#you fail to understand the depth of the story if you're too caught up with one side and bc of your faves ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[deusvmachina]

I'll say it with my whole chest that I believe that Songbird lying to V about the neutral matrix was never done out of malicious intent. She knew the risks of reaching out to V—for putting her faith in V out of sheer desperation and involving them in what would become a dire and bloody escape. She just wanted to stop losing more of herself physically and mentally to what's beyond the Blackwall, to stop being a weapon of mass destruction for Myers. A tool for the NUSA.

She joined their ranks to keep herself out of trouble for breaching that Militech data fortress (among other things I'd imagine). And she was probably hoping it was a huge opportunity to become one of the best netrunners with all of this top-of-the-line tech at her disposal but she just didn't realize back then that she'd be pushed into breaking international laws or be forced to reach beyond the Blackwell to the immense power beyond. She paid the price tenfold. So yeah, players can be mad that Songbird dangled a carrot (the cure) in front of V's nose. Most people likely are mad or feel played and that's valid. But the choice is there to not take that anger out on someone just as desperate to survive as V is and have them push through to the end and help as they had promised. V states several times throughout the game that they keep their word and do what they say they will do. V and Songbird are mirror images of each other: Songbird losing her memories/identity and organic body to the AIs just like V's brain is being forcibly overwritten by the biochip and her body is slowly degrading. During that conversation she and V had on the couch and through texts, Songbird expressed how she couldn't trust anybody in the FIA. She was alone. Wanted a way out.

Even Reed who thought he could help her was only making things worse. So when she discovered V and their dilemma (probably after she delved into the Cynosure Project is my guess), I say it's what drove her to finally break the (wires) and chains she'd been bound with. She devised a plan with Hansen—always two steps ahead as Reed had said—and reached out to V on the day of reckoning knowing them being in the same boat would be enough to make V fight like hell. It's possible she knew about V for weeks or even months prior. V can question (sorry, forget which part of the game they mentioned this) if perhaps a 'backdoor' was created when she went past the Blackwall with the Voodoo Boys. Songbird then used the Blackwall protocol to tap into the Relic, as confirmed by Slider.

The stakes were too great so Songbird withheld the truth, not wanting to chance V refusing to help her otherwise. She didn't have anyone else, didn't have much time left either so she lied.

I think it boils down to this: V can decide to put someone ahead of her own survival and sacrifice that guaranteed cure OR she can be just as shitty as Myers and let Songbird be the pawn that's sacrificed. What separates humans from anything else is how we are driven by our emotions and our hearts. We take leaps of faith and we make mistakes but what matters is the content of our character. Sometimes 'doing the right thing' isn't doing the right thing.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. And I leave you with this quote:

"I always marvel at the humans’ ability to keep going. They always manage to stagger on even with tears streaming down their faces." —Markus Zusak

[lov3-lik3-ghosts]

could you write a enoch o’connor x reader or enoch x olive fluff? movie ver 🙏

Strange Trails

Pairing: Enoch O’Connor x fem!Portman!reader.

Warnings: Not beta read. Use of Y/n. Movie adaptation. No scenes with Enoch (he comes along in the next chapter).

Summary: Your Jacob’s sister and have come along with him to uncover Abe’s tales and held secrets, though you didn’t expect that the cute boy from your favourite childhood stories would become the source of your affections — and you definitely didn’t think that boy would begin to quote the music album you’d discreetly slipped him.

Format: Series — Part One.

Word count: 6.3k

request guidelines | Following Strange Trails

The death of Abe hit you in a different manner than it hit anyone else. The grief held off for the few weeks it took to arrange his funeral and wake, only a pit in the bottom section of your stomach that flared whenever you caught a glimpse of his smiling picture.

Jacob had reserved himself from you for the second time in your lives — the first being when he stopped trusting in the law that was grandpa Abe’s tales and you continued to live on in the weary dreamworld of childhood that it was for years to come. You’d repaired your relationship years ago, into something not quite the same but just as close, even this closeness didn’t stop the fragments of past hurt and fresh grief from seeping through the cracks.

Abe and Jacob were always close. A bond between boys that bound them into a more understanding relationship, a more loving one, and you couldn’t imagine what hell your brother bore with him after having found the eyeless corpse of someone so dear. Except you and Abe were close too, and it was hard for you too, yet you refused to fall into the pits that were holding him hostage.

You invested all your time into the planning of his burial, the built-up summer homework and ignoring the breakdown Jacob was suffering. You disregarded your sorrow and felt the disrespect curl at your gut when your father, Abe’s son, acted like Abe’s death was nothing more than an inconvenience to his mundane, dead-end life of watching birds. You looked down your nose whenever your brother chose you as his target for lashing words and cutting accusations of not caring, when all you felt like you were doing was caring so much.

You festered in the thick, murky depths of woe, mourning in the ringing silence of it and going through the motions of life with a certain robotic unfeeling.

You kept it up for a good while, all polite smiles and brief embraces for anyone with an ounce of sympathy to spare; then the funeral happened. Abe’s picture sat on a large splintered easel, an easel you’d picked out knowing he’d have picked that very one for all its rough edges should he have had the choice, and he’s smiling that crooked smile you only ever saw once in a blue moon.

Beside that, Abe’s sleek coffin is entrapped in bars ready to lower him into the higher floor level of Earth's layers and it’s then, when the casket is left all them feet down and the first shovel of dirt is flicked over it, that your resolve shatters.

Your chest pangs with an oddened palpation filled with anguish and loss and it travels quickly through to your stomach and churns it more viciously than anything before. Your throat lumps and clenches, the sadness awaiting to manifest into loud, uncontrollable sobs that would no doubt rack through your entire body; you try to swallow it down, try to save yourself and your family some dignity, gulping harshly. You fail.

The cry fields across the graveyard with piercing suddenness. You're the first to cry, or at least the first to let it be known, even Jacob stood beside you stays stoic — blank-faced and numb. He glances at you, the infamous trademark blues that only a handful of Portman’s carried flickering with their first kind emotion he’d had for you in weeks, all sympathetic and soft-centred.

You and Jacob were close growing up, you were each other's first friends, the first person the two of you would choose to share toys or snacks with, you’d shared a room for a while and you’d shared a womb once upon a time too; so even in the times you weren’t friends, Jacob would always be the first to remember that once you sobbed for the first time, it was end game. He wasn’t just some friend, he was your brother first, always.

His arm draped over your shoulder, pulling you into his side and letting you bury your face into the black of his suit despite knowing it’d stain with makeup. He stares forward with his eyes welling and you hear as he swallows thickly but the tears don’t fall. You continue to choke through your grief. And the two of you ignore the condescending pity the rest of your stoic-faced disconnected family convey at the emotional display.

“It hurts.” You gasp out silently, hand resting above the placement of your heart. “It hurts. I’m sorry, Jake. I’m so sorry that you- that we- he shouldn’t have- not like this. Never like this.”

“You don’t have to apologise to me, Y/n.” He whispers. “We both lost him. You lost him, too.” This is the sanest you’ve seen your brother since the accident, the sanest you’ve felt since, and you have a brief moment of hope that flushes through your grief and visualises into a happier future. A future where Abe Portman didn’t die from a brutal attack, where Jacob Portman didn’t close off when you most needed him not to, where you didn’t have to take on so much responsibility all the time.

But that is a future that can no longer have a chance to exist.

Abe Portman is gone. Jacob Portman closes off to cope. You were always going to be forced to pick up the slack.

That’s the natural order now. Not much change, you could deal with it. You had too. You always picked up the slack, Jacob always closed off; Abe wasn’t always dead.

When you and Jacob parted at the funeral the last of the comfort parted with it, clinging to your heart with a suchness that it almost ached. You’d tried to weasel your way into his time, hoping for even a semblance of connection and understanding that you knew only he could offer but Jacob’s grief was a wild, springy, spiral that sparked with a drive of madness and a hunger for answers. Yours better resembled a hazy daydream that clouded your reality and took away your normal sensitivity to life and its breathing tendrils, yours doesn’t spark alight so much as it sparks out.

You have no such madness. No such drive.

You’d prefer your brother's version, alive and reminiscent rather than your dead and grey but your brother’s had caught up to him, so at the very least you were left be for your drabness. Reminiscence for Jacob meant retelling and seemingly harbouring a certain belief into the tales Abe loved to tell you as children, and as much as you sympathised with him for the therapy he was forced into, you would do just about anything to recall the faces and the names and the peculiarities and the stories of the children at the orphanage like Jake seemed too. You would do anything to have your grandpa back like that.

Your parents worried too much about Jacob’s state of mind to really pay attention to your withdrawn one which really felt like both a blessing and a curse all at once. On one hand, you wanted some doting and comfort, you wanted some companionship in a world that suddenly seemed so big and lonely. On the other, you had much more free reign to garner a way to cope and much more time to laze and mope and actually use your newest coping mechanism. Music.

There was so much to music that it felt like a never ending learning curve that you could obsess and consume without ever running out of materiel. Your family were more well off than most and so you could afford the luxury of getting the things your mechanism beckoned for; the guitars, the keyboards, the vinyls, the Walkman tapes, the drums, the speakers — you had a growing collection that slowly began to overtake the span of your room in a comforting display.

You’d had some of it before Abe’s passing, gifted to you by him to sate his own love for music and share it with someone he knew could appreciate it. A modernised vinyl player had been assigned a seat on the surface of one of your chest of drawers long before with a box filled with records on the floor beside it and an electric guitar had hung on your wall since you were only twelve.

Your grandpa had been the one to teach you how to strum the strings and play the chords and he’d done so while learning alongside you; those were easier times filled with peals of laughter and burts of wisdom whose memories left a melancholic river of longing streaming through your blood and down your face. Still, you played and you listened and at first you had to force yourself to enjoy something so associated with him but eventually it became your solace. Eventually, it was everything you needed.

Eventually, the memories stopped clouding your heart and your eyes and music was something that kept Abe’s memory alive and unhindered by your grief. It was his, and it was yours, and you carried it everywhere you went.

