#not knowing why its happening and being given morsels of hope for an actual human conversation that never comes into fruition

[carrie-fister]

I keep trying to make this post about how shitty the dissolving of a close personal friendship has been for me lately but I cannot form the words. It's all just absolute shit, do not recommend

[green-eyed-whumpster]

My OC Universe: Rowan 58

I accidentally uploaded the wrong chapter. I’m sorry. I share custody of a single brain cell with my friend and they currently have it for the week.

Chapter 58 Summary: Sweet, sweet, sexy catharsis! Rowan finally snaps in the face of his abuse. (Taggers: @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @much-ado-about-whumping, @abitefullofeverything, @whump-me-all-night-long, @sky-or-something-idfk, @tears-and-lilies)

Trigger Warnings: Reference to previous abuse, verbal abuse, dehumanisation.

As promised, Rowan lurched awake to find a guard rousing him for Marie and Cordelia. Alexander was absent this time, a difference that unsettled Rowan. He was so used to seeing him and his mother together that it felt wrong when they were not.

“Oh, my dear husband,” Marie smirked, tone sarcastic and cruel. “You do not look well at all!” He growled at her and jerked, angrily releasing some of his fury through the useless act. He looked mad, dark rings under his eyes, a flood of dried blood from his nose to his chest. “Please allow me a small experiment,” She said, letting her careful eyes wander to Rowan. “I was hoping to ask you both a question.” Cordelia lowered William’s gag as sharp footsteps clicked along the hallways. William’s face lit up at the prospect of rescue and he leaned forward. “Hey! I’m the King! Get in here this instant!” He demanded, not considering the fact that the sound was present before Marie ordered the removal of his muzzle, and so wasn’t likely to belong to a sympathetic creature. As if to accentuate this, Marie chuckled softly, rolling her eyes as the footsteps stopped right outside the door and the tall shadow of the figure obscured the doorway. Mere moments before revealing himself Rowan caught a whiff of a familiar perfume, placing the name as Merek’s face appeared and he stood beside Marie. “You-Mer-how dare you betray me like this!” William roared and Cordelia curled her fingers into his, now unkempt hair, ripping his head back and forcing a whine from his throat. “If you do not remain silent,” She rumbled dangerously. “Then we will take extreme precautions to keep you silent.” The threat was clear. And William wasn’t finished with use of his tongue just yet. He had to content himself with glowering at his duplicitous advisor, perhaps hoping he combust from the sheer hatred seething from his face. “You never mentioned that your tradeswoman was a mercenary thug.” He snarled at Marie. “She certainly has her uses.” The Queen replied proudly, smiling at Cordelia. “What a strangely satisfying sight.” Merek commented curiously, drawing attention to him. “I think it could only be made better with tears.” Marie smirked. “As if I would ever allow you to see me humiliated like that.” William growled, earning a grin from the pair. “We’ll see,” Marie sighed, picking at an invisible imperfection on her thumbnail. “I’ve reconsidered what I said the previous evening,” She said, catching the unwavering attention of both imprisoned creatures. “If I were to say that one of you would be released, who would you choose?” It was a pretty obvious question, and no one was surprised to hear William speak first. “Me, of course.” Marie glanced towards Rowan, who’s face had fallen and had curled against the wall, already defeated. “What about you?” He glanced up and shrugged. “Why would you choose me? I’m not even worth the dirt under your shoe.” “What if I weren’t to choose? What if I made you both choose?” She asked. “I am the King. I should leave!” William demanded. “How am I supposed to rival that? Even with the promise of death, I couldn’t face condemning another to it.” Rowan sighed softly. “I’d strangle the slut myself if it meant I could take back my throne!” Something in that moment shattered. 

Rowan could almost physically feel it, his soul, cracking from the strain of hiding and suppressing his feelings for so long. Suddenly his breathing came fast, and he felt unfamiliar rage course through his veins. “You never loved me at all, did you?” He asked softly, retrieving a scoff from the King. “You were a pretty little cock-sleeve. And a pretty poor one at that.” “You gave me jewellery, you trusted me in your bed, you showered me with praise, and what, it was all pretend?” William sighed exasperatedly and rolled his eyes. “It was like having a puppy.” He said. “You keep if loyal, but when you’re tired of it you drown it.” 

Rowan had been compared to animals before. He had been used in metaphors like this before. He had been completely dehumanised to his face before. But now it was just too much. Too humiliating to realise he was, and always had been, nothing. “You tortured me!” He yelled, feeling his voice crack as it was raised above its normal pitch. “You-you allowed your men to ravage me and humiliate me! And made me believe that you were saving me from them when in fact you were just transferring ownership!” Tears pricked his eyes like needles, tears that had been forced down almost since he arrived. 

“I was abused, by you, and your staff, and your men, I was raped! And you blamed me for it! Forced me to witness as you had them executed, threatening to do the same to me if I ‘let’ it happen again! You forced me to get drunk to entertain you and your friends! You let everyone talk down to me and talk about me like I wasn’t there! Or like I couldn’t hear what they were saying, like I didn’t understand every word they called me! You poisoned me for your own entertainment!” 

The hatred and frustration broke over his lashes and he struggled to keep his voice from wobbling and relinquishing his power before he had finished. “I was forced to beg for you to rape and abuse me! To thank you for the opportunity to be taken! To grovel at your feet while you fed me scraps of your food like a pet! I wasn’t even human to you! Just some creature that no one would object to you mistreating! You gave me to your friend to fuck! And when he tried to murder me you had me punished! I was refused any morsel of dignity while your advisor had the soldiers line up and remind me of what you claimed to save me from!” 

He felt the eyes on him, every one, and turned to catch the eye of one of the guards at the door. “I remember you!” He chuckled in a weak attempt to cover the way he was falling apart. “You called me a desperate whore, good for only one thing! Was I? Was I good?” They had the shame to look away, turning their back on their mistake. “You had me branded! I will permanently be marked as your property! Men sign their family crest on their weapons, or their silverware, or their clothes! You put it on a person and reduced them to an item you owned. You tricked me into thinking that you had saved me from there, too! That you had missed and desired me! But it was all a ploy to get your stupid, uneducated, whore of a consort to actually believe that you cared for him! You tricked me into feeling some sort of fondness, or care for you. I felt sorry for you when we were first brought down here! I empathised with you, explained away your cruel words as simply being unused to not being in control, but no, that was just you when you were no longer bothered by how your creature felt!” There was a brief pause before a thought occurred to Rowan and he scoffed. “You call me ‘pet’.” He whispered, sniffing heavily as his eyes locked with William’s. “I would wager, I would say money but it’s obvious by how you came to possess me that I have none, so I would bet my life, that you don’t know how old I am,” He said and laughed. “Let alone…tell me, William, what’s my name?” Silence. “What is it?” He roared, pulling against the chains. “Why on Earth would I know?” William replied. Voice just soft enough that Rowan could realise with relief that he was maybe startled by this barrage of his sins against the boy. “Why would you? It’s just a person. A human being that you claimed as your own purely because he was pretty. If I were an average-looking thing you would have left me to die in that barracks. With blood on my ass, and sperm in my hair, and snot on my face. And never would have even given a second thought to the person I was or the people who…the-the people who…” Missed me. “I hate you.” He whispered after a moment. “I despise you. I abhor you. I detest you. I’ve killed two people who both tried to kill me first and felt like dying because of it. But, I think if I killed you, if I strangled you myself, I might finally be able to sleep at night.” He sobbed, too afraid to turn his gaze from anyone else but William. “Not even the Gods could have dreamt up a creature as cruel as you,” He gasped finally, the anger flickering out of him like a candle flame in a breeze. “You are a manifestation of sin, and evil, and sadism.” He felt cold now. Empty. Like all that had sustained him for the three years since he was stolen from Peter, was his suppressed disgust, and now that it was gone, he had nothing left inside of him. 

A piece died with every time he was raped. 

More of his innocence stripped away, until he was left, a shell, a dried leaf that William crumbled into dust just to hear the sound of him break.

[orangetail-works]

A Phoenix and a Raven: Fear

A/N:  This one takes place just after the wedding in Ulstead when everything began to calm down and people began to reflect on what was lost.  So, yes, there are spoilers for the sequel on this one.  The prompt for this one was a combination of different dialogue options.  I went with what I thought would provoke some feels.  It gets fluffy, you have been warned.

Chapter: Fear

Relief.

That's all he felt when he saw her with Aurora, both standing tall and so alive.  His little fledgling and his mistress were happily hugging just feet from him.  Aurora was safe in her mother's wings and her mother was alive and very much herself.  He stopped to their side and couldn't think of what to say to either one of them.

Maleficent was the first to say anything, “I missed you.”

Relief fell from him as confusion took its place, “Did you bump your head, then?”

Her eyes lifted up slightly as if in thought and she nodded tightly, “I did.”

For once in a very long time, he had no come back for her and only breathed out a whisper of what could have been a laugh.  His face softened and he shook his head at his luck.  They were going to be just fine.

That was hours upon hours ago.

Diaval now sat on the railing outside of Maleficent's chamber in one of the Ulstead castle towers just reviewing the day through his mind. Since the end of the wedding he hadn't been more than ten feet from her at all times.  He didn't want to lose sight of her as he had an overwhelming and irrational fear that if he couldn't see her, she would disappear once again.  And that this time she wouldn't come back.  He didn't have to worry as she never left him behind.  She stayed close by Aurora and Phillip for the most part.

When he did take a few steps away to gather drink or food for them he would turn back to find her eyes searching for him in the small crowd around her.  He would retake his place at her side and offer her some of the food he had just gathered which she would take easily.  If he was in his raven form he would have rubbed his head against her cheek to remind her that he was never going far from her again.  As it stood, he was in his human form and could only offer her the snacks from his plate or a warm look to ease her worries.

A few of the Dark Fey would come and talk with her, meet the almighty phoenix who defeated death and were introduced to her very human-like raven.  She would grin politely, but he felt her tense at their many questions.  She hated the extra attention.  On top of that, it was her daughter's wedding day, not any special day of Maleficent's. Something akin to her protectiveness toward Aurora would bubble near the surface as some of the Fey, still not aware of human customs would go so far as to completely ignore the bride.  Maleficent's temper could be seen through her eyes as a light sheen of green would overcome her irises.  Diaval would be quick to put a supporting hand at her back and she would relax instantly, her feathers brushing against the back of his hand as they resettled.  Always her savior from herself.

