#come back dr vile!

[semification]

- DIE WITH A SMILE . . . VERITAS RATIO ✧.*

Veritas comes to realize that he loves you, but perhaps he comes to that realization far too late.

content: fem reader, death, penacony quest spoilers, angst with comfort (?), blood & injuries, veritas is a meanie (but he INSTANTLY regrets it!1!), friends to (grins evilly) …lovers

authors note: first fic on this account i hope you guys like it <3 i ran out of motivation while writing this halfway can u tell. anyways go stream die with a smile by bruno mars and lady gaga because i was listening to that song on loop while making this fic and i think its a super fitting song for this hehe

wc: 5.9k (its a quick read i promise)

masterlist

“You’re being ridiculous, Veritas.”

Bickering with Dr. Veritas Ratio was not out of the ordinary. In fact, it was a pastime for the two of you, engaging in various academic debates to see which party presented a better argument. It was seen as a great deal of praise to be able to do such a thing with an esteemed man like Veritas. It made it seem like you two stood on the same ground–the same ground of a man who felt so out of reach.

“Oh, really now? I’m the one being ridiculous? I am ‘ridiculous’ simply because I am looking out for your safety, Y/N?”

This… however, this was not normal. This quarrel felt personal, stemming from your feelings instead of facts and objective data. This felt like an attack on your friendship–but from the amount of vile he’s spitting from his mouth, you wonder if Veritas has ever considered you as a friend in the first place.

The more he speaks, the more you are reminded that you didn’t stand on the same ground as him. You felt terrifyingly inferior, and even though he was right in front of you, you felt like you were miles away from him. 

“No, I’m saying you’re ridiculous for calling me weak and incapable because apparently, I’m not good enough to go on this expedition when it’s my fucking job.”

However, you mostly felt like a fool.

You felt like such a fool for falling in love with a man like him. You fell in love with him because of his neverending thirst for knowledge. You fell in love with him because you were just as much of a bibliophile as he was. You fell in love with him because you wanted to spread your knowledge around the universe as much as he wished to. You fell in love with him because, for a moment, you thought he saw you differently from everyone else, and that he truly enjoyed being in your presence.

You turn away from him, tears forming in your eyes. You stubbornly blink them away, because you think back to what started this argument in the first place.

You had just finished detailing your mission to Veritas, which was your routine every time the Intelligentsia Guild dispatched you on some kind of research expedition. This mission was different, however. You would be gone for three months, longer than usual–and the mission was very combat-oriented and dangerous, which wasn’t like your usual expeditions. Despite the warnings, you still accepted it, thinking of it as something new, but nothing that you couldn’t handle.

Veritas seemed to think otherwise, however, because when you peer over to look at his reaction, he looked very displeased. 

(It wasn’t a very uncommon look to see on his face, but you could tell he seemed more serious–like how the frown lines on his face were deeper than usual.)

You weren’t particularly surprised by the expression on his face. What surprised you the most was the first thing that came out of his mouth after hearing your expedition’s rundown. “Are you sure you’ll be able to go on that mission?”

You look at him incredulously, surprised at the amount of distaste in his voice. His displeasure was directed at… you? “What is that supposed to mean, Veritas?”

“I’m saying that you’re too weak and incapable to go on that expedition, Y/N. I do not know why the Guild would assign you such a difficult mission. They truly are overestimating your power.” The words came out of his mouth so casually, like you had just asked him about the weather. Is this how his students feel when they take his infamous course with a passing rate of a mere three percent? How his students feel whenever they get scolded by him?

You just can’t believe it. He said those words like it were a fact—straight from the myriad of encyclopedias that he’s read. Maybe because it was a fact in his head: he saw you as nothing but “weak” and “incapable”.

A stray tear manages to escape from your eye, and you quickly wipe it away angrily before turning back to Veritas with a sniffle. No. You cannot cry in front of his face. Crying is an expression of weakness–of vulnerability. And what you are trying to prove to Veritas is that you are not “weak”. You are not “incapable” either, and you are going to prove that to him by going on this mission and making him eat his words. 

“I will be leaving in three system hours. Do not bother showing up during my departure.”

You cringe at the way your voice shakes at the end, but you stand firm. Those words were the last thing you said to him before leaving his office with a bitter heart. When you exit his room, you finally let your emotions run free, letting the tears stream down your face without end. You quietly sob as you retreat to your own office, closing the door and letting out a shaky exhale, escaping all the nosy whispers and chatter of the Guild members.

You sob at the heartbreaking realization that just when you think you’ve gotten close to the “untouchable” Veritas Ratio, he pushes you away just like how he does to everyone else… because that’s just simply what you are to him. 

Another person who fades into the background, and nothing more.

Dr. Veritas Ratio is a man who exhibits prestige and greatness like no other. Throughout his academic career, he obtained eight PhDs and graduated with the First Class Honors Degree, which hadn’t been awarded to anyone for two Amber Eras. He was gifted with knowledge, and now he uses that knowledge and spreads it far across the cosmos to “cure idiocy”, treating it like a disease that needs to be treated.

And yet, for once in his life, he refuses to admit it out loud, but he’s acted like the one thing that he completely loathed. The very thing that he was trying to exterminate.

An idiot. He was an idiot, and it was all because he could not word himself correctly when he spoke to you. He has written hundreds of papers, essays, and dissertations, but time and time again, he could not seem to think—to be able to formulate the proper words to say when it came to you.

And now, Veritas has royally messed up, and for once in life, he has no idea what to do.

He was just genuinely concerned for your safety. It was all he thought about once you had finished detailing your expedition to him. He wanted to convince you—to pick the right words to say so he could persuade you not to go, but it seems that his fear of being seen as vulnerable shone through first. It reminded him of the days when you two weren’t close; the days he spoke to you while wearing his alabaster head.

He only wears that head because he “can’t bear to see idiots,” but given how he just called you “weak” and “incapable” in the argument that just transpired, one could almost laugh at the hypocrisy of it all. Veritas may as well talk to himself while wearing the alabaster head.

Because only idiots would address you with those terms. 

You were an enigma to Veritas from the very beginning. People from the Intelligentsia Guild rarely stood out to him, but you were different—sticking out like a sore thumb the moment he laid his eyes on you. 

That’s because your presence utterly enchanted him—you had similar tastes in literary works, you matched his sarcasm and topped it off with even wittier replies, and you also wanted to use your knowledge for other people to learn.

You were not weak and incapable. He saw you as anything but that, in fact. He was at fault for the argument, but he can’t bring himself to say it out loud, for Aeon’s sake.

He knows that he owes you an apology, it’s the least he could do... He just needs to apologize, then convince you to not go on that expedition. You’re scheduled to leave soon—approximately two and a half system hours—he still has time.

And yet, his mind is being stubborn. He knows that he needs to apologize, but he just can’t bring himself to. He can’t remember the last time he’s genuinely apologized to someone—an apology without a trace of sarcasm at that.

“Trouble in paradise, doctor?”

He could recognize the esteemed gambler’s voice from miles away, and it irks him how he always seemed to show up at the worst times. Aventurine’s got a knowing gaze on him—a stare that can pierce through any poker face so he could see exactly what they’re thinking. “I suggest not meddling in any business that doesn’t concern you, gambler.”

Except he’s already got him. “This is about Y/N, isn’t it?”

Hook, line, and sinker.

Aventurine believes that one’s eyes are the windows to the soul–and he doesn’t miss the way Veritas’ eyes soften when he says your name, smiling at the unintentional answer to his question. He definitely doesn’t have the best poker face in town. For such a stoic man, he surely cannot put himself together when it comes to anything that has to do with you.

Aeons. Just what were you doing to him?

There was no use hiding it from him, so he just silently nodded, with Aventurine clicking his tongue. “Rumors fly fast in the guild, especially when Dr. Ratio’s dear friend Y/N was seen walking out of his office crying. I just had to see what this was really about, you know?” 

You were crying when you left?

He doesn’t voice his concern out loud, of course. Instead, Veritas just sighs heavily. “All I wanted to do was convince her to not go on that mission that she’s currently dispatched on. It just seems… far too dangerous.”

Aventurine’s got an idea of what happened next considering how you ran out of this room crying, but he decides to ask anyway. “Oh? And how did that work out for you?”

Veritas refuses to meet his gaze, his heart sinking when he simply thinks about what happened earlier. “…”

“At least humor me, doctor.”

He turns away from Aventurine completely, a deep shade of red coating his cheeks. Was it out of embarrassment? Shame? Whatever it was, he didn’t need him to see it. “…I called her weak and incapable.”

When Aventurine doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, Veritas speaks to fill the silence. “I admit, I did not know what was going through my head when I addressed her with those words.”

The uncomfortable silence drags on for a little longer until it’s interrupted by the piercing sound of Aventurine’s laughter. His laugh makes the red spread across Veritas’ cheeks even more—uncharacteristically so, especially since he’s normally so put together. He doesn’t even have the heart to tell Aventurine to stop laughing, because a small huge part of him feels that he deserves this.

He deserves to sit through this feeling because he knows you faced the same humiliation when he shut you out.

“Hahaha! I can’t—“ Aventurine’s nearly keeling over in laughter, and the gambler swears he could feel tears build up in his eyes. “Oh, please! You have such a way with words, don’t you?”

Aventurine continues, failing to conceal his hysteria. “Weak and incapable? If anything, that’ll only fuel the fire. She’d want to go on that mission just to prove you wrong.”

“I’m well aware. It is exactly what happened after all.” You’re leaving soon. The thought of you leaving makes Veritas’ stomach churn, and he has no idea why. Out of all the many expeditions you’ve been sent on, this is the first time he’s felt this way–been filled with so much dread.

“Well,” Aventurine pretends to think for a moment, putting his hand on his chin. “It won’t hurt to sacrifice a little bit of your already enormous ego to apologize to her, no? There’s enough of your pride to go around.” 

I don’t know if I can bring myself to.

Veritas doesn’t say those words out loud. Instead, he masks his worries with a scoff. Aventurine doesn’t have to know. “Watch your mouth, gambler.”

“Oh my, I really struck a nerve there, did I?”

“Researcher Y/N? I’m sorry sir, she just departed a few minutes ago.”

You left.

The three system hours hadn’t even passed yet—there were still two hours before your scheduled departure—and you left early.

You left, and he didn’t even get the opportunity to apologize. 

The researcher could only watch as the great Veritas Ratio, normally so composed, looks away from him wide-eyed and mouth slightly agape. He’s utterly dumbfounded, a look that is never seen on his face. What is he supposed to do now?

You’re too late.

For the next several weeks, Veritas could only wait anxiously for your return. Worry follows him like a cloud, and even his students pick up on his weird behavior. It’s all so grueling—waiting for you without so much of an idea of how you’re doing or if your expedition is going well. 

While waiting for your return, he plans out his actions for the next time he sees you. He doesn’t want to apologize over text–Veritas sees it as inappropriate and prefers to show his sincerity in person. Face-to-face is how he is going to do it, and he sends you a message in preparation for that. “I’d like for us to talk when you’re back. Please message me immediately upon your arrival.”

…Except an error message stares at him back when he presses the send button. It’s almost mocking him in a sense, like the universe is doing everything in its power to prevent him from atoning for his mistakes. Of course you weren’t going to have signal when you’re so far away from him. Just what was he expecting?

You were scheduled to return after another few weeks, and Veritas could only prepare for the days to pass by excruciatingly slowly. Until then, he thinks over what he’s going to say for his apology. Maybe he could give you something too. He thinks that finding a way to get your favorite flowers is a nice start.

You’re tired.

Exhaustion envelops you like a blanket, and after trying your hardest to resist, you just can’t anymore.

You’re so tired. 

You finally succumb to the fatigue, falling onto the ground as your sword clatters with a thud. You lay there, lying in a pool of your own blood, accepting that this was the cruel fate that the great Aeons above bestowed upon you in the end. You laugh at the absurdity of it all, but it only comes out as a weak cough, which quickly transitions into a fit of hacking up crimson droplets—lighting your throat on fire.

It was a fragmentum monster ambush. The planet you were exploring contained a lot of them–mainly due to the Stellaron corrosion that it was experiencing. After three weeks of exploring, it was supposed to be just another day of collecting data and extracting information for the guild. You’ve done this countless times already–anything out of the ordinary happening was beyond you.

The ambush had occurred when you least expected it–you barely even had the time to draw out your sword. One thing led to another, and at some point, there were just too many of them that leaving the battle unscathed was out of the question. And at the end of it, you were a mess, standing in a field of bodies with blood sticking to your clothes–a mix of the fragmentum and your own. The worst part was that it was mainly your own, with the source coming from a deep gash in your abdomen. You were losing blood at a terrifying rate.

Panic fills your veins once you fully process the gravity of the situation. Heart thumping, you realize that you’re going to die–and you are going to die alone.

What a pitiful end this was.

You’ve sent a distress call to the guild, but you know that your fate has been sealed already. You’ll be long gone before anyone will be here to help you, and they’d just be here to clean up your remains. You hope that the guild would at least grant you a proper funeral.

It’s truly comical how fate works. People your age are usually too busy thinking about marriage, or deciding how many kids they want to have in the near future. And yet, here you are, on the precipice of reaching death’s door, thinking about your funeral. 

Your vision turns blurry, and you sniffle as hot tears begin to roll down your cheeks. Fuck, you don’t want to die. There are far too many things that you haven’t done. And yet, you can’t find the strength to continue on either. You’re just so, so tired.

In the midst of your cries, you softly mumble out a name. A name that you love, hate, and everything in between with a passion.

“…Veritas.”

You initially wanted to go on this mission with the intent of exploring this planet, but after the argument, you know you went mainly because you wanted to prove him wrong.