••

Having to go through the house of a lost loved one was an experience you wouldn’t wish on anyone. To see the home where he had lived look so lifeless and unlived in was just another drive home of his loss — your loss.

It didn’t stir your heart and churn your stomach like his burial had, you didn’t give throaty cries and cling desperately to your brother like you wanted too. This fostered a sting, a finality and a reminder. Abe is gone and he’s not coming back.

Your grandpa was a hoarder. He didn’t collect in a way that gathered in the entrance of each room and was left to cake itself in layers of moulding gunk but every spare nook garnered papers and maps and trinkets that to an outsider seems pointless. That to your dad, seemed pointless.

You and Jacob fought restlessly for the possession of any items your father picked up, one thing that meant nothing to Jacob meant something to you and vice versa, but Franklin had no attachment to any of it and most of your fight was lost simply because of that. You knew most of the things you wanted to keep didn’t actually have any vital virtue but they were all things you knew Abe treasured and in extension, you did too.

There were black bags lying all around you, filled and fastened and ready to go into the skip. Your throat did that funny clench and clamp you’d become accustomed to whenever you thought about throwing them away, thought about how his entire life was bagged and going to be discarded like it was all nothing. Like his life meant nothing.

You had to keep reminding yourself that your grandfather wasn’t the things he kept, that throwing them away wasn’t tarnishing his memory, that parting with them wasn’t parting with him. Abe didn’t live on through the hoarding of his past keepings, he lived on through you, through Jacob, and through anyone else that remembered him.

The only thing that Franklin had no argument for was the pictures that had either you or your twin in them and the stashed money kept in the oddest of places. It was to your guys’ uncommon luck that you caught a glimpse of the familiar sleek dark leather that belonged to a box your childhood yearned to have back, after your father had left the room. You’d opened it with a tense jaw and a cautious glance over your shoulder, knowing if you were seen with it it would be snatched from your grasp without a gallon of sympathy.

The monochrome pictures inside were just as you remembered, aged and weathered and fading, they were of a proud woman and orphaned children doing absolutely impossible things that as a child had left you wondered. A woman with a pipe silhouetted before a tall window and angled so you couldn’t decipher a face to recognise; a boy no older than yourself now holding a young girl you briefly remembered to be his sister, with only one arm — the most baffling thing about that photo however, was that the girl held a ragged rotound boulder overhead with a dainty hand and both smiled at the camera like it was the easiest thing they could ever think to do.

A boy clad in shin length shorts and a striped shirt and a thin jacket and bees, hives of them making home up the left of his torso and trailing along the left of his face, he was perfectly calm — stoic even and looked into the camera seemingly fed up. There was one of a seemingly unremarkable boy, dressed in the sophistication of an ironed suit and the curl of a derby hat, one hand rest in a pocket and the other hung loose by his side and he smiled faintly with his head held high; the visual oddity of him was the circular metal of a projector slotted over the crevice of his eye that, when you looked close enough, had small dials that allowed a ‘zoom in, zoom out’ factor. You remember thinking as a child that he didn’t look peculiar at all and more like a character on the fast track to becoming some sort of evil genius with tech gadgets; Abe had had to explain to you time and time again that looks could be deceiving. That sometimes the most unpeculiar looking people were the most.

The next photo you picked up was another boy in a suit, this one was less pristine with a knitted vest warming atop his shirt and an open overcoat, he sat laxly back against the wood of an armed chair with his feet resting on the kicked up balls of his dress shoes; a tweed cap, pointed forward to face the mirror reflecting the front of him, hovered metres above his collar. His invisibility had made him one of your favourite children to hear of when you were younger, the tales Abe had of him going nude to frighten the other peculiars and the locals would have you in stitches for hours; the memory made you huff a melancholic breath.

You shuffled the pictures around, moving to pick up the next one before hearing the light pound of footsteps creaking along the floor. In a panic, you dropped the ones you held back into the box and latched it back closed with haste, shoving it into the opening of your backpack. The bag lay crumpled by your feet as you spun around, schooling your posture to a strait-laced force formation and feigning innocence through wide eyes.

Jacob stood before you, looking between yourself and your bag with a half smirk. “Found something good?” He whispered, nodding down at it curiously. You tensed, following his gaze, you stared in silence.

You knew you could tell him safely, Jacob wouldn’t tell your dad about anything you chose to keep, but these photos were different. These photos would cause a boundless battle between the two of you that would end with more lost love and ceaseless hostility than you could ever handle.

For a moment you looked at him; he’d want these so wholly if he saw them, maybe perhaps he’d treasure them more than you would, but you’d never been selfish, you never kept something for yourself, and this was something you don’t think you could give up.

Shrugging through your answer, you speak lowly, “Photos. Nothing too great, just thought that dad might start to think we’d gathered enough of ‘em.” Your brother seemed satiated by your answer, turning on his heel and hunching over another bland moving box with a hum, but that didn’t stop the twanging guilt from cramping its claws around your heart and throat. It didn’t stop the way your mouth stuttered open to spill the honesty behind the first lie you’d ever told him.

“Hey, Jacob?” You call, truth dancing its delicate waltz along the tip of your tongue, readying to spin its way out, but your mind flashes with all the consequences that could come hand in hand. He could run with it, drive himself madder quicker than he already was after you inevitably lose the fight for possession, or he could do something drastic — suggested by his therapist — like burn them for closure. Neither were worth the trouble you foresaw.

When Jacob called back in affirmative you scrambled for something else to say, routing through all the conversations you’d wanted to start with him since Abe. “He loved us, you know? Loved you.” It was a stretch because you knew he was more than aware that your grandfather had loved him, loved the both of you more than anything, some lousy and futile attempt at consolation that you’d thought up when you hadn’t had the time to truly feel it for yourself, but you’d have to roll with it now.

“I know.” He turned back to look at you, an eyebrow climbing high on his forehead as if to say it was obvious.

You blanked, a bubble of panic hazing your thoughts. There wasn’t anywhere you could really take this conversation, Abe had loved you, and that was that; you loved Jacob though, and the two of you hadn’t really said that since before you’d turned double digits, now seemed the perfect time to remind him.

“I love you.” Jake’s face contorted, looking at you with affronted confidence, you figured he’d found it frivolous that you’d spoken it because the two of you had sworn up and down as children that the other would always come first — no matter the situation. Neither of you ever broke promises. “I- I just mean that I- we haven’t said it in a long time and… I just thought now would be a good time to remind you. In case you forgot.”

“Forgot?” He asked. “I’d have to get hit in the head to forget, idiot.”

You smiled, “You sure? You were clearly dropped on your head loads as a baby, probably built up a resistance.”

Your brother scoffed, looking to the side into an open box and taking pick of a small plush before lobbing it at your head with a smirk. You dove to the side with a squeak, stepping over your bag with twisted steps and landed halfway down the wall with your hands curling into the plaster. Jacob guffawed, wheezing out breaths as he bent at the knee, open palms hitting his thighs in exasperation.

“Ass.” You snicker, separating yourself from the wall. The plush he’d thrown at you landed by your feet, having hit the wall when you did; it was a fluffy blue thing, discoloured with age and matted by years of use, the stuffing was worn down, it’s arms and stomach more deflated than full and one eye had undoubtedly been stitched messily back in.

There was a darkened stain by its nose, blood red and grossly crisping the curls by its snout. You faintly remember the moment that caused it, a small nosebleed you’d bled after a failed game of pirates that ended with Abe tucking you and your brother into bed, the bear nestled between you. It was well loved and another thing you and Jake had shared. Your throat clogged.

He watched as you bent down, wrapped your fingers around the strap of your bag and the teddy before straightening again with a grin. “Look,” Your thumb and index fingers imbed into either side of the bear's head, wiggling its face at Jacob’s. “It’s Bobby Bear!”

He rolled his eyes, feigning an itch on his nose to smother a smile behind a hand and turned back around to the boxes. You sat Bobby on top of the photo box in the backpack, adjusting him to look more comfortable before zipping it closed; the forming fondness zipped in there with it, ready to be reopened when you were back in the relief of your room.

“Y/n?” Jacob asked. You hummed, looking at the back of him. “I love you, too.” His words were tentatively uttered, a cautious chitter of the affection he’d earlier forgone. Your face softened, a warmth inflaming your chest; your brother was a recluse, even in his best of times and affectionately inept, him expressing verbal emotion was as rare as a cat befriending a bird, and just as heart stirring.

His shoulders tightened the longer you stared, squirming under the weight of your muteness. You bit down a teeth-baring grin, cruelly letting him stew in the anxiety for a few long moments before breaking it.

“I know.” You said and rucked your bag over your shoulder, planning to take place in your dad’s awaiting car. You brushed a hand along the blade of Jake’s shoulder when you walked by him, an action you’d both reciprocated since high school — a way to say “I love you” that put the two of you at ease. His shoulders fell.

••

You lay spread eagle across the span of your bed, staring blankly at the ivory pebbledash of the ceiling above you. Your shoes were by your door, still tied into double knots after having been toed off the second you’d walked through the frame and covered by the blue of your dropped jacket.

Today had been trying, a churning rollercoaster ride of emotions and oldened memories and fights for possessions — old wounds had been loosely stitched close and fresher ones torn savagely agape. Abe’s house would never again be easy to be in, a house that was once so full of floundering life was now haunted with the ghosts of love and loss and the weight followed you even now, far from the once home.

Heaving a shuddering breath, you looked to the closed sack beside you. The culprit to your fib lay within, awaiting your curious melancholy with a beckoning lure; you lugged yourself up to pull the bag closer, tugging the zip open and gently manoeuvring the box out.

The golden latch clicked lowly as you unlatched it, the metal glistening against the dim light of your bedside lamp invitingly, a siren song to your desires that you tug open gingerly. The photos you’d earlier shuffled through had been placed so hastily back into the coffer that they were flipped the right side down, revealing the looping calligraphy of your grandfather's handwriting you hadn’t previously known inked them.