Now, here he sat on the balcony as his mistress made ready for bed inside.  Down below, he saw the many campfires of the Dark Fey as they camped for the night.  Many would begin their journey to settle in the Moors come the morning.  Then there was also the grieving to be had.  Both sides lost entirely too much in Ingrith's war.  He, himself almost lost his whole world.  For a few heart shattering moments he actually did.

“Just what are you thinking on so intently?” Maleficent asked from the doorway into the room, “I have barely heard anything from you all evening.”

“Day's events mostly,” Diaval answered and turned to her.  She had unwrapped her hair and it laid over her shoulders on either side of her slender neck.  Her black dress was changed out for a heavy night shift that was probably borrowed from Aurora or one of the many ladies in waiting.  He noticed that it was one that had tied in the back, thankfully perfect for her wings.  He also noticed that it was much too plain for her to wear.  She deserved something more, but she still made anything look beautiful.  Her bare feet lightly tapped on the stone work underfoot as she took a few steps toward him.

“You're staring,” she frowned slightly and pulled at some of her hair over one shoulder.  

“Apologies, Mistress,” he bowed his head to her and then jumped down from the railing to stand at her side.

“Just what about the day were you thinking on?” she asked for conversation sake.  She needed distraction that Diaval often provided, “The yummy cakes and food that you pilfered during that hasty reception?”

“Pilfered?!  You say that as if those tasty morsels weren't meant for me,” he smirked after he noticed the light tilt of the corner of her lips and shook his head, “No, I was actually thinking on you.”

“On me?” her brow lifted in curiosity, “How so?”

“In the fact that you disappeared days ago, and that you reappeared just as suddenly and weren't really you,” Diaval took a deep breath and turned to look out over the hamlet of Ulstead and toward the hills of the Moors, “Then you died.”

Maleficent looked down at her hands that were folded on the railing that he had been seated on, “I came back.”

“That you did,” he nodded and turned to lean back on the railing to face her.  He looked her over and saw the same Fey that had saved his life more than two decades prior.  Her eyes downcast, a little lost and a bit sorrowful.  He shook his head just a bit, “... but you didn't know that you would.”

“You would have rather that I let her kill Aurora?” she asked with a growl and turned her head from him.

“Of course not,” he bit out and rubbed at his eyes in frustration and exhaustion, “I would have undoubtedly done the same.”

“Then why does it upset you?” she turned back to him, looking a little more worn than she had ever before.

“Why?” he asked with a little laugh in his voice and looked away toward the sky, “I don't know.  Could it be that when you fell from the sky and disappeared, I fell too?  Shifting in the air between man and raven, unable to know where you were or if you were injured. Wondering where you were for days  and hoping that maybe you had just left and weren't-”

He stopped himself and then began to pace the small balcony.  He licked at his lips before he continued, “Then you came back and all I wanted to do... was something I couldn't do as a bear.  And then the moment that you were gone- that you died... I turned back into a raven.  I turned back into my beautiful self and tried -desperately tried to fly to that tower.  Because I knew that something happened to you.  Something was gone from inside me and I didn't feel like me anymore.  Something was missing and my whole world stopped.”

His legs ceased pacing as he paused in his tirade and looked at his hands as if they were still his wings.  Wings that were only able to fly him measly feet from where he had fallen down as a bear.  Wings that weren't as impressive as he once thought.  Wings that were no longer hers because she was gone.

Maleficent didn't move from her spot at the railing as she knew that this was something he needed.  He kept this inside all night to make sure that Aurora would remember the good of her wedding day.  She knew this because she had done the same.

“Diaval-”

“I am not done,” he put up a finger toward her and finally turned to her, “For those agonizing moments that you were gone.  I was afraid.  I realized that you were dead because it didn't feel like it was when you were missing.  It didn't feel like it did when you disappeared.  It felt like everything changed for the worse.  It felt like nothing... numb and empty.  Where you had given me so much more soul and being was just gone.”

His breathing was ragged as he stood in front of her, his eyes glossy, but no tears fell.  He rolled his shoulders and shook his head as he took his turn to look at his hands, “And then you were back.  This exquisite, majestic phoenix that silhouetted the sky. Everything that I lost in those moments before rushed back- then I promptly fell to the ground back in a man's form. My face flush against the lawn.”

She couldn't help the small snicker that came unbidden.

He looked back at her with a sad smirk on his face, “It took me a moment or two to realize I needed to get back up to run.”

“Away from me?” she finally spoke, a slight crack to her voice.

“Towards you,” he corrected with a confounded look.

“Didn't you say that you were afraid?”

“When you weren't there, yes.  As a phoenix, you took my breath away.  You were the most amazing bird I had ever seen.  Your voice shook the very foundation of all of Ulstead.  Your wings caught and saved Aurora.  And your feathers, though they were black as night, radiated in beauty.  I was in awe of you.”

“Awe can go both ways,” she turned away again and faced the open air of the night.

He heaved a breath and stood directly beside her, his shoulder touched hers, “There is only one thing in the world that I'm afraid of.”

“Me?” she asked half joking and half seriously.

“Losing you,” he said confidently and risked to grab her hand in his.  His fingers curled around hers and he brought her hand to his chest.  Her breath hitched slightly and she spun her head to look at him.   He looked back into her eyes with hope, “I felt what it was like to lose you completely.  I now know for a fact that I can surmount anything that this world throws at me, as long as you are still in it.  Please don't leave it again without taking me with you.”

His hand squeezed hers and she felt what had to be tears gathering. She took a shallow breath, “Do you know what my biggest fear is?”

“Losing Aurora?”

“Besides the Beastie?” she nodded as she acquiesced to the exception as it was probably one of his as well.  He shook his head as he didn't have another guess.  She put her free hand on her heart and looked him directly in his eyes, “This.  This, that's happening right now.”

His brows furrowed.

Her hand left her chest and cupped the side of his face, “I am so afraid of everything that has to do with love, that I refused to see it in your eyes.  Until now.”

“So, you're afraid of me?” he asked, his eyes narrowed in the attempt to understand.

“I could never be afraid of you,” she shook her head, “I am afraid of what I may do to your heart and to my own.  I am so afraid that love will always lead to disaster.  My love will always lead to a horrible end.  That's why I am afraid.  Because I will hurt anyone that dares to love me and I am not worth it.”

Diaval dropped the hand he had held against him.  Both his hands came up and held her face gently so that her eyes didn't leave his.  She looked so defeated that she didn't even try to fight against him.  He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers and took a deep breath in through his nose to take in her scent.  He felt her hands grip at his wrists.  She didn't try to pull away, she didn't try to escape him.  She pulled herself closer to him and his warmth.

“You are worth it all,” he said slowly and didn't release her gaze, “You are worth the million and one shifts from bird to human – to horse – to bear – even to dog.  You are worth every moment that I am without my feathers.  You are worth everything.  You are worthy of love.”

“Even of yours?” she asked quietly.

“You're the only one worthy of mine,” he answered with a smile, “I love you and I refuse to let this end horribly.  It won't, because it won't end.”

She searched his eyes quickly and then leaned forward to catch his lips with hers.  Her hands tightened at his wrists so he wouldn't run from her, but she didn't need to as his hands tenderly ran in through her hair and pulled her closer.  The kiss broke a moment later and he nudged the side of her face with his nose much like he would do with his head as a raven.

“What do you fear now?” he whispered.

“Losing you.”

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

[secret-vore-lair]

An Offer

Posted this a while ago on my main, but in an effort to consolidate all my stories in one place, here it is again! I do hope you enjoy. Willing vore ahead, and safe as always. Featuring the ever lovely Vayreltr and a savvy human morsel.

Arenin is deposited roughly onto the plateau. Her heavy satchel thuds down a second later, rolls of canvas spilling out onto the worn stone. Then comes the massive, colorful blur that carried her here, landing with a heavy grace several paces in front of her. It slinks around to face her, silent except for a shuffling of its feathery wings as it tucks them in close to its sides. For the first time she gets a good look at her abductor.

“You’re a dragon, aren’t you?” she says, shocked.

The dragon grins at her, their featureless orange eyes and elongated face difficult to read.

“Is that really what you want to ask me?” The creature’s voice is an odd mix of animal growl and noble sophistication. Like a stormcloud with particularly good diction.

Arenin shifts uneasily in place. The dragon is sitting back on their haunches, watching her intently, tail flicking to and fro. She wants to stand up, but she fears it will entice the creature to attack her if their intentions are hostile. If she is to escape, she’ll have to take stock of the situation and make a plan. Not upsetting the status quo will give her more time.

“You make a fair point; I suppose it’s obvious what you are.” Arenin glances around. The stone shelf upon which they sit is probably about a hundred feet wide, and higher up than that. By how much she doesn’t know. Distance was hard to judge from the panicked confines of the dragon’s talons as she was carried up from the plains below. She can see the ocean stretching out to meet a cloudless blue horizon. Shame, she thinks. It’s such a fine day in all other respects. If she’s to get down from here, a drop into water is her best chance. Unfortunately, the sea side of the plateau is at the dragon’s back. She’s going to have to get past them.

The dragon continues to stare at her expectantly, flashing that same unnerving smile. Those teeth look sharp.

She sighs. It’s not a good plan, but as soon as the dragon makes a move, she’ll be ready. Maybe she can get around them. Or, better, underneath them if they leap at her. Her bag is too cumbersome to take with her. She looks at it longingly. Two weeks of work mapping out the plains, all for nothing now. Unless this dragon’s got a use for her amateur cartography. Amusement, perhaps. And her drawing compass might make for an interesting toothpick.

Time to find out if any of this is even necessary, she thinks. Maybe they don’t mean any harm. Could be bored, looking to get a rise out of whatever hapless human comes along. They’ll be disappointed if they think they can ransom me. Thesmi’s too much of a miser to part with gold over an easily replaceable apprentice. She takes a deep breath. The dragon hasn’t moved. One way to find out what they want.

