#though my account is currently trapped in purgatory

[omnificent-orion]

A relatively quick painting for a user-run event over on Gaia.

Commission Info | Support My Work

edit: Here's 2024's drawing since I don't feel like making a new post.

[theholycovenantrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, SAY! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF RYUK.

Admin Jen: Say, I wish there were words to describe my joy over your application. Not only because you’re bringing us my beloved Pale Rider, but because of the beautiful way with which you captured them. There was so much to love about your app, but I have to admit that it was the para sample which stole my heart. Ryuk’s voice, his image of the other Horsemen and the way it bled into his dialogue throughout, the nuance in his perspective and the small tics in his mannerisms. It was all so vivid, so visceral, and so mesmerizing to take in. Although I absolutely cannot deny the impact of all the other sections in the app, which only served to amplify the portrayal and bring it to life in a way that left me so thrilled to leave Ryuk in your hands. I trust you with him completely, and I pray for the New World to bear their arrival. Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!

OUT OF CHARACTER.

ALIAS | Say.

AGE | 25.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS | She/Her/Hers.

ACTIVITY LEVEL | Hopefully around 6/10! I check the dash basically every day for replies, but whether I get to them or not is a completely different story 🥴 Also, given that this is a highly literate roleplay, it may take me a tad longer to craft replies and post them, but I’m confident I can meet the 8 post/month minimum that you outline in your guidelines. 

TIMEZONE | EST / UTC-5.

TRIGGERS | REMOVED.

HOW DID YOU FIND THE GROUP? | A mutual of mine reblogged some of the first promo posts onto my dash. From then I’ve been following the group, and I finally got a chance to read through all of the lore / word-building you guys have done and I am super impressed.

CURRENT / PAST RP ACCOUNTS |

IN CHARACTER.

CHARACTER 

Ryuk.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER? 

I will admit that when I was first browsing, I had the worst choice paralysis because all of the biographies were compelling in their own way. The Angels and their pretentious morality, the Demons with their freewheeling madness, the Gifted toeing the line between mortal and divine, desperate to survive in a world with their powers… That being said, I kept on going back to Horsemen because of their remarkable existence across Caelum, Sanctus Terra, and Infernum. Not quite Angels or Demons, and far from mortal, I interpreted them to be the closest beings to God the world has, given that they were torn from the flesh of God Himself. 

This steadfast solidarity between Viktoria, Ryuk, Nerissa, and Dmitri really hit me square in the chest. Four distinctive beasts, hungry for bloodshed, are dropped into a world already ravaged by devastation at the hands of God’s own creations — so they take solace in each other, even broken from their original purpose. And yet, even amongst these four outliers, Ryuk stood out to me even more, because of their innate understanding of the ravaged world before him. While Nerissa raged for their stolen war, while Viktoria mourned their own creation in Purgatory, while Dmitri adjusted their child-like senses to their surroundings so starkly different whence they came, Ryuk intrinsically knew of their role on this plane of existence. 

I recognized the subtle intricacies woven into Ryuk’s biography, and wanted to challenge myself by writing a character whose desires, motives, and perception of the world is markedly unique from how I interpret my world. What sort of purpose could a Horseman have when stripped of their divine right and design? What do the immortals fear when they are bound with eternal life? What could Death himself fear, when they know the unknowable, and have the power to exact their purpose? 

All beings, regardless of their time on earth, fear death in some way. For divine beings, it is the possibility of their destruction through their infinite life, and for mortals, it is the inevitability of it that induces fear. But what about Death himself? Is it possible that they could be terrified of it as well? 

PLOTS.

DISCLAIMER: I illustrated a few points that rely on the development of other characters, most specifically the Horsemen, but it will all obviously rely on me working out the details with other players. 

I. A HUNGER FOR DEATH PROMISES A STARVATION OF LIFE — a division amongst a former whole.

We begin the story with the Horsemen being a single unit, working alongside each other in relative harmony, existing as mercenaries for the highest bidder. In a world teetering on the fragile truce between the Angels, Demons, and Mortals, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse walk alone, united in their understanding that they are unlike anything else walking the holy grounds. Without each other, they have nothing — so they remain close together out of deficit rather than benefit. However, in each of the Horsemen’s biographies, you’ve outlined a faint, yet irrefutable line dividing the four. As it stands, the division relies on recognition; Ryuk has always understood Nerissa and her cause more than he sympathizes with Nerissa or Dmitri. So what if that line became a crack? 

I’ve interpreted the current division to lie within the fundamental conflict of bloodlust vs. power, with Ryuk and Nerissa lying firmly in the former camp, though this would all be hammered out with the appropriate muns. But the interest lies within the Horsemen, and what would happen if their loyalties suffered an upset — who would they pledge their allegiance to? 

II. MONSTERS, WE ARE NOT SO UNALIKE, YOU AND I — an unlikely understanding.

This brings me into the next plot point, which involves Ryuk’s connections to the other factions.

Within my app, I sought to base much of Ryuk on what he is not — and their antithetical existence to Cade is something I played with deeply in this application. As hungry as they are for blood, there is a distinct lack of intention behind their killing, as if they inflict death because they are a Horseman. It is why the division is so crucial for Ryuk to begin to align themselves to a cause. A trap I don’t want to fall into while writing them is not giving them a fear to hold onto. I think the fascinating part about Ryuk is that they were birthed out of God’s terror of His unknown — and that is precisely what they fear the most. They feel safe and powerful when aligned with his fellow Horsemen, but without them, what do they know? 

The details of what would sweeten their attraction to any cause is something I want to keep open, rather than delineate extensively here, but the core of it is the same: to lower them down so that they may see the light in another’s faith. 

III. IN MY END IS MY BEGINNING — a touch of Death. 

And here, we end with a renewal of their perspective. Some sort of mortal injury happens that gives Ryuk a taste of their own medicine, perhaps in saving something they have truly learned to care about, as much as their dark heart will allow. 

Given that they fear losing their power and dominion over mortals, throwing them into a situation where they are possibly injured by one is a surefire way of allowing Ryuk to face what truly lies dormant underneath: what is their purpose? And why are they here and living, despite having their purpose erased so long ago with the death of their Creator? 

Perhaps this will finally give them a hunger for something more than just taking souls and money for it. 

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH KILLING OFF THIS CHARACTER?

As long as it serves a specific purpose for the long-term prospects of the group’s plot, 100% yes.

IN DEPTH.

DRIVING CHARACTER MOTIVATION 

I admit that this is the one of the parts of the application I struggled with, because for all intents and purposes, Death’s purpose has been ripped away from them. They, along with the other three Horsemen, were created for Earth’s apocalypse — but now that they’ve been thrown into the world without it, in some ways they are lost beyond comparison. 

Even so, Ryuk was still built to thirst for mortal blood at their hand, and as of now, that base instinct is what they actively rely on to move through the world. They are desperate and hungry for the souls they’ve been promised by God, and nothing more. 

And yet, I think they are also terrified of what it means to be stripped of their purpose. There’s this tentative resentment they hold for the world that no longer needs the Horsemen to wreak havoc, and yet, a terror that overtakes them when they think of fully relinquishing what they’ve been handed down from God. A fear of incompetence, the unknown, and the uselessness they feel is what drives Ryuk to continue to do what they’ve always known. After all, it’s easier to believe in a belief they’ve held close to their chest for so long. 

CHARACTER TRAITS 

( + ) RESOLUTE | Permanence: it is the one thing Ryuk knows to be true. Mortal blood expires, and nobody knows it better than the harbinger of Death himself. It is what makes them loyal, unwavering in their beliefs in their tar-black soul once he has made up their mind. ( + ) ASTUTE | It is impossible to be foolish when he has the ghosts of the past right at his fingertips; a history, laid before them like an open book. And what are first impressions, when they have the still-lingering souls to guide him along? Not much escapes their eyes or ears, and they use their gift well, for himself first, and for the Horsemen second. ( + ) VIGILANT | All that knowledge, always within reach — it would be a shame if they did not apply it well. Though he can be quick to react, it is rarely out of ineptitude or  undisciplined impulse; it is precisely the wealth of information he gleans that makes them all the more wary to enter into a situation without identifying the risks first. They are adamant on victory, not by anyone else’s terms but their own. ( – ) DUPLICITOUS | He has no qualms about trickery, or resorting to underhanded means to get their way. After all, what is integrity to a being that values Death above everything else? What is honor to a Horsemen without a future, when Death is the period, the endmark to every creature with a beating, bloody heart? ( – ) RUTHLESS | When Ryuk first learns of the word mercy from the spirits’ whispers, they can barely fathom the concept. Sparing another out of the benevolence of one’s heart? It’s practically laughable, given their own penchant for cruelty when faced with their victims. He is ( – ) PASSIONLESS | And one wonders: what could make such a merciless killer unflinching in the face of their purpose? Yes, they relish in every single kill, just as much as his compatriots, but in the end, he does it because it is all he knows. One cannot mistake the devotion they show for passion, the very fire that ignites the circle of life. No, Death will not and cannot be acquainted with life, no matter how many live souls they take for themselves.

PARA SAMPLE

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” — Matthew 24:36

From the beginning, at the very break of their conception at the hands of God, Ryuk is told they are the antithesis of emotion. It is an age-old story of the hero, their origin a simple blip in the vaporous, golden-god kingdom from which he is torn, cast into darkness until their path is clear — but Ryuk is not a hero. No, they are told that some day, they shall wreak havoc across the mortal realm that He has forged to collect their birthright of the damned souls roaming the earth. When? It’s insolence, a rare bit tumbling out for his Creator, He who has torn a part to make their whole.

You will know, and it is thunderous, the cadence of his voice, that even Death quivers, when the gates to the mortal realm opens. And then, they are thrown into their realm, devoid of anything but dust and half-formed souls. They know this, because the moment they’d slipped into the aphotic depths of His plan is the exact moment they hear their wails, deafening, ululating, even for their immortal senses. 

And oh, did they wail. Told stories of dominions and dirt, of princes and peasants, a swarm of the dead desperate for the ear of a God — or however close they could get to such a being. Time and time again, Ryuk would swat the cloud away, gaze always focused in the distance, where the dark smoke broke into a line of halcyon shimmer, and they’d ask Him ( pray, a soul whispers ) for their birthright, their infernal kingdom of souls. 

Ages pass. They hear nothing. They see nothing. The gilded line shrinks. But what is time for an immortal? Still, they hunger for the permanence of their existence; here, in this inchoate cavity of God’s creation, they are useless. The void is a steadiness of not quite death, but the absence of life — a temporary, an unhappy medium that they cannot satiate themselves on no matter how hard they strived. When? They think again, but He is long gone, in His heavens with His angels and His mortals He’d bore out of Love. 

