#the universe is out to get me why!!! why world!! why must you torment me so!!!!!

[rowrowronnie]

escape at dannemora on netflix….. goodbye World……

[jinnie-ret]

MY YOUTH | SKZ NINTH AU

stray kids x ninth member!reader (platonic)

<---------- back to my youth

<---------- back to main masterlist

chapter 6

genre: angst content warnings: bullying word count: 1.6k

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Lou began to feel like the trajectory of her life in this universe was heading down a path of one sick joke after the other. She had been holed up in her personal studio ever since the incident in which her childhood toy she was so attached to had been torn to bits. Lee Know had tried to comfort her but she was so overwhelmed that she had to leave the dorms. It left her with an odd feeling, one that didn’t quite sit right as she knew that she wouldn’t be feeling this way in her home world, but the longing that ached within her wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation. Her friends and family that had been left behind, seemingly nonexistent here. Seemingly, because Lou knew she couldn’t exactly go up to the boys and ask them about random people they would have never heard her bring up before. Or, on the other hand, she couldn’t ask about her ‘family members’ because she should know them more than anyone right?

The girl had become so absorbed into her thoughts that she had failed to notice the new object that had made itself home on her cluttered desk, an old floral notebook with a tattered leather binding at the spine. Until. the pages started flickering before her very eyes. The visual distraction was welcome, despite the unease and immense confusion that it caused. Dusty yellowed paper flickered until it came to a stop, landing on one page in particular. Ah, here it was, the next sick joke making itself known.

Marigolds.

These were the flowers she got yesterday. Lou gripped the book in her hands in disbelief, eyes scanning over the description of the plant, one that was presented in a time of grief. Surely not? Perhaps she had imagined the unnatural nature of the book. She could have subconsciously turned to that page. Yes, that must have been it. Lou was slowly convincing herself that there was no way that there could be a magic book in her grasp, even when she had been transported into a completely different universe. It didn’t matter for now, not when the three girls she wanted to see least had suddenly stormed into her studio, making her jump back into her chair and turn, hand on her heart.

Mina, Sora and Jiah, the younger girl of course hiding behind the older two who had dragged her along. In all honesty, Lou didn’t know why they were all still friends when it was clear there was a disconnect in beliefs - the beliefs being on tormenting her or not.

“Here, thought we’d be nice and give this back,” Mina plastered on a fake smile and proceeded to throw Lou’s notebook at her, hitting her against the head. Sora snorted from beside her at the disgruntled look on Lou’s face. The poor girl already had a heavy weight of thoughts and feelings to deal with, her neck hunched as she slumped over, pinching the bridge of her nose as she huffed.

“What? Not gonna say anything? I don't know why we even bother doing this if you’re not going to even react,” Sora kicked Lou’s foot to grab her attention.

“Pathetic,” Mina’s eyes scanned Lou, before nudging Jiah.

“Oh, y-yeah,” she looked up briefly before ducking her head down straight away.

“You bought me marigolds,” Lou blurted out, unable to get the thought out of her head, “why?”

“Marigolds?” Sora snorted, looking at her accomplices with incredulity, “you think I care about what type of flowers we sent you? Give me a break.”

“They were on discount,” Jiah added unhelpfully, yet it still led the other bullies further on their hateful discourse.

“Cheap, nasty stuff. All you deserve,” Mina grinned evilly, before practically snarling as she spat at Lou’s shoes.

“We did you a favour, really, tearing apart that ugly toy,” Sora sighed, inspecting her nails as if she was bored. Lou hoped that they would get bored one day. She was tired of their antics, the amount of times they dropped in to insult her before she performed Miroh for the first time was nearly more than she could count on her fingers.

“So you didn’t know what type of flowers they were?” Lou pushed away their comments, wanting to get to the bottom of this weird situation, her eyes boring into the gazes of the girls in front of her.

“Oh don’t tell me we’ve got a nerd here!” Sora rested her hand on Mina’s shoulder, leaning against her slightly as they both chuckled.

“We already told you we don’t care about that, idiot. Aren’t you more upset about your ickle lickle stuffed animal?” the latter pouted mockingly, bending over slightly and leaning forwards to squeeze Lou’s cheek, the pinch being a bit too hard.

“Get out!” Lou pushed her away, standing up with frustration, stray hairs flying in front of her eyes yet she still maintained her steely gaze.

“Woah! No need to get all angry,” Mina laughed loudly, enjoying the reaction she finally got.

“My members are still here, wouldn’t want them to see you acting like this, would you?” Lou instinctively bit back, not really knowing if her statement would affect the actions of the other girls but it fortunately did.

“We should go,” Jiah nervously looked behind her, tugging at the sleeves of Sora and Mina to get them to follow her. It was probably one of the only times they listened to the younger girl.

Lou was happy to breathe for a second with the disappearance of the trainees. She gathered her things together, her old notebook which she had finally gotten back, and the new mysterious flower journal that only seemed to bring her trouble and more stress. So the girls supposedly didn’t buy the marigolds on purpose, yet there was a connection to the real life events with how the book itself acted sentient for a short moment to show her what they truly meant. This was going to nag at her brain for a while, that was for sure.

By the time she shook it off, made the short nighttime walk back home to the dorms, Lou had checked her phone as she entered through the front door and saw the time on her watch. 03:25AM. How was it that time already? She didn’t even realise how the time had flown by.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay. I’m sure of it,” she heard Felix speak up from somewhere in the lounge. She took off her coat and shoes, only to see Bang Chan, Changbin, Hyunjin and Seungmin putting on their own jackets.

“Where are you going?” Lou quietly spoke up, her members so caught up in their own bubble they didn’t hear her get back.

“To look for you! Have you seen the time? Why didn’t you reply to our texts?” Bang Chan rubbed a stressed hand over his face before ruffling his own hair.

“Texts?” Lou had to pause for a moment, left hand patting against the pockets of her sweatpants and hoodies but she couldn’t find anything. Where was her phone? “Oh, I don’t know…”

“I tried calling as well. You just ran away. I was worried, we all were, Sunny,” Lee Know stood up from the sofa to get a better look at her, in case he could spot anything alarming.

“Is your phone off?” Seungmin looked at her knowingly, unzipping his windbreaker.

“Yeah, I was at the studio,” Lou shrugged. Maybe that’s why she had no idea where her phone was. She’d have to look into it, just something else to add to the mountains of issues she had to deal with.

“Told you she’d be there!” Han rolled his eyes, legs tucking into himself as he tiredly leant against the arm of the sofa. It was then she noticed how tired everyone looked, all because of her. Felix was sat upright, Jeongin next to him and although he was more reclined, their legs still touched for that extra bit of comfort. Changbin and Hyunjin were following in Seungmin’s footsteps, taking off their coats too, yet still standing attentively alongside Bang Chan.

“Now’s not the time,” Changbin tapped Han on the head through his hushed words.

“I’m sorry, I’m back now though. Can we just talk about this tomorrow?” Lou urged, not wanting a grilling from her members, her leader in particular, before she felt that fuzzy feeling she still hadn’t gotten used to. A flash blinded her vision before she was entered into a glimpse of a vision.

“Please, Hannie, can we just talk about it tomorrow? I don’t want to talk about it now,” Lou begged a younger version of her member.

“Flo, I’m worried about you. You need to tell me what’s happening, please. Something is wrong,” Han pleaded, his hand reaching out towards her before the vision was gone.

“Yah, Flo? Louisa?” Chan snapped his fingers in front of her face.

“You should get some sleep,” Hyunjin added when he saw Lou wasn’t off in her own world.

“Something is wrong,” Han whispered to Seungmin who nodded but rested his hand on his shoulder to show now wasn’t the time.

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” Lee Know almost sternly told Lou. She thought he had a right to feel that way, she had run out on him after all.

She quickly took herself off to her room, knowing where she was going this time. It wasn’t long before her head hit the pillow and she fell asleep, entering a dreamland - one she had not visited before.

<-- previous chapter next chapter -->

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tagged: @akitfffr @aeinzzzketchup @mirelys98 @itsjustkhaos @linoalwaysknows @royal-shinigami @jolly04 @turtledove824 @yangbbokari @thisrandomgoofy15 @lieslab @hannamoon143 @arumlilyeclipse

[remembrancer-of-heresy]

The Destiny

Summary: You desperately try to know if Gods exist. Chaplain Erebus wants to enlighten you.

Erebus/fem!Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, possessive behavior, manipulation, noncon

Author's note: so it's finally happened... God-Emperor, forgive me (no)

Word count: 2666 (lol)

Song: Enigma - Sadeness (Part I)

Sade, dis-moi Qu'est-ce que tu vas chercher? Le bien par le mal? La vertu par le vice? Sade, dis-moi Pourquoi l'évangile du mal? Quelle est ta religion? Où sont tes fidèles? Si tu es contre Dieu, tu es contre l'homme Sade, es-tu diabolique ou divin?

The Imperial Truth is the only truth in the galaxy. All must adhere to it and bring its light to all corners of the universe. If anyone dares to resist or dispute it, then they are not worthy of living. Billions lived with this truth. You lived with this truth.

But for you, these were just words, a tyrannical law that all worlds were forced to follow. Perhaps there was something wrong with you, otherwise how could an ordinary citizen of the Imperium have such... heretical thoughts.

But what happened was. You did not say them out loud, did not try to change people's minds. You simply lived in your vacuum, a safe environment. Even when the Emperor announced the creation of the Order of Remembrancers, you felt nothing. Your talents could have been revealed with new strength, you could have become famous, glorified the Legion, but you did not want this. Why, when you do not believe in the truth.

If it was the truth at all.

And yet your Master Librarian gave you no choice and deliberately obtained permission for you. As if you were a slave without will. But your Master assured you that it was for your own good. It was your destiny to be part of the Crusade.

But you were not upset for long. When you realized that you had a chance to choose a Legion, you took it. Many remembrancers wanted to join the Luna Wolves or the Emperor's Children. Quite a few wanted to join the Ultramarines. But you had another goal. Although it was difficult to get to them, as the Legion refused to accept remembrancers for two years after the triumph at Ullanor. But in the end, even the Word Bearers opened their doors for them.

You were not the best historian or iterator in the general sense. The thing is, you only studied what interested you. And if something stirred your feelings, you dove into it headlong. Your master once joked that if you had your way, you would conquer the world. Part of you wanted to say that you would.

But you weren't interested in material power, wealth, or the Imperial Truth. You were far more drawn to other things. Especially religion. Faith is an unshakable feeling, and the Emperor's desire to rid himself of it seemed almost comical. No, mankind will always seek to find God. The question is which Gods are true and which are false.

You knew that Lorgar's praise of the God-Emperor was not a rumor. This legend was not invented by evil tongues to spite the primarch. No, you knew that the Word Bearers were indeed bringing a new religion to the worlds. One that had long been ignored by the Emperor before he burned Monarchia. After that, Lorgar renounced the faith.

But even though you were not a believer, you knew that faith cannot be renounced so easily. You can't get rid of this feeling that torments your heart. Makes your soul sing and glow, fills with blessed light. You can renounce religion, but not faith. And if the God-Emperor was false, then there are other true gods.

Have the Word Bearers found them? Perhaps. You immediately thought of this when you learned about Cyrene Velantion. The Blessed Lady, whose eyes lost the ability to see after the burning of Monarchia. Some chroniclers had already met her. But it was just simple curiosity or simple politeness.

You wanted something else. To know the truth. You remember you were overcome with fear before meeting the Blessed Lady. Mercy and cruelty go hand in hand. As well as love and hate. Whatever the true deity was, it was not fed only by bright emotions. There is no order, only pure chaos. You were afraid to know the truth, for you were only a mortal girl. But you could not remain in sweet ignorance. Sooner or later the truth would come and it was impossible to prepare for it.

However, Cyrene Valantion did not preach, but listened. She could not tell the Truth, since she did not know it. And yet she listened to your fears, anxieties and doubts. She did not judge you and yet asked if you really wanted to meet the Gods.

And looking straight into the portholes you understood that no, you don't want to. But the divinity won't go away from this, it won't disappear. The Immaterium that opened before your eyes captivates your mind and you regret that you only decided to look at it now.

The battle with the traitors is approaching. Horus has rebelled against the Emperor and Lorgar, along with his brothers, must give the first and last battle. To bring down the Warmaster himself. Perhaps you should have been horrified by such events or proud that you ended up on board one of the saviors of humanity.

But you felt nothing. Perhaps Horus did the right thing by rejecting the Emperor. Or maybe you were completely lost in your doubts, justifying the traitor. You didn't know. You only knew that the troubles of the material world are nothing compared to what is happening in the warp.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" - a deep languid male voice cuts through the silence and you squeak in surprise and turn around.

You had never met him face to face, but you had seen him from afar. You had heard of his influence on the Primarch. Fortunately, it was not the old and burning with hidden malice and envy Kor Phaeron. But chaplain Erebus. There was something about the man that made you want to approach him like a lamb to a shepherd… but something about his predatory eyes and gentle smile repulsed you.