“Are you going to eat me?” She asks. She tries to make it sound lighthearted. Like the two of them are in on a little joke together. But her voice catches. The fear and the adrenaline bleed through. Now or never.

The dragon’s grin gets wider, baring more teeth, stretching the teal-blue scales beneath their eyes. “I intend to, yes.”

There is a long second of stillness. Quiet.

And then Arenin says, “Huh.”

The dragon cocks their head. “Surely this answer cannot surprise you.”

“It doesn’t,” Arenin says, carefully. “But I kind of expected you to pounce on me after I asked. Narratively, that would have been the time to do it. Now we’ve lost all the tension.” She makes a round, all-encompassing gesture to illustrate exactly how much of the tension was lost.

The dragon scratches at the ground absentmindedly as they ask, “Pounce on you? Is that how you want this to happen?”

“Are you asking me how I want this to happen?”

“That was more or less exactly my question, yes.”

Arenin can’t believe what she’s hearing. She stands up, fists clenched. “Is this a game to you? Do you lack the decency not to play with your food? Come on, just get it over with already!”

Sinuous and liquid, the dragon eases closer to her quicker than she can realize it’s happening, unfolding and taking a mere two steps to divide the gap between them in half. Arenin staggers back, heart pounding furiously as the fear strikes her anew. She grits her teeth and recovers her posture. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction, she thinks.

The dragon stops when they see her reaction. She could be imagining it, but their face looks … sorry? Surprised and regretful that they scared her. Perhaps a little hurt. “Listen,” they say. “I think we have a slight misunderstanding.” They place a claw over their heart. “Vayreltr. What may I call you?”

It takes her a moment. “Arenin,” she says.

“Arenin. Arenin. Yes, well, it is a pleasure to meet you. As you know, I have brought you up to this spectacular perch because I intend to eat you. I have said as much. However, what I intend may differ greatly from what transpires today. I will consume you only if you wish it.”

Arenin narrows her eyes. “What’s the catch? I obviously don’t ‘wish it’.” She throws up a pair of air quotes. “Are you going to leave me to rot up here is I refuse?”

“There is no ‘catch’,” Vayreltr says, awkwardly mimicking the gesture. It’s so absurd, on top of everything else that’s happened, to see a dragon do air quotes that Arenin almost loses it right then and there. But she restrains herself. This is serious business. Vayreltr continues to speak. “If you say no, I will escort you safely to the ground myself. I will even fly you to your destination. You will make better time than if I had not interrupted your trip. I will do so right now, if you desire, and we will part ways. If you stay, I will speak to you, and through no coercion attempt to convince you to step between my jaws. If you find yourself in my stomach it will be on your own terms. What I am counting on, of course, is that you are curious. The idea that you could be persuaded to become my prey seems improbable, does it not?”

“You’ve got that right. More like impossible.”

The dragon nods, undeterred. “If you leave, you will never find out how I plan to do it. If you stay, I will answer any question you ask of me honestly. I will tell you no lies. I will never harm you. If my goal is, as you say, impossible, then you risk nothing, and I will have embarrassed myself. What say you?”

Arenin considers it. It’s stupid. If they say you can go, you should go. She chews her lip. I’m not exactly in any rush to get back to town, though. Besides, how many people get to talk to a dragon? She looks Vayreltr up and down. They’re exceedingly vibrant, with hide the green-blue color quite unlike anything but the turquoise stones she’d seen some of the nobles wear from time to time, a pale lavender underbelly, and broad, birdlike wings sporting a brilliant spray of blue, purple, pink, and green feathers. Though undoubtedly enormous, Vayreltr is a sleek and striking presence, unlike the rough, bestial dragons she’s heard about in tavern stories.

Finally, that most dangerous of thoughts slips into her mind. She says it out loud.

“What’s the harm? Sure, I’ll stick around for a while. You’ll answer whatever I ask you honestly?”

Vayreltr’s forked tongue flicks out in excitement. “Certainly.”

Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. “So do I just … start asking you things now?”

“If you like.”

“Okay. First off, is Vayreltr a male or a female dragon’s name? You’ll forgive me if I can’t tell.”

“It is my name.” The dragon folds their claws in front of them as they lie down before her. “And I do not fall into either category. So I suppose you could say it is neither.”

Arenin sits down, too. May as well get comfortable. “Sorry,” she says, “I hope that wasn’t a rude question.”

“I take no offense.”

Arenin nods. “So, uh, what makes you think I’ll agree to being dinner for you?”

“Direct, are we not?” Vayreltr chuckles. It sounds like a small earthquake. “Well, the odds of it actually happening are admittedly not as great as I would like. I will tell you this: should you choose to have this experience, you will not perish. You will not be harmed in the slightest. I will even endeavor to make it enjoyable for you. It only seems fair that I do so.”

“And how would you accomplish … any of that?” She tries to sound detached, like she isn’t seriously considering the idea already. She certainly shouldn’t be, she thinks. But it’s been on her mind since the moment she felt herself rising from the ground in a powerful, alien grip. What was once desperate fear has now given way to reluctant curiosity.

Vayreltr thinks. “Before I answer that for you,” they begin, “would you tell me whence you travel?”

Arenin hesitates. “Cromaedil. In the valley to the north. Why do you want to know?”

“That is, what, another two days’ travel on foot? You are not carrying much. You plan on stopping at a town along the way.”

“Um, yeah. Why the sudden concern with my travel plans?”

Vayreltr is looking out over the sea. The world around them is strange, a featureless shelf, and then the sky, and everything else far below. The unfamiliar perspective is obvious with the land because of the shrunken trees, but the sea does not suffer for the distance. Vayreltr says, “The sun will go down soon. The night will be cold. Should you opt for me to swallow you, you will find my belly warmer than a bed in any inn. I have ways of keeping you, enchantments that will ensure you experience no harm, no pain. The place you rest will be made safe for you, and comfortable. Come morning I will release you, and carry you to your destination, and you will have no need to face the dangers along the way.”

Vayreltr turns to her, craning their neck down to be on her level. “I know what I ask of you is strange, but I implore you to consider it anyway.”

Arenin is perplexed by her own behavior. Those jaws, the ones she feared only minutes ago might engulf her— Still might, she thinks, before shoving that particular thought into a dark corner of her mind— they’re so close to her right now, but she doesn’t flinch away. Her stomach clenches up. It was easier to be frightened, or even mystified. Now she doesn’t know what to think. “Um … if you eat me, you’ll fly me to Cromaedil, and I’ll skip the trip. No paying for a room. No waving a torch at wolves.”

Vayreltr’s featureless gaze is as silent as their voice as they wait for her to continue. Hunger tempered with monolithic patience. Watching. Anticipating. Arenin’s mouth is a bit dry. Vayreltr’s is not. She can see them salivating. “But if you don’t eat me,” she says, “then you’ll still take me there? All the same?”

The dragon nods. “That is correct. Or any other place you would like to go. Within reason, of course.”

“So to clarify, there’s no reason for me to choose the path that leads, well…” She indicates with her upturned palms the towering form of the dragon before her. She gulps. “Inside.”

“I am not incentivizing any particular choice, if that is what you mean. It would be unjust. If you choose to have me surround you, I would hope it is because you choose it on its own merits; that is, in much the same way as I desire the satisfaction and closeness you could give me by allowing me to consume you, you may desire the warmth and comfort I could give you by allowing you to shelter yourself within me.”

“You’re a really eloquent speaker.”

“Only on subjects in which I am well versed.”

“You realize saying you’re an expert at eating people doesn’t exactly help make your case, right?”

Vayreltr raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Does it not?”

Gods, what’s this feeling, now? “Okay, okay, okay,” Arenin says, a little quicker than she means to, “this is … a lot to think about. What if I need some time to consider it?”

“Then time you shall have. Eventually I will need to move on, though, and find another with which to fill my stomach. You may stay as long as you like, though once you leave you may have trouble reaching me again.”

Arenin watches the reddening of the sky. Feels the deepening chill in the soft winds around them. She makes up her mind.

She turns back to her strange companion. “This is not at all how I expected today to go, but … I’m glad we met. This conversation was extraordinarily weird, and I didn’t realize how much I needed that. So, it was nice to have met you, Vayreltr. But I’ve made my choice not to stick around. In any capacity. So I’m going to ask that you take me to Cromaedil. It was nice to have met you. I already said that.” She nods abruptly and throws her satchel over her shoulder. “You, uh, think it’ll go like this the next time I meet a dragon?”

Vayreltr stands. “To my knowledge, you are unlikely to have occasion to safely explore this possibility with another dragon. This is the result of both the scarcity and general disposition of my kind. Though if we should again cross paths, I will not deny you. The dearth of willing meals, I suspect, is also due to both scarcity and disposition. Few humans have been agreeable enough to hear my offer, and when it comes to sentient prey, I cannot bear to disagree with what I eat.”

They shake their head. “My apologies. I am rambling in an attempt to mask my disappointment. I enjoyed getting to know you as well, Arenin. I wish you nothing but kindness in your travels. Do try to avoid being captured by dragons in the future. Something tells me most of them would not know how to show you the appreciation you deserve.”

They offer their claw to her, and she steps into their grasp. As their talons curl carefully around her, and they spread their wings in preparation for departure, she says, “You’re going to keep your word. You’re really going to let me go.”

“Of course.” They back up for a running leap.

Arenin takes a deep breath. Can’t lose her nerve now, or it’ll be too late. “Hey, Vayreltr?” she calls out, “You may be fast, but it’s still a long trip. I don’t want to freeze to death, so maybe I should ride in your mouth?”

The dragon is still.

For the first time, there’s a catch in Vayreltr’s voice as they say, “Are you certain?”

“And after you put me in there,” Arenin continues nervously, “maybe we don’t have to go anywhere tonight, after all?”

“Are you suggesting … what I think you are suggesting?”

