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storylocke · 1 year ago

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Alolan Dusk 14

Burnet:

[There wasn't really much else to say after that, but it still makes her feel so helpless] …After a while, I was able to get Kukui well enough for me to help him walk inside. We got him cleaned up, bandaged… I got him to drink, but he didn't eat anything until this morning. He's been sleeping off and on since then, but every time he wakes up, it's always sudden and alert like he heard something; which has got me paranoid now since every time I wondered if he was right. It wouldn't be so bad, but it took everything I could think of to keep him inside the apartment. I was scared if he got out, I'd never see him again.

Guzma:

I can believe it. After seeing him today, as wrapped up as he is, he acted like he's still looking for Round 3. [Awkward glance at Gladion as he remembers their earlier conversation.] And as battle obsessed as the guy is, it's like even as a Shadow he's been able to channel all the usual aggression into focus on a singular opponent. It's just… There's a fire in him we can't put out.

Lillie:

[Nods along as he describes it] The three of us were able to get him here, but given the circumstances, we had to put him in an isolated cell. I just hope Necrozma isn't mad enough to come looking for him…

Wicke:

I'm afraid we'll have to deal with the beast regardless of what he's after. We learned that it's already aware and angered by the evacuation, and we heard the creature may have been targeting individuals specifically because they knew too much about it. I doubt that, even if it is injured, Necrozma will sit idly by with Burnet as a liability.

Burnet:

[Sinks down a bit as she knows she's probably right.] Should I go, then? I wouldn't want to put anyone else in danger over all this.

Molayne:

Of course not. That just gives us more reason to get a hold of the monster before it can come to that. [*Despite not seeing it for himself, he's unsure how to react to the news that his old friend has ended up in such a state. Thinking over the story gives him some hope as he tries to lighten things up.] We might be in luck. Since it sounds like Necrozma got a taste of its own medicine, it must be pretty hurt to run off like that. I'm still concerned for Roark's sake, but the brute might be laying low for a while to recover.

Gladion:

Depends on how it usually recovers. If it needs sleep and herbs like most Pokemon do, you'd be right. But if it's just a matter of energy, most of our investigation showed the break in at Po Town was probably after the fight. What would you say, he attacked you somewhere between eleven and two last night?

Burnet:

[Straightens up with new concern. A break in?] Not too far after midnight, I think.

Guzma:

If it was after, then this thing has possibly consumed an entire trunk worth of Z-Crystals to replenish its energy.

Lillie:

I doubt crystals give as much energy as living things do, but if Roark was the one in control, he might have gone there to keep from hurting anyone else. He would have known about the chest, wouldn't he?

Guzma:

[Gets his blood boiling just thinking about it] Tch, yeah. There's not much to be done in fixing Po Town, but that didn't stop Roark and Kukui from stopping by to help with repairs. Little maniac probably had his eye on it, just waiting for-

Quips:

[Softly] Roark never could say what happened to Hau that day. [He'd been quiet during most of the story, and the remark catches everyone's attention.] To think he may have been under that monster's spell that long ago…

Burnet:

[Her heart sinks as she can only imagine how that hurt him. He would have been closer to Roark than any of them. Except maybe Lillie. Clears her throat.] I can't think of a better way to describe it, but the way he acted, I genuinely don't think he knows. He and Hau were so close, he'd never hurt him on purpose. I don't think Roark would hurt anyone if he could help it.

Quips:

That's not what worries me. [Leans back in his seat to face the group. Don't give him that look, he'll be alright. Deep breath he debates how to explain this] Back when I was about their age, I knew two other Chosen. Being a former Chosen, Roark would have been used to blacking out, which he always told me is what happened when he and Hau were attacked. I wouldn't think passing out like that would continue after the Voices left, but I couldn't argue it when both my brother, Devin, and our friend, Nigel, had lingering health problems after their journeys. It scared Roark, but we both thought it was a residual effect he would have to learn to deal with. But now?

Faba:

[More annoyed than concerned] Yes, the problem now is it sounds like Roark is as aware of this as we are. What he plans to do with that knowledge could spell trouble for all of us.

Dexio:

How's that? Before, it was suggested we just try to keep him away without causing a scene when he finds out he's not allowed on board. If he knows it's because he's a threat to us and the whole operation, wouldn't that make our job easier?

Faba:

For one, we can't predict his mental state after discovering such news. If he's alone and away from us while he sorts this out, then that's wonderful. But if he's panicking, he could come here seeking help and accidentally put us all in danger. Or if he and Necrozma are in a confused and disoriented state together, the monster may be ripe for a rampage like when it first escaped Ultra Megalopolis. It could also be that if Roark is trying to fight back, and Necrozma realizes it no longer has a puppet, it might be pushed into drastic action.

Gladion:

[Solemnly] Drastic like taking complete control because it can't trust Roark to enter places for it willingly anymore. If it dropped him to take revenge, it has no shield against Pokeballs, and if it tried to take someone else, it would risk exposure for an attack. Desperation or retaliation seem most likely. And if it's smart enough to not only possess but try to impersonate its host, our only solution may be to attack or capture Roark on sight.

Lillie:

[Frowns] But how are we supposed to capture him? Unless you mean physically with nets and a chamber or something.

Faba:

Hmph. I don't suppose you two know how your mother went about freezing things, do you?

Gladion:

[Tenses up, trying to keep his temper in check as that's the second time he'd been accused of doing such a thing] No. But I have a feeling it would take too long anyway.

Colress:

[While they're all debating, leans over to whisper to Molayne] I guess that means we won't have much time for research. Are you ready for a long night?

Molayne:

[Soft sigh and nods. Olivia was going to kill him. He perks up when remembering they may have extra help now.] Actually a net and chains may not be such a bad idea if we can stun it long enough to get close to it. Burnet? [She seems nervous as she sits at alert] That mirror you were using was able to somehow seal Necrozma within Roark, didn't it? Not fixing him, but it seemed to calm him down? Or at the very least, if we see him, we can see what state he's in.

Colress:

[Intrigued what the Elite could be thinking now] Yes, what is that exactly? Keeping it hidden in a lockbox and having such an effect on the creature makes it sound extraordinary.

Wicke:

The Reveal Glass? [Excited] Oh, it is fascinating. My team discovered it ages ago when studying the Dreamworld. It was hidden in this old shrine, but since it was said to have some ties to the Interdream Zone, we just had to have it~! I eventually had to give it to the Dimensional Research Lab for protection, but who would have thought after all these years, the mirror would be protecting us!

Burnet:

Heh, hadn't thought of it like that. I didn't bring it to dinner, but I have it secured in my new office. It's not exactly something to be passed around. [Concerned] No one knows how Reveal Glass was made or how it works, but there are so many stories of people who believe what they see in these mirrors as their real self. Tales of those staring into the pool or reflection so long that it led to obsession, paranoia, using the mirrors to determine major alliances, and often falling into self-fulfilled prophecies.

Wicke:

That much seems true. I'd say this thing played a role in the Dreamyard's destruction, which is why I gave it away.

Burnet:

And I still study it because of the interdimensional connections, but we don't leave it out where the staff can readily access it.

Colress:

Astonishing! [They may be telling him this as a warning, but it only makes him even more eager to get his hands on one and learn for himself. Just gives the women a smile] We don't want to take it from you, I'm simply thinking it might play a key role in our plans to face the creature. Is that right?

Molayne:

Yes. If it can be used to paralyze or confuse Necrozma, it might buy us some time to enact some countermeasures.

Gladion:

And if we tie it down and shove it in a room, then what? Do you honestly think some chains are going to hold it when the dedicated and more advanced prison in Megalopolis couldn't?

Lillie:

And what about Roark? Do these measures have a plan for saving him?

Quips:

We all want to save him, my dear, but I think sealing the beast away is everyone's top priority. If that means he has to be sealed away with it until new tools can be made, it's an unfortunate risk we have to take.

Burnet:

I'm not sure it would work anyway. I understand these rare mirrors were apparently made to replicate the sacred lakes that are said to connect to other worlds, and only certain Pokemon can pass through the gateways which would cause some sort of transformation. Humans can't pass through the looking glass, but I don't think what they see is what they really are at their core, it's just another version of themselves. The figure in the reflection does exist, but it's still a play on our own internal perception and hidden ambitions. [Deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts on the subject since she's been all out of sorts today.] I just say this because Roark is a strange case. We're not even in full agreement to what Necrozma even is. The Reveal Glass can cause a form change with some Pokemon, so that might be how our friend regained control. But for how quickly they switched back, I'm not sure if the reflection would be considered his "other form" since there was no physical change in the real world. Could be that the way he was talking to me before the fight about everything being his fault, it just happened that his guilt lined up with the truth. It might even be that the light attack is what stunned Necrozma enough for Roark to finally see it.

Faba:

Hmph. Somehow, if that were the case, I highly doubt Necrozma would fall for the same trick twice.

Molayne:

[Understandable, but that puts a damper on things] I didn't say it was the best plan, I'm just trying to assess what all we have at our disposal in order to keep us and our Pokemon from having to challenge this monster directly.

Guzma:

[Crosses arms over his chest, closes his eyes] Y'all can plan all you like, but you know that if and when that moment comes, it's going to be chaos. Practice your reactions, maybe and keep the tools nearby. Take it from me, there's no "planning" for what that thing will do.

Everyone:

[That certainly brought the mood down.]

Gladion:

As I said before, we don't have many leads to go on right now. Might be wise though to keep our strongest partners and these "tools" on hand if anything comes up, and find out as much as we can about our options between now and when we leave. [Looks the group over to see any objections.] Now, unless anyone else has anything to say, we should split up for the night and try to get some rest. Even if we're preparing for an encounter, we can't forget that our main priority is the evacuation. [They all agreed, and prepared to leave. With that in mind, though, it would be a hard time for anyone to think about sleep.]

~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: With the gang all here, it's time for a break. There's a lot to think about and arrangements to be made, so the next chapter or so will just be some character interactions before we get back into the action. I debated about including it or not, but it's got some fun world building.

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#twitch plays pokemon #alolan dusk #horror #mystery #story #gladion aether #lillie aether #professor burnet #wicke pokemon #faba pokemon #dexio pokemon #molayne #skull boss guzma #hau “quips” hala

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collidingxworlds · 3 years ago

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So!

Since I managed to do what I’ve been trying to do for months (aka finishing my Muse Pages and updating the Verses Pages), I decided to treat myself and give into the Stranger Things hype that has been dominating my dashboard for a good while.

Under the cut there are Five’s and Abigail’s brand-new ST verses! I still have drafts and my creativity is still a bit dried, but if anyone is interested in plotting something with them in their AU, hit me up ^^

Abigail’s verse can start in any season, while Five’s has a mandatory start in season 1 (but I can work around it if needed).

ABIGAIL HOBBS

Stanger Things AU || I’m not the Final Girl, I’m the Monster

Meet Abigail Hobbs. Orphan, daughter of a late, notorious serial killer, yet another young life ruined by the system. One of the latest arrival in Hawkins. Driven by a dark, obsessive love for his daughter and by the need to consume her, Garrett Jacob Hobbs started to kill girls who resembled Abigail when she was just a young kid, forcing her into the role of the lure and making her an accomplice to his crimes. Hobbs was eventually discovered by the FBI and killed, but not before he could murder his wife and almost mortally wound his daughter, in one last, desperate attempt of taking her down with him. Abigail was only twelve at the time and, when she woke up from her coma, she found herself with no family, no house, no money and a nasty scar on her neck as a permanent reminder of what kind of monster had spawned her. After bouncing from one foster family to the next, she eventually ends up in Hawkins at the age of 16. Strongly independent with a deep dislike for rules and laws, she finds herself joining the town’s petty crime circle in the matter of a couple of weeks. Nothing new for her, since her record has already quite a few, even if always small, stains on it. She quickly gains a reputation for ganging up with the local teen drug dealers and for being a permanent fixture on Hopper “watch out for” list, but her real talents and urges, the one she inherited from her father, are yet to come out into the light.

[ Headcanons ]

NUMBER FIVE

Stranger Things AU || The Boy from the Other Side

Hawkins secret lab isn’t the only place were children with extraordinary abilities have been brought together and trained. Doctor Reginald Hargreeves has spent a great deal of his life studying the paranormal and the theories concerning parallel universes to our own. And, eventually, his researches have led him to a dreadful conclusion: there is a much darker reality lurking just past the confines of our dimension, ready and eager to break in and infect the world as we know it. Counter measures had to be taken and this is how Project Umbrella was born. Seven children, all equipped with slightly different psionic powers, trained and experimented on with the aim of creating a squad that could, one day, save the world from such a dark, impending threat. Things, however, didn't go as planned and quickly spiralled out of hand one fateful day. Perhaps it was the too strict training. Perhaps it was the lack of time for the children to express themselves. Or maybe it was just the bud of teenage rebellion. Number 7's powers got out of control during one of her special training. She was the most powerful but also the most sensible of all the children, kept isolated for "safety reasons". A tear in the fabric of space and time was opened and hell broke lose. The lab was destroyed, Doctor Hargreeves and his assistance Grace disappeared in the flames. All the data from their research, including vital information about the dark dimension, lost. The children were scattered. Number 6, was killed, while Number 7 was knocked into a coma. 1, 2, 3 and 4 managed to get out alive. As for Number 5, he was the closest to 7's location when it all happened. In the attempt to get them both out of the collapsing lab, he tried to use his abilities to portal out. Grave mistake. The energy from the unstable gate laced onto his own and sucked them in. He barely managed to push his sister out of the portal before it swallowed him, trapping him in the Upside Down. A year later, just a few days after Will Byers' disappearance, a 13 years old boy appeared in the woods. Clothes dirty and all torn. Deadly pale skin caked in mud, blood and black ooze. A weird tattoo on his wrist, a stylised umbrella in a circle and the number "5" in the middle of its cover. The time spent in the Upside Down has left Five with very blurred memories of his life in the lab and absolutely no recollection of the accident. All he knows is that his siblings are out there, somewhere, and that there is a creature lurking in the shadow reality, ready to bring on the end of the world.

[ Headcanons ]

#(( mun scotty's personal log ::ooc:: ))#(( blog updates ))#v. The boy from the other side ::Stranger Things AU ; Five::#v. I'm not the final girl. I'm the monster ::Stranger Things AU ; Abigail::

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proudfreakmetarusonikku · 3 years ago

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/rp

tw: physical and mental abuse, torture, drowning, broken bones, body image issues, horror, manipulation, kidnapping, implied gaslighting and stalking, referenced human experimentation, disassociation, obsession, and possessive behaviour

The only illumination in the forest was the silver of the full moon, it’s light streaming gently through the autumn leaves. The only sound was the quiet rustling of leaves in the breeze, the soft footsteps of passing animals. It was… peaceful. Serene. One might not expect it to be one of TommyInnit's favourite places, but it was far away enough from the rest of the server that he felt safe, quiet enough that he’d be able to hear any intruders.

He’d barely been able to sleep lately, ever since he'd heard those sirens, barely been able to leave his house. But it’s not a Big Man thing to hide in the house, trembling in fear like a fucking pussy. He’s not sure what in his sleep deprived mind possessed him to try and get over it by spending the night in a surely monster-infested at this time of night forest, but fuck it. He was always right, anyway, there was a reason people called him Tommy Trusty, or more accurately why he and only he called himself Tommy Trusty.

(No, it had nothing to to do with the fact he was going half mad back in the embassy, losing everything and finding it just when he was about to give up, always hearing noises in the walls Tubbo and Ranboo insisted were just the pipeworks, occasionally seeings the flash of a figure in the corner of his eyes. He’d torn the entire hill apart and found no evidence of anything, but as soon as he rebuilt it started up again.)

He just about jumped out of his skin hearing the pinging of his communicator. His laughter when he realised it was just the communicator definitely wasn’t forced, though, he definitely wasn’t shaking when he opened it up, because he wasn’t a fucking bitch baby. Probably just Tubbo or Ranboo being too damn clingy, or Wilbur asking why the fuck he’s a grandfather or something, right?

His eyes widened when he read the message on his screen. The communicator fell to the floor as Tommy scrambled desperately into the trees, words still repeating in his head over and over.

Dream: Run :)

——

It could have been minutes or hours of blind running through the trees in sheer panic before he dared to take a seconds break, doubling over against a tall oak, panting. He wasn’t even sure if he’d gotten anywhere, or just ran in circles, and he wasn’t even sure if it mattered. It was Dream, he did this shit for a living. Tommy was a dead man walking. Was it even worth it running to just prolong it, instead of just sitting still and waiting to die?

A strange sound came from his mouth, a warbling combination of crying and laughter. It forced it's way from his chest, loud and painful and making him break into fits of coughing, barely holding onto the bark to keep himself upright. Prime, was he already going insane? The sun hadn’t even rose yet, and he was already barely standing on shakey legs, laughing and crying into the void.

The void laughed back.

Tommy barely had a second to react before he felt the harsh bite of the axe into his shoulder, and was pinned to the tree like a butterfly to a board, forced to stare face to face with his hunter.

