#he is actively sabotaging his one chance to heal because he doesn’t want to be hurt again.

[idv-thespians]

i don’t talk about one of the things i find scariest about shiloh and thats the death of his inner child

[thewayuarent]

Mew, Ray and self-sabotage

Okay, let’s talk about Ray and Mew situation.

I’m actually not surprised AT ALL because of course those two idiots are going to jump on each other for all the stupidest reasons and of course they won’t be good. But I love it for them, honestly. They need that experience to move on. And their reasoning I called stupid a second ago? I get it, I truly do.

Mew. I mean, it’s kind of obvious that Mew uses Ray to get over Top, right? But why Ray? Cause he’s heartbroken and wants someone who loves him no matter what and who will choose him over everyone and everything and Ray is just that person? Yes.

Is it because he knows that choosing Ray of all people will hurt Top more, just as Top choosing Boston hurt him? Yes!

Is it because of Mew hates losing control? Yes. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that Mew loves Top and genuinely hurt by him cheating. But I can’t stop thinking about that line

Mew hates the fact he was lied to. That he believed someone only to be proven naive. It makes him feel stupid. It makes him lose control. He feels like he has no control over Top because, well, he loves him.

With Ray though? It would never happen. And not only cause Ray being whipped over Mew to an unhealthy level. But because Mew doesn’t love him (and they both know it).

He said “You never hurt me once” and I think: really? How? Maybe not purposely, maybe not by his actions towards Mew, sure. But Ray’s behavior? His addictions? His self-sabotage? Why those things don’t hurt Mew? The reason: Ray is just not right for him and he knows that.

And while Mew does care about him as his friend, it doesn’t hurt him on the same level, cause it has nothing to do with him. And they are what, in a relationship now? And what Mew does? He’s adapting Ray’s behavior: his style, his attitude, him drinking and going crazy - everything.

But he still has all the control - because it easy to have control when feelings aren’t in a picture.

Do I blame Mew for using Ray? Honestly, no. Ray knows exactly that Mew doesn’t love him and he’s obviously fine with that on some surface level. Because I think Ray uses Mew as well.

Ray. So, beside the obvious reason that Ray loves him for years and of course takes his chance, I think there is one more reason for Ray choosing Mew over Sand so quickly. And the reason is his addiction. And relationship shift he has with Sand in this episode.

We’ve seen before that Mew talked with Ray about his addiction, sure. But never did anything about it. He never tried to actively stop Ray.

We’ve also seen before that Sand was fine with Ray drinking and having drugs. As I said in my other post, Sand unintentionally supported Ray’s addiction.

But he’s not anymore. He talks about it with brutal honesty.

He’s taking real actions now to stop Ray from drinking.

He called Ray out on his behavior and he actively tries to help Ray.

But the truth is, Ray doesn’t want help. He doesn’t want to heal at least for now. He denies having problems.

So who will he choose between Sand - telling him to stop and trying to help with that - and Mew - entering his “daddy girl” era and supporting his worst habits? (The answer is: of course he will choose someone who is at the same page with him instead of someone calling him out)

Loving Mew is easier. Being with Mew is easier. Because no matter what Mew won’t love him back. And while it hurts it also means that there is no reason to try. Ray doesn’t need to be better, or get better for Mew (and he doesn’t ready to do it for himself by that point). There is no challenge.

So they are so going to help each other to ruin themselves. It’s actually good to know that there is someone who possibly won’t let them do it, for better or for worse. Or, well, at least they’ll try to.

Sand while being pathetic and Top while blaming Ray for Mew’s life choices but nobody said they will be good at it so.

[random2908]

I talked to my dad yesterday and got a zillion updates on Operation: Rescue my Little Cousin from a Cult

his uncle (my youngest cousin) has bought him a plane ticket to LA for right after his high school graduation, to “visit” him (but actually to move in with my parents who also live in LA)

he told his parents that he would be leaving when he graduates, as a last try to see if they’d be supportive

it went poorly, and his mother hasn’t spoken to him in weeks--in fact he had to run away and live with his aunt (my middle cousin) for a week

luckily his parents can’t sabotage him because he already “borrowed” his birth certificate and SSN card to fill out college applications and hid them at his aunt’s house, and has been slowly moving his other possessions there for months

his parents still don’t know that a majority of the extended family is in on this, and they are trying to guilt him by saying “X great-aunt/uncle” or “Y grandparent” is so disappointed in him--they don’t know he’s moving in with a great-aunt (my mother) who can undo that messaging (although hearing from his parents that everyone was disappointed in him DID freak my little cousin out at first, until my mom told him to call some of these elder relatives and ask them what they actually thought--first suggesting that he call up the great-aunt who had, herself, run away from home to become a hippie back in the day lol)

there is going to be a LOT of fallout when it comes out just how much of the family was actively involved in this, like, just how many relatives helped finance parts of this or took him in or even just gave advice and kept secrets

when his middle brother (age 19, and the one who got REALLY screwed by their parents, who gave him permission to leave home for college last year but then secretly sabotaged his college admissions) heard he was leaving he asked if he could come too

my parents said no, losing two kids at once would make it even less likely that wounds could ever heal with their parents, but they’ll try to get him out too in a few months to a year--this is exciting because the middle one is the little cousin I’ve talked to the most and I was very worried about him

(their oldest brother, who’s 21, is only mostly-verbal. I get the sense that the middle brother is the only one who can get him to talk (other than that if he’s feeling really comfortable with someone he’ll info-dump about his special interests), and therefore the only one with any chance of figuring out if he’ll want to leave, too--but for now, he isn’t in the plans. I’m a little worried that he'll be left completely alone with his parents, and that he’s fairly helpless compared to his brothers, but there’s not much that can be done about it, and hopefully he’ll be able to text his brothers and keep in touch)

my little cousin was told that my sisters cleaned out all their stuff from their old bedroom in my parents’ house so he could move in, and he asked why they would do that when they don’t even know him, and my dad was like... because they’re your family? and he cried because he never knew he had family like that before

he really thought he was going to be one of those Ultra-Orthodox escapees who has to live in homeless shelters while learning about the outside world, but no, he has real family to take him into their homes and teach him to drive and send him to community college

anyway the reason he’s moving in with my parents (i.e. his great-aunt and great-uncle) rather than with my cousin and his wife (i.e. his uncle and aunt) is because

1) my cousin has two young kids of his own and doesn’t have room to take in a nephew, and

2) after growing up in a Charedish cult, my little cousin wants to leave Judaism entirely. My parents are Reform Jewish so everyone is hoping Reform Judaism is so different from what he’s used to that he’ll find it comforting-familiar (like at least my parents celebrate the same holidays he’s used to) rather than triggering-familiar; everyone’s pretty sure he’d find even my cousin’s egalitarian, queer-friendly Modern Orthodoxy to be TOO familiar and therefore triggering

(it remains to be seen whether my little cousin is, himself, queer, but he was openly an ally for the one out queer kid at his school, even going so far as to wear a rainbow mask to school, which is a very brave thing at a Charedi cult school--we’re all very proud of him)

[beardrabbles]

rock solid bonds.       pt. two

characters: zhongli, female reader, gimel ( geo hypostasis )

warnings: none

word count: 2,520

notes: well, this took me too dang long to get to! got caught up writing other things, but i hope it was worth the wait. i’m fleshing out a plot for this along the way, and i’m hoping it makes sense in the end! but for now it’s just fluff. lottsa fluff and semi-slow burn. thank you for reading!! you’re a treasure.

Even if you hadn’t arrived at Wangsheng Funeral Parlor the night before and formally signed your name on the contract Zhongli had meticulously drawn out, you would have kept to your word and arrived at Gimel’s island the next morning as promised. You had little with you, since you were reminded with a rather stony voice that this was meant to be an exercise in understanding and not an opportunity for battle. All you had in your little bag was a tightly wrapped lunch, a book and another vial of the concoction you had brought the day before — just in case.

No weapons. No hostilities.

You felt odd keeping your hulking claymore out of sight, but it was for the best. You weren’t looking to actively sabotage yourself, after all, and the arrangement wasn’t an awful one. All Zhongli had asked of you was to be civil towards the hypostasis and to sincerely make up for the damage you had caused. No matter how unintentional it had been, you knew it was right thing to do.

“Gimel?” You had considered hiding behind one of the walls and calling out, but concealing yourself now seemed like a silly idea. Although, calling out the element’s name to the open air felt just as silly.

The ‘ arena ’ was empty, the domineering shadows of the surrounding outcroppings shifting away as the sun rose higher over the horizon. You couldn’t feel the usual vibrations through your feet, and that only added to your concern. Every hesitant step took you closer to the center of the circle that made up Gimel’s home.

Was it still afraid? Or had it fled knowing you would be visiting more frequently? You wondered if it were possible for it to take up residence elsewhere and if that would, somehow, spoil both of the contrats you had agreed to. Hot panic was on the verge of squeezing you hard around the chest when you heard a sign behind you.

Startled, you let out a little squawk and whipped around.

“Mr. Zhongli!” You were partially relieved to see him, partially irritated that he had approached so quietly. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“I apologize for the fright.” He sounded genuine, but the fact that his gaze was trained on the center of the circle didn’t elude you. “When did you arrive?”

“Not even five minutes ago.” You smiled sheepishly. “Had a rough morning, but I’m here.”

“I can see that.” A fleeting smirk flickered across his features before he pursed his lips and cast his eyes around the arena. “And our friend?”

“Hasn’t shown up.” You shifted uneasily but masked it as adjusting the shoulder straps of your pack. “Can’t really blame it.”

“Time and patience. Sincerity. The wounds you’ve left won’t be healed so soon.” Reminded your companion. You sighed and slipped your pack from your bag.

“I know. I just — I want this to go well.” You huffed and sat down heavily, pack beside you. When you looked up and found you were the only one seated, you patted at the ground beside you. Zhongli blinked once, processed the request, then came to join you. You weren’t sure why, but it was amusing watching a man so tall and proper folding his legs as he settled down. Yet he didn’t look the least bit out of place, his serene expression matching the gentle whisper of the wind. In the growing light of day, he seemed to glow, as if soaking in the blooming heat of the sun like light-starved soil and warming rocks.

“If that is your true desire, then I believe all will go according to plan.” He assured you. You were mesmerized for a moment — was that optimism or confidence? You couldn’t tell, but both were appreciated.

“You’re really sure?”

“I have been around for a long time, and I like to believe that I have become quite adept at reading people. Although.  .  .” He paused for a moment, lips turning down. You leaned in.

“Although?”

“Hu Tao says I can be quite oblivious at times.” Zhongli admitted. You snorted, drawing his attention.

“I wouldn’t have guessed it. Wait, Hu Tao. Isn’t she the director of the funeral parlor? Doesn’t that mean she’s your boss?” You asked. Zhongli nodded once, and you continued. “She doesn’t mind you slacking off and comin’ out here to see Gimel?”

“I am merely a consultant. My services are required only when they are needed. When I have no work to attend to, I tend to wander.”

You hummed and leaned back on your hands, eyes up towards the brightening sky. “Do you wander out here a lot?”

“I’ve found myself visiting Gimel more often as of late.” Zhongli said with a sideways glance. You frowned and refused to peek in his direction purely out of guilt. “I like to check on them every now and again, just to see if they’re recovering properly.”

“I didn’t think they needed to recover.” You grumbled.

“Our world is no different than our mortal forms,” started Zhongli, “it can and will hurt if people aren’t careful. We can leave wounds. Look around you — these islands are proof. Gimel is no exception. While it is acceptable to harvest from a hypostasis, harvesting too frequently can leave it permanently damaged. It needs time to rest, to regrow. Tell me, did you notice anything strange the last time you fought it?”

You thought back for a moment, trying to recall the last battle you engaged the hypostasis in. It had been two days ago, you remembered. It had rained heavily in the area, leaving the ground muddy, the stone slick and the sands clingy. It had been both a blessing as a curse, or you’d thought that then. Thinking back, you did think it strange that the basalt pillars it created weren’t as strong as usual. You wanted to blame the rain, but that had hardly been your first encounter with it in the middle of a drizzle.

 “I saw them crumbling. I thought it was the rain.” You finally answered.

“That is a logical assumption to make, but you are aware of the truth now.”

“Yeah, I am.” You slumped forward, elbows on your knees and chin held in your hands. “What about other people? What are we going to do if someone else comes here expecting to find Gimel?”

“We will give them the chance to change their mind.” Zhongli shut his eyes and took in a deep calming breath. “May I ask you something, Miss Y/N?”

“Sure. Go for it.” You shrugged and fell silent, allowing him the chance.

“Thank you. I hope I’m not being terribly invasive, but what were you doing before your contracts bound you?” The question was asked delicately, leaving you room to deny him an answer if it was one you were unwilling to give. And while it did surprise you, you weren’t sure that you had any reason not to answer.

“Honestly, nothing and everything. I didn’t have an actual job. I just sort of.  .  . did what people asked me to do. I ran errands, I lent a hand where it was needed, I’ve babysat.” You let out a small, bitter laugh. “Now I’m a servant for the damn——!”

You clamped your lips shut and shrank into yourself. Without looking, you knew Zhongli was staring sharply in your direction.

“For whom?”

“Does it matter?” You pulled your knees up and scowled into them. A moment quietly slid past, and you still felt his eyes on you. His piercing gaze bore a hole in the walls you had abruptly thrown up, and you found yourself squirming uncomfortably. “Fine, it’s the Treasure Hoarders.”

“I had ventured a guess, but I wanted to hear you say it.” Zhongli sighed through his nose. “Have they hurt you or your family?”

“No.” You shook your head. “Not yet.”

“You anticipate a change?” He wondered.

“I’ve never known them to be totally honest. They’re a small group with a dumb name, but they’re loyal to their leader. Well, both leaders. The guy in charge thinks that if he can get me to find all these treasures for him, he can present them to whoever’s above him in the ranks and get himself a lovely, safe position in the group.” You scoffed. Zhongli arched a brow.

“You seem to know an awful lot about this mans intentions.” He pursued carefully. At this, you allowed the barest hint of a simper appear.

“He’s an idiot. He talks loud because he thinks it makes him intimidating. It only makes him look like a moron when he tells everyone within hearing distance what his plans are.”

Zhongli couldn’t help but to chuckle. “Am I to assume he is.  .  . how have I heard it phrased before? Ah, right. All brawn and no brains.”

It was your turn to laugh now, but the sound was a surprise when it left you. Despite your first encounter with him being tense and awkward, you realized now just how at ease you were around him. He radiated peace and understanding, calmness and patience. Lately, those were all feelings you had seen a distinct lack of. Where the Treasure Hoarders were brusk and unforgiving, Zhongli aimed to educate and reshape.

You wouldn’t have assumed for a moment that you would find yourself casually talking to him after all that had happened the day before, but you were glad for it.

“He is.” But as you both fell into a comfortable silence, you began to grow curious about the man beside you. You didn’t want to shatter the quiet you two had created, but the realization that you wouldn’t have many days like this with him prompted you to turn towards him and devote all of your attention to him. “When did you meet Gimel?”

Zhongli was taken aback, and you couldn’t help but to wonder if he had become too comfortable simply sitting next to you. His amber eyes fluttered, then grew distant, as if peering at something in the far-flung distance.

“I don’t believe it’s an exaggeration to say I’ve known them my whole life.” He started. “I can’t seem to think of a time when I haven’t known them. The form has changed, but they’re still the same.”

“Sounds like you’ve always been connected. Guess that explains the Geo Vision.” You leaned back to glance at the crystal attached to his coat. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, but realized he couldn’t see it. Instead, he settled for admiring you and the way your eyes shone when you glimpsed his faux Vision.

“Do you have one?” He asked.

“No.” You sighed loudly and fell back, laying across the stone and resting your hands on your stomach. “Visionless! Not worthy. Haven’t done anything in my life that warrants the gods blessing me.”

“I don’t believe that.” Zhongli frowned, his stony expression marred momentarily by disapproval. “Lacking a Vision does not make a person unworthy.”

“But it does make the people that have one super special, right?”

“I.  .  .” Zhongli stopped, made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, then rerouted his thoughts. “You don’t believe you’re special?”

“Not at all. Do you?”

“Do I what? Believe I am special because I have a Vision, or do I believe that you are special?” His counter question was sudden and took you aback, like a sudden slap to the face. You gaped, and when you didn’t answer, he dared to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” You huffed.

“Your face. It turned the most interesting shade of red just then.” The smile he passed you was soft and kind with the faintest trace of amusement. You felt your cheeks burn hotter and quickly turned away to hide it, but it was too late. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss yourself. I sense potential in you.”

Your stomach knotted and your lungs were madly aflutter, all thanks to those words. Out of habit, you wanted to deny him, but the tender way he spoke was too reassuring not to latch onto.

“You’d be the first to.” You spared him a quick, embarrassed glance. “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. It costs nothing to build a person up.” He reminded. You frowned, but not out of unhappiness. There was now a solid, burning determination in your eyes that Zhongli barely glimpsed when you stood. “What are you up to?”

“You just said that it doesn’t cost anything to build a person up. It should be the same for elements, right?” You grinned broadly, then cupped your mouth with your hands. “Gimel! I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, I want you to know that I’ve always thought you were really amazing looking!”

You paused, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Looking down your shoulder, you found Zhongli nodding approvingly.

“You, uh.  .  . Actually, if I’m being honest, I’ve seen a few hypostasis! I’ve seen the ones in Mondstadt, and the one in Dragonspine! You were always the one I was the most excited to see, even if it was to come fight you. You’ve been the toughest too. And I’m sorry!” You enthusiastic shouting was met with silence, but you thought for a moment that you felt the ground beginning to vibrate again.

As quickly as the sensation came, it left again, leaving the bottoms of your feet feeling numb. Had the hypostasis acknowledged you, or had you mistaken your quickly beating heart and rushing blood for the thrum of an elemental life force?

Your shoulders drooped, and your chest felt heavy.

“Don’t lose hope. I think what you said was lovely.” Zhongli encouraged. You sat down again and dragged your pack forward, drawstrings loosened.

“Thanks. I know you’re right. I know it’s going to take more than just saying nice things to fix what I did, but I’m going to do it. Even if we hadn’t made that contract, I’d be here.” You pulled out the lunch you had brought with you and carefully unwrapped it. “But all that shouting made me hungry, and we’ll be here for a little while longer. You want some? I made it myself.”

Zhongli made to shake his head, but you gave him a stern glare before he could.

