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joelswritingmistress · 1 year ago

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Last Halloween: Chapter 5

Summary: After a tragedy involving Joel happened on Halloween one year prior, the town now shuns him while ignoring the details of the now closed case. You are seemingly the only one to offer empathy to a man the town is making out to be a monster.

Warning: Angst

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

You sat across from Joel with a hot fudge sundae in front of you on a picnic table out in front of the old Dairy Mart.

"What time do you get off work tonight?" He asked.

"Eight o'clock," you explained. "Is that too late for dinner?"

Joel shook his head. "Not at all."

"You gunna come by for your coffee?" You asked him with a little smile. He huffed a laugh.

"I'm filling in for a short shift from one to five at the garage."

"And then you get to make me an extravagant, Gordon Ramsay-worthy dinner," you teased.

Joel laughed again. "You're setting the bar pretty high." He folded his hands together and looked across the table with a lingering smirk.

You slid a hand on top of his. "What are you thinking of making?"

"Hmm.." he squeezed your fingers. "What do you want?"

"Well, it's going to be a chilly night. I feel like spaghetti and meatballs would be a nice, hot meal."

"I don't think I can screw up spaghetti." Joel let his thumb dance in circles over the back of your hand. "You.." he shook his head and looked down with another barely-there smile. It was contagious.

"What?"

"You just.." he shook his head again, "This is all still just surprising to me. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a broken record or anything, or weird about it."

"You don't sound weird." You waited until he looked back up to meet your eyes. "I honestly didn't think we'd end up here.. like this." You placed your other hand over the top of his. "But I really like being with you, Joel. A lot."

"I do, too." His eyes never left yours. Everything about Joel felt so intense. You were beginning to crave it. "When I'm with you, here like this, I'm not afraid of these people." He motioned to the random townspeople that were scattered about the place in two's and three's.

That might've been the greatest compliment you had ever received. You suddenly wished you didn't have to go to work; that you didn't have to part from him. Joel had set your heart and soul ablaze in the best of ways.

"Hey, you." A male voice interrupted the moment and you looked over your shoulder. Your ex, Officer Steven Hunter, stood there with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Great. It's like the universe has to play cruel jokes on me, you thought.

"Hi, Steve." You edged a few inches away from where he stood close by.

"You, uh, whatcha doing on Halloween night? I mean I'm off that night and I was thinking-"

"We aren't together Steve."

"I know, but-"

"I'm with someone." You looked to Joel, holding his hand a little firmer.

Steve glanced over at him and then back to you as if he wasn't there. "I just thought-"

"I'm good." You said more firmly. "I'm with Joel."

When Steve went in for another try, Joel intervened. "She said she's good."

Steve stared at Joel and then looked over his shoulder at a few other cops who were still in line at the outdoor window. He looked back to Joel with a crooked smile.

"Joel Miller." Steve then returned his attention to you. "You father would be so proud," he said in a purposely demeaning manner.

You went to stand up but Joel beat you to it.

"We have a problem?" Steve asked him, putting his hands on his hips. "Hmm?"

"Joel, it's not worth it," you said, trying to deescalate the situation. "You owe me spaghetti remember?"

For whatever reason it seemed to alleviate some of the anger from his eyes. He took a deep breath, gave Steve a hard stare before glancing more softly at you and sitting back down.

Steve smirked victoriously and looked one more time at you. "You go to boogeyman when you can't sleep these days, huh?" He motioned to Joel once more, trying to get a rise out of one of you.

"You can leave now," you said, not even giving him the satisfaction of looking in his direction. Rather, you dug out a spoonful of ice cream from your sundae and extended your arm across the table, feeding Joel a bite. It was enough to send Steve on an exasperated walk in the opposite direction.

"Let her go be with that psychopath," you heard one of the other guys say as he returned to his buddies.

"He was a guy I dated like six months ago." You began to shake your head as you attempted to explain but Joel simply mirrored your gesture and extended a bite of his ice cream across the table.

"We all have a past," he said, "And you've been very accepting of mine, so I'm not about to judge." When he flashed a small smile you knew that despite the awkward, rude encounter, you guys were still good.

"Sorry."

Joel shook his head and entwined his fingers with your on top of the table again. "Nothing to be sorry for."

You swung your legs around the side of the picnic table and rounded it to give him a firm kiss on the lips. You hadn't quite gotten your fill before and the fleeting smooch only continued to make you want more when you sat back down across from him.

Joel couldn't keep a smile from his face now. It made you smile, too.

"What time do you think you'll be over tonight?" He asked, scraping the inside of the cylindric container with his spoon.

It suddenly dawned on you that you didn't know his address.

"Well, how far are you from the coffee shop?" You asked.

"Five minutes or so."

"I guess I'll be there at 8:05 then."

Your answer made his eyes lift to meet yours and he smirked again as he scooped out another bite.

"Alright." Joel pulled out his phone. "I'll send you the address. Go slow or you'll miss the driveway. My house is a little bit back off the road."

"Okay." You grinned, eager to spend some time privately with him away from the rest of the world. As you waited for Joel's text message you were also secretly texting Jessie.

I'm going over his house tonight at 8, you wrote, should I pack a bag?? Help! 😬

Immediately her response came back: YES!!!! Just don't get pregnant!

Your laugh out loud as you covered your mouth made Joel cock his head to the side as his eyes squinted at you. He wore a smile but in his eyes you saw he was intrigued as to what you were giggling at.

"Jess just sent me something funny," you admitted, sparing the details.

He continued to grin. "I just sent it to you."

"Great." The two of you finished off the last few bites of ice cream and then made your way to Joel's motorcycle, passing by a window that showcased Steve and his cop friends.

They all stared at you as you and Joel hopped on the bike. Despite their group stare, you had never felt more confident in your life.

Your arms wrapped around Joel and he placed one of his hands over yours just below his chest. Your chin rested on his shoulder and he eased the bike back out of the spot.

You reluctantly made eye contact with Steve for a brief second, though you couldn't contain a wide smile as Joel raced you off back to your house.

When you got there you couldn't hold back. You had only dipped your feet into all the lines you were fully prepared to cross with Joel Miller. For the first time you didn't care who was home, who could see you or anything in between.

You wrapped your arms around him and pulled him in for a long, passionate kiss that left your head swirling and your body longing for more of him. It was smoldering and only ended when Joel chuckled and ducked his head back an inch.

"Save it for tonight," he breathed against you.

Oh, what a promise that was.

"Okay." You playfully let your teeth graze his bottom lip.

Joel ran a hand through your hair and kissed you again. "I'll call you later."

"Okay." Your arms lingered around his shoulders despite knowing you had to let him go - at least for the time being.

"8:05," he said.

You spoke quietly against his lips. "I won't be late."

CLICK HERE FOR CHAPTER 6

@untamedheart81 @amyispxnk @grogusmum

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novantinuum · 7 months ago

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Fandom: Steven Universe Rating: Teen Audiences Words: ~1K Summary: “What’s going on—?” he croaks to absolutely no one (weakened, vulnerable, alone, pathetic—), a jolt of fresh panic surging through his entire system. He’s never seen a gem flicker before. He has no idea what this means.

Got a short one-shot for y'all today! This was a quick lil' guy I whipped up within the past week to boost my Camp NaNoWriMo word count in between working on other projects.

It's a canon-compliant fic set during the SU movie.

Enjoy!

____

“What’s going on—?” he croaks to absolutely no one (weakened, vulnerable, alone, pathetic—), a jolt of fresh panic surging through his entire system as he watches the diamond at his core outright flicker.

He’s never seen a gem flicker before. He has no idea what this means. But even more urgently… his gaze snaps up to all the gemstones littering the grass like it’s a damned battlefield… he has no idea how he’s supposed to de-escalate this situation if he can’t successfully bubble this rogue Gem. The others will reform in no time, of that he’s sure— but so will she. And when she does, what’s stopping her from pulling out another weapon and attacking them all over again?

Steven shakes the grim thought out of his head, exerting a surprising sum of energy in dragging himself back to his feet. (Stars, he’s so out of breath…) But no— no. He can’t allow himself to get so caught up in the brambles of such nebulous what-ifs. Come on, Universe. Stay resilient. Stay positive. There’s only one mission that matters at the moment, and that’s gathering up that weapon and all these gemstones and moving them somewhere safe. He’s capable of that much, at least.

Still… that anxious, always hyper-vigilant part of himself he tries hard to keep buried can’t help but dread the worst as he shoves that heart-shaped gem and the pink scythe into the deepest depths of his jacket pocket and drags his spent, trembling body up the hill to retrieve all his loved ones.

Steven collapses face-first upon the couch the second all the Gems are safely deposited on the living room coffee table, heaving what has to be the single most exaggerated groan of exhaustion any one soul has ever produced.

Ugh.

Good golly.

Amethyst is usually back by now. That sure doesn’t shine any optimism on this situation, now does it? What on Earth did that scythe do to them?

And what the heck did it do to me, he thinks, the mere act of baseline existence leaving him as wiped as a marathon runner even though he’s literally lying as flat as a board. It’s a kind of total body exhaustion he rarely experiences, far more intense than a hard day’s workout or multiple nights of poor sleep.

In fact, now that he ponders his predicament, he hasn’t felt as drained as this since—

He pales, his heart pounding at a somewhat uneven tempo. With much effort, he pushes himself upright again… yanks up the bottom hem of his shirt to splay his opposing hand across the familiar planes of his own gemstone, tracing their edges until his pulse calms down and he stops feeling so itchy and paranoid. No. Stop. it’s not like The Incident at all. He’s whole. They’re together, not split in half, not disconnected from one another.

Or at least… (he swallows. Hard.) Not physically.

Flashing a frustrated grimace, Steven gathers the gem of their attacker in his palms and attempts to form a bubble around it again. And again. And again. No dice, alas. The result is the same no matter how hard he tries. Even if he manages to fashion one large enough, it bursts only a few heartbeats later, leaving him breathless and haggard and with nothing to show for it. He wipes away the sweat that’s started to bead upon his forehead, and— rather defeated by this failure— dumps that damned gem back on the table a tad rougher than he probably ought to.

Okay. So no bubble. Great. Just great. Absolutely peachy. What else about him is broken right now?

He throws out his arm, envisioning his shield bursting to life in front of it. And to his credit this hard-light weapon does briefly appear, but only as a glitchy flicker. Ugh. All right, so his shield’s a complete dud, too. With this in mind he sees no real point in testing any of his other powers. It seems his gem’s simply on the fritz now, no thanks to her. (He shoots a dirty glare at those pink, ever-taunting facets.) Plus, he figures an attempt and failure to float might prove disastrous. Best not to test fate today with how his luck’s been so far.

