#incapable of faking sincerity

[wordingg]

Drunk Boys

Summary: Edwin agrees to go to a Halloween party with Charles. When they both start drinking enchanted alcohol, things get out of hand.

AN: Written for Dead Boy Ween, Day 11, prompt: Halloween.

Somehow these fills keep getting longer and longer. This is another one that I would be open to writing a sequel to, if there's interest in it. It ends on sort of an ambiguous sad note.

“The two of you are going to a house party? On Halloween?” Crystal asked incredulously.

“What, you think we can’t fit in at a house party?” Charles asked, sincerely puzzled.

“You, I understand. It’s Edwin that I can’t picture partying, let alone somewhere as informal as someone’s house,” she said with a pointed look at Edwin. He was seated behind the desk, occasionally moving papers from one pile to another in a transparent attempt to look uninterested in the conversation.

“It is not my preferred activity for revelry,” Edwin said, dry as the desert.

“Do you have a preferred ‘activity for revelry’?” Crystal asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Niko interrupted them to add. “It’s like an iconic teenager experience. I’m happy for you guys.”

Edwin frowned faintly in Niko’s direction, but held his tongue like Charles expected. Edwin was incapable of saying anything even vaguely not nice to Niko.

“Thanks, Niko,” Charles grinned, throwing himself onto the couch, even though there was definitely not room for him on the tiny loveseat. He ended up mostly sprawled across the girls’ laps, Crystal groaning and slapping his arms away and Niko humming happily and resting her bubble tea on his stomach.

“We’ve had a standing invitation for years, but this one,” Charles gestured at Edwin, who huffed and put his nose in the air, “has never been open to going.”

“Oh? Why the sudden change?” Crystal asked Edwin, her tone a little arch but mostly curious.

Edwin sighed and fiddled with the papers again. “No particular reason,” he mumbled, unusual for him but maybe he disliked all the attention.

Charles didn’t want Edwin to get self-conscious about agreeing to go to the party and change his mind, so he quickly changed the subject. “It’s like the biggest ghost event of the year! It’s super fun.”

“I didn’t realize ghosts had a social calendar,” Crystal said with a raised eyebrow.

“There are certain days of the year when spectral energy waxes and the veil that separates the living and the dead thin,” Edwin explained in what Charles thought of as his professor voice. If he was professor-ing at them, then Charles’ distraction must have worked, and he was back to feeling comfortable. “Both Samhain and Beltane mark days when the balance between light and dark, summer and winter, are perfectly balanced. This makes them ideal days for rituals regarding the dead.”

“He means that Aleister Crowley enchants a whole house every year and throws a crazy rager in it where ghosts can actually interact with the living and get drunk and all that,” Charles adds with a grin to the two girls.

“I suppose, if you want to be crass, you could explain it like that,” Edwin said crossly.

“Aleister Crowley is a ghost?” Crystal asked with big eyes “A ghost that throws Halloween parties?” she added, sounding even more surprised.

“He’s completely off his chump,” Edwin snapped, “A fake in all but the most rudimentary of magicks,” he added with a curl of his lip.

“We don’t like him, as a rule,” Charles said with an apologetic look at Edwin. Edwin was too busy scowling down at the surface of the desk to notice. “He called Edwin a, uh, what was it, a poodle something?”

“Poodle-faker,” Edwin spit, then winced, like just saying the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Yeah, that,” Charles sighed.

“I’m sorry, but what does that mean? Poodle-faker? Off his chump?” Niko asked quietly.

Edwin made a face like he’d rather chew on a shoe than explain what those words meant, so Charles quickly answered, “Off his chump is like, he’s totally nuts, off his rocker like. Poodle-faker is like an old timey insult that means you hang out with women too much,” Charles added that last explanation carefully, hoping that his tone got across how stupid of an insult he thought it was. He didn’t totally understand what it meant or why that was an insult, but he knew that Edwin had been in a properly awful state for days after that casual insult, so it must have meant a lot to him.

“So, he’s a monumental dick,” Crystal said dryly.

“Yes,” Edwin agreed enthusiastically.

“Why do you want to go to a party thrown by someone who’s a monumental dick?” Niko asked as sincerely as she asked every other question that ever escaped her perfect pink lips.

“Because I’ll be there to kick his spectral ass,” Crystal said with a grin that showed the sharp points of her teeth.

“No way!” Charles exclaimed, sitting up fast enough that Niko’s tea almost spilled, though her quick reflexes saved it from toppling off of Charles’ stomach and all over the girls’ laps. “You guys can’t come,” he said frantically.

“Why not?” Crystal asked, her eyebrows communicating that she was two seconds away from wanting to fight him about it.

“Because any party thrown by Aleister Crowley is a dangerous place for the living to be,” Edwin said darkly, giving Crystal a severe look. “He has no respect for anyone, but he especially does not respect the living. Or women,” he added with a troubled frown.

“Ew,” Niko said quietly before sucking her drink loudly through her straw.

“We can all go to Miss Ava Gardner’s party on Beltane,” Edwin said with a nod, like it was already decided. “She is a consummate host and a lovely woman. You’ll be safe as houses there.”

That set them off on a completely different tangent, with Crystal and Niko asking Edwin and Charles how many dead movie stars they knew and how many lived in London and what Crystal and Niko could possibly do to earn a polite introduction.

They never quite circled back to why exactly Edwin wanted to go to Crowley’s Halloween party. Charles was happy that Edwin wanted to go, he had been trying to get him to agree to go for literal decades after all, but the lack of explanation was concerning. Crowley was shite, but the party was fun and it was a huge get together for all of undead London. Charles had been a ton of times, though it was a lot less fun without Edwin there.

Charles tried to push his concerns down. Edwin had agreed to go. Charles didn’t have to be let in on every little twist and turn of his best friend’s thoughts, he could just be happy that they were together.

---

The night of the party, Charles was a mess of nerves. Edwin seemed nervous as well, though Charles expected that had more to do with his anxiety over running into the host and less to do with the party itself. Charles got the impression that Edwin had never been comfortable around people when he was alive, based on the stories that Edwin told. But, Charles had never seen Edwin act anything other than confident and self-possessed in person. Still, Charles wanted the night to go well so badly that he could almost feel his stomach doing flips below his ribcage.

The girls had decided to aggressively have fun without them. They were both decked out in beautiful creative costumes. Charles definitely appreciated all the bare skin and glitter and makeup and Edwin seemed to be fascinated with the pageantry of it all.

Crystal was dressed in huge curling demon horns, red glitter, and a series of sinfully suggestive black leather body harnesses under a tiny halter top and distressed shorts and huge platform boots that looked like they were built with curb stomping as the one and only activity in mind. Niko looked like a dream in pastels and holographic fabric, every movement she made shining and glittering back in prismatic halos of color.

“I’m an angel alien. I think,” she said, adjusting a headband with pink pompoms on bouncing springs on top of her head. The pompoms bounced cutely every time she moved.

Charles barked out a laugh. “Hell yeah you are,” he agreed with a grin.

Edwin curiously fingered her plastic holographic skirt, watching the play of the warm orange light of the office lamps play across it. “You look enchanting. I can barely bring myself to look away from you,” Edwin said with a smile that Niko shyly returned.