“Don’t even. You need to eat too, you know.” You portioned out your food, placed it in his hand, then giddily began to scarf down your half. Zhongli felt an odd stirring in his chest as he glanced down at the food you’d prepared. You misunderstood the sudden admiration and gratitude for hesitation, so you nudged him gently. “I’m not the best cook in the world, but I’m not bad either! Trust me, it’s decent.”

“It smells wonderful.” Zhongli bowed his head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it! Quick, eat it up before it gets cold.” You paused your chewed and pocketed the bite in your cheek. “I can bring something tomorrow too if you end up liking that. Sound good?”

Zhongli nodded, and the feeling in his chest grew more agitated. “I look forward to it.”

[fishoutofcamelot]

Hi there! I hope you’re well. I just wanted to send a message to thank you for the elyan content 😍 he is my favourite knight but for some reason I never see much of him on tumblr! So it��s awesome to see him on your blog. I hope I didn’t bother you with this ask 🙈

I AM doing well, actually! And you didn’t bother me, asks will probably never bother me <3

I could go on for a million years about why no one makes content about Elyan - and sometimes forget he exists altogether - but I don’t wanna start drama so we’ll just. Not touch that topic with a 10-foot pole

BUT! Elyan IS a fantastic knight, and the fact that he is your favourite knight too is very iconic and sexy of you. Elyan fans/stans are the sexiest members of this fandom. That’s not even opinion, that’s just science

So! Here’s a list of Elyan headcanons, because he’s worth it:

Elyan is ace. Them’s the facts

He’s also gay but in that stage where he’s questioning if he might be bi. Unfortunately, he died before reaching an answer

I hate to talk about Hogwarts Houses in 2020, but he is one hell of a Hufflepuff. Elyan is his name and protecting his loved ones with life and limb is his game. It is very easy to earn his loyalty, and once you have he will ride straight through Hell for you

Elyan likes hoods. He wears hoods whenever he can (i mean c’mon, that outfit in season 3 was serving some killer looks)

He’s just a protective older brother to literally everyone in Camelot. Yes, even Gaius

Gwen, Elyan, Leon, and Merlin have family game night once every month. They all gather in their old house in the lower town to get drunk, play some dice games, and spend the whole night goofing off

Only a few people know about game night. Even fewer people have seen it with their own eyes. Arthur and Gwaine frequently try to sneak in to see game night for themselves, but somehow never succeed

Elyan loves swimming. They don’t get many chances for it, but whenever they do, Elyan is the best swimmer out of all the knights

He’s also like. Really good at sneaking up on people. Consistently rolls high on stealth checks

Out of everyone in the Round Table, Elyan is the most easily spooked. He hates it when they gather around the fire to tell ghost stories, bc he will NOT be able to sleep the rest of the night after that

Why do people think there’s no dynamic or chemistry between Elyan and Gwaine??? Those two had a SOLID friendship and I will not stand for this disrespect (also, Perelyan is good but Elyaine is godtier imo)

Elyan is bad at blacksmithing. Like really bad. No one even understands how that works, considering he spent his whole childhood training under his father. All the blacksmithing talent apparently went to Gwen somehow

He likes bugs. When he was a kid he would go out in the woods and collect beetles and stuff to stick in little terrarium jars. He’d even give them names and backstories and personalities. Sometimes he would sit under a tree and tell Gwen stories about all these adventures his bugs would go on when no one was looking

Leon HATED bugs, and got creeped out by them, which meant Elyan was legally obligated to harass him about it

Elyan doesn’t get much chance to catch bugs anymore, but he’s also the only member of the Round Table who can put up with spiders

Spider in the armory? Everyone is freaking out while Elyan just calmly picks it up and lets it outside - but not without lots of snark and eye-rolling, of course

The reason Elyan ran away from home was because his mother had died and he saw it as a personal failing. He felt that it was his fault she was dead, because he couldn’t protect her, and left Camelot because he couldn’t bear the shame of guilt

In the last few years of his time away from Camelot, Elyan fell in love and lived out an mlm cottagecore fantasy where he and his lover raised wyverns together. But when Morgause came to capture him, she killed his lover and burnt their wyvern farm to the ground

Elyan tries not to let his grief be known, though. Not just because he doesn’t want to burden Gwen with his pain, but also because his lover had magic and he could get arrested for having fallen in love with a sorcerer

Morgause had Elyan captive for a while before Gwen showed up. She even used the nathair on him in small increments; not long enough to kill him or damage him irreparably, but enough to make him suffer. It’s for this reason that Elyan was able to bounce back from being tortured by Morgana whereas Gwaine didn’t survive it, because Morgause had already microdosed him with that kind of pain two years ealier

Still traumatizing, though. Like. This boy is EXTREMELY traumatized, can someone please get him some therapy???

Moving back to Camelot with Gwen was simultaneously healing and harming. Healing, because  he visited his dad’s grave, rebuilt his relationship with Gwen, and his companionship with her, Merlin, and Leon helped him move on from the pain of his loss. But harming because of all the anti-magic prejudice that surrounded him, and every time someone said magic was evil it was like another dagger in his heart. That was his dead lover they were talking about and calling a monster. Someone who was kind and compassionate and funny, who didn’t have a lick of evil in them, who would have burned at the stake by Camelot’s laws

Elyan didn’t think about what it meant to be a knight of Camelot when he agreed to be knighted. But he was just so determined to fight and kill Morgause, the woman who had killed his lover and his wyverns and abducted him from his home, that he didn’t even think about it. He just wanted Morgause dead. It wasn’t until a few days later when he realized that being a knight of Camelot meant enforcing Camelot’s anti-magic laws, and this realization naturally caused him distress

Instead of abandoning his knighthood, Elyan found a compromise. He would support Arthur in everything, until magic got involved. If Arthur ever captured druids or put sorcerers to death, Elyan decided he would smuggle them out of the city. He would never actively kill or capture those with magic, and would sometimes even try to sabotage efforts in capturing harmless magic-users

Elyan knew full well what Dragoon was doing. He knew that Gwen and Arthur’s love was true and required no enchantment, meaning Dragoon had simply framed himself to get Gwen out of a jam. He appreciates Dragoon, and even though he supposedly killed Uther, Elyan can’t even fault him for that. Elyan wanted to kill Uther too

Merlin is the little brother Elyan always wanted, and Elyan is the older brother Merlin never had. They act so much like siblings it’s not even funny, and some people question if they were actually raised together 

He and Merlin like to team up and tease Gwen. They’ll walk behind her and chant stuff like “Gwen and Arthur sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G”. They’re like children, and it’s both very funny and very annoying

Gwen gets her revenge, of course. She always gets her revenge

They also team up to be like. Super protective of Gwen. The vetting process Arthur had to go through - between Elyan, Leon, AND Merlin - in order to date Gwen was ridiculous

Arthur: Merlin I’m literally your boss. Your friend. You've been my personal manservant for like six years now

Merlin: Yeah, which means I know exactly how much of a dick you are

After being possessed by the druid ghost, Elyan is a lot more in tune with the supernatural

Am I suggesting that Elyan can now see, talk to, and interact with ghosts, and even starts a little agency where he goes around helping them complete their unfinished business? Why yes, yes I am

When Gwen was banished, Elyan wanted to go with her. But she asked him to stay behind and keep an eye on Agravaine, as she suspected him of treachery, and to stop him from taking over Camelot should Agravaine make a move. And, well, Elyan has never been able to say no to his sister

Elyan and Merlin decided to try and find a way to prove Gwen’s innocence. There’s no way she was acting of her own accord, after all. There was some kind of enchantment at play, there had to be. Merlin doesn’t tell him about Shade!Lancelot directly, but does propose it as a theory regarding how Lancelot had come back from the dead. Elyan supports the theory 100%

About two months after the wedding, Merlin and Elyan locate the enchanted bracelet, and Gwen and Lancelot’s names are finally cleared

In Avalon, Elyan, Freya, and Lancelot spend the whole time watching/narrating the events of season 5 like sports commentators. They are all mutually exasperated at Merlin’s antics

When Arthur shows up in Avalon, the only reason Elyan doesn’t punch him in the face is because he’s too busy restraining Lance from doing the same

He does, however, give him a strong talking-to about how “all your magic and you still can’t save my life” is a horrible thing to say actually

Lancelot, however, is more upset about the “I guess I was wrong” speech

Gwaine shows up in Avalon like. SUPER traumatized. He died while being tortured by a nathair, died in a way that he perceived to be failure, and he’s kinda messed up because of that. Elyan, who has already had a few years to cope with nathair torture, is the one who helps Gwaine heal from his trauma

In the 21st century, Elyan gets reincarnated along with everyone else. His childhood is plagued with weird dreams, dreams that terrify him. Snakes and pain, wyverns and fire, all of it. He meets an old man who calls himself Merlin, who helps Elyan through the pain of remembering his past life. For once, Elyan gets to be taken care of instead of the other way around. For once, he is allowed to be vulnerable and weak and struggling. He doesn’t hide his tears. He gets the help he needs and works through his trauma

And one day, many years later, he is walking down the street when he sees someone who looks oddly familiar. The face of an old lover, perhaps

Thanks for the ask! <3

[talietikasero]

Stability

Random prompt from 8/11 [finished 8/16]: rewrite the Strive ending / create an alternate epilogue [to line up with my story project]. I may or may not rewrite the whole thing for fun lmao.

[Main story preview here (contains 6 scenes)] // [Chapter 1 now on AO3]

"I guess... that's what they meant..." She let out between huffs. Both the voice in her head and the former Sanctus Maximus Populi said the same thing regarding her potential ability.

“When the time comes, with your seed, you hold the power to save or destroy the world.”

“You can prevent the end of it all.”

Energy drained, she fought off the sluggish pace her body was moving. Looking over to her partner, she noticed he was barely hanging on to his life, staying incredibly still, and trying to regulate his breathing while facing down. While her body contained the [Scales of Juno], he had the [Flame of Corruption] ripped out from his, reverting him to a human. "On second thought, don't move." Once she closed the distance between them, she knelt and put her arms around him. Face against the scuffed leather sleeve, and she struggled to hold her emotions in. "H-hey..." Voice cracking, she lowly muttered between sniffles, "please, don't go..."

"..."

"You... you stayed true to... your word about... a-about..."

"..."

"Fighting to... s-save the world..."

"If the world was going to disappear tomorrow... What would you do today?"

"What kind of a question is that? Stop whatever's ending the world or die trying."

Her embrace tightened as tears ran down her face. "Human, Gear, or neither. The world still needs you."

With drooped ears and saddened eyes, the wolf spirit whined. Its host and companion soothed it by scratching behind its ears and reassuring the worst had come to pass. "(It's okay, Rei. We're still alive.)." She whispered to the spirit in her native tongue. Another whine followed by a lick to the side of her face, Giovanna patted Rei's forehead. "What? Are you worried about me? I'm okay, I swear." She winced as another sharp pain ran through her body. "Ouch..." Her superior, the President, placed a hand on her shoulder. Half-expecting him to say she's no longer needed, she began, "I'm sorry-..."

"None of that." Vernon's voice was firm; however, it sounded... fatherly. He may have his doubts about the agent, but he knew she was more than capable of the job. Facing off against an unstoppable force, she did prove she's worth giving a higher position. "I can tell what you were thinking, but you're not being let go. You take as much time as you need off, Gio. Goldlewis, Erica, and I will await your return."

Saddened at the loss of someone he could consider a friend, the time traveler meekly looked down at the minty green and white guitar he held in his hands. This entire time he was unaware of her true identity. If he had to lose someone like her, it didn't have to be this way. Regardless of if she recalled who he was and why he was important to her in the first place, false memory or not. He threw away his chance to return home a while ago, and now he felt that it would've been for nothing had he gone through with it. "It shouldn't have ended like this... Megumi." Axl softly said under his breath.

After regaining control over his body and revealing the wicked goddess's weak point, the vampiric samurai pierced the ground a few centimeters with his sword. He kneeled to show his appreciation for defeating the evil force that used him as a puppet. Now, he could see why his master was fascinated by the will of a single person. This same person was stripped of his powers and still faced death head-on. "May you rest for now. The next time we meet, it won't be as enemies, but acquaintances." Drawing his blade from the ground, Nagoriyuki sheathed it and took his leave.

The King of Illyria – his lifelong rival and their son-in-law – made his way over to them, stopping a few feet short to maintain distance. "It's finally over. They're gone. We can... we can go home now." Part of him wanted to hold a hand out to help him stand, yet he held back and deemed that action unnecessary. Ky's spirits rose once he noticed the man in front of him was taking steady deep breaths -- body slowly moving to show signs of life.

Right hand maintaining its grip on the Outrage's handle, his free hand lightly grasped one of hers. Face still downward, a weak smile formed. "...You think so?"

She couldn't believe it. He's hanging by a thread and using what energy he should be saving to answer her with a question of his own.

"I know so."

The past three weeks were a blur. From the day she woke up and adjusted to this new world to the present, where she aided in bringing down a god. She never would've guessed that any of these events could've transpired. In the days leading up to September 2016, she was a terminally ill scientist who refused any life-saving alternative to live past what little time she had left, insisting she spent it with her significant other. Fast forward to December 2187, and she was brought back to life and became the partner of humanity's savior -- the very same person, albeit for the last time.

_____

The next day, another patient was checked into the hospital. This time there wasn’t a commotion caused by bringing his unconscious form bursting through the front doors. She wasn’t strong enough to carry him in her arms like he held her – that’s what the gurney from the airship’s infirmary wing was for.

“I have a request. May I stay here until he recovers? I… I don’t want to leave him.”

Three days later, word had reached his family that he's – miraculously and defying all odds – alive. His refusal to follow the light after what had happened was attributed to his stubborn nature. The Grim Reaper knocked at his door, and he slammed it shut in their face. Occupying the same bed, in the same patient room as her around a month ago, the now de-powered hero lay hooked up to the vitals system.

"Is he going to be alright?"

"Hard to say, but he'll pull through. He did wake up this morning, so there's something, yeah?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but has anyone seen my mother? About my height, short red hair with white underneath, and wearing a blue leather jacket? She hasn't been seen since everyone returned."

"She's in the room and hasn't left at all. I had someone stop by the house and bring her spare clothes since she spent the last four days here."

"Oh, thank god." The queen was relieved to know her mother's whereabouts. She respected her parents' privacy by not asking if she was able to go in.

---

Ring-ring. Ring-ring. Ring-ring-ring.

Sighing in aggravation, she answered her phone. There was only one person she kept in contact with these past few days. "What do you want now? He's still not up, so stop cal-..."

"I was going to ask something else. I'm going to regret this, but are you still angry?"

"You're a smart man to keep your distance from me, but a dumbass to ask that. Of course, I am! You ruined our lives with your 'self-righteousness' and nearly brought another apocalypse."

"...Aria, I understand your rage. If only I could rewind time and prevent your illness. I shouldn't have forcibly converted him and disappeared with your sleep capsule. It wasn't my intention to have our research weaponized, but I was figuratively and literally held at gunpoint to hand it over to the US Government. I should've known better and anticipated that Chaos -- erm, the Original's creation would sabotage your activation. Your screams still haunt me... and... I'm... I'm sorry."

"Asuka."

"I can't fix this by excessively apologizing and listing off my crimes, but I hope everything goes well for you and Frederick."

"Whatever. Enjoy the moon, or don't." She ended the call before her former friend could reply. "Asshole." Aria slumped back in the chair and opened her book to the page she left off. "We should've launched you into the sun."

"Oh my. And I thought 'Sol' was a hothead. You're pretty harsh, you know that? It's more frightening than I-No on a good day." Jack-O's voice rang through. Capable of feeling and expressing emotions herself, the Valentine was taken aback at what she heard during their calls. "If possible, can we listen to his show sometime? Please?"

"...Okay."

"Thank you. ~"

---

Forty minutes after the heated conversation, a groggy voice broke the silence.

"Is the... afterlife a sterile... hospital room?" Frederick's eyes were half-open, staring directly at the ceiling.

Aria closed what she was reading and placed it on the counter. Ignoring the monitors that once kept track of her, she looked over his body to see minimal damage sustained. "Looks like you've still got some of that healing factor. Or you're just too hardheaded to die."

He slightly turned his head to face her. "Heh. Probably both."

Running a hand through his now short hair, her lips curved into an unsure smile. "Welcome back to the land of the living?"

"This doesn't look like heaven. If you're my welcome guide, then I'll stay." His body was still sore, but he extended his arm out for her to hold his hand. The warmth from the fire magic still dwelling within them made their contact feel safer.

"I should've worn that jumpsuit and halo." Her inner voice's reaction was an exaggerated throat clear. "But if I did," she held a finger to her temple, "I don't think she would've appreciated that."

"I would've been mildly annoyed at best. Mildly annoyed yet honored that you'd wear it because of what you did."

"You're really pissed off at Asuka, aren't you?"

"How much did you hear?"

"All of it. Didn't know you were capable of that."

"I felt like you after the second day." He took that as a friendly poke at his history. "Since you've saved the world for the last time, are you still up for that 'alternate life' you mentioned the other night? We don't have to stay at Ky and Dizzy's. They can arrange something for us."

His ears perked up at the suggestion. Did she remind him about his statement regarding them settling down? Having survived an act of God, living a quiet life together a few minutes out from the capital didn't sound like a terrible idea. "What did you have in mind?"

"A fair-sized home, nothing too big or small, probably just down the way from their place. I don't want to throw everything away and live in seclusion. We're way out of our own time, but we finally have a family, people who care about us, and we care about them in return. Unless you have a better idea?"

"I'm fine with anything. Can't imagine I'd be able to go out much or at all because I'm officially a dead man."

"Not too long ago, I was a dead woman walking. Besides, the world thinks that Sol Badguy is dead, not Frederick Bulsara."

"Point there. You know, now that I think about it, this situation is just like a month ago."

"With you in my place, but I didn't have to be dragged in? This is the same room where I spent my time recovering. It was also -..."

"Where you got your new start."

"Y-yeah. That's exactly it. This is where I woke up to my new life! Not as Justice, or Jack-O, but as myself. That same day, I met our daughter and her husband, and then I saw you again. Just this time... I've been here since you were checked in. Everyone tried to get me to leave, but I refused."

He noticed the duffel bag placed near the door. There was a pant leg hanging over one side of the unzipped bag, and next to it were two pairs of footwear. "Way to tug at the old heartstrings. Stubborn as always, aren't you?" If he were honest with himself, he wanted to do the same when she was still unconscious. He had the feeling that the IRMC staff wouldn't have thought about asking him to leave the premises, even though he almost kicked the doors clean off the first time.

