#isolation aftermath

[seldomscilence16]

Whumptober day 12:

"I haven't slept in days, but who's counting?"

Red | insomnia | "im up, im up!"

Fandom: Voltron 

Prompts used: All

Alrighty! Part 2 of day 3! Hehehehehe! (This turned Klancey on me so fast i didnt even see it coming…) As always the timeline is screwed, I am pickpocketing the moments I want and placing them on a conspiracy board to my aesthetic liking. This deals with the aftermath of isolation, and its effects- to the best of my limited knowledge- so please tread carefully. Would love to hear from y'all if you like it! Thanks! 

Ps: Since alien measures of time are slightly longer I'm going off of someone elses calculations of what they may be. (Spiralled_Fury on A03) so a movement is 1.23 weeks which is roughly 8 days and something hours. 

…

The observation deck is quiet and dark, nothing but that soothing blue glow of Altean technology- nothing like that yellow of-

The stars, foreign as they may be, are nice to look at. The castle hums, and Blue is present in his mind, and it's a calm night in the open space. In a few minutes he'll make his rounds, check on each inhabitant of the castle, each of whom he sent to bed about a varga- hour- ago. It's been about a movement- a week since the pod, and that extra day and a little that he was in it- since his… rescue. He's tried his best to return to what was, but sometimes he wonders if he even should. 

He loves his team, he has been 'loverboy Lance' since practically birth. He cared so deeply about others, in detriment to himself typically, that even as a baby he knew when something was wrong with his family. They worried about him and his horrid taste in people, Hunk had barely made the cut and he's… well Hunk. But he just knows that if his Mama had been here watching their lives, he'd have gotten smacked upside the head, hugged to death, and whisked away with only the destruction her Chancla left behind them. 

That other voice in his head however pipes up, reminding him that they are children in war, lost in space and far away from all they have ever known. This team of teenagers is being led by two young adults, with one actual adult juggling a million duties behind them. This is a battlefield, and in a castle meant to house so many many more, 7 people barely fill a corner of it. 

Lance knows that they are good people. The thing that scared his family the most, was not that he could not discern the good and the bad people, but that he cared for them anyway like it would do something. (That's not true, he went to them because they gave him the time of day, you can only be used if you have a use after all…) 

But with the team, he knew they were good people. But they were also tired, traumatized and thrust into the turbulence, trials and tribulations of war and adulthood in one go. Lance had chosen who he was going to be the minute they'd all met in the desert. For kids lost in space needed something to ground them, something to make them smile, and remind them to rest, and to reminisce on home and what they fight for. But that apparently also made him the least, it felt like he was always coming up short or failing all together. That what he was doing was nothing to the team. 

He… didn't want to go back to that. But if he had to choose between that and the room, well… it wasn't a hard choice he supposed. 

His knees creak as he stands, he has to consciously straighten his back and neck- he doesn't have to duck or crouch anymore, there's room Lance, remember- his legs wobble for only a second before he takes his first step. He reminds himself that that's okay, he was gone for… a long time, and he sat or crouched or layed for all of it, his legs needed time to adjust to walking again. 

Bare feet pad slightly as he makes his familiar route. The Alteans are first, he can hear Corans snoring outside his door, and a small peek shows Allura curled up with the mice slumbering in her hair, her brow is relaxed and form loose, she needed the rest. Shiro is next, and he frowns at his leader's tense form, fist clenched in his sheets. He leans against the doorway, wracking his brain for a tune, and hums the first one he thinks of softly. He doesn't know why it works, why Shiro's whole form melts into the bed after a few moments of it, but he won't complain either, Shiro deserved good sleep. 

Hunk is next, and like Coran he can hear his snores through the door, though a deeper timbre and slightly quieter. He wants to peek in but Hunk is a light sleeper so he allows himself a few moments to listen before moving to Pidges room. The little gremlin is stubborn and Lance always has to prepare for the possibility of her being awake, so he braces himself as he opens her door. Her breaths are soft and though he has to maneuver around her heaps of who knows what, he finally finds her sprawled like a broken starfish in her bed, glasses askew and laptop haphazardly on her lap. He smiles at the drool at the corner of her mouth and shakes his head, carefully slipping off her glasses and placing them atop her laptop on her side table. He pulls the covers over her as she curls up on her side and lingers for only a moment, he still has one more person to check on. 