Spreading the turned pictures along the fold of your comforter, you briefed over the dates and names.

Peregrine; 1940. Victor & Bronwyn; 1939. Hugh; 1939. Horace; 1938. Millard; 1940.

You paused with a staggering pulsation of shocked disbelief. These were their names — the names of the children you’d longed so desperately to recall, the names you’d spent weeks racking your brain for, smothering the throes of envy towards your brother for having the one obtainable thing you wanted.

Peregrine. Abe always spoke of her with a deference, eyes glinting through the rules she’d ingrained into him — the matron of the children’s home. He never referred to her by anything other than Miss or matron, aside from the one time he’d called her the bird before quickly deferring into an invisible tangent, so you were left with only that to refer to her by.

The longer you looked at the names, the more the tales refilled your head, stringing along in flash memories.

You didn’t have many for Victor and Bronwyn, only Abe’s descriptions of their brute strength; for Hugh, you recalled how often he’d use his bees to his advantage, eluding the others with a colony to bypass them; for Horace, you had a handful more — your grandfather having taken the time to fill your head with more of him whenever you expressed how unpeculiar he seemed in comparison — all about his interest in style and his gentlemanly nature and his dreams, now that you were older, the prophetic element to his peculiarity was much more intriguing. Millard’s tales were favoured between you and Jake, told on repeat to induce bellyaching laughter, Abe would laugh with you, choking over the words in breathless stutters — they were all of how Millard would go nude to startle the townspeople and the other children.

You huffed a watery chuckle. The photos still in the coffer beckoned when you looked at them, ageing corners yellowing and curling. The top seated one didn’t bring forth any recollection, only a chill that raised the hair on the back of your neck. Two children, dressed in extravagant all white, covering them down to even the tips of their fingers and the full shine of their eyes; the masks they wore run the full globe of their heads, leaving only two small slots for seeing and breathing, and looked to be made of thick paper mache. They were pressed side by side, one arm thrown over the other's shoulder with their heads tilted to face the taller photographer and when you flipped the monochrome the names there were nonexistent, replaced by only: The Twins; 1939.

Abe never showed you this photo. The longer you looked at it the more you understood why. Still now, at seventeen, it made you swallow and place it downwards. You were never good with faceless, masked, oldened pictures — the unknown lying beneath it always made your mind run rampant with images conjured from the darkest parts of your imagination, like a fear of monsters under beds. The fact that they were peculiar only fueled the fear; the twins could actually be something made of nightmares under their masks.

A blonde stood in the next picture, hair falling in perfect waves. Her dress hung loose, patterned with spaced flowers, collared with a Peter Pan style most popular in the 1920’s and lengthing down to her mid calf. In her hand hung a thick platform boot, buckled with just as thick metal clasps and patterned with swirls — it looked like it weighed a ton but she held it like a weightless overcoat, looped through a finger. The matching one rests a few feet behind her, just before a patch of fallen, autumn browned leaves. She floated above the ground, bare feet hovering in a cleared circle, arms hanging by her sides, and an even smaller circle of shade just under her.

The boot in her hand acted as an anchor, stopping her from floating up and up, through the tress of branching trees and into the abyss of the sky. Her peculiarity you remembered: aerokinetic, or at least, that’s what your grandfather had once called it. The back of her photo read: Emma; 1940.

You froze.

Surrounding her name wrote a plethora of heart-shapes, calligraphed in the same deep black ink as the other pictures, some were coloured where others lay empty but you imagined all were done with a certain absentmindedness. The same absentmindedness you brained when you’d fallen infatuated with a boy.

No other photo had them and you felt the piercing tendrils of something like distrust creep around you. Had Abe hid things from you and Jacob? Things that mattered, deeper things than a lost puppy love. Was she a lost puppy love? Your father and aunt always gave your grandfather sideway glances when he claimed to love your grandmother, scoffing under their breaths and whispering about “funny affairs”. You’d assumed they meant sketchy people at the time, peculiar people, your young mind naive to the bedtime stories. But now, the word “affairs” had a whole new meaning to you and you couldn’t help but wonder if Emma was “funny affairs”.

Was this why he never let you hold the pictures? So you didn’t glimpse the back and piece things together?

With a furrow between your brow, you collected the spread monochromes and placed them back into the box, lightly latching it closed and sliding it under the space between your bed and the floor, leaving the unseen for another day. Going through the motions of getting ready for bed with a robotic remembrance, your mind ran a mile a minute, all your thoughts clouded with everything he’d ever told you.

You’d always idealised him. Abe could never do wrong, if there was a man to make the sky, he hung the stars and lit the sun, if there was a word you followed without question, it was forever his. You knew it was childish, the type of endless trust you give to the instruction of your mothers words as a tot, but until now he’d never given you a reason not to take his word as law — biblical.

How many times had Abe evaded information?

When you lay down, under the comfort of your blankets and against the plush of your pillows, your body relaxed from a tense you hadn’t realised had taken you. Your eyes fluttered, forcing themselves closed, weary from the emotional turmoil that was your day but your mind wasn’t quite as ready to settle. You try to push the distrust down, hoping maybe it’ll flow out of you with sleep, but it has already paced its way through the previously impenetrable force of your idealisation of him, aflame with your fathers forever distrust.

How often did he lie to you, if he did at all?

The tendrils deepened, running murky red with betrayal and cutting its sharp knife-like point into the depths of your gut.

Did you ever truly know him or was he a man of well spun lies and secret lives?

••

Your birthday came quickly. The excitement that usually took home in your chest wasn’t there at all, rather diminished by a hazy cloud of something akin to sorrow.

The initial shock-horror of the accident had slowly been dwindling, evaporating in such a way you barely noticed, but in its place lay the wanting of Abe to be there for your milestones — and everything that came in between. This was your first birthday without him and the third time it sunk a hollow home into your chest.

Your parents had arranged a surprise party, more for Jacob than for you, that was turning out to be more of a family gathering. The living area was crowded with the subsections of your extended family — cousins you’d never met and aunts and uncle’s you could just barely remember. You’d been lucky enough to be able to slip off through the archway of the door closest to the party, falling just shy of an unfamiliar woman, who had been following you around all night and trying to start a conversation.

Jacob’s walls are lined with posters of things you’d never been able to take interest in and trinkets gathering dust atop his own chipped chest of drawers. He’d never been particularly messy, like Abe he had an organised clutter of things that seemed otherwise useless piling on the spare shelves of his open closet, but his floor was kept clear. The only thing that stood out amongst his space was the drawn blinds; Jacob was one for daylight when you were children, the curtains never stayed closed long enough for you to lay in and he’d go around all your house pulling the curtains aside and hooking them back, seeing a change as small as this reminded you just how hard the loss of Abe was for him.

Footsteps creaked along the floor outside the door, coming along in a rushed pattern. A fleet of panic took your breath. Surely the same lady from earlier wouldn’t go as far as to follow you in here, surely she wasn’t that desperate to talk with you. The doorknob twisted and clicked open in the same second. Jacob’s body slipped between the small gap of the frame, his hair and shirt dishevelled the same way yours had been. You let out a breath.

He hadn’t noticed you perched on the edge of his bed yet, head thrown back against the door and his eyes squoze tight, his grip on the handle didn’t loosen, twisting and turning it round and back again.

“Uncle Mayan?” You ask. He flings himself backwards, headbutting the door with a resounding thwack, and groans as his hand flies to cradle the crown of his head. Your eyes meet his, swarmed with mirth and Jacob’s face twists with irritation and relief.

“Yes.” He mithers, shuffling the distance to his bed and slouching to sit atop his crumpled duvet while still kneading his scalp. “What are you doing in my room? I know you're a lazy ass but surely not enough to not walk two doors down.”

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes, shoving his head forward with force. Jacob screeches and sends his elbow into your ribs. The hit tethers over your skin and pulses pain up your side, when your hand touches the area it’s already tender and you’re sure it’s already blooming with irate reds and blues. “Asshole,” You snarl. “That’s gonna bruise.”

“Don’t start what you can’t finish, Y/n.” He smiles sarcastically, still rubbing the back of his scalp.

“That’s it.” You sneer playfully. “You’ve waged war.”

Jacob raises his brows, “You already did that when you scared the crap out of me.”

You huff a shallow breath, narrowing your eyes at him, “I was only in here to get away from an aunt I don’t remember ever meeting before. She wouldn’t stop following me around and I already talked with her for twenty minutes. I don’t think she even told me her name.”

Jacob wheezes a laugh at your misfortune, falling back into his bed. “You deser-”

A knock resounds on his door, three light raps against the wood. He springs back up as your fathers sister enters without waiting for his say. When you look at him, he looks as enervated as you feel.

“It’s Aunt Susie.” She smiles, making her way over to you almost sheepishly. “I’m so glad you’re in here,” Her blue eyes reflect off the encroaching daylight, peaking through the shutter, when she looks at you. “Thought you guys might want to open this one.”

You shuffle closer to Jacob when she sits on the edge of the bed, giving her more space to settle. The small, book-shaped package she’d walked in with rustles its brown paper when she softly hands it over to you. You hold it with a frown, looking puzzled between the gift, Jacob and her. Susie’s grin softens as she fills in the pieces. “It’s from your grandpa. Found it while I was packing up.”

Jacob swallows lightly as he takes it from your hold, thumbing the curt edges when he looks to her, lips parted. “Thanks.” He says softly.

Susie huffs a small laugh, pushing up from the bed with her hands and making her way out the open door. Jacob looks to you when the soft click of the door sounds, his eyes round. You can only gesture to the gift in his hands.

The rip of the paper echoes louder than it should when he tugs it free, somehow thrumming louder through you than the thump thump of your soaring heartbeat.

As you suspected, when Jacob pulled the paper back a hardback book reveals itself. The cover isn’t much to marvel over, shades of blue and white forming a pretty picture on its front but its title folds your brows.

The Complete Essays and Other Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Abe was a man of many interests. Sailing, history in most its forms, music, storytelling, geography, travelling; but through all of that never once had he expressed an interest in poetry, not to you.

