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undiscovered-horizon · 2 years

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"Pillars of Eternity" - Morpheus x Wisdom!Reader

[TW: kidnapping/captivity, blasphemy, mentions of sexual assault, nudity, graphic description of a rotting corpse]

[Sandman-inspired playlist] || 🫀REQUESTS ARE OPEN🫀

[Next part: 'The Just and the Wicked'] ['Que sera, sera']

SUMMARY: In a spell-go-wrong, Rodrick Burgess manages to summon you: Wisdom incarnate. Noticing a strange and quite unnerving change in the world, Morpheus ventures into the Waking World to investigate, only to find someone he's always been looking for.

WORDCOUNT: ~ 9k (oopsie daisy)

Oh, you're just in time! Come, sit beside the fire, warm yourself. Did your travel go well? Hermes walked with you, you say? That is just wonderful! Back when I was a wanderer, he showed me many shortcuts, both in this world and leading to others. If you happen to meet him again on your journey back home, please send him my regards.

Why I summoned you? Well, I'd like to tell you a story. It's one of my favourites, actually. Tell me, do you think dreams and wisdom have anything in common? You can be honest, I won't tell The Circle's Magister of Oneiromancy. No? Nothing in common? I used to think that too. "How can fantasy and reason have any similarities?" I'd ask. But have you never wondered why oneiromancy is such a recent field of study? Even more important question: why do we find answers to the banes of life in our dreams? Of course, the Magister will give you plenty of plausible excuses but the truth is, none of it existed until a few centuries back. What reason and fantasy have in common is just that: oneiromancy. So far, it's the only shared work of the Endless and the Pillars of Eternity. What are the Pillars? Have I never told you about them? Oh, you have to forgive me, I'm an old man. Well then, let me briefly explain to you:

There are four Pillars of Eternity: Wisdom, Decay, Abyss and Aether. They created life and with life came the Endless. Unlike the Endless, however, the Pillars do not mingle with humans. They rarely even meet each other. The Pillars are the only force keeping our universe steady. They were never born, so they will never die. One day, they shall end this plane of existence and create a new one. What about God, you ask? Well, they are the God. The Holy Trinity was just a huge misunderstanding of reality as the early humans thought that Abyss and Aether are one entity.

Abyss and Aether are, actually, the oldest of the four Pillars, although so much time had passed that neither of them knows any longer who is older. But that doesn't matter for now. Both of them were always frail. In fact, so frail one would take pity on them and share their meal. Abyss had skin of the darkest shade you could imagine, while Aether's was so white it nearly made her transparent. They each held a weapon, a symbol of their power: Abyss carried the Aegis of Darkness and Aether held the Blade of Spirits. For the longest time, the universe was only them - two equal forces but not equal entities.

Then came Decay, the most beautiful boy you ever did see. One of the old poets wrote about Decay as "beautiful like the Trojan horse". Marigolds would sprout from his fingers, wolves and deer would sit side by side just to watch him pass. He is the cycle of life and death, a balance that allows the world to carry on. Decay's weapon, the Bow of Existence, is told to end and create life as he pleases. He could aim his arrows at our world and soon all of us would turn into walking corpses, spouting rotted venom with each ragged breath.

And the strangest of them: Wisdom. Her name, however, quite poorly represents her domain. She is everything that is arcane, that lies beyond the material world. The very magic that you so fondly study is her gift. No, it's more than that: she is what we call magic. Wisdom's siblings never quite liked her for she knew the secrets of their powers. Those that have been blessed to see her say that she's always holding the Spear of Ages but I know that to not be true. It is told to harness the arcane wisdom of all universes past, present and future. Some even go as far as to say that it's the only weapon capable of killing any and every creature, no matter how eldritch they are. In fact, Archangel Michael once told me that it was Wisdom's spear with which he killed Satan.

Remember the last time you visited and I told you about the Endless? Well, one time the Endless and the Pillars met, changing our world in a way we are yet to witness and understand. A charlatan named Magus managed to capture Wisdom with magic The Circle will not teach you. Sometimes I think they don't quite know it themselves but it's for the best. No one should be able to harness such strange power. Curiously, the said Magus did not die in some horrible way like many did before him casting that spell nor did madness gnaw at his old mind. But that's not important. Alas, without Wisdom to guide creation, the whole world began to fall into chaos. Magic became uncontrollable, even the powers of the Endless started to falter. Perhaps, that was the reason why Dream ventured into the Waking World to investigate that commotion...

Lucienne had finished briefing Morpheus on the current affairs of the kingdom of Dreaming but she didn't leave immediately after as she usually did. Instead, she stood slightly sideways to him, pondering whether to stay or go.

"There is something else on your mind, Lucienne." His voice was carried by the loud echo of the overwhelmingly empty throne room. "Speak."

She let out a sigh. Her gaze met his for a second before she looked away for a short moment, the last reflection of whether honesty was appropriate at the given time, only to look at the King again. "My lord, I can not be sure whether it's something worthy of your attention."

"Let me be the judge of that."

Before she let him in on the secret, Lucienne shortened the distance between her and Morpheus but in moderation - he was sitting on the stairs and had she walked a few feet farther, Dream would have to look up at her. It was simply wrong, for the librarian to look down on her master. "There is something strange happening in the Waking World," she revealed in a low voice as if she was expecting prying ears around every corner of the palace. "Prayers are no longer answered, magic is wreaking havoc..."

"Yes, I have noticed dreams and nightmares seeping into wakefulness," Morpheus confessed in a reflective tone. Lucienne wasn't sure what to think about his thoughtful voice; clearly, Dream was at least partially aware of the strange commotion and had spent quite some time thinking about it. Something about this subject made him stand up and slowly stroll around Lucienne. "I admit I can not tell the reason for such a breach between realms."

"If I may so suggest, my lord, perhaps Wisdom...?"

Morpheus suddenly stopped. He watched Lucienne's face for a moment, studying her expression. A cold silence filled the throne room as if speaking that ancient name was a transgression against entities incomprehensible to the creatures of this plane. "No one has seen the Pillars for millennia, Lucienne. They do not care about the affairs of other realms."

"They created this universe," she argued. "I'm sure impending doom that is not caused by them will get their attention. Magic is, after all, Wisdom's field of expertise, so to speak."

"Even if she was willing to take an audience, I do not know where she resides. Firstly, I shall visit the Waking World and see this unrest myself. Perhaps there is no need to seek out the Pillars."

The Lord of Dreaming was a steadfast man and so Lucienne did not bother attempting to change his mind. "As you wish, my lord Morpheus." She slightly bowed to him before leaving.

Burgess mansion was drowning in a tense silence - the same type of quietness that takes over a stalked prey. Staff didn't engage in their usual small talk and gossip anymore. Instead, they'd give each other shy, anxious looks of worry and fear as if each of them wanted to make sure that everyone else was feeling as much dread as they did. It was the calm before the storm but no one could quite tell how far from them the black clouds of rolling thunder were. Each time some odd sound resounded throughout the mansion, no matter how quiet or loud, housekeepers would immediately stop whatever they were doing and stare in the direction of the basement door. Cold sweat run down their spines.

Rodrick thought that the Corinthian's trustworthy look was quite suspicious. Somewhow, the man in glasses reminded the Magus of a sleazy salesman, who manages to sell surprising amounts of an outrageously low-quality product. Nonetheless, a more naive part of him longed to listen to what the blond stranger had to say - even to simply satisfy his curiosity but, perhaps, Rodrick knew somewhere deep down that he had found himself in a land of strangeness never before discovered.

"I'm afraid you got yourself a bigger fish to fry, mister Burgess," Corinthian stated with a polite smile. "You have captured Wisdom, one of the Pillars of Eternity. She and her three siblings are what you call 'God'."

A feeling of dread in Rodrick's abdomen only grew in strength - he was hearing about things never mentioned in the occult books he had studied so feverishly. Necronomicon itself never mentioned something close to "Pillars of Eternity".

But for now, Magus couldn't care less about Wisdom's familiar connections. "Can she bring back my son?"

"Personally? No." The Corinthian maliciously waited for Rodrick's expression to turn grim before he continued. "But if there is a way to make that happen, she knows all of them. The problem might be getting the bird to chirp."

"Oh, that should not be a problem," Rodrick gritted through his teeth. Was he already reliving all the imaginative tortures he was going to subdue her to?

The Nightmare, however, seemed greatly unmoved at the viciousness seeping from Rodrick's mouth. In some disturbing way, his face appeared brighter, suddenly, as though he was pleased with what he was hearing. "Do yourself a favour, mister Burgess, and chain her with iron. Lock her in a circle of salt and black tourmaline. Otherwise, the bird might just fly away."

But Rodrick was not a fool, perhaps a little too proud but never naive despite falling to the stranger's charm. He was right to submit the Corinthian's claims to generous scepticism. "How do you know so much about her?" he asked with a slight squint in his old eyes.

That polite smile the Corinthian so often wore never faltered. "Let's say I'm a distant relative of sorts. Goodbye."

Watching the blond man leave, Magus pondered what business the Corinthian had with making sure that Wisdom didn't escape any time soon. He came to the conclusion, that if she was as old and powerful as the stranger claimed, holding her captive was enough to gain Rodrick allies as powerful as they were inhuman. Therefore, even if she ended up not helping him, there surely was some otherworldly horror out there willing to fulfil his wish in exchange for her. But before that, Rodrick had to at least try and make her cooperate.

Waking up, you felt something coarse and cold against your skin. A shiver ran through your body and only then did you realize there weren't any clothes covering your skin. Contorting yourself into a fetal position in an attempt to fight the discomfort, you finally opened your eyes to look at wherever you had found yourself.

The room was dark - a dirty window the size of a bar of soap was a laughable excuse for a source of light. Judging by the painfully rigid and coarse floor, you must have been sitting on concrete. With each breath, your nostrils were filled with the stench of mould. When your eyes adjusted to the tomb-like darkness, you began noticing white lines around you. They seemed to come together into some sort of occult or alchemy symbol. Circles, triangles, hexagons...

"Metatron's Cube," you whispered to yourself. You could recognise your own creation anywhere but considering you hadn't drawn this one, there was a genuinely demented scheme operating in this realm. What's worse: you never bestowed this knowledge on humans.

The sound of a metal latch being lifted stopped you from your small investigation. As the door's rusted hinges moved, a deafening creak resounded in the concrete cell. A man with a halo from gas lamps behind him stood at the threshold as though he was the messenger of some unspeakable forces. He slowly stepped into the confines of your prison, showing only half of his face as the other half was still drowning in the overwhelming darkness of the place.

With just one look at the stranger, the enigma of your own magic being used against you became clear as day: "You tore your soul for this."

He, however, disregarded your statement. "I am offering a fair trade, Wisdom." Rodrick put an odd accent on your name as if he had expected you to be shocked at his insight. But you were a little too loyal to the name you had been given to be surprised at his knowledge. Seeing as he in no way impressed or intimidated you, Rodrick's expression fell and a disturbing shadow danced across his face. "You will stay here, imprisoned, until you bring back my son or tell me how to do it."

Humans... you give them one finger and they bite the entire hand.

"Such an act is against my brother's laws," you informed him. Decay was an entity difficult to please and so it took all four of you entire aeons to come to the consensus that currently controlled this universe.

"I do not care for any laws. I only want my child back." Rodrick stared at you with squinted eyes but it was not an expression of scepticism: his cheeks were raised in contempt and, thus, his eyes appeared smaller. He took a few steps closer to you but remained wise enough to not cross the line of the Cube. It would have been a very painful disintegration if he had. "Regardless of price," he added after a small pause.

"Most unwise, Rodrick Burgess," you answered slowly. Considering the fact that you were naked, laying on the cold concrete floor in a fetal position in his own basement, your words were in no way more intimidating than a scorned ant.

"I am the Magus," he spat out, "and you will address me only by that name."

But you remained unmoved: his anger could never impress you. "You are only a human, barely a larva in this universe's cycle of life."

"And you are my prisoner," he pointed out triumphantly. Although he hadn't gained anything yet, it seemed that Rodrick Burgess was for now satisfied just with your loss.

"So mote it be," you said in a calm, firm voice.

A heavy sigh left your lips when the metal door shut loudly behind Rodrick. Once more, there was only you, cold concrete and darkness. Inside Metatron's Cube, the world was disturbingly quiet. Visions of universes past and future no longer haunted you. Even realms of this cycle seemed to be out of your reach.

Days went by before the air in your cell changed. Something about this microcosm of captivity shifted but the borders of the Cube prevented you from learning what it was exactly. There was only dread and fangs that resided in the darkness surrounding you.

Then a figure emerged from the shadows. You recognized him immediately by his simple yet characteristic attire but you'd know this Endless without ever looking in his direction: his presence always filled the room with a faint aroma of pomegranate, lilac and old paper.

"Lord Morpheus," you introduced him. "It is not chance that brought you here but consequence."

"Consequence of what, if I may ask?" His low voice echoed throughout the small, empty room. In slow steps, he was making his way towards you.

"Everything. A horizon of events that had never happened and all the timelines that are yet to become true should we step in their direction."

Morpheus knew there was only one creature in creation that could speak in an equally strange and insightful way: "You're Wisdom."

Putting your hands against the concrete, you sat up with knees close to your chest in a pathetic attempt at retaining at least some of your decency. Seeing him for the first time in millennia, you thought he generally looked exactly the same as the day he came to life. "Yes, that is one of the names I was given in this cycle."

Even while he was meeting someone he regarded as nothing more but a tall tale, Morpheus remained ever so expressionless. "Why are you here?"

"I was imprisoned by my own spell; the magic I had created was used against me." You noticed he was coming dangerously close to the chalk line on the floor. "Be warned, Dream of the Endless, not to cross the lines of this sigil. It trapped me but you..." you stopped yourself from continuing. Perhaps, there was no need in informing him of such horrors that do not have to appear in this timeline - to be simultaneously reduced to atoms and locked in one's corporeal form. "I do not have the heart to tell you what shall happen to a creature of your sort in Metatron's Cube."

Morpheus listened - the tips of his shoes were a mere inch away from the border of the symbol. "I presume it is your imprisonment that is causing chaos across realms."

Yes, that was bound to happen. "The magic I breathed into this world is shifting, wandering into places it was never meant to reside in like sheep that scatter in the absence of a shepherd. It's slowly leaving all realms only to gather here, in my prison, where Rodrick Burgess can do whatever he pleases with it. In the upcoming days, humanity shall see the most powerful sorcerer that has ever graced planet Earth."

"Then I shall bring this transgression to an end."

You appreciated his vigour but inaction was often smarter than a well-intended impulse. "No, Morpheus, it is not time for me to leave yet. The magic of this place is too stable. Let it gather, let the scale be unbalanced and then come to my aid. Humans are fickle things and there is only so much magic they can harness with their bodies, minds and spirits. Once Rodrick Burgess gathers too much of it around him, the call to balance my freedom shall cause will make the magic devour him alive. Every particle of him that does not come directly from any of the Pillars will be reduced to nothing."

"What will happen to the realms while you await for the right moment?"

"They will surely be visited by my dear brother Decay. But to free me, you must retain your power, dear Dream, and there is only one way for me to help you do that. You will find my spear by the tallest tree in my home, in Shangri-La. Hide it in Dreaming, in a place no one visits and do not tell anyone about it. Leave it be and the spear shall let you and your domain live comfortably through my absence. Remain brave of heart, dear Dream, for the Spear of Ages shall show you the world through my eyes and it is not something your kind was meant to see."

He fell silent for a moment, clearly pondering the quest he was about to accept or reject. It was truly humiliating for one of the Pillars to be dependent on the goodwill of one of the Endless but at moments such as that one, it was unwise to remain prideful. "If you're trapped, how will I know when the hour comes to free you?" he asked. There was at least one creature in this cycle that wished you well.

"Come back in a decade and I will give you my judgement. Now go, Dream of the Endless, for Shangri-La is far from here and with both of us gone, your realm shall fall into ruin at a frightening pace. However, there is one more thing I'd like to ask of you." Although he was free to leave and save his kingdom before he saves you, Morpheus remained still, waiting. "If Rodrick Burgess so desires to see his son, allow him to but do not discard even the smallest element of truth: paint him in his thoughts as he truly is."

"I will return, Wisdom," Morpheus announced in a low voice before disappearing in a whirlwind of golden sand.

The first time Rodrick heard a questioning "Father?" resound in his ears, he dropped the pen he was writing with. A fearful tremor shook his old body.

He got up from his chair so fast, he nearly lost his balance and had to lean against the back of it. "Son?" Rodrick called out in a trembling voice. It was silence, however, that answered him. With a thundering heart, Rodrick run out of his study to continue the search for the source of the voice he so longed to hear again.

The creature he saw, however, could hardly be called a human. Perhaps the shape was once the corporeal form of a young man but those days were long gone. His military clothes were black with mould and torn in many places. Was it a scrap of material or part of his intestine hanging from one of the holes? Most of his face had already been eaten by necrophages, leaving a disgustingly open view of his greyish-green brain. Fat centipedes and larvas fell to the ground when he moved the remains of his head a little too fast. A putrid smell of something both sour and sweet filled the air making Rodrick feel his stomach tighten so much, its content travelled back up his oesophagus.

"Father?" the odiousness called out once more. His voice was raspy as most of the vocal cords had already been eaten by the happily fat insects. "Father!" the monster cried out upon recognizing his once beloved parent. "Why have you done this to me?!" he sobbed in terror and pain.

Rodrick Burgess was speechless at the horror he was cursed to witness. Hearing blood rush through his head and feeling his heart beating too fast, he leaned against the wall. His terrified gaze never left the terror that slowly limped towards him. A raven croaked outside.