Arenin can’t help but laugh at the absolute shock on Vayreltr’s face. “I’m— oh, oh gods, I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you. I mean, I am, but it’s just because I was so anxious and now it’s… You’re…” She stops. She wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes. “You’re kind of adorable when you’re caught off guard, you know that? Your neck feathers fluff up and everything.” Maybe it’s the light, but she thinks she sees the dragon blush. There’s a look of absolute panic on their face. “Oh, take the compliment,” she says, smiling. “There’s no shame in it.”

She sighs. “Look, Vayreltr, seriously … I feel bad about it, but I wasn’t entirely honest with you. I only turned you down because I wanted to make sure I could trust you.  The truth is … oh, this is weird to admit, but you convinced me. I actually want to try it. With you. I hope that’s still okay.”

“You … you mean that?” The dragon lifts her up to eye level.

She tries to cross her arms, but is thwarted by her position in the dragon’s grip. She ends up resting them atop one of Vayreltr’s claws as she might on a table. “I’m as surprised as you are. But yeah, I mean it. So, do we just—”

Vayreltr’s cavernous maw yawns open before her.

Arenin’s bag falls back to the ground.

“Yeah, alright. Cool.”

Arenin sighs and puts her head down with a splat, gathering up the tongue beneath her like a pillow. After the day she’s had, it feels cozier in here than she could have dreamed. “I know you can’t exactly respond with me in here,” she says. “That’s okay. I’m fine with doing all the talking right now.” She feels their warm breath swirling in the humid cavern above her. It’s an odd notion that she could get used to this, but the truth is … she could. She had thought she’d need to tune out the reality of where she is to feel at ease with the situation, but it turns out not to be necessary. I’m in a mouth, she thinks. I’m in a dragon’s mouth, and it’s comfy. This is fine.

After a time, watching the slow trembling of the red and pink that holds her, she rolls onto her back. There seems to be no end to Vayreltr’s patience, but Arenin finds herself ready to take the next step. “You can gulp me down when you like, by the way,” she says. “I’ll be fine. Throat looks pretty inviting, if I’m being honest. Besides,” she adds, sitting up, “I bet you can’t wait to get me off your tongue. I know you’ve got a whole speech you’re dying to make. Probably going to spend the next hour and a half congratulating me on making the right choice.” That comment is greeted by a soft, quakey chuckle. She can’t help but smile. Their joy is infectious. “Well, lucky for you, I’ll be a captive audience soon enough, won’t I?”

[thesportssoundoff]

What Happens When You Take A Bad Idea And Make It Worse? LET’S TALK ABOUT THE BRAWL FOR ALL!

Joey

March 11th

The Mother Fucking Brawl For All.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd actually get around to this but there are miracles around us and what better time than now? The Brawl For All is generally regarded as one of the worst ideas of all time in a business with an entire genre dedicated to grown men and women smashing each other with fluorescent light tubes and slamming one another on beds of nails and thumbtacks. In a business that up until the mid 80s featured nazis goose stepping around and up until 2003 or so regularly and routinely featured women wrestling in their bloomers, the Brawl For All is the one idea that every human being unanimously believes was a disastrous failure. It's the one unanimous tire fire that not even it's most ardent supporter can put out. Not even WCW's junkyard battle royale which featured multiple injuries due to WCW not gimmicking the cars and just having guys taking bumps onto cars and through glass windshields is hated this much. The Brawl 4 All is one of those things people can't even sum up with "It was bad!" and move on. You have to go through layers and layers and levels of badness. You have to view it almost as an affront to your sensibilities, as a personal attack on you as a fan. Hell not just as a fan but as a human being!

Vince McMahon and company have failed in previous ventures before and ventures after. The XFL, the World Bodybuilding Federation, the ECW relaunch, 65% of the undercard Attitude Era angles, their really expensive WWE Films attempts. Some could even argue that the brand split originally was a failure in some respects given that Smackdown never really got going on its own and Raw declined sharply from the brand split onward. That said those failures at least had SOME inkling and morsels of promise behind them. Not the Brawl For All. It was a bad idea from the start, a bad idea during and made even worse by what happened afterwards. Also? The Brawl For All is one of those things that every wrestling fan and every wrestling personality has a hard opinion on, the kind of shit that lends itself to so much gossip, rumor and conversation. Over the next few weeks, I want to discuss the Brawl 4 All a bit more. I want to delve into it because it's as close as we'll ever get to a universal no hope no spin failure by the WWE and because...well...it's one of my favorite fuck ups of all time. It's always been something that fascinated me from watching it live as a casual fan to laughing at it as a smart fan when I stumble across it to making a near yearly pilgrimage to youtube to watch every single fight of it I can find before it got yanked. It's one of those wrestling stinkers that like December 2 Dismember or the Heroes Of Wrestling card that I'm magnetically attracted to. Every wrestling fan FEELS for the Brawl For All even if those feelings are utter disdain for everyone involved with it.

The Concept And How Fucked It Was From Jump

To get why this even happened, you have to go back in a time capsule. Despite catching fire in 1998, the WWF (for the purpose of being as thorough as possible here, we're gonna call 'em as they were when this happened) is still struggling to keep track with WCW Nitro. They're in the midst of an 83 week long ass eating from Ted Turner's Atlanta based wrestling promotion and "good ideas" are running dry. Understand that at this point the WWF has the single hottest property in the business but that sole property isn't enough to get over the hump vs the NWO, the cruiserweights, an ascending Bill Goldberg, Bret Hart, the return of Sting and what was genuinely just a better overall card. Even if Wrestlemania 14 gave birth to so many great stories going forward (Austin vs McMahon, the hard reboot of DX as a faction, Kane vs Undertaker's first match), WCW is in the midst of its highest grossing year ever. Vince McMahon has James Harden putting up 50 points a night and winning on his back but he's still looking up to the Golden State Warriors. Making matters worse, both companies are in the pro wrestling equivalent of an arms race.  Remember how when the UFC and Bellator in 2014 and 2015 signed anybody with a pulse because they were trying to fill up two insanely bloated schedules? It's a bit like that. Anybody who is good (and not a walking flag factory so to speak) is either in WWE or WCW at this point which means if you ONLY have two hours of content, you've got a lot of guys doing nothing.

The Brawl For All on its surface and without malice seems like an awful idea to try and remedy that. Pit sixteen dudes in a shoot tournament and let them go at it with set rules in place. It gets guys on TV, gives them something to do and at the end, in theory, the winner doesn't just get a big financial prize but come out in the end as a star. It's a chance to do something with a section of guys who are doing absolutely nothing at all. Sounds good, riiiiight? Well now let's break into some sexy rumor mongering about what this really was about:

-We can start with the mastermind! Vince Russo is the man who apparently concocted this concept which should be somewhat redeemable if what I laid out above was entirely 100% accurate. It's not entirely the case, even according to Russo's own words. Per Vince Russo, a large reason the Brawl For All came to be was that he had a beef with one of the wrestlers (Bradshaw aka John Bradshaw Layfield aka that guy who got flattened by ring announcer Joey Styles) consistently bloviating that he was the toughest guy in the locker room. Right off the jump, any sort of noble designs are whittled away. Now often in pro wrestling, there's 100 different stories to the same single event often shared by people IN the same room. Imagine how pronounced it is that a) everybody agrees that it was Russo's idea, b) everybody is under the impression that it was over a tiff with a pro wrestling with no shoot fighting experience and c) EVERYBODY agrees it was one of the worst concepts imaginable. The Brawl For All's entire seed was planted not so much out of a design to get guys work and on TV but out of wanting to see a loud dude get punched up. That's insanity out the gate.

-The Brawl For All was by invitation only and depending on who you believe, the process to select wrestlers was rather...exclusive. Bruce Prichard discusses in his podcast with Conrad Thompson that he was the guy who had to round up the talent to fill enough spots in the tournament. Prichard says he had to play to the egos of wrestlers and in a separate interview, Bart Gunn talks about how he got recruited basically by another member of the writing team as well. The name Bart Gunn will become pretty important down the line so jot that down in your notebooks real quick. Wrestlers were recruited with what seems like a pretty easy enough pitch and one I'd imagine that the UFC uses today  with their fighters; basically a "I mean don't you believe you're the toughest dude here?!" and a "We'll pay you!" and we're off to the races. Despite this, the Brawl For All struggled to get people to fill in the spots in no small part due to the fact that no star is going to partake in an absolutely stupid concept like this when they can just make their money being a star. The Brawl For All isn't even a TUF; it's a PFL tournament where all the dudes nobody else wants are lumped into a tournament format with the golden carrot of a $100,000 prize at the end of it.

-Perhaps worth more than the $100,000 prize was the either legit or illegitimate golden carrot of the winner getting to work a program with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. Understand that no one single act was as hot and drawing as much money at this time as Steve Austin was. He was the it guy, the biggest star in the business and noway near close to peaking as a talent either. The Brawl For All $100,000 prize? That's cool and all  plus that was basically the downside guarantee for a year's worth of work. The opportunity to work with Stone Cold on a pay per view? That's the big money ticket. That's the opportunity to be a made man like how working with Hogan in the 80s was. For top guys, that opportunity may come along at any given point. Again going back a bit to TUF and the PFL, imagine if the UFC offered eight of its guys the chance to compete in a tournament for $100,000. Enticing! Now imagine the winner gets to fight Conor McGregor on a PPV. Tell me if it doesn't get every guy not named Khabib and Tony Ferguson jumping into it. That would be a great no doubt can't miss opportunity!

EXCEPT

-It was probably a lie. Scratch that. We can factually tell that any sort of Austin match for the winner was a lie since every person involved (sans one) says it was real and the winner never actually got said shot. Imagine if the tournament wasn't build on anything truthful but instead on a "The winner will be in the mix" from Dana White. While Bruce Prichard says there was no official plan for the winner to face Steve Austin, everybody else involved from talent to wrestling guru Jim Cornette seems to suggest there WAS a plan in place for the winner to win. That is, assuming of course, the winner was the guy they thought was going to win all along. More on that in the future but just know that the Brawl For All's fighters were flirted with a hush hush unofficial promise of facing Steve Austin that was probably never going to be fulfilled unless won by a specific party. Bart Gunn says he was told the winner would face Stone Cold and well....more on that at another time. Let's just say sports entertainment and combat sports have a long storied history of perhaps listening to the matchmakers a bit too closely.

