#i am not familiar with it because i absolutely cannot do horror

[do-you-know-this-adhd-character]

Do you know this (noncanon) ADHD character?

Evidence below the cut!

- stated to not be able to sit still - inattention negatively affects his grades - nearly physically incapable of shutting up - is stated to be in a state of “constant mental overdrive” - lack of voice volume regulation

[mosoderbergh]

Touch Me Again - Slowburn Solrook, for all who enjoy it

This fic has been absolutely destroying my ability to think about anything else these last few days. So here it is. The first Chapter, anyway.

The redemption ending with a Solrook twist. As Solas readies himself to step into the fade, resolved to spend the rest of his existence alone as penance, Rook decides to join him. They are trapped, both of them. But not alone. Not anymore.

AO3 Link here. Or just read down below.

Solas’ steps are heavy, but not without grace. Rook, in contrast, stumbles onto the gloomy path next to him, unbalanced as the tear behind them closes with a rush of wind.

Solas stares at them in utter horror. He looks unwell, his face beaten and bloody and tearstained, his eyes wide.

“What have you done?”, he asks.

“You don’t have to do this on your own”, they say. It is a fragment of the truth.

“Do you not understand?” Condescention. Now Solas sounds more like himself. “I cannot bring you back through the veil. You have condemned yourself to a life in the fade with a man you despise!”

The look of surprise on Rook’s face, to Solas, is a confirmation that they miscalculated. And Solas is reeling. Because he can still feel the fade tear tingling, closing - but perhaps not entirely closed yet. There might be something he can do, still. Something he has to do right now, or have one more regret to face. And yet, walking away from the world alone was more painful than he could have imagined. As much as he despises himself for it: There is relief flowing through him at the sight of Rook, a sweetness that stays his hand and only seems to aggravate his exhaustion.

And oh, he is exhausted. In pain, in more ways than he can count and so, so very tired. The world is shifting out of focus. Spinning. He feels his knees give way. When his body hits the floor, the pain does not reach him anymore.

Solas wakes to magic flowing like warm water over his shoulders and chest. Heat soothing strained muscles. He smells lavender, and a strangely familiar fragrance, something like spiced honey. The sting of his injuries is numbed.

The next sensation has Solas fighting his way back to full consciousness in a near-panic.

There are hands on him.

Solas has not touched, nor been touched by, another living soul in a long time. Save for fights - and his gloved thumb brushing Rook’s hand as he handed them the dagger. A voiceless apology for a betrayal yet to come.

He wills his eyes open to see Rook frowning in concentration, working a healing spell into Solas’ skin with gentle brushes of their fingertips. They are in a room that opens to the emptiness of the fade on one side, as if ripped open. Rook has removed Solas’ armour and his shirt and is kneeling next to him on a large mattress on the floor.

“I am sorry”, Solas tells them. It comes out as a rasp, like his voice hasn’t recovered from however long he was out.

Rook looks up. Their magic ceases, and their fingers stop moving but stay on him, for which Solas feels an unbidden rush of gratitude.

“Good morning”, they say, their smile soft and mischievous.

It hurts to be smiled at. It hurts to be touched. The pain, Solas knows, is in the knowledge that it must end. In the anticipation. In waiting for smiles to fade, for soft handstear into him like claws.

Rook’s smile does fade when he doesn’t answer. They look worried.

“Solas? You still there?”

“It is too late to send you back.”

“I know. You said you couldn’t send me back. Remember? Just before you passed out.”

“I am sorry”, he repeats.

“Why are you apologising?”, asks Rook, their voice calm. Their hand still rests on his chest. Solas finds himself fighting the urge to place his own hand on top of it, just to hold them there for a moment longer. But he is coming back to himself now. Enough to not give in to such instincts.

“You think I do not owe you an apology?”, asks Solas with a weak scoff. It is not meant to come out quite so sarcastic, but something about Rook seems to always bring out that quality in him.

“Oh, you owe me a couple of them”, Rook says. There is still humour in their voice. “I just want to make sure you’re getting it right.”

“It is my fault that you are trapped.”

“See, that’s what I thought you might say. No. Try again.”

“You do not realise-”

“I realise.”

“I could have sent you back, before the tear closed properly. I chose not to.”

Silence. Finally, Solas thinks, it has sunken in that he has once again let them down. Then Rook sighs impatiently.

“First of all: You collapsed two seconds after we got here. I don’t think you could have done much even if you’d wanted to. Secondly: I don’t actually want to go back.”

“What?”

They stare at each other for a moment, with Rook frowning at Solas.

“I went after you, Solas. That was my choice. Do you really think I’m too stupid to know what I’ve gotten myself into? Boy, that’s insulting.”

“But why?”, he asks, so incredulous the question comes out as a raw hiss.

“Because I wanted to”, they say simply. “The Mourn Watch threw me out. The Veilguard is over. The gods are dead. Not much left to stay for. Plus… you looked sad.”

“…Sad”, Solas repeats, his voice hollow. He feels a familiar irritation bubbling up within him. “You threw away any opportunity of a life, a future within the world you gave up everything to save, because you thought it might comfort me?”

“Not what I said. At all.”

“I left you to rot.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d do that at some point. Fair game. You tried.”

Solas props himself up on his elbows, wincing as his body protests at the movement and his mind registers Rook’s hand sliding off him. He looks up at Rook with a bafflement so acute it feels like anger.

“What could possibly have moved you to do such a thing?”, he asks. Rook looks at the ground.

“What else is there to do?”, they ask quietly. Then, they pull themselves together with a deep inhale and look him in the eye once more. “It’s a purpose, Solas. There’s work to be done here. Protecting the veil. Figuring out the blight. I can be useful here, so long as you don’t toss me into the void.” Solas wants to protest at this. He bites his tongue. “Besides, just so we’re clear: I don’t despise you. You said that like it’s a fact. It isn’t.” They wait, but Solas has no answer for them. After a moment, they shrug. “I didn’t want to be alone. Didn’t really want you to be alone, either. So I thought, hey, why not kill two birds with one stone?”

Their nonchalance is so obviously false it sets Solas’ teeth on edge. Still, his mind can conjure up no reply. A voice buried deep inside him informs Solas he could just thank them. Because he does feel grateful. Grateful to be looking at their face. Grateful to not be alone. But to express gratitude would be akin to accepting Rook’s decision. And that he cannot bring himself to do. Not when they are being so obviously foolish.

He could call out their stupidity, but that, in the face of their situation, seems cruel. Even if they see the error of their ways, he can do nothing to reverse the damage.

They are here. For better or worse.

“I never left you speechless before”, Rook muses. They give him a crooked smile. “Could get used to it. Now, if you’d lie back, I have a job to finish.”

They raise their hands to his chest, fingertips glowing with magic. Solas’ breath hitches when they touch him.

“My injuries will not kill me”, he informs them. When that gets him no reaction, he adds: “You do not need to continue with your healing, Rook.”

“Am I hurting you?”, Rook asks matter-of-factly.

“No, but-”

“Does that feel good?”

They slide their hands up from his chest to a sore spot by his shoulder. Warmth spreads through Solas, and he doubts the way his skin tingles can be entirely attributed to magic.

“Yes”, he breathes, honest despite himself.

Rook smiles again. Broader. Warmer.

“Then lie down, will you? It’s good you woke up. I was going to do your back next, and turning you over would have been a pain. You’re a huge guy when you’re not on the other side of a fade chasm.”

It is embarrassing how eagerly Solas folds to their demands. How much he wants them to go on. He turns over when they ask, and closes his eyes as their hands traverse the myriad of bruises and cuts. Over his injuries, their touch is a whisper. But once he is patched up enough, they work the healing magic into tense areas with light pressure. Solas has to hold his breath more than once to stifle a groan. In his time in the fade prison, he had moments that were comparatively void of pain. But he does not remember the last time a sensation registered to him as pleasant. It is nearly overwhelming.