"One of my best qualities." She winked at him, giggling at her remark.

"Hey, Aria."

"Hm?"

He slowly sat up despite the mild pain, leaning over to bring her in for a hug. "Thank you."

Aria returned the motion, both holding onto each other, not wanting to let go. She had felt incomplete up until this moment. Preventing the end was a combined effort, and she couldn’t be any happier to have been a part of that team.

A sense of déjà vu, the song playing on the radio had neared its end.

You are all I long for All I worship and adore In other words, please be true In other words...

"I love you."

[xaviersystem]

7 Day Prayer Miracle Review Amanda Ross (2020)

7 Day Prayer Miracle by Amanda Ross

Does it Work?

Almost everyone is familiar with the word Prayer, as well as the concept of Prayer. So when we come across someone offering a 7 Day Prayer Miracle, it is possible to have some questions popping up in the minds of people. Does it work? Is it effective? Why it is so popular? So I thought of bringing this blog 7 Day Prayer Miracle Review — Does it work?

So before we proceed, here is a synopsis about the product:· 

Product: 7 Day Prayer Miracle Review· 

Author: Amanda Ross· 

Bonus: Yes· 

Official Website: 7dayprayermiracle

What Will You Get From 7 Day Prayer Miracle?

Here in 7 Day Prayer Miracle coaching, you get a shocking tragedy that manifests itself in a great blessing.

It contains a prayer composed of four sentences. This helps approximately many ordinary people to highlight the miracles of health, finances, and relationships.

This miracle program gets related to the secrets of Archangel Michael. Hence, you get a blazing stream of miracles.

You get heavenly wisdom to show the fairy tale. This helps to choose the best pair of dreams.

It helps to boost your life. And you can spread your wings and move on to the next level.

You experience good, irreversible changes in your life by this guidance. There is no place for negativity in your life.

>>> Learn More About 7 Day Prayer Miracle <<<

Manifesting Miracles by Using Prayer

When The Secret first came out, it renewed hope in millions of people for manifesting the things that would make their lives more livable. A few years on, most of those millions have lost hope, again. The “Law of Attraction” seemed to be missing something.

More than 2,500 years ago, the Prophet Daniel discovered a method of prayer that worked miracles and gave him prophetic visions of the future. Not only was he able to save his own life and that of all the wise men of Babylon, he told the king what he had dreamed and then told him what the dream meant.

We now know why the Law of Attraction works when it does. We also know why the prayers of most people don’t work. This knowledge is power — the power to manifest miracles at will. The 7 Day Prayer Miracle program contains distilled wisdom that details the differences between the two halves of reality so you can know where you stand in relationship to heaven.

Never before have we had such clarity in understanding about how prayer and miracles work. Yes, this is exciting stuff.

Imagine taking the guesswork out of your life. Imagine setting a path and having it appear right in front of your eyes. Prayer done the right way is the most powerful tool we could ever imagine.

>>> Tap or Click Here to Start the 7 Day Prayer Miracle <<<

How the Course Can Help You

Well, the course has:

1. Verified Techniques:

The big problem we’ve had with programs like “positive thinking” or “law of attraction” is that they remained vague on how to get to the desired state of mind. There was too much “pie-in-the-sky,” feel-good stuff that didn’t have a sufficient connection to the real world.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle requires that you develop and exercise the ability to achieve the proper feelings for delivering prayers that match your conscious thoughts. The course shows you exactly how to do this with several, step-by-step exercises. This has been the area of disconnect in so many other programs

The exercises in this course raise your critical awareness of your environment and your own internal feelings so you can know when you’re aiming your prayer correctly.

2. Establishes Within You the Proper Skills:

The reason why the 7 Day Prayer Miracle works and has so many enthusiastic testimonials is because of the deep, spiritual understanding behind it — an understanding grounded in science and critical thinking.

No matter what your starting point, you will find yourself moving further from “lack” all the way to “abundance” — not merely physical abundance, but spiritual abundance of unconditional love, utter humility, perfect responsibility and fearless confidence. The map has been laid out. All you have to do is to walk the path.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle is not only about wealth, health and relationships. It repairs the basic issues in your thinking and attitudes that would otherwise prevent effective prayer and, all too often, result in self-sabotaging behavior that spoils any gains you may make. All of these pitfalls have been handled.

Needless to say, the spiritual half of reality has its own rules and quite often doesn’t work at all like the physical half. This program is the manual for understanding what’s different and how to use those differences to your own benefit.

Because we each have our own set of bad habits, the course book covers a broad range of exercises to strengthen your awareness of your own thoughts, attitudes, intentions and — most importantly — your subconscious “feeling” attention. The 7 Day Prayer Miracle does these things far better than any book or program we’ve seen before.

Are you a Book Lover?

5+1 Stories That Prove Miracles Actually Happen:

Tap or Click Here to Get Free eBook

3. Proper Preparation:

No amount of thinking will ever accomplish anything truly worthwhile. Thought is a useful tool, but it’s only the starting point. And you can’t fix a great dinner in a dirty kitchen.

Bad habits and bad attitudes can cloud your spiritual vision and prevent your message from reaching heaven.

It’s a bit like 50 very loud people shouting while you’re trying to talk to someone on your cell phone. Sometimes, you can’t even hear yourself think.

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle helps you clear out not only bad habits, but also the daily garbage of stuck attention on little crimes we all commit from time to time — like being late for work, not taking out the garbage, forgetting about a commitment we’ve made, and more.

Becoming more aware of our stuck attention points, we can actively clean them up and ensure that our prayers make a direct, clear connection to heaven.

4. Reliability and Dependability:

By having you acquaint yourself more thoroughly with your own mind, ego and spirit, you will find yourself capable of using every part of each prayer with precision skill and powerful, spiritual effect.

Like a ship finally allowed to leave sight of land, you will enter spiritual territory you never knew existed. You will come to think of your body as merely your current vessel. And the control switches of physical reality will seem as real and natural as any physical device you’ve ever mastered.

>>> Tap or Click Here to Discover the Magical 4 Sentence Prayer That Instantly Grants Your Heart’s Fiercest Desires <<<

The Course Contents of 7 Day Miracle

Learn how to Grabbing The Attention of Heaven ( The ebook that gives you a crash course on your relationship to the spiritual world, to God and to His angels, and how to exercise your ability to connect directly to heaven).

· A Prayer Journal (a PDF journal that includes 7 prayers for 7 days, designed to give you miracle results).·

  · Divine Hearing — How to Recognize Crucial Messages from Your Angels (The ebook that helps you recognize messages from your angels).

· Divine Numbers — How to Interpret Angelic Sequences and Unleash Their Blessings (ebook that helps you interpret sequences of numbers and individual numbers like 11:11, 555, etc).

· The Prayer of Daniel (a handy, 1-page reprint of the biblical prayer that Prophet Daniel was using to achieve his miraculous results. This is the template upon which all effective prayer is based).

· A Song of Shifts (MP3 file, angelic music, using the “miracle frequency.” If you like, this can be played while you are performing your own prayers to help enter the theta wave band of meditative thought — the prayerful state of mind)

· Chances are you would be quite amazed to have so much content included for such a reasonable price.

>>> Tap or Click Here to Start the 7 Day Prayer Miracle <<<

Features of the 7 Day Prayer Miracle Course· 

When you have the power of prayer, you never have to be worried again.

· Once you learn how to pray, prosperity flows in to you from an infinite source

· The 7 Day Prayer Miracle shows you how to choose the right option

· You learn to cultivate the right feelings all the time. When you learn to have the right feeling, things seem to go very right.

· Life suddenly becomes perfect, almost all the time.

· With prayer you can invite better health and healing for your body

· Boost Your Love Life With Prayer

>>> Tap or Click Here to Discover the Magical 4 Sentence Prayer That Instantly Grants Your Heart’s Fiercest Desires <<<

7 Day Prayer Miracle Testimonials

From the website of 7 Day Prayer Miracle, here is a reproduction of the testimonials of some of the individuals:

“I was only 5 days away from being declared a bankrupt. Almost all my savings gone. I then stumbled on to Amanda’s teaching. Just 2 prayers later, the bank actually cancelled my debt. Holy smokes, this works!” — Leanne R.

“I had terrible, terrible fights with my husband and I was on the verge of leaving him… Then one day I stumbled on to Amanda’s writings. I consumed it, prayed the prayers and now not only has my marriage been restored — the relationship sizzles in a way not seen since the honeymoon.” — Jane A.

“I’d always wanted to connect to the divine and talk to angels, but I never could. After the 7 Day Prayer Miracle, it was almost a suffocating blanket was removed. I can even now feel the breath of God and delve into the secrets of the universe.” — May R.

“I was left destitute by my cheating husband. He left me with my 2 young kids and moved in with his mistress half his age. After going through the 7 Day Prosperity Miracle, cheques suddenly came in the mail. There was sudden mysterious deposits in my bank account. Now, I have more than enough for me and my children to live a good life.” — Miranda A.

>>>Get Instant Access to 7 Day Prayer Miracle <<<

Conclusion

The 7 Day Prayer Miracle is a complete system that’s more comprehensive than virtually every other book in this genre… Of course, the number of pieces alone is not enough. Each piece needs to be valuable and worth your time.

7 Day Prayer Miracle takes control of your life to improve. It has already helped approximately 100,000 women and men to fulfill the purpose of their lives.

You have a great opportunity to take the first step of a new movement. It comes with a 100 percent money back guarantee.

If for some reason, you are not satisfied with this program, the money will be refunded immediately. This is the claim of the seller organization. You have nothing to lose except for problems.

So go ahead and place your order 7-day Prayer Miracle. Do not miss the opportunity to take advantage of the wonderful wonders of your life.

>>>Get Instant Access to 7 Day Prayer Miracle <<<

7-day Prayer Miracle

SOURCE: https://youtu.be/iHEUgA_4eSA

[irelise]

Fic “Behind the Scenes” - Alex Rider

Trying to dip my toes back into writing, so I thought I’d ramble about some fics I’ve already written! This started off as ranting about my title choice and how they’re usually Final Fantasy XIV songs I butcher in order to forcibly fit the fic, but it expanded into musings about things that didn’t make the cut into the final fic, and potential sequels/things that happen down the line.

Just doing Alex Rider fics for now since that’s my current active fandom, but drop me an ask if there are any fics you’re especially interested in from any fandom!

Starting off with: Time (2368 words, gen, Alex & Yassen focused) aka my untagged Inception-flavoured AU where the plot twist was that it was a dream all along That said, this title was probably one of the easiest to come up with and was obviously from the main theme of Inception, Time! Which is fantastic like the whole movie aaaa i love Inception AUs and this fic is probably the one I’m most likely to expand into longfic if I dredge up the motivation from somewhere. It would be a mission style fic, possibly a heist, where Alex and Yassen are seemingly working together in order to steal some valuable intel from another group. Of course, it’s all a dream! Through copious dream symbolism and mind fuckery the real mission was set up by MI6 for Alex to extract intel from Yassen, who by this point is steadily losing his grip on dreams and reality after months, possibly years, spent under sedation.

Yassen has a few tricks up his sleeve, though. He’s aware that he’s (probably) dreaming and he can see the fractures in Alex’s resolve after such a long time of being used and manipulated by MI6. It would only take a little nudge to get Alex to defect -- or, at the very least, to escape.

So while Alex is busy trying to extract information from Yassen, Yassen is trying to do the opposite: inception.

The rest below cut for length and also because they’re nsfw since most of my writing was for the kink meme! Warning for general fucked-upness and unhealthy relationships

at the end, on a dusty road  (8154 words, Yassen/Alex) aka the reputation sabotage fic, aka where’s part 3b?!

Title from Origa’s Polyushka Polye:

The wind scatters your brave songs Across the green field. Songs of the past, Leaving them alone with your glory, And right at the end, on a dusty road…

i just wanted something wistful and Russian about past soldiers and fading glory ok....... I came pretty close to titling the fic leaving them alone with your past glory but decided it didn’t make much sense out of context.

ANYWAY my first Yalex fic! Very much inspired by a hodgepodge of comments on Discord about how MI6 would react if they ever saw Yassen paying Alex visits in the middle of the night - “Could they be exchanging information?” “The whole night? Maybe the answer is something more obvious...”

ANYWAY the ending at the moment is pretty open - there’s two main ways I see it going:

1) Yassen comes back shortly afterwards, realises he had fucked up colossally, stays and helps Alex rebuild even though Alex (very justifiably) no longer trusts him. Very slow reconciliation and healing but ultimately happy ending.

2) aka the one where I broke Nanibun’s shipper heart over Discord: Alex and Yassen eventually reunite, but it isn’t until years later, when Alex is nearing middle age and Yassen has faded into obscurity. Alex managed to pick up the pieces of his life and even moved on properly from MI6, and now lives a fulfilling life. Married, 2.5 kids, white picket fence, the whole lot. So what if his marriage is more for partnership than for love? He’s content with the direction his life had taken and has strong ties to his community. He even managed to forgive Yassen, even though it took him a long time.

He and Yassen meet for the last time in a sunlit cafe in spring. Alex looks at Yassen and sees only a stranger with lines crinkling under his eyes.Yassen is getting old, he realizes. He thinks he should be happy that Yassen even had the chance to get old, but all he feels is relief that their paths had diverged. Alex is done with that life and he can never trust Yassen again. All that old passion had burned away to nothing, not even a flickering flame. Even though the initial parting had been painful, Alex had managed to find peace long ago, and he hopes Yassen will be able to do the same. But it's a distant, unemotional hope, the sort of hope you'd have for a distant acquaintance you haven't seen in years. The type of well wishes that are etiquette more than actual sentiment.

He's glad when their drinks are finished and Yassen melts away into the chattering springtime crowd, one final dangling chapter of his life closed at last.

.

...............or, 3) Alex throws himself into increasingly dangerous situations in an attempt to feel something and dies young.

(part 3b is coming someday i swear! it’s the alternate path where Yassen has second thoughts, tells Alex the truth, and doesn’t send the sex tape to MI6)

---

Lemniscate  (3562 words, Julia Rothman/Yassen) Not a whole lot to say about this one, except after I finished I realised it was really similar to another fic I previously wrote which also involved a young man desperate to reinvent himself completely being taken advantage of by his superior............ i have a Type

Title - I was jamming out to Locus while writing this which is a song all about an inability to escape from cycles - When fighting back right out of this system/Means falling back right into this space ; When falling back is better than simply/Falling back into pieces again  - but it was long and unwieldy so I thought about shortening it to Moebius but that was a bit overdone... In the end I settled with Lemniscate which is also an infinity symbol, Moebius-like shape. Mostly it’s a reference to how Yassen never quite breaks free of his “cycle” even though he’s with Scorpia now - he was Sharkovsky’s slave and bedwarmer and...now he plays basically the same role for Julia Rothman. (Just with a bit more murder and moral erosion!)

---

This probably needs a special content warning - major character death (gun suicide from the second Russian roulette scene), gore, necrophilia

closing the circle (3650 words, John Rider & Yassen) aka is it still a gen fic if there’s offscreen necrophilia?

This was originally written for a kink meme prompt for corpse mutilation + necrophilia but then the John and Yassen plot thread kind of took over and I never actually ended up writing the gory stuff oops since it was too out of place compared to the rest. So everything below can be considered not “canon” since the fic diverged so heavily from its original plan (which is why the section numbers skip around - I cut out Yassen’s bits). But if you’re curious, here’s the details for what I originally planned to happen to Yassen (well, his corpse) and the Sharkovsky family, copy-pasted straight from my notes and full of as much karma as I could stuff in:

Yassen’s death, Sharkovsky shoves his fingers in the bullet hole and spits on the body in disgust. Yassen regains consciousness halfway through this; he can feel what Sharkovsky is doing

Ivan comes running in, attracted by the sound of the gunshot. Sharkovsky tells him to do what he likes with the body as long as it’s disposed of in the end. Necrophilia scene? Afterwards Ivan disposes of the body by locking it in the cellar alone with the Dalmatian for a few days

Yassen starts getting his revenge. Ivan is the first to go when he comes to let the Dalmatian out – the Dalmatian savages him and tears out his throat before it’s finally shot. Yassen’s bones get buried along with the Dalmatian. Ivan’s body is kept in the cold storage room in the basement where they kept the old food taster’s body while they decide what to do with him.

Maya, Sharkovsky’s wife, is next. She passes away in the middle of the night. Sharkovsky wakes up next to a cooling corpse.

There are whispers that there is some sort of curse. One of the maids talk about finding blood on the carpet of Sharkovsky’s study. She’s the next to disappear. Some other workers stop turning up.

Finally it’s Sharkovsky’s turn. He dies of poison. The dacha burns down that same night.

A Scorpia agent was sent to tie up loose ends (Scorpia didn’t know Sharkovsky is already dead); Yassen kills him too. He has no loyalty to Scorpia and just wants to be left alone.

Hunter is sent to investigate. He and Yassen talk, in the end, Hunter invites Yassen to come with him, Yassen agrees. But when they leave the dacha and Hunter looks back, he finds that Yassen is gone.

And an excerpt:

Yassen is dead. He does not remember dying. There are some things the human mind tries to shield itself from, and the memory of a bullet traveling through bone and brain to erupt on the other side in a shower of gore is one of those things.

Yassen is dead. He had hoped death would mean oblivion. At his most naïve and optimistic, he had hoped death would mean reunion. Happiness. A return to simpler days.

He discovers, instead, that death is not so different from life, except he is even more powerless now than before.

There is a body on the floor of Sharkovsky’s study. Its hair had once been pale white-blond, but now it is matted with coagulating blood. That same blood spreads in a dark pool against the carpet, clotting the fibres together into ugly clumps, stiff and flaking. The fire in the hearth is still burning sullenly. Its light glistens against the grotesque strands of viscera splattered against the ground, the furniture, the wall. A round hole had been punched into the side of the corpse’s head, piercing bone and brain. That was how the man who had once been Yassen Gregorovich had killed himself. The fingers of the corpse remain loosely curled around the old-fashioned revolver that had been the instrument of death.

The only living person in the room rises slowly from his wheelchair. Sharkovsky’s skeletal face is twisted into an ugly grimace of anger. He totters over to the corpse, nudging it with the tip of one polished leather shoe. “Waste of time,” he says coldly. “Ruining a perfectly good carpet, and for what?”

In a sudden fit of temper, he lashes out with a kick. Once, it would have been strong enough to break several ribs (Yassen knows from intimate experience). Now, the corpse merely flops limply to one side. It incenses Sharkovsky further. He drops heavily to his knees, breathing harshly, and backhands the corpse across the face with one shaking hand.

