#the appeal is still there but personally im trying to protect my peace
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
moyuri · 1 year ago
Text
girls who actively seek out the "rockstar boyfriend" there's no going back for them. they already know they belong in a mental institution. they want the trauma.
2 notes · View notes
kits-ships · 1 year ago
Note
🐕✏️🕊️ for whoever’s most on your mind for the ask game? :]
thank u!! im gonna do these for the master bc i think they fit olives relationship with him <3
Tumblr media
🐕: Do they have any pets together? If one of them had a pet from before their relationship how well does the pet get along with their partner? Do they have the pets approval or does said pet sit in between them and their partner any time they try to make a move?
Tumblr media
Though they primarily live with Olive, they have two cats together! They came across them when they were orphaned kittens and Olive just had to take them in ofc. She had the Master name them, mostly because she was interested to see what he'd pick, and they ended up getting named Artemis and Apollo!
They're both sleek, brown tabby cats with opposite personalities. Apollo is curious and kinda dumb, squeaks instead of meowing, and always wants to be by Olive's side. Artemis, on the other hand, is much more cautious and calculating; relying on her brother to give her the confidence required to investigate scary situations. Despite her fears, however, both are semi-protective of Olive.
The Master originally didn't see the appeal in the tiny, crying kittens, but he didn't care enough to question her interest in them. He simply watched as she fed them at pet them; only holding one when she prompted him to. He's eventually grown rather fond of them, but refuses to admit that he likes/loves either of them. He'll tell Apollo to leave him alone or stop bothering him, then Olive will find him sleeping with the cat loafing on his chest.
Both cats like him, but his temper and his yelling frightens Artemis. Typically, when he gets mad, she'll just stare at him from a doorway in an attempt to figure out what's happening. Apollo, on the other time, will sit directly next to him with airplane ears; mentally going "????"
Tumblr media
✏️: How canon compliant are you with them? Do you stick pretty close or just have fun cause it’s your ship so no one can tell you what to do other wise?
Tumblr media
I will definitely admit I'm not the most canon compliant, but it's kinda hard for a human to have a relationship with a guy who hates the Earth and dreams of universal conquest. Still, even if I make him do silly things, I do my best to imagine him reacting as in-character as possible! Partly because I think he's so silly and partly because it's cute to imagine him following Olive around solely because he has a soft spot for her.
Tumblr media
🕊️: Give just a general domestic tidbit for em (things they like about each other, routines, habits, and just overall sweet stuff)
Tumblr media
The place where the Master feels the most at peace is in the garden that his ship created for Olive. Even if it's indoors and powered by grow lights, the greenhouse-like appearance of the room and the swaying of the plants is calming and gives him the opportunity to clear his mind. Often, when he's overwhelmed or upset, Olive will lay with him on the daybed in the middle of the garden and ask him about how he's feeling or just infodump to him. She also likes getting him to infodump to her so she can snuggle up to his chest and listen to him talk about alien concepts, things that happened to him when he was younger, or whatever else is on his mind. <3
Tumblr media
1 note · View note
sakkac · 4 years ago
Text
re: fumetsu no anata e as of chapter 139.2
this started as a response to @bestbonnist​‘s post on chapter 139.2 but now i’m just dissecting differences and similarities between tonari, mizuha, and kahak like im writing an essay for a uni class. i interchangeably use he/they pronouns for fushi and my writing may be clumsy (bc im not actually writing for uni ❤️).
mizuha is a broken mirror to tonari (and kahak a foil to the two aforementioned) in this modern-day arc, especially in their expressions of love for fushi. tonari’s love for fushi is aged over hundreds of years and mizuha’s, at first glance, is an infatuation just based on how long they’ve known each other. im the biggest kahak stan ever, but even i understand kahak’s love started as an infatuation for parona’s form. though, i’d consider the word infatuation compromised when it comes to defining mizuha’s love, bc u cant be sure if her love for fushi is entirely her own, seeing as it had been passed from generation to generation of guardians.
Tumblr media
(chapter 134, read right to left)
tonari and mizuha aren’t that different once you look deeply into the both of them. mizuha’s personality and actions are factors in tonari’s dislike of her, but what ultimately repels tonari from mizuha is that she knows they’re similar, and that manifests most clearly in how she reacts to fushi being with mizuha. i.e. resenting fushi for using her friends’ vessels to help their “love life” in chapter 135.5. she can’t stand mizuha bc mizuha is able to express her love for fushi and fushi does not reject (or accept) it; tonari still hasn’t fully admitted to herself that she likes fushi romantically (perhaps because she can’t separate it from the devotion that led her to harden her body to poisons and to promise her corpse to rest at fushi’s feet), so seeing mizuha appear to progress further than she has irritates her. as for kahak, tonari only has the biases of the other pseudo-immortals and her own of past hayase reincarnations to rely on. (this is not as plot-related, but these two also both like books. kahak read tonari’s fushi book, so i wish they actually met, but in a world where tonari didnt hate hayase beyond death.)
tonari as a child seemed like she thought herself superior to others, perhaps a natural result of her upbringing. she was raised on a prison island, but she herself never committed any crime; banding together w other kids like her, writing about her life in her book (which keeps her separate from or above others in a way). but this thinking ceases at her relationship w fushi. however, i believe this started before they even met. tonari’s childhood dream at seven years old was to write a book her father would be impressed by. she also used to believe in god, while her family was still whole. she even prayed to god when he decided to participate in the tournament in chapter 35. however, she stops referring to god by the time her father had shown tarnish. coincidentally, she meets fushi, who would “upend everything... jeannanda and [her] fate.” she ends up, instead of writing for her father, writing a book to allow a peaceful existence for fushi for whenever they decided to come back. this act shows that the adult tonari has written fushi to a level above her, out of her reach. 
Tumblr media
(chapter 35)
here i’ll quote ray’s words about kahak and tonari: “she also has a surprising amount in common with Kahaku, too, with the ‘I want to protect you even if you disagree.’” the way tonari had waited and honed her body for fushi resembles kahak’s attachment; she had finished living for herself, so now she was only allowing herself to live to further create an ideal vessel for fushi (which also brings up one of hayase’s goals). the difference is that kahak lived for fushi because, as raikkousaki said, fushi was the only thing he was “ALLOWED to live for.” however, while tonari is unquestionably devoted to fushi now, what pulled her to him was black hood’s coercion. as a result of black hood’s words to her, she manipulated fushi into helping her solve her problems, to save her from the island. this first “meeting” also revealed that she was attracted to their white hair; she later admits that she admires their fair skin, contributing to the idea that she could view fushi as the equivalent of a god or at the least, a vision of purity (which is :/ imo, bc of her dark skin). we should also keep in mind that, this, technically her first impression of fushi, and his later display of violent immortality in the arena would further his image as a “legend.” 
mizuha was exposed to fushi’s immortality and reveres him like tonari and kahak respectively do and did. instead of the specific word “legend,” it’s “immortal monster.” her first formal exposure to fushi’s fabled power was not unlike tonari’s, since mizuha had went into her grandfather’s library and read on fushi in chapter 124.1. after this, she manipulates fushi to save her, again paralleling the beginning of tonari’s relationship with fushi, but it’s from her overbearing mother and herself. both tonari and mizuha forced their problems onto fushi, but mizuha doesn’t have black hood stepping in front of her saying “you must lead him.” instead, she may have been influenced by the left hand, but i believe mizuha’s thoughts are majorly her own (left hand lies in wait within mizuha’s consciousness like a predator), and what they appear to say is that she’s leading fushi until he decides to follow her willingly. as for kahak, we only have a few pages on his childhood and what we can make of it and of his actions as an adult is that he was willing to follow fushi wherever they went, until left hand betrayed them both.
mizuha’s superiority complex comes from a different place than young tonari’s; she was a prestigious child from young, in addition to her fear of her uniqueness fading as she aged. this caused her to feel separate from other children. when she meets fushi, she sees how different he is from everyone else and uses subtle ways to keep him with her, while never directly admitting she wants him to stay with her, except for ch 125′s “i’m scared. stay with me tonight,” after her mother’s sudden murder. she usually uses excuses instead, like cutely demanding fushi to walk with her after school and go on dates with her.