“Am I enchanting?” Crystal asked with a teasing smile.

“You’re terrifying,” Edwin said, straightening from examining Niko’s outfit and trying to suppress of a smile of his own.

“And hot,” Charles added with a wink.

“Perfect,” Crystal declared, “Just as I intended.” She flicked a curl over her shoulder while Niko giggled.

Not much later, they were all off. The girls had an impressive itinerary of clubs and bars and parties planned out, but the boys had only one location in mind.

Every year Crowley’s Halloween party was held in a different location. That year it was being held in the Ragged School turned museum down in the East End.

By the time that Charles and Edwin got there, just as the sun set below the skyline, ghosts from all over the city were flowing into the building. The lights were on inside, making every old broken down window shine out into the near darkness of the crisp autumn night like a beacon. Music poured out of the open front door, an odd mix of music from all manner of eras and time frames. The nearby canal gave the chill a humid tinge, making the air around them feel even colder than it really was.

“It feels morbid, doesn’t it?” Edwin asked, frowning up at the squat square facade of the school. It wasn’t grand or beautiful like some of the old buildings left behind from Edwin’s time. Charles thought he might have read somewhere that the building was a warehouse before it was converted into a school for the city’s poorest children sometime around the end of the 1800s.

“Suppose it’s just because we’re school boys, init?” Charles asked. The building did look a little ominous, even with the bright lights and music and all the ghosts slowly making their way inside.

“You ready?” Charles asked with a smile, thinking it was probably better to move inside rather than linger and wonder about times past.

Edwin took a deep breath and visibly straightened himself, his chin tilting up, his shoulders pulling back.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I think,” he said doubtfully, despite his stiff posture.

“Brills,” Charles smiled. “Let’s head in.”

The inside of the Ragged School was absolutely packed with an eclectic mix of people both living and dead with the odd scattering of other kinds of supernatural creatures. The museum itself was pretty sparsely decorated, from what Charles could see through the press of the crowd. It definitely looked like a school, with glimpses of old wooden desks in big empty classrooms and a nice open staircase in the front hall with a polished wooden balustrade. It was obvious that the bits near the front entrance had all recently been repainted and polished up. Charles wondered if it would continue to look that way through the whole school.

Charles and Edwin didn’t have much of a chance to investigate, as they were quickly recognized by a knot of ghosts lingering near the front door.

“The Dead Boy Detectives themselves!” a pretty young man with curly hair and mutton chops said with a cheer.

“You’re both here!” a young woman with her dark hair shaved close to her head exclaimed in surprise. She was hanging from the neck of the young man who had spoken first, her dress so tiny that Charles would have blushed if he was able to.

“Are you on a case?” an older woman with a mischievous smile asked from their other side.

Charles recognized most of them from previous cases, though it was hard to remember while he was trying not to look at all the soft dark skin the young woman had on display. He thought that the guy with the mutton chops might have been haunted by a devil dog or something twenty years ago.

“Not tonight,” Edwin said shortly, nodding to them all.

“Yeah, just here for a bit of fun,” Charles said, winking at the older woman, even though it was the young couple who laughed.

“If you want to avoid Crowley, stick to the first floor,” the older woman said to Edwin with a knowing smile. “He thinks he’s holding court up there, but really he’s just making it easy for rest of us to avoid him.”

Edwin perked up a bit at that, some of the tension leeching out of his shoulders. “Thank you for the tip. I will do that.”

And then they were being buffeted through the crowd, bouncing from one group of ghosts to another. It was almost like a who’s who of spirits that the dead boys had helped or talked to or bargained with in the past thirty years. Everyone seemed happily surprised to see them and everyone was eager to talk. It was times like this that Charles was reminded of how deeply they had ingrained themselves into the supernatural tapestry of London.

Charles felt a little bit like he understood why girls fantasized about being the prettiest girl at the ball, because that night Charles certainly felt like one.

At some point, someone pressed a red solo cup into each of their hands. With a laugh, the ghost had explained, “It’s enchanted!” which made Edwin frown and Charles smile.

Edwin opened his mouth, probably to ask for the exact specifics of what kind of enchantment was on the cup, but Charles was already knocking it back.

It bubbled across his tongue in a familiar tang of sour and hops that Charles recognized from the bottles of bitter he and his friends used to sneak behind the school gymnasium after games. The taste of nostalgia was so strong it almost brought tears to his eyes. He had almost forgotten what it had tasted like, but that was it exactly.

“Charles,” Edwin sighed in exasperation. “Really. You should not drink things handed to you by a stranger.”

“I’m not a stranger,” the stranger said. “You boys saved my pet goldfish from a hungry selkie three years ago. I owe you one.”

“See?” Charles said, elbowing Edwin gently with what he knew as a cheeky smile. “He’s an past client. We can trust him. Try it!”

Edwin looked doubtfully at the liquid in the cup. It looked like nothing more spectacular than tap water, but Charles knew that it wouldn’t taste like it.

After taking a bracing breath, Edwin tipped the cup up and took a sizable swallow. When he brought the cup back down, his eyebrows were raised in surprise.

“Oh,” he said faintly. “That tastes just like the wine tonic my mother used to make me take as a child.” He turned to Charles in surprise.

“To me, it tastes like the beer me and my pals used to sneak after school,” Charles said.

“And to me, it tastes like Jack Daniels and tears,” the strange man said mournfully. “Cheers, boys. Enjoy the party,” he said and then wandered off, sipping from his own red solo cup.

The party got noticeably more blurry after that.

Charles and Edwin kept their cups in hand and kept drinking from them. No matter how much they drank, the cups never seemed to empty, so they never had to wonder where they could get more and didn’t keep much track of how much they had drank. At least, Charles certainly didn’t. He couldn’t speak for Edwin, but it felt like he was keeping pace with Charles.

Edwin had stuck close to Charles since they entered the party, but the drunker they got, the closer they became. First, they started leaning on each other, then Edwin looped Charles’ hand around his elbow when he started stumbling, until eventually they were mutually clinging to each others’ arms to stay upright.

The happiness that Charles had felt when they first entered the party just kept building. He felt warm and comfortable, even more so when his own enjoyment was mirrored in Edwin’s face. Everyone was so happy to see them, they laughed when the boys stumbled and helped right them again, pretty men and women kept touching Charles’ sleeve hair and older women carefully fixed Edwin’s hair or righted his bow tie.

Charles felt like he was on top of the world. So, when he heard one of his favorite songs come on over the speakers set throughout the house, he didn’t hesitate.

“Come dance with me!” Charles insisted, already dragging Edwin into the middle of a nearby classroom that had been repurposed into a dance floor. The desks had all been pushed into the wall, a small knot of people already swaying in the center.

Edwin stumbled, his hair falling over his forehead for the thousandth time that night.

“Charles,” he mumbled, “I can’t dance.”

“It’s okay. It’s not that kind of song,” Charles assured him, pulling him into the knot of other dancers.

England Belongs to Me by Cock Sparrer was blaring over the speakers and people were jumping and banging their heads, but Charles wasn’t paying attention to anyone but Edwin. Edwin looked uncertain and ungainly, his long legs becoming so much less certain as they both became more and more drunk. But, his eyes were stuck on Charles, watching him, waiting for him, and it made Charles feel like he was at the center of the universe.