You wonder if he truly meant those words. Even if he didn’t, maybe he was right, because look at what your determination had cost you–lying in a pool of your own blood, all because you wanted Veritas to see that you weren’t weak and incapable.

Even though you went on this expedition angry at him, (a part of you still is angry) you’ve never wanted to see him so badly in your life. You were going to die with many regrets–perhaps the biggest one was that you never got to tell Veritas how you truly feel about him.

You just want to see him once last time. Is it selfish to ask for one more day with him? One more hour… or to engage in at least one more heated debate. Hell, you’d even take one more minute with him. And in that minute, maybe you’d slap him in the face for what happened. But maybe you’d tell him you love him and kiss him over and over, apologizing for even thinking about slapping his stupidly perfect face. 

Despite how much of an asshole he can be at times, you love Veritas Ratio. You love his snark and sarcasm and everything about him, and you’re going to die without even knowing if he loves you back. This is your biggest regret.

No, you can’t die like this. You need to tell him. You have to.

As darkness starts to cloud your vision, you use all of your remaining strength to pull your phone out from your pocket despite the wound in your abdomen screaming in protest. Your fingers shakily make their way to Veritas’ contact, and with a pained breath, you begin to type.

“Take me to where she sent the distress call, now.”

There was a bunch of commotion in the guild—too much commotion considering how early it was. Veritas could only wonder what all the clamor was about, but he froze once he heard your name leave one of the researcher’s mouths. 

And his biggest nightmare is now a reality once someone finally fills him in on the situation: Your signal had disappeared off the radar, but not after you sent a distress call to the guild. You needed help, yet you were so far from his grasp. “But Doctor, we-“

“I need not repeat myself. Her life is in grave danger, and yet here you are, arguing with me and wasting precious time when this time could be used saving her.” His words surprised both himself and the guild member, who shakily nodded at his request. Veritas was certain that if you were just anybody else, he could have less of a care about your distress signal. But no, this was you—and he needed to make sure that you were okay.

Veritas looked calm and collected on the outside, but on the inside, he was falling apart. Calm yourself, you need to be the strong one in this situation. She’s the one in danger here.

Aeons, all he had to do was convince you to not go on this expedition. Instead, he made everything worse with his poor choice of words, and now he’s paying the price for it. He could only hope that he wasn’t too late.

Wait for me Y/N. Please. That’s all I ask.

In his office, there’s a bouquet of your favorite flowers resting on his desk, and they’ve slowly begun to wither away.

When Veritas finally arrived at where you were last seen on the signal, there were bodies littered everywhere, and he could only hope that none of them were yours. Paired with those bodies was the color red—crimson was scattered all over, and it was practically all he could see. Did you take all of these fragmentum down by yourself?

As Veritas inspected all of the fragmentum bodies, all slain by a single blade, one of the researchers accompanying him pointed out a trail of blood leaving the site. It makes him freeze, because it might be…

“Y/N.”

Shit.

He immediately goes after the trail without an ounce of hesitation. The scene laid before him is something that has only haunted him in his nightmares, yet at this very moment, it lies before him as a terrifying reality. 

His blood runs cold, and for the first time in his life, Veritas Ratio is rendered speechless.

Your limp body lies in front of him, in a pool of so much blood that just seeing it sickens him to his stomach. He can’t feel his own body as he falls to his knees, paying no mind to the other researchers around him. No, right now, it was just you and Veritas. Nobody else.

With trembling hands, he pulls your body close to his own as your blood taints his clothing. Even though he knows you’re too far gone already, he can’t help but try to feel your pulse, because there’s a part of him that just refuses to believe that he’s too late.

There was nothing.

It probably hasn’t been beating for a while, and that thought leaves him utterly empty, with a single stray tear rolling down his cheek.

If he were just a little bit faster, maybe he could’ve saved you. If he could’ve just formulated his words correctly so he could convince you not to go on this expedition. If he could’ve just apologized…

If he could’ve just been… a better friend.

All these could haves, yet Veritas didn’t act on any of them.

Pathetic.

Your phone is beside you, and Veritas gingerly picks it up. The screen was still lit, despite it being shattered to oblivion. It was open to the messaging app—specifically his contact.

It was never sent due to poor signal, but you were messaging him before you died. He was your last thought.

“I’m sorry Veritas. I just don’t want you to think I’m weak and incapable.”

“Still, I want you to remember that”

You were the one apologizing to him, even after everything was said and done. He can’t even fathom that.

And weak and incapable, huh. You were anything but that. If anything, Veritas was the weak and incapable one. He was weak for not being able to swallow his pride even if he was the one in the wrong—and he was incapable of simply apologizing to you.

And the last message… What is it supposed to mean? 

What do you want him to remember?

When Veritas was sent to Penacony and matters with the head of the Oak family, Sunday, had been dealt with, he was finally allowed to leave. It was the first mission the guild had assigned him since you left, and his efforts to prevent Aventurine from going on an all-out suicide mission helped Veritas take his thoughts away from you, even if it was just for a moment.

And yet, you always find your way back to haunt him. Not even the Land of Dreams could prevent that.

Still, he had done his part, sorted out his deals in Penacony as a representative sent by the guild, and it was time to go.

It’s been a few months since your death, and Veritas thinks that living without you is like living without the sun. It’s funny how he’s only realized how much you’ve changed his life only after you’ve gone. You lit up his life, both metaphorically and physically—and now, everything feels so dull, and he constantly longs for your presence in the darkness. 

But now you’re gone, and he feels so terribly lost, even now as he does paperwork in his office. Life became way more monotonous after you had left. The quiet is suffocating, because Veritas can only think about the times that the quiet office was filled with your voice instead. 

Even now, in the rare moments that Veritas picks up a book nowadays, he thinks about how much you would have enjoyed it as well.

Paperwork is one of the few things that he finds solace in anymore, as it helps him drown out his thoughts so they don’t end up drifting back to you.

…You.

His eyes land on your sword before he can even do anything about it, and he swallows thickly. Your blade is displayed on his wall, another way for Veritas to show his honor for you. 

The blade you singlehandedly used to defeat all those monsters, and the blade you’ll never be able to wield again.

He tears his eyes away from it before his thoughts can spiral again. He can feel his vision start to blur, and he blinks the tears away before they escape. He wonders how many tears he’s shed for you since you’ve been gone.

Veritas tries and fails to focus on his paperwork once more until he’s interrupted by a knock at the door.

He thinks a walk will do him good.

He stands up from his desk and slowly walks over to his office door, wondering who it could be. He rarely gets visitors nowadays, unless it’s something that’s of utmost importance. Everyone else is afraid to talk to him, as Veritas became… colder after your death.

If anyone were to ask why—it’s because when you died, a part of Veritas did too.

He turns the door’s handle, only to see…

You.

You were standing right in front of him, in the same outfit that you were in the day you left for your mission. Except this time, you were alive, and Veritas has no idea what to think.

You’re the first one to break the silence, whispering his name. “Veritas?”

Hearing you say his name feels like he can finally breathe again. “Y/N? Is it really you?”

Before you can even answer his question, he engulfs you in a tight hug, breathing in your scent. Veritas held you like his life depended on it—because at this moment, it felt like it did. He says the words that hve been on his mind for the past few months. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry darling. If only I hadn’t-“

You pull back from the hug, putting your pointer finger against his lips as a signal for him to stop talking. Barely even registering the endearing name that he called you, you smile, cupping his cheeks before sighing tenderly. “I’ve forgiven you a long time ago, Veritas.”

He only hugs you tighter, coming to a revelation that only makes the pain in his heart ever worsen. He saw your lifeless body himself, he paid respects to your body at your funeral… and he laid your favorite flowers on top of your gravesite where your body rested, even though those flowers were supposed to be an apology gift. “You’re… not real.”

“I’m still in Penacony, right? This is all a dream.”

You smile, nodding in conformation. “Nothing truly gets past you, does it? You’re dreaming what you desire the most right now.”

“I promise you that we will meet again, Veritas. it will not be today, but the day will eventually come, and I’ll be waiting for you every step of the way.” You breathe in deeply. “But right now, you need to wake up from this dream, before it's too late.”

He’s not sure if he wants to wake up, though.

“But what if… I just want to stay here with you?”

“We both know it’s not what you really want.” You can see right through him. “If you stay with me in this dream, you’ll be living nothing but a simulated life. I may be here with you, but you’ll never truly fill that hole in your heart, because I am not Y/N. I’m just a creation of your deepest desires, and you know that I’ll never be her. That is not a life worth living.”

“I know she would want you to live your life to the fullest, to truly experience things, to teach your students unforgettable lessons… so they become great people like you.” You pause, looking right into his eyes. They’re filled with pain, sorrow, and the desire to cling on to the past. “And when your time comes eventually, she will be waiting for you. You will apologize once again, because you never got to apologize to her before she died, but she has forgiven you long ago, and it’s all because…”

Despite that, you have to teach him that it’s time to let go. “She wants you to remember that she loves you, Veritas Ratio.”

“Still, I want you to remember that… I love you.”

A tear rolls down his cheek at your words, and then another…. and another. “Even if I don’t know how to apologize?”

You let out a watery laugh, nodding your head. “Even if you don’t know how to apologize.”

“Then… I will do as she asks. It is the least I can do to make up for what I’ve done.” He says, and he takes a deep breath before his next words. “Can I… hug you one last time? Even though you aren’t… actually her.”

“Go ahead, Veritas. But I’m afraid that after this, you have to let go.”

You need to let go.

He nods before wrapping his arms around your figure. It was such a vulnerable act, like a man putting the entirety of his heart and soul out for you to take. He breathes in your scent, wanting to take it in once last time before he has to bid you goodbye. You feel a few of his tears staining your clothing, but you pay it no mind. 

How many tears has he shed for you since you’ve been gone? Not enough. He doesn’t feel that it’ll ever be enough.

When he opens his eyes, you’re slowly fading away from him. There’s a melancholic smile on your face, your eyes meeting his—filled with pain, sorrow, a desire to cling onto the past, and yet… a hint of acceptance.

“Still, I want you to remember that… I love you.”

Yes, he remembers. And he’ll remember your words for the rest of his life, until the moment that he leaves this cosmos on his deathbed. He’s just hoping that you’ll wait long enough for him to say it back.

Before you’re about to fade away completely, you lean in one last time and whisper to him…

“It’s time to wake up, Veritas.”

He wakes up from the dream pool with a gasp. The water splashes around him, and a few stray tears roll down his cheeks. 

The rest of his actual Penacony trip went by surprisingly smoothly, and he doesn’t mention the dream that he had to anyone. It was like a secret shared between you and Veritas–and he was going to treasure that secret forever. 

And now, the Charmony Festival has commenced, and the fireworks have begun. As he watches the sparks explode into thousands of dazzling rays of light above, he pulls out his phone to text you. Almost like one final goodbye, because he knows it’s what you would’ve wanted.

“I love you too, Y/N. I will love you my entire lifetime–past beyond the boundaries of eternity, even after all the stars long die out in the cosmos.

I long for the day that we will meet again… because then, I’ll finally be able to tell you this confession in person. For now, I hope you can continue to find the patience to keep waiting for me. 

…Until the stars align, and we’re able to see each other once again.”

He looks up to the endless bursts of blazing rays lighting up the night, mixed with the eternal shine of the cosmos. It was truly a sight to behold. And for a split second, he could feel someone by his side watching the fireworks with him. It warmed his heart, even if it were just for a moment. 

“Aren’t these fireworks beautiful, Veritas?”

“They will never be as enchanting as you, Y/N.”

[ozzgin]

Is it just me or can I imagine a yandere with a darling who’s immune system and possibly everything about them just screams weak and pathetic, BUT their darling is actually very strong mentally and has and will create the most fucked up, batshit crazy inventions from what used to be harmless to something that can help them escape and possibly destroy everything in its path.

But at the end of the day, they become sleepy koalas who hug whoever is near them and fall asleep :)

This could be a request or rant, whatever you can think of! I just wanted to see how different yandere writers would interpret this small imagination of mine <3

But as always, stay safe and take care! everyone needs a break some time to time~

Sorry, but the moment I read the Darling's description, I instantly thought of Dr. Finkelstein from Nightmare Before Christmas. You know, Sally's inventor. 😭 So let me quickly write this down while I'm in my Shelley vibes, because I like the idea a lot. With a little twist, if you don't mind. :)

Yandere! Monster x Inventor! Reader

A frail inventor, and their affectionate rag doll that has been carefully stitched together for the purpose of a caregiver. An artificial existence, trapped within the confines of your lonely tower. Or so you might think.

Content: gender neutral reader, monster romance, obsessive behavior

"I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel..." [Frankenstein]

You dangle an old, rusty bell for a good minute before leaning back in your chair. The barely audible chimes are quickly swallowed by the loud, mechanical groans of the gears and engines occupying most of this room. No matter, his ears are good. You picked them yourself. And surely enough, within moments, the door to your laboratory opens and someone cautiously walks in.

A tall, slender man. Or rather, something meant to resemble a man. The skin is a clumsy patchwork of blues and grays - you're no talented seamster, sadly - gathering together the body parts in what feels like a parodic attempt at mimicking God and his image. You gaze at the creature approaching you with a tray of tea and sweets. Scarcely your best work, if you must adhere to honesty. Regardless of the quality of your labor at the time of creation, you are proud of the result. How could you not be? You know this man better than you know yourself. Every organ, every artificial nerve cord, every blemish and stitch of his body was placed according to your intentions. A masterfully detailed project that took you years to complete; not an easy feat considering the lamentable state of your health.

