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wileys-russo · 9 months ago

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Leah williamson "how can you fall asleep at a time like this" watching a football match at home

superstitions II l.williamson

you were happily tucked into bed, glasses on and reading light pointed to the final ten chapters of the book you'd spent the last month battling to finish, never seeming to have enough free time to get through more than a few pages before something came up.

but with your girlfriend having dinner at her best friends house you finally had the cherish little pocket of time you needed to finish, incredibly invested in the story thus far and dying to know who killed the main protagonist.

you planned to sit down and read for an hour before you'd make yourself something to eat and then finish off the rest, angling for an early night as you were quite tired from a long week of work and family commitments.

you'd only made your way through a few pages before you heard the front door click from downstairs and you frowned, snapping the book shut and swinging out of bed.

but hearing a familiar laughter ring out through the home your shoulders sagged in slight relief, but the frown never left your features as leah wasn't due home for a few hours yet, and it didn't seem like she was alone.

"baby girl?" you appeared at the top of the landing at leahs call, the blonde stood at the bottom of the stairs with a happy smile, the same adoring twinkle in her gaze anytime she looked upon you.

"i bought dinner babe, come make a plate." she nodded her head toward the kitchen as you made your way downstairs. "hi wally." you greeted the girl sat at the counter with a surprised smile who span around.

giving her a hug you lingered by her side with her arm around your waist, various takeout containers from leahs favourite italian place down the road spread out in front of you.

"why do you look so shocked?" your girlfriend asked with a mouthful of pasta making you roll your eyes, sometimes you could swear she was a sixteen year old boy and not a twenty six year old woman.

"i just wasn't expecting...this." you gestured as lia let go of you to start eating her own plate of food. "well i hope you weren't expecting me to cook love you know thats not in my wheelhouse." leah grinned and again nodded for you to make a plate.

"obviously not. but you told me this morning you were going to lia's for dinner and to watch arsenal play, not coming here with lia and dinner." you retorted as you started to dish yourself up some food.

"no i said wally was coming over for dinner and then we're going to watch arsenal play." the blonde argued with you as you grabbed your plate and sat down on the stool beside lia.

"i'm not arguing with you about this lee, i just had a hot date with a book you've interrupted." you smiled before digging in as your girlfriend pulled a face. "you are not still reading that are you? baby its been like five months!" leah groaned as lia reached over to smack her hand.

"and what was the last book you read leah? picture ones don't count." the swiss defended you causing your girlfriend to scoff and you to grin, bumping your shoulder into hers appreciatively.

"well your little book date will have to wait till later baby girl we have traditions to attend to!" leah warned as you threw your head back with a groan. "you can't be serious? its all superstition love it doesn't actually help anything!" you laughed as both footballers now turned their gazes onto you.

"yes it does." they spoke seriously and in sync making you pull a face and roll your eyes. "no it doesn't." you sighed, knowing regardless this was not an argument you'd be winning anytime soon with it clearly being two against one.

"leah i don't want to!" you whined after the blonde had wrestled a jersey onto you, laying down on the bed stubbornly. "well too bad! now are you walking downstairs or am i carrying you?" the girl questioned, hands on her hips as she stared down at you from the end of the bed.

"why can't you and lia just do everything you normally do but without me?" you sighed as your girlfriend rolled her eyes. "because thats not how we did it last time and last time we won 5-0. you weren't here the time before that and we lost 4-2." leah rationalized, gesturing her hands around wildly.

"can i at least read my book while you watch?" you tried to bargain as the defender shook her head. "no! you didn't do that last time, isn't happening this time. now up!" leah motioned, clicking her fingers impatiently.

"kick off in two minutes!" you heard lia yell from downstairs as your leah's eyes widened and before you could blink she was manhandling you up and off the bed, pulling you toward the door as you groaned but didn't dig your heels in.

"okay. you were there with the red pillow and the scarf, i was here with the blue pillow and babe you were here." you were once again manhandled to lay down between leahs legs, a beanie forcefully tugged over your head, your hand smacked away as you tried to pull it off.

"oh! i think your hood was up too." lia remembered as leah quickly pulled her hood up and over her head, the whistle blowing for kick off. "the two of you are ridiculous, you know that right?" you sighed but wiggled around a little to find a comfortable position.

"perfect. you were in a grumpy mood last game too, thank you for your cooperation stroppy!" leah teased peppering several kisses across your face as you pushed her away, interlocking your fingers with hers and wrapping her arms tighter around you.

as time passed you grew bored of the game. you loved watching your girlfriend play and would never ever miss an opportunity to be there and cheer her on. but you'd never shared the same passion that the blonde had for watching games at home.

you'd appease her by sitting with her at times when she wanted, though your attention was always elsewhere and you encouraged her to invite the girls over so she had other people to actually watch with.

but the premier league north london derby always commanded an extra special set of rules and regulations, and your strong willed girlfriend was always the first to enforce them.

you sat quietly and patiently throughout the first half, arsenal going up 2-0 before suddenly by half time it was 2-1, and then a few minutes into the second half it was locked 2-2.

you'd long grown used to leahs tendencies to scream at the players on tv as if they could hear her, learning how to block it out and zone off into your own little world.

today was no different though you were much more tired than most nights you laid down with the blonde to watch a match, and with lia there for her to discuss and commentate with it was easy for you to drift off.

"hey! there's no sleeping during the derby." leah laughed, pinching your cheeks as she noticed your eyes closed, lia smiling in amusement as you exhaled deeply.

"i'm here, i'm wearing your stupid vintage shirt and beanie, im sitting in my designated position. why can't i take a nap?" you huffed in annoyance. "how can you fall asleep at a time like this baby? its deadlocked 2-2 this is fantastic football babe!" leah protested as you shrugged, unbothered.

"leave her be." lia chuckled as you shot her a grateful smile, eyes closing again as leah started to argue, her best friend only shushing her as eventually her protests died down.

a smile curled into your lips as you felt her body shift beneath you, hands on your hips pulling you upwards so she could hug you a little tighter, warm lips affectionately pressing a soft kiss to your cheek.

"i can't believe she'd rather sleep than watch this, this is the best match of the season so far!"

#woso community #woso #woso x reader #leah williamson x reader #leah williamson #engwnt #woso blurbs #woso imagine #woso fanfics

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gaywarcriminals · 5 months ago

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Prompt: AU where SY transmigrated into a murder mystery version of PIDW and is bounded by the SQQ role (murderer) who gets caught by detective LBH, and eventually when LBH finds out SQQ is like, "no wait this is just one big misunderstanding I didn't-" and like, LBH doesn't care they start making out anyway. (LBH actively helps him clear out the evidence because he's unhinged and in love❤️)

When the system had dropped him on the scene of an active— or rather, just concluded— crime scene, it had claimed its design philosophy was “you can you up, no can no BB”, but Shen Qingqiu had serious doubts! How was he supposed to change the story of a murder mystery if the murder had already taken place? After this point wasn’t everything already set in stone? The young, bright Luo Binghe would discover his cruel new mentor, Magistrate Shen, was responsible of this and countless other heinous crimes, and then Shen Qingqiu would be sentenced to death! Shen Qingqiu didn’t wanted to be quartered!

In response to Shen Qingqiu’s frantic proding as he hurriedly worked to dispose of the body (thank god the system provided instructions for that part, at least, but Shen Qingqiu’s stomach still twisted every time he looked at the beautiful young man, lukewarm from blood loss but not yet corpse cold), the system claimed it was possible for Shen Qingqiu to survive, but then it turned around and forced him to carry the bloody knife at all times, claiming it was an essential plot point, even though it wasn’t supposed to be revealed for months! Bullshit! Obviously none of Shen Qingqiu’s choices mattered in the face of reader satisfaction! Shen Qingqiu knew what kind of sadist lurked in the PIDW comments section, calling for evert kind of torture once Shen Qingqiu’s many crimes were revealed. (Shen Qingqiu’s own comments were different, of course: he only demanded righteous justice, not senseless torture porn! Castration had been a real legal sentence in time period this anachronistic mess was supposedly set in!)

Thanks to this stupid faulty piece of software, the only thing Shen Qingqiu could think to change was to treat Luo Binghe better once the protagonist showed up, assigned as Shen Qingqiu’s new assistant. Not that Shen Qingqiu wouldn’t have done that, even without the threat of death! Luo Binghe was an incredible character trapped in a stupid, trope-y story that didn’t let his obvious intellect shine through! Shen Qingqiu took great delight in taking Luo Binghe through the cases that had been mere footnotes in PIDW proper, little more than excused for Luo Binghe to meet this or that new freshly orphaned, widowed, or wronged woman.