Keith's room is empty, two warring feelings hit him at once- a wave of panic and a tired sigh of exasperation. He makes his way to the training room, hearing the sounds of the gladiator from down the hall. He's too tired to interrupt this time round, Keith's chest is heaving so he'll probably be done soon anyway. He leans against the doorway watching mullet maneuver around the sparring section, more aggression than tact in his movements than usual, and finds his eyes feeling heavy. 

It's not a new feeling, he's felt strangely heavy for a while now despite his ribs doing their best at being one of those wooden frogs that you can make croak. He's only been able to get a few hours in this week, not that the team knows, or they haven't said anything. But everytime he closes his eyes…

The walls glow yellow and seem to creep closer every time he blinks, but if he doesn't blood starts to seep from the crevices he could never peel open and flood the room. He'll float there, eyes unblinking as he screams but no sound reaches his ears. The not bread and the not water dance a tango in front of him before launching down his throat as pain erupts from his very bones and his head expLOADS-

"LANCE!" 

"I'm up, I'm up!" He flails, wobbles backwards, falls-

Finds himself looking into Keith's frazzled eyes as the sweaty samurai holds him to his tense form. The image and sensations are too real, it was just a dream, he must have dozed off, he's fine, Keith is here and he's fine. 

"Sorry, I uh… was here to make you sleep ha…" Lance's body refuses to cooperate, but Keith seems to read him well enough, moving them until they're both simply sitting in the entrance. 

"You were… uh, you didn't look er no, I mean that it just seemed like something was freaking you out." Keith to his part, is even more awkward than Lance, but he's also actively working his sentences through so that's something. 

"Oh yeah… I'm fine, sorry." Lance looks away, rubbing at his face to stave off what he saw. 

"You look exhausted, I thought you were already in bed. What are you doing up again?" Keith ducks his head to see his face, sweaty mullet hanging in a scraggly mess. 

"I look awesome." Lance scoffs halfheartedly, definitely not saying what he was going to say because 'I haven't slept in days, but who's counting?' Would not go over well.

"What!? What do you mean days??"  

Oh well, maybe he's more tired than he thought. Lance laughs stiffly, moving to stand, but only accomplishing a weird half crawl wobble before Keith moves to keep him in place, they naturally fall into a tuffle because like hell is Lance going to have this conversation when hes so artfully avoided it and no ones brought it up and everything is FINE! 

And he's pinned. 

Keith is slightly winded- Lance's boney knees had a few purposes thank you- but he has Lance's wrists pinned on either side of his head, and legs pinning the rest of him in an annoyingly cool move that Lance will be learning later. But there's no triumphant grin or banter, instead worry still clouds his expression. 

"Have you slept at all since you've… been back?" He- like everyone on this ship- have refused to really bring up what went down. And it's not like Lance did either! But he's scared still, of things that happen again before his eyes. Keith's finger presses gently on his cheek, turning Lance's teary eyes towards him once again. "Talk to me, Sharpshooter." 

And Lance's soul, tired and weary, breaks open like a flood gate. Tears leaked down his cheeks- warm, they were always so warm against his cold skin- and he trembles- shivers, it was cold there, he was so cold. 

"I'm scared." He utters the words like a secret, and really it is one. Even if they saw him broken and at the end of his rope, Lance had tried so hard to return to his role when he got back, to be useful… “I don’t want to go back Keith.” 

“We will never let that happen! That guy isn’t going to hurt anyone ever again, and I promise to keep anyone else from doing it too!” Keith’s adamant response and determined eyes are enough to make him sob again, Keith falters wiping some of the tears absentmindedly. “What did I miss?”

“I don’t,” he swallows thickly, trying to get his thoughts in order, “want to be the seventh wheel anymore. The least. I don’t want to be alone. Please don’t-” he chokes on another sob and Lance is hurriedly pulled into a warm embrace. 

He’s startled for only a moment before heat chases away his cold, and safety wraps around him, and he burrows into it, hands gripping tightly around shoulders, afraid the moment will end too soon. 

“I’m sorry we made you feel that way. We were an absolute mess without you Lance, you have no idea how lost we were, I think I was literally ready to kill one of them. And I wasn’t alone in the sentiment. We can’t do this without you, and I don’t think we’d want to either.”

“I think,” he sniffles, voice muffled in Keith’s chest, “that’s the most I’ve heard you say at once in a while.” He squeezes tighter, voice softer, “thank you.” 

“I don’t know exactly what you went through, but I’m here if you need anything. And the team will be too, I’ll make sure of it okay?” Lance is hesitant in his nod, worry still deep in his chest. “Alright dork, movie night on the couch. If you’re gonna be awake so am I.” 