“It’s easy!” Charles shouted over the music. “Just bounce up and down!” Charles said, grabbing both of Edwin’s hands in his and popping up and down on the balls of his feet to the rhythm of the music.

Edwin tried to follow his instructions, but he looked self conscious. He squeezed Charles’ hands in his and looked down at their shoes which was just not the thing, was it? Charles let go of Edwin’s hands after the second verse and instead wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him close.

“Just move with me,” Charles said with a grin and a squeeze. Edwin still looked completely lost, but now he also looked a little flustered which was perfect in Charles’ opinion. Charles kept bouncing, but now he also swayed side to side. After only briefly hesitating, Edwin put his arms around Charles shoulders and let him move him.

And then the song changes and Pure by The Lightning Seeds came on. The crowd around them was laughing and dissolving and then coming back together as new people took to the floor. Charles and Edwin stayed where they were, swaying, pressed together.

Charles looked into Edwin’s eyes and they were so intense and pretty in that moment. Edwin was a pretty boy, Charles thought, in a different way that people sometimes called Charles a pretty boy. People called Charles pretty because he had an earring and he styled his hair. Charles thought Edwin would look pretty no matter what he wore or what he did with his hair.

They swayed together, looking into each other’s eyes for longer than either of them would have been capable of doing sober. Charles remembered the song that was playing, the way he used to listen to it on loop the month before he died. The guy who was on the cover of the cassette, Ian Broudie, was cute in a way that Charles hadn’t let himself think about back then. But, when he would lay on his bed and close his eyes he would imagine that the singer was there in his room with him, singing him a love song with soft lips and softer looking hair and big glasses that made him look sweet and inviting.

Before Charles noticed it, Edwin’s lips were on his, soft as the Charles back then had imagined the boy in the song’s might be, sweeter than any kiss he’d had before then.

Charles barely got a chance to kiss back, before Edwin was pulling away. His brow was crumpled and his eyes were afraid. Charles tought that Edwin shouldn’t look so afraid, especially not right after kissing him.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t,” Edwin swallowed and his throat clicked, his adam’s apple bobbed against his collar. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“I liked it,” Charles said. He heard the slur on his voice, so he repeated himself just in case. “I liked it,” he grinned and leaned in. “Do it again?”

Edwin met him halfway and they were kissing and swaying and music was playing. Someone whistled and clapped and Charles had enough thought to take a hand off of Edwin’s shoulder and point his middle finger in the general direction of the whistler to the raucous laughter of the crowd.

They kissed and danced and the music kept changing. It felt a bit like the room was spinning, but Edwin felt solid and perfect, so Charles just held onto him and kept kissing him until long after a living boy’s lips would have gone numb.

---

At some point, Charles and Edwin ended up on a couch.

“This does not seem historically accurate,” Edwin had muttered into the couch cushion, but by that point Charles was too invested in kissing every square centimeter of Edwin’s long beautiful throat to bother engaging in talk about Edwardian furniture.

“Perhaps you boys should get a room,” a feminine voice laughed from somewhere nearby. Long acrylic nails glided through Charles’ hair, scratching his scalp. “I think you’re scandalizing some of the geezers.”

“Don’t care. Fuck off,” Charles grumbled, waving a hand to banish the heavenly nails. Whoever she was, she laughed and removed her hand. Charles fumbled around until he found Edwin’s hand on his waist and slapped it onto his head instead. Edwin seemed to get the message and started scratching his short nails through Charles’ hair.

Edwin was laid out on a hideous plaid couch, his long limbs splayed out, his bow tie long gone, his shirt unbuttoned. His hair was a mess and his lips were wet with Charles’ spit. Charles had no idea how they had gotten to the couch or even a vague idea of where they were in the building, but he was glad to whatever drunken stumble or nice friend had gotten them there. They must have been at the edge of the party. There were a few people talking or necking in the room with them, but it was a lot wherever they were than it had been earlier.

Charles was cradled in the basket of Edwin’s legs, his strong thighs squeezing Charles’ hips every time he did something especially clever with his mouth. Somewhere in the back of Charles addled brain he knew he was hard and that Edwin was hard and that he had been rocking himself into Edwin for however long it had been that they’d been making out.

A small voice was starting to panic somewhere in the soupy mess of his brain. Edwin loved him. Charles had told Edwin that he didn’t love him like that. And now Charles was grinding Edwin into a dusty couch in the back of a house party while they were both drunk off their asses. That was not a respectful way to treat a friend.

Charles reached over the edge of the couch and grabbed his solo cup, tipping a huge swallow down his throat. His thoughts became pleasantly unfocused again.

Pushing himself up Edwin’s body in an indecent drag, Charles mouthed at Edwin’s ear. “You feel so good,” he groaned, thrusting down hard. Edwin gasped and moaned, thrusting up to meet Charles, the hand not buried in Charles’ hair reaching down to grab Charles’ ass and pull him against him harder.

“Oh-kay. Everyone out,” the woman’s voice from before called out through the room.

There was grumbling and laughing as ghosts and creatures started to slowly trickle out of the little back room.

“Who gave them solo cups?” someone asked in exasperation as they walked by. “They’re practically babies.”

“Jerry,” someone said with a snort.

“Jerry!” a number of people chorused their discontent with poor Jerry, but Charles didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to think about the cup, he just needed every thought that wasn’t about Edwin and how to make him make that sound again to go away.

Charles reached over and fumbled for his cup again, almost knocking it over. He tipped it back, his throat working to swallow and swallow and swallow until his stomach rebelled at the thought of swallowing more. Then, he passed the cup to Edwin, who wobbled his way up onto his elbows so that he could do the same.

Whatever happened after that was indistinct. Charles remembered more moaning, from both of them but especially from Edwin. He remembered the taste of Edwin’s skin and the feel of his soft hair between his fingers. He remembered pleasure singing up and down his spine and burning low in his gut.

He remembered that they clung to each other afterward and whispered sweet words against each other’s lips and nuzzled together so tenderly. No one had ever touched Charles as gently as Edwin did, but Charles would never be able to remember the words they whispered to each other as they did so.

And, even though ghosts don’t sleep, something like it must have stolen over them eventually, because Charles couldn’t remember anything after that.

---

If Charles had felt like a princess during the party, he felt like the scum of the earth the next morning.

It didn’t seem fair for ghosts to be able to get hang overs, but Charles couldn’t come up with any other explanation for why his head was pounding like it was. Even when he was alive, he had never gotten a hangover before, but he supposed enchanted endless solo cups were probably stronger than the cheap beer that his mates would steal from their parents.

Charles pried his eyes open to blink at the sunlight bright room and saw Edwin blinking tiredly at him from about two inches away. Charles screeched, lurched backward, and fell painfully onto the dirty floor beside the couch.

“Charles?” Edwin asked sleepily, leaning over the side of the couch and looking at Charles with concern.

But, Charles couldn’t look at him. He couldn’t look at his pale throat still plainly visible against his open collar, or his mussed hair that had felt so soft between Charles’ fingers, or his frowning mouth that had gasped and moaned just the night before.

“I know what he sounds like when he cums,” Charles thought wildly, before shooting to his feet in a burst of adrenaline as that thought seared itself into the inside of his skull, something he could never unthink or undo or bury.