Luo Binghe was so quick to make the right connections, and he glowed under Shen Qingqiu’s every head pat and word of praise. He even ignored all the simpering women, only ever seeking Shen Qingqiu’s approval! Clearly, a man as talented as Binghe was meant to be married to his job, at least until someone good enough to be his match came along. The only draw back was that for some reason, in absence of women to roll around with, Luo Binghe has started to seek out hugs from his mentor.

But it was a lot harder for Shen Qingqiu to hide his hard, pointy Plot Relevant Object when Luo Binghe was sticking to him all the time! Shen Qingqiu was forced to avoid his touch at every turn, only drawing more suspicion to himself. Obviously that was why Luo Binghe had pressed Shen Qingqiu between a wall and his own firm body, his arms on either side, trapping Shen Qingqiu in. Now Shen Qingqiu couldn’t escape a pat down without physically fighting Luo Binghe off!

“Magistrate Shen,” Luo Binghe purred, pulling open Shen Qingqiu’s robes, groping for the firm object that must have been pressing into Luo Binghe’s thigh, “is that a knife, or—“ Luo Binghe pulled out the knife, even its sheath caked in blood stains just to be extra sure it could be recognized as a murder weapon from a kilometer away. “Oh.” Luo Binghe’s face fell.

Shen Qingqiu’s heart squeezed. Even after all his suspicious behavior, Luo Binghe has still hoped his mentor wasn’t guilty! But now, the noble young man would be forced to turn Shen Qingqiu in, knowing justice was more important than—

“Magistrate Shen really shouldn’t carry that around.” Luo Binghe sighed “This Binghe will dispose of it for you tomorrow.” There was something very wrong with Shen Qingqiu’s hearing! See, Binghe was grabbing his wrists now, that was more like it, surely Luo Binghe would be dragging him away any minute now!

Luo Binghe’s face crashed into Shen Qingqiu’s, enough lip grazing Shen Qingqiu between the scrape of teeth that it could generously be called a kiss. Shen Qingqiu’s mind stuttered to a halt. In the corner of his vision, a system window popped up, displaying a 300p resolution gif of confetti.

#svsss #shen qingqiu #luo binghe #bingqiu #ask fish #fish fic

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zelinklover · 3 months ago

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After Marin

It was an ordinary day, he didn't know the reason why he wanted to get on that boat and set sail across the ocean. He had saved the kingdom again, rescued his princess Zelda from danger, in short he had managed to bring peace to this place, his home. Although, now that his uncle had died, was it fair to call it that way?

Maybe it was because of him, maybe it was because of the stress he carried on his shoulders, or because of the simple fact of wanting to escape from that place he had saved. Whatever the reason was, he took a small bag and got on the first boat he could buy.

That decision that at that moment brought him calm and satisfaction, soon brought him one of the worst consequences in his short life: violent waves crashed against his humble boat without shame causing its entire cover to shake violently, his only way to hold on and not fall to the bottom of the ocean was the mast he held as if his life depended on it. There was nothing to hide, Link was afraid, he desperately asked for help, whoever it was…

Even Hylia…

Anyone would think that the real problem was that, that situation almost close to death had generated a strong trauma in our protagonist, because that would have marked a deep fear in any man. One could think that seeing life pass before him would leave fears or even an absolute terror towards the ocean that had almost taken his life.

But it was not that, but rather his true sorrow came from another equal: a woman with long red hair and dark skin. He still remembers when he saw her for the first time on that beach. His head resting on hot sand, the sun violently burning his pale face. Everything seemed lost until, in the middle of his awakening where he had blurred vision, he could see someone that came to rescue him.

He wanted to be able to see her face, know who she was, but it was

hopeless becauses the weakness and tiredness. Still, he tried several times, so much so that his head began to hurt and his vision was darker with each passing minute. But he didn't want to sleep, he wanted to see her at least one more time.

Just one more...

A strong jolt in his right shoulder was the culprit of him waking up so agitated, his heart was beating a thousand times a minute, he felt a slight discomfort in the corner of his lips, as if it were something dry that fell from his mouth to his chin. His eyes turned everywhere looking for an explanation of what had happened, the reason why he had woken up that way, to understand how he went from being almost dead on a paradise island to the living room of his house... or rather the house of...

that voice resonated again, and his bewildered face now stared with a certain level of anger at the person who was the owner of the melodious voice that had woken him up. His anger disappeared when he saw her worried expression, according to her he had started screaming desperately for something or someone, she couldn't recognize who or why he was doing it, but worried about his well-being she had tried for a long time to wake him up without any success.

To be fair, he never liked being woken up, either by his uncle or by someone he loved, not even by that redhead, but he put that aside when he saw how she was the one trying to get him to regain consciousness.

How could he even get angry about something like that after living all this time together?

He simply denied any question she asked him, saying that it was better to leave it as it was, a nightmare that from time to time came back to torment him. The girl didn't say anything and just nodded while giving a small caress to his left cheek, making the hero lie down gently in her hand.

After Marin, the hero had been desolate, he had lost the person he loved more than anyone in the world. A person who didn't know exactly if she was real or not, but still managed to occupy an important place in his heart. So, without making any effort, he let the waves take him where it wanted.

And so it was as if fate played with his feelings again, it made him live the same thing, except that instead of ending up on an island it was in a small port of a ruined town; a young woman worriedly approached a dying man who was floating on a piece of wood, completely inert. Luckily she didn't give up and took care of him. And so it was that without having a choice, they began to get closer and closer.

They both had an incredible musical ear and enjoyed listening to good music together in a local bar, where she sang from time to time and after much insistence she managed to get the boy to also accompany her to play instruments. The relationship he had with this woman was not only about music, but also about laughter, jokes, puns and even telling the problems that plagued him.

Although he was sure of one thing: he would never tell anyone the whole story about his journey.

It was a relationship with secrets, and yet it was nice to have someone to trust. Someone to laugh and hang out with. He liked this place, he liked being with her. He liked seeing her smile.

He asked Hylia to never take away her smile,

to never lose anyone important again.

He begged Hylia that the portal that had opened a few meters from his new home would not bring pain.

Heyyy, I hope you liked it!!

I wanted to write something for the Linked Universe fandom, taking the character of Legend as the protagonist. I tried to make the language barrier not be a problem, but oh well, sorry if you find any mistakes. PS: It's not a self insert, but an OC, but take it as you wish.

#linked universe #lu legend #linkeduniverse #linked universe legend #legendangst #hurt/comfort #linked universe fanart #lu fanart #linked universe fanfic #downfall timeline

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overdicebro · 1 year ago

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continuing my rant about wanting a mermaid princess

Okay I've thought about making it it's own chapter but then that would mean there will be another Voice so instead I made it another subroute of “The Prisoner”

The thought process and perception of the Princess should be somewhat alluring, seductive, mysterious yada yada yada

That the Protagonist just find her nonchalance and ambiguous answers somewhat attractive. It'll end up with the princess beheading herself and the hero just traumatized to the point where the "can we put it back?" was actually considered. The Skeptic could've also just questioned the entire being of the Princess and perceived that putting it right back didn't seem impossible. So walking right up to the head and trying to salvage(?)😭 it back. She'll be stunned and she'll beat the shit out of you still without her head andddd you die and transition to next chapter.

I don't even know where you'll get siren from that scenario but STILL hear me out. *Perceived her as mysteriously seductive and soothing from the start and downright horrifying the moment after (?)??()?((

Chapter III : The Siren

Voices: Hero, Skeptic, Smitten, maybe even Paranoid

The cabin's interior has changed into a more intimidating, submerged in water similar to the Grey. The blade the mirror everything is still there blablabla. Going down the stairs nearly opaque and almost filed with water it's difficult to even step in it. The Princess has a siren-y voice. Thats it.

She's resting on a stone and the basement is kinda filled with water just enough to hide her tail. She'll have more flowy hair, tattered dress, fins and stuff, and some chains shit. The Princess will have disdain towards you for trying to put her head back instead of helping her get out of the cabin but she's still chill. Basically Specter underwater edition, she's still has her chains but its useless now since the metals been in contact with water it might be easier to break it idk. The scene might play as to how can she even end the world when she literally can't walk rn. Shes more helpless since there isn't enough water to swim her way out of there; crawling her way out won't work in her favor because the tails heavy as fuck. So it's up to you if you're willing to carry her up outside the cabin or just slay her. Idk what happens if you slay her. But choosing to carry her all the way up will just let her be eaten by the hands and turn into a vessel. She'll be an “Enchanting heart” I think

“She who has never found support even in her darkest time still finds herself in a better judgement than those who put her in this the first place”/ Do not mourn her for she now has all the help she needed/ kinda shit

You can choose to leave her behind I think and I think that's where she'll begin to plead and be more desperate. Andd maybe her theme can have her singing?

