#ignore me I’m processing externally into the void

[a-wolf-at-the-door]

I've been thinking about the No-Thing. Obviously, in the process of unbecoming a No-Thing, it stopped being. Despite no longer being, it does still exist, otherwise it wouldn't be able to know that it is a No-Thing.

In that case, if one would be able to step into the Void and survive, how would they perceive the No-Thing? Would it be a visible No-Thing? Would it be a feeling? A sound? In what perceivable way does the No-Thing exist? Not necessarily for the human perception systems. We are quite limited in those.

OR is the No-Thing's perception of itself so skewed with suffering and change that it no longer perceives itself as a thing that IS? Could it be that the No-Thing still is, but can't conceive the notion of its being?

I miss Rose :( she was in far less pain than the No-Thing.

Hope your week is going well, and that your weekend gets you very well-rested.

First off thanks for your well wishes and I hope your week is going well too!

I’m so glad you’re thinking about this, I have spent many hours wondering about exactly this question. I have four answers for your one question. They take the form of bad news, good news, a twist, and a promise. The twist is an essay tbh, get ready for a long read!

The bad news: I don’t have a satisfying answer to what the No-Thing is and how the No-Thing would hypothetically be perceived. This is partly because it’s a counterfactual hypothetical: the No-Thing isn’t. Is. There isn’t anyone else doing the perceiving, and if anyone else were to enter the Void they’d be either killed or No-Thing-ified too, excepting those with a Void ship, but my understanding was that part of the way the Void ship worked was by preventing external perception anyway… The other reasons I don’t have a satisfying answer: answering might involve a little bit of spoiler-ing that I don’t want to do, and also, though I pretend otherwise, I can’t entirely wrap my head around the concept of unbeing either! I’m trying to convey not only that which cannot be conveyed but also that which cannot be comprehended, and to get across the truly incomprehensible I can’t cheat and comprehend it!

The good news: You get to decide how to imagine it! Each reader probably has a different understanding of what it must be like for the No-Thing in the Void. Our imagination of unbeing is informed by our individual experiences of being, of embodiment, of identity. I know I move through the world of being very differently than many in my circles, partly due to big Identity Labels™ (cis woman, queer, short, thin, young, white, Latina, neurodivergent, etc. and oops! Now you know a lot more about me!) and partly due to non-Identity Label™ experiences, traumatic and restorative and neutral alike.

The twist: I lied a little, or told a half-truth. Definitely true thing: I believe that stories are always collaborations between writer and reader. Writers provide the scaffolding and readers fill it in and make it particular. We can try all we like to evoke a certain experience, but everyone brings their own background and experiences and lens to the story, so no two people ever really read the same story. And so with that, I think it’s the author’s responsibility to let go. The words on the page are published and the rest of the work is up to the reader to determine and decipher however they may.

But.

I am feeling a little irresponsible.

So I’m gonna tell you more about what inspired the way I write the Void. This isn’t technically a direct answer, nor is it meant to be the sole interpretation of the Void. If you don’t like it, you can always ignore it! Anything I say about these fics is pretty much “fan interpretation” unless it’s in the body of the fic. Here, I’m not really the all-knowing author, I’m just someone who gets to read ahead before everyone else. (because I wrote it lol)

So. How and why do I write the Void (and the No-Thing) the way I do?

The easy answer would be to point to some literary influences. I drew on some elements from DW canon. I love The Magnus Archives podcast and The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater (who is just generally a huge influence on my writing style, I adore her and her work). I consume a lot of speculative fiction and poetry and interesting science writing.

But the real deep-rooted influence of my imagining of the Void is rooted in my mental health challenges. I want to first couch this by saying I’m in a really good place right now and have been for a while. I’ve done a LOT of therapy and I’m on the right medications and I’m making a ton of progress taking care of myself, but I have at points in my life suffered from intense depression, anxiety, and complex trauma. I also have ADHD (but I don’t like saying I “suffer from” that one because it’s so intrinsic to who I am). I’m about to talk about these mental health things in a bit more depth so if you’re not comfy reading about them skip ahead to the promise!

Ok.

I have always struggled with embodiment. Not so much with my specific body—I have a lot of privilege as a thin cis woman and I want to acknowledge that—but with the idea of being in a body to begin with. I blame some of that on the Catholic Church teaching me that the body and all its earthly desires are bad things, and some of it on growing up surrounded by people with a lot of internalized fatphobia, and some of it on growing up intellectually gifted in a society that has a bedrock belief in Cartesian dualism (mind and body are separate, mind is superior to body, mind is pure and godly and must be cultivated, body is impure and animalistic and must be controlled/repressed). My thoughts have always been so fast (thanks ADHD) that I often felt like my body was a limitation.

I have long been very antagonistic towards embodiment and am only recently (past few years) beginning to truly unpack and heal from that. For a very long time the narrative in my head was like this: I am a mind and my mind is clever and creative and quick and capable of so much. My body is an inconvenience. Taking care of it takes time away from the extraordinary things my mind can do. Why does my body betray me by needing sleep, needing food and water, needing bathroom breaks and tooth-brushing and medicine and moisturizer? Why can’t I write as fast as I think? Why can’t I just be a cloud of disembodied thought?

A lot of egotism, a lot of shame. The two often go hand in hand.

These thoughts go back as far as I can remember. I learned to type really fast because I have memories of being a toddler watching my mom typing away and being jealous because handwriting was too slow for me to get my stories out.

I was also a pretty morbid kid. Like seriously, I would read the obituaries in the newspaper and search specifically for young deaths. I don’t know where this came from—I have been very lucky and have still not lost many people close to me, and at that time I hadn’t really lost anyone close to me at all. But I thought a lot about death.

I wasn’t a very good Catholic. I scored highly in religion class because I scored highly in almost every class, and I could believe that Jesus had really existed and done all that stuff the Bible said, but my faith broke down when I thought about death. Hell was terrifying. Purgatory was still beyond my comprehension. My real issue was with Heaven. It sounded interminably boring.

Before anything else, I am and have always been a writer. And as a writer I know that plot relies on conflict. So a reality where everything is perfect all the time and everyone is happy and nothing bad ever happens? Couldn’t get behind it.

As I started losing my faith, my thoughts turned more towards oblivion. (Cue early-2010s TFiOS-era poetic depression). The idea of winking out into nothing terrified me, consumed my thoughts, kept me up at night. What would death be like? Nothing. And what would Nothing be like?

So you see, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about unbeing. And I’ve spent an awful lot of time ignoring the realities of my being, dissociating from my body because I felt limited by it, ashamed of it, detached from it, betrayed by it. (In reality, I was the one doing the betraying.)

Writing Rose/the No-Thing in the Void has been an exercise in paying attention to my being. Trying to capture absence means I have to better understand presence. And it’s made me a hell of a lot more aware of reality.

Because depression lies to you and tells you that you are nothing, that you know nothing, that you feel nothing. Anxiety lies to you and tells you that you are everything everywhere all at once, that you know and can predict every possible outcome, that you are hyperaware of all that’s happening. The No-Thing is both of these and more and less. Like depression, the Void robs Rose of identity, memory, connection, but also like depression, it does so imperfectly. She is not unsalvageable because no one is ever unsalvageable. Like anxiety, the Void gives her a hyperawareness and detachment, a series of images she can’t quite connect and comprehend, an inner monologue she cannot silence. But also like anxiety, it doesn’t actually bring anything into clear focus or control.

Rose’s journey back towards embodiment is coming, and I’m really excited to write it. Partly for her, and a lot for me. It’s going to mirror some of the lessons I’ve learned as I get more comfortable with the fact that being human means being embodied, that I am on the same team as my body, that it sends messages to me and I choose to listen or ignore them, that it never betrays me but that I can choose whether or not to betray it. Her return will also show more of Bad Wolf as a disability. (Disclaimer: I don’t generally disclose the specifics but I have a few conditions that can be classed as disabilities, though they are the sort that can be managed thanks to modern medicine, my parents’ health insurance [thanks Obama!], and a lot of luck and privilege, so with the exception of rogue flare-ups, they don’t usually have disabling effects on my day-to-day life.)

The promise: Rose will return. Can I promise she’ll be in less pain? No. But can I promise she’ll come back and grapple with her new challenges and do it all with characteristic aplomb? Yes.

Ok that’s all! Hope you enjoyed the essay that didn’t really answer your question lol, now go forth and imagine!

[talkingtomycomputer]

Intrinsic Value

Feeling good about ourselves is one of the hardest, loneliest, most human experiences I can think of. It is an aspect of life we often neglect or ignore and many of us do not prioritize this until later in life. It is a different process for everyone who attempts it. Many of us never fully do experience it, but that is okay, but I highly encourage everyone to try. Whether you need the assistance of therapy, or medications, or if you do it completely by yourself, you deserve to feel good about yourself at least some of the time. Let me say that again, you deserve to feel good.

  I would like to think I am pretty decent at giving advice, but there’s one area I cannot quite express fully enough to be able to help someone through it. I wish I had the words to help those of my friends who struggle with finding their own inner worth. We derive our value from a lot of different things in life, whether that be friends, family, work, or in our romantic relationships, but we often forget about our self-worth. Aside from all these areas of our life, we possess value. Even when we disappoint our friends and family, even when we underperform at work, even when we break up with our partners, we are worth something. It can be easy to get caught up with external validation, because when life is good, we receive it regularly. Unfortunately, life is not always so good. 

Sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we find moments in our lives where external validation is few and far between. These are moments to remind yourself that even if no one is telling you this, you are important, and wanted, and loved. The human experience is a funny one to me. For most, when we are young, we are surrounded by people all the time whether it be in school, camp, church, sports, or clubs. This continues all the way into young adulthood for those of us who decide to attend college, but dramatically declines when we leave school. We go from constant communication from our peers to seeing them a couple times a month, or even only a few times a year. This causes many of us to go through the extreme discomfort of having to become our own best friend. We are now the person we spend the most time with. This means in order to fill that void of immersive socialization, we either need to seek it out or we need to grow used to feeding that part of ourselves through personal hobbies and interests. Oftentimes, this process occurs by ourselves.

I have personally always enjoyed my alone time. I am the type of person who, much of the time, chooses to stay home with a good book instead of going out to socialize. I have always been this type of person. My parents needed a quiet afternoon? No worries, I’ll hang out in my room. I spent a lot of time by myself as a kid. I have an older sister who was much the opposite, she went to school before I did, and spent most of her time at sports, in theatre productions, or with friends. I had a small handful of friends I would hang out with outside of school, but I was a little shy and didn’t really enjoy sports or extracurriculars until I was older. I did a lot of independent playing and it taught me how to craft intricate worlds full of imaginative characters, and magic. This was a reality I lived in by myself until I was around high school age. This reality is where I have found myself returning to in my newfound adulthood. It is a place within me that I can find comfort in my own words and praises and delights. I spend time in this place reminding myself that I am creative and wonderful because my imagination is creative and wonderful. This place within me that I have concocted is full of love and therefore I am full of love. In the metaphysical sense, I am amazing because I think amazing thoughts. I think therefore I am. If I spend all my time telling myself that I am worthless then I become worthless. If I think I need the praises of others to feel good, then I need the praises of others to feel good. 

Do you see what I’m getting at here? You have to invest time into being kind to yourself in order to feel good about yourself. You must think to become. You decide you matter. I treat myself kindly by spending time doing things that I want to do. I book trips with my friends, and I go hiking and camping, and I visit my family, and I spend time reading at coffee shops alone. I do these things for no reason other than because I want to. I do not do them because someone expects me to or because I have obligations to do so. I do them because they make me feel good, and it is how I wish to spend my time. I still have all the other obligatory duties, like going to work so I can pay my bills, and grocery shopping so that I have food at home to cook. I feel comfortable in my ability to say no to absolutely anything. 

Establishing a routine that includes these acts of “self-care” is a vitally important thing to do for the health of your relationships, as well as for the health of your mind. We must spend time investing into ourselves in order to grow comfortable and content with ourselves. Taking the time to remind ourselves of our own value enables us to deal with adversity and hardships more effortlessly. When we experience something negative in our lives, sometimes we turn the blame on ourselves. Feelings of guilt and worthlessness can usually follow these negative events, and the only way to overcome these moments is by giving ourselves the grace, kindness, and forgiveness we would grant to others experiencing these feelings. Life is full of these difficult moments, so providing yourself with the skill-set to deal with them is an investment into your long-term happiness.

So do the work. Have conversations with yourself about your values and live by those basic truths. Be authentic to yourself and do not compromise your beliefs and give yourself the freedom to feel confident about your decisions and actions. Remind yourself that you are kind, honest, intelligent, loved, and anything else that you need to hear. I am loved, I am valuable, I am a wonderful addition to the world. You are loved, you are valuable, and you are a wonderful addition to the world. Be proud of yourself for making it this far, and good luck with your journey.

[whentherewerebicycles]

I had a do-the-chores phone date with liz this morning, during which I made myself unpack, do laundry, change sheets and duvet, repot a couple plants, and clean most of the apartment. it still feels kinda cluttered in here but it’s cleanish and that’ll do for now. then I ignored the hockey game (wise choice) and spent 11-3:30ish brainstorming for this fic fest. I’m going back and forth on the size & scale of the project I want to attempt but am forbidden to speak even of the word count online lol so I cannot do my usual processing into the void. very difficult for me!! how can I have a thought if I haven’t externalized in some form! but after hours of experimenting with different ideas I find myself circling around one that I think could work. I like the initial feelings it’s stirring up in me so I’m gonna spend time mulling it over and doing some slightly more involved brainstorming with notecards or on my laptop. I’m trying to remind myself that not every writing project has to be My Very Best Work Ever or A High Stakes Creation. it’s okay to write a decently good story! putting too much pressure on an idea is the best way to ensure nothing ever gets written.

[akimmito]

Heroes are made by the path they choose

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Master List

Chapter 11

It's not the MT

Silent Hill: Nightwing and Robin have gone to Paris.

It’s a Nara: Do you know their motives? We are not aware of any crime or related crime network between Gotham and Paris

Silent Hill: Red Hood told them about the MT

Almost pretty: Corvus should pay him a visit and shoot him in the knee

Three balls: with real bullets

Plasticine: or a rocket launcher

Wild goat: Can I go? So I can test my confetti grenades

Silent Hill: I think that sense of humor fits in well with Gotham

Needle: With the rogues

Olive: I totally approve of any kind of aggression against the nosy man

Great mother: If you do something illegal, make sure no one knows it was you

Almost pretty: the boss has spoken

Divine gift: It’s my duty to remind you that you must be investigating, if the foreign watchers have affairs with us, we will know in due course. Let's not do anything rash.

It’s a Nara: He’s right. I'm going to check the security cameras for any sign of them… Is Nightwing wearing his own outfit or did he come as Batman?

Silent Hill: Batman can't leave Gotham

The Antibiotic: Do you think if I get on a roof I can get a Nightwing autograph?

Wild goat: If you get on it, maybe Byakko accidentally shoves you into the void

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

Marinette sighs as she watches the group chat, foreign vigilantes while she and Felix have plans to get out of Paris, just wonderful, but she can't stop to think about it. She must first speak to Damian and then prepare for her travel.

She's heading towards her son's room, she can hear the little barking of the puppies as she gets closer. Adult dogs are used to sleeping in a room set up for them, except for Ícaro, the Australian Shepherd, who likes to sleep with Damian when he visits (which means that there will now be five dogs in that room, alongside Picatso, Dafne prefers to sleep with she). She knocks on the door and before long, he opens it, wearing only his pajama bottoms because his shirt is being used as a bed by Ringo.

"Is something wrong, mother?" Damian opens the door completely for her to enter, ignoring, for the moment, his previous fight against the cubs for his kidnapped shirt.

"Yeah... Tomorrow I will go on a trip with Felix, we will go to Turkey."

"Why?"

"Oh well, it's... there's a prodigy in Turkey and it seems like a demon wants it, so we'll find it before it becomes a problem." She explains, she was about to tell him about John, but with her out of the country, there was nothing to prevent him from discovering his identity and she doesn't know what could happen for his small Machiavellian head.

Marinette loves her child, but she can't quite predict it right now. Luka, a divine gift for her, explained that Damian doesn't want to be taken away from her and that he fears that someone external can achieve it, that he desperately clings to the only person who loves him for what he is and that if they take him away from him add more weight, separate he from his new family; that she represents his whole world. He also explained that it will take a while for him to get used to receiving people outside the MT, especially if they seem to show interest in she and that after Michel Laforet, well, the boy doesn't have a good impression of men. Although he showed bewilderment about his reaction for his two new clients, since he was openly hostile and he could not give him a definitive answer, but that he would analyze his behavior to help him go through the process he's living.

"I see... why don't you take me, mother? Am I not good enough to accompany you on your missions?" She sighs to see his hurt look and sits on the sofa in the room, inviting him to sit next to her, he immediately obeys and sits down, allowing himself to be embraced by his mother.

"It has nothing to do with anyone's abilities, if it did, it will lead other team members not only to Felix." She explains, beginning to pat her son's head, looking up at the ceiling as she decides to explain herself better and be totally honest with Damian. "When I founded the MT, I had been working alone with Felix for a while we were looking for evidence to convict Gabriel Agreste once and for all, we found so many charges that the prosecution would have a field day in the case... so that our victory was bitter because someone stole the butterfly brooch..."

"Mother, why are you telling me that? I know the story. ”He interrupts, not understanding Marinette's intentions.

