A morbid thought crosses your bleary mind; what if they’re not even attached? Jolts of pain running up your bruised arm answers your mental question; the only thing telling you you’re not numb with death yet.

Everything hurts. 

Every breath feels more like a death rattle. Every twitch of every muscle pulled as taught as a halyard sends a shudder crawling up your bruised spine. Your entire being– every cell and every tissue and every twitching muscle– buzzes with anguish. 

You feel nothing and everything, and you wonder, with gore-soaked skin, if this is what touching divinity is like. Maybe this is what Icarus felt as he warmed his back with the sun while his father screamed his throat raw underneath the silver clouds. 

Deafening silence rings its death toll. A distant bell grows ever closer each time your struggling heart fails to keep its steady rhythm. Each ba-dum sends less and less crimson life to your brain, and you think, no, you know, that you are dying.

You’ve always liked the silence, but now? Now it unnerves you. Life itself rushes around you in a multicolour blur, yet there is nothing but a loud ringing. Nothing and everything.

Your warm back hits the ocean waters. You make no sound; no splash. The waters do not even ripple. 

Your buzzing synapses drive a pained whimper from your mouth. No sound arrives, just a hollow feeling of emptiness and the overwhelming twitch of pain in every cell in your body.

You have spent your whole life tired, and, through the feeling of nothing and everything, the idea weighs heavy on your eyelids, heavy as lead. It’s been a long night anyways. Who was going to blame you? 

With as little movement as possible, you rest your head, heavy with the ache of your neck and jaw, and look into the wide eyes of your friend. The beautiful, dark blue eyes of your friend who had drunk too much tonight. It surprised you that he hadn't fallen dead asleep on the drive home, but, now, he lies hunched. Quiet.

Ever so quiet.

You don’t think necks should be at that angle- you don’t think his neck should look like your fingers- you don’t think a jaw should be that wide open; unhinged in a scream that was never let out.

He’ll moan about how much his back hurts in the morning, you’re sure of it; rubbing his neck with his spindly fingers and smiling sympathetically at you. He’ll spend the whole day obnoxiously cracking all of his joints and complaining about how old he’s getting, saying that maybe he should stop drinking. And you’ll tell him you hope he does. 

But he never will.

And the world continues to turn. Except…except now there is blue. Bright blue flashes, and a large splodge of neon yellow. The neon ink bleeds into the rest of the messy watercolour. 

You want to turn to him, turn to him and hit his arm before he hits yours. Get another point in on the game you were playing. 

You feel the salt water anchor itself in the bottom of your lungs. Feel the burn of it in your throat. Everything burns.

Get him to change the damn expression on his face. Make his glossy, unblinking eyes close with laughter. Anything to stop him from staring at you.

But you can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You can’t. You-

You are pathetic. 

“...they’re still…have to move…get them up and…” Muffled words you can’t make out break the unnerving silence, but not the eye contact you hold with your friend; it’s the only thing keeping you awake. Keeping you from the warm arms of sleep. Keeping you from your drowsy lover’s arms- you can’t help but feel spiteful.

Someone says something about getting up, and your mind– every cell and tissue and every twitching muscle– screams at the thought. 

Get up.

Get up.

GET UP-

“-and out of my fucking apartment, asshole! You’re such a fucking-”

-Jolting awake at the sudden noise, you smash your head into the wood of your headboard.

“Ow…” You cradle your head, brain throbbing with the impact. Eyes wide, pupils dilated like a scared piece of prey, you turn shakily to your cracked and peeling ceiling. Dust and plaster flitter down, almost elegantly, like spring dandelion seeds. It's a pretty image, one your body, already tired of the dreary weather, takes a liking to.

The thick dust that swarms your lungs the moment you inhale, however, ruins the idea. A series of throaty coughs escape your chapped lips, lungs attempting to exhume the ancient grime.

While coughing up a lung, you place a hand to your heart, trying to calm the pumping muscle, forcing in air with heavy inhales and shaky exhales. Eventually, you manage to get the dust out of your already dry throat, and turn to lie on your back. Unblinkingly, you glare at the ceiling and listen to the ever-present shouting of the two people who most definitely shouldn’t live together. 

The couple in the apartment above you, if you could even call them that, seemed to love shouting matches more than they loved each other. Most of them ended within fifteen minutes or so, followed by a loud slam of a door and annoyed grumbles that, through the thinning walls, you were ninety percent sure was just a stream of slurs and derogatory terms. Each time their shouts and screams dragged you out of slumber, you prayed that the inevitable door slam would be the last one, but it never was. They always kept coming back for each other, no matter how many times they screamed their throat raw for the sake of it. You had never even seen either of them; they were the noisiest ghosts ever to haunt you. 

Slowly, you bring your arm out from underneath the blisteringly warm covers and find your face. Damp hands are met with tears slowly dripping down your flushed cheeks. Warm air swirls around in your lungs, mixed with grime and plaster. 

You exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

In…

…out.

Carefully, you eye your fingers: normal. Clenching and unclenching them, you feel the damaged muscles strain under the skin as a few of the bones click into place.

In…

…out. 

They’re human hands, not misshapen claws, you reassure yourself. A hand gently rises to tap the sticky skin on your forehead, bringing you back into reality.

In…

…and out. 

You’re all here. Good.

As you do so, you listen for the war's end upstairs. Listen for Odysseus to finish his verbal match with war-hungering Athena. And, just like clockwork, someone screams a foul-tasting name– screamed with vile hate and smouldering ash– and slams the front door shut above you.

Silence. Comforting, calm, silence. 

…

Your ears are still ringing. 

With a small grimace, you settle into bed after the rude awakening and attempt to relax again. 

Keyword: Attempt. You had gotten somewhat used to the second part of Troy playing out in the apartment above you, but it still woke you nonetheless. However, you considered the few hours of sleep you managed to get each night precious, and you preferred not to be interrupted by petty feuds. 

Sleep was a nymph you chased after each night, hoping she’d be willing to open her arms to you. You typically had two choices - either be permitted to lay in her embrace, sleeping like a corpse but then unable to rest properly for days, or to be cast away from her and made to lay in a too-warm bed until the sun rose. It’d been that way since you were young, and, despite your best efforts, it seemingly wasn’t something you were able to change. 

Eyes closing, you attempt to gain some semblance of peace again. 

Bzz bzz. 

…Nevermind.

One dazed, E/C eye cracks open, fuzzy pupils darting over to your phone. The bright light of your home screen, illuminated by some sort of notification, begs you to get out of bed. Get up and out and glimpse at what was happening, or what your friends were talking about.

Sighing dramatically, you begin to move your cramped muscles in an attempt to get up. You didn’t particularly want to move from your warm bed, mattress moulded to your body, but a nagging, annoying voice in the back of your head insisted on it. One that sounded eerily like your old maths teacher. You never really liked her; she felt more like a whiny drill instructor rather than a secondary-school teacher. 

While rolling around in your tangled sheets, managing to free one arm now groggily grabbing at air, you miserably realise that your half-assed attempts to escape the warm covers were failing. And you looked horrendously pathetic while doing so. Huffing loudly, sounding more like an exhausted labourer rather than a drowsy student, you let your head fall back onto the pillow. Can’t be too important anyways. Who’d even be up telling you something major this early in the morning? Your mind sparks tiredly with an odd feeling of déjà vu, but you ignore it in favour of closing your eyes again. However, something in the corner of your vision catches your eye. 

Light. Bright, warm light seeping in from the gap of your blinds. 

This early in the morning? In Winter? 

You squint and frown.

The yellow beams spread patterns across the thin blinds you’ve had ever since you can remember. Suddenly, the light grows brighter, a cloud most likely shifting away from the sun; aureate rays shine into your room, just above your head. The light chases away the few shadows in your room, sending them skulking under the gap of your door. Even so, they paw, like needy children, at the beams of light. They play across your scuffed floor, casting intricate patterns that seem to shift and change with each small movement you make in your bed.

You wish you could be that excitable this early in the morning.

Blearily, you turn your mummified body over to your trusty alarm, not bothering with your phone since you can’t will yourself out of bed and get it.

1:23 pm. Yeah, checks out, you nod to yourself, letting your head fall back onto the pillow. 

1:23 pm. 

1:23 pm- hold on a damn minute. 

Darting around in your bed again, you squint at the time. Still 1:23 pm. If your memory serves you correct, then that meant you had slept a little over ten hours. Quickly, you rub your eyes and blink once or twice, grimacing at the weird splotches of greens and reds that appear in your vision, before glaring into the bright white numbers of the alarm clock; 1:24 pm. 

“Huh…” you huff out, a small grin on your face. Seems you were permitted to enjoy the arms of your elusive lover. Even though she’d been more scarce as of recent, she seemed to find enjoyment in plaguing you with nightmares; lulling you into a false sense of security with the hum of distant conversations and the creaking of floorboards. Even so, you always kept coming back for her. Who wouldn’t?

Something crashes loudly upstairs, followed by a mumbled ‘fuck’. 

Despite it all, you smile to yourself widely: it’d been a while since you’d slept that well. That has to mean something- that has to mean something good. You giggle to yourself, lying back down in bed with your eyes crinkling at the sides.

Before you can get too comfortable, however, a phrase trudges through the trenches of your sleepy mind: ‘tomorrow as in today’. 

Huh. 

Wonder what that could mean- shit. 

You jolt upright in your cocoon; tomorrow as in today. 

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

With much more vigour and energy, you battle with your covers before you finally free yourself and grab your phone, speedily reading through any messages you’ve been sent, your mind reeling with half-formed memories of agreeing to something you’re now beginning to regret. 

The ones from the group chat mainly consisted of Jeanne and Noah going over the logistics of the exploration; times the police– fucking Hell that place is patrolled by the government– would be there, spots to go, easy ways in and out, things to bring, etc. However, all of them were from last night and stopped at around 4 am-ish. You groan loudly: with all that hyper-specific planning, not a single fucking time for anything had been mentioned. 

Scanning the messages again, you search for any sort of notion of a time to be there.