In the ages to come, they will begin to understand this. Tales brushed in human concepts, of Love and Fear and Ecstasy and Hope, of those dominions and dirt, the princes and peasants. In the ages to come, they will see that the mortals flourish, souls rising to Heaven and Hell without their touch. They will see the expanse of God’s love for His children, in fractured pieces of the half-gone souls’ shrieks, wondrous at how He could destroy something He’d built from the sands of the lands. They will ask why did the mother forbid her to marry her lover? and the souls will answer, because she loved her daughter, a babe she’d birthed for nothing in return.

“For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” — Matthew 24:7

And what they mean to say is — no, they do not understand. How could God, in all his love for his mortal creations, bring their deliverance, Famine and War and Conquest and Death, upon the moral planes? What is their purpose aside to destroy what He has created? To understand the world is to hold it in one’s hands and inflict upon it an inconceivable love, of which they had none in their ichor-stricken heart. 

They resent God for this. They resent their purpose, and yet, they walk the earthly plains alongside their comrades, knowing that even God has succumbed — and so they hold their faith, deal their foreordained havoc in spades.

“For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.” — Revelation 16:14

“You must have mistaken me for a being of mercy, of which I am not.” Viktoria’s nostrils flare. Ryuk’s voice is low enough that the others do not catch the impertinent remark, the subtlest of digs on what she prized most. Within visible distance, Dmitri fiddles with a mortal contraption, one of the many gifts from his beautiful admirers, and far off, in the other direction, Nerissa sharpens her blade on a slick slab of quartz, eyeing her two comrades with a watchful eye.

Among them all, fallows, burnt yellow and unseemly, spread out across either side, an end distant and impossible. In this part of land, there is nothing but rainfall and smog, untraversed by even the most seasoned of travelers, which, of course, had made it ideal for the likes of the Horsemen. Nothing but tar black clouds roamed the sky, save for the sliver of white in the horizon, a marker of Caelum to the North. The line glows, and Ryuk is briefly struck by the likeness of their environment to the emptiness from which they came. If they listen diligently enough, the winds almost mimic the agonized shrieks of undamned souls, and it completes the resemblance, far too uncanny for their liking. He shifts on his feet, left and right, and tugs on his ear. A cue, he’d learned, then committed to muscle memory, to ward away the spirits when they were not needed. 

“And as always, you have failed to listen. And they say you can hear the spirits with those ears?”

It is Ryuk, this time, that prickles under the weight of the insult. Viktoria, as always, has fashioned herself as the brains of their expeditions, always pointing out their next destination. He cannot blame her; of the quad, they all know she is the weakest, but her passion for their good fate flares stronger than his own. Viktoria, always the one hungering for something more. A desire for a bite of the heavens whence they came. 

To each their own, they suppose. 

“I have provided all of us with good information, have I not? Saved our good health, if I remember correctly,  more times than I desire to count.” Their sharp glare meets the other’s steel-bit fire, and she huffs. 

“And what are your qualms of this plan? Do you plan to serve this diseased Tridium for our eternity?”

Besides him, the souls begin to howl. Cry out, they will hunt and kill you, they have weaponry, blessed by the something dark and holy, and yet, another faction beckons, they are no match for the Apocalypse, they are not as strong as you believe —

“What is it?”

They snap out of their trance. In the centuries they have known each other, they have all learned each other’s behaviors like their own kin. Like the flicker in Nerissa’s jaw when she lusts for blood, the fondness glimmering in Dmitri’s eye when he spies a mortal he desires. They’ve all seen the half-slack stupor Ryuk undergoes when he channels the voices of the dead, most of all Viktoria, but he brushes her away, throat cleared with a rumble. 

“Nothing. They caution us against it.”

“And?” 

The sinew in their neck tenses. “And there is nothing else. We all know that some mortals are still gifted. They hold the power to our demise as much as we for theirs.” 

Viktoria scoffs. It is clear, in her stance, from her gaze, that she does not believe he is giving her the entire truth. “We will need more than that if we are to carry through with it; perhaps, they can tell us the size of their armory, or perhaps how it could be of use to us...“ Eyes averted, she begins to pace a small distance. They can already see the cogs turn in their brain, assembling their scheme for an upset of power across the lands. 

“And who has agreed to carry through with this design? Dmitri?” 

They look up. Viktoria, who’d been addressed; Dmitri, who’d believed they'd been summoned; Nerissa, who’d smelled the whiff of conflict. The lines, there are always the lines. Viktoria with Dmitri, himself with Nerissa. Left unsaid, but voice did not negate the fact that the line is a truth, hanging amongst them like an errant thread, impossible to sever even with the sharpest of blades. “You don’t believe we can do it?” 

They stare, unflinching against her black gaze, because for all that they lack with their deadened atrophy and rot, they fill themselves with the faith that there will always be more souls to take. They do not prescribe themselves to a greater fate other than the one that has been given to them, from God, their Creator. What use do they have of power, when they had all that they required in the present? 

“If we take this job, do this favor for this mortal, we will secure an ear in the ranks — a cousin of a member of the Round Table, and we can use leverage, to raise our status, to find these heavenly instruments to mine for crystallis —” 

“Of which he has none, Viktoria, in case you have forgotten!” 

From the corner of their eye, they see Dmitri flinch, Nerissa cease her movements to sharpen her blade. They are always like this, vying for a position that neither of them particularly desire, but ages have passed since they’ve come to terms with their uncertain fate. They’d been dropped amongst mortals and divinity alike, across barren lands and built cities, alone in their status as creatures of God, literal in every sense of the word. He had torn them, the four of them, from His own celestial body, had He not? 

They are quiet again. 

Mere mortals would have raged, now Ryuk knows this. It is the security of more that protects (or rather, exposes) the others to wars, seething with blood and blades, to the black certainty of hatred that infected the strength of their ranks, susceptible and raw. Their net, of course, had perished along with the annihilated remains of God’s and Lucifer’s immortal bodies. They had nobody, and would have nobody else, until the end of time. 

Perhaps they all realize this, sheepish expressions flitting across their eyes, the sunken hollows of their cheeks. Jagged as they are in countenance and disposition, Ryuk has realized they have gone too far in their words. His head hangs an inch lower, shoulders hunched in sour defeat. It is all that they need for the mood to lift. Viktoria nods, and they mount their horses, in implicit agreement that they would defer the conversation for another time. 

They scan the fields. It is still sunken, stinking of something burnt yet still living, sodden with the foul scent of mortal dirt. The gales have only reinforced their vigor, screeching through the vast space, washing away their bitter anguish — but the winds are just that, the earlier parallel lost, if only because they had three others by their side. They have survived the fire, and they will survive, untouched, riding their noble steeds into the winds, not separate, but as one.

[jamesdwannabe]

I’ve been doing research and I highly suggest this book for anyone who feels like me and like you’re dead and in heaven! What I’ve gathered so far is past lives/reincarnation is real. It’s a magical gift from god that some of us go on to heaven when we die, while others get to experience life after life as someone else! Our obsession with the past…it’s all part of DID and otherkin which is actually our former lives wanting to come out and live life again.

We all get trapped in purgatory, though. When we die, we either go on to heaven or we go to purgatory. I died in the jail the first time I went cause I was already dehydrated for two days and they refused me food and I never drank any water. I hopped up the third day feeling great and I forced them to give me food and then I was able to finally reach my family and get bonded out.

The second time I went to jail was purgatory. I’d love to talk to y’all cause I’m currently working on a book about my life and all the abuse I faced, such as my childhood and adult abuse and relationship abuse, but also my terrible time spent in jail and all the transphobia I’ve faced because all of these things lead to my DID and bipolar disorder and my psychosis where I was delusional and hallucinating, thinking all kinds of things but mostly that I was John the Baptist on a mission from God to cleanse all the troubled souls and hell maybe I was at the time.

Anyone who knows the Bible well that can help provide me with information, anyone suffering any type of mental illness, anyone who wakes up everyday thinking they’re dead or in purgatory or any trans people who are experiencing what I am as in you’re suddenly showing symptoms of HRT but you’ve never taken T or estrogen a day in your life…and finally anyone at all who has any type of information and would like to be featured in my book/in a documentary I’ll one day make…please message me either HERE ON TUMBLR or DISCORD.

I’ll post all my social media so you can keep up with me but just know I get too many snaps a day to check there so tumblr, discord, or even insta and Twitter is a better platform to reach me than Snapchat but please still follow cause it’s my main base to post updates!

Again, if you reach out, it’s already assumed you’re giving me full permission to use your story but I will ask what name you prefer I use. If you’re using an alias then both first and last names are fine, but if you prefer your real name, please only give me your first name.

I will also pay you for any real and good and truthful information you send me, but I don’t have a bank account right now, so payment will come later once I’m allowed to leave my house and doordash again. I’ll pay you all a price I set later.

Please, only serious information. Even if you’re alive still and on earth, if you have any legit scientific articles or books that pertain to this line the heaven and hell afterlife book…I’ll pay for information. And if you don’t want to be paid in money, I can pay by shouting you out on all my socials since I have a large following, or I can send you books or clothes or anything you want. Just send me the link to what you want and I’ll deliver I promise!!

But no addresses please. Please have any gifts/resources sent to your local post office!

Thank you and as my girl tonya up in LCJ and Mr. Truman would say…good morning, good evening, and good night!

Love always,

🐐💕

Socials:

tumblrs: here (jamesdwannabe) or yourboyharrington or dudesofrp (still under construction but y’all send me rp recs, shoutouts, promos, or just rp related asks please im bored 🤣)

Discord: charliework #1346 (this is mainly where i rp so if you wanna continue our rp if we were partners before please message me again so I know who is still active in the community and for those wanting to rp with me now I’m always looking for 1x1s so please hmu for that too and again this is the main way to reach me if you have information for my book either your own story or books/articles about being dead, heaven and hell, purgatory, DID and bipolar disorder, or transphobia and abuse and just anything else I’ve posted about 💕)

Snapchat: coltwise or biggaymacdaddy (ill update this with more snaps cause im making a cooking channel and I also am making snaps for all my alters i only got mac so far and im gonna make james soon and i also have a daily prayers one I read the Bible at and take any prayer requests 🙏🏻 y’all have but i can’t remember the username but its either dailyprayers05 or dailyprayers55 but I think it’s 05. I’ll update all of this later fam)

Instagram: wisteriagrowshere (im gonna make alter accounts too eventually lol but i don’t use insta as much)

Tiktok: only got one and it’s relivingmyhorrors

Twitter: I’ll update this later since I deleted the app and don’t remember my username lol

[worryingthing]

Hello, back again with more cards. It’s late August and everything feels bad. Pulling cards feels like a trick I try to do to get myself to think and articulate my feelings, and that’s all it’s for. I tried to scroll through tumblr but I can’t remember what being on this platform is supposed to be like anymore, even though for so long it was a huge part of my life. It just slipped away like so many other things. It also feels bad to sit at my desk, to type, to have the length of my forearm pressing into the desk so I can type. I haven’t been sitting at a desk for the months of homestay and have barely touched my computer. I’m noticing I’m barely able to read text without hunching forward, without my glasses I mean. I have looked up so so many laptop stands and found nothing that is to my liking. I’d like to raise the computer a ltitle to see better, I’d also like a better angle for zooms and discord video chats, etc. 