“Y-yes, beautiful.” Feeling uncomfortable, you turned away from the space marine, turning your gaze back to the Warp. You did not know why, but the space behind the ship seemed safer to you than the Chaplain’s proximity.

“In truth, I was disappointed when I returned from the Warmaster. And the remembrancers have arrived here. They scurry like rats through the corridors, reveling in their uselessness. Their only role in this story is to become bloody meat,” the man said the terrible words gently, as if lulling you.

You listened to him in confusion. Of course, you guessed that the Space Marines did not like the Remembrancers much, but you did not think that one of them would say it outright. Even if he was close to Lorgar. As if he did not care. Words and actions are unimportant, and you are meat.

“But I had to admit,” his voice echoes over your spirit and you turn sharply to meet his gaze. The man leaned in, almost breathing on your shoulder. “That your zeal to touch the Gods has excited me.”

“I-I,” you gasped like a fish, while Erebus enjoyed the spectacle. “It is not what you think, I, um-”

“No wonder the Emperor exalted men. You women are so weak.” - Erebus smiled at your indignant expression and you felt fear envelop you again. - “But it is the emotionality of your gender that most strongly pushes you to worship. Beautiful servants of the Dark Gods.”

Your heart was pounding like crazy and you swallowed, trying to step back from the chaplain. Not looking him in the eyes. While the words about the Gods screamed in your head, not allowing you to think rationally.

You wanted to know the Truth. And now it is revealed right in front of you. Did you really think that everything would be so easy? Alas, but it is the chaplain who will reveal the secrets of the universe to you. The one whose face is shrouded in such impenetrable darkness that it is surprising how it has not yet swallowed the whole world.

“P-please, please, I”

“Hmm? Asking to continue? Your desire is the law.” - Erebus mocks your request, circling around you like a beast preparing to attack. - “You don’t believe in the Imperial Truths, do you?”

“I-I do,” you trembled like a leaf in the wind, looking at the floor. - “B-beloved Emperor-”

“Don’t lie to me,” a whistle pierced the air and you watched in horror as a neat cut appeared on your palms. How? Where from? - “I am your confessor and I want you to speak frankly.”

You looked at Erebus with tears in your eyes. The man was not in armor, but in a robe. His face was gentle, while his eyes looked at you with a hidden heat. You didn’t even understand how he cut you. But you knew that he enjoyed your confusion.

“N-no, I don’t believe it,” you sobbed and the man smiled even more.

“Do you believe in the God-Emperor?”

“N-no”

“And in others that you know?”

“No”

“What if I told you,” the man almost whispers, but his words sound clear in your head like the sound of a drum. “That the Gods exist? That they watch over us, are a part of us, because we created them ourselves. Where do you think they are?”

The answer did not have time to form in your head, but your body already knew where the path lies. Your eyes flew up to the porthole, looking at the shimmering purple colors of the Immaterium. Only in such a place could the Gods live. The warp itself was a sea of ​​souls for you.

“Clever girl,” a silent cry leaves your chest as you feel heavy, massive hands on your shoulders. The man's weight pressed you to the floor, turning you to the immaterial world. - “They are right there. In the Immaterium. Waiting for us to destroy the false Emperor. When we bring the Galaxy to the true faith, to”

“To Chaos,” you either ask or state. The man behind you falls silent, before a light laugh creeps through him. The grip on your shoulders tightens. You feel the Chaplain’s fingers drop to your collarbone.

“Yes. To Chaos. But serving the Gods is not at all scary, no. I can show you the truth. You can become one of many servants.” - Erebus leans down and breathes so hotly that your ears burn. - “The Skull God will grant you the desire to taste another’s blood. The Architect of Fate will show you a great future. Grandfather will grant you health, he will take care of you. And the Dark Prince will grant you sensuality, make you his concubine.”

Silence fills the hall. Short in the material world, but it seems like an eternity to you. Before your cheek began to shine with someone else's drool and a seductive promise. A tattooed hand cupped your right breast, stroking a nipple hidden under layers of clothing.

"But I would rather make you my concubine."

You break free from someone else's grasp, overwhelmed by emotion. You look into his golden eyes again. Now you know what heat was hidden there. Lust. And Erebus wanted you to see it. He let you escape because he wanted to.

"What?" - you don't even know how to weave the words together. Doubts, fears and misunderstandings wash over you from head to toe. You felt cheated. You were played with like an insect.

"I was given the power of the Astartes, but a pathetic attempt to correct my mind failed. I have never been loyal to the Emperor and never will be. I desired blood even before the ascension. Never will I be a simple soldier, but only a servant of the Dark Forces." - a deep voice fills the silence, not giving you time to come to your senses. - “And I will never stop desiring feminine beauty, as I do now.”

“You will be my concubine. My lover. My whore.” - the man almost purrs, squeezing his hands like an ancient monk. But his words are not full of holiness. - “The world will soon change, the Imperium will fall. The Chroniclers do not have long left, but you. You have always been an outsider. I will lead you to a new era. It is enough just to throw off the shackles of the old order… you will like your destiny.”

Destiny. Your destiny is to become part of the Great Crusade. So your master told you, so the Emperor called you, announcing a new decree. You did not believe that you could bring something significant to this world by becoming a remembrancer. You did not believe in such a path, you realized the lie and falsity of what was happening.

But listening to Erebus, to your horror, you realized that you believed him. You believe that this is your destiny. To accept the will of the Dark Gods, to become their slave. And to give in to the dark temptation, to let a man tempt you. For you will not be able to hide from the Ruinous Powers, and the Emperor will not take you back into his arms. You were always a heretic, you were born to satisfy your master, who deserved a small reward from the Dark Gods.

You blink, smearing tears on your face, trying with all your might to wipe away the uninvited water. No, these are not your thoughts, these are someone else's desires. You are confused, you are scared. You have no one to ask for help. And even though Erebus is a child of Chaos, he is the only one who cares about you, he will take care of you.

What? How do you know? You are talking to him for the first time in your life.

"These are not my thoughts. This is not me. I, I" - you choke, almost falling over the pressure in your chest. - "I can't think about this, n-no, this is not my fate, not my purpose."

"Are you sure? If so, tell me this straight to my face." - a velvety voice sounded very close and raising your head, you see golden eyes with horror. A deceptively gentle smile is snow-white, but you can't stop seeing blood in the corners of his lips. - "If this is true, you will easily reject me. Tell me that you don't want this."

Pain squeezed your vice. Your heart fluttered, and your legs gave way. You desperately wanted to run away, to hide in the bowels of the ship. You reproached yourself for wanting to touch the unknown. You learned about the existence of Gods. Did it make you feel better? Did you find salvation in the truth?

Unable to bear it, you fall to your knees. If before these tears were running down your face in small streams, now you were choking on sobs. Your hands desperately wanted to grab something, just to not fall into the abyss of despair. You clung to Erebus' clothes like a drowning woman, denying that he is your doom.

"See? It's not so hard to admit your place." - the man gently strokes your head, as if you were a funny little animal, before kneeling. Rough teardrop-shaped fingers softly outline your cheekbones and curve your lips. - "I have been watching you for a long time. I could have taken you for myself a long time ago. But I had to prepare my pet. All the pieces are in place, the second betrayal is approaching."

Rough hands gently undress you, gently stroking the exposed areas of skin. And you listen to what Erebus says, wondering how quickly you fell into despair. How easy was it for you to break and turn human knowledge and arts into a slave? Were the boundaries allowed, or were they always blurred, and you were just waiting for them to finally be erased? Whatever the answer, you knew that in any case, Erebus like a boy played with you.

"We must praise all the Gods." - a tongue full of poison licks your ear before Erebus's eyes are fixed on your lips. - "But for now all the worship will go to the youngest of them."

Your kiss is sensual and tender like the sting of a scorpion.

[rin-fukuroi]

𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 [𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲]

Please do not translate or publish my works without my permission.

If you want to support me and read my other works that won't be on Tumblr, you can always do it on my Boosty~

Fandom: Honkai: Star Rail

Pairings: yandere!Sunday x fem!reader

Warnings: a bit of obsession and Sunday is the obvious stalker here, but no more triggers.

▶• ılıılıılıılıılıılı. Loluet - I beg you

Note: English is not my native language, so I apologize if there are errors in the text qq

It's so mean to eavesdrop on your thoughts*, but Sunday just can't stop.

You think he's pretty cute when he gives you another gift. You think his appearance is quite attractive for your taste. You think that the smell coming from Sunday, when he accepts your grateful embrace, is so exquisite, to match a man of his position. You think you'd probably feel safe near him.

You think Sunday is a little intrusive. You think he probably has a lot of fans, because he's so handsome. You think that the attention of a man with such a high position on Penacony is burdensome, because you are clearly not his match, so why does he continue to behave as if he is in love with you? You think that you are anxious near him, even though you cannot find any explanation for this feeling that suddenly arises in his presence.

Your thoughts warm Sunday's soul, and they also wound him to a nagging pain in his chest.

He really would like to stop doing this, but he's ready to give you the whole world. Even the dreams in which you are so happy, he'll bring that to life, if you only wish. It's probably corny to mentally promise a star from the sky just for you, but Sunday's ready to make the sky itself fall at your feet if this is the price for your smile. But you don't want any of this. You don't want him.

Why?

It's really so damn hard for Sunday. Helplessness, such disgusting helplessness torments him day by day, while he listens to your voice all day long, wanting to hear what you remember about him. But, as soon as the farewell separates the two of you, such useless thoughts fill your head, in which he has no place. And it's cruel. You're so cruel, but Sunday can't be mad at you.

How pathetic he must look, covering his own face with wings to hide the way his cheeks turn red and the corners of his lips lift in a gentle smile at the mere memory of how your honey voice pronounces his name. But this is not enough. Why not color your voice with brighter colors? Maybe… Red notes that give your tone of adoration and passion? You'll want him, and you'll get him if you just call. Playful pink notes will desire him with airy tenderness. Oh, how beautifully his name will shimmer on your tongue.

«It seems like I've been on Penacony for so long… It's worth coming home»

No, no, honey. Why go back to a place where he's not?

«He's looking at me so strangely again, as if he can read my mind…»

You have a great intuition, that's commendable. Sunday admires you even when his honor as a man and family member is at stake.

«Will Sunday be upset if he finds out that I'm leaving this place soon? Probably not»

Oh, darling, where did you get such thoughts in your lovely head? You're breaking Sunday's heart. How can he let you go? Dreams will lose their magic without you, this beautiful little world will lose light without your smile, the whole universe will lose its voice without the sound of your laughter.

«I guess I should just thank him for everything»

Don't mention it. Sunday would do anything for you. Tell him to rip the heart out of his chest, and he will present you with a bloody pulsating muscle in his palm.

— Y/N, — again this charming smile adorns the already perfect face of a man when he stretches out his hand bending over your figure. — Your hair is disheveled.

He can touch your hair, right? Of course he can. He hears a voice in your head, and you want the same thing, you just can't admit it even to yourself. It's an attraction between you and him… You have to feel it the same way Sunday feels it. He'll help you again, he just need to tweak your memories a little. You'll share with him all the feelings that Sunday experienced all the time spent with you. Desire him, love him, be there for him. That's all he can ask of you. It only takes his palm to touch your cheek…

The heat penetrates into the pores, permeates the skin, flows into the veins, spreading throughout the body until it captures the mind with rainbow waves blurring the eyes. And only the image of Sunday is so clear. You look into golden eyes that meet you with piercing gaze, and you see in them so much pain, torment, from which an unpleasant bitterness knits on the tongue. And then the sweetness. A cloying but airy sweetness. Every piece of sugar that gets into your mouth melts on your tongue, and for some reason an unfamiliar taste evokes so many memories that you seemed to be cruelly deprived of, and now they have returned to you, responding with a tremor in your chest.

«Y/N… listen to my voice»

You know him. This tenderness with which a man pronounces your name is so painfully familiar.

«You're happy here next to me, Y/N»

He's right, but why do his words seem so wrong to you…

«Touch me, Y/N, put your hand on my chest and feel my heart pounding. Just like yours… Aren't we made for each other?»

Of course. Of course, you're made. You can feel it. Soft pulsations touch the fingertips, beating off a sweet melody, so lulling and causing an irresistible desire… But what do you want?

«You're mine, Y/N. And I'm yours, forever»

Exactly. And how could you forget?..

It is so warm and cozy, as if beloved hands are pressing you to your heart, rocking you to an alluring lullaby, involving you in a sweet dream. And it doesn't matter at all if this dream is viscous and sticky, like a spider's web woven just for you. He'll take care of you if you just give up.

— That's better, isn't it?

«Has Sunday always been so… beautiful?» — what kind of strange thoughts are going through your head? Of course, always. The hours spent remembering how pleasant his wings are to the touch, how soft his skin is under your fingers, how pleasant the sound of your name escaping from his lips is, flash before your eyes, like a living reminder of the truth that lurks somewhere so deep, but lying on the surface, if you only dare say it.