Dream's mask was askew, his eyes manic (no, he realised, his eye, a sickening feeling grasping his stomach as it dawned on him one had been ripped out, leaving an empty, scarred socket). His mouth was twisted into a grin, half as manic as his eyes but half eerily familiar, reminding him of the look on Wilbur's face when they’d first met again after the two of them had moved to the SMP.

After too-long and not-long-enough, Dream yanked back the axe, causing Tommy to crumple to the floor as a new wave of pain emanated through his body. He struggled for breath, not even enough energy to scream, and barely even notice the hand ruffling through his hair brotherly.

Claws grasped tightly around his hair after a moment, yanking him back up onto his feet. He barely avoided falling back onto his knees after Dream let go, as he shakily ran as fast as he could, deeper into the forest, ignoring the eyes bored in on his every move, the wheezing laughed echoing off the trees, the sinking feeling that this too was just another part of the game.

——

Tommy took shakey breaths, curling in on himself and trying to be as quiet as possible, small as possible. He instinctively raised his hand to his shoulder for what must have been for the thousandth time. It’s still surprising when he doesn’t feel it slick with blood, just cold like marble, like a corpse.

(He really was just a dead body forced to keep walking around, wasn’t he? He couldn’t look at himself in the mirror anymore, and the confirmation it wasn’t just skin deep felt almost as sickening as the agonising pain going from his shoulder all the way down to his fingers as they lay limp and unresponsive.)

“Come 'ere, Tommy!” Dream said to himself with a clear smile in his voice. God, Tommy sweared he hadn’t shut up since he’d first found him, and he still jumped whenever he heard it. He’d collapsed into the bushes the second he’d had a moment of silence, but that couldn’t just fucking last, could it? “I know you’re here, Tommy. Come on, stop hiding,” he said, voice filled with the same condescension one would have talking to a child or a frightened animal. “I don’t want to have to burn down the forest, but I will if I have to.”

Tommy's eyes darted, frightened, through the greenery. He’d had the luck to manage to collapse away from the thorny berry bushes that surrounded him, but he’d have to crawl through them to escape. He couldn’t find it within himself to care, anyway. He was already aching everywhere, and he’d caught one of his trouser legs on a branch, ripping it awfully and letting his leg get stung over and over by nettles until it was red and inflamed. It was already his bad leg, the one that always hung a bit limp after he broke it in the Final Control Room, but mixed with what must have been hours of running from the muted sunset colours painting the plants around him and a few rough trips he wasn’t sure he could even walk anymore.

Still, he couldn’t just sit and wait to burn to death, so when he heard the sound of a spark he desperately crawled through the brambles, clawing through with one good arm and leg, scrambling as fast as he could to try and somehow get a lead. He heard Dream's fucking obnoxious tea-kettle laugh, and grit his teeth as he heard the sound of claws against dirt grow closer.

Tommy tried his best to keep quiet as the thorns dug into his skin, as he had to use his remaining working hand to pull them out as they embedded themselves in his skin. Something other than the gnawing terror grew in his chest, something warm, as he slowly, far too painfully slowly, clawed his way closer and closer to the clear ground, felt the ground turn muddier and more and more of a slog to drag himself through. He could hear the flowing water of a river up ahead, and ridiculously his first thought is relief he can finally get off the dirt and grime uncomfortably coating every inch of him.

He breathed a sigh of relief, the first in who knows how long, as he finally, finally, managed to crawl out of the foliage, clawing his hand onto the clearing. He felt a sense of relief, of finally being free from the awful feeling of the thorns tearing through his clothes and sinking into his flesh. He wasn’t sure if what he was feeling was hope, but it was the closest he could ever remember to it.

Whatever it was, Tommy quickly felt it die as something heavy came down on his hand, the feeling of his bones being crushed underneath him sending a new wave of nausea through his body, leaving him gagging, not enough in him to even be sick.

Dream pulled him into the air by the scruff of his neck, and Tommy didn’t even have the energy to fight back anymore. He just let himself hang limply from Dream's grip, eyes focused on nothing in particular as his hunter laughed and laughed and laughed hysterically.

“Oh, Prime- Tommy, you should have seen the look on your face!” Dream said in between breaths, wiping an inky black tear from his eyes. “That’s the best part of the hunt, y’know? Watching your enemies hope leave their eyes once they’re reminded who they’re dealing with. Once they know who really holds the power- well, there wasn’t really any question here, but you’re so stubborn, anyway. And all I had to do was strike a match.”

Dream forced Tommy to look at the plants behind him, completely healthy and unburnt. “I didn’t even have to set anything alight, I just had to make you think I did. It’s so easy! You never think ahead, do you, Tommy? When the fear gets to you, there’s nothing different from you and a wild animal. And wild animals can be tamed.”

“Fu-fuck off,” Tommy forced through gagging. “I’m not like- like a fucking wolf, I'm not a pet. I'd rather die.”

Tommy was pretty sure Dream was rolling his eye. “Well, if I have to do both, there’s nothing stopping me. No one knows where we are. I’ve not seen anyone else even come here but you. Even if they go looking for you, they’ll never find us, Tommy. We've got an eternity.”

“Even if? Shut up, prick. I know they’re looking for me. Tubbo's looking for me. Ranboo's looking for me. Wil- Wilbur, he has to be looking for me.” Tommy insisted.

Dream’s face softened into the false concern that pissed off Tommy more than anything. “Wilbur? Why would Wilbur be looking for you? He left you behind with just a forgetful ghost, remember? And Tubbo? Tubbo exiled you once before, what makes you think he’s gonna care now you’re gone again? Did he even try to free you when you were stuck in the prison? Did Ranboo?”

“I-“ Thinking of it, Tommy wasn’t sure if they had. They’d just got married, adopted a kid, and tried to forget about him. He wasn’t going to fucking listen to Dream, though, so he growled, half feral. “Shut up. Just kill me and get it over with, dickhead.”

Dream burst into the wheezing laughter again. “I’m not going to kill you, Tommy. Not here, not now. That’d be far too boring. I'm going to keep going up until you can’t, anymore, and then I'll take you home- to our home, I built it specifically with you in mind, and then maybe we'll get started on the experiments.”

That brought back old memories that Tommy had hoped were gone, tubes and agonising injections and scalpels and being cut open alive again and again. “I’m not being a fucking labrat again.” Tommy said, swallowing and trying to hide the shakiness of his voice.

“You don’t have a choice,” Dream said, sounding far too cheerful about that fact. He carelessly dropped Tommy back to the ground, onto his knees. He ran a hand through Tommy's hair like he was stroking a fucking dog, and Tommy hated how he automatically leant into it, some animalistic, raw sound bubbling from his throat as Dream continued. “Don’t worry, Tommy, I'll take care of you. It’s not like I’m going to lock you in a cage and ignore you or anything. You’re far too fun for that.”

Tommy looked at the ground, trying to hide the fact he could feel his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. How much had he told Dream about everything, during exi- during Logsted- during the “E” times? He yelped as Dream roughly forced his chin up with his claws, digging in harsher than the thorns. Tommy did his very best to avoid looking him in the eyes as he felt his gaze.

“Tommy. Look at me.”

“No,” he said without thinking. By the time he realised what he said, before he could even open his mouth he was being dragged by his hair. The pain was almost as bad as his hand, as he was unable to even try and take the weight onto anything but the chunkful of hair Dream had a vice grip on. Tommy bit his tongue, trying his best not to scream.

He didn’t even realise what was going on until his head was shoved under the freezing water. He took a lungful of water in with a breath, desperately flailing with what strength he had left with what limbs he could move. The cold stung at his eyes, his skin, feeling like a thousand needles stuck through every nerve on his head, and he couldn’t stop himself from hyperventilating, taking in more and more water until suddenly he just felt too tired to move, too calm to care, and his head was suddenly yanked back out into the air.

He coughed up water, taking in a few breaths, and before he could fully comprehend what was going on he was under the water again, burning his lungs and making him want to peel his skin off. He wasn’t sure how many of the horrible, repetitive cycles he went through of the drowning, under until he felt like he was going to drown, then up for a few precious breaths only to be forced back into the water again. The worst part was that he couldn’t help thinking, well, this is better than the salt water, better than the exile.

Finally, after what feels like hours he's pulled back onto the bank, curling up in on himself and gagging up mouthfuls of water. He closed his eyes and saw Log- saw the beach, opened them and saw the forest, until they started to blur together, mud and tents and fresh and salt water mixing into one.

He painfully forced himself up on one elbow after finally he didn’t feel like he was going to vomit up any more water, and he heard Dream hum. “So you can still crawl, hmm? I‘ll give you a ten minutes head start, and you better have moved by the times up.”

“But-“

“I told you, this ends when you can’t keep going anymore. Not when you won’t.” Tommy flinched away from the sternness of the voice, expecting another blow. “Maybe I'd have given you some pity, if you hadn’t defied me. Unless you liked it under the river, I’d suggest you obey.”

Tommy didn’t need to be told twice.

——

Tommy had barely managed to crawl from the river, behind a boulder, when he collapsed completely.

He couldn’t move anymore, could barely blink. It was still sunrise, the last of the stars having disappeared. The colours were pretty.

Prime, he was tired.

He felt back like when he was little, and Philza had just taken Tubbo in, and he’d stayed up all night comforting him after he’d had a nightmare, and he was so tired he’d started seeing shit, yet feeling like he couldn’t sleep yet, he needed to stay awake.

He’d never see Tubbo again. He thought he’d feel sad about that, but he just felt resigned. Sadness required energy he didn’t have.

All he could really focus on was the feeling of the breeze against his skin, the heavy feeling against his chest as he focused on breathing, in, out, in, out, the burning in his throat and his shoulder and his hand. They felt like the only things real anymore, everything else a dull snapshot that felt so distant, so far away.

He knew he should panic when he heard the sound of claws tapping on the ground, words that blurred into one big mess, but he couldn’t. He just felt tired, frozen.

He’d heard, once, that when deers stand in the headlights of an upcoming car they freeze instead of running or fighting. Tommy thought that was stupid back then. Now, dimly, it made sense. Staying still was just so much easier, and sometimes all you could do was conserve your energy.

He wanted to just close his eyes, to sleep, but something at the back of his mind screamed at him that Dream wouldn’t like it.

He feels a hand ruffle through his hair before he sees him, and for a second he thinks of Wilbur, back when Tommy was very little. He used to have nightmares back then, and he’d cry all night and wake up Wilbur and Wilbur would tell him made up stories about grand nations and heroes with cocky grins and electric blue eyes with cool brothers that wrote songs and loved the ocean.

Wilbur wasn’t here, though. It was just Tommy and Dream. Just Tommy and Dream now and forever.

“‘M tired,” he whined, leaning into Dream's touch automatically. Dream laughed.

“You must be. C'mon, let’s go home.”

Tommy didn't resist as Dream picked him up effortlessly, slung over his shoulder like a hunters prize catch. It hurt his shoulder, and he bit his tongue, vaguely remembering he didn't like showing weakness. He felt like more of a placeholder in Tommy's shell, like Tommy had fallen asleep awake and he was the replacement.

He tried to focus on Dream. Focus on something but the static of tiredness clouding his head. Being like that felt dangerous, like something he wasn’t allowed to do. But Dream was there, physically there, and Tommy focused on the feeling of his bony shoulder, the sharp claws gently holding him steady, the feeling of hair brushing against the tattered remains of his hoodie.

“Y'know,” Dream said, more to himself than to Tommy, “I've got materials for some regen potions back home. With them, your hand could be able to heal in a few weeks, and then we can do this all over again. That'd be nice.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no.”

“'T wouldn’t be fun. I don’t wanna do this ever again.”

Dream laughed to himself slightly. “I wasn’t asking. Not everything is about you, Tommy. Now, go to sleep. I want you aware when I show you our new home.”

“'Mkay.”

Dream laughed again. “You'll really do anything I say like this, won't you?”

Tommy shook his head, ignoring how dizzy it made him. “Nah, 'm just… tired.” he said, finishing with a yawn, making Dream laugh again. That was good, he thought. It was just him and Dream, right? They just had each other, now, they should try and help each other.

Tommy knew he should have been frightened, he should have been fucking terrified, but all he could think of drifting off to sleep was that he just hoped tomorrow would be less exhausting.

#my writing #dsmp writing #dream smp writing #primeboys (derogatory)#tw abuse #tw torture #tw Drowning #tw body image issues #tw broken bones #tw horror #tw manipulation #tw kidnapping #tw implied gaslighting #tw implied stalking #Tw human experimentation mention #Tw disassociation #tw obsession #tw possessive behavioir

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shroomcult · 4 years ago

Link

@soulxmakaweek

Day 4: Apologize

I fell way behind with Soma week because I got slammed with work and this monster of a fic took me too long to write.

Summary:

Maka comes to realize that Soul had never felt fully comfortable around Crona, and in ignoring this entirely - she unknowingly hurt her closest friend.

Special thanks to Tori @chichirichick (she betas all of my dumpster fires, bless her) for proofreading this mess of emotions and also to Zi @azroazizah for coming up with the concept for this fic.

**Disclaimer** This story is not about putting blame on Crona, but instead about acknowledging the fact that Soul went through trauma due to their actions and it was never taken into consideration by Maka before inviting them into their friend group. I'm not saying Crona didn't deserve support, but it's also completely valid for Soul - a victim of Crona - to not feel entirely safe around them regardless of their tragic background and circumstances. If Crona is a big comfort character for you and you feel you would likely be upset by this concept, then I recommend not reading it altogether. We all interpret things different and we're all entitled to our own opinions, and I'm not going to get in arguments with people over this.

It’d been a while since the Spartoi team was all together again.

After the fall of Asura, they really had no purpose to join forces as a team. No big baddie to unite them in ass-kickery.

The skies were blue again. There were still Kishin eggs to take down, and a shaky new diplomatic relationship with the witches to maintain as well.

Things were more or less … normal. Boring, even.

The only big difference Blackstar could discern was that nobody seemed to have time to just hang out and be friends anymore.

Kid was over his head with his new responsibilities, and while he was doing an admirable job filling his father’s shoes; there was a steep learning curve and his perfectionist tendencies only made it more challenging to overcome. He upheld a calm and collected demeanor in the public’s eyes, but Liz and Patty spent most of their time holding him together behind the scenes.

Soul and Maka were a different situation entirely.

It was odd enough to adjust to the recent change in the nature of their relationship. They claimed to be the same as they’ve always been - just Soul & Maka. Only, they grew much closer after the hardships they had endured both in the book of Eibon and on the moon.

They had been close to begin with, but this was a different kind of close. Stolen glances, hands reaching for each other when they thought nobody was looking. Blushing for almost no damn reason.

Something was going on between them - he could be sure of that.

More recently, however, Maka had been particularly obsessive about solving the dilemma of Crona’s entrapment on the moon. She was driving herself to a slow-burning insanity, considering every moment that she hadn’t rescued them yet to be a personal failure.

She’d been spending much of her time in the restricted section of the library, consuming every piece of relevant research for hours on end. Soul often stayed up there with her doing the same, or at the very least keeping her silent company when he was too burnt out to read anymore.

He’d also spent much of his extra time with Stein, training to perfect his sound-wave abilities into his own form of wavelength attack.

He’d been giving his all ever since making deathscythe status to hone his strength and better serve Maka. He’d even been able to hold his own for a surprising amount of time in the sparring ring against Blackstar, and that was a feat in and of itself.

All of the focus on Crona’s rescue had appeared to be wearing on him, though.

Soul may have accepted Crona into his friend group for Maka’s sake, even empathized with them - but he had never fully trusted the demon sword meister. Although Soul was outwardly friendly towards them, Blackstar noticed the way his friend had watched them like a hawk before they turned back to Medusa. He was always ready for a scenario like that because he had never felt entirely safe around them to begin with.

Not that Maka had bothered to even take Soul’s feelings into consideration before forgiving Crona on his behalf.

She couldn’t have possibly been that dense. She had to have been actively ignoring the signs of Soul’s discomfort because she couldn’t handle acknowledging them.

And now she was doing the same thing all over again even with Crona as far away as the moon. It was obvious that Soul was doing what he always did - shoving his own feelings aside in favor of Maka’s. The loyal mutt of a boy valued her wellbeing far above his own, that was for certain.

He just seemed so exhausted of it all now. Searching tirelessly with Maka for a solution that may not even exist took up much of his time and energy.

He never had the time to shoot hoops or play video games like he used to, and Blackstar was far above begging for his attention. He stopped even bothering to ask him.

Just for one night though, by some divine luck - everybody was willing to clear their schedule to have a late night dinner at the most beloved and heart-attack inducing burger joint in town.

Every member of Spartoi was crammed into the largest booth in the restaurant and their chatter was loud enough to fill the whole section.

There were multiple conversations happening at a time, but Blackstar was zeroing in on Soul who had his chin resting on his palm and that stupid, dopey look he got on his face when he was proud of Maka. Yuck. Keep it in your pants, loverboy.

Maka was next to Soul, his arm stretched out behind her on the booth, while Ox engaged her in a fiery debate over god knows what across the table from her. Judging by the redness in baldy’s face - Maka was on the winning side. He really couldn’t understand Soul’s hard-on for a bossy know-it-all personality, but whatever floats his boat he supposed.