This shits rough man but it's all I can think off, been here some days on my drafts but welp

#slay the princess #stp #character concept #art #black tabby games

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twothpaste · 1 year ago

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Idk if you've covered this before but what are your thoughts on Porky having a movie about Ness n pals? That scene is rapidly spinning around in my noggin

This turns my cerebral matter into a rotisserie chicken on a spit as well. Part of what's so fascinating about it I think is how much we don't know about the film. How did Porky make this thing?? Are the characters we see on screen paid actors, re-enacting the events of EarthBound for his amusement?? Or did he somehow, through timetravel shenanigans or a deranged obsession all those years ago, actually record Ness n' pals' adventures?! Did Porky himself write a script for this movie, or supervise the editing? Is it documentary or dramatization? We don't see any frames that feature Porky - one's gotta wonder how he presents himself on the silver screen. Like, did he clip out all the times he acted like a total scumbag? Did he change them, so that to an audience of suckers, the esteemed King P seems like a hero too? Or is it presented exactly as it happened, 'cause in Porky's eyes, he really was the hero of this story all along?? I feel like a dedicated fan could make a case either way for every one of these possibilities. And all of them carry haunting implications in a bazillion different ways. ( Lots more beneath the cut. )

What we do know is that this movie's mere existence says a lot about Porky's fixation on the past. New Pork especially - but other areas too - is littered with callbacks to EarthBound, loads of shallow & off-kilter recreations of objects & imagery from Porky's childhood. It's as if he's trying to resurrect everything he's nostalgic for, and superimpose it onto a totally different world. Dude's lived a bazillion years, he's probably had all kinds of crazy experiences in that time. But he's still only got eyes for Ness, and Onett, and that one very special adventure. He's grandly presenting his origin story to a generation of future-people, and presumably expects them to be just as terminally nostalgically enthralled as he is. But these people don't have the context to know what it means. They can't grasp it as anything other than a cartoonishly wacky adventure film. They probably don't even know it's depicting real events (however skewed it may or may not be)! Or that these child heroes almost definitely grew old and died ages ago. The thought of Porky putting forth something so important to him, something that means fucking everything to him - and his flock of brainwashed followers just not getting it at all - is like??? Boil me down into soup and stir the pot around. Pour me in a Campbell's can and don't open it until the end of the world. Agh.

This applies just as much, maybe especially so, to Lucas. Something about it always feels deeply unnerving to me, when I reach New Pork's movie theater on replays. Piloting Lucas n' company to stand there, in the dark, juxtaposed in front of a past they can't possibly comprehend. A past we, as players of this series, identify so strongly with! But our new protagonist flat out just isn't a part of that old world. He's got nothing to do with it, and no clue who Ness is. His fight with Porky is so present and personal… I don't think Lucas is carrying on a mantle here, even symbolically. Porky wants very badly for him to be the new Ness, a worthy opponent who'll "play" with him, to rekindle the same adrenaline he felt when he last fought his old friend. But Lucas is his own person with his own motives. And he's not playing, either. You press A in front of that screen, and you get nothing special in terms of flavor text. 'Cause it doesn't mean anything to Lucas. Porky's memories simply aren't Lucas' baggage.

There are a lot of moments in Mother 3 that turn nostalgia on its head. Makin' stuff that oughtta feel familiar and heartwarming turn queasy in your tummy instead. Making you reconsider why you cling to childhood memories, and whether or not they blind you to future possibilities - like they do for Porky. The movie theater's probably my favorite of these moments.

#thank you anon #sorry this took a while to answer 🙇#mother 3 #ask tag #2thtalks

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linkspooky · 2 years ago

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what are your favorite scary movies?

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

This is the most predictable response for top found footage movies list, but some things are popular because they're good. Blair Witch shows wat is good about found footage as a medium because you get to follow these college students who just act like regular people deteriorate in real-time. There's no narrative behind it like a normal story. You just see them wander around trapped in the woods with no end in sight.

The scare doesn't just come from the monster that may or may not be there lingering just out of sight, but your concern for the characters that you have spent long enough time to grow attached to. It's distressing to see their distress. There are some horror movies that scare because they make you dread the inevitable fate of the characters, you wish for their survival but you know it's not happening so you just watch hope get slowly peeled away from the characters. The scariest quote of the movie is just one girl giving into her despair as she's lost in the woods.

Heather Donahue : Everything had to be my way. And this is where we've ended up and it's all because of me that we're here now - hungry, cold, and hunted. I love you mom, dad. I am so sorry. What is that? I'm scared to close my eyes, I'm scared to open them! We're gonna die out here!

"I'm scared to close my eyes, I'm scared to open them" is just such an emotional statement to make.

PSYCHO

The shower scene in Psycho literally changed cinema permanently, and is probably one of the most scary thoughts that a film maker has preyed upon that someone can just bust in when you are traditionally naked and vulnerable like that

Psycho is far scarier however for the reasons underneath the surface of the film. This video analysis does a good job of eplaining what made me love Psycho.

Psycho is famous for doing the protagonist switch, the movie starts out as a typical thriller about a woman who stole money to elope with the man she's having an affair with until she stops in a strange motel on the side of the road. What makes the shower scene so shocking itself is because Janet Leigh who played Marion was a big name star at the time. No one was expecting her to get killed halfway through the movie, and no one was expecting the movie to turn into a horror in the first place.

The way the protagonist changes, from Marion to Norma, just goes to show the foiling between the two of them as illustrated by the above picture. Marion smiles like this at the beginning of the movie when she believes she has gotten away with her crime. Marion begins the film as an ordinary, slightly put-down woman who succesfully bamboozles all the men in her life and makes her escape because practically none of the men expected such deceptfulness in such a tame woman.

Norman at the end of the film smiles like that while the "mother" personality speaks in his head, informing the audience of her plan to play innocent to try to deceive the detectives that have arrested Norman.

At that moment the two of them display the term uncanny in its true Freudian sense.

"For Freud, fear comes from a natural progression of phantasy, so that the uncanny is not just the familiar turned unfamiliar but also the childish wish turned monstrous. It is Marion's quest for fantasy and respectability by running away and marrying her lover, that leads her to the Bates MOtel, where she encounters Norman a manifestation of respectability turned pathological."

The uncanny is the connection between Marion and Norman that manifests here, the same way an unseeming woman can flip around and turn money, the unseeming man she meets in the hotel can turn out to be her killer.

CARRIE

The single best Stephen King Novel, Carrie simply tells the story of a girl who snaps, but it tells it so well. There are a lot of ideas in play in Carrie, including the inhuman actions of bullying itself and how it's perpetrated by everyone in Carrie's life just making the collective decision just not to treat her as a person basically no reason.

The pointless cruelty of what happens to Carrie. The logic of Carrie having to be bullied, because she's ugly, because she's socially awkward, because in the book she's fat and pimply. Also, the hidden underlying reason for all of Carrie's strange behavior at high school being that she's relentlessly abused at home, and that not a single person in school cares or shows empathy for her. They've all just made the collective decision to either ignore what's happening to her, or take part in that cruelty.

This is what makes the pig's blood falling on her at the prom such an effective scene, because o the pointlessness of that cruelty. Carrie was finally having a moment of feeling like a normal girl, and several bullies had to go out of their way to kill a pig and set up that prank just to humiliate her further. They also thought there'd be no real consequence afterwards, they just get to keep beating down on their bullying victim for the satisfaction fo it.

Carrie is also a character that blurs the line between victim and perpetrator. She is both the monster of the story and the main character. It's like if the creature of the black lagoon was a teenage girl. The moment where she snaps the audience feels far more for her than they do the innocent children she's massacring, which is kind of the whole point of the story to blur the line between how much of Carrie's rampage was her own fault and her own fault, and how much of it was caused by the way people around her treated her.

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

There's so much themes and meaning in a movie that basically got famous for a guy wearing a leather mask who chases a woman around with a chainsaw.

The whole movie takes place in what's basically a post-apocalyptic landscape, even though it's just the declining rural America.

"Hooper's apocalyptic landscape is ... a desert wasteland of dissolution where once vibrant myth is desiccated. The ideas and iconography of Cooper, Bret Harte and Francis Parkman are now transmogrified into yards of dying cattle, abandoned gasoline stations, defiled graveyards, crumbling mansions, and a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic killers. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [is] ... recognizable as a statement about the dead end of American experience." Charon Charett."

This is what American Gothic looks like. It's a man chasing you around with a chainsaw.

Leatherface and his family are victims of capitalism, and the dry, dusty desert and the ruins of an old farmhouse the main characters spend most of the movie journeying through are the wreckage left behind by American capitalism. The movie is basically about the cannibalism of capitalism, using slaughterhouses as a metaphor and treating human lives as callously as the way the animals marched into slaughterhouses to be killed and made into meat is treated. Their house parodies a typical wholesome farm home, but everyone inside of it are murderous monster.