Even with the glee of knowing you had managed to get your well-deserved ten hours, you hadn’t expected to be awake this late. Even if ‘late’ was only half-past one, you couldn’t even remember if the place was an hour’s drive away, or five. Plus, considering your friends and especially Jeanne, you wouldn't be surprised if they were determined to arrive early. Bloody morning people and their bloody times- what if they were already halfway there and were expecting you? What if they decide to pick you up and are already waiting for you in the parking lot?? 

You almost always wake in the early hours of the morning, body’s natural clock tuned for the second the sun begins to rise. You can’t even remember a day from your childhood when you woke up later than seven, even on weekends. 

Unfortunately, however, this was most definitely the wrong time for your body to afford those extra hours. 

After a stressful five minutes of scrolling, scanning, reading and then re-reading messages, you finally find something. 

Jeanne: Yh, I think 4:30pm-ish will be good. Even if Len has day classes theyll finish before that and Y/N is always awake: @/Helen @/Y/N tagging u two so you don’t have to search in the morning (lmk if we should do later!!£

Tagging didn’t do jackshit, quite apparently. Even with your eyebrows twitching downwards with annoyance, your whole body relaxes as you let out a sigh of relief; you weren’t going to be late. Far from it. 

Now…you just had to figure out if any trains would be running to the city, or at least the non-abandoned one near it– Rosehalt or something– and how long that would take. Did the place even have a train stati- you pause your thought process. Why on Earth would trains still be running through a fully abandoned city? 

“Jeeze, I’m slow today.” You mumble to yourself.

Either way, train strikes were still unexpected and constant. Plus, you didn’t know how many stops it’d take before you’d actually get to the city. 

You’re about to check the train times and routes– or maybe you could take the bus?– when you notice a new-ish message from Helen.

Helen: I know you are going to get lost when reading through almost 100 plus messages from the group chat like I did, so I will summarise for you. 

You let out a sigh of relief; thank God for that. 

Helen: We decided to try to aim to get there for around 4:30pm, since that is when it starts getting dark, if not 5pm. 

She reaffirmed what you already got from Jeanne…now you just have to pray that the train ride wouldn’t be too expensive.

Helen: We also plan to all go in the same car; it’ll be easier since we can cut down on gas (do not worry about paying, I have got it) and we won’t have issues with anybody being late. We are going in mine since Noah still doesn’t have his licence and I don’t trust Jeanne’s. Plus, I know you are still not well with driving, especially long distances, so I don’t want to put you through any extra stress. 

‘I know you are still not well with driving…so I don’t want to put you through any extra stress.’

You frown.

‘I know you are still not well with driving.’

‘I know you are still not well.’

‘Not well.’

…

Not well. 

A pang of…something, something like annoyance and scorn, thumps in your chest. However, you keep reading.

Helen: Further, do not worry about bringing anything; Jeanne and Noah have everything sorted.

With a small sneer on your face, you begin to type out a reply before spotting the final message sent.

Helen: I will pick you up at 3pm-ish? Reply when you can. 

Yet again, you make a quick turn to your alarm; 1:37 pm. One hour and twenty-three minutes. 

You: Are you sure? I can drive just fine on my |

You pause, back tracking on your message.

You: Are you sure? I can drive, or take the train/bus, It’s no stress

Almost immediately, Helen pops online. You watch with subtle amusement as she types out her answer speedily.

Helen: As I said, it has already been decided. I am picking up Noah in fifteen or so because he lives further out, then Jeanne, then you. Do not worry about it Y/N !

You begin to type out a rebuke, but, unknowingly; she interrupts your response.

Helen: I have full belief that you would be able to drive yourself, it is just a long way. Plus, it will be nice to have a road trip, no :)?

Your head turns to glance out your window. Well, the blind covering your window. Through the thin window panes, you can hear the subtle buzz of traffic from the road below.

Eventually, you nod to yourself and look upwards at your cracked ceiling. As you squint at what you believe to be a new fracture, a spindly one that almost looks like boney fingers, you yet again nod to yourself, and finally type out your reply.

Your car probably didn’t have gas anyways. 

After hitting send, with much effort, you bring yourself up from your bed. You crack your back loudly and loosen your joints with a pleased sigh. It was something Noah always complained about you doing, constantly twisting over the back of chairs and cracking your knuckles when there was no fight to be had. Like a helicopter parent, he nagged you, saying how one day you’d end up going too far, and piercing a lung or something. You just laughed it off, but sometimes the thought lingered in the back of your mind, leaving you wondering. Wondering what it would feel like; a lung cracked like an egg or a heart bleeding out inside its ivory cage. 

You wondered if…no. Shaking off the thought, flapping your arms around your head as if a swarm of buzzing flies surrounded you, you meander through your dark halls– still cool with the Winter wind– blinds not yet lifted, and make your way to your bathroom. After living here for over four years, you know every hall like the back of your hand. You could walk down each hall in absolute darkness, blind as a bat, and still be able to find each room. 

The sink turns on with a squeak, cold water flooding out. Gently, you take some in cupped hands and splash it onto your face, washing away the sweat and grime of the night. Feeling the itch of your dry throat, you decide to take a sip of some as well. While drying the water off, you contemplate the day, or, rather, evening, that awaits you; an entire abandoned city, albeit a small one likely shrunk by the hands of time. Shells of tens, if not hundreds, of abandoned shops, offices and homes to explore. Despite the regret that had begun to creep in this morning, excitement and anticipation was beginning to flood back into you; your whole body filled with an almost drunken buzz. 

Glancing at the shower, you shrug and turn on the hot-water, old pipes again creaking loudly as water gushes through them. You pull off your warm sleep clothes and step in, happy to get the sticky sheen of sweat off your body. You scrub soap suds off from your body, relishing in the feeling of being clean once again, and reach for the shampoo. 

From the back of your sleep-deprived memory, you half remember a section from the article. Something about ghosts…quite admittedly, you’ve always had an interest in ghosts and such, even if some stories you heard sounded so stupidly unbelievable that they put you off the idea for months. With believing in ghosts, demons etc., you were always fifty-fifty on the topic. There were occasions where the idea seemed very real and convincing. Both the subtle things that made your heart thump with something primal in the back of your head telling you something is there- and the more scientific reasoning on EMF waves, memory loops and attachments. 

Other times, mainly when you watched clickbait content on Youtube or when Jeanne and you sat down for a shitty horror movie for some entertainment, you found yourself bored and unenthusiastic. Although, you always got a good laugh at the…theatrical expressions of the content creators. 

Having finally washed out all the shampoo, you reach for the conditioner. As you squeeze the thick liquid into your palm, the bottle makes a pathetic wheezing sound; empty. You’ll have to buy some more soon.

However, when it came to the supernatural, specifically ghosts, you’d have to also ask the question of where does someone go when they die? Is it being judged by an omnipotent being and sent to an eternal paradise in the clouds, or down to suffering and damnation in fiery pits? Is it a soul, sparkling with old stardust, passing through thousands of different bodies over millions of lifetimes, or is every human to ever exist a reincarnation of one person? Is there some sort of in-between that souls rest in if they choose to?

It was a question you could never decide an answer to, so, you never really gave one when asked. 

Turning off the water, you step into the now steamy bathroom and reach for your towel; drying yourself off thoroughly. You breeze through your morning routine, cleaning your face off again and drying your hair. Time tended to blur like an unfinished watercolour whenever you were in the shower, especially since you had decided to have a contemplation session, so you were wary of how much time you had left.

You glance downwards at the damp tiles of the floor and frown to yourself; you’d forgotten to bring clothes in. Grumbling, you make your way back to the bedroom, unconsciously avoiding the windows despite the blinds still being drawn, and shrug on an outfit.

It was an unspoken rule that, when going exploring, the lot of you were to wear baggy black clothes. Or dark-coloured clothes in the least. It wouldn’t show off whatever figure you had, so, on the high chance you’d be running like a bat out of Hell away from the police, they hopefully wouldn’t be able to tell your gender. 

In the end, after struggling significantly with your pants leg, you ended up in dark cargos, a worn but trusty t-shirt and a plain zip-up hoodie over it, along with a pair of odd socks that you couldn’t care to find the pair for. Like usual, you planned on using a pair of aged hiking boots that always seemed to have a small rock in the insole. You’re pretty sure you’d snagged them off of Jeanne a year or two ago, the outsole on your old boots came off midway through climbing up a steep hill– littered with brambles which you still have the odd scar from– and Jeanne had simply given you her spares…of which you never gave back. 

It was one of her tendencies to give items of clothing, and occasionally jewellery, to her friends and just never ask for it back. She always seemed so happy to see you, Noah or even Helen– on the odd chance she accepted them– in them and you never truly understood why. None of your friends could count on two hands the amount of jumpers, hoodies and oddly high number of socks you all had from her.

Noah, ever the analysis of the human mind, always said it was linked to some sort of attachment issue. She gave up parts of herself to see them on you and, if you two were ever to part ways, she’d still be there, in a sense. You’d end up looking at what has become your favourite shirt and realise it was hers. Is hers. Even if she were gone, you would still think of her. Fondly, hopefully. 

She always did seem to have an obsession with being remembered. In all the years you’ve known her, right from childhood when you could barely understand her accent, you could never figure out why. Even in the years where she’d changed, becoming the excited extravert she is now, you still couldn’t fully understand her. You were best friends, through and through, but sometimes you felt as if you conversed with an elaborate mask rather than a person. It was almost like she was pretending to be a step behind while being two steps ahead, always having some unseen motive that would get her where, who, and what she wanted. 

She was smart, she just pretended not to be; putting on a facade of dumb childishness. Smart about what, exactly, you didn’t know, and didn’t think you’d ever know. 

In the end, however, no matter how many times you try to give her stuff back, she would make some excuse for you to keep it. A thunderstorm that never came around, a hiking trip that never came to fruition always stopped you from giving what was not yours back. It was like some unapparent friendship bracelet that always had some abstruse stain or the symbol of some obscure band she was determined to make you like on it. 

Speaking of, despite her usual music taste, she was currently determined to get you all to like ‘mid-western emo’ music. It’s all you’ve been hearing in her car for the past two months and you couldn’t decide whether the line ‘She hopes I'm cursed forever to sleep on a twin-sized mattress’ made you want to burst a blood vessel or scream it along with her. 