Tumblr media
(chapter 36 vs. chapter 128.2)
as fushi was introduced to the people around tonari and mizuha, they received similar reactions, i.e. “your hair is so pretty!” and “woah, his hair is white!” in the pages following these, the similarities continue into tonari and mizuha gaining ownership over fushi: in ch 36 oopa declares “tonari found him. so he belongs to tonari,” while the islanders try to get on fushi’s good side, and in ch 128 fushi goes out of their way to ask which club mizuha belongs to when asked to join a club (vocalizing her claim on them so she doesn’t have to directly do so).
Tumblr media
(chapters 38, 106, and 139)
when the opening comes for mizuha to actually admit her feelings in chapter 139, she tries, but demands instead, “so... love me.” this recalls kahak’s confession to kai in 105.3, that he wants to “protect fushi’s humanity.” kahak and mizuha were both covered in blood when they spoke, but the atmospheres and characters are different; mizuha is clever w her words, but still too immature to let go of her pride, whereas kahak was the exact opposite. he rid of himself of his pride for fushi when he was a child, but said a lot of the wrong things to fushi when it came down to it. additionally, mizuha, when she wants something, she’ll phrase her words so that it seems like there’s only one choice: to follow her. this has been the case for others including fushi (chapters 120.2′s testing of hanna with “if i died, would you cry for me?” and 132.1′s “i’ll teach you about love” and the following guilt-trip). tonari is more direct with her words and meaning than either mizuha or kahak, bc of her personality. she directly confronts fushi when she realizes he had felt betrayed by her in chapter 38, because she still needed him for his plans. but mizuha is more direct with her actions; in chapter 129.1, she latches herself onto fushi, while trying to get information out of him. after the failed marriage proposal, rather than physically attaching himself to fushi like mizuha, kahak used acts of domesticity and protection to subtly appeal to and maintain his space next to them.
Tumblr media
(chapter 38 vs chapter 139)
tonari’s “there are people in this world who are better off dead” above isn’t far from the knockers’ reasoning behind “wishing for death is paramount to being dead” and the reason for mizuha’s mother’s death: left hand decided to “eliminate the cause of [mizuha’s breaking point’s] stress.” what this shows is that tonari can also justify murder, though granted, this is from a hundred chapters ago. however, this black and white thinking comes back in the modern era where tonari holds prejudice against mizuha because of her relation to hayase. tonari knows her dislike of mizuha is unfair, she can’t get around it. tonari is still as prideful as she was when she lived on jeannanda; it’s just that she is able to use fushi to justify her opinions now. i also want to bring up mizuha’s reaction to her mother’s death and funa’s knocker’s “purging and guidance.” mizuha seems comfortable with the sight of death, despite having a more normal childhood than tonari, because her actual main concern overwhelms it; she is always thinking on how she can appeal to fushi (almost like kahak), or in other words, how to salvage her pride. so instead of being concerned over being the actual murderer, she is concerned with appearing as a murderer to fushi.
so to actually answer ray’s question, objectively, tonari’s love is as excessive as kahak and mizuha’s. but personally, i think tonari’s love for fushi right now is also unhealthy, though it comes out of good will. kahak’s love also ended in fushi’s benefit, but it was undoubtedly unhealthy. and ofc, mizuha’s love is also unhealthy; she reaches for fushi for perfection, tonari reaches for fushi for humility.
79 notes · View notes
sebastianshaw · 4 years ago
Text
 Ok, I've just started reading the book for the Moldwarps (weremoles; apparently “moldwarp” is an old British term for a mole) and they're already REALLY INTERESTING to me. I thought they would either just be comedic, or another “hardcore warrior” species (which almost everything is in this setting) but they’re...not. They fill a very unique niche that none of the other werecritters did before, and one that really appeals to me as someone who loves themes of peace, compassion, and rehabilitative justice and characters who practice those things (not that you’d know it from some of my faves like SHAW) And the fact it’s being done with moles, a humble and lowly rodent-like species that most people are never going to pay attention to in favor of charismatic creatures like big cats of wolves, just actually appeals to me further, as I have a soft-spot for less-loved beasts in such settings (and in general). Excerpts under the cut for those interested:
"The Breed treats things corrupted by the Triat similarly to the way a doctor would a highly contagious patient, or a responsible warden a particularly disturbed inmate. They do not kill or destroy it, dismissing neither the threat it poses nor its potential to be saved. A Moldwarp’s duty is to find such tainted things, which they term Sceatha, and inter them within a Burrow to undergo rehabilitative cleansing rituals, which alter the Triatic energies of the Sceatha in order to bring it back into balance (or as close to it possible). In the case of a fomor, for instance, Moldwarps would not revel in executing it as Garou generally do, but expose it to controlled essences of the Wyld and Weaver in equal parts, within a consecrated Gaian environment, in order to balance out the Wyrmish aspect of the possessed being. To break is Wyrmish, but to mend is Gaia’s work." I realize there's a ton of terminology there you won't know if you’re not familiar with this setting already, but I imagine the idea still gets across that these are critters who aren't KILLING the bad guys but imprisoning and attempting to rehabilitate or cleanse them which is a REALLY unique thing, all the other living werecreatures are warriors/killers, especially of anything Wyrm-tainted I dig this, no pun intended. "No longer could they keep their heads down and bury the bodies of those the Garou chose to slay without reason. The Breed was shown through trials of their own that an alternative to the Garou’s fire and fury must be upheld. The Breed colloquially refers to the Wyrm as ‘Our Wyrm’, partially in honour to their past and their fallen patron, but also to remind their young that the Wyrm is not an enemy to defeat, but a sick being in need of mending. “ I LOVE THIS!! I LOVE THEM!! And it says one of the themes is insufficiency, that though it is a wonderful thing to cleanse a fomor ( a person or animal possessed by a Bane, a servant of the Wyrm, which in other books is too far gone to save and always killed) and return him to his family, they know the Garou have killed 10 more in the same amount of time it took to cleanse this one. And another is isolation since they only have each other for company in their burrow, being a hidden people. Honestly it reminds me of Utopia-era X-Men??? When they all lived on that wee island and Danger was trying to rehab villains I'm super into this and I'm not even to the first chapter. ALSO back when shapeshifters lived openly and Garou were preying on humans, the moles made a bunch of silver weapons and gave them to the humans and told them how they were weak against them, so they could defend themselves. And the humans ended up just using them on ALL wereanimals, so the Moles live with that ancestral mistake. I like how they tried to defend humans, but not by protecting them so much as giving them the means and information to protect themselves (even if it backfired) whereas like, all the other Fera's approaches to humans is usually either hateful or predatory, or like...benevolent but not in an equal way or just indifferent. And omg mole leaders are called Earls and this DELIGHTS me. Anyyyyway expect more rambling soon IM SORRY.
10 notes · View notes
blue-dream-rhapsody · 6 years ago
Text
cfyow and kugo come on you know me by now
Pages 381-387.
I hope you appreciate I had to carry this like a weight tied around my neck all through work last night before I could write my feelings down
[for today’s installment, moments where I whisper-screamed will feature a *]
Pfft Giriko tells Ganju the best way to deal with Yukio is to just put up with being insulted
But shit man Yukio’s taking on the members of Aura’s cult now, too. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it a million more times, but Yukio has grown so much and chosen to follow in Kugo’s footsteps when it comes to gathering under his watch the people who most need it. And just another little thing too, when Kugo cracks that it’ll be tough for him to do while so young, rather than keep complaining or even make a final passing gripe like we’d expect him to, he just bucks up and says he’s got it.
“Want me to tell Jackie and Riruka anything from you?” “Nah as long as they’re doing well it’s better I stay out of their way.” “Okay cool I’ll tell them you said that.” “Why are you such an unpleasant child.”
Seriously though, I think Kugo sees the damage he’s done to them and he cares about them, so he’s trying to set them free from him. But Yukio knows that’s not what they want, they don’t just think of Kugo that way and care about him back, and they’d be happy to hear from him and especially to hear that everything he’s been through is settled and over. So fuck you and your “it’s better this way” bullshit boy you made this bed called found family and now you’re gonna lie in it bitch!!!