Steven clenches his fingers tight, painfully aware of how tense his whole body is right now. He outright can’t help it. This is the single most stressful thing that’s landed on his doorstep since the Diamonds crashed Garnet’s wedding. And not only that, but with all these muscle groups activated at once he can feel his pulse thrumming like a never-ending mantra within his wrist, its tempo frustratingly irregular. It reminds him a lot of how Dad describes his caffeine intolerance. Both keyed-up and jittery. Thrown to the brink of fight-or-flight but also exhausted to the point of collapse. It’s insufferable, and without the guidance and encouragement of the Gems he has no clue what he’s supposed to do about it.

Although…

His breath quivering as he feels his gemstone glitch out within him yet again, he pulls his phone out of his pocket. (And boy, is he surprised the screen isn’t cracked after the mighty tumble he took up on the hill.) He taps into his messages and— his finger hovering over Connie’s picture for a moment longer than it ought to— (no, don’t worry her, just let her enjoy her space camp)— ultimately selects his dad’s contact.

Pls come quick as you can, he types furiously. Town in danger (???) from new Gem, everyone got poofed. At house.

Send.

The teen slumps back upon the couch, letting himself sink back into its plush, reassuring comfort. There. At least Dad might be able to help. And even if he can’t, well…

(He wipes away that annoying stray tear pooling at the edge of one of his eyes. Childish, he chides himself. Stupid.)

At least it’s better than weathering this storm on his own.

#su #steven universe #su fanfiction #su fanfic #steven universe fanfiction #my writing stuff #tumblr hates underlines so y'all get bold.#see the ao3 post for the intended formatting.

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picturejasper20 · 8 months ago

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So, i was trying to think of the strange connection that there is between Danny Phantom fans and Steven Universe fans, aside from SU being a show that was very popular on its moment. Like one show is from 20 years ago and the other is from last decade, both with different executions and genres.

...Which lead me to write a whole essay no one asked for, so here you go:

One of the first things that comes to mind is how the main leads are hybrids- Danny Fenton is half human/half ghost, Steven is half human/ half gem. And like both series give an idea that they are pretty unique in their experience as hybrids and they both belong to both worlds yet not fully to either of them.

Danny has a lot of issues with having to hide his part of himself from the world, his parents included. Meanwhile, Steven doesn't understand certain social norms and can feel disconnected from other teens around his age, having lived a somewhat recluded childhood from his peers. (This gets more explored in Future)

Aside from the struggles that being an hybrid it brings to them, they have episodes about learning new powers or learning how to control them. You see them start rather powerless only to become pretty OP on the long run. -Steven getting tired for summoning one shield to being able to do it without sweat-Danny having his powers glitching at the start to gain a power like Ghost Wail later on, etc.

Another thing that Danny and Steven share in common is that they want to help and be useful. In Steven's case, he wants to help people with their problems or "fix" them. Over time Steven starts to define his identity around helping others a little too much to the point that he doesn't know who to be outside of that.

A pretty common headcanon for Danny in the DP fandom is that his ghost obsession is about having to protect everyone he can, something you can see in the series in a way. After Phantom Planet, Danny doesn't know who to be outside being the hero and feels that people don't need him anymore in the context the world having being saved after the series finale. ( A Glitch in Time)

Both try solving problems talking it out if possible, if it is a misunderstanding or they think the antagonist can be reasoned with.

With Steven, he doesn't need an explanation as most people know his personality, for Danny- it depends on the situation and his mood, sometimes being kinder and other times more violent. I would argue again that he still tries to talk things out when he sees that violence isn't necessary -just not the same as Steven

That's not to say their characters are the same, in fact their personalities are pretty different and their ways to approaching problems differs too. They do, however, share some parallels in their character arcs that i already discussed.

Another aspect are the main antagonists, both Steven Universe and Danny Phantom have their antagonists have motivations outside of being evil for the sake of being evil.

In Steven Universe this is a main theme and i don't think it doesn't need much introduction. Antagonists (most Homeworld gems) have been taught and were socialized to act in a specific way in the totalitarian society they were born into. Examples of this are: Peridot, Jasper and Lapis- these motivations can be mixed with revenge or similar things as well.

In Danny Phantom the main antagonists are Vlad Masters/Plasmius and Valerie Gray, both characters who aren't evil by nature and the series leaves clear that their antagonism comes from what happened to them and the decisions they took in result of that.

Vlad Masters role as a villain comes from the insolation and abandonment issues that came from the Ghost portal accident in college caused by Danny's father, Jack Fenton. Vlad became obsessed with getting revenge on Jack and believing he "stole" a family that should have been his.

Valerie comes from her blaming Phantom for (accidentally) ruining her life and trying to get revenge on him, becoming a ghost hunter. Valerie's role is a mix between anti-hero and antagonist since she wants to protect people but opposes Phantom at the same time. Eventually she becomes a bit of a friendenemy to Phantom over the course of the seasons.

Other recurrent antagonists have their own motives to do bad things ( Sidney, Desiree, Ember) while others are more naturally classic evil (Ghost King, Spectra). It depends on the character one is talking about.

Diving more into Vlad Plasmius, both series have this idea of "legacy", as like protagonist having to deal with what their parent/s "left behind for them".

For Steven is a huge deal for him since many of the antagonists who attack him are for things his mother Rose Quartz did, having Steven deal with all this issues and believing he has to fix them, blaming himself for what how Rose hurt people in different ways.

As for Danny, Vlad Masters' antagonism comes from the portal accident caused by Jack, Danny's father, when Vlad, Jack and Maddie (Danny's mom) were still friends in college. In a way Danny has to deal with something that was caused by his father. It isn't something he choose to but yet still brings him a lot of problems to his life.

I'm not sure which character from SU Vlad could be compared to, but i would say that Spinel is the closest one, since Spinel was abandoned by Rose Quartz (as Pink Diamond), who was her best friend, similar to what supposely happened between Vlad and Jack after the ghost portal accident.

Other theme is the idea of redemption, or how you can be your worst own enemy. As i mentioned, antagonists in SU usually get redemmed and change their ways from the systematic ideas they were raised in. There is this idea that people have the capacity to change if they propose themselves to.

In Steven Universe Future, Steven is "his worst enemy" as he has to deal with his own demons he has been avoiding for years for trying to repress them or being too busy helping other people. He goes through a negative corruption arc because of this, ending with him realizing that he can't hiding his issues and needs help with them.

In the Danny Phantom series, this is very important theme in "The Ultimate Enemy", where Danny is confronted by the possible evil future version of himself, called Dan Phantom in the DP fandom. Danny battles against this version of himself and tries to fix his mistake, proving that he can avoid that future from happening.

Danny also meets Vlad Masters in the dark future timeline in this special, who regrets his actions after so many years passed and how he accidentally helped with creating Dan in that timeline.

A Glitch in Time expands on this theme further by exploring Vlad and Dan's motivations a lot more and giving them second chances. The novel itself shares parallels with Steven Universe and SU Future in multiple ways.

Back to Dan Phantom, he shares quite a lot of things in common with Malachite to the point people have pointed out these parallels.

In Steven Universe, gems can fuse with other, creating more powerful gems. A fusion's personality and manners are determined by the relationship the partipants in the fusion have and a combination of their personalities.

Malachite is the fusion between Lapis Lazuli and Jasper, two characters who hated each other and carried lots of personal issues the moment they fused, resulting in a fusion that is unstable. Malachite represents the toxic codependent relationship between the two characters.

Dan Phantom is the fusion between Danny and Vlad's ghost halves, Phantom and Plasmius. Dan was created in a timeline both Danny and Vlad had a lot of issues, with Danny having to deal the lost of his family and being left traumatized. All this trauma along with Vlad's mental state went to Dan, turning him into a destructive ghost.

These are the elements i see that Danny Phantom and Steven Universe series share in common to explain why fandoms often overlap, i'm not sure if there are more that i'm not able to recall at the moment.

#steven universe #danny phantom #su future #danny fenton #steven quartz universe #Su fandom #Danny phantom

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sphireath-wisp · 2 years ago

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#Your Universe

Sypnosis:: What Steven Universe song matches the vibe/feel about your established relationship with them <3

Warnings: Possible mischaracterization, 90% of the space is taken up by lyrics, not proofread

Featuring: Rin Itoshi, Seishiro Nagi, Sae Itoshi, Meguru Bachira x GN! reader

Credits: All songs are credited to Steven Universe, the creators of Steven Universe, and Rebecca Sugar

"Here Comes a Thought"

"Here comes a thought that might alarm you, What someone said and how it harmed you Something you did that failed to be charming Things that you said are suddenly swarming"

Rin had always known that your relationship with him was a shaky one, or so that was what he thought. He never knew how to express his feelings to you, he knew his words had such a strong effect on you. So, then why did he have to storm out like that? Why couldn't he just control his mouth for once and actually let you speak?

The whole situation escalated and suddenly the both of you were hurling insults at each other. Yes, when you began to break down in tears, he hesitated. However, he couldn't bring himself to comfort you or be there for you or somehow stop your flow of tears - he didn't know how to.

"And, oh, you're losing sight, you're losing touch All these little things seem to matter so much That they confuse you That I might lose you"

He feels the guilt eat him up from the inside, that uncomfortable churning feeling that he drags with him every practice, that unbearable voice at the back of his brain that reminds him about just how horrible of a boyfriend he is to you.

He's terrified. Terrified of another restless night of sleep without you, the missed phone calls he can't bring himself to answer back. Why is he even bothered by things like this? What's wrong with him?

"Take a moment, remind yourself To take a moment and find yourself Take a moment to ask yourself If this is how we fall apart"

With shaky hands, he finally musters up the courage to see you again. Both of you can tell just how hard the fight affected you. In a moment of hesitation, he breaks the silence by asking.

"Are we... going to break up?" Rin's almost revolted at the idea, physically flinching at his own words, a scowl on his face.

Rin was logical. He knew it would be better for the both of you to fall apart. You wouldn't have to always break down over him and he wouldn't have to feel that ache in his chest ever again. It would be a lighter weight to carry and he wouldn't have to risk breaking your heart.

It was for the best... right? You had to know it too.

"But it's not, but it's not, but it's not, but it's not, but it's not It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay You've got nothing, got nothing, got nothing, got nothing to fear I'm here, I'm here, I'm here"

Without any words to reply to his question, you pull him into a hug. "I'm sorry... for distracting you from your practice - I knew you were busy and I... sorry, I won't do it again if you don't want me to." You didn't exactly want to reply to his question, unsure of you would be able to let him go.

Silence cuts through the air like a sharp blade for a split second.

"I'm sorry too. I... didn't need to storm out like that." Slowly, Rin hugs you back, feeling a sudden sense of relief washing over him. He crumples the scripted apology in his hand with his emotions spilled out to you in ink, afraid he would let a harsh remark slip out again.

"For the missed calls, for the ghosting, for everything, I'll make it up to you... I'll win the next game for you, I promise." Of course, Rin's mind darts right back to soccer.

"Take a moment to think of just Flexibility, love, and trust."

The whole fight seemed insignificant in a second. What was haunting him became dwarfed by a simple apology from both of you. Something about finally having that weight lifted off of his shoulders made him miss having you around even more. You were such a relief to be near.

