#character study-ish?

[ievaxol]

no one can unring this bell

on good days, the creaking hardly bothers him.

'tis simply part of the daily routine to draw from the well of his aether and breathe life into his limbs again upon waking, to close his eyes through the initial panic of being pinned to the bed by dead weight and then the secondary, slower burning one of that dead weight being attached to him.

it took a couple of years, but he got the hang of it eventually. for all the theatrics of his youth, g'raha has discovered a pragmatic streak that runs deep within him.

he'll trade an arm for a settlement, half a leg for a child with eyes the color of lakeland -- he'll barter, give and take and move the pieces he has with lips pressed together and eyes cast to a future that may well lay hundreds of years ahead.

his own body is merely another resource at his disposal. he sits down with stacks upon stacks of books on anatomy to find a way to have the aether penetrate all the way out to this fingertips, not for himself but because the dexterity is needed in order to fight.

lyna smothers him in salves and ointments and he lets her, if only so she can feel needed. there is no need to tell of an itch that goes deeper than skin, not when she frowns in determination and sets his heart to bursting with affection.

on bad days, it does bother him.

those days he lets the sleeves drop a little lower and he stays in the tower if he can, both relieved and sickened at the familiar hum of aether that cocoons him.

relief at knowing he'll be able to move the way he wants. that he'll be able to fool himself into thinking there is nothing wrong with him so long as he doesn't look upon himself and see the tattered remains of his dress branded into the mockery of flesh provided by the tower.

nausea at the calculations that perpetually run in the back of his mind, reminding him of the fact that his body is no longer his. how many ilms of skin does it cost to save a life? what limbs would he trade for the crystalline mean? does he have the right to grieve himself?

it would probably do him well to remember that the tower isn't sentient as such, yet he can never shake the feeling that it hungers for more. some days it feels as though he has placed himself in the maw of a starving beast that is simply waiting for him to grow a little more before its jaws snap shut.

and time is notoriously not on his side.

on the worst days, the creaking is all he hears.

when he's called out on extended business, or another summoning attempt falls flat, or someone dies, or, well --

it's so loud those days. the scrape of rock against rock, slow and relentless. it is inescapable, too, as his chest heaves with every breath he takes and the crystal moves with it, groaning and cracking like a live thing.

the warmth is siphoned first out of his skin and then out of the very air, leaving his teeth chattering and lyna's face engraved with a silent worry that he's scared will grow permanent, and he wants to weep at how the one supposed to protect her ends up hurting her the most.

every swallow is a struggle, every step a fight. the seams of his transformation cracks and bleeds pain until he's half delirious with it, overcome by the need to claw his way out, out, out of his own body and the prison it makes.

it's basic survival instinct after all, to run away from what's killing you. and here he is. walking toward it, sprinting some days, as if he truly can't wait.

he has a thousand things to do and a hundred places to be, and yet all he is capable of is humming under his breath to try and drown out the never ending sound of his own corpse being puppeteered.

a small prize to pay on the grand scale of things but gods.

gods does he long for silence.

[sabo-torao]

Small disclaimer before you head in: this whole post will be referencing the TCB translation. I know VIZ handled the exchange I'm discussing differently, but I couldn't find anyone who talked about the original version and as a result I don't really know who is closer to the original meaning. In any case, the "analysis" should still stand. Whether Dragon was commenting Sabo's firmness or admiring his resolution, Sabo's still putting on a mask, and that's the point I'm trying to break down. Enjoy!

This very specific interaction between Dragon and Sabo in chapter 1083 has always stuck out to me.

"My, you really are unshakeable."

which is an appropriate response to what Sabo said, of course. What kind of sensitive person reacts that way to the death of an innocent, right?

Even so, I can't help but compare the thing Sabo said to his actual, genuine reaction to King Kobra's death.

He's devastated.

Sabo brokenly screams Kobra's name, and his expression is one of full despair; he never thought about killing Kobra, let alone letting him die. On the contrary, he actively tried to save him.

Kobra told him to just let him go, that he was dead weight and he shouldn't be concerned about him, but Sabo straight up refused. In fact, Kobra's actions read way more as a sacrifice than an inevitable death; the king let himself die, knowing that this way Sabo could flee and reach Vivi and Luffy safely.

On the Lulusian ship, we see Sabo think about Kobra's last words to him and actively trying not to cry (and failing).

That's not an unshakable man. He's suffering, he's grieving. He realizes he failed his very own mission of saving the king and lets the meaning behind Kobra's actions and words sink in.

