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cactusringed · 5 months

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Etho and Bdubs' meeting | Political Intrigue AU

Putting it in a tumblr post because idk if I can commit to a full fic that'll be posted on ao3 yet so I'll share this way

Word Count: 3,715

Content Warnings: Depictions of a staged suicide

The blood moon illuminates the night sky, painting the surrounding clouds crimson. Looking up through the glass roof of the observatory tower, Bdubs knows that today is to be the day he dies.

Even before his vision, he’d known, somehow, that the blood moon would signify his end. He was always attracted to it like a moth to a flame. Except moths aren’t aware — Bdubs doesn’t think — of the fate awaiting them once their delicate wings brush against the harbinger destined to extinguish their life. Bdubs is. He is, he believes, the most painfully aware one could be about their demise. The blood moon calls to him the way a jailer would a prisoner on death row, marching him through that last corridor towards his end.

“No, wait, I think a siren would be a more accurate metaphor,” Bdubs muses out loud, rubbing at his scruffy stubble. He should’ve shaved. Perhaps he still can. No. He’s meant to look this way, he knows. Images of his destiny flash in his mind and Bdubs screws his eyes shut in hopes to chase them away.

It doesn’t work. He takes one shaky breath, then another. His lungs ache. When he opens his eyes again, his vision blurs with tears that he quickly blinks away.

After spending over a year aware of the grisly details of his own death, one would expect Bdubs to have come to peace with it. He certainly thought he did. Yet here he is, staring up at the moonlit sky for what he knows is the very last time. Fighting back not only tears but primal fear that screams at him to rattle the bars of the cage fate has sealed him in. His heart gallops in his chest with such force he swears he feels its echoes against his ribcage, all the way up to his throat. His Adam's apple bobs as he forces his gaze downwards, to the workshop he’s built in the main observatory room. To his very last painting:

A landscape - that of the country of Oblivion. He’d hoped to finish it before his death, but he supposes the least he can do is bring it to an acceptable state. He wonders how much his work will sell for. He wonders if he can ask his murderer to burn it all before they leave.

Bdubs picks up his brushes and palette, the oil paints still wet from his last session, and works at the landscape. He paints a tree — thin, spindly, and grey — only to cover it almost immediately. He refines the cliff-face, as he’s done dozens of times, overworking the surface into a mush of dull colors and clashing textures before he throws his equipment to the ground in frustration.

His mind’s eye always had trouble focusing on the picture he wanted to bring to life, the shapes blurring together even after spending hours studying references of Obliviate scenery — but now, with the promise of death hanging over his head, he finds it downright impossible to not only focus but also keep his every muscle from shaking. Come on, he wants to tell himself, it’s not like you’re going up on stage to give a speech. It’s just the day of your own murder. Relax.

Bdubs worries he might puke. Or cry. That would be worse.

Another couple of breaths in and out. Shakier than before. He’s restless, to the point he knows he won’t be able to sleep no matter how late it gets, but also won’t be able to get anything useful done. What is there to do that would be useful mere hours, or potentially minutes, before his death? He could draft a will. He doesn’t know how to write one. Maybe he should’ve learned before he had to go and die, but to be entirely fair to him… no, he did know it was going to happen tonight for some time now. Ever since he knew of the blood moon. It just didn’t feel real enough to warrant any preparation, somehow.

Bdubs looks at the unfinished landscape. The sculk that snakes through every crack of the cliff-face. It’s too flat, despite how hard he’s worked at it. It resembles the sketches and croquis he’s studied in tomes, but not the feeling they elicit in him. That infinite darkness that threatens to suck him in. He reaches for his paints, but pauses. Gazes up, instead. Up and around himself, searching for that blackness, for that feeling.

It must be here. They must be here. Whoever Oblivion sent to end him. Bdubs isn’t stupid — he knows they’ve been following him for a while. Studying his every move, habits, his entourage. Yet he’s never been able to feel the weight of their presence. Not a shadow has ever been out of place. No matter how hard Bdubs has looked, how much he tossed his room upside down. How much he’s raised his voice.

But he’s got to keep trying.

“Assassin,” Bdubs speaks in the Obliviate tongue, struggling with the soft and flat tones it forces upon him. “Show yourself. I know you’re here. You have to be. You’re here to kill me, are you not? So, show yourself. Let me see my own murderer before I die.”

Bdubs waits. He waits for what feels like a full minute, only to be met with complete, suffocating silence. His lip twitches downwards, but he keeps his chin high, and continues to speak in a register he knows to be far more proper than he prefers to speak in his native Celesti tongue. He should’ve worked harder on his lessons.

“I’m unarmed. I don’t deal in violence. I just… wish to see your face. Then you can kill me,” Bdubs walks slowly, carefully, to the oak desk covered in loose paper and canvas pressed against one of the walls. His fingers trace over his sketchbook. He lets out a soft laugh, peering back up at the ceiling, looking out for any movement overhead. “I bet it’s not often you get to speak with your victim. I can offer you some critique. Because I have to say, the method you have planned for me… Well, it’s a bit too quiet. It’s like….” he frowns, unable to think of the right Obliviate word. “It’s boring,” he settles on the Celesti equivalent, before he switches back to the assassin’s tongue. “It will make my retainers suspect foul.”

Still nothing but silence, no matter how long Bdubs waits. A long sigh, as he lets go of held breath. He takes his sketchbook, worn at the spine, and holds it to his chest. He turns, raises a foot, intends to take a step — only to let out a roar of terror as he’s suddenly faced with a tall figure come out of nowhere.

Bdubs stumbles back, and as quickly as he began screaming he slaps both hands over his mouth to silence himself, letting the sketchbook fall open by his feet. His back hits the edge of his desk, and he waits as the figure stands still as a statue. One, two — his eyes dart to the door, listening for guards, servants, anyone who might have heard the commotion. Only when he’s certain no one intends to ruin his moment does he drop his hands down, letting out a high pitched giggle.

“You scared the life outta me!” he exclaims in Celesti. “I mean,” he corrects himself in quiet Obliviate: “You sca—”

The figure holds up a hand, and Bdubs stills, before letting out another, softer chuckle.

“Right. You understand Celesti. There’s no need to translate,” He insists on continuing in Obliviate, but it does save him some time.

Another stretch of silence. The figure lets their hand drop. They remain still, and though it fills the air with an awkwardness that would normally make Bdubs want to keep yapping — he instead finds himself transfixed by their presence.

Slowly, as to ensure they don’t take it as an offensive move, Bdubs leans down to pick up his sketchbook. He opens it towards the end, and meets with a sketch of himself laid in bed, arms stretched out at his sides, small rivulets of blood dripping down. The blood moon shining in the window. He’s transfixed by it for just a moment, his throat closing up.

He flips the page. More angles of his dead body. A few sketches of gloved hands taking hold of his wrist. The fingers are slender, long — one might call them delicate, even as they hold a blade to Bdubs’ wrist.

A study of how the blood flows. It pearls at the edge of the cut at first. There’s a few attempts at getting it quite right. The amount of blood that begins to trickle, then pour out. The way it soaks Bdubs’ sheets.

Then, finally, the main object of interest: The assassin. His sketches become more abundant, but less clear, as he focuses on them. Looking up at the figure standing in front of him, then down at his sketches, he’s happy to note he got their build right: Tall, slender, but not too much. Loose clothes that likely hide solid muscles. That’s another thing he realises he portrayed perfectly: Their outfit. The long, dark cloak hiding the near entirety of their figure. The large hood obscuring their head alongside a scarf wrapped around the bottom half of their face. The only part that remains uncovered is their eyes and a few strands of silver hair — easy enough to remember and portray, one would think. Yet it always remained blank both in Bdubs’ memory and sketches.

The surface of some of the pages have been rubbed raw from his eraser. Some have frustrated scribbles all over the assassin’s face. Others have just been left blank. It’s endlessly frustrating, and if he doesn’t get to do anything else before he dies, he hopes to at least fix this.

“Can I…?” Bdubs reaches for the assassin’s scarf — only for them to suddenly jerk back before his fingers can even brush against the fabric.

It’s the first movement he’s seen from them, a proof they’re not just a hallucination. It makes him jump, and he tenses in expectation of a blow that never comes. The assassin just adjusts their scarf securely on their face before peering down at Bdubs’ sketchbook. They point. A silent question hangs in the air.

Bdubs frowns. “Can you use your words?”

“No.”

Their voice is deep, surprisingly so. It’s also rough around the edges — the way one’s voice sounds after waking up in the morning. And a bit muffled by the scarf.

“Very clever,” Bdubs grins, reaching to shove playfully at the assassin. They move away. “It does mean you can speak though, so— Oh, how do you say in Obliviate… you know, like… gotcha? Do you guys have a word for gotcha?”

Bdubs swears he hears a quiet, near inaudible snicker from the other.

“You can switch to Celesti. I’d rather you did, actually,” they say in perfect Celesti. Not a trace of an accent. Not even an intonation amiss, despite how much more melodic Celesti is compared to the flatness of Obliviate. Bdubs could mistake him for a native if he didn’t know better, and if it wasn’t for the paleness of his face.

“Right, yeah, I was tryna impress you, but turns out I’m real rusty. But hey, I was doing well enough, yeah? Since you came down from your little hidey hole?”

Silence. They’re still pointing.

“...So, uh, what’d you want my sketchbook for?”

The silence stretches, until the assassin seemingly remembers it’s their turn to speak. “I want to see.”

Bdubs raises a brow. “Not the most eloquent sort, are ya?”

They blink.

“Just gimme a second, okay?”

Bdubs reaches for one of his charcoal pencils, and holds the book open against his chest. He peeks up at the assassin, then down at the page, lightly finishing up one of his attempts at a portrait. He sticks out his tongue as he adds the outline of lips he can barely see through the scarf, refines the shape of their face, and draws the long, white eyelashes caressing scarred skin. The hint of sculk Bdubs can barely see, pulsing like veins burrowing deep within the assassin’s skin. He goes at it for a moment, before he finally gives up with a dissatisfied huff.

“It’s not as pretty as you are in real life,” he holds the sketchbook out to the assassin. “But have a looksie, if you want. It’s kind of… Ah, well, you can keep it as a souvenir after you’ve killed me! I’m sure in a few decades you’ll be able to resell it for some pretty money. I mean, can you imagine?” Bdubs gestures when the assassin takes hold of the book. “‘The prophet prince’s last drawings.’ People will fight for it!”

The assassin doesn’t seem to find it quite as funny as Bdubs does. They stare at him blankly, jaw slack, before seemingly remembering to look down at the pages, ignoring Bdubs’ grin as they do. He doesn’t let it get him down. Instead he watches their piercing grey eyes dance across the pages. He doesn’t think he did them justice. He wishes he had more time. They genuinely are beautiful.

Their fingers run over the sketches. As they study the depictions of themselves knocking Bdubs unconscious and slitting his wrist, Bdubs can’t help but hyperfocus on their hands. They’re like a pianist’s. He wonders if they play instruments. Are Obliviate assassins allowed to partake in hobbies? Arts?

“I wasn’t sent by anyone,” their voice force Bdubs out of his imaginings. They stop on a page depicting them hopping out of Bdubs’ bedroom through the window and disappearing into the darkness of the night. It was a bit of a challenging pose to figure out. Bdubs is proud of that sketch. He doesn’t think it’s what they’re admiring. “My actions were planned by myself, in opposition to my orders. You are dangerous, but no one seems to see that.”

Bdubs swallows heavily. A strange calm had settled over him, ever since the assassin revealed themselves — but their saying that turns his blood to ice. He’s suddenly aware of every inch of his body, and the way they scream at him to run, or hide, or fight — something. Instead, he stays frozen as the assassin circles him, takes in the room as if they hadn’t been spying on him for stars know how long.

“You showing me this,” they tap their fingers on the pages. “It made me realise something I hadn’t considered before.”

Bdubs opens his mouth to speak, but the assassin continues before he gets even a sound out:

“If I choose not to kill you tonight. What happens with your vision?”

“I…” Bdubs looks down at his dead body laid on the pages. It’s hard to speak. He should stop staring. He can’t. “I don’t… know. Every single thing I’ve predicted has come true, no matter how hard I’ve worked to stop them. I don’t know what happens if… if they don’t. I think it would just push away the inevitable. If you don’t kill me today, then you’ll do it on the next blood moon. Or the one after. It’s not the first blood moon I’ve seen since the vision, after all. I could just be wrong on the exact date. Both of us could be.”

The assassin shakes their head. “Even if the date isn’t right, I won’t do it like this,” they gesture at the book. “So it still wouldn’t be true. Besides, you knew this blood moon was to be the one. I’ve been watching you for a long time. You’ve never called out to me the way you have tonight. You knew it was today.”

“I just… felt it, somehow. I tend to, with my visions. Even if nothing indicates a specific date within the vision itself, I just… feel it, when it’s about to happen,” he shrugs. “With normal prophecies — you know, the one they do all those fancy rituals for? With those, it’s kind of a fifty-fifty as to whether they’ll actually happen. But mine have always, always come true, no matter what. I’m just too good at this divination thing!” He laughs. It comes out wrong. Stilted. Tearful.

The assassin watches Bdubs pace.

Bdubs’ eyes find the image of the assassin’s bloodied blade, placed in his limp hand.

“...I don’t wanna die,” he finally admits, quietly. A few tears roll their ways down his cheeks. “I just know — well, I don’t know… what’s meant to, to happen. If you stop it, I mean. I don’t know what happens if you don’t kill me. If I— If I wake up, tomorrow. I don’t know what… what would happen. I’m not meant to. It— It won’t. It won’t happen. You know?” he looks up, his lips trembling uncontrollably.

He feels like a damn child.

The assassin is obviously uncomfortable. Their previously relaxed posture grows suddenly tense. Their shoulders are almost all the way to where Bdubs assumes their ears would be. They reach into their coat and Bdubs gasps, sharply. His eyes squeeze shut. He expects the stab of a knife. For all of it to have been a ruse. A way to finally end their conversation and get to the very reason they came here.

But nothing comes.

Bdubs takes one, two — up to three shaky, hiccuping breaths, before he opens his eyes again and looks up. What he sees is not a knife, but instead a handkerchief. It’s held in front of him awkwardly, the assassin staring at him unblinking. Bdubs hesitates, before he takes it and wipes the tears off his face. Except the very act of compassion coming from what should be his assassin makes his tears double, and Bdubs sobs embarrassingly against the cloth.

“We’ll find out what happens when a vision of yours does not come to fruition, then. Because I won’t kill you. You won’t die by my hand, prince Bdubs.”

Their voice is so gentle, now. Bdubs nearly chokes on air as he tries to calm himself. As he tries to listen. Take it in.

“I was only sent here because we found out about your vision. Before you worry — none within your court knows. We’ve only inferred it through our surveillance. I will report back, explain what happened. They’ll send another spy to continue monitoring your safety. Oblivion never wanted you dead, so you won’t have to be afraid of them. And it means… you’ll know: There’s a way to stop your visions.”

Before Bdubs can say anything, before he can thank them, they turn away. They take a step to leave. Bdubs’ tears stop in an instant, and he reaches for them. For their cloak. He pulls them back towards him, and wraps his arms around them in a tight embrace, feels the air escape from their lungs as he squeezes.

“Thank you,” he says, voice only shaking a little as he clings to the assassin’s clothes. “I don’t know how I could ever repay you. I don’t even know your name, I—”

“My— My name’s not important.” The assassin’s voice is strained, as if in pain. They pat Bdubs’ hand in what he assumes is a gentle attempt to pry him off. He doesn’t let go quite yet. “We won’t meet again. Just… try to find a way to stop your visions. If anything, for your own sake.”

Bdubs shakes his head. “I won’t let you leave,” he declares. “Not after you saved my life. Not after you did… did this. You were sent to protect me, right? So you must be pretty good! Then, I want you to stay. I can write to Oblivion, get them to keep you here. Then you can help me stop the visions from coming true again. Yeah?”

He finally pulls away so he can walk around the assassin and face them, sniffing as he watches them shake their head.

“I’m not a protector. I’m an assassin. The only reason I was sent here was to neutralise your murderer. Since I technically have, there’s no reason for me to stay. Especially now that I’ve revealed myself to you. It… goes against almost every tenets of the code,” they sigh, reaching to pinch the bridge of their nose. “It just can’t happen. I’m sorry.”

“... Will they hurt you? For… you know,” Bdubs gestures. Could the price of his life be his would-be assassin’s death? Does he want to know? “...If not your full name, can you give me… I dunno, a nickname, the first letter — anything? I don’t wanna forget the person who broke my curse. Please? Then I’ll let you leave. And I’ll promise not to speak a word of this. To anyone.”

The other furrows their brow, and studies Bdubs’ face. They shake their head again, and brush Bdubs’ hands off themselves. “Slab,” they finally offer. Bdubs recognises it: A clan name. A… very prominent one. “And what happens to me isn’t something for you to worry about. I’m… uh… Sorry. For causing you stress.”

There’s an awkward pause, then, before they take a step back. Bdubs lets them. He watches them as they climb back up to the rafters, open a window, and leave without a trace.

“...Slab…” Bdubs looks down at his sketchbook, hugs it to his chest. Clouds creep closer to the blood moon, obscuring its glow. The observatory is plunged in darkness, illuminated only by the flickering candles on Bdubs’ desk.

He’s alive. His vision has come and gone.

He sits at his desk. Opens his sketchbook, picks up a pen, and begins sketching.

He draws until the sun rises. A feverish attempt to burn the Slab assassin’s image in his head. Draws until one of his retainers knocks on the door and scolds him for not showing up at breakfast. Until they drag him out of the observatory, force him to breathe the fresh air outside.

He’s free of the burn in his lungs as he’s smothered into unconsciousness, of the blade splitting his arms open.

He’s alive.

#pltclau #writings

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roundboard · 1 year

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Brutal Orchestra Art Hitlist

Just a list talking about each of the characters that I’ll have to go through drawing in Brutal Orchestra. Will detail plans and thoughts on ones I haven’t done, and reflect on the ones I have :)

Nowak/Bosch

I’m coming for you (two)...

Boyle

Done! Clean and simple inclusion of lore elements with a more interesting pose than I normally go for, really happy with how this one came out!

Hans

Done and dusted, I really did try to see if I could include SOME element of her items and such, but no luck... it cluttered the drawing far too much and there were too many conflicting themes. I tried my best to just elevate a lot of the simpler elements of Hans, and used one of her main abilities as a base for the concept.

Also included the fact her arms look kind of like spindly nerves as that’s how they seemed to be imagined by a lot of the community in canon! I think I made her look really nice and I’m still happy with it.

Burnout

Finished :) Probably my rawest piece yet, mega happy with how visceral I depicted him, as he deserves to be!!

Fennec

Fairly happy with how he turned out! I was trying to vary my angles since I have a habit of drawing characters facing right so I wanted to make sure to introduce some variety to the portraits. Plus, it’ll look even nicer by the end when they’re all lined up next to each other.

He definitely seems a lot more jungle-y than he would let on but... A lot of his abilities seemed that way so I couldn’t help it. Not like it’s a bad thing, green + blue is a pretty good colour combo

Anton

I was definitely happy with him for a first attempt at this project, especially with how I shaded the mask, but I’m almost definitely going to go back to redo him. In hindsight there isn’t enough Anton swagger going on (minus the finger guns) and I think some element of his rude/skittish/gamble-orientated nature has to be shown off somehow.

Splig

Possibly my strongest work concept wise so far, or it’s tied with Kleiver. I’m really proud of myself for composing it in a way that shows off the Tao symbol they have in one of their attacks, and also demonstrate their syringe attack. It all looks pretty fluid as well.

Only nitpick I’d have with this one is that it’s much more rough and simple(?) compared to my other works. Though, to be fair, this piece was the shortest to draw out of everything so far (about 2 hours or so)

Pearl

donezo... massive maw angle was definitely a good idea

Thype

My second drawing. Still really happy with the more oil paint-like thing going on for him, but similar to Anton, I feel like I could've shown off more from their lore/attacks.