"I know, you know the origin, but not the process." She responds with a nostalgic smile. "We spent half a year locked up cursing the person who dared to steal the Miraculous and realized that, as heroes, we could not hunt it without attracting attention... Hence the first idea of the MT arose and we founded it officially a week after the last Gabriel's trial, along with Kagami and Tomoe, who joined Luka soon after. Adrien decided not to be an active part of everything, but he became an unofficial member a year later because of his desire to find Nathalie's murderer, becoming an informant and investigator, everything that we could not take, he did it by getting a job modeling in the city where I was supposed to go. "

Damian did not know that, he believed that Agreste was affiliated with the MT just because he was previously one of the heroes, but, considering that not all the old Miraculous wearers are related, he should have considered another possibility (especially since the old wearers still wield a prodigy and he doesn't). He credits him for his commitment and intelligence to have a reason to go to those places, that also explains why he has been modeling for so many brands (some very strange ones like a brand of sardines with yellow peppers, he still remembers the jokes in the chat about his sardine costume).

"After we had an initial team in place, we started building our local network and expanding it using my grandmother Gina's connections, before long we were up and running and took Tomoe's recommendation to build a stronger team, in part for our work and so that the prodigies would have more places to be transferred… Each person who associates with the MT and proves to be loyal, receives the tattoo of the guardians. "Damian goes away to see his mother, that is something that he didn't know,  why? "That is why everyone knows magic, although not everyone is compatible..."

"Why don't I have it?"

"Because I wanted you to have options, not because you are my son and part of the MT means that you must bear that responsibility. I took you out of an organization where you were against your will… I wasn't going to put you in another, that's why we didn't introduce you to training until you asked for it. "Damian doesn't know what to say, is she taking his decisions into consideration? Does he want to be part of it in the same way as the others? He doesn't know, because he doesn't know what it means to be a guardian, but if he ask, his mother is sure to explain and give him all the time he need to make a decision.

"Why are you telling me now?" It's the only thing he can ask, he doesn't understand how conversation came to that.

"Because it's one of the reasons I am not taking you to Turkey." He understands, that is a job for them as guardians and he's not one, it should be obvious, but he still feels displaced. "The other is directly related to the history of the MT... I learned to work with Felix, we both know what to do and we don't stop, we create our own system over the years. We have had our difficulties, like four years ago in Liverpool, but here we are... And we just need to learn to coordinate us, for you. "

Marinette draws him back into her hug, this time placing a kiss on his head.

"What is the reason for the nicknames in the chat?"The question surprises Marinette, he was complaining about it, especially since his is Olive.

"Protect the identities of informants affiliated with the MT, that is, those who received a tattoo, but who are not part of the official registry."

"Is your lover one of those?"

Marinette smiles in amusement, of course her child would start tying up dots. Taking into account that they are traveling almost unexpectedly (he knows when it's so and it not a planned one, because she would have warned him in time) and for that to happen he must have found out very recently, that is, the day before and that day was see to John.

"Yup... And I won't tell you what his code name is." He just clicks his tongue, there are four users whose identity he doesn't know: God Shit, Not in Hell, Guardian Angel and Silent Hill. It could be any one of them, but he's noticed that Silent Hill maybe a girl, so he dismisses it. Returning to the users, only one is active, the others have not spoken to date, despite the fact that they are registered and that makes it more difficult... especially since man is related to magic, the occult and those things, hardly he can dismiss one and only because he's sure Guardian Angel is too bright for someone he know deals with demons, leaving him with the last two.

"I'll find out eventually. "He declares and Marinette knows it's true, one way or another he will. She hoped that didn't imply any international problem, considering that John lives in England.

"I know." She hugs him tighter before releasing him. "I wish it lasted longer, but I have to finish packing... Rest, Damian. I will come in the morning to say goodbye, I love you. "

Marinette gets up, but not before leaving another kiss on her son's head and then leaving the room.

Damian watches her go and his head begins to form a plan to take advantage of his mother's departure.

He will find the lover and question him (he will also threaten him a lot).

----------

Marie L. @MarieLenoir

It's always a pleasure to contribute to a good cause. Istanbul wait for us.

Chloe B. @BourgeoisQueen

I also want to travel, how unfair it's to be trapped in Paris

Dick Grayson @TheFlyingGrayson

The vigilantes of this city feel very happy or maybe Batman is too gloomy

Roy @RoyHarperQ

@TheFlyingGrayson Probably, although Green Arrow can be very gloomy when he wants

Jason @IAmYisus_XD

@TheFylingGrayson yes, well, it's that Batman is the living reflection of Gotham... gloomy and a piece of shit

-------

Damian gets up early and rushes into his mother's room to get Plagg out and talk to him, the night before he placed an order for various types of gourmet cheeses and his beloved Camembert cheese (specifically Camembert from Normandy), to please the more exotic tastes of the little god (especially since he has money that he doesn't use and has been accumulating for too long and this was a strategic move for information).

He takes him to his room, Longg is already awake and looks at him without much surprise, deciding to ignore the situation, knowing that he's a boy on a mission, the best thing to do is wait and advise him in a timely manner.

"Plagg, I need you to tell me the name of my mother's lover."

"Boy, as much as you want to say it, I won't betray... What's that?" The little cat asks noticing that the computer screen is on a website that he knows well, that's where Marinette asks for some cheese on occasion.

"That is the cheese order I made for you, if you tell me the name, of course, otherwise, I will cancel... All those cheeses that mother only allows you to eat once every three months, lost by a man." Damian smiles when he sees the excitement shining in Plagg's green eyes, he is sure he will say him.

"Did you ask for Camembert?"

"The original, Camembert of Normandy. "

Plagg is in conflict, so many delicious cheeses at his fingertips.

"When you get back from Turkey, they'll be here waiting for you." Damian keeps pushing for the name, he needs to know it, and besides Felix, Plagg is the only one who knows him and the little god is easier to convince. "You just have to give me a name. "

"FINE! Don't torture me, boy. "

"So?"

"John Constantine, blond, out of the same hell. You will recognize him immediately, he never quits the damn cigarette. I don't know how Marinette enjoys being with him, it's all the unpleasantness of humans combined in the same man. ”Plagg says wearily. "I better see those cheeses when I get back or I'll cry with Marinette about how cruel you were to me. "

"I think we all know that's impossible." Longg intervenes from his location, away from both of them. He watches with a little amusement the interaction of both, he knows that to obtain that Plagg decides to cooperate normally requires less moral methods. "It would be more credible that you were cruel to my dragon. "

"I can use blackmail, however, you're warned, boy. I can also cause nightmares. ”Plagg leaves the room to give his warning, returning to Marinette.

Damian smiles and goes back to bed satisfied, waiting for his mother to say goodbye and to plan how he will get to that man to talk. He pulls out his phone and starts checking group chats, Not the MT is always one of the most active, although Let's save Adrien is also usually enough active when they plan crazy and ridiculous ways to get rid of Lila Rossi, Adrien's wife.  Among the most extreme forms is sending her to hell or offering her as a sacrifice to some ancient god in America, although he knows that they will not do that, because only his mother can and she doesn't approve (she also scared them telling her about how everything can go wrong and condemn them all to hell, no one ever mentioned it again later.)

After a while finishing reviewing all the conversation that followed about the vigilantes and as the other heroes they know or admire got sidetracked, he leaves his phone aside and lets Picatso jump on him purring happy to be petted, the puppies seem they share the idea and they also get into bed... the best they can, although their jumping skills leave a lot to be desired, at least they are creative dogs.

Several minutes later, after feeling sorry for Ringo and putting him to bed, Marinette, completely groomed, gives him a funny but affectionate look before fully entering and sitting on the bed.

"Felix will be here soon, do you want to have breakfast with me before I leave?"

"Of course, mother."

She smiles and takes Titus in her arms to carry him with her, Damian takes Ringo when he gets up and Milo jumps out of bed to go after them, with Picatso following close behind. Ícaro continues sleeping.

-----

Bruce Wayne is Batman

I can jump from eighth floor and survive: Who changed the name of the chat?

I'll rest when I die: The same one that changed our names ... at least it's right

Hell rejected me : I think it gives us more personality than our names

I can jump from eighth floor and survive: Ok?

I can jump from eighth floor and survive: So! Since we will spend several days in Paris, I thought it would be good to wait a little to see the routes without them knowing about our presence

Hell rejected me: So yeah you are going to show up

I’ll rest when I die: It seems so, although from what I discovered patrols take turns in pairs or trios, last night only the sighting of Byakko and Genbu was recorded.

I’ll rest when I die: And last night it was Pyxis and Caelum

Nothing escapes me: They must have a very well protected base of operations, perhaps magic, I identified a network that connects all of Paris, but not the source

Nothing escapes me: I deciphered the accessible code, but it's incomplete. I don't think I can go any further

I can jump from eighth floor and survive: That only tells us how competent they are, I think we can get to know them and not meddle more in their affairs

Hell rejected me: Considering that all your interest is sexual, yep it's posible

I'm not Batman: What are you talking about?

--------

Max is not usually frustrated much, he has had to develop his patience and mental strength to solve the problems he encounters, but among the attempt to find the source of the MT by an unknown hacker (although if he must guess it must be related to the bats) and appreciates the magical defenses that only allow just a bit to crack all the code, just the general parts that don't show anything from the entire system. Of course, he could hack back and issue fixed, preventing him from trying again, but his priority is developing a new algorithm for butterfly detection, the old one was unfortunate when tested with one of Duusu's feathers (being that they share the same characteristics).

He has not slept the last twenty-four hours and is beginning to resent, but he must wait for Marc's arrival to be able to drop into one of the beds at the base for a little nap, if someone else comes with him, much better, so they can check all manual while he rests.

With Marinette and Felix going on a trip, it's inevitable that the leadership will fall into the hands of Chloe, who seems ready to go to war at the first hint of the butterfly (also Kagami, but she's leaving more ready to go on a murder mission).

This is not how he thought everything would go, they had seven years of preparation and at the moment of truth, none of them really knows which direction to take. Marinette and Felix are very determined to analyze the whole situation from a general perspective, looking at each variable and, while he agree, most of the team seems to want to just go after the thief and take away the jewel, without fully considering that this new villain's way of acting is much more lethal, his Akuma are well thought out to generate problems for them if they make any mistakes, as happened with the last attack if it wasn't for the second chance they would have lost (Luka explained what happened).

"Good morning..." Marc comes in yawning, his hair totally disheveled and still wearing his pajama bottoms, but with a dark blue sweatshirt on. He decided to sleep at the headquarters the night before to facilitate his arrival, in the same way Luka and Alix, because their work schedules allow it (advantages of being their own boss).

"Good morning, today you can dedicate yourself to review the surveillance cameras... although so far none have caught the butterfly."

"Okay, I'll check."

"I'll leave you then, I'll go to sleep... will you wake me up when breakfast is served?" Max gets up from his chair and feels his bones creak with movement, resentful at his disuse.

"Sure." He smiles sleepily and adjusts himself to the vacant post, ready to manually check each camera, starting with the ones closest to the last Akuma and starting to rewind to, perhaps, identify something.

He spends about three hours like this, watching the video tapes of at least four cameras from where the Akuma originated, noting that the butterfly is arriving and then the giant rhomb is present, but when he looks for the route... he only loses it, as if it had just appeared near the victim's residence.

There are multiple cameras in that area, but there are still blind points, if someone knows the exact location, they should be able to position themselves in those places. Could it be that the new villain was close to his future victim? Will he live there or did he decide to run to the place? If it's the latter, it makes him bolder than Gabriel, that's for sure, but it should make him more sloppy and still they are unable to find a clue.

According to Max, who was reviewing footage, the first Akuma came out of nowhere. No camera records the butterfly that should have come from somewhere.

So for him there are only two viable alternatives and neither is positive for his research.

Still, the possibilities are various and he can only guess the villain's line of thought.

[apathetically-hopeful]

5/18/21 Emotions

Emotional vulnerability has never been a suit I’ve been able to wear comfortably. My mind has waited for this moment for a long time, so long that it now feels like I’m reconnecting with a distant relative. It’s awkward, and at most times, unpleasant. When you’ve spent so long suppressing the parts of yourself that are rebelling against everything you’re trying to ignore; life gets messy quick. And it holds true, because my life is very plain and simply a mess right now.

I had another panic attack today. I’ve never really had these before; except on very rare occasions. Now I have them once or twice a week; and they are on a whole other level from the ones I’ve experienced in the past. I was finally committing to completing a task I’ve been putting off for some time. The simple process of unpacking and starting to organize my new space sent me spiraling. I’m not actually sure where it came from; if it was the unpacking or just some kind of mental dam breaking. Out of nowhere though, I began crying and felt like I was unable to catch my breath. It was a completely crippling moment for me; because I am not a person that handles feeling powerless very well.

Fair to say; I’ve never really had a handle on my emotions in any capacity. In fact the only control I did have over them was my ability to bury them deep inside myself; never to see the light of day again. But instead of letting my emotions define me and make me who I am, something much worse happened. I developed into a person that was so afraid of vulnerability and their own feelings that I turned into a manipulative and self absorbed monster. My need to live each day without feeling the weight or internal cost of my actions turned me into someone that could only pursue momentary happiness and fulfillment. When those moments had passed, however, I was left with a constant feeling of emptiness.

To fill the perceived void in myself, I did everything I could, except for everything I should. I would have nights on end of partying and indulgence, or make impulse buys, or just surround myself with distractions that would only leave me feeling whole for fleeting instants. When I wasn’t able to comfort myself with superficial bullshit; I’d become emotionally destitute and drag myself and those that loved me down into the bowels of my self loathing. Having next to no healthy coping mechanisms meant I was just destined to keep following a path that would lead to an assured destruction of self. As with all things that are inevitable; the inevitable happened. 

I was going through life with an attitude that had zero sustainability. How can a person perpetually lack self worth and emotional cognizance, and somehow expect any sort of fulfillment from life. It was a never ending cycle of finding something to pin my happiness on and then having to eventually come to terms with my own lack of internal equilibrium. Now that I have hit rock bottom; I’m left with no choice but to face myself. Because I’ve finally started this journey, I find that I’m now forced to deal with everything all at once. The lock has been smashed off the cage where I kept all the monsters of my own creation locked away.

Staring all my trauma down every day has been the most exhausting thing I’ve ever attempted. Exacerbated by the fact that I am facing new and fresh trauma; I find that it’s all I can do to hold myself together from one minute to the next. My fears have shifted now though. What I find myself most afraid of is regressing to old habits of dealing with things both internally and externally. Unfortunately I’m not perfect and there is no clearly defined path to succeeding in my efforts.

See, I fucked things up again for myself just a few days ago. I got so focused in, on an external situation, that I allowed myself to slip into familiar habits for a brief moment. Luckily I was able to pull myself back from the edge in a relatively timely manner; but not before I had caused some damage to everything I’ve been trying to accomplish. Now I find that I’m paralyzed by fear of the consequences of my actions. I don’t know if what I did has irreparably changed the course of what I’m seeking. All that’s left for me is to hope that myself and those I affected can forgive me for my moment of weakness. If they could see the damage my screwup did to myself as well as them, then I hope they can understand that it is everything I’m trying to move away from.

Trying to balance on this tightrope is something that will take me a lot of practice. Falling means landing back into everything that made me so insufferable to myself and others. Fortunately, so far I have only slipped and been able to find the strength to pull myself back up. The canyon below is deep and perilous; something I’m not sure I could survive the depths of. That makes my only choice to move forward; to reach the other side of this great chasm spanning my psyche. 

When you’ve spent so long avoiding anything that wasn’t immediately satisfying, it is easy to not understand your emotions. Navigating through an ocean of feelings that you don’t even properly know how to feel. I find that I am often confused, or even upset, that I can’t decipher what is going on in my head. My traumas, both past and present, are all laid bare in front of me now. Learning the way to proceed against them is challenging. But I feel that somewhere under all this madness and uncertainty is a part of me that is relieved; dare I say, maybe even happy.

I kept so much of myself locked away for so long that I think the part of myself that allowed me to have hope, to feel, and to understand had been imprisoned as well. Turning inward and dealing with one’s own shortcomings in life is a painful but necessary journey. I used to regret and blame everything in my life for making me into this person that I’m trying so hard to leave behind. But now I find that my only regret is that I never started traveling into myself sooner. 

Letting go of these regrets has been like an anchor removed from the shackles of my soul. I’m only in the most infantile steps of the process, but I know that each day I find myself feeling a little more at peace in my own mind. I have many more difficulties on the road before me, and I am sure I will stumble again; but I’m learning the depths of my own strength and will. I am now taking a level of comfort in being able to allow myself to truly experience my feelings and what they are trying to tell me. I find that after a break down, before the tears have even dried, that the sun seems to be a little brighter and the air just ever slightly easier to breathe. Maybe this is what true hope feels like. Maybe I’m truly starting to believe in my own power over my emotions, without feeling the need to lock them up.

To those that I’ve affected: please know that I am facing all of this with nothing but sincerity and love. I’m sorry if you’ve been hurt by me along the way. My only hope is that you keep your faith in me, because I will not stop until it is rewarded. And I will press on past that point, because the journey of self is one that never ends. I just need to believe that somewhere along the way, I will not only gain everything that I want, but that I will be truly deserving of it.

Seize control of your mind and emotions. Find yourself on the other side of the pain. Love always,

Trevor.

[xerospaced]

Hypersensitive. So, yes, I can be easily overwhelmed. Yes, it’s unpredictable. And, no, I don’t always see the warning signs.  This, I have to accept. I have accepted. I need not fight.