The monster, in turn, never abandoned Rodrick's mind: as long as the Magus was awake, he was cursed to see, hear or smell the resurrected corpse of his son, while none other was privy to this maddening nightmare. It was his personal Hell, catered to his very own taste. The Devil, as one can learn, does not lurk in the details but in every wish and whim that is granted.

Morpheus never had to endure cold. Sure, there were lands of eternal snow in his realm but their weather never affected him. Their climate was, after all, of his own doing. The Himalayas, however, were a strange land and their coldness gnawed at every inch of his very being as if it wasn't his fingers the unpleasant weather touched but his very soul. Nevertheless, he had made a promise and that meant he had to brave through the unending pale dunes.

The day when his eyes saw the pagodas with gold roofs, a sigh of relief left his mouth. You were true in your words: the journey was long, tiring and littered with hardships that made even the Endless question their purpose. As Morpheus walked through the city hidden from the rest of the world, its inhabitants seemed surprisingly disinterested in the unexpected guest. Living at the literal top of the world, what wonders were they privy to? Among the streets of Shangri-La, his heart was at peace and Morpheus at first wasn't sure what to call this sensation. He felt as if he could sit down right where he stood and remain there until you and your siblings end this cycle of life. It surprised him how little regret resided in that hypothetical scenario: Dreaming, after all, would be reduced to ashes should he decide to abandon his current life and stay in Shangri-La but at that very moment, Morpheus had little to no care about his own domain. Even worse: the thoughts and memories of it were swiftly escaping his mind. There was only him and the overwhelming peace caressing his tired bones.

Despite his strange desire, he made his way to the monastery which was placed in the centre of the city. Crossing the threshold, he saw a large patio with a large brass gong placed in the middle. The twelve lamas that ruled Shangri-La probably didn't notice his arrival as nothing about their behaviour seemed to acknowledge Dream's presence. As if completely obvious to the doom looming over the universe, they continued their daily duties of meditation, practice and tea brewing.

The unexpected guest, however, did not remain unseen for much longer as if he was, after all, expected. One of the monks, dressed in orange robes and with a head bald enough to reflect sunlight, approached Morpheus silently. No words greetings or inquires were exchanged between them - the lama only stared at him, awaiting an explanation.

"I came for the spear," Dream announced.

The lama, however, spoke no words to him even this time - he simply pointed towards a hill that towered over the city. A mighty sequoia grew on top of it and Morpheus for a moment pondered how he had missed this very obvious landmark. What he never learned was the fact that until the monk pointed towards the hill, it didn't quite exist - not in this dimension, at least. With his eyes set on the miraculously tall sequoia, Morpheus marched on.

Standing in front of the tree, Dream was rendered breathless at the unspeakable beauty of the view around him. Shangri-La was but an anthill from this distance. The rest of the world, no matter how big someone thought it was, remained covered by thick, white clouds as if this sequoia and the pagodas with gold roofs were the only things to ever exist. The setting Sun, slowly crawling to disappear underneath the cotton-like clouds, painted the sky above him in all shades of fuchsia, red and orange. Morpheus completely understood why you had spent centuries in this place.

The golden spear was lodged in the frozen ground between the roots of the mighty tree above it. Although 'spear' appeared to be a quite misleading name: it was a polearm with two intrinsically decorated sharp blades on each end. A red ribbon was tied to the shaft of this primaeval weapon; even after centuries of withstanding violent winds, it remained untorn.

The moment his hand lay on the weapon, a terrifying avalanche of thoughts flooded his mind - concepts, ideas, words and images he couldn't even begin to understand. He retracted his hand as quickly as it touched the spear before. This sorcery was beyond him, it filtered through dimensions he could never trespass due to the very laws according to which he had been created. Morpheus was akin to an ant that, through a series of misfortunes and the universe's maliciousness, was suddenly cursed with experiencing the surrounding world as a human only to be thrown back into its tiny mind with sensations and knowledge it could never comprehend.

But he knew he had little choice if he wanted to free you one day as well as make sure his realm prevails in those trying times. Feeling an unknown fear in his chest, Morpheus grabbed the Spear of Ages once more. As maddening thoughts ran through his head, he used all of the strength he had to pull the long blade out of the frozen soil. Every inch of his crawling, pasty skin was screaming at him to stop, to abandon this unholy artefact and save himself. But, as it was mentioned before, Morpheus was a steadfast man and so he kept pulling and pulling until he believed he had been doing it since the birth of the stars.

The moon's silver light cascaded off the freed edge. Although the golden blade was covered in intrinsic reliefs, the metal was polished so diligently, Morpheus could see his own reflection in those decorations but he quickly noticed that something about it wasn't quite right; the reflection wasn't his only as though an invisible entity resided inside the blade, a creature he knew was there but couldn't physically perceive. On the other hand, perhaps he was finally seeing himself for the very first time just not in the limited way human mirrors reflect one face. Dreams of the Endless from universes past and future were staring into that golden blade all at once.

If the legends were true and this spear had been used to kill at least once, it must have been the most beautiful weapon to die by. Perhaps its artistry was exquisite enough to calm the spirit of anyone who fell victim to it, drowning in peaceful silence and awaiting Decay's passionate kiss.

Remembering the unsure state of his realm, Morpheus made haste to return to Dreaming, where things were much worse than he left them: entire lands dissolving into oblivion; Dreams and Nightmares confusing their nature and duties, only to seep into the Waking World with no way to come back; dreamers getting lost in their own dreams or stumbling into the consciousness of other people, unable to wake up. Trusting your words, he hid the Spear of Ages somewhere inside the palace all the while following your advice and never revealing its location to anyone. In a matter of hours, Dreaming returned to its state from before his prolonged absence, to its lawful order, but it still wasn't ideal. Morpheus knew that his realm wasn't going to heal fully until you are free and it pained him to know that in the face of a calamity that raised its terrible hand against his home, there was nothing he could do but wait.

Awaiting the decade to pass, impatiently or not, Dream would wander into the dreams of people in Rodrick Burgess's manor. Part of him was anxious about your fate: should you, somehow, be destroyed, this universe would disappear with a snap of a finger. Perhaps part of him was simply sympathetic towards you and the human malice that clawed at your existence. Maybe, in those dreams, he would uncover some way to ease your struggle.

And wandering through their dreams he mostly saw, as one might expect, completely mundane sights of fantasies and terrors. A change appeared only when he trespassed into the dreams of the men that guarded you, who fantasised of defiling you even in their sleep. Morpheus felt a gut-wrenching disgust seeing with his own eyes how low humans were willing to fall, to crawl, just to usurp a fraction of your gift. His mind was incapable of comprehending something so mundane, normal, for you, so there really was no way for him to tell what inexplicable madness would devour their minds should they happen to lay their hands on your spear. The human heart, however, remained insatiable in its greed.

When the first decade had passed, Morpheus travelled to your prison not expecting his visit to be one of many to come. Before leaving Dreaming, he pondered whether to take your spear with him but quite quickly did he realize that placing such an artefact within Magus's reach was more than completely idiotic - he already had something inexplicably powerful in his unlawful possession.

Arriving at the Burgess mansion, he noticed the lack of change in you as in you were sitting in exactly the same spot and exactly the same position as you did ten years prior. Morpheus was about to call out to you, ask for instructions on how to free you, but you seemed to be well aware of his presence even before he had a chance to speak:

"No, it is not the time yet, dear Dream," you answered his never-asked question," but the night is young and I should like you to stay with me until the sunrise if you wish so too. It is unwise to let loneliness gnaw on one's mind for too long."

Wasting no words, Morpheus simply sat down in front of you. Even in a position that was supposed to be comfortable, he appeared artificially rigid. His stern gaze bore into your face in anticipation. A few minutes of hesitant silence passed by before he became courageous enough to make demands to an entity superior to him. Dream's voice, although low and voided of emotions, made the coldness of your prison more bearable: "Tell me about other worlds."

And so you did. Recalling the marvels you had witnessed and created, you told him about realms that had existed countless cycles before this one as well as future ones about which you knew only as much as the afterimages of the event horizon revealed to you. Taken over by the nostalgia of your too-long life, you shared memories of a world you always recalled with fondness:

"The sky was an ocean, deep and impenetrable as you have never seen. There were no stars, no suns or moons, only gargantuan jellyfish that swam across the indigo firmament. They glowed with such a bright light, the land underneath them was never dark. A soft, melodic hum travelled through the light breeze that was always present. People thought it was simply the wind brushing against their homes but if you listened closely, you'd know that it was the creatures in the sea sky singing a blessing to the lands over which they swam. I remember... I remember it always smelt of oranges there."

Quite surprisingly, he listened to your stories without even a shadow of confusion as if none of the strangeness you had seen was enough to surprise him. Well, he was the Dream King, after all, and that meant he was made out of oddness and wonders. Sometimes, when your words were colourful enough, he'd chip in with a story of a similar dream he had once seen. But never once did he laugh at the ridiculousness of your tales, never once questioned their validity or admitted his lack of understanding. In all of creation, finally someone heard your stories and said "I know" instead of "Explain"; your infinite wisdom for the first time united something in place of dividing as it so often happened with minds too small to look past their pride. For the first time since you remembered, it wasn't unspeakably lonely to know what others couldn't comprehend.

"You are a strange creature, Dream of the Endless," you confessed close to the end of the night.

"How so?"

"In all of my eternal existence, you are the first to have the faintest idea of what I mean when I speak. Everyone else lacks the imagination to ponder the impossible."

"I do not believe in the impossible," he answered. Perhaps it was then, in those very words of disagreement, that your fondness of him sprouted so vigorously. "Improbable, perhaps, but human ingenuity showed me that the impossible is simply yet to be uncovered."

And what a wonderful thought that was! That there was always something more to discover, wonders yet to be seen and knowledge to yearn for; that no one truly knew everything and the finality of your wisdom was a generously rounded subjective experience.

The sun was beginning to rise - it was time for him to go. "I will be back," he stated before disappearing and you never quite knew if that was a promise or a fact.

One day, not too long after Morpheus's visit, Alex Burgess came down to your dungeon. He was a frail boy, no older than thirteen, with big eyes that watched the surrounding world as if he was seeing it for the very first time. Perhaps they were part of the reason why he looked so frightened by existence itself. If not, the fact that he was sneaking behind his father's back surely was.

He stared at you in silence for long minutes. Maybe he didn't know what to say or maybe the sight of you made him too scared to open his mouth. "Is it true what they're saying? Are you the Devil?" he finally stuttered out in a quiet voice.

"Devil is a title, not a name, Alex Burgess," you corrected him. "After the fall of Satan, that honour was bestowed on Lucifer, the current King of Hell. I am not Lucifer." Truthfully, it was offensive to even suggest you were anywhere close to that pesky, wayward creature.

"Can you really do it?" he continued. "Can you really bring my brother back?" A glimpse of fearful hope appeared in his eyes. It nearly made you feel sympathy for him.

"Do you think I should?" you returned the question. "Would it be wise, little Alex, to rob the dead of their peace?"

Frantically looking over his shoulder, the boy walked up to you in rushed footsteps. As a token of his complete subjection, Alex fell to his knees in front of you. Staring into those big, teary eyes of fear and longing, you wondered what horrors he had to endure since his brother's passing. "Please, do it, I'm begging you. My father, he... He has changed ever since my brother died."

But even the tears of children weren't a good enough excuse to break the consensus between you and Decay. "And why should Rodrick Burgess dictate who dies and lives?" you asked Alex. It was at least ridiculous to entertain such thought - that larvae would order lions around. Humans rarely considered matters from a perspective other than their own. Maybe it was time to force one of them to be something else than egocentric for a moment: "Which one of you had ventured into Death's realm and asked the boy himself whether he wants to return?"

And maybe Alex Burgess would have responded to your strange, quite macabre, question, had his father not appeared in time. Seething, Rodrick yelled out various curses directed at his youngest child. His hand, although old and tired, grabbed Alex's shoulder with surprising strength, only to forcefully drag him out of your cell. Then, in those big eyes that glistened with fear you, saw his moment of clarity, complete understanding that you were something much older and much more powerful than the fairytale of the Devil people believe in - you could be much worse than the Adversary and his father kept you locked up like a stray mutt. Since that fateful moment, every day Alex begged his father to let you go in fear of your primaeval anger.

The silence of your loneliness, despite being hardly bearable, was a lot more welcome than experiencing another exhibit of human entitlement. How come those low creatures always thought they knew better? As much as they execrated gods, idols and all creatures in between for not granting all of their wishes, they never seemed to entertain the thought that, maybe, it was for their own good.

Every decade that followed, Morpheus would leave his domain to venture into the Waking World; for one night every ten years, reason and fantasy sat face-to-face as if they could ever be equals. As time went by, you couldn't decide whether it sounded like a set-up to a bad joke or the first verse of a life-changing poem. Although, who was to say both variants weren't equally true at the same time? Why did it have to be one or the other?

In any case, some nights the two of you talked but others were spent in a pleasant silence. When the night hours were spent on conversations, it was mostly you talking but it was quite understandable: while you knew what he was, Morpheus had a less than vague idea of the truth behind the myth of Wisdom, the Pillar of Eternity. There was a strange intimacy in being the one known instead of knowing but you welcomed it with the warm curiosity that defined you.

One time, probably as a token of his goodwill or care for you, Dream brought a book from the library in his palace. Out of all the works ever written, Morpheus chose The Trial by Franz Kafka. Perhaps he liked it himself or perhaps he found it somewhat fitting. It was a bizarre thing to stare at him while he read through the existentialist story: not an emotion appeared on Dream's face, nothing that suggested any reflection elicited through the strange tale he shared with you, all the while words leaving his mouth painted a disturbing course of events of a man who tried to defend himself from an accusation he never learned. Nonetheless, his low voice made for an exquisite narration of the through-provoking tale and you found yourself pondering asking him to read more to you. But that was a worry for the future, now you simply listened to his pleasant words.

Hours had passed and the sun was rising, people in the mansion were beginning to wake up, so Morpheus knew he had to leave soon. But before he was gone for another ten years, there was something you needed to tell him or maybe it was him who needed to hear it: "The world would be at ease knowing that it is you who is watching over them while they sleep."

"Thank you. That is a beautiful wish."

You gave him a gentle smile. Was it insecurity or modesty that spoke through him? "It is merely a fact, darling Dream."

And with those words, Morpheus had disappeared, marking another decade when magic run uncontrolled through all of the realms.

The eleventh time Dream visited your cell, he could immediately sense that something was different about that night. Were the wolves howling at a strange moon? Or perhaps moth swayed to inaudible music? Whatever it was, it pierced the air even in the concrete cell.

"The day has come, dear Morpheus," you called out to him. As it usually so happened, you acknowledged his presence before he could make it known. "The clock has struck Magus's last hour. There is enough raw, untamed power within these walls for you to not fail."

Strangely enough, you were in a different position: on your knees, sat on the back of your feet with hands resting on your thighs, leaving your chest indecently exposed. Morpheus felt a knot of shame tighten in his stomach - he should look away, shouldn't he? Redirecting his flustered gaze at something above or behind you, he spoke:

"What should I do?"

"You will need my spear." Still, you refused to look in his direction. Your vacant stare seemed to be admiring the dark, wet and coarse concrete wall in front of you.

"I hid it in the Dreaming as you advised."

Finally, you looked at him. Out of the two of you, he seemed to be a lot more embarrassed at your nudity. Perhaps you simply grew accustomed to the constant shivering and goosebumps. "Or did you?" you asked with a glint of mischief in your smile.

Morpheus was about to answer you, voice his confusion at your vague question, when he felt something weighty in his hand. Sure enough, he was now wielding the Spear of Ages, although he knew for a fact that he did not bring it with him coming to your decadal meeting. Curiously, he noticed that within your vicinity, the primaeval weapon did not torture him with visions and whispers he couldn't understand.

"Break the sigil with my spear," you instructed him, "but first you need to cast a spell, call my name into the void beyond all realms and summon me into this plane. Repeat after me, Dream of the Endless: I name you wolf, guardian of order and arcane laws. I name you heron, pathfinder of skies. I name you moth, the winged god of change. I name you fox, a traveller between realms. I name you earth, the sanctuary of stability and abundance. I name you crow, keeper of lost lore. With this artefact of power, I name you Wisdom, the Pillar of Eternity."

Morpheus tightened his grip around the shaft of the spear. With a strained groan, he pierced the concrete floor of the basement breaking one of the Cube's lines. A loud cracking resounded in the small room and a web of crevices sprawled across the complex sigil, essentially breaking it into countless dismembered lines. From those breaches emerged green light that quickly became blinding, forcing Morpheus to look away. The power, whatever it truly was, only grew in strength and soon it had reigned over the entire mansion. Housekeepers kept their eyes shut tightly, covering their entire faces as they felt the light burning their skin.

Then, a blood-chilling scream resounded through the house. It was, as one might suspect, Rodrick Burgess himself. Having gathered and irresponsibly used your magic for his own mundane whims, the green-coloured power recognized the man as a vessel for arcane force and so it tore every particle, that you had breathed into existence, out of him. Soon, the screaming subsided and only a speck of ash was left where a man once stood. The green light went out, crawling back down the cracks it had originally climbed out of.

Your world became loud again, filled with whispers and images from different realms and timelines. The static noise of universes past and future was never once overwhelming - it was akin to a farmer hearing fields of wheat rustle on the gentle august wind; it was the sound of life, creation walking along its predetermined path.