“Are you alright?” Edwin asked, looking distinctly more concerned.

“Yeah! Brills! Perfect!” Charles shouted, his voice strangled and awful even to his own ears. Edwin’s face was folding into a more severe frown. Charles had to do something to salvage the situation. “My head is killing me, though. Can’t remember a thing about last night,” Charles laughed, wincing and pressing a hand to his forehead. Luckily, his head was actually killing him, so he didn’t even have to pretend to wince.

Edwin’s face went startlingly blank, the frown and the furrowed brow dropping off like they’d never been there. Charles held his breath and felt like the world did too.

After what felt like an eternity, Edwin faintly said. “Yes. Me too.” He looked away and swallowed and very briefly a pained look flitted across his face that cut Charles to the quick.

“No no no,” Charles thought. “That was wrong. That was the wrong answer! Fuck!”

Edwin sighed and began doing up the buttons of his shirt in sharp yanks and twists of his elegant fingers. “You really should listen to me, Charles. I told you it was foolish to accept mysterious drinks from strangers. Now we might as well have not come to the party at all.”

“Ah, well. I mean. It wasn’t that bad,” Charles stumbled. His heart was pounding in his chest and Edwin wasn’t looking at him. “It was a lot of fun before we started drinking, yeah?”

Edwin ignored him, running a hand through his hair to try and neaten it, though the effort was wasted. His hair was too mussed to be fixed by a little bit of finger combing.

Climbing to his feet, Edwin began to pull his clothing straight. But, it still looked rumpled, even to Charles’ untrained eye. He wondered why Edwin didn’t just imagine his clothing neatened like he usually did. He wondered if Edwin was as flustered as he was.

“We ought to be getting back to the office. The girls are likely wondering where we are,” Edwin said stiffly, opening the old wooden door out to the corridor and striding out. The school looked different in the daylight. The glass was old and dirty in the unfinished part of the museum, making the early autumn light look strange and anemic on the peeling paint and scuffed wood.

“Wait, Edwin,” Charles hurried after him, but Edwin didn’t slow down. His long legs ate up the distance down the corridor toward the general direction of the front hall. “I said wait!” Charles grabbed Edwin’s wrist.

Edwin stopped suddenly, twisting his head to the side to pin Charles with a venomous look.

“Do you have something you want to talk about, Charles?” he snapped.

Charles felt pinned to the spot, like Edwin had pinned him to a piece of corkboard like a bug. “Well,” Charles mumbled. He hesitated. He knew what he should say. He knew he should come clean and admit that he did remember what had happened, but there was a rock in his stomach and his tongue felt too numb to get the words out. “Well, no, I guess-”

“If you have nothing to say to me, then let’s get on with business as usual. Shall we?” Edwin asked.

He looked brittle in that moment, like he had spun himself up a facade made of glass and if Charles so much as touched him the wrong way he would shatter. Charles had done that to him, to his best friend in the world.

Charles let go of Edwin’s wrist. He felt small and pathetic and that he likely deserved much worse than Edwin snapping at him.

“Yeah. Okay,” Charles croaked.

Edwin looked at him for a long time, but eventually he nodded and turned back around. He started walking again, this time at a more reasonable pace. Charles walked just a step behind him and tried to force down all the feelings swelling up in his chest with nowhere to go.

He would follow Edwin and protect him and be his best friend as well as he could, Charles decided. That was all he could do.

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

There's something I don't see talked about enough in the SVSSS fandom.

The System.

I just received a comment on one of my fics - which has post-canon SQQ and SQH able to still use social media - suggesting that it would be very easy for people in the real world to point out that these characters using fake accounts to post on real life social media sites would easily be doxxed and the System would have no ability to do anything about that.

Something I have noticed among a lot of people who read this particular book is that not a lot of consideration is given to the very thing orchestrating everything. We often think of the system as a ridiculous guide or rule book that exists solely to give the protagonist what he wants/deserves. We don't really approach it for what it is.

This was my reply to that comment:

Doubt it. The System is able to kidnap people from their worlds and place them in other worlds and bodies in those worlds as punishment. And if you don't do as it wants, to the specification it doesn't directly detail, it can send your soul to an alternate version of the present world to be tortured in another body. I sincerely doubt an abstract, otherworldly being like that, which never receives consequences for anything it does because there is apparently nothing that can canonically challenge it, is going to be threatened by doxxing. If it can create things, link universes together, steal souls, and can be anywhere at any time, I wouldn't expect it to be incapable of manipulating people's perception. I even mentioned how in this fic, it WILL erase SQQ's sister's memories if he chooses to reveal his identity to her, but it becomes too much for her to handle. This suggests it has power anywhere and can do whatever it wants. So, in my mind, if someone actually tried to doxx their accounts, it's either going to lead nowhere, lead to somewhere fake, or the info will be stripped from their lives entirely the moment they find anything/nothing.

It was a very nitpicky kind of comment in my opinion, which warranted this response, but my response just made me realize that the System is effectively an amortal, omnipresent, and omnipotent Entity. It literally doesn't go away. We even think it's over and the Extras tell us, via SQH, that it's still there and still in control.

Think about it.

Think about every single thing that happened because of the System's actions or demands. It literally never faces consequences because there is nothing that could hope to punish it. I've only read 1 fic where higher beings step in to punish the System for kidnapping, coercing, and torturing innocent people for its amusement.

Because that IS something it can do. With ease. And seems all too happy to do.

The System is very dangerous and it's weird how this is something people forget when reading fanfics. SVSSS is the kind of book where crack ideas can work in the frame of the canon story because a character like SQH exists. Because he wrote PIDW with every single plothole and contrived story beat for the sake of money and survival, we can have the weirdest shit happen and blame it on his lack of imagination when writing PIDW. It doesn't need in-depth nitpicking to make it make sense. MXTX gave us a very large and generous sandbox to play in.

You don't need to rationalize a crack plot. And you should always keep in mind that canonically, the System is a terrifying Entity capable of outrageous things. It shouldn't be the deal-breaker that the Entity that kidnaps, gaslights, coerces, tortures, and manipulates people is capable of fantastical feats in a fanfic.

[tickles-tea]

Glass

Happy birthday to my number one, the light of my life, and the cause of the low numbers currently in my bank account ❤️ This fic is a little different from my usual writing but I really wanted to put something out for Izaya’s birthday so I hope you all enjoy ;u;

Shizuo used to hate Izaya’s laugh.

It was like glass shattering into a shower of sharp edges and unapologetic cruelty, every broken piece expertly aimed to hurt. It dripped in a poison so potent Shizuo could taste it- that vicious cocktail of cyanide and deception. That deception was what made it so bitter, Shizuo was sure.

Because at its core, Izaya’s laugh was completely and undeniably fake.

For all of Izaya’s smirks and snickers, not once did that glee ever reach his eyes. Every smile perfectly fixed in place, every laugh rehearsed and performed, all coming together to form the mask of Izaya Orihara.

As the years passed, Shizuo began to believe that perhaps there was no face behind that mask at all. 

It wasn’t until they’d begun their…situationship…that this belief was brought into question. 

In the darkness of night, hidden between tangled sheets and heated flesh, he found ghosts of sincerity in that mask.