After struggling pitiably with your aforementioned pair of odd socks, one of them fitting uncomfortably on that stupid seam that made you want to claw your eyes out, you got up off your squeaky floor and checked the time; 2:26pm. Long ass shower, apparently. 

Peering at your phone, you spot that Helen had replied with a simple thumbs-up emoji in true dad fashion. Smiling to yourself, you yet again crack your back and sigh satisfactorily at the loud creaks of your bones, sounding more like willow branches clacking in the wind rather than bubbles of air in your joints.

Blind by blind, you open the thin curtains and let the odd amount of afternoon winter sunlight glimmer through the windows and grace your apartment. It had been frosting over the past couple of weeks, everyone hoping for snow that never seemed to come, so you were surprised to feel the warm light on your cheeks after spending so long bundled up and shivering at every gust of wind. 

It was nice, to say the least. A break from dreary, cold, mostly wet Winter. 

As you reach your small kitchen, the one thing Helen, ever her mother’s daughter, seemed to despise about your apartment, you open the shutters and briefly glimpse out of the window to the bustling city below. Your apartment wasn’t the highest, 16th out of 40 odd floors, but you still got a damn good view. Cars raced back and forth on the roads next to your apartment block. Far below, a family gets out of their mud splattered car and makes their way to the front entrance of your building. The sun was high in the sky and seemed more golden than usual; framed with gilded clouds reaching for the bright blue above. 

Your stomach growling loudly interrupts your people-watching. Giving in easily, you pop a slice of bread into the toaster and reach over to one of your cupboards, finding your favourite cereal. As you wait for bread to become toast, you grab a small bowl– a ceramic, Bathypelagic one from your mother– and fill it. Turning over to the fridge, you take another quick glance out of the window.

Your friends had picked a damn good day for this little expedition. 

Blindly, you paw for the milk while squinting out the window– which definitely needs to be cleaned at some point– and watch for any rain clouds. You find none.

As you pour milk into your bowl, your toast pops up with a ding that makes you jump slightly. Your toaster was old as Jericho, stained and chipped in places that made it look like it’d been through a war, so it never really toasted to the extent you wanted it to. You could leave it for ten minutes and you’d still end up with it being too soft to even be considered toast. Other days you’d leave it in for five minutes and find yourself with ash to eat. Frowning to yourself, you put your almost-toast on for another round, grab an odd-looking spoon out from your cutlery drawer, and begin to eat. 

With the golden sun against your face, slowly beginning its early Winter descent, you only hope that the weather stays clear, and doesn’t leave you wandering the city absolutely drenched. Speaking of, you’re surprised you’d never heard of the city, both the abandoned and occupied one, especially since Jeanne– or was it Noah?– claimed it was only an hour and a half’s drive away. 

Your own city was no landmark, but it wasn’t small either. Surely you would’ve heard something from someone about an entire abandoned city, albeit a small one. It sounded like a set for a cult classic 90s horror film about Demons or some shit.

Your bread, hopefully now toast, pings up again; finally done. Though, having been a bit too zealous, it was slightly overcooked. Seems today was one of the days it wanted to play two up with you.

Shrugging and placing down your now empty bowl of cereal, you grab your cutting board, littered with gashes in the wood, and a plate before picking up the toast. At least, attempting to. The moment your fingers touch it you flinch away with a deplorable whine as the burn from the stupidly hot toast hisses on your skin like an angry snake. You move your hand back and forth, contemplating how to approach it without scalding your fingers on the toast or the metal of the toaster. Eventually, you stop acting like a wimp and make a quick grab for it, tossing it haphazardly onto the cutting board and waving your hand around in the air as if it was set ablaze.

“Fucking Hell…” Grumbling with annoyance, half at your toast and half at the sensitivity of your skin, you put on your desired spread, scraping the bottom of the jar. Another thing that had almost run out; another thing you’ll have to buy more of. Your tendency to only go shopping after almost everything in your house was depleted was beginning to become a bit of an issue.

Sighing, you grab a cup of cold water and, quickly, head over to your living room. Before you do, however, you make a quick turn around the corner and squint at the time on your small oven; 2:37pm. Plenty of time.

Smiling to yourself, you sit down on your couch, carefully placing your glass of water on the table in front of you and your plate in your lap– you knew you would never get all the crumbs out of the cracks but it was so much more comfortable– and turn on your TV. It buzzes to life with a bit of static. It was an older thing, and worked half off of you pretending not to care when it was taking forever to work and half off of your neighbour’s…cable job. If you could even call it that. It wasn’t horrendous by any means, still kept the thing running after all. You’re just half sure by the jungle of cables back there that he managed to hook you up to the city’s main grid or something. Either way, it worked. That was all that mattered.

As you begin one of your current shows, a video game made series Noah had recommended to you about zombies, an abrasive fourteen-year-old and a very done-with-it-all middle aged guy, you begin to feel the familiar buzz of adrenaline pump into your bloodstream yet again. 

You feel every second. Count every minute in your head. Thirty minutes had never gone slower in your life, and that was saying something. Every five minutes, you checked your phone for any new messages from, well, anyone. However, for once in their life, Noah and Jeanne had decided to be silent; no raving excitement about what was to come, no spam tagging you in messages, no nothing. 

After all the time you’d spent with the three of them, it was almost odd to have a silent apartment not filled with the constant ding of notifications.

But, eventually, your phone lit up with the message of ‘Here.’ at four past three, unusually late for Helen. Paired with the message comes three soft knocks at your door. 

“Coming!” You call out, as you rush to grab your phone off the table, skidding back and forth between your hallways and your bedroom wondering if you needed anything. A rain coat maybe?

Three more knocks, louder this time, echo throughout the thin walls and you repeat your previous statement with a little more irritability. Feeling slightly pressured, you shake your head and jog over to your door, twisting around corners as fast as you could.

Swiftly, you tie on your scuffed shoes, fiddling around with the worm-like laces in an attempt to tie a tight knot, before sighing loudly.

I’ll just tie them properly in the car. 

You make a quick nab for your apartment keys, haphazardly hung up on a nail hammered into your wall– which may or may not have been an elongated bolt– and slip them off the hook. Fiddling with the doorknob, cold and slippery from too much use, you finally manage to open it, letting the bright hallway’s light filter in. 

You begin an apology “I’m so-”, only to be met with…air. Confused, you look up and down the well-lit hallway, old carpet stained from the thousands of shoes that have trekked on it, only to find no one. No one but you, standing awkwardly in your door with half tied shoelaces. 

You’re about to call out again when you hear the comically eerie giggle of kids, paired with the soft pitter patter of feet that have not yet learned how to be quiet. You huff, a tired frown taking over your face that makes you feel and probably look like a tired parent, and kick the door closed behind you. The half-broken locking mechanism clicks, before another, quieter click– one that reminds you to triple check your door– sounds out. You’d asked for the thing to be fixed about a month ago, but nothing had been done; you’d just gotten into the habit of double checking the lock.

“Very funny, lads.” In response, another spurt of barely contained laughter echoes up from down the staircase at the right end of the hall. One of your neighbours, a woman not much older than you who lived further down the hall, had two kids who had recently discovered the art of ding, dong, ditch-ing someone. They were little copper-haired menaces who managed to get away with everything. 

After properly locking your door behind you, double-checking by pulling on the handle a couple of times, you make your way down the hall to the stairs still echoing with innocent laughter. Their mum was a good woman despite not being someone you knew personally, only in somewhat aimless chatter in the halls; she tended to over-share with you in what you guessed was hopes of gaining more conversation with you. In a way, you could understand her. The apartment block was mainly filled with older people and the odd nuclear family who kept to themselves, minus the few students like you, so, there wasn’t much community support to be had. You had had a small dinner with her recently though; she made a brilliant stir fry that you had attempted to meet with some Carbonara.

Either way, aside from Helen, she had the largest heart one could hold. Quite simply, she was a good person and deserved good things. You were still fifty-fifty on whether those two kids counted as one of those ‘good things’. 

Passing down all the floors of your apartment, already dreading the walk back up, you yet again hear the giggles of the two children and look up just in time to spot their curly ginger hair disappear behind the railing. 

Lightly, you shake your head and smile to yourself. As annoying as those two were, of which was most likely to worsen as they got older, they kept your mood up. At least when you weren’t in a hurry. Skipping down the last few steps, you nod to the secretary, too busy with his phone to notice you and walk out the front doors, making sure they lock shut behind you. 

As you turn around, you’re immediately met with the distant sight of your friends, the three, of which, who seemed to have been guiding your fate for the past nine years. 

The moment Jeanne spots you, she shouts and waves you over, a faraway “there you are!” floating towards you on the wind. Despite the sun, it was still cold out, especially with the harsh breezes that hit your face and body like a freight train. Even with your thick hoodie, now zipped up, the icy Northern winds still bite and claw at your skin through the fabric, a cold that chills you to the core. 

You definitely should have checked the temperature before you went outside…and maybe picked up that raincoat.

The moment you’re within range, Jeanne hug-tackles you and somehow doesn’t make you eat concrete while doing so. She stuffs her head in between the crook of your neck, smiling against your goose-bump-ridden skin. Hugging her back, you smile with her as she grips onto your sides, almost like she’s afraid you’ll disappear the moment she lets go.

The weak but musky scent of weed greets your nose, a smell you’ll never miss from her, along with something akin to sandalwood and cigarette smoke. A smell you frown at. 

“What took you so fuckin’ long?” Moving back from you, she holds you by the shoulders and gives you a large grin with teeth a little bit too yellow for her age. Deep blue eyes partially obscured by her shabby haircut stare joyfully into your own with a spark you hadn’t seen in them for a while.

“Nice to see you too Jeanne.” Even though you had only seen the blonde– hair recently cut into what you could only describe as a wolfcut– a day or two ago, she acted like it had been a century since she had last glanced at your form. 

She snickers, slinging a well-built arm around your shoulder as you spy on your two other friends. 

Helen gives you a pearly grin as she leans on her car, a surprisingly clean, black Ford Fiesta. Her olive skin and wavy chestnut hair manages to glint in the morning sun, deprived of her usual rays of sunlight yet still managing to look as if she danced with the early morning star Himself only an hour or so ago. You nod back at her with a smile before Noah comes up for your usual handshake– pale skin, almost on the verge of sickly, lands in contrast to your own S/C. 

