#my goal is being indifferent with myself which is halfway

[cowardlycowboys]

being a bit bitchy

[solarwonux]

10.  “I still remember the way you taste.”

31.  “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

villain!wonwoo x superhero!f!reader

w.c: 2.6k (it was mistake okay I got carried away we should know this by now)

warnings: fluff, talks of death, ghosts, torture if you squint, graveyards, digging up graves (don’t do that yall), angst a little, it’s hinted that the reader can communicate with ghosts. (if you’re uncomfortable with any of these themes this one is not for you)

note: I CAN EXPLAIN OKAY I KNOW YOU WANTED JOKER WONWOO BUT LIKE IT STARTED OFF THAT WAY AND THEN I GOT SOFT. Enjoy let know your thoughts please, they mean so much to me. 

Also i will answer asks at some point, school is just keeping me super busy, BUT IM NOT IGNORING THEM THEY MAKE ME SMILE EVERY TIME I SEE THEM.

masterlist || drabble game

Wonwoo wiped the sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand, panting slightly as he stared down at the empty grave. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Vernon asked, digging his shovel into the ground with the heel of his boot. He rested his forearm against the handle looking at Wonwoo through his sweaty bangs. 

“There is no reason, I was just bored.” Wonwoo shrugged, his cheeks were dusted with dirt and his white dress shirt was anything but white. The truth was he had a reason, he needed a way to meet you halfway and causing chaos was the only way to get you out of that shiny tower in the middle of the city where all the heroes resided. But his reasoning would never be voiced out loud, especially not to Vernon and so he lied like it was second nature to him. 

Wonwoo missed you, He missed getting under your skin with his snarky remarks and idiotic plans to take over the world. Or at least the city. The world was his end goal, but in order to do that he needed to succeed at taking over the city first and so far he had failed. Mainly, do to you and your teammates interrupting his plans. Though along the way something unexpected happened. He had undoubtedly fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with you. It had annoyed him at first, his mind was constantly enveloped with thoughts of you. Interrupting everything he spent years working on. 

It took him months to come to terms with his unwanted feelings and if he hadn’t snuck into the masked ball held every year at the tower; he probably wouldn’t have. But the second he saw you come down the grand staircase of the ballroom wearing a dress so blue, it put the night sky to shame; he kissed you before he could stop himself. Despite the mask he was wearing you had spotted him in the crowd and led him down an empty hallway when his urges got the best of him causing him to sin. When he pulled away he was shocked just as you were, but he was definitely floored when you had cut his apology short and kissed him again. 

“So you decided to dig up an empty grave for fun?” Vernon pushed his dirt stained hand through his hand, leaving behind little specks of dirt in its wake. “How did you even know this grave would be empty?” 

“It’s mine...well used to be mine. Obviously I’m not dead.” Wonwoo’s nonchalant tone sent shivers up Vernon’s back. Once again he found himself wondering why the hell he always found himself going along with Wonwoo’s schemes. He knew there was a reason. Wonwoo never did anything without calculating all his moves beforehand, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the true reason, more so if he was going to find out soon anyway. His suspicions were confirmed when he caught sight of you. He should’ve known that this was just another one of Wonwoo’s ways to get to you. 

Vernon didn’t understand your relationship with Wonwoo, scientifically it didn’t make sense. In simple terms Wonwoo was hated by everyone and you on the other hand were not. But the two of you had snuck around for years up until the accident five months ago. Ever since then Wonwoo’s spirits were low and he was going mad. If he wasn’t holed up in his tiny room at the apartment he was bent over a desk mumbling to himself, trying to come up with ways in which he could see you again. All of Wonwoo’s attempts before this one had failed and to say he wasn’t surprised to see you sit down, legs hanging over the edge of the grave while looking down at Wonwoo lovingly, he would be lying. Though, he supposed it had to do with the fact that Wonwoo’s grave was dug up. 

“You guys having fun there?” Wonwoo jumped. He rapidly smoothed down his shirt, leaving behind streaks of dirt, and fixed his hair before turning around. A smug smile adorning his features. Vernon shook his head and rolled his eyes. Sometimes he missed the days in which Wonwoo wasn’t in love. 

“Princess what brings you here?” He winked. His clammy hands grew more wet as he leaned against the shovel, before it failed underneath his weight causing him to trip. Seeing you again was like a breath of fresh air, the pictures he kept of you and looked at every night did you no justice. For you shined brighter than the stars in the night sky and it always made Wonwoo’s heart skip a beat. 

“Cut the shit Wonwoo, I know you’ve been turning this city upside down at least once a week to get under my skin.” 

“Well, what was I supposed to do? You haven’t been answering my calls, texts or emails.” Wonwoo threw his hands up in disbelief and you rolled your eyes at his ignorance. 

“Apologize, that’s all you had to do and you wouldn’t be here digging your own grave...literally.” You huffed crossing your arms in front of you, ripping your eyes away from his. Suddenly the memory of the accident came lingering back. You knew, given his nature, Wonwoo was calculated. He used his powers to affiliate pain on his victims without moving a muscle to get what he wanted. Though, he had never used it on you, until that night. 

He had been blinded by rage and pain and you had never seen him use so much power in your years of knowing him. It scared you and when you had tried to coax him out of whatever state he was in. He did the one thing he promised he would never do. 

He used his abilities on you. 

Wonwoo sighed before hosting himself out of the hole and taking the empty seat next you. “I wanted to do it in person, but you never showed up.” He looked down at his hands playing with his fingers, twirling the ring on his pinky. His body was consumed with guilt as your screams of agony replayed in his head. Just like they did every night. He had never once felt anything but satisfaction and bliss whenever he used his powers on someone. In fact he loved the way his victims begged him to stop, that was until you were on the receiving end of his torture. 

“You know where I live. It’s a big shiny tower in the center of town. Pretty hard to miss honestly.” The airy playfulness of your voice made his stomach swirl. He truly missed you and not just on nights when the two of you gently explored each other's bodies, but just in general. 

“I know but you know how much I hate the others, especially Joshua. He always has to stick his nose into matters that don’t concern him.” He huffed, flicking a tiny spec of dirt off of his trousers. “And I was scared.” He confessed lowly, shocking Vernon who had now taken it upon himself to sit on the soil filled ground to watch the spectacle in front of him. Wonwoo never admitted his fears and though Vernon sometimes could feel them radiating off him. It was different hearing it come from his friend's mouth. 

“Of Joshua? Dude’s only got super strength and-”

“No of you. I was scared to see you suffer and to turn me away. I was scared that if I did show up putting aside indifference for your friends just to hear you say that you didn’t love me anymore.” Wonwoo let out a deep sigh at the ending of his words. He dropped his shoulders feeling the weight being lifted off them. He felt your body shake next to him and it confused him greatly, even more so when it was followed by your laugh. Though he loved it and missed it greatly. He couldn’t deny the anger he felt towards you as you laughed at his vulnerability. 

Slowly, he felt his heart close up again and brought himself up to his feet faster than he could blink. His feet moved faster than the doubt racing through his veins and your laughter came to a stop. 

He now remembered why he swore to never love again all those years ago. 

“Wonwoo, wait come back.” You hurried to your feet, smoothing down the creases on your leggings. Vernon copied your movements. He could sense the fear coming from your body, and it overwhelmed his senses. Behind his soft eyes he quietly told you to hurry before Wonwoo did something he wasn’t supposed to. Even though Wonwoo always did without planning ahead of time, there were a few instances where he didn’t care and acted carelessly. And he found himself fearing more for your heart rather than his friend's safety. 

You sighed tugging on the sleeves of your sweatshirt before turning around and ran after the only man you had ever loved. You passed many tombstones, silently paying your respects until you stopped in the middle of a small clearing, home to one familiar tombstone and Wonwoo. His hands in his pocket, eyebrows furrowed and his teeth chewing down on his teeth. 

“After she died, I promised her I wouldn’t love anyone again.” He whispered, “but then you came along and ruined it.” He turned his head, his eyes glossy with wanted tears. “Do you know how much I beat myself up every day for what I did to her. For what I did to you. I hate myself for it, I hate that I can inflict pain on everyone else but myself because I’m not one that should be suffering, not everyone else.” 

By now he had finally let his tears go. They raced down his cheeks rapidly and it shattered your heart. 

“It hurts me that you think that way about yourself. She didn’t die because of you, you tried to save her and-”

“I was too late.” Wonwoo snorted and rolled his eyes. He stared intently at the tombstone in front of him, reading his little sister’s name over and over again, letting it burn feverishly inside his mind. He missed her dearly and sometimes he wondered why you never told him anything about the conversations you would have with her whenever she visited you. But you had told him that it was a family secret between the two of you and he never questioned you again because you had used the word family and it made him feel all giddy inside.

“Let me talk Wonwoo.” You said closing the gap between you and Wonwoo. You grabbed his face in your hands and wiped away his tears with the pad of your thumb. He had always been there to comfort you on your lowest days. His sweet words and warmth grounded you back onto the Earth, but you had never gotten the opportunity to do the same to him. He always kept himself closed off and reserved. It had taken almost a year into your secret, not so secret relationship for him to tell you about his sister’s unfortunate death and a few more months after that for him to say that he loved you. Despite all those small passing moments of vulnerability he had never once cried in front of you. 

“I love you and you’re stupid for thinking that I would love you any less because of what happ-”

“I hurt you though,” Wonwoo cut you off, earning a ground shattering glare from you that sent shivers up his spine. “Sorry you can continue.” He whispered. 

“Thank you.” You smirked and wrapped your arms around his neck, making him freeze. You were the strangest person he had ever had the pleasure in knowing because normal people would never be as comfortable as you were in his presence. “I know the kind of person you are Wonwoo, through this cold exterior there is the most loving and sensible person I have ever known. I mean, baby, you spent a whole day sulking because you forgot to water your plant.” 

“You gave me that plant for my birthday, therefore he’s our child.” 

“This is exactly my point, you have the biggest of anyone I have ever known. Unfortunately, you have been dealt a bad hand in life and I really don’t understand your obsession with taking over the world. But you’re not a monster.” 

“I hurt people though, sometimes for fun.” He whispered against your skin. In the midst of your speech he had given in and circled his arms around your waist before burying his face into the crook of your neck. Leaving the two of you in an awkward and uncomfortable position. 

“And who are those people?”

“Bad people.”

“Exactly baby, they’re the scum of the Earth and you have helped stop them.” 

“Okay, but that doesn’t make me a hero. I’m just doing what you guys can’t do. On top of that Joshua’s super strength is useless, he only gets praised because he’s hot.” Wonwoo finished and raised his head, smirking. He sent you a playful wink, tears long forgotten, causing you to roll your eyes. 

“Mingyu takes forever to get ready, but that’s besides the point. You’re not a monster so stop treating yourself like one.” 

“Does that mean you forgive me?” He pouted batting his eyelashes at you. 

“Yes you big idiot.” 

“Then...why haven’t you kissed me yet?” He puckered his lips and made kissing noises, making you laugh. “Hey I’m waiting and you know I’m impatient.” He spoke through pouted lips as he leaned in closer, his lips hovered over yours teasingly until you finally caved and kissed him. He sighed happily against your mouth and deepened the kiss. He had spent five months without the feeling of your touch and it scared him that he would forget how it felt. Yet, now as he kissed you with everything in him he realized he hadn’t and it overjoyed him to the point in which he accidentally let out a moan; making you pull away quickly and eyeing him down. 

“Control yourself, your sister, her friends and Vernon are here.” You scolded making him pout. 

“I’m sorry, i just...I still remember the way you taste, and I got excited.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. Before he could plant his lips on yours again he was met with your hand pushing him away. He whined as you tore his arms away from your waist, his body growing cold. “Nooo, one more kiss.” He reached out making grabby hands at you like a child. Instead of giving into what he wanted you turned and started walking away, “Wait, where are you going?” He stumbled against his own feet before following you. 

“Home.” You looked over at him and stuffed your hands into the front pocket of your hoodie. “You have a grave to cover up with Vernon.” 

“But I haven’t seen you in five months, just give me five more minutes please.” 

“Wonwoo you just didn’t look hard enough baby.” You said giving him a knowing smirk before leaning over, giving him a chaste kiss on his cheek. He felt his eyes grow in realization as everything started to click in his head. If what you had hinted was the truth and you had shown up to every single sight he had caused trouble in, then he had to give it to you. You were a lot more clever than you led on. “Don’t think about it too hard, I’ll leave my window open for you.” You smiled widely giving his cheek a pat and disappeared through the trees. 

“You live on the twenty fourth floor.” He yelled after you, his hands falling down at his side in defeat. He heard someone snort next to him and suddenly he remembered that Vernon was there silently observing everything, just like always did. 

“Figure it out baby, you always do.”

[osakaso5]

La Danse Macabre

Episode 27

Chapter Index

27-1: Schau (1)

Schau: Get in, Celestial.

[Thud]

Arme: Ugh...

Schau: Oh, right. It's your first time riding this.

Schau: We're on the elevator that connects the Ark and the Surface. All we need to do is stand right here, and it'll bring us back up.

Unity Order Troop: Well then...

Schau: Ah, I'm staying. I needed to talk to the Celestial alone for a moment.

Unity Order Troop: But, sir...

Schau: It's not like we're going anywhere from this room. ...And it's not often I get to talk to someone this important.

Unity Order Troop: I see... Please be careful.

[Whirr]

[Ding]

Arme: .......

Schau: You poor thing. Those Surface dwellers were using you all along.

Schau: Taken, used to fulfill someone else's goals, betrayed, and brought back...

Schau: Makes you wonder what a Celestial even is.

Arme: .......

Arme: I don't think myself pitiful.

Schau: Are you saying you don't even feel angry at the betrayal?

Arme: Fuga had things he cared about. He probably had no choice, since he wanted to keep those things safe.

Arme: As unfathomable as his reasons are to me, I find it hard to blame him when I think of the pain that must've driven him to do it.

Schau: Is this how you always were..? You've gotten this defiant look in your eye while you were gone...

Schau: I can't say I like it.

Arme: Fuga isn't the only one. Everyone on the Surface lives true to themselves.

Arme: They follow their own rules.

Arme: Why don't the people of the Ark do the same? Their wills are like a river, guided only by the church.

Schau: .......

Arme: They might find it comforting to lose themselves in their faith. But, their own--

[Smack]

Arme: Augh!

Schau: Thanks so much for the lecture.

Schau: So tell me, which side is the one leading a peaceful life?  Or are you all out of arguments?

Arme: ...Ngh..!

Schau: I never knew your head was so full of pointless things, Celestial.

Schau: Personally, I don't understand any of it.

Arme: ...Schau. Do you not question the Ark? Have you never thought of the disparity between us and the Surface?

Schau: Hmm.

Schau: I can't say I have.

Arme: ...Why? You've been to the Surface. How can you stay so indifferent!?

Schau: ........

Schau: I don't usually tell people this, but...

Schau: I was born on the Surface.

Arme: ......!?

Schau: When I was little, Reue took me back from one of his expeditions. I was raised as a citizen of the Ark.

Arme: I see... 

27-2: Schau (2)

Schau: I don't know why Reue... my father, did what he did.

Schau: But the fact that I now live on the Ark is pure coincidence.

Schau: You know how some people on the Ark, like Qual, see Surface dwellers as subhuman beings?

Schau: ...I'm different. I know we're humans all the same.

Schau: After all, there's no difference between me or anyone from the Surface.

Arme: ...I see.

Schau: The ground and the sky. Do you know what divides them? ...Luck.

Schau: It's all luck. That's how I know how pointless it is to have all those bothersome thoughts you're having.

Schau: There is no rhyme or reason to this world. Things just turned out this way.

Arme: ...If you were born on the Surface...

Arme: And if you consider yourself equal to the people of the Surface, shouldn't you be trying to meet them halfway?

Schau: No. It's because I got lucky that I need to maintain the rift between us.

Arme: That's selfish..!

Schau: I'm not the selfish one here. I'm trying to keep things as they are...

Schau: While you're trying to sow  chaos based on some hare-brained philosophy of yours.

Arme: .......!

Schau: Truth be told, you're a pain in the ass. The world is not your personal learning experience.

Schau: Just because you got out of your cage and saw some new things doesn't mean you get to lecture the rest of us on the state of the world.

Arme: ........

Schau: Actually... Master Misericorde himself sent us a message regarding this mission.

Arme: Misericorde..?

Schau: Pretty unusual, huh? Not like I care to imagine what his motivations were, though.

Schau: All I needed to know is one thing. And it's that Master Misericorde wants you "dead or alive".

Arme: ...What..?

Schau: But why would he need to tell us that, exactly? Do you understand what I'm getting at?

Arme: ...I, I...

Schau: I think he wants you dead more than anything.

[Bang]

Arme: Aaagh!!!

Schau: Only a couple more minutes until we reach the Ark. I'll put you down before then.

Arme: Huff... huff... why..!? Why would Misericorde want me dead..!?

Schau: I wouldn't know.

[Bang]

Arme: Aaaugh!!!

Schau: I was actually pretty annoyed. Thanks to you, our lives are a mess.

Schau: And I hate messes.

Schau: I want things to stay exactly the same. I'm only here out of sheer luck, so it's really important to me.

Schau: I don't want any obstacles... And I won't let you disturb my father, nor my subordinates!

[Bang]

Arme: .......!

Schau: ...You're such a nuisance.

Arme: ........

Schau: This must be your first time meeting someone who actually wants you dead.

Schau: Even the ones who hurt you before were being careful not to  kill you. In other words, the Surface was  being gentle with you.

Arme: Ah... aaah...

Schau: Goodbye, Celestial.

Arme: .......!

[Bzzt]

Schau: Huh..?

Schau: Urgh..!

[Splat]

Arme: ......!?

Schau: Wha... what is... Guh, uurgh...!

[Splat]

Schau: ........! .........!

Arme: H-hey..! Schau, what's wrong..!?

Schau: No..! D... Dad..!!!

Schau: ........

Arme: Ah, aah... It's just like last time...

[Ding]

Arme: ...We’ve arrived at the Ark...

[Whirr]

Reue: ......!?

Arme: Reue...

Reue: W-what... is this..!?

Reue: Schau! Schau!!!

Reue: Schau..!

Reue: ...What...

Reue: What happened?

Arme: .......

Reue: Answer me...

Reue: Answer me, Celestial!!! 

- - - -

Qual: .......

[Thump]

Qual: ...This can't continue. 

To be continued...