Anyway, I put the tin of cards on my desk, which has so little space and is totally cluttered over with things, and one card fell out and the second I pulled out of the deck while shuffling. The card that fell was the 8 or swords, the card I pulled was the 7 of swords reversed. Just two people with some sword problems, but we’ve all been there. 

I’m wondering what’s not a problem these days? The waking hours feel like an agonizing thing to toil through, to try to pass and spend and exhaust because for some reason we’re universally subjected to consciousness. Like getting a ton of tickets at a cheap arcade, and reluctantly exchanging them for some less than satisfying plastic doodad. Was that really the whole point of playing the game? 

Anyway we’re moving soon and maybe things will get better? It feels impossible that things could improve, or that change at all is possible. That these patterns and horrible hours could ever shift off their already set purgatory course. The 8 of swords knows this feeling, there she stands encased in swords, bound and blindfolded. He perspective and movement are inhibited, limited, blocked off. She feels, and is, trapped. 

“The Eight of Swords reveals that you feel trapped and restricted by your circumstances. You believe your options are limited with no clear path out.”

“When the Eight of Swords appears in a Tarot reading, it comes as a warning that your thoughts and beliefs are no longer serving you. You may be over-thinking things, creating negative patterns or limiting yourself by only considering the worst-case scenario. The more you think about the situation, the more you feel stuck and without any options. It is time to get out of your head and let go of those thoughts and beliefs holding you back. As you change your thoughts, you change your reality. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones, and you will start to create a more favorable situation for yourself.“

Now, this is the part I truly groan at: “The Eight of Swords assures you there is a way out of your current predicament – you just need a new perspective. You already have the resources you need, but it is up to you to use those resources in a way that serves you.”

What can I say to this? Who doesn’t feel trapped and bound right now? in their homes, with their thoughts, with the eternal recurrence of daily life amidst a pandemic? I’m miserable, but so is everyone else, and for a lot more reasonable reasons! This thought unfortunately fails to shrink the misery, but instead makes me feel selfish for my little complaints which, as the 8 of swords says, do not serve me or anyone. So here I am with these wasted hours that I wonder what to do with, with the impending move (when? this weekend? mid month? we don’t know and I can’t Not Know, it is Virgo season c’mon), with my keyboard that mysteriously sticks whenever I try to use shift and a symbol, with my too short desk and my clutter, trying to consider all these things going into boxes and transitioning to a new space that I should start to feel hope for the way a seed germinates and then starts to reach up and out towards light for the purpose of L I F E. Things that went into boxes will come out and maybe magically be better in new light, with new space, and new rooms, new roots? 

Ok so Upside down sword problem man, what’ve you got? “The Seven of Swords often appears reversed when you feel like a fraud and are suffering from ‘imposter syndrome’. You may doubt yourself and your abilities. For example, if you have started a new business, you may ask yourself, 'Who am I to be doing this?' Know that this is fear talking. Get out of your head and trust that you have everything you need to make your new venture a success.”

Look at this dude, he’s like “I’m getting away, I have so many swords! *clank clank clank clank* OW!!” I dropped a knife off the counter last night and it barely missed my foot. Stigmata honestly sounds refreshing at this point. These cards seem to suggest I get out of my head, but how?? Is that what this writing is?? and I ask myself “who am I to be doing this?” about EVERYTHING. Who isn’t always walking around like ‘ooooh I will be found out’ about some part or the whole makeup of their “identity”. What is identity now, at home, with overgrown hair and shoes with no tread worn down hanging neatly as they were left at the end of the last warm season, no place to be or be seen, not that being seen is optimal, but also how does self expression and self actualization work anymore? I have so many questions, and thankfully there are many cards, and maybe less thankfully or sort of half heartedly, there are many more days. I don’t know, this is just an account of the times because I’ve often regretted when I didn’t write through other things. Next month it’ll be a year since we were in Japan and I regret not writing every single day I was there, constantly, just to have more to go back and drink in!! and to share, oof to share. Well, now I have at least successfully passed an hour. So, there’s that. 

[visitedupon]

what’s your name/alias?

hi, i’m rachel! the admin of this place, obviously. i also go by velouria sometimes, so you can call whichever idc!

what’s your timezone and how often do you think you’ll be on?

est! when i’m on a normal schedule and not enjoying winter break, i’m on pretty much every day from mid afternoon to the middle of the night. the only days that i really have to be good on are mondays and thursdays because of class, and i’ll also be a little touch-and-go from dec 24 to dec 27 due to being at my sister’s house for christmas. other than that, you can usually reach me on discord!

how did you come across Southbound?

i saw it in the tags ;););) just kidding, i founded it, but in my totally unbiased opinion, i think i’d find it intriguing if i saw a promo post or a friend recommended it! 

what you would do if you got caught in Boot Hill’s trap?

honestly i lived in arizona for eight years and am now a full on midwestern hoe, so i’d be pissed af there wouldn’t be any snow or pine trees. but i’d probably just resign myself to my fate and make the best of it, and y’know that trick lil boot hill has a way of making people forget the things they loved on the outside...

what’s your favorite scary story? are you currently reading any books?

i’ll forever be a stan for the infected mold town nosleep series. but out of the horror books i’ve read, a head full of ghosts by paul tremblay is really good for genuinely spooky stuff! currently i’m reading misery by stephen king but i’ve barely cracked it open bc of sb lmfaoo. i do have a goodreads account tho if anyone wants to add me!!

what song has been stuck in your head lately?

i’ve had drive my car by the beatles in my head for a few days but today it’s go to church by ice cube. for some reason who’s that girl by eurythmics was in my dream last night tho, idk why. i have varied musical interests!

what do you think Boot Hill is? hell, purgatory, another plane of existence, etc?

who’s to say!!! not me!!!!!!!!! in my opinion, boot hill is a very real place, it’s the southbound highway that’s the one in question. or maybe not, who KNOWS

if you had to pick a place of residence in Boot Hill, where would you live?

i’d live at the silver spurs because it’s one of my favorite residential locations and very few ppl live there right now!! snatch ‘em up!!! or i’d live on amen mountain street, because it’s fun to say. (fun fact: in my head the locals pronounce it ehh-men/eamon instead of ah-men bc they have rural accents.)

what’s your local grocery store chain called?

there’s giant eagle, marc’s, heinen’s, etc in my area but i come from a giant eagle family! though since they put in a meijer’s, i go there all the time at like midnight just to walk around. idk why but it’s medicinal and calming!! there are apparently acme food stores but i’ve only ever seen it on the complete other side of the city so they don’t exist in my mind. funny thing is, most of the state of ohio has kroger but not in cleveland, oh no! giant eagle is actually a pittsburgh based store but for some reason, we have them here too. i like to imagine pittsburgh and cleveland have a mob boss style agreement to keep kroger out of the city.

um. I LOVE GROCERY STORES, there i said it!

[tristinai]

"16. things you said with no space between us" with Cullrian

Of course, I would be given a prompt that just begs to be smut and turn it into angst =P

“I love you.”

He stops, hands lingering over the pale flesh they had been tracing. He feels the Commander—hard and aching in his trousers, hips trapped beneath the still fully clothed mage straddling him—but it’s those words, whispered softly in a moment of reckless impulse, that makes Dorian abandon his task of disrobing his current bed mate.

With no space between them, there’s only one place for those words to go: they press to his lips as the mage breathes heavily, a confession spoken without abandon, as earnest in its delivery as every other awe-laced remark the Ferelden has ever made in the midst of their intimacy. Maker, you’re amazing or You’re unlike any other man I’ve met are words that Dorian could preen to, relish in his self-proclaimed prowess beneath the sheets.

But this?

He doesn’t quite know what to do with…this.

He looks down into Cullen’s eyes, heart hammering so loudly it’s deafening, the roiling thunder of an oncoming storm. He sees sincerity where he expects deception, words he’s heard before in his more vulnerable youth, a tool as a means to lure him into a false sense of security, make him believe he’s worth more than the occasional tumble in bed, to keep him coming, keep him devoted to a game he’s become more reluctant to play because he always loses.

And when he loses, it’s always more than another handsome face to bed. What little hope he had for being worth another man’s heart died months before he began this illicit affair with the Inquisition Commander. Trevalyan saw to that, discarding the mage quite carelessly after having his fill of him.

Dorian’s been broken more times than he can count. And he’s not about to let someone else do that to him again.

“You must forgive my horrible carelessness,” the mage says, forcing a laugh and pointedly ignoring what was just said. He dislodges himself from the Commander, nearly crashing into the desk behind him, leaving Cullen seated and looking somewhat confused and hurt. “I’m in the middle of some research and as much as I like a good distraction, I really should get back to it.”

A distraction.

That’s all Cullen is.

Distractions don’t fall in love with the disgraced sons of magisters.

Before he lets the Commander say anything, Dorian’s already out the main entrance, feet carrying him swiftly to the battlements. He may have heard his name called but it’s easy to convince himself it’s just the wind, that the disappointment he had seen in the ex-templar’s eyes had been from walking out before either could get off, and not from the silent rejection of Cullen’s affections.

Dorian knows there’s only one way this could end. And so help him, if it means ignoring the way his heart flutters every time the Commander so much as looks at him, then the mage will do just that.

He has a very selfish and keen interest in protecting that which has already been shattered beyond repair.

Ignoring Cullen is easy.

Ignoring his own guilt, a betrayal of those desires he’s forced to bury…well, that’s another beast entirely.

Each morning he wakes up ridiculously late, spends an equally ridiculous amount of time meticulously preparing himself to face another day in Skyhold, and then takes the most roundabout way from his private quarters to the library, all in avoidance of certain parties.

He hardly gets dragged out of Skyhold these days, the tension between him and Trevelyan enough to leave their companions walking on eggshells when the two of them so much as greet each other. And with the way the Iron Bull loves to flirt at the most inappropriate of times or pry into the mage’s psyche (often, some combination of both), Dorian has to ignore the lure of alcohol and drown soberly into his own state of misery he’s put himself in.