There is a moment, with the warmth and weight of their hands on him, the soothing thrum of magic against his skin, that he feels like he might weep. He is very glad, then, that his face is turned away from Rook. He should thank them for this. He wants to.

Solas succumbs to the comfort and his own weariness eventually, drifting off to sleep with Rook still working their magic - both literally and otherwise.

Rook’s hands slow after they realise Solas is sleeping. They had finished healing most of his wounds a while back, but couldn’t quite bring themselves to stop. In the end, all they were really doing was massaging him, with just enough active healing magic to keep up the pretense. Because he probably would have made them stop if he knew they were done. And judging by the sounds he was making under his breath, this would not have been in either of their true interests.

If they are painfully honest with themselves, they had wondered for quite a while what it would take - and what it would be like - to make Solas feel anything other than miserable.

Once they are sure he is sleeping soundly, Rook pulls back, sitting an arm’s length away from Solas and just… looking at him. Their new companion. It was a choice they made in a fragment of a heartbeat.

They do not regret it. Yet.

They do not think life in the fade will break their spirit. But this infatuation might. Their crush, Rook thinks, is much like the worst attributes of Solas himself: Frustrating, stupid, yet gifted with a magnetic force strong enough to be called addictive.

It wasn’t just this that made them follow him. Still: They can’t help but worry that it fueled their decision to some degree.

It was the right choice. They are sure of it.

With a sigh, Rook rounds the makeshift bed and pushes Solas’ arm far enough out of the way to stretch out on the mattress next to him. Once Solas is back on his feet, they are sure he will find new ways to infuriate them in no time. But right now, all Rook can feel when they look into his face, his new scars closed but not healed, is tenderness. He is the worst person they know and a better man than they can fathom. And now they are bound to him, for better or worse, for the rest of their life.

As Rook lies their head down next to Solas, the grim light of the fade catches the traces of fresh tears on his face. They think it might just shatter them.

“I’m in trouble now”, they whisper to him. As if in response, Solas sighs contentedly in his sleep. Rook can’t help but smile.

[whatisamildopinion]

aasimar!riz makes me absolutely feral and i have two (2) questions

1) what exactly is riz able to see without his glasses in both day and night time? i know that the majority of blind ppl have some residual vision and am vv curious

2) is riz able to summon his wings without casting radiant soul/celestial revelation or is it bound strictly to spell slots?

anyway tysm for this au that haunts me. your body horror in the nightmare king’s forest was god-tier(pun not intended) and made me physically uncomfortable.

muah muah thank you for participating in my interrogation

hello hello!!!! ask and ye shall receive. I always love infodumping about Aasimar au

so, 1.)

Riz's vision is weird and complicated because it's running on fantasy bullshit rules, so it's not exactly equivalent to all of the experiences of a blind/low-vision person in real life, but the aspect of some residual vision is definitely one of the more realistic aspects of it, and he definitely has some!

to clarify the physical effects of what happened, after the sheer trauma of eyes-gouged-out in the Nightmare Forest (see the end notes of this chapter to read my unofficial essay on why I think, in a world of magical healing, some injuries stick around and some don't) Cassandra could restore the technical physical construction of his eyes, but for trauma-mental-block reasons, she can't restore the full functionality that they had before. Riz's eyes are, physically speaking at least, fine! and they look pretty much exactly the same as they did before the forest. but because he had a mental block around the idea of the injury, the magical healing falls short. it doesn't work fully. his brain is convinced that they will never be the same, and so they actually comply more closely with his expectations than the physical healing ability Cassandra has. so Cassandra has to circumvent the mental block by giving him something else: Eyes of the Night, which is technically a Twilight Domain Cleric feature (Kristen also has it!) so Riz shouldn't be able to have it, but Cassandra is essentially granting him a miracle here, because holy shit, they have traumatized this kid SO MUCH and also he's Kristen's bestie and also Cassandra and Kalina in Aasimar au have a weird complex about being partially the reason that Riz exists, but I digress. So, all that established, what does that actually mean for residual vision levels for our guy? it essentially breaks down into two categories.

Night/low light vision: Riz can see perfectly!!! Eyes of the Night, baby. he has Darkvision out to a range of 300 feet, and if you're not a meta enthusiast, the normal range of Darkvision is only 60 feet. post-Nightmare Forest, Riz can actually see better in the dark than most people, even in a world where Darkvision is pretty commonplace. if you need a rogue to do shit in the dark, you know who to call. this is the fantasy bullshit part, that his vision works perfectly in low-light conditions, but, as we will see in later chapters, it provides some interesting moments

Day/bright light vision: this is where the residual vision part kicks in. with glasses, Riz can see movement out to about 100 feet, although he can't really see who or what it is. within fifty feet, he can more or less identify individuals if he is already familiar with height and general fashion. for example, he could identify the Bad Kids easily, but recognizing someone he had class with once or twice but didn't really talk to? forget it. within twenty feet, he can kinda read facial expressions; again, easier if he already knows the person. full stop, glasses or no, he cannot read. general rule of thumb, if he's not using his glasses, halve all of those distances. the only reason he's not actively going to be using a cane is because he's effectively got his own magical form of assistive aid: paladin blindsight. also, rogue dex goes crazy. he will just straight up catch himself before he fully trips nine times out of ten. in coming chapters, there's gonna be a little sub-plot about magical assistive technologies, featuring everyone's favorite barbaficer, that's going to help Riz a lot, but even that solution is going to be used less often that not, because it will essentially boil down to maintaining concentration, which you simply cannot do all day without causing hella migraines, I fear. TLDR, Riz has a decent amount of residual vision, and combined with his paladin and rogue abilities, he doesn't have physical trouble so much as academic trouble. a lot of his rogue work is about to be A LOTTTTT harder. rest assured this will be a plot point in junior year.

and, 2.)

so, fun fact, radiant soul is not actually a spell!!! it's an Aasimar race feature. so, unlike using a fly spell, when he activates radiant soul, no one can counterspell it. but, while it doesn't use spell slots, it is a once-per-long-rest deal, and the wings are tied in with the rest of it. so, no, he can't summon his wings outside of using radiant soul. rip. if he could, there would be so many shenanigans. although, if he ever gets up to having third level spells, perhaps I will homebrew that he can burn a third level spell slot to summon his wings outside of radiant soul, since Fly is a third level spell. hmm. something to think about

anyway, this got away from me a little lol, but I am glad that I could torture you a little with some delightful body horror, and my au in general!!! if ever you decide to launch another interrogation, I will gladly participate!

[jasper-unofficial]

for the ask game... toey! 🙌

damn, y'all decided to really indulge me today and have me write out a million headcanons! well, thank you 🥹

choose a character and ask about my headcanons here, if you like

🏳️‍🌈 a sexuality headcanon

biromantic asexual.

🏳️‍⚧️ a gender headcanon

honestly, he's kind of giving binary trans guy vibes, so let's go with that <3

😇 a headcanon about their religion/lack thereof

very religious, buddhist obviously. can't say any more on that, because i am unfortunately not very knowledgable about buddhism, but yeah.

🧸 a headcanon about their childhood

from the little that we know of his parents, it seems like they accepted the fact that he suddenly decided to study art, which is a good sign. he also seems fairly well-adjusted. but we do know he was bullied at school, which means his nice home life was unfortunately up against his shitty school life, so he has had some bad experiences during his childhood for sure.

👻 a headcanon about what scares them

horror movies! cannot stand them. has nightmares after watching them all the time. psychologically, abandonment, obviously (thanks, q /lh).

🎶 a headcanon about music

post-punk for life, actually.

💤 a headcanon about their sleep

he falls asleep really easily ✨ imagining scenarios ✨

💝 a headcanon about their love language

i think quality time wins with him. just being there, next to q, was enough for him. but also acts of service, because he legit giggled and kicked his feet, when q sharpened his pencils.

