#it’s not trying to demonize the mentally ill (despite the monster being. you know. a demon)

[sizzymissed]

i get so frustrated bc like… the point of Smile 2 (bc i do understand this criticism of the first one) it’s not to just say like…. ‘oh and everyone who’s mentally ill is bad and evil and gross and hurts themselves and ppl around them and its hopeless the end’ like NOO you missed the point.

When you’re depressed or hallucinating or going through something insanely stressful, it can make you lash out, or make you impulsive and sad and scared, or push away the ppl who surround you. And it can make you feel like the world is laughing at you.

And it’s not Skye’s fault, it’s not happening to her because she’s a terrible person! And the movie isn’t trying to say that it is happening to her because she is a terrible person. But the ‘monster’ that lives in her head tries to tell her that, and tries to get her to believe it.

And the sad thing is that to a point, she does everything right! She reaches out, and she asks for help, and she tries to talk to someone about what’s happening. But there’s no one in her corner, and no support system she can rely on, and no one responds until it’s too late. And it’s sad. And it’s scary. And it’s a tragedy.

And that’s the point, I think. Does that make sense?

[silverryuan]

Twst with an Ubuyashiki Child reader

Platonic, of course. Contains spoilers of the Hashira Training Arc.

Hinaki, Nichika, Kiriya, Kuina, and Kanata are the children of Kagaya and Amane Ubuyashiki. Born as quintuplets, their appearances are almost similar, save for their hair colors. They are supporting characters of the anime Demon Slayer. They assist their parents when it comes to Corps duties and aid their father to kill Muzan Kibutsuji.

• I decided not to put the other three because I couldn't find proper photos of them. Since the reader is a child of the Ubuyashiki couple, that makes them and their sibling sextuplets.

• Despite being only 8 years old, you're already mature enough to carry out your duties, and mentally strong enough to pass the deaths of the demon slayers each night unfazed. However, the brashness of the newly selected demon slayer at the Final Selection intimidated you. You can only watch as the boy named Genya harshly manhandled your sister. Your sister managed to keep her fear inside until after the selection. You're glad that the boy with red-eyes and hanafuda earrings stopped the boy before Kanata cried.

• You were trained and raised all your life to be proper and emotionless. Your mother and father did so in order to help you and your siblings ease the acceptance of the inevitable deaths of your parents with little to no grievance. After all, you must save the tears after the war. Only then you can finally be free.

• You and your siblings always take care of your bedridden father whenever your mother is out on duty. You can only hope that he might live long enough to witness Muzan's death. You sometimes help your brother, Kiriya, in preparation to inherit the estate when your father is too ill to teach him the ways of being the leader of the Corps. As per Ubuyashiki tradition, whether you are male or female (or non-binary), you must wear feminine clothing in order for you to live longer or until you get married.

• While the demon slayers are preparing for war, your father finally mastered his last plan and called for your siblings and mother. He thanked you for taking care of him for all of the years you've spent together and asked if you are willing to die by his side to which you answered "Yes, father". Your mother can only fix his bandages and told you to play with your sisters one last time.

• The thought of fooling Muzan to lower his guard is the greatest feat you and your sisters ever made, so you played with Hinaki and Nichika. Despite the fear that stayed in your minds, you wished that this sweet moment of pure bliss lasted a bit longer......

• You did not feel sadness, knowing that the rest of your siblings will be left alone.

• You did not feel fear when Muzan Kibutsuji intruded your home with the intent to kill all of you.

• You did not feel resentment towards your parents that they've never given you a normal childhood.

• You did not feel pain when the waves of the explosions engulfed your small figure with its flames.

• All you can feel is happiness, now that you finally shared your last moments with your family and dying alongside them.

• However... You won't be walking into the afterlife with them just yet.

• ...................................

• ..............................................Where are you?

????: "Fnyagh! The robes... Gotta get those robes!"

• ............... What?

• You lift your hand up only to feel the hardness of wood against your palm. Is this real? Are you not dead? Where is your family?

• Lost in thought, you started to notice the sudden change of the temperature inside of the coffin. You kicked and punched the door with your small limbs until the lid fell off. The little monster stood in shock as you raise your head out of the coffin.

????: "F-fnyagh?! Why are you awake?!"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "....?"

• You falsely assumed that a demon is trying to cook you alive. But you calmly get out of the coffin, straightened your robe, and question him with a smile...

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... Pardon me, but where am I?"

????: "Fnyagh? Ya must be stupid to not know where ya are! Doesn't matter, just gimme your robe!"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... And what are your intentions with my... robe?"

• That's strange. You don't remember wearing this robe. Nor, do you remember anything aside from the explosion. You stared at the monster for any explanations.

????: "To wear them! Now gimme or I'll burn ya!"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... You are not interested in eating me?"

????: "Fnyagh? Why would I eat ya? You're no tuna! A-and stop staring at me with those creepy-looking eyes!"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "...Is that so? And who might you be?"

????: "I'm the Great Grim! The sorcerer extraordinaire! The most powerful mage in Twisted Wonderland! The most popular wizard in this school! So as the greatest, gimme your- Hey, come back here!"

• As the egoistic monster was distracted, you run as fast as your child limbs can take you. Your thoughts plaguing your mind with even more questions...

• You felt the heat of the coffin, which means you're still alive... This is definitely not the afterlife... If you're alive, then would that mean that your parents and siblings are here as well? Did the bait and trap failed? Is Muzan--

• Unfortunately, the monster easily caught up with you and cornered you at the dead end of a hallway.

Grim: "Fnyahaha! Ya thought ya can get away from the Great Grim's nose? We'll ya can't! I'm gonna roast-- OUCH!!"

???????: "You there, monster! Cease your attacks at once!"

Grim, struggling: "Fnyagh... What is... this rope? I can't use my magic!"

???????: "It's not just a rope! It's the Lash of Love, mind you! Don't even bother to struggle, it's useless trying to break through!"

• ... Is he a demon slayer? Wait, no... He's another demon. Is he fighting this demon for you as food? Then you must quickly flee before-

???????: "Aha! There you are! You must be the last student. I've been searching all of the coffins for you. However, I did not expect you to be this small..."

• ... Student? Does he mean you? Does he even know you're human?

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... Are you referring to me?"

???????: "Of course, who else- Great Sevens! Did I hear your voice correctly? Don't tell me that you're a child?!"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... And what if I am?"

???????: "Oh my, you are a child! Did you happen to stumble here by mistake? How did you get past the school gates? Where are your parents? Did a student sneak you in here?"

• Is he asking these questions to confirm that you're alone? He sounded... Worried. Usually, a demon would sound bloodthirsty but... What if his constitution or state is like that of that Kamado girl?

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... I am afraid I don't know where I am, sir. I awoke inside a coffin and happened to be lost."

???????: "Inside a coffin, you say? Then you are a new student here!"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... A student?"

???????: "Indeed. Though young prodigies like you are rarely enrolled here! But I must admit, how old are you?"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "... I am 8 years old, sir."

???????: "EIGHT?! Sevens! 8 years old and you're already off to college?! Your family must be very well off or you're that intelligent!"

Ubuyashiki! Reader: "...I apologize, but whatever do you mean by college? And new student?"

???????: "My, my... You're small head must've been jumbled by the teleportation magic. Let me introduce myself! I am Dire Crowley, headmage of this school, Night Raven College!"

[ticklishfizzy]

A New Kind Of Coffee

Can you tell that I'm hyperfixated on Helluva Boss? Like holy shit this freaking show has a CHOKEHOLD on me in the best way possible. Also there's like two fics of Asmodeus and Fizz which has me very upset so here's to satisfying my brain. Warning for implied depression, sex joke mention (passively like one time) implied eating disorders (not really but refusing food nonetheless) implied mental illness Fizz is having one of "those days" again, but luckily his beloved boyfriend is here to cheer him up! THIS IS PURELY SFW ALL NSFW DNI OR I WILL THROW A BIBLE AT YOU!!! (I’m not religious but damn some of y'all need jesus) Fizzarolli was tired. No, not the physical "I need to sleep tired" kind of tired. He was the mentally drained type of tired, like "I need to collapse in bed and never get up" kind of tired. But of course, he has to keep up his image of the clown that never shuts the fuck up and blows air horns in everyone's face, because what was he if not energetic? After a day of fake smiles and half-hearted sex jokes, the clown collapsed into the bed Asmodeus and him shared. He was absolutely exhausted. Nothing he did excited him. He was tired, drained, and depressed. Asmodeus, despite being the busy sin that he was, noticed. He was worried for his beloved imp, but knew he would never open up when there was work to be done or people around. Normally Fizz would be tired after a stressful day, but this was different. He had turned down any form of affection, which was not like him. He had refused to eat all day, even when Asmodeus had offered to take them out to his favorite burger place. This was more than troublesome to the sin. A gentle knock at their shared bedroom caused Fizzarolli to look up from where his head had been buried in a pillow. "You don't gotta knock, Ozz, it's your room too." The clown responded, burying his head back into the pillow. Asmodeus nodded, coming in and gently shutting the door behind him. He sat on the bed next to Fizz, laying a gentle hand on his boyfriend's back as he looked down at the imp in concern. "Fizzy Frog, what's wrong? You haven't been yourself today." The clown responded with a simple grunt. This wouldn't do. "Talk to me, love, what's on your mind?" Another grunt. Asmodeus sighed and ran his hand softly up and down Fizzarolli's back in an attempt to comfort him, startled when he received a muffled squeak in response. "Darling? What's the matter- Oh, my dear Fizzy, are you ticklish~?" To say the clown was embarrassed would be an understatement. Another squeak, then his head popped up from the pillow, a bright red blush ever so present on his face. "N-No! Why do you aSK!?" The sin chuckled as his boyfriend's sentence was cut short by his own squeal. Asmodeus ran his fingers up and down the sensitive spine, reveling in this newfound laughter which he had missed in the stressful work hours. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because your little squeals and giggles give you away oh-so easily~" Fizzarolli squeaked again, giggles pouring freely out of his mouth as he rolled over onto his back to try and escape the teasing hands. "Ah-ah-ah! Let's see how ticklish this little tummy is, shall we?" Despite the protests of his boyfriend through bubbly giggles, Asmodeus dug into the soft belly, awarded by the excited and bubbly laughter he had been looking for. "BAhAahAhBE!! CuhuHuhut iT OuHuhuT!!!" Asmodeus simply chuckled and kept up his attack, only to rest his hand on Fizzarolli's stomach. "Do you know what a tickle monster's favorite food is?" The clown squirmed and giggled before it even happened, releasing a loud squeal followed by

bubbly laughter as his lover bent down and blew a raspberry directly onto his belly button, his robot appendages rendered useless against the attack as they flailed left and right. "OHOHOZZIE WAHAHAIT STAHAHAHAHAP!!!" The attack stopped as soon as it had begun, replaced by the larger demon scooping his lover into his arms and cuddling him close to his chest. "Feeling better, Fizzy-Pop?" The clown nodded, resting his head on Asmodeus' chest before mumbling quietly, but the sin heard every word. "Thank you for loving me, Ozzie."

[attractive-nuisance-esq]

Ed’s journey this season is going to perfectly mirror addiction and recovery, and I am so fucking here for it. Watching these first three episodes of S2 was like watching a highly dramatized AU of my own descent into rock bottom (except everyone was dressed wayyyyyy cooler than I ever was), so I have a lot of thoughts, reactions, and insights that I want to share with other fans. I’m sure many of us who have struggled with our mental health connected with Ed in these episodes, but I think addiction is the most appropriate lens through which to view him because addicts (more often than people who struggle with other mental illnesses) so wholly destroy their own lives and utterly devastate those of their loved ones. I want to share - from the perspective of someone who has steered her own ship straight into a storm and woke up alone to face some very hard choices - what is going on with Ed at the start of this season and what I think is coming.

Let me start by saying that Ed isn’t literally addicted to any one thing, despite his heavy use of drugs and alcohol, but his goal is the same as that of all addicts: escape. He does not want to sit with the pain of Stede leaving him on an immediate, surface level; on a deeper, more habitual level, he doesn’t want to sit with the pain of his own self-loathing. Of course the two are related: the former brings the latter to a head. Stede abandoning him dredges up and brightly illuminates all of his insecurities, and now Ed has to run. Get out. Escape. Don’t think about it. So he is fighting, stealing, drinking, snorting, shooting, killing - whatever it takes to not think about it.

“Demon? I’m the fuckin’ devil.” People in recovery often talk about addiction as if it were a separate, sentient monster living within them. Ed taking on the mantle of demon - a creature known specifically for possession, for removing the host’s free will - is intentional. So is his insistence that he’s not just any demon but the demon. The worst there is. (More on that when we get to The Innkeeper.)

Izzy’s confrontation of Ed in the captain’s cabin and then on deck is a form of intervention. Izzy is trying to help Ed, but of course this goes terribly for him and for Ed because interventions (I cannot stress this enough) are maybe the worst thing you could do to an addict. All addicts know things are bad, but they cannot be pushed to change one single second before they’re ready. Ed knows things are bad. He’s well-aware of how he’s spending his time, how his crew feels about him, how disappointed Izzy is. Being confronted with all of those truths by Izzy was always only going to make him do two things: 1) dig further into his unhealthy coping mechanisms, never mind that they don’t have nearly the effect that they used to; and 2) lash out at the person who forced him to think about it. Izzy lost his leg the moment he stepped into Ed’s cabin.

The impossible bird. You guys remember the song Chandelier by Sia? The one about her addiction to alcohol? The whole thing may as well come right out of Ed’s mouth at the end of that first episode, because that experience is exactly what he’s trying to convey to Frenchie. Nevermind that Frenchie has the temerity to tell him the bird can’t exist, that it has to come down sometime, that flying forever isn’t sustainable. The bird can come down on its own terms, or crash… but Frenchie’s definitely not going to say that much. Still, “that sounds like something that can’t exist” hits Ed, and leads us to the next episode.

Now we’ve got Ed forlorn, heartbroken, almost catatonic while playing with his cake toppers. We don’t actually see him crying in the opening of the episode, which is the point. He’s done crying now. The impossible bird can’t exist, and Ed has already resigned himself to this. He’s decided to die. The only sure-fire permanent way to not think about it.

When next we see Ed, he seems to be doing better, but this is a huge red flag for anyone who knows to look. He’s giving away his responsibility to Frenchie; he’s cleaning the cabin for the closure. He knows the end is coming fast, and the relief that knowledge brings him leaves him weirdly at peace. It is he eeriest part of these episodes, IMO.

Then he goes to find his first mate, the person who knows him better than anyone else in the world, the man he just fucking shot and ordered killed. Ed needs his low opinion of himself validated, and of course he thinks he’ll get it from Izzy after everything he’s done to him. He wants the one person who has stuck with him through everything to confirm that he’s now irretrievably broken and no longer worthy of his love. Ed wants someone to tell him that he’s right: he should die.

He doesn’t get that from Izzy. Interestingly, Izzy doesn’t tell him he should die. He says “Clean up your own mess.” Izzy has learned the lesson now that Ed isn’t ready to get better and that he can’t make him be ready. (This post isn’t about Izzy, but hoo boy - I have big feels about that man.)

Ed has been indulging in various forms of self-destruction in order to not feel his feelings, and steering the ship into the storm is his worst indulgence yet. This is the worst of his crimes - not beheading or arson or a red wedding. It’s when he tries to bring down everyone who has ever loved him into his misery, into believing what he believes. The audience generally (and Ed’s audience of Stede specifically) can forgive him for hurting strangers and for the non-specific mayhem whose victims we’ve never met; but it is much less certain that anyone will forgive him for hurting the only family he’s ever known.

The storm itself is the perfect metaphor for Ed’s attempt on his and, incidentally, everyone else’s lives. One of the most common metaphors used by friends and family members of addicts is that of a hurricane: that their addicted loved-ones tend to destroy everything they touch, anyone who was foolish or brave enough to stick around. And, like hurricanes, addicts aren’t malicious. Ed’s primary goal here is to get himself killed, not to kill everyone else. He wants the ship to go down so his death is certain. His firing a cannonball into the mast and asking Jim and Archie to fight to the death isn’t malice: it’s utter and complete nihilism. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing and no one. The end is near, and he’s so fucking drunk and high off these distractions that he couldn’t think about it if he tried. He’s manic with relief. (See also: “Finally.”)

And now for the finale: Purgatory. Buckle up, because this is where the addiction analogy gets real *chef’s kiss.* Purgatory is the equivalent of the morning after the worst, most rock bottom binge night of your life. You wake up with no one for company but the ghosts of your former selves. Now what?

Well, first - who is Hornigold to Ed? Why is he the guy Ed sees? It’s because Hornigold is another addict, if you will, but one who is (in this Purgatory hallucination) farther along in his recovery. He can impart some wisdom from that place, but he can also stand in as someone Ed can loathe because they’re not as different as Ed once thought, even if Hornigold can say he’s grown.

Hornigold tries to give him soup. He tells Ed, “Gotta get these nutrients into you,” and then literally shoves soup down his throat. That’s what it’s like in rock bottom. You don’t want to take care of yourself, but some lizard brain survival instinct takes over and makes you drink water, eat a piece of fruit, take yourself to the hospital. These things don’t really happen voluntarily that morning after, but you can still count on that instinct to kick in with some damage control.

Ed telling Hornigold how he “got here.” Hornigold says “Mutiny. It’s always mutiny.” Ed insists his mutiny was special, worse somehow. This whole scene is exactly what happens in your first recovery support group meeting. You go in thinking no one has ever been as fucked and fucked up as you are, which makes you feel isolated and alone. But then you get there and everyone else in the circle has done the same shit, been through the same shit. Ed’s not actually the devil; he’s just another demon, like many demons before him.