I’m less likely to try and to a complete redo like I am for Anton on this one, but I may make some adjustments? We can call it a remaster. Remaster sounds good and professional (which I am)

Griffin

I think I stuffed in as much lore as I could in the drawing (minus the fire, but I feel it would’ve oversaturated it.) My progress on lighting and shadows seems to be improving a good amount!! Excited to translate this skill into future drawings

Arnold

went with a more abstract and rough approach to convey arnold having a bit of a breakdown.. I think it worked really well and definitely a style I’d like to experiment with more in the future

Dmitri

Finally done... mega happy with the fire effects and I’m glad I could up the quality of the background more than just a standard black one or textured one!

Mung

LongLiver

Finally managed to unlock him, and despite my initial worry that I wouldn’t be able to do something that creative, I managed it! I’m starting to get more comfortable with simple concepts done with more artistic flair if I can’t figure out a way to include their lore or attacks too much within the drawing itself. I also think this drawing shows off a bit more of my Disco Elysium style roots :) very proud of it!

Clive

Resident badass completed!! There was a point where he looked super bland and his head look way too long (like an egg) so thank god for the glow that was added later on... and the shortening of the skull

Kleiver

Even with the limited colour palette, I’m super super super happy with this one. This piece could’ve been kind of boring with just Kleiver shushing but my inspiration basically screamed out of nowhere that I could have bloodied music trails emanating from the stain on his hammer... Head. It doesn’t really show off his attacks but it shows off his brutality and lore enough that I’m absolutely satisfied with how he turned out. I nailed that hand pretty well too.

Cranes

Incredibly with the more simple and clean approach I took!! my first time trying out rain and such so I was really satisfied with how it turned out

Agon

My spookiest work yet, probably... I still really like this one :) depicted his yelling the best way I knew how! Super abstract but fits him well

Rags

Really really happy with her, I think the shading and colours came out excellent. Managed to fit some good stuff about her concept and item wise as well :) I think my only gripe might be that it’s a little less coherent than it could’ve been, with some of the parts of the drawing being quite dark.

However, I’m still really happy with it!!

SmokeStacks

Did this because some guy on reddit asked for it really nicely, even though SmokeStacks wasn’t even on my radar at the time... But they seemed to like it! I did too. I was initially trying to position SmokeStacks like every other portrait up close, but I realized I really wanted to show off the smoke more than the stacks part so I went ham on making the smoke look spooky and ominous.

He’s meant to be sitting on a pile of trash which is kinda hard to tell but I’m pretty happy with this one too.

Leviat

I like how dynamic and “pop-y” I made this one :) experimented with a style I didn’t do too often and was worried about how I’d handle the mass of flesh/teeth and masks thing but it turned out really nice

Bimini

Put as much for the character as I could into it! I think probably the most “packed” in terms of references so far... I do wish I could’ve done something a bit more with the background though

Gospel

so spacey... so gospel... it’s perfect

Mordrake

Mega happy with this one concept and execution wise :) holds a special place in my heart!

#brutal orchestra #brutalorchestra

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thecoffeelovingfreak · 3 years

