#joseph the sociopath

[ultraericthered]

Still the best live action cinematic Doom.

Russo Bros. and Robert Downey Jr., the ball's in your court now!

[mikrokosmos]

The Gothic in Classical Music History (1760s-1920s)

Intro Back in high school I fell in love with two things; classical music, and Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve always loved Halloween, October, spooky things, ghost stories, horror and slasher movies, etc. And I always loved finding classical music that was also spooky, or dark, or evocative of the same eerie experience of a cold and foggy October day. Thinking about these memories made me want to put together a short list of Gothic Classical music.

But what do I mean? There is no true “Gothic music” as in a specific movement in classical history, because the traditional Gothic refers to literature. Not all art movements have corresponding trends in all mediums. Even so I thought it would be fun to say, if there was such a thing as Gothic music, what would that include?

18th Century

John Henry Fuseli - The Nightmare (1781)

Music of the 1760s-1790s, corresponding with the first wave of “Gothic Novels” in the English language. Some names in this era include Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto), Ann Radcliffe (The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian) and Charles Brockden Brown (Wieland). The closest we have to music of this same era would be in the Sturm und Drang style. Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) was used to describe music written in a minor key that was restless, agitated, intense, emotional, and more extreme than the typical expectations for restraint and lightness/clarity, music that aristocrats in powdered wigs and velvet and lace could relax with. Strong changes of emotion and more emphasis on subjectivity, reflected by sudden modulations and pulsing rhythms.

The most famous piece that I associate with Sturm und Drang is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “little” g minor Symphony no.25, K.183 (1773). It is famously used in the opening of Miloš Forman’s Amadeus (1984). It is a fun piece, and that opening movement is full of fire, and probably the young Mozart having fun (he wrote it at 17. If you ever want to lower your self esteem, look up what music Mozart wrote at your current age.). Another major work would be Joseph Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony no.45 (1772), written in the very unusual for the time key of f# minor. And of course, even though he comes later, anything Ludwig van Beethoven published in a minor key has a lot of muscular passion to it, and his early/classical era of the 1790s is no joke. Check out the final movements of his Piano Trio no.3 in c minor and his Piano Sonata no.1 in f minor, or his most famous early sonata, the Pathetique.

But if the Sturm und Drang style and Gothic genre also emphasize the disturbed and the psychological, we can include programmatic works that do the same. Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (1788) has an incredible moment in the finale. The sociopathic hedonist is confronted by the ghost of the man he murdered in the first act, who possesses a statue and confronts Don Giovanni with his sins. Don Giovanni doesn’t repent, so he is dragged into hell with a chorus of demons. Always a good reminder that Mozart wasn’t the eternal child who wrote pretty melodies.

19th Century

Caspar David Friedrich - The Abbey in the Oakwood (1810)

Music of the early 19th century corresponds better with Gothic fiction because Romanticism in art brought greater interest in the supernatural, in the subjective, in emotional reactions to the universe… major names in fiction include the poetry of Lord Byron (Darkness), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein, The Last Man), and Sir Walter Scott (The Bride of Lammermoor). Greater emphasis is put on the anxiety of the unknown, supernatural fears beyond our control.

Of all Franz Schubert’s songs, Erlkönig (1815) best exemplifies the Gothic (and this is a bold claim because I only know about a fraction of Schubert’s extensive song output). In it, a father and son are riding on horseback. The son is sick with fever. As they ride, the son cries out that he can hear the Elf King calling out to him, some evil spirit or demon that wants to take the son’s life. The father tries to calm him down, but the Elf King gets closer and closer. By the time they reach home, the son has died. Was the Elf King real? Was the son hallucinating from fever? How literal should we take this text? The ambiguity of subjective experiences and how we interpret and understand reality is a major theme in Gothic fiction.

Many famous German operas lean into the supernatural and magical. In this period we get Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz (1821), considered to be the first Romantic opera. In it, our main character Max who needs to win a shooting contest so he can be allowed to marry his lover, Agathe. He is given a gun that can shoot magic bullets by another forrester Kaspar (who has his own plans). Kaspar tells Max to meet him in the “Wolf’s Glenn” in the woods at midnight for more magic bullets. In the Wolf’s Glenn, Kaspar calls for a spirit, the Black Huntsman Samiel, to help him curse the other characters, offering Max’s soul in exchange. Making deals with demons/the devil was another fascination in Romanticism.

Legends of a diabolical nature were springing around great musicians. At the end of the 1700s, Giuseppe Tartini wrote his most famous composition, the “Devil’s Trill” Violin Sonata in g minor which is full of virtuosic passages. Tartini claimed that the Devil appeared to him in a dream, and that he sold his soul in exchange for the Devil to be his servant. He handed the Devil his violin, and the Devil “…played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me, and I awoke” Source

Similar stories came about with violinist Niccolò Paganini, who astonished the audiences of the early 19th century with his (for the time) otherworldly technique, dazzling them with scales and leaps and scratches the likes of which you can hear across his 24 Caprices for solo violin. A young Franz Liszt was at one of Paganini’s concerts and he was enthralled and inspired to become the “Paganini of the Piano”. He too would dazzle audiences with his percussive intensity, glittering arpeggios, and dreamy modulations to possess women with the spirits of hysteria and other dated misogynistic diseases. Cliche to say but before Bieber Fever, before Beatlemania, there was Lisztomania.

The sense of Faustian bargains comes through in the pieces Liszt wrote after Goethe’s Faust. The Faust Symphony (1857) includes a movement for Mephistopheles, the demon/ the Devil that bargains with Faust. The Mephistopheles movement has no original theme, but takes and corrupts the themes of Faust and his lover Gretchen into a mocking tone. Later on, Liszt was inspired to write a tone poem “The Dance in the Village Inn” or Mephisto Waltz no.1 (c.1862). He also wrote it for piano around the same time. The story has Mephistopheles taking Faust to a wedding in a village and playing the violin so madly, the partygoers are intoxicated by the music and go off dancing in the woods. Emotions taking over and making one act irrationally was another fascination in Gothic fiction.

Liszt would go on in his later years writing a few more Mephisto waltzes, with a lot of forward thinking harmonies and piano writing, unfortunately not as popular. Mephisto waltz no.2 (1881) has moments that make me think of Debussy, and the third (1883) has glittering and ethereal moments. But the best example of Liszt’s interest in the Gothic would be his earlier concert piece Totentanz (1949), or Dance of Death (Danse macabre). In it, the piano and orchestra play out variations on the Medieval chant Dies Irae, always reminding us of the inevitability of death. The variations depict skeletons dancing wildly all while the Mephistopheles at the piano unleashes his seductive tones.

The Dies Irae chant goes across our pop culture, with one famous iteration being a synthesized version of passages from Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique that Wendy Carlos wrote for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) after Stephen King’s novel of the same name. And it was Berlioz’s symphony that enchanted audiences in 1830 with new, titanic sounds beyond what orchestra music had been before. In the story of the Symphonie fantastique, an artist has tried to overdose on opium after feeling rejected by unrequited love, but instead he has a vivid drug induced nightmare where he is sentenced to be beheaded via guillotine, which was still a traumatic living memory for the Parisian audience. He then sees himself among ghosts and monsters during a witches’ sabbath, the lovely woman’s beautiful theme is distorted into a grotesque mockery, the Dies Irae comes back among the cackling. It was a new degree of imagination expected from the audience. Later, Berlioz would depict demons in Pandæmonium (the Capital of Hell in Dante’s Inferno) at the end of his Damnation of Faust.