The themes of the exploitation of women in this movie are so strong too, especially the ways their bodies are both sexualized in brutalized not only in horror movies but in society at large are also right on point. There's the reason that the ending scene to Texas Chainsaw Massacre is so legendary and it's because despite representing the "final girl trope" Sally Hardesty, chased, terrorized, tortured over the course of the movie does escape but her experience has completely mentally broken her.

#horror movies #spooky speaks #carrie #texas chainsaw massacre #psycho #the blair witch project #blair witch #these are the most typical picks ever #but think about this as horror 101 #the movies you gotta watch if you want to learn why horror as a genre has effective storytelling

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falciesystemessays · 3 months ago

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it is hard to capture pain in video games.

this is one of the things i ended up thinking about a lot in the hospital over the past few days. i had been going through a lot of stomach pain, and it turns out it wasn't overeating, that i had to get my gallbladder removed. i am finally back home laying in bed, trying desperately to find a good position that will kill neither my back nor my abdomen. it's not going great, but i'm too much of a wuss to use the opiate i was prescribed, so now i am typing this post in a kind of terrible state. the people sending their love and good vibes and best wishes are nothing to me, no amount of good energy will cure this abdominal pain, no amount of thoughts and prayers will take away my shortness of breath. i normally have better writing than this, but you don't deserve better writing from me right now. i don't owe you that.

so, look, i spent most of this time playing a shitton of fire emblem fates and some rhythm heaven megamix, i have been desperately trying to distract myself from the everything of this situation. and of course, as a game designer, i try to think of how to turn this into a teachable moment for my design work. but it's not fuckin easy, is it? it's hard to sell someone on a game that will physically hurt them without being a very real health risk, and it's hard to emotionally capture that sense of viscerality using game mechanics alone. tell me in the replies games that come close! but genuinely no amount of heartbreak or dread or panic in a game comes close to the sheer horribility of being in actual godawful pain, for days on end.

in my past, i actually worked on a game that tried to be about pain. it's a very different project now, and no longer in my hands, but i ended up getting its protagonist, Fang, in my head. fang's gimmick is Blood Aura, essentially an attunement to pain that gives her greater strength the lower her health is at. in a sense, it kinda captures the sense of letting yourself get harmed on purpose because that's when you feel the most alive. it makes you put yourself at risk so that you can lash out in spades. but it's all very calculated, and more to the point, it's not making you the player experience pain.

the thing i've realized about games, rpg's especially, is that you are not your player characters. the player character acts as a surrogate for you, essentially as an arm for your will, but you do not become the character as you play. the reason i emphasize rpg's is due to the nature of a party-based game. you don't play as marth in fire emblem shadow dragon, you do not play as tidus in final fantasy x. but you also, crucially, do not embody any of these characters individually as you control them. you play as the collective, the group, the dynamic itself. you play as a collective id, or perhaps, an unspoken sense of team play. games like into the breach and xcom compensate for this by simply making you an offscreen commander. it's a practical solution, and it carries me to my next point.

shortly after the surgery, i started asking various people - my mom, my friends, my beloved - how they personally felt seeing me go through this. i realized that while you can't easily capture my kind of visceral pain as a player character, you can capture the feeling of knowing someone going through it. perhaps a party member in an rpg could fall ill, and you as a commander would have to marinate in that reality. some were worried, some sympathized but knew it was gonna be alright, my beloved was terrified, and my mom talked about wanting desperately to know, and to do something. that's something that can all be done in a game form.

so here's my idea. at one point in a fairly long rpg, one of your characters gets sick, or needs some kind of operation, or something like that. this isn't foreshadowed, medical peril so often isn't, but you have to deal with it anyway. this character, who may have been vital to your team composition or may have been just another unit, is now completely unable to do any of the things you expect. you're told this won't be permanent, probably, but recovery will be a very slow process as they slowly, slowly drift back into normalcy. during this process, you have several opportunities to check in on them, for all the good that'll do. maybe it'll do something, maybe it won't. you don't know, and you don't know how successful or quick this recovery will be. you can choose to process this however you like.

this will of course run into some issues. something i've noticed playing fire emblem is a tendency i and others have to care less about characters of less tactical use to us. whether i let a unit die on classic mode hinges on whether i can be bothered to reset. so there is, always, a possibility that a gamer could see this thing and be like "wow, now this fucker is useless to me, so i don't give a shit." and, if they know this is coming, they might not bother to level up the character because it'd just be a waste of exp. not that i even like exp systems to begin with, and i highly encourage you to ask me my thoughts on exp systems because i am running purely on spite at this point.

maybe what games ultimately need is to be willing to actually physically punish the player. we have game-linked vibrators after all, why not shift the pleasure into pain? but trying to actually sell this game would mean it only appeals to masochists, and while i respect them deeply, they are not my target audience. i want the player i inflict pain upon to hate every moment of it, just as i hate every moment of being in this goddamn bed waiting for things to finally recover. apparently it'll take about six weeks. awesome, right? maybe i finally will go on that damn opioid. i am on three hours of sleep, and before the surgery i had barely eaten anything for two days. this past week has been nothing but pain, distractions from the pain, and eventual relief from the pain. fuck i hate this.

#sorry

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coralpolyp · 4 months ago

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The Complete Works Vol 2: All my Favourite Songs

Cover I did for the fic in Procreate - fully painted by myself this time, instead of rearranging official assets like I had done for Finding the Flow. Again, formatted to be Wattpad-sized, just in case I ever ended up stooping that low.

Welcome back to The Complete Works! This is part two of a two-part archival project I'm doing, where I gather together every piece of unreleased Splatoon writing I've ever done that does not pertain to an ongoing project, and put it all up publicly on AO3, alongside my own personal reflection on it, both over there and over here - what worked, what didn't, why I didn't finish it, and how it influenced what came after it. And I mean everything - full multi-chapter sequences, half-written chapters, plot outlines, one-sentence headcanons, and French revision, it's all here.

All My Favourite Songs

Started: 8th July 2023

Abandoned: 7th December 2023

The fic itself: AO3

Unused content/Complete Works: AO3

At its core, All My Favourite Songs is a very angry story.

It started as a spiritual successor to Finding the Flow - the further my interest in telling Marina's story waned, the more fascinated I grew with this tiny subplot about Harmony being in a constant war with her own neurodivergence rather than working with it, trying to make her way in a field that people of her species are largely unrepresented in, and being in love with her guitarist. What started as "when I'm done with Finding the Flow I'll make a 3 part Harmony story with a similar ethos, and have the two intersect near the end" turned into "I can't be bothered with Finding the Flow lets just get straight into it", with the 3-parts idea being dropped somewhere along the way.

When I was working on this story, I think what excited me was how subtly offensive it all felt, especially with Harmony as a protagonist - the chapters I actually have to show for my time invested in this one present a scrappy, endearing and deeply relatable character, plagued by misfortune beyond her control, and yet later scenes would go on to depict this character that should be "just like you fr" as sad, pathetic, obsessive and a borderline creep - and then somehow go on to bring her back from the brink.

The main thought I had on my mind at the time of brainstorming this one was, in effect, a strange contempt for "losers" - people living under unfortunate circumstances who are ready to just lie down and let it happen to them, letting the god in the machine take every last bit of the blame for who they've become, and inadvertently framing themselves as completely powerless to stop it, seeing as they supposedly did nothing to start it. In its most basic sense, Harmony's character arc is feeling irreparably broken, getting a serious reality check, and then still being irreparably broken but as happy under the circumstances as she possibly can be.

It was an incredibly convoluted serenity prayer, before I even knew what that was. It wasn't a story of "You've been dealt a bad hand, you may as well just give up", nor a story of "You've been dealt a bad hand - here's how to go back in time and get a new one that's way better", it's a story of "You've been dealt a bad hand, now what?"

The key word here, however, is "convoluted" - by the time I felt confident I knew where the story was headed it was just...too much...too much for me to write in my lifetime. Too much for anyone to really follow. It needed serious cuts, and I didn't know where to even begin with making them. In the end I just put it all to bed.

For all it's worth, this story still means a lot to me. It really solidified the ethos I try to carry in all my work of brutal realism and complete and utter greyness - no good guys, no bad guys with ideologies that I disagree with, simply a bunch of deeply flawed people just fighting for what they're pretty sure is right, and all equally capable of hurting other people, whether they realise it or not, or even if they do it in purpose. I don't believe its my job as an author to tell you what's good and what's bad, and make up a scenario to illustrate my point. Its always been my hope that, when I write, I am just showing the reader the world around me verbatim - even, perhaps especially, the bits that aren't pretty. I try to ask questions I genuinely do not know the answer to, because those are conversations I want to have. In some ways I almost feel a little disappointed with myself that I failed to realise this vision, but the simple fact of the matter is that I have a lot more faith in the things I'm working on now than I do the things I was working on then.