"Is that... a good enough apology?" Rin whispers to you, unsure if something so short could make you forgive him. His heart is still racing in his chest, nervously reaching his fingers out to intertwine them with yours, handling your hands as if they were glass.

"That's enough of an apology for me."

"Love Like You"

"If I could begin to be Half of what you think of me I could do about anything I could even learn how to love"

Sae had never been one to fall in love. He spent his precious minutes on something that would push him closer to his goals. If he was involved in any sort of dating rumor, one post will immediately shut down any suspicions. He wasn't flattered, if anything, he was annoyed.

He was confused, puzzled even as to how he arrived here today with a wedding ring adorning his finger. How he had fallen in love and how you welcomed his then immature feelings and inexperienced love.

Whenever he hears your cheers, your wishes for his future, and your support for someone like him, it motivates Sae to work even harder for his dreams and become someone you want to live the rest of your life with. He knew his goals were his to achieve and have pride in alone, but it felt... better to know someone always had his back.

"When I see the way you act Wondering when I'm coming back I could do about anything I could even learn how to love like you"

Every time he returns from his matches overseas, he loves to see you spamming his phone because it tells him how much you really missed him. Your eager replies and constant need for updates are adorable to Sae.

Something about the way you always know what he needs after a long trip makes anywhere he goes with you feel like home. Why yes, he did feel like getting some hot chocolate, you must have read his mind.

"I always thought I might be bad Now I'm sure that it's true 'Cause I think you're so good And I'm nothing like you"

"Am I holding you back?" is a question he despised to hear slip out of your mouth despite the neutral expression on his face. "No, what made you think that?" Sae asks, seating himself next to you, watching you fidget with the diamond ring on your finger.

"It's just that, I'll forget that my husband is this super talented and hardworking soccer genius that really went to great lengths for his goals. In comparison, I'm not really all that awesome." You would laugh to yourself in spite of how dispirited your voice sounded.

Sae wasn't great at handling feelings, so he was a little stumped by your answer. You knew that and had hardened yourself for something blunt to escape his lips. "You're only comparing things that make me great. When it comes to anything outside of soccer, I'm horrible."

"It took me years to properly communicate my... feelings to you, and I'm still pretty shit at it. You had the patience to actually help me - something I doubt I'll ever have. You can't compare soccer to basketball, you can't compare me to you." His words, while not directly comforting you, did reach a soft spot in your heart. A hand knocks you lightly on the head, "Don't think about crap like that."

"Look at you go I just adore you I wish that I knew What makes you think I'm so special"

Sae doesn't mind seeing you do what you're passionate about. Whether it's music or art, as long as you know what you're doing, he'll be supportive. Sae's not the type to fangirl about how he's your #1 fan (at least not in front of you), but he definitely has that adoration to see you engrossed in a hobby.

When he really takes notice of your work, it makes him wonder why you think of him so highly. Yes, he's persevered to get to where he is today, but from your work, your life, your career, and hobbies, so have you.

"Escapism"

"I guess I have to face That in this awful place I shouldn't show a trace of doubt."

Nagi, at his very core, is lazy and unmotivated. While his frustration towards losing is his driving force and passion for soccer, he would love to live a laidback life if he had the choice.

The whole competitive aspect of soccer is fun, but it can become exhausting sometimes - which is when you come in. You're another key motivator for him to reach his dream, even as egotistical as it may be.

Every practice will result in a worn-out Nagi melting into your embrace the moment he reaches home, lacking the energy to do another other than spend the rest of his day with you.

You are his soothing agent, his medicine, and he'll be expecting his well-deserved reward of kisses for the day as well.

"But pulled against the grain I feel a little pain That I would rather do without."

Every single time, the same scenario of him having to part ways with you to perhaps go overseas for a match or perhaps your schedule has gotten busier than before.

Being accustomed to your presence, home just becomes a house without you, filled with the buzz of background noise and nothing but his own hums and thoughts. He's not the type to weep, but he certainly does feel more... numb.

The quiet of no one disturbing his free time used to be a comfort to him, and it was at first, but it slowly spiraled to something... miserable.

Returning home without greetings, accidentally pouring an extra cup of lemon tea for someone who isn't here, and being forced to roll around in bed without the warmth of a special someone with him.

Nagi would love to settle down one day. He'll save up money that would never run out to sustain both you and him so work won't separate you from him for so long. It would be great, wouldn't it? No more need to wake up early in the morning, no more late night shifts, and no need to see you so stressed out.

"I'd rather be Free, free, free... from here."

"Wouldn't it be nice to run away somewhere?" You wonder, unintentionally asking the question out loud. "Like maybe, travel by boat through the sea?"

"Like pirates?" Nagi's eyes are still focused on his games, but he's listening.

"Yeah! It would be sort of cool, minus the seasickness. Would you want to go anywhere? Or live anywhere?" You shift yourself closer to him, watching over his shoulder as he's mashing buttons and you assumed that he was winning.

"It's a hassle to think about it." You chuckle at his response, then he opens his mouth again, "Anywhere's fine as long as I can go with you, and it has to have wifi, so a ship is a no for me."

"An arcade maybe?"

"That'd be cool." Nagi's eyes glance over at you, "A bunch of games to choose from."

"And high electricity bills." You joke. Nagi pouts at you, almost as if you ruined his view of living at an arcade. He focuses back on his game as you continue, "But, yeah. I think I'd be fine with anywhere as long as I'm with you too. Our house isn't all that bad."

Nagi lays his head on your lap, mentioning, "Only if you're in it with me."

"I'd Rather be Me (with you)"

"I'd rather be tall, I'd rather be smart I'd rather be sure you know I care Wherever you go, whatever you start I'd rather be sure you know I'm there."

You always notice Bachira's efforts to cheer you up. Just like glue, he'll stick to you constantly and keep you company when you need it. His enthusiasm is contagious, you feel as if your day has brightened up the moment he talked to you.

This guy is an overthinker, trying his best to ensure you know he really cares. He doesn't mind lending a helping hand, especially if he can show you off - like yes, this my significant other you're looking at!!

"I'd rather I always be a part of whatever you do I'd rather be me with you."

While Bachira is his own unique person, he feels - in an intriguing way - more complete when you're with him. This chemistry that the both of you have after being mashed together is unexpectedly amazing. You can just naturally talk to him without any worries, a thread of questions can lead to a fruitful conversation.

It warms his heart to see you put in the same effort he does to help you. Something about bandaging up his wounds during practice, softly caressing his face, and showing that same bright exuberance whenever he's around makes him feel like the both of you are so different, yet so similar.

Artistic dates and stupid things, dancing the night away and forgetting about the world around the both of you, this bubble you've created that only included the both of you in it was enchanting to be part of.

"Wherever we go, I already trust I'd know what to do if it were us I'd know what to say, I'd know how to be I'd know your entire syllabus"

As time passes on, your understanding of each other improves. Through petty arguments or heated kisses, both you and Bachira understand just how strong a relationship based on trust is. You know just what he wants to do and you'd usually accompany him - he does the same too.

One glance at each other makes you burst out loud, the butterflies in your stomach fluttering around. You can't ever take each other seriously and it makes him feel safe.

He doesn't feel any ounce of anxiousness when he's with you. He isn't worried to say something wrong because he knows what to say to see a smile on your face, he knows how to joke with you - aware that you wouldn't judge him.

While Bachira isn't sure if you feel the same way, he tries to reassure you to just be the purest, rawest, most unfiltered version of you whenever he's around. You don't have to force a quiet giggle for him, a real laugh would make him feel so, so much happier.

"I can't think of any other thing in the world I would rather do If I could be, I'd rather be me with you."

His teammates hear his whines and complaints all the time. Absolutely, Bachira is motivated by his dreams, but being away from his source of light and energy - also known as you - is just going to drain him.

He doesn't really care where he is or what he's doing. As long as it's with you, Bachira knows he's going to have a great time.

His happiest, best version of him is a version you've seen often. You've seen all sides of him - serious, upset, frustrated, but most importantly, elated. Bachira practically emits a sense of euphoria for you despite his eccentric qualities.

While he isn't the most romantic, while he can't dance and sleeps at the strangest times, he hopes you've fallen in love with all versions of him, exactly like how he has for you.

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 11 months ago

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Introspection

Summary: Moon Knight Comic universe. A study of the Interpersonal relationships between Marc, Jake, Steven, Mr. Knight, and Moon Knight.

They don't always get along. Sometimes they have no choice but to hold things together while one of them seems determined to take them apart.

Pairings: Gen fic, Brief mentions of Greer and Marc.

Warnings: Dissociation

Word Count: 4715

A personal note: I started this as something else and then had a small mental health event and continued to work on this. So it didn't go where I had planned on going. But here it is for whatever it's worth. I hope it's worth something.

----

MARC

Sometimes I remember life one way and sometimes I remember it another. It’s hard to pin it all down. If you asked me what I did this morning I’d be hard pressed to tell you the fine details but I can guess the usual.

Each awakening starts the same. I listen to just about every joint in my body pop and creak as I crawl out of bed and wait for sensation to return to my body. I imagine it much like watching someone claw their way out of a shallow grave. When I am sure that the body is mine, I chug the coffee that by now must be two days old and reheated so many times the burnt smell only makes me think it’s stronger than it is.

It does nothing for my headache but at least the double vision blurs into one and I can do more than make further zombie sounds. This does little for the popular notion that I am a dead man that has returned from the grave so many times that I sometimes catch myself glancing in the mirror at the symbole on my forehead. Is it still a moon? Am I sure? Is it the crest of a god or the word of another? Perhaps it is the truth.

I try not to think about it if I don’t want to spend the next hour fading in and out of that dangerous void.

Today is a bad day. I can’t stay out of the past. It happens. The past is a long dark tunnel or a glimpse of a street light I once stood too long under.

I can feel the annoyance as I fade and cling at the same time. He calls me a pain as I dig my heels in. I’ve been told that I have a nasty tendency to dig my grubby mitts in so hard that it takes a considerable fight to knock me out of place. He says I have control issues.

I don’t do it on purpose. I frankly wouldn’t know how to stay if I wanted to. I tend to come and go like a nasty habit you just can’t get rid of. Every time you think you’ve kicked it, it comes crawling back.

Sure, I can give it up for them when we talk. When we talk. I remember the silence. Confusion and blanks written off with a shrug. Then I remember the yelling. There used to be so much yelling. Like siblings yelling from one room to the other over a barrier of invisible walls and doors that rattled on old hinges.

We don’t yell anymore. Mostly. He calls me short sighted. The other one calls me a Schlimazel. He thinks he’s funny. I snapped and called him a Meshuggeneh once and he laughed about it for two weeks straight. He takes a special delight when I speak in that tongue.

I think there is a popular opinion that we act like a big family full of love. Just a bunch of brothers that look out for one another. Bullshit. We are not brothers. Brothers in our situation would have probably killed each other years ago. The truth is that we are three grown men all trying to drive the same car and decide on where it’s going all at the same time.