Through the mid to late 19th century we get authors of Gothic literature such as Edgar Allan Poe, Elizabeth Gaskell, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Nathaniel Hawethorne, and Victor Hugo. We also get two more operas that have Gothic themes. First is Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman (1843). In this opera, a ship on the North Sea collides with the Ghost Ship of the Flying Dutchman who is cursed to sail the seas forever, but is allowed to come ashore once every seven years and if he can find a wife, he will be freed. I’m sure you can guess how this opera ends. The overture is often played in concert for a condensed version of Wagnarian thunder and romance. The next important opera is Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth (1847), because Shakespeare was being revived and translated in different languages across Europe and Verdi loved his plays. In the opera, Macbeth comes across a chorus of witches that foretell his success and downfall. He is too ambitious and goaded by Lady Macbeth, plans to take the throne through deception and murder. Lady Macbeth is later haunted with phantom blood on her hands which only she can see. And Macbeth succumbs to his inevitable fate.

We also get two significantly “Gothic” pieces of orchestra music. They are both tone poems, which also reflects the concert goers’ tastes. The one that has always been a quintessential “Halloween classical” piece is Camille Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre (1875), opening at the stroke of midnight (softly evoked by the harp), a violin shrieks out the tritone (the “Devil’s interval” which the Romantics thought meant was cursed by the superstitious Medievals, really it was an idiom for “hard to use in music”) and introduces ballroom music along with the clacking bones of skeletons dancing in the graveyard (evoked by the xylophone). The skeletons dance through the night until the rooster crows at dawn.

The other great Halloween concert piece is Modest Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain (1867) which depicts another witches sabbath, this time on St. John’s Night, a major holiday in Slavic Eastern Orthodox culture. Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940) would help bring this poem to life with an animated phantasmagoria of ghouls and skeletal horses and other demons flying around the mountainous demon Chernoberg.

[Here I want to give a quick shoutout to Cesar Franck’s Le Chasseur maudit (The Accursed Huntsman), a tone poem about a Count who doesn’t go to church one Sunday, and instead rides around to whip peasants for his own amusement, so demons drag him to hell. Not nearly as famous a concert piece as the others mentioned in this list but it has colorful orchestration so you should check it out.]

The initial idea for Fantasia was for Disney to repopularize Mickey Mouse by writing him into an animated version of Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The original poem by Goethe was a classic that Paul Dukas set to music in 1897. In it, we hear the Sorcerer leave his Apprentice to clean the floors of his workshop. The Apprentice uses magic to bring a broom to life so it can do the chores for him. The Broom mindlessly pours buckets of water all over the floor, and the Apprentice isn’t good enough with magic to stop it. He chops it up into pieces with an ax, but they regenerate into several brooms which go back to marching water in. The Sorcerer returns to clean the mess and scolds his Apprentice. This charming tale has a darker and more diabolically fun tone in Dukas orchestra.

20th Century

Harry Clarke - Illustration for "Masque of the Red Death" (1919)

In the same exact year of Dukas’ tone poem, we get Bram Stoker’s Dracula. At this turn of the century other major names include Gaston Luroux (The Phantom of the Opera), Robert Lewis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Henry James (The Turn of the Screw), Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray). At this time, there are a few more pieces that continue trying to evoke Gothic subject matter. One comes from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony no.7 (1905), sometimes dubbed “Song of the Night”. Two of the symphonies five movements are titled “Nachtmusik” (night music), the first is more in line with Gothic anxiety and spookiness than the second which is more like a serenade. But the most Gothic movement is the Scherzo which sits in the middle of the symphony and is like a Viennese ballroom full of dancing corpses and skeletons as waltz music decays with them.

A surprising example (at least, because of how relatively obscure it is) comes from Claude Debussy with parts of an opera based on Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher that he worked on between 1908-1917. Not too much a surprise on the one hand because French translations of Poe’s work became popular and influential. On the other hand Debussy is more known for evocative sound pictures, unique musical colors, and subtlety. Perhaps he was drawn to symbolist and psychosexual interpretations of The House of Usher, the same interests that preoccupied him with his only finished opera Pelleas et Melisande. Roger Orledge reconstructed the opera and tried to stay true to Debussy’s style, so what we do have is passable and as shadowy and vague as his other orchestral masterpieces.

Maybe the hardest work to recommend (but I do recommend regardless, give it a chance) is a Modernist song cycle for chamber ensemble. Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire (1910) uses freely chromatic atonality to give a demented color of psychosis experienced by Pierrot, personified version of a stock character for old Commedia dell Arte plays, a clown who over time became the “sad clown”. Maybe a precursor to the demon from Stephen King’s It, or the demented clowns and jesters that laugh at the madness of the cosmos across Thomas Ligotti’s short stories.

This was only meant to be a small overview of works that could fit my own view of the Gothic in music. There are more examples I could include, so as a hint toward today, I’ll end with a piece that was written about a century ago, yet sounds as if it could have been written today. Henry Cowell’s The Banshee (1925) is a short piano piece, so if you can, at least listen to this one. Instead of playing with the keys like you’re “supposed to”, Cowell asks the performer to drag their fingers along the wires directly. This creates disturbing reverberations and scratching sounds that tingle the back of your neck, that feel like the otherworldly cry of a Banshee.

Happy Halloween.

[angel-of-the-moons]

The Ghost and The Relic

Merc!Ghost x Fem!Soul Survivor!Reader

TW/CW: Chem usage, raiders, slavers, murder, executions, child death.

MINORS DNI I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT YOU CONSUME

A/N: Depending on how much I like this or how many people like this I might continue this but god I need to get this out of my head lmao.

☢️💀☢️💀☢️💀☢️💀☢️💀

It'd been four years since he took up this kind of work. Three since he'd joined up with the old man.

It was his idea, really, to form their little "Task Force" and roam the Wasteland, performing jobs here or there for settlements, providing temporary security and escort details for caravans...

But Simon "Ghost" Riley had a thought. Several, actually. But they all muddled together after a while, especially around his "team".

Their whole team, a rag-tag group of "soldiers" from all the way in the Mojave to managing, by sheer dumb luck to come ashore with their families from another goddamn country.

Ghost's family was one such case; they'd apparently immigrated 75 years after the Great War from someplace called London. He didn't care much about it, or his family, given how shit a hand he'd been dealt.

His father, the abusive sadistic bastard that he was, had fucked up his younger brother so badly that he himself turned to chems and booze, almost killing himself in the process.

Ghost had rejected that path, convinced his mother to leave his father, and they took his recovering brother and moved into a new shack he and a few of the other residents of their small farming settlement had built and they settled in there. Ghost took up a job in the local militia, defending their homes and settlements; and he became a terrifyingly good shot.

His little brother got clean, stayed sober, and married the girl from a neighboring farm. She was a good match for him and they both loved each other immensely. And it was to their small unit's great joy when they mentioned they were going to have a baby.

A baby boy. Joseph. Their mother was thrilled.

But it all came crashing down, eventually.

Thanks to the old rat bastard.

Raiders slipped right through their defenses during the changing of the watch, in the dead of night when the farmers were all tucked inside their homes.

They'd taken Ghost's farm first, nabbed him on the way down the dirt path to their shack and drug him to their camp, locked him in an old shipping crate.

He didn't know how long he'd been there, or how long he had been tortured... all he knew was that when he finally got free, their settlement was almost razed to the ground, the majority of the militia dead, women taken for sport.

And his family?

Dead. Well. His mother, brother, and sister-in-law anyways. There was still hope for little Joseph.

When he'd gotten to the meeting hall (or what was left of it) he found his father bound and beaten by the settlers, so tweaked out on jet and psycho he didn't even feel any of the pain.

He'd ratted them all out for some fucking chems, like the narcissistic, sociopathic junkie he was.

Ghost had suited up in the best scrap armor they had, bagged provisions, packed loaded weapons and plenty of homemade throwing knives, and set off to find Joseph and the others that had been taken as slaves.

He didn't even look back when he heard the gunshot from inside the hall.