Outside of talking about plot, AMFS was, at one point, unique in its use of illustrations, being a picture book of sorts - its an idea that has always interested me, as I never quite understood why visual mediums such as comic books are perfectly capable of being mature, and so are literary mediums such as novels, but the intersection of the two, and having the best of both worlds, is apparently inherently childish. Of course, I would later realise that the "adult picture book" I was envisioning already existed in Japan and its called a light novel, but I still felt quite proud of myself at the time for having a go at it. It didn't quite work out, however - it was too big a time investment, even when I had undeniably slipped into creating rushed, poor-quality illustrations, and I felt that my technical skill with art was not yet up to standard with my prose, and combining them was inclined to make my work seem less serious than I wanted it to. It's an idea I still love, and still want to come back to, however.

This story is also responsible for starting my love of epigraphs and referencing songs in chapter titles. I'm not unique in this at all, if anything I've fallen into an amateurish fanfic-y trap, guilty as charged and completely shameless, but it's still worth noting when trying to evaluate what working on this fic meant for me.

What would have happened:

When writing volume 1, I condensed a 2000 word plot summary into 1000 words. The plot summary for this fic is 7000 words. Like I said, I was insane, its just too much. All I can really do is link the unabridged version here.

For more, read All My Favourite Songs and The Complete Works

The illustrations I did for this fic are in an older post on this Tumblr, linked here.

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #harmony #harmony splatoon #chirpy chips #splatoon fanfiction #ao3 #writing

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semper-legens · 5 months ago

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56. My Heart Is A Chainsaw, by Stephen Graham Jones

Owned?: No, library Page count: 439 My summary: Jade is not a troubled teen. Sure, she loves playing macabre pranks on her classmates, doesn't have any friends, and sees life through the lens of slasher movies - but with the life she's been given, who can blame her? The only Native girl in her little rural community, living with a deadbeat dad and a world that hates her, Jade has every disadvantage in life and nowhere to go. But when the signs line up that a real-life slasher is coming to Proofrock, suddenly Jade's life has a deeper meaning. She knows what this is. She's ready. And she's going to make sure that the right story plays out. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

I kept picking this book up and putting it down and picking it up and putting it down, not sure if I wanted to read it. There was, in fact, one thing that ultimately clinched it for me - the author. I read The Only Good Indians a while back and fell in love with its dark outlook, its complex politics, and the deep trauma that oozes from every page. This looked to be similar in style and tone, a dark urban fantasy with a killer on the loose, and only one girl who can stop it. But she's all kinds of fucked up and nobody wants to listen to her, of course. That's the way these things go. So how did the story pan out? Deeply engaging, strange, lyrical, and bloody as one might expect from a slasher tale. I enjoyed it, though it was by no means an easy read.

(Warning for mention of suicide, sexual assault and abuse, child molestation and incest under the cut.)

Jade is the main character and the main draw of this novel. A lot is riding on her as a protagonist, and I'm glad to say that she very much carries the narrative by being a deeply interesting character. Jade starts out bruised, wounded, latching onto her slasher-movie ideas of how the world works and fitting everything into that framework. She becomes fixated on Letha, a new and rich girl at school moving into the newly-built community of Terra Nova, because she is convinced Letha will be the 'Final Girl'. It's to the point where she reads really strongly as being autistic, with a hyperfocus that overrides everything. At various points, she wonders if going to the police about her concerns is worth it - she knows Letha needs to have certain experiences to set her up as Final Girl, and the police are useless in slasher movies anyway. Everything she does, she brings back to slashers. Interspersed throughout the chapters are essays she wrote to her beloved History teacher about slashers in lieu of homework, bringing her interest into the school subject. She's flawed, of course. Mentally ill, aware of her own strangeness, wrapped up in her own head, and hopelessly avoidant. But all of those flaws just make her a stronger character, and a very engaging one to boot.

This book is, largely, about trauma - both the specific trauma experienced by the main character and a more generalised trauma specific to Indigenous people throughout the US. (The characters universally use 'Indian' to describe Jade and her father, but I'm a white English person, so I'm going to use 'Indigenous' and 'Native'.) Jade is a very troubled kid. It's teased early on that something might have happened with her father - she hates him, and partially wants her life to be a slasher movie so that he dies. Letha suspects her father molested her, which she refutes; this turns out to be the case towards the end of the book, however. Jones' afterword to the book mentions that Jade as a character didn't start to solidify to him until after he read an article about a Native girl who killed herself after being abused by her father, and how widespread an issue that was in Native communities.

Jade herself starts the book with a suicide attempt, and throughout displays a lack of care towards her own life that is at the very least passively suicidal, if not actively trying to get herself killed. She's in denial, she's fixated on slasher movies both as a coping mechanism and as a refuge. Applying their framework to her life is how she rationalises and copes with the world around her. There's an underlying tension in earlier parts of the book as to whether there actually is a slasher killer on the streets of Proofrock or if Jade is drawing conclusions where there are none, wanting to protect girls from their fathers in a show of misplaced revenge. A lot of the more obviously slasher-y things we see only happen when Jade is alone, bringing into question her narration. That, plus the hazy, stream of consciousness first person voice really brings a dark and uncertain tone to the whole book.

And, of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how race and Indigeneity plays into the entire affair. Does Jade fixate on Letha because she's Black, the only other girl of colour in school? But more than that, race underpins everything. The lake the bulk of the action centres around is called Indian Lake, and one of the first signs a slasher is in town is the mass-killing of elk nearby, a motif that also appears in The Only Good Indians. Hell, the rich people building a new settlement in town call their home Terra Nova, literally 'New World'. And the slasher? A ghost, it turns out - a little Native girl whose mother was killed, who herself died in a cruel prank, and whose spirit cannot sink beneath the waters of Indian Lake because she is a 'heathen' in the eyes of the Church. It all comes back to the poisoning of Native land and Native lives by the settlers who would claim it as their own - no accident, then, that Jade is the only one who sees the truth. Trauma both personal and intergenerational, and all circling around Jade. Poor kid. But such a compelling character, and I'm so glad I finally picked this up and read it. It's harrowing, but it's a really good read.

Next up, from one horrible thing to another, as we take a look at a boy who drew Auschwitz.

#My Heart is a Chainsaw #Stephen Graham Jones #bookblr #book blog #book blogger #4

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insufferable-talkstuck · 1 year ago

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Dave and Dirk ; Relationship analysis

[ Candy route ]

a post dedicated to the strider father-son brother bond as portrayed within the dubious canonical writing of the candy route

a peek into the past ๑

the candy timeline is the one in which our protagonist John egbert decides to stay on earth C and not go back to fight Lord English, this makes candy the "less relevant" and more off putting timeline. however he does have to retcon back into canon once to retrieve the fridge Gamzee dwells in, per the request of Calliope

when John retcons back we are met with the emotional scene of Dave and Dirk hugging it out on the rooftop, you really can't discredit how wholesomely this is written

CANDY CHAPTER TWO ;

` At the other end of the roof are Dirk and Dave, doing something he never thought he’d see: they’re... hugging. Not just regular, noncommittal hugging. They are emphatically hugging the shit out of each other. Dave’s face is buried in Dirk’s side, and Dirk’s got both arms around him in a way that looks like he’s never actually hugged another human being before. `

` The moment John’s palms hit the fridge, Dirk turns to look at him. His head only moves an inch. Slowly, he lowers one eyebrow and returns to his poignant and deeply personal business with Dave, as if he hasn’t observed anything worth acknowledging at all. `

END QUOTE

im not saying im *disappointed* with this hug is canon, i am just so fond of how this scene is described within the epilogues. now allow me to overthink it.

not only is this moment described more intensely and emotionally than in HS canon, but Dirk sees a boy appear out of nowhere to stroke then *steal* a fridge; and does not think it is even worth acknowledging. he quite literally does not bat an eye. dirk is so occupied with his brother he doesn't care about anything around him, he knows dave is in his arms and that's all he needs to know.

a peak into the past : end ๑

out of the past now, into the new things that took place in Candy. ==>

Candy is the timeline in which dirk takes his life. Dirk can't take becoming irrelevant and prefers his own death, ( and Reforming later on. shout out to Ult dirk ) a Just death as arranged very carefully.

Dave was looking for Dirk for advice, he needed help with his love life and he needed his brother to tell him what to do.

when Dave is met with the news of Dirks passing he is in shambles to say the least, however this does not take him over; Ultimate dirk is still semi-writting everything. he has control and wants the best of his brother he would not let him fall into a depression.