[starlit-dreaming]

[WMMAP] Lucathy Ideas (6/?)

haha

here i am again

with lucathy ideas instead of finishing ch8 of crescendo

also i think halfway through this post, i was sleep-deprived via all-nighter (i like to spite myself in times like these), so if some of the ideas feel like its been derailed, or that it doesn’t make sense, or that it needs more elaborating on, then that’s probably me being sleepy as fuck and typing whatever to my heart’s content cause a sleep-deprived wyn is a cheeky lil shit like that (full bromo though. which. kinda sounds weird. since i’m telling that to myself.)

and because im the type that just goes “no beta we die like lp athanasia” when it comes to my work, i decided not to proofread any of this. because i wrote a lot for this post over the course of several days because im nervously waiting until i finally plunge myself back into another fandom (or three) soon

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | [6] | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

when left behind -- God/Goddess AU

• it’s not really a hades and persephone au, but it’s definitely inspired from it with the whole “omg hades kidnapped persephone we have to save them!!!” sort of concept

• there are some elements from lovely princess, but a majority is from wmmap

• claude is the god in charge, the god of law and order, probably??? diana is the goddess of dance and travels, so she doesn’t always stay in heaven and never stays in one place (she has a positive relationship with athy, but she isn’t always there for her and might even go years without seeing her -- which, of course, athy is bitter about that at times, but she doesn’t fault her since she’s the goddess of travels). because diana’s alive, he doesn’t hate athanasia, but he's more awkward and indifferent towards athy and refrains from interacting with her unless he’s really missing diana

• so yeah. parental neglect, much? but hey, on the bright side, at least claude isn’t a huge dick to athanasia because the reason why he is was eliminated, it’s just that the familial distance is caused by their duties as gods/goddesses. im thinking of claude’s relationship with athy after athy met lucas in wmmap, but before she almost died and moved into the emerald palace. meaning, he firmly believes that if athanasia disappeared he wouldn’t be affected by her Not being there, but really, he’s in denial about it. he just doesn’t get that realization until later on because he normally doesn’t see her every single day

• lucas is the god of death and magic, athanasia is the goddess of mercy (and maybe truth??? its tempting for me to say she represents honesty and mercy). jennette is the goddess of kindness and forgiveness, ezekiel is the god of justice and knowledge??? felix is the god of protection, lillian is the goddess of motherhood

• can you tell that i was really subtle with those match up pairs? cause im really not being subtle about the pairings. im a ride or die claudiana, lucathy, jennkiel, calena, and felix/lily shipper and all those are going to be recurring ships in all my wmmap au’s

• for that lovely inclusion of calena, helena’s the goddess of nature and cabel’s the god of archery and they’re married and helena adores playing matchmaker for people. her current goal is getting felix and lily together

• funny story of how lucas became the god of death, actually. so anastacius was the former god of death (who got yeeted out of heaven by claude), but lucas, being the god of magic for who knows how long, decides to just yeet him off the throne for the underworld who rejoiced at having a new death for a ruler, and thus, lucas ended up becoming the god of death because of his actions

• anyways. so sometimes shit gets boring (and i dont have any other ideas that comes to mind that would justify this happening), so its only natural that maybe a god/goddess or two, or three, decide to start drama involving people.

• it could be anyone who started it, honestly, but i’m gonna draw in an element from the LP-verse by saying it was jennette’s aunt, rosalia, who started shit

• and, surprise, surprise, it involves athanasia being the victim of this drama

• claude is the god of law and order, so he has to be logical, but he’s not very close to athanasia as he is in the WMMAP-verse. he doesn’t know what kind of person his daughter really is, and according to rosalia, the problem lies in the fact that she’s jealous of jennette and ezekiel’s relationship, that she’s jealous of how everyone loves jennette, etc, etc, and that’s why she’s trying to cause problems with jennette that inconveniences her

• and claude, is being fed lies, and rosalia essentially fabricates evidence to prove that athanasia’s the one causing jennette some problems. and as much as he doesn’t think athanasia would ever do it, he’s still the god of law and order and he has to be impartial even to his family

• so athanasia’s punishment is that she is to be kicked out of heaven for several decades. jennette and helena try to argue against the decree. rosalia didnt expect athanasia to get kicked out, but she and the others are not complaining because Drama, plus, most of the other gods/goddesses think that she’s pretty gloomy in comparison to diana, so they consider this to be a win-win -- entertaining and they won’t have to deal with athanasia

• and nobody hears from her for several decades

• until lucas, the god of death, decides to make an appearance in heaven and asks claude about mercy, and because lucas is a pretty handsome dude, chances are, people are gonna shit talk athanasia in hopes that they’ll earn death’s favor (especially for those who were jealous of athy)

• i want to use “you won’t find any mercy in heaven” as a line being said to lucas

• at one point, while jennette is spending time with athy in her regular visits to her sister-like friend, picking flowers and all that and talking about how much she wishes athy would come back because it wasnt her fault blahblahblah, and then she jumps to conclusions when lucas pops up out of nowhere, whisks athy off her feet, and heads off in a carriage to the underworld

• jennette assumes that athy’s been kidnapped by lucas and cries to claude and ezekiel about it

• now. death and mercy have a history together that not a lot of gods remember or have ever seen or considered. mercy killing is a Thing, and during war times? it definitely happens a lot. having mercy to spare someone from death has also happened before, and those were the only times jennette ever sees athy during war times -- kindness and compassion and showing mercy in sparing lives. which makes jennette naive to the reasons why death and mercy are a good pair

• this is also the reason why cabel, helena, lucas, and athy all have a history and are a close knit group -- they all have something to do with death. hunting/archery. poisonous/harmful plants. dying in general. mercy killing. while cabel, lucas, and athy take active parts during war times, helena holds a passive killing role (unless people are actively using plants to make poisons, but that’s besides the point). so overall, they all know each other better than anyone else

• and yes, lucas will consider fighting lily and helena both for the title of “i know athy the best”

• anyways, so jennette and ezekiel both travel to the underworld because they’re determined to rescue athanasia (because, well, ezekiel is also naive in the sense that he’s never seen athanasia mercy kill before, so he also thinks that mercy x death is a bad match)

• and thats where jennette realizes that lucas is athanasia’s precious “luke” that she talks about all the time and is instantly relieved that it really was just a misunderstanding on her part and now instead of being worried, shes absolutely delighted to hear the news about their betrothal

• this doesnt change the fact that heaven’s in an uproar about the lucathy’s betrothal because there’s a bunch of chaos -- “sweet athanasia’s been kidnapped by the cruel lucas, the horrible god of death!” or something like that

• something along those lines

• claude sends ezekiel back to the underworld to give them a message to release athanasia from the underworld within 7 days -- safe and sound

• lucas: and if i don’t want to? ezekiel: then there will be war...? athy: then there will be war //smiles

• thankfully, there will NOT be a war

• because diana returns to heaven (not the first time since athanasia was gone, but the excuse that was given to her was that “athanasia is busy and not in heaven atm” so diana didn’t realize she got yeeted out for a few decades) and this time she found out from lilian that athanasia’s going to get married, how it all ended up happening, and she tells claude that they’re both traveling to the underworld to congratulate their daughter on her betrothal and that he won’t be stopping their daughter from being happily married

• which. it was technically thanks to claude that lucas could easily sweep in and propose to athy. since he more or less kicked her out of heaven until she “apologizes for her actions”. there wasn’t proof that revealed that athy was framed, so the decree wasnt taken back until after all this happened

• this is an au that i'm hoping to write, because i’d love to write about lucas and athy during war times because godly warrior couple lucathy

child of mine -- modern au

• basically just full on kid fluff -- it’ll follow after the events of [it was only one night] that i mentioned in my Lucathy Ideas 3 (which will probably have to wait until after i’m finished with working on it rip)

• so this is spoilers for people who haven’t read my wip tidbits that i’ve posted for that story, [child of mine] follows a pair of twins Elias and Aria Hwang (aka, Aurelius and Ariadne Obelia-Hwang) from after they’re born. as in baby shenanigans

• i want elias to ask for a baby bro because he wants to be an older brother (aria is older by 7 minutes). instead of getting a baby bro, he gets a baby sister. emily, emma, elena, lucina, althea??? maybe. i’m still thinking about it. i like using thea as a nickname too, and as much as i love aletheia as a name, its not a name that i’m using for this au (i have a lot of different name possibilities in my head tbh, because then it’ll be a fun little project for future me to draw the lucathy kids across all of the au’s i’ve been thinking of)

• i want a lot of sibling shenanigans too and most of this is based on my convos/interactions with my little cousins because they’re so adorably chaotic and i live for it

• one time, my little cousin (age 3-4), would just keep giggling and ducking to hide behind the couch i was sitting on, and i’d peek over the sofa and she’d run off with a giggly squeal. and when i walked past her next hiding spot, she’d run off again that we ended up doing this random “chase” and hide (even though i could clearly see her and that i was only walking throughout the entire time)

• me and two of my cousins (i think they were both 13 & 14 at the time) had a discussion that our 7 year old cousin was possibly tarzan’s descendant or a demon banshee disguised as a child

• i have a very tiny 7 year old cousin. every time i see her i keep thinking that she’s 4 or 5, because every time she talks its hard for me to understand whether or not if she’s actually saying words, and she’s tiny. i want the 2nd lucathy daughter to be the tiny baby of the family

• quotes without context from my convos with ira whenever i talk to him about my cousins:

“my cousin Ri (17-18), whose on my friends list, will probably go wtf???”

“A (13-14) wanted to know if dinosaurs have tits.”

“Me: are you drunk off of pizza? J (12-13): //slowly nods J: off brand drug //takes a bite of pizza J: //closes door”

“tbh im not surprised that she zero'd in on the mention of boobs since this is the same funky lil lesbian cousin we’re talking about”

“i think my cousin’s a furry, tho”

• i realize now that it’s on the more shitposty side of things, but thats alright because it’ll keep this story interesting and amusing (for me, i mean)

• if you think that athy and lucas would only have 3 kids then you’re wrong because the child acquisition tag exists for a reason and they’re gonna adopt a shit ton of kids

in the rain -- coffee shop + university au

• so helena more or less sets athy up on a blind date at this nice coffee shop near the university campus. except the guy doesn’t show up after an hour of her waiting

• it starts raining, and she more or less thinks “fuck this” and decides to order some cake with the coffee she’s been drinking for a bit and stay at the cafe until the rain dies down or something. she pulls out her tablet from her purse and just starts working on her school assignments because the dude’s over an hour late, she’s not gonna waste more of her time when she could be finishing up her assignments.

• some of the university students start to fill the place up. all except for her table. and when lucas comes in to his favorite coffee shop, he asks her if he could sit at her table since there’s no other place in the shop to sit down at, and she tells him to go ahead, so he takes a seat across from her.

• and like. keep in mind. athanasia’s gorgeous and ridiculously pretty in a princess-like way. lucas is also gorgeous and ridiculously pretty in a ‘tall, dark, mysterious’ way. so everyone’s more or less thinking “fuck of course they’re together” because. yknow. misunderstandings.

• at one point, athy gets a text from helena asking her how the date’s going, and helena immediately calls athy when she responds with “he never showed”

• and helena loudly asks her a bunch of questions on what happened, etc, etc, and lucas is literally sitting near her and it’s loud enough for him to actually hear helena’s questions

• and athy shrugs saying “idfk he just never showed up” and then throws in a “but hey, on the bright side this cafe’s pretty great, kinda crowded cause of the rain, but it’s pretty great”

• before anyone wonders, no, lucas was not athy’s blind date. we can talk about a lucathy blind date au later though. it was actually ezekiel

• and essentially helena curses ezekiel’s name and wonders if she and jennette “shouldve told him that it was a date with you” -- because he didn’t know, and he definitely wouldve regretted not showing up to the blind date. granted, he never made any promises to go on the blind date to begin with, which was an issue of communication on their part

• and athy is just in disbelief cause she had a crush on kiel when she was in high school, but she doesn’t feel the same now. regardless, helena then suggests “maybe i could set you up with another guy” to which athy just nervously laughs and goes “maybe” and sighing in relief when the call ends

• i dont remember what i was thinking of, but i think i had lucas making notes as he skims through a history textbook, then athy going “oh hey, i have that class too” and then the rest is history (eyyyy)

• the original concept for this au was described as a “romcom level cheesy romance”, similar to Friday’s “Good Morning” by Honeyworks tbh. its a rainy day and the romance starts because she gives the guy an umbrella

• hmm. maybe i should consider turning this into a honeyworks au, although sena and midori are more like calena than lucathy ngl, which i guess is something to consider about since its two shy dorks and oof now i’m not sure

but like srsly look at this image from the mv to know what i mean:

what can i say? cute. dorks. in. love.

but this au will have to wait for another day since i havent thought of it before

((note to self: brainstorm for a honeyworks au at some point))

more than meets the eye -- blind date au

• i said i would talk more about a blind date au so here’s that blind date au i (probably) teased you about. i’d like to consider this the [my teacher and my sister’s best friend] divergence (that au idea can be found in my Lucathy Ideas 5), where lucas and athy met on a blind date, and just decided to give their relationship a tentative try (and that they actually worked things out instead of being stubborn and breaking things off //coughs)

• so. i’d like to imagine that athanasia is the type of person who would make sure she gets to places on time by aiming to arrive 5-10 minutes before any kind of meeting. while lucas is the type of dude to just be there on time without any issue for the most part. which is gonna annoy athanasia just a little because how the fuck does he manage to look that good with only a few minutes? magic. even though its a modern setting

• on their blind date, it’s really fucking awkward. they go to the same university campus, so they’re vaguely familiar to each other in a “i think i’ve seen you around the area before”

• that does not change the fact that its a very awkward date

• lucas is the type to internalize his thoughts -- he’s blunt about his opinions, but he can read the mood for the most part, its just that he sucks at understanding emotions. and he’s just internally thinking “she’s so pretty what the heck?”

• meanwhile athanasia is currently freaking out inside her mind because holy shit helena set her up with a gorgeous guy

• in the au helena hadn’t really met cabel until after cabel became a teacher at her brother’s school, and even then, she didn’t formally meet him until the parent-teacher conferences when her brother ended up in her guardianship. so what adds onto this divergence, helena and cabel actually end up meeting each other earlier due to lucas and athy trying to make the relationship work after their blind date (as well as not letting misunderstandings get in the way

mother, mother -- sixth sense??? i see dead people au

• a retelling of wmmap with an eventual divergence. why? because athanasia can see ghosts. more specifically, she can see diana’s ghost.

• thats,,,, thats it. thats all that was in my notes. it was literally a “WHAT IF ATHY HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO SEE GHOSTS SINCE SHE WAS BORN AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO SEE DIANA”

• so i guess this is the portion where i pull ideas outta my ass as i go along and y’know, i don’t actually know the reason why claude killed everyone in the ruby palace after diana died. maybe its mentioned in the novel and i just flat out havent read it yet since i rely on english translations, maybe its already posted in a chapter for someone’s english translations and i just haven’t dragged myself back to catching up on the updated chapters of said translation

• regardless, ive got ideas and speculations. like, ok, i get that diana undoubtedly died cause of athanasia’s magic causing too much strain on diana’s body and that maybe athy’s uncontrollable magic ended up killing the other concubines, which is something that i wholeheartedly believe to have happened. but before i realized that all of it would be the reason why diana died, i thought “well, claude obviously favors diana. but before diana, there were a ton of concubines, werent there? so maybe they were all jealous that diana became the favourite and tried to get diana to miscarry”

• regardless, this means that athanasia is never alone.

• i want a bunch of ghostly concubines talk to athy on a regular basis after they realize that she’s able to see them, and diana trying to shoo them away if they end up almost gearing towards the not-safe-for-wyn type of stories

• or advice (for when she gets older)

• so. she’s aware that athy knows a lot more than she should for a kid. and at first she was very much a proud mama for having such a smart daughter, but athy has plans for running away when she’s only five??? and normal kids are normally just happy to play and all that????????

• eventually, athy has to vaguely explain her situation to diana, and diana more or less accepts it because, well, athy has a ton of magic which is what killed her, and athy’s capable of seeing and interacting with ghosts

• and it essentially deals a little bit with athy’s guilt in the fact that she’s “not actually diana’s daughter” because diana reassures her that even if she has the mind of an orphaned stranger unrelated to her, she still sees her as athanasia, her daughter (“you’ll always be my daughter, regardless of whether or not you have the memories of someone else”)

• she still thinks that running away would be too extreme. although she also thinks that claude just needs to give athy a chance by actually being active in her life

• diana favours watching over athanasia and claude, and she gets immensely happy when athy accidentally runs into claude and when they all spend time together. it’s very sweet and sometimes amusing (for me) because athy has to resist answering back when diana says something. but also gets hella fucking sad because, yknow, dead mom

• can you imagine how diana would feel when athy tries drinking lippe tea for the first time and ends up reminding claude of diana and that he’s definitely still upset by the death as if it recently happened? yeah. thats gonna hurt.

• the divergence from the story happens after that tea party and the “what does mom look like” doesn’t happen in the same way because athy already knows what her mom looks like. so she just goes ahead and draws her mom, and at first lily thinks that she’s drawing a self-portrait

• until athy uses red-pink crayons for diana’s eyes. and thats when athy states “i’m drawing mom” and that’ll lead to an awkward vibes because felix and lily thinks that she really wants to see her mom, meanwhile athy and diana are just “oh god this is a mess,,,,” because athy hasn’t made it a secret that she can see diana

• i want athy to, at one point, say “it’s okay, mom’s always with me so i’m never alone” or something along those lines

• diana was definitely by her side when athy meets lucas, and lucas cant see diana, but he knows that there’s something clinging onto athy outside of the whole magic situation athy has

• she’ll forgive him after he saves athy’s life, but she’s definitely wary until several months into their friendship

• after lucas starts keeping athy company at night on her bdays, diana is always at claude’s side until morning arrives. she knows that lucas visits athy and she knows that athy isn’t too torn up about claude not seeing her on her bday, so she’s more or less trusting lucas with watching over athy

• those “dreams” claude has while he’s on his sofa seeing diana in front of him arent actually dreams (most of the time), its just that diana’s ghost is being affected by athy’s magic or something as cheesy as that

• when lucas returns from his trip to the world tree he’s definitely able to see diana more clearly. he just doesnt really bother to outright state that he can see her. but diana’s definitely aware that he sees her when he stares at her from time to time

• it makes athy very nervous, thinking “wait can he see her or???” because before his trip to the world tree, lucas would occasionally stare in diana’s direction but it was more of a “thought someone was staring at me” kind of thing (he could sense her, but he couldn’t really see her due to his low magic)

• i think thats all that i wanted to think of???

