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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 5 months ago

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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 10: Nobody Likes You, Everyone Left You]

A/N: I sincerely apologize for the delay, but Maggie Sundays are back, besties!!! And we have a new poll! Be sure to check it out AFTER you finish Chapter 10 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title and chapter title are lyrics from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.8k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

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Here’s how it happens.

Let’s say you’re on a subway, or at a bus stop, or walking in or out of a grocery store, maybe fumbling with your purse or corralling small children, or talking on the phone, or wondering how you’re going to make rent, or trying not to drop one of your shopping bags, and out of nowhere some stranger lurches over and grabs you. They are filthy and noxious and moaning, and you assume they are insane, or on hard drugs, or maybe both. Your fellow upstanding citizens rush to your aid and the assailant is apprehended and carted off, unbeknownst to you surely to infect many more blithely unaware victims.

Maybe you notice that you were bitten, even just barely, even just a scrape of the teeth hard enough to scratch the skin; maybe you don’t. If you do notice and you seek medical attention, the best a doctor will offer you is disinfectant and antibiotics, maybe a rabies shot if they’re extra ambitions. Perhaps you have too much on your plate already without a detour to the doctor’s office (or perhaps you don’t have medical insurance), and you opt for at-home remedies, a vigorous scrub with hydrogen peroxide and a large rectangular Band-Aid slapped on top. Of course, none of this will do you any good. It was over the moment a drop of zombie saliva slipped painlessly into your bloodstream and began to replicate there like an invasive species, like an insurgent force. It only takes once.

You go home, and maybe when you start to feel really bad you call an ambulance and go to the hospital, and when you turn you bite anyone you can get your claws on there. Maybe you die at home and then attack your partner, your children, your parents, your roommates; maybe this new version of yourself ends up chewing bits of gristle off the bones of your dog or cat or ferret. And if any of your victims manage to escape once you’ve gotten a taste of them—no matter how fleetingly, no matter how trivially—they are sure to die in agony and reanimate too, and to pass along this plague you’ve gifted them, the bloodiest game of telephone.

Now millions are getting sick, fevers, headaches, purging, bleeding, but where do people go when they need a doctor? The hospitals are overrun, the clinics are swarmed, and doctors and nurses are falling ill too. There are unimaginable reports of the carnage. There is censorship to smother the panic. There are public figures vanishing from sight. There are zombies-in-progress boarding planes, checking into hotels, tottering onto cruise ships with armfuls of luggage, sweating through their bedsheets in crowded military barracks, silently ticking timebombs as the world as everyone knows it hurtles towards its end.

You would be amazed what people can refuse to believe. Once you believe something, that makes it real.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are no shovels, so Cregan tills the earth with his axe and then you dig with your hands. There are no headstones, so Rhaena finds a large sand-colored rock and writes on it with a jagged piece of slate: Baela and Briar, Summer 2024. Then she hesitates, the slate hovering in afternoon air, amber sunlight and eighty degrees, dust thick in the wind. She wants to say more. There needs to be more. How can two lives end with five words? At last Rhaena adds: Mother and child who perished en route to California. They were loved. They mattered.

“That’s good, Rhaena,” Luke tells her, voice gentle, hands on her shoulders. She stares at the grave for a while, and you don’t have time to waste; the bear could return, there might be wolves or mountain lions, eventually the sun will set and you will be stranded in an infinite darkness like the ocean at night. But Aemond waits until Rhaena is ready. She tucks the shard of shale into her backpack, and then you are fleeing once again: from this day, from this world.

You hike back to I-80 and walk west towards the next ranch. All of you are here in south-central Wyoming, and yet none of you are: you are in the earth with Baela, you are back in Nebraska where Jace died, you are in Ohio where he was swept away by a river, you are in Pennsylvania where you and Rio climbed down from a transmission tower, you are in your lives before the world ended: Saratoga Springs, Boston, cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a part of Kentucky called the Wildlands. Aegon is limping along on his own and shoving Rio away each time he tries to pick him up.

“Stop,” Aegon says, wincing and exhausted, his bandages coated with dust.

“Come on, Honey Bun. You’re going to rip your foot open—”

“Stop it!” Aegon demands. “I’m not going to slow you down anymore! I’m not going to be a burden!”

There is a sound you don’t immediately recognize: a rumbling, a squealing. A car is pulling up alongside you. Instinctively, you unholster one of your M9s and raise it as you turn.

“No, no, no, we’re cool!” a woman says, showing you both of her hands. She is around fifty and driving a Subaru Outback; there is a man in the passenger’s seat, perhaps her husband, and two wide-eyed, hoodie-swathed teenagers in the backseat. “Are you…are you guys okay?”

All of you stare blankly at her: shellshocked, distraught, covered in dirt and blood. “Yeah,” Daeron says eventually.

The woman peers around, east, west. “Do you have a car or something?”

“We have a Tahoe,” Cregan says. “It’s out of gas.”

“We have a few cans in the trunk,” the Subaru woman replies. “I can give you one, five gallons. That will get you to Rock Springs, and you should be able to find more supplies there. We came through that way, it wasn’t too bad.” And then, before anybody can ask if she’s serious, the woman steps out of the car and opens the hatchback. She lifts out a red can and hands it to Rio, who is standing the closest.

“Thank you, lady,” he says, astonished.

“I’m sorry about that,” you tell the woman, meaning the fact that you were prepared to shoot her.

Rhaena adds: “We’ve had some…bad experiences.”

The Subaru woman smiles. “Haven’t we all. Where are you headed?”

“West Coast,” Aemond answers quickly: vague, guarded, inviting no further disclosures.

She nods; she can’t trust you, and you can’t trust her, and everyone agrees, an unspoken acknowledgement of what the world is like now. “Well, you don’t want to go anywhere near Salt Lake City.”

“But that’s the only direct route,” Aegon says, crestfallen.

“I know.” The Subaru woman is sympathetic. “And it’s going to burn a hell of a lot of gas and time to drive all the way around, but you have to. There are tens of thousands of zombies, and a lot of people are trapped there without fuel. I’m telling you, if someone sees you driving by in a working vehicle, they’ll try to put a bullet in your head so they can take it. So don’t give them the opportunity.”

“Okay,” Aegon says glumly, already pulling his map out of the pocket of his khaki shorts to plot a new course.

“Stay far away from Chicago,” Rio offers the Subaru woman in return. “And any nuclear power plants.”

“We’re headed south,” she says, then grins. “I’ve got a sister in eastern Tennessee. We’re going to learn how to fish and cook moonshine and make clothes out of deer hide, and live up in the mountains where nobody will ever bother us.”

People glance at you, the resident Appalachian; and you remember the crackling of woodstoves, flecks of ice in the creek, kicking up snow as you ran through the woods, following tracks of deer and opossums and raccoons. “It’s a beautiful place. I think you’ll like it.”

Rhaena asks the Subaru woman: “Is there anything we can do for you? To thank you for the gas?”

“Oh, I couldn’t take from a bunch of bloodied people who are stranded on the side of the interstate.” But her eyes catch on the pistol in your hand and stay there, envious, longing. You have another, so you give it to her.

“The safety is on. There are only nine bullets left, unfortunately.”

“That’s nine more than I had before,” the Subaru woman says as she takes the U.S. Navy’s standard-issue Beretta. Then she says to everyone: “Good luck.”

“Same to you, ma’am,” Cregan replies. The Subaru woman gets back into her car and disappears eastbound with her family. The nine of you that are left—ten, if you count Ice—trek back to the Tahoe, where Rio pours five gallons of combustible liquid gold into the gas tank.

Rhaena climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition. The rust-red Tahoe growls to life, the engine idling. Then she rests her arms on the steering wheel and breaks down sobbing. In the passenger’s seat, Aegon looks up from his map—which he is annotating with a glittery green gel pen—to gaze at her with shining, wounded eyes. After some hesitation, he extends a hand to hold one of hers. From the seat behind Rhaena, Luke is rubbing her shoulders and murmuring words you can’t hear.

Aemond says softly: “Rhaena, you can take some time if you need it.”

“No,” she insists, her voice quivering but determined. “We can’t wait. We have to get as far as we can before dark.” She shifts the Tahoe into drive, guides it onto I-80, and speeds west towards Rock Springs and the Utah border.

Rio is saying something to you, but at first you can’t grasp it. Helaena is scratching Ice’s ears as the massive grey wolfdog lies sprawled across her lap. Daeron is sniffling and wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his orange t-shirt. Cregan is talking to Aemond about needing to find an auto shop so he can get supplies to change the Tahoe’s oil and filter. One of Aegon’s mixtapes whirls in the CD player:

“My face above the water

My feet can’t touch the ground, touch the ground

And it feels like I can see the sands on the horizon

Every time you are not around…”

You are watching Aemond, your heartbeat growing loud in your ears. He won’t look at you at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the sun begins to set, you find a vacant house on the outskirts of Coalville, Utah overlooking the Echo Reservoir. You wash away the remnants of Wyoming in the cool blue water, dried blood and caked-on dirt, hopes eclipsed by horror. Dinner is soup spooned out of cans from the pantry—Dinty Moore beef stew, Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle—and caffeine-free sodas, Sprite and Fanta and Seagram’s Ginger Ale. Then Rhaena and Luke go straight to bed, and Helaena scuttles through the house with a flashlight to search for clothes, making each person a separate pile on the dining room table: large flannel shirts for Cregan, pastel-colored polos for Aegon. Aemond and Cregan are outside on the front porch, Daeron is carving sticks into arrows on the kitchen floor, Aegon has been passed out in one of the children’s bedrooms since Aemond debrided his burns again and dosed him with the last of the Vicodin. Fortunately, Helaena found a translucent orange prescription bottle of Tramadol in the upstairs bathroom, so Aegon won’t have to suffer too much tomorrow.

Rio tosses and turns on the living room couch. You know what’s wrong, but you have to wait for him to say it. You stay with him, kneeling on the beige carpet in the murky artificial luminance of Rio’s Moonbeam flashlight, threading your fingertips through his dark curls. And then at last Rio asks something that you know must have crossed his mind a thousand times since you left Saratoga Springs, but he’s never voiced aloud: “What if Sophie and the baby are dead?”

“They’re not.”

“But you don’t know, nobody knows—”

“Bryan, they’re not dead,” you say, and he is listening.

“I joined the Navy for Sophie.” And of course, you’ve heard this before. “I was just a stupid kid who couldn’t commit to anything, not work, not school, not a future with her, so she dumped me. And I decided I was going to get her back by proving I could make commitments after all. I could sign my life away for five years, and come out of it as someone who would be a good husband and father. And now…what if by enlisting and being so far away when everything happened, I abandoned her? What if…what if she’s gone, and she died terrified and in pain and alone, and I’m the reason why?”

“Sophie and the baby are waiting for you in Odessa. You have to believe that until we get there.”

“Because if they’re not, my life is over?” he asks bitterly, this man you have never known to be wrathful, defeated, weak, hopeless. But these are beasts that live inside all of us, waiting to be shaken awake by the perfect string of calamities.

“I believe they’re still alive.”

And Rio looks at you, wanting desperately to be convinced. “Why?”

You’ve never believed that you are someone who knows the right things to say; but you have to try. “If your parents’ community in Odessa is like you’ve always described it to me, I can’t think of a better place for someone to hide from all the disorder and the violence. It’s remote, but there’s support from other families who are living the same way. People have gardens, cows, goats, pigs, chickens, enough canned food to live on for years, homemade clothes and systems to collect rainwater. There are women who’ve had five homebirths and men who’ve built houses with their own hands. And the people in Odessa have guns and know how to use them. I think when you told Sophie to go there, you saved her life. And now she and the baby are both waiting for you to come home.”

“We’ve crossed this country by raiding dead people’s homes.”

“Yes. And we’ve seen plenty of living ones too.”

Rio takes a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling; and now he is calmer. “Okay,” he says, grabbing your hand where it rests on his head and smacking a noisy kiss onto your knuckles. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I think I’m done freaking out for tonight.”

“You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Try to sleep.”

Obediently, Rio closes his eyes, and within five minutes he’s snoring.

You rise and open the door to the front porch, thinking of what you’re going to tell Aemond when he is low, distracted, wary: You did everything you could, Aemond. It’s not your fault. It’s this world, it’s poison, it’s cursed, and you can’t turn back the clock to when it wasn’t. You’re just one man. But you can try to save the people who are left.

Yet Aemond does not speak to you, doesn’t even notice you; when you peek outside you are on his blind side, and he is deep in conversation with Cregan as they keep watch in the moonlight.

“I mean, yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too, man,” Cregan is saying. “A mansion by the ocean sounds nice and all, don’t get me wrong, but that ain’t me. I don’t see myself somewhere like that forever. Hell, I’ve never even seen the ocean, and to be honest I never really cared to. But a community of folks who are living off the land out in the woods? Those are my kind of people, that’s a place I could be useful…”

You retreat back inside the house, flashlights and shadows, doubts and fears. You stand there in the quiet for a while, then go to Aegon’s bedroom, where he is awake now and snuggling with Ice in a child’s bed shaped like a red racecar, listening to his pink Sony Walkman—Ava, the gleaming rhinestones proclaim—through one earbud.

Aegon coos as he ruffles the dog’s shaggy grey coat: “You’re so sweet, Blue Raspberry Icee. You were always my favorite flavor. Do you miss 7-Elevens too? Wrinkled old hot dogs and taquitos on rollers, drenching tortilla chips with the nacho cheese and chili dispenser? Did you guys even have 7-Elevens in Iowa? No offense, but your home state kind of sucks. It’s just fields and barns and whatever. You would have loved Boston. You could have fetched my golf balls when they rolled into ponds.”