He saw longing in those clever eyes, pupils blown wide with desire and desperation. He tasted restraint on Izaya’s lips where the other would try his damnedest to stay quiet, where he would bite into his own skin to conceal any noise that wasn’t artificial. 

Izaya’s mask cracked during those nights and, with it, Shizuo did too.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the thing that finally shattered him was that same glass-crackle laugh.

Shizuo’s touches had grown softer. Bites were replaced by kisses, black and blue flesh making way for goosebumps over pale skin. He had started to explore instead of devouring.

All it took was one wandering hand brushing a little too lightly over Izaya’s thigh to reveal something Shizuo hadn’t known he was looking for. 

A giggle- sweet and bright and genuine and everything Shizuo had thought Izaya to be incapable of. 

Another crack in the mask had formed and Shizuo desperately needed to see what was behind it. 

His hands were his pickaxe as he chipped at its jagged edges. Spidering fingers climbing up a slender rib cage caused Izaya’s face to scrunch up in a wide toothy grin. Thumbs drilling into the hollows under his arms broke the dam and released a flood of helpless laughter. Despite coming from the same vocal cords, this laugh was so different from the one Shizuo was used to.

If Izaya’s usual mirth was a splintered mirror, this was a stained glass window. Bright, colorful, and refracting beauty like true laughter should. This frantic cackling, irregular and imperfect, was the truest reflection he’d seen of who Izaya could be if he allowed himself to. 

Shizuo knew of crystal clear lakes that played tricks on your eyes, with water so pure that you could see the very bottom without realizing how deep it truly was. He knew, and yet he still drowned in Izaya’s laugh. He let it fill his lungs with each breath and huff of amusement, drinking it all in. It was intoxicating.

It was surprising for Shizuo Heiwajima to willingly dive into the depths of Izaya Orihara. If anyone were to even fathom the idea, they'd be silenced by others for their own safety. Retribution would surely come for them at the hands of either man. However, the thought that Izaya would welcome him in- keeping his hands gripped around Shizuo’s wrists instead of the handle of a blade -was almost unimaginable.

Shizuo had learned that things aren't always as they seemed with Izaya, though. He’d learned that behind those fierce eyes and acidic grins hid a smile so honest that it made Shizuo’s heart clench. If he could believe this impossible reality, was it really so far fetched to think that one day that mask would shatter like glass? Was it foolish to think that Izaya might one day raise one elegant hand and remove it entirely? 

One couldn’t know for sure, but sitting here surrounded by the sugar and sincerity of Izaya’s laughter…Shizuo couldn’t wait to find out. 

[yuikomorii]

i’ve watched the diabolik lovers anime in like 2017 and i’ve been a fan since then but i never read the manga or the games and i’ve been wondering about how the diaboys actually are with feelings ?? cuz i read lots of fics and opinions and it always varies from they can’t feel love AT ALL and they’re downright horrible and then in the manga i guess ? they’re actually not that bad and they say ayato is pure or smth ? but if we consider the anime they really seem like they’re incapable of love

// I'm sorry, but whoever claims that the Diaboys are "incapable of love" either lacks reading comprehension or simply refuses to accept the truth. Rejet did not produce seven games solely for people to say such things.

I know some individuals prefer to emphasize on the psychological/horror sides of DL, but let's not forget that it's still a franchise with a lot of romantic moments, and it's been proven multiple times that the Diaboys can sincerely love someone. Sure, it wasn't easy at first, and some of them seemed hopeless, but Yui never gave up on them and showed compassion, which is what they most craved. They stopped seeing Yui as a blood bag and began to love her for herself thanks to Yui’s good heart.

One thing about the Sakamakis is that they all put on a façade. The fake Laito is a pervert, but the real one despises such things; the fake Shu is lazy, but the real one is depressed; the fake Reiji is proud, but the real one is incredibly insecure; the fake Subaru is violent, but the real one is kind; the fake Kanato is a lunatic, but the real one just feels like nobody can understand him and now… the fake Ayato is selfish, but the real one is pure-hearted.

Since you brought it up, I enjoy the anime, but yeah, it made all of the characters less likeable than in the games. In the anime, Ayato appears insane when he ends Cordelia off, yet in the games, specifically in the MB flashbacks, he is seen crying when she dies. He did bad things out of instinct or because he has had enough, but he ends up regretting those and feeling guilty afterwards. Throughout the games, you'll notice how he forgives the ones who have wronged him + attempts to help them and not only in his own routes. Him being pure-hearted plays a big role in his character, since even Laito mentioned being envious of him for that reason and that’s why you’ll have to witness fans or Rejet mentioning it.

[magxit]

Yep, you nailed it. Matty is incapable of being vulnerable. I don't think he can be fully sincere too. He wants to be this tortured guy, so be it then.

and he understands that but really wants love in his life but he can't actually let himself be vulnerable so he fakes it and it blows up in his face each and every time. he does so much harm to himself and everyone around him. I understand growing up with addiction in your family but I am not famous and I don't have a million people talking shit about me everyday. I still have serious issues when it comes to relationships and that is why I am single by choice. Matty can't seem to be alone and taylor is the same way but the way they approach love and relationships are completely different.

[familiariscanis]

i don't care if bsd is believable. i don't care if the plot twists make sense, because honestly they never really have made much sense and they don't necessarily need to. bsd tends to be kind of ridiculous and a lot of times that's what makes it fun and endearing. i am perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief for this show.

i do care if bsd is rewarding tho, and i don't feel like this was a particularly rewarding season finale as far as dazai's character goes. another dazai ex machina ending to a season isn't the problem here for me; it's the doubt that resolution is retroactively casting on everything dazai has done and said in the last arc. it makes the sincerity of everything he said suspect. it makes me wonder if he was ever really in danger. how much dazai knew, how assured he was of his victory isn't entirely clear, but that doesn't really matter. what matters is that enough of the conflict in the mersault arc was shown to be not real, and that puts everything in a different light. it makes any vulnerability or weakness dazai showed during the arc seem inconsequential, and it makes it feel less genuine dazai's speech to chuuya when he was "drowning" chuuya was interesting when the chapter released because it had so many character and relationship implications. dazai, pragmatic and logical as he is, being capable of killing chuuya if he had to but not incapable of feeling nothing about it. it made you wonder if perhaps dazai might be doing something he'd regret, if he'd realize only once it's too late the true consequences of his actions. dazai saying for years that he wants to kill chuuya and genuinely believing that he wants him dead, only to realize once he's succeeded at that that his life is missing something without chuuya there to irritate him... that's interesting! that's opening up a whole world of possibilities for dazai's character and their relationship. even if chuuya survives, dazai still may be faced with the realization that hey, he doesn't want chuuya dead. it forces him to really reckon with the magnitude of importance chuuya has in his life, which, for all of their unspoken trust, may be something dazai has taken for granted. it might make him re-examine his feelings or himself. it might change the dynamic between them.

now that there's the possibility of it being pre-planned, that speech loses it's weight— and the character implications of it are somewhat lost. of course, there is the possibility that dazai didn't know at the time, that he only figured it out at some point during the events of the game. it's certainly open to interpretation and it's definitely interesting to interpret it that he didn't know at the time, but it's an equally valid interpretation that dazai knew all along, so it shifts the exploration of dazai's character and his feelings for chuuya from the realm of canon to fanon.

but the way that the vampire fake-out plot twist is presented does strip some of the possibility for vulnerability from dazai's words. it casts enough doubt on it to make it plausible that he was just fucking around, that it doesn't really mean anything. it keeps dazai in a secure place of superiority in the narrative and makes him immune to normal character flaws and weaknesses. dazai, as a person, is supposed to be learning to trust and he wins because of that trust, but it's falling flat for dazai as a character (for me, at least) because we don't believe there was ever really a risk that he'd fall. as the audinece, we can see asagiri setting up a safety net and it negates the impact of the trust fall that dazai is supposedly doing. basically this plot twist is the emotional equivalent to seeing a video of someone jumping off a ledge and then the camera zooms out and you realize what you thought was a 30 foot drop is actually only about 3 feet. and not only is it not rewarding, but it makes me feel like i was silly for being worried in the first place.