You love him. You love him with all your heart, so long ago and so unconditionally that you feel ashamed that you dared to doubt the perfection of his face, the very sight of which is enough to make a muscle in your chest tremble.

The man notices your slight confusion, and grins melodiously.

— I mean the hair, — long eyelashes hang over the irises, shimmering with gold, when Sunday tilts his head to one side, not taking his eyes off you and continuing to smile charmingly.

— Oh, yes … thank you, — you awkwardly look away, and your cheeks involuntarily blush. — You know, I wanted to ask you something.…

The gold is covered with an icy crust, sharp and tingling skin, over which Sunday's gaze slides while you shift from foot to foot, trying to find words.

— Can I… stay here? — you hesitantly look up at the man with an innocent look, quietly uttering the last words. — With you…

«If only he didn't say no… I won't survive this…»

Oh, you're so lovely. Charming, charming, charming.

The ice is cracking, defeated by the vibrations of your sweet voice, which appeals so imploringly to Sunday. Isn't this happiness?

The tips of elegant long gloved fingers rest on your chin, lifting your head before a kiss touches your lips. So needy, oozing with obsession and love, with insane awe, which now seem so familiar to you, as if these feelings were always somewhere nearby, but burst into your heart only now, blooming like forget-me-nots somewhere deep in your chest.

«Don't ever ask again… My love», — it was never said out loud, but you managed to hear Sunday's velvety voice shamelessly invading your consciousness while his lips greedily but slowly devour yours. And you don't mind at all.

Your thoughts, one way or another, from now on will be filled only with him.

*Sunday is a representative of the Halovian species, one of the features of which is reading the thoughts of others, however, the ability to rewrite memories and, in principle, somehow influence the consciousness of another living being is not It is one of the abilities of this species. This ability of Sunday in this work is based on a completely plausible theory that he, like his sister, are Emanators of the Aeon of Harmony, because if we recall our first meeting with Family in the World of Dreams, then we can see how Robin is doing something similar, helping us with the "side effects" of the first immersion in a dream.

[kyouka-supremacy]

I was asked why I like Beast and why I prefer it over the main universe, so obviously I ended up with a 2k+ words essay on why Beast is great. Now I feel like it diverges too much from what the original ask was actually asking for, so I'm leaving it to its own post. Enjoy.

Why do you like Beast? So, first of all you MUST know that this is a question that could keep me talking for days to no end. I'm not kidding. Here there will be some disorganized rambles but trust me, if I had time to actually do so I'd keep going on forever.

Alternative universes are cool I love Beast. I think it starts off at a point when the bsd author was more experienced from having already worked with the main series for many years, and ultimately ended up making an alternative version of the work that is more mature and refined, while still maintaining bsd's core themes (and conservative worldviews at that lmao). Starting off, the “what if” concept is endlessly fascinating, pretty much the entire fandom culture is based on it. It IS unfailingly cool to see what could have happened if Akutagawa sided with the ada and Atsushi with the pm, it is extremely interesting to see what changes out of their personalities and on the other hand what stays the same, what is intrinsically them. About sskk, I find it really compelling how Beast tackles intimate aspects of their lives, pasts and traumas. The café scene is genuinely brilliant in the way it shows, completely unexpectedly and to the reader's full disbelief, them getting along in normal circumstances. Who could have predicted that! Of all things, Akutagawa and Atsushi getting along. But it happened, and nothing before had ever shown to that extent how similar they are, how much on the same page they are, how much they're meant to be– like yeah obviously I mean romantically, but even if you're not particularly into that, it displayed just how deeply connected they are. I'm forever grateful for that scene.

Beast Akutagawa is great But I think… More in general, I just really like Beast Akutagawa and Beast Atsushi, even better than their canon counterparts 😅 Again I do think at the point when they wrote Beast the author had already gathered a lot of experience from serializing bsd for at least five years, and ended up making characters that are more solid and compelling (although please don't get me wrong, I LOVE canon sskk and I believe canon Akutagawa's character arc in particular is amazing. It's just that at least to me Beast sskk is everything I could ever ask for.). I love Beast Akutagawa! It was so so capturing to see him grow outside of the pm. And especially it was infinitely interesting to see Akutagawa grow outside of Dazai. And don't get me wrong, I love the influence Dazai has on canon Akutagawa, I wouldn't have it any other way: it made Akutagawa who he is, and I love reading about his character. But I also found it wonderful and pleasantly refreshing to see how he would be if he had never undergone Dazai's training; I like this Akutagawa who's possibly even more immature and impulsive, wild and untamed than his canon counterpart. Beast is also the universe where Akutagawa gets his chance at being a good person - which is something he desperately strived for but never got to have in the main universe -, and in the end I am a little attached to Akutagawa, so I'm happy for him! His relationship with Oda and the whole ada are wonderful, I like getting to experience a universe where Akutagawa is loved and supported, unapologetically, for who he is.

Beast Atsushi is great Beast Atsushi is AMAZING. Like. Character molded appositely to my liking ahah. He's so cool! He's so tormented! He's sweet and cruel and utterly unstable! I love him so much. He truly is Atsushi at his full potential. I love this Atsushi who's biggest fear isn't the world, but rather himself. He's beautiful and horrible and deathly and kind. He killed his abuser to stop him from haunting his nightmares, but ended up turning those nightmares into his life. He takes his coffee with three sugars. He loves his little sister and would risk the safety of his organization and the boss he's endlessly loyal to for her. The only person who ever understood him is his most loathed enemy. He's one with death and indistinguishable from darkness. His laughter stops rain. He lives in perpetual physical pain due to a choker constantly piercing around his neck and yet even that is nothing compared to the damage of his psyche. He's so, so fucked up. He deserves the world. I LOVE HIM.

Beast Dazai is great Also, I really like Beast Dazai!!! He's always Dazai, but I think his character works out a lot better in Beast for the role he covers. In canon Dazai is this omniscient, all knowing figure, but he's also a protagonist, and him being so perfectly flawless doesn't go well in the long run. You've seen it in the last season 5 episode, it just gets boring after a while– it would be nice to see him face actual challenges and high stakes for once, but he's so overpowered, that never happens. In Beast, it's pretty much the same deal (author really loves Dazai lmao), but the fact that he isn't the protagonist and instead the main villain? I feel like from a storytelling standpoint, it works so much better!! I mean, his being omniscient works a lot better– he's not the one who the reader expects facing challenges and high stakes, the protagonist is. In addition, in Beast Dazai has almost universal knowledge due to his link to the Book, so that makes his being omniscient and even god-like a lot more feasible and easy to contemplate! I think that plot-wise it just works a lot better, there's an actual reason he's so overpowered, and that reason is explained, it's in the text. Oh and I LOVE his utter devotion to Oda. I know it's the same in canon, but still… There in Beast you can see it concretely, you can see it everywhere. That very universe exists how it is because of Dazai's love for Oda, because there's nothing he wouldn't do for him, because in the whole universe, in the whole multiverse, Oda's happiness is the only thing that matters to him. I think such strong feelings of love being put so explicitly is something simply wonderful to read, and makes Dazai infinitely more sympathetic than what he may be in canon. “But I do have one regret, Odasaku— I won't be able to read the novel you'll complete one day.” LIKE YEAH, SURE, ALRIGHT, JUST SHOOT ME TO THE HEAD ALREADY. That line alone is worth the whole novel, honestly. Oh and the thing about Oda harshly repudiating Dazai, the man who literally did everything for him, who dedicated his whole life for him… Man!!! That REALLY made me sympathize with Dazai in a way canon will never be able to. All those factors only contribute making Dazai's suicide in the end all the more emotional– which I believe works really well in the story, he is an enemy and he is a god and he had to die, but still makes for an extremely emotionally charged scene and a wonderful story climax. Imo Beast Dazai had to die so that canon Dazai could live (and, hopefully, find a reason to live!), and it's as bitter as it is beautiful.

The Beast ada dynamics are great And I love the ada in Beast!!! They feel infinitely more of a family than they do in canon. Kenji, Kunikida, Tanizaki, they all seem to love Akutagawa in a way that's hard to be found towards Atsushi in canon? The way they didn't falter to rescue Akutagawa even as he went, against all their advices and pleas, to a suicidal rampage was wonderful and heartwarming. They make it sound unbelievable that when Atsushi was (mind you, unwillingly) kidnapped their first response would be that it was an hassle and that he should have dealt with it on his own (this time I truly believe it was the author learning from their own mistakes, because seriously, who does that. It makes everyone instantly feel a thousand times less sympathetic). As people have said, the ada alone makes Beast feel like the “right” universe on the basis that in it they actually care about their members. All things considered, the ada treats Akutagawa as this kind of rabid murderous gremlin they just adopted who's going to bite everyone but that they still love no matter what, and it's super cute. Beast ada really is the bsd found family if there ever was one.

A cool plot The Beast storyline is just very compelling in general? The introduction chapter is amazing, I mean, The Heartless Cur is amazing. Again, Beast Akutagawa is such a great character, and the description of his struggle to find his own humanity, although in my opinion does fall weak in some points and has flaws, still treats a concept that's very interesting to ponder over nonetheless. I like how there's a series of more light-hearted chapters in the first half, it helps solidify the characters, and those chapters are really nice to read; not to mention having lighter chapters alternated with the strikingly more gloomy and violent pm Atsushi scenes makes the latter feel all the more frightening and disturbing, it's a great narrative choice. And the big crescendo of Akutagawa storming in the pm headquarters! His fight of physics and morals against Atsushi! Them telling each other they're nothing like the other when the reader knows the exact opposite is true! It's all very good, and again, Dazai's suicide makes for a perfect climax to the story.

Sometimes being a seinen can be good I like how Beast is a seinen way more than the main story is? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with shounen manga - which bsd seems to lean towards more often than not, with only occasionally tackling more adult concepts -, but at this specific time in my life those darker themes are just something I find more entertaining to read about. I feel like the gritty and often gruesome depictions, although maybe a little overused in the manga, really help emphasize the dark atmosphere of the manga and overall effectively convey the whole “beast” imaginary as wild / violent / unpleasant / animalistic.

It's got sskk in it And in general it's just… Compared to canon, Beast is very very sskk centered. It's significantly shorter than the canon manga, and in a way that helped focus on sskk specifically, because it only had space to narrate one story, which is sskk's. And I don't know what to tell you, I'm here for the sskk. Of course I like Beast best.

Beast Atsushi is great (cont.) Back to Beast Atsushi because he's everything, really. I love how when I went into Beast I was like “I mean, whatever Dazai is making of Atsushi under the pm, if can't possibly be any worse than the constant abuse Akutagawa had to experience 😊” AND I WAS PROVED WRONG. I mean, I think the fact alone that the author could come up with something worse is remarkable. Dazai's emotional manipulation and psychological torment is, I believe, the darkest facet of Dazai we ever witnessed, and it's extremely well executed. Beast Atsushi is so so unstable, so on the brim of mental breakdown and psychosis at every second. Him being made unable to let go of the past makes him live in a perpetual nightmare. And I feel like the way his character story is unwrapped is truly masterful, storytelling wise!!!! On the reader's first encounter with him, it's evident how deeply scarred and disturbed he is, but the reader can't tell why. That adds to the mystery and feeling of unsettling surrounding the character: his story is wrapped up by darkness and it's impossible to predict, just like he is– and it's deliciously unsettling, scary, to be unable to tell anything about what made him like he is except from guessing that it must have been something really bad. And yet even then /nothing/ could have prepared the reader to what his backstory really is? And when the traumatic event is finally unveiled, it's worse then any guess the reader could have made. Atsushi's back to the orphanage flashback passage is terrifying! He didn't undergo any harm, like it would have been easy to guess; on the contrary, his torment stems from having killed his abuser. But he did so at a point when he didn't represent a threat for him anymore, when he was proud of him, when he got close to resemble a father to his eyes; and all of this he realized too late; and now he lives in constant regret, constant terror of himself. It's great, really! And even then, Atsushi carries on with being. super cool lmao. Like yeah he's unstable and everything, he's wild and violent, but he's also still very kind. He's timid and blushes easily. He also feels a lot more mature than he does in canon, and it's nice to see. He's more confident and serious, and that's nice too. He REALLY is my favorite character.