It really puts his former reaction into perspective.

Sabo's firmness, seriousness and coldness in front of Dragon and Ivankov are nothing but a façade. He acknowledges that what he's about to say might come off as harsh, and that, even if he does feel sorry for Kobra, the tragedy doesn't weigh him down thanks to the results it brought, but it all sounds like he's reassuring himself more than actually showing his indifference.

Hell, he even drinks his glass of wine right after having said that "he doesn't really care". How can anyone take his words seriously?

And we've been knowing Sabo is inclined to do this sort of thing since Dressrosa; he acted all cool and composed in front of Luffy but the second Koala called him on the Den Den Mushi he was weeping, having a hard time believing that his little brother didn't punch him or hate him for being alive all along. He even denied he was crying!

All because Sabo hates being seen as vulnerable, especially in front of the people he thinks he has to be strong for (Luffy, Dragon, etc). It's something I think goes back to how his parents treated him, since they scolded him for, y'know, having emotions and being a normal kid in need of love, but i digress.

I once saw someone describing Sabo as a very cold person in comparison to his brothers, even going as far as to say that Sabo doesn't care if people die if it means achieving the Revolutionary Army's goals (using this very interaction as proof), which couldn't be further away from the truth.

Bonney even says outright that it's weird seeing a "radical revolutionary" act so friendly when Sabo helps her out. Why would he do this if all he ever did was for "The Cause"?

Yes, Sabo is ruthless, rude, violent at times, and his friendly demeanor could be seen as a little more volatile than that of his brothers', but he's not heartless. He's not a "meanings to an end" guy, he proves it time and time and time again, and it's disheartening seeing people label him as such.

Sabo is kind. He may not be as warm as Ace and Luffy, but he is fundamentally a good person. A generous, kind, caring, sensitive person.

No matter how hard he tries to hide it.

[aquatint-101]

They tell you that you are a god, that thousands of years of unnamed power thrums beneath your veins. Yet your lungs rise and fall as they always have, and you feel just as human as ever-

(Maybe you never have been. Maybe your only reference point is you, and that is where your error is gravest. If you have been a god all along, what would you know of being human?)

-x-

They start to fear you for the accident of your birth. You try to tell them that you are the same as you have always been. You play all the same games, throw pies off the stony balcony ledge and watch them land and burst open like overripe fruit, gooey cream exploding into the air.

But they stop smiling at your jokes. They stop listening to the songs you've learned to play on your flute. They never say we're not friends anymore, because it's not true, not exactly. Friends are people that can be trusted and you, you are not a person.

There is only one man in the world who thinks otherwise.

-x-

They want to take him away from you. They want to tear you from your home and your family and what little you have left. You have been taught not to be covetous, but this angers you.

So you run, like the wind that has been trapped between the trees. You see the wide, open sky and decide to conquer it, just like your people have for generations. But it's not the storm that swallows you; the waves claims you before the clouds can.

You sink to the ocean's depths, and your grip on the reins starts to falter.

(You are not human, and this keeps you alive. Perhaps it is the elements. Perhaps it is the magic. Perhaps it is something far older than both. Your eyes glow beneath your closed eyelids, and your tattoos burn with impossible light. You are breathing still.)

-x-

They want to ask you how you did it, want you to reach inside the depths of your murky memory and proffer your secrets to them. But you have no answers to give her when she keeps questioning how you forced the turning tides to do your bidding.

The answer is simple. You didn't, the monster did.

See, there is a monster inside of you. Not a god, because gods are never this angry, never this vindictive. The monster wants to rage and destroy everything it sees painted in red, but you will not let it. The monster eats you up when you get scared or angry, and you are never strong enough to make it go away.

She is. She calls out to you and her voice somehow lulls the monster back to sleep. She cradles you in her arms and tells you that you can let go. You think her words are lost on you, because you are not the monster.

-x-

They want to pull the monster out from inside you, and you let them. The monster has laid waste to armies while all you have done is run, run, run. Your people are gone because of you, but the monster saved you. Perhaps it can save them too.

She tells you in plain terms that she does not like this, and you can see the fear in her eyes when she talks about rage and pain and you. You do not know how to respond. Perhaps if you cut enough pieces of yourself away, the monster can finally save you both.

It's okay, you want to say. I'm scared of it too.

All you give her is cold, cold silence.

-x-

They are gone, and you are all that is left of them. They are gone, and it is you, two animals, and a monster that stubbornly claws its way out of you when you are forced to confront this fact. The monster is everything your people would have hated, because it aches for blood and vengeance in a way you never can.