Jacob parted the hard cover from its beginning page, the spine creaking lowly under the movement and you smothered the returning hollowness that wove your heart to scoot closer. Abe’s handwriting drew your eyes the moment you saw the yellowing page, calligraphed as beautifully as you always remembered it and addressed to your brother.

To Jake, and the worlds he has yet to discover. From Grandpa xx

Only your brother. Your heart sank.

Jake took no notice of the drop of your shoulders or the swallow you choked through, absorbed entirely in the final gift your grandfather ever gave him. He turns the next page to a photograph slotted between, one of a tall hill, buzzed green grass and mounted with darker trees. There’s a line of differently coloured brick buildings just below the slope and before what seems like a small beach of grainy sand or a white paved walkway leading into a clear-watered section of a larger bay.

Cairnholm. The word is written in clear letters in the lower left corner of the photo and you wonder briefly if that’s what this place was before Jacob flips the card over to more beautifully looped letters. The silence lingers thick in the air as you both read.

My dearest Abe,

Emma flashes through your mind like a peregrine falcon, quick and fleeting and dauntingly beguiling. You hope terribly that your grandfather hadn’t been stupid enough to leave evidence of an affair so cruelly for your brother to find; you bearing the burden was enough.

I hope this card finds you well. The children and I yearn to hear your news. I do hope you will visit us again soon. We should so love to you see you.

With admiration, Alma Peregrine.

Unmistakable relief floods you in waves. Peregrine. The matron.

Jacob doesn’t utter a word for the two minutes more you stay sat, only flips back and forth between the words of Abe marring the opening page and the loops of Alma’s postcard. You leave his room with a heavy heart, ignoring the calls of your name from the bustling living room behind you. No final gift to awe over, to mourn with.

You wonder if he hadn’t found one yet before his unfortunate demise or if it had been chucked with the rest of his things considered insignificant and frivolous.

The slam of your door does little to quench the unbridled rage tightening your mind.

~ 𐀔 ~ 𐀔 ~ 𐀔 ~

Likes, comments and reblogs are extremely appreciated and very encouraging!

I do not give permission for my work to be reposted or translated (on this site or otherwise).

[hiraya-rawr]

so i betrayed you, my love– (2/5)

Xiao Version || Childe Version || Thoma Version || Gorou Version || Ayato Version

synopsis !! Part 2 of “You Were The Enemy All Along” featuring the aftermath of betrayal and confrontation, with more depth to their stories! (Part 1 of each character was also included to make reading convenient.)

contains !! some character lore spoilers / a little violence / dialogue heavy in some scenes / reconciliation but also complicated relationships mending together / cameos of other characters! / might be easier to understand if you knew the lore of the characters 

notes !! This was commissioned by the wonderful @mh8 who allowed this to be posted in public for everyone to enjoy! and honestly childe scares me to write bc I've barely written anything for him but I tried to bring out his charm? idk 😭

CHILDE

wc !! 2.4k

The noisiest of them all. He doesn't understand at first, tries to deny it by making jokes. The prank is up, what are you still doing? It's only when your betrayal becomes painfully obvious does he allow himself to laugh. It's ironic to be surprised coming from his line of work. He should really be used to these things.

"If you're this desperate for a fight, you could have just said so," He laughs, "Though, I warn you comrade, I won't hold back this time." It's so easy to drown in the adrenaline of battle and if he doesn't think hard enough, it feels no different than any of your usual spars together. There's a battle crazed look in his eyes at the thought of not holding back with you, but it's odd how numb he feels as Foul Legacy takes over. 

Whether or not he wins the fight, the result remains the same; with him lying in the middle of the battlefield, mask still on, staring blankly upwards. He thinks of the abyss he fell into as a child, and briefly wonders when did it all go wrong.

— Before Him

You sighed in relief, a long day of training was finally coming to an end. Dottore was not an easy harbinger to be a rookie under; aside from the harsh training requirements of a Fatui Agent, you also had to deal with a lunatic scientist for a mentor. You were lucky enough to have the doctor more distracted on conducting his experiments rather than training fresh meat like you. 

You leaned against a wall. You were in an isolated, snowy village, a mile away from the nearest Fatui training ground. It existed quietly, the villagers were as cold as Snezhnaya in that barren wasteland. You knocked twice on the concrete behind you, then an additional four times, then once more.

“Agent (Name), report.” A voice muffles from behind the wall, a figure you can't see.

“Pulcinella adopted a strange boy. . . He's coded as Childe. They say he fell into the abyss. He's quite strong, we've only sparred once but I know there's something off with him.” 

“Hmm. A peculiar new recruit. I've heard from the other agents.” Muttered the figure of the shadows. He doesn't talk much. You know it's to keep identities hidden and to avoid letting you know too much lest you get caught and the information forced out of you (and believe me, the information will be forced out of you).

“You think he could rise in the ranks? Perhaps become a general or diplomat?” You question quietly.

“I think he could be the next Harbinger.”

A sharp intake of breath, surprised. A Harbinger. The next and possibly youngest one after so long.

“Continue your work. Do what you believe is best for our organization. Leave any files you found useful under the gap.” Were his last orders before hearing the footsteps walk away. Work was never easy; you dealt with loneliness most of the time. The only comfort was when an ill-reputed plan of the Fatui failed, knowing it was only possible through your contributions and warnings. For every plan you thwarted was a step closer to revealing your identity and getting killed for it.

Yes, you're prepared. You've been preparing for it ever since you joined the Fatui.

With a sigh, you went back to the training grounds. 

— With Him

There’s a reason why Diluc Ragnvindr survived the hunt by the Harbingers when he sought out revenge in Snezhnaya. That should have been the first red flag for Childe. You were transferred early under his platoon, just when he was solidifying his position as a Harbinger. You were the subordinate he sent out to represent the 11th and, having the approval of Dottore (The old geezer, what a wack. Should he really be trusting a mad scientist? Childe questions this everyday) he trusted you enough to do your job.

Yet, the winery-heir-slash-fatui-serial-murderer escaped Snezhnaya with the help of those damned underground pests they've been trying to get rid of. Honestly, Childe could care less about the guy— if anything, he was immensely excited to try and pick a fight with him! But it still hurt his pride that one of his early missions as a Harbinger didn't turn out well. He needed to prove himself to the Tsaritsa after all! If not to at least make Pulcinella proud.

Going back to you.

It was always him and you; you and him ever since you transferred; sparring blade against blade. It was easy to get along when you were one of the only trainees close to his age, even easier when you managed to keep up with him in everything, bloodlust and all. 

You were his match and he was yours, or so he believed.

“Say, why did Dottore transfer you anyway? Did you get kicked out, pissed him off somehow?” Childe once asked, boots scraping the ground as he dodges an attack from you flawlessly. Despite Dottore’s rather crazed way of managing his platoon, agents were given a handful of benefits for being under a high ranking Harbinger with a budget larger than the others (Experiments don't pay themselves, you know!).

You huff, a little tired from the onslaught of keeping him entertained in battle, “No, didn't he tell you? I requested for transfer.”

“Oh really? What, did the good looks of a new Harbinger catch your eye?” He teases, going on the offensive once more as he sprints to slash his blade. You block it with yours, trying to push him back with force. When he does pull back, getting pushed a few meters away as hir boots skid on snow, you scoff.

“Good looks? If that were the case, I would have transferred to–”

He immediately sprints ahead again, blade nearly catching you off guard as you block the attack.

“Aww come-” Slash. Block. “-on! Don't tell me you're not-” Kick. Jump. “-even a little bit enraptured by-” Hit. Block. “-me?” He huffs heavily, finally catching your eye as your blade stays on his, pushing each other back with all your strength.

“Hmp. Must you be so arrogant?” You strain out, matching his force before– “Maybe. . . maybe just a little bit.” You avert your gaze at the very moment he catches sunlight in your eyes. Childe pauses, his grip on the blade loosens momentarily at your admittance. You take the chance— kicking his stomach back with force as he skids across the training ground, the sword clattering on the ground.

“Does this mean I won?” You giggle, your weapon still in your hand as he looks at you from where he crouches, a smile on your face.

Maybe it's the butterflies that erupted in his stomach, but he laughs out loud. Childe wonders to himself; Is this the thrill of battle? Or something else? You tilt your head in confusion.

“As if! I haven't even gone all out yet!” He yells enthusiastically, “Agent (Ņ̸̛͕͔̏̓ͅa̶͍͊m̸̲̫̄͝ȩ̴̹̙̄̀ͅ.)”

Your smile tenses. Your heart beats. Pensively, you also wonder to yourself; Is this the success of a mission? Or . . . something else?

— After Him .

You should've known.

You should've known, you should've known, you should've known that the Fatui would never have let a betrayal such as yours go so easily. The past few months after him was spent laying low, hiding from daylight and any chance that you could be recognized. A large bounty was on your head and the Fatui weren't cheap by any means. The organization shielded you as much as they could but even you had missions you had to continue fulfilling. You’d gladly risk your life for the better good; after all, if you didn't, you wouldn't have went undercover in the Fatui anyway. 

But now, he was chasing you.

It's back to the snowy forests of Snezhnaya, sprinting and dodging all the tall pines in your way. You hear him gaining speed from behind you, hydro blades swishing as they cut through branches, unbothered to waste energy on dodging. Distantly, the sound of a Fatui gunner prepares his shot. You immediately switch directions, a pyro blast landing inches from where you once were. It’s followed by more blasts, each hitting a little closer to you until—

“Ah!”

It grazes your shoulder, blood escaping the wound and soaking your clothes. You don't stop running, adrenaline keeping you alive and conscious. Childe barks something out in Snezhnayan. You’re too distracted with running to understand what he said, but the Pyro Gunner stops shooting and soon enough you focus on escaping.

A clearing appears in your line of sight. A field of snow and endless white and—

Crash! You're knocked off your feet, landing on the snow. You feel him on your back as you quickly force him away, rolling to the side and kicking. It's a blur from there on— a flurry of kicks, punches, scratches, the snow around you forming the most unrecognizable snow angel.