You begin to make a series of intricate gestures and fists, ones Jeanne laughs to herself at, taking her arm off you and moving to the car. A loud cheer escapes both you and Noah as, somewhat seamlessly, you complete it. It was a mess of weird hand manoeuvres that had been removed, replaced and changed for the past nine years, but it was yours. Afterall, Theseus’ ship was still Theseus’ ship.

“Still got it.” Noah smirks, juniper eyes with a thousand thoughts behind them crinkling in the process. 

“Acting as if we haven’t done it in twenty years.” You reply with a laugh. 

He smiles again at you, a little too wide with a little too many teeth, a habit he’s always had. A muffled thump reaches your ears and, looking over your shoulder, you see Jeanne lightly punching the car's roof, not so subtly trying to bring attention to herself. 

“Alright raccoon eyes, ya’ ready?” Frowning at the childish poke at your eyebags, you bring a hand, digits shaking a bit with the movement, to the almost permanent bags under your eyes.

“Would’ve slept better if you weren’t texting me in the middle of the night-”

“-says the person who almost never sleeps-” A usual quick-fire, defensive reply. 

“-But yes. I’m good to go.” Jeanne never really grew out of being a teenager when it came to her insults and responses. Nor did she ever lose that mischievous glint in her eyes that you saw in the two copper-haired kids. So, you mock her with a condescending tone; slowing your words and looking ready to repeat the sentence as if she wouldn’t get it the first time. It was something you’d both grown into over the years, arguing and insulting each other like an old married couple.

Jeanne smiles deviously, fluttering her lashes like ashes and embers, and you prepare yourself for an oddly creative insult, before Helen cuts in; “Okay you two. Jeanne, you were the one who wanted to get there early. As much as I would like to listen to you two insult each other, we have somewhere to be, no?” Raising a well shaped, expectant eyebrow, she shifts her gaze, questioningly, between the two of you like a mildly tired mother. “Good.” She smiles and Jeanne, shaking her head, gets in the car without too much resistance. Noah gets into the front seat, an unspoken rule of him having shotgun, and straps himself in.

Before you get in the back, Helen gives you a knowing glance. She raises her eyebrows in a concerned gesture, opens her perfectly pink lips to let her honeyed voice flow out in worry, but before she can you shake your head and send her a somewhat tight smile, a light tinge of annoyance lifting your lip up slightly.

Letting out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding, you open the car door, and close it gently, Helen following behind. 

The engine starts with a low rumble, and the jingle of Helen’s many keychains rattle around in your brain. You spot her looking up at you through the rearview mirror, but you focus more on the car's low vibrations. Shifting your feet in your shoes, your brows furrow at the loose feeling of them, before you remember they’re untied. As you begin to tie the roughed-up laces, Helen begins to speak; “So, Jeanne, want to tell everybody why we are not using your car?” Helen questions, tugging the gearstick.

Noah lets out a knowing snort, trying to cover it with his hand. Jeanne sinks into the seat besides you, mumbling something with a red, embarrassed glow on her face. 

“I don’t think we heard you.” Helen extends the u mockingly, smiling to herself. 

“Fuckin’ totalled it while I was driving away from some pigs.” she mutters, staring out the window and trying to cover her reddened face with her hand. Something sharp, sharp like a shard of glass, pierces your heart at the word ‘totalled’, and an old fear creeps up to the front of your brain. Even so, you can’t help the guffaw that makes its way out of your throat, a stupid and pig-like thing that sends Noah into a snorting fit. And, within all her embarrassment, you notice Jeanne smiles as you do.

“When- when the Hell did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me? Are you good?” You try and speak through your unexpected laughing fit, further spurred by Noah’s snorts and Helen’s charming giggles as she pulls out of the parking lot. 

Before Jeanne can reply, Noah cuts in and saves her from the supposed embarrassment, but, by the frown that suddenly appears on her face, you can tell it's a story she'd rather have the glory of telling; ��Went out exploring without us, again,” He eyes her with faux annoyance, “and went into a building she didn’t realise was supervised. Got-”

“-Got chased through half place before jumping outta the window and getting in my car,” Jeanne cuts in, sitting up in her seat and moving her hands around to tell her story, sending a snide smile to Noah. Helen watches through the rear-view mirror, finally on the main road, and both Noah and you lean in as if you were kids around a campfire listening to a horror story. “Had a high-speed chase and everything! Blue and red all around me-” Her hands move left and right, “-sirens blasting in my ear as Metallica plays on the radio, before bam!” She slams her hands together, an unexpected noise that causes you to flinch. “The engine fuckin’ explodes-” 

Noah turns to you with a worried but factual look on his face, “-It stalled-” 

“-And I slammed right into a wall!” 

“-she bumped into a wall and it got towed by the cops-” Noah whispers not so discreetly to you.

“-would you let me have one fuckin’ minute of glory you-”

“-Why didn’t you tell me? That sounds horrific.” You look at her with what you can only guess is somewhere between worry and entertainment due to her reaction; something mixed with excitement and a realisation. Of what, you’re not entirely sure. Two steps ahead, as per usual.

She takes a moment to speak, cogs turning and deliberating on the best response. However, when she does begin, her voice suddenly turns comically posh;  “Oh, because I knew you’d worry darling, it’s all you ever do.” She sighs theatrically, placing a hand on her forehead as if a damsel in distress. 

Both Noah and Helen eye you this time, and you just smile and shake your head, easily matching her energy. “Oh do forgive me, my love. You know what your excursions do to my nerves-” You mock, and go to cradle her face, but both of you burst out laughing, unable to take yourselves seriously. The car descends easily into laughter, Helen trying to hide her louder giggles. By the end of it, you look out the window to find that you’re already on the highway. 

There was a certain excitement, a certain electric buzz, that permeated the car as it quietened into comfortable silence. Your group had done trips like these a multitude of times, both for day-outs to other towns and cities, and for sometimes-illegal-sometimes-not urban exploration. If you got lucky, you could get permission from the land’s owner to explore; it was something you always aimed to do, mostly to avoid being chased out by said owner or worse, police threatening lead in your head if you didn’t comply. 

Asbestos, rotting wood, seemingly sentient shadows and rats were something you were all very used to. Although Helen never got used to the vermin, neither have you, especially when the little buggers run between your legs out of the darkness. 

Eventually, Noah grows tired of the silence that fills in the gaps of each short conversation, and asks, “Can I?” while gesturing to the radio. Helen nods. Almost immediately, the radio blasts the chorus of AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ on full volume, filling the car. 

It’s another unexpected thing that causes you all to burst into laughter as Noah turns it down, Helen shaking her head and Jeanne already screaming the lyrics, you eventually joining her and sharing an imaginary microphone.

Smiling to yourself, you glance behind you and spot your city slowly disappearing; a waypoint filled with memories now a small dot on the horizon. Other cars pass by Helen’s in dull blurs of blacks, white and greys with the occasional dark blue or silver. The dreary plant life besides the highway isn’t much better. In the Summer, you might’ve found more life in the trees that line the roads and the hardy bushes growing in the median strip, but in Winter they’re simply dry claws reaching out for the moving bodies of cars, hoping to snatch some unknowing soul up from the pot-hole ridden concrete. Occasionally, a dark evergreen breaks the pattern of sleeping trees and bushes, but the rest of the road spans out in wintery death. 

Nothing happens, and nothing changes, until Jeanne’s voice, surprisingly close to your ear, startles you out of your stupor. “How are you?” 

“Tired.” You give your usual response. Nothing much to report in the oh so lengthy two days you hadn’t seen each other anyways. 

“You’re always tired.” You eye her with a look of ‘no shit, Sherlock.’ “I’m like, 90% sure you’re a clinical example of a chronic insomniac. Are you on meds for that shit yet?” 

“I’ve gone to see someone a couple of times, but there’s nothing to verify me for anything proper,” You send her a sad smile, “They just suggest a better sleeping schedule, to limit stress, noise cancelling earbuds and store-bought melatonin gummies if it gets too bad.” Just makes the nightmares worse, though, goes unsaid. 

“Man, that’s shit.” 

“You’re telling me.”

“I swear you come into college every morning looking like you got drunk, ran a marathon and went to a metal concert the last night.” 

“Geez, do I really look that bad?” You frown comically, whipping your head around to the window and squinting at yourself. It gets a laugh out of Jeanne, and a small chuckle from your own still dry throat. You should’ve bought a water bottle along with you.

“No, but honestly,” she leans into you, beginning to whisper, “You ever need a proper prescription, some really powerful shit like Zalepon, just say and I’ll have a chat with my dad, yeah? He’s always liked you. I’m sure I can convince him to get you some-” 

“-How about let’s not get your dad to abuse his power and illegally obtain prescription drugs?” Noah cuts in, turning from his small talk with Helen, clear he only tuned into the conversation then. 

“Oh, don’t you start talking ‘bout illegal shit!” Jeanne fires back, a wide grin on her face, “We’re literally about to break into an abandoned city patrolled by the state which you agreed to.”

“She has got you there,” Helen adds, taking a left turn, still watching you and Jeanne through the rearview. 

Noah huffs sardonically, turning back to face the road, “Yeah, well, you’re the one-” his scream of “-deer!” cuts off the end of his sentence.

Helen swerves quickly, almost crashing into a car going past, earning a loud honk from the cars surrounding her. The swift manoeuvre sends you and Jeanne crashing to the right, an audible thump coming from Jeanne’s head hitting the window. 

A jolt of utter panic runs through you like electricity. Starts at the base of your feet and ends at your twisted and trembling fingers. Your muscles twitch with an old memory you wish to forget. Your whole body buzzes with phantom pain like an angry beehive. 

A war drum beats in your chest. Telling you that you’re okay. Telling you that you live still. Telling you it has been years, and you’re not on that dingy corner road anymore.

Shocked breathing fills the car, along with some foreign blues tune that sounds too familiar for your liking. 

Helen drives on, chest heaving, down the pin-straight road. Jeanne clings onto you and wraps herself the best she can around you, digging her bitten-down nails into your hoodie. Noah braces himself on the left side of the car and the dashboard, sandy blonde hair in disarray.

Warm breaths tickle your ear. 

Loud. 