• actually wait. the Lucathy Kiss™

• so. they definitely weren’t alone. diana was definitely there when athy suggested a kiss, and athy definitely forgot that diana was there as she gave lucas a kiss

• i’d like to imagine that diana is the type of person who loves to tease people and she’ll definitely tease athy about her first (cheek) kiss (to someone other than claude)

• of course, athy confides in diana about knowing when someone has a crush on you because it’s very obvious that ezekiel likes her and that she’s not sure what to think of it. and diana’s used to having plenty of admirers and rejecting all of them with the exception of claude

• the ruby palace concubine ghosts definitely misunderstand, and they definitely offer athy ideas and advice on how to win lucas’s infatuation that she did not ask for nor did she ever want to know

• claude’s able to occasionally catch glimpses of diana after he gets whacked by the magic branch

• ok thats it. can you tell that this is another au of mine that i really want to come back and work on? because i really do want to come back and work on this

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | [6] | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

out of curiosity -- if i were to ever make a new wattpad under the same name (starlit-dreaming), would you want me to create a story titled “Lucathy Misc Tidbits” and essentially have me go over the ideas that I’ve posted on tumblr, but with a more proper format, additional detail, and extra ideas/concepts for the au?

ngl, i’m already thinking about maybe posting a series of oneshots based on word prompts (feel free to suggest some words via asks or dm’s for that btw, although there’s no promise that i’ll use them, but i’ll at least consider them for ideas). ao3 is my main preference for posting fanfics and i’m willing to try posting stuff on wattpad, since i’ve never posted my stories on that site before (and because i’ve been reading some lucathy fics and am highkey blaming @ilyusha-hwang​ and @lithium-15​ and at this point, i might as well).

[bluepenguinstories]

Happiness Overload Chapter Sixty-Three

Right as rain, skipper!

I liked my eggs over easy and my people with bones intact. Actually, I think I had it the other way around. People were much better boneless, easier to get to the meat, and eggs always tasted better a little crunchy. But then again, I could have been thinking of salmon.

“So long, and thanks for all the…” Ah, a song of ancient times. I began to hum it to myself as I made my way to meet my date halfway. Such a long time spent in my cave, I began to feel a bit like an allegory for Plato. Or Prometheus if he never did that party trick with fire. But at last I could stretch my legs, and my legs could stretch as far as I allowed them to. Sometimes I thought that if I was a little more boneless, I could be less stretchy. That would have been a goal of mine at some point in time. Maybe in an alternate universe.

But now I had a different goal. One far greater.

“Frankly, my damn, I don’t give a dear,” I chuckled, hands in my pockets. That chuckle soon erupted further. Then I realized that the core of the planet, like ice cream in the middle of a store bought mochi, was what dog owners liked to call “real excitable”.

I didn’t have much time left. Nor did the planet. Neither of those variables were relevant. I’ve been holding the thing together, the same thing I helped destroy, all so I could get a bite in before the cookie crumbles.

Each step was slow and hesitant.

What did I have to fear? Such a good question, and maybe it was the Blanc in me who felt that way. When I say that, what I mean is all of me. I know, confusing. Just like how it all escalated so far, and for whatever reason, I chose to descend below the earth.

Well, if it were to end, I wanted to go out as human. Not because I disliked being part of something which had brought so much joy to my life, far from it. Rather, I wanted my last moment to be beside Euphoria, not us as one. I knew that wasn’t entirely possible, but my current state was something close to that. I felt like such a thought made me sad, but in a happy way. Unable to see the sad, we agreed to do what we could.

Besides, whoever the other living soul was who wanted me to see the end with them, they probably didn’t want to be frightened with the idea of me acting so happy go lucky in such an alien manner.

“Oh, but could you imagine?” I laughed to myself. It felt so hollow. There was genuine emotion, but there were more than just happy feelings behind it. Maybe, just maybe, the reality had dawned on me. Not so much that it was the end of the world just because the world was ending, but yeah. I felt it.

Heaviness with each step. As if my feet had turned to cement blocks. It was really here, wasn’t it?

Total darkness as I descended, stone and soil mingled together as they both crumbled above me. Little pieces fell on my head. If I was more euphoric, I would have made the debris fall everywhere but on me. But I accepted it, just like I accepted my situation. As much as I could, anyway.

Yes, I really did feel the weight of the world.

Such a large stone, hydrated and covered in land formations. In my indifferent, but infinite knowledge (if it made me happier to know something), the best I could compare the planet, my home, to was a parfait.

I gulped. In equal measure to the darkness, it was just as difficult to feel my way around. There were insects on the walls. What little life there was, and it just had to be the sort of things that freaked me out. Oh joy.

These stairs… I wondered. Were they crafted by someone, created as a path by Earth itself, or did they appear as a manifestation from my guardian angel?

Almost as if it were scripted to happen, I slipped and fell a few steps down. Each step scraped against my legs, and the pain surged. Something I had missed. Something I shouldn’t have wanted to miss.

“God damn, I’m so stupid,” I muttered. My voice trailed into an echo, as if other voices circled around me. Whole congregations chanting of my foolishness. Even more foolish, I refused to try and pick myself back up. The pain was minor, just scratches at best. But it was the culmination of both what and wasn’t around me.

It seemed to me like there really were voices. Whispers and chants. Speaking nothing, or maybe having conversations with each other. All of those people who lived on the surface, some sort of surface, and spoke of their routines. Crowded streets in cities. Towns of less than a thousand people as one neighbor greets another. That college student who talked to themselves over how much they dreaded each day and would rather stay in and play video games and forget that the world existed.

...That last one was more personal.

None of those voices existed. The only sounds were of the earth as it gave little quakes and the crumbling sounds from above. Little squeaky sounds from the creepy crawlers. There were no more people going on about their day. There wasn’t so much of a day to go on about. There were just moments. Immeasurable. Brief and endless.

I leaned forward and huddled my head into my knees. The tears came without me having to force them.

“This is why...this is why I depend on you so much…” I wept. I once likened the feeling of being one with happiness to like a drug, so it would make sense to think that I was experiencing some sort of withdrawal. But no. That wasn’t it.

It was the situation. How I came to be where I was.

That I lived on such a tiny fragment of this fucked up sphere (sorry-not-sorry flat earthers) for such a fragment of time. Less than a speck when compared to the life of this who-gives-a-shit planet. What good did it ever do me to live on it, anyway? It was always in a state of decay due to the decisions of the greedy and powerful, so maybe a quick death was better.

If I thought about how long I lived, as a copy of some other bloke with the exact name and face as me, it would only have been a little more than four years. In that time, several extraordinary things happened, and I got to experience much more than I ever thought I would have. I got to meet stoner aliens and time travel and meet all sorts of friends. None of that would have been possible if not for the circumstances that befell me.

But what I remembered of my life went beyond that. I remembered myself as someone who lived twenty years longer than I did. Someone named Blanc Slait. Even if that name could have been a further fabrication due to Etna’s memory interference, I believed I would have picked a name like that anyway.

My life consisted of confusion in the face of the world around me, a world which was much smaller than the entirety of the earth. Much of the time, my world was my bedroom. Video games and doodles. Comic books scattered around. Bags of chips and candy wrappers that I’d forget to pick up. Short and violent tempered parents who liked to see me neither in my room nor around them so long as I continued to be who I was. My brother, equal in being closed off, would try to bond with me and we would try to do things together, but it never really got much further than attempts at getting along.

I knew he struggled with his own things: we both had varying degrees of depression, and although he didn’t understand my issues with gender, we both shared similar interests. I wasn’t really sure how our parents were toward him, and thinking about it now scared me. Yet that never really mattered to me at the time and when I got the chance to bail on that house, I didn’t look back.

So maybe I eventually developed into what you might call ‘happy-go-lucky’, but what was so wrong with that? What was so wrong with being happy just to be happy? The life I remembered as the person I imitated was anything but lucky, and mine may have been much more fortunate than them. It was fine enough to think of myself as them, as the memories and the feelings behind those memories were the same. I wasn’t lying when I told Ves that her, Juniper, and Trent were like the family I never had. If Blanc had the same relationship with their brother that Juniper had with hers, maybe they would have led a different life.

But luck was what it was and some things just happened the way they did. Even though the life I had memories of wasn’t an easy one, so what? Should I have earned the right to my happiness? I hated such a thought. It made me unhappy and soon the thought vanished.

“This is why I depend on you so much,” I said once more. “I’ve always been on the verge of giving up. I’m scared. Unsure of myself. When I’ve acted in the past, it was with little rhyme or reason. Always ready to play the martyr just to have an excuse to die all while well aware that any action of mine will have little impact. I never felt like I belonged anywhere, and maybe I just felt like doing something, for some cause, would grant me the happiness I so desired. Less than from others, I wanted a smile from myself.”

“But now,” the tears crept out of me once more. “Even though I managed to be happy, and I managed to feel loved, and I got to see my friends again. Well...truth be told, I miss Conrad. There’s no getting around that. Err...I...where was I?” God damn. There was that too. Being human was so hard and having a train of thought was just impossible. “It’s just, thinking about all that’s transpired, and how now with the world ending and me along with it...what has it all amounted to?”

“HAPPY IS WHAT!” A little fairy appeared beside me. Or maybe it was one of my hands talking, and either way, they were comforting images.

I smiled.

“Yeah, you’re right, but…” But I shook my head, even if I agreed with her. Or what I agreed with was her enthusiasm. “I still feel I may as well sit here. The world’s going to end anyway. What reason is there to do anything?”

“DO ANYTHING!”

“Yes,” I changed my tune and picked myself back up. I could do anything. So what would I do? The answer was clear: meet up with whoever was so desperate to see me, then sit and allow the world to end with me in it. That seemed reasonable enough. Yeah.

At this point, one wouldn’t be at fault to suspect that I too would start doing the tried and true expression of Introspection™. Such a reliable tool, like a mallet, or a paintbrush. But there wasn’t anything of the sort, and not to mention, there wasn’t any reason to look inward. After all, I was the least complex being in the universe. I could live as a single-celled organism, except then I would get bored of being but a lonely little cell. So no, I couldn’t.

Truth be told, there wasn’t much more interesting to tell. I decided that my thoughts were done narrating. So I decided to think up an essay, instead:

In the amateur novella, ‘Happiness Overload’, the story opens up with the line ‘11:30 A.M. Fuck. Those numbers followed by those two letters would be the end of me’. That opening line is significant as the narrator (yet to be named), Blanc Slait, describes how they feel about such a time. That it would be the ‘end of them’. At first seeming random, the author chose 11:30 A.M. because of the phrase ‘at the eleventh hour’, signifying that the story already begins at the end, or, by the time it ends, the story has begun. But it hasn’t ended yet, as the end would have been noon. So with it being the eleventh and a half hour, it gives off the impression that there is still time before the end to change things. For the better? For the worse? Rather than answer those questions with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’, the narrator instead chooses to answer with a ‘fuck’.

That one word stated after that time is a little ambiguous, as it could mean ‘at the eleventh and a half hour, it is time to fuck’ or it could mean ‘fuck. It is 11:30 A.M.’ As we soon find out by the next sentence, it is the latter. There is a term for such an expression after a time of day coined by scholars, known as ‘fucktime’. Fucktime can happen at any time of the day, regardless of the amount of fucks given. But, seeing as the narrators’ ‘fuck’ happens at a quarter past the eleventh hour, it can be assumed that many fucks (or just one) were given. That the fact that things were so close to the end warranted such a ‘fuck’, because what else could one say when one sees a disaster and is standing in the middle of it, but to say ‘fuck’?

In truth, the narrator could have said, ‘aw, shucks’, or ‘this is fine’, but the narrator chose fuck. Probably because such a word resonated with the narrator to such a degree that it was the only word appropriate to such a situation.

Later on, the narrator, a wisecracking, but demotivated college student undergoes a transformation, not too unlike Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metaphor’. Such a transformation is cause for another ‘fuck’, but instead, the narrator goes off on a quest for vengeance against the ones in power who spurred such a transformation within them.

It is by that final chapter, the eight chapter (another significant number, as eight sideways is infinity, suggesting that the story could have gone on much longer than eight chapters, but because the eight is not sideways, such a continuation is denied) that the main character dies to a villain who only appeared in brief spurts, Dr. (or Professor) Etna. The fact that she (an Artificial Intelligence, which says something, as all characters within a novella would have artificial intelligence, as their intelligence is reliant upon the author) insists on professor when she is also a doctor has such a great meaning that the meaning is obscured by the fact that the main character dies.

Although there are loose ends by the end of it, such as the clone of our protagonist, Blanc Slait, still roaming around, as well as Velvet and Conrad (two unrelated characters, save for the fact that Conrad was a friend of the first Blanc’s) trying to escape from a raid on their base, it can be inferred from the villain of the story that they will soon meet their untimely end as well. Thus wrapping up a short story in which a continuation is denied.

If the story were to continue, literary critics have argued, then the clone of Blanc could have gone on many adventures, while Velvet and Conrad...I don’t know? They could have sat on a beach sipping on coconut oil, the possibilities are endless. Yes. Such endless possibilities, like a sideways eight. Just imagine all of the other characters that could have been introduced, had the story a means of continuation. But at ending there, we can finally understand the true meaning behind ‘Happiness Overload’.

But before we get into that (which being an essay, the thesis statement should be at the beginning), notice the similarities between Professor/Dr. Etna and a James Bond(age) villain: for one, there are lasers involved. Second, Etna gives long speeches to the defeated Blanc Slait, powerless in all but their words. If the story had been a James Bond(age) movie, or any other kind of spy, secret agent, or superhero movie, then one would expect that at the eleventh (and a half) hour, our Blanc Slait would figure out a way to break free, either through words or actions. However, such a thing is not granted.

It is also in the final chapter that a few more things are subtly revealed. The first of which being that ‘Happiness Overload’ is a story without characters. Case in point, think of how many characters there are in the novella: there’s Albacore (not a character, a type of tuna meat), Blanc, Conrad, Ecstasy (not a character, a drug), Etna, Euphoria (not a character, a feeling often associated with taking Ecstasy), Kelly Roger, and Velvet. If one were to think of other characters, one might come up with the clone of Blanc, as well as the second clone of Blanc, who later became a tree. But because those two characters are also Blanc, they do not count. Also, one could count the old man that Velvet both helps and smuggles food from, but that doesn’t count, because the old man doesn’t have a name, and thus, nothing to project onto.

Now, with all of those characters in mind, which is a very small cast, to a very short story, how many characters does that make? The answer is zero.

First off, let’s start with Blanc, as in the final chapter, the shocking truth comes out: Blanc Slait is a pun on ‘Blank Slate’. Now, a blank slate, or tabula rasa, is a theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content. There is more to the theory, but it is irrelevant, as Etna points out in her next shocking reveal to the protagonist: Blanc’s memories were a fabrication. Meaning that what we had seen of Blanc up to that point, did not exist. And because we had nothing to project onto Blanc before the start of the story, Blanc as a character, does not exist (there is also the fact that the entire story is fiction, despite some eerie real world parallels, like how there are buildings). Take the age-old adage: ‘if a tree falls in the forest, but no forest was ever mentioned in the story, did the tree exist?’ The answer is no.

So because the answer is no, that can only mean that Blanc’s second clone, the one that became a tree, also did not exist. But what about the first Blanc clone? Easy. A clone is just a division of one’s self. However, because Blanc does not exist, Blanc cannot be cloned, because one cannot divide by zero.

What about Conrad, then? Blanc’s conspiracy theorist best friend? Well, the answer may surprise you: Conrad is a nihilist. See, Conrad is Blanc’s best friend, but Blanc does not exist. However, this is more metaphor than simply an ‘imaginary friend’, as Conrad also does not exist. Conrad is a friend of nothing, and what else is a friend of nothing? Nothing else.

Other scholars have argued that the significance of Velvet as a character cannot be overstated. However, that is an understatement. Velvet’s name begins with a ‘v’. As Velvet is the only ‘character’ in HO to contain a ‘V’ in her name, there can be no V’s. However, if there was more than one V, it might look like this:

VS.

As in, versus.

Therein lies Velvet’s true nature: a contrast. An opposing force. Both opposing force to what? Simple: existence. Kelly Roger, the supposed other character who lives in the same bunker as Conrad and Velvet, doesn’t trust Velvet because Velvet does not exist, yet hangs around Conrad, another character that does not exist. Because of Kelly Roger’s doubt of Velvet’s existence, Kelly Roger is ejected from the story, by none other than Velvet, thus barred from existence.

As we refer back to the possibilities as to how Happiness Overload may have continued, we are left to suspect that the character who utters the title of the story, Euphoria, is the only character in the story. However, since the power that Professor/Dr. Etna holds and the peril that is implied to befall the Blanc clone, as well as Conrad and Velvet, such a continuation of the story would have had to require something akin to a ‘deus ex machina’, or ‘god is in the machine’.

Euphoria, with her angelic power, is thought of as a god-like substitute, but because Euphoria in the end, is nowhere to be found, one can argue that no, god is not in the machine. In fact, there is no god because the god (Euphoria) is absent, and since the machine itself can only be run with a god within the machine, then the machine isn’t a machine at all, but an object. And an object without a soul cannot do anything.

So there can be no conceivable continuation of Happiness Overload, and it can only end on the eighth chapter. If there were more than eight chapters, it would be reasonable to assume that the story would go on to have 86 chapters, a number which is often referred to mean ‘get rid of something’. What would be gotten rid of? The idea that the story could continue past an eighth chapter. In fact, the story could never continue past the first line, because it was already half past ‘fuck’.

In conclusion, many a scholars in academia have posited that in the pulp erotica ‘Happiness Overload’, the author intended to try to find what it means to be happy, but upon further analysis of the final chapter, as well as the title, it all becomes clear that the answer is that there is no happiness to be found, as in spite of Euphoria’s best efforts, the story carries on with its grim conclusion, and all throughout, not a bright spot could be found. If anything, the author sought to create a story in which nothing can be found. With that, the author succeeded.

Furthermore, –

– If the story were to continue, disregarding the entire essay, it may go something like this:

At last, I saw a faint glimmer of light. Maybe that was what I wanted all along. To descend to the depths of hell, but arrive to a light at the end of the tunnel. Even if such a light was an inferno.