Dirks funeral was sad, a very upsetting scene [ ignore gamzee for the entirety of it ] the first day Earth C sees rain, and a rare occurrence in which Dave takes off his shades while giving a speech about dirk

[ worthy mention; Dave carries dirks head at the funeral ]

Dave knows he CAN go back in time to save Dirk but won't on purpose, he doesn't ONLY love his brother he understands him, he understands him to be a difficult guy, and wouldn't wanna worsen the situation.

the writing goes out of its way to show you just how much the striders care for each other

the Davebot situation

robots are a very common thing in homestuck, they're pretty much everywhere maybe it was a 2009 thing. But many among the fandom seem to believe a character *becoming* a robot is equal to the character dying. that is absolutely not the case especially not when DIRK is the robot maker

[ my opinions and theories incoming ]

Dirk does not view robots as "less than" humans, he grew up around them they were his only company so much so he prefers them to humans in many instances, i think the REASON he made Davebot happen ( we all know it was the prince's doing. ) was to keep him somewhat relevant, Dirk cares about the Meat timeline cause he believes it to be more important, but he wouldn't want his brother thrown into irrelevance! he cares about him, ergo turning him into a robot, it's the best he can do for his poor sonbro doomed to being "forgotten" [ dirk makes his robots with care especially when housing family. he puts a lot of work into them and it shows just how important they are to him. Davebot is shown to be strong as shit, slicing fruit thrown at him with his katana like he's playing fruit ninja, meat!Dave wouldn't do this by choice, its dirk trying to make him stronger. I won't even touch of how RAD rosebot is. just look at what she can do and TELL me becoming a robot is equal to death. ]

๑ end ๑

if i were to cover dave and dirks ENTIRE relationship in both timelines and HS^2 I would reach a character limit or my phone would explode. i have so many thoughts on it all and they're so precious, anyway in sum; Candy!Dave and Dirk should have hugged more. oh and deeply care for each other

#homestuck #the epilogues #[ candy route 🍭 ]#dave strider #dirk strider #striders #relationship analysis

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fritzyfluffington · 9 months ago

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Broken Path

> Astarion x F!Tav (Redemption Durge version. People on Larian’s forum told me they’re the same but with more content in the case of Durge 🤷‍♀️)

> Warnings: Nothing really? Blood and gore and amnesia. Words like “squelch” used to amp up the discomfort. Lamentation over corpses and their lack of usefulness when it comes to opening locked doors. Astarion flipping out because our protagonist is a walking filth monster. Use of the word beach instead of calling it a riverbank.

> Word count: All? Many? 4,700-ish?

> Summary: Another retelling of some of the beginning of the game. Lily wakes up and stumbles around on the sandy riverside beachy area with no shoes. She meets her inner dragon. Astarion treats her as though she spawned from a trash bin. Just an average day in the warped and heavily modded playthrough that I’ve been given the pleasure of watching 🤭

I want to preface this real fast. This is my writing of my friend’s stupidly modded game. I like to watch while she plays and we bounce ideas of what could be happening in between fights or in between cutscenes. I haven’t played this game even though I love DnD (I don’t have a computer). @tavamarie proofread Astarion to make sure I got him semi-right. Blame her! It’s not my fault! 😅

Haven’t written in around ten years so I’m a bit rusty. Be kind to me ❤️

She was tired. So tired. It felt as if she had been hit in the head with a rock or maybe one of the boys had smacked her with their practice swords again. Her vision was a bit cloudy, and her mouth tasted of bitter metal, gritty and unpleasant.

Lily winced as she touched a spot near her temple and pulled her hand away, blinking a few times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. Blood, thick as though it was old, oozed down her fingers as she watched. It felt as if the entire world had gone wrong…red…

“I’osi!!!” Lily cried out, taking off like a shot in the direction of her home, wiping at the blood that kept running into her eyes. The boys were going to be in so much trouble! Her legs were long for an eight-year-old, easily foretelling that she would be tall like her mother and father. They enabled her to sprint much faster than her brothers.

But…hadn’t she passed out? They had probably already gotten home and told Osu a lie…

Lily heard the sound of a woman’s laughter. It was ear piercingly maniacal, making her head hurt as though it was going to split apart.

Maybe it hadn’t been the boys that hurt her? Maybe it had been the village kids? Again…. Why couldn’t she remember anything? Her temper flared and she used the tiniest bit of magic to make herself faster. Just a touch so the Wildness wouldn’t come to call. She sprinted as fast as her legs would carry her, smelling smoke on the wind. Panic grew within her as the smell grew stronger.

Lily counted the cobbles on the way to the garden. Counting so she knew when to turn onto the hidden path. She felt her heart in her throat as the cottage came into view. Was that blood? Smoke billowed out of the windows, and she screamed at the scene before her in absolute denial. Lily called for her grandmother again, not paying attention as she barreled forward, tripping on a stone that was partially unearthed. The world faded from her view as she fell backwards, crying out in horror when she noticed…the sky…there was a spider-like creature staring back at her where there should have been stars.

She screamed as it bent its great spiked head to devour her.

Everything hurt. Why did everything hurt? Lily opened her eyes, hesitating briefly as the image from her dream was still fresh in her mind. She really didn’t want to look up and find a creature covered in spikes and horns staring down at her with its’ multiple legs poised to pounce. In her dream, she had thought it a spider? No…no spider was that frightening.

Shuddering, Lily finally sat up with a groan, looking around at the nearly pristine river in front of her. If not for the random flaming Nautiloid parts, she almost felt she wouldn’t mind staying. Almost, save for the dire sense of urgency she felt inside her chest. Her shaky legs stumbled as she stood up and began the slow walk down the beach. It felt as though she hadn’t been on her feet in a long time, or perhaps she had been on them too much. The thought felt like an ice pick through her brain and Lily placed a hand to her head. Her skin felt hot, flushed and sweaty. Her lips and tongue felt parched and dry.

She tripped, her foot catching against something solid and an all too familiar smell filled her nostrils. Death. Looking down, Lily stared into the unblinking eyes of a corpse. One of many that was littering the beach amidst all the wreckage.

‘Fools should have gotten out of the way faster!’ No…no, this was a terrible waste of life. Someone should mourn for these poor men and the families that they left behind.

So, why was a part of her mind mocking them? Worse yet, why was that part of her smiling at the death and decay that surrounded her? Why did that voice, sounding very much like her own, encourage her to rip and tear into the bodies, to drink their cooled and coagulated blood and revel in their gore? She swallowed back her nausea, looking away from the dead and continued down the sandy shore. The more dead she saw, the faster she forced herself to walk, lurching along the path in an almost panicked state.

It made her feel claustrophobic. This feeling that she shared her mind with something that wasn’t her. Something that wanted to lock her away so it could use her body for its own purposes.

‘What in Gods name is wrong with me?’ She felt a trickle of blood as it oozed down her forehead and started questioning whether or not she was dreaming again.

But no… this didn’t feel like a dream. If it was it was extremely detailed. She could smell the scents around her, which wasn’t a good thing in most cases considering her current surroundings. Much of the smoke that filled the area smelled of burning chemicals, flesh or hair. It made Lily’s eyes water and stung her nose when she was forced to pass through it.

Her bare feet were hurting, from the sand beneath them or something else she had stepped on she wasn’t sure. On parts of the Nautiloid, she suppressed a shudder as the ground seemed to be made of flesh. She barely noticed as she stepped on fragments of metal and bone, as well as sharp rocks. Her feet bled freely, but Lily’s concern was elsewhere. The feeling that she had been on this ship before it exploded was overwhelming and she was extremely glad that she couldn’t remember the experience. If the entire thing felt like walking around inside a living creature's innards, she never wanted the memories back, honestly.

After an hour, time she had spent diligently rooting around through discarded barrels, crates and the occasional backpack, she came upon an ancient looking building. Lily paused, looking up at the worn stone brick of the stairs leading up to the massive wooden door of this…..was this a temple?

Perhaps there were priests within that could assist her as she was definitely unwell.

Unsteadily, she limped slowly up the steps, not noticing the bloody footprints she was leaving behind in her wake. The steps weren’t steep but her legs still trembled as she climbed them. Finally reaching the door, Lily grasped the handle and tried to open it. It didn’t budge.

She banged on the door with a balled fist, feeling an unfamiliar sense of desperation coil in her chest. Moments passed and she finally pulled her hand back, surprised that it had bruised slightly from her pounding on the door.

‘Am I dying?’ the desperation within her was slowly becoming something very similar to anger.

She chewed her bottom lip as she stared at the door. It was, to put it simply, very extremely, impossibly locked. She had lockpicking kits that she had found in a backpack but…. Judging from how confused she was by the contents of them, she doubted she was ever skilled in their use.

Honestly, the only thing on this beach she had felt familiar with was the corpses and though the idea of smashing a dead body into the door repeatedly was funny on some levels….

Lily turned from the door and sat on the steps, placing her head in her hands. A fire had started within her, anger filling her belly at the ever-present confusion filling her mind. Why was she here? What had happened to her? Was there no one that could help her?