So very loud.

Helen gulps. “Is everyone okay?” She turns to Noah, then Jeanne, then to you; staring wide-eyed into nothing and everything. 

You thought.

…

What had you thought?

That you were getting better? Because, what? You could drive a car to the supermarket and back now? What a pathetic, miserable wretch you are. On the verge of a panic attack because of a deer. On the verge of crying again because of the sound of those damn tires screeching. 

Come on, be strong; you’re better than this. You know you’re better than this. You don’t need to be babied; you don’t need to be pitied. 

Get up. 

Get up. 

Get up-

“-Close call,” Noah mumbles, still in shock. 

Shimmying your way out of Jeanne’s iron grip, you sit upright.

Noah watches you carefully like you’re fine China, ready to hold together your broken pieces, analyse each fracture, and put you back together again. 

“Yeah.” Jeanne mumbles. 

Unnerved by the tension permeating the small space, all eyes seeming to watch you for some sort of crack, some sort of fracture that will have them turning on the next roundabout and taking you back home, you decide to ease it yourself. “Too bad. Would’ve made a great addition to your collection, Noah.”

Sensing the tactic, and your own unease with his not-so-subtle pity, he decides to play along. “Did you see the antlers on that thing? Would’ve been perfect to mount.” He crosses his arms and acts annoyed. Maybe he really is. 

Jeanne, wanting to move away from the occurrence, jokes back with “Y’know, sometimes I’m sure you were some rich Southern Uncle who went out hunting on Sundays with his buddies in another life.” Noah whips his head around at the statement, so fast he looks like a pale blur of alabaster and blonde, and gives Jeanne an incredulous look, firing back with how she looks like she could be drawn with his broken left hand, among other things. 

Their verbal fight immediately takes your mind off things, focusing more on laughing rather than the ache of your fingers. 

Then the ringing in your ears. 

Conversation fades easily into the background, and you watch as the wintery landscape passes by you in an icy blur. 

Maybe you’ll get the train home. 

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

The sun had set a long time ago, bringing the chilly night out with His inky fingers and soft, whistling winds. Traffic had kept you up longer than you all thought it would, so the plans of hoping to have at least a little daylight went out the window the moment that massive long-haul truck decided to blow a tire way ahead of you.

You had passed by Rosholt about half an hour ago, now travelling down overgrown, dirt back roads with Noah and Jeanne both trying to give directions. You had seen the same tree stump four times and passed by the same sign, grown over with thick moss and lichen, at least two. From the little you could see outside, Helen keeping her headlights low, thick forest and dense shrubbery surrounded you, looming over the car and laughing in the wind at your expense. 

Eventually, however, their directing came to fruition, and Jeanne points to where to park. Looking out, you find yourself in the middle of a darkened forest, obelisks of dark wood towering menacingly over Helen’s car. 

Helen berates the two of them for backseat driving, then parks the car between a tall pine and a group of ragged bushes, frosted over from the encroaching, cold night. You’re confused for a moment. Only half an hour away was the glowing city of Rosholt, and you’ve somehow ended up in a forest that looks straight out of The Blair Witch Project. 

As the clicking of seatbelts fills the air, you mumble, mostly to yourself, “Where the Hell even are we?” 

Your question garners a response from Noah. “Not too far away from Neuhaven, surprisingly. It’s practically surrounded by a massive forest now; we’re just parking here so we have a lesser chance of being caught.” He smiles at you before opening the door.

“Come on.” Jeanne nudges you slightly in the side, before stepping out of the car herself. Despite all the previous excitement you held for the place not only this morning, you felt…off put, all of a sudden.

Maybe it was the towering trees, maybe it was that stupid deer from before that put you on edge, or maybe it was the scratching, the clawing, at the back of your mind telling you to turn tail and run. 

Something childish but old past its years mumbles in the back of your head.

Wearily, you stepped out of the car, dried pine needles crunching loudly underfoot. Noah and Jeanne laugh to themselves in the background as you stare up at the starless sky. A crescent moon illuminates your tired face and chases away any eerie shadows of the night. Oddly vibrant for a new moon.

The trees tower above like colossal waves, creaking in the night wind. Too large, too sturdy, and too dark for their age. Too large, too sturdy and too sentient feeling for your liking.

“Hey, Noah-”

“-Y/N! Get over here.” Jeanne calls out, unknowingly cutting you off, waving you over to the trunk. You glance upwards at the trees again, and make your way to the back of the car. Looking into it, you see it absolutely stuffed to the brim with items, illuminated by the soft yellow of the car’s inner lights. 

��Looks like we’re preparing for nuclear fallout or something.” You joke, earning a proud chuckle from Jeanne as she explains and distributes all the items. You’re handed a torch– with new batteries on hand– a walkie talkie, one you’ve used many times before, a particle mask and a Geiger counter. As you flip the little thing around in your hand, you catch Helen frowning in the corner of your eye.

“You said this place wasn't irradiated, didn't you?” She raises an annoyed eyebrow, taking on a condescending tone while softly glaring at Noah and Jeanne. Noah looks away abashedly, pale ears going red.

“We’re just being careful, Len.” Jeanne smiles, not mischievous like her usual grins are, but instead empathetic. Helen’s brow falls, and she simply nods in response. 

“Oh! Before I forget…” Jeanne reaches into the trunk, opening up a small black case that shines sinisterly in the moonlight. Four battered-looking pocket knives greet your eye, one handed to each of you. You shimmy the notch on the side, and release the surprisingly long blade carefully, winking at you in the darkness. The handles were roughed up, sure, but the blade looked brand new.

You all eye her questioningly; walkie talkies and particle masks were usual precautions, but a pocket knife was new. It didn’t help the pit in your gut, either. “Just in case we have to…cut through anything, yeah?” Jeanne looks between the three of you. Specification on what was to be cut was left unsaid, but the threat of over protective explorers and police hung over your heads still. 

You look between all your items, doing a routine check on your torch and walkie talkies and all setting them to the same radio channel. Easily, you sling your particle mask around your neck before letting the pocket knife snap shut, and stuff it into your cargo pocket.

Jeanne closes the trunk with a slam, loud as a Church Bell calling its followers to fill the empty pews. It bounces off of the old trees, boughs bent in eternal supplication to the darkness above. You can’t help but feel you’ve disrupted them in their quiet worship to that of which you cannot see. In the dead silence of the forest, a place all too quiet for the life it should house, you all flinch at the sudden noise and eye her with annoyance.

Well, there goes any stealth you would’ve had.

She whispers out a quiet sorry, an empathetic smile on her face, as she begins to lead the way through the maze of pines. It was almost as if there was an unseen barrier between here and the city. You could hear– feel–  the ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum of Rosholt’s heart from the car, yet here? 

Silence. 

No soft beating of a hunting owl’s wings, no scurrying of midnight critters, not even wind carrying messages to the trees. 

Even though you’re sure it’s only you and your friends in these woods, you can’t help but hunch in on yourself, make your body as small as possible, and watch carefully as to where you step. You keep your head bowed, focused on the beam of light you make sure to keep low in front of you. You are riddled with the sense that your group is interrupting something. Something much bigger than you. If you said that out loud, you’re sure you’d be teased, Jeanne would probably call you a pussy again and Noah would still manage to look at you with pity. 

Speaking of the Devil, his voice, so, so loud in the silence of the woods, meets your ears. 

“Are you okay, Y/N?”

You take a second, a second too long, to reply “Do you hear that?” Your mind goes to speak normally, but your mouth instead whispers. It still echoes. It still bounces. And you still feel like an intruder. 

Noah listens for a moment, both of you pausing in your walking. “...No?” 

“Exactly.” You turn to face him, and begin walking again. “Why is it so fucking quiet?” 

“Didn’t you read the article?”

“Yeah, at like, 3 in the morning.”

He stares at you with exasperation, something like the look of a disappointed science teacher, looking like he’s waiting for something, anything, to click in your brain. 

Almost as if in response, a cold wind gently whistles between the trees, a susurrus echoing from the ancient pines. The noise slithers up your spine and stays curled in the crook of your neck.

A lightbulb suddenly goes off in your head, and you feel like a bit of an idiot for forgetting such an important piece of information. 

“The chemicals…” You bring a hand up to wipe your tired face, groaning at your forgetfulness. 

“Mhm,” Noah takes a subtle inhale, “As the article said-” he sends a joking glare to you, “-the chemicals released caused the place to become uninhabitable for most life. People went mad, coughing up their own lungs, and swore Demons had come for their hearts-” 

A thought crosses your mind,“-Do you believe in that?” You interrupt him.

“Pardon?”

“Demons- do you believe in that sort of thing?”

He gives you an incredulous look, “You know I’m not religious, nor am I like you or Jeanne; believing in Ghosts and such.” He scoffs. “Sudden paranoia, hallucinations, things moving- it’s all either an unknown mental condition or Carbon Monoxide poisoning or something of the like.”

“I’ll take that as a definite no then…” You mumble, almost bumping into a tree. 

You both walk in silence for a moment, thinking over his words. He was always the logical one; he would be the first to admit he was all left brain and had little to no space for creativity. Jeanne always made the joke that his mother had dropped him on his right side when he was younger, and you can see by the side-long glance he’s giving you that he expects it to stumble out of your own mouth, but you decide against it. 

Your ears are still ringing. 

He coughs, clearing his throat, “As I was saying…People went mad, their bodies mentally and physically failing, and animals seemed to bleed from the inside out. Everything, and everybody, left and vowed not to come back.”

“Hold on, you- you said, the article said, the chemicals were airborne, right? Gaseous?” 

“Yeah?” 

An odd chill passes over you.

“Then how come they’re still around?” You both look up at the watchful trees above you, leaves now chattering in the North wind. Noah was a biology fanatic, eager to know how every cell and tissue worked together, so surely he would know, right? 

However, as he frowns at the pines, melting skyward, you notice a twitch of his brows. It dawns on you that you have discovered something that Noah-the-know-it-all cannot provide a definite explanation for. You want to make a jab at him for it, finally something he can’t lecture you about, but you can’t find it in you. 

Instead, you just end up feeling very, very small. Very small and very insignificant. 

