#you see the seven heavenly virtues are like the opposites of the seven deadly sins

[autisticfoxgirl333]

[twola]

you mentioned wanting some smutty prompts; how about the opposite of Seven Deadly Sins?

what about Seven Heavenly Virtues with a high honor!Arthur and an F!reader getting into all kinds of NSFW shenanigans, except filled with turmoil and drama as i imagine a high honor Arthur wouldn't want to impose at first... 👀

Oh! I have thought about this in the past - this isn’t going to be anywhere near as ambitious as that, but here is a drabble post with the seven capital virtues.

Virtuous

High-honor Arthur Morgan x Younger F!Reader Smut (18+), MDNI

➵ Fic Masterlist ➵ AO3 Link

At least with you, he will try to be a good man. It doesn't come naturally, of course.

Chastity: the state or practice of refraining from extramarital, or especially from all, sexual intercourse.

You’re drunk. Rip-roaring drunk. Stumbling drunk. But on a night like tonight, you blend in. Tonight liquor is flowing and the mood is jovial: little Jack is back in his mother’s arms and for once in the past several months, everything seems like it’s going to be okay.

You aren’t as drunk as Karen, god, that’s a good thing, her drinking is getting a bit out of control.  But you’re drunk enough to be troublesome.

You’re drunk enough to sneak away and climb into Arthur Morgan’s bed. He’s important enough that he’s gotten his own room, and as Javier belts out another refrain in Spanish, you sneak away and creep upstairs in the old plantation house, into Arthur’s room. The oil lantern casts shadows in the room, over shelves of ammunition, knives, and a map stretched out on a table. 

You sway slightly, moving toward the bed. You’re not sure you’ve ever been this drunk before. 

What you do know is how you’ve been watching him for months, probably since you joined this gang, nursing an infatuation for Dutch’s top gun. You know he’s older - you’re not much past twenty yourself, but it is him you see when you shut your eyes and touch yourself on lonely nights.

Kicking off your shoes, you crawl into his bed, pulling the sheet over yourself. Somehow, the whiskey in your belly burns in a smoldering frustration - you want him, you want him, and damnit, you’re going to do something about it.

Arthur returns to his room much later in the night, smelling like cigars and whiskey.  He pauses, for a moment, seeing a huddled form in his bed, but quickly relaxes, taking his hat from his head and placing it on the shelf atop a box of rifle cartridges.

“What are you doin’ up here, little lady?” He asks in a patient tone, unwinding his gunbelt from his hips, spreading it over the map on the table.

“Waitin’ fer you, Mister Morgan.”

Arthur sits on the edge of the bed, “What could you possibly be waitin’ for me for?”

You push yourself to sit up on your elbows. “How come you don’t have a lady, Arthur?”

He snorts, smirking slightly and shaking his head while pulling one of his boots off, “None would have me, Miss.”

“I would.”

Arthur stops, turning around and looking at you.

“Little lady, you’ve had quite a bit to drink tonight. Talkin’ all sorts of silliness.” 

You shake your head, your hair falling out of its messy braid, you reach over toward his arm, placing your small hand upon it, “I- I know I’m young, Arthur, but I could make y’so happy- ‘nd -”

A hiccup interrupts your confession. Arthur’s confidence is not inspired, as he turns back toward his other boot, sliding it off as it tumbles to the floor.

“ -’ nd, - and I know I could keep y’satisfied.” You punctuate the last word by running your hand from his forearm up his bicep to his shoulder, gently rubbing at it.

The liquor in your system has removed any sense of propriety from your mind. Every tawdry fantasy of Arthur Morgan you’ve had in the past months runs through your head, and now here you are, in his bed, practically propositioning him.

“Darlin’, this ain’t a good idea.”

You pull your hand back like you’ve touched a hot stove. “D’ya… d’ya not want me?”

He turns again, moving one of his legs onto the bed, and faces you fully as he takes a deep breath. “Sweetheart - I…that’s not…”

“I can go, I’m sorry, I’ll not bother-” You stumble over your words, trying to crawl out of bed.

His large hand on your thigh stops your forward motion. It also stops all coherent thought in your head.

“I ain’t gonna take advantage of you with you near fallin’ over drunk, little lady. But ‘course, course I want you - I don’t know why a pretty young thing like you would want an old man like me for.”

“Arthur-” You whine, and he blinks as seemingly all of his blood rushes to his groin at the needy sound of your voice.

“Y’need to get some sleep, then we can talk about this.”

“In the morning?” You ask, and he gently takes both of your shoulders and guides you down to lie in his bed.

“We can talk about it in the mornin’. After you’ve slept this off, alrigh’?” 

“Promise?”

“Yes, darlin’. I promise.”

You take that to be enough and settle down in his bed to sleep. Arthur sighs, watching as you quickly drift off, and stands up, pulling an old chair next to the bed and sitting down in it. He runs his hand down his beard and stares at the cracked and stained ceiling of the room.

Christ, the girl in his bed was close to fifteen years younger than him. He shouldn’t be entertaining this at all, for her sake. Dirty old man…

But still, he did have a soft spot for the smiles you give him. The sway of your narrow hips as you walk in camp, the shine of your long hair, the freckles that have developed on your face, and decolletage under the Lemoyne sun…

And here you were, in his bed, pleading with him to sleep together.

Arthur crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in the chair, knowing that for your sake, he had to be a better man.

Temperance: the quality of moderation or self-restraint.

The sunlight on your eyelids makes you scrounge your nose, and your eyes slowly flutter open. Your head pounds, but you blink yourself into self-awareness, realizing everything you said and did last night was not, indeed, a dream.

Arthur is sleeping in the chair next to the bed and nods awake when he hears you moving.

“How’re you feeling, little lady? Seems like you had quite a bit to drink last night.”

You rub your forehead, avoiding eye contact with him, a vibrant blush settling on your cheeks as you sit up. 

“I c’n go get you some coffee.” Arthur stands up, moving toward the bed to put his boots on. At that moment, you decide to go for broke, reaching out to grab his arm.

“Mm?” Arthur hums, turning toward you. Your eyes flit from his, down to his lips, and you unconsciously lick your own. With the newfound courage of a woman with nothing to lose, you surge forward and press your lips against his. He is surprised and doesn’t respond for a moment, but after recollecting his wits, he turns fully toward you and wraps one of his arms around you.

You pull back, your eyes still looking downward. “I think we agreed that we was gonna talk.”

“We did,” Arthur says, but he leans in to press his lips against yours, his tongue brushing along the seam of your lips, demanding entrance. You sigh, leaning into him and allowing him so. His lips are chapped, but still soft, as his large arm winds around you.

It’s several moments like this, mouths moving against each other, until you maneuver yourself nearly into his lap, clutching at him desperately.

You pant into his mouth, reaching toward the button on his trousers. His hand catches yours, however, and a groan rumbles from deep in his chest.

“Arthur -” You whine, you feel your bloomers wet against your skin, and you’re sure that he’s hard in his trousers. 

“C’mon now, sweetheart.” He grits out, pressing you away from him in the bed.

You pout, “You said we would talk about this in the morning.”

“I reckon we better start talkin’ then. Don’t think we were doin’ much talkin’ there.” 

Patience: the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.

Arthur was a busy man. As the lead enforcer of the gang, he was one of the men who brought in the most money - he could be very convincing at the end of a shotgun.

You knew Arthur did what he had to do: it kept you fed, clothed, cared for. 

You were also annoyed that you’d barely seen him for a week: frankly, since that morning after Jack’s return, he’s been in and out of camp at Dutch’s beck and call. Only around to give you sweet kisses behind crumbling columns or trees draped with Spanish moss. 

When you do get the chance, you clutch at him as if you could make him stay, pressing your tongue into his mouth, trying to pull him downward. It is really somewhat laughable, as he could toss you over his shoulder one-handed should he choose.

But he doesn’t choose.

He does pull you away after several moments, usually after the soft moan has escaped your mouth and you’ve pressed yourself against him.

“Patience, little lady. Ain’t no one ever tell you the best things come to those who wait?”

You pout back at him, deciding not to tell him how you’ve snuck into his room and touched yourself in his bed at night.

Diligence: having or showing care and conscientiousness in one's work or duties.

The afternoon heat hung low, sweat breaking out on the back of your neck as you rushed toward the back of the old plantation house, hiking up your skirts as you bound down the stairs of the back porch while no one is around. Bolting toward the old dockhouse, you grin as you see Arthur’s horse grazing in the fields at the back of the property.

He’s standing there, whisps of smoke drifting upward from the cigarette hanging from his lips. Leaning against a cypress tree eyes out on the horizon over the waters of the Lanaheechee.

He hears you coming, why wouldn’t he, you’re bowling through like a bull in a china shop. Arthur turns right as you come up to him, nearly launching yourself at him in delight.

“Whoa there, gonna run straight into the water now.” Arthur smiles, his hands on your shoulders.

You press forward into his embrace. “I knew you’d catch me.”

He snorts lightly, his arms moving to wrap around your small waist.

“Y’ready to get away for a bit?”

You look up at him, a head and a half taller than you, beaming, “Really?”

“Reckon I’ve done enough jobs to earn an afternoon off. C’mon, let's get out of here.”

He winds his arm around your shoulder and starts walking the two of you toward his horse. 

“Where we goin’?” You ask as you reach the mare, and Arthur swings you up to sit on the horse’s rump. He taps your leg lightly.

“You’ll see, little lady.”

Charity: aid given to those in need

The picnic in the meadow outside Bolger Glade did not last long. A few canned peaches were consumed before you crawled into Arthur’s lap and drew him into a kiss.