-The rules for the Brawl For All? Well those were a mess. According to Bruce Prichard, the rules were still being worked out the week of. According to Steve Blackman (a dude who Bob Holly admits would've won the whole thing), there were plans to allow leg kicks and those rules just happened to get yanked the week of. The glove size seems to change depending on who you ask as the WWF says they were 16 ounce gloves but Bart Gunn argues repeatedly they were 22 ounce gloves. Some of the guys admittedly didn't even think it was a shoot fight either and at least one fighter fought thinking it was a work. According to Bart Gunn, even halfway through the tournament he kept expecting it to be a work suddenly.  The "official" Brawl For All rules had points for takedowns, points for a knockdown and points for more punches thrown across three one minute rounds. The scorecard part doesn't even matter at this point. To be honest, it didn't even matter then.

So let's talk about the big problem here

So imagine putting together a tournament designed around the concept of "Who's the toughest guy!" in a show where the audience is conditioned to believe that the toughest guy is the world champion or if the champion is a heel, the toughest guy is the babyface chasing said champion. We already in theory know who the toughest guy is or at least we're willing to suspend our disbelief. Also if we're to believe that the winner of the tournament is the toughest guy in the company, why aren't the big name tough guys we've been told are the tough guys competing in it? The concept falls flat right there on its own but the hole isn't deep enough. We gotta go from six feet to nine feet so now imagine that you've come up with this concept that pees on the first rule of your product. Make it worse. Make it so that the audience is being told to believe that what they see HERE AND ONLY HERE is legitimate.  NOTHING is as frustrating in pro wrestling as "a shoot." For those not addicted to sports entertainment meth, a shoot is something on the program that the audience is led to believe is real. Now for something to be "real" on a show that's already "real" then that in turn means what we're seeing is fake, right? So a "real fight" on pro wrestling ultimately means that what we're seeing is fake. Now most wrestling fans since the 70s and 80s have probably believed wrestling in some form or fashion is/was not real. We accept it as entertainment and as Jerry Jarrett once lovingly put it "theater of the illiterate." The key is to not remind us that what we're seeing is clearly fake (a problem wrestling fans seem to be having right now with Ronda Rousey). Reminding the audience that what they're saying is predetermined scripted fakeness and then asking them to invest into the REAL portion of the product that breaks their illusion only works if a star is doing it. It doesn't work if a bunch of random dudes and mid carders are doing it. Imagine if in the middle of one of those UFC Embedded gimmicks, we saw Conor McGregor rehearsing the press conference lines and then he went out to try and sell his beef with Cowboy Cerrone as legitimate. You've already hurt the audience's feelings and the Brawl For All actively did that at a time where all WWF fans wanted was to watch Stone Cold kick ass and DX make inappropriate jokes. You've brought DOWN the segment.

So now we're nine feel into the hole. Let's go sixteen feet deep. Nope! Let's go from here to fuckin' middle earth on this bad boy; pro wrestling is a TEAM effort. It requires two or more able bodied people to work together to create a magnificent fake fight spectacle that tells a story and ends with you becoming emotionally invested in its finish and what's to come. That requires participation. Now come up with a tournament where guys are going to beat the holy shit out of one another FOR REAL and then have to go back to participating with one another as if nothing happened! Every single wrestler involved in the Brawl For All has spoken about the bad blood and residual effects the Brawl For All had. Also remember these are not trained fighters either. Some of these guys are amateur wrestlers who probably haven't done that for years. Some dudes dabbled in kickboxing or BJJ on their spare time or in years outside of wrestling had some formal combat sports . Some of these guys were bodybuilders by trade and some of these dudes were just pro wrestlers who happened to have a few "So and so cleaned out a bar room with one hand and six beers!" type magical fishing trip stories. So you're taking a bunch of ego driven (some chemically enhanced) guys and sending them out there to beat each other up on a Monday or a Tuesday and then magically get over it in time to make the house show loop where they're going to team together. We've officially come out the other end through China, folks.

And yet despite all of this very obvious right in front of our faces warning signs, the Brawl For All existed.

Next time we'll talk about who was in it a bit more---and why IF the Brawl For All had a true tertiary motive designed to elevate one guy to superstardom, it was an even bigger failure than humanly possible.

[theunseeliemperoress]

Ultimate Custom Night: Voice’s

(I’ve decided to make a post of all the lines from the game [not including phone guy’s] and give my analysis/opinion on them)

This is the video I used as a ref

Foxy: “Yar I came for ye booty. That be treasure you know.” “Yar. You never stood a chance.” “I can’t run like I used to. But I can pull my self apart just fine.” (Could refer to how he’d run at you in the first game) “Arr. So much more spacious in here. I may stay a while.” “Yar har har. Never underestimate the cunning of a pirate. Or a fox for that matter.” He sounds exactly how I thought he would.

Nightmare Fredbear:  “Let’s see how many time’s you can be pulled apart.” (pulling things/being pulled apart seems to be a reoccurring theme) “I assure you I am very real” “This time there is more than an illusion to fear.” (Both lines could be about how in FNAF 4 none of the animatronics are real) “We know who are friends are. But you are not one of them.” “Let me put you back together. And  then take you apart all over again.” I like how his voice is gruff and distorted (actually I like how all the fnaf 4 animatronics have distorted voices). It also sounds layered to me. Or there could be a second voice underneath.

Happy Frog: “Everyone underestimates me. But then they turn their back and I’m like boo! And their like wagh!” “Move over Freddy Fazbear! Happy Frog is the new star of the show.” “We’ve only just begun. I will never let you leave. I will never let you rest.” (Said in a whispered tone. Sounds more sinister than her usual voice) “I bet you weren’t expecting me were ya? Turn your back for one second and I’m like wozoo! Ninja skills.” “You and I don’t get to talk as often as I’d like.” Very cute voice acting. I like how they throw in one creepy line. That should throw a few people off.

Jack-O-Chika: (voice is distorted) “I am a burning reminder of your misdeeds.”) “Greetings from the fire and the one you should not have killed.” (Player character killed someone. Who? My theory at the moment is they’re the purple guy (or maybe one of them) and they’re in hell. But we’ll see if that sticks) “Did things get really hot in here? Or is it just me?” “Come and burn with me. The fire burns eternal. And now you shall as well!” (Further supports my hell theory) A lot of their lines contain hints towards the lore. But due to the distortion they can be hard to hear. Typical of fnaf lore (in plain sight but hard to decipher). My fave voice from the fnaf4 animatronics.

Lefty: (whispers everything) “Shhh...Come spend eternity inside. With me.” (Inside where?) “Shhh...I’ve been looking for you. And now I’ll never let you go.” “Shhh...I’m so glad that I found you. Let me make room for you.” “Shhh...It will all be over soon.” “Shhh...There is room for one more.” (One more in the suit?) His voice is actually one of the creepiest to me. Especially as it sounds like a little boy.

Mangle: “I wanted to wait till just the right moment to drop in.” “It’s so much more fun hanging out in here with you.” “He’s here. And always watching. The one you shouldn’t have killed.” (”The one you shouldn’t have killed” is mentioned a lot) “Don’t be afraid. Soon you will look just like me. Beautiful.” “Now I get to play take apart and put back together. You won’t feel a thing.” The fact they have a male and female voice actor makes me really happy.

Marionette: “The others are under my protection.” “Seeing you powerless is like music to me.” “The others are like animals. But I am very aware.” (Did the other children/victims loose their humanity? Why not this one?) “I don’t hate you. But you need to stay out of my way.” “I recognise you. But I’m not afraid of you. Not anymore.” (Further evidence player character was/is a killer) The childish voice makes an already creepy character creepier. Are they the one “You should not have killed?” (Though their voice sounds like a little girl and Mangled clearly say “He’s here”.)

Ballora: “I could hear you breathing.” “Admit it. You wanted to let me in.” “These are strange circumstances. That have brought us together.” “Don’t be shy. Why do you hide inside these walls?” Her lines are very flirty. Which seems strange.

Toy Chica: “Where’s my beak? Lodged in your forehead of course.” “*Giggles* You won’t get tired of dying will you? You won’t get tired of my voice? Will you?” (further evidence towards the hell theory) “Let’s go somewhere more private. So I can eat you.” Interesting but very fitting voice acting.  Nightmare Bonnie: “You will not be spared. You will not be saved.” “The shadows (indistinct) me. And (indistinct) you back to horror(?) “Your/You’re wickedness made of flesh.” “I’m here to claim what is left of you.” Creepy voice but I can barely understand anything he says

The Music Man: “Hear that. It’s the sweet sweet sound of your eternal silence.” “Hey keep it down would ya?” “When I’m here you play by My rules.” “A song was requested of me. And now I sing it.” “You and I will be making music together for a long long time.” A weird voice for a weird looking character.

Nedbear: “Stranger danger! *laughs* I was just waiting for you to drop your guard.” “Woops. That’s gonna leave a mark.” “This is how it feels. You get to experience it over and over and over again. Forever. I will never let you leave.” (A little girls voice can be heard just out of sync) “Don’t you hate getting killed by obscure secondary characters?” The hillbilly accent is fun. The little girls voice implies even these characters have dark secrets.

Nightmare Freddy (voice is distorted): “No light can save you now.” “I have always been hiding in your shadow.” “What a gift to relish a victim that can’t perish.” (Hell theory) “I am given flesh to be your tormentor.” “I am remade. But not by you. By the one you should not have killed.” Very creepy. Probably one of the easiest Nightmare to understand but still creepy.

Nightmare BB: “There just isn’t room in here for both of us.” “You knew I’d get you eventually.” “Come closer. Help me count my teeth.” “Flash that light all night/all you like. It can’t save you now.” “You’re not so big. Just a bite size morsel.”

Nightmarionette: (voice is distorted) “The nightmare is just beginning.” “Let’s taste (?) death again, and again and again.” “I am the fear of your reflection and the one you have created.” (The one you have created could be the Marionette) “This is a nightmare you won’t wake from.” (Hell theory?) “This time death can not save you.” (Hell theory) Voice is very hard to understand but very creepy.