He tracked them for days, maybe longer. He wasn't sure. All he felt was an all-consuming drive to get his nephew back, to save his former neighbors.

But he was too late. He found Joseph's crumpled little body beneath that of a partially nude woman, one he faintly recognized from the settlement, but not enough to recall her name as the haze settled in over his skin.

All he saw was red. Red, like the blood covering that poor, tiny, fragile body.

He moved in the dead of night, creeping like a spectre as he executed every raider and slaver he came across. He shot some, stabbed or slit the throats of others. One he left with his voice box slashed, another with their liver hanging out, both still alive as they bled to death in their dingy tents.

It took him less than an hour. A bunch of jet-addicted starved fools was nothing against Simon Riley and the black rage that swallowed him up.

He'd killed them all.

He led the surviving captives back to their settlement, along with the dead they could recognize, and then burned the camp.

Ghost cradled Joseph against him, swaddled tight in a ratty, blood-stained blanket.

The whole trek home, all his mind would think about was how tiny Joseph was. How he'd carried him like this multiple times back to his own bed after he'd curled up at their fireplace with their pet dog. How he carried him as a baby, and a toddler...

And now, he had to bury him alongside his parents and grandmother, and their beloved pet.

Simon Riley wasn't... he wasn't dead. But he wasn't alive either.

He was like a walking corpse.

A Ghost.

And his name became apt when he'd assumed that moniker (mostly due in part to the skull balaclavas he'd wear. The most intimidating one being the one with the actual skull attached to it...).

He moved like a Ghost, wandering aimlessly, performing jobs.

Then, he met the old man.

John Price, former NCR ranger, before he decided to retire early and leave. Well, more like he went AWOL.

Price was convincing in bringing Ghost into his makeshift military outfit.

There was Alex Keller, a former Great Khan that Price had picked up after his splinter tribe had been killed by his own former allies, the New California Republic.

Then there was Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, a Brotherhood of Steel scribe who became a soldier over a mission that went FUBAR, and left his chapter to travel with Price and his growing "unit".

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish, a rather peculiar man with a fondness for explosives who somehow managed to get close enough to Ghost to actually be considered a friend. He had been a Gunner, but left them shortly after he realized that he wanted to do good, not just work for caps.

And finally, there was Kate Laswell. Part of a small surviving group of something called the "Enclave" Price had explained what their group was at some point, but none of them particularly cared.

For the first time in what felt like a lifetime Ghost was... Content. He had a purpose, no longer wandering aimlessly, part of a unit. A task force. "Task Force 141" Price named it. Apparently it was a nod to the unit he originally was assigned to as a young recruit for the NCR.

Very few of them focused on their past lives, they'd lost so much in their travels, in the shit order they'd been born in. There was no reason to think about all that, now.

After all, past is the past, is it not?

Not entirely, as Ghost came to find out.

Once they'd gotten through the remains of what used to be "New York City" back before the Great War (now it's simply called New Necropolis, given it's dessicated state, and it was strung tight with "death zones".

It wasn't until they moved a bit East that Ghost suggested they set up a permanent base of ops.

He suggested Boston, Massachusetts. It seemed like a good idea, supposedly riddled with Vaults they could repurpose, military checkpoints they could loot for scavenged gear...

Price surprisingly agreed to send him alone, like he asked. Ghost didn't want to risk the other members of his "family" on a possibility he may be wrong.

But... Ghost was rarely wrong these days.

Especially about the past staying in the past...

☢️💀☢️💀☢️💀☢️💀☢️💀

He'd managed to trek to a ruined neighborhood surrounded by creeks and a river, by the looks of it, emptying out into a large lake with several other tributaries connecting.

Sanctuary Hills, the old, overgrown sign told him it was. Yeah, maybe 200 years ago, it was a sanctuary. But then again, maybe it could be again. A lot of the houses were still intact. Plenty of scrap metal, wood, etcetera.

Put up some reinforcements on the remaining structures by cannibalizing parts from the ruined structures, build some fences, plant a few crops for provisions, stockpile weapons in the cellar behind that one house...

What he hadn't anticipated on was a Pre-War Mr Handy, still futilely standing watch over his previous owner's house.

He took offense when Ghost set up his sleeping bag in the yellow house across from his master's, citing that it was "impolite" to assume the house was uninhabited.

Judging by the dusty skeletons lying in the back bedroom, yeah. It was uninhabited, save for the radroaches and bloatflies that took a liking to the "idyllic" neighborhood.

That damned robot harped non-stop, although the water it purified for him was something he was grateful for, his yammering certainly got on his nerves.

"Oh, you should have met Sir, he was a soldier too, you know! A rather polite chap, loved the Missus and their baby boy! Oh, how I miss them." The robot sighed, sounding almost wistful.

Could robots feel emotions? He'd yet to meet one that did.

But then again how long had this robot been alone, exactly?

Apparently, he remembered when the bombs were dropped. So, a very very long time. Ghost tried telling him his masters were probably dead by now, even in the safety of their "Vault" he couldn't get into. It's been 200 years.

"Look, bot..." Ghost sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose through his mask, setting his hammer down on the table.

He'd been trying to fix up the yellow house for a few weeks. He'd managed some work, namely the roof and larger holes, obviously. Codsworth had even been kind enough to help with the cutting and the welding, just glad to be of service to someone who didn't shoot at him.

"I'm a little busy, here. So if you want to get nostalgic, save it for when I--"

His eyes went wide and he went deathly silent when he heard some kind of alarm blaring across the hills. Very faint, but it was a completely alien sound from the ones he memorized from the area.

He'd grabbed his pistol, and immediately started for the trail leading to Vault 111.

Which... is where he met you.

Dressed only in your blue vault suit, with a Pip-Boy secured to your wrist, you stumbled down, blinded by the sunlight and delirious from being down there for... well.

You'd collapsed against him and Ghost grunted, deciding to carry you over his shoulders back down to Sanctuary.

He noticed a glare in the distance, like the glint from a pair of binoculars, but he paid it no mind.

The moment Codsworth had laid eyes on you, the robot would not. Shut. Up.

He kept chattering on, almost blubbering, actually.

"Oh! Oh, it's the Missus!" He'd declared, obviously confusing you for his owner, long dead...

"Oh, but where is Sir and young Shaun! Oh, why is she alone! Where are the others?" Codsworth lamented dramatically.

Ghost waved him off, checking your vitals and looking at you for any injuries.

You had none. In fact, you were perfect. Your skin was clean, spotless and pristine, unmarred by radiation or scars.

He'd been silently looking over you when you awoke in the dead of night, Codsworth busy purifying excess amounts of water, apparently finding an intact bathtub to fill, so you could have one when you awoke. Or for cooking, or drinking... he didn't really care.

He was so lost in his curiosity of the one thing he'd never seen before: you. A Vault-Dweller, that he didn't register your eyes opening, long, clean lashes fluttering as you blinked, adjusting to the dimly lit room, only illuminated by a single oil lamp.

He'd set up his spare sleeping bag for you to use, while you were unconscious.

He was honestly taken by surprise when you screamed at him; scrambling back in the opposite direction.

Oh. Right.

The mask.

Yeah, it made sense why you were freaked out. Not a lot of Vault-Dwellers were probably rocking skull masks as the latest fall fashion craze...

"Listen." He'd growled out, fixing you with a soft, yet stern glare. Ghost was not without his mercy, and he understood that this new world must have been terrifying for you.

"My name's Ghost. Not gonna hurt ya. What's your name?" He said, sticking his hands up in a non-threatening manner.

When you'd uttered your name, his eyes widened visibly. It was the same name that Codsworth had said. Could be a coincidence.

That is... Until you told him about being frozen. For 200 years.