"Here's your deadly nightshade tea." The man places a small, porcelain cup on the desk. "Do let me know when I should take you to bed, (Y/N)." You wave your hand dismissively and stretch out your limbs. "Not yet. I am almost finished", you respond, returning to the mound of metal scraps and pipes before you. "Can I ask what you're making?" The pale creature lowers himself to your level, a curious smile plastered on his face. "It's a mechanical heart", you reveal boastfully. "Like the one I have?" You run your hand through the creature's hair affectionately. "Almost. I'm testing out a different way to build the valves, for a more efficient pumping cycle." You continue to explain the intricacies of your novel mechanism, occasionally sipping on your tea. "Who knows, you might have a sibling in the near future."

The man's smile drops in an instant, and his sunken eyes widen at your statement. "What? Am I- am I not enough?" You glance at the creature as he becomes increasingly frantic. "Don't speak nonsense. If it comes out alright, I'll upgrade your own parts as well. I'm a disciple of scientific virtue, of continuous improvement." Nonsense? Vile treachery! You might've chiseled the brain that throbs within the walls of his skull, but his mind is his alone, and you seem to lack a fundamental understanding of his feelings and thoughts. His ardent confessions of love are met with mockingly pitiful grins, in the way a parent soothes a needy child. Even now, your eyes reflect nothing more than sympathy towards his protest. A childish tantrum is what you're most likely thinking. You've no time for emotional bagatelles. He can read you like an open book.

You simply won't understand. There is no place for a stranger in the life he's crafted with his very own hands: you, and him, and the evening tea with a side of butterscotch biscuits, and the bedtime talks, and the stripped branches of the decaying tree that rap at the windows on stormy nights. You might be the Inventor, but he is not just a mere, humble servant, a rag doll to be tossed around or toyed with. As you will soon discover, after all.

You awaken in the midst of night with your temples burning from a much too familiar headache. Although it's not just the pain that has disturbed your slumber. You can hear rattles and thuds coming from the upstairs laboratory. An intruder? Oh, your creations! The sound of glass breaking and metal scraping sends you into spiraling despair. You fumble to reach the nightstand, patting the surface in search for the bell and keys. You shake the handle in a panic, unable to find anything else in the darkness.

The chaotic rustle abruptly stops, followed by descending footsteps. You hold your breath as the chamber door opens, but it's none other than your creature. "Another flare-up? Shall I bring you some medicine?" the man asks with monotonous courtesy. "What have you been doing? What's all that noise?" you demand, agitated, but upon lifting yourself off the mattress you discover your legs are numb and uncooperative. The man hurries to your bed with a worried frown, and you hear the familiar clatter of the keychain coming from one of his pockets. "Have you taken my keys? Cease this foolishness at once!" Indifferent to your reproach, he places a firm hold on your shoulders and forces you back down, tucking you in effortlessly.

"You must forgive my impertinence." he says in a pleading tone. "I do not wish to impede the works of your genius. As your partner, however, it is my duty to prevent you from making mistakes." You furrow your eyebrows at his words. "What mistakes? My invention was flawless!", you argue fervently. "Indeed it was, but not its purpose. What need have you for another being?" It is the creature's turn for a passionate speech. He stands up with a confidence you don't recognize and continues: "You should know by now that I am fit to perform any role. That of your servant, your caregiver, your lover, or anything else you may desire. You can resume your tinkering starting tomorrow, but such blasphemies to our bond as the one today will not be tolerated." He straightens his vest and reaches for the door handle. "I will prepare some tea to help you rest."

Inconceivable. Your own creation, built with your own hands...Has something escaped your attention? His dialogue is deranged, tainted by madness. "Have I done something wrong?" you mumble to yourself, deep in contemplation. "Nonsense." the creature turns to face you briefly. "It was you who created me after all. Everything is perfectly splendid."

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Pavlovitz at The Beautiful Mess:

Wake up, White Liberals, Progressives, and Moderates. It's morning in America. A lot happened while we were sleeping. This is not the nation we thought existed back on January 20th of 2009: likely the last time many of us were fully awake. Back then, we basked in the warm glow of the arrival of a Black President and we grew comfortable, nestling down into a complacency that only the blind spots of privilege and false information provide. The joy of that moment, and the recent civil and human rights wins became a slow-acting emotional sedative that slowly squeezed out the urgency from us; one that gradually dulled our senses.

The visible victories numbed our minds into imagining we had arrived together at Dr. King’s glorious mountaintop. If we had taken the time to ask vulnerable, oppressed people, they'd have warned us not to fall asleep. Believing that the aspirational "we shall overcomes" that once rang out were now a fixed and unchangeable present, we settled cozily into that place where the heart rate slows and the limbs and eyelids grow heavy—and where without realizing it, slumber suddenly overtakes you: One blink awake, the next blink asleep. And for eight years we began to sleepwalk through the world, physically here and moving through daylight but not fully present, not totally seeing—caught between the actual and the unreal world, between the true nightmare and the imagined dream. Yes, we still talked and marched and campaigned and worked, but we did so slightly sedated in the haze of bad stories, willful ignorance, and wishful thinking. Meanwhile, the bigots woke up.

Shaken violently from sleep on that same January morning in 2009 by the reality of what decades of fear and terrible theology taught them was the absolute worst place they could find themselves—they began to mount a fierce counterattack. They infiltrated local politics and school boards and state election positions. They created news outlets and social media platforms designed to filter out everything except that which would fully trigger terror within the hearts of their intended targets and would-be allies: fantastical stories of a pervasive and coordinated Gay Agenda coming to convert their children; of violent, heavily armed, brown-skinned drug gangs overrunning our borders; of godless, abortion-mad progressives having indiscriminate sex without fear or care; of Muslim terrorist hordes infiltrating our neighborhoods and bodegas; of America-hating Democrats coming for their jobs and flags and prayers and guns. And we were still sleepwalking...

They leveraged thousands of Christian pulpits, where every seven days they'd wildly stoke the fires of people's phobias and fears, weaponize the Scriptures against gays and migrants and Muslims, pervert the expansive Gospel of Jesus into rabid nationalism—and sermon by sermon, enlist them all into service as passionate soldiers in the Army of the straight, white, American, male Lord.

And we were still sleepwalking... Then, to inculcate the terror fully, they propped up a sideshow carnival barker as their chosen one; a barren, empty husk of a man with no discernible moral convictions beyond wealth accumulation—who they could use as a flesh and blood avatar to embody and perpetuate themselves. They fashioned a vile, blustery orange idol to rally the fearful and the angry and the callous hearts around; one who would daily dig into the stinking muck to find a deeper bottom—and in the sleep-induced state we were in we thought it was a joke. We laughed ourselves back into a dreamworld where everything would be fine and where decency would prevail and where the system would work; so much so that one hundred million of us slept all the way through an election cycle. And here we are, a hair’s breadth from fascism.

John Pavlovitz says it best in regards to White Liberals, Progressives, and Moderates of all stripes: stay awake and don’t sleepwalk like what happened during Obama’s term.

[lovelybucky1]

Better Than Revenge

Kinktober Day 7- Fear Play

warnings: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT- noncon, kidnapping, violence, drugging, mentions of sexual assault, revenge porn, non-consensual picture taking, stalking, forced breeding, blackmail, AFAB!reader, bondage, humiliation, pain play, degradation, vaginal fingering, loss of virginity, unprotected sex, 18+ minors DNI

kinktober masterlist

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You enjoyed your time at college. You made many new friends, partied, joined clubs, and learned a little along the way. It was fun for a freshly eighteen-year-old, but by the time the end of your senior year came, you were ready to move on to adult life. Since then, you don’t think about college much in your daily life. Your college friends are now just your friends, and your better days are still to come, not behind you.

That’s not to say you never think fondly back on a memory or two here and there, but you’re so busy with your job at the DA’s office that you don’t have time to be hung up on the past. Others, you’ve found, do still live in the past.

Dr. Jonathan Crane, the chief psychiatrist at Arkham took notice of you when you first started working for the DA. Crane was not well-liked by your boss, seeing as he always managed a way to get the criminals you were trying to put behind bars an insanity plea. While he was a frustrating legal enemy, you never had anything to do with the man outside of the courtroom, or so you thought.

After a long day of court and debating with Crane, you were walking home from the office late when a metal pipe cracked over your head and you fell to the wet pavement, out cold. When you woke, you found yourself in a damp, cold warehouse with Dr. Crane looking on from a chair, dressed in a lab coat. Fear spikes in your stomach when you see the man in front of you. Being in your position, there’s only one explanation for why he would be here as well, though you can’t imagine why.

You are bound and gagged; your arms are wrenched in an uncomfortable position above your head and your wrists are tied to a chain from the ceiling. Your mouth is covered with duct tape, effectively suppressing any screams. Your toes just barely touch the floor, which puts a horrible strain on your arms, but there is no use fighting against the bonds.

When Crane notices you regain consciousness, he stands from his chair and approaches you. He gets close to your face and looks into your slightly hazy and unfocused eyes, his own piercing ones making you tremble under his gaze.

“Don’t struggle, you’ll hurt yourself,” he says, voice eerily soothing for a kidnapper. “You know, it’s dangerous for a girl like you to walk alone at night. This city’s a dangerous place, you never know what kind of creeps could be lurking in the shadows.”

He grins a sick, vile grin that makes your skin crawl. Crane reaches out and tips your chin up with his cold pointer finger. He moves your face from side to side, examining you, checking for any damage he might have done. His thumb traces the duct tape over your mouth, finding the seam of your lips and touching you like a doll.

“I’m surprised you’ve kept your looks with how you used to party,” he says casually. You furrow your brows in confusion but you’re unable to question him. “Though I’m sure your liver isn’t what it used to be.”

Before you can ponder his words, Crane walks behind you and you can hear the sound of metal tools clattering together. When he reappears, he is holding a pair of sheers and wears a sadistic smirk. He roughly grabs the hem of your blouse and cuts it up the middle, exposing your bra. He then cuts the fabric of the sleeves so the garment falls to the floor, leaving you topless.

You want to fight back to get this sick creep off of you, but you figure it’s best not to provoke the man with scissors against your skin. Instead, you’re subjected to his eyes ogling you.

“What a thing to wear to work,” he says, amused. “I’m sure this can’t be comfortable. Were you wearing it for an occasion?” he asks, fingers tracing the delicate lace of the band. “Surely not a date. I know you don’t have a boyfriend, and I don’t think you’re the type of girl to put out on the first date.”

You wonder how he could know you don’t have a boyfriend when the realization hits you. He knew what path you took on your way home, he knew what time you’d be leaving the office, and he knew details of your private life that you haven’t shared with anyone but your friends. He’s been stalking you.

“Maybe you had other plans for lunch with your boss this afternoon. Dent is quite the looker, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you. What his poor wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?” he asks with a smirk. “You really haven't changed.” You’re not sure what he means by that, but you’re not sure what any of this means.

Crane then moves the sheers to the hem of your skirt and makes a small cut. Instead of cutting all the way up like he did with your blouse, he drops the scissors, grasps the skirt, and starts to slowly tear it. The sound of the fabric ripping is deafening in the near-silent warehouse, and fear threatens to rise in your throat as he creeps up your thigh. His eyes watch the exposed skin intently as he undresses you, clearly gaining some kind of pleasure from this. When he reaches the top, he lets the skirt fall at your feet and now has an unobstructed view of your matching underwear set.

“Oh,” he chuckles, “what a surprise. I guess you did have big plans.”

He slips his finger underneath the elastic band of your panties and snaps them back against your hip, making you jump. Your skin breaks out in goosebumps from the cold air and you squirm as you try in vain to hide yourself.

“You don’t mind if I look under these, do you?” he asks, tugging on your panties again.

Up to this point, you haven’t protested, figuring it was better to cooperate, but you can’t let him violate you like this. You let out a muffled “no” and violently shake your head as you try to move away from his touch. Crane only laughs and moves closer to you. You kick him in the knee and he curses, but it doesn’t do much to deter him.

“You can’t fight me off. All you’re doing is making this worse for yourself,” he hisses. You try to scream, but with the duct tape sealing your lips, it’s no use. “Do you have something to say?”

You plead with your eyes and he reaches up to grasp the edge of the duct tape, but he takes it as an opportunity to be more cruel. He rips the tape from your lips, surely taking skin with it.

“Help!” you scream, “Somebody help me!”

Instead of ordering you to be quiet or suppressing your screams, Crane just laughs.

“Scream all you want, no one’s going to hear you. Not like anyone would care if the world was down one useless bimbo anyway.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you doing this to me?” you shout, your throat feeling raw from the strain.

Anger flashes in Crane’s eyes and his jaw clenches. You continue to thrash and scream, and despite what he said about no one caring, he tightly grabs your waist and steps on your foot to keep you from moving. His face is now only inches from yours and you get the idea to spit into his face. It won’t do much, but it’s the only thing you can do to deter him.

Crane hisses and lets go of your waist to wipe the spit out of his eyes, and when he looks back at you, his eyes are glassy and his dark eyelashes are clumped together.

“You fucking bitch,” he bites. “You’re lucky I haven’t hurt you yet.”

The vague threat does frighten you, but you have many questions that you demand answers to.

“Why the fuck are you doing this to me, Crane?” you ask again.

He laughs bitterly. “Of course you don’t know. You probably have no clue what you’ve done to me. The hell you put me through.”

He leans his weight on the foot crushing yours and when you wince, he grabs your jaw tightly, squishing your cheeks together and forcing your mouth open.

“I don’t know,” you say as best you can.

“You don’t remember college?” he asks. “Your sorority sisters and their fucking jock boyfriends tormenting me. How for years you made my life a living hell just for existing outside of your perfect little bubble.”

His face is twisted into a snarl now as he recounts the memories that drove him to his actions tonight. “I thought the bullying would be over when I got to college but it was so much worse. My door would get vandalized every fucking day with insults and crude images. You and your group of whores spread all kinds of rumors that I was crazy. You said I was a psychopath, a pervert, a sadistic killer who got off on seeing women in fear. Everyone believed it. Everyone.”