(They are your people, they have to be, and you cannot be this other, this god, that they just raised like a cuckoo in the nest.)

In the desert, as the heat scorches your bare skin, you look at your shaking hands. You do not deserve to be the last of your kind, because now when anyone thinks about your culture of peaceful monks, they will think about the monster inside you.

-x-

They are right to fear the monster, and you are right in wanting to control it. You seek out someone who promises to help you tame it. He wears the saffron of your people but smiles sadly when he says he is not one of them. He tells you about your guilt and your fear, your hope and your longing, and all the things you have to confront.

And it doesn't make sense. This isn't about you, this is about excising the monster inside you.

But as you gulp down the horrible banana onion juice he insists on feeding you, the truth hits you like a falling meteor. There is no monster, no other force inside you that magically appears when you get sad or angry.

There has only ever been you.

-x-

They are disappointed that you cannot summon the monster anymore, but you are just relieved. The anger keeps building inside you, like a roaring flame or a rising tide or a towering mountain or a howling wind. Its pitch and roll keeps you up at night, the names of all you have lost black marks against the inside of your skin.

You try to be as you have always been, but your smiles never reach your eyes, and the notes of your flute always sound out in minor key. They probably notice that something is wrong, but they don't say much except to push you towards your destiny.

Your temples are in ruins, and they think you weak for trying to hold on to them. They think you weak for forgiving, not knowing that the alternative, letting the monster have at them, would have been far worse. But it's okay now, the monster can't hurt anyone ever again. You can't hurt anyone ever again.

-x-

They tell you to kill him, and you want to say no. The voices of your friends, the voices in your head, the voice of the monster, they all scream at you to just end it. But a smaller voice, one that speaks from your heart, just whispers in quiet opposition.

The monster is you, has been this whole time, but you are not a monster. You are more than a living relic or a god given flesh. You are a person, the last of your kind, and they all live on in you, so for their sakes and yours, you say no.

"I'm not going to end it like this."

[myreygn]

do you ever think about how sanemi's animosity towards tanjiro makes so much sense from a narrative perspective because tanjiro is literally everything sanemi isn't?

both of them lose their fathers at a very young age, only that sanemi's father was a horrible abusive jerk who inflicted severe trauma upon his entire family while tanjiro's father was the coolest guy around whose lessons continue to motivate tanjiro and impact his life in a positive way.

both of them have to deal with a beloved family member turning into a demon, only that sanemi ends up killing his mother and has to come to terms with the fact that although she became a monster he still killed his mother while tanjiro manages to guide his sister through her monstrosity and finds ways to help her keep her humanity in tact.

both of them lose their families with only one younger sibling remaining, only that sanemi and genya get separated and estranged while tanjiro and nezuko never lose their close relationship.

[spoilers below the cut]

both of them have to deal with their younger sibling being a demon (one way or the other), only that sanemi's hatred towards demons as a whole makes it impossible for him to look at genya the same way while tanjiro loves his sister all the same, no matter if she's demon or human.

both of them try to protect their younger siblings from danger, only that sanemi can't think of anything but straight up abuse to try and push genya away which remains unsuccessful while tanjiro and nezuko work together well during fights and tanjiro still manages to keep her safe.

both of them fight with the goal to keep their siblings alive, only that genya dies and leaves sanemi with a ton of guilt and regret while tanjiro and nezuko get their happy ending.

both of them are thrown into the conflict between demons and humans out of nowhere, only that sanemi spends a considerable amount of time on his own, killing demons without any assistance while tanjiro gets sent off with a hashira recommendation letter to urokodaki's where he receives a proper training and finds a new home and family.

both of them find companions along the way and form meaningful relationships with them, only that masachika dies young with sanemi being unable to protect him while tanjiro, zenitsu and inosuke stay together through everything and manage to survive even the final battle.

and a lot of this is meta knowledge, a lot of this is information that sanemi doesn't have about tanjiro. but he does have some of it and i think it's enough knowledge for me to put up this theory: sanemi envies tanjiro. because both of them went through unspeakable trauma and grief, both of them lost people close to them, both of them had to deal with similar situations.

and yet tanjiro is kind. he's friendly and good, people trust him, people love to befriend him and he inspires them wherever he goes while sanemi is bitter and nasty and simply incapable of forming and maintaining these connections in the way tanjiro is because who'd want to be friends with a cruel jerk right? and tanjiro loves to take lonely people under his wing, but not even he is willing to forgive sanemi for most of the story and i can only imagine how that must sting because no one wants to be lonely and yet sanemi can't even blame him. he wouldn't forgive himself either.