After over a century of forced, cold nudity, you found yourself dressed once more, in emerald green and embroidered golden ibises. A cape was covering one of your shoulders. As paradoxically as it may sound, it was then that you had felt more naked in front of Morpheus than before as though him seeing you in your arcane exult was more intimate than witnessing its mere fraction.

Nonetheless, it was time for the two of you to leave this den of wickedness. Having effortlessly pulled your spear out of the cracked concrete, you placed your hand on Dream's shoulder and, without a word of caution, travelled across the globe to the place you considered home. Where the two of you once stood among the darkness, now lay glistening, green dust, so easy to be overlooked by an inexperienced eye.

Morpheus found himself among the busy streets of Shangri-La again. Despite decades having gone by since the last time he had set foot on those cobblestones, nothing about the hidden city had changed. In fact, it seemed as if not a day had passed for its citizens. Still, the people of Shangri-La passed by him without ever acknowledging his presence. To Dream's surprise, neither did they acknowledge you. The bright, warm sun rays reflected off the gold roofs of pagodas building the city. A gong resounded through Shangri-La as though the monks were announcing someone's arrival or calling people to prayer.

Seeing you in all of your timeless glory, no longer bounded by foul magic, he fell to his knees - bowing, as one should do when facing the Pillars of Eternity. Although he was showing you the respect you deserved, it felt strange to be reminded of the inequality between you because, truthfully, this dissonance was buried the moment he sat in front of you, asking to be told about lifetimes he never got to witness and landscapes he was never going to set his eyes on.

The Spear of Ages weighed in your hand. The bright sun of the Himalayas danced across its edge, reflecting a mirage of colours both known and yet to be named. With a strange nostalgia, you looked at your own reflection in the meticulously sculpted metal. Entire universes had been born and collapsed before another pair of eyes stared into the golden blades. Eternity was changing, you could tell as much, but in what ways? That knowledge remained beyond you, for now.

"Throughout those decades of chaos, it had belonged to you as much as it belongs to me." With a sharp sound, you broke the spear in half against your leg. Holding one of the blades in your hand, you extended the now-broken shaft towards Morpheus. "You do not bow before me, Dream of the Endless," you announced in an official tone making him look up at you, "but stand by my side as my equal. A friend, if you will." Such a word of intimacy and trust tasted weird on your tongue. It was a flavour you were yet to grow accustomed to.

With a gentleness that befitted hesitation, Morpheus took the half of the spear you offered him as he stood up. In the upcoming millennia, he was going to have numerous opportunities of proving its deadly legend true, raising the primaeval blade against his own siblings but never, until the end of this cycle, was his hand going to strike one of the Endless. Not with this arcane weapon, at least. Now, when half of the Spear of Ages belonged to fantasy and the other half to reason, a new power was called into existence to accommodate this dissonance: oneiromancy, the art of prediction through dreams.

"Wouldn't it be considered rude for one of the Endless to seek out the companionship of one of the Pillars of Eternity?"

"We are peers now, darling Dream," you reminded him. It was utterly bizarre to consider one of the Endless as anything else than below you but perhaps too much time had already passed to dwell on your differences. "All you have to do is ask."

He didn't speak right away as if he needed more time to ponder his request. Only now, having escaped the darkness of the dungeon you were held captive in, did you notice the strange yet captivating shade of blue in his eyes - they were the same colour as the sky sea once filled with glowing jellyfish you remembered so fondly.

Finally, Morpheus took a bold step towards you. The stern, cold look in his eyes suddenly became mild as they studied your face. His face stopped intimately close to yours. "Come with me," he begged barely above a whisper as though he was afraid of anyone else becoming privy to the desires of his heart.

"That is not a question," you answered equally quietly.

"Allow me to rephrase: will you marry me?"

Staring at him in thoughtful silence, you couldn't help but smile. Some part of you knew this was going to happen the moment he stepped into the confinements of your prison for the very first time. Perhaps, the curious resemblance between his eyes and the strange sea sky was more than a random occurrence. "It is not chance that makes you say this but consequence."

His face lit up with amusement or curiosity. Dream's lips, too, contorted into a smile but it seemed to be a reflex rather than a conscious choice. "Consequence of what, if I may ask?"

"Of things that I have done," you answered. In a truly tempting fashion, your arms circled his neck. You leaned in to whisper something in his ear, making Morpheus sharply breathe in as he felt your own breath against his skin: "And as a consequence of everything that you have done, I shall tell you 'yes' without hesitation."

How do I know this story, you ask? Well, of course they themselves told me! I could ask my father to tell me any story ever dreamt but so often I'd demand to be told the very same one over and over again - the tale of how he met my mother.

Growing up, I was always headed on an expedition to find the Spear of Ages, at least one half of it but I never did. As Dreaming and Shangri-La are far and wide, the weapon was nowhere to be found. "The spear can not show you anything that you don't already know, Mimir," my mother used to say. Perhaps, she was right.

But the day is growing shorter, dear student, and you mustn't linger beyond nightfall. I bid you farewell. May you dream of wisdom and may you be wise in choosing your dreams.

TAGLIST: @deniixlovezelda

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fancifulplaguerat · 1 year

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I wish there were more dialogues between Victor and Daniil about death because honestly those conversations seem the most revealing about Daniil’s conception of it. Daniil’s skepticism towards Victor’s more mental, philosophical view suggests that Daniil conceives of life and death in a much more tangible, physiological way, which is more revealing about Daniil’s philosophy and work than most of the text. I will admit it drives me up the wall in ways I cannot articulate that it’s so vague exactly what Daniil’s objective is, and what his research entails. We get so little insight, but Isidor’s letter and his celebrity status indicate that he is established in his field, but that’s about all, perhaps besides that infamous and offhand comment that Daniil has reanimated someone (???). In my endeavor to get my bachelor’s degree in Dankovsky I gather that Daniil is likely focused on achieving longevity through something like preventing tissue death or aging; a physiological solution that is rather than the Kains’ mental one.

The Kains are nefarious to no end but I find the concept of their “immortality” fascinating. That Victor and Georgiy “die” to give themselves up in service of the memory of their dead loved ones, of essentially being stuck in perpetual grief. It doesn’t even seem that effective, considering the frankly impractical soul-swapping shenanigans. But while the game’s text communicates that the Kains have triumphed over death, there’s only one instance I can remember of Daniil expressing this view; in the Haruspex Route, he says “[The Kains] conquered death. And that is why I live. We have a lot in common.” Otherwise, Daniil is rather skeptical towards Victor’s explanations, which I feel ties into how he views the Polyhedron; it’s the single most important thing to Daniil, but not for its actual ability or purpose. Even in Artemy’s route, when Daniil is most starry-eyed for the Kains, his main goal in preserving the Polyhedron is both to prove that possibility is not immutable, and as revenge against Aglaya. In the Haruspex Route, he describes the Polyhedron as “a miracle capable of pushing humanity towards a new breakthrough” and when he chooses to save the Polyhedron: “It is a delicate fortress that holds veritable proof that however well-established our notions of possibility are, they still fail to account for what may or may not exist. This is the bastion I am willing to fight for.” Besides that moment in Artemy’s route, Daniil seems to primarily view the Polyhedron as a symbol for humanity’s achievements and possibility, rather than a vessel for immortality, which makes sense given that while Daniil so loves the Polyhedron, almost every character in the game emphasizes that he doesn’t actually understand it.

I’m especially interested in how the Stamatins talk about the Polyhedron, such a Peter saying that “To fall in love with [the Polyhedron], you have to have a vivid imagination... and a huge heart” and that the Tower is for “lovers, dreamers, and poets” all of which Daniil staunchly says he is not, which is where I want to touch on a particular dichotomy in his character. Daniil is first and foremost rational, and quick to shoot down anything he thinks is irrational. I notice he’s prone to accuse people of speaking poetically when they explain the more miraculous aspects of the Town to him, like he refuses to believe anything even slightly misaligned with his rigid, rational worldview. He seems downright obsessed with the rational; in his route, he tells Andrey “Madness is frightening... It’s the only thing I’m truly afraid of,” which gets elaborated on to Katerina: “And I, a champion of reason, fear madness over anything else.” But then he has these rather fantastical goals, and longs for miracles, and professes to take philosophy rather seriously. Perhaps Daniil’s idealism is focused through a lens of perceived rationality, but I also wonder if Daniil is imposing that rationality on himself. Even if he doesn’t truly “understand” the Polyhedron, his appreciation for it still suggests he is an imaginative and emotional person. There even seems a sense that his imaginative disposition is something he lost, considering when he tells Kaspar, “thank you for bringing me back to my childhood, if only for a moment. I’ve already forgotten what it’s like...” He also says, “[Artemy] will speak the language of the scary tales of our long-lost childhood—the language I've forgotten already.” Of course these quotes can be taken many ways, but given that Daniil is a utopian, it reads as though he could be scornful towards the absolute rationalism of adulthood, and misses the hopeful idealism and easy imagination of being young.

This is speculation, but I wonder if Daniil’s obsession is a response to people accusing his work of being improbable or even ridiculous, as Isidor writes: “there is an observable case that would quell the obscurants that reject the research of death, aging, and necrosis as a subject that lacks academic viability.” Perhaps he is afraid of being viewed as anything but a Sensible Scientist, and God forbid, a poet

#pathologic #daniil dankovsky #patho.txt

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harrietpotterandthedemigods · 8 months

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Yay, episode five is out!

I really like that this was the episode for Percy and Grover to show some of their knowledge. Percy is the one to figure out what the deal with the chair is. That it’s a replica of the throne Hephaestus made for Hera and that one of them would have to sit in it. Not Annabeth, Percy. Even though Annabeth most definitely knows the story as well, it’s still Percy who makes the connection.

Meanwhile Grover takes full advantage of his alone time with Ares. He gets him to open up by finding common ground. He’s such a sly little goat!🥰 He knows exactly what to say to get Ares right where he wants him. Percy suggested that they’ll need to be detectives and Grover aced it! He definitely figured out that Ares was somewhat involved, (huge spoiler, I guess, but the book’s been out for 17 years!) but we’ll have to wait and see about how much he actually figured out.

And we also get a glimpse of the winter solace field trips. Like they’re a yearly occurrence, which I always thought was a bit vague in the books but maybe that’s just me. And presentations? Oh, gods! Imagine the year around kids trying to put together their presentations in hopes of impressing their godly parents! What do you even do a presentation about for a Greek god? Unless you’ve done a quest recently I imagine that choice of subject is a bit of a moment of panic.

I really like the portrayal of Ares. Just sort of unhinged and a bit mentally unstable, just what I’d expect from a god of war and bloodlust. I know some people don’t really like PJO Ares not being entirely mythically accurate, but I think there is a reason for that. The gods in universe reflects what humankind sees them as, Apollo comments on that in ToA. And today, the wast majority of people, who only has a vague understanding about Greek mythology, thinks of Ares as a bloodthirsty war god and nothing else. Hence he’s not able to be much else. He hates everything and everyone, just some people slightly less than others.

Also Percy’s comments about how his dad saved him. I get the feeling he annoyed his companions a bit with his talk about it. I think it serves to show that Percy is still open to the idea that the gods aren’t all bad, and maybe some of them do care for them even if it isn’t as obvious as one would wish. He must also be dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions about it. Poseidon saved him when Percy fully expected to die, in stark contrast to Athena, who practically signed her own daughter’s death warrant. Annabeth hoped and trusted that her mother would help them, Percy expected his father to do nothing, and Poseidon ended up helping them without being asked. But no matter how remarkable that may be, it can’t erase twelve years of growing up without a father.

What we directly see it doing, however, is making an impression on Annabeth. She is now realizing that a kid shouldn’t have to grovel at their parent’s feet to get some love and recognition. Percy has been saying it all along and he ended up being right. Poseidon was the better parent at the Gateway Arch, he was the one who saw his kid in danger and stepped in to save him, without being asked. Poseidon’s love for Percy is more unconditional than Athena’s for Annabeth, and maybe Athena’s way of parenting isn’t as right as Annabeth believed. She says it outright. Zeus, Ares and Athena is like that but Annabeth don’t want to be like that anymore, she wants to be more like Percy, which ends up making an impression on Hephaestus. It’s a ripple effect. More and more people, gods as well as humans, can see Percy’s example and decide they want to be more like that too.

It’s overall a great episode, might actually be my favorite so far, but one thing that stood out to me like a sore thumb was the Fates. I just don’t see the reason why Annabeth is the one to see them this time around. In the books it’s Percy, before he even meets Annabeth, and I just don’t see the reason for this change!

On a more positive note, Hermes is up next! Now it’s basically confirmed that the clip with him in the trailer was from the Lotus Hotel and Casino. He hangs out there? Oh, gods! But that must come with a scheduling nightmare, and he’s busy enough as it is!😅 I can’t wait! And again, if you don’t like Lin Manuel Miranda as Hermes, do me a favor and block me, Lin is the Perfect Hermes and you may quote me on that!

#percy jackson #pjo hoo toa #pjo tv adaptation #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo tv show #pjo #pjo hermes #pjo tv spoilers #Lin Manuel Miranda as Hermes!

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dodgerboxd · 1 year

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I’m so curious about your Wilson with ocd thoughts cause like he’s got is sooo bad lol.

ANON IM MAKING OUT WITH YOU okay, yes yeah hes got it soooo bad, i think mostly it presents in his case thought morality and harm related intrusive thoughts, but i do also think he's got quiet a few compulsions and rituals he does. Mortality wise, that's got like, a world of evidence in canon, him doing insanely altruistic things, often for people who he doesn't even care about or are flat out unkind to him, and i think this stems from what for him, i imagine are a near constant stream of intuitive thoughts regarding his mortality! "if you don't [blank] your a horrible person and you'll die alone" "if you [blank] everyone will realize how terrible you are and will leave" things like that, a driving force that on the outside can make him seem like a great man (ie giving blood regularly, always supporting house, giving up a Fucking Organ) but in truth these thoughts, and in turn actions, cause like, a crazy amount of stress for him. And the worst of it is, even if he indulges these thoughts, as he so often does, he's still certain he's a terrible person. In short, this factor of his ocd presents as a unwavering belief that he's an irredeemable person, while still putting up a constant, and exhausting effort, to combat it. Another big factor for him is harm related intrusive thoughts. This is what i figure is worst for him. "if you do this, [blank], will die" "if you don't do this, [blank] will die" "if you don't save this patient, you get terribly injured" I think work makes it much worse for him, death is unavoidable in his field yet his specific combination of obsessions lead him to genuinely belief every patient death is his fault, makes him a terrible person, and will have dire consequence for him and everyone he loves. Frankly i think he 'enjoys' his line of work so much because he views it as a sort of roundabout punishment for being 'irredeemable' He knows full well it's only making things worse, and thinks it's exactly what he deserves. Also, not to be insane, but i think house is a huge part of it. A lot of his thoughts and compulsions revolve around house, check on house every hour or he'll turn up dead somewhere. Make sure house gets to work or he'll be hit by car, call house every day at 10 to make sure he's still breathing. It's his best friend, of course, so an elevated level of worry is normal, but house is so death prone that its near constant. Speaking of compulsions! like i said, a lot of them revolve around house, check on him ever hour, call him, tap on his door, ect, but there are more! I think he's got some common ones, ie hand washing, but that he can pass of as being a cleanly doctor, but some of the other more specific ones are again, work related. Check on every patient or they'll die tomorrow, make sure this patient gets home okay or you'll fall and break something. Again, on the outside, makes him seem like a very altruistic kind person! and he is, but so much of it is fear, panic, and obsession. again, anon, kissing u rn for this. love you

#some of this is a little vauge only bc i didnt. wanna describe spefic intrusvie thoughts bc that would be. bad! that would be bad #james wilson

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melrosing · 10 months

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I really appreciate your insight on Jaime, so I thought I’d might ask something that’s been puzzling me for a while about his endgame.

One of the most common predictions for Jaime is that he ends up at the Night’s Watch, possibly as its 1000th commander. While there’s certainly some foreshadowing for it, I struggle to think of a reason for the Night’s Watch to exist after the Wall falls and the Others die. What do you make of this? Do you think that Jaime could end up at the Wall?