As he explained his story, your memory was jogged. You remember a short, skinny guy from college who wore thick-framed glasses and carried a satchel to class. He was awkward, made uncomfortable eye contact, and often made himself the target of ridicule. He had a vast knowledge of science and medicine and was very interested in the mind’s reaction to fear. You never knew his name, only ever referring to him as “Peeping Tom”, which was kind in comparison to some of your friends’ nicknames for him.

“I was an outcast for four fucking years. I couldn’t transfer, I couldn’t afford any other school. Not like you could ever understand that. I accepted that I was a social pariah, but then you went and ruined my fucking life even more,” he hisses.

You didn’t notice the knife in his hand until the point was against your chest, too lost in his rage-filled eyes. You now remember more of what he’s saying and you want to apologize and assure him that you’ve changed, but he seems past the point of reason.

“October 2nd, 1997. I was in my room studying for an exam when you showed up at my door. You were clearly drunk and you came onto me. You promised me all kinds of things and pushed me onto my bed and sat on my lap. You kissed me and took off my shirt, then put your hand down my pants and took my dick out. That’s when your hoard of sluts and every guy you’ve ever fucked barged into my room and took pictures. They spread them to everyone, and it was all because of you.” he hissed. “I was labeled the creep, the predator, the pathetic virgin who thought he could make it with a sorority girl and it was all your fault.”

The man in front of you was shaking with anger, his voice trembling slightly as he recounted the memory. The blade trembled in his hand and dug slightly into your skin, but the pain from the knife was overpowered by the icy feeling of fear.

“Jonathan,” you say meekly, “That was almost a decade ago. I-I’m so sorry I did that to you, I don’t even remember it. I promise I’ve changed.”

“You don’t remember it, that’s exactly why I have to do this. You’re never going to forget again.”

You whimper in fear as he brings the knife up to your neck. The blade bites at your skin, catching when you take a breath.

“Please don’t kill me,” you whisper with your eyes squeezed shut.

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you. That’d be such a waste of a warm hole.”

His words are disgusting and degrading. They make you want to shiver out of your own skin and run as far away from him as possible. Luckily, he removes the knife from your neck and takes a small step back.

Crane reaches into his pants pocket and takes out a small digital camera. Your eyes widen when you see it, immediately catching on to what he plans to do to you. He powers the camera on and points it at you, smiling when he sees your pixilated form on the display. He clicks the shutter and a light flashes.

He lowers the camera from his face to reveal a wicked smirk. "It doesn't feel too good, does it?" he asks. "Well it's about to get a lot worse for you."

He kicks your bare ankle with his foot, making you wince as your legs spread. He laughs cruelly and does the same to the other foot. Your legs are open uncomfortably, giving him easy access to what you're desperate to hide from him.

His fingers, long and cold, push through your folds and into your cunt without warning or preparation. He fingers you despite being dry to start, but you slowly get wetter in response to the intrusion.

"Still such a slut even after all this time," he says. "I'm not surprised you're so loose."

He fingers you roughly, seemingly unsure of how to do it, or maybe he just cares that little for your comfort. His nails catch on the ridges inside of you and the poking of his fingers scissoring make you wince. Thankfully he got his fill of that quickly, and pulled out his wet fingers.

He brings them to his nose to sniff, then wipes your wetness off on his pants. "Smells like whore," he says.

Without any further words, Crane reaches down and grabs you by your ankle and pulls it off the floor. You yelp as you lose your balance and your bonds tug on your shoulders. Crane then hooks your foot on a strap that also comes from the ceiling. He then does the same to your other leg.

Now you're suspended in the air, cunt on display for him and helpless. Crane takes out the camera again and takes more pictures of you spread out.

"I have waited so long for this."

Crane wears a sick, wicked grin that does not falter as stands between your spread legs. His hands work his fly open and quickly he frees his cock. It's already hard and the flushed tip is leaking, just from the torture he's inflicting onto you.

"I knew after that night that you would be my first," he says as he rubs his head through your folds. "Weather you wanted to be or not."

Your breath catches in your throat when he pushes into you bare. He goes slow, likely for his own sake so he doesn’t cum too soon, but whatever mercy he shows you doesn’t provide any comfort.

Once he’s fully seated inside of you, he begins to rut. Erratic, inexperienced thrusts to chase his own pleasure inside of being conscientious of yours. His eyes are half lidded and laser-focused on your breasts.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

With each thrust, the makeshift sex swing he has you in rocks, making the chains that hold you creak. You worry that you’re going to fall, but you suppose that would be better than a knife in your gut.

Crane’s cock bumps against your cervix which makes you whimper from the discomfort, but he thinks it’s out of pleasure.

“You like that? You like taking my cock like a fucking fleshlight? Didn’t think you’d be so easy, but I guess all it took back then was a spot on the football team to get into your pants.”

Crane is indeed using you like a fleshlight. He alternates between thrusting into you and holding onto the chains to move you over his cock. It’s humiliating, painful, awful, but he’s no longer threatening you with a knife.

He pulls out the camera again and points the lens at your pussy where it’s stretched around him. Then he backs up the camera a bit to capture your full form, contorted by the chains.

“W-what are you gonna do with those?” you ask with your broken voice.

“Exactly what you did to me,” he growls.

“No! No, please, you can’t do that.”

He grabs the chains and slams you down onto him, sending him impossibly deeper.

“You ruined my life. Now it’s your turn.”

“My career will be over! Please, I’ll do anything, just don’t send those to anyone!”

You’re begging shamelessly, sobbing and snotty, but none of this seems to turn him off. In fact, he seems to enjoy it more.

“I’m sure Dent would be interested to see what you get up to after hours. Of course, your reputation would be ruined once the rest of the city sees your messy cunt.”

All you can do is cry and shake your head.

“I know you’re good friends with Bruce Wayne. Maybe I’ll tell everyone that he did this to you and ruin you both. Wouldn’t that be sweet,” he says.

His voice is raspy and low; he’s clearly very affected by the pleasure of using you and you doubt he can hold on for much longer.

“I-I’ll do anything, Dr. Crane. Please,” you say between sobs.

“Hmm,” he hums.

Crane grabs your breast roughly and squeezes, digging his nails into your soft skin. You hiss and your face screws up with pain. He then slaps it repeatedly until you show signs of more discomfort.

“Please,” you beg again.

“It might be nice to have a friend at the DA’s office,” he says with a smirk. “Especially one that would bid in my favor, lest some dirty pictures get out.”

Blackmail? Jesus, he’s fucking sick. Though you suppose the threat of releasing them is better than him actually doing it.

“Yes, yes, I’ll do it. I’ll help you out, just please don’t send them,” you say frantically.

He fucks you even more erratically now, like he can’t decide if he should edge or finish himself off.

“Are you scared?” he asks, voice frighteningly low. You nod in response. “You’re scared of me, the loser you tormented in college? Don’t you regret that?”

He’s speaking so quiet and slowly like he’s trying to hypnotize you. You nod along with what he’s saying, figuring it’s better just to agree.

“You’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Every time you look at our bastard child, you’ll see my face and regret what you did to me.”

That catches your attention. Our child?

“W-what?”

“You thought I kidnapped you just to cum in my hand? I’m gonna fill you up until you’re leaking with my fucking cum. Oh, and you know that little pill you take every day? I switched that out weeks ago. This little womb is as fertile as ever, and you’re going to give me a baby.”

Your stomach flips and you immediately feel nauseous. He tampered with your birth control? That means he was in your house. He could have put cameras up, bugged the place. You have no idea what he’s truly capable of.

Tears being to stream down your cheeks again. You feel so violated, so helpless. He doesn’t wipe away your tears or even tell you to stop crying. He just watches as he fucks you.

“I’m gonna cum,” he growls. “And you’re gonna take it all.”

He leans forward to press his forehead to yours, forcing you to look deep into his eyes as he fills you with his cum. The wet, hot feeling of it flooding your insides makes you feel sick, and he continues to fuck himself through his orgasm which makes the cum froth and leak down your holes.

He stays seated inside you, keeping you plugged so the sperm has time to take. Crane is breathing heavily but he doesn’t once look away from you.

"Good girl," he mutters. "Good pussy."

You sag in relief when he finally pulls out. Your cunt aches from his rough treatment, and not in the fun way. Your arms and legs hurt from the bonds, but that appears to be a pain you won't soon be free from.

Crane walks back over to the chair he was sitting in when you first woke up and takes a seat. "I'll keep you here for a couple days so you can't go off and take one of those pesky morning after pills," he says casually.

"Y-you can't. They'll notice when I don't show up for work," you try to reason with him.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I called on your behalf and told them you had a family emergency. Something about grandma and her heart," he says. "I've taken care of everything."

You don't doubt that he has, and that scares you. He rests his ankle on the opposite knee and looks at the pictures he took on the camera.

"Now all you have to do is stay out of my way in court, and no one will ever see these," he grins, letting the camera dangle from his wrist by the strap.

You nod in understanding. "Good girl."

[mymarifae]

yesterday someone on strawpage asked me what made me go from a dr. ratio hater to a dr. ratio enjoyer and that response took me. four hours . to put together. so you know what i'm going to share my thoughts here too. here's why i like this ⬇️ jackass a lot now!!!!!!!!!!!

he's a tricky character! the first interactions we get with him are so off-putting and unpleasant that i feel like a lot of people are like "wow, this guy is a self-absorbed dick, i don't respect him at all. can he go away" - i know that was my reaction! and he IS a dick. but like. listen.

it's really, really, REALLY easy to misconstrue 90% of his words and actions. it doesn't help that he has the speech patterns of a haughty asshole. and it alsooooooo doesn't help that aventurine's stunt in penacony required orchestrating a "betrayal" between himself and ratio. i think some of the things ratio said during All That constitutes the bulk of most people's persisting dislike of him. So:

1. everything ratio did and said was exactly what aventurine asked him to. this was all pre-negotiated. i think aventurine's insecurities acting up and the way he started doubting whether ratio was truly just acting threw some people off as well, but there is plentyyyyyy of evidence that no, ratio does not hate him and was not waiting for the perfect opportunity to stab him in the back and rid himself of this "damned gambler" but i'll get more into that in a sec ok? i have another bullet point to make first. and it's important so read it carefully ok? promise?

2. any comments from ratio pertaining to aventurine's race were said to fuel the narrative SUNDAY was building in his head probably from the second he learned which ipc executive would be coming to penacony.

aventurine's plan hinged on sunday's prejudice. he needed sunday to think of him as a liar, a cheat, a silver-tongued honeypot - basically, every avgin stereotype floating around in the universe. he needed to invoke a sense of insult. how could someone so... despicable invade the family's sweet dream? he needed sunday to be so wound up over his presence in penacony that he couldn't resist the urge to put The Vile Avgin back in his place. idk THIS ("this" being the real world parallels of how the catholic church ethnically cleansed the rroma during the 16th and 17th centuries) is a whooooole issue in itself that i don't have the time to go into rn because we're supposed to be talking about dr. ratio. oops

anyway the important thing to understand is that ratio absolutely does not look down upon aventurine's heritage. he was acting, with aventurine's blessing, to feed into sunday's biases. and he wasn't even good at it 😭... like look at this exchange from 2.0:

one snarky comment from aventurine and his ass is immediately Apologizing. his ass that's supposed to be acting like he doesn't respect or like aventurine At All. in fact, aventurine's "even under the watchful eye of the harmony..." comment feels a liiiiittle pointed lol. it's a subtle warning to ratio! like, "hey, dumbass, did you forget we're being monitored at all times?? knock it off."

and like this isn't even the only time ratio breaks character and puts aventurine's plan in jeopardy. he learns nothing from this interaction because it's worse next time. lmao:

this stupid fuckignb note. is extremely significant in manyyyy ways so we have to talk about it. first of all, stopping to check on aventurine's condition and to say "tell me if you can't hold on any longer" RIGHT IN FRONT OF SUNDAY (basically, since the family was monitoring everything and a few minutes later we see one of gopher wood's birds hanging out in that general area)?? BRO

if he wanted to, this brief interaction would have been enough for sunday to call their bluff. and aventurine knew that; many of his lines here feel like attempts to redirect ratio into picking the act back up and to stop trying to help him.

next, the stupid fuckignb note's contents. yes yes the second half is very sweet and it's all anyone ever wants to talk about and i understand because it probably meant the world to aventurine especially in that moment but i need you to look at the first half

ratio gave aventurine the answer..? he. gave him the answer. you might be wondering why this matters at all and i'll just have to redirect you to his actions in 1.6, wherein he notably refused to give any answers and let asta, stelle, and like everyone else on the space station flounder, learn from their floundering, and - ultimately - Grow

ratio is a teacher through and through. if someone isn't one of those "geniuses" he wants nothing to do with, they're a potential student in his eyes. and everything that happened in mundane troubles was the space station's final exam, so to speak. his inaction wasn't out of cruelty or because he didn't care about the fate of all the people on the station - obviously he did, because he was the one using the phase flame to teleport the missing researchers to safety...

he posited himself as a safety net in case things went horribly terribly wrong, but he left most of it up to stelle and asta, because he believed in them. they had all the information they needed; they just needed to figure out how to utilize it. and if they failed, well... they had their safety net, and failure is a learning experience too. like, ratio wants people to learn. he wants them to have all the skills and knowledge they could possibly need to take charge of their lives.

the "geniuses" of the world, the head honchos, the impossibly rich 0.0001%? whatever you want to call them, there's always this Upper Level in society that can do things "ordinary" people can never dream of doing. their way of life is simply unattainable. ratio disagrees. he believes that anyone can do anything, if someone would only take the time to teach them. and he's chosen to be one of those teachers! instead of sitting on his ass and just theorizing about a better, fairer society, he's doing what he can to make a difference.