Ed worries he’s insane when he reflects on everything he’s done. Hornigold’s reply that “Feeling bad isn’t going to rebuild an abdominal wall” is a concept that people usually learn a little bit later in recovery, so I expect we’ll see more on this theme from Ed. Guilt is a useless emotion that only serves to conversely make the addict feel better but doesn’t help the harmed party: the addict feels like their suffering is cleansing, but it’s not - feeling guilt is just more self-indulgence, more self-destruction. Hornigold - a fellow addict in this moment - is trying to get this lesson to him early. It’ll return.

“You’ve got to move on or blow your brains out.” We’re getting back to Purgatory as the metaphor for the morning-after rock bottom, because this is the exact calculation that every person in recovery has done. They all had to answer that one big question. Your whole life is a mess, and you made the mess. Do you want to clean it up? Or quit? (Or make some soup? Yeah. That big question can’t be answered without basic needs having been met. So let’s eat. Let’s start there. It’s easier.)

Now we have Ed’s fantasy about opening an inn: This is also a common part of the morning-after rock bottom. You start thinking about the wrong turns you took, the mistakes you made, the way your life was supposed to go and all the reasons you’re not where you wanted to be. (And all the people you can blame for the fact that your life didn’t go as planned.) And when that honest part of yourself starts telling you that actually it’s all your fault… well, a) you don’t wanna hear it, and b) you can’t silence (kill) that monster, no matter how hard you try. You’ve got to face it. Face all those truths you’ve been running from for years. Now you have to think about it.

So now the big question, the inevitable math. Hornigold suggests looking at the pros and the cons. That’s the easiest way to break the calculation into manageable variables. This is probably my favorite moment of the episode, because when you’re sitting there, morning after the worst night of your life, everything is fucked - these are the exact variables that go into your equation. Do I really want to live? You ask yourself that, and because your life is in fucking shambles, you come up with the stupidest goddamn reasons to keep going. You wanna see the next seasons of Good Omens and Loki. You wanna eat your mom’s spaghetti again. Sometimes it’s nice when someone hugs you. It’s never the big things that save your life; it’s a bunch of the littlest things. The smallest comforts. The big things… they’re too unattainable. They’re too much to hope for, and they’re more than you could possibly deserve. What are the pros of living for Ed? Warmth, good food, orgasms. This is a stunningly accurate representation of the things that will keep you alive once you’ve hit rock bottom.

And then the cons: “I don’t think anyone is waiting for me.” This is why addiction is the better metaphor. There is no human experience more isolating than addiction. You are alone in more ways than you’ve ever been before. You have pushed away or pissed off everyone who ever cared about you. And even the ones who will maybe still be there for you - they can’t help you clean up the mess you’ve made. You have to do the work alone, even if they’re still willing to stand next to you. And this con… it’s the scariest one. Your list of little pros looks so pathetic next to the horror of being utterly fucking alone. Who is going to brave that for some stupid shit like Tom Hiddleston sexily flipping his hair back in that Loki way he does? Why should Ed carry on just because blankets are cozy and marmalade is pleasant?

This is where we get to the moment on the mountain, and what Stede represents. Hornigold tells Ed “You’re unlovable, and you’re afraid to do anything about it.” Ed could do two things about being unlovable: He could try to fix it, or he could end it all. Hornigold represents the worst part of Ed: his weaknesses and cowardice. And if Hornigold is in the driver’s seat, he’s going to end it all. He throws the rock off the cliff, and Ed gets dragged down into the water to drown. (Let’s also talk later about how often addiction is compared to drowning, and how nothing else in the show actually threatened Ed’s life - not Izzy with a gun, not all the rhino horn, not Jim’s cannonball - like drowning in his own mind.)

But then there’s Stede. Stede is how the pros win over that one big, horrifying con. Stede is hope. Stede is just a glimmer of hope. Hope is the most important thing you need in the morning-after rock bottom. As much as I enjoy the idea that it was love that saved Ed, I don’t think that’s a wholly faithful interpretation. Because Stede’s love for Ed doesn’t solve anything, doesn’t fix anything - it certainly doesn’t fix Ed. It cannot fix Ed. Hornigold just told Ed that he’s the one who has to “do something about it,” because Ed is the only one who can save himself. But even if Stede’s love for him in itself isn’t what saves Ed, Ed’s trust in Stede combined with that love gives him hope. Stede loves Ed, truly loves him, came back to him even though he knows Ed’s nature, knows his list of crimes, knows what he’s done to Stede’s friends and family. And maybe Ed can find in himself what he trusts Stede truly sees. It’s a “maybe,” not a certainty. But it’s hope. Someone loves him. Maybe he can love himself, too.

This Woman’s Work: I read this song as referring more appropriately to Ed’s relationship with himself, in no small part because Ed literally made himself the woman in the cake topper couple. All the things that should have been done, should have been said - they’re things Ed needs to do and say to himself. He’s got a little life and a lot of strength left. The journey has just begun.

I want to pop back quickly to a few other moments in The Innkeeper that resonated, starting with Stede and Izzy’s discussion about what happened to Ed: “He went mad. He was a wild dog.” Izzy describes Ed’s breakdown as if he was no longer the same person he once was; this is exactly what addiction does to a person. Ed hasn’t been himself; he’s been held hostage by his need for escape, and he’s become something else. Possessed, if you will.

Izzy: “You and me did this to him, and we can’t let the crew suffer any more for our mistakes.” I’m not writing an essay on Izzy (yet), but this is a very interesting perspective that says a lot about Izzy. Stede and Izzy both owe apologies to Ed, but they are not responsible for his actions. I predict we’re going to see this theme explored in later episodes as a part of Ed’s healing process and recovery. And also hopefully in Izzy’s growth.

Frenchie’s line that “We’ve been living second-to-second for a while now” is a callback to the impossible bird idea. Which, again, is just Chandelier x Sia. “I’m holding on for dear life, won’t look down, won’t open my eyes, keep my glass full until morning light ‘cause I’m just holding on for tonight.”

So what’s next? For me, it was learning to sit alone in a quiet room with my thoughts. It was apologizing to the ones I hurt, because even if I didn’t mean to hurt them - even if I was suffering also and worse - they still got hurt, and in the end it didn’t matter why. It was developing the habit of liking myself, and acting on whatever self-love and affection I could conjure up. And yes… it was new seasons of Good Omens and Loki, my mom’s spaghetti, and hugs.

So I think Ed has a lot of accountability, reflection, and breaking of old habits in his future… but also warmth, good food, and orgasms. And good for him. That’s the beauty of recovery: we get to come back.

[some-pers0n]

Would you be willing to ramble about abnormal psychology

Schizospec ramble incoming in 3, 2, 1..now!!

So abnormal psychology has been a big interest of mine for years now. I think like six or something. It's not something I want to exactly pursue as a career-- I don't think the work of a therapist nor social worker is for me-- but I find it greatly fascinating to research and hear from people who are abnormal. Of course people really like saying that there is no such thing as "normal", but let's be honest most people know what "normal" is, especially if someone in particular deviates from it

Idk. I've always been fascinated and sympathetic towards people with disorders. It's in due part to my own cocktail of disorders, but I generally always find it harmful and annoying to see how widely accepted it is to talk down and demonize those who others deem to be insane or freaks

I've made it clear that I utterly despise the way that people with schizophrenia and other schizospec disorders (I'll define those later) as well as personality disorders in general. The way people will slap them as being wholly evil, unthinking, unfeeling monsters who want to hurt you only is disgusting, especially when I still see that ableist rhetoric spouted by so-called mental health experts or supporters. Yeah mate I'm sure your mental health support where you are only okay with some symptoms of depression, autism, OCD, and ADHD (aka the ones you can sensationalize and make out as cutesy or quirky)(we know damn well you're still going to turn your nose up if a person doesn't shower for weeks or is anything other than a low support person) when you call everyone who is even lightly aloof and ignorant of your needs a psycopathic narcissist. Real great work there

I've always found the way people misuse or appropriate terminology as well fucking obnoxious. Delulu is maddening. "Grippy sock jail" is irritating and makes actual goddamn psych wards out as cutesy places. Neurospicy...I'd rather you just call me insane or psychotic honestly. Neurospicy feels infantalizing

This is all of course a symptom of mental disorders being sensationalized. I'm greatly supportive of people who are more comfortable with their disorders since it's amazing to find a community and support, however it does lead to this sorta Harry Potter house-ification of mental disorders. People who are like "omg autism is like cats and ADHD is like dogs" and that kind of idea, where it boils down the disorders into extremely basic archetypes with zero nuance nor consideration for the other aspects of the disorders

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should lay the groundwork, especially for what I mainly want to talk about: the ableism around schizospec disorders

To begin, schizophrenia is a disorder that is wayyy more common than you'd think. About 1 and 300 or something IIRC. The symptoms are categorized by positive and negative symptoms: with the positive symptom being psychosis of course

These are the most famous part of schizophrenia, to the point where people will mistake psychosis and generalized psychotic disorders as being schizophrenia entirely. Psychosis by definition is believing something that is not true to be reality. Hallucinations are sensory feelings (see, smell, hear, touch, taste) while delusions are beliefs.

Psychosis can form in a variety of different ways, including but not limited to:

Hearing voices, whether it be a "peanut gallery" type situation where it's just a bunch of them talking and commentating on things, or perhaps a single voice or two that almost seems like their own person

Unshaken beliefs that your friends hate you

Believing oneself to be watched despite no cameras or people around

Someone having ill intentions and potentially trying to hurt you behind the scene, whether physically through poisoning you or is manipulating you

Feeling as though bugs are on (or under) your skin

Flashing lights that nobody else can see

Odd shadows or figures in the corner of your eye that disappear when you look at them

Believing you are sick or have some sort of disease despite others telling you that you're probably fine

Fears about mind readers or people being able to tell what you're thinking/feeling

Believing as though someone who doesn't know you (ex: a famous person) is in love with you

Believing that you yourself are special and that the government is after you for that reason

Trying to say something but it all comes out kinda incoherent and jumbled, where you go on several tangents, change tempo or volume frequently, or generally repeat a lot of words or talking points

Your brain being chaotic and disorganized and constantly spinning around and around and feeling like nothing should make sense but it does

Obviously psychosis isn't inherently linked to schizophrenia. Hallucinations for example can form from a lack of sleep or drug use and delusions are linked to other disorders, but those are some that people think of the most when it comes to schizophrenia.

However, schizophrenia also has negative symptoms, as previously mentioned. In fact, you don't even need to have frequent psychosis, if at all, to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Here are a list of some negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Flat effect, where a person doesn't express emotions on their face and comes off as generally monotonous and, well, flat. This can further extend to actual feelings of emptiness and emotional numbness

Anhedonia, where a person lacks the ability to feel satisfied or emotionally rewarded after doing a task or generally feel pleasure or happiness

Social withdrawls, where a person will retreat from social situations and isolate themselves

Asociality, where a person doesn't feel an urge nor impulse to talk to people (friends, family, strangers) and form relationships

Avolition, where a person struggles with motivation and feels apathetic

Alogia, where a person cannot properly express their words and generally has a poverty of speech

If you're looking at these symptoms and feeling a pit in your stomach of The Recognition, I will say that these symptoms overlap a lot with other stuff like OCD, depression, autism, ADHD, as well as personality disorders. Still, if your family has a history of schizophrenia, it doesn't hurt to try and research it for yourself

But from what I've talked about this far, schizophrenia isn't exactly a scary disorder. Not by a long shot. People dull it down to being simply "oh the thoughts tell me to kill people" and nothing really more. Of course people can have violent thoughts, both homicidal or suicidal, but it doesn't really seem right to have everything about schizophrenics be about them being dangerous

Schizophrenics also generally have a higher chance of being manipulated or hurting themselves than they do others, so there's food for thought

But I digress. It's irritating to see people say stuff like "schizoposting" or "delulu" because of this. Hell, even "I am in your walls" """"memes"""" can irk a delusional person and have them go on a spiral. It's in the same way you wouldn't say something like "You NEED to reblog this or else you're a BAD PERSON" to people who have intrusive thoughts about being a bad person

This isn't even covering the other schizospec disorders. I've said "schizospec" a lot but I think it's high time we define it. Schizophrenia is a spectrum. So, here's the definitions for the others

Schizophreniform, where the symptoms for schizoprehnia are present for one month, but less than six months (the criteria for schizophrenia has to have a couple symptoms show for at least 6 months)

Schizoaffective disorder, where a person meets the requirements for both schizophrenia and either major depression or a manic episode

Delusional disorder, where a person experiences primarily delusions

Psychotic disorders, where a person exhibits hallucinations, delusions, catatonia, and or disorganized speech

Schizoid personality disorder, where a person is engrossed in fantasy, reserved socially, apathetic, and has that cold affect

Paranoid personality disorder, where a person is incredibly untrusting and suspicious of others and constantly fears of others being out to get them

Schizotypial personality disorder, where a person is uncomfortable interacting socially and generally disorganized with their thoughts and speech

Epic. These are all gross simplifications of them and I can talk about them all extensively (especially the cluster A personality type ones), but just keep 'em in mind. I always just highly recommend researching for yourself. Always great doing that, no?

But, I digress. Schizophrenia and it's treatment has always irked me the most when it comes to how people talk about disorders. People claim to be supportive and then start clutching their pearls and wailing when they see someone talking to themselves or is just a little emotionally unresponsive. It annoys me greatly lol

[v-anrouge]

Addressing and apologizing for the mistreatment and harassment i caused for @twstchatterbox

Long post under cut.

i’ve recently reached out to someone i have hurt a lot continuously due to my own selfishness; Rubia. i’d like to apologize to her. to make things brief we dated a system's alters and would all talk to each other multiple times a day because of it. Everything seemed to be going fine until one day Rubia reached out to me with a text warning me about the fact she'd be taking a mental health break due to her social battery being low, of course seeing that my first thought was panic and that surely ive done something terrible, despite her attempts to assure me that it wasn't the case. i blocked her because seeing her hurt me, and i was convinced i was right in the situation, and that Rubia was some heartless monster. i have gone out of my way for about two years now to spread rumors about her, participated in a hate club, went out of my way to ruin her friendships and isolate her, I was ruining her social life and it made me happy. It doesn't matter how I feel anymore because this is all my fault and I was disgusting.

I know i already sent you an apology but ill gladly do it again, even if you do not forgive me, because it's a totally understandable thing to do. Back when this happened all i could think of was myself, how sad i was how hurt i was and looking back on it i really feel just disgusted with myself and how i dared play victim when your note clearly showed you were not okay mentally, instead of being a good friend and wishing you a good recovery, i immediately treated you like you had betrayed me and completely disregarded everything you told me in that note. None of what happened was your fault, clearly if i had been cut off it was because i was also doing damage, and instead of apologizing i decided to treat you rudely, and i really truly do regret my actions. It's even more disgusting to take in the fact i continuously painted you as a terrible person when i check the way i answered to you reaching out and trying to be friends again, instead of asking for an explanation instead.

In the server i was in had two people who also constantly insulted and painted Rubia as a monster, one of them being the person she considered her internet little sibling at the time; hikaru and the other one is our ex, which id rather not mention. In that server we'd constantly talk about Rubia in a negative way that only served to make us dehumanize her even more, it started at first with simple venting made by hikaru because of the way they felt betrayed and hurt by being abandoned when they genuinely considered themselves siblings, then i joined in where we'd blame and insult Rubia for cutting us off completely ignoring the reasoning behind her decision, the system, who created the server then joined in, at first only expressing how they felt rubia didn't see them as a system but rather just as the alter she dated, painting their relationship as abusive and saying Rubia was causing the alter to almost go dormant. with our constant slander i only started to hate and see rubia in an even more negative light, which only made the way i talked about her with my friends worse. In these almost two years, ive demonized rubia in many ways, all because i was desperate to seem valid, ive hurt her in ways i know i will never be able to make up for, and any backlash i receive for this is more than deserved. Im posting publicly with her permission and supervision both out of respect for her, but also so you all can see the type of person i am, you can all feel free to block me and cut me off if you see fit, it was my own actions that brought this after all. And to Rubia; i know no matter how many times i say this that it'll never fix the ways i hurt your social life, but im truly sorry, i hope that one day you're able to get help and heal from the damage i've caused.

[queenofthursday6599-blog]

Okay, so, sometimes I like to hypothesize different versions of Bioshock 1 and 2 (and infinite, because man do I dislike the one that we got).

I first got into Bioshock when I was 11 after seeing the Bioshock 2 cinematic trailer (which was out for like a year or more by that point). It was terrifying but also the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

So I didn't try and convince my parents to by it for me, because it was rated M and I was 11 so I knew that was a pipe dream. I knew asking for Bioshock 1 or 2 would get a "Hell no" kind of response considering the rating and content.

Anyways, I first experience Bioshock 1 and 2 through let's plays when I was like 12 and brave enough to watch them all the way through despite my terror (along with having a way to watch them because full let's plays are like hours long generally).

And being 23 now I've had well over a decade to think about these games.

This is very, extremely, super long. And honestly if you aren't into hypothetical game mechanics and how that might have impacted game play and the general experience of Bioshock, then this post isn't really for you.

Visual Empathy mechanic

Like when I was 16 or so I was really into pondering the idea of how it would have turned out if Bioshock had a sort of empathy mechanic that would affect how Little Sisters and Splicers would appear to the player, by way of an empathy score the player would earn depending on how they behaved.

Intertwined or expanding on the morality system already within the game.

Where in which the more Little Sisters you harvest and Splicers you kill, the less human and more warped the Little Sisters and Splicers look and sound.