Sometimes we want to go to the living room and end up on the fucking roof. And it’s always anyone’s guess on how we got up there. When was the last time we ate? Did the other one go nuts on eggs again or did I have the reins and forget to eat for three days because I’m an idiot? It’s anyone’s guess.

It has taken us a very very long time to figure out how to function. How to work as a team. How to care about one another. We certainly didn’t come into this wanting to help the other guy stop crying. It was just annoying listening to him cry all the time. We wanted him to stop. I wanted him to stop. I wanted to stop. He wanted me to stop. We were just kids. Just kids learning to share and…

Here I go again, floating into the void and I think we’ve been staring at the same spot on the wall for ten minutes. He’s fucking yelling at me to get my shit together.

I know what would really piss him off. I don’t want to piss him off. But I do. I piss him off by existing sometimes. He used to wish I would go away. He could put up with the other one but me? I was unacceptable. I used to wish I would go away too. I hated how much I was present. Always there. Always waiting to be angry. Waiting to punch something. Waiting to find a reason.

They both tell me I need to stop. I needed to learn how to exist. I existed enough. It’s how we got into this mess. I existed. My name was put on a paper: Here Elias begat Marc and all the trouble that came with.

I’m the trauma. I’m the reason. I’m the one that ran. I’m the one that made the decisions. I’m the one that lost…

Now here’s the territory that he won’t let me near. Says I get too close and hurt myself too much. As if I can’t help but shout out “Here I am”.

And as I sit and stare into the fire of my trauma, he finally pulls me and it feels like a relief as even the body lets out a sigh.

STEVEN

It takes a minute. It doesn’t always. When he cooperates it’s like lightning. That’s the problem though, isn’t it? Marc Spector cooperating? The very notion of it makes me smile.

Like the notion that Marc might actually take the moment to be more aware. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so pissed off.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not pissed at him. Not really. It’s hard to be pissed at him these days. Back at the start, though? All you had to do was imply his presence and I was pissed at the man.

I think he still strives for that. He wants us to be angry at him. Give the man a stick and find him in the woods poking a bear for kicks.

I’m pissed because I have to do this. I’m pissed because this is something that we still have to do. What brought it about this time? That’s always the part I hate the most. Trying to figure out why Marc had to be pulled.

We know our places now. It wasn’t easy to figure out. There was a certain level of trust we had to reach to figure it out. When Marc was needed, we knew it was going to hurt. We hardly ever asked for his help. It was pride not to.

Me? Needing his help? When I could just avoid the situation all together, why would I need his help?

My denial was deep enough to drown us. My pride, the anchor that brought us down.

Marc thinks I’d have been the perfect son. I was better. I was the one you introduced to your friends. And in this corner you see Steven Grant, poised and perfect. Just don’t ask him where his family is from. A nod and a wink and we can pretend he’s something else, right?

Marc forgets how outright obnoxious I used to be. Forget the bruised knees and black eye. That was someone else. My creases were all pressed and my shirts were the whitest. “Yes teacher or course teacher right away teacher”. With grades and posture, I could look down my nose at the world.

So why wasn’t I the perfect son? Because that was someone else. The real mensch. Yeah, he came a little late, but that’s the nature of him, isn’t it? While Marc and I circled the drain, he sat back with the plug yucking it up with the locals. He doesn’t know our trauma. Our pain. He shifts in and out like it’s nothing. That’s his job.

Now I’m beyond annoyed. That spot on the wall still hasn’t moved and I’m stuck playing put the lid back on everything Marc opened up.

I don’t tell him. He has enough to beat himself up over. I don’t tell him how it all carries over. I don’t tell him how his tears sting a little bit more when I’m the one shedding them. I don’t tell him that my hands shake just a little bit as I flush out our wounds.

There’s a new bruise and I swear it lines up with someone’s fist perfectly. The night was long and now here we sit with ice and a fog that I can’t make go away. Images of our father float in and out and I hear something that I don’t know the words to.

The fact that Marc does makes me angry. Angry at myself.

Marc will never know how much he reminds me of our father. Not because he is like the man. No, they couldn’t be further from night and day. But Marc, full of vengeance and fire and bloody fists… No one worships like he does. Only our father, a Rabbi, could have more faith.

I’d never tell him this, though. He wouldn’t understand.

The wounds are clean and the bandages applied. My job is done and there is still so much more work to do. I do what I can. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

The mensch wants to know what’s going on. He doesn’t pay attention. He doesn’t have to. It’s my turn to be the stubborn ass and it isn’t till I feel the warm comfort of his embrace that I realize there’s more needed than a desperate need to make amends.

JAKE

Bubbeleh, take a rest, eh?

What’s going on up here? Why are we so worked up? I step out for a second and look at this mess. Stomach sounds like a grinder and I feel like we did ten rounds with that gorilla at the zoo.

Steven makes a jab at my choice in food. What part of our life has been Kosher? Why start now? I think we’ll be forgiven if we break a few rules. Ah, there’s the issue, isn’t it?

Memories.

I can sit back and watch them. They play like an old flickering television with a bent antenna.

No guess on who let these out of the box. He sulks in the back and I can feel his pain radiating across the whole void.

Marc… If it was ever possible for someone to embody the word Schlep it would be Marc. I sit back quietly for a bit, letting the food soothe the body first. That quiets Steven down. Always worried about the body. The body relaxes and so does Steven.

Steven settled, now comes the hard part.

I do remember. I see the boy struggling and I see the other one rebelling in his own way. I remember stepping in more times than they know. I remember what it was to wrap ourselves in a large warm blanket and cry ourselves to sleep.

The mustache goes on. Steven hates it. Hates what the adhesive does to our skin. I tell him to grow it out naturally; but then you’d have two problems instead of one. I’m a problem fixer. My problem can be fixed with adhesive and a hat.

I pull my sweater closer and adjust my hat. Marc would riot if I wore the other hat. It was easier to dip into older traditions. It feels right. It feels like it holds us down and gives me the silhouette I know is right.

Steven thinks I don’t know. I know more than he does sometimes. I never settled on denial. I just settled on acceptance.

I whisper the right words. The ones that finish the song Steven forgot. They say there is a prayer for everything. Meditate on it long enough and there is a blessing for every situation.

Sometimes a simple blessing is one that simply soothes the soul. It doesn’t have to make sense or even be appropriate. Just a notion that you do belong and that the good you do is truth enough to exist.

“May it be your will that I lie down in peace and rise up in peace.” It isn’t the whole prayer. I don’t even remember the whole thing, but the whole thing isn’t what is needed now. Words are like that. Like a lullabye or a magic spell, we settle in peace. We know the truth to those words.

And we do rise. We always rise up, but never in peace. But for now… At least we can lie down in a sort of peace.

Cat naps, really. I close our eyes in the reclined seat of the cab as the sounds of the city soothe us into a slumber that keeps the dreams away.

A yawn and a blinker later, we tour the city. This is my peace. Chit chat with the locals, a tip here and there from the underground. I smile to the fare and impart knowledge on the tourists. We were all dazzled by the city at one point or another.

By the time my tour is over, we feel rested and refreshed. As much as is capable for us to feel anyways. I think if we ever really did rest we might not ever get back up again.

Steven is quiet and back in place where he can pretend that maybe this time Marc might behave. I wish I lived in that bloke’s world. At least I know he won’t spiral for a bit. He likes to at least space out his breakdowns a bit. Adds flavor for when they really do build up.

And a look up at the rising night sky assures me that Marc is also quiet, resting and pretending that he won’t be needed again. I don’t know how to tell him that he’ll always be needed. That he’s wanted. That I wouldn’t trust anyone else to watch my back.

But now another bloke is stirring and asking questions.

Yeah buddy, we got this. Just a hiccup or two. The usual.

He relaxes and I let him stretch. He’s the shy one of the group, which is ironic considering just how flashy he is.

You want denial, just ask him who lives under that mask.

I relax back. He does better when we aren’t watching. Maybe someday he’ll feel confident enough to etch out his own place. It’s really enough to make me want to come up with a new prayer just for him. I was never a wordsmith though. Blessings were more of Marc’s territory anyways.

MOON KNIGHT

He gives us the information we need. He asks if we want to know about the day. We don’t. We appreciate the offer. He has a lot to share, but these things don’t mean anything to us. He has a lot of strength to offer and we appreciate him for it… But sometimes we enjoy just sitting in silence as we feel the moon and city and justice.

We don’t know what we did today. We don’t know how the body is doing. We don’t know how they are doing. That isn’t really our business. Our business is up here under the sky under the mask. We can feel the bandages and know the fussy one has taken care of us. We feel energy and relaxed and know the chatty one has done his part. We also feel the anger and need to punch something and know our companion is ready.

He isn’t always there. Sometimes it’s just me and I feel like a ghost, sliding through the moonbeams and haunting the streets. I don’t know how I feel about these times.

Our companion helps us. We help him. He pretends to be us and we let him. He can pretend that he doesn’t exist and we are blended until his needs are ours and our actions are his.

Sometimes he bleeds through. Sometimes the mask becomes heavy on his skin and we have to assert ourselves. We act on behalf of the system. We act because it’s what he needs. When his needs hurt, we let the others take him away.

We aren’t sure when we became me. When I became individual. We prefer him to be there. We remember a time when we were one. Now we aren’t sure who or what we are. The fussy one prods at us sometimes. Questions us and tries to find out what we know. He asks us a lot of questions. Right now he dismisses us as essential to our companion and lets it go. The chatty one spends a lot of time trying to talk with us. He does not care for the mask and often sits back and just talks. I think he thinks we are a good way to see how our Companion is doing.

Our companion sometimes resents us. We are the job. We are the work. We are the way for him to let off steam. We are the action to what needs to be done.

But we are only here when the sky is dark and when justice is needed. When we slip away, it is just him and that is when the mask becomes too heavy.

That is when we aren’t sure… There is another we.

Mr. Knight

I am not Marc Spector. This much I know. Marc doesn’t know this. It’s a recent development. Steven calls it ‘failure to trauma process’. Marc hides behind us. It is difficult to know when he is he and I am me. He is the man under the mask that does not wish to be there. I am the mask.

The problem was that he would not take off the mask. We became new.

I’m not sure what I think of things. Only Marc wears the mask. Jake doesn’t care to wear us. Our style doesn’t really match his, but he’s still supportive. Steven was exasperated by us at first but now he finds a useful transfer of information through us. The actual Knight? We’re a team. Sometimes we talk. Perhaps we have the most in common. We have jobs. Our job? We protect Marc.

The Knight is difficult to speak with sometimes. He’s a bright white light in the dark and sometimes formless. I honestly can’t tell if he is one person or many pretending to be one. Maybe he’s all of us? Maybe I’m really just Marc pretending to be someone else.

Steven tells me I’m too self aware for that. I asked Steven about the Knight once and Steven didn’t have an answer.