Until his hydro blade was on your neck as he keeps you pinned underneath him. No amount of sparring could've prepared you for a battle to the death with a harbinger. Your breaths fog together with every exhale, the proximity feels bad for your heart but finally, you get a clear view of the face you haven't seen for months.

“I win,” He says, an ever-so-childish grin on his lips, “Any last words?”

It astounds you how casual he is, as if you weren't running for your life just moments ago. Sparring had always been his favorite game but this wasn't like the other times. You do as you were trained (by both the Fatui and your organization)— you keep your mouth shut. Last words are worthless in the face of the enemy, you’d rather bite your tongue off.

“Hmm. . . the (Ņ̸̛͕͔̏̓ͅa̶͍͊m̸̲̫̄͝ȩ̴̹̙̄̀ͅ) I know would have barked back some words. You would've scoffed.” Childe says, the blade pressing deeper onto your neck, drawing beads of blood to the surface. “Or was that some personality you made up? Was it fun for you?” 

Silence.

The smile falls off his face. Something darkens in his eyes. “Alright. You won't talk, that's okay. Anyone who would dedicate their lives living undercover naturally wouldn't respond. I can respect that.” He starts, the blade doesn't move an inch on your skin, the snow numbing more of your back, “But at least answer me this. Not for your organization, not for you. . . answer it for me; was I ever anything to you?”

Silence. Keep quiet.

Something unrecognizable crosses his face. There’s a smile on his lips, but his eyes are pained.

“You know,”  He whispers, leaning down closer to you. “Whenever we sparred, did you feel anything? Anything at all?” His face contorts to a mix of frustration, “Because I sure as hell knew I loved you. I can differentiate things, (Ņ̸̛͕͔̏̓ͅa̶͍͊m̸̲̫̄͝ȩ̴̹̙̄̀ͅ.)! I knew what was bloodlust, it wasn't just me being battle hungry. I’m not dumb! I knew— know I love you!”

As if wanting to hide from your gaze, he hides his face on the crook of your neck. Forehead to the snow, blade stilling on your skin. Despite how cold everything is, the warmth of him seems enough to coax you in.

“. . . At least tell me how much of it was real. Please.” He mumbles slowly. Did you mean to cause this much anguish? Did you have to go fall for someone like him? 

The words fall from your tongue before you could even catch them. The lack of hesitation, the urge to come clean; “Everything. . . everything was fake. Even my name. (Ņ̸̛͕͔̏̓ͅa̶͍͊m̸̲̫̄͝ȩ̴̹̙̄̀ͅ.). It's fake.”

He freezes over you, listening intently. Snow falls quietly into the ground, you wonder if you'll be buried in— caved to become timeless underneath the ice. Briefly, you think it would be fine if it happens if it's with Childe.

“I know it's hard to trust me, but please— loving you,” Pause. You feel tears well up in your eyes, blinding your vision of the descending snowflakes. “Loving you was real. Is real. It was the realest thing I had in that life under the Fatui. I’m so sorry, Childe, I’m really sorry. And I’m sorry we have to end like this.”

“You mean it?” He asks, hushed.

“Yes, yes, archons I mean it.”

“Then what's your real name?”

Your breath hitches, “(Name).”

“(Name).” He repeats.

The awareness of the metal on your throat becomes all too obvious. Breathing too hard would cause it to press more against your skin. You try to calm down, trying to accept the falling of the snow (the fall of you) as the end of your life nears and suddenly—

the blade is retrieved. You hear the shuffle of leather as it's placed back into its holder. Blinking, bewildered, you glanced up at him only to see his boyish grin.

“You honestly didn't think I'd kill you, right?”

Your mouth falls open. You want to hit him.

“You're going to let me go?”

“I mean, I did kind of let the traveler go back in Liyue.”

“The senior Harbingers reprimanded you for that!” You sit uo, hands flailing as you grab a handful of snow to throw at him. He lets it hit his stomach, laughing.

“It's fine, it's fine! The higher ups don't really care about me as much as they do the others anyway,” He shrugs nonchalantly, “It gives me a whole lot of leeway. If I say I don't want to kill you, they'll just nod along.”

You stare at him longer than you mean to, holding his cheery gaze as the snow continues to settle around you. How quiet and peaceful to exist with him in that space. 

“Is this really okay?” You ask and he falls silent with you.

He looks away to the white horizon, speaking in a softer voice, “Well, of course not. You still betrayed me, I still got hurt,” He inhales, “But you love me. I think that's all that really matters, no?”

Tears well up in your eyes. You can't bear to think how close you were to losing your life (losing him) and how easily he pushes your lifelong conflicts aside. So who cares if you played for the opposing organization? Who cares if you struggled with love and truth?

You've faked yourself for so long but Childe would still embrace you, lies and all.

“Come on, the snow must be cold.” He extends his hand, gesturing for you to take it, “Sooner or later the other scouts would be arriving. You should keep running east.”

“Ajax–” You start but he hushes you gently.

“We won't be seeing each other for a while. I don't know when we’d meet again but. . . you know, I’m sure it'll work out if it's us. So don't cry anymore, (Name).”

Stiffly, you nod. It was this moment that you tried to memorize everything about him— his eyes, his ginger hair, the way your name -your real name- falls off his tongue. You replay every sound he made to say such a name, just for the sake of remembering.

“Now go—” He pushes you to the direction, “Don't worry! I won't let them catch the love of my life!” He grins widely, hydro blades appearing in his hands once more as you nod towards him, tear stained smile in response. Your feet take you away, further and further away as you hear the familiar sounds of his blades against his own agents. Icy wind whipping against your face. You can't help the laugh that escapes you, surely the agents would think their blood-crazed superior is in another one of his impulsive moods. 

You pity them and envy them all the same.

~

notes !! thoma is up next, featuring some of our fav inazuma characters <3 ill edit it into a post once my finals settle down (currently cramming in a cafe) I hope you guys liked this one

childe // i really tried to fulfill that he's the more talkative of the bunch! and honestly with childe’s history of forgive and forget, i dont think it's a surprise that he’d easily forgive MC and brush everything under the rug. if anything, he kind of likes the complexity as far as i could tell! by the way, did you like the inclusion of “before him, with him, and after him”? i think it was a poem or a dedication in some book. I really like the thought of it since it's a good way to divide timelines. BY THE WAY do you like the parallels? In part 1, he was left on the snow looking up at the sky. Now in part 2, ur the one on the snow looking up at him :D

[iamnotshazam]

The Elder Scrolls daedra lore: Malacath isn't trapped in a new, unfavorable form because of a cruel trick Boethiah played on him. He's trapped in a different, misunderstood form because Boethiah tried to do him a favor in the only way Boethiah knew how - and perhaps she did not realize Malacath would be so intolerably Aedric as to never understand.

What else is the cycle of life and death, birth and rebirth, on Earth as well as Nirn, but to consume and be consumed? Our wastes are as fertile and important to the world as our prized creations. Boethiah knew this, as well as Lorkhan, and it parallels lessons of many of the 'nastier' Daedra - ex. Peryite, Namira, Mehrunes Dagon.

One story of how Boethiah tricked Malacath has the hallmarks of a moralistic fairy tale. Boethiah pretends to be a series of ugly, sick, and (most importantly) old humans, and Trinimac does not want to help them, even though Boethiah is giving something in return. Trinimac does so only because he gave his word but he does it while cringing. When Boethiah becomes beautiful and hale, and young, then Trinimac rushes to help and is swallowed whole.

What is this story but a clear fable to not take beauty as it first appears? To try to help people for help's own sake, not because you gave your word? To not mind sickness and age, hallmarks of approaching death, and to approach with compassion? You're on the Mundus. You and Auriel chose to stay and help the mortals, because you think that mortality is a curse but the spirits are still worth salvaging. Are you really so shallow? And when Trinimac failed the test Boethiah gave to show how he might improve - chomp.

How does an immortal being change? I mean really change, because a hallmark of Daedra is they don't change, unless interrupted and somehow . . . dealt upon by something stronger than them. I don't think Boethiah was stronger than Trinimac, champion of the Aedra. But what Boethiah did struck Trinimac so sideways he was shocked enough he didn't react until it was too late. Boethiah's actions afterwards seem less like the cunning victory of a schemer typical of the Prince of Plots and more like a dog that caught the car. They didn't quite know what to do with victory over Trinimac so they started running around making him seem like a gross idiot.

And they were doubly surprised when Trinimac did not fight his way out. Was their idea working? Was the actual lesson seeping in? So she gave up the massive advantage she had over this powerful rival in order to end the farce - she shat him out.

It was the final pièce de résistance to what she wanted to show the snobbish Aedra and their followers. Lorkhan's deceit and entrapment happened. It's already done. There is more to be gained by helping each other overcome challenges and enriching the spiritual soil of Mundus than to hold oneself above others when you are just as vulnerable. Just as changeable. You chose to be here. Now actually be a part of the stream of changing shape and form.

She miscalculated. Perhaps she didn't realize the true depth of pride and willfulness in Trinimac, or the sensation of being digested was more awful than she herself, Daedric and unchanging, could realize. She shat him out. The prank went too far.

It changed him into the Daedric Prince of refusing to change.

But there are signs of Malacath having much more potential for growth and prosperity than he does now. The Ashpits are barren and near-lifeless but they are also the Ashpits, enriched soil full to bursting with the fertility of life-from-death. The remaining faithful covered themself with nightsoil to be like their leader. What if they had used it in fields instead? Malacath tries to grow a garden. It doesn't do well.