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Volume 22 Cover Analysis

Part 1 | Part 2

I'll be jumping right in!

~~~

The Moon:

The Moon is often associated with the rhythm of time, enlightenment, immortality, and the dark side of nature.

Biblically, however, it could also be related to something different.

"In the book of Job 26:9, the Bible reads:

“He covers the face of the moon, shrouding it with his clouds.”

One of the reasons why God would do so is to protect the moon. The covering was meant to hide the moon from view. In Joshua 10:12, we see God interrupting the normal course of the moon to ensure the battle that his servant Joshua was fighting comes to a successful end." - catholicsbible.com

I think in this context, Joshua would be Fyodor, mostly because Nikolai's coat is also covering him.

- What parts of their minds Nikolai is covering:

Notably, though, it's covering the location of his brain. I'll be using this diagram for this subcategory:

Nikolai's coat and arms are covering the areas that control the initiation of voluntary muscles (3); sensation of muscle and skin (9); evaluation of weight, texture, temperature, etc. (10); sensory association (7); the visual area (1); coordination of movement, balance, and posture (14); eye movement and orientation (12); and a minuscule amount of #6, which controls your emotions.

However #14 is not covered on Dazai. I think (since this area controls movement, balance, and posture) that this symbolizes how Dazai uses the members of the ADA instead of choosing not to or working alone, like Fyodor would do. This is shown here, with how his next move is using a card depicting Atsushi.

The original point I was going to make here, was how this could not only symbolize some aspects of their characters, but could be how the poison would affect them.

- The Blue Moon

"In calculating the dates for Lent and Easter, Catholic clergy indentified a "Lenten moon". Historically, when the moons arrived too early, they called the early moon a "betrayer" (belewe) moon, so the Lenten moon came at its expected time." - en.wikipedia.org

I think this is symbolical of how the moon is underneath Nikolai, meaning he would be the betrayer. To who? The simple answer would be Fyodor, since we know he wants to kill him. But even Nikolai might not be the actual betrayer. I continue this thought in 'The Eye of Providence' category.

The Skull:

The skull depicted between Dazai and Fyodor is a ram skull:

- Ram Skull Meaning

The original meaning of a ram skull was perseverance and leadership. Now, it typically symbolizes occult sciences and devil worship.

I think it could also be related to the Tarot card of The Devil, which I will discuss further in the 'Tarot Themes' category.

- Carnations

The flowers shown with the skull, I believe, look like carnations.

"The carnation symbolizes eternal grief, love, and loyalty. This flower has long been the flower of mourning." - floraqueen.com

Color-wise, I believe the carnations are either dark red or a darker purple.

Purple carnations represent:

"These flowers indicate capriciousness, implying purple carnations usually convey condolence for the unfortunate circumstance. They can also be presented to seek an apology." - floweraura.com

Dark red carnations represent:

"Dark Red Carnations enunciate the profound sentiments of love and affection." - floweraura.com

I'm not quite sure of what those would mean in this context, other than grief and death, but I included it anyway!

- Hair and Leaf

I noticed there is a Japanese oak leaf (as mentioned in Part 1), included with the, what I assume to be hair, coming out of the skull. I'm not going to focus on that here, but it's still something of note.

As mentioned in Part 1, the hair could match Agatha's character design. I'm sure her arc is coming next, and we know almost nothing about her ability, besides its name. And Then There Were None. I think it's name, being depicted with the skull and carnations, could mean she will be a bringer of death.

Fyodor's Card:

Fyodor's card does not appear to be anything, really, except for waves of color. Flip it horizontally, however:

It almost looks like the ocean. The ocean symbolizes power and strength, formlessness, the unfathomable, and chaos. I don't quite know where this would fit in yet, but I'd still like to take note.

It's also possible that it's nothing, we don't know what he has up his sleeve yet besides Chuuya, and I doubt he's his only trick.

The Eye of Providence:

The Color of the Eye:

I noticed the grey eye shown on the Eye.

Which character has grey eyes? Sigma.

The eye in the Eye of Providence is known as the Eye of God.

I think Sigma will play a larger part in the upcoming events of the manga. I also think there's more to his ability and past than meets the eye. What? I'm not quite sure yet, but I do think he's not as much of a simple man as he may appear, especially since his eye is the Eye of God.

Details of the Eye:

I noticed there are details in the Eye, that I could not see before.

- Gears

I noticed there is the shape of a gear surrounding the Eye, along with what appears to be 2 more underneath it.

Gears typically symbolize collaboration, as one gear is useless, and they can only work together. I also think of them similarly to dominoes, since the first one starts moving, which then causes the second to start moving, and so on so forth. Dominoes typically represent goals, but I'm not quite sure where this would fit in.

- Triangles

The triangles appear to be equilateral triangles, which was used in ancient civilizations as the symbol of the Deity.

However, triangles also depict the Trinity.

"The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as being one god existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, three distinct persons sharing one homoousion (essence). In this context, the three persons define who God is, while the one essence defines what God is." - en.m.wikipedia.com

I think this could be symbolic of how Dazai, Fyodor, and Nikolai are in the game, while, even though Sigma is technically in the game, he is not as deep into, or quite aligned with the mental state the other 3 are in. They are the triangle, and he is the Eye of God.

I was originally going to connect the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to each of the three, but I'm not quite sure who would be who.

Where the Rays are Shining:

I think it's important to notice where the rays of the Eye are shining.

Clockwise:

The one on the top shines onto the Moon, which as stated earlier, could represent Nikolai as a betrayer. Picking up the thought from that subcategory, I think it could mean Sigma is the betrayer. His eye is the Eye of God, shining onto/connecting to the moon. To the others, the ones who have all used him, his possible future attempt to kill them, may be seen by them as a betrayal.

The second points to Fyodor's eyes.

The third points to Fyodor's card.

The fourth points to the skull and the carnations.

The fifth points to Dazai's neck, and in turn, his card. I think this could represent how Fyodor's card is more revealed chaos, Dazai's is hidden certainty. It's not much, but I'd still like to take note.

And the sixth points to Dazai's eyes.

Tarot Themes:

- The Moon

The Moon is the 18th card in the Major Arcana.

Upright, it symbolizes femininity, cycles, emotions, and the world of the unconscious.

Since we're only seeing the bottom of the Moon, it's possible that it's being used in the context of what it means reversed: illusion, confusion, and deception. Since the Moon is underneath Nikolai, it's possible he could be deceiving the players in some way.

This statement could be even further proved since The Moon also tells you that everything is not as it seems.

"The Moon tells you that something about a situation or person in your life is not what it appears to be and you need to trust what your instincts are telling you in order to see past this illusion." - thetarotguide.com

- The Devil

The ram skull shown, could be symbolic of The Devil card, which is the 15th card in the Major Arcana.

Upright, it represents violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, and fatality. This could be representative of what Agatha could bring.

Reversed, it means weakness, evil fatality, pettiness and blindness.

The Devil also tells you that you are feeling trapped or restricted.

"...you may feel as though outside influences or forces beyond your control are restricting you, leaving you feeling powerless and victimised. However, this is the illusion The Devil creates. You are in control of your own destiny and are not bound by anything other than your own attitudes and behaviour. Don’t give up and don’t give away your power. You don’t have to tolerate negativity, criticism, manipulation or abuse from anyone. There are always options and there is always something positive you can do to improve your situation no matter how hopeless things may seem on the surface." - thetarotguide.com

I think this could apply to Sigma's character too, since one of the Eye's rays are planted in the skull.

Aqua Colored, Snow-like Dustings and Grid:

Are most likely from Tanizaki's ability, Light Snow. You can see the luminescent snow around the framed space. You can also see the grid in the framed space, and the luminescent, aqua glow on Nikolai, above the frame. Also, notice how both Nikolai and Sigma appear to be clearer, and almost in a higher quality than Dazai, and Fyodor? I think it's possible that, with Nikolai being pictured under The Moon reversed, meaning illusion and deceit, along with what appears to be Tanizaki's ability at work, that they may somehow, someway, working together. Why, I don't know, but it's possible.

Final Notes:

Notice how Sigma's body is moving toward the future, but his eyes are looking at the Eye. I think it's symbolic of him discovering himself, his ability, and his prowess, almost playing more of a God-like role in the upcoming events.

Based on other theories I've seen, Tanizaki is the most likely to become a double agent or work for another organization, so it's possible that he actually could be working with Nikolai?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this analysis! Tell me what you think!

#coff's analyses #bsd analysis #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd x reader #bsd fyodor #bsd nikolai #bsd sigma #bsd dazai #bsd theories #bsd symbolism #bsd tanizaki #bsd agatha #bsd volume 22

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marypenelope · 3 years

Text

Grimwalkers (And Related Musings)

So, Eclipse Lake gave us a very interesting shot of an open book that has sparked a lot of worry and theorizing within the fandom.

(ID: Screenshot from The Owl House: Eclipse Lake. An open book with various illustrations and scribbles to indicate writing. The right page is titled ‘Grimwalker’ and lists a series of ingredients, most of which have a small illustrations depicting them or, presumably, their source.

Galderstone (heart & power)

Palistrom wood (keratin)

Stonesleeper lungs

Selkidomus scales

Bone of ORTET

The left page includes a series of illustrations: a drop of some sort of liquid suspended above a pile of green and brown goop; a galderstone, palistrom wood, and what are presumably Stonesleeper lungs connected in a circle; a diagram of a humanoid growing from a baby to an adult, ending with a profile with magenta eyes; a closeup of said magenta eyes, with arrows pointing to the profile. /end id)

Most fans immediately realized that the eyes depicted in the pages are very similar to those of our favourite ‘bad but sad boy’: Mr Hunter Golden-Guard

(ID: Cropped screenshot from The Owl House: Hunting Palismen. Hunter is staring slightly to the side, a small smile on his face, with his body cropped at the chest. Hunter has a fair complexion, pointed ears, dark magenta eyes, thick black eyebrows, a gap between his front teeth, bags under his eyes, and ash-blond hair that is shaved below the top, with a long, jagged forelock sticking out the front. He has a notch on his right ear and a scar on his left cheek.[x] /end id)

This, combined with my post about what, exactly, an ‘ortet’ is (special thanks to @toh-described for adding image descriptions, I was in a rush when I made it) has resulted in a veritable flood of ‘Hunter clone’ theories, as well as various other speculations. As always, I have A Lot of Thoughts, so I figured I’d share some with you all here.

For those that haven’t seen the linked post, ‘ortet’ is a botanical term used to describe the original plant that any number of clones were derived from. You can see how this, combined with the illustration of magenta eyes, would result in many fans theorizing that Hunter is a clone.

Of course, I do have to point out that we can’t be certain both pages are related. The eye illustration precedes the ingredient list, for instance - and there is a strange pile of goop in the upper left corner of the left page that doesn’t seem to fit with any of the listed ingredients. However, three of those ingredients - a galderstone, palistrom wood, and what we can assume based on the shape and texture are supposed to be Stonesleeper lungs - are also depicted on the left page. So they’re probably linked in some way, even if they aren’t discussing the exact same thing.

With that out of the way, let’s get into it:

Hunter: A Clone? And of Whom?

The most obvious answer, especially with this week’s face reveal, is that Hunter is a clone of his so-called uncle, Emperor Belos.

(ID: Screenshot from The Owl House: Eclipse Lake. Emperor Belos stands, unmasked and turned to face the camera, before the repaired portal door. He has a fair complexion, cornflower-blue eyes with black shadows underneath, and long, rough-looking, greying ash-blond hair reaching past his shoulders [x]. His lips are wrinkly, and his right ear has a notch similar to Hunter’s. A prominent green deformity extends from the upper left side of his face to the right side of his neck. It is accompanied by several pockmarks, which are brown on the outside and black in the middle. /end id)

Now, there are some clear similarities between Belos and his nephew. Their hair, while not the exact same shade, is very close in colour, and they have similar eye shapes. Their ear notches are almost identical (aside from the prominent difference in their ear size, of course), and they both seem to have eye bags - though imo, Hunter’s look more natural whereas Belos looks like he’s wearing mascara.

However! They are far from a perfect match!

Scars and Belos’s face abnormality aside, two obvious differences lie in their eye colour and their noses. Belos’ eyes are blue, and his nose has a distinctive bump - possibly an indication that it was broken at some point and didn’t heal correctly. Now, based on the illustrations in the book, both Hunter’s magenta eyes and his broad, straighter nose could be the result of his being a Grimwalker. Certainly, the profile in the book has more or less the exact same nose shape as Hunter.

Beyond this, however, Hunter’s hair comes to a noticeable widow’s peak where Belos’ does not, and Hunter’s eye brows are both darker and less shaped than his uncle’s. As well, as least in my very-much-not-an-artist opinion, they have completely different face shapes. For instance in this photo, you can see that while Hunter’s chin comes to a point, while Belos’ is more square.

(ID: Screenshot from The Owl House: Eclipse Lake. Hunter stands just behind and to the right of Belos as they both look forward, in the direction of the offscreen portal door. The side of Hunter’s head is straight, and his jaw comes to a point. Belos’ head is more irregular, with prominent cheekbones and a much flater chin. /end id)

Admittedly, some of these differences could be attributed to their ages. Hunter is 16, while Belos, based on his 50 year long reign, is likely between 70-80, if not older. And of course, there is the issue of their ear notches - but while these are certainly a nice visual, ear notches are the result of an injury, not genetics.

All in all, I’d put it at a 60% chance of Hunter being Belos’ clone - it’s a decent narrative thread, but also a bit obvious for Dana and co, and the art doesn’t really match up.

The next most obvious choice for Hunter’s ‘ortet’ would, of course, be Philip Wittebane.

(ID: Cropped screenshot from The Owl House: Through the Looking Glass Ruins. Philip Wittebane is portrayed as a silhouette in profile. He has long hair pulled back into a ponytail, with several loose strands falling in front of his face. He’s wearing fancy, old looking clothes, and holding his diary in an outstretched arm. /end id)

We’ve yet to actually see Wittebane’s face, but we can get some idea of what he looks like based on his silhouette. His nose is pointed and seems to connect smoothly to a somewhat sloping forehead. His hair is unruly, and falls in a manner reminiscent of Hunter’s own forelock.

Now, again, we can discard the nose as potentially irrelevant, but if we look at Hunter in profile, his forehead is certainly rounder than Wittebane’s, though their jaws seem somewhat similar.

(ID: Cropped and edited screenshot from The Owl House: Hunting Palismen. Hunter is portrayed in a left facing, flipped profile. The left side of the picture has been somewhat poorly edited to erase the background and emphasize his facial features. /end id)

There’s also the small detail that, as a human, Wittebane would have had round ears, not pointed ones like Hunter. Of course, he could be cloned, instead, from a descendent of Wittebane, but since we have no confirmation on who, if anyone ,is part of that family tree, we have no way of knowing for sure.

Still, just to cover my bases, I also compared Hunter’s picture and profile to Dell Clawthorne and Alador Blight - both of whom I’ve seen suggested as potential Wittebane descendants, though admittedly less so for the last one. In the interest of ‘this is taking a really long time to type up and also Tumblr has a stupid image limit’, I won’t go into detail about them. Suffice it to say, while they have some similarities to Hunter, they, too, are far from a perfect match.

Basically, if Hunter is a Grimwalker, either he was cloned from someone else entirely, or we’ve misunderstood exactly what a Grimwalker is.

Or he’s not a Grimwalker at all. Which brings us to point the second:

Belos: Grimwalker?

Outside of Hunter, I’ve seen many people speculate that Belos is actually the Grimwalker - specifically, a clone of Philip Wittebane with Wittebane’s memories and personality and such. Basically, Wittebane extending his life like a creep.

Now, this has some of the same issues as Hunter being Wittebane’s clone - we don’t actually know what Wittebane looked like, Belos’ ears are pointed while Wittebane’s would have been round, etc. There’s also the fact that Belos’ eyes are blue, not magenta.

Of course, like I said before, it’s possible the two pages are only tangentially connected, and not actually discussing the same topic. But there’s one thing in particular that has me suspicious of Belos.

(ID: A cropped picture of the open book described before. It’s focused on the picture of a pile of brown and green goop with a drop of liquid suspended above it. /end id)

I don’t know about you guys, but that pile of goop looks suspiciously similar in colour not only to Belos’ face, but also to his arm at the end of Hunting Palismen.

(ID: A screenshot from The Owl House: Hunting Palismen. Belos’ arm has shifted into a long spike coming in from the right side of the screen. The spike extends past Hunter’s head, having just missed his face as it slices off some of his hair. The majority of the spike is brown, and textured almost like wood, but a portion is a dark-ish green. /end id)

As well, both the goop and the drop of liquid are not mentioned in the ingredient list, thus supporting the idea that the pages are not about the same thing. Of course, the ingredient list could be continued on the next page, or this illustration may have a different meaning. The point is, it definitely seems to connect Belos and his form to the book.

Still, based on our current interpretation of the pages, as well as his physical features, it seems unlikely that Belos himself is a Grimwalker.

Which leaves us with:

Creepy Luz: What the Fuck?

(ID: Screenshot from The Owl House: Keeping Up A-Fearances. A picture of what appears to be Luz Noceda, sitting in her family living room. Her face is completely obscured in shadow, and she holds a box of tissues in her outstretched hand. /end id)

Oh Creepy Luz. Once thought to have been debunked by Word of God, the fandom was Shooketh by their appearance in Keeping Up A-Fearances. Obviously, theories and speculation have since abounded. Are they a clone? Are they a changeling? Are they a figment of Camila’s imagination? Or something else?

With the new information on Grimwalkers, it’s no surprise that some in the fandom have begun speculating that Creepy Luz is actually a Grimwalker created by Belos. And I can certainly understand the rationale - after all, Creepy Luz seems to perfectly resemble Luz herself, except for an obscured face. Could those shadows be hiding a tell-tale pair of magenta eyes?

Perhaps. But while it’s possible, I’m not necessarily inclined to believe it.

First off, if Creepy Luz is a Grimwalker, and Grimwalker’s have magenta eyes and that distinctive nose - well, those are two features that are very contrary to those of the Luz we and Camila know and love. Ones that can’t just be explained away by a summer at camp. And while Camila is obviously not a perfect parent (is anyone?), she clearly loves her daughter. I refuse to believe she wouldn’t notice the difference, especially since, as we see in Keeping Up A-Fearances, she has photos of a pre-camp Luz up around the house.

But, who knows. Maybe the writers did Camila dirty. Maybe there’s some kind of magic on Creepy Luz that prevents Camila from noticing the different features. At this point, there’s no way to know.

But even if Camila hasn’t noticed any obvious physical changes in her daughter, there’s still the fact that, logistically, the theory just doesn’t seem to make sense.

Let’s start with the timeline. The first indication we get that Creepy Luz exists is Enchanting Grom Fight, where we see a similarly startling end shot of letters written to Camila from ‘Luz’. Based on the shot we get, ‘Luz’ has been sending these letters for a while now - there seem to be at least 3 of them. Now, I went to camp a lot as a kid, and I think I can fairly confidently say that most people sent their parents a letter once a week on average - meaning these letters have been coming for at least 3 weeks. At this time, Luz has had absolutely no interaction with Belos; Lilith and the Emperor’s Coven are aware of her existence, of course, but none of them seem to particularly care. Belos himself isn’t even interested in Luz during AoaW and YBOS - he’s more concerned with finding out about the portal. So then, what motivation could he possibly have to create a clone of her and send it to the Human Realm?

But let’s pretend he did have a reason. Let’s say that Belos has some secret, mysterious connection to Luz that prompted him to create a doppelganger of her to trick her mom into thinking she went to camp and came home. Even then, how would he have gotten Creepy Luz to the Human Realm? Based on his obsession with rebuilding the portal, he has no other dependable means of travelling to Earth. It’s likely he knows Titan’s Blood can create portals, but Eclipse Lake implies that he doesn’t know where to find any. As such, even if Belos did make a Grimwalker of Luz, he wouldn’t have been able to get them to Connecticut.

So, okay, fine, Belos didn’t make Creepy Luz then. But they do clearly exist. They had to have come from somewhere, and Grimwalkers are the first real lead we’ve had on what that might be. So maybe someone else - a character or group we don’t know about, perhaps - made Creepy Luz and sent them on their way. Okay. Cool.

Except for one, tiny little detail, which brings me to my final point;

Bone of ORTET

This ingredient has been the source of much intrigue since Saturday, and for good reason. After all, it implies that Grimwalkers are clones of some kind, a concept that fandoms just love. It’s also noticeably the only ingredient without an illustration next to it - which, if we’re interpreting it correctly, would make sense, since it would be different for each Grimwalker.

Now, the simplest way to interpret this ingredient is a bone from the person you’re cloning. This would obviously rule out Creepy Luz as a Grimwalker, since Luz - unless we missed something very important - is currently in possession of all of her bones.

But... well, I’m not sure. After all, it’d be a bit inconvenient if you had to steal chunks of bones from people every time you wanted to clone them. And, as originally mentioned, ‘ortet’ is specifically a botanical term. Plus, this is the Boiling Isles we’re talking about. I absolutely would not be surprised if this actually referred to a plant or something - heck, maybe it’s even the brown and green goop I mentioned earlier!

There’s also the intentional capitalization of ORTET. None of the other ingredients are written like that, so why is this one? Maybe it’s a proper noun - a specific person or place - or even an acronym. In that case, ‘Bone of ORTET’ - and Grimwalkers as a whole - may be something completely different from what we’ve been thinking.

As always, there’s simply no way to know for sure what the answers are. But one thing’s certain: I’m very excited to see what lore comes out of the upcoming midseason finale.

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formenis · 4 years

Text

Investigation

Anon asked: “ Can you do a one-shot of the task force showing up at HQ to see a playpen with a baby playing in it and they just assume that L kidnapped a baby and start demanding answers and L tells them it's his baby and his wife is busy working another case so he gets to watch the baby”

Of course~ I adore Dad!L♥ Anyway, sorry if you find mistakes, English is not my first language.

warnings: none

requested: yes

C/A = child alias

W/A = wife alias

H/T = hair texture

H/C = hair colour

Tokyo in august could be so damn hot and humid and Misa realised it very soon. Since she was announced as starring in director Nishinaka's newest movie, her agenda was full of appointments and the high temperatures weren't helping her in focusing on her work. Hopefully it would be over soon meaning she could go at L's HQ to see Light.

«Today could be a hot day but nothing is hotter than my Light~» she said dreamily out loud during the shot.

«What did you say, Misa Misa?» Matsuda, or "Matsui" when he was with her, played as her manager when she wasn’t at the HQ and it seemed he enjoyed it more than his actual job as a detective.

«Nothing Matsu…»

♰ TIME SKIP, AT L'S HQ ♰

«Finally, some fresh air» Misa sighed in relief once inside the building. She was still followed by Matsuda but they soon would split apart since he had to go to the monitoring room with the task force and the blonde girl wanted to relax in one of the many lounges (and maybe reading some magazines).

They were going to walk in two separated directions when they saw Watari at the end of the corridor with a big package.

«Have you noticed it, Matsu?»