Keith stands and Lance yelps as he’s lifted, gripping Keith’s throat tight enough to choke. His face burns a brilliant shade of red to match his swollen eyes no doubt, and he can only give Keith’s little grin a petulant look. 

“I can walk.” 

“You could.” Keith agrees as he turns and starts the journey towards the common room. 

Lance watches him as they walk, aware of how out of character this was for them, How much Keith surprised him. He even worries this is a dream, that he’ll wake up alone in that cold dark room, or worse yet, that something terrible will happen next and the team will- but Lance doesn’t think even his mind could imagine these strong arms and abnormally warm chest. He’s set down on the couch, his fingers tighten on Keith’s shirt unconsciously. 

“I’m staying, I promise.”

And that meant more than Keith will ever know.

<<Prev

[furiousgoldfish]

I just realized how poorly I handle doing anything wrong. I accidentally made a mistake today and someone got upset and I apologized and made it right and that should have been the end of it.

But instead I withdrew into my room, had an emotional breakdown and started planning to isolate myself from humanity, never talk to anyone ever again, leave all of my friendships and just stay in that room forever trying to calm down. I became scared of every human being I've ever interacted with, convinced that they all by now decided I should be tried for my mistake and would only tell me how they're ashamed of ever been associated with me.

It's the freaking shunning, that's whats triggering me, it's the fact that after punishment as a child I would be subjected to shunning and the entire family would act as if I was poisonous, wouldn't look at me or talk to me, and seethed in anger if I was out of my room, that's what I'm now expecting as a logical consequence to getting anyone even slightly upset. It really was unsafe for me to get out of my room or interact with anyone! And now I re-live that whenever something minor happens, just because my brain is trained to expect it. I can't function in a community if any mistake has stakes this high for me.

[okiroash]

thinking a lot how red isolated himself for 3 years and I feel like the symptoms aren't,, portrayed more? 3 years is a lot. in isolation.

how will he adapt to society again after having next to no human contact for so.. long? (he can't do this alone now) being so behind with the times and not being able to understand today's things? (makes it harder to follow people! when you already feel disconnected from them!) having to learn how to interact with people again when you weren't even a talkative person before? (it's a lot!) getting used to what you once called a familiar environment (now an alien to you) because you spent so much time in a drastically different place? (things changed! you can't navigate the same way..) and so, so much more !!! this is barely touching the water, isolation effects your mental health too.. heightened anxiety, stuff like that.. for him, it's akin to walking into a new world.. !! 🙁 even if he's back he'll still feel isolated ! (the ones who he truly understands, the ones who understands him back... are pokemon.. he lived in their habitat, exposed to their natural life, only them and no humans.. to survive every single day on a dangerous mountain.. such a different lifestyle and now, how does one go back to "normal" ? when this is what you're used to)

it's going to take a while, years maybe

[crmsnmth]

Be My Home

Don't tell me always, please don't say forever too I don't want to someday think you are a liar And you may not hear it in your heart just yet But trust me when I say it only takes a spark to start a fire

Don't make your tongue provide me promises Promises made that just set up to be broken I've seen it before in karma's balanced hands I don't trust myself, even with all the words spoken

Don't tell me you love, don't say you want me there's a huge difference between this two A fine line between rage and fair So I'll just aka,, what do you want to do?

I can say until I die, I'll die for you Bad romance novels claim the clues And as much that I wish it weren't true I would do it, just lie here and die for you

I'll chew your heart of sustenance And I'll play with your head, it's what I do and soon, you'll grow sick of it and Ill stay Swearing I would've died for you

Sitting on a cold basement floor smooth concrete that keeps the cool in my body You're sitting on stairs, just my delusional fantasy I sob, openly and loudly

You shook your head as I begged you to stay I don't want to live in world with you and I even know exactly how that sounds With realization pop, I open the door for you to walk through

Your gone and I don't know to feel about it

Your gone and I guess now I need to die alone

You gone and I now sleep under the Brady Street bridge

Your gone and you took my home…

You were my home.