He decided he’d seen enough of that look on his best friend’s face and crumpled up a straw wrapper, dipping it in his soda and sticking it at the end of his straw.

He blew on the other end, sending the sticky wad of paper flying across the table. The projectile hit its target directly on the cheek.

“Fuck’s sake dude, how old are you?” he grumbled, reaching over the table to grab a handful of napkins to clean his face off with.

Maka snatched some of his napkins for herself, rubbing it vigorously into the flecks of cola that stained her uniform. “You got my shirt all wet, idiot.”

Blackstar simply threw his head back to cackle obnoxiously. “I just thought I should break up your lame little debate team fight before Ox over here pops a blood vessel. You know he can’t handle losing well.”

“I wasn’t losing!” Ox hissed under his breath.

Maka only met her opponent’s glare with a shit-eating grin.

“Hey, Maka! What had you stopped to talk with Professor Stein about earlier today?” Tsubaki cut in, obviously attempting to diffuse another argument between the two competitive brainiacs.

Maka’s expression relaxed into something a little more neutral, seemingly caught off guard by the question. Debate-mode successfully disarmed.

“Oh. Well… I just had some questions about my black blood research for him.”

Blackstar didn’t miss the way Soul tensed up beside her at the mention of black blood. His face was void of any distinct emotion, but something was off in his body language. The way his shoulders squared as if he were instinctively bristling.

Anyone with a shred of social awareness could have deduced that black blood, Medusa, and Crona were not Soul’s favorite topics. It wasn’t unusual for him to shut down and discontinue any contributions to a conversation when any of these things were brought up.

Unfortunately for Soul, all of those subjects were constantly on Maka’s mind since she began her obsessive pursuit for a solution to Crona’s ordeal.

“Oh? And what did he have to say?” Tsubaki pressed, completely oblivious to the tense situation she was potentially triggering.

“As you’re already aware, there’s not really any official research on the black blood that exists. We’ve been digging through countless books - gathering as much information about madness and Kishins as we can, but it can only get us so far. It would be so much more useful if we could get our hands on a physical sample of the substance itself.”

Soul’s eyes widened in concern, but only for a second before he slipped his usual poker face back on. His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously despite the veneer of calm he displayed.

“Anyways,” she continued, turning to look at Soul, “I was going to talk to you about this later, but maybe some of the black blood still remains in your system? I know we believed it was all gone, but surely there’s some residual amount of it lingering behind? Something we could maybe isolate, extract and create a concentrate of? Stein said it was unlikely, but technically possible. We have to try for Crona, right, Soul?”

He was no longer wearing his mask of apathy. Unmistakeable, visible discomfort was etched into his facial features and he was clenching his hands, knuckles whitening from the pressure. Everyone at the table was hushed and the tension was palpable.

“He doesn’t have to try anything,” Kid’s voice cut sharply through the silence, golden eyes flashing sternly at her.

A soft gasp escaped her and her eyebrows shot up, clearly taken-aback by the sudden burst of hostility from her boss and close friend. Her eyes darkened seconds later, determination setting in.

“I think that’s his decision to make, and I’d like to hear what he has to say,” she turned her attention back to Soul, hope still shining in her eyes.

He fidgeted with his necktie, loosening it and clearing his throat. “Yeah, s’fine. Whatever you need, I guess.”

Maka’s face lit up into a bright smile that turned Blackstar’s stomach and she pulled Soul into a brief hug. “I knew we could count on you, Soul! You’re the best partner ever.”

“Whatever, it’s no problem. Just try not to drain me of all my blood, alright?” he chuckled weakly, avoiding her eyes in favor of staring a hole in the middle of the table.

She gave an easygoing laugh in response, and went back to conversing with Tsubaki as if she hadn’t just pressured her partner into volunteering himself as a guinea pig for the sake of someone who had literally sliced him open from shoulder to hip and infected him with black blood to begin with.

Is she fucking serious?

Blackstar was practically vibrating with fury from the interaction he’d just watched, and Tsubaki’s normally soothing hand on his shoulder did little to calm him down. When he glanced at Kid, he instantly knew the death god had shared his frustration with Maka’s obliviousness.

It wasn’t long before Soul abruptly stood from his place at the end of the booth, pulling a twenty out of his wallet and placing it on the table in front of him.

“Soul? What are you doing? The food hasn’t even gotten here yet,” Maka blinked at him in confusion.

“I’m not feelin’ too great - gonna head out, sorry guys. Could you just bring my food back in a to-go box?” he said with an apologetic quirk of his lips. He squeezed her shoulder gently before turning on his heels and making his way out of the diner in long strides.

Why does she look so shocked? Does she really not understand that she’s been hurting him?

After that, the night passed by in a haze for Blackstar. He hardly spoke for the rest of the meal due to the fact that he was using all of his mental capacity to keep his impulse to stand up and loudly call his friend out in front of everybody in check.

The only thing truly stopping him was the knowledge that Soul would likely be embarrassed and more than a little pissed off if he’d made a big scene over something that he wasn’t even willing to talk about.

So he waited - held his tongue until he could lash out in private.

As everyone was saying their goodbyes, Blackstar watched her rise from her seat gathering her to-go boxes carefully and giving him a nod of acknowledgement before she headed out.

His eyes bore into the back of her head as she left, and Tsubaki’s hand clamped gently on him for the second time that night. Her eyes were crinkled with a gentle concern.

“I think you should leave this between them. If Soul wanted all of this out in the open, he would have had that conversation with her himself.”

A heavy sigh settled in his chest, “You know how he is. He’s the suffer in silence type and he always does her bidding. If nobody says anything, then nothing’ll change. I just want to talk to her - not like I’m gonna beat her ass or anything … unless she gives me a reason to.”

“Blackstar,” she chided, fully aware that he would make good on that threat.

“I know, I know. I won’t be long, see ya at home,” he said, throwing up placating hands before stuffing them in his pockets and striding in the direction Maka had gone.

_______________________________________________

Maka set her walk home at a leisurely pace, dragging her feet slightly as she watched the sunset bleed into the sky above.

It wasn’t that she was trying to prolong seeing Soul, or that she wasn’t worried about the way he’d acted back in the diner - like something was eating at him.

She was pretty positive that he wasn’t physically ill, which only left the option of it being an emotional issue.

And getting Soul to talk about emotional issues was like trying to pull teeth from a temperamental bear.

She had to figure out a way to go about this delicately, and she had to figure it out soon because their apartment block was fast approaching.

She stopped in her tracks when she felt the presence of a familiar soul behind her. His steps had been so quiet, she wouldn’t have even been aware he was stalking her from behind if it weren’t for her exceptional soul perception abilities.

“I know you’re following me, Blackstar.”

In moments, he was stepping out in front of her. “Wasn’t trying to hide. I need to talk to you,” his voice was uncharacteristically stern.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew Blackstar had some kind of problem with her since dinner. He was deathly quiet and glowering at her for most of the night; very unusual behavior from someone who never shuts up or hesitates to start a fight.

“Okay, I’m listening,” she said, already preparing to defend herself against whatever absurd argument he wanted to pull her into.

“The whole situation with Crona - have you ever once thought about how Soul feels about it?”

Whatever she had been expecting to come out of his mouth - that wasn’t it.

“What? I mean, I know how Soul feels. He wants Crona to be safe, just like I do. What are you trying to get at?”

“I’m not talking about what he thinks about Crona being stuck in the deathdamned moon, Maka! I mean have you ever thought about how he felt when you forced Crona into his life to begin with? After being sliced open?”

Maka’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline and her mouth opened and closed a few times, baffled by the question.

“Soul understands why I welcomed Crona as a friend. He trusts me,” she answered, hoping her voice conveyed the confidence that she couldn’t find in this moment.

This entire conversation was throwing her off.

“Yeah, okay. He accepted your decision because he trusts you, or loves you or whatever the fuck. We all know that - but that doesn’t mean he was comfortable with it. It doesn’t mean he felt safe. He just stuffed his own feelings down, because he knew it made it easier for you.”

Her throat tightened as her own conflicting emotions overcame her. He had no idea what he was talking about. Soul was fine. He’s always been fine.

“Did he say that to you? That he didn’t feel safe?” she choked out.

“Soul? You think he tells people things? About his feelings?” he snorted. “No, he doesn’t have to tell me shit. It’s clear on his face every time you mention Crona, or Medusa, or that fucking blood.”

“Maybe you’re just making assumptions about how he feels!” she shouted back, gripping handfuls of the front of his shirt.

He leaned in, completely unfazed by the rage burning in her eyes. “You ever noticed how when Crona was around, he was always watching them out of the corner of his eye - twitching every time they made some sudden move. You ever noticed how quiet and withdrawn he’d get around them? Or any time they were brought up? You didn’t - because you didn’t want to.”

“Shut up! Y-you’re making something out of nothing. Are you trying to tell me that I should just give up and forget about Crona? That they don’t deserve to have a friend?”

Some of his aggression was fizzling out as he released a heavy sigh, placing his hands calmly over hers, still clenching in his shirt. “I’m not trying to say that you shouldn’t have helped Crona, or that you shouldn’t keep trying to help them now. I’m only telling you that even if Soul has forgiven and moved on - he’s still a victim of Crona’s actions. He suffered trauma from that, even if he’s too fucking stubborn to admit it. Just acknowledge that maybe he needs a break from thinking about them - all of that shit that happened - every now and then. Get your head out of Crona’s ass long enough to check if he’s okay too.”

She stumbled over wordless sounds as her hands went limp and released their vice-grip on his clothing. She was trying desperately to think of a way to refute the awful things he was saying, but Blackstar wouldn’t give her the chance.

“If you gave him even half the thought you gave to Crona - maybe you would have noticed it like everybody else has. I just want you to think about it for a bit, that’s all,” his voice softened towards the end, shoulders sagging slightly as he turned away, leaving her to deal with the aftermath of his confrontation.

The heat of tears prickled behind her eyelids and she clenched her fists tightly to her sides.

She wanted so badly to swing around and scream at Blackstar’s retreating figure that he was wrong, that he had no idea what he was talking about and of course she thinks about her weapon.

But the longer she allowed his harsh words to sink in; the more she could feel the sting of truth settling into her heart.

Had she really been so blind?

_______________________________________________

Soul had been laying on his back in bed, hands resting on his stomach and eyes pointed at the ceiling, unmoving for some time. He wasn’t entirely sure how many hours, but he knew his playlist had ended long ago - no music played from the earbuds that were still jammed in his ears.

He couldn’t explain the heaviness in his heart. The anxiety that often set in whenever Maka mentioned Crona or the black blood. It was all water under the bridge, wasn’t it? There was no point in allowing himself to wallow in all the negative emotions that punched him in the gut at the mention of their name. It was selfish to feel those things - it was his job to give Maka his full support. His own feelings were irrelevant.

It was just harder on this particular night. Sure, she droned on about those sore subjects often. Their research revolved around it anyways. He’d just hoped that it could have been different just for one night.

He’d secretly been ecstatic when Maka begrudgingly agreed to shelve her research just long enough to get a late dinner with all of their friends. A break had been long overdue.

Things had been different between them, after all. They’d been sharing a bed, and they’d even shared a few kisses in the small, rare moments that they’d spent alone together - focused only on each other. They were chaste kisses, but he’d greedily take whatever he could get.

As she became more frantic about her lack of results in helping Crona, he may as well have not even existed to her.

He’d just needed that one dinner to pretend things were normal, to pretend as though he was on a date with her and she was willing to spend time with him and think about literally anything aside from her latest fixations. Instead, she’d asked him to play part in some unsound experiment - to prod for things that he hadn’t wanted to find again. It had only been made more uncomfortable by the scrutinizing presence of all of their friends.

He’d felt used.

Soul perked up at the familiar sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut. He was immediately ashamed of the pavlovian response he had to the sound of his meister returning - the little flip in his heart that made him feel like a stupid dog wagging its tail at the sound of its master.

Just keep to yourself. She doesn’t need to interact with you in this useless state of self pity. You don’t deserve her comfort.

Self-loathing curled in his gut and he kept his eyes stubbornly trained on a water stain in the ceiling.

Suddenly, light flooded into his dark room as his door was hesitantly opened. He reflexively brought himself to sit up on his elbows only to meet a teary-eyed Maka.

All self-indulgent angsty thoughts instantly evaporated from his head, and he was ripping his earbuds out and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to get up.

She made purposeful steps across his room, throwing her arms around his neck and forcing him back onto the bed with the motion.

“I’m so sorry, Soul,” she warbled mournfully into his sweater.

“Huh? Sorry ‘bout what? What’s going on, Maka?” he tried to nudge her into looking up at him, but she adamantly refused.

She took a few shallow breaths before rubbing her wet cheek against the quickly-dampening fabric and looking up at him with dewy eyes.

“I haven’t been a good friend to you - have I?

Was that a trick question?

“I-I don’t get what we’re talkin’ about here,” he stuttered uselessly, attempting to compensate for his lack of eloquence by brushing his fingers comfortingly through her soft hair.

“I never asked if you felt okay with Crona being around you. I never asked you if you forgave them at all - I just brought them into your space, your home. I just wanted them to have a chance at a normal life so badly - I ignored your pain, and I’m so sorry,” she rushed her confession out like it had been a breath she was holding in.

He had to fight the urge to bark out a laugh. It wasn’t that he found anything that she said humorous - it was just so strange that she was addressing this out of the blue. She’d seemed completely unaware as usual back at the diner, where had this even come from?

He was so lost in thought, he’d almost forgotten to respond and instantly regretted the prolonged silence he’d left her in. “Maka, it’s fine,” he insisted, “I get why you forgave Crona. I admire you for it.”

“But that doesn’t mean you were okay. I should have at least checked on you, or asked you about how you felt - or literally anything,’ she mumbled numbly from his chest.

“Hey. Look at me,” he said, lifting her cheek from its resting place against his sweater, “Sure, I didn’t feel the most comfortable around Crona. I think it was pretty awkward for both of us to be near each other. That doesn’t mean I dislike them, or didn’t want you to be their friend. You can’t beat yourself up over something I hadn’t bothered to tell you.”

His words hadn’t brought the comfort that he’d hoped they would, and her brows remained stubbornly crinkled. “If it had been me - if I was the one who’d been cut by that sword, would you still say that you don’t dislike them? That you’re okay with us being friends?”

It was a question that he instantly knew the answer to, but he was reluctant to say it out loud. He finally caved, bringing his eyes back to hers, “No. I wouldn’t have been able to forgive them if it was you.”

She closed her eyes tightly, nodding her head in grim acceptance of that truth. She had likely known that would be his answer already, but hearing it must have been difficult.

“But I love that about you. You have so much compassion. I only care for the few people that I’ve decided I love - I don’t have room in my heart for others like you do. I’d like to be more like you,” he whispered reverently, taking her cheeks in both of his hands and briskly wiping away all of the moisture he could reach with his thumbs.

“I should’ve had more compassion for you,” she lamented softly under her breath, eyes downcast.

“You’re not a fuckin’ mind reader, Maks. It was my choice not to bring anything up.”

She nodded slowly, but the way her grip tightened on him only confirmed his suspicion that she wasn’t going to forgive herself for it.

Minutes passed before a word was spoken, but Soul eventually cleared his throat. “You know, I don’t expect you to ever stop being friends with Crona, or to give up on rescuing them. I don’t want that. I don’t mind helping you like you’d asked earlier tonight, too. If that’s what you need from me, then I’m here.”

She brought herself to her elbows on top of him to get a better view of his face.

“I know. I’m not going to give up on them. But It matters to me that you’re happy too, and if that means you need a break from all that, then I want you to know that it’s okay to ask for that.”

“Right, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said in a hushed tone, distracting himself with a piece of her hair twirled between his fingers.

“And I don’t want to use your blood for research. It was wrong of me to even think of asking you that. We’ll find another way,” she assured him, voice tightening with emotion, “I definitely got carried away with all of this. It wasn’t healthy, and I really am sorry I’ve pushed you away in the process. We can’t solve this thing if we don’t have time to properly take care of ourselves. You’ve been working so hard with me, and I think we need more actual quality time together.”

“Yeah, I could get on board with that. I kinda walked out on dinner tonight, so how about we do something - just you and me tomorrow? Movies sound good?”

“Movies sounds great,” she hummed in agreement, hands idly playing with his hair.

As much as he would have preferred for her to continue her ministrations, he stopped her movements to grasp her hand, bringing it to his chest to rest above where she knew his scar was. He pressed down on her hand lightly.

“I’m glad it happened. I’m glad they gutted me, ‘cause I hadn’t understood what you meant to me till that moment,” he muttered, pressing a quick kiss to the top of her head.

She only exhaled shakily, hand tightening against the evidence of his devotion.

“I just hate that it took a lecture from Blackstar of all people for me to realize that I’d been hurting you.”

His eyes widened a little at that new piece of information. Blackstar was the one that brought all of this on her mind? He could’ve sworn it would have been Kid if anyone. He couldn’t help but feel a little touched that Blackstar had been so concerned about him, but he was also somewhat irritated that his friend had distressed Maka as much as he had.