«The fact that both Ryuzaki and Watari are acting strange these days? Yeah, it's hard not to notice it» and if someone like Matsuda noticed it, it must be pretty obvious then. It was true: recently, the greatest detective in the world and his supplier of logistics were so out of character. They would talk about toys, coloured pencils and bath tubs. It was quite strange thou.

«I wonder what's inside that box…»

«Let's go ask him, Misa Misa» Matsuda suggested with too much enthusiasm.

«No Matsu! Watari will never tell us…we have to investigate»

And with that, their personal investigation started. Matsuda and Misa discreetly followed Watari around the headquarters with this large package in his hands. They noticed he had a sort of big cross body bag full of something. Could they be L's new purchases? Or was L planning something unaware of the entire task-force?

Watari entered a room and the door closed behind him almost immediately, leaving Matsuda and Misa behind a corner. They were so focused in spying Watari that they didn't notice someone not far from them.

«Matsuda! Misa! What are you doing?» it was Aizawa, the detective with black hair and dark brown eyes, he was depicted as a tall man with a large afro. In that moment he was looking at them with a frown on his tired face.

«Ah! Aizawa-san!» Misa jumped in fear and hid behind Matsuda.

«Matsuda…why are you here and not in the monitoring room? We have a case to solve…you're first a detective» Aizawa scolded him as if he was a disobedient child. The younger man sighed in defeat realising he was right but Misa didn't quite agree.

«Wait Aizawa! We're solving a case actually!» the blonde idol came out from behind Matsuda and stood for herself.

«Really?» the other detective replied sceptically. «About what? Matsuda's lack of interest in the Kira case?» he crossed his arms waiting for a satisfying answer.

Misa was going to reply when she heard a sound coming from the room where Watari was. She peeked from behind the corner and saw the old man walking away from said room without the huge package and the cross body bag.

«Now Matsu!» she exclaimed and rushed before the door would close again. Matsuda followed her immediately while Aizawa stood there confused.

«Wait you two!» he joined them shortly after that.

The three of them ran towards the door and entered abruptly inside. After a whole minute of silence Misa started to complain. «There's nothing here!»

«Can we come back to work now?» Aizawa sighed and turned to leave the room when suddenly they heard a loud thud behind them followed by a baby cry. At first, they exchanged a concerned look then turned around at the same time.

And there it was: a dark purple baby playpen with a child inside. The sound they heard came from a toy that fell outside the "cage" and the baby was crying because they couldn’t reach it with their tiny hands.

«Aww! So cuuuute!» she took the toy and returned it to the baby. «Here sweetie~». Now that she was closer she could take a good look at them: H/T, H/C hair, puffy cheeks and two big black eyes; the baby wore a light blue romper suit with white clouds on it.

The kid took the toy from Misa's hands but his eyes stared at her with curiosity. For some reason, that baby reminded her of Ryuzaki.

«Why there's a baby here?»

«Except for you, Aizawa, nobody has children here…» Matsuda pointed out looking at his colleague.

The three of them were still talking about the baby that they didn't notice someone else entered the room.

«What's happening here?» the voice of Soichiro interrupted Matsuda and Aizawa's conversation. The Police Chief examined carefully the room in search for the source of that confusion and gasped loudly when he saw the child.

«A baby?!»

«What baby, Chief?» Mogi, not far from Soichiro, was the last one to enter the room and he had the same reaction of Yagami-san at the sight of the kid. «Aizawa, is he your son?»

«What-No! My son is a bit older than this one»

Now that the task-force was reunited, they proposed so many theories to justify the presence of that child: was he Watari's grandson? Or was he L's little brother? They even suggested he was related to Misa but she denied it.

In the meantime, the idol had eyes only for the kid. She was observing him playing inside the playpen with many toys: dolls, jigsaws, games of strategy or logic and plushes. He had a lot of paper sheets and coloured pencils scattered around him too.

«Can you talk, sweetie?» she asked him maybe too much hopefully. He was two years old (or maybe less) and it was very likely that he didn't talk at all.

The baby boy looked away from his toys to stare at her; he then pulled the pacifier off his mouth. «Yes» he surprisingly replied with a voice that melted Misa's heart.

«My name is Misa, what's yours?»

The child mumbled something like C/A [child alias] melting even more her heart for the cuteness. Misa started to draw and play with him, she was so in love with that kid. Maybe she was imagining her child with Light in that moment.

«Guys! I got it!» Matsuda uttered out from nowhere making everyone jump in surprise. «Now everything is clear!»

«What is clear?» Mogi asked sceptically him.

«Since Ryuzaki wants to catch Kira at all costs, he wants to use this kid for the investigations. Like he is doing with Misa!»

«Don't say such nonsense, Matsuda. Are you suggesting Ryuzaki…» Soichiro stopped himself mid-sentence maybe not able to imagine someone like L doing what he was thinking.

«That Ryuzaki kidnapped this kid!» Matsuda ended Soichiro's phrases with no hesitation. He seemed quite convinced about his reasoning.

However, his colleagues were not convinced as him. Nonetheless, they admitted L was someone capable of extreme measures in order to achieve a certain result. Maybe Matsuda was not wrong after all.

«I can't conceive the fact that Ryuzaki kidnapped this little boy» Soichiro said thoughtfully while observing the child now in Misa's arms. When he approached the boy, his gaze softened. «Hello little one»

C/A looked at Soichiro and the first thing he did was to touch his moustaches. It was followed by a loud laugh maybe because they tickled his hand. Shortly after that, C/A wanted to grab Soichiro's glasses but he ended up dirtying them.

«There's only a way to find the truth, Chief» Aizawa told him with his usual serious voice tone. «Let's go ask Ryuzaki»

♰ MEANWHILE ♰

The greatest detective L was looking at many screens at the same time, absorbing tons of different information all at once. He was going to lick the chocolate from a donut when he saw something alarming with the corner of his eye: the playpen was empty.

He quickly called Watari to ask him why C/A was not in his temporary room. From the screens he could see his mentor enter the room and check the playpen; Watari calmed L down by telling him that the task-force must have discovered the room and now they were playing with him somewhere in the building.

«What's going on, Ryuzaki?» Light asked him quite worried. He noticed how agitated L was but he couldn’t figure out the reason. Let's not forget they were handcuffed together.

L was going to call everyone in the monitoring room when he heard the main door being thrusted open with force. Then someone span his chair.

«Ryuzaki! We need an explanation!»

«Misa-san, I don’t have time for this-» he looked past her and saw C/A in Soichiro's arms while playing with his moustaches. L rushed towards him picking C/A up. Once in the greatest detective's arms, the baby relaxed immediately and placed the head on the shoulder.

«Is it true that you kidnapped this kid to use him in the investigations?» Matsuda asked swiftly feeling really determined.

L (and Light too) sighed frustrated, not expecting smart thoughts from him. He was going to scold him when C/A started to pull his white shirt mumbling something.

«What is it, C/A?» L asked in his usual monotone voice. However, when near that baby, his voice would become warmer and gentler even though the task-force didn’t notice it.

The baby didn’t reply, it seemed he just wanted L's attention. The two of them were in their own personal bubble and the task-force was staring at them in disbelief: what was happening in front of them?

«It seems you need an explanation, as Misa-san said before» L started to say and according to the many nods he heard, they were eager to know. «I didn’t kidnap this child, of course. He is my son, C/A»

«Whaaaat?!» Misa's reaction summed up perfectly what the task-force was feeling: confusion, bewilderment and doubt. If Soichiro couldn’t imagine someone like L kidnapping a baby, the fact that he had a son was even more incredible for him.

«Why didn’t you tell us before?» Soichiro asked him both curious and upset after a long silence.

«Because it's not relevant for the investigations, Yagami-san» L replied frankly while looking at him with his dull black eyes.

«Does he have a mother?» it was Aizawa's turn to ask, since he was more sensitive about family.

«Of course he has, she's my wife»

«Are you married, Ryuzaki?» Light was in disbelief as everyone else in the room.

«That's what I said, Light-kun»

Misa, being…Misa, started to squeal with her usual high-pitched voice. She wanted to know every detail about his wife, how and when they met, their marriage, the pregnancy and so on. Of course L didn’t tell much details, his usual answer at Misa's questions was «Classified information». What the task-force understood was that L's wife, W/A, was an important agent that had the task to solve the most delicate cases around the world (much like him more or less). Moreover, both Soichiro and Mogi noticed how L would smile more while talking about her or C/A, he seemed truly in love with his family and this small detail revealed a rare and intimate part of L's personality.

«You didn’t tell us why C/A is here, Ryuzaki» Light pointed out while the baby was playing in his lap.

«W/A is solving a case in Europe so I have to take care of him» the detective picked the baby up from Light's lap carefully. He didn’t really like that his son was so close to the first suspect of the Kira case.

«Hey, I wanted to play with C/A…»

«It's dinner time for him, Light-kun» L stood up from his metallic chair and started to walk away from the room, followed closely by Light. «Watch carefully, you can learn something for the future» he teased the young boy.

«Ryuzaki!»

#death note #death note headcanons #death note scenario #death note request #l lawliet #l x reader #l x you #l x y/n #dad L

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1-800-seo · 3 years

Text

1-800-SEO presents: — Where Is My Mind?

genre: dystopia/slight angst/escapism

pairing: Johnny Suh/Gender Neutral Reader

warnings: IV’s/needles, intravenous use of narcotics, bad coping mechanisms, alcohol use, depictions/descriptions of poverty to a degree, implied sexual activity, dreams

word count: 2506 words

in affiliation with: @127-mile ‘s

drive in fic collaboration

summary: Based in a future where your wildest dreams can be lived in for a few hours through intravenous methods, vices and virtues blur. Scraping by is all you can do, and escapism is all you live for. Maybe that will change when you meet him. (Loosely based on Inception.)

The familiar haze of mental fog clouds your mind, it coats the edges of your thoughts like a viscous syrup. You find yourself in a wheat field, the golden crops stretching for as far as the eye can see ahead of you. The swirling breeze passes over your hands and you feel it tickle, a sensation you’ve not felt in a long time. After taking a crisp piece of the surrounding plants into your hands, you feel each and every texture it offers with a fingertip. It’s not like you’ve ever touched real wheat before, you want to imprint it to memory. With the piece of crop still in your dominant hand, you turn your head, body following its arc too, and your eyes meet a cottage. The building just exudes a comforting energy, it's homely even when your real home is nothing alike. The trees that are positioned off to the side of the cottage provide the right amount of shade, one side of the house has full direct sunlight and the other is gently shaded, but in a comforting way. You drop the wheat and make your way over to the cottage. As you make your way up to the front door, following the perfectly placed path, you take in the smell of the decorative flowers that adorn the surrounding gardens. The smell of real flowers is something you’re not used to. Finally upon reaching the door, you outstretch your hand to grasp the door handle. The moment your skin makes contact with the sun-heated metal, a blinding hot white shoots across your vision, and pulls you out.

Waking up is never easy, but it’s not like you’re not used to it. The moment you open your eyes you are met with the same dingy apartment as almost every other wake up. Your arms feel weak from lack of circulation as you reach across to pull out your IV. It doesn’t sting, you’ve done this so many times, it’d be surprising if it did. As your eyes adjust to the light you start to make out the time, it’s displayed on the heads up view of your plexi-wall, and reads 11:36PM. Stars, it’d been 7 hours since you last ate, and your body is definitely letting you know as it starts to wake up from its lulled state. You shift your wobbly legs away from the crusty office chair you were sitting on and begin to make your way over to the food dispensary. You hold your palm over the sensor as a silver sachet slides out and into your palm. You make quick work of depositing its contents into a bowl and mixing it with hot water, your hunger spurring you to be swifter.

Before you know it, all of the food has been devoured, your stomach full, and the night is ready to be conquered. You have no desire to leave the flat, nothing calling you besides money to leave the (lack of) comfort of your home. But of course, money always beats out desire, and so you hastily put on your shoes and proofed jacket, grab your safety umbrella and backpack, and leave. Things had to be paid for, and your credits were seriously running low, if you wanted to continue with your expensive hobby, it meant scrounging. You’re not dumb, you knew that daydreaming wasn’t a cheap, safe, respectable, or even remotely healthy hobby to have, but at this point it was escapism, freedom from pain, and so you’d do anything for that sweet peace.

Once you’re at street level, you put up your umbrella. At this point it’s better to be safe than sorry, the acid rain warning that you saw on your dash ringing out in your memory. It never used to be like this, acid rain was once unheard of, but in the last ten years pollution came to the point that even the water cycle couldn’t be trusted. That’s the joys of living in urban scum, you think to yourself. Your ears register the faint sounds of sizzling rain droplets on your umbrella and you're grateful for it now. Your pace quickens, and after a blur of around 20 minutes walk, you arrive at your workplace.

Workplace was definitely too light of a word to call the building that stands before you. The imposing structure juts out into the dark with brightly coloured lights on its each corner, signalling its presence, as if it was easy to miss without the lights. The commonplace sound of thumping bass echoes about the street for meters, and it only gets louder as you walk up the stairs and into the building. A sign reading ‘Sondaero LivingSpaces’ greets you, but you know full well the people here are barely living. Oh no, this type of place is home to some of the most prolific daydreamers; well, the most prolific for the underground scene. You step through a set of large doors and out into the main courtyard. It’s an indoor park, filled with neon bioluminescent plants, and jarringly placed speakers. If this was any other establishment, the sea of ravers surrounded by people daydreaming on cot beds would be jarring to you, but you’re so used to it that you couldn’t care less; or more so, you’re plainly desensitised to it.

You find your way out onto the dancefloor and surround yourself with people - the more people the better, it just makes your job easier. Safely hidden in the palm of your hand is a biometric chip you crafted yourself. Implants are a little drastic in your opinion, especially when cosmetic, but this was a necessary thing to you considering it earnt you money. The function of the chip worked like this: every person is assigned biometric numerical values by the government of their country, this is to make controlling their finances easier without having a physical device like a debit card or a mobile phone. Instead each user is assigned these numerical values based on their facial bone structure, and the chip's job was to scan this using minute sensors. All you had to do was simply wave your hand in the direct vicinity of their face, and await results - those results being the chip draining their bank account of credit and depositing it into yours. The waving part is complicated in normal use, but when at a club, where wild dancing is the norm, it makes hand movements so much less conspicuous. As you imagine the small amounts of money gradually making its way into your account a man approaches you to your side.

The guy has long-ish dark brown hair, with eyes of the same colour and a tall stature. He begins dancing near you, slowly moving closer and closer towards your vicinity. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t attracted to this man, he was objectively good looking, and the smirk he was wearing on his face was hard to ignore. Before you know it, he’s leaning in your ear and shout-whispering: “hey, do you wanna get a drink with me, angel?” The confidence in him to skip all normal greetings is astounding to you, but in some ways that makes him even more attractive to you, so you whisper-shout back “yeah!” and lead him over to the bar by the elbow.

After you have a few drinks in you, dancing becomes thoughtless, and swaying and grinding on the nameless man is even easier. “Yo, what’s your name?” You ask over the pulsing beat. His response is a finger trailing up your spine with the words ‘Johnny’ leaving his lips. Maybe those disquieting thoughts aren’t only silenced by daydreaming, maybe this could be another outlet. That thought curls in your mind, the wispy tendrils of a coherent thought fading like a misty night.

A few more drinks in your systems leads you to going home with the man, but your memories fade away as the night (or should you say early morning?) carries on. It passes by in a blur and the next thing you know you’re being startled awake by a cat sitting on your chest, with an unearthly headache.

Once you finally manage to extricate yourself from the cat’s grasps, you sit up and immediately notice the sleeping form of Johnny next to you on the tatami, his chest rising and falling with each breath. As quietly as you can, you tiptoe up off the tatami floor, acknowledge the ache throughout your entire body and move towards his kitchenette for a glass of water. Unbeknownst to you, Johnny apparently has a rudely noisy water purifying outlet attached to his faucet, and it decides to make itself known the moment you hover your palm over the on sensor. Johnny quickly stirs awake at the noise, and he sleepily opens his eyes in your direction.

“Wha-what’s going on?” He asks, squinting as his dark eyes adjust to the light. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was just trying to get some water.” You respond, tottering back over to the tatami, glass of water in hand. “Um, I’m sorry, I don’t really remember much of last night, did we uh- what did we do?” You’re aware your question was haphazard, but the incessant hangover looming in your head has your thoughts less than clear.

“If you are wondering if we had sex, the answer is yes, but the only thing I remember is waking up covered in… unsavoury stuff...so that certainly was a way of knowing how. I also know that apparently at some part of the night we decided to dream ‘cause I had to tidy up the gear earlier, but to put any worries at bay, I’m clean and vaccinated so...yeah.” He finishes the end of his sentence, trailing off. Well, at least the mystery man is somewhat of a gentleman, and he’s not gonna give you anything nasty which is always a good thing. You realise his late night cleaning must’ve turned to yourself at some point considering you are somewhat dressed and clean, but you can’t find it in you to care, you’d come to this shameful point so what did a bit of aftercare matter.

“Oh ok, and thanks for letting me know. I’m clean and fully vaccinated too.” You respond, unsure how to act around him. Perhaps he feels your apprehension, and in answer he pats a spot on the tatami next to him, just away from his cat too. You make your way over to the spot, feet padding on the floor as you go. “Your cat’s cute, they decided to sit on my chest this morning. Despite knocking the breath out of me, they’re pretty charming.” Johnny’s eyes widen at this knowledge before throwing his head back and letting out a hearty laugh. It’s somewhat comforting to hear such a genuine laugh; it takes your mind off the world of insincerity around you.

“I apologise for Ten, he gets cuddly in the mornings.” Johnny picks up his cat to give you more space, Ten’s legs sprawling wide in the air before being put down to safety.

There’s something so warm and familiar about Johnny’s presence, it has you naturally leaning into him, and his arm comes to rest around your shoulders as your head gently leans on his chest. The feeling is just so warm and despite knowing you don’t know him well, it almost feels like you do. It feels like a lover long lost, and now he has returned a warm feeling spreads throughout your chest. It’s almost inexplicable, and if you were to try to justify it to anyone other than yourself, a wave of embarrassment would certainly wash over you.

Looking down at you, he meets your eyes, and they seem somewhat fond; not what you were expecting to see. “Do you fancy dreamin’?” He asks, still maintaining eye contact? “Hmm, sure, hopefully I’ll remember it this time.” You reply with a smile and he reciprocates.

Before you even open your eyes you’re met with the sensation of skin on skin. Beneath your fingertips you feel, what you suppose is a firm chest, and when you open your eyes your suspicions are confirmed. Your hands are resting on Johnny’s taut chest, and of course this is what an unscripted dream with the two of you looks like. You feel that you are naked too, and his hands rest gently around your waist, a relaxing gentle weight reassuring you he’s still there. You meet each other’s eyes and the tension is palpable in the air. He dips his head down and kisses you, lips melting together with ease. His hands move from their placing and trail down to cup the small of your back, your bodies meeting infinitely closer.

The two of you move together like jigsaw pieces slotting into place, there’s no conscious thoughts, only the two of you existing in this dream space. Part of you can feel Johnny’s thoughts swirling as you share the hazy unstructured scape. There’s hints of lust mixed with a sleepy mindset, probably left over from waking up moments ago in the real world. He’s set on being a lazy lover right now, selfishly devouring you with no haste in any of his actions, just taking these moments for himself. He can feel your thoughts just as much as you can feel his, he knows you’re feeling relaxed with him and he’s pleased at that, he knows how good you feel right now and he’s proud. He wants to use all of this time to make you feel good. You’re both in agreement that losing yourself in each other is ever so easy, and so you both fall into the other's grasps.

The second time you wake up, Ten is resting on your feet, warming them from the slight chill of the room. Johnny had roused quicker than you, and he’d already removed the IV from your arm. You spot him winding up the fluid bags and putting them into the insulated case they reside in. “How are you feeling?” He asks whilst disposing of the needles in the marked sharps box. “Good, lighter than usual. I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, albeit mostly imaginary.”

The floaty feeling remains in the forefront of your consciousness. Despite feeling lighter, less burdened, you’re aware that you need to change your vices. Constantly daydreaming, forming relationships through them, isn’t healthy. Continuous escapism isn’t a way to live; numbing yourself over and over again won’t solve anything. With a new fervor to gain meaning in your life, you rise from your place on the tatami. “What are your plans for today, John?” You ask, perhaps vices and meaning aren’t that different from each other.

long time no see! this is my penultimate fic :(( hopefully u guys enjoyed it! I know it’s not like my usual style and is somewhat offbeat but I hope it makes sense hehe <3

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shatouto · 4 years

Note

YOUR BABY VADER IS SO GOOD I NEED TO GIVE HIM ALL THE HUGS. please tell me he gets like. a weighted blanket or soft clothes. or! or! or! anakin and obi-wan go to the market because nobody knows that anakin was vader, and anakin gets some nice clothes in pretty colors and theyre very soft and he gets some ingredients for cooking and droid parts to play with and everything is nice and good for him

GOSH thank you!!! aww i love that idea sO MUCH just reading your prompt makes me feel warm fuzzy inside. im not sure which baby vader you’re referring to (because there are so many of them in my wips and i love it) but i’ll assume this is the au ive been writing with @obiwanobi. so pls enjoy this near 2k of tooth-rotting fluff; i took some liberties

who likes sweet things

The clinic smells like bacta, as clinics do. But instead of sterile durasteel walls, the floors are carpeted and the walls are painted and the windows are curtained and everything is multicolored and joyful. Across from Anakin sits a healer - a kindly woman, very small in stature, with large, gentle eyes, wispy hair and pointed ears. She chats happily with Obi-Wan while working in tandem with the medical droid to secure the prosthetic to Anakin’s elbow.

“...disheartening, isn’t it?” She chirps, her three-fingered hands deftly fastening bolts around the cap and manipulating the droid to screw down the simple plating. “I can’t count the number of innocent civilians who have come here to fit a new limb. Just last week, I constructed an entire exoskeleton for this young lady. Poor girl, so young.”

“That is so good of you. I am glad for the young lady to find you. She came to the right place.” Obi-Wan smiles. “Those of us who have some sense all know Healer Saada’s prostheses are of the highest quality in all of Coruscant.”

“Ah, young man. Flattery gets you nowhere. Have you learned nothing as a youngling?” Saada shakes her head at the Jedi, then turns her great eyes to Anakin, ears perking. “And you. You’re a rather quiet boy, aren’t you?”

Anakin presses his lips into a tight, blanched line. This woman may not be a Jedi any longer, but she is not Force-blind. He glances to Obi-Wan, breaths bated.

Obi-Wan rests a hand on his shoulder. “He’s quite shy, Healer Saada. Please do not worry.”

“Oh, poor thing.” The healer hops onto a moving droid. It rolls towards the counter, where she sorts out some bottles while asking, seemingly in an absent-minded manner, “Where did he come from?”