Some pretty cool scenes are in it Moving on, Beast has some truly amazing scenes. The Heartless Cur is amazing and builds up such an awesome character, Atsushi's introduction is petrifying, the Kenji / Akutagawa conversation is as deeply moving as it is cathartic. I won't be talking about the sskk café scene. Akutagawa's whole assault to the pm headquarters is rich of emotional scenes. I already talked about Atsushi's flashback and Dazai's suicide being wonderful passages both from technical and emotional standpoints. And the manga ending is just so good!!!!!!! Like it truly is the perfect ending– the way it ties up with the main story! How it feels like ada Akutagawa's story has just begun, a conclusion but also hope for what's to come. The “out behind our company's building there are some people of low character hanging about”– I can't stress enough how emotional this line, a final and definite tie to the main story, makes me, how meaningful it is in its quality of being both an ending, and a beginning. The last page showing Akutagawa at the center of the ada, it just moves me so deeply to see him being the protagonist, surrounded by a crowd of people who love and support him, getting his own chance at a life in the light 😭😭😭 “I'm going to live as an agency member. I'll solve cases, rescue the weak, and prove that I'm not evil.” Crying my eyes out 😭😭😭😭😭😭 And don't get me started on when Akutagawa and Atsushi's voices mix up to speak as one; I could never hope to be able to express what that makes me feel.

Siblings dynamics are my jam I also love Beast because one of the main aspects that drives the plot is Ryuunosuke and Gin's relationship, and I /love/ siblings relationships, and I //love// Ryuunosuke and Gin's relationship. I don't think Gin's character was written well at all (because the author literally can't write female characters for the life of theirs), but eh, at least it reinforced the concept that Ryuunosuke loves Gin terribly and would be able to do anything for her. Atsushi and Kyouka's relationship, too, is to die for.

The designs and manga art style slay Besides, the character designs are beautiful???? Akutagawa's Beast outfit is my second favorite out of the whole franchise, it's just such a look™. I love in general how rabid and messy Akutagawa looks in Beast, he feels so much more free? And like, good for him. In my head Beast Atsushi is the most handsome man in the entire franchise and I don't think I can take criticism on this. I find cutting off his longer bang such a witty way to represent not only how this Atsushi is different from the one we know (after all, that's the most remarkable and eye-catching feature of his appearance!), but also to symbolize how the cut with his past at the orphanage was harsh and violent. Characters designs aside, Hoshikawa's art style is GORGEUS. It's hard and rough and messy, it's dark and unpolished and violent and beautiful and exactly everything Beast is. It's PERFECT for the story, it's like it was made to portray it.

Sskk is always great And that's just talking about the canon content but like. Beast means a Beast sskk. Which is basically new and improved sskk. And I like sskk. And I like every version of sskk but especially this version where they're even more violent and fucked up and madly in love with each other and evidently meant to be. So yeah.

And this is like, just the very tip of the iceberg of what I love about Beast. Humbling offering you this Beast love letter in hope we can all give this novel the appreciation it deserves (๑˃‌ᴗ˂‌)۶

[hana-no-seiiki]

why does ‘it’ give me so much gender euphoria? i’ve been reading way too much monster! reader fics.

anyways have an old fic of mine from quotev i never got to continue writing lolz have fun. next chapters will be posted on yoru-no-seiiki if ever.

LOVE MULTIPLIED : MONSTER

PROLOGUE:

THE BEAST.

IT WAS A BEING WITH NO NAME, no face, no identity in this world except the cruel things it was designated as by the people it tormented.

By all intents, constructions and purposes, the being was an enigma to humankind. An enigma of atypically molded flesh and bone ; of blood; of darkness — of the heavens and the universe.

When it awoke on this planet, it already knew its purpose.

To tear down humanity’s knowledge that edged far too close to the divine the being called its creator.

Yet, it had underestimated the tenacity of these new creations. 

It had taken them centuries, sure. A number of years enough to carry half a dozen generations. But they had won against it.

It was a being with nothing but the overflowing intent to destroy humanity —

So that one day it may build it back up again to where it will stay juvenile and naïve for eternity.

“You have been captured, Alien. There’s no use to this.” A human that the others called a scientist spoke. They watched with focused eyes, and the creature was almost sure they did not stop to blink for a second.

Alien. It was one of the things humanity thought it was. If anything humanity were the true aliens to this world. How awfully ironic of them to call it that.

It only responded with a deep trill.

“It took us almost a millennium but we did it. We finally — “ The scientist choked on their words for a moment, overwhelmed with sadness, excitement, and most of all anxiety.

”We finally defeated you.”

If their enemy still being alive and capable of destroying several moons with just a thought was considered a victory for humanity. Then maybe the beast had overestimated its quarry. Still it could not deny the impressive feat that is its capture. Though it was mostly its fault for taking so long to finish the job, humanity was nonetheless impressive.

And that is exactly why humankind must be cut off where it stands.

”And… I have you here. All to myself.” The scientist muttered. Fortunately — or was it unfortunately — the forcefield did nothing to stop the sounds coming from outside. So the beast could hear their whispers , and every sound there is and could be in the universe , just as well as them shouting these words out.

It leaned forward, inches away from the forcefield that separated it from tearing the human apart. Is this the type of person that they usually call— what was it again— a creep?

Unfortunately this action only made the scientist blush. Either at the success in finally getting it to do more than growl or from being incredibly close to the murderer of billions. It did not know. 

“The strongest being in this universe — and me, about to be the most knowledgeable human this world has to offer. “ The beast adjusted itself back to a ‘sitting’ position. The scientist took the action as one made in fear — how utterly ridiculous — and waved their hands, ”Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you . . . too much.”

This person was the exact epitome of why the divine creator had sent it here. Humans who venture too far into the unknown turned to fall ill with madness. Really, the creature was doing these beings a favor.

A favor paid in the souls of billions.

Though it knew that if it hadn’t gone through with its divine mission, humanity would inevitably destroyed itself. The creature only accelerated the process and gave them a villain to blame.

”I never experienced the war myself, as old as I am. While those brutes out there kept themselves busy with attempting to destroy you. I knew from the moment I first saw you towering the black skies that the true way to achieve a triumph was to keep you locked. For us to observe.” The human continued musing while they walked around the room.

At this point the monster wasn’t even listening anymore and was thinking of the infinite ways it could reshape this rather annoying scientist.

”For us to learn about.”

It growled. There was nothing to learn about it. Nothing at all. The leathery detached skin in front of its mouth fluttered as the sound emitted across the gigantic chamber.

”And who knows — for us to one day replicate.”

It attempted to reach through the forcefield, the urge to destroy to unbearable. But it is reminded of how they were exactly kept here.

The moment flesh made contact with field, it burns. The creature knew no pain before for it had only known its creator and darkness. But pain, oh how —

— distracting it was.

The scientist paid no mind to its loud roars of agony. Instead they smile as they leave the observation room. 

“I’ll see the next day then, Beast of Judgement.”

ART BY MARK HILYER

©️ hana-no-seiiki - yun | 2023

[cuubism]

I heard that Silly Rabbit is the shit

unless you're @magnusbae in disguise i don't even know HOW you stumbled on that au or remembered it after all this time 😂 but it is, uh, that's one way to describe it.

watch video for context

this au is nonlinear and random and made up of little vignettes so i suppose i'll post a scene. the only scene i won't, or i suppose shouldn't, post, as buns tells me it must be withheld for humorous gratification, is the actual scene that references that video 😂

please note. this fic is 90% CRACK and not meant to be taken seriously

---

Sculpture Class

“Why am I hearing student rumors about you being in their classes?” Hob demanded, hands on his hips. Dream, lounging on the couch in his office, didn’t deign to get up. “Is there some kind of Dream lookalike on campus I need to be aware of? Or are you just tormenting them again?”

“Tormenting your students is only one of my many activities,” Dream drawled. Hob frowned disapprovingly, which Dream found quite amusing. “But this is not one of those times. Am I not allowed to explore the university?”

“Well, you aren’t actually enrolled here, but I’m sure you’ve found a way around that.”

“Nobody dares to question me.”

Hob shook his head, but the admonishment in the gesture quickly ceded to fondness. “I’m sure they start daydreaming too quickly. What classes are you taking, anyway?”

Dream smiled, pressing his hands together. “For now, that is my secret.”

Hob sighed, but ultimately smiled. “Alright, you. Be all mysterious if you must.”

Dream would. He was no longer such a mystery to Hob as he had been in the past, nor did he want to be. But it was good to hold some things for himself. And it was always fun to keep Hob speculating.

Hob would learn about his newfound human hobbies soon enough, anyway.

-----

Crafting with his hands was… meditative. Dream understood, then, why humans spent time trying to banish their many thoughts and daydreams with stillness and silence – he had become so used to the cacophony that lived within him that it was startling to feel it recede to the background. Startling, and peaceful, a moment of clarity for deep focus and reevaluation.

Dream’s mind, such that he had one in the traditional sense of the concept, was a constant flurry of sounds and images, words and feelings, colors and memories. All thought, all imagination, all dreams, all nightmares touched him and lived within him. Dream was used to this and did not find it disturbing, he supposed it was in the way a longtime city dweller may become used to the incessant traffic, chatter, music, and humanity.

Losing it had been disturbing. Waking in Burgess’s cage to absolute, total silence inside his own mind had been one of the most disturbing things Dream had experienced in the past millennium. The Dreaming had been gone from his awareness, the songs of the dreams, too. The silence, the pure utter silence, a century of it – it was the one time in his long existence that Dream had genuinely feared he might lose his mind the way Delirium had, that he might fall into the slipstream simply for having nothing to latch onto. Ultimately, he’d had to ground himself in the meager physical sensations of his prison to avoid it.

Now, Dream was free again to drift in the Dreaming as he so wished. And the meditation of physical creating was not the horrible silence of having something fundamental ripped out of him. Rather, it was like stepping from the crowded city streets into an empty field for the first time in ages. Still, there were the buzzing insects, and the whispering trees. But the hardest edges of the clamor were distant, a memory.

It was peaceful. Peace was not something Dream experienced often. Strange, to be finding it more and more frequently here in the waking world.

He focused on the clay in his hands. It was a slippery medium – literally and figuratively – liquid and wanting to find its own shape rather than the one Dream had in mind for it. It was already all over his hands and arms, but he didn’t mind. Better to be mired in the creation while creating.

He worked, letting the pleasant haze of focus fill his mind. The art room was surprisingly easy to work in; Dream had expected to be annoyed by the presence of others in his space, but as it turned out, the focus of so many minds on creation built an ideal atmosphere for it.

He put his project together carefully, patiently letting the clay have its fits and disagreements. How fun, to work with something that talked back, in its own language. Dream had really been missing out on physical art; he’d have to keep working on rectifying that.

The day slipped by. By the time Dream had the piece the way he wanted it, night had fallen. He set it aside to dry – this would take a few days, and then it would have to be fired, as well. How thrilling, he thought, to be forced to wait to see his finished work.

He had been indulging himself for a while, and should return to the Dreaming to make sure nothing was awry. Before he did so, he stepped briefly through to Hob’s flat to say hello.

“There you are,” said Hob, sitting at the kitchen table with tea and a book. “I was starting to think you’d wandered off.”

“I wander, but I always return,” said Dream, bending to kiss him.

“I know.”

“But I must go to the Dreaming, I have left it awhile.”

Hob sighed. “I figured as much. Come back soon, hm?”

Dream hummed in response, and Hob tugged him down into a proper kiss, holding him close for several long moments before letting him go.

“I’m so curious what you’ve been up to, but I have a feeling you aren’t going to tell me because you want to be all mysterious,” he said when they parted.

“You feel correctly,” said Dream.

Hob waved him away. “Go on, you. Go be brooding and secretive in your realm so I can miss you more than I do already.”

“You desire to miss me?”

“Well, considering having you here all the time is a losing game, and not something I’d ask of you anyway, I figured I might as well lean into the thrill of missing you and getting you back,” Hob said. He looked up at Dream with a smile that was knowing, fond, tinged with the slightest melancholy. In that look, Dream felt understood, in both his wandering, and his constancy.

“You will have me back,” he said.

“I know, love. Now go on, Lord of Dreams, your royal duties await.”

Dream caressed his cheek, and then vanished.

----

Several days later, he had collected his sculpture, hardened from living clay into permanence. Now that it was complete, he was not certain what he was supposed to do with it. Dreams, once completed, went off to perform their functions, to continue evolving. This was static, completed. Dream was at a bit of a loss.

He took it to Hob’s office. Hob was annotating a book when Dream arrived. Notes for lecture, Dream supposed. Hob looked up to smile at him when he came in, but he seemed engrossed in what he was doing – until his gaze caught on the sculpture in Dream’s hands.

“That’s pretty. Is it a raven?”

“Three, in fact.” They twined in a flurry around each other, a carefully balanced triad that appeared off-kilter but held itself upright nonetheless. Figuring out the weighting of it had been an interesting challenge.

“Where did you get it?”

“I made it.”

Hob looked at the sculpture again more closely. “What, in the Dreaming?”

“No,” said Dream, placing the thing on Hob’s desk. While he was happy with the end result of the work, his interest in it was rapidly waning. Unlike his creations in the Dreaming, this sculpture was not alive, it did not move and think and affect the world around it, and there was little of interest in something so static. Unlike the Dreaming, where he had to focus on crafting the right dream, the right nightmare, had to be cognizant of the end result, here, the interest was solely in the creating. “Out of clay.”