Yet, to your surprise, he begins talking, albeit slowly, again, “...Radiation can cause plant growth to either rapidly increase, decrease, or freeze in time. It happened quite commonly in Pripyat after Chernobyl exploded; decorative trees stuck where they were in the 80s, but others the size of redwoods. Whatever the chemical was, it’s possible it- it could’ve, that-” He stumbles over his words for a moment, an odd look of fear in his eyes, “That it could’ve been mixed with Radon or some other radioactive material, combining to create an isotope that didn’t negatively affect their rate of photosynthesis.” 

Jeanne barks out a laugh ahead of you. 

“But what if it wasn’t?” 

Helen’s words from before ring out inside your head; ‘You said this place wasn't radiated, didn't you?’

Noah frowns again, not knowing an answer for something for once in his life, and stays silent, simply keeping an eye on Helen and Jeanne now far ahead of the both of you, torch light moving up and down with their steps. 

The unspoken I don’t know manages to make the trees much more terrifying. 

“Hey! Slow pokes-!” Jeanne calls out loudly.

"-Quiet down-" Helen's voice interjects with a whispered shout. 

“-Come on!” She waves the two of you over. 

The both of you speed up your walk, each footstep sending loud crunches– loud as the snapping of bread in quiet Church halls– echoing, bouncing, against the pines. They creak in discontent, and you bring yourself to walk faster, Noah treating it as some sort of game as he strides faster than you, sending a snide smirk over his shoulder as the pines thin out around you.

Eventually, you reach Helen and Jeanne, and find yourself on the brink of the forest, sat tall upon what you now know to be a hill. Not so far in the distance, the heart of Rosholt shines brighter than the sun, and clears the sky of stars, leaving only a new moon, floating white as a rib, above. From what you saw of it as you passed by, and the small spec that you can see now, it was a city alive in the truest sense; pulsing in artificial blue and yellow. It was such a harsh contrast to the barren ghost town that now stood below you. 

The city lies in ruins, a skeletal remnant of its former self. Its streets, once alive with the hum of daily life, are now silent; the echoes of the past, of so many people’s past, haunting every corner. Buildings, once towering symbols of progress, stand in varying states of decay, their windows shattered, and walls cracked and weathered. Senescent buildings crowded the wide space before you; it almost felt as if that walk through the woods was a walk through time, allowing you to step into an abandoned version of a decade you never existed in. A life you never lived. 

Old concrete buildings tower into the sky, smaller than the trees, but somehow just as ominous in the darkness. The new moon barely illuminates the roads, and you swear the shadows of the vessels of buildings dance in a silent waltz. Eternally left without a partner to brighten their despondent dance. Even from here, you can see the ladders of ivy that ascend each wall; seeping into the weak spots, the spindly, crumbling cracks, and latching on to what does not need them. What cannot house them without falling apart into dust.

The yellow police tape glints in the moonlight, yet, you see no-one around. For a place ‘patrolled by the state’, the area was pretty damn empty. Even so, you keep to the shadows, even if you feel smokey hands with boney fingers pushing you forward.

Ba-dump…Ba-dump…Ba-dump. 

Through the soles of your worn shoes, you feel the persistent throb, almost like the beat of a distant drum. The sound seems to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once, a haunting reminder of what was and a curious hint of what might still be.

Someone lets out a low whistle, probably either Jeanne or Noah, and you feel someone nudge you in your side. 

“Worth it, am I right?” Jeanne smirks at you, eyes glinting in the low-light of her torch.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. 

“Definitely.” You breathe out, an odd sense of wonder filling you at the inky sight of the small derelict city. Yet, as you stand amidst the ruins, you can't help but wonder: is what you feel the ghostly heartbeat of a city refusing to die, or the vibrant life of the city that thrives beyond the horizon?

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

And so it begins. I wanted to say sorry for this taking nearly an entire month; I hit a bit of writer’s block near the end of writing this lol. Hope you guys like long chapters. Fun fact! I planned this to originally be double the length it is now, but cut it down.

Anyways, what’s you guys’ opinions on ghosts and demons? You believe in them, or no?

As per usual, thank you for reading <33

[kit-williams]

Act of Devotion

Male Lead: Captain Arkyn Joriki Universe/Au: Warhammer 40k/Yandere Space Marines Canon Status: It's canon.

Okay here me out... its a bit of a hurt/comfort....

How could he not show her his devotion? That thought plagued him... just like when their time together had ended. Sure at first he was saddened as he enjoyed that plucky young guardswoman. Then the days drug on... and on... and on. It drove him mad. How slowly did time tick... the feeling that he had lost something... someone precious... a once in a mortal lifetime sort of person.

Mortal frontlines were brutal and quickly stank of the dead. Yet as the years pulled on... as the way his smiles no longer met his eyes... the dourness in his moods as he ate up any and all information he could about his Elskling's front her lines... he couldn't find anything about her that would trigger suspicion and he was not going to have the Inquisition hold something over his head! But... that long winter had settled in and wrapped around Arkyn's bones.

He had to come to terms that she was gone... she haunted his nights sometimes of the what ifs and could have been. The smile she gave... the laughs she had... the moans they shared... he wasn't expecting to have found what he wanted on a battlefield nestled between her legs. They had fun in more ways then one... it was hardly about the sex as it was more about how they were content... how they laughed... how he let her cry...

And then she was back. A more mature voice... a decade does rough things to a mortal body. Though she said his name with the same warmth and fondness as when he last left her... how could he not have done what he did?

He showed his devotion by stealing his Elskling away. How once the shock of what happened wore off she was a spitting viper and mad as hell at him. He understood! He wasn't a complete fool... he knew what he had done was wrong but... it was either her being in his arms... or him watching her die. He's explained it all to her before... his reasons why... he's said it so many times... he peels open his heart each time.

He tries so very hard to get her to speak with him the same fondness as before. How his yellow brown eyes look to her with unsaid apologies because he wasn't sorry for what he did... he was sorry for how she felt. He would do it again with no hesitation. He tries to have her understand. His brothers are sympathetic to his plight as unhappy partners are a common thing but it always hurts to get to the good part... the part where those platitude statements of love and sex fall from their lips.

He notices all the small things... that should have been his first sign a decade ago... how he could remember how she liked her recaf... how she would sneak some spices into her mac and cheese ration... how the one with bacon bits was one of her favorite and she always tried to trade for those. He could hear it in her conversations with the other partners... how she talks about things she misses... and he tries his best. While he is a more meat of the land sort of man she enjoys her meat from the water... his room is full of small things he has picked out for her.

Even if she is still mad at him the way her eyes soften as he tells her about his time away from her and he has brought her a gift... or something for her to do her hobby... a recipe book or two lays on his shelf next to dataslates full of seasons of some show she loves. Arkyn tries... he really does... he still knows how she likes her recaf in the morning and every morning he can't help but make sure its ready and waiting for her with her favorite mug... and every night he can tell its been used.

He knows it might be awhile before she will warm up to him again. Arkyn is fine with that... simply having her here with him again... to know she is safe... is enough for him to suffer her ire. Because him taking her with him is his highest act of devotion towards her... because he loved her so much he suffered from afar... he would rather suffer from close if she was to be like winter to him.

He placed the cup of recaf by her as she watched some snow fall out the window. He felt her smile warm his skin as she leaned against him and he forced himself to sit lest he lose this moment of affection. Snow was as natural as rain to him he didn't see what she saw but he could see such wonder in her eyes. He bit his tongue to tease her how much she will learn to have a healthy respect for the snow.

"Do you have to be somewhere?" She asks softly.

"No." He replies before he thinks before the meetings that will wait on him lest he linger for too long.

The silence was deafening for him as he listened to her heart beating inside of her chest. "Do... do you think we could make some mac and cheese tonight. I-"

"Lunch we can. I got you some fish to cook up for tonight." Arkyn replies.

"Are you going to be around for lunch?"

"Aye."

He watched her smile at him. "I'll make sure to make enough for the both of us."

Even if he came back and the bowl was only slightly cold... the simple fact that she would leave him a bowl or a plate of food... well Arkyn remembers several of those early nights just eating that food... food made for him... he remembers the happiness as he was able to shake off winter that clung to his bones. He feels her lean against him as he allowed himself to be a couple minutes... fifteen at most... late. And all felt right in Arkyn's world.

Taglist @bispecsual @the-californicationist @egrets-not-regrets @libraryshadow @bleedingichorhearts @liar-anubiass-blog

[walnutofthedead]

Can you do Yandere Mikoto x Gn! Reader headcanons?

Hahaha hah djbdhddhhdhd

The ask I’ve been waiting for frfr….

I’m so normal about yanderes (they’re fun to write leave me alone)

So uhm I MAY go a wee bit overboard here??? And May or may not have ended up doing the yan alphabet?? This is for Mikoto and not his alter, if you want an orekoto one just lmk <3

Prob will do a shortfic later

Yandere shit under the cut

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

I see Mikoto as a physical affection type of guy tbh- Like, he’s still really sweet! Always nice with his words, but he’ll like randomly hug you from behind, hold your hand, a lot of things that most regular couples do. 

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Well… in terms of like, actual messes, he tries to be clean! Mikoto doesn’t particularly even want to hurt anybody. He’s not ALL bad…

With that said, sometimes, he has to. If someone is trying to steal you away and doesn’t heed his warnings, or if they hurt you, he has no choice but to put an end to that! 

If someone hurts you, he’ll be more brutal.. not above torturing them if they’ve gone that far. 

If it’s because he’s jealous, he’s a bit more nice. He doesn’t make it too painful. Maybe a blow to the head, a fast-acting poison… 

After all, he can’t blame them for falling for you just like he did! It’s impossible not to~

They just don’t get to take you away from him. Never. 

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Nono! He’s a sweetie:c Mikoto honestly would just treat you with genuine respect and love,, be like, he loves you! He knows he’s already done something awful by abducting you and is sympathetic. Prob tries to make it as comfortable as possible. 

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Well… he’s definitely do a lot of hugging and stuff like that… but the furthest he’d go without (implied or direct) consent is just a peck on the lips<3

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

So here’s the thing- he’s delusional as fuck. He’ll just treat your relationship like he’d treat any regular one. He’s never invulnerable around you, but there’s definitely times he’s more vulnerable. Don’t hurt him please the silly:(

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

So confused and betrayed. You love him, so why are you fighting him? He only wants what’s best for you! 