🫂 a friendship headcanon

despite his charming and adorable personality, he doesn't make friends that easily. he really only got close with matt organically. otherwise, fang and phum started protecting him first, and he got close to our main friendship group through becoming q's mentee.

💔 an angsty headcanon

he spent a lot of time crying and wondering what he's done wrong after q disappeared :(

🪢 a headcanon about their family

like i mentioned, when i talked about his childhood, i think his parents are really lovely. oh, and he is an only child.

📓 a headcanon about their hobbies

to top off skateboarding and drawing, he gives me gamer vibes.

👗 a headcanon about their clothes

he is giving someone who dresses at a store for skaters but doesn't actually care about fashion that much. he has the familiar baggy jeans and shoes and everything, but they don't feel that intentional.

🔪 a headcanon relating to fighting/violence

just absolutely not a violent person at all.

🌟 a headcanon about their desires/wishes

i don't think he's quite there yet, but paired off with my gaming headcanon, i think he's gonna wanna be something like a concept artist for games and stuff in the future.

🥇 a headcanon about what they’re best at

he's great at art! no questions there! he might not have that immediate natural talent like q, but he's really good and he improves daily.

🍫 a headcanon about food

he loves sweet things. can't live without soda and chocolate and snacks.

🎭 a headcanon about what they lie about

to be honest, despite all the shenanigans, i don't think he is big on lying.

❤️‍🔥 a romantic headcanon

he is a very softly romantic person. i don't think he's huge on any "classic" romantic gestures, none of that restaurants and roses and things. but he is very romantic in the big sense, i'm sure the fact that he has been in love with q this whole time and has been waiting for him is proof enough of that. and he definitely loves their special little romantic quirks, like the sticky notes.

😺 an animal related headcanon

he adores animals of all sorts and qtoey are probably gonna have a whole entire zoo at their home in a couple of years.

😭 a headcanon about the worst thing that happened to them

probably unfortunately q disappearing. all the school stuff is definitely a close second, but i think his sticky note crush just caused that special kind of self-doubt, and no one was in his corner (regarding that particular situation) to support him with what he was going through and convince him he wasn't at fault.

😶 a random headcanon!

he is deeply monogamous or, as i like to call it, delusionally loyal. meaning that even if he was approached by someone, who was interested in him, in that period between q disappearing and them getting close again, he would reject that person, because he was waiting for q.

[ill-try-to-do-book-reviews]

The Final Girl Support Group

Grady Hendrix

Rating: 🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯 (5/5)

This book is fantastic. Everywhere that you see a review for it, you're going to see someone saying that it is a "subversion of expectations" or is "putting a spin on your classic slasher". Seeing such specific praise from so many sources will make that claim seem like a lie, but it absolutely isn't.

The Final Girl Support Group takes concepts that all horror fans are already well acquainted with - the slow-moving slasher, the virgin who has never done wrong in her life, the logics and reasonings and excuses that are baked deep into the slasher genre - and turn it all on its head in a way that is unique, entertaining, and honestly, moving. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

SUMMARY: "Like his bestselling novel The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix’s latest is a fast-paced, frightening, and wickedly humorous thriller. From chain saws to summer camp slayers, The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films—movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.

But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up."

MY DETAILED REVIEW (SPOILER WARNING): Let me preface my review with a disclaimer: anytime that I say Men, as a whole, I do not mean Every Man Ever. There is always a very small fine print implied. Not all men, of course. But enough men to take notice. Enough men to be afraid. With that, enjoy.

This book took me a few days to read. I kept picking it up, getting sucked in, and then needing to put it back down for real life, which led to me forgetting just how gripping the story itself was. But every time that I picked it back up, it didn't take long at all for me to get right back into it.

Lynette's response to her trauma is one that I am uniquely familiar with. I didn't survive a massacre of any kind, but I have faced a Monster in my own right, a man that wanted nothing more than to traumatize women and make his hate known. This made it very easy to follow Lynette; and honestly, even if I didn't have that connection to her, I think the masterful writing will make her relatable to anyone.

Still, following Lynette's growth, from a woman far too scared to get close to anybody to the point that her only friend is a houseplant, to the woman who trusts people when necessary (even if they turn out to be the wrong people), to trusting her Sisters innately, even when one Sister has turned her back on the others, made for a fantastic read.

Trying to review this book is difficult, because the book is, as stated, a great read on its own, but it is also a biting commentary on misogyny and the way that hate spreads like poison. When Skye was first introduced, I absolutely loved him. I thought that he seemed like a great, if unusual, guy, and I really admired Lynette for being able to bring herself to trust in a man, even if it was a man much younger and unfamiliar to her.

To say that I was shocked when Skye was revealed to be part of the Big Bad, though, is an overstatement. Lynette's realization that he had basically given her the answers, that he admitted to having set up his mom's website, that he had essentially spelled everything out for her, was something that I hadn't considered, but also did not find shocking. Men have a tendency towards violence. It is not something engrained in them, it is not some biological or indisputable fact, but it is something that they learn. It is something that is often not discouraged, and is rather excused, if not looked fondly upon. So, to see Skye as the villain was depressing, since I did like him as a character, but it wasn't shocking.

Stephanie's reveal, on the other hand, was shocking. It was also depressing in equal measure. I had grown to love the sisterhood forged between her and Lynette, a sense of bonding and belonging between them as final girls, the type of bond Lynette could have built with her support group had she not been so afraid. To learn, though, that Stephanie had been groomed, was no surprise. Hybristophilia, hyper sexuality, and flocking towards dangerous and frightening men are common responses to severe trauma. Hell, I even have some of those trauma responses myself. Stephanie was the perfect victim for Skye. She was scared, she had been hurt by men before, and she was young. Stephanie falling for Skye was heartbreaking, and to hear her defend him in those final moments at the camp were even more so.

Though it was more of an offhand line than a big plot point, the paragraph regarding Skye's lawyers on TV is one that sticks with me. His lawyers, blaming women, blaming some 'horrible feminist agenda', saying that Skye was pushed into such actions, is exactly how such hatred spreads. That is how it takes root in young minds and that is how it vindicates men who already hold those beliefs. Despite Lynette's best efforts to ensure that there will never again be another Final Girl, Skye has now cemented himself as yet another world-famous Monster, one that will grow a fanbase of his own, who will inspire copycats and who will usher yet another Final Girl into the spotlight. Skye has cemented himself as another Billy Walker, another Christophe Volker, and Stephanie has been left behind in the dust of it all, to become another Chrissy, another Lynette, another Heather. In the end of it all, she is left behind to be a victim, too.

[yellingmetatron]

Three AM musings.

I've realized I dislike common portrayals of the Abrahamic God in media for the same reason I dislike common portrayals of Cthulhu Mythos figures: They're reductive.

Thoughts under the cut.

The term 'Cthulhu Mythos' was not a coinage of HPL's, but his friend August Derleth. Derleth popularized the idea of the figures in Lovecraft's fiction as gods, whereas in the actual stories HPL wrote, everything from Cthulhu to Azathoth was a vast, alien being whose nature was exponentially more complex than anything a human was familiar with. Humans called them gods in error because they didn't have any better descriptions.

HPL was an avowed atheist, Derleth was a Christian. Derleth is responsible for bringing the Mythos' mainstream recognition, but also introducing a pretty bog-standard good vs evil narrative. In a weird way, Derleth's elevation of HPL's creations to true divinities reduced their conceptual impact, because 'evil gods' is a lot more commonplace than 'incomprehensible aliens' in the mind of modern readers. I see a lot of memeing making fun of HPL's writing by people who don't engage with the actual premise and get hung up on 'squid guy' because they miss the original conceit that 'squid guy' was as much human misinterpretation as 'god'.

Ironically, this is very similar to all the 'old man in the sky' stuff about the god of Abraham. There seems to be a common belief that 'old man in the sky' was the common perception of this deity throughout most of history, which is perhaps true for much of the laity, but has never been the interpretation common to either scholastics or mystics.