He wandered over to Hob’s bookshelf, pulling out a text he hadn’t seen on the shelf before and flopping down on the couch to page through it. He held a vague awareness of all books that had been written, found them drifting in humanity’s subconscious, but he had hardly read all of them with attention.

Hob had picked up the sculpture and was now staring at it, running a finger along the delicate, glazed wings. “You’re really just going to drop an expert-level sculpture on my desk and go lie on the couch?”

“What else am I to do with it?”

“What--? Where--?” Hob spluttered. Dream really didn’t know what was so perplexing. “Dream!”

Dream just raised an eyebrow at him.

Hob sighed and put the sculpture back down, delicately. He came over and perched on the couch by Dream’s hip, taking Dream’s hand in his own. “Every day a new facet of you,” he murmured. “I guess I just didn’t realize you were an artist.”

“I create dreams.”

“I know, but I didn’t make the connection with human artforms.” Hob smiled at him ruefully. “Doesn’t help that you’ve been hiding these skills all this time.”

“I have not frequently indulged in art in the waking world, in the past,” Dream admitted. “At the time, it did not seem valuable, when there were dreams to create. I have inspired more art than I have made.”

“Oh, I’m sure you have.” Hob nudged him teasingly. “So many times, in centuries past, I’d be wandering in a gallery and find a painting or a sculpture that I’d swear was of you.”

Most of the limited time Dream had spent in the waking world had been around artists. Occasionally, he had deigned to serve as a more direct form of inspiration. “I am certain you were right.”

“Well, those artists might have gotten to paint your portrait, but I got you to take a selfie wearing cat ears, so—”

“Hob Gadling—”

Hob leaned down and cut him off by kissing him, warm and fleeting. “Tell me about your sculpture.”

Dream tugged him down so Hob, too, was lying on the couch, half blanketing his body. He liked the weight of Hob over him, it reminded him that this was the plane of the physical. As did working with the clay.

“It was… a satisfying exercise,” he said.

Hob propped himself up on one elbow to look at him. “Really? That’s what you have to say about your masterpiece?”

“The finished piece is unimportant,” argued Dream. “If I want to create a masterpiece, I will make it of dreams.”

“Alright, so why are you doing it, then?”

Dream thought how best to articulate the many sensations that arose in him when he created – and how it was different with the physical media of this world, in comparison to dreams. “In the Dreaming, I create with my will. I shape the Dreaming to my needs. It is part of me, and it responds. This is not true of material in this world. It is outside of me, and I must learn to communicate with it. I must remember… how it is to be physical.”

Using his hands… it was not that Dream never sculpted by hand in the Dreaming. But guiding thought and fear and whimsy into a being with the gentle touch of his fingers was so different from feeling the earthy weight of the clay resisting his attempts to shape it. Clay was earth, absolute physicality, the opposite of dreaming. And Dream felt electric and brazen daring to mold it.

“I appreciate the unique challenge,” he concluded.

Hob was still looking at him, a fond look having taken over the question in his eyes. He kissed the corner of Dream’s mouth. “You are a wonder,” he sighed.

Then his expression shifted.

“Hang on. Is that the class you’ve been sneaking off to? Sculpture?”

“Beginner sculpture,” Dream told him solemnly.

“BEGINNER--? Jesus Christ. The other students are going to throw you out a window!”

Dream considered the prospect. “That would be amusing.”

“Are you actually following the class?” Hob asked. He still seemed scandalized by the idea of Dream ‘taking’ classes. “Or are you just doing whatever you want?”

Dream tilted his head at him. What do you think?

“Menace,” Hob scolded, fondly. “Why do you even have to go to a class? Couldn’t you, like, steal some clay from someone’s dream?”

“I could. But do not both you and my sister insist on me interacting with humanity more often? I am interacting with humanity.” Or, being in its presence, at any rate. Dream rarely interacted with anyone unless approached first. He would rather stay absorbed in his clay. “Besides, I have found it is good, once in a while, to do things outside of the Dreaming.”

“Ah. So that’s the real homework you’re working on.”

Dream played with Hob’s hair. “Mmm. But it is no hardship.”

Hob took the hint and bent again to kiss him, shifting to lie more fully over him. He cradled Dream’s head in one hand. Dream slipped his hands up under Hob’s shirt. This, too, was a good way to remember physicality.

“If you’re going to insist that you don’t care about that statue,” Hob breathed against his mouth, “then I’m going to keep it.”

“Do as you wish,” said Dream. “I will make another soon.”

“Something even more beautiful, I expect.” Hob bit at his lower lip, then soothed over it with his tongue. “But not as beautiful as you.”

“That was trite.”

“Made you blush, though.”

“Only because you affect me too easily,” said Dream, an admission that Hob looked delighted to have gotten out of him.

“It might be trite, but it’s also true. You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen on this earth.”

Dream didn’t know how Hob managed to say such things without it sounding like exaggeration or falsehood, but it did not. “I am not truly on this earth. Or of it. You may have to broaden your parameters.”

Dream was not part of this world. But recently, he had been remembering – or perhaps relearning – that through its creatures, their dreams, their thoughts, their fears and hopes, this world was part of him. He remembered it when he looked at the clay staining his hands. He remembered it when he listened to Hob speak.

“Oh, on the contrary, love—” Hob kissed his jaw and spoke against the skin there— “you must be on this earth because you are the realest part of it. Sometimes I think you are the only true thing I’ve ever known.”

Dream smiled, turning Hob’s face back to him and looking at him from under his lashes. “But that, Hob Gadling, is only because you have always been a dreamer.”

[sitp-recs]

HP Rec Fest, Day 30

Here we come with more @hprecfest! Today I’m only reccing rare pairs since I couldn’t think of any pre-canon Drarry fics 🤔 I wonder if canon divergent / canon rewrite applies?? I don’t read them often either way, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to boost lesser known fics. I think this is my favorite rec post for the fest so far - there’s something so poetic in reccing these two specific fics alongside each other since Little Compton Street verse was my first (unforgettable, devastating) contact with Prongsfoot and 5 years later here I am reading them again - this time welcoming the pain. More embarrassing emosh blabbing below!

Day 30) a pre-canon fic:

empire builders by shecrows (James/Sirius, E, 25k)

Say, James, he rehearses in his head. Remember that time we were both roaring drunk at the end of term, and you put your cock in my mouth, and I came so hard I still get tingly thinking about it? Was that just a one off, d’you think, or did you want to do it again sometime?

Prongsfoot my beloved 😭😭😭 sometimes I feel like I’ll never feel as strongly about a ship as I feel for them which sounds so crazy because I don’t even read it! or, well. after being utterly ruined by Winter of ‘79 (curiously a fic within LCS verse as mentioned below) I promised myself I wouldn’t look for this ship anymore bc the inevitable tragedy of it depressed me way too much. I locked them away in a secret space deep within my heart and only allowed myself to re-awaken those feelings this year, with the brilliant empire builders. what a fic! a few lines in and I was hooked and completely obsessed with Sirius’ unbelievably spot on voice, the peak friends to lovers dynamics, and the unbearable sexual tension mixing guilt and devotion (my favorite shippy combo btw). fuck, they are so young and so lovable, and so attuned to each other it makes me wanna cry. never before a 25k fic has felt so short, I’ve read it in a frenzy and couldn’t stop thinking about their love for days. the best word to describe my state after this fic is ���tormented” which might as well be the best compliment I’ve ever given in a rec.

Play Me Like A Love Song by @writcraft (Minerva/Will, E, 67k)

Minerva McGonagall doesn’t believe in love at first sight, which is why her instant attraction to drag king Wilhelmina ("Will") Grubbly-Plank is so unexpected. War tears apart the wizarding world and as one battle ends Minerva and Will must fight once more, this time for the lives of their friends on Little Compton Street. A love story spanning five decades defined by music, laughter and tears, in which love is not always easy, but it’s always worth fighting for.

truly a masterpiece of lesbian fiction, this fic is more like a religious experience, bold, brutally honest, romantic, eye-opening and necessary. I never thought I’d care so much for a ship like Will & Minerva but they worked their way inside my heart and I’m deeply moved by how their story encompasses everything that’s inherent to the queer experience: love, loss, resistance and hope. there’s so much joy and grief walking hand by hand, and it is our privilege to watch the characters mature and experience life as individuals and as a couple. Writ crafts oh so thoughtfully two stunning character studies (Minerva’s voice omg, please don’t @ me on my competence kink) while taking us by the hand into the magical universe of Little Compton Street, which is so completely irresistible and healing. I adore the atmosphere, the imagery, the soundtrack, and how this seductive setting allows them to explore their queerness in such a free, proud and joyful way *getting emosh* I feel like nothing I add here will make this story justice, it’s such a poignant and transformative fic but sadly deeply underrated like it happens to so many wlw tales. I hope this rec inspires at least one person to check it out and while at it please also check the entire series with a Drarry piece and a Prongsfoot piece, a perfect trifecta!

[rontra]

Pls tell us more about ur summer/salem rare pair cuz I'm so interested

ok ok stupid ass post incoming its also at least a couple thousand words long so be warned

like i CAN yes, but it'll be rambling and inconveniently longwinded!

this is because my thoughts on this and the context for the pictures i drew actually hinges on a bunch of rwby analysis that has to be established First for any of my conclusions to make sense. i actually thought about making a comic about them to lay this stuff out in a more convenient format…maybe i will do it, but until then, umm. i'm sorry about this level 9000 nerd wizard post. it's the autism and passion for women kissing (the 2 reasons behind everything i do)

as an aside before i lose my lucidity, i'm not claiming the stuff i'm about to set up is 100% absolutely indisputably true and if you disagree you're wrong. it's just sort of my interpretation of a bunch of different stuff. it's fine if you disagree or have your own reading! but for the purposes of this specific content we're discussing, in the context of the women kissing AU if you will, these are presupposed "truths" . idc if you think i'm wrong as hell in real life! but in the world of the pictures i drew/my feelings on this ship, this is the list of Things That Must Be True.

(the salem/summer torment nexus is built on a bunch of overthinking rwby and then a little bit of lesbian high romance, so we do reach a point where we finally veer off from "analyzing rwby" and into "and that is why women kissing women", but that is, all i can do . because just putting down the "here's why they should kiss" conclusion makes me sound insane. so before we go into why they should kiss in the way i've depicted, here are some points that must first be true)

Summer is alive and well, and

Summer is Salem's unseen lieutenant at Beacon, and is working for her by her own free will, because

Salem is right (caveats about being evil rn notwithstanding) and

Remnant treats them in similar ways, for opposite purposes (thus in the women kissing women world, they are not only women who should kiss, but foils who should kiss: a far more powerful gameplay unit that inflicts a Brainrot DoT on its target (me))

i'm not going to be completely thorough here: i'm omitting anything that doesn't feel immediately important to understanding me, so if it feels like i skipped something, i definitely did. please bear with me bc this post's existence is already hilarious. the omissions probably aren't me missing things (depending on what it is) i'm just genuinely trying not to get derailed by factoring in every nuance and perspective (which rwby has, A Lot, of,). do not tweet at me

1 and 2 are almost self-explanatory, so they're quick: scenes about summer are nigh-universally conspicuous in how they talk about her, and there are too many questions raised about her/her fate that only she (and salem) could answer. her just being dead is too straightforward for all this effort, so something else is surely going on. in v8, the "Hound Summer" idea is raised, but i don't think they would let a character onscreen spill the beans ahead of time if it was actually the truth. (additionally, salem herself describes the hound as "an experiment", indicating there isn't like a bunch of them running around or anything...)

HOWEVER, letting ruby draw the "hound summer" conclusion on screen leads me to believe the actual truth is not FAR away: it'll be a knife-twist on what ruby said. the More Harrowing version of "my mom is alive but a tool for salem against her will" feels like it's naturally "my mom is alive and working for salem on purpose".

for 2, salem has an additional lieutenant that we have not been shown; being at beacon working on the Beacon Relic Puzzle ever since the Fall. we see salem contacting this agent to give them verbal instructions over the grimmphone, which is…not typically how she directs grimm, suggesting it is a person. we aren't privy to any further information about this person except their station being Beacon, which…i hate to say it but that's a "dramatically seeing summer rose alive" ass place….

the REASON for summer being salem's lieutenant as opposed to A) dead, B) a tool, C) a double agent, D) literally anything else, is because of 3 and 4.

this is where things are gonna get really cringe and potentially deranged but i need you to stay with me. let's go in order and focus on 3 first: salem is right.

saying this will cause some immediate pushback from some people, but to those people, please set that gut reaction aside for now and play in the space with me; i'm not saying that her current plan of action is like, nice, or Good, but i'm saying she is ideologically the one in the right. like Thematically. it took a lot of work for the world to make her be evil (across quite literally millions of years, potentially hundreds of millions) and now she's like "fine i'm about to be hilarious", but in the fundamental conflict rwby is about, she hasn't stopped being RIGHT.

just before this, someone on twitter asked me what i think salem's goal is, because a lot of people jump to assuming it's planet-destroying stuff; i had to make it a twitlonger just to answer them because (in case it wasnt obvious already) im head FULL thoughts SALEM mouth RAMBLING. instead of spending time and wordcount rehashing all of that i'll just relink it here because all of it is important to THIS discussion too: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss7lck

You Have To Read That Post Because I Won't Re-Type It. But It Is Important For This Post. TM.

ok. you're back? hi. sorry about that. let's continue

okay so we have the "disquietingly genocidal if carried out to its natural conclusion, which is that we should surrender ourselves to the complete custody of the World Destroyer" guy, and the "humanity inherently has a right to exist and doesn't need babysitting from someone who believes otherwise" guy. One of these sides is currently in control of remnant. and it's not the one you'd hope! and it's not the one the show agrees with.