This time, finally, he does not push you away as you press against him. Indeed, he does the exact opposite. He rolls you beneath him, flat out on the blanket, and moves his lips from yours down your neck, suckling gently at the skin there, before his hand ducks downward to gather your skirts up, fingers trailing up your legs underneath the cotton.

“Y’want this?” He pants in your ear as his rough fingers press against your bloomers, and all you can do is whine needily in acquiescence. 

He pulls your bloomers down, down your thighs, down past your knees, and tosses them to the side before sliding his hand up your skirts again. You cling to his shoulders, eyes fluttering shut as a high moan as he touches your skin. 

Arthur rubs in gentle circles against your folds, and your breath loudly hitches as one of his fingers pauses near your opening for but a moment before sliding inside. 

Hopefully, you’re far enough from the road not to bring attention to the two of you, because you’re having an increasingly hard time keeping quiet, thrusting your face against his shoulder to muffle your sounds, especially when he slides another finger into your wet warmth.

It's only a few moments more before you keen, mewling into the linen of his shirt as he whispers sweet nothings in your ear: good girl, that’s it.

“Let me… let me make you feel good,” You pant, reaching for the buckle of his pants as you regain some of your wherewithal.

He gently swats your hand away.

“Hush, I ain’t done with you yet.”

You want to scream aloud when his head disappears under your skirts and you feel his tongue press against your cunt.

Humility:  a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness.

You moan into his neck as you roll your hips in his lap, his hands spread wide over the globes of your rear and he pants in return, grinding you against the hardness in his pants.

“Fuck,”  he swears, and lays you down on the blanket, looming over you, hands reaching to undo the buttons of his trousers. “Y’ready?”

“Y-yes.” You shiver, opening your legs for him and starting to pull your skirts up, uncovering inch by inch of your inner thighs up to the thatch of dark hair shrouding your cunt.

Your breath hitches as he fully opens his pants, about to pull his length from them.

Arthur stops, looking at you, studying your eyes, your face, before frowning. “You’ve never done this before.”

He leans back up onto his knees, shaking his head. You rocket up in concern, afraid he’s going to leave, god, that would break your damn heart.

“Tell me the truth.” He asks, his tone firm.

You shake your head and Arthur sighs, staring down at his hands in his lap, the swollen tenting of his half-opened trousers, his cock still steel hard.

“I - I ain’t worthy of this honor, darlin’. Y- you should have a far better person than me bein’ your first.” Arthur says, one hand moving to redo the buttons of his pants.

“No,” You cry out forcefully, grabbing his hand, “I want it to be you, Arthur.”

“Little lady-”

You interrupt, grasping his hand in your own and interlacing your fingers. “You’re kind, and you’re wonderful, and I know you ain’t gonna hurt me.”

You lay back on the blanket, your hair fanning out, and still holding his hand, you pull him toward you. Arthur closes his eyes, visibly struggling with himself.

“I-”

He trails off, and after several moments, his eyes flutter open again. You’re spread out beneath him, his knees framed by your open legs, your face flushed, your cunt wet and needy and ready for him.

“Arthur. I want it to be you.” You say, with more force behind your voice.

He breaks.

“Alright, sweetheart… Alright.”

Kindness: the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.

Arthur pulls his cock from his pants, stroking himself several times, and as you watch him, your hand moves down between your legs, touching your glistening folds as he grunts in approval. After several moments, he looks back at you, a serious heaviness in his eyes.

“You tell me if it hurts - you hear that?” “Yes,” you whine, gasping as he moves over you, placing his elbows on either side of your head, capturing your lips as he presses his length against your core, parting your folds, gently jutting his hips back and forth, covering himself with your slick. 

The head of his cock hits that bundle of nerves and you moan loudly into his mouth, and he jolts against you, pressing his length even harder against the seam of your body.

He curses against your lips, pressing himself up with one arm, balancing on his other forearm, as he reaches down between you to grasp the base of his cock. He slowly pulls it down, down the seam of you until the head catches at your weeping opening. He presses in slightly, enough so that he can move his hand, and immediately moves up to cradle your cheek. His thumb traces your jawline for a moment, his blue eyes flutter as he begins to press forward.

Your breath escapes you as you throw your arms around his neck, his flesh splitting you open - it does hurt, but god, if he were to stop, your heart might hurt even more. He’s about halfway in when he starts peppering kisses over your brow, his thumb drawing gentle circles over your cheek.

“Y’okay?” He asks, his voice not more than a whisper.

“Yes, please… please.” You plead, unable to articulate any further.

Arthur groans, pressing completely inside you, his girthy cock fully seated, and he remains still as your fingers dig into his shoulders, his work shirt saving his skin from your nails.

After a few moments, you unclench your hands, one moving up his neck to grasp the ends of his short hair. “Arthur,” you moan, in a high, flighty voice that gives him permission to move.

He slowly, gently, retracts his hips from yours, and then presses back forward, intently watching your face for any twinge of pain. When he sees none, he repeats the process a little faster. And again, a little faster.

You gasp and whine in tune with his thrusts, and finally, he lets out a groaning whimper after he’s sure you’re enjoying it. “God, you’re so tight, squeezin’ me like this-”

You mewl as he lowers himself completely over you, your ankles crossing over his lower back. The sounds coming from your mouth edge on obscene, as Arthur thrusts into your accepting body over and over again.

“That’s it, that’s it, c’mon, darlin’, let go.” He grunts into your ear, nuzzling against the side of your head.

You cry out, your back arching up as you convulse around him, crying his name in absolute adoration.

Arthur presses his forehead against yours, gritting his teeth and screwing his eyes shut as he thrusts a handful of more times before pulling himself from you, reaching down and stroking his cock as he finishes, his spend coating his fingers and dripping to the blanket beneath you.

He pants, leaning on his side as he lowers his hip to lay beside you, your legs falling open. He kisses your forehead, one of his large hands pulling your skirts down over your knees and thighs as you catch your own breath.

“Good for ya?” He rumbles, his hand finding purchase on your soft belly.

You open your eyes, smiling up at him. The sunlight pours through the tree you rest under on the warm afternoon.

“You’re so good for me, Arthur.”

[coulrobotomy]

The "Virtue Chick": Heaven's Seven Heavenly Virtues?

So I know damn well I'm not the first to notice this but I want to talk about it anyway.

Adam mentions banging a "virtue chick". Not "virtuous" but "virtue" or perhaps rather "Virtue". Does this imply that Heaven has seven entities that correspond with the Seven Deadly Sins of Hell?

For those that don't know, the Seven Heavenly Virtues are a real theological concept, and they are:

Chastity (the opposite of Lust)

Temperance (the opposite of Gluttony)

Charity (the opposite of Greed)

Diligence (the opposite of Sloth)

Kindness (the opposite of Envy)

Patience (the opposite of Wrath)

Humility (the opposite of Pride)

As far as I know these virtues don't have specific theological entities that correspond with them like the sins do. The only sources I can find that say otherwise are TVTropes and a fictional wiki, which assign the virtues to the Seven Archangels, which I doubt would be depicted as women in the show. But I could see characters based on the Seven Heavenly Virtues existing. Maybe these Virtues will appear in the future?

Either way, they could be a fun opportunity for fans to design some new characters! I might take a shot at it eventually.

What do you think? Any ideas as to what they'd be like? I think it'd be cute if they corresponded the Sins in some way.

Edit: After looking into this more, it looks like some people have pointed this out already on the wiki, and others have theorized that such a thing could happen even before the show came out! The wiki notes that "Virtue" is also a classification of angel, so it's unclear what Adam meant. I still think it would be fun to see counterparts for the Sins, though, fanmade or otherwise!

[chaifootsteps]

I'm so glad that Viv, at least so far and hopefully never, hasn't tried to tackle the seven heavenly virtues, the opposite of the seven deadly sins. In the hands of a better writer, it could've been interesting to see Charlie trying to work directly with them with redeeming sinners.

Can you imagine Viv trying to fumble her way through concepts like temperance, charity, and kindness? She's proven time and time again that she doesn't know how to live them or write them.

(Seriously, she fails so consistently at having characters be decent to one other in small, simple ways that matter. Maybe one or two times out of every ten they'll sincerely be there for each other when the chips are down, but you can tell that she's just...bad at empathy.)

[angelofthenight]

Closer To God Pt.1

(John Doe x Fem!Reader) Part 2

Warnings: Yandere, Innocent!Reader, Dark themes, Language (+ use of cvnt and c0ck), Religious themes/mentions, Sexual themes/context, Sexual sadism, Stalking, Jealousy/Possessiveness, Obsession, Murder/Torture, Ignoring your instincts, Violence/Blood/Gore, Unwanted/Non-Con touching, Kidnapping

Word Count: 5.6k

( A/N: I literally hate Kevin Spacey sm but I love John Doe as a character and thought he would be a terrifying yet interesting yandere )

~

“You eating lunch today, John?”

John Doe looked up from his paperwork to see your head peeking over the cubicle with a soft smile planted on your delicate lips.

“I’m not sure yet.” He answered simply.

You jabbed a thumb over your shoulder. “I’m going to pick up some pierogies from that new diner down the road. Want me to bring you anything?” You asked kindly, the gentle light in your eyes making his steady heart rate skip multiple beats.

You always had that effect on him, from waking him up on his most tired days to warming his desolated chest like a burst of fire in a freezing cabin stuck in the middle of a harsh winter. It still was so strange to him.

From the first moment he laid eyes on you on the subway train, something changed in him. There was just something about you. And he had no idea what. At first, he thought the reason why you stood out to him so much was perhaps because you were something that needed to be disposed of, that God was signaling that you were the most sinful of all.

So he began to stalk you, to follow you through every street and into every building, to peek through any crack into your home. He tried to pinpoint your sins. But he couldn’t find any.

