#horror stories of the stage

[lovesickeros]

☆ de fontaine

{☆} characters furina {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings angst, suicidal thoughts, hurt / no comfort {☆} word count 1.4k

This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair!

She thought, for one moment, she could put the mask down and breathe – for one moment of daydreaming, she thought she could just be Furina. She thought she would finally get to live the live she should've had in the first place, the life she threw away to play God to an audience who saw her as nothing but a circus animal, dancing to their whims. Furina just wanted to be selfish for one brief and fleeting moment..and it was gone before she could even grasp it in her hand. A comet soaring past far out of her reach.

She can barely keep her hands from violently shaking as she looks down at them – broken and bloody and more a corpse then a person – and she feels so numb she can't even feel the rain pelting against her back. None of this is fair, she wants to scream, why is it always me? But her voice is silent beneath the torrent of rain. She wonders if the ocean would take her if she sank into it's depths – just for a moment, she wonders how it would feel to finally be able to sleep at ease.

Furina is tired.

But Furina is nothing if not useful, isn't she?

So she forces her feet to move, dragging against the stone beneath her heels, and drags their bloodied body into the nearest empty building, letting the rain do the work of washing away the smeared blood following her path. The smell makes her feel sick, the feeling of it sticking to her hands and gloves makes her lightheaded, but she persists. Because Furina is useful, because Furina won't let them die out in the rain, because Furina won't stand by and just let them rot on the streets like some..pest.

Furina wants to go home. She wants to sleep and she isn't she if she wants to wake up, this time. But she keeps going anyway.

Because it's all she's ever done, and the habit sticks.

An Archon she may not be, not anymore, but the expectations of five hundred years still linger like eyes on the inside of her skull. They watch her, pry and prod at her thoughts, mocking laughter and judging eyes following her as she forces herself to dance to the song they weave with glee. Furina never stepped off that stage – she's still there, she thinks, watching the crowd stare at her in disdain as the curtain call looms above her like a guillotine. She still hears Neuvillette deliver her damnation and salvation with a trembling voice, still feels her hair stand on end when electro crackled like the crack of the whip, Clorinde's blade aimed at her like a loaded gun.

She's trapped on that stage and she never left, not really.

She hates it. She thinks she hates them, but it's not their fault. They didn't ask for this, didn't ask for everyone to turn against them, didn't ask for her to save them. Neither did she..yet here they are, she thinks.

She tries to tell herself she's in control this time, though. She can stop performing her part in this horrible, bloody play any time she wants. It makes her feel better, just for a little while, if she convinces herself she's still Furina, painfully human.

And Furina has always been good at lying.

It's the believing that's the hard part.

There isn't time for her to wallow in her own self pity, though. They're still bleeding out onto the dusty, creaky floorboards of some random, broken down house and she's just standing there as the blood stains the wood. She can fix it – she's good at fixing things. She's done nothing but fix things – try to, anyway – for five hundred years. She can fix a little wound, how hard could it be? Her hands are clenched so tight they ache as she kneels down, wincing at the creak of the floorboards beneath her heels– she hesitates just long enough to wonder if she's making a mistake before she peels away just enough of the outer layer of their clothes to see the deep, bloody gash across their chest. She tries not to think about it – it's deep, too deep, and she feels dizzy just looking at it, but she's handled worse, right?

Furina can fix it. That's what she's good at.

She doesn't feel so confident when she tries to wrack her brain for..something. Five hundred years, and a little wound stumps her? No, she had to have learned something, right? She's decidedly not trying to buy time because she's panicking, parsing through hundreds of years of memories like flipping through a book. Furina isn't made for this, not really – she's running on nothing but adrenaline and she's really not sure what she's doing, but she's trying. And just like before, it won't be enough, will it?

She'll fall short again – she'll be too late to fix it before she's alone again.

Furina was an Archon..used to be. What use would she have for that sort of knowledge? Which makes her predicament all the more harrowing and bleak. What was she supposed to do?

Furina had heard it first hand, that vitriol in Neuvillette's voice. She isn't sure she's ever heard him that..angry before. She's not sure he would listen to her if she tried, either. And that scares her more then anything. All of Fontaine was up in arms about this..imposter, yet here she was, staring down at them bleeding out in front of her, and she was trying to save them.