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

Brother will you believe (until my bones are dust)

Tim will always be the first.

The first bird to hold a mantle covered in the corpses of Dick's wings, the first to carve a space into his heart, to make an all consuming void that only a brother can be.

"Bruce's alive, I can prove it."

He's angry at the world at Batman. How dare he leave, making another mess for Dick to clean up. Damian a child that he barley knows, Jason angry and vying for a cowl that both know, they don't believe in.

It's been years since Dick has worn the suit he worked so hard for. Passed from Jason to Tim. Only one with his actual consent not that his consent ever seems to matter anymore.

"Grayson, when will Drake be gone? He's unneeded."

Tim is all he has the only constant the only thing he can actual lean on. His little brother who has had his throat slit by Jason, and Damian is doing his damn best to push his out. He's backed into a corner.

Choices, a constant balancing act that all the acrobatics in the world won't allow him to slip from. Selfishness is his only net and for once he isn't gonna hit the ground.

"Tim I need you, I need my brother, I need someone to watch my back. We can come back to it but for now I need to breathe."

He leans back into the smell of coffee and absolutely horrid axe body spray that every teenager seems to love and just inhaled. He can feel a knife uncomfortable against his back, and what sounds like typing but he doesn't dare move.

His net curled around him and for once the world is quiet. Jason, Damian, and Bruce can come later.

For now it's Tim and Dick Grayson and he can feel the air.

[commiecricket]

the concept of the batfamily having a secret language/code is the single best idea i have EVER seen. because you know they absolutely would. i particularly mean communicating in chirps, whistles, tweets, tongue clicks, etc.

dick would start it during his robin days. as a kid, it’s the coolest thing he can imagine. eventually he stops responding to bruce’s usual messages over comms until he uses the corresponding whistle. over time, there is a sound for almost every situation. even their own names.

then he teaches it to jason to be a little shit. he’ll never admit it’s also so he knows that if it ever takes too long to reach the comms, dick knows he can let out a sharp whistle and his brother will be there. (and because it makes him feel closer to his little bird).

jason isn’t there to teach him, but tim learns as well. dick will chitter soft reassurances after an argument with bruce. a whistle out in the field, a chirp before they head to bed. tim embraces it fully— its feels more like family than anything else he’s known. it becomes second nature.

barbara gets to learn a bit, too. she isn’t as fluent in the language but can decipher messages as well as any of the robins. when she finds her hands full as oracle, she knows a sharp whistle into the comms will let the bats know what’s happening.

stephanie embraces the language similarly to tim. she uses it more conversationally than in the field. it shows up more when she’s emotional. as she gets worked up about things, her words will start to melt into whistles and trills. her family can tell what mood she’s in by how her chittering sounds.

cass is similar. she uses it sparingly, but more often than speaking english. she finds it easier. when words are difficult, she can usually muster up a grunt or warble in response to someone. her heart is filled with warmth when, instead of prompting for further words or signing, her family will simply whistle back.

damian is a bit more difficult to convince. by the time he arrives, the noises are just another form of communication. he refuses to use it for quite some time. he convinces himself it’s childish and strange— words work just fine. but after bruce gets lost in the time stream, he allows it between himself and dick. eventually he starts to use it with the rest of the family. he uses it sparingly, definitely not as much as everyone else. but he quietly adores it. he loves the simplicity and security of a code that nobody else could decipher. and if it makes him feel closer to his siblings? well, that’s just a plus.

duke is caught off guard at first. his entire situation is bizarre when he first arrives, but he didn’t expect the robins to communicate like. well. actual robins. but hey, he can adapt to anything. so he joins in. members of the family teach him in their own ways. jason and cass will whistle at him in the field, which he learns to be his name. tim clicks a pattern when he arrives to breakfast— a sleepy greeting before he’s fully awake. steph whistles and purrs when they’re spending time together. the list goes on.