Nightmare Mangle: Voice is covered by a lot of static and radio interference. I could hear something that sounded like “Come here come here” though it’s not clear.

William Afton:  “I always come back.”  Has a more human sounding voice despite being in a state of disrepair (like the nightmares and withered animatronics) which makes sense. The fact he and Springtrap are different animatronics throws a wrench in a few theories I’ve heard.

Orville Elephant: “I hope you enjoyed the grand finale.” “Now is my time to shine.” “He tried to release you. He tried to release us. But I’m not gonna let that happen. I will hold you here. I will keep you here. No matter how many times they burn us.” (a little girls voice can be heard just after his. Who are they?) “What did you think of my act? I don’t get out much. So you’ll have to forgive my enthusiasm. I love how he sounds like a sweet old man.

Pigpen: “Even monkey’s fall from trees.” “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” “The talented hog hides his claws.” “I consider it a dignified death. Not really it was actually quite pathetic.” “If you sit by the river long enough you’ll see the body of your enemy floating by.” The hillbilly voice really suits him, and the banjo makes me laugh.

Rockstar Bonnie: (Electronic voice, sings) “What a fine day to come here and say Your face and flesh I must flay” “What a treat, to come here and meet (?), your face as it hits concrete (?) “I found my guitar. now reach for the stars, As I bludgeon and pull you apart.” “Why so blue? You know I’ll be true. And now I’ll make slippers (?) out of you.” “So good to see you again. My truest friend. But now your life must end.” (Calls the player character his “truest friend”. Does he mean it? Why does he want to kill PC? Did PC kill him (if he’s one of the possessed animatronics)  Interesting how he’s the only one who sings.

Rockstar Chika: “That’ll teach ya for trying to trick this old bird.” “Thought you could fool me with that sign. But I was too smart for ya.” “I may not like wet floors but the smell of fresh meet is just too enticing.” “Looks like you’re the one who slipped up this time.” “That’s right. And don’t you come back now you hear.” Her voice makes me think of a female rockstar from the 70s or 80s.

Scrapbaby: “Time for your controlled shock.” (said two different ways) “Let’s see how many pieces I can cut you into.” “You won’t die. But you’ll wish you could.” (hell theory) Sounds just like Baby’s voice. (personally I’d have made it a little different but it’s fine as it is) Toy Freddie:  “It’s not my fault. I have these fat plastic fingers that can’t press the buttons.” “Mr hugs got me again.” “If I get jumpscared. You get jumpscared.” “That game was totally rigged.” “That’s what you get for leaving me hanging.” Voice could get annoying after a while.

Trash and the gang: (female voice, whispers) “Psst over here. Get closer.” “Excuse me could you come a little closer?” “Hey. Down here. Hello. I wanted to ask you something. Its something really important.” “Psst. I have something to tell you.” “Hey hey. I want to tell you something.” The voice seems to only be there to trick the player into listening more closely before they are jumpscared.

Rockstar Freddie: “Please deposit five coins.” (Said repeatedly during gameplay when active. After jumpscaring the player is said once and grinds to a stop)

Rockstar Foxy “Yar. Ye play with fire and sometime’s ye get burned.” Voice is very similar to Foxy’s but the slight difference is fitting.

Withered Bonnie: (voice has an electronic echo) “Time to face the consequences of your behaviour (?)” “Might as well face the facts. You were always destined to fail.” “You blinked.” “Why (indistinct)? Is it me (indistinct)? Or is it you? Perhaps it is us both.” “I’ve made (indistinct) fate. But (indistinct) taught (?)” Could someone please tell me what he’s saying?

Withered Chika: (Indistinct) through the vent. But now we are together.” “Let me show you how to break your face and look like me.” “I was the first. I have seen everything.” (The first what? Animatronic? Victim?) “Come closer. Let’s smile(?) together.” “I have seen him. The one you shouldn’t have killed.” The juttering voice is creepy though not the creepiest.

Baby: “I guess you forgot about me.” “Want to see the scooping room?” (Player character could be the main character from SL or Baby’s creator. Or both?) “Guess you forgot about me. Looks like something bad happened.”

Robot(?): “Now I will tell you a story.” “But he could not choose.” “He placed the remains together.” “He promised to never leave them.” Sounds like the War of the Worlds CD my mum has. Who’s story is it telling? The player characters? The Marionettes? 

Mr Hippo: NOPE. NO. Not doing it. I’m not typing all his lines. I’d like to do other things today thank you very much. (His line “maybe I met some sort of demise of my own” is interesting though) Sounds like an old man.

[firjii]

Originally for @mistressdreadwolf…I can honestly say I don’t completely know what I was doing with this, but here ‘tis.  :D :D :D 

The plain text version is under the cut (hey, how about that, I’m actually trying to get  o r g a n i z e d  XD)  

Rating: General Audiences Words: 2036

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Additional Tags: mild angst, birthday, frilly cake, Haven, music, early/pre-relationship fluff, canonically ambiguous ideas about the Dalish and/or elves

Summary: Still troubled by Alexius’ actions, Ellana forgets an important occasion. Solas offers her several simple but welcome surprises.

Though there had been fairly little time to spare, Solas had planned it quite meticulously, as efficient and practical about this matter as he was about everything else. He had consulted Leliana on the simplest plan of attack, utilized Josephine’s trade contacts, and even overseen the makeshift cooking arrangements in the Haven Chantry to be certain that all involved understood the gravity of the situation and the importance of the occasion. Cullen had protested for a moment when he’d realized that it would mean moving some of their soldiers to the valley on the other side of the frozen lake for the day – and perhaps the night – but the Herald was important. It had only taken an icy glare from Leliana to blunt the edge of his complaints.

Ellana had been exhausted since Redcliffe, perhaps from the Anchor or perhaps simply the events of the dark future. Too pragmatic to openly dwell on it with her advisors – but also too easily affected by chaos and selfishness to completely ignore what she had seen – it had instead been festering quietly inside, scarcely more evident than a distant stare or a weary sigh at times.

But it had persisted and endured, only rarely absent despite her companions’ best efforts and her allies’ straightforward counsel. More than once, she had been seen wandering in the hills on the pretext of hunting yet had returned empty-handed, an impossible outcome considering her skill with a bow. Any truly idle moment she’d had – and there were too few of those – was usually spent in seclusion or on sleep, though Solas had noted that her eyes had been rimmed and puffy for weeks. She hadn’t made any mention of the occasion. Mostly likely, she had genuinely forgotten the day altogether.

Solas waited outside her cabin, not daring to interrupt her rest. He didn’t need to wait long. After a few moments, he heard her pacing dully within. He clapped his elbows crisply behind his back as the door opened. “Good,” he chirped. “The scouts were correct. I was hoping to find you here.”

She rubbed her eyes, barely disguising a drowsy squint. “What’s happened now?” Her voice was phlegmy and flat. Her lips were pale, as if they hadn’t woken up as quickly as the rest of her.

“I only thought that you might appreciate a stout meal. A quiet stomach can lead to a quiet mind.”

“So can a decent night’s sleep.”

“Indeed. They tell me that you often wake with nightmares fresh in your eyes.”

“It’s alright. I’ll forget about it all eventually.”

“Perhaps, but you must be more careful with yourself until then.”

“Careful?” she lilted. “When there’s a hole in the sky that could widen at any moment?” But the offer of food proved too attractive for her to deny.

Solas’ feet pattered softly through the bright snow as Ellana’s soft boots crunched atop it with a comparative din. She glanced down at his bare toes, not for the first time. “Aren’t you worried about all the mud the soldiers track around?”

“I would think that one who has lived among the Dalish would be quite accustomed to dirt.”

She sobered. “‘One who has lived among the Dalish,’” she recited in a deflated tone.

He stopped. “I am sorry. It was a crude way to put it.”

She shook her head and walked on. “But you’re right. It’s true. No one’s made it a secret. I wasn’t born there. I’m not as Dalish as they are.”  

“Does that bother you?”

“Of course not. My mother fled the alienage for a reason.”

“I should not have mentioned it.”

She snorted as she rubbed the last of her sleep from her eyes. “Someone would have. It’s alright. Call it what it is. My father was human. I’m not an elf. I’m something else.”

“You were raised in the ways of the Dalish. They accepted your mother and they accepted you.”

“Only by luck. No one made them take us. It doesn’t happen often.”

“You were given vallaslin when the time came. You have more knowledge of the elvhen language and history than any city elf.”

She nodded. “And I look like a human.”

“Some have found profound freedom in belonging to no world at all.”

“Not if it means bare survival.”

He put two light fingers to her shoulder to make her stop her angular steps. “You are a capable hunter and a marvelous shot. Did you know that Sera sneaks off to watch you practice? I often see her slinking back here with a mouthful of foul remarks regarding your accuracy.”

Ellana frowned. “I didn’t know she cared.”

A quiet beam formed on his face. “Many Inquisition forces are taught rudimentary archery, but few truly excel at it.” One of his eyebrows danced upward as his chin descended. “Even if you were not the Herald, I would imagine that nearly everyone would care.” He ushered her on and opened the tavern door when they reached it.

She crossed the threshold with a sigh, but her shoulders jerked upward when she noticed the quiet in the room. The entire building was empty. “What’s wrong? Where did everyone go?”

Solas smiled as he watched her roam all the way to the far corners of the small tavern, as if expecting to find someone crouched behind a barrel or keg. “I explained that you disliked crowded spaces and needed a chance to be somewhere without fear of jostling.”

She hooked a sharp eyebrow at the same time that a trickle of a warm grin began forming. “And soldiers like Cullen agreed to that?”

“They tolerated it. That is enough for the time being.”

“And what time is that, hmm?” She slowly paced the deserted tavern.

Solas’ feet fidgeted a fraction, but he waited for silence to settle on them before he spoke. “Is today not your birthday?”

“I –” she faltered. She scowled lightly to herself. “I don’t know. My mother barely had time to settle into the clan before she fell ill. She told them a day, but no one was sure if it was my nameday or birthday. They’re not always the same thing in alienages. She didn’t know if she could hide me at first.” She sighed and gazed out the window. “But my father loved her. And she loved him. She must’ve done. She never spoke a cruel word about him. And I remember him – I think.” She tilted her head. “He helped me stay invisible until she could –” She scoffed softly and shrugged as she toed a random piece of straw on the floor. “Maybe that’s why I learned the bow so easily.”