[ectonurites]

SUPER DARK TIMES (2017) DIR KEVIN PHILLIPS

[snickerdoodlles]

things i would change in lita if i were in charge:

put Rain in a dorm room instead of living at home

a large part of why Phayu/Rain doesn't work for me is because we don't get to see Rain develop on his own...ever, really. he's in college, but he's living at home, living off his parents' money, still updating his mom on his where abouts like he's in high school. he goes from being closely entwined with/dependent on them to being highly dependent on Phayu. Phayu/Rain didn't come off as "Rain's making stupid and risky decisions but that's part of growing up," which i would've enjoyed, it comes off as ".....no, seriously Rain, can you make this decision?"

moving Rain into a dorm would've given him some much needed independence. even if though he would've still been reliant on his parents financially, there's still the growth that comes from being away from your parents' daily influence, managing your own space, managing your own personal well-being, etc. that would've been Rain's starting point for independent growth. vs canon, where Rain's start in independent growth was an intensely sexual relationship with a highly independent guy (nooot really anything i'm comfortable with myself). Rain can enjoy being coddled/spoiled/etc (which i like! good for him!), but the writers never gave him a chance to figure out who he was on his own, so the relationship as is doesn't land for me :/

more Phayu interacting with the garage family

i really like the glimpses of Phayu's character that we get. he has a lot of contradictions that look like so much fun to explore, but his characterization often gets shuffled to the side in favor of kink. the most interesting Phayu scenes are always the ones where it's not just him and Rain which......really sucks. the Prapai/Sky sex scenes reveal a lot about them as individual characters as well as how they interact with each other. Phayu/Rain sex scenes kinda touch on how they act together, but the main thing they do is tell me more than i want to know about the writers' personal kinks. hell, most of what Rain learns about Phayu as a person is discovered through other people--which is really annoying! i want to be learning more about this guy through his interactions with Rain, not primarily the gossip other people tell Rain. that doesn't happen until like, ep6-7, which is the literal end of their personal arc and mostly spent away from each other. sighs.

more Saifah

quality character, highly underutilized. i love his eyerolls, but the writers never really did much with him to bring him past that point :( i can extrapolate a lot, but canon developed Sig in the second half of the show more than they did Saifah for all of it. Saifah is Phayu's literal twin brother and business partner, and some random architect student got more of a character than him. this is not a complaint on Sig, i fucking adore that guy, but it's a bizarre writing choice.

more kidnapping aftermath

seriously. what the fuck. TWO kidnapping scenarios, the entire reason why i watched this show, and you guys couldn't cut out any of the 1905t59488993e repeated scenes to give me more than 2 minutes of kidnapping aftermath? who the fuck even cares about trucks driving on roads

things i would not change in lita if i were in charge:

Chai showing up to rescue Phayu and Rain wearing a zebra print shirt. sensational. 10/10, no notes

[ashintheairlikesnow]

🧽 cleaning them up after for boost

(Me: for once, writes a one-off character. Readers: MORE GIVE US MORE)

You can see the only time Boost has ever appeared before right here

-

CW: Aftermath of noncon, pet whump, Facility whump, BBU, caretaker

"This is the third time in a week." Her voice is rough, but not unkind, as she leans against the doorframe. Boost doesn't look directly at her lathering himself with the rough soap. It smells like false oranges, and the scent clings to his skin for hours after. But it's better than what he'd smell like otherwise.

"I know." He leans over, letting the hot water soak into his hair, all mussed up from the handler's fingers. His mouth hurts, jaw aching. He's not made for this. It takes effort and thought, not like the mindless seductions the Romantics fall into, the effortless way they arch their back just so, lock legs around a trainer's back, cry out in ecstasy everyone involved knows they're not really feeling.

Boost doesn't know how to sound like that. But the handler doesn't seem to mind.

"It's dangerous," She says, crossing her arms. 909 is one of the oldest here, and he'd ask her just how old she is, but he knows she doesn't know either. But she cleans up in the office side, walks around accounting all day. They call her Lili up there. Boost thinks Lili is a pretty name, but she drops it the second the elevator brings her back down here.

I won't take their little nicknames that let them think I'm paid, she says. She moves like someone who had power, once, before it was taken from her along with everything else.

"It's not that dangerous. He doesn't hurt me."

It's true. Each time the handler crooks a finger and Boost follows him, it feels a little better. It hurts a little less. And the handler gets a little sweeter. Gives him extra food, slips him things. Last month, he'd gotten a bag of potato chips he'd hidden underneath the trash bag in the bin he'd been pushing around. He'd pulled it out when he came back into the dorm and every single maintenance pet had been able to share a potato chip, salty and crunching between their teeth.

He'd given the handler his best the next time he'd been pulled aside, and now that gifts were turning into bigger things. A milkshake that tasted like real vanilla, whipped cream and cherry on top. An extra blanket made of something impossibly soft (one of the others had stolen it immediately, but now they had decided to share it, every pet taking one night with it at a time).