“Blackstar, huh? Remind me to have a conversation with him about mindin’ his own business,” he laughed half-heartedly.

“No, don’t. I’m glad that he said what he did - I needed to hear it,” she urged him.

“Doesn’t matter. He didn’t have to make my girlfriend cry from guilt over bein’ friends with someone,” he muttered, but his face immediately burned a bright red as soon as he’d caught what he’d called her.

She was a similar shade, holding her breath as well as his gaze with a tortuously difficult to decipher expression on her face.

“That is, uh- I mean… fuck.”

Very articulate. Great job, Soul.

He hadn’t needed to agonize over whether or not he’d just fucked everything between them for long because her face soon melted into a warm, genuine smile.

“Girlfriend, huh?” she said with a glimmer of mischief in her eye.

“I’d like that. If that’s w-what you want,” he wanted to kick himself for the voice crack he just experienced. Not cool in the slightest.

At least she got a good giggle out of it. The melodic sound squeezed something in his chest and he swallowed nervously as a response.

She brushed back his bangs, leaning in to place a soft kiss to his forehead. She peppered a trail of kisses down his cheek until she reached his lips.

This kiss was far from chaste. She cradled his cheek and jaw as she slanted her mouth sweetly over his, pressing fervently, constantly moving against him and eliciting a breathy moan from him that he would never admit to making.

When she tried to separate, he followed her, bumping noses for a moment and giving the corner of her mouth a few more enthusiastic pecks before backing up and allowing her room to look at his face.

“Girlfriend sounds nice, actually,” she smiled broadly, letting her fingers brush against the back of his neck.

“Glad that’s settled, then,” he laughed easily, not even bothering to feel any embarrassment over the flush of his skin or the lightness of his breath.

He crushed her to his chest, and they stayed like that for a while, just listening to the other’s loudly beating hearts until they were lulled to sleep.

He’d have to thank Blackstar with a game of basketball later.

#SoMaWeek2021 #SoulxMakaweek #soul eater #soul evans #soul eater evans #maka albarn #soul x maka

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darklymelanatedstories · 4 years ago

Text

Another weird sad story coming up hot.

This is a sequel of Heartbreak. If you haven't read that part yet then I suggest you do so before torturing yourself with this.

This is my first Piccolo x reader and enjoy.

You remind me (ft Piccolo)

Your eyes widened in shock as your lips met his. You couldn't believe it. He actually kissed you. Piccolo. Kissed. You! After the shock had subsided, you closed your eyes and enjoyed the surprising softness of his emerald lips. Wrapping your arms around him, you eased into the kiss...but it didn't last. The moment was abruptly ended and you were carefully pushed off of him. You stared up at him in confusion.

"What's wrong?",you asked. And actually it kinda frustrated you. For weeks he's been on and off and you weren't sure how to keep up with his change of emotions. He touched his bottom lip before looking back at you. The cold expression he gave you told you that you weren't gonna get the explanation you wanted.

"This was a mistake.",he said bluntly.

"What?" You couldn't believe it. You thought he had actually given you a chance when he took you in his arms and hungrily pressed his lips against yours.

"This, everything, was all a mistake." His cape whisked in the wind as he turned his back on you. You were so confused. "I'm sorry.",he said.

You quickly took his hand before he could get a chance to take off. "Wait."

He tried to pull his arm away but your superhuman grip made it a bit hard. "(Y/n) let go of me. I don't love you." Those words hurt worse than all the beatings you got from training. Deja vu hit the Namekian hard. He's lived through this scenario before. Only this time the roles are reversed.

"Piccolo, look at me.",you said. All the more reason not to look at you. "Look at me!",you demanded, louder this time. And this time he did so. He slowly turned to look at you and immediately his heart shattered like once before but for a different reason. The pain in your eyes.

"Say it."

He looked confused at your statement. "Say what?"

"Say that you don't love me. Look me in the eyes and say it."

He opened his mouth to speak but couldn't find the words. "It's just four words Piccolo."

"I...I can't." He hung his head. He mentally cursed the day he was born on this ratchet planet. Humans were exhausting to be around.

"You can't?" Your grip tightened on his arm. "I don't understand you. You kissed me, you–"

You were silenced with another surprise kiss. It was his special way of shutting you up that day. "I can't say it when I know the real truth but the reason I love you might not be right."

"I don't understand."

Piccolo sighed. "See the thing about you that caught my eye is the same thing that makes me change my mind. It's kinda hard to explain but you deserve an explanation so I'll try."

You let go of his hand and he sat on the grass. "You need to sit down this may take a while." He patted the spot next to him and you reluctantly sat next to him. You waited patiently as you knew he wasn't one to spill his out his feelings so easily.

He looked up at the night sky and took a deep breath. "See there's this girl–" A gasp involuntarily escaped your lips. Piccolo gave you a worried look but you nodded your head slowly, encouraging him to carry on.

Looking back at the stars he continued.

"You remind me of a girl that I once knew. I see her face whenever I, I look at you. Wouldn't believe all the things she put me through." What he said next really slapped you I'm the face. "This is why I just can't be with you."

"See she sorta looks just like you." You saw a small smile appear on his face. "She even smiles just the way you do. So innocent she seemed," The smile is soon replaced by a scowl. "But I was fooled." He turns his head and his onyx eyes meet yours. "I'm reminded when I look at you."

You knew what was coming next and you honestly hadn't been prepared for it. You didn't know if you were angrier that his heart was damaged when it got to you or that someone else had it before you.

"(Y/n), you're amazing, sweet, strong, beautiful. You're really everything a Demon prince could ask for."

"But you can't bear to be with someone who's the same as the one who broke you. That's why you won't even give me a chance?!",you yelled. You couldn't be more offended.

"I know it's so unfair to you." He reached out to touch your arm but you slapped his hand away. He could see you were hurt and that hurt him even more but he couldn't risk having his heart broken. Not again. He felt an odd familiarity with you. He wanted you yet couldn't let you in. "I wish I knew how to seperate the two."

"Then why kiss me?",you asked.

He felt ashamed of the reason, that in a way he just wanted to feel close to her again. The only reason he hasn't pushed you away completely is because he needed her likeness around.

You couldn't bare to hear anymore. You got up and as soon as you did, Piccolo grabbed your arm. "Please just let me–"

"We're done here Piccolo." You weren't even sure he felt anything. He hid his feelings really well. All there was a plastered facade of an emotionless monster. You loved him, but his heart belonged to another.

You felt his energy spike and his hand feel like lava against your sensitive skin. You gasped and he immediately let go of your hand.

"You're not afraid to love Piccolo. Your heart is reserved for another. If you still see her in me, then it means you've still been lying to yourself this whole time."

The look on his face told you that your suspicions were correct. "I hope...I–goodbye Piccolo."

As soon as your back was facing him, hot tears streamed down your face. You immediately took to the skies and left him there with his hand still extended as if he was trying to reach you.

"Damnit.",he growled. He let himself fall onto the ground and focused on the stars above him. He learnt to deal with his emotions pretty well after that heartbreaking day. It didn't take too long to hide them but solving them was the real problem.

He thought your words over and over. He realised that his obsession with her, his never ending bitter love for her was holding him back. Back from all the good things in his life. His friends that he never spoke to ever since then, his concerned former pupil that he always shut away from whenever he tried to comfort Piccolo, Pan who was like his second child and you. The one person who he only opened up to. He hated how you could turn him into a teddy bear, how you laughed at stupid things, how you sang and danced like no one was watching, the playful glares you gave as you sparred, how you loved to place flower crowns on his head and climb on his lap as he meditated...how a part of you reminded him of her!

He couldn't do it anymore.

You had your head buried in the pillow that was soaked in your tears. You truly couldn't explain the pain you felt.

You were startled by a light tapping on your window. You quickly wiped your tears away and went over to open the curtains. You're met with annoyance, relief and shock all at the same time.

You're ready to close the curtains and go back to the comfort of your bed but his eyes plead with you to let him in.

You give in and decide to open the window for him, you knew he'd break it open if you didn't anyway. As he swiftly flies through the window you cross your arms and avoid eye contact so he can't see your puffy red eyes but it was probably too late.

"(Y/n), I'm sorry. I just–I guess–I just...what I'm trying to say,"he stammered. He wasn't really good at these things.

"Just say what you wanna say damnit!",you snapped at him. As he looked into your eyes you could see he was broken, just looking at you in your depressed state made him want to shoot a special beam at himself.

He sighed and before you knew it, you were grabbed by the hand and pulled into his arms. Tears streamed down your face as you hugged back.

You two stayed in each other's arms the whole night. No words were spoken and that was just perfect. When you woke up in his arms the next day you knew that his heart belonged to you because you're the one that fixed it.

#piccolo #piccolo x reader #love #inspired by u remind me by usher

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ofstarsandfireflies · 4 years ago

Text

Here we are again! This time with a Ghibli movie! Yes, how could I forget Howl’s moving castle?

@ffic-lurker read my mind and asked me to do this movie. Great minds think alike!

Here we go!

Howl’s Moving Castle

Young girl gets cursed to be old and falls in love with Christian Bale.

Stephen is the Sorcerer Supreme, living in his Sanctum on legs as a war between the Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj and the army of regular soldiers who thinks they have too much power begins to escalate.

He shares this abode with his apprentice, Peter, a snappy fire demon named Wong, and a sentient cloak who has a hefty curse on it which he is trying to break, all the while running from summons from both sides of the war he is sworn to protect.

Stephen only fights for himself.

He only uses his magic for himself, to make himself irresistible and highly sought after by everyone, not for anyone else.

So when he is walking through the streets filled with soldiers and hears a man yell out to be left alone down some alley, he finds himself intrigued.

He slips his arm over the shoulder of the man in front of him who was yelling at a soldier and a little magic here and there has the uptight captain marching away.

This is when he gets a good look at his companion, Tony Stark.

A young man in his early to mid twenties from the looks of him, desirable brown eyes and almost as beautiful as himself.

Stephen is many things, and has made an extremely deplorable name for himself for all of them, but he knows this man is now in danger because of him and decides to help Tony to his destination.

And that is when the shadows come.

With the cloak on his shoulders, it lifts himself and Tony into the air and they walk over the bustling city streets unnoticed, Stephen learning Tony’s name before he departs into the crowds.

Tony knows the stories that follow the Sorcerer Supreme, and he knows that Stephen only goes after pretty girls, so no matter how concerned Pepper is about him, he knew he was in no danger with him.

After visiting his friend and making his way back home to where his workshop is attached hoping to work on his armour once more tonight, a customer comes in, even though Tony could have sworn he locked that door.

The customer is Clea, a witch with strong powers over illusions and forces one of these spells onto Tony, giving the appearance of himself at the age of sixty.

Clea is interested in why Stephen helped Tony, thinking he liked Tony’s young looks so by taking that away from him, Stephen has no obligation to help him anymore now.

Tony decides to seek out the Sorcerer Supreme and get him to help him break this spell, leaving his home to go up into the mountains where the hideous moving construction was last seen.

As the night wears on and it gets colder and colder, Tony finds the cloak snagged in a bush and remembers it belongs to the wizard he’s looking for.

The cloak thanks him by taking him to the Sanctum’s location, where Tony meets Wong, who often complains about having to do all the work but appreciates it when Tony begins to make his life easier, unlike Stephen.

Peter is all too happy to have another human like him in the Sanctum, having just introduced himself when the door becomes a glowing ring and Stephen Strange steps out of it.

And doesn’t recognise Tony, or at the very least gives off the impression he doesn’t.

But Stephen knows.

He knows those brown eyes and he knows who did this to him.

He knows how jealous she can get and how she wants him all to herself.

And he knows his magic is not strong enough to remove this illusion, that only Tony can do it.

But Tony can’t. For whatever reason it is to break the curse, it’s sticking around a lot longer than it should have.

Stephen leaves almost immediately and Tony decides to clean up seeming how he has nothing else to do.

It’s only after Tony has been obsessively cleaning the bathroom that he gets a taste of how terrorfying Stephen’s powers can truly be.

Having washed out Stephen’s comb with something he thought to be a glass of water, the hair at the sides of his temples where he combed first turn an instant hot pink.

Tony is trying not to laugh while apologising as this grown ass man in nothing but a towel is having a break down when the hair turns white, and Tony tries to complement him, saying it suits him.

And them the Sanctum gets darker, and darker, and the skin around Stephen’s eyes begins to almost crystliase and Peter and Wong both try to snap him out of it because now is not the time to be summoning a dark entity and Tony is more angry than scared of what is happening because Stephen’s good looks have somehow been ruined when he’s the one with this curse on him and storms out.

The cloak is there once again, wrapping around Tony to comfort him and Tony, along with Peter, get Stephen cleaned up and into bed.

When Stephen wakes up, he tells Tony about how he’s been summoned as Sorcerer Supreme to fight on both sides when he doesn’t want to fight for either.

Tony says maybe he should tell them this instead of running and Stephen gets some hair brained idea that Tony can go see Kaluu in Kamar-Taj in his place as his father.

Tony would rather not, he doesn’t know if this Kaluu would be able to see through this curse of not, but Stephen seems to have perked up so he agrees.

Wondering how the hell someone twenty years his junior can act as someone twenty years his senior when they now look the same age, Tony sets off alone to speak with Kaluu and when he gets there, runs into Clea.

Clea seems to be quite entertained by the fact Tony still hasn’t broken the curse she placed on him, but it’s short lived as the carriage she’s riding in comes to an abrupt halt.

She has to progress on foot as energies drawn from the Dark Dimension can not be used in Kamar-Taj.

And the further she walks, the more haggard and weak she becomes, Tony having to turn back and help her the rest of the way because her energy is so drained.

They finally make it, Clea almost unconscious in Tony’s arms with his back killing him, but he brings her inside and sits her down in a chair when he hears someone call for a “Mister Strange.”

He tells Kaluu that Stephen isn’t coming, and he looks almost sad as he tells him what Stephen has become and shows him what has become of Clea, who is now an old woman.

Tony is angered by this, and as he speaks about Stephen and how he doesn’t need Kaluu’s help, the illusion begins to break.

And once Kaluu knows that he’s in love with Stephen, it reverts back.

This is when Stephen shows up, keeping his vow to report when summoned but he’s just there to get Tony out safely.

So Kaluu decides to show Tony exactly what Stephen is.

Feathers start growing out of his skin, his hands become claws digging into Tony’s shoulder and large wings sprout from his back as his magic surrounds them and all it takes is Tony calling Stephen’s name to get him to snap out of his transformation and fly the three of them out of there.

Tony is absolutely furious with Stephen, demanding to know why he made Tony go in his place if he was going to show up anyway so Stephen tells him that having Tony there gave him the courage to go himself before throwing Tony and Clea through a portal to the Sanctum.

That night, while Stephen still hasn’t returned, Tony has a nightmare about what Stephen’s powers had tried to turn him into, what they are doing to him, how they’re feeding off of his humanity and will ultimately cause him to lose it.

Tony won’t let that happen.

His own curse be damned, he won’t let Stephen become a monster like so many before him.

Tony tries to get Wong to talk about what is happening to Stephen and how to stop it, but Wong can’t say.

Just as Tony’s threatening to dump a bucket of water on the fire demon, Stephen comes in, looking much happier than he ever has in a long time.

He uses his magic for his growing family, making the Sanctum bigger and giving them a place in Tony’s old city with his old shop next to it so he has a place to work and do what he loved doing before meeting Stephen.

Inside is the armour he’s been building for years, sitting there as if it were waiting for him to return.

And the spell starts to break again.

Tony looks much younger, although his beard hasn’t gone away, and Tony knows Stephen is up to something.

He knows Stephen is going to leave them and is just setting them up so they can live comfortably without him and Tony’s self doubt about being unworthy of Stephen’s affections make the spell age him again.

Days pass and Stephen still hasn’t come back to them.

Tony busies himself in his workshop, building up his suit, refusing to hardly come out for anybody or anything.

One night, as Tony is making sure Clea doesn’t need anything else, she tells him she knows he’s in love.

And hearing it from her, making him realise to himself that he still is, even though the one holding his affections has left them, is what finally breaks the spell.

But it doesn’t matter anymore.

And that is when everything goes horribly wrong.

Mindless dark creatures Tony now knows to be wizards who have lost their humanity begin attacking the city and people, destroying buildings and setting everything on fire.

The army is outmatched and call in an air strike as Peter and Tony try to fight them off.

As they’re being surrounded and the bomb is dropped, a huge blast knocks them all back as Stephen appears, his body still resembling that of a human’s despite all the feathers growing out of it with just his face left untouched, the bomb remaining dead due to Stephen’s magic having messed with it.

Stephen apologises to him for not getting to them sooner, and Tony helps him inside, just relieved that he’s still alive.

Clea is the first to state how strange it is for Stephen not to be running away anymore, and when Stephen says he’ll protect them, Tony grabs him.

He knows they only just survived because of Stephen and that he can’t possibly hold them all off by himself and stop all the bombs and protect them at the same time.

He wants them to run, but Stephen won’t.

He has something he wants to protect now.