"I... I woke up, when..." You said, your voice breaking apart to cough, your mouth unreasonably dry.

Ghost had moved to kneel in front of you, handing you his old, dented canteen to drink down in a few gulps before wiping your face with the back of your hand.

"Oh god." You cried softly. "They killed him! They took my baby!"

Ghost's ears instantly perked up, and his own past flashed in the back of his mind before he pushed it aside.

"Who did?" He pressed.

"I don't know. Some... Some guy. A guy with a scar, and a gun, he... There was a woman in a radiation suit, then the man... Nate, he..." Your voice broke off in a choked sob.

He felt pity and sympathy for you after you'd given him bits of information.

And when Codsworth came doddering in to investigate your screams, Ghost knew you were legit.

You were his owner.

And you'd been frozen for 200 years inside an ice box; your family ripped away from you by some cruel force.

After a tearful reunion and the viewing of a highly emotional holotape, Ghost watched as you silently walked back into what used to be your home.

He gave you your privacy to acclimate (kind of) into your new "life", until he decided that some things needed to be said. You couldn't be emotional in the wasteland, that got people killed.

It could get you killed.

So Ghost decided to follow after you, where he found you on your knees in front of your baby son, Shaun's, crib, clinging to a slightly rotted rocketship that was once connected to the mobile that dangled above.

You clutched it to your heart as you sobbed quietly at the horror of it all.

What had the world become? How could you, a former lawyer, survive this?

Ghost cleared his throat and straightened his posture in the doorway, looking at you in the dark. The moon was full, casting dim cool shadows through the holes in the structure.

"I know this 's hard for you." His gravelly voice dragged out with each slow, deliberate step he took towards you.

He had to take it slow, like you were a wounded animal.

'Hnh. Not that far off, actually.' He thought.

"But you got'ta understand. You need to learn how to survive here, now. If you don't, you're as good as dead."

"What's the point?!" You snap, standing to your feet and tossing the plastic rocket at him.

It bounced harmlessly off his barreled chest and clattered to the floor.

"I don't have my son, I don't have my husband, I don't have my family!" You said through fresh, hot tears as your anger and grief rose to the surface.

And just like that, the flames died, and you flickered out, deflating into more quiet cries as you stood, defeated.

"I have nothing."

"Not true." Ghost said, shaking his head. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. "You got a bot out there that's been making water for you for bloody hours, now just so you can take a bath. He's still here, and he's been waiting for you all this time."

You looked at him, eyes glassy and oh-so hurt, but you let him continue.

"And you have your little boy. Somebody stole him." His eyes flashed in the darkness of the room, a glint only illuminated by the moon's light, taking more steps to you until he was face-to-face with you, looking down at you.

God, this man was terrifying.

"And you're going to get him back."

"What...? But--but how? I'm just... me! I was a lawyer, for God's sake!" You blathered.

"First thing's first: you learn to survive." Ghost told you bluntly. "Then..."

He reached into the holster on his chest and slapped a pistol into your hands, the weight almost as hefty as the one you felt settle onto your shoulders, and into your heart.

"You learn to defend yourself. You need to learn to shoot."

He turned to walk away, gesturing for you to follow with a jerk of his head.

"C'mon, then. Let's get to it." He grunted.

"Right now?" You stumbled as you followed him out into the ruined street. "It's past midnight!"

"No time like the present."

You couldn't tell, but you were certain this man was smirking at you behind his mask.

"Hey... what's your name?" You asked him as he began to line up old cans and bottles against a rusted car.

"Name's Ghost, like I said. Now, lift the gun and aim down sights. Don't pull the trigger. Squeeze it."

"What does that even mean?" You asked, taking aim as he stood beside you, still as a statue.

'Still as death.' You thought sardonically.

He grunted again, his voice coming out an annoyed growl:

"If you want to survive, you'll learn what it means. Now, keep both eyes open..."

[garciaasfluffypen]

bright beginnings pt. 11

pairing: single dad!joseph quinn x fem!reader 

wc: 1.3k 

warnings: grace is still being sneaky teehee

a/n: hi so i'm going to try and write more for this now that grad school has slowed down but i'm not going to give myself a set timeline with a deadline because that really took away my want to write so uuuuuuh yeah ok enjoy :)

part 10 • part 12

“there’s no fucking way you’re going out to tea with her. you’re shitting me.”

“it’s real, it's happening, now help me pick out an outfit so i don’t show up looking like a pile of trash.”

jordan dramatically rolled her eyes. “you look fine.”

“you’re my cousin you have to say that.”

“no i don’t. i could easily call you a bloody wanker and tell you your bra doesn’t match that shirt at all.”

a pause. “you’re right. it doesn’t.”

discarded shirts that were a problem for later y/n were scattered on the floor around you, having tried on half of your closet to try and figure out what to wear. after talking for a bit last night, you and grace decided to go get some tea when she got out of her class, which meant you had approximately twenty minutes before you had to leave to go to LAMDA and meet up with your boss's best friend. you still couldn’t believe it was happening, if you were being honest. from getting the friend request to agreeing to go out all within the timespan of roughly an hour. but you were doing it, and probably shouldn’t back out.

“i should back out.”

“nuh-uh. give me your phone. you’re going out.”

“jordan!” you whined dramatically. “what if this doesn’t work out. what if she’s a catfish?”

“then you’ll die.”

“don’t tell me that!” you threw a balled up pair of socks at jordan’s head. “i’m already nervous.”

“why would you be nervous? we’ve already established she’s a real person.”

“yeah, but she could be a secret sociopath.”

“how’d she ask you to tea?”

“something along the lines of ‘girl i have so much to tell you about joe. wanna get tea tomorrow?’ and i mean like… i should have said no, right? this is weird. i shouldn’t go. she’s going to gossip to me about my boss!”

“that you’re clearly crushing on. i bet you ten bucks and a bottle of svedka that she’s trying to set you two up.”

“i doubt that.”

“mmm i wouldn’t doubt that too much. oh wait, no, not the green. nope. wait, is that my shirt?”

you finally settled on a simple plain gray top and some jeans, accenting it with a coat since it was starting to get the slightest bit chilly outside. you slipped on your shoes and grabbed your keys, yelling out to your aunt that you were heading out for a bit and that you’d be back later. fifteen minutes later you found yourself at LAMDA, searching for the little coffee and tea shop that grace had told you about. you were met with the face of a smiling blonde and automatically felt a sense of relief. she was who she said she was and wasn’t a catfish. the two of you found a little table in the back after ordering your coffees, sitting down and starting to chat about everything and anything. before you knew it, you were bantering like you were two best friends doing a monthly tea spill session. it was all so natural and easy, and you knew exactly why joe and the twins seemed to think so highly of her.

“okay, so, i’m going to be very blunt real quick. the reason i got you here is because joe has a major crush on you and i want to set you guys up on a date.”

you were so glad you weren’t sipping at your latte.

“you like him too, right? this is going to be real awkward if you don’t.”

“no no, i do. it’s just that… he’s my boss? and the other girls might think it's weird and-”

“oh not you too!” grace dramatically put her head in her hands. “screw what society thinks. you guys mesh together like bread and butter and the twins like you. and you like him. and he likes you. so you need to kiss. please. he needs someone, you need someone, it's a perfect match.”

“if you think so.”

“i know so. he hasn’t stopped talking about you. neither have the twins.”

“he talks about me?”

“all the time.” grace smiled. “and i bet he’s been on your mind too.”

your cheeks turned red. “maybe.”

“listen. i’m not usually one to meddle in joe’s love life. he’s his own person and i respect that wholeheartedly. however, he’s down bad and if y’all don’t do something about it soon i think he might combust.”

“i doubt he’ll combust.” you chuckled. “he cares about the daycare too much to leave it high and dry.”