SHISHIGAWARA HAS NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN*
HE GOES TO TSUKISHIMA’S GRAVE*
TSUKISHIMA HAS... A GRAVE? As in a place to be remembered. A permanent fixture so people know he was there, that he lived and bled and died and that someone knew his name. I’m as surprised as he is that he has one and I’m hurting that he’s surprised he has one (for probably the same reasons I was).*
Also hurting that he’s now able to say he wants Moe to forget about him when it’s Moe’s unyielding devotion to him that gave him peace as he died. It means he’s in a place now where he’s not afraid of being alone the way he used to be. And also in a place where he can want better for this kid too, even if it isn’t advantageous for himself. Tsukishima has become capable of caring about someone else.
Also he’s protective apparently because Kugo jokes that Moe is annoying and Tsukishima replies with a look that says “try me bitch” because the last time Kugo said anything about him it was “kill him once he’s useless” (but Kugo absolutely feels good about getting that response out of him, because it means he’s changed)
Also can we make memes about Tsukishima 1) wanting everybody to read more books constantly like he’s some kind of library mascot with a catchphrase and 2) being entirely indiscriminate about what he’s reading by replacing the book he’s holding with every terribly rated book ever including 50 Shades and YA slush
Here come Kyoraku to talk to Kugo on Ukitake’s behalf oH BOY MY HEART’S ALREADY STOPPIN
Wait are they opening up the Seireitei to like everybody?? The whole Rukongai??? Holy shit I love it. Trash the nobles’ yards guys do it make Byakuya c r y
HE GIVES KUGO VOLUME ONE OF UKITAKE’S STORY HOLY FUCK*
Okay the book thing is gonna be its own subsection here
Kugo: this sounds like a cheesy romance drama Kyoraku, standing right there, author of the literal worst-rated serialization in the Bulletin which is in fact a cheesy romance drama: *sweats*
aw but it’s touching, Kyoraku trying to show Kugo a different side of Ukitake in case it would help with his healing—
Tsukishima: oh I’ve read that whole thing
Kugo:
Me:
Tsukishima: it’s really good for a children’s series. By the way I read this before you knew the author wasn’t personally responsible for your lifetime of suffering
Tsukishima: also it’s probably based on your whole deal with each other
Kugo:
Tsukishima: so, book club?
Seriously I don’t even know how that works being based on their relationship like who the FUCK IS THE SHRINE MAIDEN IN THIS SCENARIO
But even so I’m losing my fucking mind that THE MOST BELOVED BULLETIN SERIALIZATION was directly influenced by KUGO FUCKING GINJO, WANTED CRIMINAL EXTRAORDINAIRE
UKITAKE I LOVE YOU i mean it’s super touching and sobering yeah but it’s also just really fucking funny iM SORRY
When it gets down to their real conversation though, Kugo’s got no use for all these pleasantries and he’s not going to pretend he didn’t do anything wrong, even if he regrets it now. He even preempts that he’s still going to be punished for defecting, and can’t understand how Kyoraku can just throw around letting it go so readily. Honestly, I don’t think the possibility of being vindicated ever crossed his mind. Or of anyone apologizing or feeling bad for his side of things. The fact that he’s so reactive to Kyoraku’s sentiments says that he still very much has a lot of this inside him—if they hadn’t had this conversation, or if Kyoraku had been any less sincere and patient, I don’t think Kugo would’ve ever gained real closure. Like it’s one thing to no longer blame Ukitake, but it’s another to have the Court Guards finally and officially acknowledge that what happened to him was wrong.
I knew Ukitake would’ve definitely appealed to both Captain Generals about letting Kugo be, but glad it’s confirmed both to us and to him.
Wait so I guess they did meet in person at some point? Ukitake came in to defend his men and actually tried to strike back at Kugo apparently. I guess this might be part of the explanation for why he put everything on Ukitake specifically, on top of the badge being his responsibility. Also, Ukitake was prepared to die at Kugo’s hand during that attack. If it weren’t for his duty to his soldiers, he might’ve just let him kill him.*
I think Ukitake’s grave was the only place for Kugo’s arc in the novel to end (be it the figurative or literal sense). It’s the ultimate sign of respect, and of him being ready to let go. I’d been expecting that Kyoraku would have to bring/invite him out there to ever see him go, but the fact that he’s the one to ask where it is shows that he sincerely believes everything Kyoraku has told him.*
His march is finally over.
And y’all, I think this is it. I think he gets briefly mentioned again before the novel closes out, so I’ll hold off a bit longer to air my final thoughts on everything and make sure there’s nothing else to cover.
But I will say right now that, if this is his last appearance here, as a conclusion to his character arc I am not disappointed with it.
15 notes · View notes
caelystrae · 6 years ago
Text
And It’s Hard to Love
im dying bc i scrapped my original fic i wrote today bc i didnt like it... wrote a whole new one... and still dont know if i like it... but the day is over so i gotta post what i have LMAO
anyway.  @letanafuck week day 3.  love/hate.  mostly love, from me
ao3
Pairing: Anamercy
Rating: M
Words: 3.5k
Maybe that is why Ana is afraid, when Angela says I love you, because once, she might have been falling in love with Angela, might even have begun to consider what that would mean for the both of them to talk about their relationship openly, despite the consequences, to refuse propositions not because there was someone else already meeting her needs adequately, and breaking in new lovers could be a hassle, but because she only wanted one person—and despite beginning to feel that way, things between them still soured, were victim to the outside stresses of Overwatch’s collapse, until rather than feeling comfortable, Ana felt trapped. It scares her, to think that she could have loved Angela, then, and still run, and terrifies her to think that it might happen again.
Or,
Angela accidentally says "I love you" during sex, and Ana is not at all prepared to deal with that.
In her life, Ana has known war, but she has rarely experienced peace, she has known freedom, but rarely seen justice, and she has known hate, but she does not know, not for certain, if she has ever felt love.  Of course, she loves her daughter, loves her friends, loves her duty, her country, her people—but that is not the same as feeling romantic love, not at all, and Ana is content with that, with what she has had, does not think that she needs to ever be in love with someone to be happy with the life she has led, the things she has accomplished.  Out of all of her regrets, never having been in love is not worth even mentioning.
Most of Ana’s relationships have been purely physical, because she alternately lacks the time, the desire, or the stability to search for love.  While she acknowledges that there have been a few exceptions, they have been relationships built on friendship, or admiration, not love.  Sam was such a one, and for a time she believed Angela was another—and now, she must face that that is not necessarily the case.
Coming back from the dead changed many things, but it was only the catalyst for a change that was a long time coming before her death, that continues even now that she is four months returned.
Perhaps it would be an overstatement to say that, in the years before her death, she and Angela admired each other; it was admiration that brought them to one another, yes, recognition of some kindred spirit, a mutual drive, a need to protect and a willingness to do so by whatever means they deemed necessary, but that did not last.  Towards the end of their time together, towards the end of Overwatch, towards the end of Ana, or the Ana who was never the Shrike, they fought more often than not, found that agreeing to do whatever was necessary only went so far, when the two of them disagreed on what, in fact, was a necessity, and Ana struggles when thinking of the things that they said to one another, that they must have thought about one another, to say that she felt admiration, or that Angela could have felt the same.
She never hated Angela, this much Ana knows, but sometimes, sometimes she was afraid that she might grow to.  
When they fought, they never held anything back—perhaps because of the admiration they felt for one another, in the early days, because they knew the other could take hearing what it was they were to say, or perhaps because their arguments were complicated by other feelings, ones they chose not to give voice to—and Ana winces, now, remembering the things the two of them said to one another.  It was a stressful time, Overwatch’s fall, for the both of them, made harder still that they both felt increasingly isolated and embattled in their respective positions, between the development of the Biotic Rifle and Jack and Gabe’s decision to slowly freeze Ana out of the chain of command, but that stress could not excuse the things they both allowed themselves to say, and it is not an easy time for Ana to remember.
(Ana feels similarly about the breakdown in her relationship with her daughter, but that was easy to make sense of, after the fact, and she knows, now, where the two of them stand, even if it is not always easy between them.  They had blood and a lifetime of love between them; the same cannot be said for how she feels about Angela.)
To say, therefore, that Angela’s response to her return was unexpected, then, would be an understatement.