Anakin catches his gaze the moment Obi-Wan looks at him. Obi-Wan parts his lips, as if ready to lie.

“Tatooine,” Anakin mutters.

Astonishment freezes across Obi-Wan’s face, and Anakin turns away. The admission isn’t for her, though he supposes he doesn’t mind her knowing. She’s just a person. She doesn’t even know his name, or what he has done, or what the dead Sith Lord has made Anakin do to earn his demise. Obi-Wan does.

“So far away!” the healer comments lightly, turning around with a soft smile. “What a great trip you must have made.”

“Indeed he did. He lives here now,” Obi-Wan clarifies. Anakin opens his hand, and the healer places a stretchy ball in it. She instructs him to practice squeezing it to get used to the new artificial limb, before sending them off.

They exit the clinic and out under a vast starlit sky. Gentle winds whirl overhead as they climb into their speeder, heading for the usual park where Anakin takes his walk. The night has gotten cold, yet the darkness is unusually diluted. As they pass by downtown, music wafts up alongside the scent of butter and frying oil. Anakin looks down to see a sea of lights over a town square, and colorful awnings draped over kiosks of all sorts. There seem to be many people there, eating, laughing, hand in hand. He eyes them closely, fingers tightening on the side door of the speeder.

“It’s a celebration, Anakin,” Obi-Wan supplies, as they come to a stoplight. Anakin turns around, and his heartbeat ratchets up when Obi-Wan reaches over to brush a lock of hair from his forehead.

“What are they celebrating?”

“Harvest season. It’s an old tradition, I’ll give you that. Coruscant barely has a greenhouse on it, let alone agricultural land.” Obi-Wan chuckles, then quiets down into a thoughtful smile. “Though I suppose the election result is as good of an occasion to celebrate as any.”

“Election?” Anakin asks, just as they pass by a great billboard with the face of a brown-haired, brown-eyed woman in a night-purple cape. The speeder is going slow enough for him to decipher the words written beneath it. Obi-Wan keeps saying he’s a fast learner, so he tries to read at every turn. “Chancellor… A-Ame…” He frowns. “Amidala?”

“Very good, Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s eyes crinkle at him for a second before returning to the path ahead. “Padmé Amidala is the new Chancellor now. It was a rather close call. She is well-loved by many people, but not quite so in the Senate.”

Half of those words mean almost nothing to Anakin. “Why?”

“Well,” Obi-Wan hums. “One could say the Senate hasn’t been loving its people so much, in a while.”

Obi-Wan grows pensive, as he oft does. The faint, warm light from below and the cool starlight from beyond color him in an otherworldly tint. His profile is startlingly delicate, from the slope of his nose to the soft fluff of his whiskers and beard. Even the flutter of his lashes is graceful. Then Anakin remembers he shouldn’t stare. His eyes strays towards the bright lights and jovial music beneath.

“...But I am hardly brave enough for politics,” Obi-Wan muses, after a stretch of silence. When he looks Anakin’s way it is with some tiredness in his small smile. “Say, Anakin. How would you like to stop by the night market, for a change?”

They lower their altitude as soon as Anakin nods his agreement. Obi-Wan parks their speeder, draws up Anakin’s hood, and takes his right hand. Anakin’s synthetic nerves light up, even though it’s only enough transmission for him to feel touch and not warmth, it being a very standard model of prosthetic. His face warms up under the hood of his cloak. He’s glad Obi-Wan doesn’t notice.

They let themselves be carried by the stream of the crowd, of parents jogging after excitable children toddling about with sweetmeats in their hands, sugar on their cheeks; of young couples, one’s arm around the other’s waist, sharing bites of fluffy sweet bread or sips of mulled wine. Light shines golden and amber through bottles of syrup and jars of honey, glitters on the crystal sugar and drizzled glaze on heaps of candies in open boxes. The smell is divine whenever they pass by a warm stall with steam bannering overhead.

Anakin shivers lightly, even though the crowd blocks most of the winds. Obi-Wan tugs at his hand. “Let’s get you something warm.”

He follows Obi-Wan. A paper cup is pressed into his hand, ample and warm against his skin. The drink smells and tastes sweet with a note of toasted bitterness, the texture creamy and rich on his tongue. There are floating white chunks of some sort of confectionery in there.

“What’s this?”

“Hot chocolate.” Obi-Wan raises his identical cup and touches it to Anakin’s. “Do you like it?”

”Yes,” Anakin says, and Obi-Wan’s smile warms his belly more than any hot drink.

They continue on their path, still a straight line from one end of the market to another. Anakin’s wide eyes travel from stand to stand: here a string of patchwork puppets, there a counter of carved wooden figures; and perfume vials, colorful figures (“It’s artisan soap, Anakin”), bouquets of everlasting tissue flowers tied in silk ribbons. There are clothes: soft robes in various colors, touted as “warm in winter and breezy in summer,” per the merchants; tunics with blossoming patterns embroidered at the collars or sleeve hems. There are kiosks of datatapes, illustrated by sparkling holograms of a High Republic castle, or a great speeder model, or even some holodrama character whose name Anakin can’t remember.

And then a booth takes his breath away. Glimmering under the light are shelves after shelves of mini household droids, custom-made transmitters, and a variety of artfully wired core processors. Replacement parts bathe in the blue glow of holograms depicting the corresponding droid models; and below all of this is a row of toolboxes of gleaming silver and shiny ivory, even iridescent inlays of mother-of-pearl. The booth seems to be one of a kind in the vast entirety of the market.

Anakin stands, transfixed. His fingers itch, and one of the tools begins to quiver and lift into the air, unbeknownst to the seller who has his back to it. He wants it. The thing will be his.

“Anakin? Anakin!” Obi-Wan’s hushed voice rustles by his ear, jolting him back to his senses.

The tool drops down with a small clang, barely audible in the noises of the festivity. Fear bursts coldly in Anakin’s chest - he shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t, his Master would be very unhappy if he found out his young foolish apprentice had tried to waste his time playing with droids again. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, bowing his head, even as Obi-Wan squeezes his hand.

“Do you want that?” Obi-Wan asks, softly.

Anakin peeks up. The empty paper cup is still slightly warm in his hand, and he crushes it absentmindedly, tightening and loosening his fingers just to have something to do. “I, uh…”

Obi-Wan’s hand covers his own, gently prying the crushed paper cup out from the curl of his fingers. “I would love to get it for you, if you want it. It’s the toolbox on the bottom shelf, second from the left, isn’t it?”

The light on Obi-Wan’s smile is a honeyed gold, pooling stars into his eyes, and Anakin is transfixed again, not quite by the tinkering booth this time. He looks down as his face warms and his heart still pounds hard, and slowly he nods.

—

They come back to Obi-Wan’s quarters with a small armful: a new set of robes in muted, ashen pink; a box of tools with carved handles that are probably more fancy than they need to be, but still practical enough; a new array of spices and condiments; and a great tin of “absolutely decadent powder for drinking chocolate, Anakin, I can’t believe I let you persuade me into buying this.”

“You are the one who likes sweet things,” Anakin counters, arranging the new addition into their pantry. Obi-Wan laughs aloud by his side.

“Now how could you possibly know that?”

“I cook. I know that.” Anakin shrugs, and admits, “...and Ahsoka said so.”

Obi-Wan’s brows shoot up. He’s quiet for a few seconds, but the wide smile that follows only seems all the more brighter for it. “Best friends now, aren’t you?”

“No,” Anakin huffs and closes the pantry door. He doesn’t say more. Ahsoka gave him her old voicebook plug-in and lent him her comics; in exchange, he would pack her this spicy meat stew whenever she needed to leave for some time. They struck a fair deal, is all.

Obi-Wan doesn’t say more, either. They settle on the couch, Anakin almost rushing to fish out the toolbox from its paper bag. Finally having two hands to work with again, he examines it with zeal. It’s a good set of tools, he knows it; he hasn’t been allowed to touch these things for years, but he still knows. It’s in his blood. He can still wire standard circuit boards for protocol droids (the slightly outdated type) with his eyes closed; can definitely assemble a cleaning-type mouse droid from scratch if he’s allowed to scavenge for parts. He smiles down at the lacquered handles and the durasteel glint, picking up and balancing each microscrew, each hexagonal wrench, each tiny plier.

“...I hope it was enjoyable for you,” Obi-Wan speaks up, all of a sudden.

Anakin turns to him, not bothering to wipe off his smile. “It was.” He chews on the inside of his cheeks. “I’ve never had so many things. Thank you.”

Obi-Wan studies him for a long moment, more intent than he ever did. By the look on his face, Anakin expects him to say many things, but he doesn’t. He just pats Anakin’s elbow, where the prosthetic is joined, and murmurs, “You’re welcome.” His eyes have a moist sheen to them, smiling though he is.

#raised as sith anakin #always a sith anakin #obikin #shatou writes #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi #it was fun writing this #i cant believe i wrote this in one go

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falcor-thee-luck-dragon · 3 years

Text

Love Cuts Deep

Chapter 12- Whatever It Takes

Summary: This is it, you’re finally going to help save the world and if all goes to plan, bring Bucky back in the process.

Warning: bit o angst

Masterlist

It’s been a solid month since Tony and Rocket have been crafting tirelessly on the construction of the giant time portal machine type deal, or whatever he’s calling it nowadays. And to your great surprise, as well as everyone else’s, the first test run with Clint was an undeniable success.

Compared to the first one with Scott, things have come a long way.

Clint was able to wander around in that alternate universe for a couple minutes without returning with so much as a single scratch. Thus boosting the teams confidence and excitement for the inevitable time heist that’s in the works. So as of now, everyone’s currently brainstorming as to how this will go about for the most successful mission possible.

“Okay, so the how works.” Begins Steve as everyone sits around the large meeting room, glass screens projecting info about the stones displayed in the background, “Now, we gotta figure out the when and where. Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones...”

Tony cuts in with his spout of knowledge, “Or substitute the word “encounter” for “damn near been killed” by one of the six Infinity Stones.” Damn straight, your ass got launched into a Wakandian tree last you saw those goddamn stones.

“Well I haven’t..” Interjects Scott with a puzzled look, confusion clear in his voice, “..but I don’t even know what the hell you’re all talking about.” Oh right, he missed out on all the fun while he was fucking around in the quantum realm.

Sitting on the table you shrug, “Be glad you’ve never seen them, those fucking space rocks will kick your ass if used less then kindly, but it doesn’t matter now. From my understanding we only have enough Pym Particles for one round-trip each.” You explain as they all listen intently, “And clearly these fucking stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history.”

Tony nods, “Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?”

“Which means we have to pick out targets.” Adds Clint as Tony points in his direction, “Correct.”

Steve soon gains everyone’s attention once again, “So, let’s start with the Aether. Thor, what do you know?” Asks the blonde, all eyes turn towards the back corner of the room to find Thor slouched in an armchair, beer can in hand while the other one keeps partially hidden in his pajama pants.

A dark pair of sunglasses conceals whether he’s currently awake or not. “Is he asleep?” Wonders Natasha as Rodney humorously adds, “No, no. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

A few soft chuckles are heard as you listen intently to the god of thunder, “He’s alive, and most definitely sleeping off that last beer.” You muse as they all give a collective curious brow while you simply shrug, “I can hear his heartbeat, and it’s low enough to tell me he’s not dead.....Well, at least not yet.” You mutter, eyeing up the sleeping giant as an idea sparks into your head.

A second later you pick up a discarded empty beer can sitting right next to you on the table before throwing it at the snoozing god, the thin metal smacks against his forehead with that familiar pop of the can sound, falling to the ground with a crackly ting as Thor jolts awake. And back to the land of the living.

“Nordic Santa you’re up.” His head snaps in your direction as he gives a semi-awkward half grin.

“Ah right, right, thank you angry one.” Points Thor with a genuine smile now as he quickly gets up before walking over to the screen depicting the red swirly like stone substance. Although soon he delves into the finding of the red mass, what it did to his former flame, that he took her to Asgard seeking help for her sickness, how he showed Jane to his mother, and then he immediately got sad and lost all motivation and train of thought on anything related to that stone.

Ah yes, personal trauma. It’ll do that to you.

Later that day when everyone was feasting on some Chinese takeout, Rocket began an in-depth explanation into where the Power Stone was found; by some guy named Quill who stole it from a planet called Morag. After some time later, Nebula revealed that the Soul Stone was retrieved from Vormir, the place where Thanos murdered her sister Gamora.

It’s been an interesting day to day the least.

Now here you are, slouched comfortably in a lounge chair you stole from the other room, flipping around a pocketknife as Natasha and Tony lay on the nearby table with Bruce sprawled out on the floor in all his Banner-Hulkness. Books scattered everywhere as the two Avengers keep comfortable on some decorative couch pillows as you listen to them brainstorm about the stones whereabouts.

Flipping the knife skillfully between your fingers an idea suddenly pops into your head, “Hey what about that time stone guy you were talking about earlier.”

Banner hums, “Doctor Strange.”

“Yeah, what kind of doctor was he?” Wonders Natasha as you mentally question the same proposition when Tony gives his quick witted answer. “Ear-nose-throat meets rabbit-from-hat.”

“Nice place in the Village, though.” Adds Bruce, Tony agreeing in an instant. “Yeah, on Sullivan Street?”

“Mmm....Bleecker Street.” Mutters Banner as Natasha interrupts, face shifting to realization. “Wait, he lived in New York?”

“No, he lived in Toronto.” Sasses Tony as Banner reveals the truth. “Uh, yeah, on Bleecker and Sullivan.”

Tony coming back with more playful sarcasm, “Have you been listening to anything?”

Suddenly it feels like a lights been switched on in your brain, “Guys.” You quickly implore as they keep silent to listen, “If you pick the right year, wouldn’t there be three stones in New York?” Their faces all collectively shift to astonished realization when Bruce quickly sits up to look at you. “Shut the front door.”

“Well at least someone is paying attention.” Quips Tony as Natasha smacks him with a book.

——

“All right.” Begins Steve as the whole team gathers in the meeting room, “We have a plan. Six stones, three teams, one shot.”

You nod, smirking with excitement, “Let’s get these fuckers and maybe end up saving the world while we’re at it.” He sends you a proud grin and within the next half an hour are the eleven of you suited up and standing in a large circle atop the glass of the giant time portal.

“Five years ago, we lost. All of us....we lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams. You know your missions. Get the stones. Get them back. One round-trip each. No mistakes....no do-overs.”

“Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn’t mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives...and we’re gonna win.” Affirms Steve with a mutual nod, “Whatever it takes.” He gives one last look around the circle of familiar faces before nodding, “Good luck.”

Nudging the muscular blonde, he shares a small smile with you as you quickly return it, “You practice that last night?” Steve chuckles at your amusing comment while Rocket and Scott gush over his admittedly incredible motivational speech skills.

“Just thought the team could use the confidence boost.” Admits Steve as Bruce flicks the motherboards switches to get the time portal up and running. The machine whirs to life while everyone begins putting on their helmets.

Your slightly apprehensive gaze trails to your left where Natasha is standing, she gives a playful smirk as you force a true smile, “See you in a minute.” Chides the red head as you break out into a smirk.

“будь осторожен там Romanoff.” You add, shifting into your natural dialect that she’s all to familiar with, your actual words translating to “be careful out there” as you give her one last flash of a grin.

A hot second later, your body shrinks to the size of an atom as you feel like you’re entire body is free falling out of an airplane in some strange rainbow colored portal that shifts to shimmering diamonds and then finally a blue coral type texture as you find your teams designed route down some swirling tube of blues and bright white lights until at last you land in...

“Holy shit look at this place.” You mutter in absolute awe at the large golden pillars of Asgard, there was no fucking way you were missing out on traveling to this realm. And anyways, Steve kinda made it your task to keep the potbellied god of thunder in check as yourself and Rocket attempt to locate the Reality Stone with Lebowski as your generous tour guide.

Thor smiles fondly, proudly beaming at you with a rare form of happiness as he points towards the large cavernous halls of the royal palace, “Oh this? Yeah, it’s neat isn’t it, I grew up here....played games down this very hallway actually. Me and some friends used to spar one another as children down here with wooden sticks that looked like swor...”

“Thor.” Interrupts Rocket with an annoyed huff, “Remember why we’re actually here.”

You nod in agreement, quickly remembering the current mission, “He’s right. No time to dwell on fond memories, we need to find that stone before anyone sees us. And going by the logic of literally every time traveling movie I’ve ever seen, which admittedly isn’t a lot, but it’s enough that I know no one can see us. Especially you Thor, that would be a big problem for this timeline, so lead the way.”

“Yes, right on that, good point Y/N....okay um...” He looks around for a moment before pointing in the direction of choice, which is down a long spacious hallway, “This way, no ones gonna see us if we go by the dungeons.” Explains Thor as he quickly leads the way down the obnoxiously long hallway that thankfully is decently vacant.

After about five minutes of trekking around the castles interior, Thor guides you and Rocket down a long stairwell of dark grey stone until you reach the bottom floor. There are large basins of fire lighting the way down the lengthy hallway pass, he jogs past a couple golden tinged cells holding a few odd looking prisoners on your way out.

No doubt these fuckers look like they deserve it.

You pay them no mind as Thor hustles silently across the flooring to a door on the far end, though as you’re shuffling past another cell, your eyes land on the green and black clad slender body of a dark haired man laying atop his bed. Face focused towards the white ceiling as he tosses a cylindrical piece of metal in a repeated rhythm only done by that of an incredibly bored individual.

That must be his brother Loki, you draw into conclusion while racing out of sight of the trickster god while Rocket makes haste by your side. Kind of handsome, you think as an unknowing smile finds itself onto your face. God Y/N you truly are a desperate woman. No, just no.

Eventually, Thor leads your little team of three upstairs to some large balcony type area with a grand view of Asgard, the three of you keeping hidden behind one of the multitude of intricately decorated pillars as he eyes up a woman halfway out of a giant door while she accepts some clothing from a maid.

His bearded face lights up in joy as he points a finger towards the brunette woman, “Oh, there’s Jane.” Whispers Thor as she closes the door, the Asgardian maiden leaving and walking elsewhere down another yawning chamber.

“All right.” Starts Rocket as he stands on some ancient rock covered in unknown hieroglyphics before jumping down to face the two of you once the coast is clear, “Here’s the deal tubby. You’re gonna charm her, Y/N’s gonna keep watch, and I’m gonna poke her with this thing..” He shows some strange metal device with three silver prongs sticking out of it, “...and extract the Reality Stone, and get gone lickety-split.”

The optimism off of this creature never fails to astound you.

“Yeah, what he said.” You add with a shrug in Rocket’s direction as Thor sniffs before raising up a finger. “I’ll be right back, okay? The wine cellar is just down here...” Interjects Thor as he slowly begins walking away, clearly ready to abandon his part in the mission, “My father used to have this huge barrel of Aakonian ale. I’ll see if the scullery has a couple of to-go cups.”

“Hey. Hey!” You whisper yell, causing him to stop for the moment, “Aren’t you drunk enough already? Fuck that fancy wine we got better things to do.” You urgently vouch just as some doors loudly open nearby, immediately the three of you hide behind the stone of hieroglyphics and watch as a long haired woman leads the way, a multitude of servants in her wake as she says something about giving books to Loki from the library.

“Who’s the fancy broad?” Wonders Rocket as you raise an intrigued brow at Thor, his eyes never once leave the woman’s as he takes a steady breath, “That’s my mother.” Reveals the disheartened god, a sudden sadness lacing his very words that does not go unnoticed by you, “She dies today.”

Your breath catches in your throat at this sudden tragic news of great loss, you remember when you lost your own mother by the filthy hands of Hydra and how they helped you quickly forget about her. You didn’t have anytime to grieve or even question her sudden disappearance for that matter, “Oh, shit...that’s today.”

You share a nervous look with Rocket as Thor begins taking some deep almost panicked breaths, his emotions all rising together like a swelling storm as his face shifts to an afflicted pain, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this....” Rambles Thor with a shake of his blonde mane, eyes displaying panic, “..I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come. It’s a bad idea!” Whisper yells Thor as he anxiously shifts from one foot to the other.

“Come here.” Beacons Rocket from his perch on the rock.

“No, no, no...” Deviates Thor as he waves his hands nervously in the air like he’s trying to flick some mud off of them, “I think I’m having a panic attack.” Worries the flushed faced god.

“Come here. Right here.” Says Rocket as he points to the rock, an increase in irritation shifting the tone of his voice while Thor breaths heavily, clearly not on board with whatever Rocket’s going to tell him.

“No, no, no, guys I can’t...I can’t do this, I’m sorry but I’m not ready, I can’t...” Thwack, Thor yelps in surprise at your intentionally weak assault on his large bicep, “Y/N what was that for?” He half-offendedly demands, brows furrowed in confusion at the flash of anger racing across your sour glare.

“You think you’re the only one who lost people?” You snap as he lowers his head like a beaten dog, “What the fuck do you think we’re doing here? I lost the only person I ever loved, Rocket lost his whole family, gone, just like that.” You affirm with a snap of your fingers.

His face grows conflicted as you suddenly lose your heated aurora, face falling into a frown as you place a comforting hand upon his shoulder, “Thor, I know it hurts that you lost your mom...believe me I get it, but she’s gone. And there are plenty of people who are only kinda gone, and you can help them.”

Thor nods apprehensively as you share a small smile with him, “So if it’s not too much to ask, can you get your shit together for the next however long this is going to take so we can save the world?”

Rocket chuckles before gaining the both of yours attentions. “Agreed. Now all you gotta do is make schmoopy talk to Pretty Pants and when she’s not looking, suck out the Infinity Stone and help us get our family back. Aight?”

Thor nods once more, face twisting into a saddened pain a he looks down to the floor, “Okay.” Mumbles the god of thunder weakly, face reddening as his eyes get glossy. You let him take a breath as he avoids your gaze at all costs, eyes beginning to water while he tries to play it off.

Giving his shoulder a friendly squeeze, your brows furrow in puzzlement, “Are you crying?”

He shakes his head, some tears slipping despite his verbal protest, “No.” Mutters Thor weakly as his tearful gaze finally picks up to meet you, “Yes..” Squeaks out the teary eyed god while his eyes flicker from the far wall to your face once more, “...Y/N, I feel like I’m losing it. I don’t, I don’t know what I’m doing...I just feel so...shit I don’t know anymore.” Admits the fearful Asgardian as he avoids your softening yet slightly annoyed gaze.

oh, Thor you sad motherfucker. I’ve been there.

Rolling your eyes you gently shake his shoulder for emphasis, “Listen to me you big lion, get your shit together! You can do this. You’re the god of thunder for fucks sake, you can do this Thor.” His face turns into a surprisingly more confident expression as he huffs with a self-assured nod. “I can do this.”

“Yeah...I can do this.” Repeats the Asgardian with a sniffle.

Smirking, you give his arm a friendly smack, “Good. Now let’s do this and get the fuck out of here.” You add before swiftly turning on your heel as you and Rocket lead the way to the door, reaching it, the talking raccoon tugs on your leg before you get a chance to open it. “What is it now?”

“Y/N, we lost him.”

“What?!” Realizing Thor has indeed slipped away and out of sight, you clench your fists in irritation, “Goddammit.” You seethe before looking down at Rocket, “Whatever, we’ll find marshmallow fluff later, let’s just get this stupid rock.”

——

Racing down the palaces golden hallways, your boots thud against the stony ground as Rocket runs on all fours right behind you, “I almost hope they catch you!” You shout in between the yelling of the royal guards as they hastily pursue the two of you down the hallway.

“We got the stone didn’t we!” Snaps Rocket as you pick up your pace.

“We gotta make it back first you dumbfuck!”