He has Tony.

Tony is not going to sit around while Stephen goes off and gets himself killed or worse, so he does the only thing he can think of.

He makes Wong take them back to the moving Sanctum and cut their ties with their new place so Stephen will stop trying to protect it.

With the Sanctum in ruins around them, Tony needs to get back to Stephen, but Wong can’t do it by himself. He needs something of Tony’s and the only thing Tony has on him is his life’s work, his armour.

He gives it up immediately and watches it melt away and become Wong’s power, moving a good chunk of the Sanctum out of all the debris to the almost destroyed city.

And things are going well until Clea realises that Stephen’s heart is within her reach.

She dives for it, the fire consuming her.

As Tony wrestles for the heart, their little Sanctum coming apart, he realises that it isn’t burning him like it is Clea and manages to break it free from her grasp.

He holds it close and talks to it, asking Stephen to find them and he does. His transformation is almost complete, his face almost consumed, but when he collapses on their rickety little platform and all the dark feathers blow away to reveal the man beneath them, Tony knows he’s not too late.

Returning his heart to him frees Wong and destroys what is left of the Sanctum, Peter using the magic he has learnt to save them from going over a cliff face to their deaths.

As they celebrate not dying, Stephen finally wakes up trying to figure out what the hell happened to him, he realises that Tony has finally broken his curse, and comments how the beard suits him, Tony flinging himself into his arms.

Wong decides to stay with them and they rebuild the Sanctum for the three of them to live in.

Cue credits as they kiss 😊

Quotes -

“I'm very sorry to hear that.

Howl was the last apprentice I ever took on.

I've never seen such a gifted student.

I was thrilled to have finally found someone talented enough to replace me.

Then on day, his heart was stolen by a demon, he never returned to complete his apprenticeship, and from that day forward, he has been using his magic for entirely selfish reasons.”

Kaluu speaking to Tony about Stephen.

“You're scaring me, I have this weird feeling that you're going to leave.

Howl, tell me what's going on.

Please, I don't care if you're a monster.”

Tony trying to tell Stephen how he feels but it still not being enough.

“Sorry, I've had enough of running away, Sophie.

And now, I've got something I wanna protect.

It's you.”

Stephen to Tony when he tries to stop him from leaving.

“Help! Help! Crazy lady with a shovel!”

Tony going after Wong with a coal shovel to get him out of the heath? Yeah you know that shit went down.

Run with me -

Stephen has been running from responsibilities which are slowly tearing the world apart, but his running away leads him to run into someone who gives him reason to stop and fight.

This is one of my favourite Ghibli movies, but this list won’t be just animated movies.

Or just love stories.

See you guys tomorrow!

Missed Day 1?

#ironstrange #tony stark #stephen strange #OSAF’s Movie Night

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vs-redemption · 4 years ago

Note

for the character ask game: Luck, Magna, Finral, Gauche and Vanessa

From Cindy: Hey anon! I’m sorry this took so long to post! I just had to really think about some of these! It was super fun to write though, so thank you so much!

*Sorry this is so long!*

Luck Voltia

First impression

I had a tough time getting over the fact that his English VA was the same as Midoriya from BNHA at first, but thankfully that went away pretty fast. I pretty much loved Luck immediately though. I heard him trying to fight people with that crazy look on his face and was sold. I also lost my mind a bit when they started calling him the “cheery berserker.” Like, please give me a nickname like this please.

Impression now

I still love Luck a lot! My initial reasoning still stands, but I’ve also enjoyed that we’ve had a few peeks into his past and inner workings of his mind to understand not only WHY he acts the way he does but also gain an understanding that he has complex emotions and isn’t just a crazy fighting machine.

Favorite moment

All Luck moments are great, but I always laugh when I think about the time Mereoleona blasted into the Black Bulls hideout to kidnap people for training. Everyone else looked horrified to be dragged away by her fire claw arms, but Luck just has this super happy excited look on his face! He’s so cute.

Idea for a story

What about Luck discovering he loves a hobby other than fighting? Like singing or drawing? Or an AU where he’s in a boy band or something ahaha

Unpopular opinion

I do love his friendship with Magna, but I do feel like it’s a bit unbalanced at times and maybe toxic for Magna. I’ve said this before, but Magna is pretty sensitive and seems to get genuinely upset when Luck manages to outperform him, especially when Luck managed to get into the magic knights and he didn’t. Luck is also kinda blunt about things sometimes, and even if he doesn’t really mean any harm by it, it makes me feel bad for Magna.

Favorite relationship

Despite what I just said, of course I enjoy Luck and Magna’s relationship. Luck inspires Magna to get stronger, and Magna is patient enough to endure Luck’s antics while also serving as an example of what human relationships should look like since poor Luck has such a weird, unhealthy relationship/attachment to his mom.

Favorite headcanon

It’s hard to imagine Luck in a romantic relationship since he’s just a small ball of crazy energy, but I’d like to think he’d be super warm and cuddly with someone he loves.

Magna Swing

First impression

I had a hard time knowing how I felt about Magna at first. I never disliked him but I went back and forth about him a lot and I’m not sure why. I’m naturally drawn to characters associated with fire, so I liked his magic right away. I suppose it took me a while to get used to his personality though. I think his appearance threw me off a bit too.

Impression now

I’m cool with Magna! He acts loud and tough all the time, but inside he’s actually really sweet. He’s a hard worker, which I respect, and he deeply cares about his friends and teammates in the black bulls.

Favorite moment

I like when he introduced that new vanishing fireball attack (I think against Asta in the royal knight exam). That was so cool that he adapted his power and learned from the mistakes from previous fights. I also just love any time he freaks out and starts batting fireballs at Luck. It’s funny. Or any time he screams about his crazy cyclone.

Idea for a story

What if someone wrote a fic where Magna joins the Crimson Lions instead of the Black Bulls? He could train his fire magic with the Vermillion family. That might be neat.

Unpopular opinion

Magna isn’t really my type, looks wise, but I definitely did a double take during the elf fights when his sunglasses were off and his hair was all disheveled.

Favorite relationship

I really like Magna’s relationship with Yami. Magna really respects the captain, and it’s nice to see them go out and do their gambling together even though it usually ends up with them returning empty handed and naked. haha

Favorite headcanon

Magna seems pretty shy about relationship stuff. He looks and acts like a punk, but I bet he’d be a perfect gentleman to his significant other. I can imagine him defending their honor or just taking care of any assholes who try to bully them.

Finral Roulacase

First impression

Oh Finral! It’s hard to remember clearly, but I think I felt disappointed with him at first. He was just kind of this guy that was obsessed with getting a date and used by Yami for making portals. I didn’t like how lazy and unmotivated he seemed.

Impression now

I am a firm believer that Finral is a precious bean and I love him so much! Now that I know where his insecurities come from, I can understand and sympathize with his nervousness and low self-confidence. I absolutely love how he’s been working harder and learning to use his magic in more useful ways to become a more valuable member of the team though. He’s starting to stand up for himself and become not only a better magic knight, but a better person in general too. (Although his flirting never bugged me that much)

Favorite moment

I don’t like that Finral got hurt so badly, but the moment where Langris was attacking him and every member of the black bulls rushed to stop him was really powerful. It showed that he was a loved member of the squad, plus the whole fact that he was finally making a stand against his brother was a big deal for him.

Idea for a story

I’d like to read anything about Finral with someone, either a friend or partner, who gives him lots of affection and verbal praise so the poor guy can build up his confidence a little. He deserves that. Smother him with love and affection! Do it!

Unpopular opinion

I don’t really care for the whole “competing to marry Lady Finesse” thing. I want Finral to find happiness and be able to have a comfortable and respected role within his family, but I’m not too concerned about if he ends up with her.

Favorite relationship

I’ve been thinking about this for a few minutes and I honestly can’t come up with one, which is sad. Maybe I’m forgetting someone but it doesn’t seem like Finral has any close relationships/friendships. I know he’s friends with everyone in the Black Bulls but nobody stands out as being especially close to him.

Favorite headcanon

Finral probably has a lot of guilty pleasure hobbies that help him manage his anxiety. For example baking, knitting, reading romance novels, or listening to cheesy love songs.

Vanessa Enoteca

First impression

I feel like I was just curious and confused about most of the Black Bulls when they were first introduced because they all seemed like… lazy or unmotivated, so I didn’t understand why they were even in the magic knights or how they passed the exam. Turns out Yami just hands out Black Bull robes like Halloween candy. lolol

Impression now

I like the growth her character has gone through during the series. She seemed like a lazy drunk at first, but when she is motivated she is REALLY motivated. Her loyalty to the Black Bulls is so absolute that it seems like she’d sacrifice ANYTHING or pay any price for her friends.

Favorite moment

When she goes back to the witch queen and offers to give up her freedom to try and save Asta’s arms. It is such a selfless thing to do and it just shows how much Vanessa loves her teammates.

Idea for a story

Uh… a soulmate AU that involves her red thread magic?

Unpopular opinion

I thought it was kind of random that she apparently has a crush on Yami. Like, its fine… I also have a crush on Yami, but I didn’t think it was necessary. Her admiration for him could just be platonic and that would be just as meaningful.

Favorite relationship

Either her relationship with Finral or her relationship with Yami probably. Even though I’m not a huge fan of the green in Finral’s hair, I think it’s cute that he came to Vanessa for advice and that she wants to help him reinvent himself.

Favorite headcanon

Why did I just think of Vanessa and Gordon running an apothecary together? They can just brew potions and poisons together and it would be great. I don’t know.

Gauche Adlai

First impression

Was I supposed to have any other impression than that he was a super creepy sister lover? haha

Impression now

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over the sister thing. That actually upsets me because everything else about Gauche is so cool to me. His magic is really awesome, and I love how unique and creative it is. And honestly, I don’t even care that he’s obsessed with his sister. I get that she’s the only family he really had and that he’s protective, but it doesn’t have to be that weird. It really doesn’t.

Favorite moment

I really liked when he used his magic to make a bunch of doubles of Asta, and every other time he caved and actually worked together with other members of the Black bulls. I also like whenever he blasts Asta with a mirror out of nowhere because Marie said something about liking him. Poor Asta has no idea why he’s getting attacked.

Idea for a story

Oh! How about Gauche taking over the church where his sister lives and becoming the protector of all the children? Or he could run a “scared straight” program where he intimidates delinquents into becoming better citizens.

Unpopular opinion

I’m not sure but I think most of his lines about Marie are actually hilarious. Like when he wouldn’t attack Sally’s monster thing because it looked like Marie. That was amusing. It’s just that when his nose starts bleeding and stuff, that makes it go from funny to awkward and creepy.

Favorite relationship

I’ll go with his relationship with the nun. He is such an asshole to her, but she throws it back without hesitation.

Favorite headcanon

I have no idea, but can we start shipping him with that scales dude (Damnatio Kira). I just thought of that and it’s making me happy to imagine it.

#Chat with cindy #black clover #luck voltia #finral roulacase #magna swing #vanessa enoteca #Gauche Adlai

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konglindorm · 4 years ago

Text

The Missing Half

So if you’ve been around for a while, you’ve probably heard me talking about Prince Lindworm, and not just recently, as I prepare to release my book. I’ve been obsessed with this story for a long time, I’ve written several blog posts and essays about it, and it’s even the source of my username on many websites—konglindorm.

But today, I’m going to talk about something new: the second half of the story.

I honestly didn’t know until very recently that this story did not end with the lindworm being transformed and everyone living happily ever after. I’ve been working for a long time on my own translation of the story, from a 100+ year old Danish book, and last month I finally reached the end of it.

And then saw that there were three more pages.

Now, I’m preparing to publish my first novel, and I don’t have the time or the energy to translate another three pages. But I did a quick read-through, enough to get the basic idea, and I did some more research. Then I ran it through Google translate, which produced something that’s…pretty rough, but it’s useful to having something in English to glance back at as I work on this post.

So it’s not relevant to my retelling at all, and it’s actually a really common fairy tale type that I’ve encountered many times before, but I’m really excited about this. Quick recap, before we start: Barren queen wants baby. Queen is instructed to eat one flower if she wants a son, another if she wants a daughter, but not, under any circumstances, both. Queen eats both. Queen gives birth to lindworm. Lindworm eventually demands bride. Eats her. Demands second bride. Eats her. Demands third bride, third bride does some really weird stuff that somehow turns him into a human. Great rejoicing, etc., etc.

Now on to part two. I’m gonna be honest; some really weird stuff happens here. Which shouldn’t be surprising, coming from the same fairy tale that brought us “To turn a snake into a man, make him molt ten times, dip some whips in lye, whip him a bunch, and dunk him in a tub of milk.” My understanding of the story is hindered somewhat by lack of a complete and accurate English translation, but it looks like at some point our girl helps break the spells on two other enchanted princes by feeding them her breast milk? It’s, um. It’s something, and something I’ll need to fully translate eventually to understand better. I think I’m missing a fair amount of context and nuance.

(Between the two halves, I ‘m thinking I need to do a lot of research on the healing properties of milk in folklore. Is that a thing? Does it come up elsewhere? This story is Danish; anyone from Denmark know if there’s some cultural element to this or something?)

But for now we’re going to focus on the main thing, the basic plot of the second half.

Our girl gets pregnant. Lindworm and his dad go off to war, leaving pregnant girl with Lindworm’s mother the queen. Now, normally, that would cause some trouble in the fairy tale world, because usually, old queens are not fond of their daughters-in-law, and often try to frame them for horrible crimes.

But not our queen. She gave birth to a monster. Her only heir was a dragon, and he was eating people. Then our girl came along and turned him into an upstanding member of human society. This queen loves her daughter-in-law. So we need a different bad guy.

Our girl gives birth to twins. She sends a letter to the lindworm, letting him know. Normally, in this story type, the queen swaps it out with a letter saying she gave birth to something else, but not our queen, so that role is filled by the Red Knight. No information on who this dude is, what he has against our characters, or why it’s his job to run letters back and forth between the palace and the war zone.

He gets rid of the letter saying our girl had twins, replaces it with a letter saying she had puppies. Lindworm gets the letter, thinks, “well, that’s super weird, but who am I to judge, my mom didn’t give birth to a human either.” Sends back a letter saying, “Okay, we’ll sort that all out when I get home.”

Red Knight was apparently hoping for a less go-with-the-flow type answer, because he replaces that letter with one telling the queen to set our girl and her babies on fire.

The queen gets the letter, and I guess she’s probably thinking that maybe the transformation didn’t quite work after all, maybe her son still has some monster in him, because what the heck, dude? I’m not burning my grandbabies.

So she doesn’t know when the lindworm is coming home, and she’s afraid of what he’ll do to his family when he does; she sets our girl up with some supplies and sends her and the babies out into the world where they’ll be safe.

(This is when she turns a couple birds into princes by nursing them, and apparently hangs out with them in their palace for quite some time. Not clear on the nature of their relationships, a little concerned, will update you guys someday when I’ve sorted it all out; if anyone’s read this entire story in Danish and fully understands it, or if you’ve encountered a complete English translation, please do let me know!)

Lindworm comes home, looking for his wife. Queen is pissed at her son. Son isn’t sure what she’s so upset about; he thought he was pretty chill about the whole gave-birth-to-puppies thing. Queen isn’t sure what puppies have to do with anything, but setting your family on fire is in no way chill. They argue for a while, eventually get to the bottom of things, Red Knight is in big, big trouble. Lindworm goes looking for his wife and kids. Eventually finds them hanging out with these two other princes.

This is where Google translate really breaks down on me, and things just make less and less sense, and I can’t go down to the source material with my Danish-English dictionary and sort it out right now; I’m on a bit of a tight schedule. But it’s looking like the Lindworm and the two other princes sort of fight over our girl, all three of them drink her milk (it seems like it’s been long enough that she shouldn’t be producing milk anymore; it also seems like these two dudes are drinking her milk regularly? I am so concerned about so many things.)

Somehow the conflict is resolved, the other two princes marry other princesses, and our girl and the twins go home with the lindworm.

Now, there’s a lot to unpack here, obviously, and a lot of it is going to have to wait until another time. It is nice to know that King Lindorm is consistently just absolutely bizarre through both halves.

But what I really, really like about the second half is that some new dude is our bad guy, and the queen is fully and firmly on our heroine’s side.

Before I made any effort at even the crappiest translation of the second half, I did some research on what it was about. And I was so concerned about it as soon as I found out what story type it was, because some sort of mother figure is almost always the bad guy. (Shout out to the Grimms for not doing that in “The Girl Without Hands,” too.) And it just seemed really awful that the queen would turn around and try to sabotage our girl after she fixed the lindworm. So I was really relieved to find the Red Knight in my first quick skim-through.

I’m just really impressed with Grundtvig, Adjunct Levisen, and Maren Mathisdatter for deviating from the norm here.

(Another notable deviation, aside from “The Girl Without Hands,” listed above, is the French fairy tale “Bearskin,” by Marie-Madeleine de Lubert; I doubt it’s a coincidence that women were definitely involved in the telling/recording of 2 of these 3 stories where people are not out to get their daughters-in-law.)