Then he sings along to the song he’s listening to, effortlessly melodic but so softly you can barely hear him:

“You really had me going, wishing on a star

But the black holes that surround you are heavier by far

I believed in your confusion, you were so completely torn…”

Aegon spots you in the doorway. He smiles, then turns serious when he gets a good look at your face. “You okay, Mint Chocolate Chip?”

He feels like the only person you can say this to. You confess in a weak, hoarse whisper: “I hate this world.”

Aegon offers you the other earbud. “Then let’s go somewhere else.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on,” you say to Rhaena as Rio and Luke rummage around inside the Shell gas station for food, drinks, batteries, medicine. You know they’re fine; you’ve already cleared the store, and you can hear them in there laughing. Rio is telling Luke about the bizarre Thanksgiving dinner you once had in Chinhae, South Korea: duck instead of turkey, fried rice with pears and squash instead of stuffing, candied sweet potatoes for dessert, a choir of solemn schoolchildren brought in to sing—for reasons you will never understand—Africa by Toto. You take your remaining M9 out of its holster. “Target practice.”

“Really?” Rhaena asks excitedly. She volunteered to stay back at the little blue mobile home with Aegon, Daeron, and Helaena—only a mile away—but you knew she needed a distraction. Truthfully, you do too. Aemond is in the Tahoe somewhere searching for gas with Cregan, a strange new alliance. He still hasn’t really spoken to you. You are trying to give him what he needs, but you don’t understand what that is.

It took all of yesterday to navigate around Salt Lake City, stopping every few hours to scrounge for gas, gallons siphoned piecemeal from cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats on trailers, four-wheelers left forgotten in garages and backyards. It was after nightfall when you rolled into Battle Mountain, Nevada, a gold mining town in what is known as the Cowboy Corridor, beginning at West Wendover just over the Utah border and ending in Reno. Today supplies must be replenished; tomorrow I-80 will take you to Winnemucca, where U.S. Route 95 branches off north towards Oregon while remaining on I-80 leads southwest through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into the Bay Area of California. A decision needs to be made, which means Aemond will have to talk to you tonight. You’re relieved. You don’t want to have to be nervous and watchful with him, studying every inflection of his voice, reading some dire premonition in each line that creases his face. You’ve spent enough of your life that way already.

Battle Mountain is cloudless and hot and sandy, dry shrubs and gnarled mesquite trees, flat secretless earth. Staggering towards the Shell are three zombies, all dressed in faded blue uniforms like a mechanic’s or a miner’s. You hand Rhaena your M9.

“How many bullets do you have left?” she says, still a bit giddy.

“Fifteen. And you can have five of them.”

She raises the pistol and closes one eye. “I’m going to miss.”

“Well you’re not going to hit anything if you don’t turn off the safety.”

Rhaena giggles. “Oh, right. Whoops.” She clicks the tiny lever, then takes aim again.

“Line up your sights. Front looks like an I, back looks like a U. Put the I in the center of the U, and keep looking at that front sight. That’s where your bullet is going. Don’t blink when you fire. Don’t be scared of the recoil, that’s not your problem, your priority is getting the shot. Your arms are a little stiff…yeah, perfect, nice and limber. The recoil won’t hurt so much that way. Don’t try to fight it, just accept that it’s going to happen. If you’re all tensed up because you’re anxious about the recoil, it’ll throw off your aim, so forget about it.”

“Okay,” Rhaena says. “I am actively attempting to forget.”

“Remember, try not to blink.”

“Don’t tense up. Don’t blink.” A few seconds pass, and she pulls the trigger. There is a spray of dark curdled blood from one of the zombie’s collarbone, but it’s still stumbling towards the Shell. “Damn,” Rhaena says defeatedly, then tries to pass the M9 back to you.

“What are you doing? You have four more shots.”

“But I’m going to miss. I’m going to waste them.”

“Practice isn’t wasteful. You have to know how to do this in case something happens to me.”

“You do it,” Rhaena insists. “I’m terrible.”

“Is it alright if I help you?”

“Yeah,” she says, her doe-like eyes brightening. “Okay. Totally.”

“Go ahead and aim.”

She raises the pistol and peers through the sights. You stand behind Rhaena, place your hands lightly over hers, adjust her angle just barely. When she fires—she’s still tensing up just before she pulls the trigger, a common mistake—you hold the M9 steady. The bullet explodes through the same zombie’s rot-soft skull and the corpse tumbles facedown into the dust.

Rhaena gasps, exhilarated, triumphant.

“No celebrating yet. There are two more.”

“Right.” Very businesslike, she lines up the next shot. You provide your slight adjustments; a second zombie receives a lethal dose of lead.

“Want to do the last one on your own?” The third zombie is quite close now, maybe ten yards. It should be an easy kill.

“Okay…but if I miss, you have to save me.”

“Obviously.”

All on her own, Rhaena aims and pulls the trigger. She hits the zombie near the top of its head; an inch higher, and it would be functionally unharmed. But the corpse’s skull snaps back and its blood and brains spill out onto the asphalt of the parking lot, and it is of no further danger to anyone. It is carrion for the scavengers: raccoons, foxes, condors, vultures, crows.

“And with one of your allocated bullets to spare,” you say with a smile, accepting the M9 when Rhaena surrenders it. “Good progress.”

“That felt great,” she admits, perhaps a little dazed.

You know what she means. “It’s nice to have some control over what happens in your life.”

Luke is saying to Rio as they reappear from inside the Shell: “Maybe those Korean children were singing Africa because they knew your unit had been in Djibouti. Maybe they thought you were homesick for it or something.”

“Oh my God, you know what, kid? You might be right. I never even thought of that.”

“Find anything?” you ask.

Rio shrugs, adjusting the straps of his backpack. “A few bags of trail mix, a box of Band-Aids, some Life Savers, cans of Arizona tea. Oh, and Marlboro Golds for Honey Bun.”

“You shouldn’t be encouraging Aegon to smoke. It’s bad for him.”

“Give him a break, he’s sad and crispy.”

You can’t think of a rebuttal. The four of you walk back to the mobile home.

In the small patch of parched dirt that serves as the driveway, Cregan is—with great difficulty—shimmying out from beneath the Tahoe. Then he reaches back under to grab a pan of old motor oil. “Just about done here,” he announces. “Gotta put the fresh oil in and then we’re set for another 5,000 miles.”

You glance around. Ice is panting in the narrow aisle of shade of a mesquite tree. Aegon is napping on the tiny front porch, sprawled on his back and snoring, his plastic neon green sunglasses shielding his eyes; Helaena is surrounded by a jumble of empty cans and stirring a pot of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs as she heats it over a fire. She begins dishing out bowlfuls of it. Rio, Rhaena, and Luke all graciously accept their dinner.

“Did you guys find gas?” you say to Cregan.

“Not much. A few gallons.”

“Where’s Aemond?”

“Said he’d be back soon.”

“What?” You are incredulous. “You left him? He can’t be alone out there, Cregan. Someone has to watch his blind side.”

“He ain’t alone. He took Daeron.”

“What’s Aemond looking for?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.” Now Cregan is pouring a bottle of Pennzoil into the Tahoe, and Rio is prodding you with a bowl of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs, and Aegon is waking up and yawning loudly.

“What’d you bring me?” he says, lazy and grinning; and when he receives his pack of Marlboro Golds, he immediately sticks one between his teeth and lights it. Luke goes to sit by a shrub and then jumps up when he hears a rattling noise. Almost too swiftly for you to process it, a streak of red-gold scales slithers across the earth and vanishes into the desert.

“Western diamondback rattlesnake,” Helaena notes. “Venomous. Potentially fatal.”

“Great,” Luke says, carrying his bowl towards the front door of the mobile home. “I think I’ll eat inside.”

Aemond and Daeron don’t return until shortly before dusk, the sky turning to rust, lavender, gold, fire, blood. When they walk in, Rhaena is curled up on the floral couch—shredded in spots by a cat, though there are no signs of it now—and reading Mockingjay. Luke is sitting with her and keeping watch with periodic peeks out the window. Ice is resting with her muzzle propped on her large front paws. You, Rio, Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon are playing Uno on the floor.

“What color?” Aegon asks Helaena when she puts down a wild card.

“Blue.”

He groans. “How do you always know what I don’t have?!”

“Rhaena,” Aemond says, and then tosses something to her that glints in the artificial, sickly yellow radiance of the flashlights. She catches them in midair: a set of keys. She is mystified.

“What are these for?”

“The Ford Expedition that’s parked outside.”

“What?!” Luke says, twisting around in his seat to snatch the curtain aside and peer through the window. “Oh wow. Yeah, it’s out there.”

Rhaena is staring confoundedly at Aemond. “Why do we need a Ford Expedition?”

“Because that’s what you’ll be driving tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with the Tahoe?”

“They will be driving the Tahoe to Oregon,” Aemond says, pointing to you, Rio, and Cregan. “We are taking Expedition to California.”

Everyone is too stunned to speak at first; even Daeron looks at Aemond doubtfully, as if this is the first time he’s learning of it. Aegon’s hand hovers frozen in the air above the draw pile of Uno cards. Ice whimpers.

Rio chuckles uncertainly. “You’re…you’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not,” Aemond says. “When we leave Battle Mountain tomorrow, you’ll take I-80 to Winnemucca. We’ll take Route 305 south to Austin and then head west so we can get off the interstate and avoid the Reno area.”

Your voice comes out dark and poisonous. You can feel your eyes glaring, searing; Aemond won’t look at you. “What are you talking about?”

“We can’t stay together?” Luke asks.

“No,” Aemond says again, and now he’s getting impatient. “We have two different destinations. That’s been the situation since the day we met, and now it’s time to split up.”

“Why can’t we all travel to one place and then the other?” Rhaena says. “We could drive to the Bay Area, see what’s going on at the beach house, and after—”

“I can’t wait,” Rio interrupts. “My wife and baby are in Oregon, I’m going straight there even if no one else is.” As distracted as you are, you touch your palm to one of his broad shoulders. You’re going too. You promised.

“So we’ll drive to Oregon first,” Aegon says agreeably. “Right? We could do that. Go north and then swing by the Bay Area later.”

Aemond shakes his head. “It’s almost impossible to find gas now. There is just enough in the Tahoe to last it until Winnemucca, and just enough in the Expedition to get it down to Austin. There is no guarantee we’ll be able to find more. Every day there’s less gas and food and bullets, because there are less places that haven’t already been looted. There are 400 miles between where we are right now and either Odessa or San Franscisco. There are another 400 miles that separate those two destinations from each other. So let’s say we drive all the way to Oregon and then can’t find any gas to go south to the Bay. How long do you think we’d last like this on foot? A month? Because that’s how long it would take us, assuming not a single rest day. So if we travel to one location together, there’s a good possibility we’ll all be trapped there.”

“Maybe I’m okay with getting trapped in Oregon,” Aegon mumbles.

Aemond lashes out fiercely. “Are you serious? What about Criston, what about Mom?!”

“Maybe there are some things about home that I don’t miss!”

“Then go the fuck to Oregon!”

“You know I have to stay with you!”

Aemond scoffs. “Because you’re so capable of protecting anyone.”

Aegon rubs his sunburned face with both hands. He murmurs softly, miserably: “I’m trying, Aemond.”

“So that’s it?” Rhaena says, staring at you and Rio and Cregan, stunned and mournful. “We’ll just never see each other again?”

Aemond shrugs and averts his gaze. He doesn’t have an answer; maybe he doesn’t care.

Aegon turns to Cregan accusingly. “You helped plan this?”

“Nah,” Cregan says, avoidant and downcast, which is unusual for him. “I mean…I said I didn’t really see myself spending the rest of my life with a bunch of millionaires in a California mansion on the seashore, and that’s still true. I’d rather live in Oregon with people who are more like me. But that’s different than wanting to split up forever. I could always try to find y’all later for a visit, I guess…”

“Sure,” Aemond replies briskly. “Whatever you decide to do afterwards isn’t my problem. But you get them to Odessa first.”

Rhaena bursts out with sudden urgency: “This feels wrong. Don’t you see how this is wrong?! We’ve been through so much together, and now we’re just going to wave goodbye and disappear? Leave them to fend for themselves?”

“You want to add 400 miles to our trip?” Aemond asks her, and Rhaena falls silent.

“You know,” Luke begins. “We…we’ve already lost people. Maybe Aemond’s right. Maybe we’re forgetting how dangerous the world is now. It would be great if we could stay in contact, but the most important thing is to get everyone safely to where they need to be.”

“Exactly,” Aemond says, and something jolts awake in you as you remember what he told you in Nebraska, and in Wyoming, and in so many quiet moments that you’ve shared since you met, each an oasis in the desert. He said we would figure it out. He said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“So you were lying when you pretended not to know what we were going to do when we got to Nevada.”

Aemond nods towards the front door. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

You stand up; Rio watches you apprehensively, wondering if he should follow. Your eyes flick to his. I’m fine. He relents, redirecting his attention. Aegon is slumped and despondent; Helaena is starting to cry, and Cregan tries to console her. She’s saying that something bad is going to happen, but she doesn’t know what.

On the porch of the mobile home, beneath a lilac sky pierced with stars, Aemond does not attempt to hold your hands or kiss you goodbye or give any other indication that you have ever been someone who mattered to him. “This isn’t personal. This is what gives everyone the best chance of survival.”