[commonpigeon]

i do feel like im a person you either love or hate because im very sincerely myself and im incapable of faking anything. im very loud and open and honest and that's exciting to some people i suppose. and people in school would openly mock me and deliberately get reactions out of me but i had close friends so i didn't even care lol but i also did cry in class a lot so maybe i did care

[coldgoldlazarus]

Does anyone else feel like their vocabulary has regressed to a handful of shallow repeated stock phrases incapable of expressing the nuances of their inner feelings, so every conversation feels super fake somehow even despite their complete sincerity, or is it just me?

[unconditionalcaretaker]

A memory about my parents that was formative for me. This has been on my mind lately. CW: cluster B ableism, emotional domestic abuse

My father never cried in front of us, unless someone had died. He thought it was weak. He wanted to teach me not to cry either, by punishing me if I ever did - my parents argued over this. He also never apologized, at least not without caveats, not sincerely. He believed a person should have nothing to apologize for. My mother believed he couldn't cry, and couldn't feel remorse, or love, and that this was proof he was a narcissistic sociopath. A "malignant narcissist," she used that phrase a lot.

But one day, when I was maybe eight or so, he broke down after a particularly bad fight with my mother. She went in the other room, and he started crying, and I comforted him. He told me how sorry he was that he had screamed at us, and for the things he did to try to control my mother. He said he loved us and wished he were a better father. I was so happy, so triumphant. I believed, for those golden few minutes, that he was capable of loving me. Here was the proof. We could be nice to him now.

Afterwards, I ran to tell my mother what had happened, that we were wrong about him. She said...that he was only crying to manipulate me. Whether he knew it consciously or not. I was a fool for believing him, she said. I shouldn't let myself be taken in that way, ever again.

I couldn't say whether I fully believed her or not, but something inside of me broke then. How can we know that anyone is really capable of love if even the most open display of emotion, of painful regret on behalf of love, is not proof? How could I know that I myself was not just faking it? What display of guilt would be great enough?

I condemn her behavior now. I affirm my father's heart. In fact, it is the work of my life to affirm my father's heart. She was wrong on every level. Those who do bad things are NOT narcissistic sociopaths. Those who are narcissistic sociopaths are STILL capable of love. Those who are incapable of love are STILL deserving of kindness. I will say this no matter how my internalized shame rebels against it. I affirm the humanity of all people.

[rknchan]

shoutout to andrei semyonovich lebezyatnikov being one of the most underappreciated ruslit characters like... almost no one ever talks about him, neither critics or literature teachers (in our school tho we did discuss lebezyatnikov as "another counterpart of raskolnikov along with luzhin and svidrigailov" but as far as i know he's seldom mentioned and even considered as raskolnikov's counterpart). but he does play a part in the plot??? and is a reflection of social movements and ideas of his time???? to begin with, there was a common trope in russian literature: a character who tries to be "progressive and woke" but is actually not, who is shown as foolish, fake and inconsistent in their beliefs, who criticizes the "rotten society" but actually is a part of it; is often a parody of the protagonist - who is indeed progressive and smart and revolutionary and misunderstood and so on (bonus points if they admire the protagonist and try to copy him) we can see this trope in griboyedov's play "woe from wit" (repetilov - a parody on chatsky), turgenev's novel "fathers and sons" (sitnikov and kukshina - wannabe nihilists as opposed to bazarov though kukshina is a literal queen she slays), and dostoyevsky's later works - "the idiot" (hippolite terentyev's gang) and "demons" (verkhovensky's circle); maybe grushnitsky from "a hero of our time" can be counted too, he fits all the traits but he's obsessed with byronism not politics and is treated more seriously

when we first see lebezyatnikov in p5c1, it's exactly how he is presented like: silly and pathetic, with unattractive features, described with usage of very strong and borderline offensive language (how do you like "half-animate abortion"?), dramatic and self-righteous to the point he looks ridiculous... his surname comes from russian word "лебезить" [lebezit] - "to fawn on somebody" sometimes he has a point but some his takes are harmful (beating a woman with tuberculosis because "he seeks equality in fighting !!!" defending prostitution and saying it is empowerment and protest !!! while not knowing how sonya is suffering); even though he has sincere good intentions his ideology, like that of many 1860s-70s russian nihilists, is based on the ideas of nikolai chernyshevsky and his novel "what is to be done" (and other utopian socialists) but inverted and satirized the part where he defends freedom in marriage and "deceptions" ("Your wife will only prove how she respects you by considering you incapable of opposing her happiness and avenging yourself on her for her new husband...if I were to marry, ...I should present my wife with a lover if she had not found one for herself.") is a reference to "what is to be done" and chernyshevsky's own personal life - in witbd the main heroine tells her husband that she is in love with another man, and her husband pretends to commit suicide so that she would be formally a widow and able to marry her lover the "it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her hand" line is also a direct reference to witbd (sorry for the spoilers btw witbd is quite an underaprecciated book if i ever reread it i ought to make a post about it) - chernyshevsky himself had a complicated relationship with his wife; he worshipped her, always put her interests above himself and let her make all the decisions in their family life, while she saw him only as a friend and a chance to escape from her abusive family; chernyshevsky said that if she liked someone else he'd forgive her and suffer in silence but would always forgive her if she came back SORRY what is to be DONE WITH CHERNYSHEVSKY LET'S GET BACK TO THE POINT. YEAH LEBEZYATNIKOV his description is summed up in this line: "one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely" but there's one important thing. he takes a step ahead. he protects sonya marmeladova!! and accuses luzhin of slandering her, explaining what actually happened and giving proof of luzhin's vileness!! (and later on he also helps sonya and rodion find katerina ivanovna mad and near death from her illness...) even katerina ivanovna says he was sent by god - for saving sonya's honour. the one who desires to fight for equality but doesn't know how and only makes a fool of himself in other characters' and author's eyes - he actually protects the weak, silent and oppressed. no parody sidekick has ever had such a character development, no trying-to-be-progressive character before had a chance to step out of their stereotype and do something good for another person or for the society this scene makes me so happy, not only because i love seeing someone protecting my beloved sonya but it also has a deeply personal meaning to me

i was also concerned about equality, freedom and perfecting the society and all such things, and ofc had confrontations with others regarding my opinions like all of us probably do, but in the end i always looked stupid, uneducated and worthless as i could never shut up, cried when i lost an argument and did nothing but whine about how things are unfair but never knew what to do to change it and so i thought: i don't deserve to call myself a profeminist and a liberal, i am not good enough i wanted to relate to strong-willed, enlightened, revolutionary characters like chatsky and rakhmetov, but i knew that i was a repetilov, a sitnikov, a lebezyatnikov - an useless caricature who is a shame to their ideology

and when i first read the scene where lebezyatnikov protects sonya, it made me genuinely happy to see how somebody who was viewed as an "useless and fake progressist" could also be a help to somebody and become a better person... it made me feel like i'm not worthless too, like im capable of such a character development and maybe even change someone's life for the better too.... ;;;;;

sorry it ended up too long and too personal and whiny in the end ... :c anyway i hope you did enjoy reading this or find something interesting

have a nice day!! <3

[lesfir]

The kiss of the Ascended Astarion is coming, folks. That means a new batch of fixers poison scrolls.