I looked around and noticed the light shouldn’t have been there at all, and it was a mere reflection from a steel pipe. I looked up at the cavernous ceiling, which up to that point, had been nothing but dirt and rock formations. Now, however, it was a rusted steel grating. I looked down to see what else but a steel floor. I stomped my foot and sure enough, the metallic sound reverberated through the air.

“Hello?” I cupped my hands and called out. No answer. Of course. What did I expect, being so far below ground and all. “Echo…” I tried to call, but there was no echo. Couldn’t fault me for trying. I was still human, after all. Human and afraid. I had to find whatever levity I could. Even a faint glimmer of light was enough to make me happy. All I needed was a little bit of happiness to get me through the end of the world.

Gee, I wonder what kind of place this once might have been. Maybe a factor? Or an underground laboratory? Or maybe it was something simple, like someone’s last happy wish.

Before I could wonder what else such a thing was doing there, and marvel at the shape, an empty, small rectangular area with a path on the other side, I heard footsteps approach. Then a series of claps. My heart wanted nothing more than to burst out of my chest.

“Those are my hands, not my buttcheeks,” a low voice crooned. Something charming, something menacing.

I should be relaxed, but I’m ill at ease. The only living soul remaining, but I feel no soul at all.

“Who are you?” My voice, and perhaps the rest of me, shook in fear.

Soon ‘he’ came into view: a tall, shadowy mass of a figure, a pencil-thin beansprout of a mountain, must have been between six and seven feet tall, and then some. Then some...somewhat of a misrepresentation, as this humanoid shadowy figure couldn’t be contained to a size and, although clothed (in what? Jeans and a T-shirt? A nightgown?), the clothes themselves were indeterminate. In other words, for all intends and purposes, as menacing as the figure was, ‘he’ was really just average in appearance. Save for the grin on ‘his’ face, that is. That grin stretched so far it seemed to encompass ‘his’ entire face.

I felt like asking, “are you the one who wanted me to come down to Earth?” But before I could, and before I could ask my follow up, “if so, have you figured out a way to stop the world from ending?” He spoke instead.

“At last. You look like you could use some help,” he flashed his grin, which I thought couldn’t stretch any further, but it did. “Allow me to give you a hand!”

He extended his arm toward me and out from his sleeve shot forth several masses of tentacles, which I assumed were meant to grab me, or pierce right through me. But luckily for me, I moved out of the way just in time.

“What the –”

Shadowy tentacles? Who else do I know that could do that? I wondered. Wondered because perhaps he was someone I had already met.

“Ecstasy? Is that you?”

“Babe, I’ll fuck your brains out,” came his ever so rude reply.

“Hey! Nobody calls me ‘babe’! Ecstasy may have been a literal double crossing succubus, but at least she was respectful!”

“Please! I’m no one!” He retorted, and that’s when it hit me: the dark clothes. The edginess.

“Albacore?!” Thank goodness. It only took four years to get his name right.

“I’ve no use for a name!”

Then both arms spread out and from them were an even greater array of tentacles. Every little one surrounded me, and against the claustrophobic nature of their being, I proceeded further while avoiding each one until I stood right next to this nameless person.

“But,” he looked down, us standing next to each other. “If you wish to call me anything, you may call me Marco.”

He then closed his arms in on me, or rather, tried, but I ducked down and swerved around him until I managed to get just behind him.

If up to this point, it seemed like I was untouchable, then the very next moment proved otherwise: Marco shoved right into me and I fell onto the jagged ground.

“Rather than try to attack, you thought you could avoid me and go on about your way. Is that because you know that you cannot harm me?” He chuckled, as if he just thought of a really good joke, but the joke was, I didn’t even consider trying to fight him. Yes, my prosthetic arm had a blade that could pop up, as well as my palm able to fire lasers, but if I was being honest, I didn’t even need such weapons. If I wanted to fight, I would. There was no reason, no stake for me to do so. Even if he had promised that the world wouldn’t end if I could defeat him, I wouldn’t care.

I shrugged and laughed, as if to react to the joke he might not have made.

“We met before, you know. Actually, we didn’t. But I ate your arm once. It was tasty, but without the nutrients I wanted. That was because I didn’t eat your arm, but the arm of another you. That was also because you weren’t ripe yet. But now that you are, I can swallow you whole.”

Oh. So I remind him of a long-lost lover. Right. Happens all the time.

“Please, Marco, sir, flattery will get you nowhere,” I tried to do my best flirty impression, but ended up coughing up spit on the last syllable and it was rather un-sexy of me, to be quite frank.

“Then again, I doubt you know that you can’t attack me. Well, you could know. But to know that, you would have to know about me. All the same, now you know.”

His mouth then opened wide and continued to open wide as it extended and multiple tongues slithered out from his mouth. Fear rose in me and I decided at last that the best course of action would be to run.

So through more dark caverns I went, and although I couldn’t see very well, that wasn’t a problem as I no longer felt any fear in me. As it turned out, being afraid didn’t make me very happy. So I found my composure, and what��s more, there was a faint light around me which allowed me to see any obstacles ahead: pipes blocking paths which I had to duck under and cross through. Boulders blocking every which way. The path itself was linear, but the clutter seemed random at best.

All the while, I heard Marco give chase behind me as he tore through each obstacle as if it were wallpaper. I looked behind me and a tentacle had shot forth and missed my face by just a hair as I had my head turned to the other side just in time.

“Only once I devour the angel will I be satisfied!” He declared.

So that’s what it is, huh? I should have known as much. Everyone and everything else got to experience happiness in some way, but he didn’t quite see the same results. If that’s what he wants, I’d be happy to oblige, but first, I need to see how far this rabbit hole goes.

Again, his voice rang from equal measures close and far behind:

“Tell me, traveler, what is your goal in life?” His voice took the turn of some wise old man, or one I’d imagine in a high fantasy novel.

“As long as I’m happy, I don’t need anything else!” I answered.

“An unfulfilled life is an unhappy life,” he then said, and this time, he sounded mournful. Then again, it sounded like a playful mourning. Like someone in a theater production trying out melodrama.

“Can’t relate!”

“To what?” He asked.

I shrugged as I descended further down, and heat rose around me when before, it was actually rather chilly down there.

“I just can’t relate.”

But then again, if that was the way he saw things, maybe there was some truth to it, as I had two goals over the course of my journey: to be happy, and to see my friends again. And yet, even though I didn’t get to see all of my friends (RIP Conrad), I was still happy. As long as I was happy, then no other goal mattered. Because happiness itself was the ultimate of goals. Maybe he felt the same way, but as I was satisfied to be happy, he seemed like he couldn’t be happy unless he was satisfied. Then again…

I stopped.

I turned around to face him and I saw as plain as day with his hands raised, each finger turned into several worms with razor skin.

“You’re someone who loves contradictions, huh?” I proclaimed in what may have been my boldest statement yet. “You accelerated this, didn’t you? Because once the world ends, and you having devoured the same creature which overjoyed everyone else, then you would finally be ready to die? Because you’ll have fulfilled some lifelong goal, is that it?”

“Birds of a feather make for chicken strips!” He growled, or giggled, or groveled.

“Is it pretty fun for you? Getting your kicks chasing me, your ultimate goal?” I couldn’t help it. Now I was getting into the fun as well. I didn’t even want to, but I couldn’t help myself. “Then let’s keep up the chase. Come on, we’re almost there. Except it will never end.”

Where such a burst of confidence came from, I wasn’t sure. Well, I had a few hunches. Did I really know something he didn’t? No. But I knew things that he did, because I was happier to know than to stay in the dark. I understood now why Etna had given up and I understood how he would be defeated. Just as he did. The way he saw it, he’s seen such things play out several times now, and in his inconsistent mind, such an ending was an ending for him as well. But Marco was a being who craved opposites. The only thing that would satisfy would be utter disappointment.

So I ran and lost my footing. Maybe on purpose. I slid down and down for miles and kilometers on end. Darkness gave way to light, which gave way to further darkness, until at last, I arrived at the end of the cave where a faint blue glow welcomed me.

I stood up and looked around. As I felt the warm, yet cool to the touch stone wall, I nodded. Beside that wall was a rock. One which I could sit upon. So I did, and as I took my seat, Euphy, Euphoria, and all the other names that made her happy, sat beside me. Then Marco arrived and stood there. He looked me in the eyes.

“There’s nowhere else to run,” he declared. Something told me he really loved to play up the villain angle. Well, of course. Playing hero could only be fun for so long. But so could playing villain. And the back and forth must have gotten boring for him as well. All the same, I couldn’t disagree with his statement. So I smiled.

“Indeed. That’s why I’m sitting.”

All around us, the ceiling and the floor shook and crumbled, yet above and below us, we remained. Heat rose, but neither of us seemed to pay the intense temperature any mind. There really was little time, if any time left at all. He knew that he won, or believed so to such a degree, anyway. Yet in his victory, instead of open his mouth wide or chew apart my limbs and organs bit by bit, he just fell to his knees and sat.

For whatever reason, I became the one who grinned. His epiphany was about to set in, and no amount of high would stop the realization.

[elfrootaddict]

HERALD OF ANDRASTE - Chapter 3/4

DESCRIPTION: El'lana’s entire world is turned upside down when she, a proud Dalish elf, is bestowed the title “Herald of Andraste”.

SERIES: Halla & Wolf

VOLUME: 3

Lana cannot deny that she was slightly annoyed by the interruption. When she sketches, her mind wanders to far off places and thinks about pleasant memories or hopeful visions of her future. It is the best way to distract herself from her usual thoughts which are normally filled with countless worries and pessimism. 

However, after hearing one of Solas’s journeys in the Fade, she finds herself completely captivated and has to know more. 

It is common knowledge in Thedas, that magic and the Fade are intrinsically linked. Knowledge of the Fade amongst the Dalish has been understandably specific, and only suited to the needs of keeping one's clan safe. Throughout the ages, such precious knowledge has been passed on from Keeper to Keeper, and unfortunately for Lana there would almost never be any new insight into the mysteries of the Fade. 

And now, for the first time in her life, someone else can tell her more about the Fade than the Keeper, and Lana decides to seize the opportunity to learn as much as she can. 

Although she does not want to come across completely self-serving, despite her noble pursuit of more knowledge, Lana decides a bit of give-and-take between them is the polite thing to do before she asks him an abundance of questions about the Fade. 

“Before you go Solas, I was hoping, if it was no trouble of course, to tell me more about yourself? Where-”

“Why?” interrupts Solas skeptically with a sudden and unexpected shift in demeanor.

“Um... why not?”

“Privacy? Caution? Concern about the direction of this Inquisition once our work is done?”

Visibly uncomfortable by his indifferent response, Lana averts her gaze and turns away, “Ir abelas. I didn’t mean…,” and turns to look at him once more. “I wasn’t asking as someone whose part of the Inquisition. You don’t have to tell me anything. Ar dirth’ma.”

Feeling utterly embarrassed by the awkward tension between them, Lana’s cheeks flush with a soft hue of red as she quickly gathers her things to leave. This was not how she expected things would go by asking what she assumed to be a simple, innocent question.

Things really are different here than back home. Creators, I just want to go home.

Feeling guilty for his unnecessary impertinence, Solas relaxes his shoulders and releases a loud, audible sigh of regret, “No, I am sorry...with so much fear in the air...”

With her belongings collected and held tightly in her arms, Lana stands while still refusing to meet his gaze. Solas promptly stands as well and to Lana’s surprise, he continues to pursue with his feeble attempt at an apology.  

“Shall we go for a walk? We will feel far less of the cold if we’re moving instead of sitting idly.”

Lana pauses before turning around with a weak smile and murmurs, “Sure, that sounds like a good idea.” and Solas smiles softly in return, and gestures for Lana to walk ahead of him. 

Once reaching a lengthy distance between them, Lana turns around and watches Solas, with his staff in hand, catch up with her.

Only once Solas is at her side, does Lana begin to notice how tall he actually is. He may not be as tall as Lhoris, but he is still tall enough that she needs to turn her head up to meet his gaze.

Lana and Solas begin their descent down the steps towards Haven’s tavern and Solas eventually breaks the silence, “So, what would you know of me, da’len?”

Still feeling anxious by his cold response only moments before, Lana cautiously and hesitantly asks, “I was wondering… are you from the city? Only because I was told only city elves don’t have a vallaslin.”

“No.”

“But, if you’re not a city elf...”

“Not all elves are resigned to being either ‘city’ or ‘Dalish’. I, for one, have always preferred to keep to myself.”

“So, does that mean you’ve always been alone?”

Solas elaborates with a gentle smile, “Not at all. I have built lasting friendships. Spirits of Wisdom, possessed of ancient knowledge, happy to share what they had seen. Spirits of Purpose helped me search. Even wisps, curious and playful, would point out treasures I might have missed.”

Lana begins to feel a little more at ease due to Solas’s happier conduct and attempts to make eye contact, “I didn’t realise that there are Spirits that go by those names. Why haven’t I heard of them before?”

“They rarely seek this world,” answers Solas grimly. “When they do, their natures do not often survive exposure to the people they encounter,” Solas and Lana pass Varric’s tent and take a sharp left down a small flight of steps. “Wisdom and Purpose are too easily twisted into Pride and Desire.”

Shocked, Lana stops halfway down the steps and softly cries out, “So you’re saying... you became friends with Pride and Desire demons?”

Solas also stops and drops his head as he releases a loud, audible sigh before slowly turning around, “They were not demons... for me.”

Lana stares blankly at Solas as she tries not to jump to any immediate assumptions. Even though she knows very little, to almost nothing about Solas, he does not appear to be someone who is either naive or blissfully ignorant. In fact, he seems to have something of a quiet confidence. His strides always seem purposeful and with intent. Therefore, it they were not demons for him as he so claims, then as strange as it seem, the Spirits really were just as he says - ones of Wisdom and Purpose.

However, based on Lana’s bemused expression, Solas realises he clearly needs to explain, “The Fade reflects the mind of the living. If you expect a Spirit of Wisdom to be a Pride demon, it will adapt,” and gestures for them to continue walking onwards. “And if your mind is free of corrupting influences? If you understand the nature of the Spirit? They can be fast friends.”

“I honestly had no idea that some demons are actually... twisted, innocent Spirits. That’s… that’s actually quite sad,”

“Yes, it is.”

Looking up at Solas respectfully, “And you say that you managed to become friends with some of them? Without them even turning into demons? That really is incredible, Solas.”

Having reached the end of the stairs, they take another left and pass a merchant selling weapons and armour, “Oh! Oh! You are the Herald of Andraste!”

“Please, I’m not-”

“Why, it is an honour! Are you in need of anything? Please let me know what I can get for you?”

Lana manages to stop herself from correcting the man and chooses to humbly smile instead, “No, but thank you. I’m just passing by. You have a good evening, messere.” and offers a subtle nod of respect.

The merchant freezes and awkwardly bows nervously as Lana and Solas continue with their slow stroll through Haven. 

Once out of ear shot, Lana looks to Solas just as puzzled as the merchant, “Did I say something wrong?”

Lana’s naivety causes Solas to release a soft chuckle, “You addressed him with too much honour. You are the Herald of Andraste, after all. To him, the beloved Andraste sent you back from the Fade to save the people of Haven. He should be addressing you with ‘messere’, not the other way around.”

“But he’s still a human and I’m an elf. And I wish they would stop calling me the ‘Herald of Andraste’. I’m no herald of anything, least of all Andraste!”

“It matters not. The people of Haven will believe what they must. Posturing is necessary.”

Lana looks up at Solas with a deep set frown, “I won’t be deceitful.”

“I understand. However, you are a sign of hope to them, no matter your objections or beliefs.”

Lana ponders on Solas’s words for a moment before whispering, “It’s just… I’m Dalish, Solas. Dalish! How can I claim to be the Herald of their Andraste when my very vallaslin represents Mythal? I don’t see how-”

“Again, people will choose to believe, and even blissfully ignore, what they must. You cannot control this. What you can control however, are your actions,” Solas stops walking to regard Lana sternly. “How far are you willing to exert your power over their ignorance? Do you seek even more power? Glory perhaps? Maybe revenge for your people?”

Lana takes a step back and cries out, “I want none of those things! As I said before, I just want to help fix this mess so that I can go home!”

“And whilst I believe your intentions to be true, albeit naive, it is far easier said than done,” Solas takes a few steps ahead of Lana and stares at the Breach in the sky. “I have seen far too many tyrants and traitors in my travels, who always start with good intentions, only to be poisoned by their lust for more power. Constantly lying to themselves that their hearts have not changed, and that their goals are still pure.”

Angered by the insinuations, Lana lunges herself in front of Solas, “Are you saying that I will become a tyrant? Or a traitor?”

Unmoved by her outburst, Solas holds onto his staff with both hands as he peers down at Lana calmly, “No. What I am saying is that only time will tell. Hopefully, you have enough integrity that you may never be remembered as such,” and removes his gaze from Lana. “Although, history does have a way of repeating itself.”

Lana also averts her gaze and looks down at the mark on her hand. Although her face appears seemingly neutral, her eyes give away her internal struggles over her overwhelming responsibility.

Solas notices Lana’s silence and releases a quiet sigh, “I’m sorry. I only meant to advise. I was too forward with my questions.”

“No that’s okay,” murmurs Lana as she tucks her hand back under arm and looks up towards the Breach. “What you said is true. It’s just... I can’t believe this is happening. I may be First to my clan but this is something else entirely.”

“Yes, it is.”

As Lana continues to stare at the Breach circling above her, she slowly begins to lose herself in her mind, and almost forgets that Solas is still standing behind her.

Eventually, Lana snaps herself out of her ominous thoughts and turns back around to face Solas, “Ir abelas. What were you going to say before? Before the merchant?’

Solas brings his staff back to his side and begins walking once again, “We were talking about Spirits.”

Lana turns and walks alongside him, “Oh yes, of course. I still find it incredible that you managed to become friends with Spirits, Solas. It’s completely unheard of.”

“Anyone who can dream has the potential. Few ever try. My friends comforted me in my grief and shared in my joy. Yet because they exist without form as we understand it, the Chantry declares that Spirits are not truly people. Is Cassandra defined by her cheekbones and not her faith? Varric by his chest hair and not his wit?”   

Lana releases a loud and unexpected cheerful laugh, “Creators, that chest chair!” and continues laughing for a moment more. “And you have a good point. I really like the way you look at the world, Solas. I never thought of it like that before.”