You were too humble and shy to be prideful. You were too generous to be greedy. You had too much abstinence to be gluttonous, too much perseverance to be a sloth. You were too content and grateful and happy with your life for envy. You were a naturally joyful person, rarely ever getting wrathful and having lots of self control. And as far as John could see, you never seeked out sex. Instead, you kept your lust to yourself and your own hand. Those were the nights John felt the need to stay and watch you a little longer.

He almost didn’t believe it. In this shitty, soul-draining city how could someone like you live so wholesomely. John was a natural pessimist, he almost didn’t accept that you were actually a genuinely good person and that behind closed doors you never revealed any vile part of yourself. If he judged you on your worst day it would probably just be you honking at someone in traffic or not thanking your coffee barista on a bad morning. Your actions in life could be mistaken as truly biblical.

It was as if you were the embodiment of the seven heavenly virtues, the opposite of the seven deadly sins. You weren’t human, you couldn’t have been. There was a sinner in everyone. But not you.

You were an angel. Divinity personified, goodness materialized, the incarnation of sanctity, the epitome of grace, a model of holiness, the essence of purity; a blessed being. An earthbound seraph trapped within the confinement of a human body. A very, very lovely body.

That was the reason why you had caught his eye so easily on that subway train that one gloomy, rainy morning. It was as if you were radiating a golden light off of you, rays of your ethereal aura shooting through his barren chest making him… feel things. Things that were foreign to him. Things that seemed to act up most when you were around, or when you simply just visited his mind.

This was a dangerous and unforgivably cruel world that you lived in, he had to protect you. He had to. No one else could ever comprehend how rare you were, how fragile you were, how easy it would be to grab your dainty little wrist and snap it like a twig.

God had sent you to him for a reason. You needed him. But far, far tucked beneath his delusions and obsessions, he just wanted you. All of you, everything you had to offer or didn’t realize you even had. He had to have you. No matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice. He had to have you, all for himself.

So he had taken the unneeded job at your place of work. It was a pathetic little office desk job but you seemed to be positively at peace with it. To most, it may seem like it was by pure chance that you two were desk neighbors but to John it was fate. Fate crafted by the hands of the Father himself.

He got to see you, up close, every single day. And sooner than later, due to your lighthearted sociable nature, he got to talk with you every single day. Even though he always responded very dryly with uninteresting answers, he took in every little thing you would say to him. Inhaling it and mentally digesting it, later writing it all down as if he was trying to write your biography.

Unbeknownst to him, you never paid him much mind. He was just your desk neighbor, the man on the other side of the cubicle. You hadn’t even noticed his daily gloves or bandaged fingers. But you still liked your office neighbor. For so long that chair was empty which left you feeling more isolated and your days started to blend together. But now you had someone to briefly converse with to pass the time, and if you started to get tired or lonely all you had to do was peek over the divider for some company.

You had no idea you brought out the worst sins in him.

He was greedy with you, wanting you all to himself with no else being allowed to interact, look, touch, or even think about you. He was envious of the men you clearly liked socializing with and who made you laugh, knowing he could never be like them so casually. He was wrathful when anybody had the disgusting audacity to talk to you in such a discourteous or graceless manner, especially the regional manager’s insolence with you.

And he was filled with lust more times than he’d like to admit, essentially after every encounter. He just couldn’t fight it. Not with the way your intoxicating eyes would look down at him when you would stand to peer over the cubicle. Your diaphanous lips spreading into a smile meant for his eyes only. Your voice like warm honey oozing down into his ears causing tingles to erupt beneath his skin. The skin exposed on your body appearing so soft he was close to reaching out to caress it occasionally. Your legs, your thighs, your hips, your waist, your breasts, your neck, your hair, your hands, it all drove him wild. Even the scent of you straight waves of heat down to his pelvis.

And his sinful lust was at its most carnivorous when he would hide in your walls and watch through the holes he secretly made as you laid in your bed, your head thrown back with one hand gripping the sheets and one hand buried past your clit.

And as John intently watched you pleasure yourself without your awareness, it was times like these when John would wonder what you would look like underneath him, chest to chest and mouth to mouth and genital to genital.

He would wonder what those lustrous eyes of yours would look like filling up with thick tears. How those elegant lips would look trembling or even being widened as he would shove his tongue down your throat. How your voice would sound as a sloppy mess of dirty moans and screams of pain. How your naked skin would feel against his own and how your skin would feel if he gripped onto it hard; how fast your skin would bruise.

How your legs would feel wrapped around him or even trying to fight him off. How your bare breasts would feel squished against his hairy chest or trapped in his groping hands. How your neck would feel tightly within his hand as he squeezed, or being bitten by his fake teeth. Your hair tangled in his printless fingers, tugging on the locks. Your hands tied together above your head with red silk, unable to wiggle out of them. How your juicy thighs would feel in his kneading hands or pressing into the sides of his face as he devoured you.

And how your cunt would feel in his fingers, on his tongue, and around his cock. And how it would react to everything he wanted to do to it. And he couldn’t help but wonder what scents he would discover out of all this, especially what your climax would smell like, and your tears… and maybe your blood.

“That’s alright. Don’t worry ‘bout me.” John responded easily to your offer, a ghost of a smile pricking upon his lips.

You nodded in a polite way, a caring expression engraved in your features, before stepping out of your area and walking down the hall in pursuit of the elevator. His eyes followed your form as if gravity wouldn’t allow his pupils to stray from you. Now everyday most days he would follow you to wherever you’d go for lunch or your break or an errand, but today he was feeling trustful of you and your abilities to make it back to him safely. Just as you would under his secret supervision.

It was over two hours, a little longer than your typical lunch runs, when you had finally returned to the office and took a seat at your desk. He noted your mood was more upbeat than before you left. You weren’t very far into your meal before your desk phone rang, you picking it up as soon as you could. “Hello, (Y/n) (L/n) speaking. How can I help you?” You asked with a merry warmness to your naturally cordial voice. Quite literally heaven teasing his ears every time John got to hear you.

However, his eavesdropping created a dark atmosphere around him as he heard you giddily giggle from the other side of the cubicle, hearing you say something among the lines of “I gave you this number for emergencies only”. He could hear your bright smile.

You whispered a string of ‘bye’s in a joyful, flustered manner before placing the phone back down. John waited a few beats before speaking up to you. “Is that clingy customer bothering you again?” He asked with a soft monotone, already knowing the answer.

John knew you were absentmindedly shaking your head despite the wall concealing your reaction. “Oh, no. That guy doesn’t call me anymore.” You replied back. Perhaps because the customer who repeatedly called you with unpalatable flirtatious advances, despite your repetitive polite declining and lack of interest, was now rotting away inside a sewn up mattress; his own severed penis shoved down his own throat.

“I just ran into an old friend at the diner. We’re gonna start catching up.” You said with a twinge of gleefulness in your undertone. He could still hear your smile. He hadn’t noticed the pen snapping within his hand until he felt the ink drip down his palm.

Of course the one time he didn’t look after you, someone had stolen your mind and infected it. He was running out of time, out of time to make you his. The corrupt world was slowly closing in on you and you hadn’t a clue. The devilish sinners that so casually walked the streets were going to taint you, destroy you and your saintly innocence if he didn’t do something.

You were the bright and shining sun, the light in the distance of John’s darkness. And just like anybody would do, he knew he had to get to that light before it potentially went out.

But he needed to be patient. Perhaps you wouldn’t be so oblivious and naive this time and you’d see yourself how much of a scumbag that old friend truly was. The next day at work everything was seemingly normal, and the day after was the same as well. John felt his deranged worries minimize. That was until the very next day.

“Hey, John?” You meekly said as your head popped up over the edge of the cubicle. John had turned to you to face your kindly apologetic expression. “Sorry to bother you but do you happen to know if Ivy's Table is a fancy restaurant or a casual one?” You asked with a cutely confused tone of voice. Well, John would have fonded over your cute tone if your question hadn’t made his pulse twitch.

“What do you mean?” He asked in that gentle stoic tone of his own voice. A tone that to you was just soft and gently relaxed, but to others it was creepily emotionless. But that was just how you saw him through your unintentional rose colored glasses, that he was just a zen man with soft facial expressions. If only your poor soul knew…

A smile you tried to fight stretched across your face in excitement. “I have a date tonight,” you bit your lip in nervousness, “but I’m not sure if the restaurant we’re going to is fancy or not. I don’t know how nice I should dress.”

A date? A fucking date?

How could you let yourself be manipulated and brainwashed into such a custom with a nugatory sleazebag. No, it wasn’t your fault. It was never your fault, John could never bring himself to blame you for your innocent righteousness and guilelessness. You couldn’t help your own gullibleness and how easily you trusted the deceiving barbarians around you. That was why he had devoted himself to protecting you from this vile society in the first place.

But he had failed to preserve you, you proving to not be able to fend for yourself and falling for the very first trap aimed at you the single day he had not been there for you. He had to correct his mistake. He couldn’t let whatever savage you considered an old friend and now potential suitor get their filthy hands on you. He wanted to slam his forehead down onto a hammer when the mere thought of you within the grasp of anyone other than himself cursed his mind.

He was not going to allow that. He would rather burn his beloved bible with a flamethrower than see that happen; he would rather explode the world around him than see that happen.

But he gave you a truthful answer. “I think it’s more on the formal side.” Your eyes lit up, softly shaking your head as confirmation. “Ok, thank you!” Then you dipped back behind the wall, leaving John as his body temperature raised and an unsteady, inconsistent breathing pattern huffed through his nose. His fists tightened on his desk, knuckles turning white and blue veins bulging beneath his pale skin.