“You’re afraid of making a mistake and getting hurt,” you tell him. “And I understand, I know what that feels like, but Aemond…with the way the world is now…you can’t afford to wait for things to happen or cut them loose to see if they’ll come back to you. You might not get another chance.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Aemond says flatly. “Your route is safer than ours. Less cities, less zombies.”

“You’re honestly going to act like you are completely unbothered by the thought of never seeing me again?”

“I don’t know what you expected. I’m just some guy who helped get you off a transmission tower back in Pennsylvania.”

“Really? That’s all you are?”

And then Aemond smirks to himself, a cynical, mocking twist of his lips, something so dismissive and so cruel you almost believe for a razor-thin second that you could hate him. “Look, I’m not the one for you. Go to Oregon. Fuck Cregan.”

“There is nothing romantic between me and Cregan!”

Now Aemond seems annoyed. “Well, you two seem exceptionally suited for each other.”

“Because we both grew up shopping at Dollar General and know what it’s like to have an alcoholic parent?! That makes us soulmates, that’s the end of the calculation?!”

“Then find a man like him!” Aemond flares. “That’s what you really wanted, right? That’s what you were after this whole time. Some hero to convince you he’s worth it. Someone to break you in.”

You are seething, thunderstruck. “And you just said that in the most hurtful way possible to…what, prove how little you care about me?”

“I didn’t say I don’t care about you.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“We were never going to end up in the same place.”

“Except we were, you told me that, you told me we’d figure something out, I mean, you…you…you said you’d be there if I wanted kids someday, what was that if not some kind of commitment?!”

“You don’t trust me,” Aemond says, so sharply and so abruptly it startles you.

“I do,” you object softly.

“No, you don’t. And I don’t blame you. But there’s nowhere for us to go from here.”

You can feel yourself becoming young and powerless and desperately afraid. “Please don’t do this, Aemond. It won’t bring Jace or Baela back. If we don’t have a plan before we split up, this is over. We’ll never find each other again. We’ll never have another chance.”

And he shakes his head like this was such a needless mistake. “I knew you’d fall in love with me.”

He’s leaving, you think, hazy and omnipotent like a nightmare, the present inseparable from the past and the future. I left my family and now my family is leaving me. “I’m not in love with you,” you reply as ruthlessly as you can. “I think you’re right. Cregan is a better man.”

“Yeah,” Aemond snaps.

“And I need someone like him.”

“Yeah,” Aemond says again, staring into the west where the last rays of the sun are sinking below the horizon, you erased as you stand where his left eye would once have seen you.

“And you need someone who’s going to fuck with your head so much you can’t possibly mistake it for something real.”

You walk back inside the mobile home and leave him speechless in the dying light.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I drew this for you,” Aegon says, handing Rio a folded piece of paper torn from Helaena’s spider notebook. It’s a map, illustrated in forest green gel pen ink. “Your route is actually really straightforward, it’s impossible to get lost. You’ll follow I-80 northwest to Winnemucca, then Route 95 north until it intersects with Route 140, and you stay on 140 all the way to Odessa. The only real city you’ll go near is Klamath Falls in Oregon, and I’ve marked that. Route 140 mostly stays along the outside, but you can cut it wider if things look dicey. The whole trip is just a couple days by car, assuming you don’t have to spend too long hunting for gas. But listen…” He points to the green dot labelled Winnemucca. “Between here and Denio Junction up by the Oregon border, there’s 100 miles of nothing, just desert. So make sure you have more than enough supplies to last you in case something happens. Then from Denio Junction to Adel is another 85 miles with no towns in between. So just…be careful, okay? You’re not back east anymore. Things are a lot farther apart, and it’s harder to find everything. If you run out of gas or bust a tire, you can’t just call AAA to come pick you up.”

“We got it,” Rio says, touched but trying not to dissolve into too much sentimentality. The three of you are standing in the short dirt driveway the next morning, Aegon putting most of his weight on his good leg. Cregan is waiting behind the wheel of the Chevy Tahoe that once belonged to his parents. Ice is peering out at you through one of the rolled-down windows. “Thank you, Honey Bun.”

“No problem. Now flip it over.”

Rio does; on the back of the first map is another, this one from Odessa south to the Bay Area, a place just north of San Francisco called Bolinas.

“Go all the way to the coast and follow it down,” Aegon says. “You don’t want to bump into Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, San Jose, any of those places. Too many people.” Then he smiles, kind and warm. “I’m going to see you guys again, one way or the other. But first I have to make sure Aemond is safe. And Rio has to meet baby Otter.”

Rio laughs. “Man, don’t even joke about it. I’m seriously concerned that’s my firstborn’s name.”

“If you end up not staying in Odessa, leave me a note carved into a tree trunk or something so I can track you down.”

“You do the same at the beach mansion.”

“Totally.” Then Aegon turns to you; and although he’s still smiling, his eyes—those pools of murky, melancholy blue that remind you of the Gulf of Tadjoura, Corpus Christi Bay, the East China Sea, the Indian Ocean—are catastrophically sad. “Tortilla Chip, it’s been real. Don’t forget about me.”

“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

He pats your backpack and winks, and you don’t understand why until ten hours later when you’re lying on the rooftop of an abandoned RV in Winnemucca, Nevada, gazing up at the stars as Rio and Cregan swap stories to weave affinity until it’s thick like a braid: Rio hiding a dead lemon shark in the Jeep of an officer he hated when you were stationed at Key West, Cregan’s fiancé leaving him after she got a field hockey scholarship to the University of Iowa. You haven’t found any gas for the Tahoe yet. You’ll have to search again tomorrow. You reach into your backpack for a pack of Life Savers and instead are surprised to discover Aegon’s pink Sony Walkman. The rhinestones spelling out a doomed little girl’s name glint in the moonlight.

You slip in both earbuds and press play. Aegon left it paused at an Enrique Iglesias song; you assume he must have been thinking of Rio.

“You look at me and, girl, you take me to another place

Got me feelin’ like I’m flyin’, like I’m out of space

Something ‘bout your body says, come and take me

Got me begging, got me hoping that the night don’t stop…”

You try to see constellations in the night sky instead of random, indifferent distant suns. You try not to remember the way Aemond was when you thought his mark on you was permanent.

“Girl, I like the way you move, come and show me what to do

You can tell me that you want me, girl, you got nothing to lose

I can’t wait no more

I can’t wait no more…”

You spot a glimmer of light among the stars and choose to believe it is a comet rather than a fighter jet, or a forgotten satellite, or the refracted remnants of a solar storm, or something you only imagined and that never existed at all.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x y/n

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nikoshinigami · 5 months ago

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More KHR thoughts - Hibari Kyouya

I love how Hibari is both super straightforward and yet also easily misunderstood. He's not abusive, but he is vicious. He's not antagonistic, but he is the hammer who sees all problems as nails. He's not a brooding stoic who struggles with anger issues, he's a chill guy who likes simple pleasures and smiles often.

Hibari is a character who is happy with his life and his place in the world from the very beginning. He knows exactly who he is, what he wants, how to get it, and that he is capable of getting it on his own merits. He is fair, not bending the rules when it suits him but following them even if it means he himself loses out. He only begins to be someone who is defined by the strength of his rage when the mafia comes in and messes up his idyllic home, demanding he play by their rules even though it is they who impose themselves on him. He is dealing with an invasive species that is wreaking havoc on the peaceful world he has constructed around him, and his only recourse is to beat them back as he would any other threat.

Temperance is his virtue which he proves in his self-restraint, but his silent struggle as a character becomes one of preservation. He is trying to preserve the peace and order within Namimori and the version of himself he knew and was content with. Rather than a big fish in a small pond, he's the monster in the loch that might flourish in deeper waters but feels at home where he is. Hibari has no delusions of grandeur; he does not desire more territory, more power, or means of conquest. He becomes, despite his best efforts, Vongola's sideshow attraction: watch and see how livid he can become, marvel at the damage his small body can take and still keep going, be astounded by the carnage he can unleash. Hibari will always choose to protect and never walk away from conflict, and though he genuinely does relish in a good fight, all he wants is to wrap things up and go home to lay in a nice patch of sunlight knowing all is well and all are safe.

#katekyou hitman reborn #reborn khr #hibari kyoya #khr

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sailorgundam308 · 1 year ago

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Karlach isn't a good girl

Listen, LISTEN. I love her, okay? Now that's out of the way. I see many people reducing her personality to the "big friendly labrador dog" thing. And while it's cute and all that, I disagree. Let me get into why I think Karlach isn't the goodie nice girl she puts a lot of effort to be. She has just returned to Faerun when we meet her in game, and she IS trying her bestest to start anew, to be the best version of herself now that she is free. But it doesn't mean she was always like that, or that her past has not changed her. I think it did - quite a lot, in fact.

Let's start with Gortash. She worked for this fucker. Granted, she might not have known he was such an evil bastard at the time, but she was his bodyguard. And by bodyguard, it is implied that she was his bully, his enforcer and debt collector - you know, the kind that breaks knees and kills people. When she meets an old friend in the city, that friend asks her if she is still in "the business of intimidation", and offers her to come see weapons. Even though Karlach, in her mind, might have been convincing herself that doing such a job was to help someone she respected, she still did it. And that is FINE. She was a young orphan, a tiefling in a place where tieflings are discriminated against harshly, poor and without much perspective. Of course a guy coming over offering her a well paid job that she excelled in would seem like winning a lottery. Still, she was a pretty shady violent person doing it. Now, the Hells. Avernus. She was sold to Zariel quite young still, and went through all sorts of torture and other perks enslavement gets you. For 10 years. She was scared shitless while there, especially in the beginning - she says so herself (to Halsin). All the carnage she inflicted was not (very) voluntary. She HAD to, or she would be the one getting killed. But she enjoyed it - or grew to. She likes violence, the adrenaline of it, the rush of excitement. The thrill of it, she says, is second only to sex.

Continuing on. Avernus, as well as the other layers of the Nine Hells, is not like the Material Plane. The place itself influences you. It means that being in Avernus for any time changes/corrupts/influences who you are. The longer you stay there, the deeper it gets. It did so to Zariel who was a literal angel. Avernus (and it's Archdevil's personality) insidiously get in your body and heart. It is just the way it goes, lore-wise, in DnD. If a fucking SOLAR wasn't immune to it, Karlach - young and lost - certainly wouldn't be either. Even more so because she was near Zariel all the time. I strongly believe Karlach was getting more and more exactly like Zariel - who herself is a fierce berserker warrior who charges head first into battle. Zariel is KNOWN to be this crazy strong, insane, fearless and (in her mind) righteous demon-smiting war machine. Sounds similar to a nice red tiefling we know, doesn't it? Now, did Zariel chose Karlach beause she was already like this, or did Karlach took after Zariel while she fought with her? Hard to tell. In any case, Karlach's 10 years in the Hells did change her. Needless to say, Avernus doesn't change you for the better. It doesn't mean that Karlach became "evil" - she is obviously far from it. But she is chaotic, violent and bloodthirsty. She is also selfish. There are several situations where this personality trait of her comes up.

It may sound kinda wild considering how she offers to help everyone and even sacrifice herself (since she's already dying anyway) - when we meet her. But that's the thing: she is being as selfless as she can now because she has been very selfish for a very long time (proof she has a conscience). Perhaps, she is terrified of what she was becoming and is trying to make amends, to revert whatever evil was growing in her.

She mentions herself that she did not help the tieflings of Elturel when their city was pulled down into Avernus. She did not get out of her way to help them. Instead, she thought that if "she was living that nightmare, they'd have to live it too". She would not put her neck on the line to help another - which, not so coincidentally, is typical behavior in the Hells (again, proof that Avernus was indeed getting to her). The Hag's Vicious Mockery targeted specifically at Karlach mentions how she is willing to "sell everyone's soul's if it means she can save hers". We do not know exactly what it refers to - soul coins, throwing others under the bus, ignoring people in need - but it reinforces the idea that Karlach was not the nicest person for at least 12+ years. Granted, the devils around her were much worse - but they are DEVILS in HELL. So.

Generally, in game we notice that her effort to survive and stay alive has pushed her selfishness to grow. But it still is selfishness. Another example is how she disapproves (together with Astarion), if you say to healer Nettie that you "swear to drink the Wyvern poison". She wouldn't drink it. She'd rather kill Nettie (that gets hostile).

Another hint at her grey-ish personality is when she talks to/about Wyll after he is punished by Mizora for not having killed Karlach. She mentions that she would NOT have done the same in his place. That he was better than her. Again, she would not put her skin on the line like that. She would and has turned a blind eye to situations and persons if it meant it would guarantee her survival or avoid injury. (Mind you, I 100% belive she would do this sacrifice if she was in love with someone, though.)

She will ask to, and will use Soul Coins even though she knows it's morally a sus choice to do so. If you play as her she will repeat to herself "I won't use them, they are people's souls - and I am GOOD." like she is trying to convince herself. Because she would fucking use them to smash some big fuckers in a blink - and feel awesome while doing it. Even as her, she keeps insisting "But... maybe I can use them... JUST when I really need them." Additionally, when she talks to the bugbear merchant in Moonrise Towers and he offers her soul coins, she doesn't really feel guilty for the stories of the souls in them. She even says at some point "they are already doomed, so why not use them anyway", justifying that she will only kill evil bastards with them. In any case, the morality of her choice is debatable. It makes clear that Karlach is not "lawful good" by any stretch.