Also, like. Can we just take a moment to appreciate the incredible stupidity of the Red Knight? The lindworm was born as a giant snake monster, and for some reason Red thinks he’ll be shocked and horrified that his children were born as puppies? The lindworm is pretty much the only person in the world who has no right to be upset by that. He, of all people, should know that these things just happen sometimes, and they’re totally fixable, though not, perhaps, without bloodshed.

(Also, also. As I said above, I don’t know who the Red Knight is or what he has against our characters. It’s possible that the text does tell us and it just didn’t come across in my incredibly quick and crappy translation. But my theory is that he’s somehow connected to one of our two dead and eaten princesses. In which case he’s entitled to be upset, even if he’s handling it poorly.)

Preorder my book here!

#lindworm #prince lindworm #king lindworm #king lindorm #kong lindorm #folklore #fairy tales #svend grundtvig

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electricfied-wolf · 4 years ago

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Typing that was PAIN.I see you want to talk about the deltarune thing so why don't you give me a rundown? I know nothing about the other kings after all, Lemme type cowboy bed before the day ends. I can also type Martha if wanted but she's up to interpretation if she's alive. Tommorow is the grand shebang so I want to know something before typing that as well. Permission to mild body horror with Dr Habit? Teethwise? - Smile For Me

As long as the body horror isn’t too bad, I think we’ll be alright. Also dfijoijosdf im excited for Habit...also yes im answering ths I can give you a good idea! This is mostly, if not entirely, filled with headcanons and stuff, and since this is coming from a fairly new AU (meaning a few of the old takes when I was using my other AU won’t be valid), quite a few things might stay from canon. I’ve become obsessed with the concept of poly kings recently pff- So, let’s talk about the kings! I actually don’t have much for Heart and Clubs, especially Clubs ssdjfshdskh- I’m gonna include Spade too, along with the others, just to give the basic cover of what he’s like in the crossover, because the merge thing changes something- Spade: This poor, fluffy cat-like monster has had a NIGHTMARE of a life since the lightners left. He lived in the dark world with the other kings as well as Rouxls, his advisor...or as many knew them...the Spade King and his husbands. Lancer is a mystery, but as far as anyone was concerned, he’s the child of all of them. Spade’s husbands loved him greatly, he loved them back, everything was perfect. When the Lightners were there for them, they were happy, even in canon Spade seems to share a deep attachment to them. Then, they were abandoned, and Spade was left in shambles, weak and hurt enough for a certain dark force to overcome him, and he just...changed. He became different, he was overcome with forceful thoughts and feelings, he changed from a loving partner and father, a kind king, into a demonic tyrant that wish to rid the world of the light. When the lightner trio came down, whatever they did, damn it worked, it somehow ripped him from that, temporarily, and when he was in that prison? He felt horrible. When the merge happened? He was so far away from that dark power that he became..himself again. That was...a hell of a change. Diamond: Had to do this guy right away! Snake dad! He was probably the cuddliest out of the group, he’s got four arms, better for huggin’! Out of all of the kings, despite Spade having been a sweet ol’ papa figure, Diamond has the biggest dad energy. He cares deeply for all his subjects, his ‘treasure’ doesn’t just apply to materials, it applies to his family. Poor Diamond cried for days on end when Spade had locked them away, he couldn’t believe that one of his dearly beloved lovers had done this, it just didn’t make sense. He did appreciate Rouxls coming for visits though, made things a little better for them. The other kings weren’t dragged into the merge right away, they were...delayed, almost. So when they finally arrived, when Spade was just...completely how he used to be before it all went wrong, he was overjoyed. The others, though, insisted he was a little too quick to forgive, to which Spade agreed. He’s a real sweet fella, he can make his staff things he has appear and disappear out of nowhere, probably some kind of magic. Heart: Like his subjects, Heart is fully mute, he (and his subjects!) have a sort of series of gestures (doesn’t have the hands for regular sign language) so that he can communicate. You know how Sylveon wraps it’s ribbons around it’s trainer? Heart does that with his partners, it’s his way of showing affection since he’s not super duper cuddly, but he still likes his equivilant of holding hands, he also likes head boops and resting on the other’s shoulders.

Clubs: Is he one monster, or many? It’s hard to tell most of the time, but it’s just been agreed upon to refer to the multiple heads as one monster king. You think it’d be awkward in a way, but it’s really not, they make it work, and everyone is happy. Clubs is the grumpiest at times, but he’s still sweet towards his partners, but he does tend to mostly be the voice of reason between them all.

#deltarune #deltarune au #my au #sfm #s4m #smile for me

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degenerate-yandere · 5 years ago

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More Yandere OCs

Two blond boys doing what blond boys do.

Special thanks to @3rdgymbros for being the first kyu-tie and giving me the motivation to write this.

Anyway here are some more bastards. Hope y’all enjoy. Kinda rough because I sorta rushed these out but I think they get the job done.

picrews used: Scott, Kyu

Name: Kyu

Height: 180 cm (5′11)

Age: ???

Bio: An outwardly urbane young man, who captured the collective heart of audiences around the world through his career as an idol. Kyu’s hailed as an inspiration - a product of hard work, drive, and incredible talent. His supernatural vigor and charm onstage, and his warm, courteous demeanor offstage, earned him the adoration of many love-struck fans. Of course, he’s always so polite when confronted by the seemingly endless declarations of love - responding with a meek blush, a light-hearted chuckle, and a word of appreciation for the kindness of his fanbase, whom affectionately refer to themselves as his ‘Kyu-ties’. His composure and respectable demeanor often lends himself to be a role model for others.

Kyu’s alluring looks, kind demeanor, and unmistakable talent has enraptured crowds and cemented his reputation as the sweetheart that swept the industry...

Of course, Kyu expected nothing less - humans are so easily manipulated, so simple to toy with. Centuries of experience make adopting a new mask a trivial process. His chaste exterior denies the truth that lies beneath - a hedonistic monster, seeking to dispel the boredom of this eternity with little regard for others. He’s a natural sadist, revelling in the joys of tormenting his perceived ‘lessers’. Whether that manifests as roughly sinking his fangs into the neck of some nameless fan, smirking as they scream and cry for mercy. But even that grows stale - instead, Kyu opts to enact his affinity for sadism in more... malicious, meticulous ways.

To say the object of Kyu’s genuine affection is doomed is an understatement. His sadistic tendencies are certainly diminished when it comes to his darling, but that’s not to say they’re entirely spared from his whims. They’re a blessing to him, really - a delectable bloodbag that never bores him with their presence. Perhaps if he had any faults in his ego, he’d be ashamed to be so utterly obsessed with one of his natural prey. But such matters are of no concern to him; not when you make him feel things he hasn’t experienced in lifetimes.

Despite his sadistic tendencies, he’s much more inclined to follow a manipulative approach. He finds it more fun that way - whether it’s coercing you into a relationship through promises of public scrutiny and demonisation, or scaring you into obedience as he holds you in his lap and tells you everything he wants to do to you for misbehaving.

Kyu has no qualms about feeding from you either, you taste utterly divine. He gets a kick out of hearing you whimper or gasp when he carefully sinks his fangs into your neck, it’s adorable. It has the added benefit of draining you of your energy, giving him a reason to dote on you and restricting your ability to be difficult.

Romantic rivalry is never a perceived threat to Kyu. They’re one of his ‘lessers’, let alone a complete nobody. Defamation, financial ruin, torture or outright murder are Kyu’s favorite ways of disposing of any competition, merely doing so out of a sense of obligation. He can’t imagine why you’d choose anyone over him, he’s almost convinced that you want him as much as he wants you. He isn’t delusional enough for that though, but it won’t stop him from teasing you about it nonetheless.

Let Kyu lock you in a gilded cage, shower you in his wealth, suffocate you with affection and pointless reprimand, and maybe his love will be bearable.

Name: Scott

Height: 195 cm (6′5)

Age: 27

A gruff police detective with an iron-clad reputation of delivering swift and decisive justice. Disciplined, astute, and ruthless in his pursuit of the truth, he’s renown as a local hero in his city of residence. He’s praised for his determination to solve a case - and his track record of wild success in doing so. Scott’s often feared as much as he is hailed a hero; his intimidating physique and blunt demeanor often frightens his admirers away. It isn’t uncommon for the criminals he’s interrogated to whimper at the sight of him.

But of course, his heroism becomes deficient when his darling falls into his life. The shame that builds in his core is unbearable; he isn’t supposed to have these kinds of disgusting thoughts - his fantasies and desires denying him of sleep. He shouldn’t feel this strongly, he knows it’s wrong, but there’s a part of him that so desperately wants to give in. He’s lucid in that regard, perhaps even slightly reluctant, but his stone resolve only goes so far. He can convince himself that it’s for your own good; that he knows firsthand the horrors of the world, and that he’s the only one that can protect you. That’s why he has to take you.

Trailing you home at night to make sure you get there safely, breaking into your apartment and taking some beloved momentos - his adoration is a downward spiral into unhinged obsession. The signs of a break-in, however, don’t go unnoticed. Going to the police for help is quite possibly the nail in your coffin. He insists on taking your case, of holding your terrified self close and telling you everything’s going to be okay, that he’ll protect you. Of course, if you were to find out it was him all along? Who’d possibly believe you? You’d be dismissed as a raving lunatic.You’d feel betrayed, terrified, hopeless. But Scott tracks down your snivelling little self and pulls you into a forceful embrace. He didn’t want you to find out, he remarks. But he tells you it’s finally time to come home.

Scott wants nothing more than routine and domesticity; to come home after a long day of work to a cooked meal and the affections of his beloved spouse. He wants to train you to be the perfect partner, to have you reciprocate just a fraction of the love he has for you. He’s prepared to shower you in gifts and rewards for any behaviour he deems ‘progress’. But if Scott is one thing, it’s strict. He has little patience and paper-thin tolerance for disobedience, and he’s quick to correct it as he seems fit. There is no sadistic joy to his punishments - he doesn’t want to hurt you, but it’s simply a means to an end.

With his reputation and arsenal of skills, it’s easy for him to dispose of any perceived threats to your ‘relationship’. No one would suspect him if a potential suitor or intervener were to disappear. It’s a terrible fall from grace - committing atrocities and crimes he would’ve never considered before. But it’s for you, he tells himself over and over as he looms over one of your exes with a bloodied baseball bat in his hand. It’s all okay, because it’s all for you.

Scott’s tired. All he wants is to shower you in his awkward, rigid affection and gift you all the things he knows you deserve. So be good, don’t make him put you in your place.

#ocs #oc #yandere #yandere x reader #my ocs #yandere oc #yandere ocs #scott #kyu #kyu x reader #scott x reader

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jimmyflemion · 3 years ago

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Hi everyone. The Spiritual album is here. Damaged Goods / Sinned in Reverse. Out now! Finally. Our album that has been talked about in interviews & the works for the last 30 years. Today digitally available everywhere. Always had it in mind for this to come out as an album in album form (who knows, maybe someday?) but now that it has been finished this seemed the perfect time for its release. Over the last 9 years all the song versions were listened to meticulously, chosen, vocals & instruments added & recorded, the theme of the story & running order placed in a schematic theme, mixed, mastered & the artwork went through several renovations until today as it stands in its completed form. Whenever it seemed like it was finished & patience had given out, there was that voice saying that when the time was right it would be ready. Why are any of us here? Our spirits, our souls, the learning, the forgetting, the remembering. What is my purpose? Is it something other than what I think it is? Am I supposed to be helping in some other way? I often ask myself these questions. Music always has given me hope to figure out these things & be good with myself & my choices, helping me to make sense. I often think of my sins & sins of omission words I feel I should have said or shouldn’t have said. The life I’ve led, previous lives. Being honest with myself & others & communicating my feelings freely & openly. Reflecting how my life would have changed dramatically. Often pointing the finger & not owning up to my own part in things. We all play a part in the communion. I’ve judged so much in my life. Through my own faults perceived through my own judgement, I become more & more conscientious & conscious & not so much on autopilot. For those I’ve hurt through my own neglect, I offer my sincere apologies. To be good with yourself & your pure refection brings peace. Myself & my brother were The Frogs. We grew up together, played & wrote songs entwining a world revered & a world despised & quickly scribed them with quill, in the end giving you the listeners your own choice in choosing where your heart aligns. From seeing both sides of characters as well as taking an honest look at ourselves, there began an introspection as to who we are as humans & it made its’ way into the work. We uncovered a society of depravity we had no intention of joining. Although given somewhat of a view of the music biz here & there from a ringside seat, in fact we were never invited to the party for we posed a threat in seeing through your false idol’s bullshit. We were different, we didn’t fit in & in retrospect a very good thing to be, working in our favor. But alas however cool or punk or whatever someone might think that might feel it took on an aura of loneliness. We were outsiders, who still in a way wanted for our ego’s sake (remember this is show biz, it takes some sort of ego to continue on, year after year) to be appreciated or make some sort of a living at this game. However, looking at things now, there really was never anything we missed out on, knowing how proud he was of me & I of him & what we set out to do through our creativity. I am reminded by a beautiful princess who once upon a time told me, we are all frogs. We are God’s children that keep getting turned into frogs & under the spell of the witches. The Frogs, the band represents all the frogs of the world. The Frogs, the band are the narrator, the storyteller as in the fairytale. The Frogs have their sweet revenge by flipping, showing the people thru song their own judgements of what beauty, evil, cruelty & perception of what is truth or not. You are the judge. It’s always been up to the listener of the message what they were to receive from it to learn or unlearn. Like a lot of music itself, it’s multilayered, multidimensional, the listener gets to decide what it means. We are all frogs, right & wrong, good & bad, ugly & beautiful, loving & hateful, mean & kind. We have a choice. Thru our own experience, we can heal & help to shine our light or to stay in the darkness & continue to judge all of it or accept & return to all that is within us which is love. & somewhere within all that we must not forget what they do to frogs in school’s biology class, cutting them open, dissecting removing parts showing children that it is ok in the name of science & men who eat & destroy the lives of children. Becoming comfortable with these ideas as if it’s cool or gross, not really understanding what they are doing. That which was once life, God’s creation lie there on the table, it represents us thru the fairytales. Being manipulated, being blinded from the day of our birth that we should be okay with all this and yet that is the great big lie too. The world you, we know/knew & the people of it that revel & cling to darkness remain at that vibration until they subscribe to the light. The light is for all yet some have an allergic reaction to it due to their disposition & judgement of the collective creation. The Frogs, myself and my brother spoke the truth about everything the 3rd dimensional world holds & ascending dimensions above. Together we were not puppets, poseurs, plagiarists or frauds, follow the long lost line of money, our trail is short. Those who hijack the heart will find & attract those of like. There remains nothing to be taught or learned for the kingdom of heaven is within, pretty simple. It’s easy to innerstand, if one makes a concerted conscious effort to spread love as opposed to their fascination with fear & pornographic obsession with death, which spoiler alert walks hand in hand with life. The music we created has nothing to do with “satire”, in fact at times there is no rhyme & reason & in times needed there is rhyme & reason. A fool auditions for a song, a wise man dresses up in costume, the world’s zoo comes to life & appears & disappears in illusion or what some call magic or a critic appears on notice to define art. There is a floodgate of material & songs to peruse & at times it makes the most sense to corral them conceptually. I used to be so concerned on being comprehended correctly to my liking but matters not. If I must spell it out, see how the Phoenicians, use their created language & words in plain sight, with the word spell to cast spells. In conclusion, the words with respect to the music are laced with wisdom. There is no other way. The goal, the direction, the soul purpose being co-creating beautiful sounds, energy & vibrations with the maker. In appreciation of creation. The heart beats, the world turns, the divine nature of the soul is changeless, without wavering, it answers the call of protecting & nurturing the mutual life force. Love avoids competition as it stands in its own sovereignty. ‘Tis the very common ground we all share & vibrate to. No one else can control our destiny, that which we were put on this plane, planet earth to fulfill. There was a shared mission only Dennis & I shared. The understanding & meaning that music in the right hands transforms the soul. Caging people, labeling, putting them in boxes, thinking these monsters own you is the absolute antithesis of love. The angels provide the roadmap, speak to them, I’ve spoken in song about freedom, having loved the show “Born Free” growing up under the Leo sign. I pray someday people that are real will find like minded humans & the fake actors satisfied with their empty empathy will have a true awakening. Judge much, yes but ‘tis a lonely world full of ghosts. So on a lighter note, as we float higher, what have I learned in all these years later 9 since Dennis has passed. What I’ve always known that I am so beyond blessed & grateful to have had him as my brother, how much love, care & detail he put into every moment of his life, how much he gave & how everything was a gift, how much he cherished life & being in everyone’s presence. His heart was always in the right place. An angel. Finally this album is the final Frogs album (the spiritual album that has been promised for years) 32 tracks, (number 5) Dennis & I were both number 5’s in our life paths. “damaged GOoDS / sinneD in Reverse” Damaged Goods / Dennis in Reverse In reality this album could not have been completed without the help of our dear friend Bjorn Thorsrud (additional production, mastering & editing) Dennis always wanted to have Bjorn work on this album & when he offered to help it was a GODsend. I devoted my heart & soul into this record & when I finally completed it on the final playback, I broke into tears, my only wish was for Dennis to be proud & happy with this record as a testament to The Frogs legacy. This album is in 432 hertz, the highest energy that governs the universe, vibrates with the earth’s heartbeat, the golden ratio, divine proportion. We made music because it brought us joy & made life such a wonderful experience. The telepathic musical communication Dennis & I shared is innerstood, felt inside. With regards to words they would have you say understood, but none of us is beneath or under where any other human soul stands, we are all equal & equally divine. I love Dennis with all my heart, always have & always will. I am so happy & thank creation so much that I was able to be here on this day to fulfill Dennis & my dream for you to hear this our final Frogs album. This album is for you all the fans who drove all over the country to come to our shows, stood in line, supported us at our merch booths. We started out having fun playing music together in the garage, writing songs in our bedrooms, had absolutely no idea any & all of this would have happened, well it couldn’t have happened without you our fans, we love each & every one of you for showering us with your love all of these years. This album is dedicated to the fans. Love, Jimmy

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elizabeatrice · 4 years ago

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Mystery Spot (Chapter 68)

Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga #4

If you get the title reference, I applaud you.