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

He takes this shit so seriously- istfg bro hates it when you try and escape :((( kind of a pushover tbh- like he’ll probably just try and make it even more comfortable for you whenever you try to leave. 

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Being abducted is the worst it’ll get. Even while captive, he treats you with such care it’s baffling- he loves you!!!! Cmon pooks love him back ong

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

I feel like he daydreams about marrying them… like he has it all planned to a T. Probably already designed an outfit for s/o to wear at their wedding. We love a ✨ prepared ✨ mans 

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

He gets jealous and inhales lethal amounts of Copium. The poor silly

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Nah bro just acts like his normal self but like,, slightly more happy???   

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

Just approaching regularly, he has no issue going up and talking to them! When confessions are involved though, he has a much harder time… probably would opt for a love letter. A long, well-written one with little doodles on it !!

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Lmao nope

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

He kinda just.. wouldn’t..? If he got really pissed somehow, he might like, lock them in their room or something… but he avoids using violence when possible. 

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

Not many! When he abducts them, he’s strict at first, but eventually even lets them go out so long as he’s there with them. 

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

He’s incredibly patient. He doesn’t get angry very easily, and when he does, he calms down fairly quick. This is assuming he doesn’t switch to Orekoto, of course…

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

Haha no

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

Oh, absolutely. He’d feel like actual shit about it. Even with all the gaslighting himself to try and justify it, he knows taking someone captive like this is awful. And especially for such selfish reasons… that’s why he tries making it up to them by spoiling them! 

He won’t let them go though. There’s no going back once you kidnap someone. 

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Hm……. I’d say probably just emotional dependency and bad attachment issues. He just happened to get a bit too attached to s/o. 

-bonus hc: he gives his friends nicknames to make it feel like they have a deeper friendship than they do so they don’t drift away from him ! 

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

Oh, he hates it- just seeing them sad or afraid breaks his heart. He doesn’t know what to do, so he just tries his best to comfort them with words. 

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Give his darling some MOTHERFUCKING FREEDOM-

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

His willingness to trust. As I mentioned earlier, he gives a lot of freedom, and that only increases as his trust in them builds. Once he’s convinced they do, in fact, love him, and won’t try and leave, he’ll begin letting them go out alone for short periods of time so long as they let him track their location. You can already see how that could turn out in an unsatisfactory way for him…

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Nope. Or at least, it would take a lot for him to lash out and do so. And even then, it wouldn’t be that bad. 

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

He doesn’t really worship them per se… but he will totally go to extreme lengths to win them over. No amount of time or money or effort is too much if it means a chance at winning his darling over <3

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

Depending on outside factors like other people pursuing them, it could be anywhere between a few months and a couple years. 

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

Haha no. 

[punks-never-die205]

Kid is always portrayed as someone who is brutal, violant and rapes women😑 is there a small chance he could be soft and romantic? 💕

... If you could see the face I'm making right now.

I... I have to assume you saw a Kid Pirates coded blog and just sent in an ask without reading anything?

... including the manga?

I want to clarify, I'm not angry - I'm all for people being free to ask what they please as they please, I'm just confounded. I think you're getting fanon/headcanon garbled with canon.

Let me do my best to stick to canon for a moment - we hear terrible things about the Worst Generation pre time-skip. Everyone has a reputation.

Including Luffy and his crew - the information the marines have on the Straw hats, and what they share to the world, is very negative. The only thing that saves Luffy is that, well, he's Luffy - he's not going to lean into any reputation, he's not even paying attention in the first place.

So people see some farm boy in flip flops and think --- Canonically, that Zoro has to be the Captain. It's a running gag.

Now Law and Kid both seem to have leaned into the reputation the marines have given them. (I could stretch this out to the entire worst generation, but I don't want to write that much).

We know Luffy's reputation is bullshit. We've learned Law's reputation, despite him trying to lean into it and convince people otherwise, is crap.

It makes sense that Kid's would be crap too - and let me be clear, I still think he's the most ruthless of the three. Kid strung up a pirate crew on crosses at the very least.

But to my point, we don't ever actually see him level some random civilian town for shits and giggles. We don't see any of the other stuff the marines say he's notorious for - all we do know is that the marine propaganda against pirates would (and, from the marines' point of view, should) be skewed in the marine's favor.

No government wants people to be sympathetic to their biggest problem, and some crews most certainly do the work for them - we're 100% aware of truly cruel and wanton pirate crews.

Luffy beats the shit out of most of them.

Anyway, my vibe on the Kid Crew is that they aren't all that big and bad - they're not nice, by any stretch of the word, but I think they are just as in character as pirates who string other pirates up on crosses as they would be pirates who help a shore-side town rebuild after a tsunami or storm flattened it.

Why for the second one? These guys grew up on a neglected island - the people might have been angry, and rough, and intimidating, but the junk heap of an island still have life on it. You can't survive harsh conditions without community, no matter how grumpy and snappy that community might be.

Makes me think of that one town in Fire Force - level the town in celebration, spend the next day rebuilding.

Anyway, none of Kid's behavior in Wano - the point where we actually get to see it for a good long while - points to some mindlessly ruthless piss of a human going around and terrorizing people for no reason. We see a guy who works together with people, going beyond what he needs to, to then cheer on the twink stealing his kill, and to celebrate peacefully afterward.

Sure, sure, recovery, but when Kid saw Luffy's new bounty and title he didn't exactly put a whole lot of effort into that "attack". Especially not after we saw what he could do if he dug his heels in.

It points to a guy leaning into a reputation that doesn't really mesh with him. But also, Luffy is Luffy.

Anyway, that's my answer.

[but-a-humble-goon]

As are aware of Bruce's more negative character traits, who while not liking them doesn't dismiss them as a non canon aberration, you seem like the person to ask this question.

Do you think Gut's could be a good comparison as far as characters go in terms of being someone who is capable of great kindness & great cruelty, who is meant to be sympathetic but can at time horrify.

Obviously Guts having been written by one author for one story is a notably more coherent character. This is more of a general comparison if someone embodying two extremes & still making sense.

Guts in the Misty Valley arc could both save & be very cool towards a young child & be a source of comfort, but could also switch to holding a knife to that same child's throat to lure in an enemy for a surprise attack & still feel coherent.

Do you think a well written Batman could be handled as such, and or that Batman as he largely stands in terms of overall collective works could be regarded in a similar light?

I think the sheer insurmountable difference in the writing quality is what makes the comparison difficult. The way I'd describe it is Guts feels like an incredibly well written dark fucked up antihero and Batman feels like a very badly written morally grey goodguy. It's hard to reconcile Bruce's good with his bad because most of the time it genuinely feels like him being kind of a monster happens unintentionally thanks to writers just having no clue what they're doing. Like, clearly during the whole Stephanie War Games saga the audience was supposed to sympathize with Bruce over her but like... they sorta forgot to make him sympathetic and forgot to make Stephanie do anything bad besides being a teenaged girl so the result his he just comes across like a willfully abusive piece of shit motivated apparently by pure spite. Or, again, by pure misogyny if you take Chuck Dixon's word for it. Or whenever he's casually gleefully cruel to criminals and treats them like animals. Most of the time it doesn't feel like the story is commenting on Batman's own issues, it just kinda feels like it's being written by people who think the thoughtless brutality is okay and/or super cool actually and are using Bruce as a vicarious power fantasy. Or all the times they have him lash out with physical violence against his kids, do they actually get how screwed up and over the line that is? Because it feels more like the writers are just like "nah, it's cool, they're not his real kids so it doesn't count as child abuse, just regular abuse which is fine." I've said it before but it genuinely feels like writers think him just being Batman (the beloved childhood icon of whole generations) is a free pass to have him constantly act as awful as they feel like and never face consequences, learn any lessons or grow as a person while expecting everyone to still like him for some reason. I don't think there really is a way to square Batman's constant shittiness with the good person we're supposed to take him to be. Instead it just ends up feeling like there's two Batmans; one who's gruff, antisocial and scary but ultimately a hero who always means well... and another who is a totally incoherently horrible leech of a human being who everyone inexplicably has infinite patience for, presumably because they mistake him for the first guy. On the other hand, Berserk clearly at least understands that the extremes of bastardry Guts ends up going to are indeed extremes. They actually endeavor to make it make internal sense for the character. The dude is at any one time just barely clinging to his sanity after all the horrific shit he's lived through and every single time he tries to let his guard down and start healing the universe punishes him for it, leaving him broken all over again. He ends up being sympathetic because he's somehow only as much of a monster as he is. Even at his absolute darkest he's managed to hold on to even just the faintest glimmer of his humanity despite everything. Also to be perfectly honest, accounting for the sheer difference in quantity of content I would put money on Guts having a much higher proportional rate of humanizing moments of genuine kindness for contrast than Bruce does, even if he does also go a whole lot darker than Bruce ever has.

So if anything the comparison feels more like: here's what to do and here's what not to do.

[wildestdreamcatcher]

i would honestly love to see a fic where Ruby or Andrew see Summer with Jude and that's how they find out they're dating

Caught in the Act

Summary: Ruby and Andrew are livid after catching Summer and Jude together

TW: Angst (let me know if I need to add anymore warnings)

We should’ve been back almost an hour ago and we would’ve been if we hadn’t decided to eat and drive around for an hour. I sat in the passenger seat of Jude’s van with his jacket around my shoulders and one of the blankets wrapped around me; winters in Tulsa were always brutal. I liked driving around with Jude, he always let me choose the music and the way he kept one of his hands on my thigh made me feel safe for whatever reason. The car clock said 1:50. I was fucked if my parents saw me in his car this late at night. 

I looked at Jude and noticed how good he looked. He had the ends of his afro dyed blonde, his eyeliner was a bit smudged from performing, he hated Madonna but was still mouthing along to the song. I adore this man, I really do.

He pulled up into my driveway and kissed me. My lipgloss and liner were smudged across his face and he smiled while he was kissing me, he looked out of the corner of his eye and pulled away. Our eyes got wide when I saw my parents standing angrily in front of the driveway; I knew I was screwed. I hadn’t told them I had been dating Jude for 6 months. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Summer!” My dad yelled as I opened the door and my mom grabbed my hand. I looked back at Jude, he smiled sympathetically as she walked me into the house. I could still hear my dad yelling at him until he told him to drive away and he did. My parents were livid as they walked into the house. 