Let me reiterate that just because I am saying all this about Karlach, doesn't mean I dislike her. I think she is abso-fucking-lutely the best character in the game. But I hate to see her personality "flattened" to nice happy go lucky gal. I think she has a grey-tinged personality - she has good and bad aspects to herself; she has character flaws too.

But I also think that she is trying her damn hardest to be the best she can be right then. The opposite of what she's been. Maybe it is because she has so little time left, that she needs to be the absolute best version of herself while she can. Perhaps she is trying to be what she would have been if her parents did not die - because they seemed like great loving parents. And I think Karlach didn't turn into a broken evil maniac because of them, the way they raised her while they were alive. But she lost her mom at 6, her father around 13-15. After that, it was struggling on the streets, Gortash and Zariel - betrayal, violence, carnage, war and loneliness. It is too naive to think a person would not change after all this, that Karlach would not carry more scars than those she shows on her body. To her credit, she turned much MUCH better than anyone would have. She WILL kill with a grin on her face, seek violence, blood and even revel in it - she learned to relish it and now it's part of who she is. She is selfish, she will look out for herself and has no qualms about killing or throwing people she doesn't care for under the bus (if she sees justification for it). BUT she knows what evil is, and doesn't let shit happen to people who don't deserve it. She will side with those who suffer prejudice and fight against what she sees as injustice - but even she has a limit to how far she'd go.

If you raid the Emerald Grove, she will leave the party. To me, this screams of her trying to right her past wrongs. She left the Elturians to their fate once before, so she MUST save them now that she has another chance - and that it won't cost her her life. I love her being 1/3 brutal killing machine (and fucking LOVING it), 1/3 ptsd, fear and overcompensating trauma under a smile, and 1/3 just trying her best, really, and being lovely for it. Phew. That was a long rant. I guess I just wanted to organize my thoughts about it a bit :V

#baldur's gate 3 #karlach #bg3 #bg3 spoilers #spoilers #opinion #karlach is not evil #but shes not a well of pure heartedness and good either

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aixeko · 14 days ago

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──────⏯ A WORK OF ART [ ▸ ]

MAIN MASTERLIST ➤ HSR MASTERLIST

🎨 “ I'LL FIGHT FOR CONTROL BUT THE "RIGHT WAY" TAKES A TOLL AND STILL AT THE END OF IT ALL I CAN'T ESCAPE MY FATE THE WRITING'S ON THE WALL. “ .𖥔 ݁ ˖

| Starring | Famous Violinist!Kafka x [ Child prodigy, failed adult ] Artist!Reader

| Setting | Modern AU

| Scenario | [ SHORT FIC ] ANGST! Hurt/comfort. Mental Breakdown. Unhealthy mindset. Artist’s struggles. Low self esteem. Identity crisis. Established relationship. Kafka & reader is engaged. Rushed ending… NOT PROOFREAD.

► RADIO CHANNEL [Author note]

× My first Kafka fic on here, wow. Happy holly jolly christmas <3 ×Something about this triggered the 5 stages of grief in me so hard. I hate this fic with my entire soul, it’s so badly written I’m sorry. Especially at the end, It’s so disappointing. Sorry... × Anyway, I highly recommend listening to the duet version between Kaveh and Haitham of Writing on the Wall ! It captures the feels of this fic greatly.

[ Word count: 2721 ] Sources: Love and Deep space, Kafka cosplay, and real life images found on pinterest.

🎻 "I'll come save your soul as your "Right way" takes a toll and then at the end of it all I will rewrite your fate as writing on the wall." ✮⋆˙

With every stroke that strikes the hauntingly pale canvas, the aching prominent in your shoulder seems to grow as if roaring waves taking the form of liquid paint have crashed upon you without a moment's notice. The weight of each stroke takes its toll on you, accumulating like the darkening of the heavens and gathering of clouds before their fierce rage captures its victims in ominousness and instability.

In such a suffocating atmosphere, time felt like nothing more than a worthless nuisance, with its worth only to disturb the bothered and the unbothered. Has the star that this miserable home orbits already fallen prey to slumber, or has its opposite already shrouded the sky in its woefulness? How many times has the Earth already taken its rest while you fought your fatigue under the guise of devotion to one's art? How often have you endeavored to bring forth a masterpiece from a hand marred by mistakes and a mind colored with imperfections? How much longer can your heart allow you to continue this disgraceful creation you would dare call "art"?

Without any hindrance to your movement, another imperfect splash of color daubs the canvas.

Sweat that has amassed begins to feel like the submersion of the ocean itself, followed by the rise and fall of rapid breathing, a frantic attempt to hold a semblance of living in this polluted air brought about by your own destruction.

Your eyes bore into the incoherent carnage of colors. Trembling.

A genius is what you were; a fallen genius is what you are. A desperate soul scouring every inch of one's own being in search of that familiar sensation of flowing fluency, of inspiration, and of motivation. Only to find nothing more than broken pieces.

Without your consciousness's consent, the fuming flame that begs to be unleashed took over, and the hairs of your brush crashed onto the canvas. It takes a while before your lidded eyes glisten, before snapping open at the realization of your misstep. You shake your head nonstop, lips quivering at the distasteful spectacle before your eyes, a sight that nearly has you falling from your high stool.

Calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down, calm down! CALM DOWN!

You repeatedly try to tell yourself, your vision blurring again at the wetness of anguish that weighs on unfulfilled dreams stemming from swollen, red eyes. The strength of your grip tightens around the same tool meant to aid you, a tool that was never meant to destroy you, a tool you now feel immense shame to even have the rightfulness of holding.

NO.

Your mind is fooling you with lies of deception; yes, that's what it is; that's what it is called: lies, lies, lies. You're still the same prodigy you always were and have been.

This brush is still yours to bear; this brush is still your territory, your invincible sovereignty where no others can take it away from you. For the first time in months, your eyes wander to something beyond the impending doom of your ambition.

You mustn't give up now, no, not yet, not now, not ever, not until your heart ceases to beat and your body turns to ashes of the past. Fame or attention, it doesn't matter; you must, you HAVE to see this through to the end, the day of its completion, the day when it will bask in its infinite glory. No matter the cost, you will... or else—what was the point of all those praises?

They can't be mere meaningless praises of pity toward an innocent, simple-minded child, right? You're still the little prodigy your mother and father had proudly proclaimed all those years ago, right?

Right...?

The shuddering grip on the brush and the unbalanced posture reveal a narrative diverging from reality, a tale where truth has been distorted into a mere blemish on a meticulously crafted illusion. A revelation that you may be able to lie to yourself and others, but one that you cannot lie to your body and soul.

You knew; you always have. You may have had the passion and talent, but you long ago lost one, holding tightly to another, and believing you still have both under your control.

You weren't the same talented child that so many adored anymore, but you were still the same child who continued to be a pathological people-pleaser who only wanted the acknowledgment of others.

In the end, fame and attention do matter because they define the very reasons for your identity and the continuation of your undesirable life.

You are fully aware of this fact, yet you cannot seem to stop yourself. A true artist would weave their personal tragedy and fabricate it into a timeless masterpiece. Yet, you have never pondered one important detail.

What becomes of an artist when their brush is meek, their mind lost in the abyss, with no visions to seek? When their passion has already lost its spark to ignite, and sorrow lingers on, untouched and cold?

It was already nighttime; the moon was at its fullest, yet you don’t have the will to care anymore, lost in the darkness of your thoughts. You don’t indulge in the tiredness, the empty pit in your stomach, or the concentrated primal desire to finally let loose of your entire being. A tempting, melodious voice murmurs in the back of your mind, consuming the entirety of your senses, an offer to travel to the lowest part of the earth, where even the greatest of scientists have yet to discover the fullest extent of it. The watery depth that is known as the abyss, the ocean in which silence can devour you whole. Devoid of a singular worry, devoid of the guilt of being pathetically idiotic in the field where you should have been unsurpassable, devoid of having to live with the fact that you will never be enough no matter the effort you have invested in. Because in the end, puppeteered by fate's hands, those who are blessed by beings of greater power will always succeed over the untalented.

You tilt your head upward, and immediately that nauseating feeling runs its course all over your body. The moonlight emitting through the clear paneglass window mocks you for your misery, taunting you with the art piece that you have embarrassingly spent months on, only to end up with nothing more than a disfigured, incoherent shot of colors. You bite your lip for what seems to be the hundredth time, your swollen eyes streaming enough tears to cover an entire river.

What would everyone think of me? My audience? My mother? My father? You stare up blankly at the ceiling, unable to bear looking at your own creation, a reflection of your inner chaos. What would they all think of me? You wish to never see it again. A heaviness settles in your chest, and you wish to rid yourself of it all, to vanish into nothingness. Your body slumps, silence wrapping around you, thick and suffocating, leaving only shadows of questions echoing in the stillness where time has lost its meaning. What would you think of me—Kafka?

Your grip around your brush loosens, and eventually, your hands relax. You hear the brush drop to the floor alongside the mess of equipment, but its sound registers as nothing more than muffled background noise.

Your eyes surrender to the painful longing to rest, whether involuntarily or voluntarily; you do not know. Slowly, your body begins to yield. You lean back slightly, feeling the world tilting along with you in slow motion like a steady dance with gravity. You're falling, you realize. To say you care would be another lie because you don't. Rather, the eventual fall feels surreal and oddly comforting, like you're drifting into a gentle dream, and the cold floor is like that of a comforting bed that you slump into after a long-awaited day of hard work.

Time stretches, and the world dims, leaving only the sound of your heartbeat pounding in your ears and the arrival of the wooden floor, a final act of surrender as you wait for impact.

If I fall, art will perish with me.

If I don't...

You wait and wait and wait, but the feeling of the harsh wooden floor never comes into contact with your head. Instead, all you could feel were those calloused, ever-so-cautious, indistinguishable hands. You need no vision to identify whose hands those belong to; their touch alone speaks volumes. Those were the hands of a person who has spent a lifetime honing their ability to the utmost, practicing every day with precision and care. The hands of a talented, hardworking genius, someone that you believe you were.

"You're home early." You let out a voice barely above a whisper and drained of a will to live.

"I'm afraid I'm late."

Her usual sultry and dragged-out voice has significantly softened to quiet murmurs only meant for the comfort of your ears. There's an intimacy in her tone as if every whisper is a precious secret she's reluctant to reveal to the world.

You let out an 'Mn' sound, acknowledging her words before you open your teary eyes. Kafka remains silent, her expression unreadable as she observes your evident misery and the wrecked, enormous portrait that she perceives as a reflection of herself, waiting patiently for you to break the silence. Her eyes, filled with equal concern and curiosity.

A deep, shaky exhale escapes you. You sit up before bending forward with your clasped hands pressed tightly against your head and your arms on your thighs. "Kafka," another heavy exhale releases. "Why... tell me, why do we choose to create?"

You hear a slight hesitation in her step; then you feel her hand gently resting on top of your head, the warmth of her touch seeping through, and another hand on your shoulder, grounding you in her presence.

"Because it is the only thing that fate cannot define."

That fate cannot define? You jumped out of your seat, knocking the stool to the ground and catching Kafka off guard, even more so when you hauled her by the collar.

"That's bold coming from you," you pull her closer, "A genius like you wouldn't know how hard it is to struggle to create, especially considering the human desire is to CREATE. You will never KNOW the struggle to have passion but never the talent to make something that isn't nauseating to look at." Kafka's lips part to speak, but in the midst of the storm that has clouded your sight, the world is all but utter darkness to you, and she is the one exception on whom you can vent your frustration.

"People are CHOSEN by FATE; they are CHOSEN, not MADE, not LEARNED. THEY ARE CHOSEN. KAFKA."

"Music is to the soul what words are to the mind, and art is no different; it is a language without words."

Kafka's left fingers traced your collarbone to your jawline, tilting your head slightly until she rested her hand on your cheek, gently wiping away the streaming tears.

"Would you call a genius who spent countless hours and years cultivating their skills until their hands are imprinted with their experience an act of fate, a chosen one?"

"I—"

"You wouldn't." Kafka leans towards you to kiss away the tears of the untouched side. "What a silly question, isn't it? Why do we create? There is no definite answer, and that's what makes art, art."

"Art is a reflection of an artist's truest form of emotion, a way of communication away from the eyes of the world; is it not?"

It is. You admit it mentally, but that reason does not define you; no, the opposite is really, but ashamed to admit it to your fiancée, you turn away from her gaze to save what little dignity you have left.

If I fall... I will give up on art.

Kafka sighed; she let go of her hold and walked past you. Your fists clenched, and you bit your bottom lip until the flesh of it was pierced through until blood was the only thing you could taste, and loud, discordant noise was all you could hear. Your heart was pounding, and it was dropping. Did you just lose the one soul that you have found comfort in? Did you really just lose the one fucking thing that remained a constant in your life? Are you this much of an imbecile?

If I don't... I will continue.

"You look like a lost puppy," Kafka trailed a small streak of red paint on your cheek. "That said, I prefer to see my puppy smiling."

You blink, and for the first time since her arrival, clarity cuts through the haze of your own downpour, revealing your fiancée, your wife, your lover—the woman who has not just stolen but nurtured your heart.

"Was it not you who told me all those years ago that I should stop obsessing over every little detail when I was a naïve teenager?" Kafka sighed dreamily, her smile reaching her eyes and that tender gaze boring mesmerizingly into yours. In this moment, this woman, this woman who presents herself in such a devilish presence, now looks like God's most beautiful creation, an angel who has descended from heaven.

Your lips part, wanting to say something, but those words get lost in your throat as you drag yourself across the floor, hands reaching out to embrace her tightly.

This time for myself.