~

The very next day you had showed up to work with an obvious shifted and drained mood. A solemn frown took the place of your ebullient grin. A gloomy silence in your throat rather than the bubbly morning greetings to your coworkers. Your lively, upbeat eyes were replaced with a tired gaze, pink puffiness circling them. You were so downcasted and crestfallen, you didn’t even greet John with your daily “good morning”.

Part of him was bitter over your reaction, not knowing how you could care so much about some wicked waste of a human. But a stronger part of him had spread a smug smile across his face over the sound of your light sniffles. A very smug one.

John smoothly rolled his chair around the cubicle to enter your space, for the first time ever. You were hunched over your desk with one hand rubbing over both your eyes. “Is everything alright?” John’s voice softly reached your ears, making you turn to see him. “Yeah, yeah.” You instinctively answered. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I figure the date didn’t go well?” He asked.

Your rare frown deepened as your eyes casted down to the carpeted floor. “No. The date didn’t even happen. He never showed and left me waiting there for hours. I’ve called him seventeen times and he never answers.” You pursed your lips that threatened to quiver together, slightly shaking your head. “But this is just… so unlike him. He’s not that kind of person at all. We were really close all four years of highschool since we had the same friend group. And he was a very anxious guy so he was always earlier than on time with anything he did, especially dates.” You finally looked up towards John, revealing the gloss in your eyes. “Has he really changed that much over the years and only asked me on a date for some narcissistic joke?”

Those eyes. Those eyes of yours were still caged within the barbed wire of his desire, his unwavering and unhealthy desire. And he knew he would set fire to the world around him just to have you. “He probably recognized the gap between your status’ as humans and knew his place.” John spoke with a masked consoling tone.

Your heavy frown relaxed and softened, not from comfort though. Quite the opposite. Sudden unsettlement weighed over you from how he said those words. You had nothing but good things to say about your desk neighbor John and you never once felt uncomfortable around the man or felt unsafe in his presence. But just now, for the first time ever, you felt something pinch in you. And it wasn’t a good feeling.

It felt like the quietest little siren blaring off in your head, flashing red. You felt as if someone had opened a window and a cold breeze just blew onto your back and neck, hollow chills skidding down your spine and your shoulders feeling colder.

The worst mistake you ever made was brushing off that feeling.

~

The end of the day had come to end the shifts of everyone who left in the office, dusk about to creep up to fade through the sky as the sun was setting. No matter how much of a headstart you got, you always ended up being the last one to pack up all your materials and leave. Your coworkers around you began leaving one by one, bidding you amicable goodbye’s and goodnight’s and an occasional “see you tomorrow”. If only they knew they wouldn’t see you tomorrow.

You shoved the last of your stuff you needed at home into your bag before rising to your tired feet, your droopy eyes glancing out the big window in the office to see dusk fading into the sky to create beautiful hues. It was a beautiful site, especially from the view of your office on one of the higher levels of the building. And after every shift you would admire the twilight landscape with a pleasant sense of cherishing the simple beautiful things in life. But tonight was different. And you didn’t know what it was, but something didn’t feel right.

The dark sky only gave you a sinking and haunting feeling, an intuition tempting you to not leave the building on this dark night. But you made another stupid decision and told yourself your mood was only disquiet because of your failed date yesterday. So you continued your end-of-shift routine and moved yourself in pursuit of punching your little card to clock out. You rounded the corner only to jump at the sight of John just finishing clocking out.

You forced a neighborly, benign chuckle past your uneasiness. “Oh, John, you scared me. I thought you went home already.” You said, trying to steady your frail voice. John slowly looked over to you and shrugged, motioning towards the briefcase in his hand. “I had a few documents I needed to print out.”

You slightly nodded and once he moved out of the way you shoved your card into the small machine to stamp the time and date on your card. You focused on restraining the shake in your hands as you felt John’s eyes still on you.

“Your friend.” John spoke up from beside you. “His name wouldn’t happen to be Doug Hopper, would it?” Your eyes widened and you snapped your head to him. “It… is, actually. You know him?” John faintly nodded. “He’s my neighbor. You could come by quickly to see him.”

That siren went off in your head again, the red flashes practically blinding your vision.

But your eagerness to see Doug was too strong, and that was how you found yourself now following John down the hall of a dark and coarse apartment building. Your nerves had amplified a disturbing amount since you were in the office building and that was when you had begun to heavily regret coming here, feeling as if you had no escape. You didn’t walk too far behind John but you also didn’t get too close to him. He finally led you to a door, stopping in front of it and briefly turning to you.

You wanted to leave, you wanted to turn around and run as fast as you could. Your heart was pumping so fast you feared it may burst apart. And the fact was you were so absorbed in your own anxious apprehension that you didn’t even think about what you would say to Doug. Because that became the least of your worries.

You watched as John pulled out a key from his back pocket and plugged it into the doorknob, now all the alarms in your body and conscience were going off like you were stuck in a room with multiple alarm clocks intensely going off. And this time you didn’t have the strength to ignore them. “John. I…” You wrapped your arms around yourself tightly, a sick nausea sinking into your stomach. “I don’t know about this. I think I’m just gonna go home. It’s late anyway.” You spoke in a meek, fearful voice as your eyes casted down.

Your pupils looked up to get John’s response. He only smugly smiled as he unlocked the door, turning the knob all the slightest. “Don’t you trust me?” He asked with a complacent tone lacing through his dry voice that used to comfort you but now only brought disquietude. He, without receiving your answer or confirmation, pushed the door the rest of the way open.

You had so many questions that desperately needed to be answered, like why he had a key and why he was just going to waltz in unannounced. But it was as if your fear had rendered you mute, stealing all words from your throat and leaving behind a thick lump you just couldn’t swallow away.

He stood at the door frame, waiting for you to go in first. Which you hesitantly and foolishly did. You slowly walked into the apartment, it would’ve been pitch black dark if it wasn’t for the open door at the end of the hall that allowed the light from its room to emit a glow. You carefully moved down the hall, your heart pounding and your head beginning to feel dazed, your eyes locked on that open room.

When you reached the doorway of the lit up bathroom, your shaking small-pupiled eyes caved in on the bathtub on the other side of the room. Red reflected around the rim of it but you were too far away to see what was inside. Your suspense and naive curiosity overpowered your intellect as you took slow, steady steps toward the tub.

Once you reached it and looked down into the tub, your heart pulsated and was eaten by a palpitation; a beating that rang in your ears almost deafeningly. The realization of the reality of the horrific sight you were seeing hit you way too slowly, your reaction painfully being stretched out as your breath finally hitched from how terror gripped around you like King Kong’s fist.

The tub was filled with crimson blood as Doug’s body laid in it, his upper body widely torn open from his Adam's apple to his pelvis. His insides were on complete display but all his organs had been removed, only his ribs and spine remaining. His head was laid back over the edge, his skin a ghostly pale and his eyes wide open along with his blue lips parted. He was just an empty carcass bathing in his own blood.

Heavy tears sat in the corners of your eyes painfully, like if they fell then you would share the same fate as the one in front of you. Your watering eyes shook terribly as you couldn’t separate them from the sickening, gorey site. Your mouth was hung open and one sharp inhale triggered an agonized sob to escape from your burning throat. Hot tears finally cascaded down your face as your features trembled terribly. You never felt such raw horror before in your once optimistic life. You were direfully shell-shocked.

You physically tensed up once you felt a hand touch your upper back, John stepping up to stand beside you as he looked down at the body as well. “Don’t cry over this scum, he doesn’t deserve your tears.” He spoke in a soft, calm voice as he looked at the gruesome corpse with little to no emotion. He pointed down to the mutilated chest. “See? He doesn’t even have a heart.”

Your lips quivered uncontrollably like you were freezing cold. “...Why? Why would you do this?” Your voice was hoarse and quiet; weak. John tilted his head, still looking down. He thought for a bit. “I’m doing this out of love, I suppose.”

Your brows furrowed together with a slight curve upwards, slightly shaking your head as your wide lachrymose eyes were still glued down to the tub. “This is not love.” John sighed, “I don’t expect you to understand. At least not yet.”

You choked on another sob, finally tearing your leaking eyes off the corpse to look over to John whose composure was eerily way too calm. You were visibly shaking. “You’re insane.” Even your voice was shaking. You were just utterly terrified beyond what you could handle.

John finally looked up at you, removing his hand from your back as his once blank expression shifted to one of irked offense. “Insane? I’m insane?!” His voice grew louder, making you flinch from every raised pitch. “Do you know what’s truly insane? This world that insists on keeping you away from me! It’s insane that you let humanoid monsters like this sinner attempt to corrupt you! Attempt to touch you in any way! It’s insane that they think they even have the right to do that!”

You instinctively took a step back from him, but it was like he had read your mind as he instantly took a step towards you. “I would rather kill you myself than see you with anyone else! No matter what happens, I will never let anyone have you.” His blazing anger finally pitched down but you still took another step back, prompting him to take another step forward.

“Without you… I'm… nothing. I feel nothing without you.” He spoke with sick, feverish admiration laced within his features and eyes. You had taken another step away but your back had hit the wall. You were caged and cornered like an animal intended to be prey. Your limbs were shivering and tears still spilled out of your wide eyes.

John looked your fear-stricken form up and down before a small smile spread his lips. He said with a smug tone, “I hope you realize the more scared you are, the more excited I get.”

You looked his skinny figure up and down as well, weighing your options in your head. You could take him. And thus, thinking impulsively from the pressure of your own terror, you lunged your fist across his face and roughly shoved at his chest before making a run for it.

You couldn’t tell if you were too slow or your punch was too weak, but John had tackled you against the wall just before you got a close enough chance to escape the bathroom. You tried to throw hits at him but he shoved his body against yours so that you were painfully squished against the wall and him; caged. He shoved his leg in between yours and his hands pinned your arms against the wall with his nails digging into your forearms, earning hissing winces of pain from you.