With his most recent bed mate lost, that leaves only one distraction: books.

“Another blasted account on Tevinter history by that damned Brother Genitivi…oh, how lovely, a collection of Divine Joyous the Second’s sermons on the Tevinter clergy,” Dorian mumbles, picking though the titles and tossing each of the offending books somewhere behind him. He normally isn’t so abusive, even with “knowledge” that lacks any objectivity and subjugates readers to a biased and skewed perspective on Thedosian history, but this isn’t what he had in mind when he asked for books on Tevinter.

“Ow.”

Dorian freezes, finger brushing the leather spine of another book he’s preparing to toss off the shelf.

He smells it then: elderflower and oakmoss, hears the footfall of heavy boots that stop just behind him. It’s enough to make his pulse begin to race, heat that percolates low in his abdomen whenever he’s heard that voice moan and gasp, groan his name each time he’s made the man come undone by his own tongue and hand. It makes him want to turn around and sink into the Ferelden’s arms, their audience be damned, because this is the one luxury he’s allowed himself, even when the whispers gossip of how that fucking Tevinter has corrupted ‘noble’ men like the Inquisitor and Dorian knows better than to let such poison tarnish the hard-earned respect of someone like Cullen Rutherford.

Cullen, who he has made believe harbors unrequited affection in the week since he began his vigil of ignoring the Commander.

Dorian feels it then: the panic, the urge to flee, because he may say he wishes to become a better man but he knows deep down that he’s a coward and if there’s one thing he can’t do, it’s feelings.

But he can’t move. He’s trapped in this purgatory of everything left unsaid and knows that if he turns to face the Ferelden, his resolve will crumble and he will give in once again, diligently remaining at Cullen’s side until the Commander also inevitably becomes bored of him.

Dorian knows there’s nothing about himself worth loving. So why entertain such delusions?

“If my presence here offends you so much, I suggest a weapon more terrifying than Divine Joyous the Second’s sermons,” the Commander says lightly, reaching around Dorian to place the book back on the shelf. His hand hovers close to where the mage’s rests on the book beside it, his breath tickling the back of Dorian’s neck. “It’s said Beatrix the First was a shrewd woman and could put the fear of the Maker in you. Had you tossed that at me,” and he indicates to a book not far from Dorian’s hand, on the Divine’s writings, “I’d have run out of here in fear of my life.”

It’s a poor attempt at a joke, bringing levity to a tension so thick, the mage nearly chokes on it when he shakily inhales. And he regrets it immediately: this close, he not only feels Cullen’s warmth behind him but gets a good whiff of the man and it only stirs that ache for him.

“Divine Pladius,” Dorian says, ignoring the desire to bring their hands together, feeling lost and helpless as his tone remains cool, the storm in his chest one that silently rages, “Not that I would expect to find such writings on that heretic here in the south but the man wielded Andrastian guilt more devoutly than a qunari warrior their sword. He was said to have brought the Archon to his knees in devotion, though I prefer the more colorful interpretations of such commentary.”

He’s not sure if he expects Cullen to carry the conversation in the tone he has set. It would be easy if the ex-templar would just comply but Dorian isn’t all that surprised when he doesn’t. He should know better than to be given the easy way out.

“Dorian…”

His name is a collection of syllables uttered nearly against his skin. It’s that same problem once more: with no place to go, they remain trapped in his flesh, a claim he hadn’t asked for when he began bedding the man purely out of convenience and to mend the damage wrought by their most honorable Inquisitor.

Leave, he knows he should say but the demand is lost somewhere between his fragile resolve and thirst for something more than just convenience.

“Is there something you need help with, Commander?” is what he settles on, says with an indifference that cuts him as much as it cuts the Ferelden.

Cullen is quiet. There’s the hesitation, the one Dorian knows so well because whenever he feels it, he listens to it, stops himself from doing or saying something that would make him vulnerable.

But the Commander doesn’t have that same kind of filter, not when he has shown himself to be the kind of man who whispers of love when they should have been fucking.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I thought that much was obvious,” Dorian answers, tracing his fingers over the spines of the books on the shelf, pretending to take interest in the titles.

His heart thuds dully in his chest, a dirge to everything he is afraid to want.

“If this is because you don’t feel the same—”

“Fasta vass,you think it’s that simple.”

“Then what is this about, Dorian?”

And he makes that mistake he promises himself he won’t.

He turns around.

It’s easier to break something off when one doesn’t have to face the man whose bed they’ve shared, whose body they’ve been pressed against, been inside, felt shudder and tremble beneath their hands, mapping every gasp like a landmark to a hidden trove of secrets, unveiled for their ears alone.

How Trevelyan had been able to look Dorian in the eyes and tell him he is nothing but a distraction is a cruelty the mage can’t bring himself to do to Cullen.

Because Cullen isn’t a distraction.

And seeing him now, face grim, golden eyes filled with that same sadness Trevelyan had once put in Dorian’s, made the mage realize that by denying himself everything he wants, he has become just like the men who have hurt him.

“I’m a fool,” he says, reaching with his trembling hand to cradle Cullen’s cheek.

It’s his way of apologizing because Dorian may have a lot to say but he always has a way of saying everything without saying anything at all.

So instead, he shows him, closing what little distance remains because the space between them has always been the barriers he has put up. But slowly, through the patience and affection Cullen has shown him, those walls have chipped away, leaving Dorian vulnerable, exposed. Yet everything about the way the Commander kisses him back, pulls the mage into his arms, presses him tightly and protectively against his armored chest, lets Dorian know that he is safe, that he no longer needs to hide behind the facade of careless indifference.

When Cullen breaks off the kiss, his scarred lip curling into a smile as it ghosts against Dorian’s own, he whispers once more those words that have been the mage’s undoing.

“I love you.”

And they sound so earnest and hope-filled, that Dorian has no choice but to believe them.

“Will that be a problem?”

He senses once more the hesitation in Cullen’s voice. The Commander is giving him one last chance to bail, to run, to satisfy the mage’s flight instinct that often bubbled into anxious panic at the fear of being misled and used once more.

But Dorian ignores it, looks into Cullen’s warm eyes, and though he is brave enough to stay, he still isn’t quite brave enough to voice how he truly feels with the same conviction.

So instead, he answers, “No, I don’t believe it will be, amatus.”

It’s not quite the same but it’s close enough.

[enemymine2000]

SPN: Thoughts about 12x14 and 12x15

A lot of “Ah, hell, really? Not again?”-feelings here at first. But then my brain started to dig deeper.

We – the casual viewer – are meant to take things at face value. We are meant to believe that Sam genuinely switched sides and is now working on Dean to do too. We are meant to believe Ketch's seductions of the latter and his mindless enjoyment of hunting with Lucille (of all things).

But we – the not quite so casual viewer – know better.

We know, that Dean is more than a mindless hunter drone, whose only interests are sexual conquests, booze and rides. We know that Dean is able to hack with the best of them (R.I.P. Charlie!), so we know he can easily disprove Sam's claim of a new “find hunts”-app just because of that.

Also we know that Dean is a lying liar who lies professionally and as such can easily spot another liar, especially when the other is Sam, who can't lie his way out of a wet paper bag even when his life depends on it. The only exception being when Sam was soulless, because no conscience to rat him out.

A big hint to that effect is Dean's very on point attitude to lying to their victim of the week about the supernatural. It is a surrogate war. “Don't lie to her, especially not that clumsy” basically means “Don't lie to me, you know I can tell”.

And never forget the much discussed shampoo-line. Dean basically tells it to Sam's face: “I know your secrets!” But also: “Wash this gore from me and I am more than you can see.”

Which is a continuation of the previous episode and Ketch's seduction, that never was.

Yes, psychopath Ketch believes it to be, but Dean – and thus we – know better. Dean might have been hungry for a hunt, but he was not hungry for killing just to kill things. Very sadistically in Ketch's case. Because Dean is more than meets the eye and makes it into BMOL files.

Dean is the guy tasked with keeping the balance on this planet by God himself and he is in a place in his life, where he can accept that. Shown in the last episode with placing him smack dab in the middle of his “love triangle”, so basically between heaven and hell.

He the human, who had been monster and demon, between the demonic ex and the angelic whatever-to-be and managing the balance.

The King of Hell, who basically fled from his domain, the somewhat fallen angel, who goes to Heaven to talk it out with his hateful brethren, and the human, who holds it all together. Who can forgive and forget no matter who, as long as it is sincere. Who will hunt you down if you don't mean it.

I mean, Crowley is basically just still alive, because Dean was able to look beyond and see his reasons.

Crowley remains a demon at his core – no matter his sudden affinity for human emotions – so by old hunter's codex he is nonredeemable and to be put down. But he always acted on a codex on his own, demonic though it was, to uphold balance. Crowley only took what hell earned rightfully and when he stepped beyond that - *cough* Purgatory *cough* - he only did so in accordance with Heaven.

When Dean was a practically unbeatable weapon in Crowley's arsenal, he never misused him. Which, summer of love or not, is something one would not expect from the actual ruler of all things evil.

Cas in turn – well, one could argue, that he only truly came alive through Dean. Yes, he technically “was” for bilions of years, but being and being alive are two very distinct different things.

Castiel, angel of the Lord, was a warrior and only that. His brethren were his only true contact throughout his whole existence and they used him to further their respective agendas. One of which was raising the Righteous Man from Hell.

Cas was born the day his grace touched Dean's soul and has been reborn (sometimes quite literally, which is more than even Lucifer can say) ever since, whenever faced with a choice of his own.

Also still alive because of Dean, because if it wasn't for that pretty insistent human being Cas' would have guilt-tripped himself into oblivion.

If it were for the BMOL all three would need to be disposed off. They are monsters without exception and Ketch would kill each of them without a second thought.

That is something Sam still needs to truly grasp. Also that he would be on that list of monsters too, if he was not so damn useful as a hunter now. That with him being one of Azazel's chosen.

BTW, whatever happened to that? We got that flashback this season, but only with Sam as an unreliable narrator.

Has he lost his psychic powers completely? Or are they just dormant?

One could argue Gadreel healing Sam after the trials would purge that last remants of impurity from his system, but then Gadreel never finished the job and Sam was left to heal naturally after expelling the angel from his body. Not to forget that of the brothers Sam still has the better affinity with witch craft and spell work. (Where exactly lies the distinction?)

So, yes, Sam cozied up with BMOL. But he did so, because he could see how utterly lacking they are and his mother's life was literally at stake.

Dean goes along with it, because he knows there are things Sam is not telling and before he does not get the whole story, he will trust his brother. At the same time he knows his future will not be with the BMOL, because what they already had done to him/his family is already nonredeemable in his eyes.