“You lied to us, Summer! You said you’d be back by 1:30 and that Ari would be driving you back, instead, you stayed out until 2 am making out with Jude of all people!” My mom said. Aria was the one who drove me but I didn’t think they’d see Jude taking me back home. 

I couldn’t blame them for having this reaction considering Jude’s past. He went to jail 3 times, he lost his last job for stealing, he had a drug problem, and he used to be an asshole to everyone but here I was about to defend him to try to change my parents' mind about him.

“I know you’re mad but he’s changed so much. I promise! He’s been sober for over a year, he’s been working at his new job since February, he’s become so nice to everyone and he’s proved to me how much he cares about me!” My voice broke and I could feel tears rolling down my face. I always got emotional when being yelled at, especially like this. 

“And you really believe that he’s changed!? He’s lied so much I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s doing the same things to you!!” My dad said.

“Your dad’s right, Summer! He’s only going to hurt you and if he loved you, why is he making you hide your relationship from everyone?”

“It was my idea to hide it! We’ve only been dating for almost 2 months!” They didn’t have to know the truth. 

They yelled at me for another 30 minutes before telling me they’d figure this out in the morning without grounding me like I thought they would. Lennon had this smug look on his face as I went into my room. I called Jude from the touchtone in my room; he told me he’d figure everything out and he’d prove my parents wrong.

And God, I hoped he did.

@blowflygrls @sadlonelyyogurt @vommitgirl

[sapphic-agent]

Not sure if I even read the Breaking Point fic. Maybe, maybe not. But I have my own share of fics that "we can fix canon" but make worse.

There one fic I recall (the name slipped from my mind) where ofa somehow shows the class A1 all the abuse Izu endured by BK - it was all thanks to bk and Izu forced team up- and still...people did nothing.

Now think about this premise: ofa shows the abuse and people are just midly concerned.

Why is that? Why make Izu be seen as a victom and get help and support is smth so rare in this fandom?

It is rare see Ochako and his so called friends do stick up for him in fics and not be demonized. Hell, there one where class A1 finds out bk bully Izu(OH MY GOD HE TRIED TO KILL HIM...why fics make them discovery their past as if is a big plot twist?) And proceed to give a taste of his own poison.

And...."this is bad. They shouldnt do this. Poor bk"

You know, some stories talk aboht forgiviness and can be a really touching and well done thing....but those are rare, extremely so. I'm tired of "forgive them bc this is correct" let Izu hold grudges. Let Izu dont forgive bk and be in his right.

A dorama who got this right is The Glory. The mc was horrible abused and got her revenge and in no point people were "forgive them" to mc.

To conclude: this fandom seems to tnink Izu and pain are the OTP when it really isnt nor should be.

Yeah, the fandom can be... Desensitized to this issue so to speak. I think this is for two reasons.

1. So much of Bakugou's behavior is brushed off as a joke. It's easy for people to turn a blind eye to his treatment of Izuku because so much of it is glazed over by cheap laughs.

Honestly I'm pretty sure that's why people think we're so stuck in the suicide baiting in episode 1. Because that's the only moment the series ever really treats Bakugou's behavior as serious as it is. Like, yeah, that was bad, but that's far from the only thing Bakugou's ever done to Izuku. There's attacking him during the Quirk Apprehension Test, hunting him down and seriously injuring him during the Battle Trials, being purposely uncooperative and punching him during the Final Exam, coercing him into a fight after curfew and demanding information that absolutely wasn't his business, throwing his headpiece at him, attempting to forcibly draw Blackwhip out with no consideration of the consequences, etc. Mind you, everything I just listed happened at UA (a few when he was supposed to be "changing"). I would argue that a good number of these things were worse than the suicide baiting.

But they don't register in people's heads the same way because the narrative doesn't treat them the same way. So when fanfiction authors try to write these stories, they're only looking at one aspect of it while turning a blind eye to everything else. They might do a decent job addressing how Bakugou treated Izuku in Aldera, but do a piss poor job of addressing his behavior at UA.

2. Horikoshi doesn't allow Izuku to be looked at as the victim.

This wasn't always the case. We're supposed to feel bad for him in episode one. We're supposed to think that his treatment at Bakugou's hands during the Battle Trials is brutal. He was written to be the sympathetic underdog who's been given a bad hand in life and gets treated like shit because of it.

But that began to change around Deku vs Kacchan Part 2. Hori knew that Izuku had to forgive Bakugou if the viewers were going to. But there was also no way to realistically do this if he actually had a negative response to Bakugou's treatment of him. So he gave us the implication that Izuku wasn't bothered by it at all (which we know isn't true because he was extremely upset when Bakugou said what he said in episode one). He confirms this through All Might of all people, so it has to be true, right?

And most viewers will accept this at face value. Because they're looking for an out for Bakugou. They're looking for a way they can like him while not condoning a bigoted bully.

That's how I see things anyway

[spaceless-vacuum]

I offer you an idea for the regular yandere chain au what if Gannon is also a yandere for reader

It's gunna be war again

Only one Ganon or all of them? Because just one? Bro not even Zelda can help keep him safe. Good luck. They already have the master sword so no need to draw it again. Like there's no way, absolutely none. With all of them fighting with the zealots vow to protect their goddess? Their light? The love of their life? You? No chance, absolutely none. 

There's room though… three ways this can go. You hate Ganon, he hides you away long enough you start to develop a bit of Stockholm, or you don't mind him and start to grow a bit soft to him.

. . .

For the first it's easy for the chain because they get you back either way. Oh they're so doting and can't let go of you. They all fight over who gets to cuddle you first, to hold you again for the first time, who gets to kiss you again, who gets to talk first, who breaks the silence. Their resolve to hold back slowly breaks and one by one like a dam crashing- you're flooded. Both in love and in their tendencies. Oh they know they have to lock you up for good now. No one can ever leave you alone again.

Teaching you how to fight is Wild's new self appointed job, and no one needs to know. He can't let it happen again love he's the most distraught out of them all. Teary eyed and holding you gently saying he can't let it happen again.

Sky is happy to hold you but he feels so bad. This never would have happened if he hadn't messed things up while fighting Demise. He didn't have the strength to protect you before it happened! He pulls you aside and makes formal vows to always stand guard for his light from now on to eternity.

Warrior takes this the best because he just loses it and goes feral. He may or may have legally married you behind your back so no one can EVER take you from him again. Especially if it was his Ganon who kidnapped you.

Four is the most level-headed but he does have several heart to hearts about it with the colours and the others. Going back and forth from panic to calm knowing they have it in the bag. Just like saving his Zelda they just have to get to you in time and save you from the clutches from evil incarnate itself.

Wind is now super overprotective and feels like he failed again. He couldn't protect Aryll and he couldn't protect you, he got you both back but he's still upset.

. . .

With a bit of Stockholm it gets tougher because there's this disconnect between the fantasy of carrying you off into the distance after rescuing you and having their own happy ending. This issue is broken due to your inability to cope with the fact that it really was terrible. Being conditioned by the chain long enough to accept pushing behaviours may have weakened your ability to perceive red flags more than you expected. Either way, they are happy to have you back but it takes some time for you to settle in. You need your time alone to settle back into life and cope and you can't get that here. At this point the chain knows they have to drop you off somewhere safe.

Hyrule is the most sympathetic here. He knows how brutal Ganon can be and while this situation affects you the most he makes sure to comfort you and help ease you back into the chain. Reminding you that they're all affected by your absence and really do only have your best interest in heart. They need you and just want to help and make sure you're ok. He chooses to be the therapist you need to help you come back from the edge you were pushed to. When you try to argue that it wasn't so bad he gently reminds you just how terrible Ganon is. I mean he's literally suffering from a blood curse from him. He's super gentle about it and will slowly ease you back into physical touch and to help break the holds he has on your head.

The group knows you're pure at heart and have good intentions but they're also in a state of shock at seeing you. Once it hits them, a few days of your odd state, they all break and agree to leave you with someone and give you time to recover. Twilight and legend are the first to offer their home. Not that Malon isn't nice but you need some quiet time after all that terrible abuse he must have put you through. The rage sets in once they realise what an impact Ganon left on your sweet and pure soul and they just lose it. Being away from you, getting you back, and then realising you're left more broken than whole just sends them each in their own way. Having to deal with all this rage without their precious light leaves them muddled and confused. They all visit you often and Twilight has the village check in on you; Legend has Ravio to help you if you took his offer.

. . .

Did you actually like him? Maybe he's really nice and actually cares and respects you alot and maybe the kidnapping was justified. He saw how creepy the chain were and decided that he could offer you more freedom. He makes it clear you can go anywhere in the town without him and the guards will help you if you need it and already you have far more freedom than Link ever gave you. Maybe this can work out!

SIKE!! Just kidding, he still dies and the chain just smiles at you. Sky will walk over to you with his hands still covered in blood as he holds you. He's your hero here. How dare you look at him with that horrified look on his face. Don't you see what he's done for you? He's freed you! He holds you gently as tears stream down your face and he wipes them away, getting some blood on you. You're tired? Let him hold you while he whispers and coos. The whole group can see that something is wrong but they leave it be. No one pieces the dots together. They figure your having trouble coping with the stress of all of the world and they can't wait to take that weight away from you and to hold you close.

Time  figures the truth out first. You're still wearing several of the trinkets Ganon gave you. He can't stand it, that beast having some claim over you, over the heart that belonged to them. He does the only thing he can think of and tries to throw them away in a jealous rage. When you catch him trying to throw them away you stop him and start crying? Why? That pathetic worm hurt you, he had to have. The idea of a nice soft Ganon doesn't compute with him. He's seen first hand what Ganon has done and all he feels is rage. However he can't stand to see you cry, so he doesn't toss it but keeps them, telling you you're not getting it back but that he'll buy you something nicer. An angry and jealous Time winds up stealing you more than Sky does. You've never been romanced right obviously, let him do so.

Bonus; Yandere fierce deity who solos Ganon and just carries you away bridal style from the carnage.