‘Am I going to die here?’ she wiped away more blood from her forehead again, noting that the slightest movement was now causing dizziness. Her arms trembled as she leaned back against the steps, allowing the small breeze from across the river to cool her body. Was her fever getting worse?

“It’ll be dark soon,” she said to no one, “I guess I should figure out shelter…” Was that her voice? It sounded so pleasant and rather pretty, not fitting at all for how she felt. Lily looked around, noticing a couple of barrels that she had missed, tucked next to the steps up to the temple. Supplies for the temple, maybe? Was it wrong to steal from monks or priests or whomever resided here? Well…they hadn’t helped her so she would help herself. Maybe increase her odds of survival?

She stood, stretching her aching muscles a bit before stumbling her way down the steps. The barrels were sealed, though the seals were easy enough to break. They were also a general disappointment, containing sacks of rotten fish and old vegetables. The only good things that she managed to find were two bottles of water and a bottle of Ithbank, which smelled strong enough to clean wounds….or start fires perhaps. Surely this wasn’t Ithbank. This smelled as if it had been here for years, fermenting until it was strong enough to slap someone across the face.

Lily doubted she would be brave enough to imbibe at this point as she had a feeling she never really had a taste for paint stripper. She placed one of the bottles of water and the alcohol in one of the backpacks she had found before turning back to the path leading through the wreckage. Her eyes immediately fell upon a dead body which caused that curious feeling of claustrophobia to hit her.

Lily downed the remaining bottle of water, ignoring the nausea that she felt looking at the corpse. This wasn’t her. She wouldn’t revel in death. She refused to give into this stupid darkness within her. If she couldn’t control it, she simply wouldn’t look at the issue…until she felt better anyway. Then she would try and figure out what was causing this. Unfortunately, there really wasn’t any place to look that wasn’t touched by death in some form or fashion. There were dead fishermen on the beach, dead Mindflayers in the wreckage and…just random dead people sprinkled throughout. People that didn’t belong at all, judging from their attire.

Which was she? Was she a person who belonged on the waterfront or was she a random victim that had been on that ship? Why couldn’t she remember anything? Why did the idea of being a victim anger her so much? Shouldn’t it have scared her or confused her as well?

A memory of a rock, or something much like a rock, flashed behind her eyes. It flew at her head in her peripheral vision. There was a bloom of pain behind her right ear before her world went black. That was her last memory…before she woke up on the beach. Why couldn’t she see what was in front of her in the memory? Yellow eyes? They looked…frightened? No, that didn’t feel right.

They looked…. ‘Filled with hatred’

The memory faded, followed by the icepick pain that was becoming all too familiar. Blood oozed freely once more, from what had to be a head wound somewhere beneath her hair. Lily needed to move. To find some help before she became too sick with fever to find someone who could help her. She tucked the empty bottle in her backpack and started walking, her feet almost dragging as she moved forward.

Tilting her head back, Lily made the choice to look above her instead of staring ahead at the massacre amongst the wreckage. ‘The sky’, she thought, looking at the nearly cloudless visage above her, ‘The sky is a very pretty shade of blue.’

Unfortunately, when you’re staring above you, it’s very easy to step into or onto things that you would like to avoid. In Lily’s case, she stepped on an Intellect Devourer. The fear she should have felt was diminished by the immediate feeling of nausea upon hearing the squelch from her foot landing atop the brain. The feeling of its’ juices coming up between her toes. It was as though her mind was a few steps behind, not realizing the danger she was currently in until the brain she had stepped upon hissed at her and lashed out with its’ large, clawed feet.

“How did you hiss!?!” She practically yelled at it. No, her mind still wasn’t caught up, “You have no mouth!” It chirped and warbled, once more slashing at her with those massive claws. This time she felt it should have hit her and her mind finally snapped to attention, now giving the little monster proper consideration. Something within herself shifted, watching the small creature run off to join two others. Watching through her own eyes.

‘Of course there are three of you,’ blood flowed freely from her lip now, trickling down her chin as she bit down just a little too hard this time. The stress was clearly getting to her.

‘Pay attention!’

That wasn’t her thought... unless she was secretly a snarling, extremely irritated, male dragon. Her mind completely disconnected then. The feeling of being puppeted, though gently, overwhelmed her. Lily’s eyes focused on the three Devourers in front of her and she felt more than saw her right arm lift up. Her fingers snapped and a single shot of lightning struck them from the clear sky above.

The creatures simply popped, splattering their surroundings and anyone unlucky enough to be standing close enough with blood and brain goo.

Control of her body returned.

The voice that wasn’t her own seemed to sigh and Lily could almost feel a dragon’s warm breath on her skin. ‘At least you remember how to walk and talk.’

“Thank you for saving me?” She walked over and prodded some of the remains with her toe, her body fully shuddering as her skin touched it.

‘Was that a question?’

“No….I…. I just don’t know what’s going on. I would have died if you hadn’t….” She felt a wave of sympathy and had the impression of a wing wrapping around her in an embrace. It made Lily feel entirely too small. Safe, but small.

‘I have been asleep for fifteen years. The chains that bound me to rest are gone, though I don’t know why. You managed to wake me just as a different part of you managed to chain me fifteen years ago.’

Lily couldn’t remember fifteen hours ago, let alone fifteen years ago. She understood that the voice sounded angry when it referred to a different part of her chaining it. What in Gods name was she?

She felt a moments pause as though unsure that she was telling the truth…to herself? No, that didn’t make sense. Utter confusion swamped her before being replaced with resolve to care…for herself? Confusion again. ‘I am going to help you but only if you never think in such brain addling ways again. First, you may call me Other until you remember my name. Second, you need to find help, Lily. You have a parasite in your brain. A tadpole.’

She was going to ask if Other was actually inside of her mind or if he existed somewhere else and was simply communicating through it, but the mention of a parasite stopped her thoughts in their tracks. Granted, Amnesiac Lily didn’t have enough knowledge to accomplish lunch, but…she knew of only one type of tadpole that fed upon the brains of their unfortunate victims. Mindflayer…

‘Yes, Lily, a Mindflayer parasite is in your brain. It’s been there a while judging from how damaged your brain is.’

Other sounded tired now. As tired as she herself felt, actually. She needed to push forward, find some help and figure out what was going on.

Was she…talking to herself? Astarion watched from a shadowed copse nearby. His eyebrow had been lifted in confusion since the moment he had spied the daft woman wandering alone through this debris field of an area. For starters, she was walking around barefoot on the beach. That wouldn’t have been such an issue with him as, from the looks of it, people were abducted and placed in random pods in varying states of dress. What did bother him was the fact that he had watched her as she stepped on all manner of sharp objects. Her feet were bleeding and she paid them little heed. Her head was bleeding as well, or at least it had been bleeding at some point from the look of her. Granted, when he had seen her on the ship, Astarion had been sure she was wearing shoes and hadn’t seen her from an angle allowing him to see the blood…if it had been there at the time.

Perhaps she was a thrall? That would make sense, especially since she was talking to something. Maybe she was being controlled in order to rescue a surviving mindflayer from that accursed ship?

He fidgeted with a piece of gold from his pocket, rolling it between his fingers while considering his options as he walked back to his own fallen pod. On the one hand, he wanted to know what had been done to him and the little lost thrall out there was likely his best source for immediate information. On the other hand, he had watched her as she had literally walked around with her head tilted upwards as she stared straight up at the sky.

Add to that her conversation with someone that wasn’t there, and he was more and more certain that killing her would be the kindest option. After all, if she was being summoned to rescue a denizen of the crashed Nautiloid, they would likely kill her as soon as she found them and if they expired before she reached them, she would likely die as well. Thralls couldn’t last long without their masters…could they?

He cursed. Astarion considered himself educated and well-read, but he wasn’t normally interested in books about Mindflayers. If they were mentioned in something he was reading already, that was one thing, but the biology of the creatures seemed a little dry for his tastes. He wasn’t often afforded the luxury of time to himself, so the idea of wasting it on a book about Mindflayers and their ins and outs made him scowl.

No, he preferred books with information that he could actually and regularly use…. How was he to know he’d be abducted by the tentacled bastards on that ship?

Astarion glanced in the direction that she would be coming from. The little lost puppet was a bit closer now and he made up his mind to go ahead and catch her, question her and kill her. “Over here,” he called, trying to act like a poor lost nobleman. It wasn’t such a huge lie that he would feel out of place playing the part, after all. “Quick! Over here. I need help!”

The vulnerability he could hear in his voice made him grimace as he continued to call out, coaxing her to his side.

Astarion listened for her footsteps to get closer before he turned towards her and then, stunned by how filthy she was, doing a dramatic double take and turning towards her once more. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened in horror as he stared at her. “Bloody Hells woman! Did you take ‘bathing in the blood of your enemies’ literally?” That wasn’t what he had meant to say. His well-versed mask of charm simply couldn’t cope with this walking gore pile before him. He grimaced as he realized that she likely wouldn’t be able to answer him.