Warning: 1) !!! MANGA SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 68 !!! Duh.

2) I dropped a couple of f bombs and several curses here ... I really ranted lmao.

3) This reaction/review is closer to me spewing wild theories rather than an actual review. But these wild theories are my reactions. So. Ehhh these theories are probably wrong anyway. Lemme have my dark, twisted fun, mkay? Not sure if they’re entirely coherent though.

Had trouble copying some kanji this time around ‘cause they’re so freaking blurry! So I got too lazy to write this yesterday haha. Thank you Ropes of Fate for the translation! Truly commendable heroes of the fandom *sobs*. I also used three panels from Chapter 61, translated by Caim.

Let’s jump into it (ba dum tss).

This chapter is a bit shorter than usual and boy do you feel it. Well. At least I do. But I really hope sensei are taking some time to relax. Last chapter was 45 pages, after all. Y’all deserve it you wonderful creators.

First of all I would like to dedicate the biggest f bomb for the villagers because what the fuck. Why the fuck would you sacrifice poor, innocent young girls just to keep yourself safe? And it’s not even a sacrifice to kami-sama! Y’all just droppin’ these girls to be eaten by supernaturals! And y’all practically manipulated them smh.

Are y’all insane?! Y’all could’ve just moved the fuck out. What kind of insane people just decide to stay near a literal pit of hell? Don’t give me the ‘we’ve lived here for generations’ bs okay ‘cause y’all neighbors be getting eaten by supernaturals but y’all rather trade innocent young girls for your own safety. If Berkians and Asgardians can suck it up and be the bigger nation with all that ‘Berk/Asgard is not a place it’s the people’ shit, y’all can too.

I’ve disliked characters in JSHK before. But I’ve never hated JSHK characters before. Until now. Y’all fucking did it, dumbass villagers.

Ahem. Pardon me.

Because my brain is a literal self-debate machine let me just say that I did consider several possibilities in these ‘people’’s defense. There’s the obvious ‘some people back then didn’t know any better and believe a human sacrifice will solve everything’ mindset. Then there’s the possibility of them being trapped in their village for some reason, hence not having any other choice but to sacrifice those girls.

But y’know what else could be the case? ‘Cause my mind really went dark there for a bit.

The Minamoto clan let it happen.

In the last chapter it was mentioned that the Minamoto clan was involved. And this is a bit shocking now that I think about it more ‘cause Teru has always been adamant that all supernaturals are evil and must be exorcised, humans must be protected.

But what if they just let the villagers sacrifice these girls so that the monsters can be contained in this village, in that pit, instead of running amok to other places and cause more trouble?

Which makes me wonder.

Uh. Where did Teru go to? Does he know about this? Did he go to that pit (or that village, if Kamome Academy wasn’t built on its land)?

If he does know, isn’t he interested in saving a fellow human student and underclassman? If he does know about the Akane clan, isn’t he interested in telling his VP, who’s obsessed with an Akane? Unless ... you know ... he meant for this to happen, which I kinda doubt.

He must know something about this. He went out of his way to make Akane promise to protect Kou if something were to happen. What’s more dangerous than the Grim Reaper showing up looking for a sacrifice who turned out to be Kou’s beloved senpai’s best friend? What if Akane had to choose between Aoi and Kou at some point?

Okie next I wanna talk about Hanako. This is gonna sound just as far fetched as the previous bit lmao but here goes.

Boiiii y’all saw it. The pause before his answer. His face drawn out of view, in an evasive body language.

(Hanako my boy pls do us all a favor and stop lying to your girlfriend, we all know how well that turned out in Picture Perfect lmao)

Theory. He knew what’s been going on all along. Or at least the gist of it.

Remember this?

Imma take a detour a lil bit.

The Far Shore/torii gate refused Nene in chapter 67, right? In my Chapter 67 reaction I said it was the bracelet that saved her but now I think the bracelet probably disguised her as Sumire in the villagers’ eyes. So the Far Shore/torii gate refused her, and we all thought it was because she wasn’t an Akane.

But then we found out that Hanako was right about the village. It was just a ‘made up world’ inside Shinigami’s boundary. It’s just a reenactment of the day Sumire died, probably based on Shinigami’s memories, as the first page of Chapter 64 said.

So of course Nene was refused. Because in his memories, Sumire was the one who fell into the pit that day.

Sumire also said in this chapter’s narration that the villagers sacrificed young girls. Not Akane girls. Also, before the sacrifices began, the monsters already ate villagers anyway, right? They didn’t only eat young girls. It wasn’t said as such. The villagers probably just chose young girls because that’s sorta like the equivalent of offering the best meat or smth. Practically a please accept our humble offering of tenderloin wagyu, O Horrible Monsters.

The coveted bloodline thing was probably a plus, not obligatory. Often in stories, people with high ‘spiritual energy’ are supposed to taste more delicious and grant whoever eats their meat special powers or smth (e.g. Tang Sanzang from Journey to the West). Also ancient cultures sacrifice young girls often, that was the trend.

And they proceeded to try to sacrifice Nene anyway, despite her not being an Akane. They said it themselves. “It doesn’t matter if it’s that girl.”

So according to the (rather vague) information we have, it’s possible that the sacrifice doesn’t have to be an Akane or a girl.

Some of y’all have been theorizing that the Yugi twins got involved with supernaturals, and that sorta lead to their death.

What if this is it?

I myself am not sure how it went down if this is really the case. But I keep imagining our boy’s infamous ‘I’m not going anywhere’ being said by Sumire because bruh she’s the epitome of not going anywhere. She was chosen to be sacrificed since she was a child, not given a choice. Even after she died and became a yorishiro, she was imprisoned in this time prison world or whatever, reliving her death every single day with no escape.

And I couldn’t help but think ‘hoooo shit what if???’

I mean. I don’t know who was the chosen sacrifice. Could be Tsukasa, could be Amane. Maybe he killed his brother so that he wouldn’t get sacrificed, and decided that he’ll die along with his brother. I’m not going anywhere. Maybe it also means I’m not letting you send my brother to be eaten by monsters, and since we can’t escape either, we’re staying here no matter what.

And if the Minamotos were really in on it, it makes sense for Grandma Minamoto to accuse Amane of being an evil murderer. He practically got in the way ‘of other people’s safety’ by killing the chosen sacrifice.

banjjakz also said something about the possibility of Tsukasa being a previous sacrifice. Read about it here and here. It’s pretty interesting!

Besides, a wonder whose precious person got sacrificed and later became their yorishiro? That’d be some parallel, haha.

Sure, Sumire said ‘if the kannagi was switched’. But the early narration didn’t mention a sacrifice of kannagi. Just ‘young girls’.

Look just lemme have this, alright?

Oh. Also I wanted to point out the possible tension/trust issues between Hanako and Nene but many other blogs have pointed it out quite well so I’m just gonna stick with my wild theories.

But I will address what Nene said about the pit.

Where is said pit anyway? In Kamome? Why is it open? Is it Tsukasa changing rumors and allowing more supernaturals to cross back to the Near shore? More likely. I mean, he does grant wishes for supernaturals after all.

Oh. Speaking of Nene. Let’s give her a round of applause for her character development. She’s become of better judgement regarding men’s terrible behavior. Wow. That’s my girl. I mean, we still don’t know much about Shinigami, but from what I’ve seen so far, Sumire guuuurrrrllllll you deserve better.

Regardless of my ships, these supernatural boys should take notes from my precious Kou and how he loves so selflessly. Lmao. Remember that one post-chapter panels in Picture Perfect where he said he’ll find Nene a prince in the real world, even though he likes her? Broooo I want ten of this precious boy.

Lastly, Akane and Aoi.

Where are they? They look like they’re stranded in some wild boundary somewhere, the one with half sunken houses and lost things that usually appear in color spreads. I am so hyped, ‘cause I love the aesthetics, and I wanna see more of this place.

Oh. And Akane’s alive. Phew. I gotta be honest though, I kinda looked forward to his death. Not because I hate the kiddo. He’s technically still human, right. I’m just wondering whether his death or Aoi’s would cause Teru to outright declare war against the Seven Wonders because aren’t these folks supposed to protect students like they claim to be? (This, of course, ignores my previous theories about the Minamoto clan)

Basically I just wanna see some shit go down with Teru mkay ‘cause this powerful dude has been useless for quite too long now.

Aoi’s still pretty confusing, too. She went from this weird expression:

to this:

She kinda looked like she was still under the influence of the drug thingy. But she was also concerned about Akane, even though it’s not like how she worried about Nene in the past. And she knew Akane longer than her, they practically grew up together. Real Aoi would be in tears seeing his condition, y’all. So I guess the drug thingy’s effect is slowly wearing out.

Closing! JSHK is dark but usually not in ways my brain expects it to be. (And a lot of times I still get surprised with the amount of comedy it has lmao.) Sooo sensei are probably gonna prove me wrong about most of these, anyway. Haha.

As always feel free to discuss.

#jibaku shounen hanako kun #toilet bound hanako kun #jshk spoilers #tbhk spoilers #minamoto teru #akane sumire #shinigami #aoi akane #hanako #yashiro nene #akane aoi #bea rambles #see there's a reason why my tag is called bea rambles #here y'all have some wild theories y'all didn't ask for lmao #let's talk about jshk manga

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element-of-empathy · 4 years ago

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I have a lot of feelings about the circumstances under which I left Equestria. There was a striking sense of inadequacy as Celestia’s student. I wanted to study magic under Celestia, and perhaps at first it was well intentioned, but in the end I just wanted power. I realized, after so long working under her, that I wasn’t the kind of powerful I thought I would be, and that just wasn’t acceptible as far as I was concerned. And while her heart was in the right place, this was only exacerbated by Celestia’s lessons. She would double down on those feelings of inadequacy in hopes that I would have some kind of a breakthrough and realize that the things I was so hung up on... didn’t actually matter. Or, rather, that if I put aside my inadequacy and obsession with power, that I would finally be able to understand the Elements of Harmony.

Unfortunately, Celestia’s methods did not have the desired effect.

I mean, to Celestia’s credit, I certainly did have a break through. I cracked and decided that I didn’t need her, or Canterlot, or Equestria. That there was a whole new world on the other side of that mirror full of people who I would be more powerful than by default. Of course, I was a little off the mark, since I was a deranged sixteen year old in that world, but it was close enough. I had the world in the palm of my hand and no one in that school would have DARED to tell me I wasn’t good enough.

Of course, it was a band aid on a bullet wound, which is why I stole the crown. I had power in the social hierarchy of a highschool, but compared to the magic I had left in Equestria? Nah. Marry the two and I thought I would feel powerful. I DID feel powerful, real magic in me for the first time in a long time, but there was still that creeping sense of needing to prove Celestia wrong, that I was more powerful than HER now. That I wasn’t inadequate. That I didn’t NEED her lessons to be powerful.

Of course, had my plan at Canterlot high succeeded, I would have moved an army on Equestria and - in the unlikely event that I succeeded - it wouldn’t have fixed the negative emotions that I was harboring. Again, a band aid on a bullet wound. I didn’t know better at the time - not until Twilight showed me.

Because that’s the thing about the Elements of Harmony. When they hit you they hit you like a freight train. You feel EVERYTHING.

Not to cross reference but you know that part in the no mercy run of Undertale where it’s like “Undyne felt the hopes and dreams of every monster in the underground”? It’s like that. You feel the collective bond of every living being in Equestria when the Elements hit you, because that’s what their magic is. Every pony and griffon and yak and dragon, all of them have a shared bond, and that energy manifests in the magic of the Elements. That IS harmony.

When the Elements hit you, you feel them - every other living, breathing, sentient being in the world - and you understand them on a supernaturally intimate level. In that split second, there is no more misunderstanding or confusion or miscommunication. You understand what everyone feels, where everyone is coming from, the reasons people do and think the things they do because that’s what the elemental magic is. And then just as quickly as that overwhelming emotion hits you, it’s ripped from your body again and you become a blank slate.

Then you start to feel like yourself again, and the really truly hard part happens: you have to choose the right path.

Because what a lot of people misunderstand about the Elements of Harmony is that they think the Elements just... defeat evil, and make you good again. That’s not the case. They give you a second chance, sure, but you have to take that chance. You have to be brave enough when the rainbows fade to choose harmony over the familiar safety of fear and anger and spite and all of the emotions that landed you in the Element’s path in the first place.

#mlpkin #otherkin #fictionkin #im feeling sunset shimmer in this chilis tonight #pony post take TWO #tumblr dont snipe me this time im begging you...........

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marginalgloss · 4 years ago

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A little while ago I wrote about Swimming to Cambodia, a copy of which I discovered in a charity shop. I read it and I liked it a lot. And then for a while I forgot about Spalding Gray until one day my wife pointed him out to me in the film Beaches. I think he played a doctor of some kind — I wasn’t really paying attention — but it was enough to get me thinking about his stuff again.

I started trawling YouTube for what I could find. Most of his stuff is out of print, but there at least you can find a few of the monologues — Terrors of Pleasure, Gray’s Anatomy and It’s a Slippery Slope are all delightful. The most interesting primer is Steven Soderbergh’s documentary And Everything is Going Fine, which is assembled entirely from excerpts from Gray’s monologues and interviews. It’s a deft, skilful, and beautifully elegiac piece of work which feels more like one great final performance than it does a conventional biography. Appropriate, perhaps, given that so much of what Gray did was rendering up his life through storytelling.

I also bought a couple of books: Impossible Vacation, which is the only novel Gray published, and the posthumous collection of extracts from his journals. Apparently he laboured for years over the text of Impossible Vacation, with the original draft running to over a thousand pages — the monologue Monster in a Box was actually performed with the manuscript sitting in a scruffy cardboard box at his elbow. The final published form of Impossible Vacation is a relatively svelte few hundred pages in paperback, which is enough to make anyone wonder about the scale of the original.

I was expecting Impossible Vacation to be a bit more novel-like. I was expecting a modern American comic story along the lines of A Confederacy of Dunces, perhaps. But in fact, the novel is a lightly fictionalised version of Gray’s own life. And that’s about as ‘light’ as it gets: it’s funny, but it’s also just as self-involved as any of his monologues. Gray’s protagonist is renamed Brewster North, but not much detective work is required to map North to the author. Much of the novel is mirrored elsewhere in Gray’s stories from the stage: the trip to India, his brief stint as an actor in pornographic movies, the experimental theatre scene in New York; and above all the memory of his mother, and the lasting effects of her suicide.

If you read (and watch) far enough into Gray’s work it feels a little like wandering into a hall of mirrors: we see the same selves and preoccupations reflected over and over again, sometimes in distorted or disturbing ways. Glimpsed in passing the effect is comic, but after a while the effect becomes haunting. There is a moment in Gray’s Anatomy where he describes watching a student in a storytelling workshop, and staring into her eyes, and watching her face somehow disintegrate until the flesh falls from her skull and her face becomes a sort of ball of white light. Sometimes that’s what reading his stories feels like: the contortions of history and storytelling are subject to a relentless focus that becomes so intense that the reader is lulled into a sort of hypnotic compliance.

This feeling of falling into a sort of dissociative trance is not uncommon in his work; it seems emblematic of a sort of transcendental feeling that Gray was perpetually striving for. Hence the dream of the ‘perfect moment’ in Swimming to Cambodia, hence escapism via skiing in It’s a Slippery Slope. Set against that dream of escape is everything the real world has to offer: the anguish of the domestic; the problems caused by anxiety, depression, drinking; the sad, strange, tortuous complications of his love life. In these respects, it hasn’t aged well – I can imagine audiences today having a little less patience for Gray’s occasional sways into mysticism. And his attitude towards women might at times be generously described as ‘problematic’. In the 90s perhaps it was easier to dismiss his casual reports of philandering as the trappings of the tortured artist; today it only seems sad, and a little wearying.