Sometimes I am Marc. When his blood boils and he walks the street in search of something to hit I very much am Marc. I’m a thin shield over him, much like gauze over a wound. I don’t have fists. I am just the gloves that soak up the grime.

I become myself when Marc checks out. He still loses time. He won’t admit it. Staring at the far wall while he sits in his chair or waters his plants. My plants. We keep things tidy. Perhaps that is why Steven likes us.

I keep up appearances. How would it look to find ‘Mr. Knight’ standing in the corner staring at the dust on the leaves for the past twenty minutes?

I think the others notice. The vampire? She knows. Once she met Steven she caught on real quick. Jake and Steven? Easy. Those two idiots couldn’t ever pretend to be someone else. They fought too long and hard to be independent. She isn’t sure about the Knight. It’s hard to tell with him. Perhaps she sees him as something else completely. Maybe he is.

Me? She watches me carefully. Jake calls me ‘auto pilot’. When Marc goes ‘space case’ someone has to drive. I think the vampire avoids me when she doesn’t sense Marc there. Maybe I am an auto pilot. A way for him to watch the world without having to take off the mask. I’m okay with that.

The Tiger has noticed me but doesn’t say anything. She’s more familiar with Steven and Jake. Jake chats up anyone and everyone. Steven likes communication. Any way for him to ‘settle the system’ he takes it. The moment the Tiger officially became a part of the picture, Steven and Jake got involved. They like her. She is on edge around the Knight. Perhaps she senses something different about them. It’s hard not to. With me? She asks me to step back. She got Marc to take the mask off the other day. It was nice to step back. I’m not sure what will happen to me if Marc stops wearing the mask all the time. Maybe we become ‘Just Marc’ again.

I’m here as long as he needs me.

Right now he needs me. We’re having a rough day. I say we because when Marc has a bad day, we ALL have a bad day.

Marc is having a panic attack.

His mask is off and he has locked himself in his room. The first line of defense steps up.

We can all feel him assess the body. Marc digs in hard. In his worst moments it would take an act of sheer force to pry the body away from him.

Steven is cool and collected as he looks the situation over. He talks to Marc and we all watch. It gets crowded up in the front during these times and Jake hangs back. He likes to show his support but also make sure no one else gets in the way.

We had an incident a month back where we all tried to have opinions. Talk about loud chaos.

Marc starts to yell and Steven shakes his head, not wanting to force it but not wanting to let it continue.

The Knight simply watches, formless and bright. They don’t understand these things. They do understand that it can affect how they function though.

Jake saunters in, hands in pockets as he talks to Marc and Steven. They all have history.

Marc reaches for me. He wants to hide. I soak up the tears and cover the scars.

Steven sighs and I can feel his pull as we wordlessly talk. I am auto pilot as Marc fades back and the body carries on. We feel tired. The information travels up the ranks and we all decide what to do with it.

The Knight shares in his own strange way the memories of a full night. Jake shares memories of a full day. I sit in the chair and watch as the mission moves around us.

Steven gives orders. Sleep. Short and sweet.

Convincing Marc to sleep is a chore for the others, but not for me.

When Marc thinks he is me, I can simply stand and move us to the sarcophagus. Climbing in, Marc settles back and we all feel the body sink in.

We aren’t perfect, but we are a team. We have to be.

Tomorrow Marc will wake up again. Tomorrow we will all find our places and tomorrow there might be more of us or less of us. Just gotta roll with the punches.

Marc

Here we go again. Alarm. Awake. Headache. Confusion. Fight through.

Fight through.

Pain and aches and old blood and this deep fog that mutes all light and sound and color and feeling. I live here. I live in the blur. I work best in the blur.

Muffled and soft. It lets me breathe. In and out. I can’t hear my own pounding blood rushing in my head. I can’t feel the cracks and pops as my legs bend and snap into place to lift this shell.

I move past the room filled with plants I don’t remember buying. Past the decorations I don’t remember setting up. Hand tracing the ever breathing and changing walls of the living mission.

I pause.

“Good morning.” We understand one another. A haunted shell. Walls that hold nothing and too much.

The walls breathe and I wait. I breathe with them, meditative and peaceful. A moment for me. Only for me. This is how I ground. I connect with the ghost in the walls until I too can inhabit my home.

Good morning.

Coffee. Chatter. Energy. Noise. Movement. I’ve surrounded myself with movement. I remember a time when my life was non-stop movement.

Come and go. Through the door as Steven, out the door as Jake, in the sky as Marc and… I try not to think too hard about that part. That time in my life is hard for me to pin down. I wasn’t the one driving most of the time. Then when I was, it was filled with pain.

Now I’m sitting here and they move around me and I am waiting. The movement has slowed down. When I do go, it isn’t the constant shifting, changing, and rushing that it was.

It feels… Languid.

I gaze out the window. It’s a quiet night. I don’t trust the quiet ones. They drift slow and I’m left pacing like a caged tiger.

“Marc. Sit.” Speaking of caged tiger… She watches me and gestures for me to join her. Calm and peaceful and domestic.

I hesitate. Domestic was not something I could do. Domestic was his.

They say cats can sense the switch. Maybe it’s chemical. Maybe it’s just sensing the mood.

I try not to. I try domestic. I don’t deserve domestic. Domestic and Marc Spector do not belong together.

It’s just sitting.

Mr. Domestic chimes in. Of course he would. I stop and she watches. The mask hides the fade. I wonder if she can sense it because her tail starts to twitch.

I’m grounded. I have no reason to give in. There is no danger. I have no reason to stay. All that stands before me now is the one thing Marc Spector has never been able to handle: Happiness.

She isn’t gonna be happy if you don’t put your butt in that chair.

The other guy. Mr. Charm. As if he were a professional at making people happy.

Take off the mask.

We should patrol.

Let’s go out and have a drink.

We need to take a day off.

The people need to see us.

I’m so tired.

Needless to say we all have opinions. More than I would think there would be. Some that come softly and others that rock through us like a megaphone to the brain.

I sit with her. She rolls up the mask just enough to touch the face. Our face. My face.

Slowly. Like peeling back layers of grime and sand and blood and pain and trauma I let her take the mask away. She places it just in reach of me. As if she knows something I don’t. Something that makes my fingers twitch towards it, longing to touch it. To press it to my heart and keep it safe like a gentle friend.

I take a breath. Let the air fill my lungs. Let the fog fade. Let the world settle. Let the Me I am becoming fight the Me I have been back and into submissive silence.

There will be days. Days where that me wins. Days where I do not sit with her. Days where I flinch away and pull the mask back down. Days where the past pierces through me and I am lost again.

“It’s quiet.” I close my eyes and lean back.

“Quiet?” She gently curls into me. Warm and soft and heavy at my side.

“For now.” I relax and feel my foundation shift, letting these old walls settle as they continue to hold it all up. The body sighs and I look at her. Me and him and the other and they and them and us. “Here I am.”

We rise in peace.

I let us be at peace.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight fic #Moon Knight comics #Marc Spector #Jake Lockley #Steven Grant #Mr. Knight #The system is Jewish #The system is bigger than three #dissociation #I promised I'd post it by Saturday and it's only 11:45pm so yay

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changelingirl · 7 months ago

Text

Summer Schoolmistress (a fallen london lore post)

This is the result of me and @mayli-song throwing things back and forth as soon as she got released. The Summer Schoolmistress is a Whitsun special and costs Fate so everything is below the cut, but LETS TALK ABOUT TREES!

First: some of the Fun Clues that tip you off to, and then outright state, what she is physically! This part isn't really up for debate. She's a tree. She'll tell you outright. (Why a tree looks like a person is another question. Gijinka headcanons real question mark.)

She rests her fingers in a bowl of black liquid on a side table, and lets them drink like the roots of a tree. Her flesh goes taut and strained, and she shudders.

Once you've watched her kids a few times, you can ask her what she is and actually get a response; funny enough, she starts off with the weird esoteric stuff and then becomes more understandable. From "asking about her nature":

She picks up a teacup. The cup is miniscule in her palm. "I was not born in the usual way. It was a subtractive process: all acts of consumption have their byproducts. Accidents. Waste. I am the remnant of one such consumption." The teacup rattles the saucer as she sets it down without taking a sip.

From asking her why she cares for all the Whitsun babies:

"I know a little of parental duty. Of how it feels when it is not upheld. I will not permit such failings while I am able to prevent them."

(Given that she outright states that the Bazaar is her parent, and the Whitsun children, at least some of them, are also sentient and aware of their parentage--from the Tracklayer city plotline--I put my first speculation here, regarding her motive; she lives outside the city, but still near it, and watches the children. She both resents the Bazaar and yet refers to the Sun in a derogatory way for not coming back to it. Very eldest-daughter-who-had-to-raise-her-siblings energy, complete with the very complicated feelings about your parent that it can instill if you're aware of whatever they're going through and yet still had to raise your siblings.)

When you can finally ask her about the Bazaar;

..."Four catastrophes in, and not a one has seen it yet – the Bazaar is a saprotroph, and drains his cities dry." Are you imagining it, or is there now less tea in her cup? "One thing would sustain him truly." She looks to a painting of the Sun, hung above the mantle, and closes her eyes. "But he is too immature and craven to return."

A saprotroph is a fungus, or another organism that feeds on dead bodies. I think this is probably more metaphorical than anything. She speaks in plant metaphors a LOT.

This is also the part where she's rude to the Sun.

Eventually, she'll tell you about her mother.

"In some ways, I am my mother. In many others, I am not." Her voice is soft; her gaze distant. "She was the oldest tree in London when it fell. Her roots are my roots." A long pause. "We all grow where we may, and accept any kindnesses we can. You, I think, have been kind."

And returning to the first thing she said;

"My birth was a process of subtraction. All that remembered the Sun was wrung from my parent like water from a sponge, to satisfy his unrequited pining."

So; the oldest tree in London. The Bazaar took the part of the tree that remembered the sun, and she is what's left. (Not sure yet whether this is more of a graft/cutting situation or if she is literally the same tree in a Rose Quartz/Steven Universe kinda deal. It honestly sounds more like the latter with how she describes it, but she talks in a very roundabout metaphorical way pretty constantly.)

Anyway the oldest tree in London is called the Totteridge Yew;

Now technically, this tree is located outside of London city, in the suburb of Totteridge. I briefly toyed with trying to figure out whether it would've been taken in the Fall before Mayli put me on the right path once again, via Mutton Island's trees. At one point when bringing back supplies, Summer brings back a withered apple; one of the only places in London where apple trees are still growing, however badly, is Mutton Island.

Mutton Island was stated to previously have been a suburb of London; the word resembles Totteridge in the kind of loose way that a lot of Fallen London's location names resemble their surface counterparts. And more importantly, Totteridge is located in Barnet--and Low Barnet is located right underneath Mutton Island.

Conclusion: I think I can pretty safely say that the Summer Schoolmistress's mother is the Totteridge Yew. Also, RIP to all those suburbs in between central London and Totteridge that presumably just kinda fell into the Zee.