Sometimes sadness is just sadness. Sometimes it’s not sadness at all. It all feels the same in the beginning. Shutdowns come on real gentle. Solitude so I don’t notice the mutism - one cue lost. And all I feel is sadness. And I can handle sadness. Until hours have passed and I realise it’s not just that I’m not moving - I can’t. It’s not just that I’m still scrolling - I can’t stop. Too late to notice by the time it’s taken me. 

And it’s unpleasant. but - manageable. for the most part.

Until the circumstances change and I no longer exist in a void but in the presence of another.  Suddenly the flatness is so damn loud. My jaw locked like tough toffee. My expression sallow and...  I’m a black hole. The steady acceptance of my inactivity blasted into distress because I am not suitable to be known by another. 

My brain processes things differently. And that’s ok. I like my brain. There are a lot of strengths to it. I can ride a shutdown. When others are ignorant to it.  Speak up and it all falls apart.

What am I working on accepting here? I’m not a piece of shit. In fact, quite the fucking opposite. And my heart is filled with nought but good intent. Must seclusion be a negative in this respect? If I am aware of my volatility, surely it is the responsible thing, to remain in privacy ‘til the state passes.

Restriction breeds further negativity and... neglects need. But solitude familiar and more gentle than... Risk.

Sorry for all the sorry’s and the tension grows. Apologies justified but What I’m apologising for is Self. Like I’m sorry I’m like this.  And the pain grows.  Sorry for misery caused. Sorry for being the source. Another sorry for my brain function and this unending facet of my entity. Sorry for the person I am today, and who I might be tomorrow. Sorry for the next episode - the one I’ll likely fail to predict. Sorry for the reality of that which I cannot control. Sorry I can’t tell you it will be different one day. Sorry for the fact of my frustrating features.

You see I’m apologising for my existence.

Always approach with love and care but I misread the signals. Amplify the symptoms. 

This is supposed to be an instance of radical acceptance. 

I am what I am. I will not fight it.  The punishment I provide must subside. I do not wish to be sorry for being.  My being need not be sorry when independent. 

These are the facts of my condition.

I alone must bear this predicament. I will not set upon loved ones my affliction. I need not admonish my own experience. But my experience shall be mine and mine alone.

The external turmoil - unprecedented. The damage acquired internal - significant. To my own devices - indifferent.

[moiraineswife]

Ep 55 Caleb Meta

Warning: This post will contain a)- Spoilers for episode 55. If you haven’t seen it yet BEGONE. b)- Angst. Bc. Caleb. c)- yelling. if u haven’t worked out already: these posts are not planned. these posts are not thought-through. these posts are not edited. these posts are a stream of consciousness shrieking at the void that is u lot. Enjoy. 

So. Uh. That episode was like..................A lot. Lots to unpack. LOTS. So I’m just going to touch on Caleb and the very specific niche deliciousness of him being completely and utterly retraumatised in that episode and how it may or may not pan out in future. 

Meta under the cut bc it got Long. 

So, DIVING IN: the nature of trauma in itself is repetition. Nightmares, flashbacks (of all their various forms) are ways in which the trauma itself repeats. Basically your brain Cannot Cope with what’s happened so it tries to just put you through the same thing over and over again like process this please. 

Caleb has been dealing with that for at least a decade since the original trauma took place. Then we pile on the (highly symbolic and super-interesting in a really fucked up way bit of magic that is Modify Memory (i assume) which I have to meta on more in future) which is effectively a false memory that was removed (that his parents were guilty/in his twisted-logic mind deserved what they got) which makes a very interesting mirror for suppressed memories (again: big trauma thing. In which your brain Cannot Cope so hard it just blots the bad memory out of existence entirely) so he’s a whole mess of being trapped in an endless cycle of his horrible past (PTSD is a Trip, y’all). 

This is...An echo of that but it’s something new. It’s very much the same KIND of thing, so it plays in to the trauma-repetition, but it’s a new incarnation of it. History repeating itself, etc, etc, delicious irony, all that great stuff fiction-creators live for.  

It’s going to be deeply upsetting for Caleb. (No shit, Taryn). But it so beautifully, and terribly, feeds in to his deep-rooted fears that he is a toxic person, and that those around him are destined to get hurt (by him, not by him, it doesn’t really matter to the guilt brain, it’s all just fuel for that fire). 

For example: Liam spoke on Talks about how, regarding Molly’s death, Caleb almost expected it because yup, that seems about right, par for the course. It’s one of the big reasons he’s been extremely reluctant to let the Mighty Nein get close to him (he’s directly said this in canon at this point, in his conversation with Beau). 

He feels dangerous. He sees himself as dangerous. Partly because he sees himself as being constantly in danger, and by extension, those around him are also in danger. That’s external. 

The internal part of him has been screaming ‘you killed the two people who loved you the most in the world in an unprovoked attack because you’re a monster’ for over a decade at this point. Not only does he not deserve any of these people, he feels like he’s destined to hurt them, no matter what he does, or how hard he tries. 

This, uh, reinforces that in a very deep, obvious, and painful way. Not to mention the fact that, not only did he hurt them he hurt them with fire. Again. So it’s almost exactly the same pattern of shit coming back to haunt him for a second time: 

Trent: Mental manipulation magic - fire - dead loved ones  Demon: mental manipulation magic - fire - nearly dead loved ones. 

It’s Bad. It’s Real Bad. That boy is going to have the panic attack of his life when he recovers from the immediate adrenaline rush of the fight. It’s not going to be pretty. 

It’s going to drive home everything that little voice inside his head that sounds like Trent has been telling him since he joined these people. It’s going to undo all the struggle it’s taken to ignore that voice up to this point because don’t you see what happens when you get close to people? They can be used against you. You can be used against them. They become your weakness and you become weak because you care. Because this hurts. And if you were stronger, and smarter, then it wouldn’t... etc etc etc. *insert emotionally manipulative bullshit here* 

BUT! 

I actually think this could actually be good for him in a really weird way? 

Hear me out: 

Caleb has been living in a trauma loop for over ten years at this point. He’s been going over the same memories again and again and again, but he hasn’t done anything with them. He hasn’t actually fully processed what happened to him. And, and this is the biggest part: he hasn’t had anyone to push against. 

It takes a lot to recognise abuse. It takes a lot in the modern world when there are phones, helplines, the internet and, let’s be honest: awareness. There are words for these experiences and there’s more chance of, accidentally or deliberately, stumbling across help out there that can look at a situation from an outside perspective and go: this is fucked up. 

This is what Caleb needs. 

On his own it’s almost impossible for him to recognise what was done to him and fully process it and begin to heal from it in a healthy way. Caleb has not actually started the process of recovery for anything that happened to him yet because Caleb does not yet recognise/understand what there is to process/recover from. 

In Caleb’s mind, he is a monster. He did an unforgivable thing because he believed his parents deserved it as they were traitors. He broke because he was not strong enough to handle what he’d done. He was sent to an asylum and since escaping he’s just been afraid. That’s the only emotion he’s got towards Trent right now: fear. And it’s suppressing all logic, self-awareness, and the ability to think rationally about what went on. 

Caleb was abused. Caleb was manipulated, mentally, emotionally, and magically. Caleb was a vulnerable kid who was deliberately chosen, carefully groomed, and then skilfully brainwashed by a figure with an enormous amount of literal and emotional power over him. Caleb was abused. 

Caleb does not see this. 

Caleb does not recognise that he was abused. 

And I think this is where a lot of issues with Caleb kinda stem from in fandom? Because people look at him and just...How can he NOT understand that he was manipulated. Huh. Maybe he wasn’t. Because it’s just that damned obvious how could he not understand this? 

Abusers rely on that. Abusers rely on their victims not understanding what they’re doing to them. Particularly when their victims are young, with relatively little real-world experience, and absolutely no grounding/preparation to recognise or combat any of this, in a society that is more accepting of the kind of teaching that radicalised Caleb than most are. 

Caleb needs an outside perspective to look at what he went through and go ‘you know that’s fucked up, right?’ He’s kind of had that from Beau and Nott but not enough. Someone has to sit him down and go through every piece of what happened and be like ‘this is not okay’ ‘what he did to you was not okay’ ‘this is called abuse’ and then consistently validate those experiences until he understands. 

Caleb has over ten years of trauma to process and unlearn. That...That does not happen overnight. That does not happen because your new friend looks at you and goes ‘yeah that was fucked up, dude’ and suddenly it all crystallises in your mind and becomes clear. That takes work. And effort. And a willingness to feel something beyond fear for your abuser and Caleb is Not There yet. 

What this last fight does, though, is open up the possibility of Caleb starting to accept this a little bit. 

Jester: “What the fuck, Caleb?” 

Caleb: “I am sorry...They got inside my head.” 

This is actually....Kinda huge for Caleb? Actually it’s kinda massive. This is Caleb experiencing a trauma incredibly similar to what he went through when he was younger (but on a much smaller scale, with far less dire outcomes) and being able to look at it and, still apologise, but explain that he was not in control of himself, and that ‘they got inside his head’. 

This is the step he needs to take with Trent, too, this is the same admission that he needs to make to himself, and this is the first step that has to happen before he can even begin to start processing and healing his trauma. And he needs help with that. 

This is not the part where I say I expect the mighty nein to become Caleb’s therapists. But they can be friends, they can be a support network, but most importantly: they can be an outside perspective. 

They can’t process his trauma for him. They can’t work through his issues for him. They can’t take away any of his grief, or his guilt, or his pain, or his PTSD. They can’t make what Trent did go away. But they can point it out. 

They can raise a red flag. They can point it out and say ‘this is not okay’. They can put a name to it. They can validate it. They can do the things that Caleb cannot do himself, which is look at what happened and be able to acknowledge, without the burden of guilt, and the fact that it’s so much easier to blame, and hurt, and punish himself than a figure he’s terrified of, and say that it was not okay, and explain to him what happened. 

They can help him acknowledge his abuse and then he can start to help himself heal from it. 

But this fight is, essentially, a microcosm of Caleb’s past. And I hope that if (when, please god when) the mighty nein, who were all either a)- directly charmed themselves, or b)- resisted the effect but were aware of its intentions and capabilities, do not react the way Caleb expects them to react (ie: the way he reacted to himself) with anger, and hatred, and blame, that’s going to start unlocking things. 

I don’t expect a massive breakthrough next episode, don’t get me wrong, this is going to be a long, careful, painful process. But I think even the acknowledgement that someone affected that way by magic, or by emotional abuse, is not themselves, and is not, ultimately, to blame for what they may have done (or weak/somehow complicit in ‘allowing’ themselves to be targeted/victimised) is going to prove a really big thing for Caleb in the future. 

Just that acknowledgement that they don’t blame him for what happened, that they understand he wasn’t himself, and that it wasn’t within his control to stop what was happening could, I think, prove huge in terms of his recovery further down the line... 

TL;DR: Caleb experienced his past again on a much smaller scale with this fight, but having the party around him to react to him/it and reach out to him, and tell him it’s okay and that they don’t blame him will do A Lot for unlocking his potential recognition of abuse and recovery down the line. 

[theindecisiveone]

So I finally have a phone that has the gig space to download Tumblr and now I’m probably just gonna end up dedicating this blog to pictures and captions and processes of me and my ex because I don’t have a therapist or feel much recourse in other friendships right now. I don’t mean to make my shit like a diary but not posting “us” for the four years we were together on any social media platform makes the past maybe physically easier to ignore but makes me wonder why I feel empty, like I forgot where this tremendous sense of loss that follows me around—not to be confused with my “regular” mental bullshit. I want the external validation from the web, to fill the void we’re all hoping to fill when we scroll to the bottom of our feeds... (it’s supposed to be a joke bc there is no end). He was the external validation, of course, I was deeply codependent at the time. But now, without, I seek any comfort I can find. His love kind of sealed up this gaping deformed hole that I would never willingly explore or work on healing on my own. I know that I might live my whole life consumed by my own bullshit, but I think part of why the clouds loom so low and so dark and fog my vision is because I’m pain avoidant to the point where I will ignore my feelings entirely in favor of finding an amusing distraction. Whether it’s my phone use, smoking, or general and vague or acute male attention—

I miss him, a fuck ton. First thing I think about every morning, which is weird to not get sucked into him at night but it’s the clarity of the morning that I try so hard to avoid.

In any case, the journey isn’t (entirely) about him, I hope. But I think this outlet might be useful and now that I’ve made the decision to “take action,” I’m going to blab to the internet to process someone magical that moved me and that I love.

[keeroo92]

Savior, Bloodstain, Hellfire, Shadow Ch27 (V x Reader)

Chapter 27 - Agony and Ecstasy

________________________________________________

June 15th, 11:14 am

V’s emerald eyes are shadowed, downcast in defeat as he watches tiny fragments of his body float away in the wind, signifying his mortality in an impossible to ignore fashion. For a moment, you can’t comprehend what you’re seeing. The cracks in his skin were one thing, but this? You don’t have a medical term to describe what’s happening to the man you love. He sighs heavily, his shoulders sagging as he reverts to his previous cold acceptance of his fate.

“No, no no don’t you do that! Don’t you give up on me!” you cry out, only to see his lips twist into a sad, accepting smile. You pull him into your arms, stroking his back and his hair.

 No, no, no this can’t be happening!

An icy chain wraps itself around your heart, squeezing it harshly in your rib cage as you feel it crack under the pressure. The unfairness of life has been a constant theme for you, yet this is the cruelest stroke of all. V trembles weakly in your arms as your tears stream down your cheeks, your hiccupping breath stuttering in your pained chest as you replay the moment endlessly. The image of his beautiful fingertips, tiny flakes of his body carried away in the heartless breeze as if he were so much dust.

 Maybe I can fix it? Maybe I can heal him?

You pull his lips to yours for a desperate kiss, tasting the salt of your own tears as you attempt to convey how much you love this man through the motion of your lips alone.

 Please, God, in whatever form you actually are, please save him! I’ll do anything, give anything you ask! I’ll pay any toll for his life!

The void doesn’t answer. It never will.

Your lips tremble against his, your jaw vibrating from the strength of your stifled sobs. His arms wrap around you in a delicate embrace, his tattooed hands stroking your spine warmly. His mouth on yours is a chorus of movement both achingly wonderful and maddeningly terrible because you know you may have very few chances to kiss him remaining.

 Don’t think like that, Y/N! He’s going to be fine; he has to!

He sighs softly into your lips, his shaking hands coming up to stroke your face tenderly, as if he’s trying to memorize the sensation. You pull back at the thought to stare into his emerald eyes, seeing the pain and fear he’s feeling in the dark shadows within. The utter despair in his expressive eyes breaks you even further, the crack in your heart widening into a chasm. You pull him closer, laying your head in the crux of his shoulder and letting his familiar scent comfort you.

 Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me…

“I’ll try,” he whispers hoarsely, and you realize you must have vocalized the thought without meaning to. You lean away to look at his hand again – there aren’t any more specks floating away but it obviously hadn’t recovered, small cracks running through his previously smooth skin amongst the dark lines of ink. You caress the crevasses, feeling for yourself how deep they run, and your heart splits in half.

“It doesn’t hurt,” V tells you in surprise. You hadn’t even considered that, too focused on the ramifications of the decay of his flesh to imagine how it might feel from his perspective.

 What would it feel like to know your body is fading away?

 I hope I never find out for myself.

“I think… I think I can continue,” V informs you hesitantly. “We should try to catch up to Dante.”

“But… V, you should try to rest first,” you begin.

“You know why I cannot, why I must keep going, no matter the state my body is in,” he replies with a morose shake of his head, his obsidian hair shining in the light.

 Yes, I know… that doesn’t mean I agree!

“We are running out of time. The Qlipoth is almost fully grown; the fruit will appear within the next day unless we can stop it before then,” he continues, panting slightly as he struggles to stand, using his cane for what seems like the first time in days. You sigh in surrender, quickly pulling a protein bar from your bag and handing it to him with a teary smile.

“At least eat while we go, my poet. For me?” you beg him quietly. He smirks and unwraps the bar, taking a small bite as he steps forward.

_____________________________________________

June 15th, 11:27 am

V

Following Dante isn’t difficult. The man leaves a trail of broken scenery behind like a tidal wave, fresh scratches on the ground testifying to his battles. V can still smell ash in the air occasionally, the last remnants of the demons defeated by his brother.

Catching up to him, however, proves a challenge. Since his hand began to crumble, V has felt a massive shift in his energy. He is forced to use his cane with nearly every step, a sign of his growing weakness that makes his jaw clench in frustration as he limps forward doggedly, your sorrowful gaze tracking him worriedly.

 I cannot stop now, not when so much is at stake.

His dreary thoughts are a plague he can’t escape, an itch that resists all attempts at scratching. His very bones are weary, so tired of this inexorable trudge toward death that despite your best efforts, he knows you cannot save him from.

 I’m sorry, little fox. I’m so sorry for what this will do to you. I can’t help but wish you had walked away that day, never decided to join us on this doomed quest.

A pulse of agony rips through him, searing his every nerve in excruciating pain. He falls to his knees, cane clattering as he drops it to grip his head in his hands, lightning bolts arching through his neurons within his aching skull. Shards of glass rip his throat to shreds, knives sinking into his kidneys and stomach and twisting cruelly. He can feel the flames that burned his mother’s corpse into ash licking his skin, the heat burning him alive as he finally hits the pebble strewn ground. His very blood burns like acid in his veins as he curls inward, instinctively moving to protect his core from the invisible foe that is the source of his tormented screaming.

 Make it stop! Make it stop, make it stop makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop….

He can no longer see the devastated cityscape surrounding you on all sides, can no longer smell the burning refuse or the rotting garbage. He can no longer hear the wind rushing by, or your voice desperately screaming his name in panic. His existence narrows to only pain, all of his senses completely overwhelmed in the horrors of its ferocity. He cannot even string together a coherent sentence in his mind, his mental processes shattered and mutilated beyond recognition.