The tragedy of his existence is not that the garden doesn't grow. It's that it could, but in some way he chooses for it not to.

also she shat him out like what the fuck boethiah

[atinytokki]

hi, i hope you've been doing well! i'm just here again to say that i'm finally up to date on all of the treasure series and the spin-offs and ugh.... you still have yet to cease to amaze me. this entire world that you've created and the depth of the details of the story still stuns me to this day. i mean you've literally thought of everything. but anyways to keep my rambling to a minimum because i could literally go on and on for forever about Treasure.... it made me come up with an idea (that you totally don't have to do if you don't want to and i totally understand that you're very busy and the last thing i want to do is pressure you or make you feel inclined to do stuff) but because of the significance and importance that location and geography holds in this story i thought it would be SOO cool if you could like draw or make a map following the world that the story takes place in? or even a post with the names of the locations and their significance? i'm trying to stay up-to-date on what's happening geographic-wise but i'm slightly failing at doing so. but i hope you're healthy and happy and i'm so excited for the updates in the future no matter when they arrive, what's most important is your well-being. <3

(p.s. don't forget to take breaks, eat, and take care of yourself! :))

🐰: AHHH OMG I don’t know when this came in but I hope it wasn’t too long ago. So thrilled to hear you’re caught up with Treasure because I have indeed been doing well— especially creatively— and have an approximately 15k word My Way chapter to dump on all you lovely Treasure readers :DD

Funny you should mention maps and geographical information because I actually do have (and have had for some time) a rough draft version of the map that I occasionally add to but I don’t trust my art skills and so haven’t posted it anywhere lol but I am looking for a good website or digital mapmaking program of some kind that I can use to get it to look like I want and then hopefully get that up to help you guys out! I know you can only take so many “they sailed southwest” “the town was north” “the river flowed east through this and that town” before losing your sense of direction lol.

However! I do have something that will absolutely help and probably entail more reading (sorry not sorry) and that is linked here. It’s my admittedly work-in-progress Treasure encyclopaedia on carrd with locations, characters, and nautical terms that appear over the course of the 13 volumes and provide a lot of helpful context about the world that accidentally grew into this massive universe :) I wasn’t going to post it yet because it’s not quite finished but I don’t want to withhold it when so much is there. Just expect a few minor edits over time and possibly some bugs (most can be solved by refreshing the page I’ve found).

Let me know if you have any more suggestions and thanks so much for your dedication and support!!! MWAH <3!

[other-peoples-coats]

this isn't for the ask game I'm just curious!! do you have any headcanons for the jedi temple and life there? like do masters and padawans room together or does every person get a separate room (i know canon says it's the last one but who cares haha), is the food in the cafeteria food or too bland, how's education organized, do they have grades and exams, stuff like that!!

ooh, so, I will confess that I kind of lean into whatever fits the story I'm telling? like, if I need it, masters and padawans room together (they 100% do in be that monster you been wanting, for instance, because....well. why miss a moment for baby-wan's life to be worse.), but if I was telling a story that it was relevant that they didn't, they...wouldn't. I don't really care what canon says, tbh, we follow the rule of 'narrativly useful' in this house. I do think that there's a bunch of 'weird' jedi only cultural dishes -- some of which were invented by the jedi, either through 'this is one of the very few places nautolan ingredients will run into tusken spices' sort of cultural cross over, or just from 'we are an order of incredibly athlectic people and need to cram 8000+ calories into every possible meal', and some of which are more 'everyone used to eat this 500 years ago, and we're the only people who still make it on the regular'. I also think that their cafeteria (look I want to call it a tuckshop so bad I need you all to know that I know it's literally just us and maybe the kiwis who call it that but: it's a tuckshop or a canteen if you're being fancy) serves kind of a few basic 'menus' of meals, as it were -- one for herbivores, one for carnivores, one for species like kel dor, etc. Education wise, I think it's pretty standardized up to near-ish padawan age, just because...well, you gotta learn the basics, right? after that I lean towards both 'your master teaches you Focus Specific Stuff like in an apprenticeship' -- so Obi-wan learns Diplomacy and also Lazer Sword Things To Death Fast, quinlan learns Spy Shit, etc -- and also a number of sort of graduated classes, like 'not pissing off politicians 101, 201, and 501', 'flying ships so you Don't Get Stranded' and 'so you're caught up in a ritual sacrifice: how to not die about that'.

I think any given padawan can technically take any class (given they meet the pre-recs; you're not going straight into 'advanced poison detection' if you haven't even passed 'not getting black out drunk after a night out'), but it's sort of like being in a physics degree and deciding to take one semester of, like, contract law. Weird, and your advisor might be like 'uh, please explain and justify this before I sign off on it'.

I do think they have exams, though they're more focused on demonstrating a depth of understanding, rather than 'have you learnt to answer question a with answer b'. If you fail, it's less a 'you suck' and more a 'ok, so lets work out where this didn't click', maybe with a 'hey, you're struggling with [topic] as a whole, maybe you should refocus?' where relevant -- like if you were fucking terrible at medicine, but were studying to be a healer.

uhh, what else... I think that the temple is never actually silent, as such. I think there's def points it's way more busy than others, but I think those points aren't necessarily all the points outsiders might expect. Like, 5-9 am is peak hour in the temple; you have all the diunal species getting breakfast, all the noctural ones getting dinner, everyone getting in from late missions or leaving on early ones. By contrast, 3-7 pm is about as quiet as the temple ever gets.

[strandsofgold]

🍔, 🍗 & 🥐!

🍔 Who is your favourite character and what was your first impression of them?

abigail. she was my favourite from the first game and that trend continued into the second.

seeing that abigail can't keep back her utter relief and happiness when arthur and javier bring john back and she finds out he's alive, despite the two of them being at each other throats when we first meet them, is just so heartwarming, and then, when she immediately after goes 'this is a new low, even for you,' it just solidifies her stubbornness and the rage she's trying and failing to conceal.

and getting to see how observant and kind she is throughout the game despite her hardship just made me appreciate her even more. she's honest and angry and kind because of everything she's gone through, and i'm so happy that r* didn't hold back on any of it.

gonna be honest, my expectations for her when loading up the first game (i'd read the basic plot before playing) were just so low. it would not have surprised me one bit if r* had made her into, like, the ideal housewife, all demure and shit, and we just got the complete opposite and i thank r* for it every day. rdr2 only made her better, in my opinion, and really fleshed out her character, giving even more depth to her relationship with john and everything she did and sacrificed for jack.

🍗 If you could design a mission of your own, what would it be about and who would it include?

i would love for there to be more missions with the women at camp. tilly and abigail especially. but i understand that abigail most likely wouldn't be leaving camp often because of jack, and i feel like it's very real for her to not be a part of too many missions. tilly however...

like, a mission with tilly, john, hosea and arthur would have been really fun; nothing big or fancy story-wise, just an excuse to talk about the past and have lots of fun banter. maybe john getting taken hostage by some bounty hunters (like that random encounter mission where javier asks you to help rescue bill), and hosea and tilly – having been out, trying to on some people – asks arthur to help get him free. hosea would act as the distraction –"negotiating" with the bounty hunters (i get the impression that no one knows what he looks like considering agent milton doesn't know) – while tilly and arthur silently try to get john free without getting caught.

or a mission kind of like the grocery shopping mission with sadie in chapter 3, but in chapter 4 and with tilly asking arthur to take her to the saint denis tailor to buy some new clothes (saying something about having saved up some money for a new dress or something). just with fun, calm banter, nothing special, but maybe a bit of foreshadowing? like, maybe tilly gets to talking with a man at the tailor who flirts a bit with her (respectfully so), and while tilly is flattered arthur's big brother alarm is just fucking blaring and he acts like a bit of an ass. but ultimately everything is fine and the man tells tilly he hopes they'll meet again and presses a kiss to the back of her hand and we later get confirmation that he's the man tilly ends up marrying and having children with. that would be nice.

fuck. now i want to write that. shit. well, it's been added to the list.

🥐 Your favourite quote from any character out of the game?

"what's happening, arthur? you're all acting like children." – tilly jackson

maybe not my favourite in terms of wisdom or philosophy or humour, but i think it really says a lot about tilly's character and it's one of the stronger one-off, quick responses characters give to arthur when he greets them.

tilly says this in chapter 6 at beaver hollow when greeted by arthur, and it absolutely breaks my heart. like, she truly believes that things can go back to normal; that what they're dealing with is just a hiccup, that they'll get over eventually. maybe she's in denial. maybe she's delusional. maybe she's so stricken with grief that she desperately wants to believe that the people she cares for and who have cared for her will stick together – that the rift starting to form in their family can somehow be healed.

she doesn't run away or abandon the gang. no, she stays til the very end, defending and protecting jack when it mattered the most. she still believes in dutch, probably did up until he abandons abigail. i can imagine she must've felt just as betrayed as arthur and john – she did consider dutch a father-figure as well and was raised by him.

there is so much fierce loyalty, faith, grief, and desperation in that one, single, throwaway line, and i think about it more than i probably should.

[scripttorture]

Just something I'm curious about - in your torture in fiction posts that deal with sci-fi settings, particularly Star Wars, you list a lot of the torture devices as unrealistic because they're high-tech compared to real life equipment. Is this because you're trying to really stress how how real life torture is carried out? I admittedly haven't studied the topic as in-depth as you, but a lot of the devices used in Star Wars torture scenes seem fancy and space-age to us but in-universe (1/2)

(2/2) things like the droid used to torture Leia in A New Hope are very common and viewed as everyday devices. I guess I’m also asking if a character’s perception of what a common/“low tech” device is would factor into how they select torture methods, or if you think the general technology level of the story doesn’t matter much?

I guess it’s primarily about trying to get people to understand whattorture is.

We are surrounded by stories that, one way or another, suggest torturecan be ‘ok’.

We’re also surrounded by stories that, knowingly or not, get their imageof torture from taking what torturers sayat face value.

And the idea of using high-tech devices, complicated devices, in tortureis doing just that. It is believing these ignorant, pathetic brutes when theysay that what they do is actually ‘scientific’, that it can be ‘improved’, thatthey personally are ‘really good at it’ and that they personally are the specialexception flying against every piece of scientific evidence we have.

The idea of torture being high-tech is heavily linked to the ideatorture can be ‘improved’. It’s a cop out that says ‘well this time didn’t workI guess we need to build a better droid’.