Finding Lana’s laugh infectious, Solas releases a quiet, cheerful chuckle of his own, “I try…” and looks down at Lana with a slight grin. “And that isn’t quite an answer.”

“WelI, I’d love to meet one of these Spirits some day,” retorts Lana innocently as she regards Solas with her wide and welcoming lavender eyes. “Hopefully, we can try to make some new friends?”

Solas finds her cheerful manner infectious, considering the situation, and his smile widens. He actually cannot remember the last time he heard somebody laugh so easily and with so much joy. It was a sound he was not used to hearing, but it was a sound he found his heart ache for.

But, remembering who she is and especially who he is, Solas suppresses his emotions, clears his throat and stumbles out a dispassionate response, “That should be… well.”

Assuming his reaction to be only shyness, Lana playfully nudges him and laughs, “That isn’t quite an answer, either.”

They reach a fork at the end of the road where one path leads out of Haven and another to an unused trebuchet. They immediately notice a well placed boulder, low and wide enough for them both to sit on. Solas gestures for Lana to find her place first and he follows suit, holding onto his staff with both hands as he sits down next to her.

Resting her fur, parchments, ink and quill on her lap, Lana tucks some hair behind her right ear and turns to Solas, “Earlier, I remember you saying you travelled to many different places in the Fade?”

Solas smiles and admires the horizon, watching the setting sun fill the sky with its bright orange and pink hues. 

Solas begins to tell her about Ostagar, where the Hero of Ferelden and grey warden Alistair lit the signal fire only to have Loghain betray them and their King. As Solas looks out towards the horizon, Lana can see the passion glistening in his eyes as he every so often releases a subtle smile and cheerful head nods.

For a man who claims he would rather keep to himself and not engage with others, it takes surprisingly little effort for Lana to have him to open up and share his journeys so readily. It is almost as if she is the first person to ask him about them at all. 

Why wouldn’t people wish to know him? Or does he prevent them from doing so? 

Deciding it could be neither or it could be both, either way Lana can sense there is a lot hiding behind his silent, controlled exterior. 

Just like her father, Lana is highly sensitive and can usually, quite accurately, pick up on people’s subtle body languages. It isn’t so much as a literal observation as it is more a feeling. Just as one can sense another presence in a room; where you feel it deep in your bones, with your senses heighten, as you become keenly aware that you are not alone. 

For Lana, this level of sensitivity is both a blessing and a curse. Just as she can sense the nuances in people, she is also highly susceptible to being hurt by it. It doesn’t take a lot for her to feel emotionally overwhelmed and this is usually why being alone usually brings her such comfort or she would prefer to be around people that she’s completely herself with, and who truly know her.

Moved by another one of Solas’s journeys, Lana finds herself truly envious over his experiences and wishes she knew what he did. And that’s when it suddenly clicks. 

Lana almost leaps onto Solas with her eyes wide with exhilaration, “Solas! Enasal! Surely your travels took you to an ancient ruin of our people? Can you tell me anything about the ancient elvhen? Please, you must know something!”

Solas leans back displeased, “I thought you would be more interested in sharing your opinions of elven culture. You are Dalish, are you not?”

Lana also leans away in response and answers proudly, “The Dalish are the best hope for preserving the culture of our people,” and relaxing her stance, Lana cries out again with desperation. “Therefore I implore you, please tell me what you know. We can even find somewhere else to sit so that I can write it all down. Maybe the tavern, where it’s warmer?” and lifts up her parchments with a cheeky smile. “I already have what I need right here.”

Solas releases a loud, audible sigh and walks several paces away from Lana. As he surveys the sunset, he squares his shoulders while holding onto his staff with both hands and snaps, “Our people. You use that phrase so casually. It should mean more…” and pauses for a moment before murmuring. “But the Dalish have forgotten that. Amongst other things.”

Disturbed and shocked by Solas’s crassness towards her people, Lana struggles to verbalise her immediate thoughts and only manages a meek response, “I’m sorry?”

Solas, clearly irritated, turns on his heel to face her and barks, “While they pass on stories, mangling details, I walk the Fade,” and spins back towards the sunset. “I have seen things they have not.”

Wholly offended by Solas’s tactless accusations, and also tired of his uneven mood, Lana feels her infamous temper bubbling beneath the surface. The longer Solas stares out towards the horizon in silence, the faster her heart begins to beat. 

Feeling like a kettle hanging above the fire, with the lid jumping and rattling as it reaches its capacity to hold the heat within, Lana clutches tightly onto the fur lying on her lap as she cries out, “The Dalish are trying to restore elven history! If you know something Solas, share it!”

Solas whips his head back around, “Would your clan listen to what I had learned in my studies? My travels? Or would they mock the flat-ear and his stories, and go back to their ruins?”

Lana gasps in anger as she shoots up, causing her belongings to fall on the ground and leaps towards him with fury burning in her eyes. Leaving only a few inches between them. Solas manages to hold his composure, but is internally floored by the extent of her outburst. Up until now, she gave no absolutely no indication that she is capable of such rage. 

What a serious miscalculation on his part. 

Solas immediately sees the error of his ways and regrets accusing Lana, and her clan, for crimes they did not even commit against him. It was unworthy of him and he knows better than to let his pride speak for him. Solas wants to immediately rectify the situation but realises it is too late. Nothing he does now will suffice.

“How dare you! Why do you hold such hostility towards the Dalish? What could my people possibly have done to you that they deserve such hatred?” Solas tries to interject but Lana continues shouting over him. “I may not know what the clans in Ferelden are like, but I do know that my Keeper would never turn away someone like you! You can’t paint us all with the same brush!”

Lana removes herself from Solas and begins to pace from side to side as she continues to reiterate her anger. “She’va dhal, lethallin! Why don’t you consider yourself elvhen? One of the People?” and with her hands stretched out in desperation. “Ma halani! Lasa ghilan!”

Lana’s face is twisted by the angst in her heart as she stares at Solas with her large, lavender eyes flicking with fury and frustration, while Solas continues to appear seemingly unmoved and calm.

Their pride, inflated. Her rage, unrestrained. And his regret, infinite. 

Realising that she is getting nothing but a cold response from Solas, Lana releases a loud huff, and spins around to gather her things from the ground as she cannot stand to be in this damn Fereldan cold any longer, and especially with such impertinent company.

Once she has her things firmly in her grasp, she turns back and peers heavily into Solas’s calm, dusty blue eyes, “Keep your secrets, then. Ma banal las halanshir var vhen... harellan.” and using her shoulder, she shoves Solas out of her way as she storms off in the direction from which they came.

Solas turns around and watches Lana push on as she heads towards her cabin lying directly ahead in the far distance. 

And as she brushes past the people, they turn around in shock towards Solas, and very quickly begin to gossip amongst themselves. 

It turns out, Varric was wrong. She can bite.

Elvish to English Translation:

“Ir abelas” = I’m sorry

“Ar dirth’ma” = I understand

“Enasal” = (emotion) Joyful relief

“She’va dhal!” = I’m struggling to believe what I’m seeing or hearing!

“Ma halani! Lasa ghilan!” = You could help us! You could guide us!

“Ma banal las halanshir var vhen, harellan” = You do nothing to further our people, traitor.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

READ ON AO3

Halla & Wolf Series

[mushroomminded]

Bend Until You Break (Part 1)

Written by @fundeadasylum, illustrated by myself.

Warning for heavy violence, torture, and generally a bad time.

“Mr. and Mrs. Sumney…you do realize what you’re consenting to by signing these forms, right? You understand that you will be under binding contract to never speak of what occurs in this facility to outsiders. You understand that we cannot be liable for any permanent damage done to the subject in question. And you understand that you are forfeiting the subject’s rights to deny treatment of any kind and that attending physicians can and will use force where necessary.”

The woman on the other side of the heavy oak desk raised her eyebrows at the couple perched on matching chairs across from her. They had been holding hands the entire time she had been explaining the contract to them, though the manner in which they did so seemed to be for show rather than out of any kind of intimacy.

“We understand,” Mrs. Sumney said softly, the barest of quivers in her voice, “Please, we just want our son back…we just want our boy…”

The woman in the lab coat nodded and closed the file that was thick with paper and legal documents, stowing it carefully in the filing cabinet behind her. Then she rose to her feet, straightening her coat and holding out her hand to the couple,

“The Facility for the Exegesis of Abnormal Realities thanks you for your compliance in these matters. We will do everything we can to help your son.”

———

Milo was trying very hard not to completely lose himself to the gnawing panic in his gut.

He was curled up in the only mildly uncomfortable chair of the room the nurses had herded him into, his legs drawn up to his chest, his face in his knees, and his fingers curled tightly into the stiff fabric of the hospital pajamas they’d forced on him. He felt cold and naked, too exposed without his shark hoodie. No one would tell him what was going on, no one would speak to him, and his throat hurt from shouting for help, for Cody, for his dads, for anyone.

The room they’d locked him in—definitely locked, he’d tried the door a dozen times—was sparsely furnished and sterile white like a hospital room. The bright overhead lights pushed away any shadows he might have been able to hide in and the dark, one-way window gave him a constant sensation of being watched.  There was a cot against one wall with a thin blanket and a flat pillow, the chair he was currently in, and a low table. All the furniture was bolted to the floor, the door was weighted and heavy like a hydraulic press, and the only source of air flow were two, inch thin slits on opposite walls, far away from any of the furniture. The only other features were a boxy shape flush against the wall beside the door and the cameras under little black domes so Milo couldn’t see where they were pointing.

The room made him feel sick. It brought to mind a bunch of awful sci-fi movies he’d used to watch with Cody, aliens with their guts exposed and hooked up to millions of computers. That’s probably what they were going to do to him. Cut him open until they could figure out how to put him back together the “right way”.

The door to the room opened with a groaning hiss and Milo jumped, pressing himself against the back of the chair as if he could sink through it and escape. A no-nonsense looking women sharp eyes and rectangular glasses, strode in, her lab coat fluttering around her legs. She was followed by four men in nurses scrubs and Milo shrank back even more.

“Milo Sumney, you are now under the custody of the Facility for the Exegesis of Abnormal Realities, the Testing Center of Cryptozoology, Parapsychology, and Occultology. I am Dr. Orchid Pearce and—“

“I wanna talk to my dads.” Milo blurted out, the fear evident in the tone of his voice, “Where are they? I want to see them! I wanna see my dads!”

“Mr. and Mrs. Sumney have left you in my care,” Dr. Pearce said in a cool manner, “Now as I was saying—“

“Not those people!” Milo cut her off again, his frustration overpowering his fear, heat burning in his chest and giving power to his voice as he began shouting, “My real dads! The ones you all took me away from! Where are my dads!? Where’re Dan and Jake!? I want to go home!”

Dr. Pearce waited for him to stop shouting before she spoke again, “Daniel Fuller and Jacob Pierly are forbidden from contact of any form. A restraining order is currently being processed against them and lawyers are discussing pressing charges of kidnapping and endangerment through supernatural means. Now,” She pressed onward, talking over Milo as he sputtered helplessly at the acquisitions, “As I said, I am Dr. Pearce and I am going to be your primary physician. You have been entered into a rehabilitation program the goal of which is to either reverse the effects of the cursed object or to erase from your memory the years spent under the supposed care of Mr. Fuller and Mr. Pierly so you may adjust to your life with Mr. and Mrs. Sumney.

“Your birth parents have given their verbal and written consent for the staff here to do whatever it takes to fix you. From now until the moment you step foot outside this facility, completely rehabilitated, you are forfeit any and all human rights. You are now the property of the United States government under the Supernatural Objectification Act until otherwise released. You are to comply with any and all staff members unless explicitly ordered differently. Force will be used if necessary.”

“You can’t do this…” Milo whimpered. His blood was icy slush in his veins as the doctor continued speaking in the same, cold, indifferent tone.

“A change of clothes will be provided to you each morning or as needed. Meals will be provided three times a day and will be taken here in your room. You will be allowed one bathroom break in the morning, one in the evening, and at least one throughout the day as needed. You will shower every other day or as needed. You will be under escorted guard everywhere. The Facility is not liable for any permanent harm or damage that occurs during our rehabilitation program.” Her hard gaze drilled into Milo, lips pursed as she observed him, “Do you understand?”

Milo swallowed, his dry throat clicking, his hands shaking, “You—you can’t…do this. You can’t! I—I’m just a kid! You can’t just lock me up and—“

“Actually, according to the government, you are classified paranormal entity and have no rights within our jurisdiction.” Dr. Pearce cut him off, her eyes narrowing at the hopeless fear on Milo’s face, “For all intents and purposes, Milo Sumney, you are an object of the state. A specimen. Your rehabilitation begins now. Come with us, please.” And she turned to leave.

“No.”

The word slammed into the room like a heavy rock, puncturing the air with its stubborn ferocity. Dr. Pearce stopped and half turned to face the teenager clinging stubbornly to the chair with white-knuckled hands. He was scowling, eyes red-rimmed with the threat of tears, a ghost of a quiver in his lower lip, looking for all the world like a toddler about to throw a tantrum. But he met the doctor’s gaze with a fierce glare that burned in his eyes.

“Very well,” Dr. Pearce said in a way that said she had anticipated this sort of behavior, “Gentlemen, if you please.”

Milo’s stubborn expression instantly gave way to one of terror as the four nurses converged on him. He screamed and kicked out at them but one of them grabbed his ankle and pulled, dragging him halfway off the chair before he grabbed onto it, hang on for dear life. His free foot—bare and sockless—slammed into his captor’s knuckles and he was released. Milo dove for the nearest opening between one of the men and the wall. The nurse didn’t hesitate and jumped him, pinning him to the wall with a burly arm across his chest, his other hand pushing Milo’s face into the cold wall so the teen’s snapping teeth couldn’t get near him. Milo thrashed, kicking out and catching the guy in the thighs, the chest, his nails scraping at the exposed flesh of the man’s arms, but the man merely grunted at the pain and pressed down until Milo swore he felt his ribs creak in protest.

Working with frightening efficiency, the men forced his arms into itchy sleeves with straps and buckles, pulling the excess around behind his back so he was hugging himself. Realizing what was happening, Milo screamed louder and bucked in their grip, thrashing, trying to get away even as the thick leather restraints were tightened, pinning his arms to his chest. A choked noise escaped his throat, his eyes burning, a cold and desperate sensation burning him from the inside out because this couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. This didn’t happen. This didn’t happen to real people. It was a nightmare and all he had to do was wake up.

Milo screwed his eyes shut, chest heaving, willing himself awake, begging for this nightmare to vanish.

But rough hands pulled him away from the wall and set him on his feet, keeping tight grips on his upper arms as they steered him out of the room and it was either walk or get dragged. He stumbled along with them, glaring with a terrified ferocity through his disheveled bangs as they passed doors and one-way mirrors and branching corridors. It was a short and brisk march that Dr. Pearce led them on and they soon arrived in a small room that was empty except for a table and a stool. Milo didn’t get a good look at what was on the table (he thought he saw something metallic and it made his heart seize) before the nurses forced him onto the low stool, looping straps from the legs of the stool around his ankles and cinching them tight. He glared at Dr. Pearce who was sifting through the sheaf of papers on her clipboard before withdrawing a photograph and holding it out to one of the nurses,

“Mr. and Mrs. Sumney requested his appearance to be altered as his current look is…unfit for their family name. If possible, please refrain from harming the subject.”

“What? What’re you doing?” Milo stared at the doctor and then whipped his head around to gape at the nurses, “What’re you doing to me!? Hey! Hey, leggo! Ow! You’re hurting me! Stop!” One of the men snagged the piercing in his ear and he tried to pull away only for it to tug painfully at the cartilage, “Don’t touch me you bastards! Let go!”

“Language.” Dr. Pearce said with her usual cold patience, “We’ll have to work on that.” She checked something on her clipboard as a nurse pinned Milo’s face against his hip with one hand, the other carefully unpinning the metal band from his ear. Milo whimpered as the piercing was tugged away, his ear feeling strangely light without it.

With a bruising grip, his head was pushed down so his chin was tucked into his chest. He wriggled against the uncomfortable position, back bowed, spine straining and arms going numb where they were trapped against his chest.

“Hold still.” One of the men ordered and Milo stilled as he felt his long red hair being wound up into a pony tail. His heart was pounding, mind racing as he tried to figure out what they were doing and—

Metal sliding smoothly against metal. A familiar snick-snack of sound. A tug on his hair.

“No!” He tried to pull away but the scissors sliced through his hair smooth as a hot knife through butter and Milo cried out, voice breaking into a sob. Why did it hurt so much? Why did he feel so…so violated just because they’d cut his hair? There was a buzzing sound that lightninged through his thoughts and Milo panicked, lurching on the stool to try and see what was going on. But they grabbed a fistful of his bangs and yanked, pulling his head back down to expose the curve of his neck.

He let out another hoarse sob as he felt the electric razor drag across the back of his skull, shoring what little hair he had left even shorter. He squeezed his eyes shut and cried, shuddering at the feel of the razor, at the cold ruthlessness with which the nurses handled him. He didn’t even struggle when they straightened him up and began trimming his bangs, cutting them out of his face as ugly tears streaked over his freckles.

When they were done and were cleaning up, Milo chanced a shaky glance in Dr. Pearce’s direction. She was watching him with that same, unreadably cold expression. He hiccuped softly and dropped his gaze to his knees.

He felt like his world was ending, one unraveling strand at a time.

———

“I thought we’d start with the basics,” Dr. Pearce was saying, her legs crossed as she tapped the end of a pen against her clipboard, “Gaining an understanding of the connection you share with the cursed object is essential if we are to attempt reversing it. We’ll begin with exposure tests and move on from there. Roland, are we all set up? How are the levels?”

Milo watched with seething hatred as the doctor rose from her chair to consult with her fellow white coats. He paced around the small glass chamber they had him in, arms crossed over his chest and a tight scowl on his face. The mesh flooring bit into the soles of his feet as he stalked the perimeter of the room. He hadn’t slept the previous night, simply laying in the dark after they’d turned off the overhead lights, leaving him to alternate between panic and despair in the dark. He’d barely touched the food they gave him that morning, picking at the toast and leaving most of it on the table in the room. He was tired and afraid and more than anything he wanted to run into the arms of his dads and never leave them.

Dr. Pearce took her seat at the desk again, looking up at Milo who pressed his face against the glass of the room, blowing out his cheeks and leaving a smear on the spotless surface. The doctor ignored him and gestured to someone behind a bank of computers. Milo glared as the doctor pressed a series of buttons. A hydraulic hiss came from beneath Milo’s feet and he looked down in time to see water bubbling up from the mesh flooring.

