#he just kind of gives up on the dream

[feroluce]

Lucid Dreamer (2/2)

part 1

Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.

It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.

But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.

There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.

Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.

Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.

Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.

Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.

Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.

He doesn't dream.

One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.

And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.

And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.

He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.

But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.

The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.

Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.

The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.

"I'll be home in one week."

[mariatesstruther]

okay but a version of events in which tommy takes ellie to the fireflies, but NEITHER of them come back. and maria joel have to work together to get them back

[hidden-havven]

1 life left sure hope nothing bad happens to them..

plus more doodles (cw: blood (not very graphical))

g e g g i s l o v e g e g g i s l i f e

[welcometoteyvat]

tags: fluff(?); lyney x gender neutral reader; very vague spoilers for the motifs present in lyney’s story quest (no plot points spoiled)

there's a little bit of magic falling in love with lyney. every day he has a new trick to show you—a sprig of baby's breath miraculously tucked into your collar before you head out the door, an elegant watch magicked onto your wrist right before your disbelieving eyes. When you ask him what his secrets are, Lyney just laughs, like a bell in the light spring breeze, and kneels down to kiss your hand. "A magician has to keep some of his secrets, my love! After all, you already know a fair few of them." Oh, what a tease—just as silver tongued and charming as the first time you met. “Aw- please, Lyney, don’t you trust me with your truths?” You half smile and half pout, arranging your features into your best pleading expression, and you can see your great magician giving in. 

"Ah, alright," and he's tapping his chin in mock thought, eyes twinkling, "since you asked so nicely, I suppose I can show you a couple more tricks, as an apology for my insincerity." Lyney winks, his serious act dropping in a flash, and you laugh as he pulls you towards the plush velvet couch. After he’s sure you’re comfortable, Lyney grows serious again, and you know the real show has begun. He pulls chocolates out of prop cards, bouquets from his hat, and, at your request, promises to pluck the stars from the sky to decorate your dreams, as a reminder of his love. His breezy solemnity makes you laugh, but you wouldn’t doubt Lyney’s word. It’s so easy to love him, and almost as easy to believe his magician’s world of dazzling stunts and marvelous tricks. But underneath all his glamorous charm and beyond the brilliant light of his performances, the hand that holds yours is quite warm, quite solid, and quite real. So too is his quiet admiration when you talk excitedly about your passions, and his eagerness to learn about your world. When you're together, there are no facades obscuring his earnest fondness for you—it’s one of the few truths of Lyney’s life. He hasn’t yet told you many things, but you don’t seem to mind as much as he expected. Smart as you are, you’ve already guessed at some of his secrets, yet you still place in him all your faith, all of your affection. Someday, maybe he can also learn to give himself wholly—without reservation. After all, you are one of his unwavering truths, and him? He’s your fantastical, wondrous everyday magic.

[shewhoeatssand]

I want to befriend Kaneki and meet with him and email him forever

[cdroloisms]

Oh I was just haunted by jmah!Dream’s deteriorating mental state

:C my BOYYY

and it's awful, too, because it's not like Dream is in a particularly good state of mind when the prison starts in the first place. and he's in here because he's terrified (and he's in here as punishment) and he's in here because even though Sam hates him--and he's ensured that Sam hates him, and he's planning to do more to make sure of that fact as well (in canon, c!Dream is talking to c!Sam 'all about exile' in those first few days)--Sam will do his job. he trusts him to do his job. he knows Sam, the man that he's worked with for the last month on this project, on making sure this prison is as secure as it can possibly be, one of the final few people to work with him before the events of the green festival, doomsday, staged finale etc. made sure he'd stand alone, just where he was supposed to. this is a Dream that's already been swimming in the lava before Sam travels back in time.

unlike Sam's betrayal in canon, there's nothing slow about what happens in JMAH. there's no ability for him to cope and go yeah, Sam's being kind of serious, but it's no big deal, yeah, this place kind of sucks, but it's survivable, yeah, there's some mistreatment, but I expected that. in an instant, Sam goes from a predictable cog in the machine meant to keep him alive into a stranger hellbent on torturing the fuck out of him, and he has no idea why. Sam is nowhere near as straightforward as Quackity in explaining what the hell he wants out of Dream--he asks for the book, sure, but also for information, also for complete obedience, also for explanations for things he shouldn't know and punishments for things he never did. there is no promise that the revive book will end anything, for this Dream, and no one to give him anything at all but the Warden.

just ,, the lengths to which this Sam is willing to go, the intensity of his obsession, the way he'd be left reeling with no choice other than to endure and wonder why breaks my heart. Dream has no fucking clue to what end this is all for, and i think he struggles a lot with that. worse than just the torture, perhaps, is the familiarity, the sparks of something that is almost fondness, the satisfaction in Sam's voice when he's gotten something and Dream isn't even sure what he's just given away--and maybe it'd be easier to understand if what Sam wanted from him were any more straightforward, if the desire could pan out as something as simple as sadistic pleasure at hurting him or deriving some kind of gratification from making him submit or wanting power or to eliminate a threat or anything, but all that is clear is that Sam wants something from him and will stop at nothing to get it.

c!Dream and identity is already a finicky thing as well as his whole complex about himself and evil--c!Dream thinks he's a person that does evil things to achieve good ends, but he struggles pretty heavily, honestly, with himself-as-evil and being viewed as evil-and-just-evil and actually being the tyrant-villain-monster-snake-that-just-bites, etc, which means that there is a level of vulnerability here when it comes to how he sees himself and builds his identity and the constant, relentless onslaught of . pain and torture combined with Sam justifying it all by Who He Is Innately and monologuing about how he deserves it all, because c!Dream isn't a person that doesn't think that punishment as a concept is wrong and doesn't necessarily disagree that he's evil either. and again. torture self harm box of mental illness. and part of the problem with a Sam that's fresh from Daedalus and then thrust into kind of the worst possible position of reflecting on those conversations by being in a place where he's able to fall hard on old habits to copium his way out of dealing with anything he personally might have done (because obviously he can just Fix It Now) while also having the additional cope of i-am-godsent-to-make-everything-better BY keeping dream in a box, you kind of get a situation where both Dream and Sam are psychologically in pretty vulnerable places and then you're taking a torture machine hammer to those stress points. so it's fun.