“What a wicked way to treat me, the person who loves you, like this.” He said in between your ear and neck as you struggled and squirmed against him. “I just want to protect you. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

You wanted to respond with something hateful but you froze in your position from the sound and vague feeling of his nose slightly caressing the crook of your neck while inhaling deeply through his nose. “Wh-what are you d-doing?” Your voice said in between breathy sobs, your legs and arms still trembling.

“I’ve just realized,” John began, “I’ve never got to feel you before.” The hands that squeezed your forearms slowly began to massage your skin, the bandages on his fingertips feeling like sickening velvet. Wiggling his leg lightly between your inner thighs, pressing his chest closer to yours as his warm breath dusted onto your neck. You squeezed your tear filled eyes shut in wild discomfort. “This is the closest we’ve ever physically been.” He breathed out.

A meter was the minimum of space that had ever been between you, and now he was pressed up against you, not even a millimeter of air left between you. It sent blood to his already flushed cheeks and straight down to where his khaki pants began to strain; an erotic euphoria bubbling within his gut as he unintentionally released a stuttered, breathless moan. His palms nuzzled against the plush skin he held onto. He could feel you so distinctly.

When you felt his nose inhale in your hair that’s when you began to struggle against him again. “Get OFF me!” You finally snapped out at him, trying to use your body weight to shove him off of you. His grip slightly loosened which gave you the opening to thrash your forearms out of his hold and begin punching at his chest.

John’s hand snatched your throat in a haste and shoved you back against the wall, compressing harshly. You choked on a gasp as your hands flung to his in a desperate attempt to claw his fingers off. “You have no idea how nice I’m choosing to be. You should be grateful that I didn’t make you watch me gut that man like the pig he is; grateful that I’m doing this all the easy way.” He said through gritted teeth close to your face.

Your quivering lips clenched before you jerked your knee up to jab him in his groin. He wheezed and released your throat, severe gasps for air populating your mouth as you touched your stinging throat. John took an unintentional step back from you which left you the opportunity to attempt your running escape. You bolted out the bathroom and down the pitch black hall, John had closed the front door when you first walked in so the only source of light was from the bathroom you were running from. You knew you just needed to keep running straight.

You barely got to register the loud cracking noise because you had collapsed to the ground, falling roughly onto your side from the sudden sharp, roaring pain in the back of your calf. You repeatedly hissed in pain when you tried to move, heavy breathing pumping through your lungs. You reached down to your calf to feel a wet substance, a nasty mixture of horror and panic suffocating you.

It wasn’t long before John approached you with a flashlight. The bright light shifted your eyes to the illuminated floor, realizing the layer of clear rubber fabric all over the floor. “Did you really think you could escape me? Don’t you know we’re meant to be together? You’re destined to return to me.” His words fell upon your deaf ears, too caught up in shock.

“You… fucking shot me.” You croaked, your petrified eyes staring at your own wet blood on your fingers. You didn’t want to look further down to the real wound. “I suspected you’d try to run away, so I took the expected precautions.” John spoke plainly as he stepped closer to you, tucking his gun back away as his flashlight was still aimed on your fallen form. “It’s alright, I forgive you. But next time I won’t be as forgiving.”

Your breathing came out uneven and shaky as your incredibly glossy eyes remained on the fresh blood on your fingertips from your leg. John stepped over you so that you were in between his legs before he lunged down onto you, straddling your back as he forced a cloth coated in a chemical onto your mouth and nose.

Your red puffy eyes still drowned in their own terrified tears. “No! Please!” Your dolorous begs became muffled, your squirming actions slowly deflating in energy. Your vision was blurring and darkening, the wall blending with the floor as it warped into unrecognizable shapes. Your head swayed and your mind grew hazy. And before you knew what was happening, you sank into unconsciousness.

[gaycrittercentral]

Hopefully this will brain running  and give you enough energy until the end of the shift 



Instead of the seven sins for Max  how about the seven heavenly virtues for Sam?

( optional  what do you think they do if the seven sins of max meet the heavenly virtues of Sam )

Oh shit dude that’s SO GOOD FJKDLFJKSLJDSKFJS I gotta get out the laptop for this one >:D ok so the seven heavenly virtues (as defined by Wikipedia, anyhow) are sort of opposites of the seven deadly sins, or at least you can interpret them that way. In no particular order they are Kindness, Diligence, Patience, Temperance, Charity, Humility, and Chastity. And HOOOOOO BOY do I have ideas for them I been thinkin about this all night!!

This is gonna get long, obviously, so the rest is under the cut.

First off I just want to discuss how I interpret this concept in general, as well as some potential circumstances that could lead to it happening. As far as I see it, the seven deadly sins are really just normal behaviors taken to the extreme, which can be healthy in moderation; therefore, the heavenly virtues are the same thing but in the opposite direction. They’re values that are good and helpful until you start placing too much emphasis on them and overdoing it, and then they’re harmful to you. Separated from all other aspects of Sam’s personality, many of them are honestly pretty unhealthy despite being so-called virtues.

As for how they could’ve come into existence, either we’re looking at some kind of bizarre dark version of Hugh Bliss who wants to eat all the bad emotions people experience (lol wonder what he'd be like) or, as I feel is easier to implement, he decided to pluck out all Sam’s virtues so they could go spread his bliss in the world and what’s left of Sam won’t want to help Max defeat Bliss anymore. I’m gonna call the remaining part of him sinful Sam I guess \_:p_/ for that matter, let’s talk about him first!

Sinful Sam (or just sin Sam bc that sounds funny to me)

Without any of his usual kindness, patience and good humor, Sam is kind of like his noir self on steroids. At first Max is like “oh shit Sam with no limits!! Ooooooh this is gonna be fun!” but then sin Sam immediately starts insulting him and growling at him and demonstrating a total lack of care and concern and Max is like “oh. actually you suck like this let’s go get those stupid virtues >:/” Sin Sam is quick to anger, quick to violence, all too happy to steal things in plain view of people, pretty egotistical, impatient, and just plain rude. He’s like if you took all of Sam’s usual personality and then sucked the humor out of it so he really just means every awful thing he says. He might even get to curse for real ooooh but maybe Hugh Bliss bleeps all of it so every other sentence is just furious beeping and Max gasping in mock offense. He also has lost his affection for pretty much everyone and everything, including Max, so he’s annoyed with him the whole time they’re getting his virtues back. Although, since he’s basically every deadly sin at once, he did get to keep lust and he might flirt with Max just a little. Max is reeeeally hoping they get enough of a break at some point to have a really violent hate-fueled makeout sesh lmao (they probably won’t and he is going to be so heartbroken over it).

Now, as for the virtues themselves…

Temperance (liver)

Temperance is basically the concept of moderation and self-restraint, so if we’re doing comparisons to the sins, it’s probably closest to being the opposite of gluttony. I think he’s on board with the idea of reclaiming all Sam’s virtues from the get go, because what’s more moderate than reuniting all parts of your soul? But maybe you have to collect a few of the others before he’ll rejoin the party since sinful Sam is just so unpleasant. He doesn’t want to be the only one stuck with all those vices, y’know? He’s also probably the closest to Sam’s real personality, although a little bland and very indecisive. Since he agrees with the concept of putting them all back together, Max tries to recruit him to help, but he’s just like “Hmm. Well, part of me wants to help you…and part of me doesn’t. Let me think about it for a while…” and basically he never decides one way or another and keeps flinging Max away whenever he tries to brute force it. Maybe you just get him a coin to flip in the end and once it lands on heads he concedes and allows Max to take whatever part of Sam he’s got. Honestly I’m not sure what part that would be—maybe his liver lmao, since it’s responsible for alcohol management and all that. That’s kind of temperance, right?

Patience (tail)

Probably closest to the opposite of wrath? I feel like Patience is just meditating in a quiet room somewhere looking peaceful and cannot be moved or bothered in any way. Max can attack him and chew on him and insult him all he wants but nothing gets a proper response, even if you ask sinful Sam to yell at him or punch him (he yelps and shakes his hand out like “god DAMN that hurt >:’(”). The guy's as stoic as a stone. Maybe he gets Sam’s tail, which makes it a problem that he’s sitting cross-legged and can’t be persuaded to get up. All he says to Max is maddeningly calm stuff like “Not yet, Max,” or “All in good time, good buddy.” I think he’s the last one to be collected because he just waits until you have all the others and then gets up like “:) ok it’s time now.”

Charity (left ear)

Opposite of greed, obviously. Charity is HYSTERICAL to me oh my god ok here’s my concept for him; the minute he pops into existence, he hands Max a random item from Sam’s inventory delightedly and then runs off to give away every single item they’ve collected so far and even all their case memorabilia from the office. You find him by following the trail of people he’s ‘donated’ things to and reclaiming your items, until you finally track him down and Max asks for his ear back, to which he’s just like “oh sure! Here you go!” and pulls it right off his head, looking sort of surprised when he abruptly pops out of existence. Afterwards, sin Sam is like “Oh that’s good to have back I guess. I feel less stingy now…I’m still keeping this stuff, though.”