Btw, sorry for the nasty anon messages. You’re super cool and I love your art <3

thank u so much!! and genuine lol @ the anon messages like imagine launching a personal attack because someone said Arya likes adventure you can't make this shit up 😭

I have heard this theory and I'm not a fan bc I just.... don't really enjoy reading about the night's watch/the wall/beyond the wall etc etc so ideally my fave's endgame would not be there of all places but I kind of see where the theory comes from. I don't think it's foreshadowed so it's not something that worries me but these are like my sparknotes on it.

the night's watch may well still exist even when the Wall does not; I think in Jon's story we see both the good and the bad of the NW, and what's contradictory between each. I think the primary contradiction of the NW oath is that they swear to 'guard the realms of men' whilst guarding against those who live beyond the wall. Jon's story highlights the hypocrisy in this, and I think the end of the story will be about Jon and the NW finding a new purpose in embracing the world and peoples beyond the wall as part of Westeros, helping them rebuild, keeping them safe, etc. the good that does exist in the NW can be put to real use, in a way that serves everyone. I can really see the story pointing that way for both Jon and the NW as an institution

Jaime meanwhile.... I guess the only foreshadowing I can think of is that Ned suggested after Jaime killed Aerys that he be sent to the Wall, but Jaime remained in the KG, a supposedly 'perfect institution'. comparably, the NW is famously made up of 'less than perfect' men, who enter it from all walks of life. and there's a consistent, underlying contrast between the KG and the NW - the KG in their gleaming white cloaks and the NW in their blacks, and the truth being that the KG is the corrupt institution whilst the NW (not without problems of its own) is the one with the ultimately selfless objective and that exists for the common good. and the NW is also considered a kind of atonement. so sure, there's some poetry in Jaime shifting from one to the other

there are also many interesting parallels between Jon and Jaime, particularly as lord commanders of their respective institutions - it's a fun exercise in compare and contrast. again probably a whole other post but if AFFC and ADWD were combined in one book I think these points would seem a lot more obvious

however, I don't see Jaime becoming the Lord Commander of the NW - as he has no history in the watch, it would be probably a bit insulting for Jaime to take immediate charge of the whole thing - it should really be someone with that history for it to resonate for both the NW itself and the reader. I think it'll be Jon, i.e. that he'll leave Winterfell to become the LC again OR they just won't have an LC, they'll revise the structure of the whole institution

do I think Jaime will end up at the Wall?? I guess not really?? I think his story is just so far removed from anything beyond the wall and the Night's Watch itself that it just feels too mismatched. all the key plots and characters he's tied up with are and always have been based in the south, so throwing him in the NW would feel to me a bit out of left field. ultimately I wouldn't hate the idea of Jaime rebuilding with the wildlings and kind of committing to a humbler good than worrying about a grander legacy. and it's more of an open ending than death, in that supposedly he wouldn't have to swear the same dehumanising oaths (re. personal freedoms) as the existing NW - you'd hope that when they're rebuilding from scratch they kind of. loosen up on that shit. so the idea that even if Jaime spent the bulk of his time there he's not cut off entirely from Brienne, Tyrion etc (it's not an ending I like for Brienne either but who knows maybe she'd join him). but yeah idk I'm just not a huge fan of Jaime beyond the wall. maybe I could come round to it but you know. eh

#jaime lannister #asoiaf #ask

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young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years

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Omg can I please get a hannibal x a shy girl reader ? Like he’s really possessive of her and she doesn’t know how to handle it but she likes him so they date??

Sorry this took so long, anon. I’ve been bouncing ideas around and this one in particular, I believe, fits your request. Y/n feels out of place among Hannibal’s fancy friends and it becomes even more obvious when he abandons her at a party.

Trigger warnings: social anxiety, sexual harassment, overstimulation

You and Hannibal had an agreement about large gatherings. He could only bring you to a party if you had a week's notice and at least three uninterrupted hours of gaming time prior to the event.

For this event, you needed a solid six.

One of the major Maryland universities was awarding a lucrative research grant to a student of clinical psychology, and every influential name in the industry was expected to be there. As a recent college grad with a bachelor's in business you didn't know what to do with, you couldn't imagine a less welcoming environment if you tried. You couldn't fit into their world and more importantly, you didn't want to. But the thought of being noticeably different in any situation was twice as terrifying. So you spent the whole week repeating your mantra; blend in, be quiet and make it through the night.

But Hannibal had different plans for you.

Halfway through the week, just when you'd pushed the party out of your mind, Hannibal presented you with a gift.

"What's the occasion?" You asked. You hoped that if you pretended not to know, it would just magically go away.

"I brought you something to wear on Friday." Hannibal answered, hanging the garment bag up on the bureau. "You know I'll take any excuse to dress you up."

He unzipped the bag and placed a black silk dress into your arms. "Try it on so I have time to get it altered if it needs it."

The material was cool to the touch and outlined your figure so perfectly, you felt even a little naked. Hannibal, of course, loved this. You were his own personal Venus de Milo. His goddess and his muse.

“Yes, that will do nicely.” He observed, looking at you hungrily.

“Seems a little short for a such a sophisticated event, doesn’t it?” You raised an eyebrow. The answer was yes and he knew it. He was very deliberate in everything he did. “I don’t want to come off the wrong way.”

“And what way would that be, darling?” He asked, not taking his eyes off your figure.

“I mean--” You searched for the right words. “It’s a gathering of the Mid-Atlantic’s most esteemed academics, I feel like, in a dress like this, I might be seen as, well, a...”

“A prostitute?” Hannibal finished, choosing a much nicer word than you would have.

You looked down. “Yeah. It just doesn’t seem all that appropriate.”

Hannibal approached you and lifted your chin slightly to look into his eyes. “Many Christian denominations believe that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, yet she was Christ’s right-hand woman. She was first to see him crucified and first to witness his resurrection.”

“Dr. Lecter,” You smirked. “I never would have taken you for a religious man.”

“Goodness, no.” He shook his head. “But any reputable academic is expected to be familiar with biblical literature and its many contradictions and impossibilities.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You are my divine feminine, Miss [L/N].” Hannibal said in a low whisper. “And I want everyone to see it. If they see a common whore, it would only be a reflection of their own jealousy.”

Hannibal's rationalization almost made you forget about your fear of being noticed. Almost. It all came rushing back when you arrived at the event. Not one person your age was in attendance. The women wore long, flowing evening gowns that reached the floor. The length of your skirt alone guaranteed that all eyes were on you. In a simple black silk dress, you looked the very model of high society. Silk was a sign of luxury, and Hannibal wanted everyone to know that you were a woman of means. His woman, to be precise. That was why he brought you to these functions in the first place. To put you in a dress short enough for any wandering eyes so see the smattering of love bites running up your inner thighs. He wanted everyone in his field to know that you were completely and entirely his.

You realized too late that this was all his little exercise in showing you off.

Everyone seemed to know him. He only knew a handful of people by name, and you didn't know anyone.

"And who is this delightful young woman?" A woman with a light southern twang in her voice asked, looking at you as if you were a caged animal on display.

"I wasn't aware you had a daughter, Dr. Lecter." The young man beside her laughed. "Or is she your side piece?"

Your eyes scanned the room for the nearest exit. It would be unbecoming to make a scene, so you plotted a way to slip out quietly.

“Darling, meet Dr. Charlotte Ramset and her TA, David.” Hannibal introduced, notably ignoring the young man. “Dr. Ramset, this is my intended, [F/N] [L/N].”

"I didn't realize she was also a ventriloquist!" The lady, presumably Dr. Ramset, joked. You'd heard that one a million times. She looked at you. "Tell me about yourself, sweetie. What are you studying?"

The lady was old enough to be your grandmother and reeked of too much perfume.

"I graduated last year." You said, quietly. "With a BA in business."

"See, there's a good woman." David added. "Only speaks when spoken to. They don't make ’em like you anymore, baby."

Hannibal tightened his grip on your hand. "On the contrary, David. See, Miss [L/N] is quite a bit like myself. She only dignifies those she deems worthy with a response. There's nothing wrong with being selective."

The lady laughed at David's expense and smiled at you. "Good for you."

You smiled back just a little, not ready to bring your guard down yet. "I've had to deal with more than enough. It's best not to engage."

"Oh, I know, I know." The lady said, shaking her head. "That's how it is for us educated gals. Always having to put up with pigs. See, I went to college in the sixties, so I can tell you some real stories."

This was a new experience. Talking to Hannibal's friends and having them listen to you was something you never considered possible. Now, you were one of the educated gals. You were just about to strike up a conversation with this woman, when the man next to her decided someone desperately needed to play devil’s advocate.

“I find that sexist, actually.” He cut in. “Not all men are pigs.”

The silence following his comment was deafening and you wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Whatever progress Hannibal and Dr. Ramset made breaking down your defenses was completely reversed and you were ready to retreat.

Dr. Ramset took a long sip of wine and adjusted her shawl. “David, none of us said anything about men, you drew that conclusion yourself.”

“I mean, look at you.” David gestured to your dress. You knew exactly where this was going and you wished you could just disappear. “You’re basically asking for it.”

Dr. Ramset glared at him. “David, that’s enough.”

“I’m just stating facts.” David crossed his arms. “If you dress like a slut, what do you expect?”

Dr. Ramset and Hannibal seemed to have an entire conversation through prolonged eye contact before one of them broke the silence.

"Charlotte, I hate to have to excuse myself so soon, but the president of the university is expecting me." Hannibal said, dropping your hand. Your heart hit the floor when you realized that he would be throwing you to the wolves.

"Of course, Dr. Lecter." She nodded. "Duty calls."

"I trust you'll keep an eye on my beloved [F/N] in my absence?" His voice hardened. The severity in his tone frightened you.

Dr. Ramset didn't seem disturbed or even surprised in the slightest by his gently threatening demand. "Of course."

"Thank you. And [F/N]?" He said, pressing his lips to the back of your hand. "I won't be going far. Please, try to have fun."

You tried not to look affronted, but you were going to have a long talk with Hannibal when you got home.

"I'm just saying what everyone is thinking." David continued, his inability to take a hint positively astounding. "Why don't you respect yourself enough to cover up, [F/N]? You have a boyfriend!"

Your eyes scrolled across the room looking for any sign of Hannibal, but he was gone. Dr. Ramset finished her wine and stared at her TA with the resigned disgust of a death row jailer.

"Any other thoughts?" She said, snatching a fresh glass of wine. You looked at her with a clear expression of discomfort.

"Come on, do you see any other woman in the room dressed so provocatively?" David's voice broke mid-sentence. "No. Because they're educated enough to know that real men don't care about their bodies."

The hotel clerk approached the group. "Mr. Hosmer, there's a call for you."

David narrowed his eyes. "Uh, what?"

"Someone is on the phone asking for you." The clerk repeated. "Says it's an emergency."

David shrugged. "Fine."

Just when you thought you would be rid of him, at least for a moment, he planted his hands on your hips in attempt to "get by" you. His touch was like that of an insect crawling across your skin; unexpected, filthy and leaving you squeamish.

"I'm so sorry about that." Dr. Ramset's words echoed in your ears, but you didn't really hear them. You were too focused on grounding yourself to process what she was saying.

“Dr. Ramset?” You said, quietly. “Which one is the president of the university?”

She glanced at a tall woman in a dark blue suit, surrounded by equally important looking businesspeople. You followed her eyes. “That’s Dr. Mary Hosmer.”

Your ounce of righteous fury was squelched in two seconds when the reality of having to talk to someone, especially someone of stature, set in. You looked sheepishly back at Dr. Ramset.

“Could you please ask her where Hannibal went?” You whispered. “I’d really like him to take me home now.”

Her face turned sympathetic. “Of course, [F/N]. Stay right there.”

You nodded. “Thank you.”

Dr. Ramset crossed the floor and politely greeted the president. You took a few slow, calculated steps closer, just to get in earshot.

“Pardon me, but, have you seen Dr. Hannibal Lecter?” Dr. Ramset said, casually.

“I wasn’t aware Hannibal had even arrived yet.” The president answered. “I haven’t seen him.”

Your eyes widened. You fought the urge to freeze, but you had to move back before Dr. Ramset knew you’d been eavesdropping. You heard everything you needed and rushed back to where she’d left you.

“Dr. Hosmer said he stepped out.” She told you upon her return. “He should be back soon.”

You tried not to show that you knew she was lying. “...oh.”

“Would you like me to stay with you until he comes back?”

You knew you were completely on your own. You didn’t know what was going on, but you had an inkling that it had to do with the president and David sharing a last name. All you knew for certain was that you couldn’t trust anybody.

“Don’t bother.” You shook your head. You took off for the door, but Dr. Ramset grabbed your wrist.

“I’m sorry, [F/N].” Her voice dropped to a low whisper. She didn’t look mad, but afraid. “But Dr. Lecter told me to stay with you. Please. Don’t make this harder for me.”

You recalled how seriously threatening Hannibal’s request was. She wasn’t answering to the president of the university. She was answering to Hannibal. You didn’t know whether to be scared or relieved.

“Right.” You conceded, stepping back in. “I’m sorry.”

The actual award ceremony was much longer than it needed to be, and it dragged on even longer knowing there was no reason for you to be there. Other than that, you awkwardly followed Dr. Ramset around the party like a lost puppy the whole time. You were back to your original plan: blend in, be quiet and make it through the night.

Just when you thought the party would never end, someone tapped you on the arm. You turned around, hoping with every fiber of your being that it was Hannibal, but it wasn’t. A tall woman in a dark blue suit stared back at you.

“I’m sorry to bother you, miss.” She said, apologetically. “But have you seen my son? I saw him talking to you and Dr. Charlotte earlier, perhaps he told you where he was going?”

You’d pushed that man completely out of your mind. You shook your head. “He left to take a phone call and I haven’t seen him since.”

A hand found your shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Hosmer, but I believe I saw the boy on his phone out in the lobby.”

“Dr. Lecter!” The president’s eyes widened. “How nice of you to finally join us.”

“...Yes, I believe he left right after making unwarranted comments towards my intended here.” Hannibal ran his hand down your arm lovingly.

“Well, boys will be boys.” The president chuckled. “Maybe you should teach your girlfriend not to wear such revealing clothes.”

Hannibal smiled and pulled you in protectively. “Whatever the case, I hope you find him very soon.”

Her phone chimed in her back pocket. “Oh, that’s him right now.”

“Wonderful.” Hannibal said. “[F/N] and I will be taking our leave.”

He hurried you towards the door, his hand tight around yours. A blood-curdling scream came from behind you. You looked back for just a moment and found the president hollering in pain and falling to her knees.

“Let’s go, darling.” Hannibal tugged at your arm. “They don’t deserve your presence.”

“Hannibal, I swear.” You said, once you were in the safety of the car. “If you killed every man who looked at me like a piece of meat, sooner or later, there won’t be any men left.”

Hannibal smirked and reached for his seatbelt. “Wonderful.”

#hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hannibal x reader #hannibal x you #anon ask #anon request

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victoria1676 · 2 years

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Hey I don’t know if this has already been asked before but can you imagine if creator got ahold of some redstone or something close to it? I feel like they’d put redstone contraptions all over their home or secret entrances or traps. Picture some acolytes trying to beg them for forgiveness and creator just sits there on the ground like “if you can touch me I’ll hear you out” and there’s literally only field until the acolytes take one step and then all hell breaks loose

You can call be bunny anon if that’s ok

Hi Bunny Anon! ✨💕

Honestly yeah Reader is a goddamn mence the fact she legit goes all out in her redstone way to much and her family knew to be careful when they are gonna be visiting her home since Wilbur was one of the victims who almost go killed by a trap that almost fell to his death from Creepers that Reader spawned in from her Creeper spawner.

Reader actually does have an entrance way to different regions as short cuts but she made sure they are hidden as hell. The acolytes are definitely gonna hard time to get reader's forgiveness when she legit made her whole home a redstone security level 10 OR above 😂😂😂😂

The fact most her hallways or entrance to her home is gonna be those common traps when you go to those ancients cities in movies or like for example Indian Jones trap but more improved and annoying for those who can't get out or try to avoid triggering them.

Reader and Rubedo before eating popcorn and watching the acolytes fail so badly from trying to trigger the traps. Chat is just cackling and placing bets on who will die or give up on those menacing traps.

You can see Venti running away from a huge boulder with Aether and poor Paimon. Flaming arrows before shooting almost at everyone and one almost shot Zhongli's ass if he made his shield in time again and would have walked with everyone with his shields but he is vulnerable from head and buttom and if he stepped the wrong pressure he will either fall to his death or fall into a box of creepers or even a box of potion of harming.

Funny fact the one who experience reader's menacing traps when she came in Genshin was Diluc who reader's home and was about to go inside to kill her and accidentally triggered a trap that trapped him a hole filled with water and the surroundings were obsidian in the imposter AU 😂😂 and surprisingly Dainsleif who the poor soul did not know reader made her whole home and area a menacing redstone trap security. He just wanted to help her but he wasn't warned about the traps (Reader swore she had told someone to inform Dainsleif about her traps Cue in the background you could see Rubedo and Lumine sipping tea very casually behind reader)

Lesson learned make sure you are informed of Reader's annoying menacing security. The only reason she made it annoying is that she just wanted to see some chaos 😂😂😂😂

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phoenixyfriend · 3 years

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👀 PLease tell us your thoughts about the Jedi babies re-growing up among different cultural contexts.

Oh fuck okay

Context: original post, chrono The specific post this ask is referencing: here

Summary of the AU: Disaster lineage got tossed back in time. Anakin stayed 21-ish, but Obi-Wan and Ahsoka got deaged, took new names for time-travel reasons (Ylliben and Sokanth, or Ben and Soka), are now staying with the True Mandalorians under Jaster Mereel because the Force said to, go back to the Temple after about a decade. They grabbed Shmi about three months after arriving.

So as far as the cultural background goes, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka had similar upbringings. She spent a few years on Shili first, but both spent the majority of their childhoods up to age 13/14 being raised in the creche. So that's the basis that they would default to, in a vacuum.

Nobody is raised in a vacuum.

Along with the Jedi cultural background, they're being raised by Tatooine natives in a Mandalorian environment.

Shmi and Anakin are both former slaves who have desert survival baked into their bones. The longer Anakin spends around her, the more his accent slips, the more he talks about old folktales, the more he uses idioms that don't exist on a cityplanet like Coruscant. All the things that he tamped down to be a Jedi come floating back to the surface, and Shmi's never known anything else. Anakin's knowledge of slave customs make her feel more comfortable, which in turn makes him feel better, and so on.

Mandalore is just... the culture they're living in. You don't grow up in a new culture with a new language without picking up on it personally. (Source: I moved to the US when I was a little under two years old.)

I think the thing I'm going to focus on as an example is the way each of these cultures approaches family, and then maybe how they approach the keeping of peace/what peace means.

Jedi: Where you come from means little, only the legacy you leave behind in your students. Mandalore: You protect your clan and your children; adoption is a major cultural value, if not actually practiced consistently. Tatooine: You can lose your family at any time, so you value what you have in all its forms. You don’t forget where and who you came from, to family of blood and family of choice alike. You cling to your memories and what little you still have of them, to what your master cannot take away.