[geek-antic]

Soundwave is a powerhouse and an enigma and we don't talk about it enough so i'mma just gonna make a compilation of "how the hell did he do that" and "what the hell is he" moments that i've managed to find from across several transformers continuities

first off is from the first IDW comic continuity

this is never explained, so i can only assume its because soundwave is technically an outlier but i haven't seen a panel that shows other outliers having "off the scale" readings, whatever that means.

and then in the last moments of this continuity he sacrifices himself to save the universe/earth by using his outlier ability along with the enigma of combination to essentially connect the dead to the living in the entire galaxy for a hot minute . idk how the hell he did that or how he knew to do that, my money is on bad writing but i digress.

next up Transformers Prime

tfp fans: elaborate on that. tfp writers: no. transformers prime soundwave is definitely a powerhouse and an enigma for several reasons but number one is this god damn scene with ratchet exclaiming soundwave isn't your standard cybertronian and then to my frustration the show refuses to explain why.

also he can open portals. the only explanation for that is in the novels where he actually was part of the invention of spacebridge technology. i guess he could've incorporated that into himself, which frankly is kinda unheard of in of itself. but still I feel inclined to tell him that skywarp called and they want their powers back.

Next, we have the game Transformers: fall of cybertron. where he scavenges together all of megatrons parts and puts him back together which, yeah sure why not? it's essentially like putting a corpse back together but then he just REVIVES HIM??

with his mind completely intact despite having been decimated by Metroplex and being dead for several hours. excuse me sir but that shouldn't be possible. I guess I could just chop it up to the writers being a bit loosey goosey with their own rules for the world but it's still quite a feat. but thinking back to G1 where he did the same thing with skyfire I guess they assumed it's just something he can do?

although skyfire's revival was a bit more reasonable considering he was still in one piece and frozen solid which they explained to be the reason as to why he was kept intact. but I'm assuming that's why the writers were like "well let's just have him do the same thing for megatron" and everyone was like yeah okay why not. also like a lot of things in G1 this inbuilt high voltage canon/defibrillator is never brought up again which is hilarious and par for the course for G1.

there are several more moments throughout all the tf continuities where soundwave just does something inexplicable but these are a some of the moments that stuck out to me the most. I welcome others to add onto this post if they wish. because I'm sure I've missed some "how the hell did he do that" moments that would be a shame not to bring up.

[doodlesdreaming]

Three men and their Dad.

[sexy-raccoons]

So something interesting I’ve noticed is how people treat Lockwood’s character especially how they handle his obvious suicidal tendencies. I mean, Winkman picked up on it within literal minutes of meeting the kid it’s not like he’s hiding it well, but anyways

George: George treats Lockwood’s tendencies as something you have to work around. He doesn’t really like it, but he doesn’t try to hard to stop it farther than telling Lucy she has to be able to tell him no or she’ll “make him worse”. We see this and we know George cares about him a whole deal and we know that they’ve been bets tied for a while now and yet George hardly knows anything personal about Lockwood. George doesn’t extend a helping hand so Lockwood doesn’t attempt to take it

Kipps: We all see how Kipps treats Lockwood’s disregard for life. He believes that there is no saving Lockwood and the best thing they could do is let him kill himself before he drags someone down with him, which we see when he talks to Lucy saying “you don’t know what he’s really like” and something along the lines of “you better leave before he drags you down with him”. Kipps not only doesn’t extend that helping hand but he takes it and runs from Lockwood as fast as he can, and so Lockwood doesn’t even pretend to like him (plus he’s a bit of a jerk but they’re all jerks Lockwood just has a tolerance for some of them)

Lucy: And here’s where it gets interesting. Unlike the others she doesn’t run away or dance around the problem, she looks it dead in the eyes and tells it to stop. She offers Lockwood her hand again and again and each time she does it Lockwood gets a little closer to taking it because each time she does it is a time no one else tried. Everyone had given up on him, decided that he was a lost cause and his fate was sealed, but Lucy just wouldn’t stop and so when she offered her helping hand, Lockwood took it. Yeah he doesn’t quite know what to do with it now that he has it but the fact that he took it is what important. It’s why she was only there for a couple months or so and he was opening that door when George couldn’t even ask about it after a year of living with the man

The reason why I love Lucy and Lockwood together so much is this. It’s because Lucy never gave up on him and it gave Lockwood hope in himself. The two make each other better people and that’s amazing

[riovidalswife]

everyone's talking about tua season four and how five & lila didn't make sense and how out of character it was for five and yes , i entirely agree on five's behalf .

and as much as i'm a fan of diego and lila ( they're actually me and my girlfriend )

lila's response & later actions are entirely in character .

people seem to forget she was an assassin as trained by her mother after her parents were killed ? i don't know if it's because they haven't seen s2 in a while or they don't like to think woman has character beyond wife + mother but i digress .