So while he waits for the second shoe to drop he is looking out for a way to get his mother and brother to safety from the subsequential fall-out.

So, what else? Crowley has Lucifer utterly trapped. I knew as much when he told Lucifer to his face that they had his vessel rebuild from scratch.

Yes, the chains were a nice rustic touch, but please, we are talking archangel here! Currently the most powerful being on this planet and I'm supposed to believe he is held only by some angel-binding chains? Classic subterfuge.

I can't believe Crowley truly wants the nephilim torn apart. Least to torture Lucifer. Yes, Lucifer has been mean to our resident King of Hell, but if Crowley truly would have wanted the nephilim, he would have had Kelly right there, when they expelled Lucifer from the president's body. He had the time to mess with the spell to send the archangel into his vessel, he would have had the time to snatch and grab his baby mama. Especially since he is not restricted by human means of transportation.

He might want the nephilim. But he will want it for the same reasons he wanted Amara. Power. A nephilim is so powerful that angels fear it and there is a decree not to create one (aka “The Sacred Oath”). Maybe this one even more so, since it was sired by the only (relatively sane) archangel left. One unaffected by the big fall – wings still intact and all (very nice for SPN to show us that much).

Yes, I don't doubt that Crowley wants to torture Lucifer, wants to humiliate him, wants to get even for what was done to him. But Crowley would not have become King of Hell, if he did not know better than to do something that probably will come back to bite him in the ass. Killing the actual devil's child is such a thing as long as Lucifer is still alive.

Since Crowley currently has no means – he destroyed the Lance of Michael and a lot of “Hands of God” were rendered useless last season and we know the Colt does not work – and plans – otherwise he would not have imprisoned Lucifer in his vessel – of disposing permanently of Hell's erstwhile ruler, he will not do such thing.

Remains Cas.

Last we have seen, he's back on his way to Heaven to talk to Joshua. That is if Kelvin had not lied in that regard. I for one don't trust the guy, because angels are dicks and they have some very big issues with Cas.

But then the argument of him having the most field experience is legit. No one of the Heavenly Host but Cas – apart from maybe Lucifer (and Gabriel, when he was still alive – I miss him!) - has ever wandered earth that much.

But his special kind of field experience is not really needed if it were only to find and dispose of Kelly, respectively her child. Angels have done similar things before and even taking into account that their numbers have dwindled and the top level bureaucrats are all but burnt wing marks on the ground now, they are still organized enough to manage a level 1 smiting. (Which probably is the most concentrated effort angels had to do ever since God left billions of years ago.)

We can not forget how truly deep the hatred of angel-kind runs towards Cas. Even Hanna had been turned against him. Because they all believe him not only to be responsible for so many deaths of their kind and the closing for Heaven's gates, but because of his love for… humanity.

Basically every angel we have ever met apart from Cas himself has acknowledged that special love for… humanity. (Well, Cas did too just a couple of episodes ago, but we're still waiting on the answer.)

Loving humanity however is not the problem. That is what God commanded of all of his angels. That is what ultimately triggered the Mark of Cain on Lucifer's arm and thus his fall. Angels are meant and programmed to love humanity.

They are however forbidden from laying with humankind and thus to love/make love to one human. The Sacred Oath. Cas has been accused of having broken it practically ever since the Apocalypse.

Cas, being the angel/human hybrid that he has become, he can now see beyond such orders, such oaths. His brethren can not.

As seen with Ishim – hypocrite that he was – they demand them to be followed no matter what. And as Cas himself has once done, they simply do. They don't know choice for themselves.

So whatever Joshua might have to say to Cas, it can't be good. Unless Joshua still talks with God, who we know to have taken a special interest in this particular angel, but then Chuck is on his sibling retreat and very hands-off and, well, Chuck. And Chuck is kind of a dick.

I saw some speculating that this will be the build-up for Cas' ultimate choice for humanity, turning human himself, giving up his grace, etc.

I still hold out hope for my hypothesis of Cas becoming nephilim per choice. Since the show is no longer about black and white, either or, but about balance.

Cas is the best of Heaven and earth combined, why take a part of him away and make him less than that?

[lucretiars]

Cherry by Nico Walker

“The taste comes on first; then the rush starts. And it’s all about right, the warmth bleeding down through me. Till the taste comes on stronger than usual, so strong it’s sickening. And I figure it out: how I was always dead, my ears ringing.” I’m standing in the confines of a gorgeously-lit, delicately-balanced bookstore in the second story of the historic Fine Arts Building in the heart of downtown Chicago, light pouring in from the early-autumn golden hour, the crisp and clean pages of this novel jutting smooth and warm in my hands. At the lazy hour of 3:00 pm I’ve got the place to myself; the setting surrounding me a complete juxtaposition of the content my eyes are scrolling through—and this is the line that hooks me. Sober, save for the lingering coffee buzz that gently gripped hold just a few hours ago, I am suddenly hurtled into the body of a war veteran, addicted to heroin, riding a high and planning his next bank robbery. This is the world of Cherry, Nico Walker’s debut semi-autobiographical novel written over the course of several years from the Federal Correctional Institute in Ashland, Kentucky.

Cherry exposes the wrath of Walker’s unnamed narrator, leading readers down a walk through hell, a tender spectacle, an absurd dream, an intimate terror, a candid gut-reaction. There is a bleak disillusionment in the narrator’s trajectory, which allows readers to directly experience the grueling effects of PTSD and addiction. In our narrator, we meet the rough and tattered exterior of a deeply introspective and sensitive person. Mimicking Nico Walker’s literal state behind bars, his created main character wears the façade of the contrast between a metal jail cell trapping a living, breathing human inside.

The foreword of the novel drops you directly in the drug-addled, reality-grappling lives of our narrator and his partner Emily. Coalesced between discussing the plan of that day’s impending bank robbery and ruminating on how they imagined their recently adopted dog would help them get their lives together but now they’re merely “dope fiends with a dog”, the narrator takes a particularly large hit of their vice of choice and wakes up to Emily stuffing ice cubes into his underwear to shudder him awake. The narrator, though a bit disheveled, makes a crude joke about his hygiene and brushes the experience off like nothing, insisting to Emily to hurry up and get her hit in before she’s late for class. While there are glimpses of true affection and observations so saccharine and resonating, Emily and the narrator are distorted in an enabling and detrimental relationship; the kind of relationship that makes you understand the sheer power of denial.

Continuing in the foreword, still written through a backwards-told “ending at the beginning” tactic, our narrator is trudging swiftly yet lightly through the alleyway veins of an unidentified Midwest city after completing a robbery for the umpteenth time. Police sirens gradually piercing louder and louder to symbolize their looming arrival, the narrator unexpectedly finds a moment of contentment in the chaotic purgatory that is the life he knows now and the fate he is yet to endure. He finds a calm pocket of time to marinade on the simplistic hidden beauty of the dreadfully mundane reality around him, remarking, “The sirens are coming up Mayfield now, and the grass is like a teenage girl. And the stoops!—the stoops are fucking wondrous! That’s a fuckload of starlings gone to war over a big wet juicy bag of garbage—look at them go! This is the beauty of things fucking with my heart. I wish I could lie down in the grass and chill for a while, but of course this is impossible, the gun in my hat could be a little obvious, the money sticking out of all my pockets too.” Through these scattered musings, I found myself reflecting on those past moments that suddenly, when we fear something actually really fucking bad may be about to happen, or we fear the possibility of reality becoming so twisted and wrong, we suddenly find gratitude in the minuscule speckles of beauty around us. And through Walker’s brutal, tender, and grippingly honest narrative, these bare slices of time—the impossible-to-name fleeting moments of life that keep us from completely losing it all when everything is falling apart—are unraveled through Cherry.

To be frank, the largest appeal of the book when I first picked it up was the process in which it was created. Nico Walker, still currently serving an 11-year sentence for robbery, crafted Cherry over four years behind bars. In his acknowledgements, Walker outlines the severely manual process of communicating with his publisher, Matthew Johnson. Each edit and recommendation given to Walker was expressed through weekly allotted phone calls. Unable to bring even a pen or paper along for documentation, their discussions were to be memorized and then divulged back in his cell. Walker writes, “The manuscript wasn’t so much a manuscript as it was a plastic bin full of paper. Every page has been rewritten one hundred times over. There was no Word file. It had all been done on a typewriter.” Somehow, this seemingly insufferable feat emerged with such power. Walker’s dialogue is crafted with such rhythm and realism that it mimics an old friend spouting the tales of their life to you at a party, drunk with grace and ease. But buried in the nature of what Walker is actually spouting to us is deep unease.

At the start of the novel, Walker introduces two widely juxtaposing quotes. The first, by Elizabethan playwright Thomas Nashe from his 1600’s play Summer’s Last Will and Testament reads:

“Such use these times have got, that none must beg, but those that have young limbs to lavish fast.”

And, by popular country singer Toby Keith from his Americana southern anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”:

“And it feels like the whole wide world is raining down on you.”

Though worlds apart, these contrasting lines set the stage for Walker’s approaching journey. Initially used by the army in attempts to indict inspiration and patriotism in its soldiers, the fake plastic spectacle of the red-white-and-blue vomit becomes a comment on the brainwashed nature of American pride. Walker’s inclusion of Mr. Keith’s phony lyric at the start of his novel exposes a harsh reality to this otherwise overplayed tune. Often referring to it merely as “that Toby Keith song”, the narrator is resistant to the patriotism of his fellow soldiers. In an already hollow and alienating battleground, this further detaches him from his surroundings.

Intermixed with code-heavy language in the Iraq scenes, the authenticity of Walker’s war scenes will surprise you. Mingled in the muddles of mechanistic day-to-day routine, our narrator faces harrowing sights and experiences that force him to dig into the reality of who he is at the core. A la Full Metal Jacket, the army scenes are at times darkly comedic and other times so shrewdly acerbic, exposing each comrade our narrator interacts with as a true individual so nuanced that there’s no way they weren’t real. Amongst them are Specialist Grace who looked like Jean-Michel Basquiat and had an 18-year old wife waiting for him at home, Sergeant Bautista, to which our narrator gets stuck in the almost dull routine of draining the abscess on his ass every night while he plays Madden, and a man who was only referred to as “Arnold”, who had dreams of being a computer genius and “bringing down Bill Gates”. It’s disclosed that all three of these men will not be alive when the narrator goes home, and Walker writes with such viscous detail as if to honor their memory.