But the more Little Sisters you rescue and fights with Splicers you avoid, the more they look and sound not like monsters but mentally ill people who don't really know what they're doing, and can't control themselves.

The Bioshock that does exists has Splicers as primarily a dangerous mob stripped of their humanity along with their sanity that you the player can mow down feeling little remorse. While you get occasional glimpses of the people they used to be, or of them as just a mentally ill individuals, generally they're mutant canon fodder incapable of thinking for themselves, following the command of whoever is pulling their strings.

Along with literally being under pheromone based mind control for the first game (for those of you who've forgotten, it isn't just propaganda that's making them attack you in 1. Ryan has control of the Splicer population by way of an ADAM reactive pheromone, which is why they all switch over to being under Fontaine's command, and then Jack's command in the bad ending), which is hardly ever shown at all.

While Little Sisters are designed to walk the line of creepy, pitiable, and cute, due to them being intrinsically tied to the morality mechanic. Their design was made where they'd be cute enough and creepy enough that choosing to harvest or rescue them was supposed to be a choice the player thought about to some degree.

Too creepy and it'd be easier to lean towards harvest, which already had a more immediate reward. Not creepy enough and it'd make players more reluctant to harvest even with the bigger short term reward.

So the idea of a change in the actual visual and audio representation of these characters, as a result of the kinds of choices you made as a player was really interesting.

Where with every harvest little sisters would seemingly grow more demonic and feral, and higher number of splicer kills would result in splicers seeming to grow more monstrous and less human as the game went on.

While with every rescued little sister, and every avoided fight, the denizens of Rapture would start to look and sound less like monsters and more like human beings trapped in a war-zone. The victims of unethical practices at the hands of the people who had all the power.

Your choices as the player would affect how Jack would perceive the world and people around him, which would then affect how you the player would respond to those situations.

With this more blatantly and visibly showing a kind of decay or development of empathy depending on the path you chose.

Right now though I'm currently contemplating how Bioshock 1 and 2 would have worked with a morality system based more on a memory system than the direct "How many sisters (and npcs if it's 2) did you kill" quantifier it has now.

Memory system mechanic

Though I think that would change the genre slightly, and some people would find it irritating.

For one I keep picturing it in a Telltale the walking dead kind of way of choosing how Jack (or Delta) would react to something. Even though I know that would break up the action.

But I do think it'd flesh out Jack's character at the very least. I think it'd be interesting if after listening to certain audio tapes Jack would have a little reaction prompt to it.

Like after you listen to the one where Suchong makes Jack murder his puppy as a kid, I imagine the three choices being something along the lines of [Hatred]: "That bastard, Suchong's, death should have been slower" [Disgust] "I'm not sorry he (Suchong) died the way he did" [Grief] "...I loved that dog".

Maybe he'd react to various things as if they reminded him of something, and you could end up picking a false implanted memory of growing up with his fake parents on a farm, or a real but partially suppressed memory from his real (brief) childhood in Rapture.

And you only figure out which memories you picked were real or fake upon the reveal of the WYK twist. So depending on the choices you made as the player it's implied that the brainwashing/memory implantation was more or less effective than planned for.

Which would definitely ruin the whole silent protagonist with a mysterious past thing Jack has going on, but also he's got like 1 line in the whole game and it's during the opening scene. So I feel like his VA should have been given more to work with.

I also think something similar could be implemented into Bioshock 2's story, though slightly different due to different player character circiumstance.

In that Delta (and Sigma) is a man who's had his past and identity stolen and hidden from him, while leaving him an empty automaton of a man with no past or personality (in becoming a Big Daddy). While Jack had his real childhood memories suppressed, and then replaced with something completely fabricated.

So while some of the memories you could pick for Jack could be revealed to be completely false or true, with Delta any implied pre-Rapture memories would have an equal chance of being real (or imagined/induced by ingesting so much ADAM).

Giving Delta the unique ability as a character to have multiple completely equally canon backstories, which could openly conflict with each other.

Was he just a deep sea diver who found the city by accident, getting very lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it? Was he looking for Rapture on purpose on his own (like Meltzer was), looking for someone who was part of the Vanishing? Was he sent by someone else (like a government) to find Rapture for some reason?

You could even give him different points of origin. One past has him growing up in Iceland, one has him growing up in the US (or Canada), while another has him being from somewhere in Europe (I prefer him being a frenchman because I feel like it's the last thing anyone would expect).

What was his family like. Was he married with children who he'd left behind? Not married or had children but had siblings or older relatives who're probably looking for him? Was he alone as someone who's family members had already died, or been an orphan his whole life and thus had nothing to lose going on dangerous diving missions?

Who knows which is his real past, certainly not canon. All of them are equally true backstories. Not to mention you could mix and match between these choices.

Was he an Icelandic family man who found the city by accident? An American spy with no family and nothing to lose? A Frenchman who left behind siblings or parents searching for him while on the hunt for someone who disappeared in the Vanishing?

IDK. The idea of being able to create the past of the character you're playing as you go along, and have all the variations of that backstory be equally canon by the end of the game sounds very fun.

Though I understand that having this sort of mechanic has the potential to completely change the tone of the game. I could very easily see people disliking it or finding it tedious.

I've seen more than one let's play of Bioshock 1 & 2 where the player was confused a considerable amount of times because they were just completely disinterested in listening to tapes or investigating any further than they had to to get to point A to point B.

Though in all honesty I think Bioshock 1 & 2 would have had to be slightly different genres for a mechanic like this to have worked even if I do find the concept of it interesting.

[woomycritiques543]

Once again:

EVERY section of the Helluva Boss fandom is toxic.

Critiquedoms are just less toxic due to their main intentions, but the executions of them still involve a shit ton of ableism and strangely hypocritical viewpoints, and there nice people have the ability to be there unlike the standom’s mean purpose being harassment, it still has a majority of people that support creators that literally call people “WHITE!” for having light skin, at all, people who denied that Vivziepop was bi for having bad rep back in about 2020, etc.

Also- I was just diangnosed with schizophrenia! 

-am I stupid for this?

NO!

-do I have no emotions?

NO!

-do I have no concept of right or wrong just because I occasionally have delusional thoughts, 99% of which I know aren’t even real but just cause me to have repititve motor behaviors like repeating the same words over and over again, constantly trying to have things sound a certain way, or repeatedly thinking about negative thoughts unintentionally? Do symptoms of schizophrenia make people heartless?

NO! 

We are not “monsters”! Being a “maniac” just means that someone struggles with maintaining mood and sleep schedules, both of which do not automatically cause aggression at all, being a “sociopath” just means that someone has a harder time with more subtle hints of empathy, being schizophrenic, just means that you see or hear things that are not there or have intrusive thoughts- all of which do NOT make ANYONE evil, in fact, psychopathy, which also doesn’t make someone automatically evil, is actually extremely rare despite media calling people “PSYCHOS!” all the time without knowing what any of these terms even mean! 

NONE of these symptoms make someone “stupid” or “heartless!” People are only truly monsters if they choose to be, not as what they are born as.

The true monsters, are those who demonize us to the level of wanting us dead for being anything different from the average neurotypical person, to treat us like a joke for being neurodivergent, they fear and dehumanize what they dont understand, and that’s the problem- Not mental illness... but IGNORANCE.

I am critical of hb, i really am, but the undercurrents of abelism in the critical community REALLY need to change. Me and a mutual have noticed it, and so far until now its only been small stuff, but this is really fucked up.

How? Simple. This person obviously has no idea what schizophrenia is, because this post is really just about the characters having goals that contradict snd don’t make sense. It is not at all related to schizophrenia, and i can think of a billion different ways to describe characters being ooc and having hypocrisy, all of which DONT INCLUDE A STIGMATIZED MENTAL CONDITION.

To make it worse! One of the most popular hb critical blogs reblogged this and agreed with it! I can understand not knowing what word to use, but jfc, if the first word that speings to mind is a mental condition, maybe consult a dictionary!!!

I don’t care if you are neurodivergent. You can still cause harm to other members of your community!

[saberstars]

I'm Here

Pairing: Gender Neutral Y/N & Loki

Fluff, angst, implied smut

Warnings: Mentions of depression/mental illness, epilepsy/seizures, mentions of sex, as always if I missed anything feel free to let me know

Summary: Loki & You have a pre-existing friendship with benefits & one night you have a seizure after some spiciness. He cares for you helping you afterwards & makes sure you rest easy & safe. Reader is portrayed to have seizures more so during changes in sleep phases, not awake. The wake seizures or more of a medium ish absence/ focal aware seizure that only occur on occasion & can be “fought” through.

Word Count: 1796

Notes: This was intended to be a gender neutral reader. I think I removed all he/she pronouns.

Additionally, I know that not everyone experiences seizures the same way, and that epilepsy can affect people differently. This is all written from my experiences with it, so I ask that you do not tell me I portrayed something wrong. I can and will accept constructive criticism, But I will not accept someone telling me blatantly that I am wrong with my experiences. Therefore please keep that in mind when reading. I genuinely hope this fic brings others comfort if you suffer from epilepsy or any disorder that causes seizures. Thank You <3

It’s been three years since you found out you suffered from epilepsy. A diagnosis that came late in your life to be fair. As a young child up until you reached adulthood, you suffered from eye shakes that would eventually turn into stuttering spells that made it difficult to breath or not breath properly at all. You never passed out though, you got close a few times, but you managed to stay awake and “fight it off.” You started to notice over time that you’d also get a strange taste in your mouth, almost like metal or as if you were sucking on a battery and it had that zing flavor. You knew that was a precursor and would panic on cue rightfully so. You hated when you had your mini stutter fests because all you could do was hope it didn’t happen.

Of course you complained to your parents as a child but they didn’t think it was anything. They said it was just a panic attack. So you took their word for it. That was until you started having grand mals in your sleep. At first you thought they were just a part of some strange dream, that wasn't real to you, not yet anyway. You would wake up exhausted, sore, sometimes unable to move properly, walk, open and close a fist, and you just overall couldn't stay conscious sometimes. Again you complained to your parents about it, but they said it was nothing. You probably had night terrors or some form of minor sleep paralysis. So you dumbly believed them.

When you moved out, You sought answers, and eventually got them. You were grateful. The medication they prescribed helped tremendously though, it did make you tired but it was worth not having your episodes. Thankfully your case wasn’t as severe as others and it was manageable so long as you took care of yourself and took your medications. Though you were warned, breakthroughs were common, and missing your dose can and would cause a seizure.

Despite having such a diagnosis, you kept it to yourself. You never really told anyone. It wasn’t until you started sleeping with a friend, that you finally divulged your secret too in the event that it ever happened whilst they were with you.

It was someone you randomly slept with on and off with. A friend with benefits, his name was Loki. You had met the god shortly after his father had passed and his home, destroyed. You found comfort with each other despite it being more of a sexual comfort. You both used sex as a way to fight your own demons, a distraction, a quick grab at serotonin. Despite the sex you both developed a very deep friendship. You’d read together on occasion, have very interesting debates on current events, history, as well as other nuances, and a lot of other things. You even met his brother and the avengers at one point.

You both slept soundly after spicy events had taken place 2 hours prior, Loki had come over desperate for attention of any kind. He didn’t say why, but you knew it was a rather serious topic he wished not to discuss and rather lessen the pain with ecstasy. Little did you know, on this day a few years ago he indirectly murdered his mother. He blamed himself dearly, he knew if he would have kept his mouth shut for once in his life she may be here today. So he needed a genuine distraction. One of any kind. Preferable you. Due to the spicy events that took place you missed your dose, due to falling asleep promptly after, which cost you dearly. Missing doses always caused this to happen no matter what.

You gasped for air like usual, your body contorting outwards first with a thrust. You were awake, conscious, and terrified for the few seconds you normally were given before blacking out. You began to stutter violently all the air leaving your lungs as it happened. Until no sounds were made and it was just you chattering. Loki woke immediately, with a completely calm exterior despite a raging mixture of emotions internally. He knew you never called an ambulance for these things because you were normally alone & unaware until you became conscious again. She made him promise to never call 911 unless it was over a certain time length, to save her medical expenses, or unless she stopped breathing for good.

Loki dare not touch you though as you shook and curled up. The last thing he wanted was his godly strength to crush you somehow or cause you more pain. Instead he watched and hovered until you finally stopped. It was a short 50 second one, which was under your time limit, but he still debated calling. It’s not like You would’ve known he lied.

His breathing hitched as he went to check your pulse and airway, ever so delicately, which were both clear and strong.

“Oh thank you.” he whispered

A few hours had slid by with still no response from you. Loki sat next to you, staring down at you, to the point where he would fight the urge to blink, waiting for a stir of some kind from you. He did give the courtesy of redressing you though, in a nightgown from a drawer after an hour slid past. He even went as far as ensuring that you were adequately covered by the blankets to avoid being chilled. It has been 3 ½ hours now, with no stir of any kind from you. He knew it would be awhile before you showed any signs of movement possibly but this worry tore him to his core. In the midst of waiting he refused to just idly go back to sleep next to you, he was determined to stay awake until you were conscious again, so that you knew, he stayed there waiting for you. Loki didn’t know when he found himself talking to you as if you were awake, but all he knew was that it made him feel a bit better, and he hoped that when you woke it would make you feel better too.

“You know, I’ve been reading this really dumb gothic romance novel. I think you’d like it because of how naive the girl is. I know you like to criticize and pick on how they make decisions.” he spoke with a chuckle in his voice thinking back to how you’d flail your arms and drop your book to scream about how dumb some main protagnist could be.

“I'll have to buy you a copy or give you mine when I’m done.” Loki shifted his weight from his right to his left brushing your bangs out of your eyes.

“I don’t know why you keep those so long, all they do is get in the way of your gorgeous eyes.”

It was in that moment you rustled, you shifted your neck ever so slightly, Your eyelids twitch. Loki leaned forward parting his lips as he watched with a heart of hope completely overwhelmed with joy when he saw the color of your iris’s. He exhaled a shaky breath cupping your cheeks which caused you to flinch sending a wave of shocks through your body. It was at that moment you knew. You knew what he saw, what he had gone through. Your heart sank and you immediately berated yourself internally despite your exhausted state.

“It’s ok you don’t have to say or do anything. I’ll stay, I’ll take care of you for as long as you need.” Loki assured you, wanting you to know that you didn’t have to go through this alone. You never really had anyone stay, let alone worry about you. Your eyes began to water as tears rolled down your face.

“I’ll go grab you some water, you’re probably parched. I’ll also grab you a banana. I read that potassium can help with the cramping.” Loki said leaving to yourself for a moment. He also grabbed tissues for your eyes and nose just in case. Upon returning her placed everything at your side offering help to sit up. “Do you need to use the bathroom or help sitting up?” He asked with a gentle tone.

You nodded trying to take a good deep breath so you could speak a bit. “I’m so sorry you had to see that… but thank you. Thank you for staying, for helping. I do need the bathroom and I would appreciate help. My legs are still...” you mustered out with all your might but after a point your tongue refused to work with you.

“Of course, I may be a monster but I’m not entirely cruel. If it helps… you can just think to yourself and I can listen that way. So that you're not struggling too much.” Loki admitted with a tone of self depreciation.

“You're not a monster just because you're different & have made mistakes.” you thought as Loki picked you up bridal style walking you to the bathroom. Of course he placed you down on the toilet and waited outside for you to do what you needed. Since he had only added a nightgown to your previously naked body it made things easier. It was exhausting to just sit up and do everything but you pushed through. You even pushed yourself up and limped to the sink best you could to wash your hands. Upon hearing the faucet though Loki came back in standing behind you offering support if needed.

“Catch me~” you thought before falling back into his arms with a snort.

“You're lucky I have godlike reflexes you minx.” He replied with a hint of flirtation. You had used more than you had in you to wash your hand. Loki caught you obviously and carried you back to the room placing you back on the bed. “No, more like I knew you were ready to catch me.” you slowly thought as exhaustion tugged at your consciousness again. Loki noticed the pill bottle on your dresser before prompting you to take it. Instinctively opening it and sliding one into his hand.

“You should probably take this before you fall asleep.” You took it mentally saying thanks drinking the glass of water with it.

“Yeah that would probably help avoid some added breakdancing.” You joked trying to use humor to lighten the situation. Loki stared plain faced trying not to entertain your joke though, despite finding it secretly witty. Maybe he’d laugh at it when you felt a bit better. Soon after you began to dance between awake and sleep. Loki took note based on how your thoughts jumbled around between multiple things, laughing to himself a bit before minor intrusive fears began picking at you. Loki immediately jumped into action in an attempt to squash them soothing you a bit.

“You can sleep soundly, please get some rest. You don’t have to force yourself to stay awake out of fear or guilt.” Loki spoke in the most caring and sweet tone he could muster up. Trying to convince you that it was going to be ok & it worked. Somehow you knew he was right & that you could trust him completely. You drifted back to sleep peacefully thinking about how for the first time in your life, you didn’t fear sleeping in your bed. You didn’t have intrusive thoughts about whether or not you’d wake up in the morning or not. Which honestly brought tears bubbling their way up and out of Loki's eyes. The amount of trust you had in him in your thoughts, at that moment completely took his breath away. And that was something he wasn’t going to break or ever lose.

[halo-jpeg]

hi new bestie! can you please write some stanley or bill x reader fluff :)

Bestie indeed I got you 😚😌✨ So this is a strange amalgamation of stuff from the book and stuff from the movie because I couldn't pick one and uh- I hope it isn't too confusing. If you have any questions at all just leave them as a reply and ill answer in no time at all :) Also, in AUs where Stan doesn't die I like to headcanon him as like,,,, some reincarnation of the Turtle or something. It's totally unrealistic but it's a lot of fun to think he keeps all his memories and is just a little bit omnipotent. Yay.