About the kiss itself, the new movements and phrases afterward if any are to be made.

In repertory:

- He's cringe and gross, ew - His kiss is creepy - He's abjusively kissing - He's manipulatively kissing - It's the honeymoon phase of the abusive cycle - He fakes feelings because Mephistopheles took his soul\all good - Kiss with Cazador 2.0. - It's not Astarion's kiss, it’s a husk's kiss - He not himself anymore - He's mimics feelings because he's stuck in trauma - He's like a True Vampire obsessively kissing, it's not love - He has no feelings, he's incapable of love. - Tav is humiliated in his eyes, he doesn't love - He despises Tav and considers Tav a degenerate pet-property, he doesn't love, the kiss isn't real love - It's an act of possession, not a love-kiss - It's a power play, not a love-kiss - He's kissing misogynistic\plain hateful - *Something passive-aggressive, provocative, snide* - Hot, BUT I love Spawn, his kiss is genuine, true and better wuw - It's sad to see that. Heartbreaking - Pathetic - He closes his eyes, he doesn't love - He opens his eyes, he doesn't love - He has eyes, he doesn't love etc.

This tasteless song is sung about everything the Ascended Astarion does. Generally from those who hate the "romanticization" of dark romances with the vampire-decadent who is Astarion. So it's anything, but one single nice romance with the "evil" man for the "path of evil" (like Minthara) in the game and a sincere kiss of Dark Love.

It's funny if Spawn and Lord kiss is no different. And it's not fair if one of them gets a kiss and one of them doesn't. I hope I didn't miss anything. Post will be edited if so

[justlikejohn]

hello i really really really really like the song bedroom community and i need to be autistic about it! what better place is there to do it than tumblr, eh? :3 fyi. i am not a very good musician and i know very little about actual music THEORY (didnt even do it for gcse lol) so forgive my poor vocabulary and my general ignorance, lol.

its this terribly emo style with this unabashed angst and cliché in its melody! it's clear glass beach is inspired by mcr because of this cover they did of welcome to the black parade - it influences their music in the BEST ways. like the scream at the end of the second chorus seems obvious but it makes me feel !!! so!!!! and using multiple voices in the end of the bridge with the "la"s is so classic but it fills me with so much Emotion. it feels like comradery. this bit of tune at the end of the chorus is like a punch to the gut to me!

its so well paced as well. a bit faster, at it would be folk-y, a bit slower and it loses that frantic driving force of the rhythm guitar and the drums - its just the right speed to take you through the story and aghjasjhgds

i do love the instrumentation, too. its got those gooood smooth synths with fun basslines and crunchy rhythm guitars! AND the drumming is good (and sounds like it was recording irl rather than done electronically! :D check 1:42 - the ride cymbal has some good organic variation that indicates this) which i care about a lot :))

most of all, i like the lyrics. my interpretation of the song is a story of a trans girl who kills herself. of course, i am not trans, so i am not good at inferring which lines were written about her transness, lol. its the consensus of a lot of glass beach fans, though! anyway, here:

it's almost mocking her in a way, here! the tone of the delivery is that shes "SO" depressed, and it states that she is naive: but that this is so genuine for her. it doesnt matter that its trivial, that a fly on the wall would judge the simplicity of her sadness, it is so real for her! she STILL sings, it's the only way she can cope. i just. you know when youre depressed and you cringe at yourself for your own incapability?? a different form of self-loathing, a loop of hating yourself because you hate yourself so much.

and then, everything cuts out but the synths and the vocals - which just conveys SO much to me, because its like. stop the emo crap. stop the drums and guitar and fun riffs because this is sincere. this is her life. this is her trying to get her shit together and being too mentally ill to.

AND LOOK! she's loved so SO much by the speaker. she ISNT useless like she believes herself to be. she laughs and is loved.

but. but, but, but, but! it doesnt even matter how much she is loved or that her life is worth so much. shell never break out of her box, her bedroom, in this bedroom community. gahhh!

like, here again: calling her a "stupid girl" to totally diminish her experience. "you probably caught this 'mental illness' from her. i bet youre faking, shes not a good influence." its so fucking mean and judgemental and it IS how she is treated!

and this is my favourite section of the whole fucking song. as if, when she kills herself, it was inevitable. as if it was destiny that she should be so fucking miserable she had to. as if people had tried to help her. as if its her fault. because it WAS murder! to let this happen to someone without caring or catching them. and importantly - its as "they" stop to look: its a third party judging this event! its not her, or her dad, or the speaker who loves her so much, its "them".

AND THESE LINES MAKE ME FERAL!!!!! to rifle through her journals and notebooks and diaries for her thoughts AFTER the fact. the care about her struggle AFTER shes dead. to violate her privacy to find words for a "liturgy" - its not what she wanted. does it even matter? it would fucking matter to her. and it transitions into a swung rhythm here rather than being straight - it's mirroring the relaxed tone of the lines! it's saying that this is so normal that it's casual and boppy. so, so, so, so, even after all this, shell never leave her bedroom in this bedroom community. shell always be trapped, because she was never able to leave. OUGH GOD.

AND THEN IT FUCKING TRANSITIONS INTO A KICKASS INSTRUMENTAL SECTION ??? LIKE. YES GIVE ME THAT SYNTHY BIT THEN THE ACAPELLA VOICES AND THE FUCKING PIANO-ASS-PIANO-SOLO.

and then it goes into those punchy "no"s and it feels like the singer is fighting something! like, they agree with themself by the end - "no, shell never leave her bedroom..." but its almost as if theyre trying to deny the tragedy! to resist the story! its so . anguished. god. and it does the tune again, and ends on something like wailing - the way the singer does "hates her life" makes me BELIEVE in it, yaknow ??

god. i listened to this song on my way to my first university open day and i was so, so scared. i heard the line "a girl who hates her life" and i thought, "hey, a song about me." i heard that she would never leave her bedroom floor. that she wastes all her fucking time. that she kills herself and people rifle through her diaries and notebooks for an explanation that isn't there because they don't want to see it. i listened to it on that school coach by myself on my tinny clip-on headphones (the ones that make me feel like an anime character) and i gripped that university prospectus and i tried not to cry! and i listened to it studying in the dark sixth form library and i listened to it on my good days out in the city on my own and i listened to it on nights i listed reasons not to kill myself over and over and over. and i showed it to all my friends and now i am showing to you! :))

[minarcana]