"I don't think it's dangerous because of what the handler might do. It's against the rules. You're not supposed to fuck them."

Boost ignores her, rinsing the shampoo out of his hair with his eyes closed, hot water pounding against his cheeks, washing away the last of what the handler had left there.

I read on the internet that it's good for your skin, some giggly girl's voice says, deep down within him, and he winces at the spike of pain that follows.

"Hey. Are you even listening to me?"

"I'm trying not to, but you're being really annoying about it."

She sighs, so loud he can hear her over the shower. He turns the water off and walks over to the folded towels, drying off his hair and then working on his body. He has scars from all his failed training, from how they'd used him for Guard Dog bait for a few weeks before moving him to maintenance, knowing he'd be grateful for the mercy.

"Please." Her voice softens a little, and he looks up then, pulling on a new pair of the flat black pants he wears, the long-sleeved white t-shirt. Same colors as trainees, more skin covered. It's a mercy, too.

He inhales, and then lets it out in a drawn-out exhale. "It's... something to look forward to. Okay? That's all. It's just nice to get some things, sometimes."

"You'll be punished, if the Maintenance Head gets bugged about it. Not him, you."

"I know."

"Then why?"

"Because it's going to happen, 909. I might as well get to control who it happens with. Since Handler Thompson started taking me aside, none of the others even look at me. He told them to leave me alone, and they do. Do you understand? If I-... it makes it better for all of us. Next time, he says, he'll take me out with him for a smoke break."

She hitches in a breath, and he watches her put a hand out to steady herself against the doorframe. "He... outside?"

"Yeah." He smiles, lopsided, a little faint. "Outside. I don't even remember what outside looks like, just what we see on TV. I want to go outside, 909. I want to see what it looks like out there."

He wants to get a look at how high the fences are, and decide if he could climb them fast enough.

"Well... be careful." She gathers his dirtied towels up for him and dumps them into the hamper, while he finishes drying his hair. He smells like oranges. He can feel the handler's touch still on his skin, fingers in his hair.

But when he'd whispered, please, call me Boost, Handler Thompson...

The handler had whispered back, if I'm calling you Boost, you should call me Clint.

And that's something new.

[twocutlines]

If Chris goes to Texas and Eddie isolates then I think there's gonna be an arc of Buck keeping in touch with Chris through the summer. He's not gonna be able to tell Eddie because Eddie needs space but he's gonna be making sure that both of them are okay. And when Chris finally reunites with Eddie, Eddie is gonna find out. But also, I think it'll happen because Buck gets hurt and so his updates pause and Chris calls Eddie to say something is wrong with Buck.

oh yeah buck is absolutely going to be in touch with chris if he goes to texas for the summer. personally i don't think this is something he'd have to keep from eddie; eddie knows that buck is someone chris reaches out to when he's upset (see: him running away to buck's apartment in season 4 after he found out about ana) and i think it is not much of a stretch to say that he would probably assume they were in contact. and i know i sound like a broken record here but it's just so hard for me to imagine buck allowing eddie to isolate himself to the point where they wouldn't even be talking – it would not surprise me at all if eddie tried, but there is honestly no scenario i can imagine where buck lets him, especially with how much this whole thing is going to wreck him. i do see your vision though and the last point about chris reaching out to eddie because buck gets hurt......... oh man

[dykethang]

keep being Afflicted by The Morbs and i know why. i know it's because i was relentlessly trauma triggered all day yesterday. but it feels bad. my thing is that i'm funny even when there's a hole in my chest so it doesn't even come across that way and feels like i'm lying or that people think this. but there is just a bottomless pit inside me right now that won't go away

[sadhorsegirl]

[quotationsworld]

I watched life and wanted to be a part of it but found it painfully difficult.

— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 6:

[furiousgoldfish]

I know scientifically, and reasonably, that isolation is a form of torture, but it's so hard to conceptualize it when it's so familiar and I've reached for it over and over again as a form of relief from the torture. Why am I longing for what others consider intolerable.

[blogger360ncislarules]

An uncomfortable post 9x14 therapy session for Hetty.