Stanley Uris x Reader Fluff

You sat bolt upright and uttered a sharp gasp, your eyes blown wide. Goosebumps rippled back and forth along your arms, pricking eerily as the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end- you were certain you would be screaming right now if you weren't painfully out of breath, your lungs clamped tightly together as if trapped in the unrelenting jaws of some beast. With your heart thrumming too quick inside of your chest you felt as if you were dying, as if you'd run a thousand miles just like you had seemed to be moments earlier in the midst of your nightmare. The menace, the fear, it played back in your head like some sick home movie, terrifying you to your very core and drawing out something akin to a wail, like the sound of a wounded animal, quiet and choked and desperate.

The space around you was vast, eternal, stretching left and right and up forever yet being lit by a yellowish, alien glow. People were with you, seven people but you didn't know their names. Someone had your hand on one side, someone else on the other and your stomach was roiling with horror. Before you was a demon, something that could only have come from hell and even that seemed to be a stretch. Through the endlessness you could only see eyes, glowing and red and promising death, and muscle rippling under fur-covered spider legs.

Your arms clamped around you in a death grip, your eyes slamming shut and begging for the images to be out out out out out. These images, why the hell did you keep seeing these images? This scene from beyond was forced upon you night after night after restless, sleepless night and you didn't understand why. The reasoning was there, you knew it was, you knew that the cause of these dreams lie somewhere in your brain but you just couldn't grasp onto it and right now you weren’t sure if you even wanted to. You pull your knees to your stomach, tears brimming in your eyes, your hitching breaths becoming desperate sobs and no further helping the hurting in your chest. You wanted to scream, to get up and run towards anyone and anything that would keep you safe but everything was too much, too sudden, too frightening and it your chest hurt and your head was spinning and the images, oh god the memories-

The beast roared, deafening, your hair pressing backwards and blowing wildly in the wake of it. The smell overwhelmed your senses and dug up stray memories of the Canal Days Festival, of petting zoos and goats and pigs and the stench of an animal carcass. You felt as if you were going to throw up but the grip on your either hand grew tighter and you swallowed down the bile. The phrase, Turn Light Into Dark, it washed you with a sense of power that only made your head throb more. Blinding lights spun down, down, closer, and though you knew your eyes were shut you could still see Its true form even though you didn't know what It was.

A hand pressed over your mouth to stop another wail from escaping, louder this time now that you had spare breath in your lungs. Tears spilled over and swam down your cheeks like small rivers guided by a canal cut through stone, the Kenduskeag, Derry- You forced the thoughts of Derry away and swept them under a mental rug. When you thought of Derry you grew afraid that you would find out why you were having these nightmares. You couldn't stand that. You were shaking, oh how you were shaking, tremors rocking you back and forth as if a dog- no, a werewolf had sunk its teeth into your spine and was regarding you as nothing but a chew toy. You needed something, someone, you needed to get this to stop-

These lights, the Deadlights, they doused you back into that cold sea of terror that the still-new power had almost saved you from. Seeing them now, here, descending, physical, you did not think that you could kill them. These candle flames would not be snuffed, you thought, and yet you screamed your throat raw nonetheless. A chorus of voices you felt rather than heard chanted over and over Turn Light Into Dark Turn Light Into Dark Turn Light Into Dark and then the lights were gone, swallowed up by something magical, something that killed monsters if you believed it did until the circle broke as one of you went to lock It up in Its new cage. As the circle broke so did the flowing power and a red glow overtook the alien yellow as the lid was pushed up and away and the sleek scarlet surface of a blood-coloured balloon emerged from the magic prison. You felt your stomach sink, your blood run cold, the power drain from your veins for the briefest moment as your belief waned completely and oh no oh God this was it you thought you would have killed It would have extinguished Its flame but It was eternal It was the Eater of Worlds and it wouldn't-

The door whipped open and you let out a startled cry halfway through a choking sob, not having noticed that you had begun to cry aloud. At once you slapped a hand over your mouth yet again, scrubbing at your cheeks with the heel of your palm and slapping on a shaky little smile that entirely contradicted the wild look in your eyes. Your heart was thrumming again both from the memories and the jump as the door flung open. You had to tell yourself again and again and again that you knew this man, that he was familiar and his name was right there at the tip of your tongue, curly hair and brown doe eyes and a kind, concerned crease in his brows that only deepened at the sight of you- Stanley, it was just Stan and suddenly you felt safe enough to cry. Your arms both going to pull your knees into your chest you let the terror grip you and the sobs rip free from your throat.

"(Y/N) what- what happened? Are you okay?" For a moment Stan hesitated, looking instinctively down at the palm of his hand for a reason you did not know and then he went surging forwards and to your side, gathering you up in his arms. He didn't speak just yet, simply holding you close, quiet, something about him dripping with a sense of calm. Laced underneath that pressing security was the power you had felt ripped from you in your dream, the power you did not know the meaning of but were certain was important, had been important, in some vital way. You cried and cried in Stanley's arms as your group of eight, a lucky number, crazy eights, was split instead into twos and ones.

One with glasses, one with a patch on his cheek, one with hair lit aflame like January Embers, one in love and one who was too smart for his own good and one who would lead them to safety no matter what and no matter when- and then there was him, he who let out this forcefield of strength, the one thought to be the weakest now doused in some strength greater than It, than love, than the Turtle whoever that was and he had your hand in his and you were running and trying to get away. Trials, terror, doors and bathroom stalls and clubhouses and (how do you know this?) little brothers and the macroverse. The Deadlights and blood and broken hearts and fear and pain.

"Do you want to talk about it?" His voice was soft, safe, and his hands rest on either side of your face to guide your eyes to his own. They were dark like melted chocolate, solid, calm, steady and unmoving and nothing like the ruby red ones belonging to It, to the creature you didn't think possible to imagine. You didn't have to answer for Stan to know you would decline. He didn't scold, he didn't chastise- he would never do that. Instead, he leaned forwards and placed a kiss on the space between your eyebrows, guiding your head to rest on his shoulder. He did nothing more than hold you, silent, waiting for the fear to run it's course.

Belief grew strong all over again, the Leader fanning the flame of hope and driving forth the metaphorical wooden stake at last. You had felt something like hellfire roar through you, a driving agony that nearly drove you into madness but then it faded to the back of your mind and It was flaking away. There was crying alongside the groaning of the earth, a lurching sound like wood moments from snapping in two. Urgency, warm and throttling, tied each of you eight together and forced you onwards despite the exhaustion tethered like weights to your limbs. A hand in yours, you raced into darkness, leaving behind webs to collapse and bodies to fall and be buried. The gargantuan remainders of what was Its nest would lie dormant in the ground for millennia to follow, undiscovered. Eight of you, one two three four five six seven eight, retraced steps with the help of a dying man and grew closer and closer to light and life and safety. You climbed rough rock, something or someone (Turtle? Other?) lending you all the collective determination to move quick and careful and leave no man behind. The earth sang a song of despair as it clung to itself with all of it's force, urging you forwards, cheering you on, hoping you would all make it out before it could cling on no longer and collapsed atop your sorry heads.

"Focus on your breathing, my dear. You're all right. I have you," Stanley let his hand rest on your hair, stroking, smoothing, calming, "You're going to be alright." For a moment the floodgates in your head flung open and you knew everything but then they slammed shut once more and you were left hopelessly, blissfully clueless. You curled tightly into yourself, coiling like a frightened snake, letting the golden power coming off of Stanley in waves lay over you like soft, light silk. Something about this strength, glowing brighter than the sun in a manner much more pleasant than the Deadlights(?) felt ancient as well as young and fresh. You are certain Stanley has had this aura forever, and yet you have never ever felt it this strongly. It was almost as if you could see him lit from the inside out.

More darkness, sewers, the dead things smell fading slowly yet steadily. You passed places that were achingly familiar and yet felt worlds away, not having even the chance to stop and say farewell (did you say farewell to nightmare places?) since the roof was dropping flakes of grit and the rumbling had grown near a roar. Another well, a rope, heaving and pulling, up up up out of the dark and into the light, the homestretch. The feelings you felt were smothering, a sickening concoction of relief and one last choking bout of terror. It was not over yet. Eight of you, all eight, running through the house on (Nelson? Neibolt.) street towards safety, towards the end, towards-

You had never seen this far before. Your nightmares always cut off abruptly before you could even start to flee. They always cut off right before you defeat It, whatever It was, right before you snuffed Its light from this realm. Now, however, as if coaxed forth or caught on the end of a fishing line, you were seeing the ending, the ending of everything. Stan was still petting your hair, rocking gently back and forth as your trembling began to ease and your crying, ever-slowly, began to subside. The memories were still frightening, coming to you in rapid flashes, reminding you of an old black and white film spinning on a reel.

Towards the door. Floorboards creaked and groaned and split, sinking down, breaking underneath your feet. Glass shattered as walls sank towards collapse, as the dirt began to part, opening into a grave. Somewhere behind you the roof collapsed and spilt old dust-soaked furniture, a coffin, a collection of porcelain clowns down towards their resting place. With one final shriek of snapping wood all eight burst out into the Summer sun and the house gave in behind them. They didn't stop; the cement path was cracking, the weeds being reclaimed by the soil. The Earth opened up at last, providing just enough time- maybe held together by some greater strength- for the eight to reach safety. You all spun, watching, awestruck and horrified and solemn as the Earth opened up it's unrelenting jaws and swallowed whole the home of death that It had claimed as it's own.

Your shaking had stopped. Your sobbing had halted. Your heart had slowed to a regulated beat like that of a drum. Slowly, Stan's grip around you had begun to ease and you wrapped your own arms around him in turn. Your eyes, which had been screwed tightly shut, fluttered open and then fell closed once more, soft, not afraid.

"There you are, baby-love," Stan whispered the words into the top of your head and bumped his nose gently against it, "All better, right? You're going to be okay." With a swell of love that almost made you want to cry once more, you believed it. He was going to keep you safe just as he has done forever. With a concrete certainty you knew that Stanley would fight of Heaven and Hell if it meant saving you. With a concrete certainty you knew that, at some point, he basically had. You shift, slow, leaning away from him to gaze into those dark caramel eyes yet again. That's where the power came from, you were certain; from those eyes of his. They were so calm, so collected, so firm and confident and adoring. They shone with nothing but utter love.

"Stan..." Your voice was weak and shaky but Stan nodded his head, patient, waiting for you to find your words again, "Do... do you ever get nightmares?" At this, Stan cracked a radiant smile that was brighter than starshine and glowed in a way entirely different from the burning of the Deadlights. This smile was otherworldly, like the beams of the sun in the form of man. He nodded.

"Of course, dear," he hummed, and let his head fall forwards, forehead against your own, "We're only human." The last sob shook your body, and then you grew still as Stanley bumped his nose gently against yours. Your goosebumps sank away. The tightness of your lungs eased. A honey-toned warmth seeped from a newfound crack in your memory floodgates, letting through scraps of your childhood you had long since forgotten. The Summer of '88 had been pushed from your brain; as far as you had been concerned it had never even happened, it had just been Spring and then Autumn but now, with the door cracked open just a sliver, the memories spilled through and they were brilliant. You remembered the Barrens, playing guns and tag and Parcheesi and jungle hunters, winding through bamboo and splashing in the river and building a dam and an underground clubhouse. You remembered buying ice cream and movie tickets and picking through the dump with the seven greatest friends you had ever known. You remembered Stan the first time you'd seen him, haloed by the setting sun as you fell upon him and his friends on the cliff above the quarry. You remember Beverly's kind smile, Bill's welcoming eyes, Mike's handshake, Ben's timid wave. You remembered Richie's ill-timed joke and the way Eddie had so lovingly punched him so hard in the shoulder he had almost tumbled right off the rock he was seated on. You remember feel- hearing a click like pieces of a puzzle slotting together and you remember thinking these are my people.

Underneath these warm memories were dark ones begging to push through, to smother the good things, but for some odd reason you could imagine Stan fending them off, keeping them at bay for your sake. You can imagine him keeping the door held shut enough that the big ugly thoughts about hurt and fear on the other side of the gates. And you were grateful.

"You know," Stan said, and placed one hand on your cheek, his thumb skimming lightly over your cheekbone, "Those things in your nightmares can't hurt you. Monsters can always be killed," And, as if he had spoken directly to your brain, you feel-heard him saying if you believe they can. You met his sunbeam smile with your own, smaller but just as listlessly beautiful. Yet again you felt the aura around him, around your man, your husband, the only person you ever needed in your life.

"I know," You replied, and kissed him soft, "and I believe they can so long as you’re here with me.”

—————

Okay i actually,,,,, adore this I think? Stan doesn’t get enough love and I would die for him. So, just to kind of explain this in case I failed to do that through the text itself, Stan was gifted a few nifty little powers by either The Turtle or The Other depending on what makes more sense to you. He can (with a little struggling- that’s why the ‘floodgates’ opened and shut suddenly before finally only letting the good stuff through) staunch and release the memories of It and Derry in all of his friends heads, meaning he can choose what they do and don’t remember. He can also, just a little bit, project his thoughts onto other people. I’m not exactly sure why I went with this idea but I thought it was nice and fun and after playing a lovely It based game called ‘Use You Outside Voice Richie Tozier’ I fell in love with God-Stan. Thanks for reading :)

[mxvladdy]

Diavolo- True Form

Whoooooooo weeeee! ‘Pologies for the wait on these longer posts. I’ve been hit with a one two punch of house emergencies and sudden costly ass repairs, so my creative juices have been rightly squashed as of late.

Plus side I got my drawing tablet and drafting table back so I can neaten up my blog lay out now (yay!) 

Anyway this one was a challenge in the best possible ways. I really like Diavolo because of how little we know about him so it gave me some wiggle room. Or at least what I know of him- im only on like chapter 23 of the stories. Idk if I did him justice as this is angsty af but I sure had a blast writing it!

Hope ya like! Next up: Beelzebub 

Trigger warning: Mention of blood, and swearing. 

Diavolo-

He'll never show you, so don't ask. His true form is god-like in its own right and such knowledge, such truly raw demonic power in its natural form is not for your mortal eyes.

No matter what your lineage, it would break you. And despite his roles and being the literal devil, he doesn’t want you suffering.

Sometimes when he thinks you wouldn't notice he relaxes his hold on reality, just a fraction. He wants to relieve some of the tension that is always building just below the surface. Like closing your eyes when you have a tension headache. The mental energy he has to exert to keep face is enormous. Regular glamour doesn’t work nearly as well as his own, or Barbato’s magic.

But you see hints during your downtime spent in his company. A ripple in his reflection on the window pane. Unexplainable shadows dancing across his exposed skin. Too many teeth in his mouth when he laughs. Sometimes when you stare into his eyes you see something indescribable staring back behind them. His usually warm and inviting gaze darkening. A barest flicker, a hulking bestial thing kept locked behind in his golden gaze. It's enough to freeze the blood in your veins.

On certain nights when you can slip away from the brothers you stay in his room. Lying  awake, you watch his magic wane and shift as he slumbers. Sometimes you see runes, or at times letters. You are tempted to write them down and ask Solomon. But something stops you each time.

The worst images are the faces. Unknown souls trapped beneath his flesh clawing to be freed. Silent screams fading back into his body as he dreams. Your fragile fingers trace the patterns they leave as you wait for the next day wrapped in his embrace.

Only once have you seen more of his form then he would ever wish. The depths of his strength and mental fortitude were unknown to you so the slip up took you both by surprise. He masks the error well, but the sudden shift in energy in the room couldn’t be suppressed .

You are suddenly so aware of the oppressive weight of gravity on your frame. Your bones grinding together under the force of his aura. You panic, desperate by the need to breathe, but are unable to draw even the smallest bit of oxygen as it is robbed from the room. Time and reality wrapped too, distorting in ways only you thought only Barbatos could do. You knew in that moment the sudden dread of death, how mortally was but a rusty shackle tethering you down.

He collects himself, dispelling the energy and locking his glamour down tight to protect you. But that split second of fury felt like an eternity to you as you sink to the floor. You hiccup a shaky sob and shiver. Your fragile human mind bowing under the strain of what it cannot comprehend. Scolding hot tears fall from your cheeks, before splashing crimson the stone below you.

You didn't approach him again for over a month. No matter how strong you are, some things were better off unseen.

Mini Fic

He didn’t know. For once in his ancient pitiful existence, he had been unaware of his surroundings. It had been for just a moment, one tiny crack in his veneer. The foolishness of Mammon and Belphegor’s actions finally poked the right nerve. He wouldn’t hurt them, for Lucifer’s sake. That prideful demon would never forgive him if he did. But he could scare them. A quick look at his true self; a flash of the deepest bowels of hell. Enough to give them a reminder of their positions and standing in his court. He had expected their whimpers of fear, could taste the acidic tinge of it exuding from their pores. What he didn’t expect though was your blood curdling screams alongside.

Ironically, he would have to thank the second eldest later. His fast thinking is the only thing that saved you from complete damnation. His body shielded yours, taking the brunt of the stronger daemons hellish might for you. What little magic Mammon still had left used to protect you. Though, while your vision was blocked, you could still feel his oppressive presence. It racked your mortal flesh. Diavolo knew what affects his power had on humans. He spent years breaking and consuming damned souls with zeal after all.