Why? Why is she throwing away her only chance at normalcy for a fraud? Why didn't she just turn them in?

They were dying – that should've been a good thing, shouldn't it? So why didn't it feel like it?

"Why you?" Her voice breaks as she speaks in harsh tones, grabbing the front of their shirt in trembling, bloodied hands. "Why now?" She wants to scream, to demand answers they can't give, to claw back the reprieve she was promised after five hundred years of agony..and all she can do is sob into their chest, pleading for an answer that will not come. "Why me?"

Silence is their answer, and it hangs heavy on her trembling shoulders as she cries.

Of course they don't, she thinks bitterly, no one has ever answered her pleas spoken in hushed sobs. Not her other self and certainly not them.

Furina has always been alone. Furina will always be alone.

Because Furina never left that stage, never left that moment when she looked at herself in the mirror and took up a mantle too heavy for her to bear. She always finds her way back eventually. There's no one on the other side anymore – she stands alone on a stage, waiting for an inevitable end she isn't sure will come.

"Please," She pleads through tears and choked sobs, clinging to them like they are all that keeps her from sinking. "Please don't leave me, too." The words burn on her tongue – how pathetic is she that she craves companionship from the bloodied body of the imposter? Perhaps she's truly lost her mind after all these years..perhaps she's finally gone mad. She must have.

But their presence is like the first feeling of gentle warmth upon her skin as the sun crests the horizon, like the gentle lap of tides along her heels, the sway of branches and leaves as the wind blows through them like an instrument all it's own. They are the soothing sound of rain against the window as she watches the dreary skies in fond longing, the first bloom of spring as color blooms upon the landscape like paint had been spilled across the hills and valleys.

They are like the faint spark she carefully nurtures and stokes, so fragile even the smallest wind could blow it out like a candle. She cradles it within her palms, pleads with whoever will listen – prays that someone finally listens, because if not for her, then for them.

She's failed to protect too much already, let too many people with so much trust in her fall between the cracks of her fingers like grains of sand. She won't let them go – she can't.

If nothing else, if she couldn't be saved when she begged for salvation from that five hundred year long agony, even if she never got that chance..

Furina will make sure they do.

[italiantea]

you know what, thought about it some more and i think the age difference between luka and hyuna makes sense for his character... the juxtaposition of luka being the oldest character and veteran contestant, while his child self is portrayed as a small sickly boy who hangs out with younger children... (3 years is not that much now that they're adults but it is quite a significant gap for children) portraying luka as a golden boy and dominant performer on stage while showing he's actually quite immature both physically and emotionally...

hyuna's situation is pretty true to life too, befriending an older boy and thinking he's harmless, just a soft boy, maybe he just has trouble making friends his own age... and then one day he makes a move on you. when you reject him, he snaps and gets scary and you realize you've underestimated him... like obviously luka was just a child and a troubled individual but so often in real life are young girls expected to be more mature than they actually are, and take the burden of dealing with all the bs when subjected to an emotionally stunted boy's obsession.... shes jsut like me fr....

[enniewritesathing]

memory management (bullet)

⏮️Previous || (📚Previous Stories) || Beginning ▶️

⚠️ The following update contains the following triggers: death, blood, gore, strangulation, needles, gun, violence.⚠️

(Thomas barges in, gun at the ready.) "Hang on, Charles, I--"

"--ooohhh shit."

(The Werewolf wipes most of the blood away from his mouth with a quick swipe and lays a hand on his hip.) "Are you serious right now?"

"Weren't you listening? I told you to stay where you were! What's one more, anyway? Guess I'll have to kill you for being stupid!"

(Thomas squeaks; the gun rattles in his hands. Charles looks at his so called 'security' in disbelief.)

Charles: "What are you doing?! Shoot him!"

The Werewolf laughs. "Yeah, Thomas, shoot me!"

(Thomas steadies his shaking hands again.) "D-don't tell me what to do, m-monster!"

(The Werewolf drops into a stance and spread his arms. He laughs again.) "Here; let me make it easy for you."

"Pull the trigger. Pussy."

Thomas: "I-I'll shoot, I swear!"

(C'mon pull the trigger, just pull the goddamn trigger!)

Charles: (snarls) "Oh, fuck this! I'll do it myself!"