Diligence (right hand)

Diligence is sort of the opposite of sloth; it’s the concept of working hard, constantly. It’s like the main thing that led to capitalism lmao. I think he gets Sam’s right hand. He instantly takes off to go to work arresting as many criminals as possible, and by the time you track him down he claims to have taken all the muggers and whatnot in the area into custody and is just filling out a huge stack of paperwork for their arrests. To me he’s like if you took all the angst out of Noir Sam and left him as a workaholic shell of his former self jfkdljfhdfsd. He’s so focused on doing his job that Max just can’t get to him. He probably has to commit a crime to get Diligence's attention so he can fight him and get the hand back lmao. Once Sam gets him back he comments, “That’s funny. I suddenly feel like I have the will to power through that paperwork we’ve been putting off for three weeks.” And Max is just like “Oh, good! Somebody has to and it’s not gonna be me lmao”

Chastity (left hand)

Opposite of lust! I know it’d made sense to give him Sam’s heart, but instead I'm giving him Sam's left hand so we can make a joke about asking for his hand in marriage lmao. And I’m gonna be so honest right now, I love a shy Sam so I’m just dumping all of that onto him shkfljdlfshfs. He’s probably just sitting quietly and reading a book or something, and he hides behind it with a little squeak when he sees Max. He’s all blushy and shit lmaoooo, sinful Sam hates his ass. If Max tries to get near him to grab Sam's hand back he gets all flustered and insists they wait til marriage or something ridiculous (reminding him that they're already married does no good, he insists they have to do it again. ok gayass). Maybe they have to put on a quick wedding so he’ll let Max near him lmao. Maybe he’s hanging out at Sybil’s and they can recruit her to marry them since she’s queen of Canada and probably has that kind of power, right? When she says to kiss the groom, Chastity gives Max the lamest, most timid little cheek smooch ever (sinful Sam gags lol). Max takes the opportunity to shock him with a dip and a proper kiss before yanking his hand off lmao. Afterwards, Max goes, “Wait, are you gonna be a prude now? Did I just miss my window for crazy, kinky hate sex?” and sin Sam’s like “well…that does seem a bit much. Maybe something a little more vanilla?” “oh god DAMNIT”

Humility (right eye)

Opposite of pride, and honestly, kind of an embodiment of Sam’s lack of self worth. Pride is healthy until it turns into a braggy, ego kind of thing, and on the flip side, humility is helpful until it turns into negative self-talk, doubting yourself, and downplaying your own value. Max finds Humility locked in Bosco’s restrooms, having taken shelter there to read self-help books and try to ‘fix’ himself. When Max asks why he didn’t pick someplace less gross, he mumbles something like “It’s where somebody like me deserves to be.” Sinful Sam just shoots back, “Yeah, well, would you either get better already or find a gutter to wallow in instead? Some of us need to take a leak.” Max laughs instinctively and then scolds sin Sam when they hear Humility sniffle a little. You can try a couple different dialogue options to get him to come out of the bathroom, like an emotional appeal: “C’mon, Sam, you’re not all that bad! And honestly, I like when you are bad! I mean, this guy out here might be getting on my nerves but he’s also a real heartthrob.” Sin Sam eyes him and goes, “…Noted.” But Humility just insists that he’s imperfect and full of sin and needs to keep working on himself before he deserves to be around Max. You can also try the practical approach. “Seriously, though, ya can’t stay in there all day. I mean, what if I need to pee?” “You deserve a cleaner bathroom anyway :(“

Maybe you end up getting him back by just giving sinful Sam a bunch of cups of coffee until eventually he’s like “Ok that’s it, I’ve had it” and kicks down the bathroom door, throws Humility out, and props the door back up so he can piss lmao. Max wastes no time in cornering Humility, although he might take a second to be like “Sam, get this through your dense, bizarrely-shaped skull—I like you, and I think you’re a pretty good guy, and you don’t have to be perfect. That’ll probably be easier to believe once you get back with the more reasonable parts of you, but just trust me for now, ok?” Humility just kinda sniffles and goes “ok :’(“ and lets Max reunite him with the rest of himself. Sam comes back out of the bathroom with his other ear intact and goes “Yikes. I feel like I need a couple dozen therapy sessions.” “Yay! Attaboy, Sammy!”

And lastly, maaaaaybe my favorite—Kindness! (heart)

I guess kindness is kind of the opposite of envy?? Idk these comparisons get a little blurry after a while. Anyway, kindness and the ways in which it can be harmful is a topic near and dear to my soul because it’s something I struggle with a lot (along with every other people pleaser on the planet, I imagine). I feel obligated to try to be as friendly and helpful as I possibly can 24/7 and really guilty when I feel like I haven’t given my all, and obviously that’s not healthy. Sooo that’s the cliff notes for this poor boy lmao.

Max finds Kindness volunteering at a charity place or something, all cheerful and happy-go-lucky. The minute he sees Max he gasps delightedly and rushes over to greet him all excited, immediately swooping him up in a hug and licking his cheek. Max responds with the usual performative disgust and demands to be released, but instead of teasing him like Sam normally would, Kindness just goes “Ok! Sorry, buddy :)” and sets him back down. Weird, but whatever. Max tells him to hand over the heart, but Kindness insists that he can be much more helpful without all those other vices and virtues weighing him down, and he’s got a lot more good to do before he can rest. Asking sin Sam to restrain him doesn’t help because Kindness tries to hug anybody who gets near him and sin Sam is just like “oh HELL no I’m not touching that guy.” Through talking with him as he keeps handing out lunches or whatever, it becomes clear that Kindness has been helping everyone in sight with everything he can, giving away all his time and energy and completely neglecting himself; he gave his lunch away to someone who he thought needed it more and now he feels lightheaded, he’s been listening to people’s problems and probably taking on more stress than he’s really able to handle, and he’s so focused on making Max comfortable and taking care of him that he doesn’t argue when Max or sin Sam do anything that would normally bother him. Like Max could bite him and he’d be like “Ow! Oh, I’m sorry, do you need a chew toy, buddy? You can keep using my arm if you like!” even though he’s clearly in pain. Maybe sin Sam accuses him of being a masochist and he just chirps, “Oh, I’m not :)” which is honestly more worrisome because if you don’t like pain, why do you keep allowing people to hurt you?

Eventually Max gets fed up with him ignoring his own needs and hatches a plan, saying he needs help with something back at the office. Kindness comes along happily, obviously. Max tells him to sit on the couch and relax while he grabs some snacks and coffee. The whole time, he has to keep insisting that Kindness stay seated instead of jumping back up to help. Eventually he grabs Kindness by the shoulders to explain that having his partner as, essentially, a self-offered indentured servant is funny and all, but it’s making him uncomfortable. They work so well together because they’ve always been equal, and as high and mighty as Max likes to act sometimes, it feels bad to just keep taking everything from his best friend and to be unable to give anything back. In a dreadfully ironic twist, preventing Max (and others, by extension) from doing anything for him is sort of unkind in and of itself. “So just keep your ass seated and let me do what I need to do, okay? You’re stressing me out. Eat your donut and calm down already.” And Kindness, maybe a little starry-eyed, finally concedes and allows Max to grab a blanket and finish making them some coffee. Once that’s done they sit on the couch together under the blanket for a minute and watch some junk TV while they eat a much-needed snack (by the way, sin Sam has long since escaped this mushiness and is probably staring longingly at Flint Paper’s door or something. Ah, Flint Paper...). After a few minutes of that, Max ventures, “Sooo…can I get that heart now, or…?” “Aw, buddy. You know you already have it.” And with a final little side hug, which Max finally returns with only a little grumbling about how sappy it is, he poofs out of existence. Sin Sam pops back in after a second like “Max, I need to apologize. I feel like I yelled at you a lot today and I really don’t know where that came from. You ok, little pal?” “lol yeah it was funny” “oh! ok then. You gonna eat the rest of that donut?”

I don’t know if there’s a particular order they get taken care of in, besides Patience going last. I figure in the spirit of the games you could really get them in whatever order you like. And I don’t have colors for everybody yet, but I feel like Chastity matches well with a soft pastel pink and Kindness is kind of a warm dandelion yellow. As for interactions with Max’s vices, oof, I should probably make that a different post since this one got so long ^^; But hoooooo boy I’m def gonna write it up!! These things are super fun to think about and I feel honored to be the first person I’ve seen put out some thoughts about them. Thanks so much for the prompt dude!! And ummm if anybody would like to ask anything else about this funky little concept I would be all too happy to answer teehee

(Oh also I’m definitely gonna draw them! But that’s gonna take a second so I figured I’d just post this while I’ve got it and put up some sketches of ‘em later, especially since they don’t come across that well without color and that’s gonna take even longer. I’m SO excited though hfjkldshfkdlsjfhsk)

[cringeyvanillamilk]

Koli 8-14

Finally did the rest of your ask~! ;)

8. Which of the seven heavenly virtues are they associated with? Do they embody that virtue or are they trying to learn it?

Koli would be associated with the virtue of patience, the opposite of wrath. Koli does not embody this virtue, but is trying to learn it. Rather than holding grudges, Koli is trying to learn not to be a petty bitch and resolve issues peacefully. Thanks to the influence of Asta and Fuegoleon, Koli is doing her best to be less spiteful and hostile towards others.

9. Which of the seven deadly sins are they associated with? Is it a negative trait of theirs or something they actively struggle with?

Well, if Koli is trying to learn patience, then it’s only fitting that she’d previously represent wrath. Due to an event that occurred in her childhood that negatively impacted her, Koli became very grudging and cold towards others. She shows her wrath by being harsh and even antagonistic at times. If you cross her, she will not let it slide. This is something she struggled with for a while until she got proper help.

10. Are they closer to life or death?

She is much closer to life. She yearns a lot in life and so she’ll definitely make the best out of it. Death doesn’t even come across her mind.

11. Land, sea, or sky? Of the realms of the world, which one does the character belong to?

Koli would belong to the land. The land symbolizes stability, which represents Koli more because she’s more grounded.

12. Are they the sun, moon, stars or something else in space (black hole, meteor shower, etc)?

Koli would be more like the moon. The moon seems dark and mysterious, but carries positive symbolism such as enlightenment and transformation. It’s intuitive and connects more with internal reflections, which Koli goes through during her development.