The brothers had run from him after that, screaming for Simone. Barbatos following close behind, a look of consternation on his usually impassive face. You had been so limp in Mammon's arms. Diavolo could do nothing, shocked by his own weak will and realization that he might have ruined everything. You had been whisked away so quickly by his faithful servant and the brothers that he hadn’t had a chance to look you over himself. But the brief moment he saw will haunt him for years to come. Your eyes red from the sudden haemolacria, the blood staining your clothes and face. Your fingers digging away at your soft skin, black and purple blotches staining what he could see. Mouth opened wide on a silent scream. He knew what you must have seen. The souls of the damned trapped under his glamour breaking free to latch on to your unmarred soul trying to drag you back with them.

Against his butler's advice he stands at your door now days later trying to see you. He couldn’t sit around and just hear updates second hand. The brothers had been keeping guard most days in a valiant attempt to keep him away. But he could only be waylaid for so long before he used his rank against them.

He had arranged a full council meeting. Every one of the brothers knowing full well it was to get them out of his way. Yet, the order was absolute. This time none of the brothers could reject it. Barbatos would keep them in that room for eternity if he so wished for it. He hated using his age and power against them, but he saw no other way to get to you.

It was foolish now, standing as he was in front of your door. A part of him hoping you would turn the knob and let him in. Let him comfort you for once, instead of the asinine distractions the brothers offered. He could help too. Hells, he wanted to. He wanted to be closer to you. Power discrepancy be damned. The other part of him knowing it was for the best that you didn’t. Your guardian and tormentor all in one. He listens to your muffled sobs for a moment fighting with his feet to stay cemented to the floor instead of heading back in defeat.  

"When my father was still around he took me down to the deepest depths of the kingdom. Where the worst of the traitors and sinners are imprisoned." His deep baritone rumbles through your door during a break in your crying. "It’s a place few seldom go; even now I have yet to return. Back then he told me ‘there will never be a human soul that is undeserving of punishment. Even the ones destined for the celestial realm are tethered to sin.’ At that time I believed him. The things I saw in your realm... " The prince chuckles wearily.

He remembers the ever present scowl on the old King's face. His dark eyes looking out at the sea of damned souls he controlled. Even as a young daemon, fresh into his wings and still sharpening his horns to impress others he could tell how much his father detested his position. How it had warped him, turning him bitter and cold, even to his mate and only child.

Diavolo never wanted to be like that. Not to the ones he supposedly cared for at the very least. "I think that is why he hated the other realms so much.” He continued. “Humans, for their ability to choose which realm they would eventually end up in after they pass. That even the worst sinners could find redemption enough at the last moment to get to the pearly gates. While daemons, no matter how well they served, or the duties they did for the good of their own would never be seen as equals to our celestial counterparts or yours. That this existence is all we'll ever be destined to have. Nightmares and monsters, stories to tell little human children to keep them in line.” He pauses, collecting himself. “I believed wholeheartedly that every human deserved the punishments only my kind could dowel out. But, in this past year I have spent with you, I find myself changing. You are so undeserving of such torment. Somehow you are understanding and forgiving beyond measure to us. You handle our ill tempers with such grace. For daemons such as us, it is staggering, and humbling. I regret that I have hurt you so deeply and have broken your trust. I swear it as the head of this realm I would never intentionally do so." He looks at the door handle willing it to open. " I am so sorry."

Your crying picks up again. Huge heaving sobs that rattle your chest. Great Father, he just keeps making it worse. Clearing his head Diavolo turns.

Rejection of this nature was new to him. No one had ever dared to ignore him, especially such as this. The royal in him- his father's blood- seethed that he would even stoop so low as to grovel to a short lived thing like yourself. Even deeper yet, it demanded another taste of your essences. You little soul kept safe behind your rib cage. He wanted it added to his collection, kept tucked away deep within his maws.

It was sick; it was wrong. He chokes on the idea. The intrusive thought burrowing deep. How deplorable was he? Perhaps the angels were right to keep him out of heaven.

You didn't show to class the following day, or the days after. Unsurprising to him and the seven of the inner council. He figured the other day wouldn’t change anything. But it was utter agony to him. These days trapped in his office only getting short and curt updates on your health from Lucifer. It had been a special kind of torment.

Today he sat once again at his desk staring at some godforsaken bitching of a royal cousin. He knew this whelp. Some backwater thrice removed eons ago. Yet he was demanding an audience? The gall. The ink of their eligible handwriting makes him cross eyed. Would this day ever cease? He looks to his hourglass, the sands within seemingly frozen in time.

"My Lord, perhaps you should take a moment to stretch your legs?" Barbatos moved from his corner. Gloved hand coming to rest on top of the same three lines he had been reading for the past two hours. "This work could wait another evening I’m certain ."

"Did I do the right thing my friend?" Diavolo doesn't even bother answering the question his servant posed. They both knew he wouldn't. "This program. Our human exchange students. Solomon is one thing, but-"

"Your will and path is absolute." Barbatos states. "There are no mistakes within you, merely stumblings onto different paths."

With a gentle push Barbatos moves the hulking demon out of his way to collect and organize the scrolls and letters scattered about the large desk. "You made the right choice bringing them here. Look at what they have done. They are entertainment to you are they not?"

The prince rose knocking his desk aside and descended on his butler. His true form out in all its unholy glory now. His highly condensed magic distorting the study as if he was a black hole. The axis of the room shifts. His priceless collection of books and toys disintegrating from the cold radiation he emits.

It was all for show really. There was nothing he could do to an ancient being such as Barbatos. So he lashed out, throwing a tantrum in the security of his office. The hopeless agitation he felt fueling the flames of his rage. His butler had only added holy water to his already festering wounds.

Barbatos had been by his side for time in memoriam. The crafty bastard had helped raise him. Had shaped him into the ruler he was today. If anyone could break and remold him it would be his oldest companion.

The dark haired daemon waited for the waves of agitation to dry up. Moving only when the prince was in his more presentable demonic form. Large barrel chest heaving as he reined himself in. “Are you back to your senses?” He asks coolly, already categorizing the items to replace and furniture to be mended.

"I had not meant for it to go like this."  Diavolo croaks into his hands collapsing back on what remained of his desk. Building a bridge between realms, yes. That noble idea was the greater purpose of this program, but the rest of it. The classes, and dances. The parties where he threw his newest toys about to see how they would react to things other mortals worshiped? That had been for his own curiosity and amusement. Lesser beings navigating a foreign world blind to the dangers that were right under their very nose. Bring a mortal with no magic into his realm? Deep down he knew this was an inevitability. Especially with the freedoms he granted them. He just didn’t think he would get so attached.

“No one believes that you would hurt them on purpose.” His butler cuts off his downward spiral. “It would ruin the program. That is what you are so stressed about, right?” Barbatos eyes him skeptically. Diavolo, himself, and Lucifer had spent many sleepless weeks constructing and negotiating this program. If the Arch Angels heard a mortal was hurt down here it could very well end this little escapade. But the look in the prince’s eyes told a different story.

A warm glow emanated from his cheeks and he was unable to meet the old daemon’s gaze. Ah. "Or perhaps things have changed?" Barbatos smiles coyly up from beneath his bangs. "You are your mother's son after all. Neither of you were ever able to stem your bleeding hearts for long." Diavolo squawked indignantly but didn’t argue. Instead he merely turns a darker shade of red and curses under his breath.

He skipped out on court that evening. Not that he cared much. The other nobles would no doubt use the time to gossip about his whereabouts and uncouth behavior of late. Truth be told, he was avoiding the brothers more than anything else. They had made it expressly clear (some more then others) how they felt about him currently. He wouldn't doubt that Belphegor had a few more brothers on his side now.

Instead he stood at your door once more with a tea tray in hand. He had bumped into Simone on the way. The angel had come to bring you dinner and to check up on the last of your wounds. Celestial magic worked miracles on those who have been touched by the darker arts. Diavolo was grateful for his talents. And, by some miracle, Simone had made it abundantly clear he was not going to bring this to the higher ups on his end either.

Upon seeing the prince slinking up the house's stairwell the other man had simply smiled and offered him the tray. “I suddenly got a message from Luke. Could you perhaps drop this by our friend’s door?” Diavolo had accepted without preamble, large hands dwarfing the platter of little tea cakes and sandwiches. The young cherubs work no doubt. His cooking was a fine treat, and a great incentive to at least open the door.

“Hello again.” He knocks twice. “I just wanted to check in on you. I know I am the last person you wish to see but I was hoping to talk?” Silence greets him. Were you awake? He breathes deeply and focuses on picking up your vitals. You were up, your heart thumping steady somewhere in the room. That was good. “I also have dinner for you. Simone had an urgent matter to attend to so he- for better or worse- entrusted this to me.”

Diavolo searches hopelessly for something else to say. He couldn’t just leave the food and go. He needed to see you. “I don’t plan on staying long today. I understand when I am not wanted, but I cannot help myself but be worried for you. Perhaps this is just me contritioning, because I know I caused this. The amount of times I have been called a ‘ass’ by Solomon over this have been staggering.” He rambles. After another bout of silence from your end he coincides. “I see- I will leave the food by the door and let you rest.” Defeated he puts the food down and turns to leave.

The door clicks open slowly. One bloodshot eye peeking through the crack. “Oh mio piccolo mortale.” He loses his grip on your shared tongue at a loss. You looked- you must have been in the hall longer then he or the brothers had known. Such damage couldn’t be done in a few moments. Your skin was healing as nicely as Lucifer had said, but the deep purple scarring still remained on the surface. The burn pattern of it all was random. Twisting wounds that reflected an oily sheen from the light of the hallway. “I-.”

“I know-” You cut him off with a raised hand. “and I feel as though I owe you an apology too.” Your voice was so weak and shaky. A mockery of your normally strong and jovial tone. Hearing you laugh at school had brightened the dreary halls. He hadn’t realized it until you weren't there.

“You owe me nothing.” Diavolo says in earnest. He watches you contemplate your next words before throwing whatever you were going to say away.

“Would you like to come in?” Your eyes drop to the tray. “Luke always makes more than I can eat.”

“I don’t think that would be wise.” He backs out. All his plans crashing and burning around his feet. His actions had been irreparable.

“Perhaps not,” You open the door wider taking the tray and heading to your side table, leaving him no room to argue. “But then again, being a lamb among such wolves as yourself and the brothers isn’t smart either.” You meant it as a joke but he couldn’t even muster a chuckle. It was true. Gods. “Dia-” You approach him again but falter at the last second.

As much as you wanted to be close to him again the memories were still so fresh in your mind. The cold hell fire of his magic ensnaring you, searing your skin. The whispered words of sinners long since past still echoing in your head, all in languages you’ve never heard before. The worst though had to be the screaming. Lost souls begging for help. Some sounded so familiar…You shutter involuntarily.

You wanted to hate him for this. Curse him for putting you through this pain. But how much could you blame him? Or any of them? They were daemons. Whether he meant to hurt you or not, it truly had only been a matter of time before it happened. It would be hypocritical of you to fear or hate him forever over this. Six of the seven brothers have threatened your life before, and you have forgiven them. Hell, one of them actually killed you. What’s more was that Diavolo’s wrath hadn’t even been directed at you.

Wrong place at the right time; seemed to be your forte. “Please, come in.” You repeat again firmer than before mustering up either courage or sheer human stupidity to order him in. You couldn’t tell the difference anymore. “We need to talk.”  

He enters, following at your heel like a lost puppy. All air of princedom gone as you clicked the door shut. Diavolo fiddles with his hands, old habits from childhood coming with his nerves. He didn’t know what to expect anymore. Yelling? Some kind of beratement? A plea to go home and never look back?  He would let you.

You pass by him, giving him a large berth of space to get to your seat. “Tea?”  

Diavolo jerks his head to you. He had forgotten momentarily the plate of food he had used to get access to you. You smile sheepishly pushing it and a plate of sweets towards him with your unbandaged knuckles. He doesn’t move till your hand retracts back to your lap. You jerk your head to the open seat waiting for him. You weren’t going to take no for an answer.

“I- thank you.” The daemon sits making himself as small as possible in the straight back chair. He takes the porcelain and drinks mindlessly. The scalding hot tea doing little to help the tightness of his throat, but it did thaw some of the ice in his mind.

“Are-how…” He fumbles so unsure of what to do next. “I see you’ve been keeping up with your school work.” Diavolo closes his eyes, wincing internally at his words. That’s what he comes up with? Idiotic.

You smile anyway, eyeing the massive pile of books and paperwork spewn about your bed. “Yeah. I’ve taken to doing my school work with Levi in his room. Mammon and Beel are nice enough to drop it off to the teachers when they are due.” He nods. He knew this of course. But it was nice to hear it from you. But yet, you don’t meet his eyes. Far too afraid to see what hid behind them.

The thought of being dragged back into those dark depths again makes your pulse quicken. You instead stare at your nail beds, finding them more interesting. They were purple now. The nails stained black by the contact with his magic. “Will- will that go away?” He asks. Demonic curses or taints were nigh impossible to remove fully. Disgustingly, he hoped they didn’t. Then your nails would match his. The darker depths of his soul coo at the idea, happy that in a small way every daemon would know your his. Not as good as a pact, but as close as he could get to being a part of your little mortal life.

“I’m not sure.” You reply honestly bringing your hands up to place them on the table. “Simone and Solomon have done what they could. But, it is as good as it’s going to get for now. They say it could fade with time.” You look up at him, eyes gazing to the left of his face. “Luke thinks I should see a stronger angel.” Diavolo winces, the thought stung, and terrified him. “I told him no.”

That surprised him. This was your chance. The celestial realm had been skeptical from the beginning. If they knew, it would be a perfect caveat for them to step in. “Why?” Finally you look at him. The fear was still there. Hesitation evident in your eyes. Yet you forced yourself to look at him, fighting through your trepidation.

“Did you mean what you said earlier? About your father and what you think of me?”

“Of course.” He replies without hesitation reaching for your cold hands. You flinch but don’t move away. It felt-nice. His warmth chasing away the perpetual chill that covered your fingertips. Idly you stroke his strong hands with your thumbs.

“Then, I think we can work on this privately.” Slowly but surely you felt like you could fix this. Not for the program, but for yourself.  

[ot3]

Sorry to bother - feel free to ignore. I’m trying to write an orv fic bc. I like them. And I’m having trouble understanding why with the regression depression it’s the happy memories that get yjh the most. Best I can figure it’s bc he can use the bad memories to propel him forward - like he’s doing this to avenge them. But the good memories force him to realize these people are gone and he’ll never see them again. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks!

i think that's definitely more or less accurate! i think the 'those people are gone and he'll never see them again' bit you've pointed out is the critical piece here. ill stick my further thoughts below the cut. this is really long because i've pulled a LOT of long chunks of text from the novel to shore up this point. i just got home from work so my thoughts are gonna be a little bit incoherent here. skip to the end if you're not interested in reading all the segments i pulled from the text. spoilers all the way up through chapter 508

first things first, let's just go back to the novel and look at all the bits where YJH's depression gets brought up

“Maybe Yoo Jonghyuk-nim has already repeated a few lives. You have fought against terrible enemies and struggled against the beings of this world to save people. Enduring alone, lonely memories… We respect your sublime spirit.”

This jerk, such skillful flattery. Yoo Jonghyuk would be moved to tears if he heard. Later when he was depressed, I would have to tell him these words.

“But Yoo Jonghyuk-nim should’ve realized it from your past regressions. Even if you have an outstanding miracle, you alone can’t fight against the disasters that will come.”

Plus, he was right.

- from ch 48

「 Everything is twisted because of this person. 」

「 It is different from what I know in the earlier regressions. The amount of information available is too limited. I can’t save the world like this. 」

What was this?

「 The reason I was hurt by the Salvation Church was because we spent too much time in the last round. It was a mistake to train for 100 years then. My mind was permanently damaged. 」

「 Maybe it was a mistake not to get the Absolute Throne.  」

「 I will start from the beginning again… 」

Dammit, the regressor’s depression had begun. Was it due to the mental attack? I cried out in fear of what he would decide. “I’m hurt you jerk!”

- from ch 140

「 Those people can’t save the world, even with 100 trucks. 」

「 Once again, the answer is regression… 」

“Now now, our Supreme King isn’t in a good mood right now so back off. Do you want to die?” I personally stepped forward to get rid of any causes of depression.

- later on in ch140 as well

This jerk, he was always so impatient. He had been given time to rest but he was still busy thinking. Regardless of his depressed state, Yoo Jonghyuk was Yoo Jonghyuk.

“Before that, let’s take a moment to breath. The view is great.” I said while sitting on the roof railing.

Yoo Jonghyuk asked me, “What are you up to?”

“I’m just looking at the world. Isn’t it beautiful?” The city of Seoul was destroyed by the monsters. I quickly added, “It was originally a beautiful place.”

“I don’t like landscapes.”

“Why?”

“They are things that will disappear someday.”

I thought I had a bit more understanding of the third regression Yoo Jonghyuk after fighting against Shin Yoosung. I wanted to believe he was a person who could love this world without giving up or feeling despair.

I told him, “However, we need to protect these things.”

“Kim Dokja, you don’t know.”

This might be my misunderstanding. Yoo Jonghyuk could give up at any time because he was still in the midst of his regressions.

In the end, Yoo Jonghyuk’s purpose was to prevent the ‘destruction of this world.’ Paradoxically, he could give up on this world at any time. His essence was regression and this fact would never change.

“No, I know,” I replied.

“What?”

“The fact that you can regress at any time means that death is meaningless.”

I looked down at Lee Seolhwa caring for the injured. Lee Seolhwa was feeding her boiled soup to an unknown person. Despite her efforts, there was a high probability that the character would die. Even if they lied now, they would die tomorrow. If they miraculously survived tomorrow, they would die the day after tomorrow.

It was the same in the fourth regression and the fifth regression. There would always be ‘death’ in the world of Yoo Jonghyuk, even after passing the 100th regression.

“If there is no sense of death then the value of life also disappears.”