(In a blink, Charles grabs Thomas' wrist to wrangle the gun out of his hand and slams his fist into his face.)

Thomas: "What the--?!"

Charles: "GIVE!"

"ME!"

"THE!"

"FUCKĪ̵̭N̬̄̕G̛̰̚!"

"GUN̚͘ͅ!"

(Charles final strike liberates the gun from Thomas' head and aims it squarely at his forehead; Thomas throws his hands up in useless defense.)

Thomas: "W-w-w-wait, Charles! Don't do it, man! I'm sorry--"

(Charles smiles wide.) "Goodbye, Thomas."

(Thomas' head flings back with the force of the bullet exiting his skull. Blood and brain matter splatter behind him.)

(Charles laughs low as Thomas' body falls to the floor; The Werewolf glances his way.)

(Can't say he didn't warn him.)

// Next ⏭️

[ebonytails]

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️

Heart rate has reached dangerous levels❗️

Initiating culling procedures.👁️‍🗨️

[goopyedgay]

I hate this dude 👿

[tetrachromate]

not enough people are talking about how anthology of the killer ends with bb and zz achieving (or at least attempting to achieve) gnosis

[whereserpentswalk]

You're a cyborg, but you're not like most other cyborgs. Most other cyborgs have these inhuman looking bodies that combine flesh and steel, but you're different, all your upgrades are on the inside. You were upgraded to be constantly interfacing with the digital world around you, computer parts placed into your brain, and eyes made to see things that were never there, your entire body always online.

Despite how human you look people can still tell there's something wrong with you. Your vacant stare, your hands always moving in weird ways, the way you always seem in your own world. It's hard to actually act like a person, even talking to people is hard when it's become an action far more deliberate and far less natural than texting. You find yourself chatting online with people who are next to you. It doesn't matter, nobody would clock you as human despite the softness of your skin.

You see parts of the world that you could never see otherwise. You can communicate with every peice of technology you can see, get messages from it, interact with them as if you were a shaman interacting with spirits, or mabye that's just how shamans work in movies, you were never the type to know. When you see something you have extra information on it, and you're always getting messages on things, from the news, to the temperature, to the prices of things you see in stores. But than again, it's hard to see the beauty of a sunset when the voices in your head are trying to tell you it's heat.

You're never looking at just one thing anymore. You're a programmer, it's the main reason you have such upgrades, and you're expected to always have the tabs in your brain where your code is stored open, to always be working on it even when you're doing something else. Not to mention that you have enough of a presence on social media so that you're always expected to be connected to those websites too, you're always posted, always able to be contacted. Not to mention at any time your boss could call you through your ears, and see through your silver eyes.

You're never without your inner world. There's always music playing in your head. You see and hear advertisements everywhere, even when you're alone at home, you wish for a momment they would stop. Even a deep conversation with a freind, or a momment in bed with a partener, still has ads playing, still might be interrupted by a video advertisement taking up your field of view, or someone messaging you about something you posted, or an algorithm showing you a post. Every personal momment is eaten by the impersonal. You want to rip your metal eyes out, but you know it wouldn't help, the algorithm would be all you could still see.

[nedlittle]

[crawls out of oklahoma! west end bootleg shaking and covered in blood]

edit: hi everyone i saw the bootleg bc a friend who purchased it was kind enough to stream over discord. i can send you the google form if you would also like to pay a couple bucks for your insides to be vapourized but i cannot actually link the bootleg

[littleshopofhorrors-confessions]

People who actively dislike the show ending make me doubt their commitment to sparkle motion (anti-consumerist/anti-killing people for personal gain alien plant metaphors)

---

[what-have-i-unleashed]

sometimes engaging with horror content is so cleansing, even if the materials are so horrifying.

[absurdumsid]

So is killer the rebel leader in you Alnst au?

sobs ok heres the list of switcheroos !! (featuring alnst characters because holy shit theyre so pretty)

ill try to draw smth up for it latererr but rn heres the list !!

also here's the alnst playlist for anyone interested in it because i desperately NEED more ppl to know abt this

Cross is Mizi !! insane. i just wanted to ship cream/xunshine, speaking of.

Dream is Sua !! because theyre both very pretty and they make me cry. a lot.