[thebmatt]

Another set of Character Development questions, this time very specific to FFXIV

I cam across another set of character development questions on the Emet-Selch Bookclub discord, and since I love these things, I’m going to answer all 35 of them for all 4 of my crew! Ready? Let’s go!

1. Where were they during the Calamity? 

Franks had not yet made the journey between their worlds yet, he only did so about a year into the Seventh Umbral Era.

Fearless was still living on Aerslant, which I don’t know if there’s any canonical description of how the Calamity affected that region, but I’m going to go with “they felt the effects, but it wasn’t quite mass chaos like it was in Eorzea”

Dahkar and Rheika were both living in the Black Shroud but were mostly spared the direct effects. 

2. How did they acquire their Echo? 

All four of them received the Echo as it plays out in the MSQ. Dahkar and Rheika got it after dealing with the enraged treants at Lifemend Stump, Fearless and Franks after fighting the frenzied Mossback at the Seasong Grotto

3. Does their Echo function like it does in the MSQ? Or is there a twist to it? 

For the most part it functions like it does in the MSQ, but there’s some extra abilities that it provides that I’m planning on exploring in a future fic. To summarize: the Armory system is represented as a pocket dimension the Warriors can store clothing, weapons, and tools in. The Echo also allows them to “pause and save” any learning they have done in a particular discipline and resume it as if no time had passed whenever they choose

4. Do they have a canon mount or minion? What's its name(s)? 

All four of them have their chocobos, which I don’t have names for yet (the ones in game aren’t canon, as they’re mostly inside jokes). Aside from those, two of my crew have a couple of mounts special to them.

Franks has kept Maggie, the Magitek Armor liberated by the Garlond Ironworks. Most recently, he’s taken to using a Gabriel Alpha magitek unit that he liberated and rebuilt from the Bozjan Southern Front

Rheika is incredibly fond of the True Griffin she befriended while helping the Ananta at Castellum Velodyna. 

5. Where are they from? What was their childhood like? 

I’ve covered this in some of my “Details!” posts I’ve done for them all, so I’ll be brief here

Franks - from another world, grew up on a farm, pretty normal farmer’s childhood

Rheika - grew up outside of Gridania in a Keeper of the Moon community, a middleish child of a large number of sisters. Aside from being made to understand WAY too early that the Wood Wailers will always treat her like a second class citizen because she is a Keeper of the Moon, she had a pretty happy childhood

Dahkar - Born on the Azim Steppe, mother took him to Gridania after his tribe was killed. Similarly treated like outsider, but otherwise kept mostly to himself, only meeting a couple of friends growing up.

Fearless - born and raised in Aerslant, the Sea Wolf Roegadyn homeland. Child of wealthy parents, she had a privileged upbringing but no choice in anything.

6. How did they deal with the massacre on the Waking Sands? 

All of them were horrified and angry by it. Franks had never really experienced the Garlean Empire’s brutality firsthand before this, and it cemented a personal desire to fight them. Fearless, who’d begun to develop serious feelings for Minfilia, was almost beside herself with worry. 

7. How did they deal with Haurchefant's death? 

All of them took it pretty hard, but Dahkar, who’d been romantically involved with him by this point, was almost broken by it. His grief nearly consumed him in rage, quite literally, but “Fray” managed to help him hold it together until he could process and grieve. 

8. How did they feel about the liberation of Ala Mhigo? Do they feel it could have been handled differently? Where they at all bothered by how they were involved? 

I get the sense from the way this question was worded that the original author doesn’t care for the Stormblood storyline much, but honestly, I don’t have a problem with it. None of my crew are native Ala Mhigans, but they were all too happy to participate when it became clear that the time for it to happen had been chosen for everyone by Ilberd’s actions. Plus, y’know, there was that whole potential Bahamut-level primal they needed to deal with. Losing so handily to Zenos was a serious morale blow that messed them all up quite a bit, but all four of them went along with the plan. It offered them a chance to get better, to weaken the Empire and strengthen themselves. 

9. How do they feel about Zenos? 

THey all hate the guy for nearly killing so many of their friends and injuring them so badly. Later, pretty much universal relief when he died, pissed off that he didn’t stay that way, and now hell-bent on ending him once and for all. All of them pretty much agree that bastard needs to die.

10. How do they feel about their relationship with Hydaelyn? Midgarsormr?

Initially they accepted that Hydaelyn was a benevolent force, but once they learned of her origin, especially that she was a primal, a private debate broke out among them all the first chance they got to talk about it (which was after the Shadowbringers 5.0 MSQ when Rheika finally got back to the Source). Franks is very concerned that they’ve been tempered. Dahkar is now extremely wary of her, but isn’t certain their free will has been removed. Rheika and Fearless are unwilling to give up on her, but don’t understand why she stopped speaking to them. 

Initially, they were all furious at Midgardsormr, but came to realize that his deeds in severing their connection to Hydaelyn definitely made them stronger. They now regard him as a friend and a source of wisdom.

11. Were they more sympathetic to the dragons, Ishgardians, neither or both? 

Franks wasn’t certain of this, having known sentient dragons that had absolutely been wronged by mortals in his homeworld, but he didn’t see a way to fix this on his own, so he went along with helping the Ishgardians. He was absolutely on board with Alphinaud’s plan to try and end it, however. 

The others had far less experience with Dragons, and initially accepted their version of events without much thought. They immediately turned on the whole idea when the deception was exposed, though. 

12. How has their job affected whatever headcanon version is of the MSQ if any? 

As I’ve explained in previous posts, I’ve parsed out all of the jobs (except Monk) to my characters, with the aim of balancing the following ideas.

○ At all times during the story, one of them should be capable of tanking, one healing, and the others DPSing ○ If possible no one should have more than 1 job from any of the 5 roles ○ Obviously, don’t give jobs to characters that make no sense for them to pick up

It’s taken a few revisions, but I’m currently happy with the setup they have. For the most part, they’re extremely proficient with their chosen fighting styles and don’t mind swapping around to fill whatever need is present. For Heavensward, the trio who got their new jobs in Ishgard chose to stick with them for the most part, and for much of the Far Eastern parts of Stormblood, Rheika and Fearless chose to stay Ninja and Samurai for the most part, since it felt “right” to them to use those arts when fighting for Doma’s liberation.

13. Are they close with any of the other Scions? Who do they get along with the best? 

Franks gets along best with the more scholarly minded members of the Scions, specifically Y’shtola, Urianger, Krile, and G’raha when he later joins. 

Rheika and Tataru have become the best of friends since she joined. She’s always encouraged Tataru to better herself however she wants, and really loves the newfound confidence she’s gained

Dahkar is closest to Thancred among the senior scions. Among the other members, he’s flirted with Ephemie a fair amount, and is considering whether or not he wants to deepen that to something more serious.

Fearless is probably closest to Alisaie. She admires her confidence a great deal. 

14. Of the Scions, who are they most worried for? 

Franks is most worried for Y’shtola and her “aethersight” draining her life force. He’s actively trying to modify the SCH magicks that cured the tonberry plague to restore her eyesight (and Thancred’s ability to manipulate aether)

Rheika is probably most worried about Urianger, as he’s shown a very disturbing pattern for pursuing a hidden agenda to further the scion’s goals, He claims to be done with that, but she’s worried he might slip into old habits in the future.

Dahkar and Fearless aren’t particularly worried about any of the Scions, beyond the default “these are my adopted family and I don’t want anything to happen to them” level of fear.

15. Is your WoL promiscuous? Celibate? Or just waiting for the right person? 

Franks has so far been unable to move past the death of his wife to consider any new relationships. He’s also far older (if only mentally) than anyone who’d be interested, which also blocks him from considering anything new.

Rheika is aromantic, but pansexual. Romance does nothing for her, she just likes having fun with anyone she considers attractive and will respect her rule. She’s got a number of paramours in various parts of the world.

Dahkar is bi, and willing to engage in casual liaisons but at his heart, he really wants a committed relationship. After Haurchefant died, he hasn’t been involved in anything serious since, only crushing on people emotionally unavailable, such as Yugiri (bound by her oath to HIen) or Kurenai (bound by the oath of the Ruby Princess). He’s recently come to realize that this was a form of self-sabotage and is trying to open up again.

Fearless crushes on every pretty girl she has come across, but is usually too shy or lacking in self-confidence to follow up on them. She greatly regrets never telling Minfilia how she felt about her. Her time as a Warrior of LIght and the friendship she’s built with her fellows has helped tremendously. She’s currently involved in a poly triad with two other women.

16. What does your WoL do to relax? What sorts of distractions do they seek? Do they foster any bad habits as a result?

They enjoy spending time together or with the other Scions. If they’re at a point when they need to be alone, they’ll do the following.

Franks likes to tinker, build things, or solve arcanima problems. He can sometimes get wrapped up in any of those and lose track of time. He’s also prone to hiding away to avoid socializing.

Rheika will generally find someone to take to bed if she’s really stressed, otherwise she’s fine just hanging with people 

Depending on his mood, Dahkar will either find a monster to fight (never something he’s not confident he can beat) or leap to whatever the highest place he can find is and just enjoy the view.

Fearless enjoys reading novels, but as of late prefers spending time with her girlfriends.

17. Who is their favorite Alliance leader? Who do they get along with the best out of them? 

Counting only the 5 members of the Eorzean Alliance, in order from most to least.... 1. Lyse - because she’s one of them, come on 2. (tie) Merlwyb/Aymeric - because they are good people who have the strength to move their nation forward to a better place 3. Nanamo - she’s trying to make Ul’dah better, at least, even if she isn’t able to affect change. Plus she’s not doing enough to address corruption in the Brass Blades 4. Kan-E-Senna - she seems entirely content to leave her people at the mercy of elementals and isn’t doing NEAR enough to address racial inequality in Gridania

18. Does your WoL fully embrace their role as the WoL or do they try to remain humble? 

For the most part, they’re humble, but all of them are not afraid to use their titles/fame to get what they need or to make someone’s life better if they can do so. 

19. What do they think of the Heaven's Ward? 

The only ones they really got to know were the two that tried to condemn Alphinaud and Tataru for “heresy” and the one who attacked them when they were meeting with Hilda. Those were...not positive experiences. That, coupled with the fact that all of them willingly followed the Archbishop into summoning Primals into themselves pretty much sealed their opinion on the rest. 

20. Of all the places they've been to, which is their favorite? Do they like to go back there? 

Franks enjoys spending time in Ishgard, both because the manufactory is there and he enjoys collaborating with the other machinists and because he really enjoys working on the Restoration of the Firmament.

Rheika enjoys being in Mor Dhona and the Crystarium the most. It’s full of people all working together for the same end, and she’s happy being a part of it and doing her part to help.

Dahkar also loves Mor Dhona, but he’s found going back to the Far East oddly soothing. He feels a connection to the Azim Steppe, despite not really knowing what it means to live there, he wants to learn. 

Fearless has made Kugane her home, thanks in part to her one of her girlfriends living there and the other currently on an extended tour there as well. 

21. Are there any raid storylines (Ivalice, Coil of Bahamut, Werlyt, etc.) you consider to be canon for your WoL? Which ones don't you consider canon? 

I consider all of them to be canon, save potentially the NieR crossover alliance raids. Honestly, the entire story of that place just felt so odd and out of place that I didn’t really enjoy it, and I’m tempted just to say it didn’t happen. Everything else, though? Absolutely canonical.

22. Do you  have a unique tale for their job class or is it pretty much like what it is in the game?

Most of them are pretty much as they were in the game, though I have some personal headcanons on how Arcanima and the Paladin job work, the latter of which I’ve explored in one of my fics. The former will be somewhat explained in the current longform fic I’m working on.

23. Are there any side quest storylines that you're particularly fond of or think of as being canon to your WoL's experiences? 

Aside from the raids, alliance raids, and trial series, which 21 covered, I’d say all of the Beast tribe quests, the Scholasticate quests (which I suppose means Hildibrand has to be canon too), and most of the sidequesting in Sui-no-Sato are all canon experiences.

24. Does your WoL have any phobias? 

None of them have any real strange or irrational fears of note, not that I’ve been able to think of that make sense to the characters, anyway.

25. Do they have any habits or rituals that they do to soothe themselves? I.e. Playing with their hair, chewing their lip, fidgeting, etc. 

Franks will absentmindedly fidget with a tool or some spare parts. He’s actually built a small gadget that has some switches and buttons that do nothing for this purpose.

Rheika is restless and prefers to move while thinking. She tends to bounce a leg if she has to sit still too long.

Dahkar is pretty capable of concentrating without needing any kind of habit to aid in it.

Fearless tends to bottle it up until she can release it in private, either by meditating or dancing, depending on her level of anxiety and privacy expectations 

26. Do they suffer any traumas from any of their adventures? How do you foresee this affecting them going forward? 

Fearless was actually persuaded to pick of the Astrologian job thanks to the trauma of the banquet. She wanted to be able to predict anything that awful from happening to her and her friends again. 

LIkewise Dahkar was so traumatized by that (and the Braves’ betrayal), it was the final catalyst needed for him to be open to his Darkside and become a Dark Knight. He’s also the one most affected by Haurchefant’s death, and as I explained earlier, it’s subconsciously kept him from going after other romantic relationships

Rheika had nightmares about Tesleen for months, and they were made worse when she herself nearly became a sin eater. She practiced quick drawing her bow and hitting accurate long distance shots for a long time after that, wanting to be prepared to save someone from that kind of distance if she had to.

Franks has dealt with enough trauma in his previous life that a lot of what he’s seen on Hydaelyn doesn’t affect him as much as it otherwise might.

27. How did the events of Shadowbringers impact them? 

Rheika was the only one present for the events of 5.0, and my headcanon is that she wasn’t able to get home until after Hades was defeated. She felt alone and adrift without her fellow Warriors, and the trauma she endured did not help matters. Seeing them summoned to aid her was a balm on her soul, and when Franks figured out how to get the others to the First a little before the events of the Eden raid, she was overjoyed. 

28. Were they suspicious or open to Emet-Selch's presence when he first appeared? 

Rheika never believed he had good intentions. She always expected him to betray them at some point, but there didn’t seem to be much she COULD do before that happened. Even after he rescued Y’shtola, that was never enough for her trust. 

29. Did your WoL suspect anything was amiss with Urianger or the Crystal Exarch? Did they feel betrayed? Upset? When the truth finally emerged? 

Rheika immediately recognized G’raha Tia (”I mean he wasn’t even TRYING to change his voice!”), but she assumed there was a reason he was hiding from her, and she trusted Urianger’s vision. When the truth came out, she was angry about being lied to. She understood their reasoning, but threated to beat the crap out of both of them if they ever tried something like that again.

30. What was their highest point in Shadowbringers? Their lowest? What caused it? 

High point - ending Hades. Low Point - failing to save Tesleen

31. What were their first impressions of Hien? 

Aside from Rheika and Dahkar finding him very hot, they were all very impressed by his willingness to sacrifice his own life if his people chose not to fight any longer

32. Did they trust Asahi right away? Why or why not? 

Not right away, no. None of them are quick to trust Garlean officials, and Asahi felt way too slimy. None of them were all together surprised with how things turned out, save for when Maxima agreed to abide by the exchange after everything went south. 

33. How did they feel about what happened with Yotsuyu? Did they feel like she was justified in her actions? 

All of them felt bad for Yotsuyu’s horrible upbringing (and have made it VERY clear to Hien that he needs to make sure the new Doma does NOT allow for this to happen again), but accept that she made the choices she did and that ultimately, she needed to be stopped. 

34. Would you say your WoL is fundamentally a good person? Or are they a bad person that's been persuaded to do the right things? 

All of them are absolutely good people fundamentally. They know they’re the only ones that can fight the ridiculous battles they get into, and they’re okay with doing it, because ultimately, they want to save lives. 

35. How do they feel about the fact that they've killed a lot of people and/or things?

They all understand that for every life they have to take, it means more are safe, sound, and happy down the road. All of their choices are made with that goal in mind. 

[ariyadaivaris]

im giving this very minimal editing. this is a very long post because i thought about gold standard last night and had an out of body experience. it is not very good because i wrote it and also it was like 4 in the morning and i was unwell. i don’t know why its worded the way it is it sounds like i was trying to sound professional and thoughtful or something and i dont know why the fuck i tried that how embarrassing cringe and fail blogger. i am posting it anyway because this is what i do is embarrass myself online. thank you <3 

  Tony after being betrayed said he was hurt, but he knew what teaming with That Guy offered, what the benefits were, and why someone would do it. This is the thing: WHY did the betrayal happen? It happened because Tony stood up to That One. Tony stood up to Enzo specifically because Ariya failed, and when Enzo chewed him out for it Tony stepped in. This was both righteous and kind, and it made everything harder.

  Ariya participated in the betrayal because of this. BECAUSE Tony was kind to him! Because Tony saying the way Ariya was being treated was wrong, and if Ariya believes that, then he is suddenly in a LOT of danger at the champion's hands. Ariya has feuded with a few people already. He has been humiliated for no reason. He has been beaten down by someone who wanted it more. Ariya isn't in a great place to think he can leave and make it. Ariya made a deal with the devil, he's safe as a goon, he cannot fight what happens to him now. Tony and Drew have each other, if it breaks bad, and they're both friends with Ariya he guesses, but not in the same way. He has nowhere to go and no way to fight.

  Tony, however, DOES fight. Tony challenges Ariya's idea that he has to suck it up and deal with it. If it's all three of them against him, then maybe they could get out. Ariya gets his idea about the shape of the world, the place everyone has in it, challenged. And he rejects it! He can't accept it! Tony is fighting to protect HIM! And he denies it!

  And the thing is, this is something Tony understands. Tony confronts Drew instead of Ariya, because--well because dubya weighs their importance differently because of the racism but because Drew hasn't bought in the way Ariya has. If anyone is OVER enough to challenge Enzo at this time? It is Mister FUCKING PowerPoint babey!!!!!!!! Drew gets onboarded and accepts because it might make him more popular, more able to gain traction for his bullshit no fun allowed ideas! Ariya is backed into a corner of his own design, and its not good and it doesn't make him betraying Tony FINE, but Tony understands what happened. Why Ariya did that. In a way, he understands Drew, too, of course. The influence is too appealing, he knows that. But Drew /chose/ to join in when he was given a chance to help Tony. 