Minutes that feel like centuries pass before he hears your voice from somewhere far too distant. He mentally latches on to it, clinging to the sound as if it were a parachute and he were falling from the sky. His pain fades incrementally, brutally slowly as he focuses on your voice and drags his consciousness back from where it had retreated from the agony.

Shame fills his incoherent mind as he regains awareness, finding himself cradled in your arms protectively. His convulsing body stills as your gentle hands stroke his hair, voice murmuring reassurances and comfort as he presses himself closer to you.

 So weak, so powerless. I would not have made it this far alone.

 Holy fuck, V! What the hell just happened?!

 …did you feel it too?

 An echo, not like you did… We all got a taste. You okay?

 …I don’t know. I think I’m dying.

 Shit.

“V? Can you hear me?” your anxious voice questions him. He licks his lips to speak, only to find the words catch in his aching throat, his vocal cords refusing to function in protest of their abuse. He nods instead.

“Can you speak?” you probe softly, and he shakes his head.

“Okay… I’m going to lie you flat and examine you,” you inform him, and he nods again as you scoot back from him, helping his limbs into a position of neutrality. By now his nerves have stopped their spasming and he can feel your touch, feel your careful hands slide up and down his body searching for injuries. After a moment, you lean back with a satisfied smile.

“Nothing external at least. Can you talk yet?”

“I… think so… hurts,” V gasps out through his overworked throat.

“Do you want to try standing or wait a little?” you ask him, brow furrowed slightly.

“Try,” he rasps out. You hand him his cane and crouch nearby, ready to catch him if he needs it. As much as he appreciates the support, he can’t help but also feel irritated by it and its necessity.

 If only I was stronger…

He gets to his hands and knees easily enough, then braces his weight on the cane and pushes, bringing himself into a low crouch. Its uncomfortable, but bearable. He rises further, coming to a full standing position carefully. He takes a few steps cautiously, your arms still awaiting his fall, but he manages to not even stumble. You drop your hands with an apologetic smile, and he forces himself to smile gratefully back, despite his frustrations.  At long last, the pair of you are able to resume your trek, albeit much slower for the time being.

Even with your slow speed, you manage to find Dante not too much farther ahead. There’s a blonde woman lying on the ground near him.

 Trish?

“Dante!” V calls out, breaking into a full run and desperately trying to get the man’s attention.

 There’s so much I must tell him…

But Dante turns away, mounting a motorcycle and barely bothering to send a few more words his way before dashing off. “Take care of Trish for me!”

“Dante, wait!” V exclaims uselessly, and he falls to the ground once more.

 Dammit… always so weak.

In an act of desperation, he commands Griffon to accompany the legendary devil hunter, the blue bird flapping mightily and easily catching up to the speeding motorcycle.

V tries to stand on his own but only falls again. It isn’t until you come to help him that he’s able to rise fully. He angrily chooses a chunk of rubble to sit on, easily able to keep an eye on Trish as she sleeps. He pulls out his book of poetry to try and calm his anxious mind, try to stop thinking about his own death, as you sit beside him with a small smile, taking his unoccupied hand and stroking his fingers gently.

_____________________________________________

June 15th 11:40am

You sit beside V, his hand in yours as he reads quietly. Your mind is racing, wondering if you missed something with your theory. Wondering what more can possibly be done to save V, or if your theory is even right.

 What if it’s wrong? What if he still dies?

You clench his hand in yours tightly, mentally swearing to not let that happen. No matter the cost, you will save V. You have to.

“When Trish wakes, I’m going to tell her everything. She may have better luck in telling Dante than I have thus far,” the lean poet comments suddenly. You hum in acknowledgment, glad that he’s becoming more and more willing to tell the truth of his origin. You hear a quiet sigh and look down to see Trish’s eyes have opened at last. She sits up carefully, holding the blanket covering her nude form in place as she looks around.

“Dante’s left,” she states, her voice unexpectedly soothing.

“Yes… and I don’t think he can win,” V comments back, turning the page in his book.

“What was that demon, V? Where did it come from? Urizen is not a demon. I know for a fact, because I'm from the Underworld,” the blonde woman adds. V doesn’t respond, instead turning the page again with a smirk.

“Oh my god... what are you then?” Trish asks V fearfully, and he closes his book at last to face her and address her directly. Her eyes shift to you curiously for an instant before V speaks and her attention is drawn back to the poet.

“It doesn't matter. I'm a shadow of my former self who lost everything. I will tell you... the story of my birth,” he murmurs softly. You squeeze his hand in a silent show of support as he once again tells his story, voice catching here and there as he describes the moments before his creation and the minutes afterward of sheer terror.

Trish takes it all in stride, her expression barely shifting throughout the telling. She’s an especially difficult person to read, a think outer shell of armor protecting her innermost thoughts from casual observation. You can respect that, even as you find it incessantly annoying.

“I've tried to hold together my crumbling flesh with whatever demonic power I have left, but... I'm approaching my limit. In separating and regaining my human soul, I've realized the gravity of the crime I've committed,” V concludes slowly, his emerald gaze glancing at you as he utters the next few words in a near whisper.  

“I've realized how important everything was... everything I've thrown away in my pursuit for power.”

Finally, the poet is silent, his tale told and his secrets bared. Trish simply gazes at the pair of you, an unreadable expression still holding court over her features.

“Is that why you went to find Dante?” she asks.

“Yes. Foolish. I thought maybe he could change... maybe fix... maybe right my wrong. Tell me... was this fool before you right?”

Trish stands, the blanket covering her naked body somehow morphing into a black leather ensemble that makes you blush with all it reveals. She turns and starts walking past you and V, heading toward the Qlipoth.

“I'm not your mommy, V. You're a big boy. And you need to see this through. Dante's war,” she tells him in a scolding tone, sounding very much like a mother reprimanding her child. V grimaces in pain as he rises to his feet and steps forward to follow her.

 Fuck that.

“V, either you sit back down on your own or I’ll force you. You’re going to rest for a few more minutes whether you like it or not,” you command the poet. He turns to face you, protests already forming on his lips, but you glare at him as threateningly as you can while you cross your arms until he swallows the words. He sighs but obediently sits back down beside you with a smirk.

“I suppose I’m not strong enough to stop you at the moment anyway,” he comments dryly. You take the chance to give him a bottle of water and another protein bar, watching him chew slowly beside you lost in thought. His lighter tattoos look strange to you, Griffon’s absence an empty void hanging in the air.

“Can you talk to Griffon right now?” you ask him curiously, wondering how strong the bond between them has become. He closes his eyes in concentration for a moment before clenching his jaw and shaking his head in frustration.

“I can tell he’s with Dante, see flashes of a house… but I can’t seem to communicate,” he murmurs between bites. Your mind continues its pondering, examining all you know about Urizen and V in an anxious search for answers.

 I don’t know what else to do…

You lean against the poet beside you, careful not to force him to support too much weight in his weakened state. You feel his hand rise to wrap around your shoulders and pull you closer and you succumb to his desires and lay your head in his lap. He strokes your hair, your cheek, your lips. Memorizing your face.

 Damnit, stop doing that!

You glare up at him, anger tinting your words. “V, we can’t give up yet. Please, keep fighting it, keep fighting for who you’ve become. Fight for our future together,” you urge him. He can barely meet your pleading eyes as he sighs heavily, his hand pausing its exploration at your jawline.

“It doesn’t seem to be working, little fox,” he reminds you softly, his eyes mournful as he meets yours.

You brush his hand away and sit up, reaching out to turn his face to yours once more as you sit beside him. Determination and stubbornness color your voice as you respond, your intense glare forcing him to accept what you say as truth.

“You don’t know that. There could be all sorts of reasons you’re still weakening. We’re closer to Urizen than we’ve been in weeks, you’re older now than you were last time you faced him, maybe Dante waking up did something… The point is, we can’t know if it’s failing. We won’t know until Urizen is dead. But as long as there’s even a shred of hope left, we have to keep trying. You have to keep trying. Because goddamnit V, I’ll go after Vergil myself if you merge. I’ll drag you back out kicking and screaming if I have to. I refuse to let you go,” you inform him passionately.

V smirks, looking down for a moment as he absorbs your monologue. After a beat, he carefully turns his body to face yours and pulls you against him, crushing your form against his. You can feel his racing heartbeat, feel the heat radiating off his skin as he embraces you.

“Thank you, little fox,” he whispers into your hair.

_____________________________________________

June 15th, 11:52 am

V

V limps quietly alongside you, your hand grasping his carefully. The Qlipoth ahead is taller than ever, reaching high above the clouds in its daunting height. The grey patchwork structure is impossible to ignore, a now constant backdrop to both his innermost thoughts and the landscape surrounding him. He reflects on your words as you slowly move forward, trying not to focus on how his failing body is preventing you from reaching the tree at a reasonable rate.

Your stubbornness and love, your passion and conviction… it had startled him. Even as the fear of death, of losing this chance at a future threatens to consume him entirely, your presence has helped keep him from tumbling over the abyss into hopelessness. Kept him from surrendering to his fate entirely.

There’s still doubt plaguing his mind, still anxiety tugging at his thoughts. Yet he now refuses to ignore the thin tendril of hope that’s grown miraculously within the garden of his terror. Grown only from your attention.

 Perhaps a little from my friends as well, but mainly Y/N. I wouldn’t even consider them friends if not for her.

 She has utterly changed the course of my life.

Sudden terror grips him as Griffon panics over something Dante is doing. He stops in his tracks, trying to focus on the hazy image he can barely see in his mind, too diluted by distance to have much meaning. You look at him quizzically, your steps halting to stand beside him.

“Griffon… Something’s happened with Dante,” he rumbles. Your eyes color with nervousness as he focuses as hard as he can on the image. Blurred shapes flash into a defined form for an instant before the haze obstructs them again, but he can see Dante standing before a portrait of the entire family, a blade embedded in his chest.

 Not again…

He waits for a moment, then focuses his energy again on the image. He watches in awe as Dante transforms, his body absorbing the blade within and using its power to fuel his new appearance. A stronger version of his devil form, power radiating off his crimson flesh in waves of heat.

The image dissolves as Griffon’s panic vanishes, and V can’t help the wry grin from crossing his face.

 Only Dante…

“What happened, V?” your shaky voice asks. He smirks at you as he answers.

“Dante has absorbed the Sparda. The reckless fool stabbed himself. He has grown stronger, perhaps strong enough to win,” he ruefully states. He chuckles, bitterly amused at his brother’s ability to gather strength and how it mirrors his own decline. Always opposites, the two of them.

“Really? So… you might not even need to fight Urizen?” you probe hopefully. He shakes his head, refusing to miss the final fight.

“I must be there, must witness Urizen’s destruction myself no matter who strikes the blow,” he answers determinedly.

“Would it be dangerous to do it? To kill Urizen?” you thoughtfully ask him. He pauses, not having fully considered it.

 I suppose it could be dangerous. I have no idea what will happen to his body.

“It may be. I cannot even begin to guess what will become of his remains. He may have even set a trap for anyone who dares to strike him,” V pronounces with a slight frown. He watches your face carefully, suspicion growing in his mind as your features shift from curiosity to resolve.

“Then I should be the one to do it,” you state boldly, and his heart skips a beat.

 No, no no little fox! You can’t be serious!

As if you had read his racing thoughts, you smile at him tenderly and elaborate.

“If it is dangerous, how much more hope and fear would fill you if I was the one taking the risk? If I was the one who could get hurt?”

He grimaces, already knowing the truth of your words yet refusing to accept the risks. You had to be safe, you had to survive. Even if he was doomed, he absolutely would not under any circumstances drag you down with him. Unthinkable.

“Irrelevant. It will not be you, I won’t allow it,” he forcefully pronounces. You only smile wider, reaching out to stroke his cheek tenderly.

“V… the whole idea about keeping you alive functions on you experiencing as much emotion as possible. As arrogant as it feels to say it, I’m the one you care about the most. Seeing me strike down Urizen… watching me walk up to him… you can’t deny how it would make you feel. It might be the final key, the last shred of humanity that saves you,” you explain carefully.

 I know she’s right, but I cannot allow this!

“The risk is too great. Let Nero do it, or Dante,” he miserably begs you.

You shake your head, your hair catching the light beautifully.

“You care about Nero, true, but he’s only a friend. And you hate Dante, you’d be happy to see him fall. It has to be me,” you declare. “V, at this point, how could you even stop me? This is my decision to make, so you can either help me save you or fight me and lose anyway.”

 Damn. She’s right, I couldn’t stop her even if I tried. I’m too weak, always too weak.

He presses his forehead to yours, his hand reaching up to cup your cheek. It goes against every fiber of his being, every single one of his protective instincts screaming in his mind to not even consider letting you do this.

But he has no choice.

He cannot fight you.

“I don’t like it, not one bit. But you have a point. Just… promise me you’ll be careful?” he begs you, surrendering to your will at last. You nod, your lovely eyes lighting up happily at his agreement.

“I promise. Thank you, my poet,” you murmur gratefully, and then you close the gap to kiss him lovingly. His tongue darts out to taste you, craving your unique flavor. A surge of lust overtakes him as you open to his attentions, his arms pulling you against him forcefully as his blood thunders in his ears. He wants you, all of you. He wants to consume you and never let you go. You are his, now and always, and he desperately craves the chance to claim you once again.

V doesn’t care that you’re in the middle of a street. Doesn’t care that there’s chunks of stonework and broken buildings surrounding you. Doesn’t care that the only remotely clean or flat surface is a small portion of sidewalk. He tugs you toward it, easily stripping off his vest as he goes. Your mouth pops open in surprise but you don’t fight him as he carefully lowers you onto the pavement, using his vest as a pillow so your head doesn’t lie on the cold ground.

“Really, V? Here?” you whisper. He grins ferally, his hands already working at your top as he growls his response.

“Yes.”

You blush deeply, eyes darting around the area to check for other witnesses to your carnal pleasures. You find not a single soul, as he knew you would, and seem to settle as he pulls your shirt over your head.

“You are mine, little fox,” he murmurs lustily, and his mouth descends to decorate your bare chest with kisses and bites. You wrap your arms around him, but he tuts. He pulls back and looks you in the eyes.

“If you want me to stop, say ‘juniper’, yes?” he instructs you and another powerful bolt of heat rips through him as he sees your swollen lips stretch into a hungry smile, your glazed eyes narrowing as you nod forcefully. He descends upon your form once more, his arms moving to pin yours at your sides so you’re helpless to his actions. He needs to feel powerful, feel in control even though he would never force you.

He grins darkly as your hands, pinned to your sides, drift to your waist to open your belt. You release him as well, clumsily baring you both to the chilly air. A wicked smile twists his lips as he has a sudden idea, and he rises, pulling his pants up enough so they don’t trip him as he pulls you up. He plants his lips on yours again instantly, his tongue ravaging your mouth passionately as he backs you against a small sedan nearby. You gasp as the back of your legs hit the metal, another exhalation escaping you as he grips your hips and flips you face down.

He drops his pants again, working himself out of his briefs as you extend your arms out on the hood of the brown car, the dust already showing where your body has touched it. The sight pleases him immensely.

“Good girl, always so obedient for me,” he rumbles, his long fingers parting your legs easily as you whimper in desire. He tears your panties away forcefully, a small ripping sound accompanying the motion as he flings them away dismissively.

“Yes, I’m a good girl for you V. Show me how good I’ve been,” you whine as he drags a single digit through your slick folds.

“Hmm. You’ve also been very naughty, my little fox. I ought to punish your misbehaving,” he growls in response, using the tone he knows you can’t resist. You moan, the sound starting a fire in his belly and making him bare his teeth in a wolfish smile.

He raises a hand and smacks your bare ass, leaving a delightful red mark behind in his wake as you squeal. He listens carefully for a moment, in case you need him to stop, but only hears your ragged breathing. He smacks your ass again, another red mark joining the first as you groan.

“Please, V... please… I need you,” you beg, and a heady rush of power fills him.

“Not yet, love. I’m not done punishing you yet,” he groans back with a smirk. He takes a moment to enjoy the view, your arms outstretched and trying to find purchase against the smooth metal of the brown vehicle beneath you, your legs parted and shaking slightly in your excitement. Two red marks on your round ass where he’s marked you as his. He adds one more mark with a final smack, making you gasp amidst your staccato breaths.

“Now, for your reward,” he whispers just loud enough for you to hear. He delights in the way you shift your hips, angling yourself for his ease.

 Not yet…

He strokes himself a few times, satiating his own needs just enough to focus his mind as he slides a finger inside you. A delicious moan reaches his ears from your parted lips and he curls his digit just the way he knows you like it. The way you breathe his name jolts him, the low fire in his belly becoming a raging inferno as he feels your wetness. He withdraws his finger and steps forward at long last, his hands gripping your hips in a bruising grip.

“Such a good little fox…”  he rumbles and slowly presses his hips forward. His eyes flutter closed as his head breaches you, the tight tunnel welcoming him home like a lost pet. His own moan joins in with yours as you clench around him, the slick fluids allowing him to inch his way further inside at a pace that would make a snail impatient.

His hips finally become flush with your ass as he sheathes himself fully. One of his hands moves from your quaking hip to fist in your hair, pulling your head up so he can see the blissful expression on your face. He holds your head there as he pulls away, your brows furrowing as you bite your lower lip. He bucks forward again, reveling in the sharp gasp that escapes your lips as you are suddenly filled again.