- ch141

There was the vague belief that he could do better in the next round with more information. It was easy for him to give up on this regression if something went wrong.

This was the precursor symptom of ‘regression depression.’ Some of the contents of Ways of Survival passed through my head.

It was around the 48th regression. Yoo Jonghyuk had consulted with an incarnation of the constellation ‘Discoverer of the Subconscious’ on the ‘regression depression.’ At the time, he seemed to be speaking like I was now.

I continued speaking, “Yes. It might be as you say. If you repeat it 10 or 20 times then it will surely get better. You’ll be exposed to more scenarios and see more of the future. The real problem is when you someday save the world in this manner.”

“What does this mean?”

“At that time, do you really think you saved this world?”

“…”

“Do you think you will be able to keep the same mindset after repeating it 100 or 200 times?”

“I won’t regress that many times.”

I silently stared at Yoo Jonghyuk.

「 …Don’t tell me? 」 Yoo Jonghyuk’s eyes slowly widened.

I kept speaking, “Are you having nightmares these days?”

“…”

“You won’t be saved, even if you save the world. The moment you save the world, the worlds you have forsaken will come to you. Despite saving one world, all the other worlds you abandoned will drag you to hell.”

- from further down in ch141

「 Yoo Jonghyuk felt lonely as he saw these watches. They got their time back but he still wasn’t

living in this time. Yoo Jonghyuk suddenly thought. If so, where do I live in those countless hours? 」

It was the monologue of Yoo Jonghyuk, who once saved the Demon World. It was also one of my favourite scenes from Ways of Survival.

I suddenly seemed to understand a bit of his mind. To the regressor Yoo Jonghyuk, the time in these worlds didn’t belong to him. In a life that could go back over and over again, the present time was meaningless.

Once this was over, I would ask Aileen to make me a watch. If he had something like this, he might become more attached to this world. Maybe the regression depression would get better…

- ch 207

A person who regressed more than a thousand times. A spirit that had become insensitive from the hundreds of suicides and tragedies that an individual could suffer. The extremely widespread regression depression…

「 Yoo Jonghyuk of the 1863rd round is the despair of the world itself. 」

- ch 285

Abnormal condition? There was no way. Who was the 1863rd regression Yoo Jonghyuk? This was Yoo Jonghyuk who was the Ruler of the East Hell and killed the Devil of Principles. There was no one among the constellations who could place an abnormal condition on the present Yoo Jonghyuk.

Yoo Jonghyuk’s eyes were blank.

I felt uncomfortable like something was stuck in my throat. No, there was. There was only one person who could cause an abnormal status in Yoo Jonghyuk.

+

* The target is suffering from ‘regression depression’ due to an unknown cause.

+

It was Yoo Jonghyuk himself.

Regression depression. The spirit of the man who had been broken over 1863 lives made the regression depression almost a passive, low level skill. Once he fell into the depression, his consciousness was caught in the weight of his memories and he couldn’t wake up.

[Kill him! He isn’t invincible!]

The ruthless strikes caused Yoo Jonghyuk’s body to bleed little by little. It was strange. Originally, the regression depression shouldn’t occur in this situation. In the 1863rd round, Yoo Jonghyuk had learnt how to manage this disease.

- ch 286

then this REALLY LONG BIT from 287. it has stopped letting me indent for some reason so i guess ill bold this.

I knew how to wake up Yoo Jonghyuk from his regression depression. In other words, it meant I also knew how to sink him deeper into that melancholy.

I saw Yoo Jonghyuk’s fingertips moving and opened my mouth. “Do you remember? The 33rd round. You cleared the 40th scenario and Lee Jihye said this.”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s eyes dimmed and his moving fingertips stopped.

「 “It would be nice if Master didn’t have to go to the next round.” 」

“Think about it. You weren’t always unhappy. Right? In all the rounds, there were moments when you were happy.”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s expression was becoming stiffer.

“The 173rd round. You protected Earth for quite some time. You also saw Lee Jihye receiving her high school diploma and Lee Seolhwa smiling at someone’s child.”

「 “Jonghyuk-ssi, are you happy that you’re alive?” 」

Every time I spoke, Yoo Jonghyuk’s expression collapsed. It wasn’t despair that broke down Yoo Jonghyuk.

“The 383rd round. You finally cleared the 75th scenario. Fortunately, nobody died in that round. That was the first time. Then Lee Hyunsung told you.”

「 “Jonghyuk-ssi, I won’t forget today until I die.” 」

The feather-like memories sank into his head.

“Then the 498th round…”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s palms moved to cover his ears. The usual Yoo Jonghyuk wouldn’t have fallen from this much. Now it was different. I held his hands and kept talking. “That happened 10 times.”

A human sank deeper into the water just because of the weight of these feathers.

“Twenty times.”

My breath clogged up and my lungs tightened. I could feel what Yoo Jonghyuk was going through. Only I could feel it. The most primitive darkness at the bottom of one person was swallowing his ego greedily.

“100 times. It repeated over 1,000 times.”

All those words were destroyed. All the happy memories flowed back to a time they could never return to. Through the countless regressions, the meaning of happiness faded. All the values he preserved became pieces of torn paper.

“Yoo Jonghyuk.”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s self was sinking into the deep sea. It was to a place that he could never come up from without someone’s help.

“Have you protected all the things you wanted to keep?”

I looked at Yoo Jonghyuk’s miserable face and thought: Don’t worry Yoo Jonghyuk. I’ll do the rest. You stop and rest.

[Your understanding of the character ‘Yoo Jonghyuk’ is increasing explosively.]

Yoo Jonghyuk’s empty eyes were showing memories of losing his master. I didn’t use Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint but it wasn’t hard to read.

「 I want to die. 」

「 I want to finish all of this. 」

「 If only I can never wake up. 」

A few drops of rain fell from the sky. It was black rain made from the blood of the demon kings and constellations. Liquid also flowed onto Yoo Jonghyuk’s face. Yoo Jonghyuk’s gaze lowered and finally fell on me.

I was looking at the moment a human’s spirit collapsed. There was a broken voice. Like a creaking machine, Yoo Jonghyuk stammered, “Wh,at… should, I, d…o?”

i think this one is obviously very important.

then, the 'have you protected all you wanted to protect' stuff obviously reaches its culmination in the finale

⸢The regression depression.⸥

That was the only weakness of Yu Jung-Hyeok, who had repeatedly regressed for a very long time.

[In the 173rd turn. You managed to protect Earth for a pretty long time. You got to see Yi Ji-Hye receive her high school diploma, and you even got to see Yi Seol-Hwa smile with another’s child in her arms.]

The light in Yu Jung-Hyeok’s eyes was wavering.

⸢It wasn’t despair that could defeat Yu Jung-Hyeok.⸥

⸢Small feather-like memories settled down inside his head one by one.⸥

The ‘Dokkaebi King’ was using the exact same method I relied on back then.

⸢The breathing got harder, and the lungs were getting tighter.⸥

⸢A man drowning in water would sink even deeper under the surface from the weight of a mere feather.⸥

I couldn’t afford to idly watch on anymore. I shouted at Yu Jung-Hyeok, telling him to wake up, and not to fall for such an illusion.

However, my voice couldn’t reach them as if a non-conductive barrier was set up between us. And the ‘Dokkaebi King’ was smiling away, perhaps to mock this entire story.

[Yu Jung-Hyeok, have you protected all that you wanted to protect?]

Slowly, Yu Jung-Hyeok’s knees sank down.

I roused the Status of Fables. I needed to undo that ⸢Stage Transformation⸥ right now, But, how should I…

Grab.

There was a hand still tightly clutching mine. It was Han Su-Yeong.

“That’s not a battle you can interfere in.”

“But, if he’s left alone….!”

“….Even a star that can’t be seen still emits light. You said that, right?”

….A star that can’t be seen?

Her words made me look back at Yu Jung-Hyeok once more.

His gaze being lowered had come to a stop. Blinding sparks were completely enveloping him.

Tsu-chuchuchuchu….

Something was waking up his fading consciousness.

[Great Fable, ‘Ones that Remember the Apocalypse’, has begun its storytelling!]

That was a Fable I wasn’t aware of.

As the sparks lessened gradually, several silhouettes revealed themselves. Now that I took a closer look, Yu Jung-Hyeok wasn’t alone. No, four others were standing beside him.

A tall man, a young man with blonde hair, a girl with a ponytail, and finally…

[[He couldn’t protect anyone. That’s why he now stands in this place.]]

….An Archangel with blindingly-pure wings.

Astonishment quickly dyed the Dokkaebi King’s expression.

The Fable from the destroyed 999th turn was now burning brightly like the conflagration of end times on the edges of the Archangel’s blade.

[[Because he believes there are still things left to protect.]]

- from ch 508

Now here's a couple of tidbits about depression when it comes up for Other entities:

The fastest thing to get shaved away after becoming a Constellation was their own ‘Fable’. The more a Constellation depleted its story, the weaker its power would get. They would grow bored, disinterested, fall into depression, or lose themselves in tedium.

Constellations would desperately seek out other Fables in order to escape from such a quagmire. In other words, they would search for a new tragedy to escape from this horrible eternal cycle, even if it was only for a brief moment.

- ch 498

⸢[Constellation, ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon’s’ ■■ is ‘Something that can’t be found’.]⸥

I had read what his ■■ was from the original novel. His description showed up when he became Yu Jung-Hyeok’s ally for a little while during the 1863rd turn.

⸢The evil dragon suffering from the worst possible depression in this <Star Stream>.⸥

The reason why the ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon’ believed his age to be 15 was simply that he’d not be able to continue on if he didn’t.

A life stretching for thousands, no, tens of thousands of years, made an originally solitary dragon into such a creature.

In order to stop itself from decaying, he chose not to age. He chose not to lose his curiosity of the world. He chose to torment Incarnations or play bizarre pranks. And for his final prank, he even chose to betray the ‘Absolute Evil’, too. He stood on Yu Jung-Hyeok’s side and while mocking the <Star Stream>, breathed his last.

- ch 503

okay so

i think there are a couple of different ways to look at the regression depression in line with each of orv's 'themes'. of course despair at losing his comrades is the main primary emotion here, but there's subtler stuff going on here too.

for starters, the foundational components of any creature within the star stream is its stories. the more your stories are known and shared the more powerful they are, etc, etc. time and time again their shared stories are the thing to save them and ground them. but as we see with the hellscape of eternity, yjh begins to become isolated from the interpersonal aspect of the story as he loses the people he originally formed these stories with. the stories are how people communicate. as YJH progresses through his regressions he is unable to relate to the 'story' in the way you are supposed to, and this essentially causes a complete ego death. life no longer has any meaning for him, because he is fundamentally incapable of connecting with people. the [impossible communication] of a life and a burden that can't be shared.

then there's the [samsara] aspect - being worn down by the endless repetition of fate. everything is the same, over and over again, and yet we still delve into it hoping to get something new out of it. maybe the story will be different this time. ABFD was able to stave off depression by keeping himself in a state of permanent novelty - there was still something left to discover - but as YJH progresses through the regressions and falls deeper and deeper into repeating the same pattern, the tedium becomes too much. he has nothing new to experience. he has repeated everything this reality has to offer - or so he thinks - and it shows no sign of ever changing. if it's the same every time, why stick around? why not go again? it doesn't matter. none of it matters. you are just part of the wheel.

and if we think of it in terms of [good and evil] we see yjh slowly become something that almost any human being would call a monster. as kdj says in that conversation with anna croft near the end, "can you really call someone a human if you have to look so hard to find their humanity?" as far as it goes. yjh commits some atrocities! Because of said aforementioned removal from reality and ego death, he is able to fully justify any action it takes no matter how horrendous. and yet his noble goal never changes. undeniably, what he is by the end is some sort of monster. but still, of course, just a man. and he knows this. he feels himself slipping a little bit more, every regression. he knows its coming. and he doesn't want it. he wants to maintain his humanity.

but really i think we can almost best think of yjh's regression depression as almost his equivalent to the [fourth wall]. whereas the 4th wall is a unique passive skill that protects kim dokja by preventing him from fully conceptualizing what's happening to him as 'reality', the regression depression harms yjh by preventing him from conceptualizing what's happening to him as 'reality'. in a sense, his friends and loved ones have almost become 'characters' to him as well, as he already knows the way this story happens. he is an outsider, observing these beings interact with each other but not quite the same as them. he is an anachronism. this isn't his present. this is a present, one he can take or leave at any time. the thing yjh does in his later regressions - using people as tools - is something kdj does in the beginning of his journey. because, well, it doesnt matter if this isn't the 'real world'! they mirror each other.

that ended up being so much longer than i thought it would im sorry. i hope this was even like 10% helpful.

[heejinnien]

j.jungkook | monsters

word count: 4.5k

pairing: jungkook x reader

synopsis: in the darkness is when the monsters rise.

genre: horror, angst, demon au

warnings: implied minor character death, implied toxic relationship, brief description of gore, death threat, brief violence

author’s note: please do not read this fic if any of the topics listed in the warnings is upsetting or triggering for you. this fic is based on the tale of the hungarian demon, the lidérc. they feed off of nightmares and fear. my beta readers (thank you so much to @voiceswithoutlips-kas, @elcie-chxn, and ryan for beta reading this fic for me) have told me that this fic might be confusing to read at first, so please read it in its entirety. i promise that every detail serves a purpose. that being said, the entire fic will be placed under the read more cut, as triggering content is mentioned right from the start. the banner was made by @voiceswithoutlips-kas​, thank you so much.

cross posted to ao3 here

Now

He's dead, the doctors tell you.

The surgeon in charge of the procedure that was supposed to save your husband's life murmurs his condolences, explaining how your husband's body rejected the new organ. They tried their best, he explains, but once your husband's body had decided to reject it there was not much they could do.

It's almost ironic how he died, considering the numerous ways you thought he would go over the years due to the reckless activities he constantly engaged in. Each time he would leave the house you feared for his life, feared that one day he would no longer return to you. Now, it seems, your worst fears have come true.

When the news finally sinks in you let out a sob, although whether it is one of relief or one of despair you can't quite decipher.

Despite the fact that he loved berating you, loved tearing you down until you were entirely reliant on him, you still loved him. Until death do us part, you had promised on the day of your wedding, and you still loved him as much as you did when you were both teenagers in high school. Going on a date with him sparked the same chaos of butterflies in your stomach as it did on your first date, and you were giddy over the smallest amounts of affection, willingly bending over backward trying to please the man who used to be your husband even at your own discomfort.

In the first days of your marriage, your friends and family would visit you. You had bought an apartment together in the city so that he would be close to his work. You had your reservations at first, but he slowly convinced you of the idea. Of course, he could convince you to walk across glass and you gladly would, for him.

And, at first, you were delighted when somebody would visit you. Your husband had insisted he would provide for your every need, so you didn’t work. You also didn’t leave the apartment, as your husband had also insisted it was too dangerous for you. You had initially become hurt at his words, but when he explained it was merely because you weren’t used to the city and that he would take you out whenever you needed to go out, you accepted his words without argument.

Then

“Y/N,” one of your friends had said abruptly during her visit. You were conversing casually over tea, yourself perched on the edge of your sofa and her on a loveseat opposite you. She leaned forward, worry creasing her face. “I think you should come back home.”

“I’m fine, Soodam,” you replied, startled at her words and setting your tea cup down loudly. “I love my husband, and I love the city.”

Soodam pursed her lips. “From what I’ve seen, your husband keeps you prisoner here.”

You stood indignantly, anger flaring inside you at her words. “He does not! He just wants what’s best for me.”

“How many times have you been into the city then, Y/N?” Soodam pushed, standing up after you. She stepped closer, and you shied away, suddenly nervous.

“I… That doesn’t matter.” You huffed, crossing your arms over your chest and turning to put space between you and Soodam. No matter how much you desperately wanted her to stay away from you, she continued to follow you, grabbing your arm to prevent you from running away from her.

“Y/N, please listen to me,” she begged. “You haven’t been the same since you married him and you know it. The apartment is the only place your husband allows us to meet, and he keeps you like a dog on a leash.”

You yanked your arm out of her hold, anger bubbling inside you like a volcanic vat near explosion. How dare she talk ill of you and your husband like that, she didn’t know anything about you.

“Get out,” you spat harshly, wiping furiously at the tears that threatened to spill from your eyes.

Soodam’s eyes widened, and her voice softened. “Y/N, please. I miss you.” She stepped forward again. “Come home with me.”

“I — ” You trembled, suddenly unsure. Your previous anger dissipated within a second, and you stared at your longtime friend. Sensing your hesitation, Soodam continued, this time with a renewed vigor.

“Your parents miss you, Y/N, I miss you. Please, just come back with me and — ”

“That will be enough, Soodam.”

The aforementioned girl gasped, and you looked to see your husband standing in the doorway to the living room, face stoic but eyes burning with anger. He spared you a brief glance before moving into the room, making your friend suddenly cower back in fright.

“I think it’s time for you to leave.”

Scared, Soodam stared at the floor, grabbing her purse from the coffee table and immediately walking in the direction of the door. Before she could get there, your husband grabbed her arm, much as she had done to you earlier, and whispered in her ear. She nodded, face ashen, staring at the ground and refusing to meet your pleading gaze. Moments later, she was gone.

Silence permeated the apartment. Then, “She won’t be returning.”

You knew better than to question your husband’s wishes so you nodded, throat dry. Your husband let out a harsh laugh at your obedience, before dropping his briefcase by the front door. Without so much as another word, he strode down the corridor leading to his office, the sound of a door slamming ringing through the same passageway moments later. The silence afterwards was even worse than your husband’s wrath, the emotions of the past few seconds catching up to you once again and settling upon you like an unwanted blanket.