#fallen london #fallen london spoilers #whitsun #whitsun spoilers #fate spoilers #fl spoilers #meta

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aprillikesthings · 7 months ago

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So I am fascinated by how some fandoms just...spontaneously end up with some tropes repeating over and over in fic (especially explicit fics)

Like, I've never been in a fandom that had many coffee shop au's, but I know there are fandoms where they're super popular. There are fandoms with absolutely massive amounts of omegaverse and fandoms with like, none.

And sometimes it's obvious why a particular fandom ends up with a popular fic tropes: Steven Universe fandom has a lot of high-school au's. She-Ra has a lot of university au's. (These are probably the same authors at least some of the time!)

But sometimes it's a complete fucking mystery to me???

And a thought/question about explicit catradora fics under the readmore:

With the obvious disclaimer that I have not read a double-digit percentage of the explicit catradora fics on ao3 (seriously there's 1,668 of them as of right now), I have read uhhh maybe a dozen or two dozen of them?

And I'm dying to know: why is tribbing (i.e. rubbing your vulva on someone's body; sometimes the other person's vulva but in this fandom usually their thigh) so INSANELY COMMON in catradora fics?

I say this knowing that before I even read fics in this fandom, I'd already written my own tribbing scene into my current WIP! So like, I'm including myself here. I didn't even know it was such a huge thing when I wrote it. Like, I think it was the first sex scene I wrote for that fic. So it wasn't just from seeing it in other fics, which would be the obvious reason.

So imagine my surprise and amusement when I started inhaling fics and "rubbing off on each other's thighs" is INCREDIBLY common in catradora fics, whether they're pre-canon or mid-canon or post-canon or non-fantasy au or those au's where they're on modern Earth but all the partially-animal characters are still partially-animal, so like, Catra works an office job but still has cat ears and a tail (I admit I love these)

So now I'm sitting here going: why is that the sex act so many of us write???? Like we might also write oral and fingering and whatever else, don't get me wrong.

If it was just canon-ish fics I could sort of see it: I could imagine a situation where all of us are looking at Catra's claws and possibly-rough tongue and going uhhhhhhh...hm. But...everyone manages to get around that! We decide that Catra can retract her claws. Either her tongue is closer to a human's or Adora's into it lol.

I've had some theories.

My first thought was that rather than "take turns" they can kiss and face each other the whole time? And we really want that for them? (But...there are other sex acts where you can do that.)

But maybe also it's the kind of thing that is the obvious next step when frantically making out (as one might when you finally get to kiss/fuck the person you've loved and wanted most while also actively tried to hurt for the last multiple years...don't mind me just having. feelings. again. ;_;) and not wanting to separate for even a second???

I mean I say this knowing a couple of weeks ago I posted about how the first time I made out with another girl, when I was 17, she shoved her knee into my crotch and I nearly came even though we were both fully dressed lol

So are we all basing it on our own first times with another girl? Because I know that's why I wrote it.

Anyway, likely nobody will see this post lol, BUT, if you read or write she-ra/spop fics lemme know if you've noticed this (like seriously is it just the fics I personally happen to have read?) and if you have theories

Because this is not my first f/f pairing or fandom for which I have read and/or written a ton of fics (lol), but this is the first one where like, nearly every explicit fic has had "rub it out on each other's thighs while making out, either dressed or naked" in it lol

#spop #catradora #april writes

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ssun-showerss · 6 months ago

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lawsan + steven universe au!! // WCI spoilers

No concrete ideas of the specific gem they are, feel free to reply to this post with your ideas! Also a heads up that a bunch of these ideas are not SU-specific but rather from Land of the Lustrous, I've just ingrained both to be my gem au brain file and I can't differentiate some details anymore.

Law is a healer-type gem, a skillset passed down through generations of doctors. He never unlocks this skill in the traditional manner and has to navigate his powers without any professional support in the Donquixote household / with Corazon. His gem colours are yellow and black + the disease has left permanent white scarring on his gem and viltigo on his skin.

His gem placement is on the left of his chest, above the heart. It is well-hidden under most of his clothing. He has grown accustomed to limited sunlight exposure, making him function better than others in situation without sunlight but making him relatively frail otherwise.

Sanji is a lab-grown gem and manufactured to be a fighter-type gem model by Judge. For one reason or another, he doesn't come out as how Judge would like -- he's not brittle, sure, but he is not up to standard. By all means, he has the capacity of a regularly birthed gem.

As a lab-grown gem, he has an extremely well cut facet, which he uses to his advantage to trick people into letting him into high-end establishments. Reconnaissance!

His gem is deep blue, placement is on the back of his left hand.

For their meet-up, I can picture them being introduced while still stuck in their respective families. Judge and Doflamingo have their big fancy villain party and where Sanji and Law first see each other. They meet again years later, post-Corazon and post-Germa, both on the run. They team up because they have nowhere to go and think they'll be strong together.

Their first fusion is one forced in the chaos of battle. With no option left, they fuse and they crush everyone around, no witnesses.

Fusion is another tool at their disposal, they work hard to stabilise it. It's real valuable when people are looking for two people instead of one and they'll hit more than twice as hard if it comes to that.

Their fusion is characteristically tall, but their size is malleable. Their colours and predominantly gold and blue. As a fusion, their weapon is like a huge filet knife that can also set on fire.

Due to years of experience, they've stabilised themselves to appear normal -- the only anomaly is that they have 4 eyes, which are easily hidden under Law's hat.

FUSION DANCE! FUSION DANCE! Classical waltz let's go!

The inherent romance of knowing the other thoroughly and having the capacity to trust.

#writings #lawsan #sorry if this is not really romance centric i love worldbuilding and i am so very aromantic

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scribefindegil · 2 years ago

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Howdy, I think you might be making an ekurei shipper out of me XD I never really thought about them much but I'm really resonating with these posts. Not only that but I'm realizing that its so up my alley because I love love love like, unusual fantasy situations where characters experience intamacy in unconventional ways, something I feel like I don'tfind very often outside of my own and my friends' writing in our own lil corner. Like woah...the romantic potential of possession, being closer to your partner than humanley possible...imagine how humbling it would be to realized you are loved and trusted enough to be invited to share your partner's mind and body as an act of love instead just using that ability against strangers to your own ends...[cries a little] Who even needs that dang guard. Maybe I'm so enraptured with this stuff cause I'm ace, lol

Yeah yeah yeah that's it exactly!! The potential for sff to create types of intimacy that wouldn't be possible in real life is a huge part of its appeal! I've seen people compare Dimple possessing Reigen to Steven Universe fusion and I've compared it to drift compatibility myself and both of these things are very tasty, but for me it hits even harder because for them the intimacy is a choice, not a natural byproduct or an intentional prerequisite. Like, it's one thing for a sff setting to make an unconventional form of intimacy part of its worldbuilding like SU and PacRim do, but it's another thing entirely when it isn't an established part of the worldbuilding but something that the characters figure out on their own!

Like you said, for most of his existence Dimple has used possession as a tactic of violation and control. That's what you do when you're an evil spirit! It represents where he is at the beginning of the series; his view is that relationships are about who has the most power and who has the least, and if you have more you're going to use it to manipulate and subsume anyone less powerful than you. And then he starts changing! And by Season 2 he's using possession as a form of protection, not for himself but for Mob. Even when he possesses people without permission (Shinra and that one bully), he's not doing it to help himself! He does it to Shinra to get him out of danger (and says, notably, that if he let Shinra die then Mob would never trust him again), and he does it to the bully to protect Mob (and he stops when Mob says to!). And then in Mogami Arc we get the first instance of Dimple possessing someone because they explicitly asked him to, where he protects Mob's body while his soul isn't in it. Possession not only as protection but as trust! And you can tell from his reaction that this is something that Dimple has never considered before! And you can tell from how shocked he is during World Domination (manga) when he's able to possess an unconscious Mob that he especially never considered that trust like that could be an ongoing thing!

The point is, by the time Dimple meets Reigen in the middle of a psychic tornado, his concept of what possession can be has already undergone some major changes due to his friendship with Mob. But there's never been anything like what he and Reigen are able to do. There's been trust, there's been protection, but there's only ever been one consciousness in a body at a time. There's been vulnerability of body but not vulnerability of mind.

And it would have been easy for Dimple to push Reigen's consciousness down until they got to Shigeo. That's another thing that gets me; there's no reason that they had to both be awake on a technical level. But on a thematic level it is Everything to me that they're able to achieve a state that we've never seen before, that I bet if you'd asked them before this happened they both would have said was impossible, that is dependent on complete vulnerability and openness from two characters who will fight tooth and nail to prevent anyone else from seeing who they really are. It's about their shared familial love for their boy and it's about how much they understand each other in that moment.

And, like, I'm also ace, and generally not much of a shipper, and I tend to care a lot about group dynamics and platonic bonds, and I think that part of the appeal of ekurei bodysharing stuff is that even if you write about it in the most romantic way, you have to remember that the first time they did this it happened because of their shared platonic love for their kid so to me it feels just. Infused with all the different types of love and connection that the show is built on. Sometimes when someone focuses on a romantic relationship it gets deified in a way that undersells all the other bonds the character has, but for me at least romantic ekurei only works because of their other connections.

#conversations #ekurei #mp100 #mob meta #fantasy intimacy is SO good #it makes me lose my whole entire mind #i've been poking at a little fic set immediately post-confession that involves Reigen/Dimple bodysharing #and i have to work on it in small doses bc the overwhelming intimacy of just Existing together in the same space is just too much #i write a sentence about how it feels for Dimple to hear Reigen speaking from inside the same body #and i get so verklempt i have to hide my face in my hands and go lie down for a while

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permafusion-stevonnie · 1 year ago

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Does Stevonnie blame White for removing their gem, which also is the reason they can’t unfuse? Do they hate her, or has trauma after the whole thing?

Trauma is a yes. There was definite psychological pain, possibly some physical (but that's up to individual interpretation,) after having their gem pulled out. That moment of seeing through two eyes, feeling like they're in two places, and not feeling anything but that want, that need, that pure driving instinct to become whole again.

I think Stevonnie felt what it was like for the shards and the fusion experiments.

They don't want to hate or blame her. Some part of them does understand that White only did what she did because she thought it would bring her family back. She did wrong out of ignorance, not malice.

However another part of them also really does want to hate and blame White, because she never even tried to understand the situation and realise that Steven was different from Pink and that Pink was gone and so on.

Sometimes something done out of ignorance can be more damaging than something done out of malice.

The fact that what White did led to two very good kids being gone, and those two people are a part of what makes Stevonnie who they are also drives that part of them that wants to hate and blame.

Stevonnie wants to hate White for what she did, but also doesn't want to hate White because they can understand why she did it and why she was desperate enough to try it. So they feel conflicted and guilty for wanting to hate. So there might be a little self-hate in the mix too as they question whether they are a good person or not, because what kind of good person hates another who only tried to do the right thing, even if it was in the wrongest way possible?