“What’re you doing?” He pressed his hands against the glass walls as the cold water washed over his feet, “Hey! Hey, what’re you doing!? What’re you doing!? Let me out! Hey!” Milo splashed backwards, spinning around as the water rose to his shins, soaking into the hospital pajamas, “Oh g-god, what are you doing? I’m in here—there’s water—what the hell are you doing!?” He stumbled back up to the wall of glass, desperately crying out to the doctor’s on the other side, scrabbling at the walls, his breathing picking up as his panic climbed with the height of the water.

“Let me out!” Milo screamed, banging his fists desperately on the glass, kicking and splashing, chest heaving, tears welling up in his eyes, “Please! What’re you—this isn’t—please! Let me out! I want to go home! Stop! Please! Please…!”

Dr. Pearce watched without a hint of emotion as the teenager tilted his head up, gasping as the top of the water lapped his chin, his feet kicking to keep himself afloat. His fingers squeaked against the glass, a desperate last attempt to escape before the water closed over his head.

———

They didn’t let him drown.

Of course they didn’t. He was an asset, an object to repaired and returned to the owners. They wouldn’t let him drown. They revived him and kept him monitored for weeks after that before they resumed testing. According to Dr. Pearce, they wanted to see if the resemblance his hoodie had to a shark had given Milo any aquatic attributes.

When Milo had spat past the oxygen mask that they could have just asked him instead of almost killing him, the good doctor made it abundantly clear that she would not trust him to tell the truth about much of anything. Science, she said, would give them all the answers they needed.

Milo sincerely doubted that.

They continued conducting test after test, putting him through the wringer but always allowing him time to recover. How strong was his connection to the cursed object? Was it affecting his basic functions to be without it? Would damage to the fabric of the object be reflected on his own body? Were there lingering magical side effects on him somewhere?

“Blood is a strong component in magic,” Dr. Pearce was saying one day as the nurses pinned Milo down to the examination table and yanked up the back of his shirt. His skin prickled against the cold, sterile air of the lab and he sent a sour glare at anyone he could make eye contact with.

“In fact, blood magic is so powerful that many supernatural races have banned it from use,” The doctor continued, walking slowly around the table as she watched the proceedings, “But what most people seem to forget is that magic has a tendency to cling to the bones of a subject. Blood dries up, but bones can remain for hundreds of years.” Milo struggled, glaring at her as she passed his line of site, hissing when he felt the cold swab of a numbing agent against his lower back, “It’s essential to your rehabilitation that we discover just how deep this curse runs and if there are still traces of it in your body. To that end,” She titled her head to one side a little, to get a better view of what the nurses were up to,

“This may pinch a bit.”

Milo felt the thick needle slide into his skin at the base of his spine, going deeper, deeper, deepest. And he screamed.

———

Testing was put on hold when Milo broke his arm trying to stop the slot in his wall from closing. It was normally flush against the wall, sealed so tight he couldn’t get his fingernails in it. But when they delivered him food or a change of clothes, it hissed open, deposited its gifts, and withdrew.

Milo tried to stick his arm in the thing, hauling back on it to try and keep it open so he could climb in and escape. The pressure snapped his forearm—radius and ulna—in several places. Dr. Pearce had tutted at him in an exasperated manner when they’d rushed him to the medical wing. Through the tears in his eyes, Milo could see her standing in the corner of the room, out of the way, keeping notes on that stupid clipboard like she always did.

But even when he was recovering from a broken arm, they wouldn’t leave him alone.

They were constantly scanning his arm, measuring the healing progress, comparing it to the average time it took for a teenager his age to heal broken bones. His reactions were tested on and off pain medication, he was fed placebos until the pain grew too much for him to take and left him weeping on the floor, and they observed his struggles to feed and dress himself with a non-dominant hand. It was frustrating and humiliating and sometimes the only way Milo could get to sleep at night was if he cried until he was too exhausted to keep his eyes open.

And when the cast finally came off, when his arm had fully healed, it was right back to the regularly scheduled testing. It was a grind. And it was starting to do a really good job of wearing him down.

———

Milo had bandages around his head from a test he didn’t remember.

Later, when the bandages came off, he noticed a patch of his hair had been shaved off and there was a raw, scabby circle of irritated flesh.

He didn’t want to think about what had made that mark.

———

“Milo Sumney, please rise from your bed so we may begin testing.”

“No thanks.”

“It was not an offer, Milo. Get off of your bed or we will be forced to make you.”

“Okay.”

Dr. Pearce sighed impatiently and Milo heard the nurses cross the room. They hauled him up under his arms and set him on the floor. He swayed on his feet, looking at the polished white tiles of his room, vacant and tired. Dr. Pearce’s shadow approached him across the floor, practical flats barely making any noise as she drew near,

“Now, Milo, as of today we’ve—“

Milo threw himself at her with all the ferocity of a rabid animal.

He snarled, screaming, baring his teeth and lashing out at her with his bare hands. Dr. Pearce stumbled backwards and Milo collided with her, sending them both crashing to the floor. Her clipboard pressed into his chest, the plastic edge digging into his throat as he snapped his teeth at her, hands scratching at her lab coat, at her shirt, towards her face if he could reach. A nurse snatched at his shoulder but quick as a flash, Milo whipped around and bit the man’s hand, hard. The nurse pulled away with a shout of pain while other voices were barking orders.

But Milo’s fury only had eyes for Dr. Pearce. His mouth tasted like ash and copper, his breathing erratic and rapid, his heart straining against his rib cage as it pounded in his chest. His entire body was numb and electrified all at once, lightning burning through his veins until it sizzled against his nerve endings and burned him from the inside out. All the rage, all the despair, all the loneliness, and hurt, and hated was pouring out of him in that moment. He hadn’t stopped screaming. His hands hadn’t stopped reaching for the doctor’s throat.

The nurses grabbed his ankles and dragged him backwards off of Dr. Pearce. He shrieked in rage, hands still clawing at her, nails leaving jagged runs in her nylons as he thrashed about. Once they’d hauled him away from the doctor, the nurses pounced on him in earnest. They wrenched his arms behind his back, hauling him to his feet even as he tried to kick out at them. One of them closed a hand around his neck, pinching his jaw closed so that he was seething spittle and blood through gritted teeth. Angry tears were smeared down his face as he watched another nurse help Dr. Pearce to her feet. Once she’d straightened herself out, she looked at him with a frosty sort of anger and it clashed against the hot fire in his belly.

“I think we will need to alter the security measures when it comes to Milo Sumney,” She said, never breaking eye contact with him even as his lip curled to show his teeth in an animalistic snarl,

“A muzzle seems like an appropriate place to start.”

———

The silicone of the mask was pressed against his mouth and under his chin, wrapping all the way around to the back of his neck. The thick straps were tight where they connected behind his head, the one that hooked over his nose and arched over the top of his head almost obscuring his vision.

Five nurses had to hold him still while a sixth and seventh fastened the muzzle on him. They hadn’t been gentle about it and Milo had bruises on his body for weeks afterwards. The only pleasure he derived from the whole ordeal was that the dumb bastards had to take it off of him at least three or four times a day and he made sure it took up a good chunk of their time, making himself as big of a nuisance as possible.

Until they started leaving the mask on at night to save themselves some trouble.

———

Milo yanked against the restraints pinning him to the examination table, twisting his head back and forth and snapping at anyone who came to close.

“Open your mouth!” One of the nurses pressed a palm into his neck, fingers pinching into his cheeks, and he hissed, “Open your mouth, now!” When he continued to refuse, she plugged his nose.

Milo tried to pull away but the hand on his neck held him firm. His legs and arms jerked, making the buckles jingle in a mockingly pleasant manner. His chest was burning, tears welling in his eyes. Maybe he could just hold his breath until he died and escape this hellhole and—

Another nurse put unexpected pressure on his diaphragm, forcing him to expel the air in his lungs with a strangled gasp. Instantly, a wooden palette was wedged into his mouth, pinning his tongue down. He let out a strangled scream, eyes darting around the cluster of figures nearly blocking out the overhead lights. Blue latex hands approached with a vial of minty green liquid and Milo bucked, struggling to free himself.

The vial was jammed down his throat, making him gag, retching at the sour taste of whatever they were pouring into him. It was either swallow it or drown. He felt it burning down his sternum and coughed, shivering and gagging as the nurses stepped back.

“Wh—what did you…what did you give me?” His voice sounded hoarse and small in his own ears.

“Drug trial.” Pearce said simply, “Mark the time. Trial one of twenty.”

———

“No, no, please, I don’t—please don’t make me do this. Please.”

“Eat it or we will force feed it to you.”

“No, god, please, don’t—I don’t want to. I don’t want to! Get it away from me, I don’t want it!”

“Okay, get the tube, he’s not taking it.”

“N-no, wait, no not the tube, please! No! No I don’t want—no! I SAID NO! STOP IT! STOP! STO—GHK!”

“Feeding tube in place. Administering chum mixture.”

———

Milo was slouched against the wall underneath the one-way mirror when they came to get him. His head was bowed, eyes ringed in an ugly bruise color from tears and exhaustion, a rattling wheeze puffing out from behind the muzzle. His hair was plastered to his forehead, a consistent tremor shivering through his thin frame. When the shadows of the nurses fell across him, he looked up at them with glossy, unfocused eyes.

“Looks like death warmed over.” One of them muttered, snapping a latex glove over one hand. He crouched down and put the back of his gloved hand against Milo’s forehead, “Damn. Might want to get the thermometer to double check but I’m pretty sure he’s running a temp.” The man looked up as Dr. Pearce approached, “What’s the verdict, doc?”

Pearce met Milo’s blurry gaze, her brow only slightly furrowed, as if this was merely a puddle on the sidewalk she had to step around to reach her goal. Milo dazedly searched her expression for some kind of sympathy, found none, and let his head loll back down, eyes sliding closed once more.

“Interesting,” Dr. Pearce said more to herself than anyone, “The host isn’t protected against external or internal attack. It appears that the relationship between the subject and the cursed object is almost entirely one-sided.” She turned away, marching briskly towards the door, “Bring him to medical. Get him cleaned up and quarantined. As soon as he’s healthy again, we’ll move onto reconditioning. I doubt we’ll get much more from testing.”

When the nurses picked him up off the floor, Milo was hit with a dizzying sense of vertigo that made the entire room spin. They had to hastily yank the muzzle off of his face so he didn’t suffocate on his own vomit.

[rylie-studies]

🌻💛

Yesterday, before I fell asleep, I started reading a book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson (it’s been in my drawer for too long and I’ve realized that I haven’t read for myself for so long and I missed it) and I’m barely halfway because I fell asleep but I really learned a lot and he mentioned about how “giving a fuck” doesn’t actually mean being indifferent, but rather only giving a fuck by the things that are important to you. Like your goals in life, your family, your best friends, and basically the entities that make you feel alive and going. He also mentioned about how, when you wish for something, you’re already acknowledging that you are lacking that thing and, therefore, you’re making yourself feel even more miserable from not having it because you already know that you don’t have it. Anyways, he mentioned a couple more things and the book has a lot of profanities which I didn’t like at first bcs I retain more information from books by reading them out loud but then I realized I didn’t give a damn fkjdkjf I’m gonna try to get further on it today! 

Send me a 🌻 and I’ll tell you whatever I want!!

[mst3kproject]

504: Secret Agent Super Dragon

Let’s move on to another oft-overlooked subset of MST3K – the Budget Bond films.  These are always very bad, but often a lot of fun if you’re in the right kind of mood.

Brian Cooper is Super Dragon, pulled out of retirement to find out who’s distributing poisoned chewing gum to co-eds!  Boy, if that doesn’t sound like the setup for a thrilling spy caper, nothing does!  The plot seems to revolve around a Dutch student named Christine Bruder, so Cooper goes to Amsterdam looking for her.  There, in between fucking his female colleagues and flirting with every woman he sees, he learns that Bruder was part of a plot to smuggle deadly drugs into the United States, hidden in fake Ming vases.  An evil conspiracy is planning to dope the free world on a chemical that will cause us to violently attack one another, and then… uh, I don’t know what happens after that, but it’s probably safe to assume it’ll end in the bad guys ruling the world.  That’s always the goal.

What’s with that spy movie cliché about the glamorous secret agent who sleeps with every woman he meets?  Friends, enemies, co-workers, random waitresses… our suave hero loses no chance to insert Tab A into Slot B.  He can’t walk down the street without having women throw themselves at him.  This trope has been parodied to hell and back in everything from Austin Powers to The Million Eyes of Sumuru and it’s actually sort of weird to see it played straight, as it is here.  As a PSA to my readers: never sleep with a glamorous secret agent.  He probably has like nine venereal diseases.

The weirdest thing in the movie is a facet of this trope: it’s the bit where Cooper and Agent Farrell are busily smooching when a man breaks into her apartment and tries to kill them.  They fight him off, and he commits suicide so they can’t question him.  Cooper then throws his body out the window, turns the soundtrack back on, and the couple just pick up where they left off!  Maybe it’s because I’m not a glamorous secret agent but I gotta agree with Tom Servo on this one: I don’t think I could have sex in the same room where I just watched a guy kill himself. It wouldn’t be right, you know?

I will say that this indifference towards death bothers me less here than it did in Master Ninja I, but the characters in Secret Agent Super Dragon have presumably have years of both physical training to kill and psychological coaching to deal with the consequences. Even so, just getting right back to the makeout session before the body’s even had a chance to cool seems unnecessarily callous.

The other trope I notice a lot of in Secret Agent Super Dragon is the death trap. Our hero’s life is threatened repeatedly but always in some contrived way that allows him a chance to escape. The first time he’s tied to a rail so some machine can come along and roll over his head.  He gets out in the nick of time and it crushes a can of red paint instead.  The second time he’s nailed into a coffin and thrown into the river.  He holds his breath and inflates a flotation device. The third time, he’s trapped in a building rigged to explode.  His buddy flies in with a helicopter.  Why doesn’t anybody just shoot this guy? Villains that stupid don’t deserve to take over the world!

Yet another thing that stands out as remarkably dumb is the cause the charity auction is supposed to support – ‘an International Hospital for Babies with Malnutrition’.  Okay, so, imagine you’re somebody whose child is starving, which probably means you’re dirt poor.  Instead of sending food to you, these people expect you to bring the baby to a hospital, which may be in another country, so that they can feed the kid there. Is the complete impracticality of this supposed to be our clue that it’s a scam?  The script never references that, though.  Did somebody just pick a bunch of charitable-sounding words?  Was it a bad translation of something that actually made sense in the original language?  Are the writers just that stupid?  We’ll probably never know.

Beyond that… it’s honestly really hard to say anything deeper about Secret Agent Super Dragon, because this is another movie that’s not very ambitious. It has some vague themes about drugs as the downfall of western civilization, but its characters don’t have appreciable arcs and there’s not much by way of symbolism for me to analyze. All it wants is to keep us mindlessly entertained for an hour and a half – and there’s nothing wrong with that, honestly, but Super Dragon isn’t even any good at it.  Trying to watch without Joel and the bots I found myself drifting repeatedly.  There’s the charming super-spy, the parade of blandly beautiful women, the evil mastermind with a vague plan to take over the world, the easily-escaped death traps… we’ve done this all before, and Super Dragon doesn’t even use the stereotypes in skillful or interesting ways.

The thing about spy movie tropes is they’re so easy to parody, and have been parodied so many times, that even somebody who doesn’t actually watch spy movies can spot them because we all absorb them through pop-culture osmosis.  Playing them straight therefore runs a very serious risk of boring the audience.  Of course Agent Farrell is working for the bad guys, because in a story like this, a character like her does – and of course she falls in love with Cooper and betrays her bosses for him.  None of this stuff is even really foreshadowed (except that Farrell dyes her hair – can’t trust those unnatural redheads!) but we still know it’s coming because we’ve seen the same shit in fifty other movies. The bad guy wants to cleanse the world so it can be made anew?  Been there. The movie wallows in misogyny but in all the same old ways, so I’ve got nothing new to say about it.

Throughout the film people talk about the ‘legendary Super Dragon’ but I don’t think we ever get a reason why Cooper’s so great.  Bond films begin with a breathtaking action setpiece to show us that our hero has nifty gadgets and balls of steel – Secret Agent Super Dragon begins with Cooper playing dead by the pool.  His most remarkable ability seems to be holding his breath for a really long time, and his gadgeteer, the kleptomaniacal Babyface, makes most of his gadgets out of literal toys.  I think this might be a joke about the obvious miniatures some of these movies use… but I’m not sure.  All I’m sure of is when that dinosaur waddled into the room I was halfway expecting it to demand the return of the Golden Ninja Warrior.

About the only place where the movie seems to accidentally brush by a real statement is in a moment that resembles a historical reference.  Cooper has infiltrated a conspiracy meeting (by wearing a half-mask that leaves his rather distinctive chin fully visible) at which the Big Bad, Mr. Lamas, is delivering an expository monologue: their factory in India is in full production of the drug, which will be shipped to America in phony Ming vases and bring the world to its knees!  If you’re going to talk about drugs making and breaking empires, China and India are where it happened.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the East India Company fostered opium addiction in China because they wanted cheap tea and because the British government had vague plans, which never came anywhere close to fruition, to add China to their empire.  The opium to feed this addiction was grown in India, often by farmers who would rather have been growing actual food but owed too much money to the EIC. This all led to the Opium Wars and a lot of other unpleasantness in which the British Empire came out looking even more like assholes than they usually did.  In a story about conquering the world through drug addiction, then, having the drugs created in India and slipped into something Chinese looks like a reference to history repeating itself.

It may also mean something else.  Secret Agent Super Dragon is relentlessly white, set mostly in a city in northwestern Europe, where conspiracies of middle-aged white guys drink booze and decide the fate of nations.  The actual work that makes this possible, however, is being done by people of colour in the east.  Not only does this seem to reference how western nations use other countries as battlegrounds and bargaining chips in their own power struggles, it can also serve as a reminder of something we frequently forget: a lot of what makes our comfortable lives possible comes from other countries, made by people who could never afford to buy it.  My eyeglasses, the sweater I’m wearing, and the chair I’m sitting on were all made in China.  Our entire economy depends on cheap foreign labor, and I wonder sometimes how much longer that can last before the whole thing falls apart.