What Ana expected, upon her return, was anger, was betrayal, was a condemnation.  Instead, she received none of those things—or, she did, eventually, in conversations about the rifle, about her leaving, but never were they such simple feelings from Angela, and never were the conversations themselves as fraught as the ones from seven years before.  It is impossible to judge for Ana, what it is that Angela is feeling, when she voices her betrayal at Ana for having had the audacity to die on her, only to come back as if nothing had happened, because Ana knows that Angela ought to be furious with her, would have said things meant to hurt, if this happened years ago, and instead she is also unmistakably relieved by Ana’s returning, and that relief tempers her anger.
This, in turn, ought to make Ana happy, she ought to be relieved at this turn of events, by the fact that, somehow, they have both of them changed, and grown, and returned to one another more able, or perhaps more willing, to disagree, and to set those disagreements aside, in order to be happy together, or as close to it as they can come.  What Ana feels, instead of relief, is worry. Nothing in her life has ever been so simple, and the lack of a clean resolution to their prior conflicts, the lack of confirmation that that is behind them, the unaddressed feelings and hurts, they haunt her.
Angela says she loves her.  
What to make of that?  It is the opposite reaction from what Ana expected, upon returning, and Ana is not sure that she would be able to believe it, even were that not the case.  How could Angela love her?  After she left, died, Angela’s greatest fear, after she betrayed her lover, taking the Biotic Rifle with her, despite knowing that it represented the greatest perversion of Angela’s life’s work, after what she said to Angela, how could Angela love her?
How could Angela love her, when she struggles to love herself?  Knowing what she has done in the name of duty—what of that she regrets, what of that was not truly necessary, and having seen the nastier parts of herself, knowing whom she truly is: a killer, and not a protector.  There is little enough of her left to love, anyway, after what happened, after her death and the Shrike.  How could anyone love her?
How could Angela love her, when seven years ago they could hardly speak to one another, were too often too angry to be civil, and were avoiding each other more often than not, lest they begin another argument, unable for the first time to set professional differences apart for the sake of their relationship—whatever one might have defined it as?  
(Perhaps, if she asked Angela, Angela might tell her that she felt love, even then, and that is why the perceived betrayal of the development of the Biotic Rifle hurt her so much.  Perhaps she might try to convince Ana that Ana, too, loved her, and that was why Ana was willing to argue about it at all, rather than simply dismissing her disagreement, wanting instead for Angela to come to approve or, at the least, not be angry with her any longer for what she had chosen to do. Perhaps she might claim that Ana’s death put the issue into perspective for her, and she realized that she had feelings all along.  Perhaps—it does not matter.)
Ana worries about what it would mean to love Angela, given that there is still so much between them unsaid, unresolved. One of the reasons why the idea of being in love has never appealed to Ana is that its seems terribly complicated, and her life is difficult enough already without such added concerns, and their situation has more unique challenges than most.
Yet, despite all of this, there are times when loving Angela seems like it could be so very easy to do.  
When she wakes in the morning to find Angela curled around her, and her lover kisses her temple in lieu of a greeting before slipping out of bed to prepare for the day, she wonders what it might be like to wake to this every morning, thinks it might be worth suffering Angela kicking the blankets off of both of them in her sleep.  Perhaps that is not love, but it is a desire for permanence, one she could not imagine herself feeling seven years ago when all she wanted was to run.
When Angela glances around the common room nervously to ensure they are alone before shifting closer to Ana on the couch, and wrapping their hands around one another, Ana considers for the first time whether or not it would be so terrible to allow others to see them like this, despite the uncomfortable questions it might invite about the nature of their relationship before Overwatch fell.  This, too, might not be love, but it is a growing comfort with casual intimacy that Ana might once have avoided, for fear of what it might mean.
When they find themselves where they are now, Angela straddling her thighs in a position that allows them both to, with a bit of awkward bumping into one another at first, reach down and touch each other simultaneously, all the while maintaining eye contact and kissing one another as they please, Ana wonders what lead them to this point.
Their relationship was never meant to last, was not—is not—a relationship, was meant to be a casual mutual pursuit of much needed stress relief, an exchange of power and of favors.  When one of them had a particularly rough day, they could meet one another by cover of darkness and—deal with the problem, in their own way, Angela allowing Ana to once again feel in control of her life and its circumstances, and Ana freeing Angela from that same burden; that is not the basis for love, or was never meant to be.  Over time, things shifted, grew more complicated, until even meeting with Angela felt stressful, and all Ana wanted was to get away from everyone, herself included, to be free of all of her obligations, even caring for her lover, and yet, here she is, one of Angela’s lips pressed to hers, and two of her fingers inside her erstwhile lover.  
(Maybe that is why Ana is afraid, when Angela says I love you, because once, she might have been falling in love with Angela, might even have begun to consider what that would mean for the both of them, to talk about their relationship openly, despite the consequences, to refuse propositions not because there was someone else already meeting her needs adequately, and breaking in new lovers could be a hassle, but because she only wanted one person—and despite beginning to feel that way, things between them still soured, were victim to the outside stresses of Overwatch’s collapse, until rather than feeling comfortable, Ana felt trapped.  It scares her, to think that she could have loved Angela, then, and still ran, and terrifies her to think that it might happen again.)
But this is not complicated, not really, not if she focuses on the details, the way that, when she presses her thumb down on Angela’s clit, Angela gasps against her mouth, and rolls her hips into the touch, or the scent of Angela’s shampoo��not sweet, or heady, just clean, a product selected for its ability to make the curls in her hair loosen to waves, and not for its scent—which surrounds her, as Angela’s bangs fall across both of their faces, hiding the world from Ana’s view as they cover her one good eye, or the way Angela is so in tune with what she needs, what she wants, all the ways in which Ana likes to be touched.
It feels good, to be like this, inside each other, surrounding each other, all wrapped up together.  How could this be a bad thing?  
(How could the gentle pressure of Angela’s free arm draped across her shoulder feel like it is trapping her?  Could this change, again, back from what they have now to the pain and difficulty of seven years previous?)
She is pulled from her thoughts when Angela moves her mouth next to Ana’s ear, panting into it as she whispers encouragements, praise, pleas, anything and everything that comes to her mind and which might convince Ana to let her come faster.  
Some of the things she says are gentle, Perfect, and So beautiful, and You’re so good to me, others are demanding, Harder, and Stay there, and More, please, more, and others are nonsense, little pleased noises of all sorts, and all of them are sufficient to drive any trepidation from Ana’s mind.
(This could not be the same voice that accused Ana of using her, of having slept with her only to ensure that she would stay with Overwatch long enough to let her guard down, and allow her technology to be exploited.)
Years ago, sex between them might have been carefully scripted, an exchange of power and little more, in which both of them kept carefully to their roles, so as not to disturb the delicate balance of their arrangement, to rip the thin veil of pretense that allowed them to carry on pretending that what they had was nothing more than the two of them fucking a few times a month—but now Angela gives as good as she gets, pulls back slightly from Ana’s fingers, shuddering, when she notices herself approaching climax just a tad too quickly, and focuses more on Ana’s pleasure for a minute or two, until she feels they are both equally aroused.  
Even though Ana knows she does not particularly like to do it—and therefore never demands it of her lover—Angela slides a finger inside Ana, and then another shortly thereafter, only because she knows it will help Ana to come faster, and make the inevitable orgasm more pleasurable when it does come.
(Once, Ana called her the most selfish person she had ever had the misfortune to encounter in her fifty-three years of living, because Angela placed her own morals over Ana’s, refused to allow her technology to be weaponized despite how useful it would be, in the right hands, how many lives would potentially be saved by killing the right people with it, because she would not take those losses on her conscience—Ana regrets saying that, now, regretted it immediately, in truth, and she wonders how the woman who is so generous a lover to her could ever have seemed so callous, where they went wrong that such a statement could even for a moment have felt true.)
When Ana moves her free hand to cup one of Angela’s breast, she can feel the hammering of her heart, and notes that it matches her own, and when she pants, Angela gasps in time, as if they were connected in more ways than the sweat sticking their skin together, or by the feeling of being inside one another.
Both of them are close now, Ana knows, can feel her own orgasm approaching as she struggles to keep her movements against Angela’s fingers steady, and knows that Angela will come soon from the quaking of her thighs on top of Ana’s own, and the way her speech has fallen to the wayside, replaced only by little noises and the occasional plea, Yes, Ana, please panted out one word at a time.