He grumbles something unintelligible before you follow the beer tinged scent of Thor into another room, he’s speaking with his mother when they quickly turn around, “Oh, uh, hello...uh, queen something.” You mutter before Rocket practically smacks into the back of your legs. “I got the thing. Come on. We gotta move.”

Thor nods, speaking some last final heartfelt goodbyes to his mother before abruptly stopping the countdown to three just so he can summon his hammer. After a couple lengthy seconds, Mjolnir falls right into his strong grasp causing Thor to laugh and smile in excitement. “I’m still worthy! I’m still worthy.”

Rocket shares a look with you, “Oh, boy.” Mumbles the raccoon as you simply roll your eyes at the bearded Asgardian prince. A moment later the three of you are sucked into the time portal once again before landing on the glass of the time portal machine.

“Did we get them all?” You hear Steve ask in wonder as you hold your stomach from the jostling ride back.

“I think I’m gonna throw up.” You mutter as Rodney smiles in excitement at everyone around him and the stones in their proximity. “Are you telling me this actually worked?”

Taking a deep breath to steady your turning stomach, all eyes turn to Clint as he suddenly falls to his knees, face a mask of saddened grief that sparks panic in your heart. “Clint, where’s Nat?” Questions Bruce as your face falls.

Not her, not Natasha too.

Standing solemnly on the Facility’s large dock with the teams main Avengers in various places close by, you lean against one of the thin steel beams, a deep frown on your lips while your fingers anxiously play with Bucky’s dog tags around your neck.

“Do we know if she had family?” Questions Tony to no on in particular.

Steve swallows thickly, a couple free tear stains falling down the side of his cheeks, “Yeah. Us.” Mutters the blonde gloomily as you bite your bottom lip to keep from crying again.

“What?” Wonders Thor almost in disbelief as Tony gives him a quizzical look, “Yeah, no, you guys are acting like she’s dead. Why are we acting like she’s dead? We have the stones, right? As long as we have the stones Cap, we can bring her back. Isn’t that right?” Adds Thor, glancing between all of you before facing Tony again, “So, stop this shit. We’re the Avengers. Get it together...”

“Can’t get her back.” Interrupts Clint dismally, eyes still set on the open water beyond the compound.

Thor’s brows furrow in befuddlement, “Wh-what...”

“It can’t be undone. It can’t.” Insists Clint, voice slightly wavering in despair; Thor then starts chuckling at the absurdity of the whole shitty situation before rambling about space magic and that there must be another way. Clint on the other hand quickly gets heated about this and promptly snaps at Thor about some red floaty guy he met who revealed once the Soul Stone is taken, the one sacrificed can never come back. Ever.

Soon things calmed down again, though still a rather gloomy atmosphere still lingers like a persistent hazy fog even after they all left, leaving no one but yourself and Steve on the dock. He keeps a steady gaze on the rippling water as he lets his sadness take its course, this is indeed a heavy blow to bear.

Letting out a shaky breath, you move from the leaning against the beam to instead find a spot next to him on the wooden bench. Dog tags still clutched in your fist as you steal a glance at the tearful man. You’ve admittedly never seen him so upset, well, you both may have shared a good cry when Bucky was whipped from existence five years ago. That was the first time you ever truly bonded with anyone from the team, the first time Steve and Natasha showed you their vulnerability.

And for that, you’ve formed a stronger bond with them that you’d never thought possible. They welcomed you into the compound like an old friend, always treated you with respect and gave you room when you needed it. And even when you didn’t want to be around anyone, they still forced you into playing cards with them anyways, among other dumb games. Which annoyingly so, is what your sad little self needed back then.

But without Natasha, without her beaming heart and fierce attitude to keep fighting through the unknown and murky waters, you’re not even sure if this would all still be conceivable. Or if you’d even still be here with all of them for that matter, you might have gone on an angry warpath just as Clint did when everyone he ever loved was snatched from him forever.

So why, after all this time and pain, is she the one who had to go? It’s not fare. And your heart feels broken all over again; sniffling, you swallow thickly before turning your head a little in Steve’s direction, “I didn’t know her for as long as you guys did.....but she was, really the best of us..” You laugh dismally.

Voice shaky as you hold Bucky’s tags close to your chest, “..If not better. She was the first Avenger I ever met you know, the only piece of my past that didn’t try to murder me on sight, actually. I liked her. She was who I needed to get me through my grief, among other things huh...and uh...I will miss her.....a lot.”

Nothing is heard except for the low rustling of the nearby trees as a soft wind blows into your faces, Steve clasps his hands together, turning to you, “Funnily enough, it took me some time to completely trust her, but now....there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.” Mutters Steve with the flash of a genuine smile as he thinks fondly on Natasha, who you wish more then anything could still be here to celebrate the hard work of finding those goddamn stones.

It’s not fucking fare.

Swallowing thickly, you nod in agreement as more hot tears trail down your somber face, “The world will owe her their lives and never even know it.....but I will, we all will. Her memory will live on if I can help it, we owe her that much.”

Steve slowly nods, thumbs fiddling together anxiously as he mutters a raspy, “Yeah.”

You rest a comforting hand atop his broad shoulder as he shares a mutually dismal look with you, “We’ve already lost so much already and she fought for this like no once else did, we will avenge her Steve. I don’t doubt she knows it.”

Tagged: @diegos-butt @minigranger @bibliophilewednesday @holyhumorliteraturelight @lilacs-lavender @a-girl-who-loves-disney @starkssnarks @vikingqueen28 @bizarrebibitch @atomicpersonacheesecake @jmstz @staygoldsquatchling02 @marvelbros-oneshots @shawnartmendes @mischiefmanaged71 @jckie94 @iamasimpingh0e @mjaudrey @thescarlettvvitch

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x reader #the winter soldier x y/n #the winter soldier x reader #the winter soldier x you #marvel imagine #marvel x y/n #marvel x you #marvel x reader #the winter soldier #fanfic #fanfiction #the avengers imagine

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hillchill · 3 years

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Thoughts on American Crime Story S03e01

Heyo, so, I watched it and I’ll try not to spoil it, but here are some points I wrote down while I was watching it: some are more important, some are downright purely petty.

Opening scene and the feel in general is that everything’s somehow “too polished” for being the 90s? I don’t know how to describe it, but like ML’s workout clothes are not garish, the computers are big but not noisy, the glasses have big frames but are not thick enough... honestly, it made the immersion in the narration more difficult

Beanie Feldstein doesn’t look like ML at all, sorry

Sarah Paulson sounds different from herself and kinda looks like Linda Tripp (I haven’t heard LT speak much, so I cannot compare the two voices), but no matter how many prosthetics they put on her, the affect of her mouth is so peculiar and typical of Paulson’s that it’s unmisteakable

Speaking of the two points above: why did they do such a good job on Paulson and they haven’t even TRIED to change Feldstein to fit ML’s face a bit?

The brief scene in which we see HRC her whole demeanor/body language is way too rigid, almost to project a “haughtiness” that is not typical of her. Do I also have to add that Edie Falco looks NOTHING like Hillary Clinton?

15 minutes in, there is a non graphic scene that depicts Vince Foster’s suicide. Honestly, I think they could have let the poor soul be, for the sake of his family and the people who knew him. I understand that, doing so, they make their position on various conspiracy theories known (they deny an affair between HRC and Vince Foster and they make clear that they don’t support the conspiratorial homicidal angle), but it seemed somehow avoidable

I’m basically pretty much convinced that the beginnings of the Paula Jones lawsuit were more or less what was portrayed in this episode. Also, the victim-blaming that we hear from journalists during the press conference sets the tone for 90s colture around these matters

George Stephanopoulos was the only “character” I recognized before they said his name and all just because of the hairstyle, but he’s not portrayed as short enough and, as I said before for others, the actor doesn’t look like him AT ALL

Man that prosthetic nose sure is not well done! (Talking about Paula Jones’, but I think it is the case for most nose prosthetics in this production: you can basically see where the makeup changes shade and has a different texture, that’s where the prosthetic is. I guess in Hollywood now everyone and their cousin has had a rhinoplasty, so it’s impossible to find real big noses anymore?!)

The fact that Paula Jones’ lawyers were scouted out by republican pundits (idk if this was true? Can anyone confirm?) kinda legitimised what Hillary said in that famous interview about the “vast right wing conspiracy” to take down WJC.

(Also, if we think about an international audience, nobody’s gonna know who Anne Coulter and her gang are! It’s not explained enough as they are introduced)

Kathleen Willey’s case is handled ok, they leave it mostly to the interpretation of the viewer (who is just told that WJC kissed her after she asked for a change of mansion/salaried job since she’s a donor’s wife employed kinda “pro bono”(?!?) in the WH, so it’s not so clear if said action was consensual or not). I’m kinda waiting to see if there will be any subsequent IRL rebuttal/statement from WJC’s press office, because until this point that’s the most close it has come to hinting at an unwanted contact

“It takes a dramatic turn” LMAOOOO!! (If you know, you know. Also, that was apparently total BS)

At first glance, the beginning of the episode seems difficult to follow for people who are not aware of what happened in real life/aren’t huge nerds about WJC’s impeachment. I found it kinda unuseful myself and I know the context, I think it would be pretty much non explanatory for someone not in the loop.

After ML’s first day at the Pentagon, WJC phones her at home, asking how her first day at the new job went. Honestly, I don’t remember if WJC knew ML would be transfered, but if he did, I don’t really think he called her right away. Idk, it’s more of a hunch, since ML herself said WJC called her “Kiddo” for a while and she was afraid he had forgotten her name. 😅

#american crime story #impeachment #hillary rodham clinton #hillary clinton

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connorgoldie604 · 3 years

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Artist Research

Tetsuo Aoki (1940 - unknown)

"The theme of my artwork is to express the pleasure, the deepness and the importance of touching each other. The original world of woodblock with Japanese paper (Washi) and Chinese ink (Sumi) is my basis."

Tetsuo Aoki – 青木鐵男 is a Japanese woodblock printmaker, who was born in 1940. He utilises wood to engrave his designs and uses a black and white colour scheme consistently throughout his prints.

His elongated, disproportional and overstretched characters immediately caught my eye and he is now one of my biggest inspirations. I love the layouts he uses and the overall distorted aesthetic of his work. Aoki’s graphic style is far from ordinary. He utilizes defined shapes and little shadowing which creates a sense of sentimentality.

Bryan Nash Gill (1961 - 2013)

"Art is (or should be) an authentic experience, which brings you closer to understanding yourself in relation to your surroundings." - Bryan Nash Gill

Bryan creates large-scale relief prints from the cross-sections of trees. It is up to us as viewers to find meaning in Bryans art. Personally, I find his art both beautiful and thought-provoking; it portrays the idea of growth and change yet makes me think about sustainability and the living things that surround us humans.

Bryan believes that the journey is more important than the destination; "Strict concentration on the making, the process, is more important than the result." His take on the process of art is almost a metaphor for all things organic - he lived in the moment and did not let his thoughts guide him.

Gill creates patterns from fallen or damaged trees which he rescues from the property surrounding his studio. He prepares blocks of recycled wood, coats it in a thin layer of ink then makes prints by carefully pressing the contours of the wood until the intricate designs transfer from tree to paper. It is important to Gill that the entire tree and all it’s intricisies is documented.

Hulya Ozdemir

“I think my paintings are timeless. My portraits do not remain imprisoned in a single statement. Their gazes are changing, just like us. One day in the same picture is sad, another day is possible to see a happy face.” - Hulya Ozdemir

Hulya Ozdemir is an illustrator and painter of watercolor portraits who was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1972. Hulya focuses predominantly on female portraits and showcases women becoming self confident and breaking out of social norms created by a make-dominated society. Hulya does not sketch her work beforehand, she draws directly onto paper, adds patterns and then paints; “I can say, I rarely know what will happen in the next step.”

Her work displays womens beauty and individuality through the use of texture, bold colours and many patterns. Her use of colour, pattern and texture stould out to me, and I used it as inspiration for a mixed media print.

Glenn Jones

Glenn Jones found internet fame in the 2000s with his unique T-shirt designs. His tees have even be worn by stars on the Big Bang Theory. He is an illustrator who’s work is now being published as prints. Glenns collection of prints are inspired by growing up and living in NZ, he has stated that he want’s to put “my own spin on our pop culture”.

His prints are some what comedic, he depicts relatable Kiwi experiences with a humorous touch. One source states “his prints are a statement in a picture about our collective identities and the shared experiences of living in Aotearoa in the early 21st century.” His kiwiana style and clever twists with a touch of nostalgia is inspiring. I find his work both quirky and fun.

Barry Ross Smith

"I like to create a rapport with the viewer by playing with our reminiscences. Creating icons from our shared Kiwi past, the beach, the bach, the farm but mostly the people. We can identify with these characters as family, friends or someone we know." - Barry Ross Smith

Barry Ross Smith is a visual artist born in Kamo, Northland, New Zealand. When he first started producing art his medium was sign writing, and he has now been painting for over 25 years. As stated by New Zealand Fine Prints Ltd; “His work typically engages with the conception of myth and cultural identity, often exploring these avenues from a New Zealand male’s perspective.”His art is inspired by the relationship between individuals and their immediate environment, specifically our communion with the land & encompassing oceans. His work has been described as “hymns to rural New Zealand … tellingly observed and cleverly rendered” by NZ Hearld Critic TJ Mcnamara.

I admire Barry because his work showcases our beautiful land and animals. Aswell as how work, Barry inspires me as a person. He is involved with Pest free NZ; and helps restore native wildlife from extinction. He values New Zealand land not only in his work but in his day to day life, which I find extremely inspiring as I value sustainability and our saving our environment. I also find his use of surrealism and kiwiana themes interesting as it is something I want to experiment with in the future.

Tony Ogle

"Screen-printing allows me to express my love of the New Zealand landscape and ocean environment with strong colours in a direct and graphic manner".

Tony Ogle was born in 1959 and is one of New Zealand's most successful printmakers. Ogle’s prints are full of colour, vibrant and celebrates New Zealands coastal landscapes. His works are extremely technically complex and handmade, with only one edition ever produced. Ogle’s joyful prints celebrates the Kiwi beach life and showcases his authentic connection with New Zealand coastal landscapes.

He is inspired by locations off the beaten track and untouched stitches of the NZ coastlines that portray "unchanged timelessness". Tony strives to capture what he calls a "sense of place" in his art prints.

His work is inspiring since I can relate to it as a Kiwi and I admire how he uses texture to convey a sense of calmness, he perfectly captures Aotearoas essence.

Charles Frederick Goldie

Charles Frederick Goldie was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on 20 October 1870. He is an ancestor of mine, who painted Māori history paintings and portraits of tattooed chiefs. His paintings have been turned into many prints nowadays, I’ve even seen his paintings on postcards and magnets whilst travelling the South Island.

Goldie's career began in 1900 when he started painting images depicting elderly Māori with moko, the 'noble relics of a noble race'. By 1904 Goldie was considered the leading portrait painter of Māori, and was renowned for his technical brilliance. His portraits have become vitally significant to New Zealand art.

Goldie feared that Māori were about to die out or be assimilated by the pakeha so he set out to record the last survivors. This is reinforced through the poses of his elderly subjects and the titles of many of his paintings eg; Last of the Cannibals, A Noble Relic of a Noble Race. Two of his most celebrated works, Darby and Joan and The Widow, portray Goldie’s awareness of the hardships Maori were experiencing. Many Māori individuals see Goldie's works as taonga which represents irreplaceable ancestral images of koroua and kuia. Māori believe the wairua( spirit) of the subject resides in each picture.

I am inspired by Goldie not only because I feel a cultural connection to him but because of his love for Māori culture. His paintings are full of intricate details, and his paintings often look like they can breathe which I find incredible.

Lauren Liess

A crooked smile, wildflowers from the side of the road, a chip in the good china; I love it when things are slightly off and tell a story, because to me, that’s real life. And it’s beautiful.

Lauren Liess is an interior designer who’s style I find inspiring and aesthetic. What caught my eye is her use of prints and nature in her interior design. Her style is simple, relaxed and authentic. She utilizes natural materials, thoughtful art and decor that focuses on people rather than things.

She has a toes-in-the-stream aesthetic and is obsessed with the outdoors, “I’m obsessed with what’s going on outside,” and utilizes a black, white and wood pallet paired with lots of greenery, “When you bring in bits of nature …artwork, interesting accents and fabrics, [the colors are] a museum showcase for it. It’s a textural, natural base.”

I relate to her as we are both inspired by the outdoors. I also like how she incorporates living plants and wood into her modern style.

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solari-writes-things · 4 years

Text

Succor

🛑 WARNINGS: Language, graphic depictions of violence, mild self-deprecation. 🛑

✨ requested by: -

✨ Pairing: Viktor Vector x OC

✨ Summary: Vik checks in on a good friend after she has a traumatic experience.

✨ Solari Says: This came to be through @sazafraz and I talking over Discord. I got her permission to write this out, and I hope you all come to enjoy it!

✨ Prompt(s) -

#35: You don’t have anything to be sorry for.

#80: Your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner.

gif credit: to the OP

MORE VIK | MORE CP2077 | > MASTERLIST < |

Talia could count on one hand how many times she felt her palms begin to sweat. She could count on one hand the amount of occurrences left her with a chill down her spine. That left her in a sort of dazed panic, searching for any sort of excuse that could easily explain what she was experiencing. In any of the other scenarios, it seemed to have worked.

In this one, it didn’t.

Instead her hands trembled harshly, her right hand keeping as solid of a grip on the hilt of her hammer as possible. No matter how much her palms encouraged her hold to slip, no matter how much her hands seemed to vibrate, her hammer never slid through her fingers.

There was a loud, harsh screaming, a sound that Talia Song had been no stranger to. The lucrative business that she had built for herself made sure of that. Xuanwu was a name that floated around Night City through the mouths of gangs, a bit of a legend she had developed due to her own actions against Arasaka. Stealing high-grade cyberware, ripping through rampant gangs that stirred the hornet’s nest. She kept Night City under control, more efficiently than the NCPD ever had.

Mostly because she wasn’t afraid to cave heads inward.

She felt a shaky breath leave her lungs, her eyes staring at the bodies that were strewn across the ground. Some were whole, some had less fortunate outcomes. No matter how much blood painted the concrete red, no matter how many arms and legs were scattered around the ground, nothing could ever amount to the dread she felt watching the Cyberpsycho.

It wasn’t the ferocity in his movements. It wasn’t the raw power behind each innocent that he ripped apart that shook her to her core.

It was some form of familiarity that she felt in the pits of her stomach. Something... Something about this rabid man, jerking his head from side to side to search for something felt so familiar. It wasn’t until he turned to her, his attention on the shivering woman with a hammer in her hand, that made her heart drop to her abdomen.

“Where...!” the Cyberpsycho cried out angrily, turning toward her to ensure that she suffered the same way as those crumpled around him. “Where is she...?!”

Talia knew. She knew, somehow, what they had been speaking about. Who they had been searching for.

She could only remember flashes. The long, dark hair. The polite, brown eyes that they had been blessed with. How kind they always seemed, gracefully flitting around the monochromatic office. An office that Talia once called her own home.

He was looking for her mother, who had passed when Talia was just a child.

She almost choked, wanting to call out to the Cyberpsycho in hopes to get him to stop moving towards her. Her shaky left hand found it’s way to the handle of her hammer, the weapon quivering in tandem to herself.

“Dad...” she practically whispered.

She thought he had died. She remembered him, as the Ripperdoc who worked for Arasaka. They utilized him for their own benefits, upgrading those they had under their employment. However, he once left for a task that the corporation had given him. Another assignment, that’s what the Song family was led to believe. Until he never came home.

Talia had been a teenager, when he disappeared.

Here he was, his eyes crazed. His body holding no sort of human instinct in the way that he stood, the way that he approached. Any sort of kindness that the man once had, the kindness that Talia remembered, it had been gone. He was an animal, lost and trying to find his way. However, as much as she had hoped she would be the one to provide a solace, he wouldn’t recognize her. Not with the amount of changes she had given herself. The large scar that run down the left side of her face made her much different than she had been when she was a teen.

The crazed man in front of her didn’t seem to acknowledge her quivering. Her whispers into the void, calling out to him. He only lurked closer, his eyes boring into hers with hostility. It sent a shiver down the back of her spine, perfectly tracing the cherry blossom tattoo she had in the same place.

She adjusted her arms so her hammer rested in a fashion to where she could swing hard enough to bring him down, steadying herself for a fight that she knew would inevitably come.

“Please,” she pleaded, just a bit louder so he could hear. “Don’t make me do this.”

He only continued his belligerent march towards her, practically snarling as he closed the distance.

She raised her hammer in preparation for a hard swing, eyes welling up with tears of reluctance. “Please...” she whispered once more, hoping that this would be the thing to trigger his stop.

He doesn’t. Instead, his slow approach turned into a sprint, and soon he began to move faster than Talia could see normally. His shape was nothing but a blur, a haze that moved in the directions that he would dash.

All to make sure she couldn’t get a proper reading. But all too bad, she was much used to other enhancements such as this. She knew all about the movement, and how to predict the arc of her swing.

So while choking back the lump that formed in her throat, she swings her hammer forward. There was a loud crack, as it connected to his chest. She follows through with the rest of her power, bringing him to the floor. He practically snarls as he hits the floor, causing her to almost choke on her panic.

The rest of the fight seemed like she was seeing through textured glass. It was hard to breathe, between the hard hits that he landed on her and the tears that seemed to never stop. Every single impact that she felt, a few more would streak down her cheeks. What she could always do so easily to others, felt like weight would sink on her shoulders when she did to him.

She wanted to save him, to hug him. Tell him that everything would be okay, and that she would find a way to help him that wouldn’t involve shipping him off and leaving him to be scared and alone.

But she couldn’t. The way he continuously tried to rush her down, tried to disarm her by attempting to break her body. He wanted to kill her, and she knew there was no hope in talking to him to save her own life.

So she worked at him. Diligently and diligently, she withered away his stamina so that she could have him laying on the concrete. It took quite a long time, wearing away at herself in the process. However, her determination made it so that she lasted.

So he lay on his back, feral but tired, like a stray and scared animal. As much as he wanted to scramble up and beat her, his body would give. So he could only lay there, his hostile eyes searing into hers. She choked down a sob, her hammer brought up next to her head to swing downward.

She didn’t want to do this. But she didn’t want him to suffer, not anymore. She could only imagine the horrors that he had gone through, his cyberpsychosis leading him to search for her mother blindly. It was more than a decade later, finding him again, and she didn’t want to think about how many of that he spent in torture.