The example that comes to my mind immediately is known as apophatic theology. This tradition still has a place is western Christianity, particularly Roman Catholicism, and is common in Eastern Christianity, Chassidic Judaism, and Shia Islam; but you can find strains of it everywhere. The general idea is that the only way we have any positive knowledge of God is through revelation, and even then one has to be careful in how these revelations are interpreted. In short, it's the practice of only venturing to describe what God isn't. Expressed by Irish theologian John Scotus:

We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being.

I know Christians and Jews personally who absolutely delight in affirming God does not exist, because existence, as a comprehensible state, cannot fully describe God. They also delight in comparisons to Lovecraftian entities. I like these people, they're fun.

Listen, from a completely secular artistic standpoint, I want to see more of this. I have always been drawn to cosmic horror, and particularly the siren call to the Beyond. There is this... brain vibration I get thinking about the moment where a mind touches something transcendent an is irrevocably transformed. The transformation may terrify those left behind, but to those who have had the veil lifted... madness, what the world calls madness, is price and reward in one.

I just want to see weird God. Not "patriarchal powerful humanlike entity number 2342398479841". I want to see, as with Lovecraft's vision, a God too weird to be called a god.

[tsams-au-confessions]

I’m glad to know you’ve heard of Mario.

For curious, Mario, the music box is an RPG horror game involving Mario, Luigi, & them going through absolute hell.

The reason I bring this up twice is because that is the gutwrenching fan game. I am throwing them into. And I am having the older twin as Mario and the younger twin as Luigi. So the older twin is gonna be possessed by a woman who got tricked and corrupted by a demon when she was a kid.

This also means if we take the classic DLC into account, the blood twins are getting ancient ancestors that had a heart wrenching betrayal that was in vain

(my best recommendation if you’re not familiar with the game is to either play it yourself or watch a play through of it blind because my mini synopsis cannot do justice to how beautiful and heartbreaking this game is)

☀️🌙

Alright!

[ecargmura]

Rereading Pandora Hearts Is A Wild Ride - Volume 1 Review

The reason why my favorite manga is Pandora Hearts is because of how well-crafted the story is. The story has cleverly crafted details sprinkled out throughout the slow beginning that begin to connect once you reach the second half of the story. Once you reach the second half, your mind just short circuits because of the crazy plot twists. I am forever traumatized by the second half of the book. Rereading Pandora Hearts is going to be an absolute wild ride because I already know what happens and all the details that come with each key dialogue. I am going to do my best to not write a 5000 word essay on why I love this manga so much and I’m doing my absolute best to avoid major spoilers. I’ll just give you hints and key points to focus on while reading this amazing ride.

What is Pandora Hearts about? It’s about a fifteen-year-old boy named Oz Vessalius who is celebrating his coming-of-age ceremony that goes down in the dumps when it gets crashed by hooded figures that want to send him to a fictional version of Hell called Abyss because of his sin, which is his very existence. In order to escape Abyss, he meets a girl named Alice who is also a Chain, creatures that dwell in the Abyss. They form a contract and Oz is taken back to the surface where he meets both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Now, Oz is on a journey to help Alice find her lost memories and for an answer on why his sin is his existence.

The first volume is the slow start of this soon-to-be roller coaster ride. The first chapter is the introduction of Oz, his sister Ada, his servant and best friend Gilbert and his uncle Oscar. It’s just character introduction and a bit of world building. Listening to Lacie while read the middle of the first chapter is a wonderful experience. I totally recommend listening to the Pandora Hearts OST while reading the manga.

The manga is a mix of horror and fantasy—which is Mochizuki’s forte. If you thought the monsters from The Case Study of Vanitas are scary, well, I think Pandora Hearts’ monsters are scarier. There are haunted dolls in the first chapter! I don’t like haunted dolls. However, from the first chapter alone, the foreshadowing of Oz’s sin is already hinted at. He meets an illusion of Alice who says that he has come back and that he has always came to her room. If you know what Oz’s sin is…well, the that dialogue is already triggering war flashbacks for me.

What I liked about chapter one is essentially the character and world building. The setting is unique. Also, if you did not know, the entire manga has elements of Alice in Wonderland sprinkled into it. I love Alice in Wonderland, so this manga is right up my alley. I think my excitement for what’s to come is stemmed from the fact that I am rereading this.

The second chapter has the crazy action sequences from Black Rabbit/Alice’s formal appearance to Oz being sent down to the Abyss. The introduction of Break and Sharon are a game changer as they are important characters. We also see what a coming of age ceremony is like and how people younger than fifteen cannot attend and what it does. Too bad it got cut short. The hooded figures are a terrifying bunch as they possess Gilbert in order to sabotage the ceremony.

This chapter brings about a tension that the first chapter did not have. What saddens me the most was that no one was at Oz’s side during the events. Gilbert was mainly possessed and protected an enemy from Oz’s sword. Oscar was MIA. All Oz had was the Black Rabbit defending him and it still wasn’t enough. I do love Oz’s character as someone who does fight back despite being a young noble boy. Oz is such a good protagonist. I love him so much. I also hated the scene where Gilbert got slashed by Oz to defend the enemy. Man, Gilbert did not deserve that at all. My sweet baby boy… Also, keep an eye on the hooded figures. They’re important later on. Another key point to keep an eye on is Alice’s appearance. She appears before Oz and his adversaries saying that he belongs to her. Keep an eye on her possessive dialogue. 

The third chapter is basically Oz’s time in the Abyss. It’s not a pleasant place to be in. Creepy Chains are everywhere. Oz meets Alice who isn’t a pleasant person to be with, but she’s still earnest. Oz gets lied to by a Chain by pretending to be Sharon. It’s like Hell in a way. In order to escape the Abyss and to protect Alice, he forms a contract with her. 

My favorite aspect of the third chapter is the comedic placement. A serious scene like Oz meeting Alice and calling her the ‘girl who molested me’ ended him getting kicked in the face by her comedically. The comedic timing reminds me a lot of Fullmetal Alchemist (Hiromu Arakawa is one of Mochizuki’s influences). I think the impromptu comedic aspects lightens the mood from going too edgy and I like that. The bond Oz and Alice formed after their bickering starts a chain of warmth that made me realize why I love this manga so much. Oz and Alice’s relationship is a very special one that I cannot say right now, but it’s a wonderful bond that will solidify as time goes by. Also, props to Sharon for rescuing Oz. Man, she is such an underrated character. Also, keep a close eye on why the Black Rabbit chain looks the most human of the bunch you see in Abyss.

Chapter four tells of what happened after Sharon rescued Oz and he is taken back to the surface. Break and Sharon look the same, so it’s unknown how much time have passed since the ceremony. Break has him under arrest. Break is associated with an organization called Pandora. Pandora researches the Abyss and since Oz got out, he needs to be arrested and researched. Alice gets in the way of the arrest—it turns out that she has escaped with Oz by hiding in his body. Alice is desperate and hostile because of her goal: to find her lost memories. After seeing a vulnerable side to her, Oz decides to help her out as he has a goal too: to find out what his sin truly is.

I love that the end of this volume established a goal for Oz and Alice, the heroine also has a goal. I do love how the atmosphere of the surface world does seem mysterious because of the unknown time frame that happened from the ceremony to his current time at the estate. It also makes you wonder if the surface world really is reality for Oz. Also, Alice is a riot and I love her a lot. The way she changed from violent to vulnerable to haughty in the same chapter is both funny and a bit sad in a way. All this girl wants to find her memories. Break is also the best character of the entire manga, but he’s not my favorite. Break gets the plot rolling as he makes Oz a member of his staff. Xerxes Break will always be the coolest character. Also, keep an eye on all of the characters you see in this chapter because they’re important.