He releases your head, laying his hand on your spine and holding you against the cold metal as he thrusts voraciously, his panting breath echoing your own. You do your best to angle your hips to meet his, clearly desperate for friction on your tiny bundle of nerves.

“You’re being so good, you deserve a reward,” he gasps out and the hand still on your hip descends, finding its way between your thighs and stroking your clit the way he knows you like. Your cries elevate his feeling of dominance even further, still not uttering the word he’d told you before he began. He feels you approaching your peak, your body sending him all the signals he needs. He stills his fingers and his hips, leaving you panting and wriggling in frustration beneath him.

“Did I say you could come yet, love?” he rumbles, leaning closer to your ear to ensure you can hear him.

Your face says it all – he has total control over you as you willingly surrender to his will and still your hips.

“Good girl,” he growls, standing tall once more and resuming his ferocious pounding. The dust under your form mixes with your sweat, a watery mess coating your front as he molds you to his desires. He can’t help the long moan that sounds from him as you find your rhythm together, the wet slapping of flesh marking your union audibly.

He’s close now, he can feel it.

 I want to feel her come with me.

He resumes his little touches, bringing you just to the edge to join him. With a final shout, he rubs the spot that he knows will send you over, your clenching walls and signature orgasmic moan rewarding his intimate knowledge of your body as his stuttering hips clench, his own pleasure pulsing between his legs within you. His skin prickles, his vision flashing with color as the high of release fills his consciousness.

His blood pounds in his veins as he comes to a stop, spent. The two of you both pant heavily as you catch your breath, the exertion such a wonderful strain on your lungs. His hands leave your body as he stands and pulls away with a slight squelch, your mixed fluids spilling out of you as he joins you on the hood, laying down and meeting your half-lidded gaze.

A long moment passes of the two of you simply staring at each other, reveling in ecstasy.

“I love you,” V finally murmurs, and you smile that smile he so adores, lips twisting to perfectly display your teeth in an expression of utter joy.

“I love you, too,” you whisper back, and his own joyful smile matches yours.

[houseki-no-suffering]

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Human AU, 1960s AU Characters: Cinnabar/Phosphophyllite, Diamond, Euclase, Bort, Alex, Yellow

A/N: I just- i wanna take this moment to express my deep love and adoration for Antarc and for everything they did. You’ve always been too good for us. Also Alex, ty for being amazing. And thanks to @lapishead for betareding this. Enjoy!

Antarcticite’s silent presence had fit into the domestic monotony of the community with ease.

Like an unobtrusive new piece of the machinery, they would spend their days worrying about Sensei’s health with Rutile, assisting him, or helping Alexandrite with the children. Antarc didn’t make for a good teacher, but they possessed the strained willingness of someone who doesn’t know how to be indebted to people.

In the three weeks that they spent at the dormitories, they singlehandedly inspired Bort to pursue a military career, repaired the dorms’ electrical wiring and overthrew Cinnabar’s life without exchanging more than a couple of words with them.

It wasn’t like Antarcticite was especially charismatic, quite the opposite in fact: they did not like people. However, they acted out of a unique, humble brand of fairness that made their character stand out even when they tried to stay on the sidelines. It was a necessity to be of use. It had Phos literally hanging off Antarc’s every word by the end of the first week.

Maybe it started when Euclase asked Phos to give up their room for Antarc. Phosphophyllite was the youngest kid and the only one to sleep alone in what was the only spare room, it made sense for them to give it to their new guest. But Phosphophyllite complained and whined so much that a flushed Antarc asked Euclase if they could share the room with the kid.

Or maybe it started with Phos’ exuberant enthusiasm. Cinnabar was used to it but Antarcticite was embarrassed to no end by Phos’ antics and they would try anything to keep them busy or quiet. It was how Phos bribed Antarc into becoming their new school tutor and into telling Phos an elaborate recount of their life and of their job, of how they were working with the government and the aeronautics to prevent a new war.

When Alex scoffed, mumbling that it was just anti-soviet capitalist propaganda, Cinnabar silently agreed with them, more to disagree with Antarcticite than out of an interest in politics. Maybe that was how it started, like an ideological divide. Almost overnight, there was a rift between Phos and Cinnabar where there had never been one, and Cinnabar would ride to the lighthouse alone after school while Phos followed Antarc like an excited puppy.        

There was a part of Cinnabar that still wanted to reprimand themselves for doing nothing. They should have talked with Antarc, talked with Phos, confronted Phos, told them how they were feeling. Or maybe some part of them already knew that they would lose this battle and it was just shielding Cinnabar from more hurt. The more involved they would be, the harder to let go.

Cinnabar went through those three weeks like a diver jumping off a cliff: leaping into the void, holding their breath and hoping that the water below would be safe. They watched from the sidelines, telling themselves that it was okay and hoping to release a breath once this was over. And then, three days before Antarc was leaving, Phos asked Cinnabar to go for a ride again and broke it to Cinnabar that they would be leaving too.

Cinnabar woke up.

Phos’ ghost was still dancing before their eyes. The first rays of sun were filtering a silvery light through the wood shutters and Cinnabar scowled kicking the sheets away.

“Antarc’s gonna leave next week.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’m going with them.”

Mature people were supposed to process and archive a lifetime of occurrences, from the smallest of happenings to significant turning points. It should mean something that Cinnabar wasn’t able to get over just one simple thing.

The process of understanding and accepting life events had always seemed somewhat mechanical in Cinnabar’s eyes and, as much as they enjoyed being analytical, it only came naturally when their logic was applied to external issues. And their mind just happened to be an internal one.

“I’m going with them.”

The main problem wasn’t even the way Phos had looked at Cinnabar yesterday or that they had disappeared off the face of earth for years. It was the cacophony of sounds and words that had decided to resurface in Cinnabar’s mind at the mere mention of Phos. Memories were sociable things, they came in groups and they were always looking for attention. Cinnabar knew they should have repressed them deeper. Like Bort had said once: “Never leave a job undone.”

Bort probably meant that you should get to the root of a problem instead of burying it away or build yourself a castle of illusions. But Bort was probably born a functioning adult while Cinnabar’s inner child still had too much fun ruining their life to give up the position of absolute power. The fact that Cinnabar turned on the radio at high volume to ignore Phos’ voice had everything to do with it.

“I’m going with them.”

In the end, they had to run to get to work in time. They rushed down the street still fastening their coat as if they had not spent thirty minutes of their life contemplating the endless vanity of the universe. And then they rushed back inside because of course they would forget the tests.

Why couldn’t things exist just as simple, uncomplicated concepts? No time, no space, no memories or people, just intangible ideas floating peacefully in the universe’s mind scape.

Dragging themselves into the library, Cinnabar pushed open the door, a tangle of red bed hair and mismatched clothes.

“Hi,” they mumbled.

It took Alexandrite one glance to sense that something was off.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” they walked towards them, taking the papers away from Cinnabar.

“Yeah,” Cinnabar nodded, unsure what to do with their hands now that they had nothing to hold.

Alex took off their glasses as if to better look at them, their eyes soft.

“I’m not going to ask but you can talk to me, okay? I’m aware of the… things currently going on. The town’s small and Euclase likes to talk.”

“Good for ‘em.”

Alex chuckled, ruffling Cinnabar’s hair before the latter had any time to protest.

“Guess so. But talking isn’t that bad from time to time, is it?”

It was way too early for this. So early that part of Cinnabar’s anxiety must still be asleep because for a second they were tempted to actually speak their mind. They crossed their arms over their chest, rocking back and forth on the balls of their feet.

“Got nothing to say. Idiot’s back. Not my problem.”

Cinnabar regretted those words because now Alex looked like they had something to say too and Cinnabar had no idea what to do with the attention. After all, Phos had left with Chryso’s cousin, it was expected that Alex would be concerned about it. It also felt stupid to complain about a dear one being back. Most people had never had that chance, Lexi included.

“Always the realist, I see,” Lexi smiled, burying their interest, “well, it’s not like we have nothing else to do ourselves. Remember the archive?”

“No-“ Cinnabar paled.

“Oh yes! There’s a whole new section waiting for your radiant presence. I totally forgot about the 1955’s kids last time, my bad. It’s not that many. Don’t look at me like that.”

One enthusiast apology after the other, Alexandrite more or less shoved Cinnabar in the archive aisle. Cinnabar was inclined to think that Lexi was doing this on purpose as their own unobtrusive way of helping. Nothing like boring paperwork to keep an overthinker’s mind distracted.

“Thank you for your hard work. I’ll be over there, children’s section,” Alex chirped.

“Thanks.”

“You can do this, Shinsha.”

It sounded purposely generic. Then Alex put their glasses on again and disappeared down the corridor.

Cinnabar walked toward the desk with a loud groan. A few books and papers were already scattered over the wood, a sign that Alex must have noticed their mistake that morning and had been trying to fix it as best as they could. Student cards were piled up next to the ledger of what Cinnabar assumed was the 1955-1956 school year. It was as thick as an encyclopedia.

They climbed on the table, bringing one of their knees to their chest. They could either sit in silent contemplation the whole day or start working. Cinnabar’s thoughts would find a way to reach them anyway so they might as well keep their hands busy. That was what a mature person would do. Probably. Mature Cinnabar seemed like such a foreign concept.

“I’m going with them.”

Where was Phos going now? Was this still home for them? Did they have any choice in coming back? The more Cinnabar reminded themselves they should not care, the more they found themselves thinking about it. What of Antarc?

Cinnabar shut one of the drawers of the archive with more force than usual. The sound reverberated around the library, dissolving in the soft chorus of voices of the building. Cinnabar did not dare find an answer to their questions; what would there be for Cinnabar? Even if they knew, there was no point, so they kept writing down students’ names and dates, imitating Euclase’s calligraphy for the sake of consistency.

Euc had been the first to do archive work, when the school opened. They had been the one to help Sensei build the dormitories, the one to shelter the kids during the war and the one to let the orphans in when it ended.

Euclase was a mature person and they wanted Cinnabar to play family again. Was that what a mature Cinnabar looked like? It just seemed fake and sick in Cinnabar’s eyes. And yet they were confronted with the choice just a few hours later.

They were on their way home, hands sore and stained with ink from writing the whole day. It was late in the afternoon and the sky was tinted a deeper blue, a few stars had begun to light up.

Phosphophyllite had not been following them. Cinnabar refused to be so paranoid as to believe it, but there Phos was, right in front of them. They were sitting on the sidewalk along the town’s main road, the one that Cinnabar would walk at least once a day to get to work.

Phos was looking at them, they had seen Cinnabar coming. They had been waiting for Cinnabar this time and when Cinnabar was at hearing distance, but still distant enough to walk away if they wanted to, Phos stood up with ridiculous solemnity and walked towards them.

Cinnabar didn’t know why they did not run away this time because, when Phos started talking, they felt the same sense of nausea building up in their stomach.

“Hi,” Phos mumbled.

What an elaborate choice of words. Cinnabar crossed their arms on their chest, pressing their lips together.

“I- uhm, I’m sorry. About yesterday. Sorry. Didn’t meant to- well, I mean, it wasn’t on purpose.”

Phos was tormenting the hem of their sleeves. Now that they had Cinnabar’s attention, they were stubbornly avoiding their eyes. Why were the two of them even having this conversation if Phos was the first not to want it?

“So, that was one thing,” Phos let out a breathless chuckle, straightening their back as if they had just taken a weight off their shoulders. They looked like they had grown taller.

“Actually, I need to talk to you. I know you don’t want to, I wouldn’t want to talk with me either, not after everything…” the way Phos’ lips would twist in a resigned smile gave their expression a grieved feeling. It made this conversation even more unbearable.

Phos’ half-sentence hung in the air. It remained dangling between the two of them as Phos kept fidgeting with their sleeves and Cinnabar dug their hands deeper beneath their arms. They were focusing on breathing, counting the seconds between inhaling and exhaling, slowly. They felt like they were suffocating, hazy, as if they weren’t really there.

The seconds kept stretching by in groups of eight and seven with each breath. They became minutes, long like the years that lay between Cinnabar and Phos. Phos who still would not meet Cinnabar’s gaze and who wanted to be there just as much as Cinnabar did.

The thought that they should give Phos a chance crossed Cinnabar’s mind for a brief second. They should hear out Phos’ story, their excuses, they should put aside their own hurt and listen as Phos talked about how happy they had been with Antarc and why they had decided to throw it away.

Then Phos’ lips parted. Their eyes shone with a new resolution and they finally lifted them to meet Cinnabar’s. They stepped forward, coming into the light of a nearby lamppost. They had grown taller. They were taller than Cinnabar.

“Do you want to talk? With me?”

Even if it’s me?

Some memories are delicate, fragile things. When you unveil them, the beauty or the pain they carry with them comes out in soft waves, making you dizzy as you run your eyes over them. There is familiarity in those feelings, like an echo, the smell of an old attic that has remained sealed for too long and where each flake of dust reminds you of a different time.

But it’s fragile. Just as you begin to remember, those memories shatter. Familiarity dissolves as old images crash with new ones, merging together, turning to smoke, being carried away by the present, dispersed forever.

Into the cold yellow of the lamppost’s light, Phos looked old. Older than their years. They looked tired, weary. It was in the way they carried themselves, in the way their smile did not reach their eyes, in the way their cheeks would dimple and in the way Phos would hide their eyes under their fringe. Just like Cinnabar.

In that moment, Cinnabar understood what a mature person would do. A friend, a true friend, would throw away their own feelings and ask Phos what was wrong. Because something was, something was terribly wrong.

“Please?” Phos added. It was like a mumbled stab to Cinnabar’s resolution.

They were aware of how much Phosphophyllite had meant to them and of how much they still wanted Phos to mean. Cinnabar would not hope for anything, but this was still Phos, they were in front of them, hidden beneath layers of memories and experiences that they had made without Cinnabar.

But it had been Phos’ choice. Cinnabar had let them go once, because they dared not wish for anything, and they would do it again because wishing was still scary.

They thought about their resentment, about departing coaches and about Antarcticite. They thought that Phos would be going home to Antarc eventually and that they would take better care of Phos than Cinnabar. They thought about Bort’s words.

You owe them nothing.

“No,” Cinnabar pushed the syllable past their lips. It was like remembering how to talk and they regretted it immediately after.

“Alright,” Phos said. The look that crossed their face sat uncomfortably in Cinnabar’s chest. Then Phos stepped aside to let Cinnabar pass, moving out of their way as if they would disappear if they only could.

Cinnabar walked past them as if through a haze, clinging to reasons and an anger they could already feel dissolving. The echo of Phos’ voice came to them as if through water.

“Goodnight,” it said.

[castellankurze]

Warhammer 40,000: The Ophidian Knight

Holy crap.  Two pieces of 40k writing in under a month; I’m on fire.  Much like On the Shoulders of Giants this is an idea I’ve sat on for a long, long time and could never quite get it to come together until recently, but it’s simple enough in form: you know what we don’t see very much of in 40k?  Heel-face turns.

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

I am Alpharius.

I wear a thousand faces. I live a hundred lives. I am male. I am female. I am the one beside you. I am the one across the way. Ten thousand years have I fought my long war against the corrupt and rotting Imperium.  I have been a force of thousands, I have been a squad of five, and when I strike, I strike with the force of a legion.  Worlds beneath my touch have seen their fate altered radically as the wheel of the cosmos spins onward, turning, turning.

Reality is mutable.  Truth, as they say, is amoral.  Time is but a flat circle.  In the end, all things return to that most singular of statements:

I am Alpharius.  

One amongst many.  Many, made one.  I am legion.

Fate reaches out.  The wheel spins.

I am summoned, as one of five, to stand in readiness.  A mission awaits.  A crucial breaking point in the grand webs of fate.  We, five bodies of one will, are called upon to serve the greater part of ourselves that is our warband.  A singular opportunity, delivered unto us by many years of hard labor and the peculiarity of chance.

A Deathwatch kill-team - captured, interrogated, executed.  One of them, a member of the Black Templars chapter.  We are thus given a perfect window to rid ourselves of a particularly troublesome foe.  Within the greater area of the segmentum exists a splinter Crusade of that chapter of space marines.  A particularly large one: seven fighting companies strong - six now, thanks to recent losses.  In their wandering they have turned doomed last stands into narrow victories, secured worlds that would otherwise have been lost, and unbeknownst to them, they have stymied many of our efforts to undercut the strength of the Imperium in the local group.

For years the warband has worked in secret to prepare a trap for the Templars, seeding tales of a heretic foe and staging attacks to set the waters a-churn with fear and rumor of an unknown, unglimpsed threat.  The trap was set, the bait dangled.  What we had lacked was the proper lure.  Until now.

The kill-team had been en route to a watch fortress when they were intercepted.  The Inquisition knows naught of their fate.  To pass up this chance would be more than indolence - it would be vile sloth.

"Which of your squad is the best infiltrator?" asks the leader of the warband - who the ignorant would term a Lord.  I am indicated.  It is true, and I nod.  "Be warned.  The role you play will necessitate...permanent disfigurement," he states.

A cruelty of fate - but a necessary one.  Nothing is gained without price, and the wheel turns once more.

Our volunteering is a matter of course, and an intensive preparation follows.  It is known amongst the warband as the Becoming.  Hypnotherapy and study are alternated with psychic imprinting and modification.  The first of us becomes a son of the Great Angel, with lustrous hair and intense blue eyes.  Two others are modified into the pattern of Guilliman, faces reconfigured with aquiline and haughty features.  The one of us with the most implants is a natural fit for a descendant of the Gorgon.