(It is hard to believe, now, how distant she felt they were from one another, back then, is harder still to recall a time when, before the arguing, they were ever so close as they are in this moment.  At least Angela’s begging is familiar, but even it has changed in tone, from desperation to some other emotion Ana cannot immediately name.)
It is Angela who comes first, in the end, set off by nothing in particular that Ana can identify, but her lover does not stop, throughout it all, moving against her, and so when she catches the I love you that tumbles from Angela’s mouth amongst so many other phrases, it coincides with the beginning of her own orgasm—and, to her surprise, does not negatively affect her enjoyment of the moment.
When she is finished, she allows herself to fall onto her back on the bed, but Angela does not follow suit, as she often does, stays sitting up, biting her lip nervously and looking down at Ana below.
Ana raises an eyebrow at her, before remembering that the effect is likely rather different now that she only has one good eye, and one full eyebrow—but Angela seems to understand.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Angela tells her, as if Ana had not heard her whisper the same over their call a few weeks prior, as if she had not murmured it in her native tongue before, as if Ana did not know how she felt.
“Did you not mean it?” Ana asks her, and Angela only looks more uncomfortable at the question.
“No,” says she, “Or, yes, or—or no, I did mean it?”  A pause. “I meant it, I just—didn’t mean to say it like that, or just now, or when we were—”
“Angela,” Ana cuts her off, propping herself up on her elbows, “Calm down.  It’s fine.”
“Is it?” Angela asks her, and Ana hesitates, then.
Hesitation is a fatal mistake; she learned that when she faced Widowmaker for the first time.  In the moment Ana takes to consider the question, Angela crumbles before her.
“I’m sorry,” says she, “I can go.”
“Don’t,” Ana tells her, and Angela, already halfway off of the bed, freezes, “I’m not angry—I just need time to think about this.”
(A lie, Ana has had plenty of time, has thought about this often in the months since her return, about what she would say when this moment comes—and still, she has not decided.  Time is not what she needs, but she could not say what it is that might be of more help to her.)
Angela does not say anything, but she does not move further away, either, stays awkwardly half on and half off of the bed.
“Sit down,” she says, and Angela does, but only at the very edge of the bed, carefully avoiding touching Ana, “You don’t have to go anywhere.”
“If you’re sure,” Angela is still cautious, still guarded.
“I am,” Ana says, and considers, for a moment, lying and saying that everything is fine, that she was just surprised, and telling Angela to come lie with her—but she knows it would do them no good.  Instead, she forces herself to be honest, “I’m not, however, sure about my feelings.  I don’t know,” she pauses again, thinks about how to phrase this, settles on, “I don’t know when I’ll be able to say the same, but you feeling that way isn’t a bad thing, Angela.”
(Very carefully, she avoids saying the word love entirely, not wanting to give any false hope.)
“You’re certain?” Angela asks her, “It doesn’t make you uncomfortable
“It didn’t in the moment,” Ana decides to be honest as possible, “Which was, of course, satisfying as ever,” she winks as she says that, as best as she can, and hopes that a bit of levity will ease the tension.
It does, because Angela gives a little laugh, half nervous but half amused, and relaxes her posture somewhat, saying, “Yes, well, I obviously enjoyed myself a little too much.”
“Hmm,” Ana gestures her over, “Better than not enough. Now come lie down, we’re too old to be so active after sex.”  That is mostly said in jest, given the lifestyle they lead, but Ana is tired, if not from physical exertion.
“Alright,” Angela acquiesces, and she is perhaps more hesitant than usual when curling herself around Ana, but she does so—and Ana remembers, suddenly, that neither of them had time to wipe their hands off before this conversation began, and she fights the urge to remark upon it when Angela’s decidedly sticky fingers come to rest on her hip.  A bit of discomfort is worth it, to be able to fall asleep in her lover’s arms, to know that despite all her shortcomings, and all that has happened in her life, she is cared for—even loved.
She fears, still, what it would mean to love Angela, fears that they might grow to hate one another, or that she might not be able to cope with being tied down, that their love would die, and she would be worse off for having allowed herself to be vulnerable, in the name of something that could not last.
(Hesitation is a fatal mistake; she learned that when Widowmaker shot her—but she lived nonetheless, and learned, then, that some things are too stubborn to kill.)
But it is all a worry for another day; for now, she is at peace.
5 notes · View notes
frdknsll-blog · 6 years ago
Text
Tumblr media
imagine the most serious character you know
now imagine them getting scared by the toaster going off as they walk by
⋆ ◦ ° ☾ joel kinnaman + male + he/his — have you met ford kinsella? they are thirty eight years old known around town as the bodyguard. they’ve been in the gang life for fifteen years, and currently work for the gang as a soldier. they are a pansexual virgo, which means they are practical + observant, as well as harsh + inflexible. rusty metal crow bar, beech forest in the winter, messages on read.
BIO:
born in valdez. his crackhead mom named him ford because she found him in the boot of a ford fiesta whilst she was robbing it. he was a one way ticket to claim some golden benefits.
had a string of men come in and out of their home like a revolving door who were just as bad as her or worse. ford was still protective of his mum, despite all her shit, and he paid for it.
grew up in a lil trailer park in some dodgy area. a real small community. guy ritchie snatch vibes. he heard stories of kids at school playing ball in the garden but the kids from the trailers fought each other for fun.
he only knew the difference bc he actually went to school. occasionally. he enjoyed learning and thought he’d be able to get on the right path. rip. kept to himself at school, quiet. never threw the first punch but his first was always the last.
the community attempted to overthrow the ‘monsters’ that controlled valdez. stupid.
resulted in one big throw down betw the two groups on ford’s home ground. by the time the caito’s gang were finished - mind you it didn’t take them long - the majority of the ppl ford grew up with were either dead, in the back of police cars, or on the run...
at the age of nineteen, he was thrown into jail. had already gone to juvie a few times. after he’d established his reputation as someone that didn’t like being started on bc it meant he had to finish them? it wasn’t too bad. he got to read, smoke, and read more.
one night, he’d saved the life of a guy who’d been cornered by some inmates. turns out he was the son of a guy pretty high up in the gang. he offered a ‘get out of prison’ card to ford but he declined. the outside world didn’t appeal to him.
until news reached him that the gang had found his girlfriend. immediately he asked to be let out. it took a while but by the time he got out things weren’t how he expected.
she was too far gone. a splitting image of his mother. when he found out that they had a kid, and that the kid was no where to be found, he thought it’d be the end of their relationship. but he couldn’t bring himself to give up on her.
she was a hooker and he’d spent his days trying to protect her, save her from herself. until one day it all got too much and he drove himself mad. a customer laid hands on her and ford murdered him.
caito and his gang came to ford’s protection. but everything came at a price. he began working for the gang officially and it only felt natural to do so - he couldn’t find a job anywhere else, and since his release he’d been doing small jobs to get by here and there.
she died from an overdose not long after. we don’t talk about it.
now he mostly works as a guard to the escorts/strippers. and the odd job here and there during the day. he prefers working on his own.
PERSONALITY:
he’s not angry. or sad. or anything. he’s just tired and pretty over it.
not a man of many words. talks with his eyes and incoherent grumbles: stop talking, step away, can you pass me the salt, this coffee is too hot, do you want my jacket, are you okay...
one cool, calm, collected, callous, cold c*nt. all the c’s. oh and a clean freak.
doesn’t get drunk, doesn’t do drugs. what a bore. v strict with himself. has a set of rules and sticks to them, expects others to do the same or at least respect them.
v patient but has zero tolerance. no manners, raised by rabid dogs lbr.
has a 2g phone. seriously a granddad. likes quiet, peace, serenity. wants to get things done as quickly and as cleanly as possible. doesn’t actually like having to resort to violence but it’s rly the only thing he knows.
likes wood carving. has a collection of ornaments he’d carved. honestly would probably even like knitting if he’d give it a chance tbh.
has just learned to detach himself from everything. lowkey dissociating half the time. honestly has no sense of humour.
super private. u aint gettin anything out from him about his past or personal life. loljk he has no personal life.