five understands lila , they've both killed for the same organisation. after that , they both experienced the same six years of the mundane normal life after a lifetime of kill after kill just to find a solution, murder with no end goal in sight. for lila this means never being in one place too long , her only proper connection being her 'mum' the handler and lets be foreal that's not exactly a healthy relationship . to go from that to having a family , being a mum and living in a stable environment is one hell of a change .

she has the opportunity to escape that , at first for a little while , with five . someone who knows what it feels like to carry more bodies than family and once they look past each of their potential egos & etcetera there's familiarity in that . and when they get stuck he knows how to survive too , they exist for seven years - unsure if they even have a world to go back to . and to find safety, along with the last person from your world it's a combination like no other for her .

she has someone who understands her , the chaos of the situation , the sudden relief of safety after seven years & no idea if you have a home to go back to is the perfect recipie to make lila's brain tick . she's in a situation feeding into all sorts of different ways of her brain and it's exactly what she needs , of course she's going to chase that .

also its the folklore love triangle

[embraceyourdestiny]

It’s literally so sick that the entire arc of forgetting and remembering sora in the kh1 to kh2 transition (and even the greater whole of sora’s character) is that sora is not a person you can forget. Even if the world is against you, even if he is purposely rewritten out of history, even if he dies and the universe says it’s time to let him go, sora will be remembered. He will always come back. He is that faint, pleasant memory in the back of your head. That even if you can’t remember the specifics of, you still remember how that memory made you feel. How the sunshine felt that day. Sora makes everything so real that even memories of him can be actual wishes to reunite with him one day, and a wish that will be granted by some miracle of the universe down the road. Sora is special; because he’s sora.

[tears-of-xion]

Meet Hikari Yuu, my TWST MC/Ramshackle Prefect OC! ^^

Drew up a quick drawing of her full school uniform design + an attempt on her part to manipulate Leona into helping her with tears (feat. Grim). I am quite excited to draw more of her!

-

Hikari is owned and designed by myself. :3

Please do not use or re-post my artwork without my permission. Thank you!   (reblogs, however, are welcome and appreciated)

I do not own Twisted Wonderland, nor it’s characters. All rights to their owners.

[rattycattyfanfic]

(you drive me) crazy

for @mirroredmemoriez's prompt!

1.) Lynn or Amanda reacting to one another’s music tastes! Can keep it broad and just have it as looking at a genre or pick a specific song. Setting wise it can be anywhere, such as oh I’ve bought this CD and sliding the disc in the car.

a shocking 1,521 words! no real warnings except mentions of mandy brain. can kinda sit in bark like a god verse? but doesn't have to.

if anyone would like to submit some simple easy prompts that i can deal with in 500-700 words ideally (although im finding these are spiralling out of control!) my inbox is open :)

One thing Lynn hadn’t anticipated about Amanda, but finds herself continually pleasantly surprised by, is all the strange little commonalities they share. Amanda’s music taste is not particularly vast or varied, but her taste for the alternative overlaps with the soundtrack of Lynn’s own youth in a nostalgic way. 

She remembers the first time, back when they were new and slightly tense – the relief of a common ground in the form of a familiar song playing faintly on the radio. The Cramps, she thinks it had been, but she couldn’t for the life of her name the song. She had simply known that she’d worn it out in her late teens, and that this strange girl was now in her living room bobbing her head along to the same song, oblivious. “I used to love this one,” Lynn had said, breaking the comfortable quiet and hating herself for it. But then Amanda had looked back, up, at her with this odd expression, something akin to surprise or respect, and it had felt easy. She’d smirked, said something snarky, a bit rude, and Lynn had laughed, and it had been a rare easy moment for them amidst all the turmoil.

It’s nice. Unexpected, but nice. Lynn welcomes the throwbacks to her undergrad days, and the insight that the day’s music choice provides into Amanda’s strange head. Her thoughts are still a mystery to Lynn some days, but the music – it helps shine a light on whatever Amanda is thinking that day.

Sometimes, she finds the girl in an oddly energetic mood, spinning Bikini Kill or Blondie whilst she busies herself with household tasks. Often she’ll be bent over some gadget in the backyard, taking the thing apart and putting it back together – the VHS player, or the old bike in the garage that hasn’t been used in years, or some other currently unidentifiable pile of scrap metal and electronics. Lynn can’t even be mad about it. Amanda always puts them back together in perfect, or better, working condition, and so she’s content to hang in the doorway, watching curiously until Mandy perks her head up and notices. 

“Was it too loud?” she says, with grease on her cheeks and a look somewhere between defiant and owlish. 