These are all valid ways to approach family, and each of these approaches can have significant meaning to different people. But they do all, to a certain degree, conflict with one another, despite all three being fairly communal cultures.

The Jedi have a culture, one that’s built on a shared ability and religion over thousands of years. It’s not just an organization, but a continuous community with legends and traditions and art and records. But it’s one that is built on new blood coming in from the outside, volunteers who join because the religion speaks to them (near literally, given the nature of Force Sensitivity), given up by families who couldn’t or wouldn’t teach them in a way that let their talents flourish instead of pushing it all down.

For the Jedi, a culture built on people coming together due to something they have in common intrinsically that their families of blood do not, it makes sense to put emphasis on letting go of that past when they can, and to place importance on teaching lineages. It’s not just the official master-padawan pairs, either, but that’s the most obvious and easily paralleled element. Moreover, a lot of the Jedi culture is about gaining knowledge, so obviously spreading it is good, and also on supporting the galaxy to make it a better place; to view the Jedi order as a heavily communal culture would make sense, since their values are all about selfless betterment of the universe, which on a larger scale is about the galactic conflicts, but on a smaller scale is about supporting their own community, the children and the ill and elderly.

So that is the specific culture that Obi-Wan and Ahsoka grew up in, one that holds blood family as relevant but not particularly crucial to one’s identity, but is structured so people leave behind legacies through education in a manner that often becomes adoptive family (depending on your definition, I guess). Jedi are encouraged to connect to their home cultures, if not their families, with practices like the coming of age hunt for Togruta leading to the young Jedi taking a trip out to Shili to engage in that cultural milestone. This can also be viewed as a way for the Jedi to maintain personal connections to the wider universe, a (not entirely successful, but certainly attempted) way of keeping them from becoming too isolated and insular from the universe at large, and losing touch from what the galaxy actually needs of them.

They’re now growing up with two cultures that do place emphasis on blood and found family.

Mandalore, as presented in The Mandalorian, has their traditional values set as being heavily associated with their armor, battle skills, and childcare. While that’s clearly a set of values that aren’t actually followed by everyone with full sincerity, we can assume that these stated cultural values do have at least some impact on the way the society is structured, since we do see more traditional characters (Jaster, Din) adopt orphaned children and then have the Mandalorian elements of their immediate circles support that claim.

(We’ll ignore Jango and the whole clone army thing because the amount of Sith influence is up for debate and also holy trauma, Batman.)

However, we also see that a lot of Mandalorian culture is built on their family histories. On the New Mandalorian side, we see emphasis placed on the fact that Satine is House Kryze and that she’s a duchess. Her bloodline is relevant, though not the most important thing about her. On the Death Watch side, we have Pre and Tor placing emphasis on the fact that they’re Clan Vizsla, descended from Tarre, that this is important to why they deserve what the darksaber represents, this is part of why they not only deserve to lead, but should for the good of Mandalore.

Bo-Katan’s armor is a family heirloom. Boba’s armor was Jango’s, but before being Jango’s, it was Jaster’s. Armor is important enough to pass to family, but the family can be adopted. This all tracks.

The resol’nare specifies loyalty and care for the clan/tribe among the six tenets.

These two elements seem relatively well-balanced: the importance of adoption and the importance of family as a larger unit on the level of a house or clan.

And then you have Tatooine, which also balances blood and adoption, but for entirely different reasons, that being this: it can always be taken from you.

For all that a Mandalorian could historically expect their family to die in battle, and a Jedi could expect to lose their master the same way if things went poorly, those were usually choices. A Mandalorian was raised to walk into battle, and then they could make that choice to do so. It wasn’t often much of a choice, but they could feasibly turn their back and choose to be a farmer or a doctor or something, and support the people who went out to do battle instead of being the one on the field themselves. A Jedi could choose to be a healer or an archivist or join one of the Corps.

A slave does not get that choice. A slave can be killed or sold on a whim from their master. It’s not a one-time trauma, but an ever-present fear. Your parent, your child, your sibling, your spouse, all of them can be separated from you at any time. You can always lose them, and you have no choice but to grin and bear it, or try to run and die before you reach freedom.

In a context like that, I imagine Tatooine places a very heavy emphasis on family, both of blood and of choice, and on treasuring what you have while you have it. A person is always aware that they can lose whoever they have in their life, and so they make the most of their times together, have clear and consistent ways of expressing that love (I imagine primarily direct verbal confirmations and physical contact, practical gifts like water and fruit). Childcare is important, elders are venerated. Those who survived that far have valuable wisdom, and the children are to be given what happiness they can have before reality wipes that ability from them.

The family ‘networks’ among Tatooine slaves are smaller and tighter knit. There’s less trust for outsiders, but once you’re in, you’re in until you are taken away. Still, families are torn apart regularly, and often can’t contact each other after being separated if they’re sold far enough away, so families stay small because they’re always being broken up. Unlike Mandalore’s tribe/clan system, or the Jedi’s wide, loosely-structured community, Tatooine’s slaves form smaller groups that cling for as long as they can, and try to support each other. (There are selfish ones, of course, especially the newbies, but... well. Most try.)

Tatooine is also much more likely to assign a familial role (e.g. referring to an elder as ‘grandmother’). It’s not uncommon in the others (multiple Jedi refer to their masters as a parent or sibling, like Anakin’s “you’re like a father to me” line), but it’s not as baked-in that such a role should be given.

So on a structural level, we have two people from a community culture with little emphasis on blood family or formal familial roles are now being raised in a community that has them asking “what can you do for the people around you first, and then the wider world?” by people who tell them “your family, blood and found, is the most important thing you have; never let anyone take more from you than they possibly can.”

And that shit has an effect.

For all that Sokanth and Ylliben were once raised with a knowledge that their duty, their goal, was to better the galaxy as a whole, they are now being told that the community that raises them asks their loyalty back, because societies are built on support networks, and if you support the tribe, it will support you. There are parallels to that kind of thinking among Jedi, because it is basic social theory, but it’s not presented as the same kind of cultural value. It’s not given as something to strive for, just a basic fact.

This, for instance, means that once they’re back at the Temple, they have a tendency towards suggesting study groups and other ways of supporting people in their immediate circle, often structured in very unfamiliar ways. Again, this isn’t uncommon among Jedi, but it’s not done in the same way, or with the same emphasis. The Jedi also often approach problem-solving in a different order, so the step of “meditate on it and you may find your solution” often comes before “gather information from people who know more about it than you do,” while Ben and Soka have by this point learned to do it the other way around, because that’s what the Mandalorian system taught them: rely on your family first.

Meanwhile, the Tatooine element of their upbringing has them being much more willing to just... casually refer to ‘my dad’ and ‘my sister’ and so on. They use those words. It’s not just “my master is like a father to me,” but “this is my father.” They don’t hesitate to talk about the family they had and still have in Mandalorian space. None of the Jedi begrudge them it, really, but it’s always a shock to hear for the first time, and between the Tatooine refusal to pretend the connection is gone and the Mandalorian tendency to err on the side of roughhousing as affection, they’re just... odd. It’s not like none of the other Jedi know family outside the Order--some of the old books had Obi-Wan visiting his brother on Stewjon once in a while--or like none of the active Jedi are loud or boisterous, but the specific manner in which Soka and Ben interact with the Order, especially when their dad is around, is very weird.

More Soka than Ben, really, but that’s mostly just because Ben’s a very quiet person until he gets a little older, so it’s harder to notice on him.

Point is, while they still hold to their duty to the wider galaxy and will continue to keep that duty above almost anything else in their lives, the way they talk and act about the subject of family, especially in private, is heavily influenced by their new cultures.

This is already very long but I promised I’d talk about peace so let’s go:

The Jedi seek peace as an absence of war and conflict in the portion of the galaxy under their purview, in hopes that they will prevent as much suffering and death as they can.

The Mandalorians are varied, but Jaster Mereel’s group (which is the community the Skywalkers are with) is likely to view peace as unrealistic to achieve in the long term. They do not seek war, but they know the world they live in, and are prepared to protect against violence as their first resort. They always expect an attack, even if they don’t seek it.

The Slaves of Tatooine view peace as the calm in a storm. It is the status quo. Nobody has escaped tonight, for the guards aren’t searching, but neither is anyone dead. The Master you have is in a good enough mood to not sell you, to not kill you, to not beat you. Peace as an absence of suffering is impossible, so you seek for your master to be peaceful, that is to say: not raging at you.

The scope of each of these narrows significantly. From the known galaxy, to the wars that meet Mandalorian space, to the household one serves.

A community like the Jedi can choose to address peace as something to be sought on a large scale as an absence of war. They primarily function within the borders of the Republic, which has its problems but is largely structured to prevent such things from occurring until the Sith interfere. The Jedi have a structure that allows them to address peace as an ideal to be sought, at least within the borders of the territory they serve.

Mandalore, meanwhile, has been at war on and off for... ever. When they are not at war with themselves, they’re at war with someone else. ‘Peace’ is just the time between wars, and they know that if they do not attack first, they will be forced to defend. Jaster Mereel was known as the Reformer, and part of that was that instituting a code of honor, one that was intended to prevent Mandalorian warriors from acting as raiders and brigands, but rather acting as honorable hired soldiers, or taking roles such as the Journeyman Protectors. Given that, I imagine that he views war as something inevitable, but also something that can be mitigated.

War doesn’t touch Tatooine.

Oh, it might raise taxes and import rates. It might prevent visitors who come for the races. It can do a lot of things.

But to a slave, these are nothing. The only thing war does is affect the master, the person who chooses when their slaves get water, when they get beaten, when they are no longer useful enough to keep around or keep alive.

The peace of a slave’s live is dictated by how much abuse they are subjected to by the person who owns them.

What this means for Soka and Ben is... well, they are viewed as war-hungry by the people who don’t know them very well. They have armor. They focus on fighting, both with and without their sabers. They know tactics better than most masters. They claim that war is coming, and don’t seem too sad about it.

(It is a fact to them. War will come. All they can do is meet it. They’ve already done their mourning once.)

They also... well, Shmi tells them things in hidden corners. How to duck their head to hide the hate or fear in their eyes. How to watch for the anger in the tendons of a hand. The laugh of someone who enjoys the pain they’ve caused, not just the adrenaline of a fight. She is free, and so are they, but she has not forgotten how to hide in the shadows until the master’s ire has turned elsewhere. How to be small and quiet and unseen until the danger passes.

A Jedi’s first resort is words. Their second is their saber. But the Jeedai hold their heads high, and the Mandalorians do the same.

“You rely on the Force, and you have your pride,” she tells them, her hands on their own. “But there will come a time when you will not be able to remind people that you are free. You will not be able to say that you are a person, that you deserve the respect of a living sentient. Perhaps it will be a politician who treats everyone like that. Perhaps you will be captured by an enemy. Perhaps you will be undercover. You will not be able to fight, with words or with weapons, and you will have to know how to survive.”

Tatooine does not have peace. Tatooine only has survival.

And while Jedi fight for the survival and peace of the universe, they are refined and composed. Mando’ade fight like warriors of old, and Tatooine slaves fight like cornered, rabid anooba.

The galaxy comes first, but when the chips are down and the Sith come out to play, Soka and Ben do not need refinement, because they know how to toss aside their pride and live.

#Tatooine #Mandalore #Jedi #culture clash #star wars #the clone wars #Anakin Skywalker #Shmi Skywalker #Ahsoka Tano #Obi Wan Kenobi #Jaster Mereel #family #war #Phoenix Posts #Anakin and the Jedi Babies #Phoenix Answers Asks #I have no idea how accurate this is but it's what I'm working with

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doveypink · 4 years

Text

the one i left behind [technoblade imagine]

summary: you recount the moments leading up to your death. genre: angst words: 5.3k warnings: death, (past) abusive relationships, swearing, general violence a/n: i've been working on this one for a long time. i hope you all enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it!!

[ part two: come and find me ]

Freezing. I was absolutely freezing.

The brisk wind was sharp, leaving pinpricks of its icy touch upon my skin. I could have sworn there was snow, but when my eyes finally cracked open to peer around me, there was only the burning blaze of the sun and lush fields surrounding me. I turned my head to the side lazily, feeling the grass tickle my cheek. My body felt stiff and I stretched my arms out as though clasping the sky between my fingers, and my muscles loosened as I lifted myself from the ground. How long had I been laying there? Time seemed to escape me as I tried to recollect myself. I was just tired, that was all; if I went home now, I’m sure I would remember again. I would make myself a big meal, as well, something hot to melt away my chill, even though I didn’t seem to feel any ounce of hunger within me.

I walked in the direction of a place I couldn’t quite remember, attempting to turn the preceding events over in my mind. The only thing I could seem to recall was the smell of something burning, a bright flash of light, a big bang — fireworks, an image of creation and destruction all at once. It was almost as though I had never existed before this moment, lying in a bed of flowers, untouched by the calloused hands of the living.

I walked through the field, reaching out to pick a single flower from the blades of grass—a blood-red carnation—when I noticed that the shade of my skin had lost its warmth. Where it once had the flushed undertone of my blood, it was now ashen with the impression of death. I flinched, suddenly shivering as my cold bones once again made themselves known. A thought occurred to me, a memory that had slipped my mind in my haze: I only had one life left.

And I lost it.

Without thinking, my feet began to glide over the earth, kicking up dirt and pebbles as I ran. If I had lost my last life, something awful must have happened. What was it? I tried to pull the memories from the vault in my mind, but it seemed to be locked. All that was left were the shadows under the door, the footsteps in the distance, the keyhole that could only provide a glimpse into a scene.

I smelled it, then, the same scent that I recalled upon waking up, though fainter: something hot and burnt. Up ahead, there was a wisp of smoke floating above the trees, and I hurried towards them. The ground became blackened with scorch marks and, among the ruins of a building I could no longer recognize, I caught sight of blood. My heart sank, and with a start, I realized that there was a crater full of rubble and fires that had long been burning. I stepped through the debris, stumbling over broken doors, shards of glass, golden goblets and picture frames; dozens of signs of life all buried in ash and smoke, melted into a haunting image of destruction. Nothing was recognizable, but I knew what this place was: L’Manburg. Or, more accurately, what was left of it.

I searched the ruins of the country, cringing at the blood streaked debris and discarded weapons and armor that lay haphazardly among the wreckage. I circled the edge of the massive crater, unable to step much further into the space due to its depth. I looked down at the scorched land and moved out, surveying the surrounding area.

Upon noticing the remnants of a building—someone’s house, maybe? It was too far gone to make out—I felt compelled to search what was left of the structure. I wasn’t sure what drew me to suddenly climb through burnt wood and broken cobblestone; some part of me felt as though I would find an answer to all my questions, a sign, anything to point me in the right direction. I felt desperate to find something to satisfy the tug in my cold heart. My freezing hands sifted through the mess, shoving away rubble and pushing through the debris until my hands were covered in dirt and bruised from the digging. My hands suddenly found something smooth and dense, and my searching became frantic as I pushed through the ruins to find what I had been unknowingly searching for: my bow. I tugged it out from under stone and dirt, running my fingers down the edge of the smooth silver. It remained unmarked despite the destruction surrounding it, the curve of its limbs untarnished and shining brilliantly in the evening light. I searched some more and discovered the hard shell of my arrow quiver and a number of silver-tipped arrows still inside. I stood and slung the quiver over my shoulder with my bow in hand, feeling almost complete with the items on my person.

The wind picked up and blew through my hair, insisting that I look further. I stepped into the wreckage of the building, an unsettled feeling rising in the pit of my stomach. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of red against pale grey stone; I turned, staring at the scene before me with wide, horrified eyes.

A short distance from where my bow was found, there was a violent splatter of crimson against the rubble. It looked like a balloon full of paint had popped, streaking the cold stones with a sickeningly bright shade of red. Among the drying mess, there was a flurry of scorch marks strewn across the area, a minor crater digging into the earth where the scene lay. I realized what this all was, my hands trembling as I clutched my bow.

I had died here.

I screwed my eyes shut, plagued with a sudden onslaught of memories that I no longer wished for. Falling to my knees, I held my head in my hands and shook violently, my head pounding with a torrential rain of scenes flashing in my mind. All I could do was be swept away in the flood.

* * * * *

“Are you still mad at me?”

I blinked at Techno with an arrow in hand, sharpening its tip and inspecting the edge. I was mad at him, but I didn’t feel like giving him an answer. If he had to ask, he already knew; we were both smart enough to understand each other like that. He sighed when I wordlessly turned my gaze back to my arrow, stepping towards me and plucking it from my grasp. I jumped up, prepared to steal it back. “Hey—!”

“You know why I had to do this. Don’t get mad at me,” Techno said, his voice low and serious.

I crossed my arms and frowned. “Right. You have to team with Dream just to blow up a country. You definitely couldn’t have done it on your own or, I don’t know, with me to help, yeah? Because the great Technoblade is always right—”

“We have common interests—”

“And I hate being interrupted.”

Techno went silent after I snapped at him, adjusting his cape while I gritted my teeth. “I thought you hated him,” I said slowly, “and I hated him too. You know what he did, you know how it hurt me, and you still…” I trailed off, feeling suddenly exhausted—exhausted from fighting, exhausted from chasing a peace I could never have.

Techno placed a gentle hand on my shoulder—a gesture he rarely used, and reserved for me—and met my eyes. “Just this once,” he said. “I still owe him a debt, but this will be the end. It’s within our reach.”