Her face contorts into raw sorrow, another shaky breath pulling into her lungs. She shivers again, trying to choke back the sob that boiled up inside. “I’m so sorry...” she whispered.

Her hammer was brought down.

She could only feel the physical manifestation of white noise. Absolute nothingness, radio silence in her mind. Her office wasn’t open, she ignored every message and every call.

It had been three days since she had killed him. She felt that she was sparing him pain, in the moment, but the more her emotions dwelled the more she felt it was murder.

She remained unmoving, body tucked in the mass of blankets on her bed. Her eyes stared at her cherry blossom bead curtain, staring at the details that shown in the dim light. She elected to ignore her hunger, in trade of staying stationary. She had no motivation to stand, to get herself something. She would do it eventually, it’s what she had been doing the past two days.

Ignoring, until it becomes too loud for her to wave off.

She hears the hatch that led to her living quarters open, causing her to jolt upright. There was only one person that she ever gave access to her home, that knew exactly where to enter in order to reach her at her most vulnerable.

Viktor.

Her heart began to race. She had ignored his calls, his messages checking in on her status. She had a day planned with him, when she investigated the Cyberpsycho attack. Watch old flicks, eat some Chinese take out. Just a day, between the both of them, to enjoy the company in more ways than one; it usually led to it.

“Talia?” he called, his voice concerned but gentle. “This is the only place that you could be... Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer, pulling her knees to her chest and tightening her eyes. She wanted to keep ignoring him, for him to disappear. Anything, to not see her like this. To not see her as this shriveled, broken woman. It wasn’t anything that he’s known her to be. He knew her as confident, headstrong. A badass in its full form.

She was none of those things, now.

She could hear his footsteps, moving for her bead curtain. His large silhouette, just shadowed on the other side, slowly approaching. She watched as his hands push through, pushing the curtain apart to reveal his face. His frown was not one that was scolding, but of worry.

She couldn’t tell if she wanted to scream or cry in his presence.

So she does neither. She just stares, choking back on the noises that threatened to escape her mouth. She watches, as he now was at the foot of her bed. He rounded the side, taking a gentle seat to her left to see if she would reject him. She didn’t.

“Talia, what happened?” he asked.

“I...” she tried, but couldn’t finish the first time. So she inhales sharply through her teeth, before trying again. A sob threatened to escape this time, but it didn’t. “I investigated a Cyberpsycho attack nearby, and...”

“And?” he inquired quietly, placing his tinted glasses to the side so he could examine her expressions.

She swallowed hard, her eyes dropping to her lap. There was shame in her eyes, twisting her expression into something that Vik couldn’t bear to see. “I’m sorry...”

He saw the tears beginning to streak her cheeks, seeing her in pain brought a pang in his chest. He didn’t like the idea of her crying. He didn’t like the idea of her suffering, it made him anxious and angry at the same time. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Please, just tell me what happened.”

Her eyes finally traveled up to look at him. He always found it fascinating, the two different cybernetic patterns she had: one white, with a black ring to imitate the iris and one a solid black, with a red X in the center. However, the little details of her face was not the important thing.

“Do you remember our talk, Vik..? When I finally opened up to you about my childhood, about my parents...?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah...?”

“Vik, the Cyberpsycho... it was my father...” she whispered, the long-awaited sob finally breaching into the open. “And I killed him...”

Viktor was silent, as the gravity of the situation began to settle on his shoulders as well. He figured it was something serious, Talia had always been prompt about answering her calls, but something about this felt so different after three days of whole silence.

He contemplated coming, and he was saddened he didn’t do it sooner.

“Holy shit, Talia... I’m so sorry,” he says quietly, one of his strong arms resting over her shoulders.

He waited for a moment, to see if she would shove him away. She didn’t, and he proceeded to bring her closer to his side. She obliged, moving towards him, and when she was close enough he brought her into a gentle hold.

She almost melded into him immediately. Something about Vik’s very calming personality made it easy for her to relax around him. She sighed, her body shaking. It was like she had just experienced it, all over again. The haunting moments where she had to end her father’s suffering.

“No... I’m sorry,” she whispered softly. “I should have called you... You didn’t deserve to be left like that, wondering all this time...”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he cooed, his arms moving up so his hand pressed against the back of her head. He gently pressed her head against his chest, pressing a gentle and comforting kiss to the top, “your comfort and happiness is more important to me than some stupid dinner.”

More tears escaped her eyes, followed by loud sniffling. The tears dripped down, staining the front of his shirt. He didn’t mind, though, not in the slightest. He was just here to help her, now. Help her find some form of solace, some form of peace with herself. He reaches up with one of his arms, gently stroking the side of her face to wipe away more of the tears that dribbled their way out.

Her arms finally moved from their place around her chest to wrap around him, pulling herself so that she felt secure. Because now this was the one, true safe place for her.

“I feel like... I feel like I should have done something else...” she whispers quietly, taking comfort in the gentle strokes of his hands.

“Like what, Talia...?” he questioned quietly.

She listened closely to the hum of his voice emitting from his chest, the sounds of his heart beat. “I should have let him go through the stupid fucking therapy thing...”

“I... I don’t know if that would have worked...” he muttered softly. “You told me it had been decades since you’ve seen your father... Cyberpsychos, they’re long gone by two years, tops...”

She clutches his shirt gently, not wanting to hear something of the nature.

But he was right. He was absolutely right about that. Her father would have just suffered longer, trying to become a human again.

“So what do you suggest I do, Vik...?” she whispered, a genuine question.

“Stop hating yourself for your decision, Tali,” he prompted. “You... you did him a favor, whether you see it that way or not. And... let me stay here. Take care of you. You need it, even though I know you don’t want to admit it...”

She lets out a small exhale into his chest. Once again, Vik was correct. She had to live with this, somehow. She wasn’t going to be able to continue her duties in Night City, if she decided to wallow like this forever.

It would take several days, though. Several days of reclusive behavior, to ensure that she was okay to step into the public again. But she had to heal, and if she had to heal with help of Vik, she would gladly accept.

If there was anyone that she would trust herself to, it would be him.

So she sinks, into the comfort that his presence was slowly beginning to envelope her in.

Cyberpunk Tag List: @sazafraz :|: @tsumethedrifter :|: @angelaiswriting :|: @kind-wolf (if you wish to be added to the tag list, please comment or message me!)

#viktor vector #victor vector #viktor vektor #cyberpunk 2077 #viktor x oc #solari writes things #cyberpunk

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damnusillygoose · 4 years

Text

Jerza fanfiction(Fluff)

Title: Some insecurities to overcome

summary: Erza has some insecurities. Can Jellal help her overcome them?

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Hiro sensei

'Mira, listen. I think I am overdoing it but I can't stop.'

'I know right? A woman cannot stop her raging heart inside a shop selling skincare products after all.'

'This is very addictive', Erza grimaced, looking down at the products in her hands, ranging from body lotions to SPF to cleansers to moisturizers. All sorts of products a woman can buy to pamper herself.

'You are finally paying attention to your skincare routine. I wonder who is that lucky man who triggered such a change in you, huh?', Mira smiled in a suggestive manner.

'wh-what makes you think I am doing this for a man?! I am doing it for myself you know-

'Yes, yes feminist, I know. In fact, we all know when you exactly started paying attention towards this department. Especially your hair. Stop trying to divert the topic, will you?

'….'

'Does he make you happy?'

Her eyebrows de-tangled themselves from her frown as her face softened at the mention of the man who held her heart within his. 'He does, Mira. He makes me really happy', she gushed in a barely audible whisper.

'I am going be the "best aunt" to your kids. Mhm, though Meredy could be a potential rival for this title', she rambled.

'M-Mira?! That's- You are going too fast! Slow down! It's been just six months to us, give us a break. I would…love to have a family with him in future but right now, it's too soon and I…. I would like to marry him before that', she stammered and covered her face with her hands, turning red at her confession.

Mira eyed her friend smugly, studying her reaction. Erza truly acted different when Jellal was involved. She would turn into the sweetest cinnamon roll around him. Not that she purposefully acted different in front of him.

Erza felt free when she talked to Jellal. She could act spoiled, flirty, bossy, whatever she wanted. She could act vulnerable in front of him because Jellal was her place of comfort. She could be herself within his arms, he was her childhood sweetheart after all.

'Yes, yes grow as a couple, bloom as a couple. Take your time. You guys don't have to rush anyways. Make up for the time you lost', Mira remarked.

Erza lowered her hands slowly, producing a shy smile. 'Yes, we are making up for the time we lost.'

*****************************************************************************************

Seriously though, skincare was such a hassle. It needs dedication and consistency. You have to be patient. You don't get results overnight. Jellal's face was super soft and absolutely blemish free, no dark spots whatsoever. He didn't even use any special product.

'Greens Erza, greens. Eat your greens. Plus, I don't go snacking on sweets in the middle of the night, you know.'

Erza pressed her lips together in defiance. Cutting out sugar redeemed results when someone is trying to achieve clear skin but that's something she couldn't accomplish, if she were to be honest. Leave it, I will try to compensate in other departments like quality sleep and exercise, she tried to convince herself.

She finished applying her hair mask and tied her hair into a secure bun. She reached for her tea tree scrub, took some of it in her hands and started rubbing it in circular motions on her face.

She rinsed it thoroughly after 2 minutes of exfoliating and entered the bathroom to prepare her bath.

****************************************************************************************

Jellal entered the front gate of their little cottage which they bought just at the outskirts of Magnolia. The location had advantages of its own. They both enjoyed and appreciated scenic beauty away from the clanging energy of the city. They could wake up peacefully, hear the serene chirping of birds, as the soft morning rays would kiss their faces gently. After spending an entire decade fighting battles, they thoroughly appreciated the tranquillity provided amidst nature.

Plus, they could very well use some privacy from media houses because Erza and Jellal's relationship was a hot topic going around in the city. They could take long walks without being pestered by them, flirt and make out whenever they pleased, without the fear of being stalked by them. No one could invade their privacy. It was their personal heaven.

Their friends obviously knew about their location, they came to visit them often.

Team Natsu would often come by to annoy Erza but Jellal knew she loved when they visited and she loved picnics as well, so he tried to create an aesthetic arrangement by adorning the flower pots in their lawn with golden lit fairy lights, situated within the close vicinity of their seating layout. He would switch them on late in the evenings, as they all would watch the sun set while sipping tea, stargazing and laughing with each other. Sometimes, Gray would bring his music speakers and they all would dance and listen to some traditional songs together as the fairy lights embellished their surroundings. Jellal truly enjoyed their company, they were a fun bunch to hang out with.

Crime sorciere was no less. Jellal would often play cricket with them on Sundays and afterwards, they would laze around in his lawn, basking in the sun, as it was the closest place from their playing field.

Jellal would find Erza trying to engage herself with his team and serving them pastries. It would warm his heart immediately when he would see her making attempts to integrate with his people.

'Well, you try to spend time with my friends, I want to know yours as well.'

Not to forget the fact, Erza had taken upon herself to look after Meredy, just like she did for Wendy. She would also do her best to include her in girl's night out and slumber parties. The two of the most important women in Jellal's life became close pretty quickly.

He was grateful to have such an exceptional woman who tried to indulge herself with his life, entwining them together, just like they both were meant to be. He was lucky, he contemplated.

He had gone out to visit Meredy. She had recently rented a place in magnolia and Jellal went to check on her if she needed any assistance.

He closed the door behind him quietly and proceeded to place the groceries he bought in the kitchen. He treaded upstairs to their bedroom and found her sitting in front of her dressing table-applying some lotion on her face, her hair neatly wrapped in a towel.

'I am back.'

'Hey. Everything okay with Meredy?'

'Yes, she is ecstatic to have her own place'

'I see. That's good. I should visit her soon and inform her of some cheap shopping complexes, which offer quality clothing in Magnolia. I love to frequent those with Mira. A woman should have some tricks up in her sleeves.' She replied as a matter of fact.

'I am sure she would be grateful for that', he almost laughed. 'What are you doing?'

'Applying moisturizer'

He sat at the edge of their bed and observed her closely.

'What?', she asked

'Can I help you in drying your hair?'

The corners of her mouth raised on hearing his request. She closed her eyes relishing his adoration for her hair that he named himself.

'Please do', she said as she finished applying her lotion on her face.

They were always like this around each other - content and serene, just like two important halves of a single soul, reunited after treading a long and strenuous journey of self-actualisation. Erza took note of the fact how loved he made her feel even through his tiniest action. Like how he was helping her dry her hair right now.

Jellal, unaware of her musing, took hold of her towel and carefully unwrapped it. Her hair was damp but not dripping wet. He divided them in two partitions and gently started squeezing the excess water out with immense concentration and meticulosity. He repeated the process with the other section as well until he was satisfied with his job. He kept the damp towel aside and ran his hand through the soft and glossy texture of her locks reverently.

Erza felt the tension residing her shoulder muscles leave when she felt his expert hands massage her the nape of her neck firmly. He moved his fingers, tracing her collarbone, bringing her against his chest gently.

'Erza, please remember that you are beautiful. Blemish free or not.' He reminded her, whispering gently in her ears before kissing her cheek lovingly. He held her face softly in his hand and turned her to face him, as they held each other's gaze.

She recently developed a complex regarding her skin not being flawless. Those cursed vogue magazines she picked at a store depicted ladies with blemish free faces. They continued to attack her newfound insecurity.

Jellal often witnessed her groaning while examining her face more than usual in front of the mirror. He saw her reading some magazines where models were photoshopped to an extreme extent, as if they had no skin texture at all. Some didn't even seem human with their body enhancements. It was abhorrent, he felt, to make women insecure regarding something which was naturally unachievable. He just wanted to let her know that he was going to love her no matter what and that outward appearance would never dwindle his feelings which he held for 14 years.

'Thank you Jellal', she took a deep breathe and smiled at him, being grateful for his support. 'I am not hating myself anymore for not having clear skin. Those vogue magazines depict a very unhealthy beauty standard and some women end up hating themselves for not looking that fabulous.'

'You shouldn't read them anymore. I don't want you to feel sad over something unrealistic. You are beautiful the way you are.' He didn't think she knew how beautiful she was in his eyes along with her flaws, especially her flaws.

'I am not, believe me. People are meant to be imperfect after all. That's where the real beauty lies. right?', she replied, meaning every single word she spoke, finally brimming with some self-confidence.

'Come here love, sit between my legs, come', he urged her and she relented by walking towards him. He shifted further along the mattress to make some space for her. She crawled over and seated herself comfortably between his legs and laid her back against his chest. He brought his legs around, boxing her within his hold. She brought her hands up to hold his and leaned into his cheek, sighing contently.

They spent a few moments in this position, simply observing and cherishing the sunrays falling into their room-for warming them up in this cold morning. Their hearts-already warmed up with the love they held for each other.

'Hey sleepyhead', he nudged her mildly when he noticed her blinking in exhaustion, almost ready to fall asleep owing to the cosy atmosphere they created, 'Aren't you hungry? What about breakfast? No- brunch.', he corrected himself when he turned his neck to look at the clock. It was almost 11.30 A.M.

'mhmp...? Oh brunch, right. I almost fell asleep', she chuckled, still slightly drowsy.

'What about strawberry sprinkled donuts glazed with white chocolate?!', she exclaimed ecstatically with her eyes wide open, now fully awake.

Of course, he should have known she would reply something of this sort.

'Sure, but after I feed you some healthy omelettes along with salad consisting of broccoli and beans.'

Jellal was kind of particular about nutrition.

'But those donuts are baked, not fried!', she argued. Apparently eating sweets for breakfast was perfectly healthy in Erza's dictionary.

'You can eat fried as well but after we have our brunch.', he hugged her tightly and kissed her forehead. Forget brunch he wanted to eat her right now.

She smiled and rolled her eyes in her apparent defeat.

'Salad it is then.

*****************************************************************************************

A/N: This drabble is also a gentle reminder to all the beautiful ladies out there who feel inferior after browsing through Instagram, looking at those models and wondering why aren't we like them. We are not like them because they themselves do not represent a reality. Instagram is not real, nothing depicted there is. Keep loving yourself and stay hydrated. Do check out my others stories and leave a review if you liked this one. Constructive criticism is appreciated!

link to my profile on fanfiction.net

https://www.fanfiction.net/~damnyousillygoose

#jerza #jerza fanfiction #fairy tail #fairy tail 100 yq #erza scarlet #jellal fernandez #jellal x erza #jellal and erza

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visual-explorxtion · 4 years

Text

Vinylic Taste [Carlos Oliveira x Reader] - One Shot

Summary: You’re trapped and alone in the midst of an outbreak, struggling to survive. In the depths of your despair, Carlos came to the rescue. Through your ups and downs, Carlos soon became your best partner and vice versa. But...you soon realise Carlos isn’t who he appears to be.

A/N: Are you reading this at night time? Good...Wanted to write a Carlos fic but also wanna try and write something different from my usual stuff. But also got super distracted by other ideas and this fic got pushed waaaay further back and kinda took a different turn from my original plan and 11 pages in, I panicked. Still in first person POV.

TW: Graphic depiction of Violence, Blood, Gore, Angst, a bit of horror (idek), prob not as graphic as you think but it’s still graphic, uhh language and bit of a Mind Break.

Words: 6.0k

How did things turn out this way? Blood seeped its way across the vinyl floor, forming a pool around my feet as I sat helplessly with my body shivering in fear. Chest rising and falling rapidly and eyes locked wide open, my blurry gaze fixated onto a man but I could only make an outline of them. Him; on his knees, lays a lifeless corpse in between them, all drenched in venous blood as the deep red colour streams down every rigid and curves of his face. The air is thick combined with the stench of iron and gunpowder. He stares at his hands, covered in liquid but not his own. He laughs- echoes through my soul and pulsated the room- never have I ever heard of something so harrowing and sinister coming from a human. If he even had any sanity left in him. Neck twists abnormally towards my direction, head tilts eerily as if it's only supported by a thin piece of string. A soft gasp left my mouth, throat scorched with fear and lips quivering. My limbs lay still no matter how much I tell myself to run. My sense of self is being sucked into his dark, endless gaze. The light behind his eyes had vanished, all that's left is a soulless carcass I no longer recognise.

"Carlos...What happened to you?"

---------------

The thunderous rain came washing down my face, lowering my field of vision. The moisture trickles down from thick strands of hair and onto the rubble concrete in a light rhythmic pitter-patter. In the span of 24 hours, everything turned from just an average day in this town to be engulfed and corrupted by a fiery shitshow. Humans eating humans, without a hint of remorse. They have no emotions, no pain tolerance. Their sole purpose is to feed on anything that has a heartbeat. It creeps me out. Like somebody playing a joke too far to the point of no return. That's what I'd initially thought. In my struggle to keep myself alive in this godforsaken town, each bullet is scarce but every item you gather is expendable. As the gun recoils, a leftover shell would flicker out with each bullet piercing the head of the undead. A steady hand, steady trigger finger and steady breathing. One by one, I shot them down. The feeling of ambivalence surrounds my mind with every shot I take. This isn't right, they are...were...humans, flesh and blood.

The ringing in my ears grew louder with each squeezing action I take. The heat of adrenaline coursing through under my skin, my peripheral vision gradually disappears until I'm left with the image of head to head. Before I could react, my back was already on the ground. The backside of my head slams against the solid sidewalk with a loud crack, the noise echoed inside for a nanosecond. My self-defence mechanism kicks in- forearm struggle against the zombie's throat, it's jaw hinges wide open with blood oozing out as it frantically pushes it's deadweight onto me. Its skin texture is abnormal, like every part of them is set in stone. Why didn't rigor mortis happen? My fingers tremble, trying to grasp for the handle of my gun that's just out of reach. Muscles burn and ache as my defence is crumbling to its limit, teeth-gritting with every last strength that I have. I refuse to die like this. Not like them.

As my forearm grew tired- inching closer and closer to my face- I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to look Death in its soulless gaze and let it consume me slowly in the space of darkness. The next moment, I felt liquid splatter across my face but the pain never set in. My eyes flew open and watched as the corpse lay limping on my arm and the rest drop dead around my vicinity. I grunt as I discard the corpse aside, inspecting it one more time for any sign of movement. Face frozen in place as blood runs dry from the temple. The sight of this made my stomach churn.

"Hey, are you alright? Can you stand?"

A muscular figure towers over me, fully equipped in tactical gear. One hand armed with an assault rifle and the other extended out towards my direction. His hand is all worn out, even though the gloves I can see his fingers covered in blisters and scratches. They have seen better days.

"Yeah...I'm fine."

I choked out as I accept his assistance. His grip heaved my weight without breaking a sweat but may have overestimated his strength a little. His aid offset my balance and my body crash-landed in his embrace. Even with me standing on my own two feet, he's still almost a foot taller than I am. Our eyes met for a brief moment but I immediately jumped out of his arms as heat flushed up my cheeks and I regain my composure. He chuckles.

"My name is Carlos, I'm with the UBCS and we're here to get you out of here."

The organisation doesn't ring any bells in mind, nevertheless, receiving help from a rescue team is better than trudging through this damned hell alone. I would be lucky if I could even make it out alive. But, this strange rescue encounter sends comfort to my mind and slowly easing off my anxiety, or maybe it's because I'm no longer alone with Carlos's presence next to mine. Either way, I shouldn't let my guard down even with the help I'm getting.

The rest of his team is gathered in the subway station, we've arrived just in time for the last train to bound. Every one of them is tattered and covered in rags, exhausted and in pain. I can't imagine what kind of hell they've fought through, compared to myself, it's nothing but a just a minor scratch. Carlos caught up with his crew while I took a seat as all my energy is drained from my soul. The cool metal sensation seeped through my jeans and triggered goosebumps and hair along my arm, I couldn't care less about the shock as exhaustion washes over my limbs. I've been beaten down mentally and physically enough for me to not realise the train was already in motion. The view from out the window is nothing but a fast pace blur of darkness. All that just happened felt so unreal- the gush of blood, the viscous touch of muscle fibres, so red yet so cold. Getting pinned to the ground by this...thing. Its strength is vicious and animalistic with a face that doesn't resemble a human anymore. And at that moment my mind went blank. What if, at that very second, nobody came to save me? What if, I just gave up? What if, I let its teeth sink into my neck? What if...I just died there and then?