I know this review is a lot different from my reviews of the Tales of Zestiria manga and Witch Hat Atelier because of the fact that I already know everything that happens. Also, Pandora Hearts is a story that you cannot just review from an overall perspective; it’s a story that you have to dig into chapter by chapter because it all connects together after a certain point, hence why I did just that. I did my absolute best to give out my thoughts for each chapter and key points to keep an eye on. Please let me know if this helps you understand the soon-to-be complexness of the manga.

Because I’m fucking biased, this volume is an instant 5/5. It’s a good start to the soon-to-be chaos. If you’re curious, I highly recommend this manga to anyone wanting a good fantasy manga read. I assure you, you will NOT be disappointed. THE ART IS PRETTY TOO! LOOK AT THE COVER! I also have Mochizuki’s first art book which I would love to review once I get the chance.

When will this wonderful manga get a new anime? I’m waiting. I will make live reaction videos if a new anime ever gets announced.

[anachrosims]

I'm so tired of this "baby-proofing" of the internet and pop culture. And no, I don't consider warning for sensitive topics/words to be baby-proofing.

(Warning: Mentions of common trigger words below.)

Can't say words like death or sex or suicide-- can't say swear words-- can't post even tasteful nudity or sexual content, much less all your niche fetishistic things-- without worrying about the banhammer or being censored or having your content removed. And yet, we do need content moderation-- within reason. A balance needs to be struck between legitimately harmful content and everything else.

There is no easy answer to this. Bots do not solve the problem of weeding out things that are uploaded with ill/harmful/illegal intent and there are horror stories out there (feel free to look up what human filters go through on YouTube) of actual people gettiing rapidly burned out because of having to weed out the millions of GB of absolute shit being dumped online every hour. This is nothing to say of content that helps spread inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation but is not outright graphic--and where the line on that is drawn varies from person to person. A robot cannot make a call on all these perfectly and neither can a team of people due to the sheer volume.

The last ten years, I've seen this spread into online culture where people are increasingly unable, unequipped, unwilling (or all of the above) to address more tough/sensitive topics in a productive manner.

What it comes down to, in my opinion, is corporatization of western culture (speaking for the hemisphere I live in and am most familiar with). The "corporatization" of culture has been going on for a long, long time, it's true. But at least for a time, the internet was a "wild west", a pocket of culture and subcultures that wasn't monetized, commodified, sanitized, and whitewashed for mass marketing appeal--it's easier to reach the widest audience if your content is bland enough to be palettable to the lowest common denominator.

It's been upsetting, to say the least, to watch the rapid sandblasting of so many things I love--including, but not limited to: Video games, social media, online spaces in general.

The only way I can think to effectively fight this can be summed up in one word: Education.

Read books. Take free/cheap courses on media literacy from reputable sources. Look up effective ways to communicate with other people. Learn how to debate and present arguments and how to listen, in turn. Try to learn how to stop yourself when you're getting emotional about anything and ask yourself: Why am I upset about this? What will flying off the handle do? Am I justified in speaking out? If I'm justified, is this really the time/place to speak out? Learn how to hold your tongue--not because of other people but to protect yourself and your mental health from overextending and from bringing eyes on you when you aren't ready for those consequences. Learn to read and speak in good faith.

All of these things take consistent practice. Culture can't be changed overnight and neither can you, but how those changes start to stick is by all of us practicing and changing over time.

We don't need to put up with the sanitization of our world by people who will be dead in a few decades. Gen Z and Millennials and even Gen X have already had so much stolen from us; I don't want to see them take it all. We have to build our own world brick by brick in the crumbling remnants of the past and that vibrant and good place starts with educating ourselves and each other.

[wackyweirdwriter]

Kiss Me Goodnight

Will comforts the reader after they wake up from a bad nightmare. Fandom: Ikemen Vampire Rating: G Tags: Fluff, Nightmares, Comfort, First Person Word Count: 1,433

Tossing and turning in my sleep, I snap awake from my nightmares. I find myself in a familiar place. Will’s favorite soft silk sheets are beneath me, and I carefully turn over to see him sleeping next to me. I sit up in the bed, trying to clear my head. I can’t recall what exactly happened in my nightmare, but it made me feel absolutely terrified like I had been swallowed by a black abyss, never to escape. I take a deep breath and try to lay back down.

A few moments later, my body viciously shakes me awake. I am forced to lay awake once again, but this time, Will stirs awake. A soft sigh escapes from his lips before he stretches and grunts. He isn’t sure what awoke him. Regardless, he puts his arm back around me, signaling me to lay back down and curl up next to him. I easily do as I am told. Pressing my ear against his chest, I love hearing the rhythmic thumping of his heart. He mumbles in his sleeping voice, “What happened, my precious one?”

I quickly whisper, “Nothing, just nightmares again.”

His discolored eyes flick open as he becomes fully alert. His glaze focuses on me. “What haunts thou at such a late hour? The only thought that should stuff our small heads is the blessed silence of sleep or if we are lucky, the holy land of dreams, but never shall thou be cursed with nightmares, not under my roof nor under my arm.”

His sweet poetic words carry the truth, yet they are far from it. I find myself haunted by my past. I left my time period so long ago; however, my past or the upcoming future taints my every waking moment.

I have spent the last three years with Will after moving out of Comte’s mansion. I decided on a whim to give up on my dream of getting my Ph.D. in America. Well, it was never my dream. It was some idea passed down onto by my parents. I was halfway through my bachelor’s when I went to study aboard one summer in Paris, and I followed a strange man through a time traveling door. The rest is history.

I do not regret my choice. I am much better off here than I was there. My passion has always been in the arts, and Will recognized that. He saw my love for creative writing and acting. Under his wing, I became a successful actor in his troupe, and I have even begun writing manuscripts for stories of my own.

Right now, it does not make sense why the past haunts me so. I should be happy and carefree with everything that has happened to me. I am with the man of my dreams for Christ’s sake, yet some part of me feels as if I am burden in this time period. Will often joking teases me that I am not fit for this time. Even after three consecutive years in the nineth century, I still stick out like a sore thumb.

I look up to Will. “It’s nothing now. I can’t recall what even happened.”

He stares at me for a moment longer to look at the truth within my eyes. His expression relaxes while he gently strokes my cheek. “There is a cloud behind thine irises. A rainy day, no matter how small, can still ruin a party, and the last thing I wish is for thee to be tortured by the pains and chills of harsh rain. I want thee to suffer no storm alone,” Will whispers to me.

His ostentatious words convey his care. Before I can form a reply, he sighs and hugs me, “If words cannot depict the horrors within your fragile mind, relax into me, my darling.”

“I think… it was a nightmare about my past. People were upset and angry with me that I left everything on the flip of a dime. They demanded that I return all the happiness I somehow stole from them. There was a points system and everything. It didn’t make much sense. Heh, my university was after me as well because of my unpaid tuition I still owe them,” I carefully pieced together what was bothering me, “Look, I don’t regret staying at all, but sometimes, I can’t help but wonder what is happening back in the future. Other times, I worry about what would have happened to me if I choose to go home or if I didn’t have the wonderful opportunity to meet you and all the other residents at the mansion.”

Will sympathetically nods, “Please do not fear what is no longer reality. I know it is one thing to say and another thing to do. I am glad that thou stayed in a realm different from thine own; however, I understand that it seems like a sacrifice on nights like this. Thou owe no one any emotion nor are thou required to pay debts with points and trials.”

I stare at the blank ceiling as the room is swallowed into a shallow silence broken by soft breathing. The words fall to come to my lips, but I let out a small chuckle, “yeah, I just worry. I worry a lot over the small reasons regardless of if they are real or not, ya know that. Heh, this reminds me of the first nightmare I had coming here about a vampire who bite me, and Sebastian warned me not to give anyone my heart or my destiny.”