@whumpcember

[blujayonthewing]

I feel like. I need to actually Talk To Someone about the effects the last three years have had on my psyche, but the current prevailing attitude toward covid has reached the point that I'm afraid even a mental health professional would approach my current issues as solely a function of my pre-existing anxiety rather than acknowledge their completely valid and rational connection to the global trauma event we literally all fucking went through

[springcatalyst]

*asks you about world building*

*sickos haha yes image*

All my stories take place in roughly the same timeframe in largely the same environment: hesitantly named Synsolic as an analogue to Earth (I may change that later because I don't know if I like it but it's stuck for a while now so. We'll see)

It's fantasy because I am a sucker for fantasy, populated by humans, merfolk, fauns, satyrs, ipotanes, and nightlings- which are also called shadowlings or aveoliths in varying contexts. I know "faun'' and ''satyr" are largely used interchangeably in a lot of things, but they're different species, here, though they share similarities with each other as well as with ipotanes, the other ungulate species. Merfolk are actually made up of two subspecies, iarans and nix, but while they differ physiologically in a lot of ways, culturally they are one and the same, so they're generally grouped together. I think that's as far as I'm going to get into species things for now, because I've got *checks notes* 32 pages of species things in my own nonsense word docs and I really don't think you want all of that. Unless...

BUT

The world as it is now has been fractured. I hesitate to call it post-apocalyptic because that implies a level of supernaturality and/or violence that generally isn't present, but the gist of it is that over a century past, in the mountain range at the northern edge of the continent, the tallest peak erupted. Think Mt. Taupō or Mt Tambora, with some variation. The ash, the pyroclastic flow, the acid rains and sulfide clouds, combined with the continued effects that the material that made it into the stratosphere had on climate in the next few years, contributed to a heavy death toll. Even after the initial activity ceased, cities fell just because they couldn't feed themselves in the unnatural winter that followed, in the subsequent years' lack of a true summer. The sulfuric content released poisoned the air, especially close to the mountain, though if you were close to the mountain, you were probably dead anyway from that initial eruption, just from being buried in ash or debris. More people were lost than can be counted- in the hours after the eruption, but also in the years that followed.

Some were affected more than others. Merfolk, occupying mostly the southern seas and having the added protection of the waters' surface, retained more of their infrastructure, and with it, knowledge and history, more of their people, than terrestrial humanoids. Satyrs had typically occupied the forests in the north, and so there are very few, if any, true satyr cities remaining. As a result, merfolk are now known for their knowledge of technologies that were lost to others, and satyrs are largely travelers or scattered among other species, unlike fauns, humans, and ipotanes, who have places that are more theirs. (The species are not completely distinct, they live amongst each other in a lot of cases, but there are places that are mostly fauns, or mostly humans, for example, where other species are more a minority. Satyrs don't really have that.)

It has been a long time since the cataclysm. Nobody currently alive lived it, in fact, there are few that even remember somebody who did, and if they did, they were almost too young to know it. But it lingers in the way that things are, now. Cities don't really exist as much as towns or villages, small settlements that can support themselves with little outside influence. There's not a whole lot in the way of governmental influence, and there's definitely not any nations anymore, though they were more of city-states before, anyway. This is a double-edged sword, because the cataclysm made people come together in a way they weren't previously, but it also gave people who wanted to use or harm others an easy avenue to do it, with no formal punishment a disincentive.

The world is mostly in-betweens. Towns or herds or any other type of community are few and far between, and in the spaces linking them is just a vast wilderness that, too, has been changed by the cataclysm. Ash is rich soil. There are forests where there were once prairies and there are rivers that were redirected. The closer you get to the mountain, the more changed things have been. The landscape is scattered with overgrown ruins, again, with increasing density as you draw closer to the source. People are isolated because of this vast space they must span in order to reach others. There are many travelers, but they rarely cross paths, because how could they? There is so much space.

There is SO much more I could say but for the sake of your sanity I'll leave it here. Extremely swag of you to indulge me and if you EVER are actually interested in me elaborating on literally anything PLEASE ASK. I WILL GLADLY

[meatriarch]

shine/wilted/sunlight au routes, where the friends manage to find maria in the basement at some point along the line, the encounters they might have with nancy at any point in them is like.

nancy having had maria for a few days leading up to them getting there, knowing that marias why theyre there in the first place ( in my canon ), its just. them having to hear nancys taunts at them regarding her, at her implications that ( before finding her ) that she may actually be dead somewhere and that theyre too late, that this was all for nothing. or when they do find her, its about how pathetic and scared and weak she was. how much of a little mouse stuck in a trap she was, a moth entangled in a web -- so helpless and useless on her own. how pathetic she looked pleading to be let go, to not be hurt, etc.

.