“I could die,” I said plainly. This made Techno pause, his entire body freezing over like a lake in winter, so I pushed further. “I could die. I could lose my last life, and I gladly will for what we’re doing, because I believe in this. I know we haven’t always been right, but I know that this is. I hate that you let Dream in, and I’m going to be angry. I deserve to be angry.”

“You’re not going to die,” he said with certainty. “Not when I’m there.”

I couldn’t tell if Techno was trying to reassure me or himself with his words, but either way, the weight of the possibilities made my stomach turn with anxiety. “You can’t be so sure. I’m not exactly as talented as you are at everything,” I countered.

“Don’t say that,” Techno insisted, his tone full of frustrated reassurement. “I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you. Never again. And hey,” he started, poking my cheek, “you’re more than capable of handling yourself, anyway. You couldn’t die even if you wanted to.”

“I think you have too much confidence in me, Techno.”

“Cut that sentence 3 words short and I’ll consider agreeing with you.”

I sighed, finally letting myself crack a small smile. “I’m still mad at you, but I trust you. Only out of pity though—I know you couldn’t last a day without me around.”

Techno grinned, his sharp-toothed grin melting the ice as he returned my arrow. “Good thing it’ll never come to that.”

I shook my head, twirling the arrow in my hand while I inspected it silently. Techno turned away to prepare his own weapons, leaving me alone with the aftermath of our conversation.

My anger had been redirected with my friend’s words of reassurance, now colliding with my resentment for Dream. Even though I did have faith in Techno, I still feared the possibility of Dream playing a trick on us. I sharpened my arrow and considered my choices: I follow Techno’s lead and go along with Dream’s help, or I take matters into my own hands. I finished up with my arrows, placing them neatly into my quiver as I prayed that the latter wouldn’t have to occur.

I already knew well enough that war was brutal.

With a deep, tired sigh, I leaned back and recalled a time not so long ago—just a few years at most—when I wasn’t resentful of Dream. We were friends, once, and I’ll admit that I admired him; I bitterly wondered what would have happened if I had ever found the courage to tell him just how much I adored him, but the thought made some long forgotten part of me ache, prickling my heart with thorns. It was shameful of me to wonder what could have been, even more so to speak it; there was a reason why only Techno knew, and there was a reason why his decision made my blood bubble over in frustration and betrayal.

I considered the moment I caught Dream shifting, edging away from his former self as his own hubris overtook him, rotting his soul as something else took form. He had always treated me as an equal, and he charmed me with his kind words and gentle gaze. I couldn’t begin to understand how suddenly he was so cruel to me, taking me by surprise when his usual soft tone became sharp and grating, tearing me apart from the inside out. I had only ever been supportive of him, even when he did things I couldn’t agree with; even when his friends turned their backs on him; even when I found myself seeking his approval at every turn despite his cruelty. Nothing I did could ever seem to be enough.

The first time I was separated from Dream was after Techno captured me, initially planning to use me as leverage against his rival to put an end to the government. After finding me, though, he must have seen what I couldn’t: the hollowness that Dream had left behind. The anarchist took pity on me, if you could even call it that; mostly, Techno shook me awake from the nightmare I had been living and made me realize the extent of Dream’s manipulation. I felt dirty for a long while after my realization, plagued with the sense that I would never feel safe or whole again. A part of me still felt that way, even, but at least I had the sense now to not seek out the shadows when they beckoned me over.

Technoblade was a surprisingly good friend through it all. It was him who helped me become myself again, but he would always argue that it was my own doing. He frustrated me sometimes with his monotonous tone and his thirst for anarchy, but at the end of the day, I could never stay mad at him; Techno had a good heart, and his honesty and dedication to his morals was enough to convince me. Even through my fog of anger at his teaming with Dream, even when I questioned whether this was a good idea, a sensible part of me knew that this was nothing like what Dream had done to me. Techno didn’t hide his nature as Dream did, and I could trust him in that.

A knock on the cabin door brought me out of my thoughts. I heard Techno’s footsteps as he stepped back into the room, a knife in hand. “Do you know who it is?” he questioned, scrutinizing the door when I shook my head in response. I stood from my chair and followed behind Techno, who peeked out the window and let out a tired sigh before swinging the door open.

“Hello, Dream. What are you doing at my house?” my friend deadpanned.

Dream lowered his grinning mask, his own lips drawn back into a polite smile. “Oh, just checking in before tomorrow. I wanted to see if you needed anything.”

“You could have sent a message first,” Techno replied, tapping the messenger device on his wrist. “I don’t really appreciate unwanted guests.”

“I figured it wouldn’t be much of a problem since we’re on the same side now. And I tend to find surprise visits are a lot more… Insightful,” Dream mused. His eyes peeked over Techno’s shoulder to meet mine and I stiffened, standing straighter. Dream, perceptive as usual, smiled wider, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners before he spoke to me in a soft voice. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

A cold hand gripped my heart, the blood pulsing in my ear drums. I hated him; I hated that he hardly had to speak for me to begin to crumble. I attempted to reply in a steady voice despite the slight tremor that shook me. “Yeah, it has.”

Before Dream could say anything else, Techno stepped up as though to shield me. “You know, we have everything we need here. You should probably make sure your things are sorted, though,” he announced.

Dream’s smile faltered for half a second before returning. “Hm, I think you’re right. Just remember to give me the signal,” he said, beginning to turn away from the door. Dream hesitated, giving me one last look before he addressed me, his words kind, though laced with a cold, haunting tone. “I’ve missed you. Good luck tomorrow.”

It wasn’t until Techno had shut the door and confirmed that Dream had left that I allowed myself to breathe. I hadn’t even realized that I was holding my breath in the first place; I felt lightheaded and weary as Techno sat me down and asked if I was alright. I nodded, watching the worried man cross the room to fetch me a glass of water. With a shudder, I took in the sight of the floorboards and listened to my friend rummaging around the kitchen. My stomach churned and my mind flashed with sudden clarity about what I would have to do.

I was going to kill Dream.

The following day felt like a blur. Every motion leading up to the total destruction of L’Manburg was like a sharp jab of a paintbrush, a swipe across a canvas already drenched in paint. There was a picture here, some greater meaning when you stepped away from it all, but in the midst of things, it didn’t quite matter. All Techno cared about was erasing the country for good and keeping us alive; all I wanted was to get the day over with.

I had spent the entire night trying to decide whether it was truly a good idea for me to go after Dream or leave him be. A part of me felt that it was a terrible idea, a decision that would only serve to lead me to certain death; still, another part of me wanted closure. I didn’t think of myself as anything special compared to Techno, Phil, or even Dream himself when it came to combat skills, but the truth was that I was more than capable of holding my own in battle. I had been through my fair share of wars, and the experience in addition to training with Techno led me to become a skilled warrior of my own. As I considered it, I found myself realizing with a newfound confidence that I had the strength to take down Dream all on my own if I wanted to. My only question was how I would go about this.

The answer came surprisingly soon.

Techno and I had been doing well against L’Manburg’s defense—there was only a scare when Sapnap came close to taking one of Techno’s lives during a fight, but I had stepped in with a nicely timed arrow to his head, which made our enemy disappear into a cloud of smoke as his life was lost. Techno and I chugged some invisibility potion, courtesy of Phil, and hid around a building to watch everyone fight off the withers while we healed ourselves.

“What’s taking him so long? We’ve been at it for—” Techno glanced at his watch, “—thirty minutes! And here I thought Dream was all about punctuality,” my friend griped, taking a bite out of an apple.

“I’m not surprised. Of course he would choose today to take his sweet time,” I assessed, thumping my head against the brick building. “He’s probably going over his plans to sacrifice us next as we speak.”

“We are not getting sacrificed.”

“You never know,” I hummed. “It’s not a bad thing to be cautious, is it?”

Techno snorted. “Well, I suppose not. We’ve survived this long, though, so I have a good feeling about this.”

I nodded, peering in the direction of my friend. We couldn’t see each other due to the potion, but if I focused hard enough, I could catch a shift in the light that alerted me of his position. I felt a sudden urgency within me—some calling to spill my fears, inky and black, before I choked. “I need you to do me a favor,” I blurted.

I watched the light shift and turn. “What? What’s going on?” Techno wondered.

“If something happens to me, if I lose my last life,” I began in a serious tone, “don’t look back.”

“I… don’t understand. What are you saying? You won’t—”

“Techno, if I die, you carry straight through with the plan. Don’t come for my things, don’t try to help me, just go. Please. Can you promise me that?”

The light shimmered slowly, hesitantly. “Of course you choose now to drop that on me,” Techno muttered bitterly, but I could hear the underlying hurt. “I can never say no to you, though, can I?”

“It is your best trait,” I joked, though there was a heaviness in my voice.

The shift in the light leaned back as Techno sighed. “Alright, fine. It won’t come to that, but I’ll do it. I promise.”

“Thank you. For everything,” I confessed, stressing the importance of all that he’s done for me in my reply.

Before Techno could reply, a resounding boom went off nearby. Dirt and debris flew past us as plumes of gray smoke shrouded our sight. Between the clouds of smoke, I could see a flash of bright green and a bone-white mask.

“He’s here,” Techno mumbled next to me. “Let’s get moving.”

The pair of us sprinted across the land, dodging at the sight of explosives and attacking enemies under the guise of our invisibility. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dream dropping TNT from the tops of buildings and hurling them at every patch of land in his vicinity. By the time he was finished, I knew there would be nothing left.

The invisibility began to wear off shortly after that, and I watched as Techno’s vibrant red cape began to fade back into view. I followed my friend from a short distance until I realized that Dream was completely distracted in his efforts to destroy the nation. As Techno veered down one path, I caught him by the arm. “I’m heading the other way,” I said.

Techno immediately began to protest. “No, you’re not. Don’t be stupid.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You were the one worried about losing your last life, and now you’re trying to split? We have to stick together.”

“I’ll be quick. You won’t even know I’m gone,” I reasoned, already turning to leave. “I promise I’ll be back.”

Techno frowned, but eventually his shoulders became less tense as he reluctantly decided to let me go. I gave him a nod of thanks before hurrying off to a building that hadn’t yet been destroyed. Fortunately for me, the citizens seemed to have cleared out, so no one was there to intervene as I leapt over crumbling buildings and the charred remains of the nation. My heart raced in my chest and I clutched my bow tightly in my hand. It would all be over soon enough, I thought, and I would be the one to end it all.

I reached a building that hadn’t been completely damaged from the TNT and scaled the wall. My fingers were wedged into the grooves of the brick until I reached the ledge at the very top, tugging myself up and throwing my legs over the side. I huffed and looked up to watch Dream, practically gliding on air as he hurled explosives at the ground without remorse. I squinted and realized through the haze of smoke and ash that he had nearly hit bedrock, yet he continued to demolish the same area of land. It was like he wanted to blow a hole straight through the ground, so deep that he’d be able to see the other side.

I shook away the nervous shudder that ran down my spine and instead raised my bow to aim while Dream was distracted. I glared at the back of his head and lined my sight to him, the familiarity of the motion sending a sort of ease through my tense muscles.

It was an easy shot. I could do it.

I drew a deep breath and held it while I drew my arrow back, pulling the string taut. With a slow sigh, I released.

My arrow soared above the destruction, seeming to transcend the rules of time and space. The light made the metallic edge glimmer as though a star was shooting across the expanse of land, bright and beautiful and destructive all at once.

Dream was still turned away as the arrow launched towards him, and for a moment I felt sure that I had succeeded in my efforts. Right before the arrow was able to lodge itself in his head, though, Dream ducked, and the arrow flew past his head. He rose again to stand straight and turned slowly to face me, the blank eyed smile on his mask mocking me. My blood turned to ice in my veins and I frantically drew another arrow to fire, this time pointed at his heart.

Before I could release the arrow, Dream held up a stick of dynamite and pelted it right next to the building I stood on. It was close enough that I took damage and fell back as the earth shook around me. My head smacked against the roof and I groaned at the dizzy shock that sparked against my skull. I lay there, my head pounding, focused on the rumble that rattled my bones as I tried to regain my bearings.

By the time I had struggled onto my knees, Dream was hovering over me. I glared up at him for one silent moment before snatching my bow and striking his mask, which cracked and shattered to the ground. He stumbled back and I took my chance to load an arrow, but my head was still pounding, my coordination thrown off by the blow I had taken. Dream took advantage of my weakness and kicked the bow out of my hands, where it skidded across the roof and over the edge. I had made a feeble attempt to catch it before it tipped over, but I was too late.

Dream caught a fistful of my hair, yanking me backwards, and I growled, an animalistic sound that scratched my throat as I dragged my feet and struggled in his grasp. I kicked up dirt and clawed at the pale hands that trapped me, yelping when my captor shoved me to my knees. I must have looked ridiculous, like a child throwing a tantrum, as I thrashed and screamed to try and get away. “This is what happens to anyone who doesn’t follow my orders. You really thought you were smart enough to turn on me?” Dream laughed darkly, tightening his grip even as I scratched streaks of red into his skin. “You’re pathetic. I almost feel bad for you.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, attempting to jerk away, but Dream’s grip was unbreakable.

“I hope you’re not this rude to Technoblade. Where is he, by the way?” I struggled while Dream called out for my friend, who I watched sprint towards us between exploding buildings and smoke.

“Dream, what is this?” Techno heaved, meeting us on the building.

The man in question nodded his head towards me, a warrior bloodied and brought to my knees. “I think it’s about time I used that favor,” he said coldly.

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach, and I felt my body begin to numb with fear. If I wasn’t sure of it before, I was now; this was the end for me.

It was almost laughable, the irony of this situation; the promises to keep each other safe that I had made with my best friend—the only friend I had left—were tearing apart at the seams.

“Maybe you should rethink this before you do something you’ll regret, Dream,” Techno threatened.

“Oh, I won’t be regretting anything. But you might.” Dream gestured with his free hand towards the bundle of fireworks in Techno’s hand. “Kill them.”

The situation was eerily similar to another from so long ago in this very nation—when Techno was ordered by Schlatt to kill Tubbo. I could see the realization in his eyes, the acknowledgment of the parallels, the regret and anger and so much fear. I had never seen him so scared, but he remained stubborn. “I won’t do that,” he replied.

Dream’s grip tightened as he jerked my head forward for emphasis. “Listen, Technoblade, you’re going to kill your little friend here because you owe it to me. If you choose not to, I’ll just take them for myself so I can do it instead. You probably wouldn’t want that, though—I won’t be so kind. Oh, and don’t even think about trying to kill me instead. One of you was already stupid enough to try.”

“This isn’t what I meant when I said I’d do you a favor.”

“Isn’t it, though? Look around, Techno. The only reason this is happening right now is because Tommy betrayed you. He could have chosen you, he could have stayed on your side, but he didn’t. This is the consequence, right? And this—,” I yelped as Dream snatched me and held me up as evidence, “—is what happens when I’m betrayed. You all agreed to help me, and now my trust is broken. So pick up a fucking weapon and do me a favor.”

My friend stood frozen as he tried to calculate some way out of this, but I knew I had ruined any chances of a better life for us. It was my actions that were about to get me killed, by the only person who ever truly loved me, nonetheless.

“Do it,” I told Techno. “Please, just get it over with.”

Technoblade looked down at me, his eyes full of hurt as his brows furrowed. “No. You’re crazy, why would I do that? I made you a promise—”

“So did I. But there’s nothing else to do. I fucked it up, so I’m asking you to do this. Not for him, for me,” I pleaded, painfully aware of the grip Dream had on my hair. “I’d rather it be you. No one but you.”

I watched as Techno’s face contorted into a woeful expression. The guilt was bubbling over in the pit of my stomach, an all-consuming feeling that made me sick with sorrow for what I was asking him to do. We were one and the same, him and I, a pair of lonely people made better with the other around. I would miss him and, even if he never chose to admit it, I knew he would miss me too. I could only hope that my absence wouldn’t destroy him.

Slowly, Techno raised the firework launcher as he pointed it at my head. “You know, I always had a soft spot for you.”

My smile was regretful and watery; I prayed that he could hear my apologies without having to speak them out loud. I prayed even more that he could hear my unspoken words of gratitude, the unfinished symphony that was our friendship. “You’re the only person who ever knew me.”

Behind me, Dream groaned in annoyance. “Shut up with the monologues and get it over with,” he griped. With a harsh shove, the tip of the fireworks were pressed against my forehead. I bit my tongue, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth as I tried not to seem too meager in my final moments. Dream dropped me to my knees as he escaped the line of fire, now peering over Techno’s shoulder in waiting. I watched my friend’s hands shake, the light tremble of his finger as it hovered over the trigger. I wanted to give him some sort of reassurance, but how could I? How do you ease the heart of someone forced to kill their friend?

With a shaky, mournful sigh, Techno looked down on me, his knuckles white as he gripped the weapon. “I’m sorry,” he said.

I squeezed my eyes shut with tears running hot over my cheeks, trying to recall a better picture in my mind. I thought of when I first met Techno, brainwashed and broken, a person slowly made whole again. I thought of the softness in his eyes even as he yelled at me over some mistake I had made. I thought of the nights he spent hunched over his desk writing about anything until I threw a blanket at him and dragged him into his bed. I thought of the mornings we would wake up early on a day of traveling just to catch the sunrise. I could have seen it a thousand times, and still, nothing would have ever compared to him; no amount of wealth or glory could even come close to making me feel as elated as he did. Techno was, without a doubt in my mind, my soulmate. The universe decided that for us; the sun and the moon and every star in the sky chose to bind us together, and what reason did I have to refuse it?

My heart ached, jumping as the click of the trigger sounded. There was a bright flash, a pop, an explosion of color and sound—

Then nothing at all.