“you’re not wrong there.” grace smiled. “he really cares about you. like, a lot. all i want is for him to be happy.”

“i do too. want him to be happy, i mean.” you started to stumble over your words. “i just don’t want it to get weird at work when the girls find out, yanno? like what if they don’t take it the right way?”

“then they’re idiots.” grace shrugged. “joe really likes you. i promise. like, a lot a lot. so i’m here to just… nudge you two in the right direction.”

you chuckled. “i think it might take a lot of nudging for both of us.”

“then i’ll just slowly nudge you two for however long it takes.” grace popped a grape into her mouth. “starting with him.”

the two of you chatted for roughly another hour before grace had to head to class, leaving you to hop on the bus and head back to your aunts. it also gave you time to think about everything that had happened in the past few months. falling in- well, you’d probably call it lusting over your boss. it was the last thing you ever expected to happen to you. there was part of you that knew this was the universe telling you that it was okay to go through with admitting your feelings to yourself. grace and jordan did have some good points as well, especially when it came to pointing out that it shouldn’t matter what other people thought about your relationship.

a relationship was between two people, sometimes more than that if they swung that way. you personally didn’t, but you knew some girls from college who dabbled in it. you had admired how easily they had let society's preconceived notions flow off of them like a waterfall- it was almost as if they weren’t even outwardly bothered by it. you had aspired to find yourself like that someday, being able to not have to worry about what people thought when they looked at you. it had been something you had wanted to work on for a while, and maybe it was time to start working on that.

you walked back into your aunts house and went to your room, curling up in your bed with the book you were reading currently. it wasn’t catching your attention, though, since your mind kept slipping back to joe. grace’s words of how he actually did like you flew through your mind, and it was becoming a little bit easier to accept the fact that the flirting was real and actually happening. it had been quite a bit of time since you had to deal with flirting, flirting was definitely not your strong suit, it took quite a bit of effort most times to find the right thing to say. but somehow it naturally came out when you were around joe. the ebb and flow of every conversation you two have had so far popped into the forefront of your mind, the dots slowly connecting that it was so much easier to talk to him than any other male you had ever met.

so maybe it wasn’t just lust you were dealing with.

maybe it was full blown feelings for joe.

oh.

[ultraericthered]

Terminator: Tara, I've found the foul way you think, foul things you say, and foul deeds you commit to be very useful for me, but if you keep bugging me about my family drama and being so annoying about it, I will fucking murder you without hesitation or remorse!

[incorrectredwallquotes]

Joseph: No visible reaction while lying is a characteristic of a violent sociopath. Finnbar: Joseph, are you worried about your safety? Joseph: No. I imagine if you were going to kill me you’d have done it a long time ago.

[cerullos]

mid-year book freakout

tagged by @sapphicscience

number of books you’ve read so far: 57, i set my reading goal for 25 this year hoping it would push me to take my time with each book & be more reflective but then the unemployment hit and i got a little manic

best book you’ve read so far in 2024: poor deer by claire oshetsky is probably my sentimental fav so far! objectively the best were the spear cuts through water by simon jimenez and kindred by octavia butler both of which completely blew me away.

best sequel you’ve read so far in 2024: i very rarely read sequels, i think the only series i’ve read this year are dungeon meshi and beastars. i did read the first installments of dune, interview with the vampire (reread…shut up lmao) and the tainted cup by robert jackson bennett and will probably continue with all three!

new release you haven’t read yet but want to: i’ve had sociopath: a memoir by patrick gagne on hold at the library for months now, so that one comes to mind lol also really interested in picking up craft: stories i wrote for the devil by amanda lima, the haar by david sodergren, little rot by akwaeke emezi and private rites by julia armfield!

most anticipated release for the second half of the year: excited for the new charlotte mcconaghy, wild dark shore! honestly after migrations i’d pay to read her grocery list. also looking forward to hum by helen phillips (i loved the need, also by her!)

biggest surprise: this may just be recency bias but i picked up a good happy girl by marissa higgins not expecting to feel too strongly about it and wow, i felt seen (derogatory) lmao strongly recommend to all lesbians with dad and/or grandma trauma and a penchant for emotional self-sabotage ✌️

favorite new author (debut or new to you): so many! for a few not mentioned above: adora nworah, layla martínez, jennifer marie thorn, neil sharpson and andrew joseph white!

newest fictional crush: oh absolutely catherine from a good happy girl lol the second coming of lydia tár. etain larkin from knock knock, open wide is also up there (final girl turned shitty bitter traumatized mother? obsessed obsessed obsessed with her)

books that made you cry: i’m a robot, i don’t cry over media, i’m sorry! ducks: two years in the oil sands by kate beaton did make me a little misty.

most beautiful books you’ve bought so far this year (or received): working at the public library (and also having no money <\3) has sadly cured me of my compulsive book-buying habit ): i did buy a few physical volumes of dungeon meshi and all of them are gorgeous.

books that made you happy: again, dungeon meshi! & i had a really great time with the tainted cup by robert jackson bennett (fantasy + page-turning mystery with the most endearing cast of characters!) also found come and get it by kiley reid to be oddly delightful despite dealing with some pretty heavy topics.

what books do you need to read by the end of the year?: i’d like to finish emily wilson’s translations of the iliad and the odyssey. also parable of the sower by octavia butler, butter honey pig bread by francesca ekwuyasi and the first installment in the earthsea cycle by ursula k. le guin (all of which have been on my tbr for ages)

tagging @dykes4knights, @strangesmallbard, @thefinalpaperheart, @nicollekidman, @raffaella-cerullo, @jonismitchell , @tennesseewillams , @khukri and whoever else wants to do it!

[leastdatablebracket]

QUARTERFINALS, MATCH 4

Propaganda under the cut!

Joseph Christiansen

Propaganda

So many reasons. He's already married, he's a jerk to his wife, he's already slept with at least one of the other romance options. That romance option goes to you before a date with Jospeh and damn near begs you not to be stupid and go with him. The worst part? You put up with all this and he leaves you to "work things out with his wife". She deserves so much better than him! One of the writers even said he's a sociopath. 

Married and a youth minister.

Cheater, cringe man, father of creepy children, possibly evil cultist, left a guy feeling used which said guy also became friends with Joseph's wife who appears to be an alcoholic likely as a coping mechanism since she's married to Joseph

He cheats on his wife, has done so before, lies to you by claiming that he's going to leave his wife when he clearly never intends to (and, in one ending, will even cheerfully suggest that you two continue having an affair in an extremely sleazy way), and judging by the fact that the other guy we know he cheated on his wife with, Robert, hates Joseph and is now very close friends with his wife, it seems clear to me that this whole "purposefully mislead someone into sleeping with you and then later drop the bomb that it was an affair" thing is repeat behavior with him. Also, I just find much of his behavior to be very manipulative and controlling; there are many situations where it seems to me that he's actively trying to paint others in a negative light while still coming off as saintly himself, such as an early scene where he subtly implies his wife is a shitty mom because she *checks notes* let their toddler out of her sight... during a neighborhood barbecue in a fenced-in yard surrounded by trusted adults and other kids. Also notice how in this scene he pushes *her* to go look for their son, rather than just looking himself, all while keeping up his "long-suffering husband" act. (and in other scenes can be found letting his other young children wander off into the woods with sharp implements and visibly not caring, but whatever). He does this with Robert, too -- the other guy he had an affair with. Almost everything he says about or to Robert is a subtle jab about his personality or his alcoholism. Classy, Joseph. Meanwhile, the fact that you can't actually end up with him in the end (because he was never going to leave his wife for you) started some of the most volatile discourse in the fandom and had people calling the devs homophobic and claiming they were spreading a message about "gay men needing to stay in loveless abusive marriages to women" (just ignore the fact that there are several other divorced gay dads in this game who all have great relationships with their kids and are not demonized in the slightest). HOWEVER, if you see people claiming he's a cultist or demon or something, that's untrue and was just going to be a non-canon spooky alternate ending that ended up getting cut. So I empathize with him a little bit for getting literally demonized by some fans for that cut alt ending. But he loses all those points by cheating on his wife multiple times and showing clear intent to continue doing so.