RP trope tierlist

logging in from being AWOL due to The Inherent Stress Of Being Alive in order to post a dash meme that doesnt require thought

tagged by : @marionmaverick tagging : @aetheryic and anyone else whos online and happens to see this

ponderings on tropes behind cut and fel free to DM me if theres any of this bullshit u wanna write with me [audible winking noise]

ok hear me out. college aus are S tier and high school aus are D tier because as an adult i refuse to be invested in the goings-on of high schools and also the high school au offers fundamentally less options for insanity. college aus are here for me to make jokes in because anything in a college setting can happen. colleges are weird. this applies to both teachers and students. all the drama of ur school au with the added bonus of plots like "i have to hunt a professor for sport like some kind of CIA sting operation because he doesnt respond to emails and isnt in his office hours so come help me corner this guy". that, inherently, rules much more than "i still live with my parents because im 17". this is an unskippable monologue.

sharing a bed/fake relationships are all excuses for me to write incredible yearning, which i love and is my strength.

all folklore/historical/royal/magic/crossover aus rule. also i am a historian with a focus on literature/folklore/religion so obviously im Into It

we dont talk about my deep and abiding love for omegaverse unless ur also into omegaverse. i have a sprawling universe for all my muses in my brain. please dont judge me.

sex pollen is superior to fuck or die as a trope. i hold this true and sincere to my heart because of the specific kinks which i have. this is my skippable monologue cutscene in which i expound the delicate differences between the two. [REDACTED FOR LENGTH]

amnesia/death bore me generally. dark is fine so long as its not simply pure angst with no redemption. i enjoy angst but not pointless torment. yknow? miscommunication also bores me because its too easily solved and becomes unrelatable at a certain point of extension

crackfic and humor are different things, crack to me requires ooc. only chumps require breaking character to make jokes. skill issue.

i dont even know how id write a time loop thread bc 1. idk how itd work in general 2. every time i hear time loop i think of the fate/hollow ataraxia doujin that makes me laugh perpetually where archer gets stuck in a timeloop where the resest point is him getting boned. would be incapable of writing a time loop seriously bc id just be like "yeah but when can i make it reset so when the character wakes up theyre getting fucked like DAMNIT CAN I AT LEAST WAKE UP DURING THE FOREPLAY SO IM NOT SURPRISED BY IT bc thats my sense of humor"

now you too much about me as a person i guess but its been so long since i wrote i have to vomit thoughts apparently.

[outeremissary]

19, 23, 30 for Balthazar :3c

Thanks for the ask! Coming from this list, which I did not realize was in the queue.

19. are they quick to anger? what sets them off?

Balthazar is annoyed more easily than he's angered. It takes a lot of energy to be angry, and that energy could be better put towards finding a way to get back at the source of one's frustration. His real anger tends to come on very quickly- sometimes so suddenly that it even surprises him. He's angered by humiliation, especially public humiliation. Others attempting to predict his failures tends to get something hotter than irritation as well. Being misunderstood or rejected when he's put effort into communicating something or shaping some persona for someone can easily infuriate him as well, especially if it happens more than once (he and Tristian did not get along for quite some time after meeting). As time goes on and he becomes more certain of his ability to stand on his own, he allows himself to embrace a suppressed long-simmering resentment of being ordered around. But the development that surprises him most in terms of anger is a capacity for anger born out of empathy- a sincere fury for the indignities others have suffered. He extends some of his pride to the people he cares about, and offenses against them are as those against him.

On occasion, Regongar's puns also get to him. He can't even describe what he hates so much about them. Sometimes he just snaps. This only encourages Regongar, who finds the situation hilarious and of course has never known when to stop anything.

23. how would you describe their voice? can they sing?

Ah, this is fun, because Balthazar was originally a tabletop NPC with a very distinct voice. Balthazar almost always speaks softly. He never raises his voice if he can help it, and there's a whispery, musical quality to it when he's speaking at the low volume he prefers. It has a way of making people go quiet to listen to him. He enjoys feeling like others are making an active effort to hear what he says. It's a very emotive voice, full of lilting drama- drama heightened by a tendency yo slightly draw out vowels that makes everything feel just a little bit slower and weightier. Many would probably describe his voice as warm, although he has plenty of capacity to be cold and sharp. He has an accent pretty distinct to Absalom's Westgate district. The accent is fake.

Despite the pleasant voice he's a completely average singer. He's not tone deaf, but he doesn't have any skill greater than staying mostly on tune and his singing is expressive only in an artless, amateur way. He's not fond of singing in front of others. It makes him feel a bit incapable. He's fine to join others if the mood takes him though, and he has a habit of singing to himself when he thinks he's alone.

(Apparently I wrote about the tabletop voice experience on Twitter at one point)

30. do they smell like anything notable?

There's often a faint sweet scent to his hair- it comes from products he uses to take care of it. He's very conscious of his appearance. That scent probably isn't noticable unless someone is very close to him though.

[contexterrorexe]

Laika: So you know that I think your business is a good idea, and you know that I mean that, because I’m incapable of faking sincerity. I’m also just incapable of sincerity in general.

[eusyram]

𝔹𝕠𝕪𝕗𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕕 ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝 - Character Profiles

An otome BL (?) medieval fantasy romance game for your phone~!

Name: Alexander Octavius Quintrell VII Occupation: Duke, Papillion Duchy Birthplace: Papillion Duchy, Kingdom of Lumiere Birthday: August 30

Bio: The privileged eldest son of the talented Quintrell family of nobles known for their natural charisma and skills in politics. He exhibited talent in sealing and binding magicks from a young age. An accident during his youth partially injured his right eye, which is why he now wears an enchanted monocle to see properly. As the current head of the family, Duke Octavius has the rare honor of holding absolute trust from the king. Personality: A proud and elegant gentleman well-aware of society’s trappings and diligent about keeping up appearances. He is pleasant enough to talk to, yet tends to subconsciously pressure others into obeying his will. Because of this, he is more feared than admired by those around him. Quote: “To bend before one breaks is the ultimate expression of beauty, don’t you think?”

Hidden Trait: Yandere Favorite Gift: Ornamental birdcage Preferred Type: Quiet, sweet, innocent

                         ・‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥・

Name: Ark Toussaint Occupation: Commander, Holy Knights of Lumiere Birthplace: Annex Star D-451, Western Quadrant, █████ Empire Birthday: October 27

Bio: A so-called “Child of God” who descended upon the holy church from the skies as a baby. He was adopted by the head priest and trained by the knight order that served the church, exhibiting monstrous strength and a natural talent for the sword. Unbeknownst to them, his true identity is an advanced human species from a distant galaxy who was lost in transit during his mothership’s hyperspace jump between parallel dimensions. Personality: In his normal state, Ark is a calm and dependable knight, wholly pliant to orders and surprisingly good with children. Occasionally he enters periods of intense excitement that result in massive property destruction, though it is unknown what triggers these episodes. Curiously enough, he is incapable of feeling or expressing rage. Quote: "They call me their sun. But to me, you are the one who shines brightest in this world.”

Hidden Trait: Excessive violence Favorite Gift: Handmade goods Preferred Type: Cheerful, easygoing, sincere

did i make up fake boyfriend game details just for you yes i did @kleinstar​ lololol