Fell is Till originally because their names sounded the same but then i realised theyre both pathetic, anyway crossfell ? dustard ? both are canon to me

Dust is Ivan !! i think ppl already know that thanks to dustverse ? ermm dont watch round 6 if u already like him

Nightmare is Luka !! holy shit ! this one was easy though because i wanted dream and nightmare to parallel heheeh

Killer IS indeed Hyuna !! love her sm shes the best it just kinda fit. also um. nightmare is luka so ummmm teehee

Horror is Dewey !! love these guys (dewey is the one with white hair !!!!) theyre my favs but theyre more like side characters lmao

and of course Saejun is Isaac !!!! (big scar !?!! i originally had then switched around ngl, then i realised horror should not be entrusted with any kind of vehicle <- horrid eyesight)

dewey and isaac get two screenshots because i love them IN FACT !!

YOU CAN HAVE TWO MORE !! (these are the only four scenes they have together. dewey only has like two more with hyuna.) I LOVE THEM SM !!!!

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price - An Evening With Edgar Allan Poe; part one: The Tell-Tale Heart (1970)

[time-is-restored]

more whinging bc i got negative hours of sleep last night and i need to stay awake somehow lol

cw: discussions of misogyny + abuse

god the more i think abt it the more exhausted i get by the gender politics of ted lasso.

like god i do genuinely think that rebecca's arc in s1 is one of the best depictions of a mean + cruel woman ive ever seen on TV specifically bc it manages to thread the needle so well? like they never tilt her balance too much and doom her to being either totally fucked up + evil OR totally soft and sweet and harmless. and ted's 'divorce makes u crazy' response to her apology STILL makes me crazy wrt the sheer. understanding and empathy there, and she's just. given so much more depth than ive come to expect, especially for an ensemble cast sitcom w a (then) p short run time.

but my fucking god. we literally don't learn a fucking thing about michelle. im pretty sure the one (1) concrete thing we know about her comes in the fucking finale, and it's that she's a teacher for... something. the two most important people in ted's life and we don't know anything abt them! they're literally just empty symbols representing the importance of Family™, and that vacancy does nothing but weigh ted's storyline down!

like, i liked michelle's episode/storyline in s1, bc the blinding novelty of a woman instigating a divorce not being the Actual Devil, as well as a just. generally very empathetic + nuanced take on how divorce shakes out between two ppl who really care for each other, was so 'WAIT TV CAN DO THIS??' that i felt satisfied with that being Her Arc™. divorce happens, life happens, people fall out of love, and it hurts but its ultimately okay. the show, at the time, was ultimately abt a football club and how caring abt that football club helped everyone around it.

but then the show sticks around, and her continued absence just... raises a lot of questions? how did the conversation abt ted going overseas happen? what conversations did they have abt henry? how long term was it intended to be? did money really not factor into it all? like it's one thing for a character's backstory to be vague when it's not really the focus of attention (s1 was ultimately rebecca's story before anyone else's), but when it's the load bearing stone of their '''''''arc''''''' in s3...????

like. god. and then it fucking infects every other woman on the show!

sassy + nora? well sure we'll give you a softball - you can have one (1) scene where a woman is able to resolutely and firmly reject a man asking her out without immediately being seen as cruel or gameplayey (not that the audience will see it that way! she's already a lecherous temptress for them!), but neither of them will ever be able to speak to rebecca onscreen again, even after the heart-wrenching scenes in s1 CLEARLY establishing them as a beating heart of rebecca's arc.

shandy? nope, don't even think abt her motivations/drives, just forget her. simi? LMAOOO imagine a black woman getting a personality beyond righteous anger. jack? three-four episodes, and we learn so little abt her that her conflict with keeley - which SHOULD'VE have been a huge emotional beat - just feels like a kick in the teeth (and while, yes, i absolutely agree that in a real world context, jack's rejection of keeley would be largely motivated by class, in Ted Lasso Land™ rebecca is just as rich - if not richer? - and we're never once encouraged to interrogate her priorities).