"How are you holding up?"

Carlos appeared before me, interrupting all the trepidatious thoughts. A slow realisation sets in as my hands tremble in my lap. Immediately, I curl my fingers into fists to cover up the jitter from him. "Still holding" I swallowed and smile politely, hoping the lump in my throat won't betray me right now. He returned the smile and positioned himself in the seat next to mine. "You were brave out there. Fighting by yourself...not many people have the balls to do that."

I let out a quiet snort. "No, you saved my ass. I wasn't brave. I was just lucky. If it wasn't for you I would've..." A pause, "I would've become one of them by now." Tears tingled behind my eyes as I blinked several times to keep them at bay. Carlos catches my hands tenderly, unravelling my fingers one by one, releasing all the tension I took a grasp of and crimson liquid came dribbling out the crescent-shaped wound. The fear in my head numbs all my pain; unaware of the shallow cuts, the maroon shade stained the dents of my fingertips. He took out some bandages from one of his pouches and carefully bind them to stop the bleeding. "There. That should do the trick." he grins as I admire his patchwork. "Thank you." I returned the kindness and we sat in comfortable silence. Upon closer inspection, Carlos does look kinda cute. The corner of his eyes crinkles and smile line deepens whenever he laughs, not to mention, his voluminous mane is the centre of attention. It kind of reminds me of an Old English Sheepdog and that image alone made me giggle.

"Carlos, we have a situation." we turn our attention to another team member, dressed in the same gear as Carlos- except his appearance was more well-kept, clean-shaven. Carlos turns, face sombre, knowing the news that comes next won't be any good. "What's the status?"

"Charlie's comms are down. The situation currently unknown."

"And Bravo team's position?"

"They're en route to Charlie, but they've already lost half their men"

He ponders for a moment. "Alright, change of plan. We'll meet up with Bravo and rescue Charlie. Once we get there, see if you can call for extraction out of this city."

His colleague nodded and went off to relay the message to the rest of the squad. Carlos turns back and kneels down, looking at me in the eyes, he softly spoke. "Hey. We're gonna have to take a detour, but I promise you, I'll keep you safe." He paused, reading my reaction. "Are you okay with that?"

My gaze wanders around his nervous expression, but I simply smiled. "Yeah, it's better than being alone out there right now. And besides, I don't doubt your abilities to keep me safe." His face went blank for a few seconds to unexpectedly bursts into laughter as though my answer caught him by surprise. "Okay. We'll be getting off next stop. In the meantime, stock up on some supplies cuz we don't know what's out there. Talk to one of the guys and they can get what you need." Carlos winked before leaving me to psych myself up for what's coming ahead. Knowing the chaos that's happening out there, it's going to be a dirty fight.

Our clattering footsteps relay around the walls of the subway as the lights flicker in a retrospective beat. The place is bare and quiet. Too quiet, even. Not even a single croak or heavy breathing could be perceived. It is deadly silent. Why is it empty? With the city running amok, you'd expect people to be escaping this hell hole; or worst-case scenario, laying dead in this underground. But, nothing. Not a single body insight. That's what worries me. I could say the same for the rest of Carlos's team. Which means, whatever is waiting for us out there is greater than what we could imagine.

My knees are getting weaker by the minute, shuffling closer to Carlos as I grasp my gun tight. Fingers nervously fiddling with the indents of the grip; sucking in a cool breath of air and pulling my shoulders back, we press on.

The layout of the underground is intricate and labyrinthine- reaching an intersection every few minutes, but we haven't let our guard down. Turning the last corner, we finally arrived at the main plaza; still remaining empty but the place was already thrashed. Carlos signalled for everyone to spread out and search the area, while I linger next to him. My heartbeat is racing quick as ever since I stepped off the train with the rapid pulse stuck in the back of my throat. He gently touches my arm, worry flash before his eyes but I shook my head. 'I'm fine' I mouthed. He looked at me for a few seconds, unconvinced, but decided not to force it any further. This place is eerily bleak, what was once lively is now filled with desolation. Somehow there's a slight dread and sadness inside me. The noise of metal clanking took my attention away from my surroundings.

"Damn it. The exits blocked." He gave it another shot but the gate shows no sign of budging. A short, heavy breath escapes his nose. I examined his troubled look and spoke out, "I'll go look for a way to open the gate."

He was stunned. "No. I can't let you do this. It too dangerous-"

"Please, I insist. You've helped me enough so let me do this. Even if I am in trouble, you'll come to save me, right?"

Carlos's expression is tense; I can almost see his thoughts rotating, like clockwork, inside his mind. Considering and reconsidering my offer. At last, my words overthrows him. "Okay, but take this." He hands me a palm-size radio, all tattered and taped. "Anything you see, you radio in. And I mean that. If you see one of those things, do not hesitate to shoot. Got it?"

"Yes, sir," I respond, sloppily saluting as I backed away to complete my new objective, continue to traverse down to the backside of the plaza. By the repetition of office doors, this justifies that I'm going in the right direction, but which one? The fluorescent lights blinked abruptly before returning to normal. Seems like the building is getting more unstable, with time quickly ticking away, I should hurry. And by some miraculous luck, I stumbled upon a door that catches my attention. 'Employees Only', this must be it. The door isn't locked but it took a great amount of energy to push a gap open, just enough for me to squeeze through.

Stacks of documents and brick computers blockade the door and next to it; a dead corpse that was once the employee of this place. He must have been dead for 2 hours- top, by the looks of it. The blood forms into a pool around the body and adheres to the sole of my boots. He took the quick way out. A blow to the head with his own pistol, laying dormant in his hand, now motionless in white. Crimson red liquid and shards depicted the blank wall, chunks frozen in place.

"I'm so sorry..."

Choking back my grief, I resume my search and in front of me is my mission objective. Monochromatic screens all tracking specific places of the building. Right on the bigger screen, displays Carlos and his men searching the perimeter. I radio in, "Carlos, come in. I'm in the control room. Hang on, I'll get the gate open."

"Good job. Hurry back and we'll get out-"

The building fades into darkness, heightening my sense of fear in this unfamiliarity. I draw out my gun and tightening my hold like it's my lifeline. My chest stiffens with each shallow breath I took, the effect of the blackout is developing claustrophobia within me. I heaved and the lack of oxygen in my brain cause me to hallucinate all my nightmares, but the image of Carlos flashed vividly in my mind. I took a deep breath and count to three. One...Two...Three... The emergency lights came on before my eyes and my anxiety reverts back to a sense of tranquillity. Talk about timing.

"Carlos? Carlos! Are you okay?" Please tell me he's okay.

No reply.

"Carlos? Are you there? I can't see you." I bit my lip, searching relentlessly on the screen for a trace of him. Just any sign at all.

"Yeah, we're okay. We've taken cover but it's pitch black out here, but...we could only see so much with our flashlight. See if you can get the power back on from your end"

Frantically, I pressed every button presented on the switchboard, nothing seems to be doing the trick. "Negative. I don't think I can do anything from here." All of a sudden, the floor began to rumble. And gradually it became stronger that shook the whole room, files and objects tumble to the ground until it subsides back down again, just like a tank passing by. "What was that?" I said in dismay.

"I don't know..." Coming from the other side of the line, a low growl and heavy footsteps. "But, whatever the fuck that is...It's definitely in here with us now."

In search of the monitor, I glue my eyes to the blurry image shown; even if everything doesn't seem out of the ordinary, my gut feeling is telling me otherwise. Still as a statue, they listened in closely to every motion IT makes. The sound is too quiet to be perceived. Out of the corner of the screen, something whoosh by. Its movements are too fast for me to catch but it's inching closer and closer to the lifeforms. With one swift swipe, it took a man down, and then the next. The claw marks on the wall...it stretches 10 feet wide from point to point, even looking through the screen, the blood is so vividly deep in hue. It crawls in close, but the team is still desperately searching.

It strikes! "Get down!" My voice is shaking down to its core.

They duck, but some did not make it. Their limbs severed; corpse dangling in half on the claw of the monstrous being, still clinging and screaming for their lives and then cease all at once. I shrieked out in horror. The size of that thing knocked the air out of my lungs. This being couldn't possibly be a human?! The zombie creation stood ten times its original size. The exposed skeleton is partially bound by its flesh- all swelled up and tainted, its tail bone morphed to a whip carrying a single-edge blade. Claws digging into the shallow pool of blood as the liquid cascade down the cracks of the marble flooring. The remaining squad open fire, bullets fly and ricochet off the wall. In the brief moment of spark, they lost sight of the target again.

"Shit, where is it?" I can hear the frustration in Carlos's tone.

Their flashlight drifts around the room as the tension sets in. You fear what you can't see, even more so if all you could see is darkness. The beast growls and encircles them, but the squad can't pinpoint where the sound is coming from. Intensity fills your gut as you watch the monitor closely, decoding its every move. After a beat, it leaps.

"Carlos, your 4 o'clock!"

He whips around at the speed of sound as he squeezes the trigger. The blast took impact greater than his expectation, every shot penetrated into its fleshy fibres while it screeched with a chalkboard sound. It struggles to keep a hold of itself up on the pillars as it collapses and tumbles to the ground. Without missing a beat, the team executes the behemoth until it turns into a bloody pulp, killing it with brute force. They inspected the pulverized mess further before they could ease off their defences. As if by command, the power's back on. My stomach turns into a knot. This is strange, but I pay no mind to it.

"Carlos, you alright?" I asked.

"Yeah...that was too close. That thing was too quick... We could've been killed here if it wasn't for you. You were our eyes when we couldn't see so...thank you." I could almost hear him blush at the other end of the line.

"Don't sweat it. Alright, I'm gonna get the gate open." I pulled the lever and watch the gate rise and retracted back through the screen.

"Got it. Now get your ass back he-" THUMP! Something's outside the door, trying to crank it open.

THUMP!

"Carlos? Carlos, someone's trying to get in here." my voice shivers.

"What? What do you mean someo-"

BANG! The door flew open. As an instinct, I drew my gun and aimed it towards them. A team of four heavily armed soldiers dressed in black armoury kicked in, almost like a SWAT team, weapons aimed ready. Without a second thought, I opened two shots on their thighs and calves to buy myself some time. They did not flinch, nor did it cause any pain to them. The unit moved in closer and closer towards my position by the time I made the first punch. My right hook collided with one of the soldier's throat and swiftly transitioned my elbow to another one in between the ribs. But all of that did not matter, my attacks took little effect as they soon surround me, putting me in a lock hold position, hands bound behind my back and dragging me away from the room. I can feel my heartbeat pulsating in my throat while I struggle to break free. Who the fuck are these people? What do they want with me? I don't want this. I'm scared.

"CARLOS!"

His name was the last thing that left my lips before the hooded squad inject my system with some form of liquid. My eyelids grew heavy, I fought back to keep myself awake but alas, the shroud of darkness consumes my mind, taking my soul to a distant world. The next time I wake up, the doors to the pandora's box had already open and it's already too late for me to stop it.

The snickering and one-sided conversation waver into my ear. I can't shift my body, still situated in darkness along with the effect of the drug. The icy metal clasp my limbs tight cemented on either side of my body and unable to produce any strength. The noises stopped and I froze like a deer in the headlights.

"Ah...you're awake. Good, good." The man sneered and carry on muttering in an absence. "You know, I was surprised by your...actions. You all exceeded my expectations. With this data you provided, we could improve on the flaws with our last experiment." He chuckled. "For now, my child, sleep. When you wake up, you'll be born anew again." His words became a slur in my brain, lowering into a hushed tone. Phrases repeat and distorting, just like an echo in an ice cave, cold and enchanting before my conscious slips away once more.

------------------------

"WHAT HAPPENED? HEY, COME IN. HEY!" The statics over on the other line holds its place. "FUCK!" Carlos's voice howls, the thunderous boom stunned the remaining of his teammates. His fists clenched in a fit of rage as he smashes the radio onto the bloodied floor. The radio explodes with shards flying across the hall, some splinters still clinging onto his hand.

"Carlos...umph..." Tyrell struggles, limping its way towards him as he compresses his wound. "The mutated monster...the lights and the locked gate...I don't think it's that simple." he sighs, pushing his glasses back up with his forefinger. "There's only one company that would create such a big experiment. Carlos, listen...you need to stop them."

Carlos shifts to look at him. "T, we still have to meet up with Bravo and we've already lost half of our men. There's no prediction of what's roaming out there."

Tyrell shakes his head, a stern look in his eyes. "No...You've seen what they are capable of, there's no saying what Umbrella might do to next. Go rescue them, I'll handle the rest." He waves him away, still clenched in pain but casually shrugs it off. Carlos conflicted for a short period but ultimately chose to listen to Tyrell. Tyrell gave him a quick pat on his shoulder before Carlos turns away.

[Umbrella's research facility]

The eerie sound of silence fills the whole facility. A silence that stayed constant in your ears, just like the tv sign-off tone. The uneasy feeling never left Carlos's mind as soon as he traverses through the isolated building, gun in position. Walls dressed in white, the distinctive chill in the air and corridors that lead to nowhere. Carlos grew impatient by the minute.

There, at the end of the hallway, lays a door just barely visible for the naked eye. 'Security Room, EMPLOYEES ONLY'. He breaches in; a vast space all clustered with fallen chairs and paperwork, the multiple screens project different rooms within the facility, some looked like its the cafeteria and another resembles a cool storage room with weird pieces of machinery scattered around the place. Yet they are all empty, except one. At the top left-hand corner of the display box, it presents various aqua chambers containing partially mutated humans and failed experiments. And in the centre of that screen, he saw his companion positioned upright on a surgical bed, unconscious and all tied up. But getting there might be difficult without putting up a fight as four heavily armed mercs all gathered outside of the laboratory. Carlos unclips his assault rifle and peeks, the ammunition is barely enough to fight four soldiers; hell, not even four zombies. At this point, every shot counts.

The build-up of sweat in his palm loosened his grip. He examines his hand; trembling and numb with uncertainty, what lies between him and his enemies is just one simple electronic door. Beyond that, someone important is there waiting for him, alive and afraid. Or perhaps they...no. That couldn't possibly be the case. He clutches the handle once more, on the count of three breaths, he bursts in. It only took a split second for bullets to fly across the room, landing hits in the enemies' calves and forearms. Carlos moves in closer before they could react, instantly killing a soldier with one shot under the jaw as blood and plasma spew out onto the ceiling. They return fire, only to hit their ex-partner's lifeless corpse. Carlos thrusts the body towards the two henchmen and staggers them to the ground, he flips; locking the remaining guy pressed up the wall with his entire body, they struggle but was immediately executed with a blow to the head. Blood splattered on Carlos's right shoulder but that didn't faze him. The sound of his assault rifle clicks empty as he saw the two crawling back up. "Tch." His tongue snapped as the gun launched across the room at a high velocity, knocking one in the face and stumbling backwards. Like a chain of effect, they’ve sprawled out on the floor once again. Stepping his right foot on their torso, his gaze shows pity as he ponders over them before pulling out his pistol from the holster.

"Hope you got friends on the other side."

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! The aftermath of those four shots lingers in the room. A mixture of gunpowder and blood made Carlos's stomach twist up in a knot, but he got more important things to worry about. The life of his partner was the only thing that occupied his mind. The final door slides open; revealing a skinny, middle-aged looking man in a fresh set of lab coat, stood in front of a worktable and unaware of his presence. Inside, those hydro chambers stood twice his height with flesh substance floating inside the liquid. Some are just a blob of meat and others have fully transformed into somewhat human-shaped, but all are deformed. Upon closer inspection, one mutated monster's eye pop open. Carlos flinched. He examined around and was shocked to find that they are alive, all of them. What kind of sick joke is this? Is this what I've been fighting? He wondered.

"Admiring my creations, I see. Do you like it?" The man asked.

"Is this what's been running the city into a shitshow? What the fuck is this pharmaceutical company hiding?" He looks around. "Where are they?"

"Ah, yes! My precious little plaything. You're just in time to witness the beginning of my newest creation." The man chuckles, he pressed a button and the sound of machinery begins to whir. The glass cell shifts closer into the room, unveiling you in a comatose state, pretty as a picture. "They are sedated, for now. But soon, they will become humanity’s greatest invention and you will be the first one to witness it. Isn't that something?"

The blood inside him boils; the rage within could not be contained, white-hot magma erupting and coating every strain in his system. He pulled the trigger; the shots punctured through both of the man's legs as he knelt on the floor, screaming in agony. Carlos rushed to your side, unclasping any restrictions and carefully let you lean against the wall.

"Heh...what will you achieve by saving them...? The city's gone rogue...everybody's dead...and yet you couldn't save half your men. So...why bother saving them...the end is nigh!" His manic amusement shakes the whole room to the ground. But, the laughter was cut short and soon, it has been replaced by the clinking of a bullet shell against the hard deck and empty clickings. Gun drops as he struts towards the pathetic slob, straggling in the crimson liquid that's supposed to keep him alive. Well, not anymore. Carlos straddles on top of his weakened body, gaze bore into his soul. He wondered. How could someone like him still be alive? As the world burns and he gets to live? The ability to heal given to this monster and yet, he chose destruction. He must be purged.

The sound of his leather gloves creek as it made the first impact. The feeling of bone to bone seems odd to Carlos but...it excites him. With each hit, the pain pushes him even further, numbing and bruising. It felt right. He pants, the blood spews and paints him in a new shade of violence. The man weakly chuckles.

"The man who fights monsters have become a monster himself. Isn't that irony...?" He coughs, blood spilling out on the edge of his lips.

"Killing humans...how does that feel? Still want to play the hero and save them? With the world on fire and all those lives in your hands...you will only taint them. Lemme tell you a story...do you know what kind of flower blooms the brightest even in the harshest weathers?" Carlos looks at him quizzically.

"Snowdrops. They are the first ones to bloom long before spring comes around...the pure and innocent. At the beginning of time, Snow searched for a colour to borrow... The element admired flowers and their vibrant colours. One day, Snow asked and pleaded for one of the colours from the flowers, but the blossoms denied Snow's request; they felt Snow was too cold and undesirable. The snowdrop, however, felt sorry for Snow and offered it its own colour. It accepted the gift and the element itself became as white as an angel's feathers... To show its gratitude, Snow allowed snowdrops to bloom at the end of each winter with their own protection against the blizzard weather. From then on, Snow and snowdrops exist side-by-side as friends."

He heaves. "Like I said...irony... Their friendship is only a fabrication out of pity. Just like you!" The deathly cackle roams as he chokes on his own spit and blood.

Ears buzzed with white silence, his visions hazed with a red lens filter and heart palpate at an abnormal speed. Carlos felt every ridge of the handle on his knife and takes out his weapon, unhurried. The shiny metal pressed upon the wilting man's oesophagus- with only a little strength, it opened up. Blood spatter across Carlo's face, unflinching. His eyes darkened, tunnel vision focused on the crevice of the wound; there's friction on the thin layer of skin as the sharp edge glides slowly from one end of the neck to another. Carlos finishing him off with a fling of his blade, scattering red all over the wall. Both of his hands grip the handle tight; rising it high above his head, he paused for a moment to look at him one last time, then strikes down into the man's right chest in the speed of light. Pulverising his cardiac organ. He retrieves the knife and repeats over and over again with the red fluid gushes out with each stab until there is nothing left. A monster bathed in his enemy's blood. The man croaks in agony and over a few seconds, it stops. And so does Carlos.

The white noise has been replaced by his own rapid breathing. Thoughts are empty, his gaze quivers yet, he does not fear anything. He felt it...warmth. How did he not notice it? Is this how warm humans feel? He never realised this, this kind of feeling, it's something so different from killing a zombie. He looks down at his own two hands...so red. A smile crept along his face with the feeling of content. In a spark, he burst into a peal of harrowing laughter, vibrating the whole room.

"Carlos...What happened to you?"

------------------------------

In my moments of wake, I find myself bestowing my gaze upon a beast gazing back at me with a musing look in his eyes. They're so dark and dire, almost like someone gouged out a part of him and replaced it with something so sinister. He snaps, now truly looking at me through the eyes of the actual Carlos, as if nothing happened.

"You're awake! Good, I was starting to get worried about you. We should probably leave and catch up with Tyrell. They should've called for the extraction by now." Placing his tarnished knife back into the holster, he made his way towards me. My fear of him vanished, he's just like the Carlos I met a few hours ago. Warm and caring. "Let's go." He said, both his arms shifts under my back and behind my knees, picking my weight up with ease. "Get some rest...I wake you up when went get to the rendezvous point." His voice is hushed and the sound of his heartbeat soothes out all my stress. By the time we left the room, I was already drifting between dreamworld and reality.

The sound of his footstep was kept at a constant pace, his movement rocked me side to side, gently without missing a beat. But the further he tread, the temperature in the air got colder and yet I could not feel the wind brushing against me.

"Stay here. I'm gonna fix something real quick." Carlos's body heat left my side and was replaced by the icy touch of a piece of furniture. The mechanical hum occupied my eardrums and everything sound muffled once again. Eyes weakly opened and the sight wasn't what I was expecting. What greets me was four walls made of glass entrapping my body as he stood and watched.

"Carlos...what are you doing? Let me out. Come on...this isn't funny, Carlos. Let me out of here!" I begged.

He shook his head, resting a hand on the glass in front of me, looking at me longingly. "I can't." His words were breathless.

"Why?"

"I made you a promise. And this is the only way for me to protect you...You would be safer here, nothing can hurt you." His thumb grazes something small in his palm. I looked up and saw a room that was surrounded by pieces of machinery and nitrogen tanks, placed accordingly in rows of four. Then, it hit me.

"Don't do this..." I cried. But, it was too late. His thumb clicked on the small device in his hand and soon, a strain of gas misted out from the tubings and masking the entirety of the glass cell, leaving me dazed and numbed as I crawl back to the shivering nothingness.

"I'm sorry...I promise I'll come back for you." His empty words circulated in my ears and through the air as he walked away, leaving me in the darkest den of Umbrella. Cold, afraid and alone; frozen in time without anybody knowing.

And there I was, still as a landscape; living on top on a snowy mountain at the beginning of Spring, as pale as Death herself. Bidding my farewell to him until next Winter comes; when a blanket of snow tops the upside of the greeneries and then, we shall meet again.

#i'm gonna take a break before writing again cuz you know...self care #i do like writing something different #maybe i should do that stage play...hm...#carlos oliveira #carlos oliveira x reader #re fanfiction #re fanfic #resident evil #resident evil 3 remake #re3 remake #⭐️.doc

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