(not so self-centered after all, huh?)

so like. when you remember how much of a teacher ratio is, like this is a philosophy ingrained in his very bone marrow, it's a pretty big fucking deal that he just GAVE aventurine the answer he needed. it shows how concerned he was! and how guilty he felt about the part he had to play!!!! his words and actions were so far removed from his actual thoughts and feelings that he literally HAD to put the whole operation at risk to remind aventurine that he doesn't view him the same way sunday did, give him a safety net, AND let him know it's there. because at this point he felt that the plan was too risky and he cared too much

like honestly i think he hoped aventurine would read the note before putting on his "performance" and readjust accordingly. but then he didn't <3 and acheron had to remind him that it was still sitting in his pocket <3 if she hadn't said anything about it i don't think he would have opened it adgsmbfdndhfbkjjbg <3 oh i love a mess <3 anyway i think this serves as a suitable refute for the "dr. ratio was racist towards aventurine" sentiment that continues to fly around in some parts of the fandom, so? MOVING ON

i ended up talking about this already, but looking more closely at how ratio looks at the world was a biiiiiig part of why he grew on me So Much. it's all actually really noble and worth admiring. again, he just talks like a dick so it's easy to get confused LMFAO

he never received nous' recognition not just because he "cares too much" (as you'll see some people vaguely claim and then not elaborate), but because he fundamentally disagrees with the ideology that allows the genius society, the path of erudition, and even nous themself to exist.

there's like... a certain "threshold" of intelligence and knowledge that nous operates off of. the unknown, the near-or-actually-impossible to comprehend, things that the average person would never be able to grasp and would never care to try because it's simply beyond them - that's all nous cares about. but ratio doesn't believe this threshold exists. he doesn't believe in knowledge that cannot be taught. just to reiterate: he believes anyone can learn anything if someone teaches them, and they will care if they know someone will be there to teach them.

but if anyone can follow the footsteps of geniuses, then Genius is no longer a superior echelon of society. the end goal the erudition seeks is no longer "beyond the limits of mortal wisdom."

nous rejected ratio because he rejected them - long before he fully understood that he did so.

i think he only ever tried to seek their recognition because it was expected so highly of him. like, he was a prodigy child, absorbing new information and collecting phds at the speed of light. of course every adult around him was like, "oh yeah this kid's a future genius society member" and then they told him this. over and over. and he was like, Okay, so this is the path i'm supposed to embark on, and i must do it and i must succeed (or i'll let them down; i'll be a disappointment, a failure, a waste of resources and all the hopes and dreams everyone's pinned onto me.)

he spent a good few years trying and failing to conform to nous' surprisingly (ironically?) boxed-in mindset. but they ignored him, probably because they predicted that even IF they recognized him while he seemingly ascribed more closely to the erudition's beliefs, he would ultimately wander off and "waste" time trying to nurture the achievements of "mere" mortals instead. and then he had to sit there and be like ok i apparently fucking failed at the one thing i thought i was supposed to do with my life, What Now

and this results in the dr ratio we meet in game. still haughty, still has an attitude problem and a bad temper, still has a tendency to talk down to people (i think though at this point his condescending tone is more of a defense mechanism and a way of isolating himself from others before he is once again rejected from a "part" of society after trying, trying, and then Failing to conform to a box), but! considerably more humble and far more focused on others than himself. he cares, ok. he cares an awful fucking lot. he believes in the good of humanity. humanity's ability to do good, to grow... to find the answers to its problems, implement them, and save itself.

plus, "character that's very admirable and very kind and loving IN THEIR OWN WAY (<- this is important because ratio isn't any of these things in a traditional sense and that's another part of why i've come to like him; it's interesting) but is cursed to just sort of talk like a total jackass forever" is an extremely entertaining concept

one other thing that's less significant than realizing ^^^^^^^ALL OF THAT. GOD .but still played a big part in my warming up to him, is how fond he is of those stupid rubber ducks and the goofy poses his statues are in. and also how his very first introductory cutscene is him playing chess BADLY (😭😭😭😭) against himself. that speaks to a sense of whimsy and playfulness that he doesn't have much of an outlet for. which i find... cute. and an aspect of his character that's a ton of fun to play around with

IN CONCLUSION: i mean he's okay i guess

[theyanderespecialist]

SHE'S NOT FAT, SHE'S PREGNANT 1 (Scenarios) 049, 073, 076, Clef X Pregnant S/O (Yandere) (SCP Foundation) (SCP 049, SCP 073/Cain, SCP 076-2/Abel, Dr. Alto Clef)

[Hello, My Sexy Muffins! In this chapter, it is one from Tumblr, which is 049, 073, 076, and Alto Clef being yandere with a pregnant Significant Other. Then some D Class calling them fat and this is how they would react to it in their scenario! I hope that you all enjoy this!]

(Disclaimer: SCPS 049, 073/Cain, 076/Abel, and Dr. Alto Clef are Not yandere in canon, this is just for fun and not to be taken seriously at all. Simping for fictional characters and yanderes is fine. Just do not be gross or illegal about it. Also, remember to separate fiction from reality and headcanon from canon. Yanderes are not ideal partners to have in real life!)

(A Doctor's Touch) (SCP 049)

(SCP 049's POV)

I am sitting with my partner giving her an exam. She is pregnant, about three months. I was able to get her pregnant in a breach. The Foundation had been less than pleased with me. I almost lost my mind when they would not let me see her. I finally agreed to work with them if they let her stay with me. I hear the door open and a guard and D Class come in.

"Who is the fat bitch?" The D Class says and I set down the cloth. "I will be right back my dear."

I kiss her belly and then kiss her and walk over to the man. The guard thinks I am doing nothing. Oh, what a fool he is.

"Excuse me, kind sir I did not hear what you said about my partner," I say.

"I said she is fa-" I did not let him finish as I touched him and he dropped. The Guard instantly put his gun up. "Do not worry, I have no issue with you. Go call another D Class to clean this up, preferably one who is less rude."

The Guard walks out quickly and I walk back to my partner she is staring at the body. I stand in front of her view.

"It is okay, my dear (Name). I took care of it." I tell her and kiss her.

No one insulted the mother of my children.

(Deadly Politeness) (SCP 073/Cain)

(SCP 073/Cain's POV)

I am holding my girlfriend on my lap. She is so soft and full of our love. About five months into her pregnancy. I could not help but hold her close as much as I can. The O5 cancel had not been happy when I got her pregnant. I had more or less tricked her into it. But that does not matter anymore. She is now my girlfriend and we are going to start our family soon. I could not wait.

We are in the canteen and I hear someone call her fat. She looks down I know she has been worried about her figure. I pull away from her. Telling her I will be right back. I find the D Class that said those vile words.

I tap his shoulder with a polite smile. "I heard what you said about my girlfriend."

"The fat on-" I did not waste a second and punched him right in the face with my metal arm.

His skull cracks and he is dead before he hits the ground. "Have a nice day!" I say and before the guards can react I am back with my girlfriend, snuggling her once more.

(Rage Trance Activated) (SCP 076-2/Abel)

(SCP 076-2/Abel's POV)

I am training with the mother of my child watching me. I agreed to work for the foundation once more. As long as (Name) stayed with me. We ended up having a child. I could not wait to train our children to be warriors. I see the Daily D Class come in. I see him say something to (Name). Her face falters and I am by her in a second. Turning to the D Class.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HER!" I Snarl.

"I-"

I grab him by the throat. "(Name) What did he say to you?!" I demand.

She hesitates and I look at her telling her to tell me.

"He just called me fat, it is no big deal."

My eyes narrow on him. "No big deal? Tell you, pathetic human, this woman is carrying my child, a future warrior. She is going through a glorious transformation! AND YOU DARE CALL HER FAT!" I snarl and rip his head off.

The Guards storm over and I grab a blade. THEY WILL ALL PAY! NO ONE INSULTS THE ONLY WORTHY WOMAN!

(Bang Bang) (Dr. Alto Clef)

(Dr. Alto Clef's POV)

I smirked at my wife, she blushes as I kiss down her neck. Whispering in her ear how sexy she is. She blushes and grips my shirt. We are in the cafeteria. I pull away to play my ukelele, walking around the room. Drawing the song out. My wife begins to eat. She needed to put on more weight as she is not at a healthy weight for twins. I watch her carefully and hear a D class speak as I pass by.

"God, look at her eat, what a fat bitch. Shame to cause she is pr-" I grabbed my ukelele and smash it into his skull. He screams and falls to the ground. I stomp my boot into his skull.

"The Fuck you say about MY WIFE!" I snap pulling out my gun.

She is the first woman I was able to fully love and is giving me a second chance at a family. I WILL NOT LET ANYONE TALK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT. I shoot my gun into his stomach twice. Suddenly painfully tumors start to sprout on his body and burst. He screams in agony while he dies. I then go over to my wife, pick up her and throw her over my shoulder. Then grab her food, and we will eat in my office.

[YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS another chapter is done! I really am happy with this one! I hope that you all enjoyed this, and stay sexy, all of my sexy muffins!]

[ghost-bleus]

the strange case of dr vanessa and ms vanny!

guhh okay okay.okay. this idea came to me and i had to draw it. vanessa and vanny are extremely similar to jekyll and hdye and you HAVE to hear me out on this

jekyll created hyde to see what would happen when he separated the good and the bad in himself. he ended up splitting into these two personalities; jekyll, the kind scientist, and hyde, a scruffy and mean young man

vanny is vanessa's hyde. vanny was created so these vile acts could be taken out, but its not as thought vanessa doesnt have a choice. its in the same way jekyll chooses to drink that potion, despite knowing what hyde does.

vanessa enjoys playing the part of vanny. she enjoys this freedom, and keeps coming back in a similar way jekyll cannot stop himself from longing to turn into hyde. she knows fully well what she is doing is wrong. but she keeps putting on that suit.

anyways you should read the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde thank you for your time

[lordadmiralfarsight]

I (main blog of avantlalettre) will butcher you my beautiful saber and throw your remains in a river if you dont publicly denounce vaspider for calling ME,a female of 16 years,a perverted man. And furthermore your soul shall go to hell afterwards where it shall forever be trapped in a pool of flie's larvae,ice,and human refuse wherein you shall be tormented by your demonic hosts and force to pursue the Adversary's standard through this ocean of purulence for the remainder of eternity. However you can avoid this if you denounce vaspider,apologize to me,and delete your reply

Don't be surprised that people assume you're a guy when the name of your blog is Karl prince of darkness, Karl is a typically male name and people are gonna assume, doesn't matter how long you've been a female.

I didn't see anything about perversion in Vaspider's reply, so I'm going to guess you tacked that on yourself and that it's your opinion of all men. Nice essentialism there dipshit, but switching "woman bad" with "man bad" doesn't make you a genious or anything close to good, it makes you a narrowminded asshole. As a man, vas te faire retourner par une chèvre, suce-merde.

I don't believe in your soul thingy, so your threats mean fuck all to me.

Even if I somehow took into account your worldview, calling you an idiot on the internet wouldn't justify that severe of a punishment, especially for eternity, so you claiming that shows you are either exaggerating or you have an incredibly inflated opinion of your own worth on a metaphysical level. Either way, your threats are worthless even in your own belief system.

Reading the first line made me wonder if I had somehow gotten a yandere stalker. If you want people to give you the time of day, try not to talk like a deranged lunatic.

The overly wordy way you write is also doing you no favor, as it makes you sound like a melodramatic twat. You don't sound smart, you sound arrogant. Just in case, and so you understand, here's a TL;DR in your own language : I, Farsight, Lord Admiral by the Grace of my Shipping Heart, do declare that your vile perfidy and obtuse demagoguery are most unwanted upon these hallowed piers, that your hackneyed threats are as void of meaning as the soul of a gull is of decency, that your biases are a stain most revolting and that your very presence is neither wanted, nor tolerated. Begone from my dock. Or, for normal people : blocked. And if you somehow contact me again, I will contact the police regarding the very real and actual death threat in the first sentence of this bullshit. And as I live in France, where death threats ARE legally penalized, that means legal consequences :) So fuck off my dock, and never come back. Vas te faire voire chez quelqu'un qui en a quelque chose à foutre de tes conneries.

[bunniibones]

✨ About Byte ✨

Hello! the OC tournament is in the corner so I decided to follow @nintendoni-art's example and create a pinned post about Byte :D! If you have any questions or doubts about Byte, please feel free to send an ask (anonymous or not) and I'll gladly answer!

🛠 Basic Information

Name: Data "Byte" the Goat. Species: Nigerian Dwarf Goat. Height: 88 cms (2'11''). Type: Tech / Flight. Alignment: Evil. Occupation: Programmer & Mechanic. Home: Starline Base Sigma.

✨How did you come up with the OC’s name? 

At first, Byte had a very generic name (or at least for the sonic franchise) so I had this small list of possible names for them in case I needed them.

When the moment came, I held a small poll for people to pick their favorite and "Byte" along with "Data" were the most voted for. Since I liked both of them I decided to combine them! And it fits Byte, since a byte is the smallest memory unit that a computer can have and Byte is pretty small (They used to be smaller tho, they were 75 cms)

🌼  - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

Byte is currently 25 years old. At the beginning of the story (around when Starline brought Eggman back to his former glory) they were 24, but they age throughout the events.

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

Yes! They're in love with Dr. Starline, their boss/partner in crime.

Both are incredibly amoral and they LOVE it, sharing the same vision of the world, the same passion for Eggman and his creations and even the same mentality, which allows them to understand each other quite well. With time they've developed a good harmony and synchronization whenever they're working together, even encouraging each other in the most vile acts and enjoying every second of it.

🍕  - What is their favorite food?