And Lynn says, will always say, “No,” and then usually, “I love this album. What are you working on?” Amanda grins and launches into an explanation that goes straight over Lynn’s head, however similar metal and electronics and flesh and nerves might be. She furrows her brow and nods attentively, and thinks that she loves Amanda like this, almost childishly excited and hyper-focused to the bright tones of Eat to the Beat.

Similarly, Lynn can tell when it’s a bad day. She knows that when she hears Fiona Apple, Hole, even the rare occasion of Patti Smith whining from Amanda’s oversized headphones, she needs to tread a little more carefully, treat Amanda with a little extra care. That brain of hers is still a mystery to her, especially days like this when she doubts even Amanda can make sense of her tangled thoughts.

She gets this, though, the appeal of quietly enraged vocals, angsty guitars and pianos, fast or slow but equally intense either way. She remembers listening to Revenge as a teenager and how it had spoken to her, soothed emotions she hadn’t even realised she’d had, and she thinks she gets it a little bit. So she sits down on the back porch next to Amanda wordlessly, and lays her head on the girl’s shoulder to catch the odd angsty refrain leaking out of the headphones. She says nothing about the edgy look in those dark eyes, or the raw pink of her sharp cheeks and wrists from where she’d scratched and rubbed restlessly. Lynn sits silently with her, until Amanda lets out a shuddering breath and relaxes just an ounce. 

Today she unplugs her headphones and allows Lynn to listen with her fully. She leans against her shoulder heavily, allows the tenderness of backrubs or fingers combing through her hair. Other days, the headphones stay on and Lynn remains a voyeur, held at arm’s length, the vulnerability of unplugging simply too much for Amanda to bear. Either way, Lynn tucks these shared moments away inside herself and thanks whatever god there is for the safe catharsis of rageful nineties singers. 

Amanda is not a good driver. This is the main, overarching reason Lynn will give if asked why she always prefers to be in the driver’s seat of her own car. She can drive, legally, and does so without accident, but she is not good at it, and Lynn spends most rides with Amanda holding onto her fucking seat wondering if this was part of her torture repertoire when working under John. But then, she supposes, her victims would’ve been unconscious during transportation, and so all the swearing and sharp veers must be either unintentional or for the sheer thrill of it. 

That is the reason Lynn will give for not getting in Amanda’s car if she can help it. The reason she will not give, is that Amanda’s baseline – and her favourite driving music – is largely completely fucking unlistenable industrial metal. Nine Inch Nails, Nitzer Ebb, and Ministry take pride of place in the driving fast and badly playlist. It all sounds like construction site noise to Lynn, and only adds to the distressing experience of being driven around by someone she has to remind herself is criminally insane. 

Her car is in the shop, though, and they need groceries. And so, Lynn is white knuckling the seat of Amanda’s beaten up shitbox while KMFDM screeches through tinny speakers. She thinks there’s probably never been such an intense fucking drive to the grocery store in all of history.

She’s about to say something bitchy, maybe ask her to turn it off or down at the very least, but when she looks over, she snorts. Amanda has her sunglasses on and is nodding to the beat, tapping her fingers rapidly against the steering wheel, looking fully in the zone whilst she swears at another driver for daring to obey the highway code. “I can’t believe you like this shit, Mandy,” she says instead with an exasperated laugh, and gets a bright grin in response. 

“It’s fun,” Amanda defends lightly, and glances back at the road, veering around another corner way too fast. “It’s fast. I like it!” 

Lynn rolls her eyes. “‘Kill motherfuckin’ Depeche Mode?’ That’s fun?” She doesn’t see the appeal, honestly, but it fits Mandy she supposes. Erratic, brash, angry in a gleeful way. It fits her perfectly. She’ll grin and bear it, maybe even learn to love it like she had Mandy, despite all the ways she had infuriated her at first. 

Amanda opens her mouth as if she’s about to respond, but the song fades out and into the next, and she turns a soft pink instead. She reaches out awkwardly towards the dashboard to skip the song, but Lynn is fast too. Lynn knows her 00s pop music – put it down to having a young daughter and nothing else, nothing else. She grabs the girl’s slender wrist and stops her in her tracks, and the song continues. A grin spreads across Lynn’s face, and Amanda groans.

“Lynn–” 

The unmistakable intro to Toxic plays out through the speakers at the same volume as the heavy industrial stuff, and there’s no hiding from it. Amanda goes a deeper shade of pink, as if this is somehow the most embarrassing thing Lynn has learnt about her to date. 