barbara's the one that really makes me miserable, bc i feel like on a show with less run time, she could've played REALLY well. she's a great contrast to keeley, has an amazing delivery, and the scene where keeley + her first discuss the snowglobes shows that she has the potential for some really moving vulnerability + pathos. but instead they give SO many of keeley's scenes to characters who ultimately get written out, so when barbara stays it's like... okay? sure? like, i was so stoked that barbara survived the Mass Exodus of side characters that i didn't wanna look the gift horse in the mouth but... wasn't the last thing we saw of her and keeley's relationship like. general resentment + distrust abt the shandy debacle? when did that improve? how???

i don't think i'll ever have enough mental real estate to explain how disappointed keeley + rebecca's 'arcs' in s3 made me, and at least there's the saving grace that. virtually no one other than jamie got a coherent arc this season, so at least it was on some levels an egalitarian screw up. but fuck dude. keeley was just forced to react to bad things that were happening to her, and we got to see her do her job (which, unbelievably, does actually involve things other than being an awkward manager!) precisely one (1) time.

i even like rebecca's arc on paper - i think it's really cool to see a character backslide so intensely in terms of obsessing over and struggling to come to terms w a past relationship, especially an abusive one, bc like. yeah! that shit sticks with you for longer than a season! and beyond that, seeing her regain her sense of self and what SHE actually gives a shit about was oftentimes just as sweet as s1. but her scenes were poorly connected, and she had to carry WAY too much of a burden as the Resident Speech Giver for any of her internal characterisation to make sense. like, sorry, but it's kind of hard to believe a character's Going Through It™ when they have to spent near 100% of their screen time giving Take It From Me, Kid, speeches. and then she's not even given a real opportunity TO fuck up + sabotage her relationships, even when she starts getting really weird w ted! it's all just so meaningless and like nothing that she does is ever going to matter. she never speaks to zava again, we don't get to see her interact w bex or kate, her pleas to ted get COMPLETELY shut down...

but the thing that REALLY makes me sick is this complete lack of interiority absolutely butchers the characters of jade + jane, who are otherwise RIFE with potential. like, jade is a completely unflinching, unapologetic asshole to nate + his family, and that's never interrogated. even in Sitcom Land™, it's more than reasonable to view jade's actions as racist, especially when she doesn't give the same treatment to others (at least not as i recall? honestly i usually watch the taste of athens scenes while peeking out behind my hands, so i could 100% be wrong here). and yet, suddenly, and completely inexplicably, she's charmed by nate. she wants to give him the time of day. she finds him attractive, and wants to date him, and generally take control of his life and force him into a decision that is literally the exact opposite of what he expressed wanting to do. except even that LAST thing isn't allowed to be interrogated, bc god FORBID a woman is enough of a fully realised creation to actually be culpable of the terrible shit they do!

and fucking jane??? beard's so head-over-heels for this woman that the emotional abuse + extremely controlling tendencies don't even make him bat an eye, and we don't get to know anything about her? she's literally just the suggestion of an alluring woman! good at sex! good at chess! fuck you if you wanna know more, even though the show ENDLESSLY hits you over the head with how painful their relationship is for beard - beard who is given virtually no other storyline. like, i literally can't read brendan's refusal to label jane as abusive as anything other than like. that bio-essentialism shit where ppl 'women are better than men <3' so hard that they end up genuinely and wholeheartedly arguing that someone's sex defines their morals - or worse, that their sex is a deciding factor in determining whether someone's actions are good or bad. not context, but a legitimate 'add points if woman, take away points if man' variable.

like that's so feminism 101 it's legitimately almost worse than nothing. that's like getting as far as 'hey so you know how we're all inundated with both implicit + explicit messaging abt what is Valued and Good for women vs men to-' before shoving ur earplugs in and going 'if you are oppressed by society we'll automatically stamp a 'good person' label on ur head and now we don't have to think abt any of our biases + internalised beliefs ever again <333'. the most useless and fucking pointless stand against the patriarchy ever, especially coming from the same show that ENDLESSLY slots characters into the 'loving gf/wife' archetype and then give them Literally Nothing Else. my comrades you have literally just done madonna/whore 2: oops all madonnas! this is not liberation!!!! this is a miserable cage!!!!!!!!!

im just. higgins' wife. mae. trent's daughter and anonymous 'her'. the women at the hotel and the restaurants and the firm and the fucking physios, fuck - dani's gfs! who are they? what do they want? where do they go when the camera stops rolling? can anyone hear me?? hello??? hello???? brendan hunt i am OUTSIDE YOUR HOUUUUUUSE

[ghostlyheart]

If your mental illness is a barrier between you and the things you're passionate about I love you!!! If you have to take time off, go at a slower pace than others, or find a different path altogether, it will be okay. Healing and surviving is it's own work. You won't always feel lost.