Cookies! They adore them, especially the choco chip cookies.

💼  - What do they do for a living?

They used to be a programmer for the Eggman Empire, but currently they're the assistant and right-hand-man to Dr. Starline. They fulfill any task assigned by the platypus, performs maintenance on Starline's badniks and helps him to program anything he needs. At the same time, Starline is teaching them how to be a mechanic so they can be even more useful.

🎹  - Do they have any hobbies?

Yes! They love drawing, tinkering with machines and robots, designing their own badniks, performing maintenance on robots, creating their own little robots/machines and playing with their chao.

🎯  -What do they do best?

Programming, they're an expert on it, it's what they do best.

🥊  -What do they love? What do they hate?

Likes:

Chocolate and desserts, especially if said desserts are made of chocolate.

Cute small animals and fluffy things.

Color pink.

Messing with people and causing troubles on purpose, it entertains them a lot.

Robots and Robotics, they've always preferred robots over organic beings.

Eggman's personality and creations, they find him fascinating, intelligent and charming.

Starline and anything related to him, they absolutely adore the platypus.

Dislikes:

Oranges and their scent, along with orange flavored things.

Bitter food, they can't stand bitterness. (This includes alcohol and coffee)

Bitter or cranky people.

Vomit or people who are sick, they have phobia for it.

Hot weather, they consider it unbearable and doesn't like to work with that sort of weather.

Loud and sudden noises, they startle and scare them terribly.

Entitled and hypocritical people.

❤️  - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Byte best memory is when they started working for the Eggman Empire. They're really grateful for that, since it improved their life quality. Sure, Eggman is not the friendliest person to work with, but it was fair better than their old life. They got to do what they liked the most, which was working with robots, so it was like a dream come true for them.

✂️   - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

Byte's worst memories are from their entire childhood. Living with their parents was a complete nightmare for them, having to enture the constant physical and verbal fights of their parents (in which they tended to get hurt) and their abuse towards them. The only salvage part of their childhood was being friends with Smithy.

🧊  - Is their current design the first one?

Nope! their first design was this one :3c

🍀  - What originally inspired the OC?

At first, Byte was created to be my sonicsona, so they were inspired by myself, using my physical traits at the moment (short blonde hair, freckles, tan skin and short height), the species of my toonsona (goat), my degree (computer engineer) and turning my personality into a villainous one so they could fit in the Eggman Empire. But as Byte developed, they stopped representing me and became their own independent character!

🌂  - What genre do they belong in?

Sci-fi and Steampunk!

💚  - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Byte is an agender asexual! (They/she)

🙌  - How many siblings does your OC have?

None, they're only child.

🍎  - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

Terrible, Byte's parents were awful people who always mistreated them and hurt them emotionally and physically, so they ran away from their home and joined the Eggman Empire. They haven't had contact with their parents ever since.

🧠  - What do you like most about the OC?

What I like the most about Byte is their design, personality and dynamic with Starline. At first I wasn't sure of their design, I was insecure about it even, but eventually it grew on me and I've come to appreciate it.

Their personality has always been super fun to me, I have a soft spot for mischievous villains who have fun causing chaos and enjoy what they do.

And their dynamic with Starline is basically Chaos x Order, which is super fun to play with :D

✏️  - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

Pretty often, they're my main oc LOLOLOLOL

💎  - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

Not really, if they die, who will bring Starline back? lol

💀  - Does your OC have any phobias? 

Byte is awfully scared of vomit and loud noises.

🍩  -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

For the longest time, I considered that Lanolin the Sheep and Tangle the Lemur would be Byte's rival, but I'm reworking that, so we'll see who ends up being their rival 👀

🎓  - How long have you had the OC?

4 years! 5 this year.

[soapoet]

PJO pick-a-card reading

Nico di Angelo; Your shadow side

Soapy scribbles: As the title may suggest, this reading is a little dark and full of terrors. Be mindful of this before you read, and judge for yourself whether or not now is a good time to explore the dark. You can always come back later, or never, so fret not if you need to run away and hide. Take good care of yourself, ok? ♡

01.

Shufflemancy: Triggered by SkyDxddy

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, do you feel like Atlas holding the world upon your shoulders to keep your near and dear safe and sound, whilst toying with the thought of dropping those burdens and crushing them like ants, berating them for taking you for granted? The mental load you take on leaves you feeling so capable, yet frustrated with all who by comparison appear foolish and incompetent. You think highly of yourself, but like a flick of a switch you crumble on the shower floor crying for mercy, sending prayers down the drain because yours is a life of the ivory tower and the free fall from it, repeated like a cruel joke stuck in an inescapable loop. He loves me, he loves me not, except you count petals of your own self-worth. You're a genius, you're an idiot. Gorgeous and sweet, vile and grotesque.

You're opinionated, well-read, and seemingly surrounded by imbeciles, yet a silver tongue so easily gets tied as you fear mistakes. Trauma has left you paranoid. Do you fear retaliation? The avalanche triggered by a little hiccup, which buries you, encasing your mistake forevermore, so that shame is to you what the smile is to Mona Lisa and the whole world may gawk and point and laugh and dissect and analyse and theorise centuries from now about how you, a fool, screwed up once and that once was enough to destroy the perception of you which you so carefully tried to protect.

Houdini, you vanish like ashes to the wind, yet crave to be seen and heard and felt and touched. Rejection frightens you, so you perfect the art of care and service. Who could reject a helping hand? What then, when it is never reciprocal, nobody texts you first, unless of course they need something from you? Then you writhe as the anger in your veins burn. Your surface calm hides riptides threatening to grab and pull traitors out to sea to drown. Unable to express your darkest feelings, you've made a name for yourself for your serenity, yet beneath the surface you have been screaming your whole life. Would it kill them to ask you how you are and make space to truly receive the honest answer? You feel like an imposter, a charming attendee at a masquerade who's on a wanted poster for the crimes you commit inside your head at the slightest inconvenience.

02.

Shufflemancy: (S)aint by Marilyn Manson

Everything is perfect, and what isn't must be made so. You do not take shortcuts, you do not round up or down. Like a surgeon your precision is immaculate, but the scalpel cuts deep and swift and you are full of marks of real and imagined flaws and failures you tried to surgically remove. Impossible are the only standards that you know. Enough is not a word in any language that you speak. There is always something you could have done better. As though you were born into a fixer-upper, you became an architect, drawing up careful plans of grandure, which you construct from the rubble. Yet every tile eventually cracks, the paint chips and the hardwoodwood scuffs, so you tear everything back down to ruins and begin anew. You are forever under construction, and always on a tight schedule and low on resources, and never in a million years could you hire a lending hand. Because only you dance with perfection, only you know its touch, and nobody else should get their grubby little hands on fragile things that they'll just break.

You wish so earnestly to be seen. To shine beautifully and be admired by all, but in your paralysing fear of judgement you hide away. To perfect your reflection, your craft, to stride forth with books atop your head with enviable grace. One day you'll show 'em, you say, though you know that you're both the captive of the tower and the beast that guards it. You tell yourself you must earn your keep in the kingdom, unable to rest because the list of things to do is never-ending and replenishes like clockwork, a task done only invites another.

Yet from this tower you gaze upon the crowds, green with envy for their ability to let life happen without white-knuckling the reins. To swim with the current, not against it. And those lucky few, to whom things, a struggle to you, comes with such ease? You could burn them at the stake, and perhaps have in your mind, but this fleeting image invisiblen to all, as through gritted teeth and throbbing jaw and knotted neck, all illusioned into a bright, proud smile, you're the first to stand and give ovation for the achievements of others. Then you slip away from their awfully bright light, into the shadows to scream and cry and punish yourself for not fitting into their shoes. And when they stumble and fall? From the shadows nobody can see your Chesire grin of malice. Which, of course, only adds yet another flaw, another crack in need of mending. Because oh, to be free of this never-ending waltz with self-loathing and misplaced blame, and be whole and happy within yourself and uplift others without walking barefoot on glass doing so.

03.

Shufflemancy: Nobody praying for me by Seether

Peter Pan, won't you grow up? You scrunch your nose and grimace at the very thought. You're capable and incapable baked into a concoction of leftovers at the month's end. Tired and done with the judgement of those you, dripping with sarcasm, call better folks. The naysayers nagging and sticking their noses into businesses none of theirs. Yet at the same time you feel lost and without direction. A free bird in flight, soaring across glimmering seas, with no place to land. Inertia, both an enemy and a lover, lulls you so easily into breadcrumb trails full of wonderful distractions. Only to then strike down the facade of the snow globe dreamscape as it falls and shatters on the floor, leaving you to pick up the pieces and cut your hands on the shards.

Mountains of unfinished projects and tasks lay before you, and no beaten path or compass exists for you to rely on. Alarms and memos blaring, screaming your name and calling you a failure with every ring. Everything done last minute or not at all. Feeling helpless and dependent on others for assistance as the world comes crumbling down seemingly weekly. You point to people, circumstances, the planets and the stars, looking for a scapegoat as you flee from guilt and shame in this horrid cycle you feel unable to escape. To admit you could have had more forethought would be to allow the world to place the dunce hat on your head. To never again be taken seriously. You look away, you run, from the consequences of your own actions and inactions. Hiding under a blanket like a child, certain no monster can see you if you can't see them.

The fear of missing out lurking in your peripheral like a predator waiting for its chance to pounce the second you feel as though your peers are so far ahead of you as you run the race of life with your laces tied together like a cruel joke. What did you do so differently to not deserve guidance, where is your coach, your safety network? You're standing outside in the cold winter watching families in their warm dining rooms making merry, wondering if they'd spare you a slice of bread if you knocked on the door. But the discomfort of cold knuckles against cold hard wood or fingers on a frozen knocker keeps you walking, talking to the streetlights who'd never judge you. Your constant need to justify yourself, explain every word you said which seemingly always fails to land on the tarmac. Every project takes flight but crash lands, and the whole world seems to gather to investigate and scrutinise your pilot error. And you're angry, so frustrated you could cry and wish only to raise your voice, scream in the face of judgement and close their airways. Tell them it isn't fair, that they're all lucky and have no idea what it's like to live life on hardmode, to be ridiculed and reduced to the butt of a joke, forced to serve as the archetypal fool and assumed you'll never amount to anything. Yet you fear your own shadow, certain it could overpower you because it sees what nobody else sees and knows the truth of your neglect and envy and endless chase of the highs at the cost of your desires which need the care and attention you can't give them.

[morgue-ratt]

Fear Itself

a (somewhat belated) birthday gift for @darklylucid

Jonathan Crane x reader // 1.6k

You've been selected as Dr Crane's latest guinea pig! Yay!

tw// syringes, experiments, bondage, fear toxin, nsfw, this is my first time writing for Dr Crane,

THE scratching of his pencil has permeated into your dreams, now you were not free of him even in sleep. Dr Crane is always immersed in his work, always writing something, the pencil always scratching. You don’t know how long you’ve been here, or even where here is. You maybe had some idea at first but that had been weeks ago, now the only thing your conscious mind had to cling to was him. Dr Crane, the Scarecrow.  

He is working on something big and for it, his chemical weapons must be sharpened to a horrifying edge. Only the best for the Bat. The colors of the toxin vary from orange to yellow to green, the doses change. Sometimes the injections go into your arm, neck or leg. Sometimes, he fits a face mask over your mouth and nose and just sits back as you’re forced to breathe in the gaseous state of uncut terror. The duration changes, it varies from a few minutes to long hours screaming your vocal cords raw. No matter what, the good doctor seems content to sit back and watch. The only thing that doesn’t change is you. His unwilling assistant.  

Your body is covered in needle pricks and track marks. Your cheeks shine with dried tears that Crane hasn’t bothered to wipe away. One of his formulas had made you hallucinate things crawling under your skin, leading you to scratch your arms until you bled and then some. Another had filled you with blind panic and you had kicked Crane so hard in the chest he had deemed it necessary to wrestle you into a strait jacket. Now, as he strips away your sanity with each round of treatment, you can only lean against the wall of the Scarecrow’s makeshift lab.  

“Did you hear me?” Your head lolls to the side and you try to hide your face in your shoulder. He’s standing above you now, towering over you. “You’re awake,” He says. He has to tell you these things, otherwise you’d have no way of knowing. The syringe in his left hand catches the low light. Orange this time. The last one was green. The one before that... you can’t remember.  

The good doctor kneels in front of you. He takes your jaw in his hand so he can look at you, stare directly into your eyes and though you know it’s purely for diagnostic purposes, you don’t like it. “You are awake,” He repeats. Crane moves the syringe closer, and you pull away from his grip so fast you hit your head on the wall behind you. He lets out a sigh; “None of that,” He threads lithe fingers through your hair, gently scraping your scalp, and pulls your head to the side. You cry out as the needle pricks your neck. “There we go, nice and easy,” He says, his voice completely devoid of all emotion.  

Your heart begins to accelerate. This part stays the same. Your vision is going dark around the edges, you twist in the strait jacket; trying to escape the dread crashing around you. What will you see? Monsters? A family member? Will disembodied laughter fill your head? The walls close in? Or will it just be blackness, blinding you until he deems it time to administer the antidote? You start to hyperventilate.  

Crane lets go of your hair and leans back, watching you closely. His face begins to contort, twisting into something somehow even more vile. In your mind’s eye, you see his face stitched into burlap, a horrible creation of the doctor and the Scarecrow. His mouth is somehow both stitches and far too many teeth. You turn away and the horrible face is still there, a monstrous patchwork with eyes gleaming orange no matter where you look. Your blood is rushing in your ears, you barely hear it when he asks; “What do you see?” 

You shake your head.  