He's still married when you start dating him. He's also got like 5 kids that are some "children of the corn" kinda shit, and all their names have "Christ" in them

You don't even get to date him he's still married to his wife who he doesn't get along with. Tragic really

Cullen Rutherford

Propaganda

stupid racist cop creep whose fans cry about how hes "changed" and "you can't judge him he was addicted to magic drugs" nah he still chose to be a racist cop and abuse his power over innocent people and i hate him. the writers making him romanceable in da:i after how blatantly horrible he was in da:o and da:2 is baffling but i guess they had to appeal to the part of their audience who watch those "mafia boyfriend" videos on tiktok or whatever

He's creepy in origins, though still 100% willing to kill the female mage pc he's crushing on, as well as all the other mages trapped in the circle with him. He's the second-in-command in an even worse circle in 2, listening to and defending the increasingly obviously insane meredith until literally the end. He's one of the people still pushing for the circle system by inquisition, and yes he's going through withdrawals and working through the traumas of previous games. And to be brutally honest his was the first romance i took and while i don't remember much from it, its not worth all the girls going absolutely nuts over knockoff terrible alistair.

He's basically a cop who thinks being born a certain way can revoke personhood and by Inquisition still thinks mages are monsters to be controlled, not people. He gets a fairy tale cutesy romance that focuses on his personal struggles with addiction while showing absolutely no regard to the atrocities he committed and still thinks were justified. He can be romanced BY A MAGE and his actions and beliefs are just glossed over. He believes mages are 'not people like you (Hawke) and me', but if the Warden was a female mage he canonically had a crush on her and would deliberately hang around her despite the fact that he was her *jailer*. If that Warden romanced Leliana, there is war table dialogue in which he pesters Leliana for news of his 'former' crush despite her repeated statement that she doesn't want to talk to him about her. All this shitty behavior and lack of introspection gets swept under the rug by the game, not even giving the PC the chance to really challenge his beliefs. Like damn even Fenris could apologize when he lashed out due to past trauma with mages, and if anyone has a reason to hate mages it's Fenris. If you want an ex Templar hottie Alistair is RIGHT THERE. Tbh I know Cullen is a popular romance and I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do or like in a video game, I'm just saying I think he is deeply undateable

Spends the first two games as an antagonist, fervently devoted to the cause of subjugating mages, then a bunch of "character development" happens off screen and the games treat him like he's completely reformed. However he's actions make it clear he still sees mages as dangerous and lesser. Not to mention if you romance him with an elf he doesn't pay your culture more than lip service respect like most of the devout characters 

He was a total villain in the first two games who was violently prejudiced against mages and uses one single bad experience as an excuse for it (a bad experience that is pretty much exactly what he in his job subjected graduating apprentices to, mind you, but this is never brought up). Now he says he's changed, but his words and actions say otherwise. He still distrusts mages, sympathises with the rebel Templars trying to kill them, and he never owns up to the terrible stuff he did and helped others do in the past two games. He totally knew what Meredith was doing and says he doesn't, and he still tries to defend her intentions. And you have no option to call him out on it. If you romance him as a mage, he angsts about how he might have seen you as subhuman in the past but NOW you're one of the good ones, and when you ask him if he'll kill you if you get possessed, he dodges the question. And the PC is written as being almost sad that she's a mage? Like 'can you love me despite what I am??' Also if Leliana romanced a female mage PC in the first game who is still alive, he asks her creepy questions about their relationship. Fitting considering his original purpose was to be creepy to the female mage Warden. 

I hate him and want to cause chaos. Plus his VA is an asshole.

Cop

I think you covered almost everything but don't forget that beautiful moment in DA2 - Act 2 where you find out some templars had a petition to lobotomize all mages and Meredith, THE HARDCORE TEMPLAR LEADER, rejects it, but Cullen says they got a point. Despite the fact that we just found out that those templars were using lobotomy (or the threat of) to rape people and get away with it. And then Cullen in DA:I is whining that anything that happened it's not his fault because Meredith kept the worse away form him so he didn't know, but also that anyway Meredith had a point and did what she had to do. Meredith does not go mad until Act 3, before she was of sound mind and Culllen was her second in command BECAUSE he hated mages as much as (or even more) than her. What the FUCK did she even hide from you, Cullen. Oh, but he changed! Because the writers make A VICTIM OF THE TEMPLARS say so. And anyway he only says so BECAUSE HE READS MINDS not because Cullen did anything to show it. Also the narrative wants to sympathise with Cullen for his drug problems while Cullen is openly attacking the only other character with the same problem for...having the same problem. And he's the antagonist, so there were OTHER things Cullen could be mad about. But he is mad about the drug problem. Also I'm not an expert on writing characters with addictions but he is an addict only when it's time to have a cut scene where you pity him. Otherwise it has zero impacts on everything else.

[lynxxjay]

my opinions on some of the SML characters that no one asked for 🥰

(how I enjoy them as a character not based off of their actions and how horrible they are because they all are lol)

Marvin: I like his character. I think he's such a silly goofy guy I just wished they do more with his character, like in the business deal video where he showed to actually have some sort of business intelligence strategies

Jeffy: Many might think he's over-rated, but I think there are way more characters that are overused and dryer than him in the recent years, most of the things that I laughed at were jokes delivered by him- Lance delivers his character perfectly with the face expression, the voice tones, and his attitude although he isn't really one of my top favs I still like him

Rose: I know everyone hates how annoying she is, but honestly, I don't really mind her character that much- I think she's just boring for her lack of character and just feels dry although on rare occasions... mostly recently, she has made me laugh

Junior: I honestly kind of have a love-hate relationship with Junior, I like when he's being wholesome and kind of adorable on some videos and I don't really mind his toxic personality cuz it makes sense that he would go from a spoiled whiny kid to a straight up toxic- kind of sociopathic teenager considering his environment and lack of morals taught but what really annoys me is how much he rambles in certain videos

Cody: Oh boy, he's also complicated, Im just gonna say it - I feel like recently he's kind of overrated, dry and boring, I don't hate his character but this year he has been really boring and I honestly don't care for him anymore although some of his dynamics are intresting to watch, I think I like Junior more than him

Joseph: I can't really say much about him, considering he doesn't do much other then get offended by racism jokes- I like when his personality gets unnecessary aggressive like in the "Cody's real dad" vid I wish they make his character that instead of just a walking twitter, although his most recent vids have a slightly more personality to them

Part 2 will be about Brooklyn Guy, Chef Pee Pee, Goodman, Penelope, and the Huckerdoos

[papers-pamphlet]

Why do the eleisons always attract freaks? 😭😭😭 We got George over here with Iris (and the crazy anons) and Giles with Joseph who is fawning over the sociopathic murderer who was born with clinical depression. (Idk if Carol's gonna get married or not but if she does let her partner be sane I BEG OF U)

Fnwkdjskfis I guess it just makes sense for them 😭😭😭

I never really had any other plan for Carol other than her just taking care of her mother and writing her novels so ig she'll just stay unmarried and all

[casliveblog]

You know I was kinda hoping we'd get a few more layers for Joseph, like not a lot but they were building on his assistant seeing something in him but nah guess in the end he's just Sociopath Otacon

[hybridnik]

[ Joseph Morgan | He/Him] A new face takes refuge under Dark Skies. KLAUS MIKAELSON, an 25/1,000+ year old ORIGINAL HYBRID, is one of those from the FUTURE learning to navigate this changed world. People say behind their back that they’re CALLOUS but the truth is that they’re really PROTECTIVE. Their style can best be described as FRESH BLOOD PAINTED AS SCARLET HUES UPON A CANVAS, and we’ll see how that helps them fit in.