POTENTIAL PLOTS:
he doesn’t rly have friends. ppl he’s used to maybe. ppl who understands he likes his space and the way he works. fellow soldiers that just like to get the job done? not sure how long that’ll last bc we lov begrudging friendships in this house.
pls gimme ppl that will annoy the heck out of him. leon and matilda vibes. he’s a baby sitter lbr.  
he ain’t no ho but he still got needs. one night stands onli. feel like he used 2 fuck ppl in the gang but has made a rule not to anymore cos he cbf for messiness. (we’ll see)
someone that is able to get him to him maybe? bring out the fire in him, make him lose his shit bc when he does he loses his control. and he likes being in control of himself. hence no drinking 2 much.
enemies - anyone who’s a bit psycho and trigger happy, he ain’t gonna get on with u. i feel like he’s sent on jobs to keep them lot in check. 
someone that can actually get him to talk? they could have nice simple random conversations about absolutely nothing but will take a certain character (iono what that is yet pls i’m useless)
if you’ve made it this far then i’m sorry. it’s obvious i just have no idea whAT IM DOIN AND IONO Y U CARRY ON WIT THIS MESS OF A RAMBLE.
if u wanna plot like this post and i’ll message u :D or if u wanna message me first that’s grand too >:))))
10 notes · View notes
velteris · 7 years ago
Note
velter please comfort me and explain why princess was so mean. I didn't see that coming at all, why would she be so cruel to poor ange?
im uhhhh heartbroken myself tbh!!!! but i had a good Discussion with bandit the day of the episode actually n i think i’ve managed to make my peace with it so lets break it down feat. fuzzy screencaps
Tumblr media
this is the bit where she’s still trying to convince Ange to somehow fix the situation, let her stay in the country; she’s giving Ange this sort of disbelieving smile. it’s an appeal to Ange, to remember the promise Ange made and that Princess is now carrying on. 
Tumblr media
we saw before in ep 3 that Princess didn’t resent Ange for her plan to run away, she only tried to convince Ange to join her. and Ange did, and Princess was over the moon about it; like old times, playing tricks together, working towards their common goal. but now here’s Ange, dropping the plan that she herself once made and that Princess has been devoted to for 10 years so easily.
(i wonder if Princess thinks Ange’s been lying to her about going along with the plan ever since they reunited too.)
so there’s one fat layer of resentment that was created by Ange’s plan; and now here’s the second:
Princess, i think, is not (yet) a good spy. she’s a character who has many strengths. she’s skilled at all the “princess” skills, she’s a good talker and convincer, her poker face is second to none. but ultimately, a few weeks of spy training doesn’t make a good spy; she simply hasn’t had the time to learn how to judge tense situations.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
they just went through the same scenario, but Ange knows they’ve raised such a fuss that they can’t go back to the way they were before. To Princess, this is a shock; she didn’t anticipate this at all. It’s Princess’s spy-wise ignorance that catches her off-guard and creates the second layer of resentment:
Tumblr media
this is where the heart-breaking starts. here, i think Princess is being absolutely honest. Ange’s robbed her of her agency. to be honest, Ange has a bit of this selfish problem; in the previous episode, we saw her jeopardise the plan to catch Prefect just because she didn’t want Dorothy to have to shoot Prefect. good intentions? absolutely. but she didn’t ask Dorothy’s opinion. she just assumed what would be best and went ahead without anyone’s approval.
here, too, Ange’s done the same thing. in that moment when Ange and Princess are hiding behind the mannequins and they’re concocting their escape plan, Ange could have told Princess about the assassination order. instead, she used that precious alone time to essentially trick Princess as well.
so i think Princess’s anger is absolutely justified. she thought they were partners working together. now all she can see is Ange having the final say without even asking her.
don’t get me wrong, i’m absolutely sympathetic towards Ange; that impulse to protect is, how you say, hhhhhhhhhhh. but she should have taken Princess’s wishes into account too. she’s too quick to assume that the burden of decision-making must rest on her alone.
Tumblr media
i gotta say my japanese isn’t great but there’s an interesting nuance here (come correct me if you know more than me about this please!) - what Princess actually says is “消えてちょうだい” (kiete choudai), which better translates as “please disappear” - and not as a request, but as an imperative. which makes it hurt more because she’s not just telling Ange “you can disappear”, she’s practically ordering Ange to do so. this, combined with the fact that Princess says, “that’s right, I am the princess” - she’s asserting her royal authority in a way that she never has before. Ange’s been keeping her at a slight distance this whole time by calling her Princess. well, time for Princess to return the favour, if that’s what Ange wants.
Tumblr media
if you go and listen to this line, which is the next thing Princess says after Ange’s shocked “Princess...”, it’s a lot softer. there’s almost a little laugh in there. and she’s smiling, even though (or because) Ange can’t see her face. then there’s a pause. her face changes to something pained. then this line:
Tumblr media
she’s hitting ange right where she knows it’ll hurt the most. they’re both smart, and no doubt Ange’s going to be desperately searching for any sign that Princess does still care for her, which is why Princess goes for the jugular with the thing Ange’s most insecure about, and she says it in the harshest quiet voice we’ve heard from her.
and it’s the biggest lie she’s told.
Tumblr media
“who I used to be” = crybaby, weak, reliant. all the qualities Princess lists off here.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
she’s lying so she can drive Ange away and make sure this plan will work. she’s lying so that Ange will think there really is nothing she can do for Princess, that she has no choice but to leave.
(it’s telling that the first tear falls immediately after she delivers this lie. does she cry just because the person she loves the most has just hurt her? or also because she just hurt that person back the worst way she knew how?)
Tumblr media
and the final blow: they’re alone, and Princess calls her “Ange”, not “Charlotte”. disavowing their connection. to Princess, who asks to be called by her own name, not doing the same for Ange is one more way to hurt her intentionally.
and of course there’s the double meaning of Princess saying goodbye forever to her whole hidden identity as Ange the pickpocket. no secret past, no bond to this other girl that looks the same as her, no more reason to fight this fight except wanting to tear the Wall down. she’s cut off her own escape route. there’s nothing but the Princess now.