Will follows along with the story. “I do recall someone running off in fear, and that is how I found the beauty in front of me. Time is a collection of random tragedies and comedies, my dear. Nothing ends how we want it to, but all’s well that ends well. As thou hast seen, time travelers are not free from the hands of chance and fate. Thou did not give up thine heart nor destiny; instead, thou followed thine heart and destiny.”

A smile slips across my face. “Thank you, Will, for being here and being there for me. I know it’s hard for you to grasp the reality we live in as well. You woke up from the 1600’s and got thrown two hundred years into the future while for me, it was getting tossed two hundred years in the past. Two sides of the same coin of troubles you might say. Forgive my ramblings, but I deeply appreciate you, Will.”

I lightly tap his nose. “In fact, I love you,” I tease him as I echo the same words he has heard over and over again, but I still mean it just as strongly as when I said it to him the first time. He pinches my nose in return. “I love you too, Juliet”

“You prick!” I jokingly yelp at him while softly smacking him with my pillow, “If we are but a fleeting, teenage romance to you… well, I- I… I don’t have a comeback for the Bard of Avon.”

He sticks out his tongue while laughing. “Like Romeo, I was at death’s door for my love, but unlike the fool who plays with the strings of love, I came to you because I heard the music. My words utter no false ills. Our romance was not the end of us. It was a new beginning in a new era.”

I can never match his mythical language, but I could quote his works back at him. “If music be the food of love, play on.”

Will puts on a fox’s smile, “a writer should know better than to quote another author so blandly. Thou did not do the line the justice it so rightfully deserves, but alas the adorable look you wear makes it worth it.”

I completely forgot that I woke up because of a nightmare. Will had his magical way of distracting me. Exhaustion sank into my bones as the moonlight came through the window. I settled down, pulling the covers back up.

Will pouts, “I may be a tease, but I wish thou would kiss me goodnight.”

I hold his warm cheek in my hand, and I press my lips gently on his forearm. “Goodnight, William. May the land of sleep bring thou dreams instead of nightmares plagued by false lies and promises. Tomorrow, we will wake up to a new day, but for now, we must rest.”

He steals a kiss from my lips. “Now, this bard can sleep happily with his love in his arms forever more.”

[moviemunchies]

Some Octobers, I think that I should actually watch movies that are vaguely spooky. I don’t do horror films, but there are plenty of other movies that might fit the bill for Halloween. Usually, though, I don’t get around to it.

Well this year I got to re-watching Tucker & Dale vs. EVIL and I think that works for Halloween.

Tucker & Dale vs. EVIL has this premise: a group of college kids go to the woods, and when one of their own gets kidnapped by hillbillies, they decided to fight back. The twist is that the main characters are the hillbillies, and they’re not villains, they didn’t kidnap a college girl, they saved her after she hit her head. Her friends don’t know that, though, and since they’re clueless, stupid, college kids, they keep getting themselves horribly killed while trying to rescue her. Blaming it on the hillbillies, they resort to increasingly ridiculous and violent methods to fight these two guys who only want to vacation in a cabin in the woods.

It’s violent, it’s gory, and it’s hilarious.

The movie’s message is obviously that people shouldn’t judge each other based on appearances. Dale is very awkward and comes across as weird to Allison and her friends, but he’s a great guy. If anyone had actually effectively communicated, if people had sat down and clearly explained what it is that they were actually doing, this Plot would have been avoided.

Mind you, it’s also because the people in the movie are pretty dumb. The kids are pretty dumb, in how they keep dying, but Tucker and Dale aren’t exactly super observant either. They walk into a cabin with bones hanging from the ceiling, and newspaper clippings of horrible crimes, and absolutely no warning bells go off? It works for comedy purposes (“I think an archaeologist lived here!”), though it makes you wonder if communication would have worked to begin with the more you think about it.

I’m also not familiar with horror movies, but I feel as if I’ve watched/read a ton of stories in which college-aged kids are surprisingly competent in combat and survival. Of course, most people have no idea what they’re doing, and the kids here don’t either–they quickly rush into situations and get themselves killed in stupid ways.

There’s an element of the ending that is a little bit of a copout? Spoiler alert, but it’s revealed that the homicidal leader of the college kids, Chad, is actually the son of a violent hillbilly. The idea that hillbillies aren’t any worse than anyone else is undermined by the notion that actually yes, there apparently are killer hillbilly genes out there that can turn someone into a murderous maniac. Communication wouldn’t work if it’s just in his DNA, right? 

Then again, I think the point isn’t necessarily that Chad has killer DNA, it’s that he’s prejudiced against a group of people that he himself is related to. Still, I don’t know that Chad needed a backstory that gave an excuse for him being evil. The idea that he’s a young man so full of himself that he doesn’t question his prejudices, because it lets him live out his hero fantasy, even if it gets his companions killed… that’s strong enough.

I suspect I’m thinking too hard about this, though.

I am not really a fan of horror films, so I cannot speak to how well this movie resonates with that fanbase. I’d like to think that fans of slasher films will enjoy it, but I don’t know. I did enjoy it quite a lot, though, and I think if you’re willing to try a spoof of middle-of-nowhere, killer hillbilly slasher movies, then you’ll have tons of fun with Tucker & Dale vs. EVIL.

[lannisterdaddyissues]

Hello it is a day later and I am STILL thinking about EoT and getting distracted at work because wow. I thought you might appreciate more thoughts?

One of the things that made me consider EoT was seeing someone call it "secretly the best video game movie" and in the first 20 minutes I was like "Ah okay yes I understand what they meant"

NO I DID NOT because the creeping horror of the movie didn't really kick in until after that introductory sequence when I realize oh no this isn't an aesthetic thing or a cinematography thing, no. EoT is secretly the best video game movie because Bill Cage is basically "what if the character being speedran understood that he was in a speedrun." The sequence breaking, the mashing through 'cutscenes,' the literalization of deathwarping.

I am frankly desperate to ask the original author or McQuarrie if they are familiar with video games because this movie took a lot of rote, basic facts of games and turned them into this rising suspensive drama. As I was watching with @interropunct I kept going "OH WE ARE GONNA HAVE SUCH TRAUMA FROM THIS HUH" and "these two are Same Trauma buddies for life now" and "oh my god he's deathwarping."

Anyway yeah I feel like the real pitch of this movie is "Bill Cage is a Titanfall 2 character and experiences the existential terror of being part of a massive speedrun reroute and its amazing."

Literally the only bad thing I can say is the final 20 minutes were so poorly lit I stopped trying to track the action and was like "See if McQ was directing, I'd be able to see shit."

ALSO THAT MUSIC CUE TO THE CREDITS, WHOEVER THOUGHT OF THAT NEEDS A HIGH FIVE AND A HANDSHAKE. That music cue honestly acts as an epilogue through implication, letting me know what's next for Rita and Bill. Huge fan.

YES????? YES!!!!!!!! ARC YOU GET IT THIS MOVIE IS SO URHSGHASKLFJHRKGASDJFKLSAJGKJSFDK

it's so fucking... chilling.... like the first couple scenes where we see bill trying to cut in through the whole battle is the great redeemer speech? that's like a gamer's horror film right there: not being able to skip cutscenes. add to that the fact that there's only one save point AND the AI is self-aware and knows what you're going to do before you do it, AND it has the ability to take away all your lives? absolutely horrifying. i cannot imagine a gamer and going through what bill cage went through.

i found the letterbox'd page for eot recently and this one review on it was like. something out of r/TwoSentenceHorror if it was more like r/TwoParagraphHorror. just read this:

i mean. this fucked me up. what could take 2 hours in a game could take years in real life........... utterly chilling to think about!

re: titanfall i have never heard of that game before bUT YOU'RE RIGHT IT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE EOT ON THE COVER LMAO

AND THE SOUNDTRACK!!!! THE SOUNDTRACK!!!! i get goosebumps every time the end credits roll i swear. there's never been a more perfect outro to a more perfect movie. doug liman i am in your goddamn walls.

excellent thoughts, 10/10, i LOVE to hear this kind of thing!!! i hadn't thought much about the underlying horror implications of eot being video game-esque before but honestly it is so fucked and i will be sending my therapy bill to tom & mcq for it <3

[visceravalentines]

DEAR MEG

I think you wrote that you loved the movie Annihilation. If I misremembered, please feel free to ignore this asdfg.