For me, the process is especially rigorous.  The others will have cover as members of the Deathwatch, scions of other legions.  As a Black Templar I will be the lynchpin, the one upon whom the scrutiny will fall most acutely.  Everything must be accounted for.  The bio-mancers amongst our warband work their magics, bursting individual cells and growing new ones so that my skin tone is lightened by a hairsbreadth, my face rendered weathered, crows' feet inserted at the corners of my eyes.  My shaved scalp grows a short mane of dull, mud-colored hair, with grey clinging to my temples.  A stubble takes shape on my chin.  My eyes burn as they turn a pale shade of brown.

The changes are not all external.  Surgery removes the Betcher's Gland, the holdout weapon of the Astartes that enables the spitting of acid, which no son of Dorn would possess.  My vocal cords are damaged as a byproduct of the procedure, rendering my voice gravelly and leaving a scar at the side of my throat.  The Sus-An membrane is likewise removed, a procedure which underscores the gravity of the mission - if things should go badly, there will be no retreating into the deepest sleep to await healing or reinforcement.  I must succeed or die.

The final step of the Becoming makes use of another implanted organ.  A frozen cask is brought forth, and from it is scooped the still-bleeding progenoid gland of the Templar whose into whose life I shall step.  Rich with the genetic codes of Rogal Dorn and the lifesblood of the Black Templar, it tears readily between my teeth so that the Omophagea absorbs the fullness of the information stored within its genomes.  And with it...

I am Brother Viaten of the Black Templars.  

I am one hundred and thirty-seven years of age.  I have hunted traitor and mutant and xenoform all my life.  I have been seventeen years amongst the Inquisition.  I am a fine swordsman, as befits a follower of Sigismund.  I am dutiful, serious, and earnest.  I am pious as well, a disposition which sets me apart from my fellow kill-team members, but which nevertheless I must embrace if my mission is to be successful.

We are granted fine armor and weapons.  The Ordo Xenos does not stint in the arming of their pet space marines.  A great relic sword is granted to hang amongst my wargear, a fine bolt pistol accompanying it.  It is an enviable - though not, in form, unusual - armament for a man of the Eternal Crusade.  We will use our status as ambassadors of the Deathwatch to nestle close to the heart of the Crusade and gain proximity to the Marshal, and whatever officers accompany him, and when the moment comes, our masterfully-crafted weaponry will strike the head from their shoulders.  In the confusion that follows the warband with slaughter them to a man.  Upon such moments, the heartbeat between life and death, does the great wheel turn.

A minor cruiser spirits us into the night while the warband turns their bows towards a distant world, there to make ready the trap that will crush the Templar crusade and leave the Alpha Legion the unknown, yet undisputed, masters of the local reaches. The transit time is time for practice, for the final moments of preparation in battle and behavioral drill to make the lure seamless.  Upon our shoulders rests the full weight of the operation. Ten thousand years of history rests behind us.  Infiltrate. Overcome.  Conquer.

They say no plan survives contact with the enemy.  Ours does not last even that long.

Word had been that the orks had been broken, driven into full retreat across the surface of the shrineworld following a heroic efforts by the Templars.  But even in the waning moments of battle, death lurks behind every passing second.  The ork ships have broken beneath the Templar fleet, but as they flee ahead of the Astartes' bows, a ramship takes the chance presented and rapidly turns to intercept our cruiser and slams into our starboard side.  Pandemonium erupts.  Men dressed as Inquisition soldiers battle with the greenskins as the crew fights to prevent a catastrophic destabilization of the power core.

The foul xenos cannot be abided, but the mission is paramount.  We have a thunderhawk, and we escape the burning ship to make for the Templar fleet, blaring warnings of an urgent message.  The cockpit has room for four - pilot, copilot, navigator, gunner - and I am related to the forward hold, strapping myself into the crash webbing as the remainder of the kill-team bring all their considerable skill to bear on the task of extricating ourselves from the dire situation.  But it is not enough to escape the sudden birth of a celestial inferno as it blossoms behind us, and the dropship tumbles like a ration tin kicked down a cliffside, the hull white-hot.

It is supremely difficult to make an Astartes black out, but the disaster in the void accomplishes the task, and when I regain consciousness I am in a hangar bay with a man in the white armour of an apothecary bent over.  The cross of the Black Templars is painted on his shoulder.  When I manage to clear my throat and ask about the kill-team, he looks at me with cool eyes and informs me that I am the only one left.  The others are laid out nearby, shrouds covering their bodies - or what remains of them, extracted from the crushed cockpit of the thunderhawk.

I fight to my feet.  "I must speak to the Marshal," I say.

The apothecary rises with me, his wizened face closed of emotion.  "He is en route.  He would speak with you, as well, brother."  The 'brother' is added carelessly, as if nearly forgotten.  Despite his cool manner, he leaves me in peace to mime praying over the fallen members of my kill-team.  O capricious fate! That I, the key to our mission, be the only survivor!  From the beginning the plan had turned upon having a friendly face to ensure the Templars would heed the urging of the Deathwatch.  All might have been lost upon a few seconds' difference.

There is another part to my good fortune as well, with reasons that I have not chosen to reflect upon since the Becoming.  Had I been amongst the dead aboard the thunderhawk the Templars might have tried extracting the precious gene-seed of Dorn from my crushed body, an effort they clearly undertook with one of my fellows before abandoning the cause as lost.  Of all the implanted organs the progenoid glands are far and away the most precious, for it is only through them that the Astates may regulate our transhuman bodies and propagate our ranks through the march of history.

In the Alpha Legion, this is taken to its natural conclusion, the recognition of each Legionnaire as but a small piece of the whole, a cell in a great body.  I am Alpharius.  We are, all of us, Alpharius.  As I kneel over my squad - my fallen selves - I cannot help but touch a hand to the breastplate of my armor.  The Templars will think that I continue my prayers, and that is well enough, but beneath the ceramite a plate of adamantium is stapled into place beneath the hollow of my throat, attached to the Black Carapace implanted beneath my right pectoral muscle.

It looks like another war-scar.  An unfortunate blow from missile shrapnel, perhaps, or a strike from a plasma gun.  Beneath it, where the progenoid gland would have attached itself to my tissues, there is only scar tissue.  There is a primary progenoid, buried deep within my torso, but it could only be extracted in the event of my death.  The secondary progenoid, extracted once every ten years, is used in the implantation procedure that creates new space marines.  Its removal signifies a gelding, of a sort.

I am Alpharius.  Alpharius lives within us.  But succeed or fail in this mission, I will contribute no more to the greater whole of the Legion.

I am called.  I am Brother Viaten of the Black Templars, and I go to meet the Marshal of the Jorian Crusade.

The Marshal listens to my warning, in the company of the officers of the Crusade.  Amongst them is the apothecary, whose gaze remains flat and suspicious.  Does he suspect?  Is the scar upon my throat, the one upon my chest too coincidental?  He remains closemouthed, however, and permits me to present my case.

The argument for the Black Templars' intervention is a masterwork.  The Deathwatch kill-team had identified an uninhabited world - mapped as Tanas-335 - which lay just outside the furthest inhabited reaches of the segmentum.  A pirate band is suspected of sheltering there, staging attacks on isolated planets where the Imperial defenses are thin.  Upon investigation, the kill-team made the decision to approach the Templars for backup as more firepower is needed to oust the renegades from their stronghold.

The planet's existence - true.

The attacks upon the Imperium - true.

The rumors of a piratical group - true.

The Deathwatch's investigation of a distant world - true.

The request for the Templars' aid is the sole lie, and crucially it is one that cannot be disproven, as the decision is said to originate with the kill-team captured and slain by the Alpha Legion.  Were they still alive, my squad would each step into the role of a Deathwatch member, expanding upon the false circumstances of 'our' investigation.  As it is I must carry this burden myself.

The Marshal's name is Holst, and he is silent throughout my recitation, allowing his subordinates to pepper me with questions and demands.  I know this tactic well, a basic interrogation technique used by the Inquisition, and I do not let it sway my balance.  In the end, he lifts a hand mid-sentence to bring silence.  "I would have preferred more time to secure Gond, but the lion's share of the war is over.  The Guard and the Argent Shroud will handle the mop-up.  Disseminate orders that the fleet is to prepare for warp transit.  I want us ready to jump by week's end.  The Crusade moves on."

And that is it.  With as much ease as the snapping of a set of fingers, the Crusade fleet begins making its preparations.  I am astonished at the credulousness of the Black Templars.  A mere question-and-answer meeting and their faith in a man wearing their colors is such that they are prepared to shove off to war.  No extended interrogation, no astropathic queries for validation, not even a perfunctory mindsweep by one of the chapter's librarians - but I forget, the Black Templars do not employ such powers, thinking them the province of mutants and witches.

How is it that such fools have not only survived but thrived for ten thousand years?  It is a miracle I can only subscribe to capricious fate.

Similarly, I am added to the Marshal's retinue with hardly a second thought.  A Deathwatch veteran is a valued fighter and counsel, and without a ship of my own it is as well I travel with the headquarters of the Crusade.  It is insane.  I am a dagger poised to strike at the heart of their leadership, and they welcome me in with open arms.  I am invited to try blades against my fellows, in which I hold my own respectably well thanks to the intense conditioning of my mission prep, and I am even permitted a seat at the flagship's feasting table in the company of the chapter's Sword Brethren.  All is as it should be.

Except the apothecary.  He keeps me at arms' length, speaking respectfully but never warmly, his eyes suspicious whenever he crosses my path, and I cannot shake the concern that he has some inkling of my true nature, despite my efforts.  His name is Jaromir, I soon learn, and he is one of the longest-serving members of the Jorian Crusade at just over three hundred years of age.  A man - Astartes or not - does not live so long without a canniness, and I am tempted to eliminate him, but in the three weeks' travel between Gond and Tanas-335 there is no opportunity to quietly remove the threat.

Tanas-335 is little more than an ugly hunk of rock in space orbiting a dull brown dwarf star.  In composition it is not unlike the great forge world Mars, save its color is more a dingy brown-grey unlike the striking red of the Adeptus Mechanicus homeworld.  A thin jacket of gases clings to the planet as the barest excuse of an atmosphere.  As the Templar fleet closes there are reports of a base built into one of the planet's mountain ranges.  The base is real - discovered by the warband in centuries past, once a mining station of some manner long since abandoned.

The reports are troublesome nonetheless.  As the Crusade draws near and prepares for deployment, there is no sign of life on the surface.  The warband had intended to leave the appearance of a skeleton crew, a minimum of machinery running to suggest an unprepared, unprofessional clutch of renegades.  There are no ships reported in orbit either, which is equally troublesome - the warband had intended to leave a sacrificial lamb or two above the planet for the Templars to enjoy pouncing upon, thus leaving them open to reprisal.

Strangely enough I am not alone in my misgivings, though the exact reasons are of course not shared.  The Templars are suspicious of a trap, exactly what was not supposed to happen, and a few questions are shot my way which I must hasten to field.  I do know how why the facility seems so dead.  Perhaps the renegades are off pillaging somewhere and we have caught them while away from home.

In the end the Templars make the choice to close in and drop their companies onto the surface of the planet.  I accompany the Marshal's fighting company, silently waiting for the time to strike.  The surface of Tanas-335 is as dead as it appears from orbit; lifeless rock and dust.  The same goes for the station, machinery inert and life support below minimum levels, suggesting a deactivation of a week ago or more.

Ten thousand years past, the words were spoken: 'you are my space marines, and you shall know no fear.'  And yet my blade is at the ready as we move deeper into the facility, past living quarters and storehouses into the older mining construction beneath the surface levels.  It feels as if someone is observing me, and an itch develops between my shoulders as if anticipating a shot from behind.  

I am Alpharius.  I am well accustomed to improvising when plans go awry, but nothing here is as it should be.

There is a sudden burst of vox chatter as the fighting companies make the descent into the pit beneath the station, and a neophyte comes running to report to the Mashal, bearing a shocking find - the helm of a space marine, or at least part of one.  It is the upper-left quarter of a Mk.IV helm, iridescent blue.  It has been sheared away by an impossibly sharp blade that has left behind a perfect cut in the metal, without scrape or shard.  A horn juts from the curvature of the helm in the fashion of many a self-styled warlord of the renegade fleets that plague the Imperium.

It is immediately recognizable to the Templars as the color of the Alpha Legion.  And it is further recognizable to me as the helm of my own commander.  Something has gone terribly wrong.

As if the finding of the helm were some manner of silent cue, weapons fire erupts and reports of movement and attackers begin to flood the vox.  They come boiling up from the depths of the mining like a swarm of hornets, glistening steel insectoids with eyes that glow a bright green.  They are followed by monstrosities of steel and gleaming metallic warriors that appear almost skeletal in nature, armed with weapons that fire searing blasts of energy and poisonously green lightning.

I cannot help but feel I am made mockery as the wheel turns once more.  Fate, so fortunate, so kind, to leave me alive to see the mission through, only for my warband to fall to the supreme irony that the trap we had devised for the Templars was all along waiting for us to set our feet into the snare set out years ago by a sleeping Necrontyr dynasty.

The thought of it is enraging, and I hurl myself into battle alongside the Templars themselves.  My relic sword is a priceless weapon on par with the finest creations of the Inqusition, and it cleaves through the living steel of the Necron warriors with a roar and a crackle of flame everywhere it strikes.  It is all to easy to imagine that this unthinking, unfeeling machine-creature slayed this member of the warband, or that this one slayed that.  I roar vengeance, unafraid that my motives be questioned in the heat of battle as I strike down one after another.  There are more of them, however, always more, a sea of silver skeletons in which to drown.

A hand at my arm hauls me back.  The Black Templars are in retreat, withdrawing in the face of the threat posed by the waking Necron tomb.  The dreadfully advanced weaponry of the Necrontyr reaps a fearsome tally from the Astartes even in the span of a few minutes' fighting, and their numbers only swell as more and more of the xenos boil up from the depths.  There is no glorious stand to be made here, no heroic turning of the tide.  There is only a withdrawal, an ashen taste in the mouths of the fanatical crusaders, and it is equally bitter on my tongue as we draw back from the facility.  Somewhere along the way, I dash past a Templar attempting to hobble along on a single leg, the other having been shot out from under him, and it is a matter of a moment to grab hold of him and haul him bodily back towards the drop zone.

We flee the planet, carrying our wounded and our dead, and the Crusade fleet unleashes a devastating bombardment of lance and magma cannon upon the surface of Tanas-335.  The fleet carries no cyclonic warheads, but the concentration of sheer firepower upon one point soon turns the facility to molten slag and bores a hole almost thirty kilometers deep into the planet's crust.  The unleashed energy of the bombardment actually shifts the planet's orbit slightly and alters its day/night cycle, such is the fearsome wrath of the Black Templars.

Amidst the bombardment, a xenos ship is seen lifting from some manner of cavernous hangar beneath the planet's surface.  A great crescent in shape, it accelerates with truly staggering velocity and passes through the Templar fleet within minutes, swatting one Gladius-class escort as contemptuously as a man might swat a fly, and the minor damage inflicted by the repisal is scant comfort.  The alien ship disappears from the fleet's scopes as it flies from the system with impossible speed, leaving us to collect ourselves and count our dead.

In the days that follow a few fragments of capital ships are found amidst the barren system, and the final fate of the warband is put to rest as victims of the Necrontyr.  As a single, self-sufficient compartment in the whole of the Alpha Legion, the warband will be written off as a loss.  There will be none who suspect my survival, and I do not know how to contact them.

I am Alpharius.

For the first time in my life, I am terribly alone.

As Tanas-335 smoulders, the Crusade performs its last rites for the dead and turns its bows back towards the greater Imperium, making for an agri-world which reports invasion by the alien hrud.  The Templars pray and exercise their blade-work in preparation for another fighting action, looking forward to a more fulfilling combat than the one which we have left behind.  And amidst the preparation, Marshal Holst comes to find me.

I am seated in the quarters given to me - little more than a cell, spartan and stripped of anything but bare utilitarian needs.  The most I can offer the Marshal is a spare seat, which he takes, referring to a data-slate he holds in one hand.  "I have ordered our astropath make contact with the nearest watch-fortress of the Inquisition," he tells me.  "They are informed of the loss of their kill-team and the confrontation at Tanas-335."

I nod.

"I am given to understand that you were once a member of the Vaelson Crusade, before your secondment to the Deathwatch," he goes on.  "At last word, two years past, they had entered the Segmentum Pacificus and were engaged in battle in the Perseus Arm."  He deactivates the data-slate and looks into my eyes.  "Viaten, it is not in this Crusade's ability to despatch a ship more than three-quarters of the way across the galaxy to return a single marine to his proper place.  I have sent word to the Inquisition and they have acknowledged it is best you remain here.  Begin the rites to repaint your armour.  Your time in the Deathwatch has ended.  You are a Black Templar once more."

I nod again.

Holst tilts his head slightly.  "I had expected you to be more enthused."

What to say?  "My thoughts dwell on my brothers," is all I can think to dredge up.

He nods as if in understanding.  "You served with them for the better part of two decades," he says, thinking I mean the kill-team.  "It is well that you mourn them.  See the chaplains if you feel in need of counsel."  Then he reaches across the space between us to touch my knee.  "But as we speak of brethren lost, I have a request to make of you, Viaten.  The losses on Tanas-335 necessitate a redistribution of our fighting men, and I have several stragglers yet to be assigned.  If you would have it, I intend to see you made sergeant, and put them under your command."

I blink, once.  "Why?"

He smiles slightly.  "Your experience, for one, and your wrath against the xenos.  And your rescue of Brother Rudi.  You have the makings of a fine squad leader.  Think on it for a day," he urges before he rises and departs to leave me alone once more.