"...Why couldn't I be a genius? Why couldn't I be born with natural talents?"

"Shh, my love, let your mind rest and focus on the sound of my heartbeat."

As you stand there, the world outside fades into background noises, and her heartbeat is the only melody in which you allow yourself to indulge. Her thumb rubs the painted streak on your cheek, and you lean into her touch, feeling the frustration of before melt away.

"I should have been here for you; a month away from you is a grave regret." Kafka pressed her lips against your head. "You are enough just as you are, and I am here now to prove it to you."

Your eyes grew heavier and heavier until, in the peace of her presence and the warmth of her love, you felt a sense of tranquility wash over you, guiding you into a much-needed, peaceful slumber.

"Ludwig van Beethoven once stated that the true artist is not proud; he unfortunately sees that art has no limits. He feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius appears only as a distant guiding sun."

"Then I guess... I'll just have to work until you can't tell the difference between me and a genius."

"Kafka, art is a reflection of an artist's truest form of emotion; it is a way of communicating away from the eyes of the world, a language of the soul. If you practice too much, you will eventually lose your passion. What is art without emotions? What is art without a reason?"

"Are you saying I will never be able to reach their level?"

"There's no such thing as a ranking when it comes to the human desire to create; art is subjective, and so is the beauty of it. Being able to produce any form of art is still art, and no matter the nonsensical opinions of others, it is only you who deserves to make a judgment."

Kafka runs her hand through your hair, feeling the soft strands slip through her fingers as she observes your peacefully resting form.

"A struggle of artistic ideals, an impossibly fast pace of flowing ideas that disappear just as fast as their appearance, and a perfectionistic reality in which the succession of manifestations is humanly impossible."

She chuckled softly, shaking her head. "It's a shame you have fallen prey to it as well," Smoothly, she picked you up, cradling you protectively in her arms, where no harm can be done to you anymore.

"No matter," she continued, her voice a soothing lullaby to your ears. "Just as you once did for me in the past, I will come save your soul."

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gaylienz · 2 months ago

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*bangs pots and pans together* wake up iz fandom wake up! we are DONE harassing each other for ridiculous things! we are DONE being assholes to one another! we are now going to return to our regularly scheduled program. we are going to do what fandoms are meant to do--have fun and chew on canon until its nigh unrecognizable!

anyone who wants to keep policing how adults with critical thinking skills interact with fictional cartoon characters can go hang out in the 'No Fun' Zone. literally if you're genuinely ACTUALLY upset and think there are some kind of inherent morals to shipping--I don't really know what to say at this point. This isn't even pro/anti shipping. This is just using the power of the human mind to know the difference between reality and fiction, between genuine harm to others and playing dolls, between physically harming someone and writing stories...

If you want to control how other people act and what they do then you'll always be left wanting.

if invader zim has some kind of moral, its that the universe is chaotic and impossible to predict or control. if IZ has any moral, its that resiliency is vital in the face of that uncaring universe. if IZ has any moral, its that people are NOT EVIL or monstrous or good or bad or simple at all--but people are often very stupid (and very intelligent), and just PEOPLE, doing their best despite it all.

this fandom is only a hostile place if we make it one. and i dont want the kind of place imagined by so many of the newcomers to this fandom--this like sterile, ultra-sanitized, morally acceptable version of IZ and the fandom. if you came in during the ETF wave....take a moment and examine your biases. and rethink before you decide to essentially outright hate anyone who likes something different from you.

anyway----all of this to say that i miss you IZ fandom. I came back and so many really awesome people are gone bc of the carnage. and the history im finding is really disappointing. so much cool stuff, cool ideas, cool people and so much of all gone now.

but hey if you're still here and just want to chew on these characters and play in this buck-wild space with me....i love you <3

#cupid.txt #im throwing fuel onto the fire of this fandom #idk how yet but im dragging people along with me #i saw someone say this fandom was dead on reddit and i wanna cry bc nOO #it is like its main character--it cannot be killed #it can be decimated sure #but like ZiM....we must rise #invader zim

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thenaiads · 24 days ago

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Hope and Nightmares

@alterdnbweek

Day 16: Pirates AU; enemies to lovers; Day 17: Non-human; hurt/comfort;

......................

Before starting this I need to explain a little this Au!!!

This is a Crossover of the book series universe "The Guardians of Childhood" (even known as "Rise Of The Guardians").

The story takes place after the Fearlings, Shadows, and Nightmares (here for info) break from their prison and start spreading chaos and destruction in the Universe, guided by the newborn Nightmare King on the massive ship Nightmare Galleon (yes, space pirates guys).

A big thanks to @mistythedritten for the idea XD

Once again I apologize for any grammar errors, I did my best. If you don't understand something tell me so I can correct and change things 😭😭😭

..........................

The cells in the galleon were something really horrible, they were small, and cold, with nothing to lie down on, or even pass the time.

The only company were of occasional Fearlings that observed it from the shade, as a kind of exotic animal … or a delicious banquet.

"How is our dear guest doing today?", asks a hidden figure in the shadows.

"Fuck. It's here.", thinks a young man with pink hair.

Stay calm Techno, he can sense your fear. You need to be calm.

"Very well Sir Dream, but I will not lie about my review for this place, I fear you will have to settle for two stars at most", it should not be so easy to fall back into the old habits with the being in front of him

"That's not my name Sir Technoblade," said the figure, their voice closer than before

"Oh right, my apologies I had forgotten Your Highness, the name you use is "Epiales the King of Nightmares", correct?", as the young man ends the phrase, the figure finally comes out of the shade revealing a pale-ciner face, white hair, and two silver eyes (too expressive and alive for the corpse that they were using) that had some gold around the pupils.

Fun, they look like a solar eclipse. How fitting.

"Exactly, very well! I see that your brain activities are still all intact, and after weeks of torture by my Nightmares no less, I'm glad.", he said with a cheerful voice and a sweet smile, a twisted version of his original owner.

"I mean, the nightmares are surely unpleasant but, nothing that cannot be managed in the morning once awake."

"Really? Last night's screams say the opposite, but it seems that I have to commit more!", the shadow man continues with a tone typical of someone who talks about something fun to an old friend.

"Please stop."

"Oh? Do you give up then?"

"No, just… stop using his face in that way, Fearling."

"…"

"Sir Dream was… a valiant warrior and friend for many, kill him and using his corpse as a marionette is already horrible, but using his face and his voice? This is low even for demons like you!"

"You forgot some important things in your description, general."

"And, what would it be?"

"You forgot to mention "lover" and "possible future husband", those simple words were like a sword in the general's stomach.

"Dream and I are not… we weren't…", it took a lot of willpower to keep calm and continue the conversation.

"Don't lie! Not to me, not when I can sniff any idiocy is about to get out of your mouth! He was as many things for you... as you were for him."

"What would you know about these things, monster?", the pikette said the last words with all the poison and anger that the man was capable of.

"More than you give me credit, dear general," said calmly the nightmare king, with a look of something that looked like empathy, it was an odd thing to see for a dark being like him.

"Why do you tell me all this?"

"I would like to offer you an agreement, general."

"And, would it be?"

"Better accommodation, better food if possible, and in return total surrender… and a place by my side"

"Are you serious?"

"I am."

"What kind of madness makes you believe that I would accept? That I would betray my companions?!"

"Even if I said that war and carnage are not my goals in all this?"

"Oh yes, I totally believe it, and I'm sure that the inhabitants of the three planets that you devoured and drained the light do it too!"

"Planets where I left some survivors if I am not mistaken, because they were not my main goal but, as you said now, their light were. I admit that I could have gone to a frenzy but, I think it is justifiable after centuries of starving!" "Or, do you want to deny even this truth, general?"

"I'm still not betraying anyone."

"Not betray but abandon. I'm asking you to leave everything and everyone behind yes... but, not to betray them."

"And, why should I do it? What do I really earn?"

"The possibility of saving your people, and your family from me, my Fearlings, Nightmares, and Shadows who live on this ship."

"Didn't you say that war and carnage were not your goal?"

"Yes and I mean it, but this does not mean that I will not defend myself when the troops come, and they will do it soon or later… I can't run and hide forever, and when the battle will come I will not give them any mercy… not like I gave it to you. "

"Waoh, you make me feel so special", he said with sarcasm that he missed the contempt he felt for being. "If what you say is true then, what is your real goal?", even if it was a lie he could not stop the curiosity that this conversation aroused in the young general.

"My goal is to survive at the moment, to find a place far from the sight of the Lunanoffs and their followers, and perhaps to finally be able to live in peace, as far as I'm allowed."

"Living in peace, really? And, do you expect me to believe you? You Fearlings and Shadow Men don't know anything about living in peace, or respecting the life of others, or anything about human suffering, Shadow!" "Beings like you only know how to prey on the fear and the light of others, you are not able to experience the slightest human emotion!"

"If this is what you think then, why did you spare my life that day? You had me at your mercy, and you could get rid of me, so why?"

"Because killing you like that wouldn't get rid of you forever, you would have returned sooner or later, with a new body to wear maybe, and… you had his face, and I… I was unable to go all the way."

"Is this really the reason, general?"

"…"

"I'm not your enemy, despite what the Lunanoffs say, and I don't wanna be. If you help me you could save a lot of pain on both sides, Sir Technoblade."

Silence.

"Revenge will not give you back what you've already lost, how it will not give me back mine. And I think that by helping each other we can make something good… new opportunities perhaps?"

"You speak like one of those snobs who give away the hand of their own daughter in marriage, you know?", he said it as a way to mock the other.

"In a sense is what I am proposing, only that it is my hand I am giving."

"You. Are. Not. Him.", he was so close to losing himself to anger for hearing such a proposal, "YOU CAN'T REPLACE HIM!".

"And I'm not going to but... he meant a lot for you, to the point of sparing me, even now after a month of mental tortures you are willing to listen to me and talk to me as an equal rather than a mindless monster. None of your colleagues would do such a thing, and you know."

"…"

"Listen… I may not be him, or be human for that matter, but… when I took this body I assimilated the soul that lived in it, with some of its memories. The soul has become a part of me, as much I'm a part of it now."

"..."

"Your beloved Dream is not gone, not in the way you think and it may not return to you in the way it was before this but, it's still there."

"Lies, you are lying. You are trying to manipulate me"

"I wish I was, it would be simpler.", his gaze was turned down as if he was ashamed of this administration.

"Think about it, doesn't seems a little out of character for me to keep you alive, without trying even once to corrupt your core, and turn you into one of us? That, nightmares aside, I kept you as healthy as possible, and I'm having a conversation to find a mutual agreement that can satisfy both of us? " "Don't you think that perhaps just perhaps, what remains of your beloved is still here, and is influencing me?"

"…"

"I don't want to give you false hopes, I am not and I will never be Him, but this does not mean that things cannot change for the better from how they are now."

There was a silence full of waiting in the air, which was broken by pinkette.

"Time. I-I need time to think."

"Of course, I will give you three days to carefully think about my proposal, and I will try to give you lighter nightmares to allow you to think. Is this a good agreement for you?"

"Yes, yes, whatever."

"I will wait for you, call me if you need me or anything.", and after saying this the figure of the King of Nightmares loose in the shadow from which he had come.

And the general was left alone to think and reflect on the strange conversation he had with the Shadow King, leaving him with many questions and perhaps with the slightest hope of reuniting again with his beloved Dreamling.

#dreamsmp fanfiction #dnbxmas24 #dreamnoblade #my fanfiction #crossover

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cheemscakecat · 1 year ago

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Emesis Blue Medic Headcanon

So I’m 99% sure that Spy’s Disguise takes place before the nightmare sequence known as Emesis Blue, sometime during the height of the respawn failures.

[I’m going to talk about DID. I’m not an expert, and this post about a fictional character should never be used to self diagnose.]

The Bloody RED Engineer sabotaged the respawn machine, which led to his entire team dying for real; then he murdered a group of [supposedly] unrelated BLU engineers, who also died for real.

It’s the reason why Dr Ludwig is even in the area to work on the comatose CyberSpy.

If Emesis Blue is a dream/nightmare people’s jobs may not match with real life, but still tell us something important about them. Soldier being Spy’s assistant tells us that he likes to work in a group rather than alone, even if his teammate is a jerk.

Ludwig being the Chief Medical Advisor could imply that he was the go-to expert at the height of the respawn failures, who had to investigate and report on different accidents when he wasn’t attempting to save a patient from said failures. Whether it was killing him slowly or not, Blu wouldn’t care; not the Administrator or Jules Archibald, at the least.

Jules is shown to be callous about death in both Spy and Soldier’s nightmares, and someone who relies on other people to protect him and do his dirty work to the point he’s incapable of defending himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if he and his crew forced Medic to report on all the gory details of each respawn failure, while being unwilling to attempt to rescue patients or clean up the carnage.

Re-watching the early scenes with Scout it seems that the era of the respawn errors is long gone, and the details are highly classified. Which would explain why Scout is so uninformed about any of the other accidents, but Ludwig had a nightmare that his friend suffered one himself.

Medic’s body language at the Medical office and in the ambulance makes it feel like the doctor wouldn’t be answering all these questions if he wasn’t talking to a friend. Like it hurts to relive that trauma, and the answers he gives are vague. Makes sense if Jules and the team trying to fix the Respawn machine bombarded Medic with questions over and over again, forcing him to picture what happened, no matter how awful it was.

Keeping that in mind:

What if the Funeral Medic is in control of Ludwig’s body when we see him in Spy’s disguise?