I remember I saw it and I really enjoyed the visuals, and the terrifying mutated plant bear screaming with a human voice (that part was haunting holy crap) but besides those scenes I wasn't super scared???

Maybe my brain is too small to understand the horror of it asdfghjk

But anyway, what I wanted to ask is, what were your favorite parts of the movie, and what scared you? If you don't mind me asking!

Have a nice day!!!

SOL MY LOVE

thank u for sending me this ask it is so lovely let's talk about cool movies!!!

I love Annihilation the movie but I also love Annihilation the book!! they are very different, only the very basic characters and concept make it into the movie. which makes sense because the book is surreal and abstract and can be hard to interpret what is actually going on at certain moments, and that doesn't translate very well to the big screen. the book, to me, is far more unsettling than the movie. I will answer for both! brain explosion below the cut!

it's an absolutely gorgeous film, weird and captivating and creepy. I love the body horror, the found footage from the previous expedition where the man's intestines are moving of their own accord......incredible. that bear???? scares the bejeezus out of me every time I watch it. one of the scariest creatures I can think of in a horror movie, creatures don't usually freak me out. the sound it makes haunts me. and the bear is not in the book! the book has......other guys. I also thought Natalie Portman ate the role of the biologist. she is distant and offputting and has very little interest in anything but the natural world around her, both in the book and in the movie.

in the book we get much more of a look into the biologist's very rich and strange internal life, and I remember reading it for the first time and being shocked how much I related to her. she was one of the first characters, maybe THE first character, I identified with on a meaningful level. when I read the book again recently I was pleased to find that hasn't changed, even though I have changed a lot since my first read. she is by no means an ideal role model or even a reliable narrator, but I just adore her. and her husband nicknames her Ghost Bird, which is everything to me.

the horror in the book is ultimately about something unmaking you and the world around you in a way you cannot understand. it's a very cosmic horror concept distilled down into very manageable pieces--a plant that begins to alter what you are with just a single touch. a creature that looks like something familiar, but feels distinctly wrong, or distinctly human. something wearing a face that does not belong to it. a sound you cannot identify. words you know, words you can read, but you can't understand what they're saying. it's there, it's right there, but you don't quite get it, and suddenly you are no longer you anymore and it's too late. it's about love and nature and knowledge and meaning and the value of all of these things and the horror of all of these things.

here are some of my very favorite lines from the book, the ones that give me the shivers every time I read it for one reason or another!!

"I am walking forever on the path from the border to base camp. It is taking a long time, and I know it will take even longer to get back. There is no one with me. I am all by myself. The trees are not trees the birds are not birds and I am not me but just something that has been walking for a very long time..."

This was really the only thing I discovered in him after his return: a deep and unending solitude, as if he had been granted a gift that he didn't know what to do with. A gift that was poison to him and eventually killed him. But would it have killed me?

I took the photograph out of its frame, shoved it in my pocket. The lighthouse keeper would come with me, although he hardly counted as a good-luck charm. As I left the landing, I had the peculiar thought that I was not the first to pocket the photo, that someone would always come behind to replace it, to circle the lighthouse keeper again.

Can you really imagine what it was like in those first moments, peering down into that dark space, and seeing that? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you're staring at it now.

"We should never have come here. I should never have come here." "That's all?" "I've come to believe it is the one fundamental truth."

There shall be a fire that knows your name, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you.

An almost plaintive keening, a lonely sound in that place, called out to me. And kept calling, pleading with me to return, to see it entire, to acknowledge its existence. I did not look back. I kept running.

Almost anyone else might see it differently. But I am not those people. I am just the biologist; I don't require any of this to have a deeper meaning.

[thisbluespirit]

HELLO!!! I AM CURRENTLY GOING THROUGH THE REBLOGS FROM THE "WOULD YOU LIKE PEOPLE TOS END YOU SILLY ASKS?" SO I CAN SEND PEOPLE SILLY QUESTIONS!!!!

1. What is your least favorite element?

2. What is your favorite cryptid?

Thank you, anon! That was a kind thing to do. <3

idk if anon (being a random kind person) realises what that means to a Sapphire and Steel fan, but anyway: Gold. I cannot apply 'least favourite' to any TV Element. (Although, it would have been funny to reply with Steel without context, but it would also not have been true.) But we can all freely be mean to Gold, so that's fine.

I confess I had to go and look up 'cryptid' because I knew it meant some sort of horror-creature, but what the boundaries of the definition were, I wasn't at all sure. (Which tells you how much thought I put into cryptids.)

Anyway - the Loch Ness Monster seems like the most fun, although being from the West of England I am most familiar with the Beast of [insert name here] Moor (usually Bodmin), enough to have been scared about it. (Because the theory is basically not 'weird monster' you know can't really be true' but: large cat escaped from zoo/circus eating people and sheep, which is a lot harder to feel certain of it absolutely not being able to get you.)

[insomniac-jay]

Sneak peek for The Heroes

"Last night, yet another gang war erupted; this time in the residential district of downtown Kobe. The cause? The drug known as Ace-" The screen went black.

Sol turned towards Yukito with a look on his face that could only say "What the actual fuck?" He was sure they were thinking the same thing, that is couldn't be real.

"No..." Yukito ran his fingers through his hair. It couldn't be true. He could hardly believe it-- even his cigarette hung off his lips from such disbelief. "This cannot be real. I know there's not gang wars over this shit."

"But there is!" Sol flailed his arms in exasperation. Yukito couldn't have been so nonchalant about this when the situation is escalating. "Can you imagine my horror when I heard that on the news this morning?! And then I got an email from Sir Nighteye saying that we need to declare a public emergency!"

Yukito extinguished his cigarette then stood up. "Okay, okay. This shit is starting to go too far, but we can fix this before shit absolutely hits the fan."

For the past few days, gang wars have been erupting all around Japan for one thing: Ace. Plus his investigation into Typhon had hit a bump due to not having a mole.

"Well tick tock then, Yukito, because things are about to spiral out of our control even more. And we don't have a mole-"

"If you needed a mole, why didn't you just say so, Frosty?"

Both men turned to see a familiar face standing in the doorway. She was a tall, slender woman with warm brown skin and big dark brown eyes. Atop her head was a pair of white rabbit ears. In her palm was a yoyo.

Quick Escape Hero - White Rabbit (Kaguya Usakan)

Quirk: Rabbit Hole - Kaguya can create and link portals or use doorways, holes, and other openings as portals that she and others can travel through

"Kaguya!"

Kaguya smiled and walked towards the pair. "I can't believe you come to me for information and still don't come to me for a job like that."

"Being a mole is dangerous, Kaguya, especially with Typhon." Yukito warned. "If they find out who you are, they'll kill you or worse."

"Yukito Toshiba, I am both an escape artist and a spy." Kaguya put her hands on her hips. It's not like spying on big criminal organizations was something new to her. "I think I deserve some more action after all the favors I've done for you, old friend."

Yukito spoke up to protest, but stopped when Sol placed his hand on his shoulder.  Then he sighed in defeat.

"Fine, but be careful."

Sol handed her a small spy camera and other tools she'd need. "We're counting on you, Kaguya. This could save many lives."

"You can count on me, boys." Kaguya smiled then went on her way. That left two men to their own devices.

"What do we do now? Sir Nighteye is expecting results and action." Sol asked. "We cannot afford to not uphold our end."

"At most, we can help Sir Nighteye. At least, we can take a small break." Yukito replied, pulling out a box of cigarettes. It was quickly snatched away before it could even be opened.