Is any of this the movie’s intentional theme or message?  I doubt it. The historical reference seems to be just a ‘hey, look how clever we are!’ moment and the rest probably goes no deeper than ‘oh, no, our children are doing drugs!’, which has been on the verge of ending civilization since at least the thirties.  Secret Agent Super Dragon is just a dumb trashy Eurospy movie, and not even a very good one.  I don’t hate it, but mostly because it’s not worth that kind of effort.  The MST3K treatment renders it infinitely more enjoyable, especially when Tom and Crow do Jazz.

Agent Cooper was played by actor Ray Danton, who died in 1992, a year before the episode aired.  Probably all for the best.  I doubt he’d have been into all those jokes about how his character is perfectly smooth.

[louis1kwords]

December: Elverum

Sitting in a rigid church pew, watching light adorn a high-ceilinged, painted cathedral. Halfway through the performance I have a couple realizations. I am surrounded by people who represent past lives I’ve led in Philadelphia, watching a person perform songs that deal largely with personal legacy, relationships, growth, and pain. I have not been to a Philadelphia church sanctuary since 2008. The cushion is uncomfortable and the memories are a little discomfiting as well. I’m constantly embarrassed when I remember my younger self, even if no one remembers me as an embarrassment. Art students who are still in their 20s, figuring out their niche in the downtrodden adult world, still practically able to ignore stimuli around them. Saw one person I knew who has experienced a great loss, an appropriate attendee. Ditto to my emo idol, Johm: A peripheral person in my life for over 10 years who I don’t know, kind of like P. Elverum himself. Aging punks who have a real reverence for the music being performed, and are perhaps more reverent because of how much psychotropics they consumed prior to the show. We discussed Watchmen, Chernobyl, Huppman, flaking out. Talking new media and local connections with these grown boys was as refreshing as an experience I could have hoped for given their level of glaze. 

Inevitably, being in this space carried me to times I have spent here. Hanging out with Aaron and a chattering Bradford Cox while his band looked on with loathing, hearing shoegaze synth erupt from a plexiglass box emanating blue light  -- “Cathedral - M83″, Nosferatu on Halloween in 2008 with pipe organ accompaniment. I thought a lot about my past Beat worship that has been polished by this point in my thirties. It served a purpose to keep me moving and looking for things buried in the grey world that can bring me a glimmer of light. That will hopefully persist in a way that is helpful. Is it crystallized the point where I can never lose it? On some levels it seems self-congratulatory, but that cheapens the joy I derive from these wistful moments. I bought his homemade release “Now Only” because it speaks the most to me about these feelings and features the songs that feel most like the crucially revisited entries in a diary. I could have left with three other records, and regret not picking up the latest but there is a lifetime for collecting relics of memory. Showing up alone to see what was an outward display of isolation and loneliness seemed appropriate enough to eat one of my $25 tickets. Also bringing a companion to an event like this stokes expectations I am not sure could be met. An encounter with the only person I knew would be in attendance at the merch table left me feeling more alone.

Karl Blau did a bunch of a cappella covers of songs, including Snow is Falling in Manhattan by Purple Mountains, a darkly beautiful song that reflected the evening’s theme of grief. His funny earnestness brought the room to warm crescendos of applause. 

Up to this point I have always had my personal expectations of what the mind behind Mount Eerie would be like in person. Equal parts boyish, thoughtful, grim, and fixated on everyday beauty, it is easy to follow the connections his music weaves through my mind. He should look like a small form, too small to sail a ship, yet striking out to sail it through the tumults ahead. I can picture myself as a child playing in the schoolyard of my elementary school, looking up at trees, lacking the willful desire to climb them, paralyzed by their infinity and beauty. Digging in the dirt to make clay, picking small stones to build some imagined palace for the future. My goals all seemed immediate and although I knew nothing of the vastness of the world, I still felt it lurking at the periphery. I felt that colossal jumble of personae, physical objects, renderings of human existence and played in spite of them. That is the closest I can get to pinpointing how I have felt listening to Phil’s music.

Phil’s voice and appearance has an innocence that belies his inner struggle. In person, behind the table selling his work, Phil himself seems unfit for his form. He is obviously torn between celebrity and reclusiveness, and a whole album of songs about breaking up with an A-list celebrity is what he has to show for it. I told him I looked forward to seeing his performance. His self-consciousness about the show didn’t seem to impact his performance, since craft like his seems to exist completely separately from the consequence of how he feels. I truthfully hadn’t listened to the record enough to recognize every song, but that is how I have enjoyed some of the more moving performances I’ve attended (e.g. Emily Haines, Miracle Fortress). The imagery woven by Phil and Julie included the affecting “Widows” which closes with a memory of the fledgling love that came before Phil and Michelle’s likely schism. The accompanying beauty was hearing the songs that acknowledge nothing about the world but its frank existence in contrast to being within a building built to praise a higher power. Phil’s message is clear: the universe is just an experience that we have, it is indifferent to how or what we feel about it. There are things that we cannot help but note: like a bonfire, the loss of contact (eternally) with the ones we love. 

The closing duet he and Julie Doiron shared was Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”. The absolute perfection of this move was that the version they played was couched in a style that masked the song until the hook erupted into the air and everyone was smiling, cheering, and singing along. The catharsis of breaking through the sad subjects of the evening with a joyous affirmation of eternal love seemed like a dose of Lost Wisdom indeed.

[shameen-bloghub]

How do you find your passion?

I didn’t want to be a public speaker or writer. This thought never came across my mind until today.  I loved to think about speeches I will give during interviews and attending Ellen Degeneres show. I will try to find different reasons to be there. What could I do or what would happen if I do something outstanding, I never really focused on achieving those outstanding things as much as I spent my time talking about it. Oh man! I just loved doing it so much. I will wake up at nights walking around the house; will take a break from work to go to washroom to practice for some future events that could occur. My mind is sooo full of thoughts bumping into each other all the time, feeling like I had something to share with the outside but struggling to find what.

How did I figure this out? What made me notice such an inconspicuous detail which now looks obvious?

Everyone thinks about winning an Oscar for acting, giving a Thank-you speech after being announced as Miss World. But, what if you love giving that Oscar speech more than acting, and that thank you speech than getting your heels on runway? The thoughts that cross my mind were; I just want to be famous, I just want to make a mark   blah blah. All those rubbish you feed yourself for years while rambling about how you suck at everything you do.  I have spent my whole teenage life doing that and had planned the same for my early 20s until I came across this life-changer: Mark Manson (https://markmanson.net/)

Now, at this time I wasn’t even looking for this article or any article as a matter of fact, just something to pass my spare time. I was just randomly clicking on links and seeing what captures my interest and halfway into this article where he is giving various examples about different situations and I read “Think of the soft skills you’re good at and how might apply them to a given career. Are you good with people? Are you very organized and detailed-oriented? Can you manage projects and expectations well?” (Taken from: https://markmanson.net/how-to-find-the-perfect-career) I started questioning myself, I repeated my routine in my head while laughing upon my useless life and something just clicked. Some people like to call it eureka moment I call it my interim passion.

I have read dozens and dozens of articles about ‘finding your passion’, ‘becoming someone’, ‘how do you figure out who you want to be’ and whatever my desperate soul typed on that poor keyboard. The need to be good at something is just a justification for you being alive, it occurs naturally at some point. But, finding the right answer is the core problem. People spend years switching jobs, hobbies anything that settle their soul. But I have a golden secret for you: “You will always want something else.” But this is not as scary as it sounds and only useful if you know how to use the key. You must open your mind to the extent where you can accept the reality. Ready?

Now say you love singing, you have seen various tutorials on YouTube, practice for hours and hell even sing in a school competition. You figure that this is what you want to do, you feel so lucky for finding your passion. You join music school. Now, move fast forward towards 2 years into singing where you have achieved your goal after a lot of struggle and have earned some good amount of fans. One morning, something goes off, all of the sudden being on stage, bus tours, and fans cheering outside your door don’t feel so exciting anymore. In fact you feel indifferent. You say ‘let’s call it a day’ and move on. But, that day keeps on coming up again and again until you start questioning it. What if you have grown out of it? Do you just not feel like doing it anymore? You go on a break to live off the grid. You come back and figure out, ‘Shoot man! I want to go to Olympics and swim my heart out’ All of a sudden your priorities and thoughts are changed. Your actions are now surrounded around these new things, taking swimming courses, learning tricks etc etc. This is good news.

My advice is Fuck consistency. It’s good to grow. Just like you switch from one hobby to another same can happen with your passion (not to forget it could be your hobbies that grow up and become your career path). Nothing is for life, now that friend is another golden key, which you will forget soon like everything else in this article. Some people chose to stay in the same zone even when their dream job turns boring just because of the fear of change. There is a very slim line between living and surviving, and adults usually don’t notice. They are always busy chasing time instead of chasing goals.

In the grown up world, many people get lost because there are not any tracks to follow, you gotta make your own. This is where everything fucks up. Now, listen up, NOTHING YOU CHOOSE IS GOING TO LAST FOR LIFETIME! That doesn’t mean that you suck it mean you know what is the true meaning of growth. It takes a lot of interim passion to find one that you could stick with like friends, girlfriends, boyfriends and anything ever. Enjoy the present because buddy you live everyday but, you will die once. Make your living count and NO, not for the world for yourself knucklehead!

The answer is simple you don’t find your passion. You discover it. It already exists within you, the time you spend on reading about how to find it, doing researches, do a research on yourself instead and be dead blunt. Trust me, you will know it just don’t try too hard, let it be and enjoy while it lasts.

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: Saga of Tanya the Evil

Tanya Degurechaff. She’s slight, frail-looking and frankly adorable, with pure white skin and piercing blue eyes. She is also the most powerful and most feared mage on the battlefield, serving the Empire’s forces with an iron fist and a heartless streak. One look and you wouldn’t believe she was just a little girl...

And you’d be right, for behind the innocent-looking face is the spirit of a salaryman, plucked from his world after his untimely death after insulting the self-proclaimed god, or Being X. Now, as Tanya, he has been put into a time and a place other than his own, where his deeply Darwinist views are put to the test. All Tanya wants is a quiet, peaceful life, but with war brewing around her, the Empire lauding her every move and, the enemy states out for her blood and Being X out for retribution, that’s going to be difficult...

Okay, so...I know what this sounds like. This sounds like the most tasteless, schlocky thing you can ever imagine and why on earth am I reviewing something like this, why would I do this to myself?

Well honestly, it’s kind of fascinating. I couldn’t quite get a handle on what Tanya the Evil was supposed to be, even deep into the series. Is it propaganda, or a Greek-style tragedy, or a cautionary tale, or just a military show with war is hell emblazoned over every scene. In a good episode, it could even be all of them. But I’m getting ahead of myself; let’s dive in.

The production is by a newbie studio this time, Studio NUT (yeah, I know, get your laughing out the way now). Honestly for a first time out, they do a pretty dang good job. It’s a bit more rough and scratchy than most shows nowadays, with an art style that looks nothing like the manga artwork put which fits quite nicely. The show budgets itself well with great expression work and well-integrated CG, allowing for some properly epic fight scenes, as well as some genuinely interesting talking-heads moments. The one main issue is with some of the character design; the men generally look alright, and all of them look unique, but the ladies tend to err on the side of melted-Barbie doll in some areas. Tanya gets better in this regard, probably due to her constantly pulling insanely fun expressions, but the real WHAT design comes from her second-in-command, Viktoriya Serebryakov, who I have seen affectionately referred to as Droopy the War Crime Enthusiast. I mean...look...

It’s not show-ruining, but it is occasionally a little hard to take some scenes seriously with that kind of cute fluffy mascot popping up every other scene. But then I’m not entirely sure I’m supposed to take this show seriously.

The music is pretty much what you’d expect for a show like this; great, booming Dies-Irae level choirs going ah-ah-ah and spouting faux-Latin over every action scene; it’s bloody glorious. While there’s no real standout tracks throughout the show the opening and ending more than make up for it; the opening is by Myth & Roid; a harsh, kinda synth-metal track that sounds so similar to the Black Lagoon opening that I can’t believe it’s not actually the same band. The ending is even better; a driving, aggressive tune sung by Tanya herself Aoi Yuki, all set over gorgeous stills from the manga.

So when the first episode of the show came out, I and many other people were rightly a little concerned given how utterly brutal and...honestly exploitative the show looked. People dying left, right and centre, Tanya being thrown up on a pedestal despite doing some very dodgy things; it looked ready to turn into some of the most tasteless Nazi-lauding propaganda ever. But when the second episode came round, that was quickly thrown out the window as we actually learnt the origins for Tanya and are given the main driving force. The show wasn’t trying to congratulate Tanya’s exploits, as seen when she was given a rival in Being X; a character who is portrayed in the remarkably creative way of speaking through other people’s mouths, both dead or alive, in scenes which are both fun to watch and extremely creepy.

Tanya is undergoing punishment for her actions in the previous life, and her fascist outlook. Being X’s only real action was to take that outlook and put it in an alternate world where it honestly fits right in, to try and show her how much her actions were hurting people. The problem is that Tanya doesn’t give a crap about other people and immediately gets round to taking advantage of her situation, not to try and gain glory or laud her views over anyone else (at least not overtly) but just to get to a comfortable position. She is, without question, the villain of the piece, but we get a good insight into her thought process and how her actions are harmful both to the world around her and honestly to her own life. While the show doesn’t ‘end’ as such, it stops at a turning point where the show could have been over, but isn’t, largely down to Tanya’s own paranoid actions. She’s egotistical, ruthless, has no qualms over mass murder or manipulation and frankly lives up to the show’s name. But she is still undeniably human.

So does that make Being X the good guy? Uh...not really. I hesitate to call him god, or the devil, partially for obvious reasons of my own faith, but also because he seems like somebody far out of his depth. Let’s be honest; if he was a true deity there would be no contest between him and Tanya, but instead of passing judgement he instead buys into her utter rejection of him and puts her in a situation where she has the advantage. He doesn’t want her to change her ways; he just wants her acknowledgement of him as a god. It’s honestly petty, and it soon becomes clear he’s panicking when he starts forming other pawns to try and take Tanya down, to little success. Although by the end of the series he too has progressed, as Tanya finally acknowledges him...and properly condemns him. From a story perspective, Being X has won. And given his victory, everything else that happens will fall upon Tanya. She’s risen, and has reached the turning point.

So the central point of the show is a nice little battle of wits between a self-serving person and an indifferent entity, forming a nice little Death-Note-esque undercurrent of paranoia and intrigue, which neither supports nor condemns either side. It’s certainly interesting, but it does leave the problem of having no relatable characters. Tanya’s squadron, Droopy included, do help this somewhat by being the most likeable characters by far; while none of them really develop with the exception of Grantz, they each have defined personalities and add a much needed human element to many scenes which would otherwise just be horrible to sit through. They also set up potential conflicts for the future; now that we know these guys, and we know where Tanya’s character is heading, they’re most likely going to be the ones who stand in her way the most.

The rest of the characters really don’t have much going for them, and that’s the big problem with the show; while the central intrigue and human element are all well and good, a large chunk of the show revolves around military operations, long talks in boardrooms, stuffy suits smoking cigars and trying to come up with tactics, and a lot of time devoted to seeing how this NOT!WW1 is going to develop, as the Empire and the Alliance Entente (pause while I stare into the camera) make their moves. If you’re into that kind of stuff, great. I’m not. It drags, it’s boring, and the constant scenes of trench warfare are borderline exploitative.

So is there anything else of note? Well honestly, the tech is pretty cool. Obviously this doesn’t take place in our world, with the use of magic, but magic here is more an enhancement tool than anything else, being used in tandem with machines to allow flight packs and magical explosions (EXPEROSHON!), amongst other things.

Also despite being, you know, a horrible show about horrible people doing horrible things, the show can actually be pretty damn funny at times. From nearly blowing up a submarine in your sleep to Tanya struggling to reach a map to Tanya using her ‘cute voice’ to demand a complete surrender, it shows that the show is far more self-aware and willing to poke fun at itself than even Death Note was. The humorous moments help break up some of the more dour scenes, and with the help of some snappy editing, it makes the show remarkably entertaining.

Then there’s the series ending, which I honestly feel is about the halfway point of the series. The main ‘war’ is over, but another one is about to begin that is going to change this world. Tanya has already reached her prime, having achieved her goal, but with that comes the realisation that nothing is going to change. Whatever happens in future, she is on the wrong side of history, unless she changes it herself. As the title says, this is a saga, showing the rise of one of the most notorious evils of this world. If they ever make a season 2, that will need to be her fall. I know exactly how the show should end, even down to who should be the one to end Tanya. Of course, the whole unfinished thing does put a damper on the fun slightly once you realise that, for all its playing around the subject, the show has never outright condemned Tanya’s actions. That...is a genuine problem, and if that is not followed up on, that has the potential to ruin the series. But we’ll see; with any luck there’ll be a second season to give us the ending we need.

The best way to watch Saga of Tanya the Evil is to remember one core thing; she’s evil. There’s no dancing around the subject, no moral complexity, and no holding back with the evil deeds. She’s evil. She’s a villain. And honestly, the show does a good job of portraying that while still giving her a few layers and not being exploitative with it...too much. Once you can get past the moral ickyness, the rest of the show is pretty dang good, with a strong central conflict, likeable supporting characters, a lot of fun action set-pieces and a wicked sense of humour. The constant exposition and war fetish stuff does both drag down the excitement and make the whole thing more than a little tasteless, to the point where I can completely understand any hate for the series. But honestly, I like it. It’s different, and for what it is, it’s harmless.

My score: 7/10

Next time; from not!history to more not!history, as I catch up with some wacky composers doing really weird things. Next review is Classicaloid.