Niklaus Mikaelson. The Original Hybrid. The Immortal Who Can't Be Killed. The supernatural world knew him as naught but a sociopath and psychotic monster and behind closed doors, well, he did little to dissuade their impressions of him. Though when it ultimately came down to protecting the life of his daughter and living legacy, the immortal hybrid choose self-sacrifice - taking in the essence of the Hollow and, using the last fragments of white oak, joined his elder brother Elijah in a final send off to one another; each piercing the heart of the other and putting an end to over a thousand years of history.

Life moved on, as it always does, and eventually the world entered a new era - an era of darkness and turmoil led by the organization known as Triad. Having risen to power in the vacuum left behind by the sudden disappearance of the Tribrid, Hope Mikaelson; Triad began a crusade against the supernatural and quickly rose into terrifying positions of power throughout the world. Supernatural creatures soon became a scarcity as Triad's military-like excision of their different species spread like a plague. In desperation, the witch communities banded together to perform a ritual the likes of which were heretofore unparalleled. A resurrection of mass proportions in a last-ditch effort to try and balance the scales and fight back against the organization once and for all.

And so it was that Klaus Mikaelson found himself opening his eyes upon a world he barely recognized from the one he remembered just scarce moments prior in his memory - the time spent in the afterlife naught but blurs that rapidly faded away whenever he tried to call them to the forefront of his thoughts.

Upon hearing that his daughter was missing and had been for quite some length of time, there was little hesitation in the man's choice of action. Thus began his desperate search for any lead, even the smallest whisper, for his daughter's well-being or whereabouts - a search led through a bloody trail cut swathe through the forces of Triad; whom often found themselves unprepared to face the likes of a hybrid, let alone the Original. His search led him to reunite with the likes of one Hayley Marshall-Kenner and the pair of them - mother and father - joined forces against the insurmountable odds the supernatural world faced.

At least... until they suddenly found themselves in a world that made little sense - where time and space seemed to collide and mingle in unprecedented ways. What awaited Klaus in this new world, underneath this Dark Skies, and does it mean that he had been given a second chance to be with his daughter once again? Only time would tell.

[yeyinde]

Hi!! I was wondering if you would give us a sneak peek into your WIPs? Like, what's next? What can we be excited about? :)

Hiya!!

Um! I'm currently working on a few fics for Jacob and John Seed (far cry 5), the Penguin, John Wick, Price, and the final chapter of Fever!

I'm mostly working on the Jacob (and John—man is down so bad canonically, it makes him look stupid. And sadistically unhinged) fics atm.

But I'll have a Price + Jealousy fic (I'd say drabble but it's, like, 4,9k) posted when I finish editing it. Maybe today? Or as soon as my cup of Lapsang Souchong is finished brewing.

(some Ozzie, and Jacob and John under the cut.)

Jacob Seed x Dep

It starts with Eli. With the distrust that festers between them, and you, like a disease that reeks of putrefaction, and cuts like the jagged edges of broken hope scattered across the blood-drenched pavement.  They don't trust you anymore.  You are not a hero— Not since three lines from a song turns you into the incarnation of wrath—the same harsh lines carved into your apoplectic flesh. Into a mindless machine corrupted to kill, to maim. To vivisect without prejudice as to who you're ripping apart, tearing to pieces.  (The blood that soaks your hands is all the same, anyway.) —you are a tool. And maybe it's time to become one, a martyr, before the broken fibres of your murky soul become too entrenched in calamity that you find kinship in the arms of Abaddon before you ever do in the Redeemer.

John Seed x Dep

The seed (pause for laughs), Sharky says, has been planted the moment John set eyes on you.

"He's got it bad," he continues, despite the ferocious glares of disgust being flashed his way. (Or, maybe, in spite of them because if there's anything Sharky likes more than his aunt, it's attention.)

"And you should use that," he adds with decisive nod. "Take one for the team. Then maybe Joseph will stop all this madness, and we can all live in a tense, unease co-existence until the apocalypse doesn't come, and his believers leave him. Then he can kick his sorry ass, pull a coup, and bada-bing, bada-bang: Hope County goes back to normal."

Take one for the team, he says. You've taken a lot for the team. Bullets, knives, bombs, brainwashing, sporadic drugging, and a tattoo carved into your chest by said sadistic sociopath, and now they want you to give yourself to him, too.

You make a gesture—a small jerk of you chin—but then you wonder if there's some truth to that statement, some sort of compromise that will stop the fighting—if only long enough for everyone to regroup, to prepare.

John Seed, huh? The jagged lines etched into your chest burn fury red. You somehow doubt he'll make it that easy. Or painless.

Penguin x Reader

Your eyes skirt to their table once more, pulled in by some macabre sense of curiosity, like looking at a lion in an open safari, and immediately seek him out. 

You don't know why he's the one piques your interest so much. He is far from your usual type—decades older, greying at his temples, scarred up, and grizzled—but there's something about him that pulls you in. 

It rears. That hunger in your guts, the one that says I want, I want, I want, and refuses to yield until it's fed. Until it's satiated. 

But there's a massive difference between stealing expensive perfume at Macy's, shoving luxury Gucci lipstick into your lifted Valentino white bag, and this. A gangster. And the bloody Penguin of all people, too. 

There's stupid, and then there's this—

"Thanks, sweetheart," he rasps when you sidle up, refilling his half-empty glass of water. 

His words are dripping the same grease found in the smarmy grin of snake oil salesmen, and pulsing with his heavy accent. He flashes a grin—all rectangular teeth, some coloured in gold—and it is oiled in that same sycophantic smear as his tone. 

He isn't a handsome man, and from the way he compensates by throwing his power and wealth around, he knows this. There's a vulnerability in him—a sadness that feels out of place in such a grizzled, sleazy gangster—and something inside of you itches to peel back the veneer, the grit and the grime, and find the man hidden behind those walls. 

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week ?

Batman #137 - Jimenez art is carrying this hard. If he wasn't drawing this I would skip it. Bruce's actions make sense given what Zdarsky has been doing with him, but the rest of the Batfamily are morons.

Steelworks #4 - Superbooks don't get enough credit for how well they're handling interconnectivity right now. Genesis pops back up here and is relevant to the plot, but it's handled in a way that is surprisingly organic. Dorn has shown improvement with each issue, DC should give him another book after this if he's interested.

Superboy: Man of Tomorrow #5 - Trav is my favorite new villain for Conner in ages. Such a delightful little sociopath, and this issue was extremely 90s in an entertaining way when it comes to the fight scenes. Conner using his TTK to deflect Trav's blasts, ripping off Trav's arm (it's not something Clark would ever do but that's why I liked it!), Trav rigging his own arm to blow, then transferring his consciousness into the Kryptonian clone body was great. One more issue to go!

The Riddler: Year One #6 - Great ending to a great mini. Makes me want to rewatch The Batman.

Birds of Prey #1 - Solid first issue, but it didn't wow me. Normally I'd keep reading through the first arc, but I have to cut back so this gets dropped.

Fire & Ice #1 - Beautiful art, decent comedy book. But again, I gotta cut back so I'll drop this.

Blue Beetle #1 - Mandatory to read Graduation Day if you want to read this, but the quality is at the same level as the mini so that’s not a problem for me! Bummer that the movie wasn’t a bigger success so we could hopefully get a longer run. I liked seeing old Ted foes show up, I’m curious if they’ll be bringing in Jenny Kord from the movie here too since they already moved Jaime and his cast to Palmera City.