“Indeed,” Solas agreed. He made to say something else, but instead, he gestured to a bench near the hearth. It scarcely looked like a bench now, though. Draped in a generous piece of thick, embroidered Orlesian silk – a dark jade to rival her eyes – the worn and splintered planks resembled a throne, the tired paintings on the wall somehow revitalized by their mere proximity to the finery. Another fine piece of cloth was arranged on the floor next to it, and several cushions – perhaps not Orlesian, but no less surprising in such a setting – were arranged all about.

But perhaps most surprising of all was a nearby platter heaped high – but artfully – with frilly cakes, the sort that the two elves had spent considerable discourse and speculation on but had not been fortunate enough to partake of after the fiasco in Val Royeaux.

Ellana stared at the scene, her mouth torn between confusion and amusement. “What’s this?”

His smile redoubled. “Come now. It would be unseemly not to give you a moment of happiness on a day like this.”

She wavered, but she remained silent. She shivered when a sudden gust assailed her.

He closed the thick door. A last whistle of air protested before it was shut out entirely.

The crackle of flames now had space to echo out in. Ellana gingerly strode to the bench and sat. Solas chose several of the frilly cakes from the platter and arranged them on a bone china saucer – another oddity next to the rest of the tavern. He held the saucer out and waited motionlessly as Ellana chose a two-bite with glimmering lavender icing and a sliver of strawberry perched atop it. She closed her eyes and bit into it greedily and unceremoniously, but her satisfaction soon rippled in generous waves across her face. Her shoulders even nudged up a fraction as she considered the delicate flavors mingling on her tongue.

“Do you like them?”

She took a long moment to interpret the experience. “Josephine tried to explain chocolate to me. I knew what it looked like, but –” She licked a rogue morsel from her lips.

“There are some residents of Val Royeaux who eat such fare at nearly every meal.” He gently arranged the dish on the bench and strode over to the bar counter. He produced the formidable instrument from a hidden corner, the curious object with a long neck and thick, overgrown-looking strings – an item which had never failed to astound its listeners given the unusually delicate, high pitches that regularly issued from it.

She watched him wrap his long fingers around it as he settled by the fire. “What are you doing?” she smirked.

“Our esteemed bard Halewell was kind enough to devise a new song for the occasion.”

“Maryden?”

He smiled at her surprised tone. “You have been spotted wandering outside at night after the forces have settled in for sleep but before the tavern puts out its candles. Some here even claim to have heard you humming a song when you think you are alone.”

“Not this sort of song. Lullabies.”

“And what point do you think I labored to make our woman of songs understand?”

“You can’t play it.”

“Oh? She certainly seems to have entrusted it to me.”

“I meant you don’t know how to use it.”

He became intent on tuning the strings. “One can learn a great deal of the world if one merely travels it with open eyes – and ears.”

He strummed and plucked and bent the notes. He played smooth strands of melody and harmony, chords and transitions. His modulation was so careful that Ellana scarcely noticed it. He kept the tune’s volume loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the hearth but quiet enough to avoid a jarring effect.

At first, Ellana’s face was bright with the possibility of learning the song, of memorizing its runs and leaps and dips, its repetition, its tricks. But soon, she studied Solas’ playing more than the song itself, the careful arcs and dips of his fingers a strangely compelling sight by the fire’s glow. He played with the same ease and fluency as Maryden, and yet it was – different. Her face briefly wavered near tears, but the same music that had almost induced them also chased them away.

The song stretched on for many moments, or perhaps he simply knew a clever way to play it over and over. Ellana’s eyes dulled. Her gaze became unfocused. Several times, she released a flurry of blinks, but her entire face had become slack. She moved down from the bench to the floor, scarcely more than a foot away from Solas now. But he was unfazed.

It had been the entire point of the occasion.

She reached for the cushions as she nestled between Solas and the hearth. The instrument occupied a great deal of his lap, but she leaned the cushion against his hip. She hugged one of the cushions loosely as she sat in stasis for a moment, drifting between sleeping and waking with the same ease that Solas had spoken of when anyone had asked him about the Fade. For a time, she fought off sleep, content to be still and surrounded by the restful notes.

But her eyes finally surrendered as he played the last wandering snatches of the song. She slept.

He deftly and silently shifted the instrument out of his lap. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He brushed her hair aside as his lips glanced her forehead once.

She slept.  

[bunnyjoyce-blog]

Passive Protagonists: On Thin Icing

Original can be read here.

Yes, I'm focusing on Jules Capshaw of the Bakeshop Mysteries series again. After watching this video regarding active and passive protagonists in the two Star Wars films, The Force Awakens and Rogue One, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsIQa7sH5_Y , I knew I had to touch upon why On Thin Icing by Ellie Alexander failed to live up to the promise on the book's back cover.

To reiterate: Tagline: Welcome to Torte -- a small-town family bakeshop where the treats are killer good. It's the dead of winter in the sleepy town of Ashland, which means no tourists--and fewer customers--for Jules Capshaw and her bakery. But when she's asked to cater an off-season retreat for the directors of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, business starts heating up...until Jules finds a dead body in the freezer. Someone at the retreat has apparently iced the bartender, a well-known flirt with a legendary temper--that is, before a killer beat him to the punch. Then, from out of nowhere, Jules's own ex-husband shows up at the resort--and soon becomes a suspect. With accusations piling up higher than the snow--and thicker than a chocolate mouse cake--Jules has to think outside the (recipe) box to find the real culprit...and make sure he gets his just desserts. However, accusations don't pile up higher than the snow or get thicker than a chocolate mouse cake. Jules does not have to think outside of the (recipe) box (if anything, she thinks too much about those recipes), and she does little in the way of making sure the killer gets his just desserts. I bought this book last year, and I only completed it recently because I had to force myself through it. I'm hoping that this is just a bad blemish on an otherwise awesome series. I really am. On the page which advertises the good reviews received for the first book, Meet Your Baker, there are four different praises. Portland Book Review says that book is "a real page-turner," so I'm hoping that if I ever find that one, I'll be pleasantly pleased with Jules and her detecting skills. However, that does not change what On Thin Icing gives us. Jules is a passive protagonist. Most of her focus as the main character is on cooking -- and not in the "Oh, I gotta get these meals finished, but the murder investigastion keeps pulling me away!" sense, but in the "Oh, let's go through each step of fixing each item on the menu in huge amount of detail -- breaking only to angst about how sexy my two love interests are -- and not even look for clues unless I just happen to stumble upon them." There are little bite-size moments when she does act like the amateur sleuth of a cozy mystery that she's supposed to be -- pretending not to pay attention when a woman goes looking for a wine bottle that had already been removed from the scene, asking questions when she just happens to be around a suspect -- but most of the plot, and her focus as the POV character, is not on the murder, but on cooking and her love triangle. When she does solve the mystery (through finding an envelope full of money), it is because she was looking for rum for one of her recipes rather than her actively searching for clues. I think this may have to do with this book being the 3rd in its series. Now that Ellie Alexander got the first book published, maybe she felt she did not have to put the same amount of effort into this book as she had with the first. Perhaps it was the pressure of making her sequels "similar but different" or to include the love triangle that led to her shortchanging Jules's personality. Or maybe she just really, really wanted to justify having those recipes at the back of the book. As I mentioned in my previous post, shortly after discovering the body, Jules spends about 3 and a half pages describing how she makes pastry rolls (which you can read here). Similarly, while Thomas, her "might be in love with me, but I'm in denial about his feelings" love interest, interrogates her estranged husband, Carlos, Jules focuses on her almond bars. Granted, yes, this is her job, and she has to keep baking even with the investigation going on. This could have been something like, "Oh, I'm trying NOT to think about what's happening right now, so I'll focus on my work," but instead this comes off like Alexander was trying to remind everyone at every opportunity that "JULES IS A CHEF, GET IT?! GET IT?!" rather than proving to us that she is a human being.