[subjectivityproblems]

three professors have had to cancel or rearrange class schedules because they have to be away to present at a conference, some with as little as a week’s notice. a professor offers guidance on submitting conference abstracts, so i reach out and ask if she will read mine, she says of course, and never does. in two classes, three or four or five writing assignments have been turned in, two thirds of the way into the semester, and only one has been returned. one says tenure is disappearing. i can’t even get feedback on two paragraphs i’m undertaking as extra work. but to do the job you have to do more than the work as assigned. it’s everything else, too. in our yearly review we are made to list all our publications, submissions, and service activities. they must be cited in APA style, or the system will not recognize them. i can’t locate the style parameters of the APA for an abstract submission, but luckily it’s barely an accomplishment anyway: i don’t care if the system eats it.

i ask a professor for help locating academic work over the summer. she immediately finds something for me to do during the fall semester. only i can’t imagine doing more than i do. i’m paid well enough to merely do coursework, and i throw myself into it. only i have no questions; they are the hardest thing to think of. all i have is the sense that i’ve read it all. i read it all. i have the satisfaction feeling of completing the task. but the task is even in excess of itself, and i can’t figure out a good question. luckily a guide is circulated.

during my master’s it was difficult to get a professor to look at me with something other than indifference or barely-concealed derision. fine: the price of working with celebrities. feedback sought on an insanely intimate piece of research that nonetheless produced no professional advancement for me is, of course, never returned. i get an A in the class. so why make us write the paper?

one professor says: you can’t do everything. exhausted, i write in my notes “you can’t do anything.” but assignments ask you anyway to do more than seems possible or necessary. when the semester started my anxiety had the valence of incredulity that anyone would be able to complete the tasks as assigned. now that i’ve done more than half of them, i notice those meta-skills develop, the ones that nobody talks about except in passing, the ones that facilitate working more than seems possible. organizing every available moment to maximize productivity. reading when i’m hungry because i know the minute i look up i’ll lose momentum. i feel a satisfaction about the mere fact of completion when it comes, but it lasts a day or an hour before the next thing has to be gotten to.

there are self-assessments, but we study because we need guidance. only none comes. two professors want to have two meetings about the progress of the research in the course of the semester. one wants to know how the writing is going. am i allowed to say the thing that’s true, which is that i have never, ever written a page or a paper “in advance” perhaps because of the six hundred pages we read weekly? am i allowed to admit that each topic was conceived halfway and hastily written up, with the promise of the research itself assuring me that the partiality of the question would be resolved? what does a research proposal ever hope to say except: “ill look into it”? what of the second meeting, in which the truth of the research is, “i haven’t yet”?

four, six, fifteen pages are turned in every week. none are returned. class is cancelled and i desperately need the break. the threat of rescheduling looms. but the feedback does not come. a professor says that meetings about proposed research give her life because they outline new projects that she doesn’t have to work on. but shouldn’t she have to work on the things she makes me do, which are still not even research? if you don’t have time to read the work, why assign it? if you won’t tell me how i’m doing why should i do it?

this work takes me out of my friendships, thrusts me into my relationship because i still desperately need reassurance, comfort, and it’s work to pluralize that need. it’s all work. it’s so much work. i decline almost every social invitation. i cringe when the house isn’t empty sometimes because i feel less than equipped to handle even pleasantries with roommates. as conversations unfold i have my eye on the clock, annoyed and relieved at the reprieve. everything is keeping me from my work. i can’t catch up with the people i love, much less the people i like. i feel like i can only complain, and it makes me not want to speak.

it’s not even just that i crave assessment for its own sake, which i also do. it’s that the work, as i understand it, requires becoming situated in a field of constant feedback. a professor mentions that academics are notoriously wishy-washy on deadlines. but i never am. and for what? if research is the goal, the thing for which teaching is delayed, then why assign us so many tasks that aren’t even that? the semester is waning and i don’t know how i’m doing in my classes because very little of what i’ve turned in has been returned to me. i’m exhausted and isolated, and i still haven’t read the foundational texts that my work is allegedly based on. of course i don’t set aside an hour every day to write, or to read for myself. of course none of the research is done. i’m doing what’s being asked of me, but i don’t know why (or how) i’m doing it.

[casually-inappropriate]

Today I walked out on my friends and gf without saying bye because I felt unwanted and that I was a nuisance to them. Mind you no one stopped me or really cared or even said anything. Then like 20 minutes later I get a text from one of the friends saying how I was rude and inappropriate like I was being scolded like a child. It fuckin hurt like you all made me feel so unwanted then you kick me when I’m down. Like the goal wasn’t to be vauge and moody in hopes you would read my mind. That’s how I fucking get when I feel left out I more or less shut down. I understand I’m not the most lively or talkative person out there I live in solitude and no one really talks to me regularly but to say I’m hard to hang out with because I don’t express interest? That’s harsh. It’s rude to say that to someone who doesn’t understand what you’re talking about half the time. Yeah I’m not interested in something I don’t know anything about sue me. I’m not indifferent when making plans with you all, I’m happy you took the time to consider me and want to hang out with me. Sure I’m indifferent to the place because the place doesn’t really matter to me I just wanna hang out with you. And I only really get engaged when it’s something I’m interested in because I like it and I’m excited! And I literally have no one else to talk to it about. I can bottle up my negative emotions but if you’re asking me to bottle up my positive ones too that’s just cruel. I have distant body language because that’s how I was raised, to be alone. I’m still getting used to being open with friends so excuse me if I don’t talk as openly as all of you. I never learned how. Sure someone asked me if I was okay and I said I was fine which was true at the time. Granted I was halfway shutting down but that’s a different point. But to call me a fucking lair for that? That’s low. I’m not one to just spill my fucking guts out for a half arsed are you okay. Me leaving wasn’t trying to make a point. I left for myself. I didn’t feel fucking wanted to I left if you thought I needed to make a point then you’re the one who is off. I could’ve said bye sure but at that point I was already shutting down and wanted to cry, I didn’t want to. In the end I did end up crying for hours so much so it gave me a migraine and made my chest hurt. Your rude text was so hurtful. All I wanted to do was hang out with you all and play some games but all I got was quietness and watching a show I didn’t care for. What a wonderful birthday celebration... happy 21 to me....it fucking hurts that everyone else gets a splendid party with everyone and everyone is playing games but all I got was a non wrapped gift and pain.. thanks I really feel the love after I put in so much effort for you...

[almighty-god-saved-me-blog]

Walking Down the Bright Path of Life | The Church of Almighty God

Xieli, America

I used to be someone who would chase after the trends of the world, I wanted to abandon myself to a life of pleasure, and I just cared about the pleasures of the flesh. I would often go with my friends to KTV all night long, I would go for joyrides in the middle of the night, would go fishing out on the ocean, and travel all around in search of fine foods. I’d see others around me, and they too were all striving to eat well, wear nice things, and enjoy good things. I felt that these were the things that a man must work for in his life, that this is why a man must work hard to earn money, that this is the goal in life that everyone should have. Only with these things would life not be in vain. In order to obtain these things, I didn’t care what distance I had to travel, so I crossed the ocean to come to America, and after struggling for several years, I opened my own business. I had my own car and my own house. I was living the blessed life that I had dreamed about. Every day I would eat, drink and pursue pleasures until I was full and my heart was content. I thought that it was only by living in this way that life had any meaning, and that is until I received the work of Almighty God in the last days. Only after experiencing the judgment and chastisement of God did I become aware of what a truly significant life is, and then I set out walking down the bright path of life.

In May of 2016, my wife passed on to me the gospel of the kingdom of Almighty God. Through reading the word of Almighty God, I became aware of God’s six-thousand-year management plan to save mankind, and I also came to understand that Almighty God is the Jehovah God who led the Israelites out of Egypt, that He is also the Lord Jesus who redeemed mankind by being nailed to the cross, and that now He has returned in the flesh to express the truth and carry out the work of judging, cleansing and saving man…. Before too long, I started participating in church life at The Church of Almighty God and there I came into contact with the brothers and sisters of The Church of Almighty God. I saw that they were all very sincere, there was no pretense or empty pleasantry in the words that they spoke, and to be in contact with them gave me a feeling of liberation that I had never felt before.

When I started attending church gatherings I felt fresh, and I wanted to gather together with the brothers and sisters and properly pursue the truth and pursue a change in my life disposition. But, since up until this time I had coveted the comforts of the flesh and pursued life’s pleasures, I couldn’t help living in my corrupt disposition even though I had the desire to congregate and pursue the truth. One time when a friend invited me over for dinner, it was during the same time as a church gathering, which made me feel very conflicted inside. Should I go or should I not go? I thought this question over to myself: It has been a long time since I went out to have fun. It isn’t easy for my friend to invite me today, so I should go. After all, my friends don’t invite me out every day, and I can just go to the church gathering next time. So, I claimed that I had something to do and dropped my plan to go to the church gathering and instead went out to the dinner. We ate, we drank, we went to KTV, but on the way back home I didn’t feel any sense of happiness inside. Deep in my heart I felt a kind of indescribable emptiness, and I also had feelings of guilt. I thought back to the past. When I was at the meal with friends and fellow villagers they were all extra cordial to me at the dinner table, but behind my back they were racking their brains, scheming, trying to figure out how to swindle me for my money. Dealing with all of them made me feel so tired. I simply could not find anyone to talk to about the things that I cared about. I went out today and drank and ate to my heart’s content, and I have also satisfied my friends, but what did I really gain? I felt empty and helpless, I felt that I had let God down, and I felt sorry to my brothers and sisters.

However, this emptiness in my spirit, this feeling of self-blame I had still could not free me from the enticements of the world of sensual pleasures. In my heart I was still yearning to abandon myself to a life of pleasure, to things that belong to the flesh, but God arranged things and set up an environment in a practical way to change my erroneous views on pursuing. With National Day coming, my wife suggested to me: “Let’s just have a simple celebration, and then with whatever time we have left over we can read some more of the word of God and watch some videos from God’s family so that we can be equipped with more of the truth and understand God’s grace of salvation.” But I did not really take my wife’s words to heart, and instead started making preparations for how I was going to celebrate the holidays. I carefully chose what route I was going to take, and I went to the market and bought all the food and other things I would need. I decided to go with my wife to the seaside and have our own little barbecue. So when National Day came I brought my wife with me and we set out happily in the car. Unexpectedly, there was a traffic jam the entire way, and halfway through the trip we realized that the GPS was not working properly so we were going the wrong way. It was not easy to get to our destination, and in the end, once we got to the seaside the winds were very strong, making it impossible for us to have our barbecue. So my wife asked me to turn the car around and go back home, but I was not willing to do so. I insisted that we keep on driving in search of a nearby park where we could have our barbecue, but the three parks we went to were filled with people, and there wasn’t even anywhere to park. Only after all this did I reluctantly turn around to drive back home. The road home was just as heavily trafficked as before. We had originally set out to barbecue for lunch, but it was now already past 4 p.m. and we still had not cooked anything. We were starving. Ordinarily I feel that I’m in the right and full of self-confidence, and at this time I did not have a temper, and there was nothing that I wanted to say. I just sat in silence and drove back feeling unhappy. It was at this time that the car in front of me suddenly slammed on their brakes, and so I had to quickly step on mine. Although I didn’t hit the car in front of me, I was rear-ended by the car behind me. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, and only the surface of the car got a little dinged up. I knew that God permitted this event, I was not looking to blame the other driver, and so I just drove off. I thought to myself: Hey, all those careful plans I made for the holiday were a wasted effort, it really is true that plans can never keep pace with changes, and everything is arranged by God. It had just been one thing after another, and I felt full of regret. I really should not have gone out today to abandon myself to life’s pleasures. I should not have relied on my own temperament!

When we arrived back home my wife and I read several passages from the word of God together: “More and more people treat records of the work of God and His words during the Old Testament age as myths and legends. In their hearts, people become indifferent to the dignity and greatness of God, to the tenet that God exists and holds dominion over all things. The survival of mankind and the fate of countries and nations are no longer important to them. Man lives in a hollow world only concerned with eating, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure. … Few people take it upon themselves to seek out where God does His work today, or to look for how He presides over and arranges the destination of man” (“God Presides Over the Fate of All Mankind” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). “It seems like a world of gaiety and splendor, one that is becoming more and more so. When people look upon the world, their hearts are drawn to it, and many are unable to extricate themselves from it…. If you do not strive for progress, and are without ideals, you will be swept away by this sinful wave” (“Practice (2)” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). The words of Almighty God make the essence of the trends of the world very plain and clear. The trends of the world are just Satan seducing man and making him depraved. They are just tricks and schemes meant to devour man. Satan just uses eating, drinking, the pursuit of pleasure and other things that conform to the flesh to deceive man and tie man down. Once man’s heart becomes possessed by these things that belong to the flesh he will no longer be inclined to pursue positive things, and he will become more and more distant from God, which will cause him to be devoured and captured by Satan. Through reading the word of God I came to realize that my views on pursuing were all completely wrong. Regardless of what I’m concerned with, whether it be eating, drinking, pursuing pleasures of the flesh or seeking a life where I am above others, these things are all a result of Satan corrupting the human race. I have confirmed through my own experiences that when one pursues these things that belong to Satan they will only become more and more depraved, and more and more loose and debauched. It will just add to their greed, their selfishness, their wickedness and their treachery. They will be living in sin, and they will be without normal humanity. Even if man enjoys more and more of these things, even if man obtains more and more of these things, in the end, they will still be in an empty space. If man possessed all these things but did not come before God, life would still be in vain, and it would be without significance or value. Only by coming before God and believing in God and worshiping God will man be going down the path of living a proper life, and only then will man free himself from a life of emptiness and evil. So, I decided to change the way I live my life and walk down the right path of life.

When I saw my brothers and sisters actively expending themselves for God, when I saw their devotion to performing their duties and their pursuit of meaningful lives I too then felt the desire to pursue these things and live the way that true people live as required by God. So, in addition to regular gatherings, I also wanted to find the time to perform my own duties. It was at this time that the church arranged some duties for me. They wanted me to drive a car to take two of our sisters somewhere, and they wanted me to pick them back up next week. The first time that this duty was handed down to me, I happily agreed to it. But when they left, I started to have second thoughts and even felt some regrets: “Oh man, the day I’m supposed to take these sisters is supposed to be my day off, and next week I have to go pick them up. I’ll have to wake up super early on those two days. It doesn’t matter how long the trip is, but the important thing is that it’s really easy for that road to get congested with traffic. It’s best to go early in the morning because then there are fewer cars, but who’s to say how long I’ll be stuck in traffic on the way back? All my time will be wasted sitting in traffic, and I won’t have my day off….” When my wife heard me complain like this, she fellowshiped with me: “Performing your duties is not as simple as what you’ve imagined. It definitely will involve you putting the truth into practice. To practice the truth is to forsake the flesh, and it means you will suffer hardships and pay a price. Think about it, you used to go out and drink, eat and pursue pleasures, and even if you didn’t really have fun after a tiring day, you would never complain. But now you have been assigned a task and need to spend some of your time on it, and you need to go down a path that has hardships, but in your heart you do not want to do this. This duty, although on the outside it seems like something that was arranged for you by your brothers and sisters, in reality it’s not for a particular person you are performing this duty, but it’s for satisfying God and repaying God’s love. This duty has been given to you today, this is God uplifting of you, and this is God’s love coming down on you. You ought to cherish this. Don’t leave yourself regrets on your first duty.” After she said this, she read me a passage of God’s word: “Everything you do requires you to pay a certain price in your efforts. Without actual hardship, you can’t satisfy God, it does not even come close to satisfying God, and you are just saying empty slogans! Can these empty slogans satisfy God? When God and Satan do battle in the spiritual realm, how should you satisfy God, and how should you stand firm in your testimony to Him? You should know that everything that happens to you is a great trial and the time when God needs you to bear testimony. Externally, they might not seem like a big deal, but when these things happen they show whether or not you love God. If you do, you will be able to stand firm in your testimony to Him, and if you have not put the love of Him into practice, this shows you are not someone who puts the truth into practice, that you are without the truth, and without life, that you are chaff! Everything that happens to people is when God needs them to stand firm in their testimony to Him. Nothing major has happened to you at the moment, and you do not bear great testimony, but every detail of your daily life relates to the testimony to God” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh).

When I finished reading the word of Almighty God, when I finished listening to my wife’s words, then I realized that God giving me this duty was Him giving me a real test, to see whether or not I could satisfy God and endure hardships. But I only considered the interests of my own flesh, and my personal gains and losses. I was not willing to suffer and pay a price while fulfilling my duties; instead I was complaining about things. I saw that I was being extremely selfish, that in my heart fleshly delights like drinking, eating and other pleasures had already surpassed God’s status. I was perfectly happy to spend whatever I had, to pay any price in order to eat, drink and pursue pleasure, but when I was given a duty that required me to suffer and pay a price I started to calculate my own gains and losses, and I was unwilling to practice the truth in order to satisfy God. These thoughts and actions of mine would let Satan laugh at me, and not allow me to stand witness before God. After I came to understand these things I quickly came before God and prayed that He could give me the will to ensure that I could forsake my flesh and no longer follow Satan, so that I could stand witness before God and defeat Satan in the spiritual fight that I was in! After I changed my attitude about the duty, in my practical cooperation, I indeed saw God’s blessing. It didn’t matter whether it was when I was taking the sisters to their place or picking them back up, in neither direction did I come across large traffic jams. It had completely exceeded my imagination, and my conceptions were truly countered. I experienced for the first time the feeling of peace and happiness that performing duty brought to me, and I also saw that when people forsake the flesh and practice satisfying God, God will not only pave the way for them, but also allow them to understand the truth and see His deeds. I suddenly felt that this made me happier than going out on vacations or eating extravagant meals. As it turns out, doing this on a day of rest truly isn’t a waste of time. It’s actually quite significant!

Within these practical experiences I was able to know for myself what the sweet taste of forsaking my flesh and performing the duty to satisfy God. I saw that all that God does is in order to save me from the dark influence of Satan, so that one day quite soon I can walk down the right path of pursuing the truth. These things are all of God’s love and God’s salvation. A few days went by and then I received a call from one of the brothers. He asked me whether or not I was willing to go to another state to pick up some brothers and sisters, and I agreed to it without the slightest hesitation. This time when the duty came upon me, I did not feel complaints. I was perfectly willing and happy to do what I was supposed to, and the whole trip went unimpeded. After I delivered the brothers and sisters to their destination safely, I felt very proud of myself, because this was the first time that I had performed a duty willingly, without any impurities. This also taught me that performing the duty that a creature ought to perform is truly the most significant thing one can do. I was no longer wanting to drink, eat and pursue pleasures, I was no longer wanting to pursue the pleasures of the flesh, and all I wanted to do was pursue the truth, accept the truth and practice the truth, so that someday soon I can become someone who truly loves God. These little things in my life have come to change me in ways I am unaware of. My life is no longer rotten and depraved like it was in the past. I have started to change and actively work toward things. It’s as if I have started a brand new chapter in my life. In my heart I feel sweetness and pleasure that I have never before experienced, and I am thankful to Almighty God for leading me down the bright path of life. All glory be to Almighty God!

Source: Walking Down the Bright Path of Life