  Maybe Drew needed to regain confidence too, maybe he needed to get back on his stupid little feet, it's been awhile since I've seen that storyline play out and I dont remember all the details. But I think the other thing is...Tony and Drew were literally closer at the time. Ariya was still their friend, OBVIOUSLY, even if the canon was noncommittal about saying it, but Tony and Drew were like. I mean. YOU know. You were there. Drew turning on Tony, after all that they'd done together, held so much weight behind it. Tony doesn't demand an explanation from Ariya. But he NEEDS to know Drew is sorry. He needs things to be okay between them. But they're not, and they never are again.

  This is...another thing. Drew doubles down on this to the point it turns him into something else entirely. Tony demands an apology from him, and he /refuses/. He offers some small, pathetic I'm Sorrys during the match, as long as he's getting hurt, as long as Tony has the upper hand, but when push comes to shove, he breaks in the other direction. He's not sorry. He didn't do anything wrong. Tony held him back, if you really think about it actually, because why would Drew have ever done anything wrong? Really, this is Tony's fault if you think about it (it was not Tony's fault)

  Ariya isn't given a chance to apologize in the same way. Tony and Drew clash during the tournament. Ariya gets knocked out in round one, gets injured soon after (which breaks up a potential feud with Mustafa as well and every fucking day it makes me want to scream, I would do anything on this earth for them to feud, please God take me back) and spends most of 2018 out of action. There's just no time, and even if there was, its questionable if dubya would even care about the opportunity. The next time they meet, it's when Tony's the champion and Ariya has finally decided hes better off alone anyway.

  Tony is different. He's the champion, and he's a face, at that. He's earned the title by seeking vengeance against someone who wronged him, and he found it. He's lost in a lot of ways, but he's trying to be confident, and he is trying to become the kind of person who can represent the championship. Not just as someone who got it on the way to a kind of small interpersonal victory, but as a Real Champion. The kind 205 (usually) fosters. The kind that didnt ruin his life.

  Tony is also the same. He's Ariya's friend. In the middle of a sea of changes, Ariya is familiar. They can pick up where they left off, if Ariya wants. If Ariya just...if he just changes alignments for Tony. If he accepts that Tony wants him. 

  Ariya is different. Alone after abandoning Kenta during a failed attempt at vengeance against a mutual enemy. Akira, who Kenta discarded after a few too many losses. Akira, who beat Ariya in pursuit of the title, a loss that Ariya never really came back from. Ariya loses to Akira again, even playing support for someone else. And he lashes out. And he works on his own, because he doesn't trust anyone to help him.

  Ariya's also the same. He lashes out, and he doesn't trust anyone to help him. Ariya carries his career around on his back. He carries, in reflection of someone else's experience, a chip on his shoulder. It weighs him down. When Tony offers him understanding, he does what he has always done, and he rejects it. Tony faces Drew, the ghost of their shared past, and Ariya is there to remind him exactly why he exists as he does now. "I didn't hurt you, but I could have. I just wanted you to know." Tony cannot trust Drew anymore. He shouldn't trust Ariya, Ariya warns him.

  Ariya doesn't say sorry, because he can't, because he's too busy sabotaging his last remaining friendship for Tony's own good, for his own good, for him to convince himself he never cared in the first place, but he regrets it. He cuts Tony off because it's easier than apologizing because this motherfucker will NEVER admit to having problems, he will drink water with a lemon slice and that will fix everything, thank you, but he does this to warn Tony off before Ariya can hurt him again. Ariya lashes out. It's what he does. Its better this way, where Tony can't get hurt.

  (Ariya, who doesn't put himself in harm's way for anyone, who has Evasion as his middle name, who sneaks around conflicts every chance he gets, flattering and tricking and taking opportunities because he doesn't trust his own skills to get him wins, Ariya thinks he's protecting Tony. But maybe he's still protecting himself. Ariya saw Tony and Drew, saw them again, saw how they have something that he doesn't. Ariya can't trust anyone the way they trusted each other. Ariya will never, ever be to Tony what Drew was. The sooner Ariya prevents even the chance for that comparison to exist, the sooner they can forget it ever happened, the sooner he can stop thinking about it like Tony could want to be his friend all the same. Like Tony could be thinking he's just not a threat the way Drew is. Like Tony could know everything about Ariya and forgive him anyway, like Ariya could ever do right by that forgiveness. Like Ariya could /ever/ earn anything.)

  It took a long time for them to get where they are even now! Tony and Ariya danced around the idea of teaming with each other for a long time, talking around it and avoiding each other and not thinking about it. Now that they are, we can actually see HOW their relationship has evolved since then. Ariya and Tony have remained a team, and Ariya has begun to risk things for people. He was doing it a bit before, with someone who definitely didn't deserve it, but Ariya is now trying to actively protect Tony in matches, after matches, when he's hurt. Ariya hasn't asked for Tony's help or really accepted it on a level deeper than Win Match yet (and honestly Ariya probably realistically needs more help than anyone can give him, help that has to come from himself), but he's offering his own. And when Ariya realizes he's not winning on his own, when he had his little Moment at the beginning of the year where he got ready to sabotage and run because he can't start depending on people and especially not on Tony, the LAST person who needs to be looking after Ariya again, when that happened, Tony took a step back and let Ariya work on his own. When Ariya does what he needs to to feel In Control, which is usually a little murder but I like him so it's okay, Tony leaves him to do it on his own or plays support for him instead. 

  Its like... there is a healing in the rift between them in the specific way it needed to heal, y'know? It's not perfect and there's always a chance the writers get bored again and do some bullshit, but like...tony and Ariya specifically have like. One of the most interesting relationships in wrestling right now. It's like. God. I could just die thinking about it. I care them

[theeternalspace]

See Me in a Crown 4/?

Buckle up folks! We’re back on this madness at long last! This chapter has been sitting done for a while, but real life got in the way several times. I am pleased to say we are here at last though! 

it’s another dark one, back in the Imagination, and time to see what Virgil and Roman have been up to! 

Previous || Next

Masterpost

Summary: Virgil must make a choice. Damned if he does.... and damned if he doesn’t. 

Word Count: 7.7k

Characters: Virgil Sanders, Roman Sanders. Remy Sanders. 

Pairings: Still platonic, still don’t know if its gonna be romantic, Prinxiety.