That was the last time you saw your friend.

Now

You can't remember the first time you feel as though you are being watched. It might have to do with the first time you see him, as after your first encounter you never consciously feel safe again.

The days following your husband's death seem to pass by in a blur, and sometime during them he appears, slowly forcing himself into every aspect of your life until he is a constant fixture you can no longer ignore.

The first time you see him is during your husband’s funeral. The sky is a somber grey, as if it can sense your mood, and an icy wind nips at anything within its grasp. It is the beginning of winter, and the cold is sharp, chilling you to the bone despite the numerous layers you have on. The funeral is brief, more of a formality than anything. Strangers give you their condolences, and it only serves to remind you of how little you truly know about your husband.

It is when the casket is being lowered into the ground that you see him, standing among the group of mourners.

He is huddled in the center of the group, head bowed. Something about his presence draws you to him, and you don’t realize you’re staring until he looks up, making direct eye contact with you. You quickly look away, face burning with shame. Imagine how it must look, you mentally chide yourself, the wife of a dead man checking out another at his funeral.

You chuckle, the sound empty and devoid of any humor. Luckily for you, at that moment, the casket is finished being lowered. The priest in charge of the funeral’s addresses hands you a shovel, effectively drawing your attention away from the mystery man. As you send shovel after shovel full of dirt flying onto the casket, he is effectively pushed further and further away from your mind.

It is not until after the procession is over, guests beginning to head back to their cars that he approaches you. You have just thanked the priest for his words, turning to walk back to your car when you let out a gasp.

He is standing right in front of you, broad frame seeming imposing against your smaller one. He cocks his head to the side, holding out one hand for you to shake.

“Hello love,” the man’s voice is silky, and he grasps your hand firmly. Even though it is a simple handshake, the contact sends a shiver down your spine. The man stares at you, his expression unreadable, and you have the sinking feeling that he knows the effect he has on you. “I’m Jungkook.”

“Y/N,” you say similarly, albeit a bit hesitant. He feels familiar, the subtlety of his features causing your memory to tingle, an identification of who he is just outside of your grasp. You assume he is just another one of your husband’s associates, shoving away the niggling feeling to give Jungkook a polite smile, hoping he picks up that to you, the conversation is over.

He does, because he steps to the side, allowing you to pass. As you hurry to your car, the skin on the back of your neck prickles, the feeling of someone watching you causing your hair to stand on end. When you look back, however, Jungkook is gone.

~~

From the funeral, the feeling of being watched follows you everywhere. Coincidentally, so does Jungkook.

You run into him at the store, the park, even the lobby of your apartment complex, since it turns out he is a resident who recently moved in. Each time, he gives you a charming but guarded smile, attempting to strike up a conversation with you. Each time, you give short, uninterested responses, something about Jungkook’s presence causing you unease.

A month after the funeral, you are woken up in the dead of night by a pounding on your apartment door. Heart racing, you jolt away to the sound, fumbling in the dark for your phone. Squinting to read the harsh digital light, you manage to make out that it is three am.

Swearing at the heathen who dares interrupt your sleep, you throw off the covers of your bed, swinging your legs onto the floor and using your phone light to navigate the dark hallway.

By the time you finally reach your front door, the pounding has stopped. Annoyed, you unbolt the lock and yank open the wood, ready to give whoever it is a piece of your mind.

The hallway is empty.

~~

The mysterious incident sets you on guard, only serving to increase your paranoia. Several nights later, you hear it again, only this time you swear you hear something else, too.

A voice, calling your name.

“Y/N,” it says sweetly, almost crooning. Even though you are locked in your room and buried beneath the security of a multitude of blankets, the voice manages to reach your ears, sickeningly sweet. “Come out, sweetheart.”

You spend the night huddling in your bed in fear, praying for the noises to go away. You are surprised your neighbors haven’t filed a noise complaint about it by now since they’ve complained over lesser, you think, a thought that dryly amuses you.

Much to your chagrin, the noise continues for the next few nights. Each time you stay huddled in your bed, irrationally hoping that the blankets around you will protect you from whatever it is outside your door.

During the day, you don’t fare much better. You swear you are beginning to lose your mind. You find keys moved, doors left ajar. The fear you feel of being watched only increases.

The last straw that breaks the camel’s back comes when you finally seek out your landlord, demanding to see the security cameras.

“Y/N,” the landlord glances from out of the corner of his eyes at you worriedly as he slots the keys to the security room into the lock. He pushes open the door, gesturing for you to enter first. “I know things have been… stressful for you lately.”

He pauses, flipping on the light switch and illuminating a set of monitors. “Are you sure that someone has been…” He trails off, struggling to repeat what you had told him earlier. “Knocking on your door at three am?”

You glare at the man, and he gulps, effectively silencing himself and preceding to busy himself with the monitors. Hell hath no fury a woman scorned, and you are tired of the constant paranoia that has settled deep in your bones. An uncomfortable silence settles upon you, and you stare unnervingly at your landlord, too sleep deprived and furious to be aware of your rude actions.

“Ah, here it is,” the landlord flashes you a weak smile, pushing a monitor towards you. He clicks his mouse a few times, and footage displaying the hallway outside of your apartment begins to play.

You stare intently at the screen, watching the numbers signaling the time in the corner slowly tick away until finally they reach three am. You hold your breath, and see

Nothing.

Your mouth drops open in shock, and you whirl on your landlord. “Did you tamper with the footage?”

If possible, your landlord looks even more nervous, and he gulps. "I haven’t been in here in the past few days.”

“Try another night,” you demand, desperation welling inside you.

Obediently, he speeds up the tape until it is the following day. And, like in the previous footage, as the clock hits three, the hallway is deserted.

Silence permeates the room.

“Y/N,” the landlord lets out a sympathetic sound, and you don’t realize you have begun to cry until a tear splatters on your shirt. “I think it’s best if you just go back to your apartment.”

Embarrassed and frustrated, you nod, storming out of the room...

And right into Jungkook. Your chin collides with his chest, and you reel backwards, angrily swiping at your tears. The aforementioned individual stares at you, concern lacing his gaze.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you mutter angrily. “Just let me pass.”

Jungkook wordlessly steps to the side, and you quickly hurry past him, now mortified more than anything.

What you didn’t know was that you had just made two, fatal mistakes.

If you had looked into his eyes, you would’ve seen the gleam of delight in his orbs.

If you had turned around, you would have seen the way he smiled.

~~

The footage replaying in your mind, you finally seek out a therapist and book an appointment for the following day. You don’t fall asleep that night, body tense in terror and dread exponentially filling you as the clock ticks closer to three. The knocking, however, never comes, and sometime around the rise of the sun this realization sinks upon you.

You barely make it to your session that day, state in disarray. The many nights of sleeplessness and terror are catching up to you, and you drag your feet down the street, fatigue crashing down upon you.

Somehow, you manage to locate the therapist’s office and scribble down all of your personal information on the clipboard that the receptionist hands you as you enter. You sit in the waiting room, legs bouncing anxiously.

“Y/N?”

You look up as the door opposite you opens and a kind looking man stares down at you.

“Hi, that’s me,” you say, standing and striding over to him. He takes in your worn appearance, eyes kind and compassionate.

“I’m Dr. Kim, but please, call me Taehyung.”

He leads you to a small room just off the main corridor. Several closed doors line the passageway, and at your curious glance Taehyung explains that they are the offices of his coworkers.

His office is small but cozy, a desk on one side and a couch on the other. Bookshelves line the far wall, and a lamp next to the couch gives the room a soft glow. He gestures in the direction of the couch, pulling a chair from his desk over as you sit stiffly.

“Would you like to tell me why you’re here today, Y/N?” Taehyung asks, steepling his fingers on top of his lap and the papers lying there. Your gaze flickers down to the top paper, the sheet you know you had scribbled information on earlier, and he smiles. “I know you already answered that in the pre-screening questions, but I just wanted to ask you instead. It’s always different when someone says it I find.”

Taehyung flashes you a reassuring smile, and you take a deep. With the landlord’s footage playing in your head, you finally manage to open your mouth and say, “I haven’t been able to sleep well lately.” Taehyung nods, as if this is a normal thing, and you push on. “I keep waking up in the middle of the night to this pounding on my door.”

“A pounding?” Taehyung frowns, and the expression sends dread plummeting to your gut.

“I went to the landlord about it,” you say quickly. “But when he showed me the security footage, there was no one there. I swear I’m not crazy, though. It’s almost as if…”

You trail off, forcing your jaw shut before you suggest something crazy.

“It’s okay, Y/N,” Taehyung says soothingly. “You’re in a safe place.”

You nod, closing your eyes and attempting to calm your breathing. When you open them, Taehyung is staring at you worriedly.

“Almost as if what, Y/N?” Taehyung gives you another encouraging look. “It’s okay.”

“Almost as if…” You take a deep breath. “As if I’m being haunted by a monster.”

“Monsters?” Much to his credit, Taehyung doesn’t sound mocking at your confession. You nod, throat dry, and he leans forward. “Monsters aren’t real, Y/N.”

“I know that,” you say, your words ending up in an almost whisper. “I just…”

“You wrote that your husband passed away recently, did he not?” Taehyung asks, and you are grateful for the subject change, even if it is to another depressing topic. You nod, and Taehyung continues. “Grief is powerful, and manifests itself differently in everyone. I think that this is just your grief trying to find an outlet.”

“I don’t — ” You protest, but Taehyung quickly holds up a hand to silence you.

“I know it might not seem that way, but trust me, there are no monsters, Y/N.”

You nod slowly, and Taehyung smiles. This time, it’s sharp and sends a shiver down your spine. A dark look passes over Taehyung’s expressions briefly, so briefly you wonder if you imagined it, and then he smiles once again, this one the same, gentle one as before.

“I’ll write you a prescription that should help you sleep.”

“But, Taehyung, that’s not the problem — ”

Taehyung hums, already turning away, and your protests fall on deaf ears.

You end up leaving the session several hundreds of dollars lighter, one prescription heavier, and the worries pressing down upon you still prominent within you.

That evening, when you return to your apartment complex you see Jungkook in your apartment lobby. You had stopped for groceries on the way home, and you are carrying two large paper bags, each one nestled in the crook of your arm.

Jungkook is standing by the elevators. He turns at the sound of you, lip quirked at the sight of you struggling to carry two bags.

“Do you want some help with that?” He asks lightly, brow creasing in concern.

“No, I’m fine,” you reply, your usual answer whenever he asks if he can help. This time, he purses his lips, and you feel a pang of guilt. You think about your therapist’s words, that the sinking sensation you have around him is probably just guilt, and shove down the feeling before saying, “Actually, if you could, that would be great.”

Jungkook beams, taking one of the bags from its precarious grip against you. Moments later, the elevator dings, and the doors slide open. He motions for you to step inside first before following you, pressing the number for your floor. You open your mouth to ask how he knows your floor, but you quickly close it, the therapist’s words ringing in your head. Coincidence, you think.

The ride is silent, the only sound the occasional shuffling as you adjust your grasp on the bag. You find the silence uncomfortable no matter how much you try to convince yourself of your delusion, the sound of the elevator signaling your floor causing you to exhale in relief.

You are the first one off, leading Jungkook to your apartment door. You fumble with your key, shoving it unceremoniously inside the lock and pushing open the door with your hip. You flip on the lights, already heading in the direction of the kitchen before the lights have even fully powered on.

“You can set the groceries down here,” you nod your head in the direction of the counter, setting the groceries down there yourself. Jungkook does the same.

After setting the groceries down, you expect Jungkook to leave but instead he stands, observing you. Unease twists once more in your stomach, and the fact that you two are alone, together, in your home sinks down upon you.

“Thank you for your help,” you say in what you hope is a clear dismissal. Jungkook doesn’t move, continuing to stare at you unflinchingly. You subconsciously step back.

Jungkook steps forward.

“What are you — ”

“Do you not remember me?” Jungkook tilts his head to the side, question innocent but voice laced with venom. You swallow, your throat dry, and take another step backwards.

“Uh, no? I’m sorry, you were one of my husband’s associates, right?”

Jungkook scoffs, and in that moment his stance reminds you of a predator. He prowls forward, matching each step you take backward.

“You know who I am, Y/N L/N,” he sneers.

“I don’t — ”

“Yes, you do!” Jungkook spits angrily, slamming his hand into the counter, the loud sound causing you to jump. He cocks his head to the side, eyes twinkling in a mischievous way that has fear coating the inside of your stomach.

“Curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it, Y/N?”

To anyone else, the statement may seem harmless, a well known idiom used to caution the overcurious mind. To you, they tear at your memories. You gasp as one particular memory flies to the forefront of your mind.

Then

You gently pushed open the already ajar door of your husband’s office, looking around the room for your husband. You had just finished making dinner and were ready for him to come to the dining room so you two could eat, but he was nowhere to be seen. On his desk, you spotted the tray you had left him for lunch.

You hesitated on the room’s threshold, your husband’s warnings to never step foot in his office ringing in your ears. After a brief mental war with yourself, you finally slipped inside, quickly and silently heading in the direction of his desk.

You picked up the tray, and before you could look away papers resting beneath the tray caught your attention.

“Oh my god — ”

You let out a gasp, the tray slipping from your grasp and crashing to the floor, the sound deafening in the still silence. Face up on your husband’s desk, beneath the tray, was a photograph of a young man. His face and body had been badly mutilated, and the sight made you sick.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

You forced yourself to tear your eyes away from the photo, instead meeting your husband’s steely gaze. The body was pushed to the back of your mind, your heart beginning to race for an entirely different reason.

“I saw the door ajar and just wanted to get your lunch tray,” you stammered, cowering beneath his gaze.

He’s silent, staring at you unnervingly before, “Get out.”

You were all too eager to obey, quickly scrambling in the direction of the door. The entire way you felt your husband’s burning gaze, and you had just passed him when his hand shot out, gripping your arm painfully tight. He leaned down, his lips hovering above your ear and sending shivers down your spine.

“Curiosity killed the cat, Y/N,” he says, words causing your heart to feel as though it has stopped and your stomach to drop out from beneath you. “Be careful of where you look, or else you’ll end up like him.”

You ate dinner alone that night.

Now

“Oh my god.”

You barely register as your legs give out beneath you, weak beneath Jungkook’s menacing gaze as the missing piece to Jungkook’s identification that had been nagging at you ever since you had first seen him finally clicks into place.

Before you had suppressed it, you had wondered why your husband had that picture on his desk. Now, everything clicks.

Your husband had been responsible for Jungkook’s death.

You had never been a violent person, and the sheer gore that you had seen from the photographs had caused you to repress that memory. Now, it is vivid and fresh in your mind, and you shake your head furiously as if that will cause the memory to dissipate.

“It’s not my fault,” you insist, staring into Jungkook’s burning gaze pleadingly. “I’m sorry for my husband’s actions, but — ”

“Shut up,” Jungkook hisses, and suddenly he is in front of you, hand against your windpipe. Your breath hitches in fear, and you swear you see a gleam of satisfaction deep within his dark orbs. “You could’ve done something to stop him.”

“I didn’t know what he was up to, I promise,” you sob, vision blurring with tears. Jungkook coos at the sight, gently stroking the bottom of your chin with his thumb. His touch feels as though it burns against your skin, and you flinch.

“Shh, baby.” Jungkook leans forward until his mouth is against your ear. The moment feels strangely intimate, and his breath sends shivers down your spine, just serving to heighten your fear. Every muscle within your body is tense.

“Your therapist was wrong about me, you know,” Jungkook chuckles, the sound sending warning bells signaling throughout your head. “Monsters do exist.”

His hand suddenly tightens, and you choke as your air supply begins to dwindle. The world around you begins to spin, and as everything fades into darkness you hear Jungkook’s voice one more time.

“I can’t wait to break you.”

You gasp awake, heart pounding. You sit up in bed, taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm yourself. As you piece together the details from your nightmare, your hands quickly fly to your throat, gently pressing against it where Jungkook’s hands were. You wince, and you quickly shove your covers aside, flipping on your bedside lamp and stumbling into your bathroom.

When you flip on the switch, you are greeted by a ring of purple and grey bruises around your throat. Your eyes widen in horror as the realization that it wasn’t a nightmare crashes down upon you.

And that’s when you hear it.

The pounding on the door.

[welshoot]

I’m excited. I love Halloween and the thought of doing a Halloween based event in this game thrills me to no end. So each of the guys got a card in which they are dressed up as or filling the role of a certain popular monster. I’m going to go from left to right and discuss what I know about the card and how I think the role fits each character. There might be some light analysis of the card itself as well.

So, starting with Artem. His card is named “Pseudoheart” and he is filling the role of an android. The use of technology as something monstrous is becoming more and more popular. Possibly due to how much technology that is used in today’s day in age. That said, I personally don’t think androids are particularly frightening. However, I do think this could be a very interesting card. Due to the name and who we’re dealing with I’m wondering if the story for this card will be dealing with an android (Artem) struggling with having feelings of love despite his robot nature. For one thing, Artem appears to be struggling in the image. He’s on his knees and is leaning against some sort of pole, making me think that maybe his android self is rejecting human emotions and is possibly at war with itself. But this is all just conjecture.

Next we have Luke. His card is named “Imprisoning Moon” and he appears to be filling the role of a werewolf. Werewolves are popular monsters and have been around for quite some time. There are a lot of different variations on how it works but most popularly werewolves are viewed as individuals that are cursed or have a disease called lycanthropy. At this point the link between illness and Luke has a pretty good foundation and most of us agree he’s got some serious health problems. In the image Luke is shown to be chained up, likely due to the werewolfism since werewolves are typically hunted/feared and viewed as dangerous. It’ll be interesting to see if Mihoyo actually portrays Luke as more aggressive in this card or if it’ll be more about him being harmless and MC trying to free him. It’ll also be interesting to see if they portray the moon, the chains, his love for MC, all of these things, or possibly something else entirely as being what imprisons Luke.