Sprawled across six parts: “When Life Was Just Beginning, I Saw You”, “Adventure”, “Cherry”, “Hummingbird”, “The Great Dope Fiend Romance”, and “A Comedown”, readers are rapt along the narrator’s tour through love, violence, crime, and everything in between. The novel’s trajectory mimics a drug’s high—the initial excitement, the hidden fear, the gentle roller-coaster crescendo, the exhilaration, the subdued serenity, the banality, the regret, the car-crash decrescendo, the reality.

Walker writes with such an unexpected tenderness that even though his experiences were nothing short of foreign to me, I was catapulted into the perspective of the narrator’s psyche. Chapter Fifty-Two, the entirety spanning one long paragraph (Walker’s chapters range from quietly sparse to compressed and bursting) begins and ends with the sentence, “There was nothing better than to be young and on heroin.” In-between the graphic and miserable terrors the drug wracked on the narrator and Emily, Walker’s prose delicately weaves in the joy, bliss, and wildness they both experienced, reminding me of Mark Renton and his crew in Trainspotting. I believed Walker’s narrator felt paradise and passion in the transitory moments of his addiction. That harsh truth illuminated through these pages transform “The Great Dope Fiend Romance” from merely a staggered semi-autobiographical account of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll to a stark observation of the reality that is the opioid epidemic. And as a part of the whole that is Cherry, this honesty becomes even more heartbreaking sandwiched between the terrors of going to a war way too young and naïve and resorting to crime as a means of coping. Walker writes about the emergence of the narrator’s newfound vice: “I don’t imagine that anyone goes in for robbery if they are not in some kind of desperation. Good or bad people has nothing to do with it; plenty of purely wicked motherfuckers won’t ever rob shit. With robbery it’s a matter of abasement. Are you abased? Careful then. You might rob something.”

In a brief wholesome moment after treating his dog to a Wendy’s cheeseburger, Walker remarks through his narrator, “She reminded me of myself, insatiable.” In this fleeting reflection towards the close of the novel, I began to understand the gravity of the narrator’s losses and residual search for meaning. After experiences in combat stripped so much of himself away, the blissful yet impossibly impermanent highs he continued to chase with drugs, love, and crime were simply insatiable. Everyone can relate to experiencing the act of yearning, and I think that Cherry illustrates the simple notion of yearning for middle ground. Between the mundane and the chaos there is harmony, and without explicitly expressing it, the narrator pines for something solid to hold on to. The voraciously unquenchable lust for purpose.

Cherry feels like a process of dehumanization, but dispersed through even the bleakest moments, there are searing glimpses of human fragility and vulnerability. Through Walker’s narrative, I followed his character down a slowly sinking spiral, floating between some warped sense of hope only to find it disguised in obscurity. I was left wishing, grasping for a light at the end of the tunnel; but sometimes, there is no light. For Nico Walker, maybe there will be. But to write with purpose is to write the truth, and in his echoing honesty there is beauty.

“I was feeling melancholy, but it was a calming melancholy. Life was fucked but I was good. This was what I knew. And fate was fate. My heart was full and life was precious.”

[deniscollins]

China’s Tactic to Catch a Fugitive Official: Hold His Two American Children

Liu Changming is among China’s most-wanted fugitives, accused of helping to carry out one of the country’s biggest bank frauds, in which $1.4 billion in illegal loans was issued to property developers. He fled the country in 2007. More than 10 years later, if you were a government official, would you impose an “exit ban” on his children, now in their late 20s, in order to convince Liu to return to China: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

When Victor and Cynthia Liu landed with their mother on a tropical Chinese island in June to visit an ailing grandfather, they thought they would soon be on a plane back to their East Coast lives — he to start his sophomore year at Georgetown University, and she to work at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company in New York.

Instead, within days, police officers detained their mother, Sandra Han, who, like her children, is an American citizen. They moved her to a secret site, commonly known as a black jail. The children discovered at the airport that they could not leave China, even though the police had said they were not being investigated or charged with a crime, the children told American officials and family associates.

By holding the family hostage, they said, the police are trying to force the siblings’ father to return to China to face criminal charges. The father, Liu Changming, a former executive at a state-owned bank, is accused of being a central player in a $1.4 billion fraud case.

The children say their father severed ties with the family in 2012, but the Chinese authorities have still held them for months under a practice known as an exit ban — a growing tactic that has become the latest flash point in the increasingly rancorous relationship between the United States and China.

Senior American diplomats, already contending with tensions over trade and territorial disputes, have denounced the way China uses exit bans as coercive, opaque and a violation of rights. In January, the State Department issued a travel warning, saying the practice posed risks to foreigners in China. Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the bans during a visit to China, and this month he mentioned the Liu family to a top Chinese foreign policy official, Yang Jiechi, at a meeting in Washington.

The siblings have pleaded their case to American officials, including John R. Bolton, the national security adviser. “The investigative officers have made abundantly clear that neither my brother nor I am under any form of investigation,” Ms. Liu, 27, wrote to Mr. Bolton in an August letter obtained by The New York Times. “We are being held here as a crude form of human collateral to induce someone with whom I have no contact to return to China for reasons with which I am entirely unfamiliar.”

She made similar points in an email sent in recent days to a family associate, saying that “the Chinese authorities have been consistent that neither Victor nor I are accused of or suspected of any criminal activity,” and that the authorities have repeatedly said that “the reason we are here is exclusively to lure” their father.

On Friday, in response to questions from The Times, a State Department spokesman, Robert Palladino, said the United States would continue expressing concern about exit bans “until we see a transparent and fair process.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry defended the holding of the three family members, saying: “The people you mentioned all own legal and valid identity documents as Chinese citizens. Because they are suspected of economic crimes, they are restricted from exiting the country by the Chinese police in accordance with the law.”

This account of the Liu family’s plight is based on interviews with administration and congressional officials, university employees and family associates, as well as correspondence by the children to them and public records. There are currently a handful of exit-ban cases involving Americans, but this is the first one in which those with knowledge of it are making the details public.

It is also a rare instance in which one of those being held — Mr. Liu, 19 — was born in the United States. More often, China imposes exit bans, which can last from days to years, on naturalized foreign citizens who were born in China. Security officers often treat them as if they were still Chinese citizens, even though China does not recognize dual nationality.

The law in China states that its nationals automatically lose their citizenship when they gain citizenship in another country. It also says that someone like Mr. Liu who is born with citizenship from another nation is not a Chinese citizen, no matter the parents’ citizenship.

The Liu family members all entered China on American passports, and the State Department is providing them with citizen services. The police from Guangzhou, the southern provincial capital where the father worked, have taken Ms. Han, 51, to a hotel several times to meet with an American consular officer.

Liu Changming, 53, the father, is among China���s most-wanted fugitives, accused of helping to carry out one of the country’s biggest bank frauds, in which $1.4 billion in illegal loans was issued to property developers. He fled the country in 2007.

In recent years, as the Chinese authorities have waged a fierce crackdown on corruption, they have increasingly viewed family members of corrupt officials as being tied to the illegal acts, with the police sometimes aiming to prosecute spouses.

The Liu family has lived with notable wealth in the United States, in part by acquiring real estate, though there is no indication from public records that the properties were purchased with the money that the father is accused of embezzling.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Edward J. Markey and Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, Democrats from Massachusetts, where the mother lives, have urged the United States government to act.

“Our office is aware of Victor’s, Cynthia’s and Sandra’s situations and is deeply concerned,” Mr. Markey’s office said in a statement. “We are working to secure their safe return and continue to be in touch with U.S. officials to ensure a positive outcome.”

Purgatory With the Police

The Liu children are trapped in a situation far from their elite American lives. Both attended Groton, an expensive Massachusetts boarding school. Ms. Liu graduated from Stanford and Harvard Business School. The family has a $2.3 million house in a Boston suburb, and the mother, a businesswoman, controls or has her name on companies with real estate holdings worth at least $10 million, including two luxury apartments in Manhattan, according to public records.

Since June, the children have tried to leave China three times. They travel between cities, staying in hotels or with an uncle. Their ailing grandfather died in October. They limit their electronic communications because of suspected surveillance.

“Out of concern for the security of these young Americans, we will refrain from public comment as we continue our efforts to constructively and directly engage the Chinese government to allow them to return home,” said David Pressman, a partner at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner who is representing the Liu children.

The Georgetown president met with the children this month in Beijing. Harvard has written to the Chinese ambassador in Washington. McKinsey is in touch with Ms. Liu. People tracking the case say they hope President Trump will raise the issue at the Group of 20 summit meeting this week in Argentina, where he and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, are expected to meet.

China has convicted foreigners of crimes and even executed them. It has also detained Muslims who are foreign citizens in its northwest internment camp system. The exit bans are different — the authorities do not keep the people at a detention site or present a legal justification. They use the ban mainly as a means of coercion: to squeeze out information, to compel a relative or friend to return to China, or to force the victim to settle a business dispute.

In one case, an American stayed in China under an exit ban for more than two years. A continuing case involves a Singaporean national working for UBS, the Swiss bank, which has prompted UBS to issue travel warnings to its employees.

“Many police actions are now taken outside the legal system, and both Chinese citizens and foreigners, especially those who used to be Chinese citizens, have been kept in China with no apparent legal authority,” said Jerome A. Cohen, a law professor at New York University.

China’s increasing use of the practice is a result of major trends: a growing disregard for civil rights among Chinese security forces; a sweeping anti-corruption campaign started by Mr. Xi in 2012; and a rush among corrupt officials and executives to move overseas with their families. In 2014, China announced the start of a global campaign to hunt down fugitive former officials.

Many of the former officials live overseas in luxury, with new names and citizenship. China has sent secret agents to the United States to try to retrieve some. China has also asked the United States to send back former officials, but the two countries do not have an extradition treaty.

American officials have been reluctant to cooperate because of China’s human rights abuses and lack of rule of law, though there have been exceptions — including the repatriation of a former vice mayor accused of stealing $39 million.

The ‘Naked Official’

In 2007, Chinese auditors closed in on what was becoming the country’s biggest bank fraud case. Liu Changming fled China that December, state media reported. The top official at the Guangzhou branch of the Bank of Communications, he was at the center of the case.

Officials charged him in 2008 with making illegal loans of about 9.8 billion yuan, or $1.4 billion, including some to a company he secretly controlled, according to Caixin, a financial newsmagazine. Officials convicted Mr. Liu’s co-conspirators but recovered only half of the money.

In 2015, China put Mr. Liu on its “Skynet” list of 100 most-wanted fugitives. Interpol issued a “red notice” for his arrest. His whereabouts are unknown.

The Financial Times reported in 2009 that after escaping China, Mr. Liu took part in shareholder meetings in London for Canton Property Investment Ltd., a company whose Chinese subsidiaries received the illegal loans. The company had gone public in London in August 2007and raised $50 million, but was delisted the next year.