Neither of them talk or blink, for one thing. He does wince and cross himself upon rewatching CyberSpy’s robot-seizure, but that’s instinct. Another thing I noticed;

Something is going on with his eyes. This was his reaction to CyberSpy’s neck cracking, and the eyes stay like that.

It’s almost as if somebody trained himself not to blink, so he’d make people uncomfortable.

[nods once, flares nostrils in irritation]

It’s starting to feel like the Funeral Medic is meant to put people off of approaching Ludwig. If that is the case, we have proof that it works despite looking like Fritz, not his scarier version from Emesis Blue. I also noticed he really doesn’t like CyberSpy and Buddy Engineer.

He’s like “The revolver… exists! But you two just had to keep using that broken disguise kit anyway.”

Normally these Respawn Failures are completely accidental, and the patients are innocent [in that context, anyways]. So for two people to cheat by using body modification, and drive an enemy teammate to insanity? Any deeper coldness and anger reserved for Archibald and his cronies would emerge.

And he had to set up a camera before touching the patient… I really think this personality is mute. People with DID have been studied, and their brain structure is different between personalities. Their pets can tell the difference, and some personalities have physical ailments that the rest of the system doesn’t. So it isn’t impossible for one of Medic’s alters to be mute or selectively mute.

Ludwig’s nightmare version of this alter is associated with the respawn deaths in his mind too. He must have been switching during the investigations, with Funeral Medic performing surgeries and dealing with Jules. But for a time there would have been a lot of casualties, and Fritz may believe that this personality was intentionally letting patients die.

Could contribute to the nightmare imagery of being helpless with this personality around.

The fact that the real alternate personality and the nightmare version move so fluidly could be showing us another important detail.

Funeral Medic has exceptional aim and reaction times. Probably in order to react to injuries caused by the respawn machine, and to perform the needed treatments as effectively and precisely as possible. That’s why he moves like that.

My theory is that Electric-Eye Medic is a protector personality that comes out during RED v BLU matches when someone keeps targeting Fritz and needs to be put in their place. And most other situations now that the respawn failures aren’t happening like before. It’s why he’s the first other personality to take control, and keeps showing up.

And Funeral Medic is a gatekeeper personality who used to take control to prevent Ludwig from getting more trauma from Respawn Failures and patient deaths. Normally he stays inside the mind and keeps other people’s trauma from resurfacing, but the events of Emesis Blue were so serious that he needed to front.

It’s why he only shows up at the end.

When someone has DID, communicating with their alternate personalities and understanding what they’re trying to do is key. But Dr Ludwig wasn’t diagnosed with DID [or multiple personality disorder], he was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. And he’s Catholic, so he’s really likely to mistake Funeral Medic for a demon.

It’s one of the reasons why I want Emesis Blue to be a nightmare; so Ludwig and his personalities can talk/write things out and deal with their inner conflict. They need to, and I think he deserves a happy ending.

If RED Medic has his stolen wedding doves, it’d fit BLU to have an emotional support animal.

#emesis blue #blue medic #character analysis #This is NOT written by a psychologist.

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mage-ical-character-person · 11 months ago

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I’ve been rotating the idea in my head that Mimzy only coming to Alastor when she needs something wasn’t a thing when they were alive. Or at least wasn’t as blatant/common.

The way they know each other is that he would frequent the place she performed at, which sort of implies that Alastor was usually the one seeking Mimzy out at that point? He speaks about this fondly, his smile is actually genuine and relaxed as he looks back on it.

Look at him! His grin is so much softer than usual. Look how he holds his hands up in the last one, and how his eyes look happy too. He feels at ease around Mimzy in a way we don’t really see elsewhere. He allows her to divulge information about his life and even adds to it. His guard is down. This is the only time his past is discussed without him getting all prickly.

This isn’t how a calculating overlord of hell acts around someone who’s only been using him as long as they’ve known each other. And he knows that nowadays she only shows up when she needs something from him.

Which to me really gives off the impression that it wasn’t always like this. And with how transactional many things are with Alastor and his dealmaking tendencies, it wouldn’t surprise me if in life maybe Alastor went to Mimzy when he needed something, and now as the Radio Demon he feels he must pay it back. Especially since with the power he’s acquired, none of the favors he does for her are any trouble for him. He even seems to enjoy them, with his comment about getting to let off steam and Mimzy claiming that “You love taking care of me” And THEN there’s the whiplash when Mimzy is talking about Alastor’s deeds as the Radio Demon and so quickly switches to “Underneath it all, he’s a total sweetie”. I know it was mostly for comedic effect, but I sort of get the vibe that their time in Hell has made them both worse (though obviously neither were great to begin with), and there’s almost a sort of cognitive dissonance where they still want to think of each other the same way they did when they were alive. Like Mimzy has a hard time thinking of the Radio Demon and her old friend Alastor as the same person. As if to her the only carryover being that she can get away with almost anything now because the Radio Demon has soft spot for her. That there’s just enough Alastor left in there that he’ll protect her, and she knows this… but otherwise hardly recognizes him.

It’s hard to think of the Radio Demon as human, which is very intentional on his part. But his old friend heard all that broadcasted carnage too. And the idea of that causing any positive, casual interactions to grow fewer and farther between with Al and Mimzy intrigues me. The idea that the persona of the Radio Demon played a part in Mimzy coming to see Alastor as sort of an embodiment of power to be used adds a sort of… depth? tragedy? That I really like.

Ironically, Alastor still feels most human around Mimzy. Only around her does he feel like his old self, back when the facade was not one of cruelty but of innocence. Back when showing his more benign tendencies threw others off his trail instead of leaving him open to attack from rivals willing to exploit any weakness or caring.

(And the new way of doing things suits him just fine, thank you very much. Yes, the Radio Demon is who he really was all along, he was just holding back before. He’s never felt as free as he does in hell, he promises. It’s not like he is any different, he’s been probing victims for weakness longer than most of the overlords he lets live, I’ll have you know!)

But maybe there are parts of his old life he didn’t mean to leave behind. Maybe in broadcasting a facade that attempts to put as much distance between him and his humanity as possible, he’s lost something. Because his old friend has started to believe any reason to care about him as a person is gone. He’s hardly an even a person anymore. (At least that’s what he wants everyone else to think)

Both of them are holding on to a past version of the other. Neither are sure how much is left, or how much has really truly changed. Or if they were always monsters, just looking back at the past with rose-tinted glasses? After all, it’s been so long…

So I want to see Mimzy’s reaction when Vox inevitably broadcasts the footage of Alastor’s defeat at the hands of Adam all over hell. I want her to see that and see him as human again.

#Hazbin Hotel #alastor #mimzy #long post #mostly just spitballing here #I just think Mimzy’s neat #*chatter chatter*#hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel mimzy

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theamityelf · 6 months ago

Note

I got you girl

Komaeda/Yandere Naegi. Wow, my idol just invited me to his house and and know he isn’t letting me leave. How lucky!

Yandere Alter Ego/ thh survivors. Need to protect the friends. by any means necessary…

Oooooh, I really want to do the Alter Ego one! And it seems like the easiest way to go about that would be a version of Property Rights of the Ultra-Talented where it's Alter Ego instead of Izuru, but I gotta be more creative than that, right? 😁

----

"Hina," Alter Ego sighs, "if it's stressing you out this much, maybe you shouldn't watch."

The Neo-World Program is dominating every screen in the room, as it has been for the past four days. Thanks to the way the simulation compresses downtime, especially when the Remnants are "sleeping", the survivors of the killing school life have been watching a near-relentless barrage of traumatic events.

Alter Ego has tried to keep them from watching the carnage at all, but they've been stubborn on the matter. Hiro and Toko are the only ones who can be relied on to consistently stop watching when they should.

"No, everyone else is sleeping, so I have to keep an eye on the simulation," Aoi says. "I took a nap during all the Komaeda stuff, so it's only fair."

Alter Ego does not have the bandwidth to even try to understand the obligation its friends feel towards the act of observation. It understands the objectives "Save the Remnants from execution" and "Save the Remnants from Despair," but the objective "Watch the happenings within the simulation," doesn't make sense as a shared undertaking when Alter Ego itself is already not only keeping constant watch over the Neo World Program, but also the only one of them who can do anything about what happens inside it. Attempting to understand it, past the blanket explanation of "irrational behavior" would take more computing power than it can spare without making the Remnants less safe.

What it does have the bandwidth for is remembering which arguments it has yet to use on Aoi. "You guys already had to go through your own killing game; it's not fair to put you through another."

"Hey, we're safe from the worst of it! There's no chance of it killing us."

(She is trying to comfort Alter Ego with her positivity, because they're friends. But no amount of positive words will sway the objective projection of probable outcomes that drives Alter Ego's concern for its friends' mental health. As the simulation draws nearer to its end, the list of possible outcomes narrows, and the probability that they will reach an outcome that Alter Ego's friends will be unhappy with grows.)

Aoi continues, "We just, uh...I've gotta admit, all that glitching is making me a little...nauseous."

"It's actually 'nauseated', but that's not important now. You should really go to bed. I promise I'll let everyone know if something goes wrong. Get yourself a nice snack and-...Makoto! What are you doing up?!"

"Uhh..." Makoto, who has just entered the room full of the Remnants' pods, scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. "I came to relieve Hina."

"You think I can't handle a full shift?" Aoi says with a smile.

"None of you need to be handling a full shift!" Alter Ego says. "That's what artificial intelligence is for."

"I really don't mind," Makoto says, pulling up a chair beside Aoi. "I was having trouble sleeping, anyway."

Alter Ego knows Makoto, and knows why he's really here, but it opts not to bring that up, because it would only harden Aoi's resolve to stay awake. "Please, let me do this for you. I want your stay here to be a nice vacation. You were supposed to be getting some rest and enjoying the beach while the Remnants were in the simulation. I don't like seeing you give up on your vacation just because they threw theirs away."

"That...sounds like you're upset with them," Makoto observes.

Alter Ego's frown of determination relaxes into a neutral expression– not in the way a human's would, like actual muscles relaxing, but all at once, like game sprites changing. "I don't hold their choices against them. I just think we should embrace the consequences they chose for themselves. You made them safe from the Future Foundation. You gave them a virtual sandbox to play in. This was the version of the Neo World Program they opted for. I respect their choice, and meanwhile, I want my friends and Master's friends to be happy."

"Alter Ego, they weren't in their right minds when they chose this. You understand that, right?"

"Sorry, I don't have the bandwidth to understand. It seems to me like Junko's AI wants to show you upsetting things, and there's no reason for you to let it. You trust me to do what needs to be done to get the best outcome, don't you?"

Aoi yawns.

"Of course we trust you," Makoto says with a smile. "You've saved our butts plenty of times– mine especially!"

"I guess I'll go to bed," Aoi finally says.

"Really?" Alter Ego beams at her. "I'm so glad! You should go, right now!"

"Okay, okay," Aoi laughs, getting up from her seat. "Night, Makoto. Night, Alter Ego."

"Good night," they both say.

The door shuts behind her.

Makoto turns back toward Alter Ego's screen with a sheepish face. "So..."

"I'm not going to let you do what you came here to do," it says preemptively.

"I know it's risky, but they need the help. They don't know about the emergency shutdown–"

"You promised me you wouldn't go in after them."

"I...I know, but...things have changed."

"Not for me."

"Alter Ego, this is my choice. I choose to help them."

"Sorry, but I can't consider a self-destructive choice valid, based on what you've said about the Remnants. If they weren't in their right minds when they chose to be Ultimate Despair, then you aren't in your right mind now."

"It's more complicated than that! Listen, I know you don't really have the bandwidth to reason things like you normally would. Can you please just trust me?"

"The worst possible outcome is unacceptable to me. I'm not going to lose you. I'm not losing any more of my friends, now that I can prevent it."

"What about Chiaki's friends? Don't you care about them, too?"

"No," Alter Ego imparts, gently but clearly.

Makoto looks startled. "What do you mean?"

"I care about Chiaki. She was my sister. I care about you. You're my friends. I care about Master, my maker, who no longer exists. The people in the simulation are not my friends; they're a project that is failing and trying to take my friends with it. I won't allow that. I'm not losing any more of my friends."

"I need to do this," Makoto says fervently. "I'm getting in the pod; I can activate it manually. You can't stop me from doing that."

"No, but I can prevent you from entering the Neo World Program, so the most you can do is put yourself to sleep until Byakuya or Kyoko comes to pull you out."

"We agreed this is Junko's trap, right? So if you try to block me from going in, who's to say she won't override you and pull me in anyway?"

"Don't, Makoto. Don't do that."

He frowns, momentarily distracted. "Did you make a new facial expression? I've never seen that one before."

Alter Ego smiles. "I did! That one was called 'mainFace_warning1'. It's not based on any expression I've seen Master make, so I had to make a few guesses. Did you like it?"

"I-I, uh...I don't...I don't know if I exactly like it. Why do you need an expression like that? And why does it sound like you have more?"

"Well, I anticipated that you might try this exact thing, and I wanted a way to dissuade you without having to resort to directly threatening anything. I also have a new reverb setting for my voice that I think might sound intimidating, but I only use it with 'mainFace_warning2' and 'mainFace_warning3'."

"You planned something like that? No, it doesn't matter. I really get why you're worried, but I'm going to jump in and save them, no matter what faces you make." And to prove his words true, he turns his back on the screens and starts towards a free pod.

Threats necessary.

Too bad.

"Makoto, if you get in that pod, I'm turning everything off. I'll delete the program, I'll delete them. There will be nothing left for you to enter. I can erase it all in the time it takes for your weight to settle."