(sidenote before it's too late I should clarify i have a Lot of thoughts about ozma's side of all this and like i said rwby is incredibly rich when you begin to mine for nuance and in-universe perspectives; i love that guy to bits and pieces. there are a lot of angles to this dangle. it's just that neither the twitlonger nor this post is About Him, so if it sounds like im dismissing his own nightmare situation i'm NOT im just not posting About Him Right Now. love you oz sorry you're also in the bullshit swamp etc amen)

i mention this very briefly in the twitlonger, but ozma has a vested interest in A) wiping salem from history/humanity's knowledge, and B) making sure the people who DO know about her see her as completely incapable of being reasoned with, the source of all evil, and so on. he's been pretty aggressive in these efforts, successfully paring salem's perpetual existence in remnant down to a spectrum ranging from "i have never heard of this woman in my life" to "exaggerated fairytale image that can be safely ignored" and maybe like "scary witch story to keep kids from wandering into the woods (FAKE, NOT REAL)". and to his circle, she's evil incarnate, and nothing more—still the fairytale witch, just an actual threat this time.

there seems to be a belief among some of the characters in the show that if you stop salem, you win; you've Fixed The Problem. in this way of thinking, salem is the one thing holding remnant back from being Normal And Good. she is the single cog not turning in time with the rest of remnant, and she is Fucking Up The Machine For Everybody. obviously this is a very simple and easy way of looking at her, and it is also desperately encouraged by ozma's version of the story. for his story to work, salem MUST be the source of all evil, the well it all springs from, the clear villain who's behind every bit of suffering and wants to destroy humanity; if she is NOT, his own comprehension of his trauma falls apart, his life's work and mission loses meaning, and the world he's built on them falls apart too.

(unfortunately, you cannot fix a dysfunctional world by destroying a single woman (no matter how much some certain gods try to tell you otherwise) if the dysfunction is systemic and foundational the way remnant's is)

with that in mind, summer rose (aw hey girl i forgot you were in this post) seems like a pretty stark opposite to her. but i would like to argue the…opposite. opposite double reacharound combo: They Are The Same edition. aka 4

okay, so, another facet of ozma's ideology that goes pretty visibly hand in hand with his own baggage (rip) is the fixation on this, idea of, a Hero. a Guardian. a "simple soul". specifically, he tends to nominate a Lone Hero, who must shoulder an unfathomable burden—usually a secret one—with little to no support (because they cannot share the burden). and this is, demonstrably and in no uncertain terms, a practice that breaks heroes.

(without getting too distracted: this is pretty obviously what was also done to HIM, and ozma continuing this pattern is not surprising with that fact in mind; i do sympathize. but girl…<3 you are crafting the crux of an insane post on rontra.tumblr.com and you dont even know it)

the Lone Hero is perfect. they fight alone, carrying humanity's light, and when they die they do so heroically, righteously, bravely. they are a symbol, praised and exalted even into their own deaths. their torch doesn't burn for long, but it's beloved whilst it does! the superhero dies young, but dies well.

this idea is a motif that recurs in rwby; all four Maidens are historically isolated, working alone, their very existence a secret except for when they swoop in to save the day. Huntsmen can become Lone Heroes if they're exemplary or unlucky enough. it was done to Pyrrha on-screen, by backing her into a corner and nominating her for an unfathomable burden she could not possibly refuse—and it lead to her death, alone, in a fight she knew she could not win.

of course, it also intersects with the Silver-eyed Warriors, who are (like Maidens) secret and largely isolated, but (especially when combined with being Huntsmen) make extremely powerful Lone Heroes. THERE'S our girl we've been waiting for! summer came out of the extremely notable team STRQ, and she's got silver eyes; with her pedigree we've got another legendary Grimm Reaper on our hands!

ha ha…

the weight must be crushing.

i can't say for sure why summer left; maybe she really thought going in guns blazing could finish this. maybe she had encountered a piece of information that alarmed her, or even seemed to corroborate something Raven tried to tell her team years prior. maybe it was something else that drove her to take the fight to salem on a solo mission. maybe being a Hero from a broken team just does that to your brain. we don't know yet! but she went out alone and she met up with salem.

this was never going to work, and not ONLY because salem can't be killed: it's doomed because rwby, the show, does not give praise to self-sacrifice. it is opposed to the very idea of the Lone Hero. when characters break the buddy system and face the bullshit alone, they usually don't get out unscathed, and usually don't succeed in accomplishing much of note. if anything at all, they usually attain something temporary or minor that isn't at all worth the sacrifice they made. because how can anything be worth that? rwby so far is pretty against the idea of both a lone hero and of "good death"; you can't die heroically, because you only ever die tragically.

but the Hero, Lone or otherwise, is needed. it's a twisted hope, but it is hope: there are people, real heroes, who will do anything to save us; including die, over and over and over and over and over again. remnant runs on hero blood. the academies are major arteries that pump out more of it, and even while you're at an academy you're not in the clear, because the students are included as a layer of protection around the relic. if something comes for the school, you are intended to die for it.

Like it or not, the people that hired me are going to change the world! You can't stop 'em, I can't stop 'em! You wanna be a hero? Then play the part and die like every other Huntsman in history!

and the selected Lone Heroes, even more so, are intended to die fighting an unwinnable fight, bearing unfathomable burdens. proverbially speaking, it keeps the lights on: keeps the fight going. keeps humanity from losing its grip on faith. and it completely robs each Hero of their humanity.

this kind of hero is not human: it's romantic like a fairytale and reduces a human being to a symbol. one of hope, sure, but a symbol nonetheless. the perfect hero isn't permitted to doubt or fear or hesitate. they're something distant, something else, something beyond humanity, something conceptual. and THIS, (points at it) is BAD

but it is the other side of the coin. the Lone Hero who represents all of humanity's hope has a natural obverse: the Sole Evil responsible for all of the world's darkness. the Single Enemy who springs forth all the things the Single Light stands against. these two concepts together pull an astonishing amount of the weight to make ozma's ideology function. without them, the wheels do not turn.

it's important how successfully ozma has eradicated salem's humanity and cast her as a force of blind evil. you can't reason with her, it's futile to try… but we know that salem may be very fucked up indeed to people, but she's also plenty willing to talk; essentially the only reason no one even thinks to try it is because her carefully designed reputation precedes her. the ruling world ideology prominently features the bastions of humanity, the bulwark against evil, the Lone Hero figure; the Guardian…and it hinges almost entirely upon the Sole Evil of salem, who can't be reasoned with but must be destroyed, even though the war against her is eternal, impossible, unsustainable.

by design, neither one is permitted any humanity at all.

Summer Rose and Salem are both ideological work-horses. in the world of remnant, neither of them can retain their humanity: they are conceptual existences that pull ozma's world through the motions, step by agonizing step. they are both yoked to the same plough.

if those two TALKED—and salem is very much willing to talk—i think a lone hero with a passion for humanity and way too much skin in the game would be repulsed by the system she lives in. she would recognize that she (and huntsmen as a broader institution) would be in the Wrong to support ozma—and by extension the gods, who look at humanity as a thing to be corralled and punished, something that must actively justify its own right to exist—

—that she's got two kids in this world, and she suddenly hopes to high heaven that they never get pulled into the same cannon fodder machine that created the Guardian summer rose, who bleeds and bleeds so that all humanity can cling to a hope that is bound to be false because the arbiters of their worth do not find them inherently worthy of life—

But, baby, please don't do what I did; I don't want you to waste your life in vain.

the reason women should kiss is that there is a mutual understanding that they are both beasts of burden to this world: two less-than-human icons, unpersoned on purpose, merely representing a concept. they perform roles in a narrative written by somebody else. they are not human! they are bearing unimaginable weight in service of an idea!

and they don't want to see humanity's fate be shackled to that idea for a moment longer.

i think when i say summer/salem most people think im trying to conjure like a dark spicy image full of like, power and control, and tension, and stuff. and there's nothing wrong with those, i do make a lot of those. but in reality im picturing the most tender secret in all of remnant. could you imagine?

...they are both yoked to ozma's ideology in these weird twisted ways so theres a lot of understanding and sympathy there, even if their Functions are different. opposite even. perhaps like foils one could say...

it's a ship built on that kind of understanding. the theme tying it together is that grueling dehumanization and the tenderness of seeing that you're both human to the core regardless. remnant yearns to grind them both up, one in service of the other, for a horrifically cruel ideal they can't just lie down and surrender to. humanity deserves better. so do they.

salem is right. summer rose knows it.

in the pictures i made, there's a protective angle to their poses and interactions: sort of a knightly, HER Warrior, type thing. "NOT YOUR SACRIFICE". etc. i guess salem is a lady with a tendency to attract the heroic knightly type (rimshot)

and that's why summer and salem should kiss. i dont know. i know im the one that locked you in this room but we should get out of here before i transform like a werewolf. wanna listen to Until The End in the car?

to live free or die, it’s all the same the enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming in waves of shame, we’re desperate to make amends but through a simple soul we lie complacent.

awoo...

[king-artoria]

Random Beefleaf thoughts! #1

One of the most interesting and fun concepts I get to enjoy with Beefleaf is how stark their worldviews are compared to each other. So, now that I finished my first reading of TCGF, I wanted to talk about it.

Because beefleaf’s theme is about how they are soulmates of a kind, you know that SQX’s “ignorant” (debatable) outlook on life is something that could have been a trait of HX. He could have never waken up, forever a privileged noble. Who knows? But from that, it makes SQX’s worldview much more interesting to consider. They’re naturally sanguine and can find the silver lining easily, but also can be inconsiderate. When I see those traits, I think “shoujo/shouldn’t manga protagonist”. I think “rose colored lens”. Meanwhile, HX is deep in a mire of anger and self doubt, swirling around SQX like a shark circling prey, but he’s never able to finish the job. This sort of life would naturally make HX have a darker outlook on things.

Plus, HX is much more aware of the injustices of the world. He’s experienced it all himself.

But SQX “doesn’t understand” (in HX’s eyes) the world and that’s, from my reading, one of the biggest points of anger HX has with SQX. HX believes SQX doesn’t understand him and doesn’t empathize with him. And although HX obviously tries to get SQX to “get it”, it doesn’t work out for a myriad of reasons.

But I really like how, in this narrative, HX struggles to empathize with SQX. Or, could it be, that HX does empathize dangerously close to SQX, which is why he feels tormented?

So, the struggle could be, not that “I don’t understand SQX”, but “I do understand them, and that vexes me, because I don’t like that part of me that I see/I am reminded of what I lost/I wonder if there’s a different answer to my quest of revenge”.

(And then if you argue that SQX is “woke” and simply has a different answer to life’s questions the HX does, but HX is failing to see that, everything gets even more messy hehe)

My main point is, as a reader, I appreciate this style of FAKE black and white. When these two are onscreen, I wonder how they interpret the world that they see standing right by each other. I wonder if there’s a universe they could have reached a consensus.

I wonder what it is that is preventing them from truly connecting when they are artificially created soulmates. I want to read their scenes over again and see what I can tease out.

Also, offtopic kinda, but as a writer, i love the idea of sqx living in a shoujo romance world while hx is in a dark gothic fantasy seinen. An event like “SQX is cursed with kiss-your-true-love-or-else-you-die! What do!?” is a wildly different problem in those 2 genres!! It's like:

SQX: if I don’t kiss my true love I’ll die! Good thing I know who it is! (Giggles)

HX: so there is someone else I must kill in my quest? Does this 3rd party deserve to die for my revenge? Will it hurt SQX and not SWD? Is my justice just a twisted self satisfaction? (Angst)

[dangermousie]

Do you love angst, trashiness and playboys redeemed and suffering for love?

OK, cdrama current landscape is like a desert after a nuclear strike but that doesn’t mean I cannot dig into the past when CCP was less interested in micromanaging entertainment unless it actually tried to get into politics (did you know that at one point there was a period drama! airing on TV! on which the leading role of Empress Cixi was played by a Japanese actress! And the world did not end! It’s wild how far c-ent has come and not in a good way; that frog has been boiling for a long time.)