City Boy #4 - Pak played up Cameron's moral grayness, and this is the issue that focuses on that. He's practically a supervillain in how he enslaves Bludhaven to attack Nightwing, with the only saving grace being that he was trying to do right by someone else. That, and I couldn't help feeling bad for him when he saw that his mom ditched him because she didn't want him. Heavy stuff, hope the Swamp Thing showing up is Levi. He had family issues too, I bet he and City Boy could have a good back and forth about dealing with your parents.

Immortal X-Men #15 - Even Gillen is starting to decline in enjoyment for me at this point. Still I think end is in sight for this book, and I want to see what the plan is for Xavier since he’s going to get off his ass at some point.

Fantastic Four #11 - Everlovin’ Thing indeed. Nice to see Ben be the one using his brains to get the F4 out of a trap.

Dr. Strange #7 - Strange has always been his own worse enemy, making that literally true has been quite exciting. Kind of funny how much Marvel touts that they’ve never rebooted and everything is canon when they still pick and choose what to acknowledge. Feels odd to not bring up the OTHER time Strange destroyed himself out of desperation to achieve his goal, during Hickman’s New Avengers run.

Scarlet Witch #8 - Winning a duel of words with Loki? Hopefully the Wanda fans will take that feat as much cooler than a magic contest. Oh and Joseph is being used as a pawn again, since they beta you over the head with that this issue I’m sure no one is surprised. I am looking forward to how the fight with Hexfinder goes. Wanda could use a good rival and she shows potential.

[breakthings]

— CHARACTER FLAWS: Pagan Min.

NOTE : bold = character trait & italic = situational.

absent-minded | abusive | addict | adrenaline junkie | aggressive | aimless | alcoholic | anxious | arrogant | audacious | bad liar | bigmouth | bigot | blindly loyal | blunt | callous | childish | chronic heroism | cheater | clingy | clumsy | cocky | codependent | competitive | corrupt | cowardly | cruel | cynical | delinquent | delusional | dependent | depressed | deranged | disloyal | ditzy | egotistical | envious | erratic | fickle | finicky | fixated | flaky | frail | fraudulent | foul mouthed | guilt complex | gloomy | gluttonous | gossiper | gruff | grudgeholding | gullible | hedonistic | humorless | hypochondriac | hypocritical | idealist | idiotic | ignorant | immature | impatient | incompetent | indecisive | insecure | insensitive | lazy | lewd | liar | lustful | manipulative | masochistic | meddlesome | melodramatic | money-loving | moody | naive | nervous | nosy | ornery | overprotective | overly sensitive | paranoid | passive aggressive | perfectionist | pessimist | petty | power hungry | proud | possessive | pushover | reckless | reclusive | remorseless | rigorous | sadistic | sarcastic | senile | selfish | self-destructive | shallow | sociopathic | sore loser | spineless | spiteful | spoiled | stubborn | suspicious | tactless | temperamental | timid | thief | tone-deaf | traitorous | unathletic | ungracious | unlucky | unsophisticated | untrustworthy | vain | withdrawn | workaholic

Tagged by: @cultesdesghoules 💕

Tagging: @neuroslayyer @unrclypirxte ( Beth ), @aliasmultimuse ( Jason ), @propheresy ( Joseph ), @inkfng @aquariusvibes @poisonpicked ( Keith ), @touchedsky ( Karter )

[loudsilence-universe]

⚠️⚠️⚠️

Maaate,

Something is not sitting right.

You warned me about your family, and now it seems that they're taking from you. The day after we said our farewells to you. I don't know what they're taking, though. So, maybe I am going crazy.

It can happen, though. Going crazy, I mean. Especially after sitting with a corpse for the past three days. The corpse of your close friend kept warm by a ventilator. The doctors had wanted to do more tests, but I knew it was pointless. There was no brain activity on the previous scans carried out. You were clearly brain-dead. The top of your head was deathly cold, as were the tips of your fingers.

Your niece, Simone, said she needed to spend time with the cats alone. She stressed that she wanted to play with them and to just spend some in your space. So, I went there to feed them and waited for Simone to arrive so that we could get another fob key from the caretaker. That way, we can all gain access to your flat without incident. We sorted the fob keys, and I reminded her to cook and eat some food so that it doesn't go to waste. We then hugged, and I reassured her that everything's okay. I left and got in an Uber at 2.55pm.

At 4.21pm, I get a message from her saying that she'd taken a few things from yours, at her mum's request, and that she was now going home.

It's not sitting right with me.

I know there's nothing I can do. I can't stop them taking your stuff. I don't know why it's bothering me so much. I mean, you're no longer alive, so it's not bothering you, is it? So, why is it bothering me? Is it just because of your previous warnings. So, I'm a bit paranoid about your family's intentions, or am I justified in feeling weirded-out by Simone's brief visit just now?

Something just seems off, mate.

I'll be going back later to feed the kitties again. And then tomorrow, I'll be moving them to my house until I can find furever homes for them. I've messaged that catdad, Paul, who you mentioned in your final note, but I've not received a reply as of yet.

I'm keeping Bubz. He can live with me. But I'll make sure, if anything, Archer & Annie stay together, and Bear & Tiggs stay together.

Oh, and yesterday, while your family & I were standing around you in ICU. Your mother, Deana, decided to switch lanes and started running her gums about how you lying there in that state was somehow my fault. About how I was horrible to you during our last conversion on Monday and about how I shouldn't be there with you.

She was proper projecting, mate. She's one bitterly twisted sociopath. You did always tell me that. I told her that it was mostly her fault, that she was a shitty parent, how she didnt even have the decency to return your calls, and that she's the one who shouldn't be there because she didn't deserve you, as her daughter.

Your sister, Phoebe, along with your longtime friend, Tammy & that guy who is not your boyfriend, Joseph, were silenced. No one said anything. Your mother eventually stormed off out of the ward. It was at this point that they all verbally agreed that Deana was always bang out of order. And that I should just ignore her. It was all hushed, though, like everybody fears her wrath.

Your aunt Lizzy died yesterday morning due to cancer. It was the same day Phoebe gave consent for the doctors to stop the machines that were keeping your body from decaying.

Your mother must've been communicating with a lot of other family. Regarding yours and Lizzy's deaths. But something just seemed fake about her, mate. Like, she was crying only because she remembered to. Like something would prompt her to shed a few tears, then they swiftly dry up.

And that, Joseph, the guy who's not your boyfriend, but you played the role of his girlfriend since August. You know, the guy who you were shouting at down the phone on Monday while you put that ligature around your neck.

You could've just called me again to tell me how you were feeling at that moment. We'd not long since spoken. You know I'd always shut up & listen if you seemed in a bad state.

But I digress, yeah, well him, that Joseph. He tries way too hard, man. He wants to be useful. He does that so that people like him, and gradually, he hopes they become dependent on him. That is his trauma-response. He was probably mocked, possibly humilated as a child for any shortcomings perceived. So, he overcompensates, just like you did, but he's desperate for acceptance, whereas you craved validation. He's eagerly offered to help with moving the kitties, insistence, even.

The kitties are doing okay.

They're all eating and drinking regularly. Archer has still got fire liquid poo, the poor boy.

I've just reached yours. Simone has taken that massive painting of you off the wall. I couldn't tell if anything else was taken, though, because you've got too much stuff.

Why did she make up that whole scenario of wanting to be in your space with the kitties instead of just saying she's coming round to take some of your stuff and see the cats for a min. It's a bit shady, that. Why swerve their intentions like that? Again, maybe I'm overthinking it, but it just seems off.

She's made food but not washed up after herself. Who the fuck does she think is around to clean up after her, eh?

People, eh. Grown folks, at that ffs

20:10:01