Third in the line up is Vyn. His card is named “Counterflowing Night” and he is without a doubt a vampire. Vampires are so popular it isn’t even funny. They're nearly inescapable in the teen-fiction department of stories so I’m not surprised one showed up here. I’m also not surprised they chose Vyn as the vampire for this since he’s often composed and vampire characters are typically very well put together. What really struck me as interesting about this card is in the PV, which you can watch on Youtube if you like. In the PV, Vyn is shown to look initially distressed and then gains the calmer expression we see in the card art. His initial distress makes me wonder if he is a newly awoken vampire or perhaps only just realized exactly how much harm he could cause others. The name of the card is also intriguing. Counterflowing Night implies night is moving backwards since counterflowing means flowing in an opposite direction. The name could also be implying that his night flows differently than others. While most people are asleep and at peace he is awake and having to hunt down others for food.

Last but not least, we have Marius. Marius’s card is named “Delirium Sin” and he is a devil or demon. Possibly the only monster more popular than vampires and even then it’s a toss up. After all, the idea of demons and devils has been around for a very long time. Marius is shown to be his usual smug self and there isn’t really anything that strikes me as odd about the card art. The name of the card is rather interesting. Delirium has two meanings according to Merriam-Webster. The first being: “an acute mental disturbance characterized by confused thinking and disrupted attention usually accompanied by disordered speech and hallucinations.” The second meaning is much shorter: “frenzied excitement.” Now, obviously the second meaning certainly is applicable, easily so. But the first one is more interesting to me. If Mihoyo is using this meaning I wonder if the card’s story will relate to how appearances can be deceiving which is something they’ve used with Marius in the past.

All in all, I think for each of these cards there is going to be an interesting story to accompany them.

[border-spam]

Does troy really have a split jaw or is that fanon?

It's total fanon!

The design of the split lines across his cheekbones and chin coupled with the cheek clips and v shaped hinge outline next to his ears lead to a lot of people coming to that same outcome, that there is something up with his mouth from a prosthetic/mod standpoint.

So much of his design is never mentioned once or referenced in any way (hightech spinal rig with tattoos under it, neuro connector, mech arm that's much older and doesn't seem related to the spine and neuroport, implants on bicep, face mod etc) that like Tyreen's scars and possible lower body Siren markings, fandom took over when it came to coming up with logical explanations for 'em.

This actually touches ground with some Ao3 comments I wanted to share as they are all Leech Lord compliant, so I'll list them here alongside links to the fics they were related to (note warnings!)

You leave no avenue for characterization unexplored. Troy's facial prostheses finally receiving backstory is amazing

- Maw (Gore/Bodyhorror)

I LOVE the idea of it being not just decorative shit on his face, but my MO for any content I make is always based around asking why, over and over, and trying to make sense of what material I'm using in the first place. The modded mouth is a popular piece of fanon but you know... why? Why would he do that shit to himself. WHY would he want to be grotesque, why would he be chasing the reaction people would have to it when canonically he seems to really not be interested in fan attention the same way Tyreen is, what's the difference to him between being adored as his persona or being lusted after as a monster, etc. I just love deep-diving into the logic behind character and world building? It's what adds meat to the bone for me.

Big 'ol character and worldbuilding / lore responses list under the cut -

He could afford better robots but these ones UNDERSTAND Ty, don't you get it?

- Good night in (tooth rotting fluff)

Hey just because it's mangled and broken, and can't perform its intended function to a degree expected of it by everyone around it... and it's got rusty sharp bits it accidentally hurts you with sometimes... and it's cranky but it doesn't mean it... and sometimes it errors out in a way that's mildly disturbing in a way you can't place.. uh.. doesn't mean you should just GIVE UP ON IT you know? He can fix them :) They will be fine :) No one should just throw away something that's trying so hard just because it's damaged... haha... :')

It's so hard seeing how much they tear each other down when they're the only thing they have left. And what a poor self-image Tyreen has beyond all that glitter and bluster...

- Wolf in sheep's clothing

The twins function well enough as a unit till tensions rise, and I was trying to seed in The Leech's influence on them in earlier work like this too - towards anyone else Ty would become MORE aggressively confident, more assured in her complete and utter dominance of the situation, her flawlessness, but against Troy who see's her for what she is, it turns inwards and eats at her instead of lashing outwards. He switches from relatively submissive around her to almost surgical levels of dissection, he knows exactly how to go for the jugular with words, and doesn't hold back. She's The Leech's mouth but he's its eyes and it's only when they lose control emotionally enough for it to claw to the surface of their psyches that you get an idea of how much it really affects them individually. GB had an absolute goldmine on their hands here of cosmic/body horror and the concept of toxic family when all you have is each other, there's so much to work with, and I figure it's a factor in why some people still really enjoy messing around with Calypso content.

I like how you allow Troy to be a disabled character, how his congenital defects and prosthetics colour his outlook and appear in ways big and small in all these vignettes. It's easy, I think, to see him as largely untroubled by his health apart from when he needs a charge from Tyreen in the game, but you allow him to struggle with his weakness.

- Chronic (Drug use)

I'm really glad to hear that's coming through in the writing because it's something I noticed a lot too. Very often when Troy, or other characters canonically disabled / chronically unwell are written it's "told" and not "shown". Chronic pain, illness, it's not something that is just a little tickbox in a life or some descriptive terms added to a character synopsis, it's something you live and deal with. There are bad days. There are times it is a negative that has to be worked around or faced in ways that aren't pleasant. It doesn't make you lesser or weak to have times where illness does leave you unable to function to a level you want to, it's not a failure for you to be unable to perform tasks when a disability or flair up means it's not viable. I feel personally that by showing scenes like this where his health and body issues do have a very visceral and impossible to ignore the effect on his ability to function, and going through his mental processes of dealing with and managing them, it brings the character across as stronger than if he never seemed to be shown dealing with symptoms or weaknesses. People are more than their disabilities and conditions, those aren't just kinda taglines to add onto a character's description and then never address. I feel like doing that in a way undermines what people deal with who manage chronic illness, pain, and who have disabilities that affect their daily lives negatively. Appreciating the effort it takes to manage them is important.

What I really like about these is that you can really understand as a reader how their dynamic must have evolved. How even before Leda's death Tyreen would have felt demonized while Troy got the attention because of his condition, because he was less willful.

- Starlight, Moonbright

Ah man, absolutely - and that shit stayed with them. It wasn't his fault and he never wanted it, but of course their parents would have had their extremely ill child at the forefront of their thoughts, especially during weeks when he was.. bad. Tyreen by nature even without The Leech's influence is a little attention seeker, she'd be the life of any party and she BLOSSOMS if she's got the spotlight, but as a little kid who's got literally no one but her parents and her brother, and who all three of which can't give her nearly as much time as she deserved? That's rough. That's really unfair. That coupled with The Leech's warping effect on their egos as they grew up and the bitterness and resentment they harbored in different ways created a reverse dynamic. She'd never be out of the Galaxy's attention again, and he'd have no choice but to take his rightful place in her shadow.

I love how you illustrate both how much more, and yet how much less Troy is now. How the blameless child, full of potential, is inextricably linked to the brutal, larger-than-life avatar he fashions.

- DeLeon ( Graphic Violence / Gore / Hallucinations)

He's molded the monster he is now out of the bones of the man he should have been - there's no going back really. There's nothing left to go back to. He broke Troy DeLeon apart to build the persona that acts like an iron lung now, suffocating him breath by breath while forcing him to still take them. That life is over, he killed it before it had a chance, but the idea of it is still there in his subconscious. Somewhere in the absolute trainwreck of Troy's brain is the tiny, flickering belief that maaaaaybe one day this will all be over and he can shuck off the bracer and spines, peel off all the shit he's covered his skin with, and just go back to not being Calypso. DeLeon here isn't some aspect of his mental state or his sins haunting him - it's The Leech, spitting venom at a host it loathes in something that's not sound or comprehensible language. His subconscious has just translated it into something it can understand - his greatest regret.

On if Borderlands Humans originated on Earth -

There's a really tenuous link between BL verse and rEarth, but it's there and can't be ignored. The cultures, accents, terminologies, so many are Earth specific despite these people being spread across galaxies, so hell yes - Earth as an emergence point makes total sense. The next question then, is why is it never mentioned - and you can cover for that with a lot of things like say, tt was so long ago that it's not relevant to anything that would ever be discussed, or it could be a mass evacuation from a catastrophe there is little record of now. I like to go with something along those lines, that the first human Siren host emergence on earth just absolutely decimated the planet. Like, we were doing fine till this random woman somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere develops weird markings overnight, then goes apocalyptic. The first Leech maybe, not understanding her powers and having them rip across continents in a spread of crackling electric death that only left husked shells of plants and animals in its wake, or the first Firehawk who went nuclear and burned the sky, or the first Voidgrasp who lost control and began to collapse the planet's core - some extreme shit that had humans fleeing en masse with barely any preparation and HUGE swathes of history and knowledge left behind. That would cover so many social things surviving into the BL verse, cultures, accents, cooking, that shit comes with us regardless of what we were able to throw into escape ships. Like so much data would be stored on any tech and data arrays within the vessels people would use to leave a dying planet even in an insane rush, but that shit waters down over time - if you're farming barely edible plants on some planet that smells like farts, are you really gonna be that stressed about teaching your kids history from a lost planet when your current concerns are not being eaten by something with 19 legs and 4 buttholes? Don't think so.

On if the other Siren entities are as influential to their hosts as The Leech -

I touch on it a wee bit throughout LL, but the others are FAR more passive and meld more to their host's whims. The Firehawk Siren wouldn't.. like.. care? If the host was burning down a planet or fighting off an evil corporation? They are removed from any nonsense happening on this side, they might not even really be able to tell, it's like asking an amoeba or a collection of sentient atomic particles what its opinion is on Brexit. That's not really its priority. The Leech is so aggressive in its control of the twins and desperation to drive them towards an outcome it desires only cause it's split, broken, removed from the song, and completely lost. We're talking a caged, half-mad animal removed from its natural environment and left totally isolated from its own kind for millennia. It's in pain, it's confused, it wants to find its way back to the song and the others and where it belongs, but it's stopped by a barrier it can't comprehend ( the twins and being ripped between them), so in its impotent rage it feeds back that hatred onto them. It's not really sentient in the way we would describe functional intelligence, but it wants, and craves, and FEELS. And it feels very, very angry.

Big thanks to @undergoingcalibrations for talking through so much of this with me!

Asks are Open!

[thetravelerwrites]

Monster Match 33: Futakuchi-Onna

The Traveler's Masterlist

For @artless-whimsy : “I'm a bi cis lady, she/her. During non-pandemic times, coffee shops are my natural habitat. I'm quite small and get cold easily, but love sweater weather. My passions include cat/kitten rescue, reading, long walks, D&D, writing, and mental health advocacy. I write and edit for fun and profit, and I crochet to help manage my anxiety. I'm shy but friendly, and my family says I talk too fast. :p

In a partner, I love wordplay and being able to talk for hours, particularly about stories, but the most important thing is kindness (whether that's something that comes easily to them or something they work hard at). I'm happy to be the talker that draws someone else out, as long as they give me something back. My love languages are quality time and physical touch, but my partner's don't have to be exactly the same.

Monsterwise, I love creatures that are pretty but deadly (or misunderstood)—think vampires, faeries, ghosts, shapeshifters, demons—but honestly? Please just have fun with it; I can't wait to see what you come up with! As for NSFW-content, I'm happy either way and would rather you write what you're inspired to! I do love kisses, and I think I'd prefer more lime than lemon, if you go that way?”

You’ve been matched with a Futakuchi-Onna!

A futakuchi-onna, or "two-mouthed woman," is a type of Japanese monster characterized by their two mouths; a normal one located on her face and a second one on the back of the head beneath the hair. The origin of a futakuchi-onna's second mouth is often linked to how little a woman eats. In many stories, the soon-to-be futakuchi-onna is a wife of a miser and rarely eats. To counteract this, a second mouth mysteriously appears on the back of the woman's head. The second mouth often mumbles spiteful and threatening things to the woman and demands food. If it is not fed, it can screech obscenely and cause the woman tremendous pain. Eventually, the woman's hair begins to move like a pair of serpents, allowing the mouth to help itself to the woman's meals. While no food passes through her normal lips, the mouth in the back of her head consumes twice what the other one would.

TW: Eating Disorder, Abuse, Mental Illness, Hospitalization

“Cute girl!”

“Shut up!”

You looked up from the counter at your favorite cafe and tried to find the source of the voices, but you only saw one woman sitting alone by the window. You could tell when you looked at her that she had been staring at you and had looked away just as your eyes met.

“Talk to her! She’ll leave!”

“Stop it!”

“Hey,” You said, walking over. “Are you okay?”

She sighed and looked up with a strained smile. She was Asian and very pretty, with long, dark hair flowing down her back, though she seemed rather thin, perhaps unhealthily so.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” She said. “I have… a… growth or something.”

“That talks?” You asked.

“Unfortunately,” She replied, turning in her seat. Her hair lifted of its own accord and sitting among the tresses was a mouth, identical to the one on her face, except with sharp teeth.

“Hallo!” It said at you.

You blinked in surprise. “Well then.”

“Yeah, sorry,” She said with a sigh. “I used to hide it, but it’s gotten so loud lately that it’s just easier to explain and wait for people to run off.”

“Well… I mean, it’s unusual, but I don’t see why people would run off in this day and age.”

“If people look human and then aren’t, it weirds people out.”

“I get that, I guess,” You said, sitting down. “So, does it have a mind of it’s own?”

“No, no, it’s just says what I’m thinking but don’t normally say out loud.”

“So you think I’m cute?”

She looked up in shock and blushed hard. “Oh… I was hoping you hadn’t heard that.”

“You’re pretty cute, too, you know,” You said, smiling. “Can I buy you a coffee?”

“Oh!” She said, a surprised, shy smile creeping across her face. “Yeah, thanks, that would be wonderful.”

Her name was Kyoko and she was a yokai, or Japanese demon. She’d apparently once been human and became a demon over time, which is something that happens pretty regularly to both humans and animals in Japan. By the end of having coffee, you’d left with her number and a promise to see each other again.

The two of you went on a few dates together, and it was about a month before you realized something: you’d never seen her eat. Not once. Maybe as a yokai, she didn’t need to eat, but you’d seen her drink coffee and tea and things, so you weren’t sure. You decided to ask her about it.

On your next date, you went to a local park to feed some ducks. The mouth on her head was chattering incoherently. It was doing that more often, you noticed

“Hey, Kyoko?” You began, throwing out some peas and corn for the ducks to peck at. “Can I ask you something kinda personal?”

“Yeah, sure,” She said, holding out a handful of oats.

“Why don’t you eat?”

“Hungry!” The voice in the back of her head said.

“Stop!” She said, smacking the mouth lightly. She took a heavy breath. “I’m a futakuchi-onna. Do you know how my kind are created?”

“No,” You replied.

“It happens after years of under-eating and malnourishment,” She said. “In stories, it’s usually a stingy, selfish husband that causes a woman’s suffering, but for me it was my mom.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mom used to make fun of me because of my weight. I wasn’t even that overweight, but she decided when I was really young that I needed to diet and start fasting. She would make me not eat for days, and then feed me broth twice a day to make me lose weight quickly. She used to say that if I wasn’t thin and pretty, no one would ever love me and that I’d never be worth anything. Around my eighteenth birthday, the mouth appeared. My mom kicked me out when she found out I was a monster.”

“You’re not a monster, Kyoko. Your mother is.” You took her hand and squeezed it. “Why has it been getting so loud recently?”

She looked away. “I haven’t been very nice to myself recently. The mouth eats at night when I’m asleep, so I don’t eat during the day because I don’t want to gain weight.”

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten anything while you were awake?”

She shrugged. “Two weeks?”

Your mouth dropped in shock. “Kyoko, that’s not good! Are you seeing anyone about this? Like a therapist? This is an illness and needs to be treated.”

“I know,” She said, ashamed. “But I don’t want anyone to judge me or…” She stopped when her hair grabbed a handful of the oats and stuffed it in the mouth. “Stop it!”

“Come on,” You said, getting up off the ground and holding out your hands. “We’re going to the hospital.”

“What?” She said. “Why the hospital?”

“You need help now,” You told her. “I’ve been concerned about you since the day we met and this just confirms my fears. I don’t think we should wait.”

“Will you stay with me?” She asked, beginning to cry.

“Of course I will,” You said, pulling her into a tight hug. Her hair wrapped around you. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The doctors discovered that Kyoko was thirty pounds underweight and immediately recommended that she enter an inpatient rehab facility. Kyoko sobbed but agreed to go. You swore you would visit her as often as they would let you.

The two of you visited at least twice a week and talked to each other on the phone every day. Despite the fact that you couldn’t be with each other while she was in treatment, you’d grown very close during that time. After sixty days, she was released. She had lost her apartment during the time she was in rehab, so you moved all her things into your apartment and asked her to stay.

You went to pick her up and take her home, and she threw herself at you, laying a big kiss on your lips. It was the first kiss the two of you had. She looked radiant.

“How are you feeling?” You asked.

“Better,” She said. “The mouth hasn’t spoken in weeks and the staff said it quit trying to sneak food days ago.”

“That’s wonderful, babe, I’m so proud of you.” You gave her another kiss and set her down, taking her hand and squeezing it. “Let’s go home.”

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