Possibly some naive thinking, but two teens make up the core of their knowledge and personality, so I feel we can let that slide.

Add to all of that a big heaping pile of survivorship guilt, because Steven and Connie were the real people, with real lives and real families, while Stevonnie had always felt themselves to be a good, but temporary, experience.

This is long before Steven Universe Future where Steven and Connie seem to be, at least, thinking of the idea of becoming Stevonnie permanently, when they're older. Even then, with them being together like that, they'd always have the option to be apart if they wanted, or needed to. Similar to Ruby and Sapphire.

So Stevonnie does hate and blame White, but blames themselves more for not doing something at the time, even though they don't know what they could have done. They also hate themselves more for the negative feelings that they hold toward White.

It's a complicated hot mess of issues that are going to need a lot of time to work out.

Especially since Stevonnie is not ready to confront those issues yet.

#ask #answers #stevonnie

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writersblockisdead · 2 years ago

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Lightyear* ˚ 💕

Steven Universe x PTSD! Gem! Reader

Commission: Steven x PTSD Reader? I’m a sucker for hurt/comfort fics, so maybe a story about Steven comforting the reader through a nightmare, panic attack, or trigger in the field? I feel like his own trauma would be perfect for comforting/understanding what another persons trauma feels like. :3

@kitxel-draws

Steven was your friend, someone you hung out with quite a lot, the gems at first didn’t take a liking to you, at first because you were one of the gems found in the kindergarten poofed. But with Steven’s enthusiasm in allowing you to be reformatted the gems allowed you to join them.

It was hard at first trying to fit in an otherwise strange world with new faces and new gems. Before you were poofed you had been with another gem named Hassonite she was a gem that was one of your “owners” basically an aristocrat that was given to her. Hassie was everything to you, she even on numerous occasions allowed you to come with her to earth.

Unfortunately for you, the gem war was far from over when you both arrived there. She immediately got shattered and left you alone. As you weren’t a high ranking or any other gem you couldn’t fight back and instead was poofed yourself. This left you with trauma, as your only friend was brutally murdered, you were spared, but that didn’t excuse the lifelong trauma you were facing.

Back to the present you woke up screaming, normally gems don’t need to sleep, but you found yourself becoming more and more human, adapting to Steven’s weird human lifestyle, you find it amazing and interesting. But besides that… Screaming all night and day became a part of your life. It has been a hard few weeks adjusting to life with the gems and Steven and often awoken to Hassie being hurt and all you could do is watch.

The screaming was alerted by a tired Steven who heard it, you slept on the couch at the beach house, it wasn’t an issue, but Steven offered to sleep on the couch while they worked on a place for you in the Beach House but you rejected not wanting to intrude on Steven. He wandered to the couch only to see you shaking and mumbling Hassie’s name over and over.

Trauma.

Steven knew that. He understood that. He had mother issues as people will label it, but his issues were far beyond that. He suffered from a lot of things, he could almost never really get help for, he always believed that other people needed help, and he was just being a burden.

Trauma.

He’s seen it in a lot of gems. Lapis’ abuse, Amethyst's Defectiveness, Pearl’s Longing for his mother, and of course, Spinel’s Abandonment, out of all the gems, Spinel had the worst so far. Pearl is alongside her, but he could’ve seen himself in Spinel. His mom up and abandoned him instead of sticking by, because he knew it was possible for her to stay. But instead he had to clean up every single issue that his mom left behind in her wake. The pain and suffering of many gems that was caused because of a conflict she could handle. Steven was annoyed he never got a childhood. But he forgotten he was excited to join the gems on battling. As he was the one with the Rose Quartz gem, if only he knew it was a lie…

What was Steven thinking about again?

Oh right, (G/n). He cautiously walked down his loft and into the living room with concern written on his face. He never heard you act like this. He needed to approach you with caution, dealing with Spinel taught him he needed to approach delicately in situations and make sure the person wouldn’t lash out. Steven made his way up to you and sat down next to you. You yelped and smacked Steven by accident.

“It’s just me, (G/n) no need to worry.” He said.

“Steven?” You question.

“Yup, that’s me.” He noticed your shaking stopped slightly and you seemed to calm around him. He began to take that as a sign.

“So…” Steven began, “What got you yelling like that?” He asked. Your face paled.

“You… Heard that?” You asked.

“Yes.” He said.

“...Well, I don’t know… It’s just… Well. I am scared.” You admitted.

“Of what?” Steven asked.

You took a deep breath.

“That wasn’t the same (G/n) you heard before, I-” You began, your voice beginning to get shaky. Steven grabbed both your hands in his and looked at your eyes.

“Slow down and tell me slowly.” He said.

You nodded and continued. “What you heard was one of my many PTSD Nightmares. I… I was known as (G/n)-1A3L. I was given to a Hassonite lovingly referred to as Hassie…” You looked longingly at whatever you were trying to look at.

“But then she died. She was shattered in front of me when we arrived on Earth for a mission by Yellow Diamond. I was spared, I don’t know why they didn’t kill me right there and now, I lost my purpose the day Hassie died.” You said, your lip trembled.

“Ah, so you have survivors guilt. I know that feeling… I one time shattered Jasper by accident, and I tried to fix her. I was scared I killed her, but I managed to save her. There’s many other gems that weren’t lucky and I couldn’t save them. I can understand how you feel. But you know the best part?” He asked.

“What?” You asked.

“It happened, and it’s over, you may have lost someone close to you. But just because they died doesn’t mean it’s over for you. As long as you fight for them and show them in the gem afterlife that you are happy. You can do anything. But we all got to understand most of it isn’t our fault, and we cannot help them. They wouldn’t want us to suffer. They would be happy to see us move on…” Steven said.

You sniffled. “Is that the case, how would you know what’s best for me?” You asked.

“I don’t. It’s up to you, I just give advice. I normally don’t look after myself until I corrupt myself or have the gems worry.” Steven said, you sighed.

“Why would you have others worry for you like that?” You asked.

“It’s something I don’t understand myself either, I was overwhelmed by the amount of things said by my mother at first, it was all positive and I wanted to be her, so I genuinely began to help others and then… Years passed and I found out all that was said was a lie sort of, and I began to frantically help people and involuntarily corrupt myself. Which I didn’t even know was possible.” Steven admits.

“Sounds like you and I have different trauma but similar issues. We push ourselves and beat ourselves up. Sometimes we think that it’s not enough and that we need to do more, but… Sometimes what we’re looking for after all comes years later.” you said, looking at Steven.

“What are you saying, (G/n)?” Steven asked.

“I’m saying, the thing I was looking for was you. After Hassie’s death, I looked for something to try and fix me. Something I wanted to help with. Then… I became friends with you. I realized what you were… I was looking for my miracle my angel, Hassie sent me you.” You said, Steven smiled and hugged you as the two of you cuddled. The next morning Pearl found the two of you cuddled on the couch and she covered the both of you with a blanket.

#steven universe #commission #writing commission #steven universe x reader #steven universe x gem! reader #hurt and comfort #fanfiction #writeblr

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kaoticshiba · 2 years ago

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NONSENSICAL DRABBLE AND RAMBLE ABOUT EP 101. STATEMENT OF MICHAEL + Additional thoughts on Gertrude and Michael.

Spoiler for anyone who hasn't yet gotten to Ep. 101

I wanna point out, this won't make sense, I'm just throwing my observations in a document and posting it because I need to get it out somewhere. This is how I personally view Michael the distortion and what he has said in Ep. Regarding himself. I will be jumping from one thing to another so it will not make sense.

Like said it is just my rambling and how I observe the situation. Anyone can disagree and have their own opinions that differ but these are mine. I am not looking for a debate, just wanna put my thoughts out to process or find people who view it similarly + write it so maybe when people see my art they might understand why I draw certian situations, or Michael Distortion in a certian light.

Re- Listening to EP 101 , Michael's statement after being on ep... 125 (?) Kinda put stuff into perspective. The first time I didn't understand half of his statement. Then I relistened again I realised that the storyline of telling switches from Michael's POV to the spirals POV( before it was Michael ) back to Michael's and you can almost tell who is saying what.

I like to imagine Michael the distortion being like Garnet in Steven universe. It is Ruby and Saphirre but it is also not them , because together they make Garnet. Sometimes Garnet speaks as its own person, as its own relationship personified and sometimes when in distress or anger , you hear Ruby or Saphire speak out instead of the unified Garnet.

And with such logic it helped me understand Michael the distortion.

Because when he , The distortion, speaks of the ritual he is referring to the ( back then ) spiral but also to past Michael. At the moment of speaking, the spiral is Michael so a lot of times instead of it saying "The spiral" , he says " me/i " , because that's exactly what the spiral is right now but speaks of itself from before. It speaks of itself in past tense.

Then after, it goes to Michael's perspective once again and you hear , Michael Shelley speak of himself being scared and panicky and approaching the door in the middle of the ritual , like speaking out of the mixure of the distortion, before the POV switches and the spiral ( trough Michael the distortion ) speaks of it seeing two people ( which in this case were Gertrude And Shelley ) approach the door but not noticing because of the ritual...

I am not good with words and this might not make sense , but the switching of POV's between both the spiral and Michael Shelley while making/being Michael Distortion, is brilliant and so interesting. I needed a bit to realize what's happening but if you look at them as a fusion of a new being with both of their views and opinions mixed into each other, everything that the distortion Michael says, makes sense.

If you look at him as just Michael shelley gone mad it doesn't. As he says he is as much of the spiral as the spiral is him. And viewing them as a fusion , a 2 In 1 , something new with the feelings and experiences of both past beings, makes a lot of sense .

And I am delighted that I can understand it to some degree now. I feel like some contradicting things that Michael distortion says also come from the fact that he was 1. Angry at what had happened and betrayal from Gertrudes side 2. He was pushing away the spiral / didn't ever wanna be it. Because of this he speaks as more of they, once one, once other.

Surely he was more united at the beginning but it proves to how distortion Hellen treats Jon after that in 101 Ep that the distortions emotions and acting isn't something that comes from the spiral but from the person it merges with.

That also shows me, that the distortion has more feelings and opinions , its own will than its first let on and it is not a mere puppet to the spiral.

Yes they become a new thing but that doesn't mean that suddenly whatever the previous person was, is just overcome and its just a body which the spiral controls.

All in all, Michael isn't Michael Shelley ( at least not in the sense that he views and thinks like he used to before the distortion ) , but he is also not not Michael Shelley. Its is so... cool because that makes me wonder how much I can push the narrative that Michael the distortion shows his original feelings, from Michael Shelley.

I wanna throw in that I also believe he " pulled away " due to his anger , like mentioned , because his feelings got out. Michael Shelley was coming trough more and more because if the Unknowing failed or was brought about more due to Jon , he would in fact want to kill him not because of anything personal but because that would make his own sacrifice, Gertrude betraying him to stop the spiral ritual, go to waste. If he did everything , trusted Gertrude to sacrifice himself and stop the end of the world, he surely won't let this " stupid Archivist " mess the whole thing up and bring up the Unknowing. Neither the Eye ritual. It makes sense that he wouldn't want anything to happen when he, formerly Michael shelley sacrificed it all for the world not to go to shit.