[birdybirdnerd]

The Parable is SICK IT'S SICK IT'S SICK-

The cacophony is getting worse. The wreckage, the Parable eating itself and eating itself and eating it all. They need to escape but it's eating the very code around them, numbers fizzling into nothing and disappearing into the void within, it's eating those Narrators that thought themselves above it all, that thought themselves More.

Leigh's Narrator is the last to go, the last who fought to the bitter end while the others were shredded and used to feed the bottomless pit the broken Parable had become. Torn apart in a whirlwind of horrifying noises, of screams that will haunt their nightmares for months and in the sparse, calm moments thereafter. He pleads, begs for someone to save him, proclaims repentance and cries out his apologies to the world, to Leigh, but no one responds. No one moves to help, for it is all a lie borne to save his own skin, and they know he would do little more than drag anyone else who reach out back down with him into oblivion.

They watch as he, too, is devoured and reduced to nothing.

But it isn't enough. They had hoped the two of them, the most powerful two of the force that had done this, would be each other's end, would be the final tipping point that dispersed the sick and rotting code to nothing, but with the last of the fouled Narrators gone and Perry still there, they realize that it's not over. It's not over.

Static roars as the thing that was a Story, once, turns to them in it's own flavor of desperation, it's own cry of need of want of hunger keening out and rattling the walls of the office to its core. It turns to them in starts and fits and jerky movements, the screaming hunger hunger more more more dragging it close as they turn to run, to escape, fleeing like their very existences depend on it because they do.

They know, innately, in that way you know if you fall from a great height you'll die, that they will die. This will not work. They are not fast enough, not when dragging the injured Narrator between them, not enough, and Perry is hungry and gaining and quick.

It's Stan that realizes, Stan the clever, the always-ahead, Stan in a last desperate attempt to save the others that knows what he must do. Stan that throws the Narrator, his Narrator, ahead with the others and ignores his desperate scream and turns back. His thoughts are not ones of self-sacrifice, not of a death to save his friends- his thoughts are little more than buy time by any means, are mostly it needs to calm down it's too fast it's collapsing too fast, it's taking everything down with it and we need to get out from under before we're trapped and taken down with it, and if Stan knows one thing about calming things and people down, it's that-

You can always use a Bucket.

The Bucket is an enigma, created by the Narrator - all of them, some of them, most of them - to be a reassuring presence. It's - a joke, a cry for help, a sly innuendo, an earnest olive branch across the divide of pain and suffering - nothing more than a simple object, hard metal, galvanized steel slapped with a couple cheesy stickers, and yet its effect is real. It's indescribable, how this one asset manages what it does, but it's a load-bearing Bucket, it's the Reassurance Bucket, and they all know its effects intimately.

Stanley shoves the Narrator forward, slings his Bucket around and faces the wall of writhing static, of blurry limbs and grasping cables and all-white pixel-lag eyes. He faces what used to be a Narrator, a Story, a Parable, and as it rears back and bears down on him with nothing singing through its rotting code but EAT EAT EAT-

Stan shoves the Bucket down on its head as hard as he can.

It's like someone hits pause on a movie in the climactic final battle. Frozen in time, in place like a still frame of film, it simply stops… moving. The roaring, buzzing, hissing noises stop, the flickering lights and shedding static stops, it all just stops.

And they run.

As they run, as they make it to their escape, they feel the building tide of destruction looming over them like a tidal wave about to crest, like a tsunami rushing towards land. The Bucket put a stopper on the apocalypse, but the pressure still builds and builds, pushing towards an explosion even more catastrophic than the one that almost overwhelmed them.

But it is enough. Enough for them to escape, enough for them to flee, and when the Bucket eventually stops working its strange, reassuring magic on the broken tatters of the Parable, when the seal finally breaks and the thing that was once Something finally snaps and devours the rest of itself whole, they are long, long gone.

[cupiare]

currently obsessed w this one guy training a dark web ai chatbot hooked to a robot body like some kind of fucked up evil dog in his house