It’s also heavily linked tothe idea that ‘clean’ non-scarring tortures are somehow ‘safer’, that you cancause someone massive amounts of pain and trauma but it’s ok it won’t damagethem. Because it’s ‘scientific’.

Please understand that this anger is not directed at you. This is thememory of sifting through eloquent, newspaper published arguments ‘for’waterboarding and too many conversations where I am asked to ‘prove’ torturecould never work under increasingly ludicrously sci-fi circumstances.

It’s the way so many people seem to automatically turn a discussionabout stopping torture towards ‘wellperhaps if we just tortured people in the ‘right’ way-’

It isn’t about what sort oftechnology is common in the setting.

Almost everyone has a mobile phone where I live. I think it’s safe toassume that the prisons and police stations where a lot of torture takes place have mobile phones, televisions,computers, microwaves.

There has never been a singlereported incident I can find of them being used to torture.

It’s not just expense, it’s practicality. The more complicated and hightech something is the easier it is to break and the harder it is to use withouttraining.

From the torturer’s perspective torture is all about using the least amount of effort.

Anything that takes longer, anything that breaks in use, anything eventhe slightest bit more inconvenient will lose out compared to ‘why don’t wejust borrow the garden hose and hit them with it?’

The torture devices of the past were nothigh tech, even for the times they were created. (Take a look at a rack, thentake a look at the types of ships Europeans were using at the same time forlong distance navigation). Using the vast majority of them boils down toturning a screw.

There’s also the question of the effort,time and money¸ that goes into creating high tech devices.

How big would the group of people behind that one droid have to be? You’dneed designers, mechanics and a way totest it just to get a prototype. The first attempt would probably go wrong,because it’s a complicated, high tech piece of equipment. All of the peopleinvolved in it’s creation need to be paid, housed and have access to thecorrect materials for the decades it would take to get one working model. Thenyou’d need to source materials in bulk, you’d need to assemble them correctlyand you’d need to persuade people that this thing is better than just using a bucket of water. That’s worth the moneybeing asked for it.

The only high tech torturedevice that’s really taken off is the Taser. According to Rejali it took about8 attempts and a lot of time andmoney on someone’s part to get it off the ground. It was initially rejected bypolice departments as too difficult to use and too easy to break.

It’s not that police departments weren’tusing electrical torture, they just found that hand cranked magnetos, carbatteries and cow prods were a lot easier to use. Because they’re less complicated.

So no- I don’t think thatcharacter’s perception of what tech is ‘normal’ factors into what gets used intorture at all. Becausewhat we see in real life is that everyday technology doesn’t tend to get used in torture. It’s more effort for thetorturer, it’s more difficult to use, it’s more likely to break and in somecases probably more likely to get the torturer caught.

That last point may not be a factor in all stories but the rest of thosepoints definitely are.

There’s a difference between showing an evil organisation building abigger, ‘better’ bomb and showing them using high tech torture. In the formerthey’re investing in killing people more efficiently; they know they might notget the result they want first time but they also know it will eventually be ‘worth’the money. In the latter example they’re pouring money into a project that won’t‘work’ any better and (from their view more importantly) that their torturerswon’t want to use.

So yes it’s about realism but beyond that it’s what unrealistic tropesmean in these stories.

I run this blog because I want to change the narrative: because I wantto live in a world where pop culture doesn’tencourage or glorify torture.

And if you want to kill an idea you need to go for the joints.

Torture isn’t sophisticated.It isn’t complicated. And most importantly it not only fails, it cannot be improved. Brutality doesn’tbecome more acceptable just because it’s delivered via a shiny new package, itdoesn’t become less harmful just because the damage is hard to see.

I know some of the things I talk about probably seem odd or harmless toa lot of readers but this is about…tracking what those ideas prop up.

I hope that answers your question. :)

Edit: So there’s a counter argument in the comments which I’m going to respond to very briefly.

1) Torture ‘for’ information does not work.(See O’Mara and Rejali)

2) Scaring people you’re trying to interrogate has been shown to be a less effective strategy. (See E and L Alison)

3) Torturers are self selecting. (See Rejali)

4) Lie detectors do not work. (See O’Mara)

5) All the Star Wars movies I’ve reviewed so far have actually handled torture pretty well. The bad guys assume it ‘works’ sure, but the first three movies show torture failing consistently and they show it failing in realistic ways.

Disclaimer

[spicycreativity]

A Place Where I Can Breathe - Ch 4

Chapter: 4/7 Additional Notes: See Ch 1 for more information. Read on AO3 under "WizardGlick." Any formatting/italics errors are holdovers from AO3 that I was too lazy to fix. Chapter Content Warnings: N/A; ask to tag Excerpt: Poor Roman. He made it so easy. Janus leaned in a little, not so much that he was intruding on Roman's personal space, and touched his knuckles to his chin. "Bore me? You're Creativity. What makes you think you could ever be boring?" He cocked his head and looked at Roman with expectation, inviting him to read between the lines. Who told Roman he was boring? Who made him feel like a burden?

The plan went into motion the following evening. Roman kept inconsistent hours and worked in inconsistent locations, and Janus had accordingly predicted long hours spent listening at the basement door for a chance at catching Roman alone. He was already working on a plan to lure Roman down, but it was difficult when his knowledge was barely surface-level. He didn't know in detail what Roman liked. But the wheels of fate turned and Roman bade his friends goodnight and announced that he would be staying up late to work on a project.

"That's lucky," Remus said when Janus informed him of the news.

Janus smiled at him. "Where reason fails, the Devil helps." He fussed with his gloves and straightened his capelet. "It's showtime."

"Beetlejuice is my thing," Remus said as Janus sank out.

He couldn't help the pang of loathing that pierced his heart at the sight of Roman scribbling away in a notebook. Remus had never been afforded the luxury of creative freedom, and it felt so obscene to stand here and watch Roman revel in it.

Willing his face into a more polite expression, Janus sat down by Roman and waited to be acknowledged.

Roman caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, but was too busy writing to spare the processing power it would take to identify his visitor. Whoever it was, they knew better than to interrupt him while he was preoccupied. He finished up his thought, jotted down one final note in the margin, and turned to address his guest. "H--Uh-- Deceit!" He jerked backward in surprise, slamming his notebook shut. "I wasn't expecting you." Despite his best efforts not to stare, his gaze kept falling on Janus' scales, his slit-pupiled snake eye. Roman tried not to shudder.

Janus cursed himself for not anticipating this. He should have sat on Roman's left side. Ah, well. Nothing to do for it now but apply extra charm. "Good evening, Roman," he purred, turning his head a little beyond what was comfortable so Roman could see more of his human side. "Did you know that you bite your lip when you concentrate? It's cute."

"Oh, um." Roman touched his fingertips to his lower lip, equal parts flattered and confused. "Thank you?" The overhead lights caught on Janus' cheekbone, giving him a soft glow. He gazed at Roman with gentle anticipation. Roman looked into the rich brown of his human eye. "I was just working on a story about, um, well… Oh, I won't bore you with the details."

Poor Roman. He made it so easy. Janus leaned in a little, not so much that he was intruding on Roman's personal space, and touched his knuckles to his chin. "Bore me? You're Creativity. What makes you think you could ever be boring?" He cocked his head and looked at Roman with expectation, inviting him to read between the lines. Who told Roman he was boring? Who made him feel like a burden?

"The, uh, the others," Roman stammered, not wanting to talk badly about his friends.

To his surprise, Janus flashed him an almost guilty smile before hiding it behind one gloved hand. "The others don't understand your creative vision, do they? I always wondered how you put up with them trying to shut you down."

"I don't know that they shut me down, exactly," Roman said, making one last effort to be charitable before sliding over the brink. He lowered his voice to a whisper, "But they never seem to want to listen. Logan is always poking holes in my plots and asking boring questions about the worldbuilding, and Patton always spaces out and asks me to repeat myself, like he can't even be bothered to listen to what I'm saying! And he always says the same thing whenever I ask for feedback. It's like, I don't need criticism, but I'd appreciate something a little more in-depth than 'oh, it's fine,' you know?" Janus nodded. Roman took a breath. "And Anxiety. I don't even want to think about what he'd say. He's always trying to shut me down before I even start: 'What if someone has done this before? What if nobody likes it? What if you're not good enough?'"

Janus raised his eyebrows and looked away. Some of that certainly sounded like Virgil, but he had a strong suspicion that most of Roman's insecurities originated from within himself. "I agree, he's not good for you."

"Oh!" Roman ran a hand through his hair and looked away. "I don't- I didn't mean.. "

"You said it yourself," Janus said, preemptive triumph blazing beautiful and cruel in his chest, "he sabotages your function." He pictured Roman alone in his room, hunched over a notebook and scribbling furiously with a pen that would not and could not write. Or better yet, Roman with a functioning pen staring paralyzed at the blank page before him, his own insecurities stilling his hand. "He's bad for you."

"Hold on a second," Roman said, putting up a hand to stop Janus. How did they get here? He'd just been venting, and now suddenly Virgil was to blame for all his problems? He nearly smacked his own forehead when it clicked just who he was talking to. "I didn't mean that!"

"But you said it," Janus said, feigning misunderstanding. "So you lied to me?"

"No, no, that was true."

"Then we're in agreement. Anxiety is bad for you."

Roman shook his head emphatically. "It was true. Anxiety was bad for me. He's changed."

Janus couldn't help himself; he rolled his eyes. "He's Anxiety! It's literally his job to shoot you down."

"I used to think that," Roman said, anger spilling into his cheeks and turning his face red. "But I know better now. Anxiety isn't like you and my brother; he has a place with us and he helps us make Thomas the best possible version of himself. And if you don't understand that, then I don't think I have anything more to say to you. And don't even think about coming anywhere near Anxiety ever again. I won't allow it."

Janus took in a shaky breath, finally letting his hatred, his frustration, his despair show on his face. And he struck, envenomating the weapon Roman had unwittingly handed him: "Very well, Roman. But let me leave you with this: Anxiety has nothing to do with your inability to perform. You're only half a function, and nothing you make will ever stand up as long as you remain afraid of your own potential. You're just as inadequate as you think you are, and it's nobody's fault but your own."