I spend some hours in thought.  What is the longer game?  This bait is too much, too easy.  No sane man would grant such a boon so generously to one he barely knows.

I walk among the Templars for a day.  The air is yet thick with the frustration of retreating from the Necrons, and the halls ring with sword-drill and prayer.  Amidst it all, a few call me by name, to compliment my tally against the foe.  Can these men, members of a chapter who has evaded the attention of no less paranoid an organization than the Inquisition, truly be so guileless?  It is displacing, and I wander deep below decks to one of the quieter chapels, and there sit alone for some time.

In the end I accept the offer, and a ceremony is conducted in which I am named Brother-Sergeant of the Jorian Crusade, and a clutch of space marines assigned to my command: Ernst, a reckless swordsman, Andreas, who is quiet and more strategic in his thinking, Hagop, who was born aboard ship and habitually responds 'aye, brother-sergeant,' to orders, and Otto, a lascannon-wielding veteran.  And Brother Rudi, young and eager even as he adjusts to his artificial leg.

It is difficult to adjust to such an eclectic mixture of humanity.  Unlike in the warband, where conscious effort would be made to erase any threat of distinction between selves, the Black Templars are open in their humours, not only recognizing but even making sport of the differences between man and man.  Still, when called to fight they become a finely-tuned machine, covering one another's weaknesses with their strengths.

They are bloodied soon enough, as the Crusade moves to turn back the hrud invasion.  Those of us with blades protect Otto and Hagop, who lay waste with lascannon and flamer.  By this time the old coats of paint are scrubbed from my armour, Deathwatch silver and...anything from before that replaced with the proper ebon of the Black Templars, the great cross taking up residence upon my shoulder.  This time the Astartes are the weight that carries the Imperial defenses to victory, scattering the hrud before us.

As we celebrate there is a hand at my shoulder, and I turn to see Apothecary Jaromir, his gaze no longer ice-cold.  "I have seen too many men, Astartes included, go to serve the Inquisition and become too much like the lords they serve," he admits to me.  "They become paranoid and mistrustful, seeing threats in every shadow, and they cannot return to the bonds of brotherhood that once filled their lives with meaning, and instead they see nothing in using their brethren as so many playing pieces upon some cosmic board.  Forgive my wariness, Brother-Sergeant, it is good to see you so well in the ranks of the Crusade."

"It is of no consequence," I assure him with a clap upon the shoulder.

I am Brother-Sergeant Viaten, and with the Eternal Crusade do I hunt the foes of humanity, without pity, and without remorse.

And without fear.

[bytheangell]

Something Worth Protecting - Part 2

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“Where is he? Magnus, where’s Alec, was he-- by the Angel, what happened!?” The sound of Maryse’s voice was just a soft, faraway sound at first before Magnus could process that she was speaking to him and he tried his best to focus. How long had he been unconscious?

Magnus’ heavy eyelids blinked open slowly, the darkness giving way to the sight of broken glass and shattered pieces of what used to be the uppermost floors of the building next to them. It took him a few seconds to remember why he was lying on the ground but the moment he did he made a move to push himself up onto his feet. It was a motion he immediately regretted.

Every inch of his skin was tender, as if the surface of his flesh consisted of one giant bruise, but the lightning-hot flash of pain from his side was what sent him crashing back down to the earth below almost immediately after trying to move away from it. He brought a hand to the origin of the pain only to bring it away red with the blood that stained through his clothes. His blood from the injuries he sustained protecting Alec from--

--Alexander.

Ignoring the pain he shifted enough to rest on his knees, wide eyes looking wildly in every direction. Alec wasn’t there. And he wasn’t the only one aware of the missing Shadowhunter. Maryse kept her distance like Alec asked, but the moment that building exploded all previous deals were off the table. She came to make sure everyone was alright, to check on Alec and Jace and Izzy, but instead she was met with Magnus, alone and bleeding out on the street… Magnus, the one she didn’t think she had to worry about in all of this.

Magnus met her gaze, hoping his words sounded more confident than he felt in speaking them. “Catarina should have him,” he said, looking around for any sign that he hadn’t simply hallucinated the other warlocks’ arrival earlier.

“What do you mean, should?”

“I blacked out,” he admitted slowly, ashamed of the weakness he was unaccustomed to. A weakness he wasn’t keen on growing used to. “But I called her first… I saw the portal before I passed out, I’m certain she took him. He’ll be fine.” Magnus wasn’t sure whose benefit he said the words for more, Alec’s mother or himself. Putting on a brave, strained grimace of a smile he attempted once more to stand, and only ended up on his back, breath coming in heavy gasps.

Maryse look down at him with the practiced concern only a mother could master. “Magnus, you can't go anywhere like this. Heal yourself first then we'll go to Alec.”

Magnus closed his eyes, unable to meet Maryse's eager gaze. Her words held expectations he couldn't meet, things that should've been simple for him, and he couldn't bring himself to disappoint her further. He already hadn't been there to protect Alec. He couldn't heal him when he arrived (almost too late he was almost too late to save him). And now he couldn't even take them to him, wherever he was. He was so goddamn useless.

Maryse could tell something was wrong. “...Magnus?”

The heavy silence that fell after his name was broken by the sound of footsteps coming from behind him, and a familiar voice said what he couldn’t bring himself to admit out loud, not here, not like this. The physical pain he felt was nothing compared to the emotional and almost spiritual trauma experienced by the void he felt throughout his entire being. As if everything that made up Magnus Bane was suddenly gone, and all that was left behind was a shell of his former self, hollow and empty.

“He can’t.” It was Jace. Magnus opened his eyes at the sound of guilt that sat heavy behind Jace’s words. “He traded his magic to save me. Magnus, you never should have agreed to it. My life isn't worth it. Me nearly killing Alec wasn't worth it. You should’ve just killed me before any of this-”

“Jace, stop!” To Magnus’ surprise it was Maryse who interrupted his rush of self-deprecating words. “I refuse to hear another word. Do you really think living with killing you would’ve been the easier option for any of us?” Her voice was shaking as she spoke in equal parts sentimental anger and comfort. Jace was okay. He was himself again. Just seeing the relief on her face was enough to justify what he did, Magnus thought.

Magnus knew how much emotional whiplash the past 24 hours must have been for Maryse, and how difficult the following hours would continue to be until all of her family were safe once more. Magnus nodded in agreement with her sentiment. “I’d do it a dozen times over.” He said firmly. “You’re not just Alec’s parabatai - you’re his brother. You’re family.” Magnus wasn’t a fool. He knew that caring about Alec meant caring about all of the family he loved so deeply. “We weren’t going to lose you if there was something that could be done about it.”

That didn’t mean Magnus didn’t wish that there was any other option left before making the deal with Asmodeus. There wasn’t a single thing he wouldn’t give before his magic, but of course that was the only thing his father wanted. It was the only thing his father ever wanted from him since the day he was born. His expression grew cold at that thought, knowing that Asmodeus got exactly what he wanted, and that Magnus hand delivered it to him. Maybe he was more of a fool than he cared to admit.

But Jace wasn’t comforted. In fact, there were fresh tears springing to his eyes now. “But if you lost me, then maybe Clary wouldn’t be--” but his voice choked, words he couldn’t bear to speak catching in his throat. They looked from him back up to the building. In all the chaos, all the concern over Alec and himself, he hadn’t stopped to think about just what caused that explosion, and who was up there when it happened.

“Isabelle--” Maryse started, almost too afraid to ask. Jace shook his head. “She’s alright. She and Luke are inside handling the mundanes Lilith possessed.” "Oh, thank the Angel," Maryse sighed.

“And Simon?” Magnus asked, his voice soft.

Jace swallowed hard, every emotion he tried to fight back threatening to resurface before he regained some small semblance of control again. “He’s… fine. Physically.” The clarification needed no elaboration. Clary was Simon’s best friend, and if something happened to her after he went to free her…

The three of them fell silent, allowing a moment for all of that information to settle.  

Jace was free from Lilith, and Lilith was banished - everything they set out to do was accomplished, and Magnus knew that some part of him should be happy. But was it worth the cost, if Clary was truly gone? If Alec was left with an arrow in his chest, and a score of mundanes dealing with the aftermath of murdering those they loved the most? If he was left without his magic, mortal and helpless?

There was no time to properly dwell on the implications of what they lost in the battle against Lilith before the tell-tale sound of a portal opening drew their attention to a spot several yards away. Catarina stepped through it, eyes wide at the scene that greeted her, gaze instinctively drawn to Magnus lying on the ground in pain too severe to hide from his face.

“Magnus, I’m so sorry,” she said, closing the portal behind her as she made her way towards him.

“How’s Alexand-”

“You have Alec, righ-”

Magnus and Maryse both interrupted her before trailing off, taking a moment to share a brief flicker of a small, sad smile between them as their overlapping exclamations trailed off.  

“I do. He’s stable for now,” she said, and while that was inherently good news, the implications of the ‘for now’ were not lost on them. But her focus returned to Magnus, looking him up and down, taking in the blood staining the side of his jacket, the way he winced as he shifted to sit upright, this time without immediately falling back over. He looked pleased at the progress, even through his grimace.

“I didn’t realize you couldn’t-” she started again, kneeling down beside him. “That you didn’t--” But even as she looked him in the eyes she couldn’t say it out loud, as if maybe not acknowledging it might make it less true. If she didn’t say it, maybe it would go away. “If I knew I never would’ve left you here this long alone.”

“Oh, I’m-” he grunted as he shifted more, holding himself upright with his hands stretched back behind him. “-fine, really. Just some bumps and bruises and maybe a little internal bleeding. And external bleeding.” He looked back down at his side, and at his hand. “How did you figure it out?”

“I didn’t. I mean, I realized something was off when you didn’t follow after the first few minutes. But I was so distracted healing Alec, I didn’t stop to think…” she trailed off and cleared her throat, and Magnus could tell she was wondering what she would’ve done had she come back and found him much worse off than he was. “But once he was stable enough to speak the only thing he would do was demand I go back for you. I ignored him at first, insisting you could take care of yourself, until he told me that-” And there was that pain again, the sort that cut her words short and diverted her gaze away from him just for a moment. That moment was all it took for Magnus to feel a consuming wave of shame over the pity in her voice. He wasn’t used to pity and he didn’t want it.

“That I don’t have my magic any more,” he finished for her. “It’s alright, Cat. It isn’t like saying it out loud can make it any worse than it already is.” He hadn’t meant for the words to take on such a harsh, biting tone of cynicism and he knew it wasn’t exactly helping. Catarina’s face fell and she opened her mouth, hesitated, and shut it again, not knowing what she could say to make this better. The fact of the matter was that there wasn’t anything she could say to make this better - there was nothing anyone could say or do to fix this now. It was done.

But thankfully, for Magnus at least, they all had more pressing matters to attend to. “It’s fine,” he said again, softer this time, and the look of apologetic regret on his face erased some of the tension that lingered after his last statement. “Just… if you could do something about the fact that I’m relatively certain my insides are trying to become outsides-” Cat was kneeling next to him before he could finish the sentence, pushing aside the torn fabric of his coat and gingerly lifting up his shirt to reveal a serious gash down his side. Not quite as life-threatening as his dramatics let on, but far from a simple flesh wound.

She brought her hands to the wound, covering it with a small, faint trail of silvery light-blue magic. He could tell she was weak and wondered how much of her magic she already used up on Alexander. He didn’t want her wasting any more on him, but he also knew he wouldn’t make it far without at least some of this wound patched up first.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she muttered under her breath. “I’ll take you to the hospital when-” “-no.” Magnus cut her off, stopping to wince at the pain of the healing flesh as it started to mend itself together again. “Just patch me up enough to move and take me to Alexander.”

“--I think you mean us,” Maryse spoke up, and while her tone was full of fear and worry there was a firmness to her words. She was going to her son.

“Of course,” Catarina agreed. “You’re welcome as well, Jace.” The blonde Shadowhunter looked from them to the building behind them, and back. So much happened in such a short time, and he still wasn’t certain what happened to Clary, if there was a chance that she wasn’t really… that she might still be…

“You can’t be here alone when the Clave shows up,” Maryse told him gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. “After everything that happened, they’re going to shoot first and ask questions later - you won’t get a word out before they arrest you.” “Maybe that’s for the best.”

“Alec will want to see you when he wakes up,” she tried again, caught somewhere between not taking no for an answer and wanting him to care enough about his own well being to make the decision for himself.   “...I can’t!” Jace nearly shouts, the words trembling. “I’m going to be the last person he wants to see. He nearly died because of me, Maryse. And now Magnus-”

“-didn’t sacrifice my magic so you could throw yourself in line for execution five minutes later.” Magnus finished for him.

“One night. Let the others sort this mess out, come back and make sure Alec is alright, and then you can do whatever you think is best.” Maryse was practically pleading. She nearly lost one son that night, she wasn’t about to potentially lose another so soon.

“Alright,” Jace reluctantly agreed, and as if on cue Cat stood and took a step back from Magnus, opening up a portal behind her. “You’re cleared for travel,” she announced, offering a hand to help him up from the ground which he took gingerly, features scrunching slightly at the strain of standing. But he could move without falling over now, and that was all he needed.

“Thank you. For everything. If you hadn’t answered when I called I don’t know what I would’ve done-” he tried his best not to but the words catch in his throat, turning into a choked sob that he did his best to hide from Jace and Maryse.  Thankfully they were already several steps away heading toward the portal, and only Cat noticed.

“Of course, Magnus. You don’t have to thank me - you would’ve done the same for me. I’m here for you through this, alright?” She took a moment to grab him by the arm as Jace and Maryse vanish through the portal. “Through all of this. But you have to promise you’ll let me help you. We both know how stubborn you can be, and I won’t have you pretending nothing is wrong and shutting me out, alright? I won’t stand for it.”

Her eyes were shining with unshed tears, voice wavering with emotion. She knew the implications of a warlock losing their magic. It didn’t happen often, there were only a handful of documented cases. He hadn’t just lost his magic, he lost his immortality, too. After the centuries spent together, and the recent loss of Ragnor, she wasn’t ready to lose him, too.

“I promise, Cat.” His voice was impossibly soft. He knew the two of them would need to speak about this - that the conversation with her would be the second most difficult one he’d have over all of this. But he had to deal with the most difficult of the two first.

He shifted his arm in her grip so that they were holding hands, and he gave hers a tight squeeze before leading the way through the portal.

Leading the way to Alexander.

[dhominis]

drunkblogging. Obvious CWs for alcohol use, brief mention of emesis. Also introspection.

(Until alcohol, I’d never experienced consciousness without rapid-fire dialectical barrages of thought.)

Until alcohol, I’d never experienced consciousness without rapid-fire dialectical barrages of thought. My experience of self is a constant stream of new topics and analysis and morally neutral whataboutism -- my brain is constantly sealioning -- nothing goes unexamined, though frequently poorly examined -- and I love it, I do, I enjoy existing as this self, but it never shuts up. Sleep: every night, at least half an hour (and generally more like an hour) of herding the thoughts into a little corner, telling the brain patiently parent-like no we’re not thinking right now we’re blank we’re pretending the whole world isn’t interesting --

Just this side of unsustainable. Every night; every minute of every day. It never shuts up. And the warnings about even mild alcohol intoxication -- drinking makes you stupid, doncha know? Until I started, I’d never understood the appeal of stupidity, but it makes sense. Not stupidity, but for once in my life, peace and quiet.

As much as I claim to hate my homeland, I sure drink like a native. Not beer, at least, there’s still that, but sizable quantities of liquor... the cheap stuff, shitty vodka that raises BAC fast. No lingering taste of hops. Low volume of liquid.

Sober, I cannot even aspire to unselfconsciousness. Even when it’s good. Successes I analyze to death: these are the actions I’ve taken, these are the aspects of my personality that contributed, these the environmental factors, these the key figures. This mind does meaning-making exceedingly well; this mind is beautiful but high-maintenance. I need people -- I need many friends, many mentors. I need polyamory, too. It is impossible for a single person to fulfill all of one role in my life. Except the self, because even if it’s impossible I have to; can’t have anyone fill in for me, for what I am to myself.

The mind is beautiful but the person, the I, the metacogniteur -- the self gets tired. When sober, at least.

Drunk I can listen to music and be engulfed. I can lie down and listen to a good song and that’s enough for the intoxicated mind. I can think, I can analyze, but it requires focus -- sober the base state is endless extrapolation of endless potentialities and eventualities and externalities. Drunk I can do this but not at as high a level, much slower, and only voluntarily. That’s the key; when drunk it’s voluntary. Sober a wide fast river filled with junk -- but not a river, a rushing estuary with the tide coming in --

I wasn’t sober while writing this post, though likely you’ve already picked up on that (or not? theory of mind goes downhill too). After two or three drinks, inhibition begins to plummet and my brain quiets a bit. Right now I’ve had... well, not two or three. More like four or five before starting to write, and more in the process. Excess, probably -- not something I indulge in often (two or three typically is enough for stress reduction, for sleep), but enough to be confident in saying excess. Enough to be drunk, and enough so that cognition is entirely unintrusive when I’m not trying to bring it to the surface. (When the self isn’t trying, rather. Good and accurate to think of I as instead the self.) Enough nausea I’ve been careful to ensure I have a suitable receptacle for vomiting... and that safeguard took a few minutes to put in place, but cognition still works when I’m drunk, just slower.

Slower. Usually I’ve got a sublime mismatch between the speed the brain is built to handle and the speed at which the consciousness moves. The quasireligious quasipsychotic experiences in which this brain specializes, those local maxima in meaning-making, they’re absent when the cognition of the self is impaired.