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jatthew · 3 years

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can we talk about how ignored sakura is as a character

like in the fandom shes seen as this kind buff lady who protects hina and that's it and like yeah she does those things but the sacrifice she made is so big yet so ignored.

especially her backstory which shows the misogyny shes faced due to her talent leading her to act in such a stiff way as any emotion to her is weak so most emotions to her come out as anger like in her free time events when you give her a present that she really likes she appears angry but is just exited but emotionally cannot Express those feelings after years of suppressing them, one of the biggest effects on her is probably toxic masculinity shes got a talent in a male dominated field despite how strong and how good she is she is always seen as weak by men so she suppressed her emotions acted more masculine to be seen by these men as less girly and more masculine purely to he taken seriously and later on falling for the only man stronger than her to be taken seriously by men as she was seen with a successful man all of this happening over years of her life has lead to her well being her, her personality gruff and quiet.

she also rarely smiles only when around aoi as aoi gets her she also has faced these issues in a male dominated space sakura is more comfortable around aoi as she doesnt judge her while her entire class stayed away from her in fear for her killing them aoi did the opposite and went to sakura on that first night because she was scared they have both been treated poorly by society both seen as rejects in many ways so they get each other sakura finally being comfortable to show what she thinks are weaknesses around aoi and aoi always supporting sakura being one of the 2 only people outside her family to truly care for her and not treat her like a monster as aoi has also been treated the same a weak fragile girl that's what shes seen as. aoi was one the only one to truly care for sakuras death and along with kyoko the only people to realise sakura did it for a reason and how she helped them so much aoi truly was sakuras first friend she says it herself she died only ever having one true friend who she loved dearly and whether you take aoi and sakuras relationship as platonic or romantic they were clearly soulmate romantic or platonic it's a case of right person wrong time they cared so deeply for each other that after sakura did die aoi said shed rather die than be alone and later in the trial try to get herself killed because she misses sakura so much and has gotten so close that she couldn't imagine living without her this relationship they had built of the common thing of the misogyny they have both received and being outcasted

both also faced many issues with how they looked sakura felt insecure about how masculine she looked while feeling feminine and aoi had the pressure of being skinny and a model for Japan on her sakuras case of insecurities was built on how she was bullied online shes was known as the missing link and an ogre years of this lead to her character and personality a person to not always trust so easily and someone with thick skin but inside soft. aois insecurities were based in her obsession with sports and the praise she got for these sports fueled that idea we see it in her free time event she got so angry at herself because she thought she was fat shes been training for so long in the spotlight for so long that she has to fit this expectation for people and was meant to go to the Olympics before the tragedy happened she was in the public eye she had all thse expectations on her that built up that pressure to look skinny and pretty

well heres today's rant and a big chunk of this is why I kin sakura so much

#danganronpa #sakura ogami #aoi asahina #danganronpa trigger happy havoc #sakuraoi #trigger happy havoc #sakura oogami #this was meant to be a quick rant how its an essay #sorry for the rant #rant

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not-ur-normie · 3 years

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Cristal witches, aka Sasha making headcanons for the world of Eldarya

I have this idea since forever at this point, so I figured it wouldn't hurt a fly to talk about it a little. It comes from years before when I wanted my OC to not be human but some kind of magic creature, so here we go.

English is not my first languange, so I am apologizing in advance.

Note: Throughout the post, the timespan is after the Blue Sacrifice, but I will talk about that too later on.

Who are cristal witches?

Cristal witches are witches who hold power connected to maana.

The bigger maana surronds them, the bigger their powers get

The reason they are called cristal witches is because they can form a connection with the Crystal

They are creatures with big potencial to play big roles in Eldarya, but that is exactly the point where things go wrong

More about witches

Most cristal witches are women, it's really rare when a male is born and inherits magical power, but there are cases when it happens

There were never any worry about them dying out, since the genes are VERY strong

When a male and female cristal witch have a child who is also one, they turn out way stronger then the others who only have one parent being one

Don't get me wrong, one parent makes the kid already strong as it is, but two parents are just a whole new level

Cristal witches all have tattoos, all in different colors. Most of the time the colors don't have anything to do with the powers they can hold, but lighter colors indicate lighter powers, meaning: lighter colors can't use magic that requires bigger maana usage, like black magic, or healing magic

(If you play the game, you sure know the voodoo outfit, I based the tattoos on those tattoos, so you can see the colors if you google it)

Since cristal witches are a heavily mixed community thanks to the overload of women, there are times where kids inherit both of their parents specific genetics

It's rare tho, because of the witch genes mixing up with other races' is not that common

But when it happens, it always gains attention

Cristal witches are not just cristal witches because they are connected to the Crystal, but because they literally have crystals all over their body

These crystals are mostly small ones and has the color of the tattoos

They are really human-like, so if they can hide their tattos and crystals they can perfectly blend in, which did come handy at some point

Their lifespan is about 150-200 years

They are able to open the portal to the human world

(here you can see the children of my OC [Chrystal] and Ezarel, who were lucky enough to inherit both of their parents genes, so they are witches with elf ears.)

How did they live?

Back then cristal witches lived in small communities, mostly small villages, but there where some communities living a full nomad life

Since they live so long, there were not many of them to begin with

These smaller communities lived close to each other way back then, but the nomad communities started to move around after a while

These are highly spiritual communities, especially that they are fully able to communicate with the Oracle if they wish so

They had special type of education, where witches were learning to use basic magic, while non-witches who lived with them learned alchemy

They had strict rules, that everybody needed to follow, they weren't allowed to use their power randomly

They needed to get an approval to use magic that requires more manna than your basic magic, and also to use dangerous or risky magic

If somebody went against this rule more than 5 times, they got their magic taken away

They choose new leader every year, although if a leader was good, they sticked with them and kept on picking them

The leader was not leading alone, although they made the final decisions

There were many smaller position available next to the leader, which are also chosen by the other witches

Overally they are really pieceful, so the conflicts are not that common

Cristal witches are able to do many things with magic, but it takes a lifetime to gain a really controlled power, so older, well-educated witches are highly respected and the leader was chosen from them most of the times

Some really strong witches are even able to bring back people from the death, but only if they're right there when the death happens

The Blue Sacrifice

The reason that Cristal witches were never part of the council that planned out the Sacrifice was that the races forming the council agreed that Eldarya could need them in the future (and they were damned right)

Before the Sacrifice taken place, witches were not that strong than after it happend

I imagine it the way, that once the sacrifice was made, Eldarya alone had more maana than when the two worlds were one and since witches' powers are mostly maana based, it made their powers grow way stronger than before

(I hope this makes sense lol)

Where things went wrong

As I mentioned before, they are creatures with big potential

When the Blue Sacrifice went wrong, the races in Eldarya needed the witches help the most

Almost every community, town, villige, whatever had at least one witch living with them to help out whenever there were high need

The problem is, that there was always high need; as we know Eldarya was in trouble

With the help of the witches it was easier to go for supplies to the human world, although only those communities could do this who had stronger, more experienced witches

There were even witches who were able to cast spells and make the field able to grow some edible plants

And this is exactly where things went terribly wrong

Since cristal witches have a high value, there were many who hunted them or tortured them for their powers

Why? Well, I know all the above reasons would be enough, but there are more to it

Cristal witches' blood is able to make the lifespan of whoever drinks it longer

And not just that, but it can completely function as food, it stops hunger for longer periods of time (weeks, sometimes months, depending on power) and makes the immune system 100% healthy

It was also used for really expensive medication

You know what else is really valuable? The tears of witches.

It can fasten healing and was used for many medication as well as their blood

But only tears that hold heavy emotions count, since the tear drops turn into little crystals

These informations spread real fast after a while and witch hunts became so serious that at one point several communities started to think that it would be better to sacrifice them as well so maybe Eldarya could gain its full balance [the Guard of El also wanted this, just in case you were curious]

Witches would've 100% sacrificed themselfs if they got asked by the time the Blue Sacrfice happend

But after all the terror they went through, their trust was completely broken

They did not want to die for all these selfish folks wanting to murder them, not thinking about their race for a single second

So one day they completely vanished

Nobody knows how exactly, the common guess was that they opened the portal and moved to the human world, giving up on their magic

I mean everything was better than dying for your murderers

After the vanish

Of course, not all of the witches vanished, but the witch communities that lived together

Those who lived in certain places helping out stayed there

Back then the Guard of El had a witch with them too

Sadly, they got scared of her possibly gaining control over the guard, since she was very much loved... So they decided to kill her [yes, they wanted to sacrifice her, and then killed her, way to go]

The last known cristal witch was a male, living with the Fenghuangs, but he died just before The Origins' story starts

But... Are they really all gone?

Okaaaay soooo I bet there are stuff in this which doesn't exactly fit the story and/or I remember incorrectly, but it is what it is.

On the very first art you can see my OC named Chrystal. Well, she arrives to Eldarya the same way Erika did in the original story, the main difference is that she turnes out to be a cristal witch and this fact leaves the guard in a numb shock. Suddenly the only living cristal witch is with them and that is changing their situation entirely.

I am sure I will write down Chrystals story with illustratons and whatnot, but currently I am working on my Moonligh Lovers' OC's illus, so that will take some time.

Anyway, this will have another part, I wanna at least introduce Chrystal so you can see a cristal witch in action, hurray.

Ah, yeah, if there are facts from the game messed up, feel free to tell me, I am not biting. You can also use this idea for your ocs, I don't mind. Hugs<3

#eldarya #eldarya new era #eldarya the origins #eldarya headcanons

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greaterspawnislands · 3 years

Text

lead me into the light | emerald duo platonic soulmates

For all the years he has lived, Phil has lived without a soulmate, and as a result, without color. And he's perfectly fine with that.

Then he touches down on a battlefield for fun, and meets the eyes of a total stranger.

And as the world goes from monochromatic to full of color and more beauty than he had ever imagined, Phil knows that everything is going to change.

(But a mortal's life is only so short, after all.)

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My twitter account voted a series of polls to decide what fic I was gonna write, and they decided on an emerald duo platonic soulmates au fic that was angst with a happy ending ! Link will be in the notes, but here’s a bit of the start to get you into it!

|||

There are a few constants that Phil holds in his life, has always held, and will always hold.

The first, the most glaring, is the centuries that stretch far back in his past and the ones that he approaches in the present. It is the fact that he cannot die from old age or from hunger or from thirst, that it is only by injury that he could possibly be taken down for good.

The second is his lifestyle. Always a traveler, never with a permanent home. For fear of being targeted, or not wanting to cause that kind of disturbance, and because Phil truly desires to wander the world on his own terms, he travels. Visits every city and explores every nook and cranny of it as it changes over the months and years and decades. He visits fields where he spilled blood and watches others spill blood in that very spot a few years later. He carves out temporary places, favored nooks to fish in and well-loved corners of libraries or especially nice inns, but he never lingers around others who might question his unaging face.

And the third is the grayscale in which he sees the world, shades of black and white and everything in between, the only hues he’ll ever lay eyes upon.

(Soulmates are rare. They are not a common thing, they are often considered blessings by the gods to live your life devoid of color, the trials and tribulations to find your other half.)

(Phil has met quite a few gods, in his time of wandering. That’s just straight bullshit.)

He’s lived decades upon decades without a soulmate, and is perfectly content to keep living without one. Where others find agony in not being able to separate the color of the leaves in autumn, Phil has long since made his peace in seeking out the beauty of the world in other ways. The speckled patterns of a newborn fawn in spring. Waves darkening the shade of the sand upon an ocean. The way his lover’s hair seemed to melt into the endless night sky.

(Gods are exempt from the concept of soulmates, and Death had no answers for Phil when he asked her why he had been cursed to live like this, nor could she bring his sight into full color, even with all her otherworldly abilities.)

(“Maybe there is someone out there,” she said to him one night as he rested against her shoulder, looking up at the star-studded sky from where they sat within the earth. “And you just haven’t found them yet.”)

(“I don’t think I need to find anyone else, honestly,” he replied, turning to look at her. She was a thousand times more dazzling than any sky could behold on its own. “You’re all I need, I’m not letting this kind of stuff stop me from living my life any longer.”)

Their visits were infrequent, but time means nothing to a god and a human whose chances of death are slim as long as he keeps himself out of trouble.

Phil’s wings flare out as he touches down on a battlefield stained with darker shades of gray, determined to find go and find some trouble, if only because this past year has been incredibly boring otherwise.

“My name is Philza,” he introduces himself to the general of the army, hand raising in a salute that had definitely been appropriate last time he was on a battlefield, and he doesn’t really care much whether it still holds up. He takes his hat off as well, holding the striped material against his chest. “And I’m here to help, if you’ll have me.”

His reputation, that of the Angel of Death, precedes him. For all his intentions to keep away from sticking around civilians as they aged, wars and skirmishes would always be an exception.

It was a secret sort of thrill, to throw himself into the fray of a conflict he would hardly remember by the next one. To release the fearlity that he kept tightly wound up inside him, to splatter blood on a blade and sink arrow after arrow through the eyes of assailants. Nevertheless, the legends of his help follow him wherever he goes, and the look of relief on the general’s face says enough on that matter.

A night’s rest later, he’s led across the loosely set up encampment to one of the larger tents. As he walks, Phil tips his head up to gaze at the sky. There was no smooth texture, instead fuzzy clouds crowd the sky, and Phil tilts his head, noting the approaching rain.

Once inside the tent, the general nods at him, speaking before Phil can even courteously extend a greeting.

“We’re going to have you take command of the Red Snakes force, over here.” The general indicates to the map spread out on the table between them, pointing to a marker that Phil notices has a small symbol carved into it. It’s a small squiggle, barely noticeable, but it stands out against the other symbols carved into the various markers that Phil gathers to represent the different sub-forces that this general is commanding.

It’s helpful primarily, though no one knows of his own color-absence, he does appreciate the carved symbols. As an afterthought, it’s interesting. He wonders who else is color-absent this high up in the commanding forces. A rare thing, to be sure, not that he’ll bother to interact with them for that reason. He’s here to help spill some blood, not hear some poor sap moan about how they feel they’ll die on the battlefield before meeting their soulmate.

Phil’s eyes snap from the squiggly symbol back to the general’s words, tuning in mid-sentence. He’s definitely missed some information that was probably crucial, but he’ll get somebody else to relay it to him later. For now—

“Your co-commander already knows this, of course, but I figured I would inform you separately so you were up to date on our intel before you began discussing the best course of action.”

“Sorry, my who?” Phil blurts, brow furrowing, heart sinking a little.

“You’ll be co-leading this group, at least for now.”

Phil lightly bites the inside of his cheek to keep his face schooled appropriately. He knows what this is. It’s a nicely phrased term to cover up the fact that he’s being babysat because they don’t trust him with their armies, so they’ve appointed another commander to watch over him.

On one hand, it’s fucking annoying to be watched like that. On the other hand, that does mean Phil can totally push all the actual commanding duties off to the other guy while he buggers off to do what he pleases. Maybe this won’t be too bad after all, honestly, it depends whether he gets some kind of suck up as a co-commander or not.

“Commander Technoblade has shown great leadership prowess in recent skirmishes, so it was determined that he could take up control of a new force until your support and guidance,” the general continues, and Phil’s heart sinks further.

Oh, gods, they think he’s some kind of trainer, some kind of mentor to a kid who’s been handed too much responsibility for his age and will die in a week. Not this shit again. “Sounds great,” he lies through his teeth. “When do I meet him?”

There’s a soft knocking against the flap of the tent, and the general lifts a hand. “That’ll be him. You can come in, Technoblade.”

“Yes sir,” a deep voice intones. There a shuffling of fabric just as Phil turns to greet whoever this guy is, and—

And his vision explodes with—

Everything is so bright, even brighter than the white gleam of the sun in his eyes. Phil blinks furiously as what he’s certain is color blooms across his vision, spreading outward until there’s nowhere he can look to escape from the blinding, unfamiliar hues. Gone is the subtle change of shade between the grass at his feet and the canvas walls of the tent. They’re two entirely different colors now, unrecognizable in this state.

#technoblade #philza #emerald duo #dream smp #technoblade fanfic #philza fanfiction #emerald duo fanfiction #antarctic empire #hhh.writing #my writing

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consumeconstantly · 4 years

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Who Are You (and what will you become?)

1(you are here)| 2 | 3 | 4

Summary: “Over the years, I have found that blood means very little.”

The ice clicks against the glass almost inaudibly, condensation dripping down the side.

“So tell me, M. Wayne, why do you think I should even begin to consider you my father?” (all biodad bruce can be read as stand alone but are posted in chronological order)

__________________________________________________

At the tender age of nineteen, Marinette Dupain-Cheng has already become a jaded woman. It doesn’t shine through very often, hidden behind a carefully crafted facade of Parisian-brand carefree attractiveness and pigtailed youthfulness, but there exists, in Marinette, a certain bitterness.

“For a vigilante, you’re not very secretive,” Marinette remarks, keeping her tone measured, almost playful, so as not to draw attention to herself.

“Marinette.” Bruce inclines his head and allows the bartender to serve him a whiskey sour. He doesn’t drink alcohol because it alters his mental state in ways that are unpleasant, but ordering a drink helps him fit in, and with Marinette, the person he wants to talk to, right at his side, he can’t have his normal ginger ale substitute. “It’s good to see you.”

“Mmm.” She takes a sip of her French 75, playing up an interest that Bruce knows is a lie. “M. Wayne, you say that as though we’re familiar with each other.”

“Sabine and I were close,” he says.

Sabine is one of the few people who knew about his existence as Batman that didn’t live in Gotham. Many years ago, they were friends. Colleagues. (More.) Of course she told her daughter about who he was. How could she not have?