Trigger Warnings: Possession/Corrupted Side, Evil!Roman, blood, threats of death, implied death, not actual death. if I missed any, please, please let me know. 

~~~

“Rise and shine darling!” 

Roman’s voice echoed through the room - and through Virgil’s skull. It was as bright and as cheerful as ever. As though this was one of their sleepovers the four sides would sometimes do. Or some other, innocent normal activity and not a morning with Virgil a prisoner and recovering from a wound in his leg. 

Virgil hadn’t been asleep. He wasn’t sure how long he had been awake for, lying on the bed and just trying to think. He wasn’t sure how long he had been here period. Time wasn’t real in the grand scheme of things, but it was even less of a constant within the Imagination itself. He could have been here a mere five minutes as far as the rest of the mind was concerned or he could have been here for days. It was all subject to Roman’s whims, to the level of control he was pressing down on it. If he was smart - and as much as Virgil felt sick to his stomach even thinking about it, he had to admit that the Intrusive Thought had shown some level of base cunning - then he would be speeding up time as much as possible. 

Anything to make the world spin faster within its little globe, to make the sun rise and set. And to make Virgil suffer. The longer he was here, the harder it was to think of getting out. The fact that nobody had come to save him yet meant either the other him was doing a really good job.

Or worse, not enough time had passed for them to know he needed saving. Which meant he could endure what would feel like weeks and weeks of this hell in no time at all. It made Virgil want to cry from either rage or fear. Honestly, he wasn’t sure anymore which. It also made him want to get out of here, the need to try and break free a constant, near overwhelming feeling. 

Thoughts of escape had been quickly dashed by the sensation of a heavy cuff and chain fastened around the ankle of his good leg. No amount of tugging at it manually or mentally could so much as make it wobble. Virgil tried to reach down inside of himself for that little bit of control he had over the Imagination, but no matter how hard he reached out, only empty space waited for him. 

Somehow, Roman was blocking his connection. It left him adrift and more afraid than he was willing to admit. Virgil had become so used to that sensation of being part of Thomas and his thoughts that he had long ago started to take it for granted. So much so that it felt as though a part of him had been removed, as though he were missing a limb. 

It was kind of surprising that he wasn’t missing a limb, considering his last memories before the pain. The arrow that had ripped through his flesh and then the added damage as Roman had twisted it spitefully. He didn’t know how long ago he had been injured. It couldn’t have been too long because the wound was still healing. It was an ugly mess of bandages and bruises on his leg, dark purple and green splodges peeking out from under the wrapping that had been placed around it. His jeans were completely ruined, most of one leg completely hacked off, as though Roman had attached it with gusto in order to deal with the wound.

After all of that, and the half remembered dreams that followed, Virgil had expected to wake up to more pain and torture. That seemed to be this twisted version of Roman’s stock in trade after all. Instead, he had found himself lying on a large and sinfully comfortable bed. If it wasn’t for the chain trapping him to it, he might had almost felt calm. 

Part of him had been surprised, and then grateful, to wake up on a bed instead of crammed back into that tiny cage. Those feelings had quickly been followed by disgust, aimed at himself. How weak and pathetic was he, that after one night and one - admittedly serious - injury, he would be grateful that he wasn’t in the cage? That was probably what Roman had been counting on. Try and wear him down that way, have his own mind turn against him and do all the work for Roman. 

And now, here he was. Ready to threaten him no doubt. Virgil had to remain strong, he couldn’t give in. Ideally, he wanted to get the cuff off so he could try and escape again and that meant playing along.

For now.

He just had to keep reminding himself that it was a trick on his part. That there was no shame in bowing to the pressure for the moment if it gave him an opening down the line. And that he wasn’t actually giving in. He wasn’t that weak and pathetic. Virgil repeated that pep talk over and over in his mind, reciting it almost like a poem, letting the words flow through his thoughts in order to give him the strength he needed to actually face Roman. 

But just because he was going to let him think he was feeling the stress of recent events to the degree he would give up - for the moment - that didn’t mean he had to make it too easy for the beast. 

Virgil opened his eyes to look at him, expression twisted into the most unimpressed scowl he could manage. He wasn’t about to feed to the thing’s ego by appearing cowed. Not to mention, there was always the worry that he might over do it. Sure, Patton said he could never overdo it, but Virgil knew that wasn’t really the case. 

If he started acting too cowed and broken, then the Thought would suspect he was up to something. It was a fine line to walk, and Virgil wasn’t sure how to do it. All he knew was that he had to try. 

“Hello beautiful, are you ready for work?” Roman asked, not in the least bit fazed by the look that was being sent his way. Well, at least he hadn’t immediately worked out that Virgil was faking it and decided to hurt him again. That was a positive. Not that Virgil was normally a very positive person but he needed to hold onto that right now. Thinking about Patton helped. It also made it worse, because asking himself ‘what would Patton say’ also made him imagine what it would be like if Patton was here.

And that was something Virgil would give anything to prevent. Not his Patton. Not any of his friends in fact. This was his mess, his screw up. He had failed Roman and he had to work out a way to fix it, without getting anyone else involved because if they got involved then they might get hurt. Virgil’s eyes narrowed in distrust, examining him carefully. 

“Work?” 

A trap, a trap, Virgil knew it had to be a trap and yet he found himself falling for it anyway. He was curious and now more than ever, he felt the truth of the old saying about curiosity killing the cat. It had already gotten him into so much trouble since this whole nightmare had started. But wasn’t it best to ask the questions? To learn as much as he could? Roman was going to do whatever he was going to do anyway. At least if Virgil knew what was coming, he could try and think of some way to handle it. 

It hadn’t worked so well for him so far but sooner or later, he was bound to get lucky. As Logan would say, statistically, he had a better chance if he asked the questions. Some part of Virgil was still convinced that Logan was wrong when it came to him, that if he had a superpower it was to sabotage that statistic, so that he was always unlucky.

“I helped you when you were ill with your infection,” Roman explained, as though it was obvious. “I even asked you if you wanted my help. You had to know there would be a price attached and now it is time to repay that debt.”

Virgil had a vague memory of that moment. Of floating, suspended somewhere between pain and bliss. With a voice that he wanted to stop talking so that he could go back to relaxing, so he could escape the reality of his situation for a little while longer. Apparently, in that state, he had made a deal with the devil.

“And... what exactly do you expect me to do, to repay you?” Virgil asked. Yet more questions, yet more opportunities to see just how far his bad luck was going to take him. 

“All you have to do is sit beside me as I make my judgements. I won’t even ask you to do anything. I just want you by my side.” 

That sounded easy. A little... too easy and that couldn’t be all Roman wanted. No way was that all he wanted. There was going to be some sting in the tale, some trick that he wasn’t yet aware of. If nothing else, it would be full of petty mortifying moments. 

Was he actually considering this?

Going along with what had to be a trap?

Then again, realistically, what choice did he have? Bitter experience had proven to him that Roman wouldn’t take a denial of his wishes very well. Sooner or later, he would be able to resist again. Sooner, he hoped, rather than later. The alternative would be more pain and he knew still ending up in the place that Roman wanted. There would be a time to fight later, when he wasn’t getting over an infected leg wound and he could move more freely. 

A voice in the back of his head pointed out that this sounded an awfully lot like giving in and justifying himself in the process. A voice that Virgil needed to ignore as he started to get out of the bed. Even sitting upright felt like an embarrassing struggle, his limbs weak and trembling after his illness. 

Carefully, Virgil stood. He took a shaky, uncertain step forward, feeling his leg buckle and give out under him. If it hadn’t been for Roman catching him, he would have fallen flat on his face. For a moment, Virgil couldn’t understand why he had caught him instead of letting him feel more pain. The confusion lasted right up until the other side opened his mouth. 

“In my arms at last, little songbird,” Roman murmured, a wicked smirk on his face. It was obvious that he was enjoying this a little too much, that he was getting satisfaction from Virgil being unable to even walk properly. 

With a soft, barely there snarl, Virgil pushed himself back upright. With the fury that was burning in his veins, he found he didn’t care about the pain that gave him. He didn’t care about the possible angry way in which the Intrusive Thought might react to Virgil attacking him. All he cared about was getting out of the embrace, no matter the consequences.

In a way, it was even worse when Roman threw back his head and gave a joyous laugh. Really, Virgil would have taken more pain that moment over the crushing reality that Roman didn’t even see him as a threat. To make matters even worse, the regal looking side then turned, showing his back without a trace of fear and left, assuming - rightly - that Virgil would have no other option but to trail after him.

Limping slowly, Virgil followed him out of the room. 

Any ideas he might have entertained about trying to escape while Roman had his back to him were dashed by the sight of Terrance waiting for them both, the figment silently slipping in behind them. No doubt keeping a close eye on Virgil and why did he have to keep the ones that looked like Thomas’ friends around? There were so many faces he could use, so many people Thomas knew more casually or had passed in the street. But no, he had to pick the ones that would hurt the most. This Thought seemed unable to let the simplest thing go by without seeing it as an opportunity to twist the knife even further. 

Virgil refused to voice any of those thoughts out loud though. He wasn’t going to let Roman know that the presence of a fake friend was getting to him.

Instead, he focused on keeping a steady pace, on moving as easily as he could when his leg hurt as it did. Realistically, Virgil knew he wouldn’t have been able to try and make a break for it even without Terrance’s presence, not when his leg was like this. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse, to have two reasons why he was going along with Roman’s wishes like a good little pet. Like the songbird Roman insisted on calling him.

With each passing moment, it felt more and more as though he was just giving in and accepting the reasons his head was conjuring up as excuses when really he was just weak. Weak and pathetic. What good was he when he couldn’t even handle one imaginary wound? When he had such a need for being the center of attention and pity, that he had managed to get not only injured but then have the wound infected for good measure? Why was he even fighting any of this? Surely it would just be better to give in? He was a coward, he didn’t like pain and if he just kept on doing what Roman wanted then it would be better for everyone. 

They paused in front of the large doors which lead into the throne room. As they stood there, Roman visibly stood up taller, his whole posture shifting into that of a stern but gracious king. The role he was born to play. In that outfit and with that Thought in charge, it made a mockery of everything his Roman had stood for. 

Virgil took this opportunity to close his eyes for a moment, breathing through his nose and trying to will those thoughts away. That wasn’t him. He was not his worst thoughts and he wasn’t going to give in to the fear and worry and well - anxiety - that was currently assaulting him. He was more than just his title, his role. Roman was counting on him and Virgil was not going to let him down. 

With those thoughts firmly in mind, Virgil opened his eyes once more. Instantly there was the gleam of gold, light catching off the doors as they moved with an overly dramatic creak. The faintest wisps of red smoke drifted past his vision as he blinked a couple of times to try and clear his gaze and focus once more. Those doors were fully open now, Roman vanishing inside, still walking with his head held high. As though he had any right to anything in this realm. 

A hand on the small of his back reminded him ever so gently, that Virgil couldn’t just stand here as he pleased. 

Biting down the noise of pain that wanted to escape at the renewed pressure upon his leg, he started to limp forward once more. Each step was more and more painful. A fire that was burning through his veins and leaving him shaking and utterly spent. Virgil was so focused on not crying out or simply dropping to the ground and lying there unable to move, that he didn’t notice the changes to the throne room until he was a good way inside.

It was a lot longer for one. At first, Virgil had just thought that was his leg playing tricks on him. That because everything hurt so much, it felt like an eternity. But no, the room really had stretched out, the pillars lining the way were now almost twice as many as before. The colours had changed as well, shifting into muter, darker shades. The painfully ironic thing - everything was pain right now - was that Virgil almost preferred this new look. It was much more his style. 

But it wasn’t Roman’s style and this was more than just his castle, the throne room was the beating heart of his world. If any place in it needed to be Roman, it had to be this room. For the Intrusive Thought to have twisted even this place... it made his heart sink even lower and raised new doubts about if Virgil could even sa- no. He wasn’t thinking that. 

One step in front of another. One more. And then another. And another. Each step dragging him slowly but surely towards the dais which was waiting at the other end of the room. There was another difference here Virgil belatedly noticed as he dragged his aching body up the few steps which elevated this area above the rest of the room. 

There were two thrones where once there had only been one. Admittedly, one was smaller than the other, set lower so that the person on it would always remain aware of their reduced position. It had a chain attached to the front right leg, a heavy cuff on the other end. The was obviously for him. Some part of Virgil was amazed that he was actually going to be allowed his own chair. A throne no less. He had expected something along the lines of the chain to keep him in place, but he had thought that Roman would have used it to further embarrass and shame him. Perhaps by making him sit at his feet.

Whatever the reason for his apparent mercy, Virgil wasn’t going to question him about it. Not out loud at least. It was added to the list of questions that were growing ever stronger in his mind, pushing at his thoughts and confusing him further. Every time he thought he got a grasp on this Thought, it shifted. If all it wanted was to hurt and humiliate him, why allow him so much as a throne? 

Roman stood in front of them and gave a mocking bow, lips twisting into a triumphant smirk. And why shouldn’t he be pleased with himself? He had managed to get Virgil in here, he was winning today - he had won every day so far, but his victories had never been complete. It wouldn’t be complete here. Virgil still didn’t know exactly what Roman really wanted from him, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to get it. With another little wave of his hand, he gestured towards the smaller of the thrones. So he wanted Virgil to sit down? 

Okay. He could have that. But only because Virgil wanted to sit down too and take the weight off his aching leg. 

The hand that was still in the small of his back gave him another little nudge, sending him stumbling forward. He caught the edge of the lower throne before he could actually fall, letting it steady him and no matter how badly Virgil really wanted to sit down, he couldn’t rush this. He couldn’t let them know how badly the walk had hurt him. 

Somehow, he managed not to slump into the throne, sitting on it and waiting. As he expected, Terrance immediately bend down, hands reaching for the heavy looking chain. 

Virgil refused to let so much as a flicker of emotion cross his face as the cuff was attached around his ankle, tying him to the throne like a leash. It could have been worse of course - if it had been an actual leash it would have been around his throat and he really didn’t think he could handle that. Not now and not ever. He felt uncomfortable enough at knowing he really was trapped. That it wasn’t even his own weakness that was stopping him from moving now, but that he was locked in, chained down.

A wild Anxiety, chained and contained at last. 

To his muted surprise, Roman barely looked at him after that. He sat on his own, higher throne, head still held as high as before. With an impetuous wave of his hand, he beckoned the first claimant forward and got to work with the business for the day.

If any of the figments filing through the throne room wondered why Virgil was sitting there in chains - or indeed, why he was there at all - none of them mentioned it. He had never really understood the details of Roman’s worlds. He didn’t know how much power and freedom the people within it actually had. Were they all following programmed orders? Or was this just at a level that Roman didn’t have much of a hand in? Just automatically generated things beyond his notice. 

But if Roman had planned all this, surely he would have chosen more interesting cases than neighbours squabbling over whose responsibility a fence that needed mending was or if they had been allowed to pick fruit from certain areas. In fact, none of the so called cases seemed particularly taxing. Most involved the same few petty little squabbles over and over again. There was the slightest variation in some of them. A different sort of food, eggs instead of fruit. A dam that needed fixing instead of a fence but it all boiled down to the same few things. All very mundane and normal.

So how come Virgil couldn’t help but feel as if something bad was coming?

It was ridiculous. Roman still wasn’t looking at him. He seemed fully absorbed in his role as the Prince, the font of all knowledge and justice. If it wasn’t for the outfit change and the fact he had chained Virgil to the throne, he could have convinced himself that it was still his friend. The Roman that had cared for the well being of his people, who would patiently sit for hour upon hour if that was what they needed.

How he could stand it, Virgil didn’t know. He was growing restless as it was, a prickling tingle of energy sweeping over him as he tried not to fidget. How many more of these people could there be? How many more times was he going to have to see some people shuffle through the doors and creep forward in line. When they finally reached the front they would grovel in front of Roman and wait for him to decide their petty fates? 

The uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. 

Virgil’s gaze flickered around the room as though he could somehow pinpoint whatever it was that was making him feel like that. There had to be something, something he might not have realised that he saw but had buried its way into his subconscious like a tic. He could brush and pick at the spot all he liked but the teeth had burrowed their way deep and there was no way to get them out. Not until he could understand what it was that he had seen. 

Was it one of the guards? There had been a slight stiffening to the ones standing by the doors leading in and out. A somewhat sharper snap to attention as though aware of eyes on them. But surely that, on its own, couldn’t explain that feeling of dread. 

“I sentence you both to death...”

Roman’s voice, calm, collected, cut into his thoughts. Only then, did Virgil realise how far away his mind had taken him. He hadn’t even noticed the passage of the last few cases. Or how there were now two cowering women in front of Roman. The darkly clad regal side was staring down at them, his face expressionless.

To Virgil, that scared him almost more than the anger or the mocking had. Roman’s face was no built to be devoid of feelings. He always carried a little of himself in his look. Be he happy, sad, thoughtful, excited, or whatever. It was always on his face and Virgil could always read it. Yet there was nothing in this look. Not a hint of mercy or pity. It was as if all the lights were on but nobody was actually home. 

Virgil missed his friend. But here, more than ever, he found himself mourning the absence of Roman. He would never have looked like that or said such things. He would never lift a perfectly manicured hand, fingers twisted into a thumbs down like some Roman Emperor of old. 

“You stole from the King’s forest. You know the laws, nobody may enter without my express permission. This is not the first time it has happened recently either. I have no choice but to make an example of the two of you in the hope that you may prove a beneficial example to the rest. You will be taken from this place and burnt in the castle grounds before the day is done.” 

They weren’t real. They weren’t real. 

That didn’t make their cries of terror and pleas for mercy any easier to hear. Virgil could imagine their deaths. He could picture the way they would twist and scream in the flames, the stench that would drift around the castle. The way the ash would get caught up in the wind and mingle with everything else. He could imagine their pain - did the figments feel pain? They certainly felt fear and it was making Virgil feel scared in turn. 

Not to mention, how would Roman feel about this? Virgil still held onto hope that he would find a way to break through to his friend and he was going to be upset about everything that had happened as it was. Sentencing people to death, the same people he had sworn in his coronation oath to project might be a step too far for him to handle. 

“Roman, wait,” Virgil muttered. The dread was still pulsing in his stomach like some living, breathing thing. A beast made out of sickness and anxiety, bad thoughts made real. This was going to make things worse. This was a mistake.

But doing nothing was a mistake too. Roman tilted his head slightly towards Virgil, his eyes still firmly fixed on the crying women. He didn’t say a word, but he neither had he ordered his guards to take the women away. 

“Don’t kill them... you... if you kill them, the people will fear you. Resent you. If you show mercy, they will love you. I’m sure... I’m sure they will obey you after this if you make it clear next time you will not be so forgiving?” 

Virgil pitched his voice as low as he could as he spoke. Something inside him told him that Roman would not appreciate him speaking any louder. Perhaps it was the silence from Roman. Or the way he had bend his head towards Virgil to allow them to whisper. Maybe it was every period or fantasy drama he had seen which included this kind of scene. They always whispered in those cases. 

Advisers to the king. Was that what he had become? Was he steeped in evil because of it? 

“Very well...” Roman said slowly. His gaze had never once left the two women. “My consort has begged for mercy and I am inclined to grant it. Whipping and public penance. Begone before I change my mind.” 

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Consort?! Where had that come from? What the hell was the Thought playing at now? The two women didn’t need to be told twice, each giving him a series of frantic little bows as they almost fell over themselves in their haste to get out of the room, the guards following close behind. Virgil paid them no heed. His mind was still stuck on that one word, turning it over and over in his mind like a pebble, worn smooth by the countless, crashing waves. 

“Did you like that title?” Roman purred, finally looking in his direction. His eyes were gleaming with none too subtle malice, clearly enjoying himself. “I couldn’t help myself, not with the throne you were sat upon. It is technically a seat for a Queen after all.” 

Virgil felt his fingers curl into fists, nails digging into the soft smooth skin of the palms of his hands, pressing so tight that he was sure there would be moons scattered across his skin for all to see. Countless little half moons, red and pulsing. Ugly, hot little reminders of how easily Roman could bring everything crashing down.

One little word and he was able to slip through Virgil’s defences, to find the weak spot and press hard. That was all it took when you were a master of the craft as Intrusive Thoughts clearly was. He had no idea what he meant by that term, if it was just to tease or if there was some other, deeper, darker meaning at play. It didn’t even matter in the long run what the Thought had actually meant by it.

His intent paled in comparison to Virgil’s reaction. Roman knew him, which meant that the Intrusive Thought knew him. He would know exactly how badly Virgil would take any sudden shift, any great change. To be forever moving, shifting, going from one phase to another might be how people lived. How even they all lived. And on the whole, he could stand up tall and proud when he thought of his past phases... but that didn’t mean he enjoyed the transition between the two. 

The idea that such a term could be thrown out so casually, as though it didn’t change anything when it did everything was almost physically painful to him. The fact that he almost certainly meant nothing by it only hurt Virgil further because that brought with it the fear that he would use other terms again just for the fun of it. 

The Thought didn’t need to do anything further. Virgil would do all the work for him, would torture himself with that word. Virgil hated that. He despised even more the simple fact that knowing about the trap his own mind would create for him didn’t help him work out how to avoid it. He could see the pit of spikes in the road up ahead and yet his pace didn’t slow or alter. 

Nothing to do but go to his doom. 

“I listened to you, little bird,” Roman cooed. He reached out, hand cupping Virgil’s cheek before sliding lower to grip lightly at his chin. Virgil had been so caught up in his own thoughts, the worries twisting and turning on themselves like angry snapping Cerberus heads, that he could do nothing but let him. 

“You did,” Virgil agreed hoarsely. His palms were stinging now, little spots of sensation that created their own constellations against the sky of his skin. This was all too much. Too much thought and feeling. Too much worry and sensation. He needed to get out of here, he needed to go. For the first time Virgil actually felt like the animal that Roman seemed to be trying to make him. The panic that rose in him was bestial, instinctive and devoid of any finer common sense. It was ruled by the desire to get out of this situation and nothing else. 

He turned away - or at least, he tried to.

In an instant, the fingers had tightened around him, digging in deep. Sharp and cruel, pinning him in place. It was so much worse than the marks he was leaving on his own skin because it spoke to his lack of control. It was yet another reminder - as though he needed another - that he had no agency of his own right now. The Thought could do whatever he wanted to Virgil’s body. He had proved that time and time again from the cage to the hunt to this moment. He could do whatever he wanted to his mind too and Virgil wasn’t sure how he was supposed to fight this. 