So why is it that I find his stuff so appealing? I’m not in the habit of reading biography. I like podcasts, but while Gray seems like a model for all kinds of modern tendencies in vlogging, I’m not aware of anyone who is doing exactly what he did in the same way he did it. Current trends towards the confessional in stand-up comedy don’t quite fit, either. The form of the thing is so important. He was as much a performer as he was a storyteller. The closest equivalent that I know of is David Sedaris, and I find his stuff intolerable. There are a few reasons for this, but to me Sedaris always seems convinced that the problem is with other people. He is stuck in a mode of perpetual disdain. But with Gray, we are never really left in any doubt that this author is in fact the only author of his own troubles. And yet he also knows how to have fun, sometimes; and I find that endearing because it seems to me more honest, and less spiteful.

One point of comparison is Proust. I don’t mean to say Gray’s prose is exactly Proustian, but they have an endearing amount in common. There’s a perpetual anxiety about death and entropy that often manifests itself as hypochondria. There’s the obsession with the mother, the retiring nature, the preoccupation with irony. The pursuit of the perfect moment through which emotion can become recollected in tranquility. And though both took to entirely different forms of media, it seems like both were attempting something a level of formal innovation which, while initially seeming familiar, approached a new way of committing memory and experience into art.

Impossible Vacation is often intense but it’s not always laugh-out-loud funny. More often it seems possessed by a restless, struggling, enquiring energy. Sometimes the writing is inspired, but it lacks form – the feeling of form that was so dominant in the monologues themselves. As it stands, you wouldn’t consider half of the things that go on in the book as the plot for a novel because (like life) they don’t entirely cohere. And the story ends before it ever really begins, though it does at least contrive a neat circular ending that recalls (lightly) Finnegans Wake.

Still, it’s a shame that the novel is out of print because, much like his monologues, it’s certainly worthwhile; the published journals of Spalding Gray are an entirely different and more difficult thing. The journals are kind of a mess. An enormous amount of biographical heavy lifting is provided by the notes and annotations by the editor, Nell Casey, and without this context any reader would struggle to discern what was going on. But the notes are pretty comprehensive, and in the end this seems as close to a biography as we are ever likely to get. It does, however, take a long time to get going. The journal entries all through the 70s and early 80s are sketchy, and not especially interesting. A lot of the time they’re purely expressive, and we have to be told what it is exactly that they are referring to. It’s only once the monologues get going that his private style becomes elaborate and involved enough to be worth reading.

The picture we get of Gray is less of a single-minded auteur and more of a man who sort of wandered-or-fell into fame as a monologuist. After the fame and exposure of Swimming to Cambodia there is a sense of freewheeling — of doing what he’s doing because it’s what he does, and it’s rarely entirely under his own steam. He is perpetually worried, questioning, uncomfortable. Eventually he would become concerned with the idea that he had used himself up, and that he had no private life worth living outside the performances. But some of this was ameliorated by the late in life arrival of children and a more settled family situation. For a while, he thought himself happier than he had ever been.

In 2001, Gray was involved in a terrible car crash while on holiday in Ireland. His injuries included a broken hip and a fractured skull that likely caused brain damage. The accident changed his life, and afterwards he was never the same. The journal entries from after this point are harrowing — there is no other word for it. I knew of his eventual suicide, but I had no idea until of the extent to which depression utterly consumed his life. I didn’t know about the frequent hospitalisations, the shock treatment, and the pain his failed suicide attempts caused on others. There aren’t many extracts from this time shown, but what we are given was enough at times to make me wonder if any of it should have been published at all. But perhaps there is a purpose in trying to give a picture of the anguish he was in.

All through his life Gray had been preoccupied with the idea of his mother taking her own life. The story he told about this was that this was precipitated by his parents moving house, to a new place away from the ocean, which his mother could never feel at home in. After the accident he and his family also moved house, and he came to regret this decision intensely. The editor Nell Casey calls this ‘his obsession, a mythic rant’. Gray cannot seem to accept the idea that a house might be, as a psychologist puts it, ‘a pile of sticks’. Here is how Gray considers trying to explain it to his sons:

‘…And they said, I’m sure, that, you know, Mrs. Gray—my mom—has other problems about the house, it must be symbolic of something, that same old Freudian rap, you know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a house is just a house. She missed the house. It wasn’t symbolic of something, she really missed walking along the sea. I miss walking in the village, I miss the cemetery, I miss hundreds of things. But boys, listen: when you get to that point, where you have been driven so crazy by something, like for me, when I think about the house, it’s not me thinking about it, it’s thinking me…’

#spalding gray #impossible vacation #swimming to cambodia #books

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treatian · 5 years ago

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The Chronicles of the Dark One: The Dark Curse

Chapter 106: The Problem With Strong Women

Strong women were going to be the death of him.

What was it that he saw in them? Why was he always so attracted to the woman who seemed to be defiant? The bad girl? Or, for that matter, why was whatever the hell Zelena was always so attracted to him?! It was like they were magnets! First Milah, cowardly as she was he knew that she'd been one of those strong women, perhaps one of the first he'd ever dealt with! His aunts, truly, had been the first women he'd had experience with but their strength was far different than Milah's strength. They had used their strength for goodness, it had given them confidence and fortitude to stand against the villagers that hated them so. It had given them the courage to take in a little boy without a father and raise him as their own. Milah's strength might have evolved into that one day with the right person. When he thought back to that first meeting he'd had with her when she'd been a girl and he a teenager, he'd seen a lot of his aunts in her then. Confidence and courage…his aunts were what Milah might have been if she hadn't been such a selfish, drunken whore. Her strength had evolved, or possibly devolved, into destructive behavior that she'd used to oppress him and their son. Cora had been the same. She'd had a strength and determination about her that could have gone many ways. Surrounded by the right people Cora could have conquered the world and maybe even made it a better place, but as it was she'd been surrounded by wrong person after wrong person after wrong person, and he had no doubt it had made her what she was today: the Queen of Hearts; realms away from her family and home, and fond of tearing out hearts.

Belle was strong. He knew this. He'd known it all those years he'd watched her. But he hadn't expected her strength to manifest in the way that it had here. She was a stubborn woman. It was the worst type of strength to have. Openly defiant, unwilling to learn her place…it was radiant sometimes. But he couldn't understand what he wanted from it. There were times that he wanted to break her of it, but there were times he found himself hoping that she never lost it. Other times, like the incident downstairs, he was outright confused by what he wanted. He'd been pushing her for a response to the thief ever since he'd arrived. Now she'd finally given it, and in that moment he had felt good for finally coaxing it out of her, but why did it bother him in this moment? Why could he not stop thinking about it? Why did he sneer every time he thought of the way she'd had a response for every one of his, why did he shiver when he thought of her inability to back down, why did he have an urge to turn back time and do that moment over again? What would he change?

Nothing. He'd change nothing. And there was no use dwelling on it when there was work to be done.

Regina had called him. Another strong woman who, like Cora, could go either way. And he already knew which way fate was destined to take her.

The sun would be going down soon at his castle, which meant it would be well past dark there. He could have appeared before her in an instant but he decided to take himself upstairs to his room and change clothes first, dawning the scaly jacket he was so fond of wearing to make deals these days. As he changed, he summoned his crystal ball from his workspace. It was, perhaps, time to make that deal with Regina. But he didn't walk into potential deals without the necessary knowledge to complete them.

"Show me what I need to know," he ordered, changing out his shirt.

What he needed to know was apparently a series of images. Regina had joined the hunt for Snow White, just as she'd sworn she would, that was no surprise to him. What was surprising to him was the violence. He watched Regina, but he hadn't been keeping a close enough eye on her. In his ball, he saw homes set to fire by her faceless guards while she watched in the distance. He saw men taken away from their families as women and children cried in the distance. He saw Regina search home after home after home, barns, shops, taverns, nothing was exempt from her gaze when it came to Snow White. He saw death at her hands. An entire town murdered at her orders. And all along he could see in the ball what she could not…Snow White in the forest, running to safety yet again.

He had mixed feelings. He needed that death and destruction, he knew that. He needed her to become the Evil Queen the Seer told him she was bound to become in order to enact his curse. But so much death and destruction…he hadn't been prepared for that. Her obsession was becoming unquenchable. He knew what had to be done to stop it. Either bring about Snow White's death, change the future, and cut himself off from Bae forever. Or stir the future forward.

Yes, now was the time to bring about that deal.

He waited for her in her room, a place he hadn't been since before the King had died. The genie was here, somewhere, there was no doubt about that. He knew that the creature had been cursed inside of a mirror, how he haunted Regina and helped her, it was one of the reasons that he continued to keep the mirror that connected him to her covered all the time now. Before he'd always known Regina couldn't be there all the time to watch him, now she had a little spy built-in for her. Potentially. Which was why he began to look about for the creature. If he could see him, study him for himself, he might be able to make a potion that could shut him out of his castle while still keeping the mirror connection intact.

But where was he?! The crystal ball by her couch seemed like a good place to start, after all his crystal was one of the most powerful objects he'd ever claimed. Not as powerful as a fairy wand, of course, but certainly powerful enough.

And yet Regina's was useless. The second he sat down and picked it up, he could tell that there was no magic within it. It was simply ordinary decoration, he didn't need daylight to see that.

"Where else could you be…" he growled looking around.

"Rumpelstiltskin!" he heard Regina cry out as she came striding into her dressing room, clearly upset that he'd ignored her call for so long.

"Well, it seems you've taken to power quite well," he muttered from his spot on the couch. "Gives your cheeks a nice rosy color."

"I don't understand them!" she yelled, moving closer. "I offer these peasants a fortune, and they still protect Snow White! Why are they loyal to her and not me? I am their Queen!"

He nodded and set the ball aside so he could face her, and also sweep the room for other hiding places. "You did just slaughter an entire village. Maybe that's why they call you the 'Evil Queen'!" he joked, thinking back to the Seer's name for her. Maybe it was time she embraced that title. It would certainly move things forward where he was concerned.

"I am not evil," she sneered. He nodded, but what he really wanted to do was roll his eyes as he walked away from her. He'd expected her to say something like that, of course, the worst of the worst always did. It was the one thing that still brought him hope. He was a monster, but he knew he was. Regina was becoming an evil wretch and still in denial. It was why she'd taken more offense to being called "evil" just now, instead of defending her actions against the towns she'd destroyed. "They call me that because of her! She's the evil one!"

Oh, so they were already calling her the Evil Queen! What a joyous occasion! The Seer had been right again, and he couldn't wait to move forward and see her come face to face with the Swan!

"They're her people, dearie!" he cried over his shoulder as he moved away. Her vanity mirror-where better to keep a genie? "You're gonna have to be content with the fear. They'll never love you."

"Yes, they will," she insisted almost dreamily. He moved to her vanity but saw nothing in that mirror, either. Instead, he leaned over her dressing table to smell the fresh flowers there that were cut so that she wouldn't guess that he was searching for her mirror friend. Flowers would look lovely in the foyer. Perhaps he could take some, and that might give his little maid an idea…not to mention something to do. He'd hate to see what idle hands on her would do when there wasn't a prisoner he needed her to interrogate. "When she is gone, when Snow is dead, then they will see my kindness."

"Through the charred remains of their homes. I'm sure that will be perfectly clear," he stated, moving about again. Where else could the creature be? If he could just sense his energy, understand how it worked, he might be able to come up with something!

"Well, in time, it will be. Her death will allow it. And I'm going to find her. Apparently, I have to do it myself."

He picked up a small handheld mirror that she kept on her vanity and sat in the chair with it. A mirror by a mirror, how odd unless one of them revealed a genie. Nothing! Though he could feel the same kind of magic he felt at the vanity, he saw nothing. He tapped it a few times as she spoke, but no genie appeared.

"Well, in that outfit, finding her should be easy," he joked, tapping again. Perhaps genie magic would always baffle him. It wasn't like him to give up, but he had a prisoner to question, and the blanket over the mirror would keep the magical man's prying eyes out of his home. He had to have his priorities.

"Teach me my mother's shape-shifting spell!" Regina gasped, suddenly excited. "Allow me to hide."

He resisted his urge to laugh, one had to remain calm and in control when making a deal, after all. Besides, while he was desperate to make the deal, it had to be for the right thing. He wanted it done now, and learning that spell was not something that could happen overnight. Regina needed something to work a bit quicker than the months it would take. Or rather, someone.

"It took your mother months to learn that. You? Well, in a week, you'll be able to, uh, change your hair? Highlights? Maybe."

Now it was Regina who angrily rolled her eyes and turned away from him, mad and upset…until the thought he wanted finally came to her, and she spun herself around.

"If I can't do the spell, you can!" she realized, coming closer. "Put it on me!"

Now…there was a request he would work a deal with.

"If I do, you won't control it," he warned, setting the mirror aside and rising once more. He'd have to investigate the genie later. "And you won't have any magic while the spell is working."

"I won't need magic," she insisted in a low and crazed tone. "Just as long as I can get close enough to snap her neck with my bare hands." Her jaw was set, her teeth were clenched, and in her eyes he saw the kind of blackness he needed for her to cast his curse. It was a risk, he supposed, letting her go out there to hunt the Princess that he needed alive. But the Seer hadn't been wrong yet. If this was to be, he had to assume that there was a lesson to be learned by Regina, a deal to be made for him, and life to give to Snow White and her future False Prince.

"I can see you're determined. And when the deed is done, call upon me," he instructed as she stood a distance away and prepared herself. "Only I can return you to your regal self."

"Hold on!" she burst out suddenly as he began to pull magic into him. He stopped and looked her over as her own eyes squinted suspiciously at him. "What's the price?"

"Boring matter of state," he smiled. "I need you to cut off all trade with King George's realm."

"King George? Why?"

"I need him to be bankrupt! What's it to you?!"

"Fine. Fine!" she cried, ending their spat. Why she suddenly cared about his affairs was beyond him. He was pleased to see her finally shaking her body in preparation, as if she were about to run a race instead of just have a spell placed on her. His business was his business. "Just do it. Time is of the essence."

He summoned his magic back into him again and began to pull an image into his head, an image of opposites. Instead of smooth well-done hair, he imagined the hair of a peasant, uncombed and unkempt. Instead of tall, he pictured short. He imagined weathered hands and skin in place of younger skin that had never worked a day in their life. He changed the color of her eyes, the shape of her nose, the subtly of her smile, even altered those cheekbones of hers. The final touch was what she wore. The regal clothes of a queen were too much for what he was trying to accomplish. Rags. He summoned them forth. Clothes made from poor quality wool that had been spun by a talentless hack, weaved together by someone just desperate to make copper. Then he released the image along with his magic. And when the smoke cleared, the woman he'd created in his mind's eye stood before him; rags and all. He let out a laugh. That had been even better than he imaged!

Regina, quite obviously, disagreed. Her smile instantly fell.

"I don't feel any different…" she looked herself up and down but immediately gravitated to what she was wearing. Naturally. He doubted she'd ever worn anything as poor as this in her entire spoiled life. Her dear mother would have a heart attack at the very thought. "Other than these ghastly rags…"

He wanted to jump up and down and clap his hands with happiness. "Ghastly rags." That was exactly what he'd been aiming for! He pointed toward her genieless vanity and escorted her to where she could see herself.

"This is what the world will see." Regina gasped as she looked in the mirror and saw the image he'd conjured in his head for her.

"Excellent!" she smiled turning this way and that. "I'm about as regal as a potato…"

If only she knew his origins, if only she'd seen her own mother once upon a time, she might look down a little less at the peasants around her. Which reminded him…

"Careful, dearie," he warned, biting his tongue. "A Queen strutting amongst peasants might not like what she hears."

Powerful as she was, she was also sheltered. Cora had seen to that and now he'd seen to it in her later years. She'd never not lived in a palace, and while the simple girl who'd wanted so desperately to run away a decade ago would have probably done well on her own, now Regina was a different person than she'd been. Now she was a queen, one who knew magic and had a fire in her heart for death. He knew she wasn't prepared for what awaited her out there. In the end, he hoped he could use it to his advantage.

"Won't matter," she laughed, wrapping a thin shawl around her. "When I'm done, they'll be singing my praises over her smoldering, villainous remains."

"If you say so," he muttered over her shoulder and into her ear. "Now…our deal…" he summoned into his hand a perfectly drafted royal decree, one that would bring an immediate halt to all trade with King George's land and force him to look elsewhere for allies, like King Midas' Kingdom perhaps where he knew there was so much more to trade than goods.

"Yes, yes," she took a quill that he offered and signed her name to it, not bothering to question how he'd already made sure her wax seal was on it perfectly. "I'll send it along-"

"Oh, don't worry about such things!" he scoffed, rolling it up and sending it to Theseus' Palace for Pirithous to find. "I've a little bird who can do the pesky paperwork for us."

"Fortunately, so do I…"

Ah yes…her black bird messengers…that annoying little habit she'd picked up from Maleficent. He watched as she waved her hand, probably attempting to summon one, but he smiled when he felt no flare of magic and she appeared confused. Had she forgotten already? This was going to be quite an interesting adventure for her.

"Don't forget, dearie! No magic!" he reminded her. "I'll take care of the paperwork. You just worry about your hunt…good luck!"

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Belle #Regina #Evil Queen #Cora #Milah #ouat fanfiction #ouat #fanfic

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