Public records show that a person named Changming Liu is linked to a home in Chestnut Hill, Mass. The address matches the one Cynthia Liu lists on her Harvard alumni page. The home is owned by Sandra Han, the mother. Zillow, the real estate website, estimates its value at $2.3 million.

A company controlled by Ms. Han bought the home in 2009. Several real estate companies, trusts and limited liability corporations are registered to that address, and they in turn own rental properties in Massachusetts and luxury apartments in New York.

While Mr. Liu was moving up the ranks of China’s banking bureaucracy, he became what the Chinese call a “naked official” — someone who settles his family abroad, with relatively easy paths to foreign citizenship and well-regarded schools, and with the Chinese authorities an ocean away.

The mother and daughter moved to California in 1998, and by early the next year they lived in a condominium in Alhambra, a Los Angeles suburb popular with Chinese immigrants. In June 1999, Mr. Liu and his wife bought a three-bedroom home in nearby Arcadia. Records show they obtained Social Security numbers in California around this time.

Their son Victor was born in California that July. He later lived in southern Chinese cities for five years, leaving Guangzhou in 2007.

The couple sold the Arcadia home in 2004 and bought a house in a gated community in Armonk, N.Y., an affluent town, records show. The home was transferred to Cynthia Liu’s name in 2011 and sold in 2014 for almost $900,000.

Ms. Han is a trustee of an entity called Bountiful Success Trust — 2014, which bought a $2.77 million condominium in downtown Manhattan in 2016. Another company she controls owns a unit at the Lucida on the Upper East Side that Zillow values at $4.17 million.

Like his mother and sister, Victor Liu is interested in business, and he rented a room this summer with Noor Darwish, his first-year roommate, in a Georgetown home to do an internship at his university’s endowment office. But he left suddenly in June. He called Mr. Darwish as he was leaving the country.

“He told me he had some family problems, and that his grandfather had had a heart attack,” Mr. Darwish said.

The university has strongly pushed for the siblings’ release. On his trip to China this month, the Georgetown president, John J. DeGioia, met with senior officials. With him was Evan S. Medeiros, a professor who had helped negotiate releases of American hostages in North Korea as senior Asia director in President Barack Obama’s National Security Council.

The university has a little-known connection to China’s leadership. A nephew of Mr. Xi, China’s president, is a recent graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. While at Georgetown, he also interned at the Brookings Institution.

None of that has helped. With winter break looming, Mr. Liu’s friends on campus are asking why he has been absent all semester. “Our room is a lot lonelier now,” Mr. Darwish said.

In China, Mr. Liu has been eating and sleeping poorly. His sister mentioned concerns about her own health in her letter to the White House. She wrote, “We feel alone, angry, and most of all afraid, and more than anything, we just want to come home.”

[burn-afterwriting]

I have £36 in my account right now. I need £15 for electric in the next two days, £10 for drumsticks if I want to play with my shitty band I don’t really like and whatever loose change is on the table for laundry money and bus fares. Then I have to worry about food because I have nothing in my house and my girlfriend wants to come over and I’m supposed to feed her. I feel completely worthless as a human being and really want to let her move on because I can’t offer her normal things like food nevermind taking her out or buying her things. My brain goes into overdrive when she says I make her happier than any other relationship she’s been in because how the fuck bad must they have been that this is a better alternative? Maybe being with me has finally killed her self esteem and I’ve dragged her down to my level and it’s so dark and empty here she can’t find her way out. I honestly feel like the admirable thing to do is to cut her out of my life until I have money and can afford to treat her right. 

I think the real problem is I’m so fucked up I can’t even begin to figure out where to start. I’m not fulfilled in any aspect of my life. Obviously this is largely due to not having money so I can’t do basic things like buy nice things or eat nice things or do nice things. I’m stuck in a loop where I constantly wonder who I would’ve been had I secured that lucrative job right after I left uni. Would the money have changed me? Surely I’d be living somewhere else. I’d maybe be able to drive and that would get me out of my own head a bit. Then I tangent through other possible realities where I still have a family and my uncle gives me advice every Saturday while we fix up old cars and talk shit about politics. Moments I’ll never have. 

I’m in such dire need of a change in scenery and a new layer of skin, but I’m still trapped, surrounded by the past. I made my flat pretty comfy with everything in its right place, but after a year it’s all grown stagnant and static. What am I programmed to desire? A bigger apartment I can fit more things into? A garage or shed where I can learn to tinker like a real boy? I don’t know how to grow or change as a person because I’m not sure who I want to be. I can never talk about my past without having to admit I had serious development problems that eventually cemented as serial self doubt and what feels like bordering schizophrenia or sociopathy. The ironic thing is that when I was younger I was so much happier, even though I was suicidal and self harmed a lot. Maybe that was actually a coping mechanism and I never really replaced it I just learnt to bury it. Maybe most of my current problems stem from going to university and realising how fucked up I was within the context of normal, middle-class, well adjusted individuals and running from my problems in an effort to seem like I’d left them behind. I still have dreams about killing my dad. I never tell them to anyone but my girlfriend still picks up on my daddy issues. What other alternative do I have but to be a man though? To stop focusing on the things I can’t change and move into a new future where I’m the hero of my own story. I don’t even like to write anymore because there’s a chance I’ll be in a better mood tomorrow and the thoughts of my previous honesty will hover over me and pull me back down. What use is there in being disgustingly honest about your neuroses when there is no immediate solution and all you can do is pave over it like an old road and try to keep on top of the maintenance. 

Sometimes the only path seems to be accepting my role as the bad guy, telling myself so what if I have a girl I don’t deserve, she’ll either figure it out herself or I’ll keep getting away with it. I hate the idea of personal happiness at the expense of others because it reminds me of my family saying I only talk to them when I’m looking something despite the fact I don’t look anything from them except a place to go sometimes and to touch base. In my head I have a script for every bad word people say about me but in reality I’d rather avoid confrontation because it’s a battle I would never win. I used to be an asshole and revel in it because I knew the pros of my personality would outweigh the cons, but now my life is such a piece of shit I think I try to avoid the cons just to help that ratio level-out by proxy. 

I’m so broke, financially and spiritually. I don’t like who I am and I have no idea who I want to be. It feels like purgatory here. I feel like a glitch in the system, an emotional tear that people can physically sense. I think I can take out £20, spend £15 on food, there should still be at least £15 for electric and the loose change will hopefully cover bus fare and laundry. I could be a leech and borrow drumsticks off a pal but even that feels too scummy so I’ll see if I can somehow double that fiver in my jeans pocket and buy some for myself. I want to say the struggle fuels me, I want to post a rant about how I’m barely surviving and nobody cares, but that’s the thing, nobody does care anymore, not even me. 

[theholycovenantrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, DANI! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF NERISSA.

Admin Cas: Each of the Horsemen are ruination in some form, but Nerissa’s ruination is something harsh, brutal, almost guttural, and you captured that perfectly, Dani! You said it best yourself: they want to taste war. I think the stand out for me was the clear direction you have for Nerissa, even though so many of her actions seem like they have no order — we especially loved the idea of her sowing seeds of discontent and aggression among the different factions, fanning the flames of a... pretty tenuous peace. Not only that, but your understanding of the Horsemen as a unit was just so touching. Somehow you made me love them even more. Honestly, I can’t wait to see what chaos you stir up with Nerissa! Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Danielle

Age | Aged 21 years old.

Personal Pronouns | She/her.

Activity Level | It honestly will probably fluctuate! Only because I have work gradually coming back at the end of this month, and University looming over the horizon. I’m currently on Summer break, so I would probably most likely more be 7/10 but when everything comes back into full swing most likely a bit less like 5-6.

Timezone | AEST aka the timezone from hell or EST+9 I think.

Triggers | REMOVED

How did you find the group?  | Honestly I follow all the right people and it was inevitable that I found this group. (I wholeheartedly and fully blame Rosey, Cas & Minnie for bullying or heavily encouraging me into finally applying.)

Current/Past RP Accounts | Sorry I don’t really have any good ones to showcase !

IN CHARACTER

Character |

Nerissa. If I’m lucky enough to be accepted, I would like to change her faceclaim but definitely would like to be in discussions with the Admin Team about who would be acceptable!

What drew you to this character? |

Okay honestly I originally wasn’t going to apply to this roleplay due to a complete and utter lack of time, but Nerissa just kept coming back to my mind, and especially her bio. She just has such a lovely written and absolutely capturing biography, and is such a meaty character herself that is an absolute wild and utter spitfire, how could I not be drawn to her and inevitably love her? I particularly was drawn to the fact that she seems like a neutral chaotic baby which I think makes her an interesting piece to be placed upon the chess board. I could lament, rant and rave about how much I’ve grown to love her through writing this application, but I’m going to put a stop here because otherwise this application would be way too long.

What future plots do you have in mind for the character? |

Keeping in mind that all of these plots could change depending on player’s and their characters, here are just some ideas I had with regards to Nerissa’s future. But honestly, I’m very open to anything and everything when it comes to her future, and I totally understand if the Admins disagree with any of these points! Also I’m gonna apologise in advance for all the type of warmongering future plots I did come up with for Nerissa.

FUTURE 001 — I think it would be interesting to explore what types of people would hire Nerissa for her skills, especially as a deadly Assassin. I definitely feel like the reason the Horsemen became Assassins was largely in part because of Nerissa; especially as she never was quite able to raze the carnage that she had so vividly dreamed up in Purgatory. I think I definitely would like to see which factions and particular individuals are interested in utilising the Horsemen to carry out their deeds; and what it could potentially mean if they decided to hire the Horsemen for nefarious deeds; such as waging war against another faction. For a group that works for the highest bidder, I think it would be intriguing to see where exactly their allegiances would lie, and definitely whether they would want to court chaos, or back a particular side, or even make their own. (I think in terms of Nerissa she’d be the type to desire chaos and destruction, voting to go to War like her namesake, especially with her insatiable appetite for carnage.)

FUTURE 002 — There is nothing more disappointing to Nerissa than the fact that she was not able to utilise her abilities to wage war the moment she escaped Purgatory. (It was all she had dreamed up of as she lay trapped in her bone kingdom; desiring for just one taste of carnage.) It is almost as if she never quite got to fulfil her true purpose. This in turn leads to my belief that she secretly covets and desires for something to happen amongst the factions; and for the new world’s tenuous peace to finally be broken. With the Tridium no longer at peace with one another, I feel like Nerissa would definitely profit from a war breaking out; her abilities causing dissent between those that were once comrades — and now battling against one another upon the battlefield. Be it on purpose, or perhaps by accident, I definitely think it would be interesting to explore Nerissa’s role if a war broke out against the Angels, Mortals and Demons.