“What do you see?” The voice is horrible, it’s like its sending glass through your veins, it comes from everywhere. Crane reaches for your face, and you cringe, pushing yourself into the wall behind you. It’s ike you’re in a kaleidoscope, his hands are everywhere, reaching for you. He takes your face again and the need to scream grows in your chest like fire. “Tell me,” 

“No... nothing,” You say.  

He waves his hand in front of your face, and you flinch. “Tell me,” 

The distorted image of him is almost pulsating in beat with your heart. You can’t focus on anything except the fact you don’t want him to touch you. You barely hear your own voice through your own thundering pulse; “Scarecrow,” 

You can tell that he’s smiling, the mess of burlap and skin spreads in such a way that indicates his pleasure in this answer. “Scarecrow? Are you afraid of the Scarecrow?” He touches you, bringing his scarred hand to cup your cheek and you let out a short scream as though his touch burns you. His laughter shakes your bones. You haven’t heard him laugh since you’ve been here. You bury your face in your shoulder as the laughter echoes in your head. Crane runs his hand through your hair, his touch is gentle. Soft.  

A shudder runs through your body all the same.  

If he has been testing you all this time, tonight you finally have the right answer; gone is the apathetic doctor who gives you your medicine and watches with detached curiosity; now Crane is leaning in close, enjoying the way you flinch and relishing when a fresh wave of tears stream down your cheeks. It’s all for him, after all. He brushes the hair out of your eyes so he can better see your face contorted in terror, he holds you in place so he can enjoy every micro expression with that horrible grin. These almost sweet gestures are so at odds with the hot, all- consuming dread racing through your veins just as the toxin does.  

 Crane takes every excuse to touch you just to see you flinch and cry out in protest, you can’t do much else but even if you weren’t restrained you don’t know if you’d have it in you to do anything but cower. This toxin was designed to take down people much braver than you. You are no Batman.  

You feel his fingers ghost against the column of your throat and you jerk back, toppling over and falling to the floor. Your head is swimming, and you feel Crane lean over you, positioning himself on top of you. Your fear... and knowing you’re afraid of him. It’s addicting. He holds you still with one hand while his other goes for the throat, checking your pulse with his middle and forefinger. “Look at you,” His voice has taken on a purring quality and your drug addled mind makes sure to compensate, the thing above you has a mouth full of blood stained canines and deadly sharp claws like an animal, playing with his prey before the final strike. Your fear is crashing around you as Crane leans forward, pinning your body with his own. He’s trying to get as close to your eyes as possible, he’s all you see.  

You have stopped screaming, opting instead to cry and twist in the jacket, the straps digging in sharply into soft flesh. You’re convinced you’re being flayed as the rough canvas rubs your skin raw. Your breath catches in your throat as the strap between your legs goes a little higher. Crane’s grin spreads across his face as he takes account of this reaction. As you continue to struggle, you do nothing but push yourself to the line between horror and neediness. Arousal is arousal and you’re having trouble distinguishing right now.  

“Oh dear,” Crane chides. He’s all you can see; your vision has been narrowed to a pinprick. “Is someone getting their lines crossed?” You feel his hand pushing the strap further into your sex and you can’t help but moan as you grind yourself into it. “Do you want more?” 

Yes. No. More what? More teasing? More fear? More pain? It’s like your mind is breaking. Panic spikes in your chest, wetness pools between your legs. It feels good, you want to be anywhere else. “More...” You are more aware of your lips moving than the fact you are speaking. The hand disappears from the apex of your legs, and you complain; “No...” 

Crane takes care as he unbuckles the strap going through your legs. He’s amused, he can tell his toxin had had... a rare effect on you. “My, my,” You don’t have it in you to be ashamed. His fear toxin had reduced you to your base instincts. You somehow feel disconnected from your body while also being painfully aware that he isn’t touching you. You don’t even think as you spread your legs slightly. Your rational mind is eclipsed but when this is over, you’ll tell yourself it was the toxin that was making you act like this.  

You sigh when his hand returns, you watch him with lidded eyes. It’s hard to believe the thing before you even resembled a human being. Instead, there is a demonic face that looks like something Mary Shelley would come up with; stitches and teeth and eyes glowing orange like the fires of Hell. You don’t care. His thin fingers are making you moan.  

It’s hard to say how long you were lying on the floor with the good doctor. The entire time you feel like you’re on the edge of something while your heart beats madly in your chest and your blood rushes in your ears. Time ebbs and flows, it feels like it takes hours but you’re close and you couldn’t have lasted that long.  

You finally reach the crest, and you arch your back, chasing his fingers as you go over. The pleasure has taken over the horror, at least for now, but you still scream. Crane’s laugh surrounds you, eating through your flesh to your bones like maggots.

[apetitegentleman]

"It's unrealistic that Trans/NB characters exist in Horror/Fantasy"

Look at me directly in the eyes and tell me that, Doctor Frankenstein couldn't be seen as more than a mad scientist but can be Monsters and Ghouls Gender confirming surgeon. Man was like

"Y'know I did it once, I bet I can do it again."

Or Witches, Warlocks and Wizards literally have viles of potions that are permanent or temporary magical HRT or magical artifacts that can be used for Gender confirming people, Sacrifices are welcomed but that requires a lot of blood and materials that takes more than just the typical flick of a wand.

Like we have a Fairy Godmother but honestly she takes forever to respond back for an appointment and she only takes clients, no walk-ins.

Need Top or Bottom surgery if you can't get a hold of Dr Frankenstein? Just call the Ragdolls it's going to hurt like hell, no anesthesia when they Stitch you back up but you bet your ass those results are going to look amazing.

Want to DIY Gender confirming Surgery without a Mage? Necronomicion, Chalk Circles, Summoning Circles, Alchemy come in many different ways. (It's risky to do but we won't stop you.)

Undead? Necromancer will be able to help out with the parts you need, fresh corpses fresh stitch.

Ghost? Don't worry you're the most non-binary person in this room, Your deadname literally means what your name was in your last life don't keep it if you don't want to.

Want to voice train? Ghosts and Zombies are your best bet, they really know how to use thier voice the best and they usually have Videos about it onto how to pronounce and explain things.

[newvillainontheblock]

intro POST!

hey hey HEY!

y'all can call me the swift scoundrel, or scoundrel for short >:) (or z if we're close)

pronouns are SHE/THEY/IT, and i'm 19 years old

not getting my real name WEIRDOS

ANYWAYYYSSSS

FUCK the government and its SHIT rules

we're here to have fun and chaos in our lives so that's what i'm gonna do :D

especially by breaking every single one of their "laws" :>

my partners in crime areeeee

dovely the pidove! she proudly poops on people when she can

pandora the panpour! she will rain on your parade! literally!

squid the grafaiai! a little masterpiece painter i love him

zoomie the pawmi! the most rambunctious little girl i've seen!

vile the iron virus (paradox porygon-z)! A LITTLE MOTHERFUCKER I HAD TO FIGHT AND NOW I OWN

ruby the hybrid chikorita/druddigon! a living vibe check that will bite assholes don't cross her!

on here i'm trying to get more people to embrace the "villain" life yknow???

be free and FUCK the police

9/16 update

Now featuring Dr. Radia Lovelace~

Any pronouns! I have no desire to make myself an account on here, so I will use Scoundrel's if requested. I was in an *unfortunate* accident at Silph Co, and ended up with powers similar to a Porygon. A very interesting experience indeed!

UPDATE: emoji signoffs for all of us >:)

ooc below

I HAVE WAY TOO MANY IDEAS FOR BLOGS HI THIS IS THE MOD FROM @roguerunawaytrainer @team-crown @the-beastly-bungalow (got to come back to that one) and @pokemonch (my original baby)

mod is 18 and no NSFW allowed

9/16 update: Radia is another one of my characters but i dont want to make her a seperate blog so she takes over Scoundrel's, for the funsies

[imptwins]

Why making any concessions to puritan rhetoric is a bad idea

(note for the uninitiated: 'anti' is short for 'anti-shipper', 'anti-ship', or 'anti-fan'; in this context it refers to people who get very vocally militant about opposing dark kinks/problematic ships in media, especially creative fandom spaces. Proship is simply the opposite, people who vocally believe people should be free to make/indulge in whatever as long as a line is drawn between fiction and reality.)

(note 2: this was written for cohost, i cbf rewording it lol)

I very often see people - both websites and individuals - making a concession to the people who come up to them yelling about problematic kinks and guilt by association and 'why didn't you block this person' blah blah blah. It's happened with a few BNFs (big-name fans) in the UTDR scene lately, I've seen it from artists I respect, from friends, hell I used to be in this camp myself. And, of course, it happened to this website about a year back, and the conversation has come up again recently due yet another tumblr exodus.

It makes sense. The most common stuff that antis go after is stuff very few people are into: lolisho/cub, ferals, heavy gore, heavy noncon. It's niche, the real-world applications are unquestionably vile, it's very easy to just say 'I also find this icky regardless of whether I really believe that all people into it are secret criminals, so, I'll just block the people who they say are bad and move on.' I can't tell you the amount of times I've seen someone respond to proship/antiship discourse with "I'm an adult with a job." Going to bat for this content is high risk, low reward. You're not going to make friends, you're going to lose them. YOU WILL LOSE SUBSCRIBER, etc. As a result of all this it's very easy to assume that anyone defending it must be into it.

But I'm not. I'm a writer who often deals with darker subjects, but most of the first-on-the-list anti stuff, I'm not into at all. I'm not into ferals or gore period, noncon I like purely as character exploration, lolisho I can enjoy from the perspective of what I call 'trauma repair.' There's probably a proper term for it. But the tl;dr is I've never been actively aroused by any of these things, not in fantasy and especially not otherwise. Whenever I write them, it's just fascination or character analysis. Whenever I have a 'this character can be any age you want' fic, in my head, they're 18+. Writing noncon is a weird challenge for me because I'm constantly battling with the alternate ending in my head where the victim breaks free, beats the shit out of their captor, etc. This isn't me trying to claim virtue through this, just stating my position.

So… Why do I go to bat for these things? Why do I get annoyed when websites block lolisho, when artists have 'proship DNI' in their bio, etc? It's lost me a couple friends, it's certainly cost me followers and general reach, it's gotten me blocked by countless people I respected the work of. It's earned me a few callout posts, multiple with 1k+ followers, and one particular obsessed stalker who tells anyone who will listen that I actually groomed a child (despite all evidence otherwise). It's caused me a really significant amount of trouble. Why die on this hill?

The answer's kind of simple, when you boil it down: fictional fantasies either affect reality, or they don't. This is why I go to bat for things I'm not into, but it's also why whenever you see someone making concessions to antis, it's never enough. Cohost banned lolisho last year (I believe it's still banned?? Unclear), but the antis still make constant callout posts about this site and its owners. Some of the team have even gone out of their way to state very firmly that they're against these things, they've gone above and beyond just 'ban the bad thing' and broadcast their views about the morality of it. You'll frequently see artists write some huge apology or clarification when a callout post hits, usually involving some variation of 'I do not condone x y z and think it's disgusting.'

It's never enough.

But it makes sense, when you think about it. By drawing a line, you have essentially agreed with the core angle of the people screaming at you: that a fictional fantasy affects reality. That it's dangerous. You will, by necessity, now have people start to work down the list. Incest, ferals, gore, noncon, sure. Any relationship with any kind of skewed power dynamic. Sibling-coded, minor-coded, postminor nonsense. All of these things are less easily agreed to than lolisho, I've seen countless porn artists concede with the core idea that lolisho is immoral, then they act like it's unreasonable that people just keep going until they're being told that a knot on a furry is bestiality, or a 23 year old dating an autistic 21 year old is pedophilia. These are genuine examples of things I've seen people dogpiled for. Seriously look up "postminor" if you want to see how bad this can get, on top of being absurd it's one-for-one the kind of gross ableist shit that Autism Speaks gets into.

But YOU AGREED TO THEM. You agreed with the core concept, that the fantasy must reflect reality. Of course they're going to keep demanding more; by the logic you used to agree with them, you are doing immoral things. If fictional lolisho is immoral, so are the rest of them. It's way easier to look at your average pic on baraag or inkbunny and go 'oh, eugh, vile,' but at the end of the day the cutesy played-for-laughs sleeping kiss, the dubcon bondage that you don't call dubcon, or the meet-cute where they're a bit too drunk, they're all immoral fantasies.

That's not even to get into non-sexual stuff. If the lolisho fantasy is wrong, so is running down civilians in GTA. Suddenly your notifs are full of 16 year-old Jack Thompsons with rainbow flags in their bios.

This really is an all-or-nothing debate. If fictional fantasies affect reality, then even the immoral fantasies that you're personally comfortable with, the cutesy coy playful ones, must be immoral. If fictional fantasies don't affect reality, then even the ones that make you uncomfortable, the ones that have you scrambling to close your browser in case the feds are looking, must be fine.

It should have become very obvious over the last decade that you cannot fence-sit on this. There's a huge internal disagreement going on among progressive/queer/compassion-minded people, on whether these kind of things affect reality, or whether they don't. You can learn to apathetically dismiss stuff that squicks you, or you can learn to sanitize everything you ever make so there's not a trace of contentious theming left. Immoral fantasies are immoral, or only immoral actions are immoral.

You're going to have to pick one.

[sunonyoreface]

Routine Examinations Pt7 - Jimmy Keene - Black Bird Imagine

Hi there, this story is loosely based off the Black Bird series starring Taron Egerton as James Keene. Although the series is based off real events, this story is not and deviates from the show’s plot.

Summary: You’re a doctor working with the FBI, your new patient: Jimmy Keene.  

Word count: 2000

Pairing: Reader x Jimmy Keene

TW: angst, prison environment, mention of insulin injection.

Jimmy doesn’t hide his surprise when I show up outside his cell. His tired expression is replaced with one of recognition and worry. My patients weren’t alerted about the morning routine change. It’s only for a couple of days. Just until enough people are discharged upstairs and my office is my own again.