[Pg. 150] "Any word on the generator?" I asked, giving the frosting one more good whip. "No, but you'll be happy to know that Thomas is in the bar grilling Carlos." "Perfect." I grabbed a stainless steel pastry spatula and began spreading the frosting on the almond bars. It was hard to silence the perfectionist in me. For mixing by hand, the frosting was perfectly acceptable. I was pretty sure that Lance and his guests wouldn't know the difference. It had a lovely subtle almond flavor and I had managed to whip out any lumps. The industrial mixer would have given it an airier texture. Let it go, Jules, I told myself as I whisked the chocolate glaze and drizzled it over the top. You're baking at high altitude and without power. Was that "Perfect" supposed to be sarcastic? Sincere? Who can tell when Jules is more interested in her pastries than in a murder investigation which involves two men she cares about facing off? Compare that to one of the very few times Jules interviews a suspect regarding the victim. [Pg 224] "How did Tony [the murder victim] react when you confronted him [about scamming from you]?" "He flipped out. It didn't surprise me. I expected him to. He got defensive, said it wasn't him. I asked him if it wasn't him, then who was doing it. He wouldn't say. I know he was lying. I planned to fire him yesterday. I just needed to talk to my husband first and make sure there wasn't anything I needed to do from a legal perspective before I let him go." She swirled the cream in her coffee, turning it into a gorgeous beige color. My hands were still covered in flour, but as soon as I finished rolling the dough I could go for another cup. "Now he's dead." Mercury rubbed her forehead. Rather than studying Mercury's facial expression for any hint of deception or feeling some kind of emotion regarding this development in the case, Jules takes note of Mercury's coffee because she's a professional chef, GET IT? GET IT? GET IT? Alexander occasionally attempts to show us Jules's feelings -- except she doesn't actually show. She tells us that Jules feels a certain way without displaying any action or reaction to prove it. Jules hardly thinks about Tony after she finds him, and she barely responds when anyone talks about him. She does not even stop to wonder if he had any family to call or what have you. We get blurb on page 138 -- in the midst of cooking exposition. For a unique side dish, I wanted to teach Sterling how to braise green beans. Usually braising is reserved for rough cuts of meat, but I love using the slow-cooking method with vegetables. I would make the pasta by hand. It's more time-consuming, but there's no comparison in terms of taste. Fresh pasta elevates a basic dish. It would be me a chance to use my pasta roller, and hopefully give my head a break from thinking about Tony's murder. [Emphasis mine since this is so easy to miss. :-p] Pasta can be intimidating, but it shouldn't be. There's nothing simpler when it comes to the ingredients required--flour and water. Maybe a pinch of salt and a few eggs for Italian-style noodles, but otherwise it's as easy as combing flour and water. The difficulty comes in creating the right desnity for the dough. I call it finding the perfect hydration level. If a dough is too wet or dry, it's impossible to work with. I've spent years experimenting with different ratios of water to flour. This goes on for 14 more paragraphs of exposition about the pasta and Jules and Sterling sharing a dialogue with more exposition about the pasta -- because when I spend money on a murder mystery, I'm more interested in learning how to keep my homemade noodles from turning gray in the refrigerator than in anything as silly as a compelling protagonist investigating a crime. In fact, we don't get really get another real peek into her feelings until she speaks to Carlos on page 217 (140 pages after she found the body). "I found his body. I was the only one up here who had any connection to the police. I feel responsible for figuring out what happened to him. It's not distressing me [to try to figure out who killed him, Carlos]. I promise. It's something to focus on. Otherwise, I'll just focus on seeing his face over and over. At least this way I feeling [sic] like I'm doing something productive." Too little too late, unfortunately. Similarly, the so-called "love triangle" is supposed to have "tension" because the two men vying for her heart are at odds with each other, but that falls flat because, once again, we are told there is tension, but Jules does not show us how she reacts to the tension. [Pg. 151-152] "Take those to the guests before Mr. No Palate here eats them all," I said to Sterling. Thomas pretended to be hurt. "No palate?" he said with a mouth full of almond bar. "That's not fair." "Who has no palate?" Carlos entered the kitchen. "I was teasing Thomas," I replied, nodding to the tray in Sterlin's arms. "Those aren't my best effort. The altitude is throwing everything off." Carlos picked a bar from the tray. He carefully broke a piece off it. "These rose too high, yes?" "Yep." He tasted the almond bar. Watching him savor the tiny morsel was like a sensory experience. He closed his eyes and inhaled through his nose while he chewed. No one would accuse Carlos of not having a developed palate. Thomas rolled his eyes and started on his second bar. "If you ask me, Jules, I think these are great." Carlos finally swallowed his tasting bite. "The flavor is good, yes, but I think too much baking soda, no?" "Exactly. Thank you," I replied. Sterling cleared his throat. "Should I take these out now?" He stood waiting by the door. "Yeah, yeah. Go." I motioned him forward. Thomas shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about with baking soda. I think these are awesome. Everything you make is awesome, Jules." His voice caught a little. This was it--Thomas and Carlos in the same room. The contrast between them was staggering. Thomas with his boyish face, light eyes, and blond hair looked like an all-American football star. Carlos oozed sexiness with his olive skin, dark hair, and piercing eyes. "Ha! I wish." I laughed, trying to break the tension. "I've had my fair share of disasters over the years, but this one takes the cake." Carlos moved to be closer to me. Thomas frowned and inched closer to the island to make room for him. "This is what it means to be a chef." He held up the almond bar. "Sometimes things do not go our way, but we must improvise." His eyes twinkled. "You improvised well, Julieta. I like the frosting and glaze." I noticed Thomas flinch when Carlos called me Julieta. No disaster in the kitchen compared to being sandwiched between the two. And yet I don't buy it. We're told that it is tense, but her reactions are just, "Stand there and tell the audience that it's tense - ooh, ex-husband is sexy!" She's not flinching or making an excuse to step away. ("Oops! Need to wash my hands - way over here.") She is not clearing her throat or focusing on her cooking as a way to avoid thinking about the men's dislike for each other (which is rather odd considering everything I just mentioned). We get her trying to change the subject, but it comes through "talking head syndrome." www.helpingwritersbecomeauthor… Don't get me wrong. You don't have to list every single last thought and feeling for the audience. You can rely on context to provide the proper atmosphere -- except Alexander did not set up that context well, so when she got to the so-called "disaster" of having the two love interests in the same room, it did not hit the notes she was aiming for. In the end, Jules does not come off as a protagonist, but a plot puppet who exists so that the book could be published. Her focus is on food first, as the author's way of promoting the recipes that came with the book, and then on her "love triangle." As a result this cozy mystery has very little to do with the mystery, and what could have been an interesting plot became needless exposition of how to bake pastries, and the main character solves the mystery, not through any active decision to investigate, but because she was accidentally in the right place at the right time. So, what can we, as writers, take away from this? Make sure your focus, as an author, is on things that move the plot so that your characters can do the things that move the plot. Even if this is the third book in your series, make sure that things like love triangles and cooking serve the story. Don't have the story serve the love triangles and cooking. Context can help you, but don't take your reader's immersion for granted. Just telling your reader that the protagonist is upset or that a scene is supposed to be tense is not enough. Have your protagonist act and react in ways that fit the scene you are going for. If your scene is supposed to be uncomfortable, have them react as if they really think it's uncomfortable. If your protagonist is supposed to feel responsible for a murder victim, have them act like they really feel they're responsible for a murder victim. While it's good to give them little quirks that remind us of their chosen profession (like a chef noticing food details), remember that they are human beings who should be more than the sum of their parts, so it's okay for a professional chef not to think of food when sniffing out clues to find a murderer.

[nyx-aurelion]

Monsters

Titles let me see what my thought process was when I started on the rambling posts I tend to write.

In this case, the title speaks for itself.

You know, humans have an incredible fascination for them.  I should know, I’m fascinated as well.  So much of our lore speaks of things outside our realm of knowledge with fear and trepidation--perfectly sane for a species survival--but we’ve developed into where we look into the Abyss and it stares back.

I’m sorry, Abyss, should have asked for some permission.

But it begs the question: how is the Abyss looking back?  Where once was a world large enough that things that go bump can easily live comfortably, now is an increasingly small cage.  How does the Abyss feel, knowing it’s no longer being regarded with the respect it deserves?

That Abyss is what kept us in check, in balance.  

I suppose I should explain what I mean by Abyss.  Things unknown, creatures benign and malevolent, the very demons humanity does its damndest to praise and decry.  I make no attempts to say I’m right or that I know.  I only know what I’ve experienced, and what I’ve gotten to experience second-hand through listening and learning from others.  It’s a pity reading has fallen out of the common hobbies--so much more could be learned.  But I digress.

A dear friend of mine, truly a monster in everything but heart (I mean the metaphorical/spiritual), asked a question that basically boils down to the following: why the hell do humans love monsters?  I gave a long answer that’s...somewhere.  I’ve yet to organize my blog.  But that answer got simplified to I didn’t care so long as I found the love and acceptance I sought. @simonalkenmayer  

Seemed nice at the time.  Now, I’m realizing that was hella selfish.  What if the monster doesn’t want to be loved?  What if it doesn’t want a damn thing to do with humans?  What if doesn’t want to give a shit?  Still, it got me wondering:

Why am I so comfortable with monsters?  

Real talk, you show me gory movies/horror and I get mildly queasy.  Something about seeing it and then I start empathizing and just....no. Ironically, I’m surprisingly inured to it irl (so far in my experiences).  My primary concern at that point is to heal, help, and harm (heal the wound, help the injured, harm the cause of the injury).  Show me the horror and I immediately question why the monster in question is like it is.  Most of them I empathize with. 

The ones I don’t are always the human ones.

You’d think humans would have a better regard for life, given our preaching on it.

Except its humans that do the worst things to other living beings.

It probably didn’t help that as a kid my best friend....was a monster. A different one.   

So, grew up in an abusive household.  That’s a whole tragic backstory, so the short of it is that I had no one for the majority of my formative years.  No one.  And I was confined to a singular house that I am positive had inhuman denizens.  

Humans don’t have choirs of the dead as voices.  Humans don’t have smokey tendrils of shadowy mass.  Humans also don’t have horns or shark like teeth.  Or large claws and stout powerful legs that remind me strongly of tyrannosaurus legs....

But this person did.

And this person was my best--and only--friend.  

My mother thought I was crazy; my father thought it was just a phase.

I was the only one that could see him.  It.  I never did ask--I just got the impression it was male so I called it by masculine pronouns and such.  It never seemed to be remiss.  If anything, he was amused.

I’d found him, in true childish fashion, by getting into things.  Muslims believe in things like djinns and such.  If you encountered one, you prayed and got ghost.  Or held your ground.  In my infinite wisdom, I said “Hi.”  I’d just gotten beaten, you see, and was angrily pulling away scabs and watching the blood flow.  It was easier than acknowledging how my heart ached.  I happened to look up and see him there, watching.  He looked hungry, and I was an entree.  Well, more like a morsel.  I was actually a tiny kid.

And I’d said “hi.”

I guess my sense of self preservation has always had a few kinks.  

He just laughed.  The sound always stuck with me.  Imagine, if you will, a the reverberating sound of a gong being struck.  But make it low, raspy, and entwine it with the sounds of the damned screaming. It wasn’t just one sound.  It was many and it was one and it had an accent of some origin I doubt I’ll ever hope to discover.

Through the thick and thin of my life, he’s always been there.  Not many can sense him, much less know he’s there.  Animals can and do, though.  It takes a moment for them to come me.  Cats are particularly testy.  I can’t count how many times I’ve outright snarled, stared, hissed, and otherwise clearly elucidated I was not to be trifled with.  I’ve made friends, and they’re all amazing, wonderful people.  So’s he.  

Either way, I guess the point of this is that I’m comfortable with monsters because I’ve known several.  Each had their own quirks, their own personalities and...

Monsters are pretty damn amazing.  Humans are amazing, too.  Life is just amazing.  

I only care when people who don’t deserve it--especially my people, get hurt.

Aside: (Simone)You got mentioned, so I figured it was a matter of politeness (and the inherent terror of plagarization ingrained in me by my career/subject of study) to make sure you know you got mentioned.