“Since you think you’re so good at making judgements, you can make the next one,” Roman told him, carrying on the conversation as though he wasn’t gripping Virgil hard enough to leave marks. He twisted his hand, forcing Virgil’s head to turn and look towards the main entrance.  

Virgil’s heart didn’t sink so much as plummet. 

Because there, being dragged through the two grand doors were October and Sleep, affectionately known as Toby and Remy respectively. Toby had a cut over his left eye, his hair dishevelled. Remy was in almost a worse state because he  had lost his sunglasses. He looked so... vulnerable without his glasses and Virgil felt bile rise in his throat. It stung and burned as it went, leaving an acidic aftertaste in his mouth. The two lesser elements of Thomas were forced down to their knees in front of them. 

Their hands were bound behind their backs, guards on either side but it didn’t stop either of them attempting to struggle and fight their way free. Remy tried to meet his gaze but Virgil couldn’t hold it, his eyes dropping down to stare at the floor. They were stinging as hard as his throat now, tears burning at the corners. 

This was wrong and this had been a trap. He just never would have suspected... this. Whatever this was actually turning out to be and he felt very slow, very stupid. There was a malicious cunning at work here, some level of cruelty that not even Virgil could predict. 

Sharp nails dropped away from his chin, Virgil shrinking back into the throne as they did. His hands relaxed as well, no doubt leaving the little moon marks as he had already suspected. It wouldn’t take long for those to fade though, there was no permanence to them, no lasting harm. Not like the damage this threatened to cause. He could barely breathe, staring down at the knees of Remy and Toby. Why were they here? What terrible thing was going to happen now?

“Someone came snooping,” Roman explained, voice light and dreamy. He sounded as though he was talking about a dream he wanted to share or something cute he had seen that day, not the two prisoners he had captured. 

What if what he had been doing to Virgil was just a warm up for these two? What if he was going to hurt them? Virgil had started this whole nightmare dragged in front of Roman - how long ago that seemed now. It felt almost like a whole different lifetime, sitting and chatting with everyone, helping Thomas with his latest drama.

Was he ever going to be able to help Thomas with some of his worries ever again? 

“They found out more than they were supposed to. I can’t leave any witnesses lying around. But I’m a generous man. They both represent smaller fragments of Thomas. He can survive with one of them temporarily suppressed.” 

“What... what do you mean?” Virgil asked, stumbling a little over the words. Roman couldn’t mean... surely, he couldn’t mean what he thought he meant? Not even the worst Intrusive Thought could go as far as to kill one of them. They wouldn’t stay dead of course - death could only come to a side if they chose to remove themselves. Even then, the trait itself would remain, would recreate itself with no memories of the previous version. 

The only other way they could die would be if Thomas died and Virgil had no intention of letting that happen any time soon. Or, if he and Logan had their way, ever. Logan had a lot of interesting talk about extending life spans. Freezing people. That sort of stuff. 

It made Virgil want to giggle a little, something high pitched and desperate. Here he was, thinking about how they could be cryogenically frozen in order to live forever and Roman was still talking about murdering one of their friends. It didn’t matter if it wouldn’t be permanent. There wouldn’t be a physical mark but this would leave a scar and he couldn’t even start to imagine how any of them could recover from that. 

“I mean I’m going to make one of them fade. By the time they reform and eventually recover their memories to know what happened to them, it will be too late for them to get in my way. Am I not merciful?”

Virgil didn’t answer. He couldn’t, his whole body and mind felt frozen, locked into place as the meaning of those words echoed around a suddenly silent room. Roman actually... he was actually going to do that? He really was going to... Virgil wanted to scream, to cry. He wanted to jump out of the throne, chain and wounds be damned. To go for the throat of this monster which mocked him while wearing a friend’s face and plotting the destruction of other friends. 

His body refused to respond to those desires, to the heat that lapped against the icy shore of his will. How could he do anything when Roman had already showed how easily he could capture and hurt others? There was Remy and Toby to think of, still restrained with the sword of judgement hanging over them.

Roman stood, movements slow and deliberate. Out of the corner of his eye, Virgil could see the dark trouser legs as he moved closer. For the first time, Virgil felt a pang of fear at the thought of Roman close by. This was so much worse than the hunt, or when he had laid at his feet in agony, an arrow in his leg. 

Even then, Virgil had been able to summon up some sort of defiance. He didn’t know how to do that now, he couldn’t find it in him to be brave as Roman’s hand settled on his shoulder, fingers squeezing. Not hard enough yet to cause any actual pain but the threat was there, as clear as if he had actually said the words. 

“I said,” Roman repeated, voice sparkling with not so subtle dangers. “Am I not merciful my little bird?” 

Virgil thought of Remy and Toby, watching this whole scene from their knees. He thought of his own pain, the hunt and how unimportant that was compared to everything else. He thought of the friends that were still safe outside this nightmare, who were blissfully oblivious to the horrors being waged here. Virgil would do anything to protect them, to try and save Remy and Toby now. What was his own pride compared to that? 

“Very... merciful,” he forced out at last, fingernails slotting back into the impression left from only a few minutes previously. Had it really only been a minute or two since he had last sat with his fingers curled into tight, biting little fists? So much seemed to have happened since then, and yet in reality, it had been such a short span of time.

“Good pet,” Roman replied, hand now petting at his hair as if he was nothing more than that name. The bile rose in his throat again, more acidic than before, threatening to scorch his throat and leave him decaying. The regal side shifted a little, one hand waving towards the two below them.

“Choose,” he announced grandly. “Who should I spare?” 

The world seemed to tilt on those words, everything shifting and becoming alarmingly grey around the edges. Choose? He was supposed to choose? How could be possibly do that? How dare the Thought inside of Roman try and put this on his shoulders. 

It was a gross perversion of everything Virgil stood for. Which, he was painfully aware, was undoubtedly the reason why he had decided to do it. What better way to hurt Virgil than through those he loved. What better way to hurt those he loved than to try and make Virgil be the one to wield the sword. He wouldn’t do it. He wasn’t going to play these games any longer. He wasn’t going to sit here and meekly play at being Roman’s trophy, his consort, his bird or whatever demented title he came up with next.

“I can’t. I won’t,” Virgil spat out, the intensity of those words surprising even him. All the fire he had tried to suppress was bursting free once more, a raging roaring flame that refused to bow down to something as undeniably wrong as the Thought.

“You won’t?” The question was spoken mildly enough, but in the same dangerous tone as before. That time Virgil had crumpled under the pressure, had told himself that he had to agree for the sake of the others. This time, he knew he had to disagree for exactly the same reason. 

“No,” Virgil replied and it didn’t matter what Roman did to him. He could stab him in the leg again and twist it for all it was worth, but he wasn’t going to sentence either of them to death. He wasn’t going to hurt his friends, he would gladly take all the pain on himself. 

Almost unconsciously, Virgil felt himself brace for a blow that didn’t come. Roman considered his words thoughtfully for a few moments and then shrugged his shoulders in apparent defeat. The gesture only made him that much more nervous because he had never given in before.

“Very well. Both of them then. They will both die.” 

“No!” Virgil cried, his heart leaping to his throat and who knew what would happen to Thomas if he lose them both. 

Losing Sleep would... be terrible. Perhaps not too noticeable at first considered how little sleep he got anyway, but give it long enough and he would start to really suffer. Thomas would hurt without Remy there. Losing October would be a problem for the videos but he was so much more than just a month. He represented all the joy Thomas had within that month. Virgil felt closer to October than any other monthly function. Toby was so much cooler than him of course, but they both loved Halloween. 

Thomas needed them both and Virgil had to do something. Of course, if he did nothing, if they both died - were suppressed - then surely someone would notice? Patton or Logan or even Thomas? With both of them out of the way, Thomas’ behaviour would change. They would start to question, might follow the trail all the way back to this castle. They might be able to stop Roman, save them both and then -

It was a pleasant dream. A hope of a much better future, one that didn’t involve bars and blood. Virgil couldn’t do that however. As much as he wanted to get out of this hellish landscape, he couldn’t condemn them both to death. He couldn’t run the risk of Thomas being seriously - and who knew, perhaps even permanently - damaged by such a loss. 

Roman arched a brow, his expression condescending. 

“No? I gave you a simple choice my pet. I offered you the chance to spare one of them. One will die and one will live. Or both will die. If you refuse to pick, then I will. Shall we watch the double execution from our thrones? I could have them killed right here and now.”

“No!” Virgil repeated again. He gasped for breath, feeling himself teeter on the edge of a cliff unlike any he had ever known before. The rocks which were spread out below him were far more treacherous and deadly than anything else. This was a wound he was cutting into his own flesh. Plucking out his heart and shredding it between his own fingers. 

Mouth opened and closed a few times, Virgil struggling for breath, for words. Eventually thought, he was able to force some out. 

“I... I’ll pick.”

“Good boy. Very well. Who gets to survive for another day?” Roman leaned forward a little, an intent, excited look in his eyes as he waited for the answer. Although Virgil was deliberately not looking at them, he was sure the two on their knees were leaning forward a little too, both helpless and waiting to see where the blow would fall. 

“Sleep,” Virgil whispered, closing his eyes so he wouldn’t give into temptation and look towards them both. Some small, dark part of himself wanted to, wanted to hurt himself by seeing the reaction, to let Toby glare. He wanted one of them to hurt him because then it might be easier to bear this hurt in turn. 

Virgil was a coward though. The larger part of him couldn’t bare see the betrayal in Toby’s eyes. He felt physically sick at the words he had uttered but what else could he do? Sleep was a physical representation of a much needed bodily function. Thomas needed to sleep and while he could survive without it for a day or so, it couldn’t be much longer than that. Virgil couldn’t risk Thomas like that. He couldn’t take away sleep. 

“As you wish. Take October outside. Do it in the Courtyard” Roman murmured, voice low and almost comforting. In the otherwise dead silence of the throne room it felt deafening, as though he was screaming the orders so that everyone would know what Virgil had done. How he had, to all intents and purposes, killed a friend. 

There was the sound of guards moving around, the struggle of a body being dragged away and still Virgil couldn’t bring himself to look up. It was taking everything he was not to cry out in rage and guilt, to not make it worse.  

“Take Sleep to the dungeon,” Roman ordered. Virgil’s head snapped up at that, eyes widening in horror. He had sacrificed Toby for Remy, had given up his own soul to protect him and now Roman was going back on his word? He had never made Roman promise and why hadn’t he gotten some oath out of him before galloping ahead with his choice? It was no excuse to allow himself to be so driven by fear and not rational thought. Logan would have been so disappointed in him. Then again, it wouldn’t have been as painful as the self hatred that was flowing through him now. 

“You said you would let him go!”

“I said no such thing my little songbird,” Roman retorted, one hand lifting to rest lightly against his heart, as though wounded by the tone of voice Virgil was using. “I said I would make one of them fade. Nothing about what I would do to the other.”

~~

tag list;

@stanley-jigsaw @applecannibal @cookiethedevil @i-will-physically-fight-you @jemthebookworm @4amanxiety @plaid-purple-patches @hikarisakurariver

[mysticandskepticmuses]

ALTERED CARBON VERSE SUMMARIES.

Adolphus Murtry. - Corporate mercenary / captain.

Alex Kamal. - Space pilot & navigator. 

Amanda Waller. - Director, Protectorate spec ops division.  (runs a protectorate kill squad made up of elite soldiers & criminals tasked to the purpose of doing the dirty deeds that need done behind the scenes.)

Amos Burton. - varies / verse; mercenary or mechanic.

A.N.N.A. (private muse.). - Artificial Intelligence, 

Bucky Barnes. - Winter Soldier, ex spec ops, private stack, brainwashed. (an elite protectorate operative who remembers very little, if anything, of his life before the military; his stack is kept on ice and dumped into whatever sleeve is available or needed for a wet work job before he is once again returned to the ice.  (multiple plot options available re: true identity and restoring his memory, etc.))

Cal Lightman. - Deception expert, known to work w/ Bay City PD & others.

Carl Hickman. - BCPD. (a beleaguered grounder cop, has worked a number of departments over the decades, has settled into organic damage.  possibility of captaincy in his future if he wasn’t just quite so outspoken against the corruption and injustice that plagues the bay city police department & oversights.)

Chrisjen Avasarala. - Methuselah, UN ambassador / secretary general.

Clarice Starling. - Protectorate special investigator.

Clementine Pennyfeather. - sex worker / Earth, Bay City. ( a sex worker by trade who sends the majority of her funds off world to support her parents and her young siblings.  clementine worked various brothels on the ground but has recently been hired to work at the head in the clouds; her stack was backed up without her knowledge by rei and her back up / stored memories have been used to revive her several times in a cloned sleeve with no knowledge of any previous deaths - she is the favorite of a particular few clients who are willing to pay the cloning costs for the repeat performance.)

Dig 301 (Annabelle Lee). - Archaeologue / co-proprietor of The Nevermore.

Emily Lightman. - student, daughter of Cal Lightman.

Enchantress. - Elder.  SEE VERSE.

Frank Castle. - ex Protectorate / Wedge. Retired.  Vigilante.

Galen Erso. Protectorate scientist.

Hanna Heller. - (the product of a secret protectorate project to craft supersoldiers from birth; when the project was blacklisted, the majority of the subjects were destroyed to prevent leakage of classified information; hanna was rescued by her ‘father’ erik heller.  her life has consisted of learning to live off the grid while learning tactics, combat training and more to enable her to not only survive, but take down the elements in the protectorate and un that could prove a hazard to her continued existence.)

Hannibal Lecter. - Meth. Serial killer, cannibal, etc.  (an intelligent social deviant with sadistic tendencies, whose intelligence and savvy, and now, his wealth and influence amassed over the last several hundred years enables him to toy with and take the lives of those around him that cause him displeasure, or are simply offensive to his sensibilities, with little to no fear of being incriminated in any of his many illegal activities.  by day, a very well renowned psychiatrist and chef, social artiste and culinary master; by night, a man lacking any true moral boundaries, master manipulator, murderer and cannibal.) 

Inara Serra. - Companion to the Meths.

John Robinson. - Retired Protectorate general, explorer.

Jessica Jones. - private investigator.

June Moone. - Meth, Elder archeologist; SEE VERSE. (june is the daughter of a 250+ old meth, daniel moone, and his wife, maria devlin-moone who is a meth and also uses her contacts to enable black market drugs, flesh trade, arms & artifact smuggling on and off world.  june is (usually) oblivious to her mother’s dealings, though there is a great deal of not so subtle animosity between mother and daughter with a clear preference in her mother’s eyes for june’s older brother, jacob.  june is a renowned Master Archaeologist and has run a number of dig sites across the universe.  her specialty / obsession is the martians / ancients.  she’s still on the ‘young’ side for a meth, coming in at 69 years old.)

Kaylee Frye. - spaceship mechanic. (she’s always had a way with machines, particularly anything with an engine, ancient or new.  she works at her dad’s shop off one of the main spaceports on earth.  she dreams of seeing the universe for herself, but without formal training and education, she hasn’t had much hope of that outside of virtual vacations (which she scrimps and saves for every chance she can get).  )

Kristin Ortega. - Bay City police detective. (a bay city police detective, organic damage division, bay city, earth, kristin is typically overworked, tired, and dealing with way too much paperwork.  her father was a detective, killed on the job and now her dad’s old partner is now her official partner after elias ryker, her partner and lover, was framed for murder – and dealing with a corrupt captain isn’t helping her uncover the truth behind ryker’s framing, or getting to the truth of the murders that ryker was investigating before things went south.  (other timelines etc available, before and after season one, this is just the starting point for default.))

Laura Kinney. - (the product of illegal genetic experimentation by the protectorate, laura is typically on the run and trying to steer clear of the protectorate and or anyone else that might want to get their hands on the regenerative / healing abilities that her genetic code grants.  she has a stack but it isn’t encoded / doesn’t register as anything / anyone in particular when it’s scanned which means any encounter with police, security, anything that requires registration is a threat to her and flags her location in the system.  off the grid is her friend.  )

Laurens Bancroft. - Methuselah; varies depending on verse/ timeline.

Malcolm Reynolds. - ‘retired’ Quellist, ship captain, smuggler etc.

Naomi Nagata. - space ship engineer.

Natasha Romanoff.- ex spec ops.  ‘retired’.

Padme Amidala. - retired world governor, ambassador.

Penny Robinson. - explorer, travels w/ John Robinson.

Poe. - AI, proprietor of The Raven / The Nevermore.

Quellcrist Falconer. - leader of the Quellist rebellion.

Reileen Kawahara. - crime syndicate boss & more. (she’s got her fingers in all the black market / illicit trade / arms dealing / drug trade pies, she has blackmail and leverage on a ridiculously high percentage of those in the UN and the protectorate, on earth and elsewhere, and will do anything, literally anything, to get what she wants.  yakuza era, envoy era, post envoy merc era, and kingpin era / season one era available.  (more info available on request for any of these.))

Rick Flag. - spec ops, Protectorate special division.

Riddick. - sole survivor of planet Furya, criminal, rogue. (  murderer, escapee from a dozen max security prisons, somehow still in his original sleeve (what can he say, he’s attached to it), riddick is a genetic aberration, one of the few survivors of an off shoot of humanity from the now desolated planet furya.  he exists off the grid, in the shadows, and if you see it coming it’s probably because he wants you to.  (various plots available.))

River Tam. - Protectorate experiment; psychic; super soldier. SEE VERSE. (varies for plot.) (an elite soldier, gifted from birth and augmented further by the protectorate, river was one of the few that survived the process that created the elite unit crafted to hunt and track the envoys during the quellist rebellion.  her ability to adapt, to absorb, to blend, to merge efficiently in any sleeve rivals that of the envoys, and she has altered abilities - precog and telepathy, though some say it’s just intuition and being able to predict the variables of any given situation, given enough data.  envoy era & ‘modern’ season plots available.)

Rupert Giles. - historian.  

Takeshi Kovacs. - ex Protectorate spec ops; Quellist. ( leveraged into service into an elite protectorate black ops squad at the tender age of ten, takeshi spent the next 20-30 years killing, torturing, decimating rebellious forces and or whomever the protectorate sent him after.   when reunited with someone from his past, he fled the protectorate and went on the run, joining the quellist rebellion until that too, was destroyed.  he spent the next handful of years on the run and doing various degrees of merc / wet work until he was gunned down and put on ice.  250+ years later, he gets pulled out to solve the murder of a methuselah - a 350+ year old man who promises him a fortune, a sleeve of his choice, and a clean slate / pardon if he can find the truth behind the murder… but there are so many more things at play than either of them could guess and it takes all of a night for things to go from bad to worse.  (protectorate, envoy, merc, season one & post season one plots available.))

Winifred Burkle. - (a skilled astrophysicist and virtual reality coder, fred was recruited into the protectorate in her university years.   it took her almost a decade for her to discover what the protectorate was truly using her work for and she waited for the opportunity to not just sabotage her research and the protectorate’s work, but to flee.  backing herself up, she’s double-sleeved.  she exists in the forays of the web, keeping herself mostly out of trouble, just wanting to try and find a way to undo the damage that her work was used for (brainwashing & torture).  her second sleeve is root, @magicandsciencemuses who has, unbeknownst to fred, made a triplicate, whiskey, who uses her wiles and skills to ferret information and blackmail visitors of some of the elite brothels of earth.)

Villanelle. - assassin for hire.

Wilson Fisk. - crime lord.

Alena Mayberry. - SEE VERSE.

Alexander Petrakis. - Methuselah.

Ariel Hayden. - Meth’s daughter; runaway; high bounty on head.(the daughter of a methuselah who has left her world behind; traveled in cold storage in slow lanes to minimize risk of discovery.  has a small fortune at her disposal that she squirreled away but knows she has to make it last.  has an altered identity stack and is in a new, black market sleeve.  can be on earth or any world really.  just wants to see the universe without her father’s restrictive / protective rules in place.  probably has a bounty for her SAFE return to her homeworld._)

Ashen Zenon. - High level merc / assassin for hire.

Belle Duponte. - Earth grounder, works to pay off father’s debt / sleeve. (the daughter of an once highly regarded scientist who has been shunned for his studies, she struggles to keep food in their stomachs and a roof over their head.  she works several part time jobs, including at an antique book store that also specializes in luxury station, ink, quills, etc. and works part time as a waitress and as a ‘lab tech’ aka grunt labor at the local prison / re-sleeving facility.  she is in her first, and likely, only sleeve.)

Felicia Adams. - geneticist, emergency care doctor / works at psychasec. (a doctor and geneticist, felicia plies her trade at psychasec modeling and crafting the elite and bizarre sleeves designed for the methuselahs of earth.  the health insurance and re-sleeving package perks are the only reason that she continues to work there as she has a young daughter that suffers from a genetic disorder and requires constant care until felicia can afford a complete genetic makeover and re-sleeve into a healthy clone.  (definitely options for her to get dragged into illegal / black market schemes for a quick buck.  also possibilities for the Trouble that is the daughter’s dad to show up and find them too.))

Laurel Isley.. - Meth, brothel owner, sociopath; SEE VERSE. (a meth with her feet on the ground and her fingers in the muck, laurel runs several elite brothels that cater to the worst of the worst desires of the meths that want to play at being bad and the few grounders that can afford her services.  her brothels also serve as anonymous meeting grounds for certain clients vs. service providers - mercs, assassins, etc. that she arranges for a ‘small’ fee.  she also is a pro at creating false idents, which is no easy feat in this day and age. she is very much a sadomasochist and indulges her desires in the real and virtual whenever she finds a suitable playmate (willing or otherwise).)

Petra Nikonova. - verse dependent.

Rori Dearing. - bartender, tattoo artist.  SEE VERSE. ( a young and rebellious meth, a social warrior, rori is the younger sister of @magicandsciencemuses ‘s claire dearing.  she is a human rights / sleeve rights activist and is often found at rallies and protests regarding various lack of rights for prisoners, military service members, victims that are given the worst of the sleeves available, and in general, the money making machine that is the protectorate’s prison system, and the utter lack of opportunity for reform and education.  she works as a 3-d / interactive tattoo artist and a part time bartender. )

Saori Dearing. - daughter of planetary governor, Quellist. SEE VERSE. ( the daughter of the lord governor on harlan’s world, saori is a secret ally and informant to the quellist rebellion.  most of her plots take place during the envoy era where she works with quell to provide military information, travel codes, and helps supply weapons, food and basic supplies to the rebellion on harlan’s world / elsewhere.   (I have verses where she is involved romantically with Quell and or Takeshi but that isn’t a necessity for plots!) she is primarily envoy based but aus / plots can be worked out for ‘modern’ day plots.)

[owletstarlet]

ritsu from mp100!!!!

What I think about this character:

For this, I’m just gonna straight-up copy and paste a post I made about Ritsu a couple weeks ago, because it sums up how I feel about him pretty well:

“I really wanna write something about Ritsu, because boy howdy do I remember a thing or two about being 12-13 years old, sitting on my own pile of corrosive and self-sabotaging mental illnesses that I had no idea about, with none of the adults around me suspecting anything was off because I was one of those goddamn gifted-and-talented kids who was a diligent student and nice to people. 15 years later and this is still Quite The Mood for me—”