FUTURE 003 — The Horsemen are something that are incredibly important to Nerissa. In a world filled with potential enemies and people that she will eventually smite; she has found companionship amongst Dmitri, Ryuk and Viktoria. And although she never meant to find it in the others, the fact that they share hunger in such a similar way to her, the fact that they’ve starved and suffered through Purgatory together has bonded them (although they were separate) — and I definitely would be interested to explore Nerissa’s intimate relationships with the other three. I would consider them tethered together for life; especially since all they have experienced. Not only that, but because of their shared common interests of pacifying their cravings and shared hunger. And in particular Ryuk; someone who has hungered almost as much as she has, is someone that Nerissa particularly shares a tight kinship with, and is someone that she feels understands her like no one else can.

I also think that this illustrates another side to Nerissa. From someone who is the warmonger, who hungers for glorious ruination, when it comes to the Horsemen and herself, it illustrates that she isn’t doesn’t just have one simple facet, but has another where perhaps a softer side arises. Although Nerissa could never anticipate that she would gain such companionship with the others; here she was. With three other people who actually understood what it meant to hunger for something so deeply; had endured Purgatory together with herself; shaping a bond — one that is unexplainable; inextricable. And it is through this that it has forged the Horsemen to be such a formidable force, and is why they are so famed. I imagine that she spends much of her time with them, and that when they are in the midst of carrying out assassinations, they know each other so well that no words need to be said — they can just work together seamlessly for each mission. For someone who is considered neutral in the wars against the Mortals, Angels and Demons (in at least my books), I think that Nerissa would go through anything for the other three, unafraid to swing her blade against anyone and everyone to save them.

FUTURE 003 — I definitely would like to explore Nerissa sharing her abilities with others; training them up so that they are better with their weapons. I imagine she allows herself to do so, either for the offer of gold, or even perhaps so that others will be more of a threat upon the field and not so predictably easy to tear down when battling against her. (I picture Nerissa to be slightly arrogant when it comes to battling others; finding ease with any weapon and enjoying being in various skirmishes and scenarios against others.) I find the notion of her training Arianne something that is particularly interesting, especially as each of them have agendas against one another. Is it that Nerissa eventually seeks to have a prodigy that is capable of utter ruinous destruction just like herself? Or is it that she truly just is fascinated in the potential of Arianne and what ruins she can beckon out? Honestly I’m just so excited at the prospect of Nerissa’s interaction when it comes to teaching others about something that she is passionate about; warfare and utilising different weapons — I feel like she’d be in utter teacher mode, perhaps even snarky like Severus Snape. Especially as it is something that comes so naturally to herself (especially with her gifts), I imagine she would lose her patience when others had trouble with weapons.

FUTURE 004 — As a warmonger, someone who thrives off of catastrophic violence and vengeance, Caphriel is someone who is completely different to Nerissa’s nature. And I definitely am intrigued in the possibilities of exploring the interactions with the pair! Especially since I could liken it to a wolf with their prey; with Caphriel’s personality drawing Nerissa’s attention like a moth to a flame. Perhaps it is because Caphriel is so wholly good — everything that she is not. As she is so unlike herself; there is something about Caphriel that Nerissa desires to tear apart and see what carnage is wrought out. It amuses Nerissa with the hostility she receives from the other, and I would think that she absolutely thrives off of the games she seeks to play with Caphriel to see exactly what buttons she can push to have the other respond in a fashion that battles against their innately loving nature. I think Caphriel incites the playful, yet deadly nature within Nerissa; and reminds others of her lethal nature (if they didn’t already know!) that lies beneath as she attempts to pick apart the compassionate angel.

FUTURE 005 — As her abilities allow for her to incite aggression and violence on those about her; I wonder if Nerissa would be one of the people who would be interested in the splintering of the trio of Michael, Raphael and Gabriel; perhaps even being an indirect cause of it. As a naturally gifted battle strategist, perhaps does she see it in her fortune/and the Horsemen’s to have the three split apart to allow for war to outbreak? Or perhaps does she seek to weaken the Angel faction for another, having been recruited for her abilities to slowly create an image of dissent and aggression between the once tight trio that are already starting to splinter and slowly grow apart from one another. I think there are just so many possibilities for Nerissa when it comes to the chasm that is forming with the trio; and what the future could lead to, especially since she acts as an Assassin and is driven by the highest bidder. Of course, she may not even be an influence into the trio at all; but if the repercussions of the trio’s splintering result in some sort of carnage — I can only imagine that Nerissa’s attention would definitely be piqued, and that she desire to be involved, especially for the potential of waging war.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? |

Definitely, under the right circumstances.

IN DEPTH

Driving Character Motivation |

I believe that Nerissa’s motivation and actions definitely stem from the moment she was created. With her creation deriving from a single drop of God’s own blood — it was inevitable that she would be something divine. And with this divinity and a chosen purpose divined by God, came the insatiable hunger for something more; developing into an appetite that desired to taste war. However, I do believe that this craving for carnage is not just because of God’s decisions and choice to have a warrior made from his own flesh and blood, but also because of the abilities she is gifted with. As she is extremely proficient in inciting aggression in those that are about her, and is naturally gifted at any weapon in her hands; I think it was unavoidable that Nerissa was to become someone who hungers and yearns for war, and one that desires for carnage and destruction. I think this hunger only heightened to become a ravenous appetite when she was within Purgatory, unable to truly satiate her hunger with the lost souls and wraiths that existed within it. And whilst she might have attempted to play with the husks of life that surrounded her, she grew dissatisfied and truly just bored with her predicament — awaiting for the day she could finally quench her thirst. I think this would have also brought a seed of resentment to grow in her heart because of the fact that she had been left in there just waiting for God’s summoning for her to reckon war, and for this to only expand and fester as the Horsemen finally stepped out into a transformed world — one that would never allow her to raze and wage war upon the planet like she had envisioned when they finally left behind their bone kingdoms. I think ultimately because of this unfulfilled purpose, she still awaits for war to begin within this new world so she can finally quench her appetite of war. But will Nerissa ever be satisfied? I don’t think so.

Character Traits |

(+) — INTELLIGENT, AMBITIOUS, DETERMINED.

(-) — ARROGANT, RESENTFUL, STUBBORN.

In-Character Para Sample |

ONE.

Nerissa’s eyes flickered about her as she examined the cavern that had become her kingdom now. For days, months, and years now, (she had simply lost count) she had grown intimately familiar with the domain that she now called her own — it’s hollow life inciting nothing but irritation as she awaited for a sign, a summon; anything that would mean that she could finally escape and fulfil her purpose. Her fingers moving in a languid motion, she observed the way she could so easily play with the husks of life that restlessly surrounded her. And how effortless it was; the way she could play strife; play God with their souls — inciting nothing but rage and warfare between them until they evaporated as quickly as they appeared.

But the truth was Nerissa was bored.

For so long, she had been able to unfurl carnage; destruction upon all she had set her eyes on. It had been why her Creator had made her. It was her purpose. And now, as she sat here; it only allowed for her to dream of the life she had once led and the one that she so desperately desired once more. Vivid dreams; ones that were bloodied in the aggression that would be let loose as she sat astride her steed; wielding a sword in one hand and an axe in the other.

But alas, here she sat, hungering for just a simple taste of war.

Smashing her fist down upon the rock in frustration, Nerissa wondered just how long God would make them wait. She had awaited his divine summon for countless days, and she grew tired. Dissatisfied with what she was given, and desiring much, much more.

TIMESKIP.

As Nerissa carefully stepped towards the slice, a sword tightly gripped in one hand as she examined the splinter; she wondered if this was finally her summons to finally wage war. For her to finally carve out her destiny with her fellow Horsemen. For too long she had been ravenous; only barely satiating her appetite with tiny morsels, when now she would finally be able to quench her inner most desires. For days on end she had hallucinated about the chance she would finally be able to step foot in the new world, and now was her opportunity. A wicked grin placed upon her lips as she thrust herself through the cut, she never looked back at her left behind kingdom.

Thoughts of her cavern, and the ghosts that kept her company were omitted as she only thought of the war that she would wage.

The destruction and carnage that would be wrought with every step.

And the gloriously breathtaking image that it would be.

TWO.

There were not many people that Nerissa could tolerate in this new world. After her time spent in Purgatory, she had come to find that she had a low tolerance for sycophants — for sly little smiles accompanied with words coated with a honeyed tongue. She much preferred to have the truth revealed like a blade; true in its form, without any unnecessary veneer. And although she could have never expected it; she had come to find the Horsemen an inextricable part of her own world. Each in their own way, having carved their own way into her heart; Dimitri, Viktoria and Ryuk.

And how she would never forget the process that had forged them in this pathway.

What a glorious sight they must have made as the four of them sat there astride, laying in wait to complete their assassination. A rare but brief smile appearing upon Nerissa’s lips as she glanced towards her fellow comrades, it truly bemused her how little words needed to be exchanged between them as they bided their time. There was no need for any sounds to be spoken aloud; when each knew each other to the extent that any simple motion made by any of them would effortlessly be interpreted without any hindrance.

And it was in this moment, that it was easy to think that the Horsemen seemed to be invincible against any foe. And perhaps this was naive. But it was a thought that was possibly inevitable as they stood there united together. When one thought of all their separate talents combined; they truly made a formidable force, and it seemed almost unfathomable to have them split apart or felled as a consequence of their enemies. It was at this thought that Nerissa inwardly shuddered, as she thought of the Horsemen possibly being shattered from a possible demise or drawn apart from outside influences. Whilst once upon a time she could have never known that this fellowship was something that would eventually become such an integral part of her life; it now was, and Nerissa truly cherished it.

And if it came down to it; she would ruthlessly kill to protect it. Thousands would be culled in her pathway if this was so necessary.

In order to protect any of the Horsemen.

Extras |

Pinterest Board Inspo — https://www.pinterest.com.au/infinitvm/ch-your-resting-state-is-war-its-your-nature/

Further Inspo — https://narcissamalfvy.tumblr.com/tagged/insp:%20nerissa

Some aesthetics that represent her — Nerissa is crimson smears of blood, silk sheets, perfect calculations in battle, spilled bottles of liquor, bones that are broken in her wake, wildfire, smiles that are filled with violence, words that are as sharp as her knives, nails that are filed sharply enough to pierce skin, the smell of leather, clouds of thick smoke, spilled blood slain by her hand with surprising ease, lightning, shattered glass, teeth that gleam like fangs, wolves, narrowed eyes that promise war, concealed weapons, tough skin that doesn’t bruise easily but still covered in them.

Nerissa is all this. The breathtaking image of glorious ruination.