Anyway, I present to you Four Women Conflict/Love Tribulations, a drama from 2011 starring Ady An, a huge fave, as a woman with the worst luck ever, Feng Shao Feng as a playboy who meets her because he’s being paid to seduce her but falls desperately for real, and her first love played by Mickey He. Taking place in the early years of the 20th century, misery for all, but so good!

Meet our heroine, as beautiful as she’s tormented. In ep 1 alone: her newly widowed stepmother sold her barely pubescent self into a brothel. But it’s OK because her childhood love rescued her and burned her stepmom to a crisp. A fast forward and she's a maid in some house and it doesn't look too horrific, so we'll see. Except the husband fancies her and the wife's reaction is "you can do anything you like outside but don't seduce the maids inside the house." Charming. Except he's still after her so she's ordered to be whipped by the jealous wife. Who then marries her off to some ugly moron with zero willpower or brain.  It gets better as she gets raped by her former master on her wedding night (who bullies her husband into letting him). And the raping thing turns into a systemic thing. This is all in ep 1,none of it would be allowed now. I am not saying abuse is a great thing but this all a hell of a lot more realistic fate for a beautiful lower class woman than the dim sugar confections try to show us nowadays.

When we finally meet the hero, he's having sex with a married woman. While being married himself, and not to her. On the grounds of a Buddhist monastery. Once again none of this would fly nowadays.

Meet heroine’s childhood love and stepmom crisper, played by young and scrumptious Mickey He (sexy demon dad in L&R). On brand, when we first meet heroine's childhood love as an adult, he's rescuing a bunch of women who've been captured by slavers.

By any laws of sanity, I should be shipping heroine with her childhood love and I do, madly, but I ship her with the hero also! I have no idea why but  maybe because even though I know in real life, a playboy will just give you a bad case of STDs and will never reform, it's so satisfying to watch the whole 'playboy redeemed by/suffering for/madly in love' scenario on screen. Plus, he's about the only character who appears to have an fun in this, and God knows, poor heroine needs someone who can show her some fun and also knows what he's doing in bed, too.

And here is where the plot gets going. We see playboy spread his love/STDs to another lady, a very rich one this time. After playboy and a rich banker lady finish banging, they have the following convo as interpreted by me:

Playboy: So, about that loan for my business? I mean, if you need more persuading, I can go all night. Friend-with-benefits/his moneylender: OK, loan. Fine. You get the loan the day you seduce Du Lanyun. Playboy: Am I supposed to know who she is? And since when are you pimping for me? Do you want a threesome or something? Are you into girl-on-girl action? Where do I sign up? Friend-with-benefits: Look, you are the only guy with a spoken part who's not in love with Ady An. We must remedy this pronto or else the universe will be destroyed. Also, my best friend's husband is cheating on my friend with her. Yeah, Lanyun has no interest in the guy, who apparently raped her and made her life hell, but sure, let's lash out at the victim. Playboy: I feel the sudden need of meeting a beautiful and pure woman who will redeem me and put me through hell in the name of love. Otherwise, where will this drama be? Friend-with-benefits: I promise I won't be jealous. This isn't an ironic foreshadowing, no siree. Oh, and her first love is Mickey He. Playboy: It's fun to see in how many dramas I can steal a woman's heart from Mickey He. I am in! Friend-with-benefits: And speaking of "in"...the bed is right there and I was never able to resist going for seconds. Playboy: If you close your eyes, I'll take you to heaven (actual quote, guys! Well, I suppose it's good to have self-confidence).

[sicasole]

Why can't I get anything done?

(lyrical essay, public journal entry)

March 1st, 2023

I feel dead when I’m not making things, and yet my inability to produce anything of value in the past year has me wondering if perhaps my own mind wants me dead. 

I went to The Met a few weeks ago and tried to write a poem for my father. It made me want to slash every painting in two.

I ask myself. Why can’t I get anything done? Maybe it’s the steps. There always seem to be too many of them. Writing, for one, requires having an idea worth taking down. Mechanically, it involves sitting up, finding my laptop, opening a document. A list that seems doable to most feels insurmountable to me, as even the smallest deviation from perfection sends me into a cacophonous spiral of “it wasn’t meant to be.” 

I try to go slowly, I try to break it down. I try to do the next right thing. I let the sink fill up with water and submerge my head. I ask myself, “What feels possible?” over and over and over until I run out of oxygen and I come up without an answer. And still, I want.

Wanting is dangerous because it opens you up to the possibility of disappointment. But for me, it’s impossible to let go of desire entirely. I’m still afraid of my emotions the way a child is, and like a child, I often do nonsensical things: acting cold with the hope of receiving warmth, hiding with the hope of being found. I am more comfortable challenging the universe to give me what I want than I am simply asking for it. And I continue to ask myself, “Why can’t I get anything done?” I keep searching for some personal defect some hidden problem that will explain my failings. 

Perhaps it’s the product of an overactive imagination. It’s difficult to find the motivation to do things when you’ve convinced yourself that reality is inherently unsatisfying. There is no possibility that I haven’t already conjured in my head, no experience that could be more intense than my delusion. Real life feels diluted in comparison, a bland reflection of my inner world. 

And I ask myself again, “Does my own mind wish me dead?” I am figuring out what it means to live as a ghost, to haunt oneself. To be both alive and dead, young and old, both sides of the coin. 

A professor once told me that a ghost is a past that refuses to stay past, but I think it’s more than that. I’ve always found the concept of ghosts incredibly ironic because to be a ghost means to endure for precisely the same reason that you are dead. The manner of your end sustains you. What then is it to be haunted? Maybe it’s to be tormented by a wish for an end that you delay by your wishing, to be forever in your own way.

The defining concept of a ghost is then a paradoxical one. To be a ghost, one must be both alive and dead. To be haunted one must wish for change yet still cling desperately to the status quo. I don’t think a ghost is always a remnant of the past. I think sometimes, a ghost is a wish. I feel haunted by my past, but more so I feel haunted by my own perceived shortcomings. I ask my ghosts what they wish for already knowing the answer. To be haunted is to keep asking.

Ghosts exist as a contradiction, and it sustains their agony. Dead and immortal. Everything dies and nothing dies. Nothing dies because everything dies. The only way I am able to face my grief is to believe that the dead weave themselves into our lives as a way to keep singing. 

How do you end your haunting? I think you accept the contradiction. You make peace with the dissonance and sing alongside the dead. 

Every day I wake up and I have grown a little larger around my grief. 

I don’t think I believe in God but I believe in my grandmother. 

One day I will die and I will weave myself into the most beautiful parts of the world, and keep singing. Death is a surrender that grants you perseverance. How do you live forever? You are moved to make beautiful things by the spirit of impermanence. 

And still from the darkness of my small corner, I hope. 

I hope my dust fills the lungs of the living.

I hope someday a child is born who has my grandmother’s smile. 

I know someday I will breathe out all my wanting in one final surrender, and I will hear the dead singing, as I always have, moving in jubilation to the dance macabre, surrendering to the ever-changing shape of the wind. 

-NS

[google-searchhistory-official]

"Why me?"

Lykra: You lost everything of your own accord, grew up with torment around, destroyed and gutted every town, city, and relationship you would hold as a mortal. You broke fate, scared that it would still give you reward rather than punishment which it would have if you did not deviate so arrogantly against the plan you knew was set for you. You were violent, apathetic, and paradoxical. You are full of love, never worthy of it. Despair nipped and clawed every facet of your being, yet never could it dwindle hope. You were technologically brilliant, but could not comprehend the immensity of your designs. Magically gifted, but only let such talent fester on its own. You were a god in your own right before your first death, and you refused to see it. You had power over the elements and could create life, it did not compare to the god you thought you knew. I watched and looked back upon your life in that dead universe, ages and ages of repeating all I saw of you. And it was because you had broken the universe by going against fate, breaking it by refusing to let loose the gift of Pandora. You were a god worthy of the domain of nothing, you know it's breadth entirely. For having lost everything intentionally and passively. For spending countless time in a universe of void and not once lifting a finger, only falling into the rhythym of life, suffocation, death, repeat. For staying sane despite every oppurtunity to go mad. You are the God of Nothing, more than I could ever have been.

"...I still would like to know the purpose I should have"

Lykra: I will die. I am already dead. My murderer waits at the end of time. He is not your purpose but I would like for you to be my messenger. Only if you accept may I enlighten you.

"You will die, you are already dead. So you must know my answer, if it has always intended to be this way."

Lykra: And yet you still must say it. Not for a paradox of time, but for it to come out of our shared domain. To be a pact bound deeper than blood, for not only does it keep the promise.

"It gives me full access as you shall yield your portion wholly to me. And so I will truly become timeless. I am already outside of time in this meeting with you. Linear does not work unless I make it so. And so I must. I shall be the courier to the god that has killed you. And you will grant me access to the entirety of void and emptiness."

Lykra: I have and had. And it is done. No more yet or will shall keep you from the god you are. As for purpose, well now you can see the end and know it is not so. For entropy and chaos need an exit, an end to begin. Truly eternal and outside the fundamental. Everything is your domain. May Arkael the creator of my doomed world know he is not alone in gods like him. And please, let him rest in your expanse, no afterlife he could conjure can be better than the peace and immortality you can make.

"It is and was, you knew already. But I don't think I will change who I am now that I know. I think I'll just have less worry and stay confined to time until I must leave it. But if ever we need talk again, I know you are truly not dead even though you are. I've died enough times after all, to know it's meaningless to the both of us."

Lykra: I shall wait however long or short that may be. And I'm glad you do not intend to change. Another proof you were the right one for becoming god of nothing. You caught quick to my speech, something others will refuse to do. All the more doomed will he realize it long after I'm gone.

"Death isn't so bad. I get brief moments of rest and peace. Yours is violent, but all the better will the sleep be. And I'll let you into the void fully, so that it won't end. For now, enjoy boundless time away from the beginning of your doom. Perhaps a plan with Providence can help the broken world."

Lykra: And what of you. When will you be and what shall become. I cannot peek past the present that you had left as my time nears its finale. Now that you draw fully on the power I gift.

"I shall be back where I left, perhaps bound to before I am what you made and save the daughter I neglected. But I must make ammends with the current sons I have and all that remember the destroyed universe. The freedom to be outside of time tempts me yet I prefer experiencing it in the linear way it has always marched."

Lykra: I bow to thee and am have been and will be honored always by thou, God of Nothing. Monster Human Grimm

"The pleasure was mine, God of Everything's Beginning Demise. Giratina Lykra."

I know how to fix pepsi. The answer lies with the god who gave him his divinity. She can make him happy. Not through love or companionship, just through understanding. Lykra, you have more to you then I thought! Death shan't take you so gruesomely as I intended, all the better for Providence and the other concept gods!

[classickook]

gone but still here | sherlock holmes

pairing: sherlock holmes x fem!reader

summary: sherlock lost someone very important to him and he hasn't been the same since. (based off this request by anon.)

warnings: angst, mentions of death, major character death, brief mention of drug use, sad sherlock :(

word count: 1.1k

a/n: this was definitely a challenge for me to write as i don't think i'm the best at depicting angst and sherlock probably seems ooc here, but i hope it's still okay :/

“what has gotten into you lately?” john huffed at sherlock as he stormed after him into their shared flat. “you haven’t been acting like yourself today—though i must admit, you weren’t that splendid to be around before—but still.” he shook his head in exasperation. “explain yourself, sherlock.”

sherlock seated himself in his usual armchair, leg crossed over the opposite knee, chin propped into his palm, and seemingly deep in thought.

the reason why sherlock had not been acting like himself lately, as john so politely put it, was due to the fact that today marked the anniversary of y/n’s death. the cursed date on the calendar that followed him around, year after year, just to claw its way back into his life, ripping him apart right when he thought he was starting to heal.

john had the good sense to appear scolded, embarrassed by his outburst, now that he knew the truth. in the years that he had been by sherlock's side, he had never known that sherlock had ever been in a relationship, let alone one so important as the one he had with y/n. the man just didn’t seem like the type.

unbeknownst to those who had ever come in contact with the detective, sherlock was the type of person who didn’t fall in love often, but when he did, he fell hard. and it would be no exaggeration to say that he had fallen head over heels for y/n, and that he would never get over the loss of her.

she had departed from him much too soon, well before her time, in a tragic accident that sherlock would do anything to go back in time to prevent from happening. he cursed the universe for plucking her life up between its greedy fingers, disposing of it like a weed as if it didn’t matter, as if it wasn’t the most precious gift that sherlock had ever received. he had never met someone as perfect as her, who had done so much good in his life. she was, after all, responsible for helping him get clean until the only high he ever craved was to be near her. to this day, he still hadn’t picked up a syringe or even a cigarette, for that matter. he treated his sobriety as a sort of memoriam to her and he would continue to honor her in this way for the rest of his life.

immediately after her death, he had grown angry, bitter, overcome by immeasurable sadness upon losing the one thing that mattered most to him. in an effort to keep himself busy and distracted from these feelings, he had taken on as many cases as he could manage. but try as he might, he couldn’t get her out of his mind, nor the memories of their time together, until the torment of his own thoughts got to be too much and all he felt was an unbearable void in his life of where she once belonged.

the plans and adventures they were set to experience together, he was now tasked with enduring alone.

sadness and anguish held a firm grip on his heart, day after day, constricting the muscle to the point where he didn’t believe anyone or anything could ever loosen it. no, his heart was to remain hidden within the depths of his inner being, kept under lock and key—and the only person who had ever and would ever hold that key… was y/n.

sherlock had never considered himself to be sentimental. that is, until he met her. but maybe sentiment wasn’t worth all the pain he was experiencing now that she was gone.

no, he chided himself. that wasn’t true.