13. Instead of your standard four elements, consider what kind of metal represents your character. (Look here for some ideas.)

This is a very sexy question-! If she was one of the types of metals, she’d be steel. She’s strong and durable, but also sharper and dangerous.

14. Regardless of whether or not they wield any, what kind of weapon do you associate them with?

There’s no surprise, but Koli would be associated with a scythe. Her coal creation scythe is her favorite and trademark weapon. Not only is it great in the farm field (kind of), but also the battlefield. Scythes are usually associated with death, which many can see Koli as in combat. She’s terrifying looking with her scythe.

[nadziejastar]

lol Bunnymoon is a rattle because Saix's superpower involves throwing a glorified temper tantrum

KHUX and Dark Road got me wondering if there was meant to be a connection between Isa and Ira. The Master of Masters was the one who gave his apprentices their names, which are based off of the Latin word for the seven deadly sins. It was because he intended them to be vessels and thought their hearts were strong enough to withstand the darkness. Their personalities were probably supposed to represent the seven heavenly virtues, which are the opposite of the seven deadly sins.

I'd be willing to bet that Dark Road is going to be the story of how Young Xehanort becomes possessed by Superbia, the original sin. On the MoM's black box is the word "Xsuper".

I need only play the role of a fool desirous of the Keyblade's power.

Braig was desirous of the Keyblade’s power, so he became the new vessel for Luxu.

It infuriated me to see how you just exited our lives. I was jealous.

If you think about it, Saix totally makes sense as the new vessel for Ira. He is a berserker, a warrior who fights in a blind rage. Interestingly, they are also worshippers of Odin. And like you said, after Axel found himself a new best friend, he threw a giant jealous temper tantrum.

[fitzefitcher]

honestly i've been seeing bastion as like a Buddhist-ish place with ancient greek aesthetics, bc letting go of your earthly attachments to be enlightened is pretty Buddhist. 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. If you meet your father, kill your father.', that kind of thing. i haven't thought of it as a Light place at all, though i can see why others do.

so there's. a lot of things I would like to cover in answering this, and I'm honestly dreading it a little lmao buuuuut I will do the best I can. I have a lot of thoughts about Bastion, and about the Light, so I'm going to take this as an opportunity to explore that. so: content warning for discussion of religion and religious trauma, esp in regards to identity erasure.

full disclosure: I'm an american queer that was raised roman catholic (specifically, roman catholic within the confines of a heavily irish-italian community) and currently identify more as like. an agnostic apostate, would be the closest thing to describe it, I think. generally, while I'm not really crazy about organized religion as a massive institution capable of doing absolutely wretched things to the people it alleges to helping (and by no means am suffering under the delusion that it hasn't and won't continue to do these things so long as oppressive systems of power are in place, just like it would be in any other area, not just religion), I also acknowledge that there's a lot of good in it, too, and it's the cornerstone of many people's community, culture, and identity. ultimately, my opinion is that religion is a tool, and whoever's holding that tool decides its purpose and intention. it's. a complicated matter lmao.

I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on buddhism, here. obviously this was not the religion (or any of the many cultures its beliefs are centered in) I was raised as, and honestly even the research I've done for this feels like it's barely scratching the surface. so, rather than try and argue or explain something that is really out of the realm of what I'm familiar with or have experience with (esp. something that's not really mine to claim), I will try and explain things from my own experience as a queer AFAB person raised as roman catholic. and speaking from that perspective, it is very incredibly obvious to me how much of bastion was lifted from christian theology. not just the aesthetics of it, all of the weird identity conformity shit, too. the way that kyrian ideology is being used here, is as a tool to enforce this conformity.

same with how the Light as a concept has been developed in recent years- there are no longer any significant differences between the way individual factions use and interact with the light, even though as cultures their views on it should be radically different, or at least different enough that they don't feel like homogenized versions of each other. like, there's no real difference between how the humans view the Light, and how dwarves view the light, and how gnomes view the Light, and it doesn't really feel like there ever was. Nelves' view on it used to be characterized pretty strongly and differently, as did trolls and draenei, but the longer the years go on, the more that they sort of blend together. to get back to your statement, "I haven't thought of it as a Light place at all," I find that very difficult to parse as a statement, as Bastion as a whole has been developed from base concepts of the Light. Like, Kyrians were designed from spirit healers, spirit healers are now confirmed to be Kyrians (for some reason), and all of the aesthetics of their magic, their clothing, their environment are all heavily priest, paladin, and light-inspired. everything is golds and marbles and sky blues, when they become "corrupted," they suddenly become shadow-themed, like all greys and blacks and purples, their wings turn black, etc. but the similarities, and all their short-comings, go much farther than that.

so the general story thread of each area of the shadowlands in this expansion is that things aren't as they seem, right? that their individual systems are beginning to fall to internal corruption and are crumbling under their own weight. and we see this in each of the trailers- the houses of maldraxxus are starting to eat each other, ardenweald is slowly starving to death, revendreth's citizens are being choked with heavy demands from the aristocracy, and bastion is struggling to adjust in the face of new, unprecedented problems, unwilling to change their ways, even when it's explicitly obvious how badly they need to change. like, I've talked about this a little bit before- the trailer and the way it's structured led me to believe that we, the players, are meant to be hanging out with Devos and Uther, trying to help them convince Devos' boss that very obvious bad thing that's happening, is happening. And this is about how it goes for the other trailers- we learn about the betrayal of Draka's house in maldraxxus, and the maldraxxus storyline is centered on helping her figure out what happened and pick up the pieces. We learn about Ardenweald's rapidly shrinking resources and dying environment, and the ardenweald storyline is centered on figuring out what the cause of this famine is. We learn about Revendreth's aristocracy and how they're demanding more and more of the common people, and the revendreth storyline is centered on overthrowing the increasingly tyrannical cruelty of their current leaders and helping the common people, with the help of a leader favored by the common people. And I feel like, given the state of things, and how the IRL world as a whole has been going the past couple years, helping Devos and Uther get to the bottom of this, maybe even helping Bastion adjust and change in the face of these new challenges, would have been a very good, insightful storyline, and very appropriate for the times we're in.

This, clearly, is not what happened lmao. Whether or not they'll decide to develop bastion further, at least in terms of addressing its failings with its own people, is up for debate, but based on WoW's previous history of similar stories, I'm not very confident lmao.

so I will touch on that statement of bastion being a "buddhist-like place" for a moment, I did look into buddhism a bit, and while I very quickly realized that there wasn't really a way that I could discuss this at length in a way that's fair (esp. with how many variations and cultures there are centered around it, again, I am not an expert, I am doing the best I can with the information I have), the very very bare bones basics of buddhism that I can find more or less boil down to, yes, letting go of earthly attachments to attain enlightenment. but this is not really a nuanced assessment of buddhism, and tbh, isn't really the goal of the kyrians' purification rituals. sure, at first glance, it seems to line up- shedding the burdens of their mortal lives in order to achieve ascension- but ascension here, is not enlightenment. buddhist enlightenment, from what I can find, seems to be the act of breaking free from the cycle of death and rebirth and from mortal suffering. kyrian ascension is the act of, not breaking free of that cycle, but tying yourself to it for an eternity of service. and living your life (even  an eternal one- especially an eternal one) in the service of others is a really strongly christian concept. and the kyrian's concept of virtues only strengthens this. the fact that kyrians have virtues at all is heavily christian-coded, and on top of that, the virtues they have feel like they've been lifted directly from christian beliefs. also like. they're literal fucking angels, trying to earn their wings. like. there's not much else I can think of that's that heavy-handed lmao.

let's talk more about those virtues, though.

the kyrian virtues are as follows: purity, humility, courage, wisdom, and loyalty. There are a number of variations on christian virtues, but here are two of the main sets: one set lines up as the ideological opposite to the seven capital sins (or seven deadly sins if you're an FMA fan lmao), and the other is more-or-less what is accepted in contemporary belief. This is what I was taught in sunday school/CCD, so this is what I'm a little more familiar with.

so set 1, the heavenly virtues, are: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility, and set 2, the contemporary virtues, are split further into 2 groups: the cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and the theological virtues, charity, hope, and faith.

So humility, courage, and wisdom, are pretty straight-forward in terms of what they represent, and line up pretty neatly with humility (lol) from the heavenly virtues, and fortitude and prudence from the contemporary virtues. To touch on those briefly, humility is exactly what it says on the tin, and acts as an ideological opposite to the capital sin of pride, fortitude is bravery and endurance as well as patience, and prudence is reason and self-discipline, esp in terms of handling yourself and how you interact with others. And these are perfectly fine as principles. the ones that set off alarm bells for me, though, are loyalty and purity.

as kyrian virtues, they don't really line up to any christian virtues from either set. but tbh, this is beside the point- the fact that purity and loyalty are considered virtues, at all, especially in combination with each other, at best feel very suspicious, and at worst openly hostile. and the way this is covered in game only enforces this. purity is only obtained by sloughing off pieces of yourself that the kyrians consider obstructive to your ascension and how you can serve the Purpose, and questioning this or any other aspect of their ascension ritual gets you sent to the temple of loyalty to, ostensibly, stay there until you Get Your Priorities Straightened Out lmao. Like, there's no exploration of why these purity rituals are being questioned to begin with, there's no examination of why the rituals are necessary to begin with, and seemingly, prospective kyrians are punished for even asking. like, for a faction that seemingly prides itself on helping their members becoming their best selves, it feels strange that the reaction to their unsure members is punitive instead of therapeutic.