The spiral didn't want it so but the spiral seems so... whatever about any decision that it feels like if the Spiral had no avatar to act trough. It would just not even care about anyone or any other ritual in general. So whatever Michael did , was because of his own feelings I feel like.

It's all just so interesting and my thoughts are a mess, do not make sense and are all jumbled up but I understand this now and it makes me so giddy about the way it's written. I love Michael and I love the distortion concept and in all I just adore it all.

It truly proves me that I'll have to relistem to TMA once I'm done again as there is so muxh to uncover and understand yet again once you've grasped the main concept of what is happening and who is involved in what.

I forgot to mention I first thought when I listened that when Michael looked upon the spiral , he did go mad but listening again, I realised that the way he describes it, he didn't go mad, he did however feel like it, because whatever he was looking at, didn't make sense and it was impossible to be happening. And it's such a cool detail. To feel like you're going mad but in fact you aren't even though you're seeing something it shouldn't be possible, alas its all somehow happening and very much currently real.

Poor Michael Shelley was still so scared and panicking... yet he trusted Gertrude.

I am not sure if I wanna believe that Gertrude had a plan but it didn't work and pushing Michael into it was her plan B.... or that Michael actually was really good and Gertrude trusted in him enough because he did what he was told ( and not as discardable and useless as he calls himself ) to actually let him be involved in the ritual. Idk whats worse. But I feel like if Gertrude thought Michael was useless and would fuck up the plan, she wouldn't have trusted him to go into the corridors to find the heart of the spiral and stop it.

Either way, when they made their way up there, she made up her mind to Sacrifice him to save the world and for that I cannot forgive her regardless of what the circumstances were. It is true by the time they were there she had probably no choice and it was a similar resort tactic as to what happened w Jon and Tim with the Unknowing, yet still-

- SPOILER FOR THE UNKNOWING RITUAL -

I feel like... Tim sacrificed himself willingly, he wanted to destroy the Unknowing for the stranger took his brother. Tim did it knowing he will go there and might die, while Jon didn't want him to die, Jon never pushed Tim to Sacrifice himself. While Gertrude... She knew and made up her mind to lie and conceal what she was gonna do to Michael , then pushed Michael to Sacrifice himself into the spiral when there was no going back.

Imagine being told on the spot the world will end and no matter if u want or not, you are manipulated into being pushed to save it, to go in, at the edge when it's happening and you have practically no choice.

Honestly horrible.

Good writing, amazing writing, but god do I hate Gertrude for that. Maybe she thought Michael would say no if she told him , but if she got far enough to get the map that leads to the heart of spiral I feel like there were diffrent ways to stop it or it was in her power to do smth. But she chose the " best option " with " least sacrifices " and something that she thought was prolly more logical and less emotional of a choice , a cold calculated choice of a chess piece. Yet... I like to believe there was a diffrent way.

Maybe she trusted Michael enough to know if she gives him the map and tell him to go in, that he will actually follow trough to the map and plan because he trusted everything Gertrude said , opposed to a random person who wouldn't be able to, or would not do it.

And I assume she didn't do it herself because she knew she couldn't. Because there were other rituals she wanted to stop and couldn't sacrifice herself for it.

Idk.

But damn .... just damn.

Random extra:

In addition , after listening to 101 , I want to draw the landscape, the happening of the spiral ritual when Gertrude and Michael found it as I have a specific look of it in my head but I'm so bad at landscapes and background xd

We will see...

Ramble ended. That's what I had to say , really.

#tma spoilers #the magnus archives spoilers #my own thoughts #my ramble #michael distortion #michael shelley #gertrude robinson #the spiral #spoiler #spoilers #michael shelley spoiler #distortion spoilers #kaoticshiba

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lilac-set · 6 months ago

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o/ Hi! For the system ask game:

(feel free to pick just a couple to answer, i know we sent a lot!)

🧡 (How does your system handle memories? Does everyone share, or is it split across members?)

⭐ (Do you have a headspace / inner world? What does it look like?)

🍀 (Do any system members practice a religion or belief system? What about spirituality?)

🧵 (How does your system handle the body's / vessel's appearance? Does everyone dress the same, or is there a broad range of styles?)

🤎 (Do system members typically agree on things or is there a broad range of opinions?)

🌼 (Do any members have accents or typing quirks? Are accents/quirks common in your system, or more rare?)

🤍 (Say something positive about another system member (or all of them, if you'd like!))

:o this makes me so happy!! Thank for you the ask!! We’re all cofronting rn which is perfect, although the little has the largest minority i think (dont be surprised if little mannerisms come through significantly) edit: as soon as we starting answering 🔥 came forward instead

�� we dont share memory storage, but if we’re cocon we can actively go dig through each others memories, and we’re basically always cocon, so that isnt much of an issue. That being said, some things fall through the cracks if it didnt seem important enough (or we forgot) to actively communicate it and the other one didnt know there was anything to go actively looking for. That doesnt interfere with anything as long as anyone who might have expectations for us is respectful of our plurality

⭐️ kinda? Do you know rose’s room in steven universe? It works kinda like that, we can will things into existence, but unless we’ve done that we dont really have a headspace. For example if we all want to sit at a couch together we can do that, and its always the same couch, its consistent, but we dont constantly keep it loaded in our “RAM” so to speak (computer metaphor)

🍀 religion no, spirituality yes, we’re (all four of us) nontheistic animists who place a significant importance on nature, for now the best term we have is druidry, but there are some aspects of druidry we dont resonate with, for example we dont like rituals (for ourselves), and we aren’t sure about the awen (again, for ourselves), but maybe its just because we’ve mostly seen it described from a more pantheistic perspective, but plenty of druids are nontheists, we’ve just never heard their perspective on it. Learning about the concept of the awen has certainly been inspiring to us to learn about and engage with bardic arts more, not that we’ve actually done it, but we’ve felt inspired to, and i know thats just what theism is for a lot of druids, choosing to believe in something not because you necessarily believe it as objective fact but because entertaining the belief has a positive impact on your life, which i respect. That brings me to my next qualm with it as well, ive heard multiple druids say that one cant call themselves a druid because they simply feel like one, but that active engagement with druidry is essential. Of course we make decisions in accordance with our values at every opportunity, but theres a limited amount we can do in terms or actual activism and engagement with nature according to our/druidic values given our living situation, lack of income, disabilities, etc. So, given that, im not sure we can technically call ourselves druids, but also druidry is a nondogmatic religion/spirituality, there are no hard and fast rules, these are just the opinions of a handful of individuals who happened to express them online, i dont know. Also it obviously feels ableist to us, but like i get it, it doesnt make much sense to call oneself an activist if one isnt engaging in activism, even if you believe in their beliefs. But druidry and activism aren’t synonymous. Yes both are lifestyles but one leans spiritual and the other leans… ya know, active. The last thing stopping me from identifying as a druid wholeheartedly is that druidry has strong connections with celtic culture, which is fine, i dont mind borrowing from and appreciating other cultures (this isnt a closed thing) (cultural anthropology is also a special interest of ours, these are related special interests), but to an extent it feels like an act of patriotism for a country i have no connection to. It would feel more connected to me if i could find a similar set of beliefs associated with a region that either i or my ancestors have ever lived in, but im not sure if that exists. Sorry this was longwinded, and i know i left a lot terms undefined that anyone unfamiliar with druidry is likely unfamiliar with, i just didnt wanna make this even longer and didnt wanna overexplain if no one is really interested (and i also dont wanna make any horrible mistakes when maybe you should be asking a “real” druid about this instead), but this is kinda a special interest of ours, feel free to ask more questions about it! We love to talk about it. Edit: ah shit, i just realized i basically just contrasted our spirituality to druidry but i didnt really tell you much about our actual spirituality itself, feel free to ask about that as well

🧵 so, we all identify with the body itself, but we dont necessarily agree on how we would present it. In headspace everyone dresses distinctly differently, we have different hairstyles and bodymods etc, but in the body everyone would look pretty much the same, not because we want to but because we still live with our parents, and they have weird arbitrary rules about how we’re allowed to dress. Not about modesty or anything but just whatever their preconceived idea of what our style would be before we were born, that now they enforce on us. We’ve actually grappled a lot though with the fact that once we move out and we would have more freedom, rather than everyone just looking like ourselves internally and the body looking like the body, the body will probably look like a particular one of us at any given moment, depending on who dressed it, and then if we switch, that person has to deal with the dysphoria of looking like their brother, and the first one has to deal with the dysphoria of their brother looking like them, and i know both of those would be really hard for us. Within our parents constraints right now obviously we like to wear our preferred colors or whatever, and we’re good at, like, “oh, he would like to wear this, and i know he’ll switch in later, so i’ll go ahead and put it on, because i know it’ll make him happy” (it does), or like cofronting/cocon compromising “ok ill put this on because i know you like it but ill get to choose the pants” or whatever, so maybe the style on the body in an ideal situation would end up being more of an amalgamation of all of ours, because i know we wouldnt struggle with that, but god do we each long for the euphoria of making the body actually look like ourselves individually. Aaaaas long as we dont switch

🤎 ah nice another shorter one (we like the long ones but god this post’ll be huge) yeah we pretty much agree on everything. 🪨 and i (🔥) experience attraction differently, he’s quioplatonic and hyperromantic and im alloplatonic (presumably?) and bellus-lithromantic, so thats been somewhat of a point of conflict that we cant agree on what type of relationship we want and are comfortable with with collective significant others, but other than that we’re pretty much on the same page about everything in general. I mean, (not to put down systems that cant relate, just talking about it for ourselves), imagine you had a conversation partner who you knew the exact line of reasoning of, you could feel their emotions directly, miscommunication was literally impossible, you share any relevant past experiences, etc. Sometimes it takes some talking but theres really no reason we wouldnt eventually come to a consensus. (Taking an excuse to talk about another special interest) The four of us are different myers briggs types, which means we value different types of information regarding what we pay the most attention to and what we prefer to make decisions based on, so thats something you would notice but isnt any sort of source of conflict. We have one of every xNFx type. Feel free to ask us more myers briggs questions, we could infodump about this forever. This question didnt actually end up being all that short lol. Edit: i realized there multiple uses of the word “opinion”, i took it here more like “belief”, “stance”, etc, but if youre talking about more like “preferences”, yeah we have plenty of different preferences, but im not gonna make this longer

🌼 the little uses babytalk, idk if that counts. No typing quirks or variation is regional accents, but our voices are distinctly recognizable, apparently.

🤍 ah fuck hmm let me think. Theyre so complex and wonderful and i dont want to reduce them to a single compliment, or create pda for them to continue being whatever i would say. I think ill pass on this one, they all know i love them <3

#lilac posts #lilac answers #fire posts

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