“Dr. Green,” concern laces his tone as he stands up from his bed to greet me. He approaches the bars, looking me up and down, searching for evidence to support his wariness. 

“Morning Keene, how are you this morning?” I smile at him through the doors. I’m careful not to be too overtly friendly. Jimmy is not the only one watching. As I’ve made my rounds, the male attention has only grown. At least a dozen depraved eyes are on me as we speak, peering from all angles of the floor. 

Nelson steps around me to unlock his cell door. Jimmy’s eyes flicker to the officer only briefly before landing back on mine. His brows are furrowed, clearly questioning my unannounced visit. He isn’t the only one who reacted this way. several others were upset I’d altered their routine, but thankfully none put up a fight. Once it slides open, Nelson takes a stand near my medical cart, ensuring nothing will get stolen. He stands with his back to us as I requested at the start of our route so it didn’t look suspicious if I were to ask at Jimmy’s cell. 

“Is something wrong?” He asks. 

“Not at the moment. I’m doing medication on the ground today to avoid extra traffic in the infirmary,” I step up to the entrance of his cell. The door is unlocked but his broad frame guards the opening. He’s hesitant to let me in.

“May I come in?” I step up to the entrance. Intense eyes stare down at me as I wait for him to decide. I don’t think he wants his injection out in the open. 

Jimmy takes a small step back, just far enough to allow me in, but not far enough back so that I have space to move past him. We’re standing almost chest to chest. 

It feels strange being in an inmate's cell, especially Jimmy’s. It’s a small glimpse into who they are. What few possessions they have are often incredibly important to them. Yet Jimmy hasn’t been here long enough to add to his cell. I’m not sure he would anyway. He doesn’t come off as that type of person. But maybe I don’t know him that well. 

Nevertheless, you’re stepping into what little space they can call their own. It’s not a home but it’s as close as many of them get for years. It's where they sleep, where they dream, where they think about friends and loved ones on the outside, where they reflect on their past actions, where they determine if it was all worth it. It’s the closest thing they have to a safe space. So just the act of being in his cell, in his space, feels oddly intimate. 

Part of me feels like an intruder after that first step. As though I need to tread lightly because no one should know I’m here. But that’s not really the case, is it?

I fidget with the packaged vile. Jimmy’s name is nearly labelled on it. They’re all meticulously labelled. Every vial for every patient. So, even if I’m not the one doing his shot, Jimmy will receive the crystalloid solution instead of insulin. The wrong vial could kill him. 

He watches me intently. I briefly saw him yesterday for less than five minutes at the crack of dawn, but we couldn’t talk. My office was and still is being shared by two doctors with only a curtain as a divider. Nothing we’d say would be confidential. Today is the first real day since the riot that we’ll be able to talk. Even if it’s for a limited amount of time. 

“How are you?” Jimmy whispers as he towers over me. Looking up into his eyes is mesmerizing. Yet the nagging in my head reminds me of those watching. I grab his arm to pull him deeper into his cell. Here we’re sheltered from everyone but Nelson, who isn’t looking anyway. 

“Tired,” I respond. “Overwhelmed. I haven’t really had time to think about it,” I anxiously rub a hand along the back of my neck. I don’t know how much I can tell him anymore. After Hall’s trip to the infirmary yesterday, part of me wonders what Jimmy all shares with him.  Or if it’s possible he shares details about me in exchange for details about Hall’s life. The logical part of my brain says that would never happen, that Jimmy wouldn’t do that. Yet, I’d be stupid if I didn’t at least consider those possibilities. Because after all, Jimmy is a desperate man. And desperate men are dangerous men. “You?” I ask. 

“Tired. I’m always tired,” Jimmy lowers his voice. “I can’t stop thinking about you” he raises a hand to brush over my bandaged collarbone. Underneath my clothes, the scar is red and still several days away from being fully healed. Part of me wants to disappear into his arms, to be held and comforted again, but I know we can’t. I long to melt into him. I can tell he wants to touch me more because his hands linger above my shirt, but I know he won’t. “These last few nights, all I could think about was if you were okay,”

“I’ll be fine,” I whisper. “Can you take a seat on the bed please?”

Jimmy obeys my request, taking a seat on the neatly folded mattress. He sits with his legs spread and I take the opportunity to stand between his thighs. Our legs brush and I can feel the warmth from his skin pass through our clothes and embrace my outer thighs. 

“Did they catch those fuckers?” Jimmy’s voice is raspy and I can hear the underlying anger in his tone. 

“Sort of,” I hesitate before continuing. “Ralf was charged for stealing the supplies and put into solitary, but Moe wasn’t caught,”

“But you know who they are? Why didn’t you identify them?” I didn’t want to talk about this today but now it’s too late to stop. 

“Because if this goes to court, it doesn’t just draw attention to them, you’ll be brought into it too,” realization dawns on Jimmy’s face. “What you did was technically assault, even if it was to protect me. I don’t know if you’d be charged, but you would definitely be mentioned in the hearing. What happened would be talked about by other convicts, if it hasn’t already. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. But I need you to focus on Hall, okay?” As the words leave my mouth, he breaks eye contact. I don’t think it’s guilt he feels. It’s something else. Something harder to describe. His brows furrow and his eyes search his cell for a nonexistent answer. Jimmy’s hand starts to reach for mine but then he stops and pulls back. My heart clenches. 

“I’m not sorry for what I did,” he says seriously. 

“I’d hope not,” I joke. He looks up at my change of tone to see me smiling down at him. “Now, lift your shirt.”

I’m starting to think Jimmy will never get used to needles. His entire body remains stiff throughout the thirty seconds it takes for me to finish. His breathing is shallow and he refuses to look at my hands. It’s almost cute. 

“Done,” I cap the syringe. “Jimmy, there’s something we have to talk about before I leave,” he looks up. I have his full attention. “Hall came to visit me yesterday,” I watch his reaction carefully. 

“Hall did? Why?” His brows furrowed in confusion and he shifts away from me slightly. 

“He faked an injury because he wanted to see who’s been treating you every morning,” a flash of anger crosses Jimmy’s face but doesn’t stay. He remains quiet, allowing me to continue. “He said you mentioned that I was nice and pretty and he had to see for himself,” I finish with a sigh. 

“I didn’t say those things to him,” Jimmy’s whispering now. Maybe he fears Hall will hear us from his nearby cell. “Well not like you implied. He was asking me what you were like because he hasn’t gone to the doctor since coming here. So I said you were nice, but that’s it.” 

“Has he said anything else about our appointments? Anything at all?” I lower my voice to match his. Jimmy looks to the corner of his cell and I know immediately there’s more. 

“Every once in a while he’ll ask, never in much detail. But he’s asked about what it’s like having diabetes. How often you do my shots. That kind of thing. Once or twice he’s tried to talk about you in more detail but I don’t say much,” he forces a swallow. 

“What did he say?” My tone is more serious than ever, I need to know if Hall’s curiosity is just that or if it’s more.

“He wanted to know if you had kids, you know, stuff like that. If you were married, to which I said I didn’t know and he told me to check for a ring next time,” he pauses to consider his words before continuing. “The day before the riot he started getting more personal. He asked what you smelled like. What shoes you wore. What colour your bra straps are because apparently women send secret messages to men based on the colour of their bra,” Jimmy finally finishes. “But I went into the least amount of detail without it being suspicious. It’d be weird if I outright refused to talk about you with him.”

My stomach drops at the amount of information he just mentioned. Weeks worth of information. Stuff that should’ve been written down and recorded. I can’t believe he didn’t mention this before. 

Despite this, Jimmy’s right. It’d be weird if he refused to talk about me to Hall. Not only that, it would be suspicious. But the fact that Hall has taken a special interest in me, not out of suspicion, but for a more sinister reason, is almost as concerning. 

I sigh. “Okay. Jimmy, in the future you have to tell me this information. Even if you think it’s going to creep me out or that you’re protecting me by not saying anything, I have to know. Okay? Have to.” 

He grabs my empty hand and gently squeezes. “I will. I shouldn’t have kept that from you,”

Any tension I had towards him slips away as the warmth of his hand wraps around my own. His calloused hands are large and gentle. I break eye contact with him to stare at the embrace. I brush my thumb along the top of his fingers as they apply a reassuring pressure to my hand. 

As I stand between Jimmy’s legs, I subconsciously lean forward. He shifts, allowing us to be closer than before. Part of me wishes we were still locked in my office together where there were no prying eyes. I want to relish in the feeling of his arms around me. To linger so close his breath becomes my own.

I allow myself one last moment to memorize the feel of his strong hand.

“We have a lot to talk about once my office is back together,” I murmur.

“Okay,” he whispers. 

I squeeze his hand one last time before pulling away without a look back. My shoes echo along the cement floor as I step out of the cell. Nelson hears my footsteps and takes his cue. Jimmy’s door slides shut and closes with a loud clank. 

As I gather my cart I feel a set of eyes on me. I look back at Jimmy’s cell to find him watching with care. We share a small, risky smile before I quickly look away. However, as I turn away, I notice another set of eyes intently watching our exchange. 

My body stiffens as I lock eyes with Hall. He leans against his cell door, diagonal to Jimmy, twirling his beard between his fingers. My breath catches in my throat as I’m caught off guard. I quickly cover my tracks with a polite smile as I head for the exit. My pace is faster than before and Nelson struggles to keep up. 

Keene and Hall aren’t the only ones watching me leave.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Why do you think allison pendle work better as a villain rather than good guy?

Because as a good guy, she's bland and milquetoast to the point I ask why she's even there. In the base game of BATIM she doesn't use her screentime to make a big impression in contrast to the other characters who DO make use of every scrap of screentime they get. Just look at every other antagonist with a voice.

What do we learn about Sammy throughout the game? That he was once a sane, grumpy music director with a strong distaste for the cartoon character and is presently a cultist who worships the Ink Demon and is willing to kill to appease said lord and to free himself from 'the inky abyss I call a body'. In chapter 5, while it's mostly implications and not flat out said, the fact that the Lost Ones ONLY turn hostile towards Henry after Sammy's death strongly implies that he is well liked enough in their community to warrant then acting out in such a way.

What do we learn about Susie? That she was once a starry-eyed actress who thought she was going to make it big with the character she loved to voice before she was replaced by Allison and betrayed by Joey and is now a violent and bitter parody of the character she once played, resorting to cutting up other cartoons, taking their hearts and leaving the rest for scrap, mirroring how she herself had her heart stolen and the rest of her left for scrap.. She also tells us a bit about a certain musician whom she clearly doesn't think fondly of right now, but does admit he was once a handsome man... What do we learn about Norman? That he was a level-headed, light on his feet, not very social fellow who picks up on the peculiarities of his bosses. We also notice in his maze that he's developed a habit of taking out the hearts of intruders (ripping them out like a certain angel right above him?), and will attack anything that either gets caught in his light or tries to steal from him.

What do we learn about Bertram? That he's basically a realistic version of the man Joey dreams to be; A man who's been bringing joy to the public for years, a man who brings mechanical wonders to reality, a man that's not just a dreamer but a doer. But while he is an *ideal* version of Joey, he's not a dream come to life, he's not perfect, he's not a mind reader and he certainly gets fed up with Joey and his critical red pen. His ego reaches his limit with Joey and his ink monster form reflects that; a magnum opus that is designed to wow and destroy.

What do we learn about Joey himself? That he is a vile yet pitiful king of falsehoods sitting on a throne of lies that rests on top of the rubble of his crooked empire built out of his own cruelty. Every tape of his barring the one where the mask finally slips is one that paints the image of a starry-eyed dreamer with goals bigger than reality yet the drive to do anything to achieve them and meeting him at the end shows us the ugly, naked phoenix chick left in the ashes of his former glory, to this day he refuses to discard the mask as he still speaks as a dreamer who has yet to let go of the past (hence causing the cycle to do nothing but repeat.). What do we get with all of these antagonists? We get a personality, backstory, possible relationship connections, goals, and what they're willing to do to accomplish said goals.

Now lets look back to Allison.

Her personality? 'Nice', which is basically a default setting of human being. She also 'lacks hope', which is a default setting that comes with being in the environment.

Backstory? Aside from what Susie tells us in HER tape, Nada, we don't even get a single tape recorder from Allison.

Relationship connections? Tom does all the work here by fiercely protecting her/antagonizing Henry believing him to be a threat while she passively reacts to it if she reacts at all.

Goals? Survive? Get out Help Henry get out.

What she's willing to do for said goals? Give him a seeing glass and help in one fight before abandoning him because 'a drop in the ocean is never seen again'.

But by taking her and making her an antagonistic player on Joey's side, she goes from dull-as-a-rock helper to two-faced Industry Weed and suddenly we can look back and realize that her being a boring but somewhat helpful ally in the last play of the game WAS HER SURVIVAL GIMMICK ALL ALONG, THAT SHE PLANNED IT ALL.

Her Personality: Carefully hidden away so that Henry was never aware of her true colors until it was too late.

Backstory: That she and Joey met up several times and were mutually inspired by each others' dreams, and that she was willing to scratch his back if he scratched hers...

Relationship connections: Due to the other Antagonists likely knowing her true nature at this point; negative with everyone BUT Joey, Henry, and Tom, but Tom believes he's the one keeping her in the dark when the reality is they're keeping each other in the dark...

Goals: Likely the same as Joey's.

What is she willing to do to achieve said goals: ANYTHING! Murder, mutilation, psychological warfare, inflicting Stockholm syndrome VIA the 'good cop bad cop' routine she and Tom are playing, whatever she and Joey need her to do to get those results!

Just... do you see the difference? BATIM already has its fair share of sympathetic villains and it doesn't hurt to put an Imp in angel's clothing in there.