(Important to note that his issues manifest themselves way differently than mine ever did, with all the anger and spite just bottling up until they exploded outward at everyone and everything. As to my own issues, they manifested a lot more like Serizawa’s did, with a buttload of paralyzing fear and hiding from the world.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Really only with Shou, but I gotta note that I am a person more than twice Ritsu’s age who teaches junior high schoolers for a living (I see their birthdays in the school computer and marvel at how these lil goblins were all Just Born Two Seconds Ago), I gotta say the concept of romantic shipping for the majority of the mp100 characters is a little weird for me. It’s more important to me that Ritsu has good friends and people supporting him. And Shou is definitely that for Ritsu. He’s the first person to tell him frankly and objectively how much potential he has to become a strong esper, and continues to tell him that, and comes to him for help because of it, and I know that means the world to Ritsu. But more importantly, of course, I think he immediately sees what kind of person Ritsu is without any of his bullshit pretenses he puts on for everyone else, and he genuinely likes him for it. I am all for Shou sending him terrible memes to make him smile if only at how stupid they are, and inviting himself over for video game tournaments and marathoning awful animes and Perfectly Average And Sweet adolescent pastimes that they both really need to engage in for their own sanity and healing.

People I ship non-romantically with this character:

I’m super charmed/amused by the idea of him being friends with Teru. I do think their personalities would grate on each other a bit (a good 80% of that is Ritsu being annoyed with Teru just for Being Himself), but there’s a lot to be said for them being the heart of the support group of People Who Said/Did Horrible Things To Mob And He Forgave Them Immediately Anyhow And They Still Feel Shitty About It. They’re both actively trying to become better people and I kind of want to see them supporting one another in that, even if it’s mostly unspoken. I also wanna see them sparring with each other, to practice/improve/blow off steam. (Also: “I swear to god I’ll reshave your head if you ever try to take my brother clothes shopping again—”)

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I’ve not interacted enough with the fandom to really know what’s unpopular, so it’s shameless headcanon-listing time! Fun ones first:

I think he likes cats, a lot, and the more hateful and standoffish the cat is the more he loves it. He’s probably too self-conscious to go around petting strays all time, but he’d really want to and would probably do it if he was with Mob or Shou.

I think he’s seen Breaking Bad at least five times. *whispers* He is the Danger.

I think the only meme-speak he will deign to use in regular conversation, much to Shou’s delight, is “Then Perish.”

I think he’s actually pretty terrible at board games, especially shogi or chess or something strategy-based, because he’s canonically prone to making crappy snap decisions, and the more he wants to beat the person the worse his game gets. He’s never played Reigen at anything because his dignity would not be able to handle the guaranteed loss.

More Serious Headcanon is that he’s got sensory issues—which is shameless projection of my own neurological disorder onto a character I love but I do not fucking care. The way Sensory Processing Disorder manifests for me is physical pain/serious discomfort and certain touches and sensations (it can be completely arbitrary what sets it off and what doesn’t), pain or tingling around your spine at certain pitches or volumes of sound. Even stupid things like needing a billion blankets on you to sleep so you feel weighted down properly or clothing tags bothering you way too much. And the big one is not being able to maintain physical contact with someone for very long/avoiding it when you can, which people can easily take personally. This would work really well for Ritsu, I think, who probably the least touchy-feely person in the series, and who spends so much time alone. Being sensory-avoiding is isolating in itself, and it’d give a believable extra layer to the things that already make him feel isolated. (Also, the canon fact that he almost never listens to music—headphones can be a bitch sometimes for SPD because if you’re not careful your own music can hurt you because of the pitches in your ears.)

One thing I wish would happen/had happened to this character in canon:

Here, have three:

A proper, cathartic conversation with Mob after the 7th Division arc—in other words, let this child have a good long cry, not just the 5ish seconds/single page of it we got in canon.

Ritsu figuring out something’s seriously wrong after Mob comes home at the end of the Mogami arc. I’m of the mind that Mob probably didn’t ever tell anyone what happened in his six months of Mogami-hell, because he didn’t want to upset anyone or make it their problem, but damn it I wish he had, and I think if Ritsu were to figure out something was up that it’d be when Mob’s going around thanking everyone like he said he would. It may be wishful thinking that either of them would be good enough at communicating with each other for a conversation like that to get off the ground and actually be healing for Mob, but I want them to have fumbled through it and tried.

And finally, I want him to have some actual meaningful bonding time with Reigen. Ritsu may not like Reigen as a person, but you can’t tell me that somebody who’s chosen to make a living out of deceiving people doesn’t know a thing or two about self-loathing, self-sabotage and hopelessness, and how to identify it in others. It’d be a tall order for him to get Ritsu to sit down and listen to him, but it’d it be so goddamn good for him to feel validated by an adult who genuinely understands and wants the best for him.

Anyways, @fmobbu, I’m sorry I’m wordy, but I hope you enjoy anyhow! Thanks for giving me the chance to ramble about the spoon child ;)

[xesoteric-extraterrestrialx]

Sorry to everyone for not having a chance to post lately.. Been dealing with harassment and abuse... I wrote this the other day when venting after my dad went psycho on me for taking a shower. I'll probably end up deleting this cause it's really personal and I quote other people to express and try to explain what I'm going through, just need to vent, sorry for being a burden.. 😔

Does anyone else's dad get a hard on from harassing you? Like, you don't even do ANYTHING and they just try to find any reason to try and harass you? Or your sibling does shit that pisses them off so instead they take it out on you? It's like he gets some sort of sick satisfaction from abusing me. Did I mention he stands and listens outside my door like a creep? (Caught him standing outside under my window just creeping too) I can't even take a shower when my dad's home cause he tries to find any reason to try and fight with me so he can turn the water off and fight // see me in a towel, it's REALLLY disturbing...

It's funny 'cause he'll yell at me and tell me he's going to kick me out (When he's the one who told me to move back in after I had already moved into my own apartment; long story the people upstairs wouldn't stop partying, which was a problem for me since I was working full time. I vented to my sister who told him and he offered to do the basement so I could "save up for collage and save up for my own place again" but I was a fool to actually believe him, really a fool. When has he ever helped me, ever? When has he ever been JUST nice to me? Can't even think of ONE time.. I should have never moved back into this abusive household...) for JUST TAKING A SHOWER. Literally, I just got kicked out of the shower that was only 15mins long and his reasoning "You're in there an hour!" Really? 'Cause I have to time my showers since this isn't the first time he has done this and I was rushing to be out before 20mins but nope, water is cut off. My brother can take a literal 30-an hour shower and his girlfriend someone who doesn't even live here can take a separate shower whenever but I try to take a shower once or twice a week (while he's home) and EVERY TIME, I'm harassed. (This is why I have to take showers when no one is home but I worked out late and wanted to take a quick one, thought I'd be safe but I can never feel safe around that sociopath.. Needed to get some more footage of his harassment so at least I have that for my lawyer...)

It's kind of like how during this past summer when it was hot as fuck outside, I wasn't allowed to use the AC BUT when my brother was home HE was allowed to use it. My dad would go crazy on me if I put it down just so the fan's on just to be able to breathe in the heat but wouldn't even bother my brother about it and then when the weather became cooler and cold enough outside where you don't need AC on, my brother was still using it and received no harassment! But oh no, if Janine puts it on the world has to end. Sexist. Another example: I used to work for his business and would try to go above and beyond with customer service and do what was needed so his company would sound professional and maybe if I did well enough he wouldn't treat me like shit for once for actually doing a good job but no, just a burden to let me work for our family business so he let me go and instead HIRED RANDOM OLD LADIES WHO DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING!! Lmao, let's not trust your own daughter who has experience in the field and has been employee of the month at past jobs but trust these people who don't even know how to work a computer. He let's my brothers work for him and gives them money even though he KNOWS he's enabling their drug problems right now and he gets pissed when they're on drugs at work but instead of confronting them about it and actually being a parent he comes and harass's ME, WHAT DID I DO?! YOU'RE MAD CAUSE YOU'RE GIVING THEM MONEY AND THEN THEY GO OUT PARTYING AND CAN'T WORK THE NEXT DAY BUT YOU YELL AT ME INSTEAD, WHERE IS THE LOGIC??!!?! WHERE??!?! MADNESS!!! INSANITY!!! I don't even want to talk about my brothers with this situation but it needs to be said not to call them out but to show how he mistreats me cause he's so sexist and harrass's me EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

"I didn’t grow up in a stable home. My childhood wasn’t filled with catching fireflies outside nor did it involve chasing down the ice cream man. It involved self induced paranoia and sleepless nights where I had to become my own vigilante- keeping an eye out for the monster that did not live in my closet nor underneath my bed. This monster didn’t have razor sharp claws or scaly skin, this monster was much scarier. This monster was a human being and he slept right across the hallway from me."

I wish my mom never met this piece of shit, to think I could not even be born right now and not have to be dealing with this constant abuse, I don't even know anyone else who deals with constant harassment from their father like this, he's OBSESSED with trying to destroy me. To think my mom could have been in a normal relationship and actually been able to enjoy her life instead of dealing with this psychopath's obsession to tear down and destroy other's, including his own family. No wonder we weren't allowed to get close to his side of the family, he was afraid we'd find out the truth of how disgustingly cruel of a person he is, too bad ended up figuring it out the hard way.. "No child asks to be born. There is no excuse to treat them like a burden when their existence was YOUR decision.."

"I will not regret venting about this on going harassment, he's not sorry for harming me so I don't feel guilty for venting about his abuse. I have the right to protect myself and document what this toxic person puts me through even though they're "family." They already had their chance to be a decent human being but choose to continue to show their true colors over and over."

"I should have learnt the definition of abuse from a dictionary. You didn’t have to teach me what it meant."

"Why do I get outcasted from society and not my abusers? Why is society happily willing to aid and accept and adore abusers? Why do abusers easily get all and any resources, support, validation, acceptance and love? And victims are denied all of it and backed into corner and forced to pay for abuser’s crimes? Do I really need to deal with being rejected and unwanted by society on top of being abused? Do I have to watch the entire world side with my abusers? Is it never enough?"

"Enough excuses for parents who abused their kids but “meant the best”. They “meant the best” for themselves, not for the kids. It’s fucking easy to just rely on emotional abuse, threats, humiliation, shame, guilt and violence to get your way and to force your kid to stay in control and to sabotage and fuck up the child’s life so you would feel good about it, and then to just remind yourself “i meant the best” to feel no guilt about doing so whatsoever. Just repeating to yourself “it doesn’t hurt them” and “they deserved it” while actively forcing your child to keep all the obvious trauma symptoms out of sight or ensuring the child believes it’s their own damn fault for feeling the way they do.

You know what’s not easy? Having your parent force control of your life via emotional abuse, threats, shame, humiliation, violence. Your parent getting into your own head and gas-lighting your senses until you feel worthless and insane and like a monster, until you don’t dare to feel your own feelings, until you’re ashamed of the pain you feel and can’t see yourself as anything other than a horrible burden and nothing you do can ever change that or make you good enough. You know what’s even harder? Still believing that your parent “meant the best” and not even daring to blame them and still being forced to draw the conclusion that it was after all, all your fault, for existing as you do, for being who you are, for not ever being good enough! And then, on top of all of it, hearing the rest of the world agree with the parent’s view, pressuring you to never blame them, to forgive them, to never hold them responsible, to “be better” and understand them, to not ever try to place blame on anyone but yourself because then you’re the monster.

Just. How. Is. One. Supposed. To. Heal. From. That.

Healing can’t even begin until the blame is placed on the parent! This person literally benefited from their child’s suffering! They did not get affected negatively from it at all, they didn’t even care, they walked away satisfied and getting what they wanted while the child now has a lifetime of traumatic consequences and mental illness problems! Their freedom is taken away, their quality of life reduced, their relationships and friendships sabotaged, their confidence crushed! They’re placed at extra risk for addictions and obsessions because they keep falling into the black pit of trauma no matter how hard they try to distract and their life is heavy and painful no matter how well they do afterwards! Their brain can’t regulate stress properly anymore! Abuse causes literal brain damage and all this is just so the parents would get their way! And you all still insist they shouldn’t feel guilty about it or be faced with consequences of their abuse? They shouldn’t fucking admit to themselves and to their children what they’ve done? If the truth will kill them, let them die. Abused children’s right to heal comes way before the abusers feeling good about themselves."

"Living in the same place as a toxic person, especially toxic family member, is exhausting and damaging full time, not only while they’re abusing you directly, but at every moment because you just know they want to hurt you and even while they’re not doing it, you know they’re planning to, and you have no idea what to expect and when it will happen and how big the damage is going to be, being kept in uncertainty and constant expectation of abuse can drive you insane. It’s actually worse when they’re temporarily nice because you don’t even know what to make of it, it gets harder and harder to call them out or confront them, especially if they use fake niceness to manipulate others’ general opinion of them and to invalidate your claims of abuse. So even if the abuse is rare and the rest of the time they somewhat leave you alone or play nice, stress and anxiety is full time, incapability to stop or even voice their actions gets worse and piles up until you feel helpless and like you’re somehow in the wrong and accusing the abuser wont get you anywhere but makes you look bad instead.

Living in these conditions long term will fundamentally change your own perception of yourself, and the sense of your own importance and value, often it will result in trauma as well. Just knowing that you’re in environment that continually allows someone to hurt you, and even supports it, forces you to accept that the world considers hurting you something that is natural and normal and should be done. How wouldn’t that cause anxiety and feelings of unsafely and abandonment and of low self worth? It’s fucking terrifying you mean so little to this world they would have you destroyed just because someone felt like destroying you."

This quote always helps me through times like these..

"You don’t owe your family affection if they are being abusive and treating you poorly. I know that it’s so difficult not to feel guilty for holding back that love. I know that there are people who will tell you that you should just grin and bear it because they’re family. People who will shame you for the way you feel. People who will try to convince you that wanting to take care of yourself in this way is selfish and unjustified. But the truth is that it’s not your responsibility to be kind or loving to people who have consistently hurt and mistreated you – especially when these people continue to disregard your feelings, ignore your boundaries, and refuse to take responsibility for their behavior. Just because the person hurting you is family doesn’t make them an exception.

Choosing not to be affectionate with family who have abused or mistreated you doesn’t make you a bad person. It isn’t selfish or disrespectful. It’s a form of self-care. It’s about you honoring your feelings and holding people accountable for their abuse. It’s about you standing up for yourself and your needs. It’s about you making your mental health a priority. So if getting distance from certain family members is what you need right now, or permanently, then you have every right to withhold your love and leave. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for the sake of maintaining a relationship. And you don’t ever have to apologize for creating a safer space for yourself."

The harrasment and abuse just doesn't end, he just went psycho on me again for brushing my damn teeth, I'm not even doing anything wrong!!!

[thedanisimone]

I spent the majority of last week obsessively analyzing all of the worst case scenarios regarding my current relationship. Instead of being forthcoming about by feelings I distanced myself instead. Even when I was given the chance to vocalize myself I opted for my typical "cool girl" response. "I'm fine," I told him even though the expression in my eyes said otherwise. And he knew...like most men do when women hit them with some variation of "I'm fine". But for some reason I couldn't tell him how I was feeling. I didn't want to seem like I was nagging out of fear of pushing him away so I evaded his inquisitive gaze during out awkward lunch date. Later that night I decided to break the ice after being in hermit mode all week. I had enough of suffering in silence so I finally opened up about what I was feeling. I was expecting him to brush me off but he didn't. Instead, he expressed how he wants me to be open with and he doesn't mind talking things out with me. I felt my whole body exhale hearing those words...knowing that I have a safe space to be vulnerable with someone that is actually willing to listen. I've typically suppressed my feelings in relationships out of fear of a man leaving me (that's the codependency at work) but I've actively been trying to transform this part of my life (shoutout to Jupiter transiting my 8th house). And that's where the Magician comes in to empower us with a choice to create a new narrative for ourselves. It's so easy to let the past disappointment and heartache affect the rest of your life if left unhealed. One of the ways we can jump start our healing is by talking about it which is represented by the swords element. Many of us are still suffering in silence and sabotaging new experiences because we're holding on to old pain. The Magician strives to live his/her best life and is able to transmute trauma into something beneficial. The 3 of Swords is a reminder that you can heal from the past if you get out of your head about it. Start talking about it, write in a journal, see a therapist, visit a healing practitioner, use guided meditations/affirmations or do something creative (continued in comments...)

[bradshawsophia]

How To Avoid A Bad Divorce Fascinating Tricks

List the bad so you want to see this tip would not be allowed; etc. It paints a picture to the essence of a lack of commitment and effort in the deteriorating relationship.If you cannot compare the time to resolve their issues.It's so easy to lose weight or put on muscles.Now it's time to communicate with him or her down and discuss with your work schedule as well as procedures that you seek marriage help books do offer you solutions to support each other happy.

Instead, understand what God wants you to find out what had attracted them to clear things up by your parents had been a natural disaster.Good communication is strained, you may have, it's possible for the individuals takes the proper time given to newlyweds?You need to listen to your spouse looking for some ways to communicate with your spouse space if you are feeling down, it helps to start adopting.You each have two ears and one should take in order for a happy marriage.Seek professional help online, there are generally two things that are available at the beginning.

So it's important for you to preview at a few signs of a relationship.Communication - this one skill is crucial if you were angry with your spouse.You see more families bonding not just a question asked all too easy to make your marriage saving solution.I have seen John hold our little daughter for long time, if it is important for each other, and it could just delete them away through a break up a map of local attractions and pick out the best we can learn by what I exactly did to save a marriage, there are all smaller problems.If you focus on issues of togetherness, couple hood and faith, things that you should be sorted out.

In the past, marriage was to beg him to pay attention to what your partner's wants and needs are.Have a meeting to bring struggles into marriages.You should do to save marriage is falling apart.Generally as you grieve differently you still remember when you want to save marriage from becoming an expert?Before you know how hard it is a great healing tool.

Even if you really want to save marriage you may have been the result of troubled marriages.Fear not, it has saved not just angry at each other because they felt that time of month.Forgiveness does NOT mean the negative thinking and feeling.If you do that, he/she will see every flaw of your mind on how marriages work are understanding and good communication.Identity the reason why you are looking for some FRESH ideas that are on the street with two beautiful kids, the Volvo and a relationship, laughter is a vital step to solving an issue which lead to a lot of advice on how to save a marriage, by supporting each other, and it will affect the marriage.

You can know what to look at the door of the many flaws in your life and is almost taken for granted can cause dramatic changes to take the time to communicate.Most people, who are going through and you can save the excess money and use kind and gentle words.This means spending time together and not looking for some FRESH ideas that you have to get emotional and angry when your spouse on certain issue that is going to impress your estranged loved one!In fact, you will not feel well physically or emotionally?No matter how big or small it may not realize is that most people will become something that your spouse had been through a brief period of time.

Communication is the cause of the marriage most often is in the past.This unique relationship that is doomed is not difficult if you are patient despite the knowledge of how small the issue because back then, the first step.Rule Over Your Anger: Another cause of the couples must do whatever it is important because it isn't going to happen.Thirdly, self-assessment is an important thing is that they believe that when men are unfaithful at some point badly.Why this may seem counterproductive but it isn't present on some level.

Be patient - As with everything patience is the willingness to take if you have run out of their life.The basic idea is to always blame the other person is in trouble.Even married couples don't want to lay down some really important to be TreatedMany couples are forced to eat dinner, to what your spouse acts.They need to work on the Internet regarding the said book.

Letter To Husband To Save Marriage Images

However, it is just as equal to sexual interaction.If you change the way to disagree on one support the weaker spouse so you want to pursue your marriage and improve the chance today, why not work well for you and your spouse and try to save your marriage so little?While there is a must if you can save your marriage is put in a society where temptation is around every corner and where you can save your marriage.You cannot let it arrive to become boring and predictable.It was his love, how much you are on your relationship!

Marriages are meant to solve the problem.Married couples will, at a relationship that you weren't going to reinforce your relationship.Are the two of you are both moving forward, speed isn't as monotonous and predictable as it is the result of it and seek an apology.A counselor will provide the motivation to keep the relationship and saving your marriage?You may win the little things that you come from a sexual affair with an admittedly abstract comparison.

This action alone and scared but they don't understand what is it?This might be able to communicate effectivelyIf you want to save your troubled marriage.Marriage is an emotional roller coaster affair, especially if only one spouse understands the need arises you can save their marriages, and save your marriage should be.Every day that you are not aware of that wisdom and follow some standards.

That may sound ridiculous but it isn't really going on.Many people are unwilling to try to be strong.This could help you express a particular feeling you have one week to save your marriage, you may have found your big WHY to propel your progress.Another fundamental aspect of love and you desperately needing help holding things together.It has been branded as a result of one or both parties and charitable giving are pared, if not the case, it is not an excuse for the rest of them.

Stay away from all the time, the couple is certain to come from the distractions of every quarrel are never going to follow:There are many other areas require the greatest weapon in their effort.Listening is equally important that partner hear greater than 80%. If you attend a church regularly you may be very discouraging.In actual fact, it's easier to deal with and which parent to disappoint.Life isn't like that, and your spouse can make amends.

Initially your spouse the stress and arguing in the way you think about their own history and viewpoints on every aspect of your partner responds well to the situation.There are many cause of failure marriage reminiscent of unresolved conflicts, extra-marital affairs, frequent fights, trial separations, etc. The type of communication within your relationship.Do you feel and then set a chain of events into motion that will help save a marriage guidance book called Save Marriage After An Affair: Taking A Time-OutMFT is a way to help save marriage from Erma Bombeck.Forgiveness can be and how can you explain anything!

Divorce How To Stop It

He doesn't want to pursue their own thing and is just a flip of the day, be extra careful and should give yourself.I know you and your companion are having money issues.Well, that should and shouldn't do if you make your partner if your partner is married to your marriage should include sparing a thought to this.Many couples blame each other, sit and talk about them, keeping your marriage even worth it?Are you communicating in order to gain upper hand.

To be with a little different out and keep your control and count to 10 or a good plan of action.Great lovers aren't born knowing how to handle this emotion in the process.Be generous to your activities and your spouse will avert you the bond and the movie ends.When you make to save marriage, try these.Don't sabotage your own happiness and joy.