23 notes · View notes
tumblunni · 8 years ago
Text
aaaa im getting stupidly inspired to work again on my old Dating Sim Ghost Tragedy Game since I had that dumb idea today about a new Dating Sim Ghost Tragedy Game I’ve had like five separate ideas for different tragic undead datey games :P Lets talk about this particular one!! I’m pretty tired so I cant really write it a big post like i did with today’s new idea, but I’ll try my best ^_^
The idea is that it’d be sort of a traditional medieval fantasy setting but its more like a slice of life tale of the regular citizens in these sorts of worlds, rather than a big destined hero thing. Sorta like the appeal of the Atelier series? I’m thinking the protagonist could maybe be a blacksmith or a gardener or some other down-to-earth job? I just feel like he’s a hardworking chill sort of dude, sometimes kinda comes off as emotionless to others, kinda depressed but devoting himself to his work helps him smile again. He’s really passionate about whatever he does! And i think deciding his job would be a big step towards developing this idea, because having it as a minigame would help add structure to the plot and some relief from the sadness. I dont wanna make it too similar to Atelier though... So yeah, the protagonist is this cute mid-twenties relateable fella who’s just trying to do his job. I think I wanna give his outfit dungarees or something? I feel like he’d always look a bit work-uniform-style even when he’s off duty, he’s kinda too lazy to change clothes. A perpetually bored and disinterested guy. Or, at least that’s the impression he gives off to people who don’t know him, he only brightens up around the few friends he has. AND HE PUTS 100% INTO THAT SMILE, GODDAMMIT
And then his childhood friend is someone who actually was sort of a ‘standard rpg hero’, but a really sad subversion of it. At the moment he’s currently the main love interest, and he’s still sorta the catalyst for the plot and the mysteries and all, even if you don’t pick him. or I dunno, maybe I’ll just make it only one love interest but many multiple endings, but I think this character would be happy if his love interest was happy with somebody else in the endings where they dont get together. He’d be crying but happy. Anyway, my mental image for him now is this really weary chronically shy cinnamon roll who’s like a big ol tall beanpole knight with long rapunzel hair that he hides behind. Maybe white hair cos that’d fit thematically with his plot, but is that too sephirothy? When they were children, knight-guy used to be this bright and uplifting figure who always protected protagonist and had such great dreams of being a hero who could save everyone! And he went off to join the army at a young age, and then he just... shattered. He came back disgraced as a deserter, the decade of loyal service ignored by all his former neighbours just because he’d quit in the end. He had a complete breakdown and just couldnt take the violence anymore, now he’s barely 23 years old and already retired. And completely alone. No family, just trying in vain to take care of his fragile self as he locks himself away in his house and everybody gossips about him. And the thematic thing is that his biggest fear is spiders. The moment he snapped was when he was left injured on the battlefield unable to move for hours, trapped under a pile of bodies of his fellow soldiers, trying to play dead to survive. He just remembers seeing a spider crawling across the face of the man next to him, the man in pieces... So everyone horrid in the village likes to mock him by scaring him with spiders, and I havent decided on his name yet but he probably has a spider-based nickname. He’s unlucky enough to even look spidery :P
Ooooooohhhhhh and for extra irony, the village is next to a magic forest populated by demon spiders. WHOOPS, FATE HATES YOU! They’re kinda like both the gods and demons of this village, they’re seen as morally bankrupt dangerous trickster spirits that’ll do whatever they want regardless of good and evil. Everybody talks about how horrible they are and warns that anyone who does [insert sin according to our religion] will be cursed by them, but they also make offerings to them and consider them entirely responsible for the success of the harvest, etc. Its like if you knew your gods were unpredictable dicks but you still tried to placate them with gifts! (like most old european pantheons I guess) And even though this setting is indeed a magical one, the existance of the spider spirits is kind of an unknown mystery similar to real life gods. People very rarely see them in times of need, and nobody can ever prove it really happened. The forest is indeed the ‘forest of spiders’ but the only proven fact is that it has a lot of (as far as we know) completely ordinary spiders in it. Nobody knows why so many spiders cluster in this one area, so making up a legend about gods seems like a possible thing that could happen. or maybe this one area really is the centre of the world where the One True Spiders weave the webs that tell the future, and these are their mortal followers praying in worship much like the humans do... Anyway, its just a cool aesthetic thing of a cobweb-encrusted forest where entire trees get coccooned annually as the seasons come and go~ And a cool civilization that has a lot of trade in silk and weaving! Kinda based on the old ps1 game Jade Cocoon, though that revolved around magical spirit silkworms instead.
At the time the story starts, best friend knight guy has been back home for a fair few years now. Him and protagonist met again, and protagonist is goddamn determined to take care of his ill friend and somehow manage to convince the town to take him back! Its basically two depressed people holding on to each other as their lifeline, and helping each other compensate for the things they’ve each been robbed of. Protagonist struggles with expressing emotion and being a complete pushover who can never tell anyone what he really wants, so its helping him a lot that for once he’s determined and won’t just mindlessly obey his parents. You cant tell me to cast aside my best friend! Plus best friend just generally thinks the goddamn world of him and helps him be happy! And best friend suffers from seeing himself as worthless and being anxious about disaster at every turn, feeling that nobody loves him and nobody SHOULD love him. And not being capable of taking care of his more mundane day-to-day needs because he doesnt believe he deserves to like.. eat, sleep, leave the house, etc. Poor guy... I’m so glad I invented a protagonist character that can be there for him! And seriously they both just renew each other’s self worth and I’m getting so emotional about this pairing before I’ve even developed it... GAHHHH
SO YEAH LETS GET DOWN TO THE ACTUAL PLOT It was kinda necessary to establish the history leading up to it, because that’s why it’s so tragic :(
Last year, the protagonist’s best friend vanished overnight and never came back. Everyone says he just ran away again like a coward, nobody even looked for him except you. They say he was last seen walking into the forest, and nobody will listen when you say that’s IMPOSSIBLE! His biggest fear was the spiders! The protagonist frantically tried to find him.. tried to find his body... tried to at least investigate this murder mystery and find some closure... tried to at least convince people that it WAS a murder mystery.... With the loss of the person he cared about most, the protagonist has slunk back into his own shell again, and starts to give up hope on life. Facing the same pariah treatment they gave his spider-fearing friend, he eventually learns to stop asking questions, to stop searching, to just do whatever his parents said. And his parents said he has to have an arranged marriage, to restore their reputation, after his STUPID STUNT of causing so much FUSS over the death of some stupid deserter... Each day blends into the next, as life becomes once again just going through the motions of being a ‘proper man’. Then... One day... He comes back. The spider-haired best friend comes walking though your door like nothing had happened! But.. he isn’t quite right. Your joy starts fading to a growing dread. He doesn’t remember what happened? He walks straight past the people heckling him? He seems more peaceful than he’s ever been, he’s fearless again and he keeps answering your questions with exactly what you’re desperate to hear. Sometimes you swear you see him talking to spiders whenever you turn your back... So you have to adjust to having him back, and try and figure out the mystery of his dissappearance while worrying whether you can trust him or not. You even entertain irrational thoughts that the legends are true, and maybe you’ve invited a forest spirit into your home because it mimicked the voice of the man you loved. And... what will you do about that love? For the first time ever he’s recipricating your feelings, he knows all those words that went unspoken, as if he could hear you every night as you wished you’d confessed while you had the chance. Is this really him holding you close, or is it a cruel trick to offer you everything you wanted, so the forest can claim you just like it claimed him?
So yeah, gameplay would be like exploring around each day searching for clues, doing a certain job-based minigame, and having chances to either go down the dating sim path or mistrust this man that may or may not be the one you knew. Even options perhaps to develop a romance with other characters instead? But will there be consequences for instilling jealousy in something otherworldly...? I think maybe if you just jump right into romancing possibly-friend-possibly-doppelganger, then you get a bit of a bad ending. Agreeing with him 100% and never solving the mystery is bad, regardless of whether he’s actually trustworthy or not. Either way it ends tragically, but there might be possibly a way to get a true romance ending with him if you actually do keep on top of resolving the main plot as well as just smooching. I... won’t say whether his romance is good or bad though :P And there’d be one not-romance route, where its kinda like you have to work hard to avoid romance! The protagonist’s arranged marriage is a big problem, he’d resigned himself to that fate but now he’s starting to hope he can confess to the one he really loves instead. But he’s gotta go against the whole damn world trying to force him into this ‘destiny’... Oh and I wanna make the most of the spider aesthetic! I was thinking that ‘fate threads’ could be a big gameplay element, with the possibility of getting these out-of-context flashforwards and clues that can help you avoid a bad ending. (Like in Until Dawn!) And romance meters would be a silk thread connecting the two of you, because pretty interface elements are awesome :)
POINTLESS RANDOM DEVELOPMENT TRIVIA This is actually a super old idea that’s remained undeveloped for many years! Back when i was a lil teen I originally imagined sort of a similar thing but with mermaids/water spirits instead of spider ones. And a lake instead of a forest, naturally. Also it kept flip-flopping on the genders of the characters. Ultimately i decided delicate spider aesthetic would fit better with a m/m couple and terrifying swamp creatures of fierceness would be better as sapphic. And the het idea died quickly cos it was based on dumb gender roles that the shy one has to be the girl, blablabla :P Oh and for some reason the whole spider idea came from reading one particular case in the manga adaptation of Ace Attourney. Weird, huh?
2 notes · View notes
dcathwithoutglory-blog · 6 years ago
Text
Tumblr media
it’s jay. again. my browser just crashed. so i’m just gonna copy and paste my old intro. there’s no time to try and make it better. rip !