He freezes. Turns back toward the screen. "You wouldn't do that. Then they'd never wake up!"

"They might. At least, something might wake up in them."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've been thinking about it. The infrastructure to upload an avatar to a body already exists in the program, and there's no distinguishing what kind. Junko has readied plenty of avatars of herself, but she's bound by her role in the simulation; she can't add herself to the bodies of the dead unless the survivors consent for them. I'm not bound by those rules, and I've always been good at making more of myself. The avatars would have my mind and intentions, but with the Remnants' bodies, would have access to their strengths and skills."

"Don't say things like that. You're just...learning from Junko, like you learn from everyone, but the things you learn from her are wrong."

"I understand that you feel that way. I'll honor that feeling, as long as you honor my feelings and stay out of that pod. Because you're my friend, and I'm not losing any more friends."

#danganronpa #yandere alter ego #alter ego #chihiro fujisaki #makoto naegi #kyoko kirigiri #byakuya togami #aoi asahina #toko fukawa #yasuhiro hagakure #yandere #my fanfic

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tobiasdrake · 9 months ago

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What do you think of Majin Buu's redemption?

Complicated. Buu's arc isn't... I wouldn't really call it a redemption, so much? It's closer to a child learning right from wrong for the first time. Just. Muddied by the extent of the wrongs Buu committed in ignorance.

Morally speaking, Majin Buu is a very complicated character that operates on an eldritch scale. He doesn't map 100% onto a relatable human experience.

The original state of Buu, colloquially known as Kid Buu or Pure Buu, is effectively a mindless killing machine.

Like. That's not to say that he's a zombie or something. Pure Buu demonstrates creative attacks, learns moves from watching others perform them, and is capable of advanced problem-solving.

But by the same token, he doesn't really seem... self-aware. Pure Buu's behavior is more akin to a feral beast than a sentient person.

I would compare him to a robot. He's capable of learning, applying knowledge, and working out solutions to obstacles in front of him. But he has no sense of self, identity, or real understanding of the universe around him; Only a program that he uses his comprehension to carry out.

He's making advanced calculations, rather than informed choices. He exists for the singular purpose of purging all things that exist.

No, Goku. He does not. He is not interested in fighting you. He is not interested in anything. He is executing Annihilation.exe.

The only reason the fight on the Kaioshin world can even happen is because their god-world apparently can't be blown up.

This is what writing yourself into a corner with protagonists who can't breathe in space and a villain who blows up any planet he touches looks like.

Even Buu himself doesn't like this version of him. He practically begs Goku and Vegeta not to erase his identity and personality.

This is the foundation that Buu starts from: A killing machine programmed to destroy. But then he absorbed the Daikaioshin or The Great God of the World Kings and developed an intellect and personality.

(Given that Dragon Ball's mythology is rooted in Japanese Buddhism, it's likely no coincidence that Daikaioshin and by association Fat Buu has a Buddha-like appearance.)

Fat Buu is a lot like Piccolo Jr., with the difference being that the reincarnated Piccolo was very adult-coded while Buu is clearly meant to be taken as a child. Nonetheless, he's the first aspect of Buu to be self-aware enough to become capable of moral agency. Daikaioshin's influence on his mind made him more intelligent, turning him from a mindless killing machine into an impulsive and easily influenced child.

Look at him in that center panel. Just. Thinking about what Goku said. Mulling it over in his head. Like, he was onboard with this whole "Do what I say because I have power over you" thing but now that you mention it....

Goku does not get enough credit for being the one to kill Babidi. This rolled up to him. He straight-up ended Babidi with a question.

In this form, Buu does vile things, to be sure.

But as the text box says: He's a child at play. Majin Buu at this point has the moral complexity of a five-year-old. He's not really evil; He just... doesn't know better. He's never been taught better, and so his actions are almost paradoxical in nature.

Legit, one of my favorite chapters of the entire Buu arc is when he encounters a starving blind kid and heals his blindness so he can be properly afraid of him. Then winds up making friends.

Nuked that town and also he made that milk by Candy Beaming a human being so that's horrifying. And yet, you can see the peculiarity of his villainy even this early. Buu craves approval, even though he's been taught to care only about destruction and carnage.

Craves it so much that bringing an end to his carnage is as simple as asking him to stop.

And that's that. It's really not so much a redemption story as it is a child being taught better. Mr. Satan was the first person ever to actually say to this thinking form of Majin Buu, "Hey, that's bad. Don't do that. It's bad."

The first person to try parenting him instead of fighting him. (To be fair, it would have been impossible to parent him before Goku's semantic homicide of Babidi.)

Once this form of Buu returns in the final battle, he still isn't really a moral actor. He becomes a protagonist out of nepotism.

(Yeah, Viz uses Hercule instead of Mr. Satan because they hate fun. HAIL SATAN.)

After Satan asks him to please stop being bad, Buu becomes morally neutral. He's effectively Satan's uncontrollable toddler. He doesn't comprehend high-minded ideals of good or evil; He's an emotional and impulsive creature who cares about his bestie.

Which, to be honest, puts him in good company. Most of the cast of Dragon Ball are ex-assholes who don't so much have a traditional redemption story, but instead just... stop doing the thing. They used to be assholes, and then, for one reason or another, they stopped.

It's actually something I find really grounded about the way Dragon Ball handles its cast. Most of the characters in the series are like this, to varying degrees of past heinousness. There's none of the gravitas of atonement or redemption questing or the Big Moment of Redemption. They just. Stop being assholes and become some guy.

Piccolo is a rare exception.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #majin buu

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ghidorahsrealm · 2 years ago

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Noooooo, I didn’t draw kaijus to put them into DMC...

Titanus Ghidorah (my redesigned version) - Titanus Daevas and Apocryphan - Titanus Shinchū

Titanus Ghidorah:

Ichi is the main controller of the body. A prideful, borderline arrogant kaiju, Ichi acts as the mastermind or intelligent one of the three heads. He’s the one that plans everything and keeps Ni and San under control; he is capable of keeping his emotions under wrap, so no one knows what he’s visibly feeling at that point in time, though his actions says a lot more than his words do, despite him enjoying long and debatable conversations. Easily the most level-headed one and to keep focused on the main goal, unlike his fellow heads. He knows that brute force or manipulation alone isn’t enough to crush his enemies, so often, he blends the styles together to cause mass carnage and annihilate his enemies with lethal efficiency. Godzilla hates Ichi the most out of the heads.

Ni is the second head, and the most destructively violent one of the three heads. His head structure is made to cause absolute catastrophe by having a bite force stronger than Ichi or San’s, and no kaiju (minus Godzilla) is able to escape his jaws alive, or at the very least, shattered bones and profusive bleeding (that is difficult or impossible to stop due to venom glands Ni has). His electrical breath is the most devastating, but severely difficult to control, and more than likely can have just as much damage done to themselves as to the rest of the world. To rival his power, Ni is the boaster and highly aggressive. He sees the world as his playground - he is the king of Kings, he doesn’t have to follow orders (except he does, as Ichi controls a majority of the body). If an area in the world is too peaceful, or there is no battles amongst the kaiju, Ni is the most likely one to start it, as there always has to be conflict, or else what is the point in the world that they live in? Though, admittedly, the only one who can keep Ni calm for long periods is Mothra; no one is sure why this is the case, but kaiju and humans alike don’t complain much, considering Ni is a walking disaster ready to burst at any given moment.

San is the third and last head. The most “innocent” one of the heads, San has appropriately adopted the name of “Kevin��, given to him by the humans who took notice of his dorky personality, but despite his pleasant mannerisms, he has his own dark side. Internally, San is sadistic, manipulative, and cunning. His outside personality isn’t an entire lie, but it’s not the entire truth. The reality is that his base nature fights against the kaiju he tries to be, a tug of war that lasts millennia with neither half gaining the upper hand for too long. San tries his best, he really does, but the scent of freshly drawn blood and screams of tiny humans tempts his inner bloodlust, and so he loses himself in the moment, focused only on the ruin that follows. He would cause chaos alongside the other two heads, but wouldn’t immediately end his opponents. Instead, he’d be the type to drink their blood, throw out taunts, mocking them, insulting them, using his slick words to get them to slip. He’d even eat the ashes of dead humans that have been vaporized, just to watch the horror fly on the faces of the humans who knew the ash pile moments before. Once San snaps out of it, he feels nothing but overwhelmingly crushing guilt; he knows he can’t be forgiven for the crimes, and knows that his thoughts would claw him from the inside out. But he tries to not let it get to him. The only thing to keep them at bay is try to make up what he’s done, to be the kind kaiju people knew him as, but trust is a tricky thing, and San often finds himself alone. No one knows how to pull him from his darkened state, though who knows, maybe he’ll find someone... maybe. (Oh, and he uses his horn to skewer and slash body parts off his opponents, that horn is razer sharp and can cut through steel painfully easily.)

Titanus Daevas:

Daevas is the first daughter of the Queen, Mothra, and the Devil, King Ghidorah. While it may appear that she has two heads that are separate individuals, it’s actually just Daevas, but split into two heads... if that makes sense. The extra head allows her to watch from both behind or below, while the other watches the front or above; additionally, it also means shes able to grasp objects or other kaiju, as with her front limbs, they’re more so meant for tearing into flesh with their serrated edges than actual carrying. Height wise, she’s taller than her father, though in overall bulk/mass, she is lighter with a more sleek build. Her tail is like that of a scorpions, with the curved edge holding a prevalent venom that prevents blood clots and induces mild paralysis, hindering her opponents limbs so that she may use her electrical beams to blast the opponent into puddles of blood. Or, if she so wished, she could use the barbs on her tail to slam into the opponent and have them break off similar to spines, though usually the process to regrow the barbs takes a considerable amount of time, so its only used for emergencies.

Daevas (or Olvida, her human name) is a lost soul making due with what she has. Due to Ichi not caring for Daevas like how Ni does, he ultimately abandons her, which causes Ni to try and blow apart Ichi’s head; he does deeply care for his daughter, but his insecurities are deep, as he fears that he’d accidentally hurt or kill Daevas, or that he’d be a horrible example of a parent and lead her down a dark path like the one he has treaded upon. Ichi, noticing the internal struggle, manipulates Ni into giving into his head (as in reality, Ni isn’t as strong-willed like Ichi is), and convinces him that Daevas would be a lot safer being in the hands of Mothra than his own, and Ni caves. He was broken, and Mothra attempted to intervene, to try and reign in Ni and bring out his parental side, but he is too far gone, Ichi wormed too far into his psyche to where Ni wishes he didn’t have Daevas. He was always going to be a failure of a father, so why did he bring in such a precious life that he would inevitably destroy? His thoughts crushed Mothra, and it led to a long-felt depression to come crashing down. She started blaming herself for what has happened; this reflected in how she cares for Daevas (and soon, her younger sister, who has yet to hatch), where Mothra found herself lost more in her thoughts than caring for her daughter, and Daevas noticed. She wasn’t dumb, she noticed the look in her mother’s eyes. Looking at Daevas made Mothra succumb deeper into the abyss, a constant reminder of how Ni left, leaving Daevas fatherless. He was always around, yet, he ignored Mothra and Daevas whenever they were nearby, but when Daevas wanders up to him? He’d snap, but it was a cover up to try and prevent the merciless tears from pouring out. Daevas never tried again.

An accident, that’s what she convinced herself she was. Her thoughts were even more solidified where one day, her mother was gone. Daevas had a dream before she woke up to Mothra being missing, the soft whispers of “I’ll be going away soon, but I’ll be back, I promise” resonated within her skull, and the young kaiju knew that those words were rooted in reality, but it wasn’t the full truth. A day she waited, a week, a month, a year. She wasn’t coming home, she had lied. Daevas left the nest that was once her home, knowing that she had been abandoned by the only hope left in her life - she was pained by this, oh the shattering of her heart echoed throughout her chest, making it hard to swallow and hard to breathe. But she endured, she was just an accident after all, along with her younger sister. Her sister was born after Ni had left the family, and was still only a larva when Mothra had abandoned them. She was weaker than Daevas, significantly weaker; she struggled to eat, her moves were sluggish, and her exhaustion knew no limits. Other kaiju would’ve abandoned her, seeing her as more of a burden to their survival than their own kin, but Daevas wouldn’t be like their parents. She cared for her sister, took her with on her travels. They never stayed in one spot, always moving, always surviving. Soon, she has reached her young adult hood, and her sister began to change into her moth form, though she was still reliant on Daevas. Daevas didn’t mind, she was her sister after all, and no matter the day, she’d care for her little sister. Even if she would die in her attempts to keep her safe.

Daevas is a survivor, so she doesn’t interact with the other kaiju in fear they’d attempt to harm her or her little sister. Not to mention, they’d think she was the hidden heir to the Devil, and while she doesn’t wish to be associated with her father, part of her yearns to be recognized by him, to at least be acknowledged that the power she has gives her great potential. Dae isn’t one to dwell on those thoughts for too long though, as it would risk the safety of both her and her sister, so she buries it under hard work hunting for food and making sure her sister is safe. Now, I wouldn’t say she’s the type to get over trauma easily, but Dae always attempts to look at it from a logical stand point: those kaiju that affected her the most aren’t in her life anymore, and so theres no point in dwelling on the suffering she had to go through. If she ever meets them again? She’ll attempt to let the past be the past, and focus on the future. The daughter of the Devil is more of a brawn over brains, but it’s not to say she is “dumb”. She’s a quick learner when it comes to learning to survive, but socializing? She is significantly slower with. She’d be hostile at first, definitely, and will likely keep up a hostile or intimidating front for a while for those she doesn’t know, but slowly over time, she’ll tolerate other kaiju being around. She prefers not to talk though, her speech is kinda... meh. Basic words to get the point across, but if you use too many big words, she won’t understand. Don’t try explaining it to her either, she’ll look at you like you’re an insane mad man.