A hypothetical counterfactual billboard on one of my beloved Midwestern highways, right next to a warning of eternal damnation: Budweiser. Neurotoxicity you can trust. Not a real ad but not unrealistic. I don’t trust my homeland’s culture. Is this bad, though? Unhealthy? More unhealthy than my baseline?

Not a question I can answer. Yet. Probably yes, I know, but even so I’ll give it a while before [I decide|the self decides]. I don’t do this often and on both sides of the family there’s a history of alcoholism and other abuses of psychotropics. One parent uses (both use, if we’re being a bit more lenient) alcohol for purposes more related to coping than to enjoyment. In writing this: frequently I must backtrack, fix typos. It’s difficult. Accurate and coherent text is easy, usually, for me. This is (I think) coherent, if concerning in style and content, but this limited coherence required as much editing as my poor poisoned frontal lobe can take. The posting is more impulsive; generally when I present a facet of myself to any sort of public, it’s after quite a bit of deliberation.

Motor function is impaired. I am past the point of caring. So what if I struggle to stand? So what if the speech is slurred? Those traits shouldn’t be stigmatized, after all. (The willing induction of them should be, maybe -- the sober self would find that a patently convincing argument but the current self doesn’t care quite enough to find it even slightly compelling. Luckily the sober self is the one that makes that initial decision to imbibe.) And the brain is for once cooperative, it has at least shut up, the constant stream of thoughts has slowed to a trickle or even when lucky to a void vacant gully, a streambed. And so even if the body’s movements are fluid and unpredictable, I always have cared more about cognition than about motion. This I need, now.

There should, I know, be general takeaways from this disjointed painstaking impaired sequence of word-vomit... a gully filled less with void than with a heavingly toxic efflux, an unusually unselfconscious ejection of an overly verbose teen’s inner monologue. This is what it sounds like, in my brain; imagine not being able to step back. Imagine not being able to close the tab! Read this aloud to yourself and imagine it never shutting off, imagine whatever inner voice comes most naturally reading this aloud. This will, reader, last the rest of your natural life. Except when drunk.

I know later I’ll think this is stupid and overwrought and likely I’ll be right. Maybe. Either way it’s off-topic. The high-effort subset of the intoxicated self says I should search for takeaways and for once it took effort to ask myself that question...  and that’s useless effort, even, because I don’t know. Likely I’ll regret this disclosure in the morning.

Sober I find it easy to conclude a train of thought; the end of a sober monologue ties everything together. My text output isn't good, not always, but there’s always a conclusion. Usually that’s very important to me, connecting the style to the substance, ending well. Now, drunk and exquisitely slow and stupid, public presentation and infosec and narrative and ending well are orders of magnitude less important than that old joke. You know the joke or at least you should. Takeaway: what’s the difference between ignorance and apathy?

I don’t know and I don’t care.

[ellie-kallmier-blog]

THE DEATH OF THE ARTIST

I was reading a few pieces during the research process for this assessment and the one text that kept getting referred to across just about all the different sources was Roland Barthes’ essay The Death of the Author (1967). The essay is pretty striking to read and really breaks down the conception of Author in literature, and as I was reading it I kept thinking of the parallels to my research on authorship in art. So, I decided to re-appropriate the text and replaced ‘Author’ with ‘Artist’, ‘text’ with ‘work’, ‘reader’ with ‘audience’ and a few other alterations to retain the flow and ideas of the piece. This really contextualised for me a lot of what I’d been thinking about already, and I think communicates my ideas in a much more sophisticated and eloquent way than I would be able to write. This little experiment not only has content that explores ideas of authorship in creative practices, but as the action of creating this written piece is a direct reference to that content. I’m thinking of using at least a quote or excerpt from the writing in my statement at some point, as it just sums up my process and ideas throughout this assessment so well. 

This is the full text with my changes made

This is a fuller collection of the best bits, edited a little more thoroughly to keep a good flow etc.

EXCERPTS FROM THE DEATH OF THE ARTIST

Probably this has always been the case: once an action is recounted, for intransitive ends, and no longer in order to act directly upon reality — that is, finally external to any function but the very exercise of the symbol — this disjunction occurs, the voice loses its origin, the Artist enters their own death, Art begins.

The image of art to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centred on the Artist, their person, their history, their tastes, their passions; criticism still consists, most of the time, in saying that Baudelaire's work is the failure of the man Baudelaire, Van Gogh's work his madness, Tchaikovsky's his vice: the explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it, as if, through the more or less transparent allegory of art, it was always finally the voice of one and the same person, the Artist, which delivered their “confidence."

The Artist is never anything more than the man who creates, just as I is no more than the man who says I: art knows a "subject," not a "person," end this subject, void outside of the very utterance which defines it, suffices to make art "work," that is, to exhaust it.

The Artist, when we believe in him, is always conceived as the past of their own work: the work and the Artist take their places of their own accord on the same line, cast as a before and an after: the Artist is supposed to feed the book — that is, they pre-exist it, think, suffer, lives for it; they maintain with their work the same relation of antecedence a father maintains with their child. Quite the contrary, the modern creator is born simultaneously with their work; they are in no way supplied with a being which precedes or transcends their Art, they are in no way the subject of which their work is the predicate; there is no other time than that of the creation, and every work is eternally created here and now. This is because (or: it follows that) to make can no longer designate an operation of recording, of observing, of representing, of "painting" (as the Classic creators put it), but rather what the linguisticians, following the vocabulary of the Oxford school, call a performative, a rare verbal form (exclusively given to the first person and to the present), in which creation has no other content than the act by which it is created.

The Artist can only imitate a gesture forever anterior, never original; their only power is to combine the different kinds of Art, to oppose some by others, so as never to sustain themselves by just one of them; if they want to express themselves, at least they should know that the internal "thing" they claim to "translate" is itself only a readymade dictionary whose symbols can be explained (defined) only by other symbols.

The claim to "decipher" a work becomes quite useless. To give an Artist to a work is to impose upon that work a stop clause, to furnish it with a final signification, to close the Art. This conception perfectly suits criticism, which can then take as its major task the discovery of the Artist (or their hypostases: society, history, the psyche, freedom) beneath the work: once the Artist is discovered, the piece is "explained:' the critic has conquered; hence it is scarcely surprising not only that, historically, the reign of the Artist should also have been that of the Critic, but that criticism should be overthrown along with the Artist.

The true locus of Art is experiencing.

In this way is revealed the whole being of Art: a work consists of multiple pieces, issuing from several cultures and entering into dialogue with each other, into parody, into contestation; but there is one place where this multiplicity is collected, united, and this place is not the Artist, as we have hitherto said it was, but the audience: the audience is the very space in which are inscribed, without any being lost, all the citations a work consists of; the unity of a work is not in its origin, it is in its destination; but this destination can no longer be personal: the audience is a person without history, without biography, without psychology; they are only that someone who holds gathered into a single field all the paths of which the work is constituted.

The audience has never been the concern of classical criticism; for it, there is no other person in art but the one who creates. We are now beginning to be the dupes no longer of such antiphrases, by which our society proudly champions precisely what it dismisses, ignores, smothers or destroys; we know that to restore to Art its future, we must reverse its myth: the birth of the audience must be ransomed by the death of the Artist.

REFERENCES:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roland-Gerard-Barthes

https://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/Barthes.pdf

https://www.allymcginn.com/research-blog/2017/12/10/research-authorship-creation-originality-appropriation-authenticity-and-ownership

[kendrixtermina]

My immediate thought was “superego” also, reminds me of that ask from that 1 that you got a while back - though you’re probably right about 6 because the wanting validation part sounds attachment-y. 

I don’t see morality entering into it at all until you’ve taken some external action that impacts others.

Though I might certainly sometimes interrogate if the reaction ‘makes sense’, because I need to know that in order to decide how to act on it - if I’m justified in being mad, then I need to think if there’s anything I can do about the problem, maybe find a solution or let the one responsible hear it. 

If it doesn’t make sense, and it’s just a “me problem”, then the reaction itself is the only problem - if its mild, I might just ignore it till it fades. If I desire catharsis, or if it’s strong enough to need managing - maybe go for a walk or listen to some angry music? 

Same if there’s nothing I can do - if you cant treat the disease, relieve the symptoms.

I might find an unwarranted response embarassing or foolish - like being touchy for no good reason or still feeling hurt over the words of a person I haven’t spoken to in years. 

But I don’t think moral condemnation enters into it - after all, it just is. I can’t control it. Thoughts, feelings and impulses just arise. Why would blame apply to something I can’t control? I control the actions and choices, insofar as a human being can control anything. 

Morals could come into it where it affects another person. 

What could certainly be related to Fe is that I sometimes want to put it into some external form where people can see it - usually not while it’s ongoing, but only after I’ve processed it. 

though thats a ‘I want to make it heard or see how people react to it’ thing more than it is wanting a particular response from them. 

Which isn’t to say that I’m completely immune to validation when it happens to come my way. that would be a silly claim as well as a lie. 

Recently I made this new writer friend and had them test-read one of my lyrical pieces and she expressed sympathy for the POV character. That did something for me, I think. Like I got a little balm of sympathy placed on the ugly, repugnant bits of me, even indirectly.  (though i dont mean ugly and repugnant as in morally, just - literally ugly. unsightly. unappealing. pathetic.)

kinda a bit twisted, that I have to be like, “here, i made something, wanna see something really freaky?” I made this thing, that I contrived with skill, I threw it into the void and them I’m peering in from the sidelines to see what people say to that, while staying kind of out of sight. And I’m expecting that probably no one will notice, or people will get it all wrong, and that’s just like it is - 

For the most part, I’m just making a thing because it doesn’t exist yet and I want it to, or to get something out of my system, deal with it myself all on my own. Just for the fun of the art of it. 

But maybe deep down inside im secretly hoping that maybe just maybe someone would notice, and just wont let myself admit it or act like it because then I could be dissapointed. 

I couldn’t just go and say, “Hi, my cool new friend, I’ve been struggling with these terrible feelings of ambivalence and im afraid they make me really undesirable, give me your 2 cents on that” - though this is probably what most ppl do with their friends. But nope -  I gotta entertain them with a freaky thing first! 

might be an excellent example of that whole ‘symbolic object’ thingy, in hindsight.

is it normal for low Fe to constantly question "am I justified in having this emotional reaction?" I was reading back a rant I wrote and at every point I express upset or hurt I seem to check myself and go "but am I reasonably justified in feeling this way, given that xxxx? does it make me a bad/toxic person for feeling upset when I know very well that xxxx?" I think I crave the validation of someone telling me that it's totally okay and normal to feel this way... and follow-up question, is it healthy to think like this??

It might be, but to be honest, I do this as a 6. Someone ticked me off the other day and I sent what they sent me to two friends (both 9s, so I know they wouldn't overreact) and asked, "Is this something that I should be upset about? Cuz I'm upset. Am I overreacting?" Both of them told me absolutely not, and I was justified to be mad about it. Both told me I had every right to be angry about it, because it was so inappropriate. And that made it okay -- and then I got over it and moved on with my day. I don't like overreacting or being emotional, because it makes me feel less logical and more vulnerable, which is why I suppress things. I hold onto that 6ish need to "use logic to keep safe." But my natural tendency is to get my feelings hurt.

There's a super-ego element in what you are talking about -- like you are checking yourself to make sure it's Okay to have these feelings and if you shouldn't have them, because of X circumstances, but knowing that someone is going through Y doesn't necessarily change how YOU feel about it. I can accept that a friend is having a rough time right now and still feel hurt at being ignored. Feelings do not make you bad or toxic; what you do about them is what might make you bad or toxic. It's one thing to feel resentment, and another to sabotage someone because you feel resentment.

Thinkers can often not be sure if they are overreacting as well, or if their feelings are normal, or even what they are feeling about this, so it sometimes catches them off guard. Some thinkers want to hear, "This is normal, you'll be fine," and others say that ticks them off.

I don't see any problem with questioning your emotions, provided you are allowing yourself to experience and manage them. If you think that this emotion is bad, then talk to yourself about why you think it's bad and what you can do with it to make it "good." But it's also important not to ignore your immediate reactions, because that's where the truth of your feelings lies. Yes, I am hurt. I am angry. I am jealous. React and think about it. You are 'justified' to feel what you feel, but also responsible for what you do about those feelings.

[takethepresent]

September 18, 2017 - Manifestation

I keep seeing all of these half/false truths about manifestation or the law of attraction. It gives manifestation a bad reputation too because their advice isn’t universally true. It only works for some people because it is only somewhat true. I’m actually writing this out of frustration. I’ve put this off because it’s not my favorite topic to talk about, but it seems it is much needed.

To start, manifestation is simply the way in which you create your life. It does not have to necessarily mean you are a magical god that can create your reality before your very eyes (although I’m not ruling that out either). I decided on a definition that we could all agree on, so we can all start utilizing manifestation to create the life we want.

My definition should even make sense to people who only think in purely logical ways. If you want to make more money, manifest it by working harder right?

However, for all people, we tend to struggle with the question of “why am I not getting what I want in life?” The short answer is, you don’t even know what you want in life. You may think you want something when in reality, you actually want some feeling associated with that initial desire.

This brings us to the subconscious. DO NOT LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO TALKS ABOUT THE LAW OF ATTRACTION OR MANIFESTATION WITHOUT MENTIONING THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING SUBCONSCIOUS PATTERNS. If they do not use the word subconscious at least once, that is a big red flag that they have no idea what they are talking about.

If you haven’t gotten anything from my blog, I just hope that you at least get this: your subconscious runs the show more than 95% of the time. You may think you know yourself or what you want or who you are, but you have no idea. You may think you want to have sex with that girl, but subconsciously, you may just be seeking validation through women because your mom was the only one to give you emotional support when you were a child. You may think you want to go to that prestigious college, but subconsciously, you may just want others to think of you as a prestigious person because you place your self-worth in what others think of you.

If you have no idea what you actually want, then how do you expect to manifest what you want? You will struggle miserably. You MUST confront your subconscious patterns. This process is outlined in detail here on my blog or here on my Twitter.

However, I am going to focus on actual manifestation advice.

Do not fall for the illusion that you can simply change your thoughts, behaviors, words etc. This will either have you frustrated and dismissing law of attraction as a whole OR it will work temporarily but cause you to have huge meltdowns every so often.

Your desire to simply change your thoughts is based off of judgment. If you have read anything from me about how judgment creates problems, this is evident.

You must become mindful (withholding judgment) of why you have those thoughts. When you ask “why?”, you start digging one layer deeper into your subconscious.

Do not treat the symptoms and ignore the root cause of the problem. You MUST find the root cause of the problem.

As you get closer to the root cause of the problem, you start to realize that you never even wanted what you were trying to manifest. No wonder you struggled in manifesting it. You may think you want money when in reality, money symbolizes power to you and you believe yourself to be powerless/are afraid of power. You may think you want financial freedom when in reality, you use money as a form of control/you already have the freedom you seek. You may think you want a stable, healthy, growing relationship with a significant other when in reality, you just want attention or validation.

The possibilities of these scenarios are endless, and you would never know unless you started to work through your subconscious patterns. 

However, there are some very common similarities between these scenarios.

The most common thing between the struggle in manifesting the life you want is doing things out of fear.

Here is an example. You have a problem in your life that you judge to be negative due to fear. You stumble upon a thread about manifestation through positive affirmations and attempt to use it fix your situation. You may or may not find temporary success. However, you didn’t realize something because you were never mindful. 

You didn’t realize that your desire to use positive affirmations was rooted in the fear of your problem in the first place. 

Since you did not address the root fear, your problem persisted. In fact, each time you use a positive affirmation out of fear, you are adding to the belief of “I should be afraid of this thing because it is bad/negative”. In this way, the problem actually gets worse over time. This is why only focusing on “positivity” can be one of the most counterproductive things you ever do.

This is the mistake that many people who talk about law of attraction or manifestation make. They think they understand manifestation because they seem to be more positive than others. Ironically, these people tend to have huge breakdowns when they do feel “negative”. It is due to all of their suppressed “negativity” (fear) coming to the surface suddenly because they never actually dealt with it. Then, they try to do what they always do. They focus on positivity (run from fear), making the situation even worse. These people are not better at manifestation. They are better at suppressing their emotions.

Instead, practice MINDFULNESS. I don’t know how many times I have to emphasize this.

If you simply became aware of why you judged the problem to be negative in the first place, you would have eventually realized, “oh, it’s because of this memory when I was __ years old and I felt ____ because of ____”. You would realize that it was never a real problem to be afraid of in the first place. You would realize that you already have abundance in your life. It typically doesn’t happen that quickly, but you will definitely start digging one layer deeper into your subconscious when you are mindful of why you judged the problem to be negative in the first place.

When we use things in our external reality to cover our voids, we take those things for granted because they are filling a void we should be filling on our own. In this way, we begin to see life through a lens of “lacking” (lack of abundance). We ALWAYS have abundance. You don’t need to focus on manifesting abundance (Ironically, this would be due to a belief of lacking abundance). You need to work on realizing the inherent abundance all around you. A very common pattern is that you will realize that you already have exactly what you were trying to manifest. You may be trying to manifest money (external resources).Then, when you deal with your voids, you realize how blessed you are with so many resources already.

To summarize, you won’t manifest more of something unless you genuinely appreciate what you already have. If you have a desire to manifest something, ask yourself if you already have it or if you are not appreciating something that you already have. Ask yourself what that thing you are trying to manifest symbolizes or represents. As you practice mindfulness, you will start to notice your thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and words change on their own. You will not have to routinely remind yourself to change them. As you continue to use mindfulness to confront your voids, you will watch your life change drastically and effortlessly.