i have no clue if that last paragraph made any kind of sense btw.

but ... yeah. even for any character in any kind of state the insane torture contraption of torture efficiency would be. erm. extremely damaging to one's mental health, to say the least. the only good thing for dream i guess is that sam still has his head too far up his own ass to actually git gud at conditioning anyone deliberately and is therefore still largely skating by By Accident, because otherwise his head would've been even more blendered than it already gets.

[ramayantika]

Okay but the life of the legendary Shovana Narayan altered my brain chemistry, a superb academic record hold, a maestro in kathak and then also a civil services officer with a long distance marriage and motherhood

If she could do this in the 50s and 60s, wtf is stopping me from doing so, when I have never wanted just one thing to define me

[monkshooded]

So sick of the "independent and feisty" hermione characterisation... this is a woman who smells her crush in love potions, sees him in magical mirrors of desire, calms down at his scent, and threatens to kill him if he even considers divorce

[csphire]

Okay, I'll say it. I don't like the idea that post epilogue, Dammon is just banging away at his forge alone, still holding a torch for Karlach. This isn't some comment made in jealousy at all, but one meant to say Dammon deserves better than to be some kind of thirst joke afterthought.

At the epilogue party, the game makes it pretty clear she's with Wyll if alive and not romancing the player.

In a DLC, Dammon is the perfect candidate to become an Artificer companion-hells maybe even become an origin option too! But most of us would settle for him to be simply a companion and romanceable like Halsin and Minthara or just a romanceable NPC that's not some one-time fling. He's someone we can visit on the daily most of the time, so yes, it can work.

But why? Because he deserves to be wooed and romanced by Karlach, Tav, one of the other companions, or hells all three at once. To say he can't be romanceable because he would lose his mystery is pure bullshit. Sorry Frazier, but it's true.

Gaw! It's so frustrating when a solution and an opportunity are all right there, and it's overlooked or ignored. He can be BOTH romanceable and mysterious when all that's needed is to write him in a way that leaves the player yet not Tav or Durge in the dark.

Dammon could even be written in a way where the player questions if our fav blacksmith could be up to no good. Let the fandom sweat over and argue about whether or not we should help him with some mysterious mission. Have him outright refuse to elaborate on it. Let him be equally tight-lipped about all he was forced to do or willingly did to survive in the hells when working on infernal machinery. This way, Frazier can play what he loves to play the most, and that is at least a potential bad guy. Well, not mean to the player but instead a character some might find almost as sketchy as Astarion is viewed would be fine.

*sighs* Why does he need to be romancable to everyone too? The simple answer, all of us could use a little bit more sunshine.

If I could say one thing to Frazier, it would be, "Karlach is not the only touch or affection-starved character out there. There are so many real people who need a Dammon in some form in their lives, even if it's only fictional. Karlach and Dammon's story is important to us. A Dammon and Tav/Durge story is just as important, too. These stories of love and friendship all need to be shown and celebrated. Plus, Dammon comes off as warm, thoughtful, and supportive, and so many of us out there really desperately need that-the more the better. We need it to feed our hopes to keep trying and open up our hearts again. So let him help fix heal more than just one heart, please. We all want to see him grow just a little more because he's such a fantastic character so far."

[tswwwit]

Isn't Bill like... Rich rich... Like multi universal rich, if so-

1. Why does he live in dippers shabby apartment/house most of the time

2. Does he help with bills (heh) and financial problems?

3. Imagine reincar!dip being a broke college student that's barely hanging by a thread, and is getting kicked out of his apartment next month, and he's like "man, should I get a sugar daddy or something, where would I even find one, it's not like they appear out of thin air after I turn 18" Sighs and blows out the candle on his 18th birthday candle and Bill literally materializes out of thin air in front of dipper

4. Does he sometimes buy random/weird shit online to annoy dipper with (ex: comically large spoon, those robot dogs/cats, etc)

To invade his personal space and living situation! Generally to be a nosy little pest. Bill prefers to bother his mortal in the limited time he's around rather than hang out in the ol' humdrum of his place, and the run-down shabby hangouts Dipper ends up in are charming in their own Very Dipper kind of way!

Sure does! If he remembers that other bills exist. Not something he has to think about most of the time. Plus, Dipper has an independent streak that's against being too dependent on his husband most of the time, so on occasion he might object to Bill forking out the dough - but he'll suck it up in a bad situation.

A Most Excellent Scenario!

Yes, definitely, absolutely. Novelty is always a plus! It's also neat to buy 'gifts' for Dipper, that are like. Those chocolate bullets where one of them has a habenero center, only this set is all peppers.

[jaggeduar]

I feel so crazy about that last episode I knew literally in my soul that the lich would appear eventually and be named the last scholar of golb. Throws up everywherr

[shazleen]

Boston

[unknownarmageddon]

have you heard this song,,,,

I HAVE NOT i’ll listen to it right now hang on

[pepprs]

im home and already swallowed by despair. can you believe i was in CHICAGO a few hours ago. and now im here. lol

[tamagotchikgs]

i had such a cool dream i want to remember so bad but it's already so distant im aa,, REMEMBER!!!!!!!!!

[lordofthemushrooms]

can I say something truly insane about my Solavellan…..