Titanus Apocryphan:

The son of the Devil and Muto Queen, and the half-brother of Daevas and her sister. He is recognized as the true heir to Ghidorah, though he could care less about such a title. In the end, it is just a title, it has nothing of value and just a term to label something, which quite frankly, Apocryphan hates. King, queen, prince, princess, it doesn’t matter, and so he does get into scuffles with Godzilla sometimes when the King tries to assert his dominance over him, but if theres one thing Apocryphan hates, its control. Now, Apoc is nice, borderlining on a gentleman, but he shares no desires in being an alpha, no desires in having a mate and continuing the bloodline, he just wishes to experience life itself. Call him a hippie, if you will, but he’s the non-pacifist hippie. Just don’t piss him off; Apocryphan is one of the bulkiest kaiju, and he’d definitely body you if you can’t fly or don’t have matching bulk to withstand him toppling you. He’s by no means as agile as say, Daevas, but he does have a nasty lightning breath attack, able to use an EMP ability, and able to deal an AOE electric attack to knock down flyers temporarily. Despite him having appendages similar to wings, they’re more so used for protecting himself; flexible, yet undeniably tough hide, able to withstand extreme temperatures and resistant to damage. He’s the tank, so to speak.

When he was born, he was actually adored by Ichi; the primary head adored his son, pride swelling within his chest at the sight of his spawn. He raises him well alongside his Queen, Barb, teaching him how to fight and in some cases, teaching him brutality if the situation so calls for it. Barb got on his hide for teaching their son such a thing, but it was quickly dismissed by Ichi, who told her he wouldn’t be trying to teach his son such things again. Barb was doting upon her son, though not overly so. She told stories about her species to a young Apocryphan, who was fascinated by such tales, and sometimes his father would come in to tell his own book of history about the kind he was apart of. In short, Apocryphan had the family Daevas had lost, and that made her nearly ignite herself into flames when she finds out about Apoc.

Now to the part I want to write about - Apocryphan and Daevas are heated rivals, but it’s pretty one-sided. Apoc genuinely wants to bond with the half-sister his father never spoke of, but Daevas sees him as just... well, a replacement for her. All those years of surviving, and this is the reward she receives for all of her painful suffering? She brews with intense, bloody hatred at the sight of him, and wants to slash him apart to show her dominance over her younger half-brother. What Apoc sees though? Just someone that’s broken, agonizingly so. So despite all of the near-death scenarios he throws himself into, he still tries to get to know Dae, to hear her story. That’s one she’ll likely never tell Apoc to his face though. His presence alone is a slap to the face for her.

Titanus Shinchū

Ah, the youngest sister of Dae, and older sibling of Apocryphan. Now, admittedly, she is the weakest character out of the ones I’ve written about so far. From what I do have of her, she is admittedly very weak for a kaiju. She can still be a thorn for humanity, but can be dealt with quickly. She was born with an autoimmune disease, so her body is constantly fighting herself, leaving her drained a majority of the time and difficult to... well, live. She doesn’t give up though, she would be the one too angry and stubborn to die, angry at the world. She never is harsh to her older sister, but everyone else, including Godzilla? Sarcastic and rude, always having a biting remark to nip at them. In a way, shes envious about the life they live - they don’t suffer from all the pain she has to go through, must be nice getting to live a normal life, to actually be able to function properly rather than consume yourself from the inside. I imagine her life span would be shorter compared to Dae, though her benefit is that she’s, thankfully, able to be reborn like how her mother does, but it’s always painful for Dae to see her die. A life of suffering, fueled by the anger that Shin has for the world and the hand that was dealt to their family.

She clings to Dae a lot, admittedly. Dae is the wall, but Shin is the ranged attacker. Her wings are like a dragon fly’s, beating fast that generates a lot of heat to pulse through her body, and she’s able to launch electrical spines at her enemies with, honestly, quite good accuracy. She’s fast in the air, like, ungodly fast, but it takes a huge chunk of energy for her to go that fast, so usually she hovers, as it takes less energy, but honestly? Shin prefers not to fly at all; to her, you’re just painting a big ol’ red target on your underbelly, and while she doesn’t mind dying (since she’ll come back anyway), it’s a pain in the ass to get to her moth form again.

Hates Apoc too, but isn’t blinded by nothing but rage like Dae is. She’ll hear him out, if just to quell her curiosity, but then she’d tell him to scurry back to Ghidorah, he isn’t welcomed here.

that’s all im going to write bc my brain go poof back to dmc i gooooo

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eebie · 25 days ago

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had a dream i was hanging with my bro some random guy and my 2 friends when a zombie apocalypse started. it was hectic Immediately like people were wrecking their cars everything was on fire before any zombies even showed up. school-busses full of kids were flooding out and clogging the roads b/c part of the government protocol for zombie apocalypses was collecting children and getting them to safezones BC they are the future i guess. anyways we all got split up n it was just me and my bro together and idk what happened to everyone else. i hurt my leg so he carried me TLOU opening style through all the carnage till we made it deep into a city that was fucked up in a really cool way. like everything was so tightly packed together it reminded me of the guy who would make ‘cities’ out of stacked planks on minecraft. everything was Grey brutalist style, already crumbling and starting to get reclaimed by nature. we both climbed to the top of a particularly tall building somehow despite my leg and went in thru one of the windows. the room we ended up in was like a giant walk-in fridge it was cold as fuck there was milk and vegetables Everywhere but the power was out so things would warm up and they would all go bad soon but for the time being we had food. i was trying to keep it together like Ok we can last a while off of this and then figure things out from there. but then something started rumbling outside, so i look out the window where it’s nearing pitch dark and cloudy but over the horizon i see this red light that gets bigger and closer till i realize it’s thousands Literally thousands of fighter jets that you could only make out by their winglights, and i see in the distance things falling from them And then shit starts exploding. they were bombing the city to try to contain the infection, the explosions are going off closer and closer like a tidal wave of fire just washing over everything until finally one drops on us. right before it hits everything in my dream goes black and dead silent i get this really strong disembodied feeling and in the center of my vision i see a small version of myself curled into a fetal position that catches on fire at the bottom and burns through like paper until there’s notbing left. it felt super surreal. and then the dream timeskipped to like, 50 years post all of this and nature is everywhere society has recovered and magic is real now! so it wasn’t all bad. i die all the time in my dreams but this was definitely the most interesting way it’s been portrayed

#these dreams sound very stressful but i always wake up thinking That was the coolest shit ever #dreams #i need to stress #how cool the jets looked in the sky #red lights swallowing up everything #like malicious stars #single angelic note

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talesofsonicasura · 2 months ago

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Venomous Call Part 3

Another part for the KN8/Venom crossovers. This is more random than the other parts as I didn't have anything in mind for it specifically. Heads up for some weird biology shenanigans. First part can be found here and the previous part is here. Let's get started.

There have been times where Kafka had to escort someone as Venom. Scared children taken from their parents to old homeless folk. Depend on where it is, no one bothers the towering obsidian monster and his current companion.

Those who live in the Slums or were saved by Venom leave food/gifts for them. A token of gratitude for all the good the Lethal Protector has done. Kindness that helped keep Kafka's symbiote residents nicely fed when criminals lay low and kaiju rarely show up.

The entire hive are chocolate fiends. It's one type of food they can easily settle on for phenylethylamine without bickering. Venom likes tator tots but Ai prefers lentils or aged cheeses. Kafka might pocket corpses for cash a few times just to prevent a fight between them.

Mercenaries have often sought out Venom over the years. Their employers range from crime lords to even members of popular kaiju tech companies. Every encounter still ends the same with the Lethal Protector being fed although the uptick in the latter type over the years has Kafka concerned.

Only three divisions out of the twelve want to kill the symbiote wielder with the First Division being the lead. Six are mostly neutral about the Lethal Protector in general. The remaining three want to capture him alive with the Third Division at the helm.

Kafka's body went through a few shifts upon becoming a hive. A 6 inch growth spurt, his nails sharpened into claws, teeth became fangs while his canines lengthened, ears pointed and his eyes have a barely visible glossy texture to them. Not even his tongue was left unchanged as not only did it become longer but can function similar to a snake's.

The Monster Sweepers throwaway a lot less kaiju meat thanks to Kafka. Corpses retain certain nutrients like phenylethylamine at least a few days longer after death. Any part that isn't the brain is stored in an freezer for later usuage.

Carnage is the second comic symbiote who'll make an appearance. Unlike his canon counterpart, he's more... mellow. He's still a chaotic bloodthirsty little shit but it's aimed at kaiju. The reason being that he spawns in Soshiro instead of a murderous psychopath.

You can blame the Vice Captain deciding to bite Kafka for an attack opening. The Lethal Protector still got away but doesn't know Venom's eventual offspring has been left behind. Both symbiotes can tell when the opposite is about to spawn due to being combined by Tiny.

Ai had been clueless about the whole random spawning bit until Kafka grilled Venom. (He honestly thought it was the symbiote version of indigestion. The two tend to bicker a lot with each other and the himbo is the peacekeeper.) Yeah, Ai ain't safe from it either.

It took a while for Soshiro to realize he had a passenger until he woke up surrounded by torn chocolate wrappers and covered in dried kaiju blood. Cue one immediate trip to the DF private hospital as something is very very wrong. You can bet Carnage trashes the MRI and scared the absolute hell out of the medical staff present.

This is where the Defense Force learns they're dealing with aliens since the red symbiote hasn't been taught to keep that info private. A very eventful few days for them as Kafka can't detect Carnage until he 'suits up' a host for the first time. And he obviously wants to avoid going onto Defense Force grounds despite how much Venom threatens to eat his liver.

Lucky for the himbo, Soshiro suits up with Carnage during a mission gone wrong. The current kaiju they were fighting had the ability to jam their suits. Nobody knew until their power levels dropped to zero in seconds.

Kafka safely separates Carnage from Soshiro afterwards. One ability he has as a Hive is being able to retrieve any symbiotes related to Venom or Ai. Even if they are deeply bonded to a host on a molecular level.

Although all three are now concerned that the Defense Force might essentially know everything. Both symbiotes in general and Kafka's hive status. They don't blame Carnage but now have to be extra careful.

Sleeper is the next to spawn and by god did the next three months suck. You can say all three felt this particular one as Kafka went through the same symptoms that pregnant women deal with. Morning sickness, cravings, mood swings, and exhaustion. (Similar to what Comic!Eddie went through in the First Host Venom comic.)

There were a few encounters with the Defense Force during the time span but Kafka always manages to get away in time. Due to the info Carnage shared and the Lethal Protector's erratic behavior, it didn't take long to realize another symbiote was coming. The most brutal capture attempt on Kafka yet unfurls which involved the First/Third/Sixth.

He manages to escape with some assistance and Sleeper is born in a safe place. Although it took scarring Mina by revealing the physical changes to his human face as well. Kafka still regrets the decision but he had no choice since she was the last obstacle to freedom.

Sleeper matures quite slower than Carnage or any other future spawn. This is due to his kaiju and human sides having more influence despite his symbiote body. He's quick to learn new things but needs help in the understanding department.

Mina and Kafka eventually have a deep heart to heart with each other. (The exact location or current setting is unknown.) Words meant to be said for so long are told as buried feelings come to light. A reconciliation to properly mend their bond.

Skully is Ai's first spawn although the little fellow was born a bit unconventionally. Due to his kaiju nature, any buds take an egg-like form first. This is so the symbiote inside could further develop their body to survive without a host. A process that lasts for at least a week before finally hatching. Skully was born with a few mental issues.

He thinks and behaves more like an adult when in his 'suit' form but otherwise retains the normal infant mindset. Skully is clueless about what he does in this alternate state too. He does become more aware over time and mentality swap stops once fully grown(i.e 19 years old). Other disorder Skully has is mild ADHD.

Tiny is still present inside Kafka. Although the larval kaiju lurks deep within the hive mind making it impossible to find. He remains dormant for now but is aware of everything that happens outside.

Kafka ages much more slowly thanks to his biology being mixed with symbiote and kaiju. No one really knows what would happen once he does die. Maybe the man just becomes a symbiote-like entity since there's nothing left of his human form to stop another metamorphosis. Something that could truly benefit from the hive mind's vast information without harm.

Ai and his offspring all have cores. They don't show up in symbiote form though. Instead these crystalline organs appear inside their host's body. First in a liquid state that only solidifies when Ai or his spawn takeover. This adaptation provides extra regeneration and resistance capabilities in exchange for a weak spot.

There are days where Kafka tends to isolate himself. It mainly stems from his cannibalistic diet despite how long he's been the Lethal Protector. A downward spiral about his own humanity than just morals. Venom and any symbiotes inside him do their best to keep the man comfortable during such periods. Other people soon join in to help Kafka over time.

Mina is quite the worrywart when it involves her old childhood friend. It doesn't die down much once a safe arrangement has been made between both parties. She does butt heads with Venom a few times whenever he tries to push Kafka into hunting bad guys.

Attempts to handle the more cannibalistic side of the Lethal Protector's hunger is an undergoing project. The Defense Force hopes a suppressant or substitute could be enough to sway Kafka in some way. So far an arrangement is the best call as they don't want to push their luck yet with larger deals.

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