And, still shaking with rage, he sank out.

--

"Shit!" Janus slammed his open palm into the wall and pressed into it, forcing himself to take deep breaths.

There was no reply but the scratching of pen on paper. Janus whipped his head around and the anger drained from him at the sight of Remus scribbling away in a notebook. At least some good had come out of his little confrontation.

"Well, I'm not sure what you did to my brother," Remus said, not looking up, "but he's definitely distracted."

"I may…" Janus said delicately, rubbing the heel of his hand with his opposing thumb, "have failed to account for certain unexpected variables." He sat down next to Remus, careful not to jostle him, and grit his teeth.

"Mm?" Remus said, turning a page.

"Such as your brother being too thick-headed and stubborn to listen when someone's trying to manipulate him." Janus scoffed.

"Mm," said Remus, still writing.

Janus glanced over at him. Just as Roman had been doing earlier, Remus was chewing at his lower lip while he wrote, his brow creased. Janus tapped his fingertips against his own lips. He shouldn't have called Roman 'half a function,' and not just because it implied that Remus was as well. He knew from experience that lashing out only ever made things harder for himself. Now a whole new barrier towered before him and it was nobody's fault but his own. Janus laughed humorlessly, not missing the irony. He would blame Roman, though. It hurt less that way.

"I suppose it's too much to ask," Janus mused out loud, "that things could just be easy for once."

Remus stopped writing, ignoring the pang of regret, and scooted over so he could put his arm around Janus. It was undeniably painful to throw away an opportunity to make his voice heard, but Janus needed him now. He never admitted when he wanted comfort, so Remus had become adept at picking up on unvoiced desires over the years. "Yeah, probably."

"Please do stop writing; that won't make me feel guilty at all."

"I was pretty much done anyway," Remus said. "There's only so much debauchery and vomit you can fit into one story."

It was an obvious lie, but Janus let it go. He leaned into Remus' shoulder despite the way it knocked his hat askew and tried not to think about Virgil. "I don't even miss him," he said, the lie ringing hollow even in his own ears. "We just can't let him start working against us."

"We won't," Remus promised. "He'll come back. We can be his favorites again." After all, they had been friends before. Whatever Roman and the others had done to charm Virgil could be undone. He would remember his friends again. "And besides, we have Plan B for Butthole!"

Janus laughed despite himself and let Remus pull him in closer. "Maybe let's wait to implement that one."

--

Roman couldn't breathe properly; something was wrong with his lungs. Every inhale hitched in his throat and his mouth ached like he was about to cry.

But he dismissed that ridiculous thought with a firm shake of his head. He was the guardian prince, the hero! Heroes never wept for themselves.

He swallowed down the ache and got to his feet so he could find Virgil and let him know what had happened.

If a few wayward tears slipped down Roman's cheeks as he ascended the staircase, he wiped them away without giving them a second thought. The jaunt up the stairs did nothing to help his erratic breathing, and he was almost winded by the time he got to Virgil's door.

He had to knock for a long time before Virgil finally answered. He had been listening to his music as loud as he could tolerate it, and had only noticed Roman's knocking during a transition between songs.

Virgil's sarcastic greeting died on his lips at the sight of Roman panting in the doorway. His lower lip trembled and his eyes were suspiciously shiny, but his voice was steady as ever when he spoke. "Anxiety! I need to speak with you."

"Dude, are you okay?" Virgil asked, letting the walls of his brooding facade fall away in the face of his concern for his friend.

"Never better!" Roman declared. He was determined not to let Virgil see just how deep Janus' words had cut him. "May I come in?"

"Uh, sure, I guess." Virgil stepped aside, trying not to feel too self-conscious about his unmade bed.

Roman didn't comment on it, just followed Virgil's lead and sat down on the floor with his back against the foot of the bed. Despite the persistent ache in his chest, he fought for bravado. "I've just faced off against a fiendish foe!"

Virgil's heart dropped into his stomach. "Oh, yeah?"

"Indeed. I went toe-to-toe with a certain sneaky snake and scared him silly!"

"What did he say to you?" Virgil demanded. Everything slotted into place in an instant, Roman's shaky demeanor and false confidence.

Roman waved a hand, annoyed to notice it was shaking. "Nothing of import. You don't have to worry about me, Anxiety, I can handle myself in these matters."

Virgil supposed he should have seen this coming. "So let me guess. You're worried about me ."

"Of course I'm not worried about you!" Roman said, puffing out his chest. "You have the best protector in the world."

"You?"

"Me!"

"So why did you need to come see me?" Virgil asked. Whatever Janus had said to Roman obviously hadn't altered Roman's opinion of Virgil any.

"Exactly that," Roman said. "That you need not worry. I banished the snake back to the basement where he belongs! And I told him that I would not allow him to see you ever again."

Virgil couldn't stop the look of horror that crossed his face. He pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to calm his own breathing. "What?"

"I stood up to that fork-tongued fiend and told him to leave you alone forever," Roman said, a little less self-assured this time. He knew better than to expect a wondrous display of gratitude from Virgil, but he had been expecting some sort of thanks.

"That's great," Virgil said weakly. He knew he wasn't selling it, but was too overwhelmed to really care. "Thanks."

Roman nodded. "Well, I suppose l'll, ah. I'll just go, then." He hadn't realized how badly he'd wanted to stay until he was faced with the idea of leaving. But Virgil just nodded, his eyes empty, so Roman saw himself out.

Virgil immediately started to chew on his thumbnail, mind racing. He knew should have asked for more details from Roman but panic had a way of demanding attention, choking out rationality. He was thinking clearly now, though. He had failed. Whatever Janus had said had obviously hurt Roman badly, and Virgil hadn't been a good enough friend to try to fix it, and he hadn't been a good enough protector to prevent it. The only thing he could do now was try to stop it from happening again.

Virgil sighed and let his head fall back against the edge of his bed. He was absolutely certain that Janus would be out for blood now.

[rxvenwxlf]

WHY DO WE DREAM OF THOSE WHO WE DON'T SPEAK TO?

Ever caught yourself in dreams that feel so incredibly real when you wake up you wish you could either go back and finish the story. Like "lucid" dreaming? Or be affraid to sleep because waking up hurts. Now today I want to express my thoughts on reoccuring dreams, every night the same dream, same scenario, same feelings, same person. Many believe dreaming about the same person every night is a sign of missing them or them missing you. However my beliefs go way deeper.

 You keep dreaming about the same person every night. Even though you deliberately try to think of anything else before bed, they continue to show up in your dreams. If you had a dream of someone, is it because they think of you? Are your minds subconsciously linked in some way? 

There are cultures and spiritualists that believe in this theory. My dreams are very real. Sometimes I have nightmares. But having been given the gift of being able to control my dreams and interact in them makes them very real. The gift of feeling others emotions. I feel every moment, I smell every scent, hear everything and can even physically touch a person. When I wake up I am confused. As to why this scenario played out, and why this person? Someone you once had a connection with. Why now? Are they ok? Why me? Someone you don't see anymore, nor hear their voice, held them, smelt them or have felt their presence for quite a time. Even if the dream changes, and you’re somewhere dark, scary and vivid, you can see them in a distance. Watching, observing.

 As if they were looking over you to protect you. They'd appear and grab you and the darkness that surrounds you is no longer terrifying. Sometimes in the dream they'd ring your phone and ask what you’re are doing. And that tone in their voice is so soothing and so long forgotten. This manifestation is a rare spiritual link. Unfinished business between those persons. If that person was meant to be out of your life for good, they wouldn't be represented as such a clean soul inside your dreams. They would instead appear as a puppet master pulling all your strings forcing you to dance in the darkness of your nightmares.

 Is this is the narcissistic manifestation they are projecting into your mind to draw you back in when all other plots fail?. Although you may have bad history with them, maybe a few tears shed, an argument, a falling out, maybe they hurt you when they didn't intend to, you both went your own separate ways. What people don't understand is that some people predict hurt. We sometimes know when something is good for us or bad for us. But we go with it even knowing the outcome, because it's what makes us feel alive. I make these Decisions personally, and sometimes force it. That shouldn't be their Burdon to carry.. 

That person may of had a great meaning in your life. A potential soul mate. And not necessarily of the romantic kind. Someone who could be a true friend for a long period of time if they were to be open minded and allow such a connection. and when you release them there becomes a ripple in time and space that causes are deepest most inner selves to fight back to be heard. I do believe these people try and imprint themselves into your mind when you have gone a different direction to them, when you have both moved onto a new path, when you don't speak as much as you used to. Because they miss you. But they are too affraid to speak in the real world , too affraid to reach out, as they are too confined to breach that forcefield that has been since raised and shielded around you. Possibly feeling guilty afraid of rejection.

 So reaching out in the dream world is their subconscious trying to tell you.. "hey, You're on my mind, I hope you're okay, I miss you, I miss talking". Little things like that show what they are feeling truly. Even when they have moved on with someone new, replacing those feelings inside that once were with false emotions from another, distracting themselves from their pain and insecurities. Keeping themselves in your life but from a distance. Wether it's looking at some of your photos on social media, contacting you out of the blue for no important reason, anything to hear from you, asking people about you, reading old messages or manifesting you into the depths of their minds and manifesting themselves into yours. Do you reach out in the real world to speak to them? Do you wait for them to call? Do you continue being silent in your own world, Or do you wait for each night to finally sleep ,to know you'll see their face, be able to speak freely knowing there won't be any consequence, knowing they are ok. I did stop thinking about that person in reality. I tried to stop worrying. But now in my subconscious they will remain. For the reason being is unknown. But I hope there is a purpose. Wether it's their heart seeking forgiveness, wanting a second chance for a new meaning, unfinished business or just plain missing your soul. I just hope they know , that I know. I've always known. And I always will know.

Don’t be afraid.

If you have something to say.

I'm willing to hear.

But If I don't hear from you in reality.

I will speak with you in the dreamscape.

S.T