Sabine is-- she was--

“Close, you call it,” she says with mock awe, words slurring together. “Closer than close, really. Too close for comfort— at least, too close for you.”

When Bruce and Sabine’s paths crossed all those years ago, he was struggling trying to raise Dick. Sabine was equal parts a mother and a mentor to Dick in all the ways that Bruce couldn’t be. When she left for Paris so abruptly after the two of them parted ways, Dick didn’t take it very well. Even moreso when communications halted permanently. The fact that the radio silence coincided with Marinette’s birth is something only Bruce is privy to.

However awkwardly he and Sabine left off, it doesn’t change the facts. Bruce’s lips thin. “I’m here to offer you a home.”

Swirling her French, Marinette taps at her phone, swiping away at a few messages that she’s not interested in. “I’m nineteen and more than capable of taking care of myself. Though I suppose it stands to reason that it would be difficult for you to know that, what with how busy your extracurriculars keep you.”

“I’m not doubting your capabilities.” He’s looked into what Marinette has been up to over the past nineteen years of her life. He’s never been particularly concerned with her upbringing, not with a woman like Sabine at the helm of her childhood. Bruce was right not to be worried; Marinette has grown into a multi talented, extremely well connected entrepreneur based on her own hard work. Judging by the crowd that she runs with and the multiple charities that she supports both financially and with her own time, she will be a force to be reckoned with in a few years; Tim regularly extols the virtues of the brand MDC, and if he knew that he was sisters with the designer, he’d never stop raving about her. MDC is already being compared to the likes of Dior and Gabriel when they were first starting out. Her finances aren’t anything to scoff at, and at a few galas and charity parties that he’s had to entertain, anyone who's had the privilege to wear an MDC original talks about how sweet and kind the head designer is while complimenting the CEO’s business savvy.

Bruce has to admit that he’s impressed by how she manages to keep her identities separate. No one suspects the head designer to also be manning publicity and business.

He’s been watching her for the past day, and he has to say, for somebody whose parents just died, she carries herself with remarkable ease. If not for the red around her eyes and line of shots on the bartop, Bruce would believe that Tom and Sabine’s death didn’t phase her at all.

“There’s a but, isn’t there?” Marinette says bitterly.

She’s right in that assumption. As skillful as Marinette is in her field, she has no practical combat experience. A brief stint in fencing and martial arts but nothing beyond that. Even if she practiced martial arts for years, that wouldn’t be enough to convince Bruce to let her go off on her own. Martial arts as a hobby is an entirely different game than fighting for one’s life.

Marinette is simply not the kind of person who can face down a League member and come out of it alive.

“It’s for your safety.”

For the first time since entering the bar, Bruce sees a flash of true emotion cross Marinette’s eyes. It’s hard to see the color of her eyes in the dim lighting, but it’s impossible not to see Sabine in how her eyes narrow. Perhaps the dim lighting makes it easier to; in the light of day, Marinette’s eye color— it’s too similar to the shade he sees in the mirror.

“My safety? What about my parent’s safety?”

At that, Bruce internally cringes while keeping his face carefully blank. Tom and Sabine… their end wasn’t pretty. Not the most gruesome deaths he’s ever seen, but it was up there. Bruce never thought the League would do something as cruel as desecrating the corpses of the people they murdered. They may be assassins for hire, but most times, they do have some sort of morals.

The worst part about it is that their death is most likely a result of Sabine’s past relationship with him. Last month, a tabloid that drew comparisons between Marinette and Bruce. It didn’t take long for another person to dredge up pictures from when he was still with Sabine. Tom and Sabine didn’t have enemies well-off enough to hire the League. But Bruce? Bruce did.

“I’m not interested in any protection you have to offer me.” Marinette shakes her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not like you. I won’t become a vigilante out of rage or as a coping mechanism. I’m not going to go chasing after the League in a foolish pursuit of misguided justice.”

But Marinette doesn’t understand. She has a target on her back with her newfound association to him.

“I haven’t been active in your life--”

“Understatement of the year,” Marinette mutters.

“--but I’m not going to let you die when I can prevent it.”

Downing the rest of her French, she takes the Moscow Mule away from Bruce’s hands, eyeing the liquor up on display. She drinks the cold alcohol and revels in the burn that slides down her throat. Marinette swipes on one of the notifications she’s received on her phone in order to respond to it. “You’re a good man, Bruce. But your desire to protect me— what does it stem from? What do we have in common? Why would you use your time and effort on what’s essentially a stranger?”

Bruce has no good answer for this, but he has an obvious one. As soon as it leaves his tongue, it feels wrong. “We share the same blood.”

He can’t bring himself to call Marinette his daughter. That means that he would be her father and he’s not deserving of that title.

Marinette pockets her phone, eyes trained on a set of unusually shaped glasses on the shelves. “If that’s your answer, M. Wayne, let me tell you something. Over the years, I have found that blood means very little.”

The bartender comes around and tops off the whiskey sour. The ice clicks against the glass almost inaudibly, condensation dripping down the side. Bruce can’t tell whether the bartender knows Marinette or not, but he certainly looks concerned enough to, with how his eyes shift between Marinette and himself rapid fire. When the bartender’s gaze settles on Bruce, mouth turned downward, clearly suspicious of his presence, Marinette just waves him off with a gentle smile.

Her smile turns up the same way Tom’s did. She’s right; family is more than blood.

“Your answer to why you want to protect me is that we share blood, but you speak nothing of our relationship. Shouldn’t that have been the first thing you brought up?”

Bruce shifts uncomfortably on the bar stool. Marinette just laughs at his apparent awkwardness. “Talking of blood relations seems to be something you don’t enjoy, and yet the entire premise of your protection rests on it. Tell me, M. Wayne, do you think I should even begin to consider you my father?”

Even as inebriated as Marinette must be, she brings up points that he himself wondered on his way to Paris. Wanting to see Marinette safe goes beyond a simple duty to morality and virtue. Though Bruce is known for adopting kids with tragic backstories, it simply isn’t feasible to adopt every single one he comes across. To bring Marinette into his family at this age, to expose her to the life he lives would be beyond cruel. In essence he’d be replacing two parents with a ticking time bomb: himself.

“Don’t consider me a parent, just a guardian. It’s in my best interest to see you safe, and the best way to do that is to have you move to Gotham, where my colleagues and I can assure you around the clock protection.”

At first, he distanced himself from Sabine and Marinette because he didn’t want to disrupt her current relationship with Tom. Even if the two of them insisted that he could still be part of Marinette’s life, it just didn’t feel right to have the title of father when he wasn’t the one to put in any of the hard work. Then, as Tom and Sabine grew more comfortable in their life together, settled down and opened up a bakery, he was blindsided by Jason’s death. As his daughter grew older and older, there were just too many things in his own life for him to ever hope to kindle a relationship with Marinette.

Marinette laughs, but it’s really more of a bark. Her voice is too hoarse for it to come out any other way. Bruce can’t imagine how much she’s cried this past week. “If you wanted to keep me safe, where were you a week ago? Where were you two years ago? Where were you when I was thirteen? M. Wayne, I’ve heard a lot of rumors about you throughout the years, and I’ve always brushed them off as nothing more than tabloid gossip. But perhaps they got one thing right about you: you’re a liar.”

Marinette stands, swaying slightly.

“This— if you truly want me to uproot my life, I need more than you saying it’s in your best interest. I need—” Marinette reaches up to her earrings and allows her eyes to flutter shut. She needs more than a distant guardian. She needs someone to confide in. Someone she trusts. “It was nice meeting you, but I don’t need your pity. Not now.”

As she weaves through the crowd, Bruce can’t help but wonder whether he made the right decision all those years ago to not be apart of her life.

@biodad-bruce-month

Late to the game as always. This will be a multichapter fic but all parts can be read as one shots (and also as always anything posted to tumblr is never checked for accuracy and stuff so whoop)! They’ll be released in chronological order. If you want to get tagged in all things maribat, instead of commenting it under a fic, I’d appreciate an ask or a dm instead! I haven’t been able to go back through all the previous comments and create a taglist yet but perhaps. eventually.

#bio!dad bruce wayne month 2020 #first meeting #maribat #bio!dad bruce #marinette dupain cheng #bruce wayne #referenced character death #aged up! marinette #miraculous ladybug #dcu

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cblgblog · 3 years

Note

Imagine Mildolyn, "Illicit Affair", Modern AU. Where Gwen's campaigning for Congress and all the meet and greets, showing up for charities for publicity, her 'cause'. At one for special needs children and their foundation she meets a very young CNA named Mildred and sort of falls head over heels in the dumbest of ways, both just love struck. Except she's campaigning to be in Congress, she's a politician, she cannot be queer and chasing after 19 year old ex-foster kids whos brothers are set to be the youngest executed on Death Row in California in decades for appalling crimes. But there she is, in hotel rooms her supporters pay for, with someone she shouldn't be with, trying to find ways to overturn cases that turned stomachs with their brutality, because a pretty girl smiled at her and called her 'ma'am' while showing her around the foundation/care home she worked at with children no one else had the time/patience to care for. Of course it goes terribly with 'dirty little secret' vibes, the breast cancer diagnosis announced on twitter before she tells Mildred in person, even if it's such a minor case ('so they say') and caught so early that it'll barely leave a scar, radiation won't be much of a deal at all. She doesn't get to tell Mildred that, she just gets to hear on Fox news about how the democrat's gonna die a horrible death and panic.

Mildred who has no patience for politicians and their fake concern, using patients as photo ops. It’s manipulative, it’s distracting to the staff, it’s awful, okay, she hates it. She is, in fact, a tad bit rude to Gwen when they meet. Gets her a death glare from Betsy Bucket, gets Gwen intrigued.

“Republican?” only half-joking.

“No.”

“Is it the suit? Should I have worn a different suit? I wanted to, but I’ve been told this one tested better.”

“The suit is fine.” It’s more than that, actually, but Mildred will not be saying that aloud, nope, uh-uh. “I don’t much care for politicians.”

“Ah, we have that in common then.”

“I doubt we have much of anything in common. Ma’am.”

And look, Gwen doesn’t usually go in for the chasing, the hard to get. She’s got enough trouble chasing votes. But this woman is so good with the kids on her ward, so patient. She’s got Disney scrubs on and as much as she’s got no time at all for Gwen, she seems to have infinite amounts for those kids. She stays with them individually, longer than any of the other staff Gwen sees, but she still manages to get a dozen things done in half as many minutes. And she’s also gorgeous, there’s that.

And Gwen has no good reason to ask her out for lunch. Honestly, none. Nothing good can come from this. Mildred asks if the citizens of California will be paying for this meal and Gwen swears that isn’t the case, no, absolutely not. Even still, Gwen doesn’t expect Mildred to say yes. She doesn’t think Mildred expected Mildred to say yes.

But she does. Tells herself it’s for Edmund, maybe this’ll be the one politician who listens, who’s willing to look past the surface facts, willing to help. Except she gets there and they don’t talk about Edmund. It’s not because Mildred doesn’t know how to bring it up, she’s made her case dozens of times. She just…they don’t talk about him, and that feels like a betrayal, but Gwen’s kind and funny and fascinating (much to Mildred’s annoyance), and she just…doesn’t feel like getting into it.

Meanwhile Trevor, Gwen’s campaign manager/law school buddy/best friend/lavender marriage soulmate, if they were in a different time, is like bitch, what’re you doing? Yes, everyone knows you’re gay as hell, but you can’t be chasing girls right now, you can’t afford to be distracted. You especially can’t afford to look distracted. And you can’t be robbing the cradle while looking distracted.

“She’s not that young.”

“Uh-huh. She wears Winnie the Pooh clothes.”

“Scrubs, those are scrubs. Scrubs aren’t clothes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She works in a children’s ward, Trevor.”

“Uh-huh. I really wish you wouldn’t do this, but since you care nothing about me and my mental state and all the hours and hours of hard work I’ve put in for you—”

“After badgering me into hiring you over someone more qualified.”

“Hey! More qualified. I resent that. Anyway, if you insist on ruining my day, at least wear that face cream I gave you. Should make you look less like you’re robbing the cradle.”

“Go to hell.”

“And don’t do the oyster thing. Not on a first date, in the middle of the campaign.”

“It’s not a date, it’s just lunch.”

“Uh-huh.”

Gwen doesn’t do the oyster thing. Not on the first date, which neither of them acknowledge as a date, for entirely different reasons. But then there’s a second and a third, and sex, lots of sex, and it’s harder to pass off as just friendly.

And yeah, the sneaking around that Gwen hates. That Mildred says she doesn’t mind, and she actually doesn’t seem to all that much, which Gwen finds slightly concerning. Mildred’s good with secrets though, she’s good with being kept a secret. Mostly. Which again, Gwen finds concerning.

There’s pillow talk and Mildred admitting more about herself than she has to anyone, ever. Which still isn’t nearly as much as what Gwen admits, but it’s a relative thing. And still, Mildred doesn’t talk about Edmund. Gwen finds that one out on her own, stumbles across some old photos, a scrapbook of Edmund’s crimes. Gwen’s briefly concerned that Mildred is one of those people who’re deeply attracted to serial killers, but the truth is…something else.

Mildred tells her things. Some of the deeper, darker stuff, but not much, not yet. Tells her how she’s written to everyone she can think of because he’s a boy, okay? He was in an impossible situation, they both were, no one ever helped them, so Edmund decided he had to die. No one helped them before, no one helps them now. There’s anger and tears and Gwen holding her and she can’t help asking why Mildred didn’t talk to her sooner, if she’s had no problem asking for help from strangers.

“Because you aren’t,” Mildred says in a way that makes it clear she’s figuring this stuff out as she says it. “A stranger, you aren’t. You never were and I couldn’t…I didn’t want to become one to you. I didn’t want you to look at me like that.”

“Oh Mildred…”

Mildred doesn’t actually ask her to help. She doesn’t want Gwen to think that’s what it’s all been about. It was supposed to be, but it isn’t. She doesn’t ask. Gwen digs into things herself, digs into this kid who was barely double-digits when he did these things. Made all the headlines at the time, but that was over a decade ago, he’s been locked up ever since. Most of Mildred’s money goes to him, one way or another.

Gwen hides it from Trevor—the murderer, not the sex, he knew about the sex before she ever said anything—for as log as she can. But he’s always been nosy, and now he has a paid excuse to be nosy, and he nearly has an aneurysm when he hears why it is that Gwen’s suddenly digging into this case instead of kissing the babies of gay couples, like she should be.

Gwen cannot do this. Nope, absolute no. She cannot be sneaking around with the younger sister of the kid they’ve made all the documentaries about. Doesn’t matter that she’s running on a platform of prison reform, especially as it pertains to juveniles, this is not the case to start with, especially when she hasn’t won yet.

And Gwen knows. She knows. She argues with Trevor about it until he decides they both need to stop because Gwen has a speaking engagement tomorrow and she can’t sound hoarse. There are many further arguments, arguments about principles over politics, but Gwen knows he’s right. She cannot, should not, be doing any of this, at least not yet. It’s dangerous, it’s selfish, Mildred deserves better than being someone’s secret again. Gwen should break it off, at least until the election. She’s not being fair to either of them like this. They should stop, at least for a few months.

Except it’s Mildred and she’s totally hijacked Gwen’s everything, and the thought of stopping makes her ill, and everything about this is terrifying, the most terrifying thing ever.

And then there’s the checkup and the routine mammogram. Gwen started those earlier than most because somebody’s aunt on somebody’s side of the family got sick, somebody’s cousin on the other side did too.

Scratch that, there’s a new winner for most terrifying thing ever.

It’s good, they say. She started early, they caught it early, this is good, they have treatments for this. Good, they say, while Gwen damn near passes out. She’s got a campaign to finish, she can see the Too Sick to Serve headlines already. A bald look would not test well, she’s sure it wouldn’t. She talks to Trevor about that, about the campaign, until he tells her to shut the fuck up, yanks her into a crushing hug. He cries, damn him, and that makes her cry.

She’s glad he’s there.

She wishes Mildred was.

She is also relieved as hell that Mildred isn’t, that they’re on opposite sides of the state right now. No point having Mildred see her like this, having her worry. She’s got enough to worry about, enough to hurt about.

Not that Gwen isn’t planning to tell her. She is. It’s only been a few whirlwind months, but Gwen knows enough to realize that a lie of omission would be a bad, bad, bad idea where Mildred’s concerned, regardless of intention. Gwen doesn’t think of hiding it anyway, not really. Mildred deserves better then that. When and how to tell the public…that’s a completely different clusterfuck of a situation, but Mildred, Gwen just wants to tell her in person. That way Mildred can see her face when she promises it’s no big deal (hopefully without seeing how terrified she actually is), and Gwen will have all the paperwork and things she knows Mildred will want to see, and they can hold each other, and it’s just, it’s not phone call news.

Except then it’s headline news, because somehow it’s leaked. Fox News is having a field day, certain corners of the Internet are already gleefully writing her obituary, and she’s missed literally hundreds of calls by the time she gets a look at her phone. At least half of those are from Mildred. Mildred who actually sounds hysterical for the first time since Gwen’s known her, that bastard on the news with the hair, he says you’re dying, why aren’t you answering, how long have you known, please, please pick up the phone, just pick up the phone god dammit.

She’s managed to keep Mildred a secret for months. This? This doesn’t last three days before it’s everywhere. Gwen does get an I love you for the first time ever, but seeing as Mildred’s sobbing over her voicemail when it happens, the joy is somewhat muted.

#Ratched #ratched au #mildred ratched #gwendolyn briggs #mildolyn #Mildred ratched/gwendolyn briggs

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