“she was my—” his voice cracked, and the sound was so unlike anything john had ever heard from sherlock in all the years he’d known him. it was gut-wrenching.

sherlock cleared his throat before continuing, “she was my whole world. i haven’t gotten over her and i don’t think i ever will.” he paused, a flash of steel determination crossing his features. “i don’t want to.”

he was plagued by dreams of her every night and reminiscent upon the memories that visited him throughout the day. he frequently visited those special memories of her and treasured them like fine jewels, precious and irreplaceable, like the flowers pressed between the pages of her favorite books, which he only allowed himself to view on rare occasions so as not to damage the delicate petals; or the perfume bottle of her signature scent, half empty and cap missing, resting on their shared dresser, its contents remaining untouched, still neatly folded and organized by color, just how she liked them; or the dressing-gown hanging in their closet, once belonging to sherlock until she quickly took it for her own, her frame swallowed up in the material, two sizes too big for her, and he hasn’t worn it since.

he missed waking up next to her and seeing the golden rays of sunlight peeking through the curtains to paint her face in soft, angelic hues. he missed the scent of her shampoo and the way her hair always splayed out around her on the pillow and encroached on his side of the bed until he was awakened by the strands gently tickling the side of his neck. he missed holding her hand and tracing the veins of her wrist with his fingertip, feeling her pulse beating beneath her skin. he missed hearing her laugh trickling throughout the flat that was sweeter than any music he could ever compose on his violin. what he missed the most, however, was simply her. his y/n.

“i just miss her, john,” he said quietly. john had never seen sherlock so devastated, vulnerable. he didn’t know how to react other than to comfort him in the best way he knew how. after all, john had lost the love of his life as well. the two men, at least, had this one thing in common.

he placed a firm hand on sherlock’s shoulder until the man leaned forward, head bowed in anguish, his broken sobs echoing throughout the flat. the two men soaked in the memories of their lost loves, both taken from them too soon.

mrs. hudson, sweet as she was, somehow knew there was tragedy occurring in the flat above her, and she stopped by just long enough to drop off two freshly brewed cups of tea, just the way john and sherlock preferred it, hoping the warm liquid would soothe them from the inside, offering it as an extension of herself to her two favorite boys, caring for them as if they were her own.

the door closed gently behind her and she rested a hand against her heart as she felt their brokenness seep beneath the crack in the door, trailing after her as she descended the staircase.

oh, what she would do to bring mary and y/n back to them.

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

[riewritten]

CHAPTER 1

WORKING TITLE: STUCK — DIRECTORY

ERWIN X FEM!READER, ERWIN X YOU, NO Y/N | modern & college AU, parallel uni, eventual romance & smut, crack treated seriously, literal reader-insert lol, typical isekai plot but come on!

SUMMARY: All the fictional characters you consume and know of seem to exist in one time and space. Unfortunately for you, you suddenly woke up in that world out of the blue. It is until your encounter with a disturbingly curious character that you realized you could still have your way out. Oh, what could go wrong? AO3 | FANFICTION

WORDS: 2k

"Now that I think of it," you trailed as Erwin searingly glared, "it's kinda blurry now, maybe because it isn't bound to make sense in the first place?"

But see, he was the Commander for a reason. You know better than that.

When did you start hesitating in telling everything? You were so excited to spill it out. You started with the very first moment he appeared in the series—exhausted, dirty, utterly sullen—then to the most valiant battle he had led in your opinion, up to his last moments where you emphasized how his smile affected you that you still get sad recalling that particular frame.

Oh, you were so enthusiastic, so excited, and so proud. You fleshed out your admiration; how you still consume his content from time to time to destress.

It is until he asked, his face not changing and chin propped to his palm, "You seem so happy about it despite how tragic it sounded. Where have you seen it? How?" that you realized how insensitive you are.

Or how unready you are to unveil what he actually was.

The Erwin Smith you're facing isn't just some cinematic device. He’s a genuine human being who started sitting with you at the cafe every afternoon to listen to your stories; so curious to the point of freeing his appointments to accommodate your blabbers, to have him treat you to food every single time because you can barely afford what’s on the menu. You remembered, most of all, that the reason he's doing this is because of the torment. You saw that world as mere content; he is feeling it raw.

It's been three days since you started being so evasive about it, so the Commander looks like losing his patience this time around. 

"I started seeing it in my dreams too," you grudgingly lied, "that’s why it doesn’t make sense."

"It is making sense until that question," his annoyance is quite palpable now. "I’ll appreciate it if you answer me properly this time."

"I don't know how to answer that."

The face he pulled out next was the one bargaining for something, "I came to dig down into you recently. You've got no relevant title, came from a measly school in the countryside, and yet you managed to transfer to a quite known university. I was a former student there and as far as I'm aware, they don't accept people of no background just easily. How did you manage to do that?"

That's a bit rude.

But most importantly, you're starting to feel the shift in his demeanor. He was benign a moment ago. Now with his elbows resting on the table and eyes scrutinizing you more daringly, you feel like you’re about to become some sort of target.

This might not end well today.

"I am yet to confirm the accuracy of your records but—"

"Is data privacy nonexistent in this world?"

"In this world?" Now he looks amused.

"I don't think you're allowed to have that much information about me."

However, he brushes off your concern as if it was nothing then continues, "And going back I realized, how strange it is that you've been nothing but someone blurry for me—and for others, that is—until that day at the police station."

You decided to be defiant. "You’re not addressing my concern, Mr. Smith. We barely know each other. The only thing that connects us is the teacher I'm working with as an assistant." And I haven't even met him personally yet! "I must be the one shooting daggers right now."

"Is that so?"

You backtracked. Screw the bargaining face, this is the one he pulls out when he's about to obliterate someone. You hid your nervousness by saying, "Be straight to the point and I might let you off from invading my privacy.”

"You're the one who needs to speak clearly so I would let you off. Let’s have a deal. I won't spill the possibility of you forging your identity in exchange for telling me everything about that world."

"I'm not forging my identity!" Well, it is forged but you believe you're not the one to be held responsible.

"So you don’t mind Nile investigating that, hm? I'm afraid you'll have your jobs jeopardized because of it, though. Would that be fine for you?"

How could he say that so calmly?

"I’m not guilty but don't ever go to my jobs. I can even barely afford the food here."

"And I see that so well. That's why I'm making a deal."

You can't even sip the drink he humbly bought you anymore. You're having a hard time revealing how you genuinely see his existence but to play around with him is futile too.

To tell a good lie is to sprinkle ounces of truth—or someone said so. You don’t remember who that character is but, “How do you see it exactly, Mr. Smith? I’m certain you don’t space out on a random day then find yourself in a war against giants, do you? Because in my case, I see it vividly in my sleep. I’m sorry for being evasive about it because it’s too graphic to handle but—”

“I told you I’m not taking that,” he spat. “Now speak the truth or else—”

“But the scariest thing is that I can’t remember everything about me ever since the dreams started!”

And there his doubt paused, “What?”

“I took unannounced leave at my part-time job because I didn’t remember working there until I checked the records in my closet. I landed at the police station on the exact day because I was asking them who I am. Ask the convenience store people about it.”

“I already did,” he mused; you shot your eyes open. He really is taking your existence seriously. “And while I need more proof of your claims, I wouldn’t take that as a lie.”

“Even if you ask me who my family is or what my town looks like when I was a kid, I wouldn’t be able to answer you. I have no idea what this place is.”

“You were nothing but someone blurry for everyone until I confronted you at the police station. Even my senior you’re currently working with couldn’t give me a proper answer when asked about you. What does that mean?”

“Is this senior named Dot Pyxis? I saw him in my contact info.”

“You don’t remember him as well?” The curl in your face answered his question. Still, he pressed. “Tell me more about your situation.”

“I remember him in that world just as I remember you and Nile being commanders, but I don’t know who you are here. I don’t know how I was able to enter that university, how I settled on that apartment, or how I applied for jobs. All I remember are those dreams. If you still don’t believe me in this, then let’s call this a day.”

“I believe you right now.”

Uncertain if you were supposed to sigh in relief, you just lied, “That’s why I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I apologize for the quite uncomfortable conversation then,” he doesn’t sound so, though. “But if you’re in a situation like this, the most important thing to have is someone who believes you, don’t you think so?”

“You’re the most rational person I see in that dream so it’s not surprising to think you’re just amusing yourself with my uncanniness.”

“That isn’t entirely wrong.”

“Then I don’t see the rationale of us talking. Let me go home.”

Finally, his face subsided into benignness again. “We have a deal. Let me deconstruct your situation and I won’t spill your forge of identity to the authorities.”

“This is not a deal. You’re blackmailing me.”

“Well," he pondered, "it can be seen that way.”

“It really is that way.”

“But see, I’m the only one who could help you and you know it," he tipped his head to the side, flat but utter confidence reeking out, "are you really in the leverage to deny me?"

He’s not entirely wrong. But if the Commander is the one to make a deal, then; “I need to have clearer conditions on that.”

He smiled. Oh, that face. Finally. The genuine bargaining face. “Tell me what you need.”

“I need to learn the ways of this world,” you realized how strange it sounded so you added, “—relearn, I mean. I need to relearn everything.”

“Alphabet…?”

“No. The laws. How things work. This world’s history.”

“I’m a teacher for a reason.” Then it’s his turn to bargain, “Your mere storytelling won’t be enough for me. You need to prove your claims.”

You don’t know how to compensate for that, “How can I prove myself if I don’t know anything?”

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m yet to confirm the accuracy of your records.”

“So you want to take the lead in unraveling who I am?”

He nodded, “Let’s start by going to your hometown this weekend.”

“You seem to have lots of time.”

“I can always make a way.”

You pondered in conflict. It’s in his nature to chase around things he’s genuinely curious about so his behavior about your upbringing isn’t too surprising. However, if this journey reveals the truth about his existence then what would happen to him? To you? “I swear to be transparent with you but I want to take the lead on that part.”

“I’ll secure your daily finances,” he bargained further.

“You don’t need to. I just—”

“I’ll see to it that your studies won’t be disrupted as we go further with my methods,” he interjected, “I have all the resources to do that.”

“No, I’m telling you—”

“I’ll secure your spot in assistantship with my senior. If you’re not aware, your job is temporary and in demand. You need to further your credentials to continue working with him.”

“Oh my god, really?” You got thrilled with that and so he nodded, but then you realized he’s swaying you towards complying with his demands. “No, no. This isn’t about that! I need boundaries on this, Mister—”

“Call me Erwin.”

“Erwin! Okay, we’re talking about my personal life. You should understand that much.”

“I’m not the one to rely on what is said. I need to see things unfold by myself. That’s why I’m willing to offer more in exchange. All I need is your compliance.”

How do I turn this in my favor? You fiddled in your seat and whispered, “But what if I were to unravel something uncomfortable about myself that I’m not willing to explore…?”

He nodded flatly, “Oh, yeah. That type of boundary. I can respect that.” 

Man, this one got hard guts, but you can work around that. “Tell me about the arrangement in my studies.”

“You’re an undergraduate in the secondary education department and since my senior, Mr. Pyxis, is one of your professors, you got an assistantship in the high school campus we’re working as teachers. However, he couldn’t remember the reason why you’re the one who got the job when I asked. I deduced that it might be due to his age but your colleague in the convenience store said the same thing.” Yikes. That’s rough. “See, now that Mr. Pyxis got the awareness, he’s considering to replace you with someone of better credentials. I can do two things with that: encourage him to fire you and work with someone better, or urge him to let you stay. But the only way I could know what to say is by working around knowing what your background really is.”

“You’re phrasing it too much in your favor.”

“I am,” he quickly admitted, “but am I wrong, though?”

“Cunning bastard,” you huffed inaudibly. “Next, how would you be able to teach me about the ways of this world?”

“Let’s go to your hometown this weekend. I can tell you things along the way.”

Realizing how the deal benefits you way more than him, you reached a hand for a shake, “Deal.”

He returned it with a smile and called your name, “I'll be in your care then.”

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to have a relatively better relationship with writing, i decided to update my works every two weeks (at minimum) and for this particular fic, have a 2-3k word limit.