It must be her growing sadistic streak, but Lynn can’t help but dig a little. She holds Mandy’s wrist still, hovering inches away from the skip button. “I would never have pegged you for a closet Britney fangirl, baby,” she teases, and delights in the way Amanda flushes and splutters. 

“I don’t know how that got on the playlist, Lynn – fuck – Lynn, skip it,” she stammers. 

“No, I like it,” Lynn says smugly, and sits back, entwining their fingers together and effectively stopping her from skipping it lest she crash them both into a ditch. “And so do you, apparently – keep that hand on the wheel.”

Amanda groans, but stops fighting. She squeezes Lynn’s hand hard, digs her nails in a little viciously, but keeps her other hand on the wheel and lets the bubbly pop keep playing. Even as she flushes, loudly proclaims her embarrassment, Lynn can see her knee subtly bouncing to the beat. She looks one second from whispering the lyrics to herself.

One last dig, for the fun of it. Lynn feels high on the silliness of the moment, a bubble of unfamiliar giggliness in her throat. “Do you know the dance moves too?”

“Oh my god!” Amanda exclaims, throwing her head back. She steps on the pedal in exasperation and the car surges forward. She really shouldn’t be allowed to drive. A minute later, when she finally manages to swallow down the worst of her humiliation, Amanda mumbles, barely audible above the autotune. “...Yes.”

Lynn laughs out loud.

[solivagantingrebel]

The first monsterfucker fic is posted! ft. Angst, Whump, Human Experimentation, Zombies, Alone!Ghost, and eventual happy ending. Lots of feels and the boys going through it with this one 🫡

[myreygn]

something something akaza and douma are such a haunting set of characters because douma feels nothing and he's so detached from not only his own but humanity in general due to his upbringing and the way he embraces his monstrosity but feels nothing in the process makes for a very dark take on the deeply unsettling nature of faking joy and gleefulness in the face of cruelty and violence instead of even making an effort to fake a more appropriate emotion like grief or disgust vs akaza who is so emotional and so incapable of not wearing his heart on his sleeve and chases the humanity he lost but craves because even though he can't remember what it is there's a strong feeling tying him to his mortal existence and the way he tries to capture that humanity by regulating his monstrosity with a pointless moral code and him searching for humans that are on par with him in terms of strength in order to subconsciously prove to himself that it's not a waste of time to hold onto humanity and that there's purpose to be found in it even if his monstrosity tells him otherwise to then regain a smidge of his humanity in the end only by succumbing to weakness makes for an equally dark take on the tragedy of doing everything right but ultimately losing to the circumstances that pushed and pushed and pushed you until you were too far gone to find any other way out than death.

something something douma faking grief about akaza's passing for a moment before coming to the conclusion that upholding this facade of humanity is not worth it makes my heart clench.

[ghcstao3]

Soap’s family has never been particularly happy with his decision to join the military, especially not when news arrived that his cousin—the entire reason he had joined in the first place—had died in the service. It isn’t any secret, and never has been; Soap just does his best to navigate around any mentions of his work whenever he’s on leave, and it works well enough for the most part.

Save for the few lectures from his parents, of course, but for the most part. And for as long as he’s around, be it he die like his cousin had or not, Soap has always intended to keep it this way. Through hardship and bullet wounds and the blood that stains his hands darker with every mission, he tries to stay the same John MacTavish his family has always known him to be, and if he can manage that, then they shouldn’t ever say anything, and he shouldn’t ever have to defend himself.

It works fine until everything to do with Price’s Task Force and what follows, with Graves, Shepherd, Hassan.

Las Almas. Chicago.

He’s endured nightmare-worthy things before all of it, of course, but something about a betrayal and nearly being tossed from a skyscraper really seems to take quite a mental toll.

His family immediately notices a change, when he goes home. While he’s left just a sitting duck as Price and Laswell do their damnedest to dig up what they can on Makarov, and find wherever Shepherd has run off to.

And Soap can’t do a thing to hide it, like he’s always tried so hard to do. He can’t do anything to stop his nightmares or terrors. He can’t do anything to help his incessant need to not be alone. All Soap can do is come to terms with his burdens and move on even when it’s clear that his family can’t. That his family is saddened by the Sergeant that has replaced their John.

Through it all, though, he never regrets his choice in career. Not one bit. Because if sacrificing parts of his past self means keeping the world just a bit safer, a bit less evil, then he’s done good.

He’s done good.

part 2