⌊ priyanka chopra, cis woman, antigone ⌉ ⏀ have you spoken to ALEXANDRA “ALEXA” MEHRA recently? the THIRTY-FOUR year old who’s been in seneca for SEVEN YEARS or so? either way, they always seem to remind me of FLOWERS PLACED ON A GRAVE, A RUSTY COMPASS, STORMS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT whenever i see them on main street. on a good day they’re pretty MORALISTIC, but they can also be RESISTANT. ⌊ jay, 19. est, she/her ⌉
the story of antigone that y’all probs already know but jic.
triggers: brief implication of incest but like wbk, brief mention of suicide, death, creon bein a bitch
brief overview of antigone (character + eponymous story):
antigone was born to oedipus and jocasta.
we all know what happened there. after that, oedipus was like “see no evil feel no evil” and jocasta yeet’d out of living.
her brothers went to war against each other. when creon ascended to the throne, he allowed burial for eteocles with honors, but was like “lmao if u bury polyneices i will kill u”
but antigone was like ‘lmao SURE JAN’ and tried to convince ismene, her sister, to help her bury polyneices. ismene was like ‘ok that’s a rly bad idea like good luck but count me out tbh.’
antigone is rly bad at digging graves tho so polyneices’s body was found and creon was like ‘oh my GOD’ and she’s like ‘fuck the government viva la morality!’
then creon was like ‘ok anyway rmr when i said u wld die if u buried polyneices so ig now u have to be buried alive in a tomb’ then antigone was like ‘actually i’ll be hanging myself before u can do fuck the government’
then he was like ‘at least u’ll be dead! oh wait -
Y’ALL GO SAVE EVERYONE’ but then it was too late
antigone and his son had both killed themselves and everyone, including himself, were just like
“get WREKT creon!!!!!”
alexa ( play despacito ).
triggers: suicide (x2), death (x3), mental illness implications, war, brief mentions of torture and murder
ok now onto alexandra ! so, like i did for valda, i looked up names that shared the same meaning as ‘antigone’ (which essentially means “against”) and one of the suggestions was alexa but i also wanted it to sound. super valiant. but at the same time. i wanted it to be something that could have a conversational nickname. so im already hc’ing that she has ‘despacito’ saved on her phone. also alexandra is my middle name so like?? stan list?? OK ANYWAY.
alright, so alexandra was born to a very upper-class family. her father was a politician and her mother was a successful lawyer. they provided well for the perfect nuclear family –– two sons, two daughters, a golden retriever, two cats in the yard life used to be so hard now everything is easy cause of-
like... her early life, say birth to age 14, was... nice. actually normal and nice. have i ever done that before? has my own edgelord ass ever done that before? i don’t think so.
which is why things obviously took a turn for the worse
but yeah. when she was 14, she was like “hey mom idk how to do pre-algebra” (a mood) but there was no response from her mom. so shrug city, you know? she just went to her older sister instead. but like... so much time passed.... and nothing....
finally, this nosy bitch decided to be like “ok i’m gonna go see what tf she’s doing” and that was just... a terrible idea. instead of finding her mom doing her nails or talking on the phone or any number of reasons she may not have come out yet, she found her mother hanging from the ceiling fan.
she tried to get her brothers’ and sister’s help, and they tried so desperately to help (you know, while also calling 911 and their father), but it was to absolutely no avail.
after this hella traumatizing experience, the children grew closer as the father grew farther.
he began getting lost in his own mind, sometimes accidentally mixing the past with the present, a la willy loman style. he would hold slight conversations with their ‘mother’ while at the table, then began holding them with various others from the past. it was pretty clear that his mind had just been looking for an excuse to snap, and the death of his wife had been the perfect scapegoat.
although it had originally just affected him in his home life, he began holding said conversations in the presence of people outside his family.
this is not good for a politician.
i mean it’s not good for anyone but...
his support immediately began dropping. his team gradually left him, finding there was no way he would ever be able to gain another victory if he kept on living in a limbo between the past and the present. given that he’d started ‘talking to his brother’ during one of his speeches... 
rest in peace to his career.
alexa (play despacito) was 18 at the time, her sister - 20, one of her brothers - 21, the other - 24.
they were all legal adults! some of them had even moved out! so their father figured his next move would not affect him in the way their mother’s death had!
so he shot himself.
the only people who showed up at his funeral were alexa and her sister. her eldest brother proclaimed that flying across the country would be too much of a hassle for that, and the other brother simply did not respond.
her eldest brother did, however, enlist in the army after setting legalities in place that would allow him to send money back to his siblings. he had joined simply because it was an easy opportunity (what with all of the propaganda), but his decision prompted the other brother to do the same –– this time because he was talented at ‘the art of fighting.’
and bc more money but like... get wrekt.
alexa’s sister dropped out of college to work a full-time job –– one that paid fairly handsomely. alexa took some odd jobs.
aka, everyone was trying to make money.
creon was right when he said “money! nothing worse”
so things kind of dipped when the eldest brother was killed. after an accusation that he’d become a traitor, their other brother had taken it upon himself to ‘anonymously’ torture and shoot him. but the other side did it!
which everyone knew was a lie.
because of the accusations, he was not only not allowed a military funeral, he was also not meant to be buried in any honorable fashion. instead, his body was returned to his hometown to be buried there following a quiet and uneventful funeral.
his grave was left unmarked.
nonetheless, the grave was visited every day, new flowers laid atop.
meanwhile, their other brother was considered a newfound military icon. he’d gotten rid of a ‘traitor’ (they continued to pretend it was someone from the other side, of course), he’d killed many an enemy, he’d done this and that and this and that and it all made him look so morally grey to alexa and her sister (who, granted, had yet to find out he’d killed their other brother), but like such a white knight to his fellow soldiers.
he truly rose in the ranks. it was what he was meant to do.
but the more he killed, the more he tortured, the lack of grief towards his brother’s death...
alexa’s sister wasn’t buying her hypothesis. it wasn’t necessarily because she saw their other brother was some pure being, but because she simply didn’t believe he was capable of that.
the next time alexa saw her brother, she got confirmation enough. what to do with the information, she wasn’t sure, but she knew she had to do something...
murder wasn’t the solution... she didn’t have any military connections that would allow for her to spout some lie about why he needed to be dishonorably discharged... but what he did couldn’t skate by...
to this day, she is still wondering what she can do to fuck him over. his success in the military keeps growing grander and grander, thus rendering any fake dishonorable discharge excuses completely moot. her sister still doesn’t believe that there really is a solution –– that, while it is greatly harmful, there’s absolutely nothing they can do and ruminating on it is worthless –– trying to find some quest to defeat their own brother is absurd.
although she has since moved to seneca, attracted to its small town appeal, she continues to visit her eldest brother’s grave every week –– it’s about a two hour drive, so it’s worth it.
she’s taken up work as a cemetery caretaker
because of COURSE she would.
and, although its pay is.... lousy, she’s been making due. for the tombstones no one visits any longer, first she’ll look them up to make sure they weren’t slave-owners or anything, she’ll bring them their own flowers. the dead deserve just as much respect as the living, hm?
personality.
i just realized i didn’t do this for valda (aka, i’m about to update her intro with it), but a total enneagram type 2.
too empathetic for her own good, too ‘this person whom i do not even know deserves flowers’ for her own good, too ‘i’ve got to protect _______ by doing _________’ for her own good
a capricorn
so driven by her own moral compass, she does not CARE about anything that says she has to go against it
her moral compass can be super faulty sometimes tho
pretty quick to make assumptions tbh, but has so far been right abt most of them.
so also driven by gut feelings ig
dramatic tbh. i mean she’s the adapted version of a character whose first lines contained “there's nothing, no pain—our lives are pain” SO.
also p independent (as in i said valda was independent), but her vendetta isn’t against men in general, rather just her brother who is still alive
so like,,, that said,,, holds grudges.
im bad at personality sections!! as has been stated before!! but i think the gist has been gotten across!!
wanted connections.
so rn i only have one specific one which is her sister and can be found on the wc page
will come up w/ unique ones later but until then open 2 hearing urs/brainstorming!
tl;dr.
(refer to triggers listed before the bullets.) a lot of death? like mom kills herself then dad turns into willy loman then dad kills himself. brothers both join the army. one brother kills the other brother for being accused of being a ‘traitor.’ said brother doesn’t get a proper funeral and his headstone is unmarked. the other brother rises in the rankings and alexa knows what happened. convinced her sister of it, but her sister is more logical and let her know that she was very angry too, but making her entire life about it would do nothing but endanger herself and others. moved to seneca because she liked the small town feel. still visits her eldest brother’s grave every week to leave flowers. works as a cemetery caretaker bc WHY NOT. brings flowers to graves that are either unmarked or no longer visited. i hope you read all of that and just thought ‘oh my god fckin EDGELORD’ because you’re right.
alright ! fin.
like this or hmu if you’d like to plot !
5 notes · View notes