When she had the nerve to look exasperated at him and did answer his question, he was quite shocked. “Apparently…. Did you need something?” The wretched leather armour she wore, if that’s what that had been, fell from her shoulders as she released the remaining clips that had held it in place. It practically disintegrated when it hit the ground.

What was beneath were ripped-up garments that had long ago finished their service and were in desperate need of retirement. She added a new tear to the garment, yanking a strip from the bottom and wiping at the blood that was drying on her face. She passed it over her arms next, scrubbing away at the stuck-on viscera.

When it became apparent that much of the grime would require water to remove, she tossed the cloth to the ground before looking at him expectantly. They stayed like that for longer than either of them was comfortable with, making Astarion actually start looking around for anything to focus on that wasn’t her face. After all, she had really only managed to push the gross around with an even filthier strip of….what used to be cloth.

It was appalling.

This woman needed to be dunked in the river and held there for the better part of a day until she was halfway clean. Only then could she consider having an actual bath.

“WELL?” She snapped at him, making his eyes jump back to her face.

“Ah, yes.” This was apparently not a thrall. She was disgusting and definitely addled but her mind was her own... Or at least it seemed to be. He took a deep breath, deciding to go ahead with his initial idea. It wasn’t the first time he had to get close to someone who was beneath his standard of hygiene…. It probably wouldn’t be his last. “There’s one of those brain things,” he pointed at the bushes behind him, “I have it cornered. You can kill it right? Like the others?”

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him, then at the bushes behind him. “Can’t you kill it?”

He ran a hand through his silver curls in slight irritation, “Maybe, if I had a weapon. I am, however, sadly unarmed.”

“Ah…well, it’s probably already run out of the bushes up ahead. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.” Lily wasn’t about to tell him that she had no idea how she had managed to kill the other three Intellect Devourers so she simply turned around and started walking away since there really wasn’t anything she could do.

“Hmm, I was hoping for a kind soul. No matter,” Astarion reached down and withdrew a dagger from his boot. He padded up behind her silently and grabbed her shoulder, yanking her backwards and tossing her on the ground.

Before she could respond, he had straddled her middle and was holding the dagger to her throat. He clicked his tongue with a smirk, “Not a word. I would hate to have to…. No, honestly, I would hate to have to dirty my blade on that filthy skin of yours.”

She rolled her eyes, “It isn’t as though I realized I was this dirty when I was next to the river. I would have washed up then if I had known. I’m also fairly sure most of this came from those exploding Intellect Devourers up the path…”

Astarion pressed the blade down, effectively shutting the woman up. Gods, even her hair was drenched in Mindflayer gore. He reached out and curiously picked a piece of a tentacle out of her hair before throwing it away, visibly repulsed. He glared at her, noting that he had made a small nick in her flesh. The skin of her neck wasn’t clean, but he could at least see her pale colouring. His eyes followed a droplet of blood as it slid down into her hair. “I said not a word, didn’t I?”

Astarion pitched his voice low and spoke quietly, conveying to her that he was a threat when all he really wanted was to get off of her and jump into the water of the Chionthar. He imagined the grime on her climbing over onto him and suppressed the urge to vomit. Just as well. When had he last eaten?

She nodded, watching him intently as he decided what to do with her.

“You were on the ship. I saw you traipsing around as if you owned the place. Tell me what you and those tentacle freaks did to me!”

“So, I can talk now?” She grinned, enjoying ruffling this elf’s feathers. Lily’s mind once more seemed to be ten steps behind in recognizing the danger around her.

“I am extraordinarily close to gutting you and putting you out of my misery.” Astarion bit out with a growl. She did actually seem concerned then. Took her long enough…

“I was kidnapped too. Let me up and we can talk like civilized people.” A statement and not a question. She meant it.

Before he could respond, Astarion was forcefully inserted into someone else thoughts. Or rather…their memories. He watched, seeing the woman beneath him in the pod’s reflective glass. She was groggy but her mind sensed danger, so she acted, slamming her forehead repeatedly into the glass until it broke. It allowed the wretched creature to tumble out of her pod where she struggled to stand, hands bound as a dragon tore through the wall in the chamber adjoining her own. Fire erupted, spewing forth and burning the pods within along with all of their inhabitants.

Thank the Gods she hadn’t been in that area…

Thank the Gods he hadn’t been either…

She wiggled her way over to a piece of exposed bony material jutting up from the floor and rubbed her bindings along a sharp edge until they snapped. Just in time as the dragon was now aiming into the chamber that she was in. She hid behind a fleshy console, unaware that she cast some kind of shield around herself just as the flames spewed forth again.

He was back in his own head, released from her memories and, Astarion assumed, she was released from his. He sighed, pulling the dagger away from her throat and standing up, taking a couple of steps back from her before he started attempting to brush off any filth that had migrated onto his clothes from her. Really, he was waiting for her to stand and get her bearings. Astarion looked up at her once he sensed her stillness.

He cleared his throat, “They took you too. I’m sorry I assumed you were one of their thralls.”

She frowned, feeling like she had heard something very similar quite recently. All she could see in her mind when she tried to remember why, was a toad shouting at her about how she was a thrall and needed to die after swinging a massive sword at her. Her lips twitched to the side as she pondered this, “Thanks for the apology, I guess? If I had a weapon, I may have done the same to you.”

He chuckled, an artificial sound even to his own ears, “Ah ha! A kindred spirit! My name is Astarion,” he tried to take in any detail about her, but she was absolutely covered in grime and gore. Her hair was a mountain of tangles and filth, completely obscuring her ears. There was no way to discern anything aside from the fact that she was a pale shade of ivory, perhaps a touch darker than his own. He gave up, assuming he would learn who and what she was soon enough, “I was in Baldur’s Gate when those beasts snatched me up.”

“I’m Lily, I think.” Her hand fiddled with a pouch that was hanging by a cord around her neck. It had been tucked beneath her armour, he guessed, else it probably would have been taken. The markings on the leather were elvish, making him curious about what type of magic was within.

“You…think?”

She nodded, frowning in frustration, “Right. I’m pretty sure I have amnesia.”

“I see,” Astarion was a bit disappointed. There was no way an amnesiac would know what was going on…right? He opted to take his chances. It never hurt to ask, after all, “I’m guessing your knowledge of Mindflayer parasites is, undoubtedly, pretty limited then?”

“I know they’ll turn us both into Mindflayers. That’s pretty much it.”

His mind went blank. Shocked, he blurted out, “Turn us into….” The laugh that passed through his perfect lips was forced and almost sounded pained. “Of course, it’ll turn me into a monster. What else did I expect?”

Before Lily could offer her condolences, which seemed appropriate given his reaction, Astarion continued, “Wait, there’s still time. If we can find someone who has studied them. Someone who knows how to control these things…these worms, then perhaps…”

“You mean destroy them, don’t you?”

He looked at her again, “Of course, what did I say?”

“Control?”

“Preposterous.” He ran his eyes down her body, trying once more to picture the creature before him without her current choice of…coverage. Gods, he couldn’t even tell what species she was. Lily could be a tiefling with no horns for all he could tell.

She had no tail either, however. Tiefling was out. “Look, why don’t we go to the water’s edge down there,” he gestured to a well overgrown path not far from where they were standing. It was blessedly free from any Nautiloid pieces. “I can help you get cleaned up a bit. It’s the least I can do.”

Lily touched her blood-sticky hair and shuddered. She preferred the idea of another woman helping her, but this Astarion person seemed…. aside from the whole dagger incident, harmless enough? He was a liar and a threat, certainly, but not an overwhelmingly large one.

Other, still groggy, agreed to keep watch. Of course, they also hated the idea and had thrown some choice insults about how inept Lily had become.

Of course, she was inept. She couldn’t remember being any other way.

“Alright…erm…lead the way I suppose?”

_______________________________________

Author’s Notes 🙃

Lily wasn’t meant to be barefoot. Bestie rearranged BFoE in her mod list and suddenly our adorable sorceress had no shoes on the beach.

The looking up at the sky thing happened in game as Lily did run around with her head creepily staring up at sky until the first fight happened. Tava decided to RP it like it happened, meaning Lily bypassed Shadowheart on the ground because she was trying to not look at anything.

Her being too filthy just kind of happened. She popped out of her pod in the Nautiloid with red hair and a completely splattered face and clothes. It was so funny that I convinced her to leave it. 😝

#astarion #astarion x tav #baldur’s gate fanfiction #baldur’s gate astarion #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 astarion #Baldur’s gate 3 female Tav #bg3 female Tav #astarion x durge #Is it Tav or is it Durge? I don’t care #breaking games with mods #Wanted to name this Squelch but was stopped for reasons #using hashtags the wrong way

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