"You have a smoking problem."

"It relieves stress."

@floof-ghostie @calciumcryptid @s0ursop @opalofoctober @elflynns-horde-of-stuff @pizzolisnacks @peachyblkdemonslayer @supermansbisexualson

[lyatudor]

The story collector

Chapter 21 - Sweet spiral

A story inspired by real events, dreams or more.

Warning 🔞⚠️: Dark horror stories with elements of death, decay, sex, drugs, alcohol, suicide, religion and overall spook factor for your reading pleasure.

There is understanding in her eyes, somewhere deep within, as if the beast is now FINALLY satiated, even if for just a moment. And then she asks “Why do you feel like this then?” as if she knows everything.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh yes you do” there is a conviction in her words that cannot be shaken “you always knew, you have known all along that you could never allow yourself to be happy. That you always found some pathetic excuse tied to your past, something to scrape your soul raw, so raw until there was nothing but shattering pain. Because THAT you think you can take. And if there is even a slither of hope, you annihilate it because you are utterly afraid of losing anything again. So, you chose to remain in such a desperate state that is so familiar and warm even to you. Pain is a known factor.”

The teller nods, accepting, surrendering fully “It is, it always has been.” And then something shatters “But it isn’t fair. I have everything. EVERYTHING!” pain, unwanted, raw yet ancient “And yet here I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to happen and I am terrified because I know that the moment that happens I will completely crumble.”

And the collector feeds on it, on her pain, like a moth to a burning flame, drawing closer, leaning in, her hair encompassing the face of her teller as if she was about to whisper the secrets of the universe against her lips “Yet you dig and dig with your sharp claws, peeling away at the happiness you build up, eroding yourself just so you can come back into the embrace of darkness. But I’m here.” She smiles faintly “When you close your tired eyes to try and sleep, I’m there. Always have been. I am you.” She whispers the last past, softly, so soft as if a kiss was placed against the others’ lips.

It feels like the building shakes from the very ground of the hallow elevator shaft to the office they are sitting in, a piece of the wall falling and shattering against the floor, revealing the mold and rotten boards underneath it as the collector continues to speak.

“I am your torment. But at the same time you deny me, wake up, lashes fluttering open as you fight back tears and retreat into an empty kitchen to try and calm your hectic heart, drinking a strong dark coffee trying to find the strength at a bottom of a fucking empty barrel that you have scrapped at for years. Wake up! You have dug so deep, not only isn’t there anything left there, there isn’t even a bottom to speak of.”

The teller shakes her head, finally pushing her body off the uncomfortable chair, letting it topple over, the sound not echoing as if it encountered emptiness “I have everything, I should be happy, I shouldn’t be screaming at nothingness. Nothing, NOTHING justifies feeling this way. How the fuck can I even begin to explain to anyone that I feel so empty that I don’t even recognize myself, that it makes absolutely no fucking sense? I have a house, a job, a family, I am good, better than most. I get to see, do things most could only dream of.” She pounds like a war drum against her ribs, her chest, until her skin turns red and pain radiates.

However she is met with the collector that shakes her head mockingly “Waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then what will you do? Will you crumble or will you be reborn through yet another painful trial? I think I know the answer, do you?” she asked pointing a finger at her.

“I am a hypocrite, this is what I am. There’s no other explanation. I am so broken, so fucked up in the head that I can’t even see what’s in front of me. And I hide and can’t tell the truth and when or even if I could, then I am met with the realization that no, I can’t feel this way, I shouldn’t. Because I have survived so much, because I have been through pain and I survived. So of course I can’t feel this.”

A wicked smile painting her lips “Such a little pitiful thing, yet you do.” The smile spreading impossibly wide.

She feels like she’s losing it, but the words pour out of her mouth like vomit “And it’s all in my head and I wake up and fake another day. In which I can barely concentrate to function, in which I try to ignore myself and force everything inside of me to go numb. Because that’s how I function. Deny, deny, feel it when alone, have a good cry, breathe deep and get back up. Always.” Always, it has to always happen, like a vicious cycle.

“And forever. Do you think in death you will find peace?”

The question resonates. So many times asked, but it surprises her nonetheless.

“No. Never. Not me. I was born agitated, kicking and screaming, crying so loud. Always on edge, waiting to fall over. Always looking into the void, smiling at it when it smiled back. Blood and tears. Flesh tearing pain, soul breaking.”

“The flesh heals. Feelings, meh, you know the drill. Need I remind you?” A dismissive hand being waved around as if she were an annoying fly and nothing more.

But she speaks, clear, as if a creed is falling from between her lips “You get used to the pain, you tell yourself it gets easier to maneuver around it.”

“But you never do, do you?”

“No, you do, you actually grow used to it, learn to live with it.”

“Two opposite things to my ears, or so it sounds.” Another cold scoff “A soul is a fragile thing, but you know that. You have spent your life being direct and yet not so hurtful as you have wished to be. Because there have been people that deserve to see the beauty of your rage, yet you held back, tried to mince your words, filter them and by doing so, your emotions. Made them smaller, made them less significant. And those ate you right up. Because this is the thing, if you don’t feel, if you refuse to let it out, be it light or darkness, you have to live with it. And no one can live with themselves.” Isn’t that the truth, the teller thinks as she listens “And those that say they do, they lie. They dug even deeper, refused to see themselves or abandoned who they were. But nothing is louder than the silence of the night when thoughts ring. When the subconscious does this delicious little thing and shows you terrible things.” She licks her lips as if she just tasted something delicious and rare.

“And we become impostors in our daily lives.” She teller continues like in a trance

“We do, we are, always will be.”

“Everything so in our faces.” A breath stolen “in the face…of us.”

“If only we could lift our eyes and see it. Let it actually sink in. Being a failure isn’t half as bad. Pretending you aren’t is not as catchy as it sounds. We are all impostors.”

She hesitates before she asks “Are you one?”

“I am you, so you tell me.”

“I am not you.”

“Aren’t you? Am I not the pain, the blood, the tears, the terrors? Are you not those things? Are you not the intrusive thoughts that run ramped? Those forbidden ones that are even more glorious than your feelings of inadequacy? You fake it and you fake it well, you just don’t know which parts aren’t real anymore because you have worn this mask for so long, letting it crumble here and there, repairing it one way or another. But where are you really? What are you really feeling?”

“Empty.” She lets the word echo, finally something sounding inside of her.

“No, that’s a lie. I would not be here if there was only a void inside of you.”

“Not the same thing. A void would have a pull, and I do not. You do not.”

An all-knowing smile shapes her lips “You do, you still shine, that’s why people are drawn to you, sometimes inexplicably so. Have you even wondered why?”

“Because I wished long ago for that.”

“And what else.”

“Beauty.”

“And?”

“Happiness.”

“And did you get those?”

“I got what I needed, not what I wanted.” It hurts to admit something so raw.

“Good, good, there is hope for you yet.” The collector nods approvingly once more “A mask of power, of experience through grief. Of relating to others. Empath despite denying it. You pour your soul out even when you don’t and yet no one knows you. Are you alright with that?”

“They needn’t know everything.”

“They needn’t know. Ever. Because if they do?”

Their voices sound similar, as one and apart at the same time.

“They would suffer and not understand. They would see just the darkness.”

“They would see ME.”

“And we can’t have that.”

“No, we can’t. They need to see your smile even if it doesn’t always reach your eyes. They need someone to run to even when you don’t run to them.” The collector’s cold hands cup her cheeks “They need a sounding board. But your jagged edges have been worn out, few things stick with you. You feel then discard, try to feel again and yet…”

“I don’t know what I feel. Will I ever will?”  her eyes search, trying to see something, anything, the answer to it all.

“Probably not. Not as long as I am you and you are me.”

“And if we are one?”

“Will the world understand? Or will we create another mask to show everyone?”

A question left hanging, for both, for each other, for later…