at this point, the link between the kyrians' beliefs and christianity should be readily apparent. it's no secret that over the centuries, christianity has used as a tool for oppressive systems to dominate marginalized groups, both within its ingroup and without. "purity" in christianity is less a virtue and more a heavily enforced, wildly contradictory idea, hiding itself in mealy-mouthed platitudes about being a Good Person or Becoming Your Best Self while simultaneously, stringently punishing its own members for daring to step a toe out of an extremely arbitrary line. like, I remember going to church growing up, and in the same breath that the head priest said to pray for various members of the community (thoughts and prayers, lmao), pray for [insert local sports team here] to win for their upcoming game, he also said that yes, democrats are corrupting the country. yes, homosexuals are going to hell. mass was an exercise in enduring misery most of the time, and a big reason I stayed closeted from my family for the majority of my life is because of this, and I still am, in many ways. I still have to divvy myself up in bits and pieces to become Socially Acceptable enough to appease my extended family, and there are certain family members that I will go to my grave never having come out to them, because I know they will never accept me for who I am, truly. so to have purity be a kyrian virtue with no further examination, no trace of irony, and to have loyalty as a virtue to back it up, feels, at best, extremely tone-deaf.

when you quest alongside kleia and pelagos, you see these purity rituals, and you see how large a toll they take on them. you see pelagos struggle, and you as the player help him overcome the difficulties he faces- difficulties he could not overcome himself. you see kleia, over time, becoming more and more disgruntled with bastion's governing body as a whole, and finding more and more cracks in the kyrians' concept of purity. but no lessons are learned, from either of these. nothing is examined further, and I have doubts that it ever will.

you, the player, see other kyrians, who previously were orcs, tauren, trolls, draenei, all these non-humans, being stripped of their identity, ostensibly for the reason that it will make them more just and fair a judge, a concept that rapidly falls apart the longer you look at it. the idea of all these sentient creatures from all these walks of life, particularly the ones heavily coded as BIPOC, are to be stripped of their cultural identity and made into Homogenous Standard (white-coded) Blue Human is so intrinsically malicious that it is genuinely baffling that it was even seriously considered as an idea, let alone greenlit and put into the game. prospective mortals are scouted to be kyrians theoretically for the lives they lived in service of others, in justice and kindness and wisdom, and then they are made to give up more and more pieces of those lives, rendering whatever they've learned, whatever experiences they've gained, that made them this person that the kyrians sought out in the first place, an utterly pointless and redundant endeavor. things like kindness, wisdom, courage, are not inherent qualities. They are things that have to be learned. They are things in which the context of them is paramount to how they will be measured. So to say that it is Necessary to do this, to make them Fairer, to make them More Just, feels both stunningly nonsensical and just pointlessly, nihilistically mean.

so what does this have to do with the Light?

well, in recent years, it seems to be steering more and more towards the idea that only correct religion within WoW is the Light, and there's only One Way to be Light. Early on in WoW's development, it was established that yeah, shadow has a bit of a reputation and can certainly be misused, but nobody's arguing that the Light can be misused, too, and that neither shadow nor light are inherently good nor inherently evil- they just Are, and each serve their own purpose in this world and its way of things. I had written a post about this like. several years ago, and a lot of it hasn't aged very well (I will not link to it bc woof, it was Pretty Rough to look at again after seven years lmao), but the gist of it was that Light and Shadow, are less like good and evil, and more like the Force from star wars. Well, a more nuanced force- again, Light is not Strictly Good, Shadow is not Strictly Evil. They are merely opposite sides of the same spectrum, but they are not inherently antithetical to each other. It was less a religion/belief system with an established deity, and more just reverence for the universe and its workings as a whole. Yes, it has the markers and drapings of christianity, particularly in its aesthetics, but the actual belief system didn't really lift anything from any particular christian belief system, and didn't really match up to any one of them, besides, again, the aesthetic of it. The Light now, however- now it does have a lot in common with christian beliefs. or at least, it and the church of the light have a lot in common with the mentality of those with strong christian beliefs. Which is to say, again, there is only one Correct Religion, and it's Light, and there's only One Correct Way to be Light. other religions within wow are either condemned, painted as savage, violent, heretical, or watered down so much that they either don't matter or function as mere Extensions to the light.

last summer, when I was reading the "before the storm" novel as research for my sylvanas essay, one of the many, many things that made it a difficult read was how like. unintentionally, thoughtlessly intolerant Golden had written it. Anduin, one of the main characters in it, despite having a history of kindness, compassion, curiosity, and understanding, is kind of shunted into being a 1-dimensional Good Christian Boy(tm). Like, he struggles with interacting with the forsaken, despite them having been in existence for over a decade at this point, and more than half his lifetime, and despite having dealt with them before, and orcs, and tauren, and a great number of other non-human creatures, while still treating them with grace and dignity, and respecting their perspectives, experiences, and beliefs. like, he's painted as thinking that the netherlight temple would be an alliance-only, church of the holy light only affair, and is really surprised, even stunned, at the thought of having to interact with non-alliance, non-light priests. and something that really really stuck with me while reading this, was that Anduin, this compassionate, intelligent, understanding person, could only learn to interact with priests of other factions and species, despite having already done this before, many, many times in his life, on the basis that They, Too, Are Servants Of The Light. and there's just. no examination in this. no irony. Light is Right, Others are Not. No lessons were learned.

[stormxblooded]

⤷ ( essie. gmt. 26. she/her. ) the courts offer bread and salt to cassandra seaworth, nee baratheon of house baratheon. many say that the twenty seven year old ruling lady of cape wrath is known to be determined and lively, though ill tongues whisper that she is stubborn and tempestuous. when her is uttered , one is reminded of a lone figure standing on the side of a cliff as waves crash below, dark eyes dancing with mirth, a sudden strike of lightening illuminating the sky, a discarded box of jewels left abandoned and untouched . may she be blessed and protected in this war of crowns. ( fc: sophie cookson )

Hi All !! I’m Essie, and I’m so excited to be writing with you all. Below the cut is some information on my little hell-raiser Cassandra, as well as wanted connections. I’m going to pop a plotting call on the D*scord when I get in, but if you would rather I messaged you here, please send me an IM! 

BASIC INFORMATION

Full Name: Cassandra Seaworth, Formerly Cassandra Baratheon before her marriage.  Nicknames: Cassie (a childhood nickname), Sandy (by her friends) Age: 27 Occupation: Ruling Lady of Cape Wrath (Formerly a lady of Storm’s End) Religion: Faith of the Seven Character Tropes: Dating What Daddy Hates, The Fashionista, Jerk With a Heart of Gold, Almighty Mom, Deadpan Snarker Character Inspiration: Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Princess Margaret (The Crown), Lydia Bennett (Pride and Prejudice), Molly Weasley (Harry Potter) Personality Type: ESFP Alignment: Chaotic Good Enneagram: Type 8 - The Challenger  Deadly Sin: Wrath Heavenly Virtue: Diligence

FAMILY

Spouse: Sir Seaworth, a landed knight and wanted connection, married for seven years  Sons: Devan Seaworth (aged 7), Steffon Seaworth (Aged 4) Daughters: Marya Seaworth (aged 4), Lucinda Seaworth (3 months) Father: Steffon Baratheon  Step-Mother: Araela Baratheon Siblings: Katherynne Baratheon, Marina Baratheon, TBD Baratheons

BACKGROUND

tw for mentions of pregnancy and childbirth

Born a Baratheon, high expectations were placed on Cassandra almost from birth. A healthy pregnancy and a remarkably easy birth resulted in a sweet babe with a head full of dark hair. For the first few years of her life, Cassandra was a merry, happy-go-lucky child, though her natural inquisitiveness forced more attentive supervision than most. As she grew older, her penchant for trouble, cultivated by a stubborn refusal to do anything she didn’t want to do and determination to behave how she pleased, emerged in full force. 

Cassandra’s trouble making was a concern for the Baratheons, who hoped to make an advantageous marriage for their daughter. They worked hard to try and turn her into a respectable lady, to stop playing pranks on the servants, to bite her tongue and choke back the cheeky remarks she often spat. All attempts were fruitless, though, and all they could do was pray to The Seven that she would grow out of it. They had more success with her education. Whilst she had no skill at needlework or singing, deeming them a waste of her time, Cassandra was bright, and excelled in academics. She has a talent for numbers, able to do complicated sums in her mind, and a photographic memory, allowing her to recall the history of Westeros, a particular interest of hers, in great detail.

As she came of age, The Baratheons began to try and arrange a match for their daughter. By this time, her personality had developed into something far more forceful. Acid-tongued when she felt like it, and dryly sarcastic always, she seldom smiled. Despite this, the Baratheons were hopeful. Cassandra was beautiful and talented, a gifted dancer, and could, when she put her mind to it, be incredibly witty and charming. A number of noble houses were approached, with the Great Houses given precedence. 

Cassandra had no intentions of following through with her families plans. Aged 20, before any wedding could take place, she eloped with her current husband. The Seaworths were not lords, but landed knights, and the marriage was way below her station. However, she was deeply in love, and a few months pregnant, when they wed, and for her, there was no other option. 

Since her marriage, Cassandra has kept her distance from the Baratheons. She misses them, but the scandal of her actions still follows her, and for the love of her siblings, she stays away, visiting rarely. It pains her - she wants her children to know their aunt and uncles, but she also wants to protect them from feeling less-than. She’s a mother of four, now - her eldest, Devan, twins Steffon and Marya, and the newborn Lucinda, and is heavily involved in her children’s upbringing. She fed them at her own breast, even the twins, and carries out most of their education herself. 

Under her watch, Cape Wrath has grown prosperous in a way it never has been before. She’s proud of what she’s done, and feels that it vindicates her choices somewhat, but as much as she loves her life, she can’t help but feel a tinge of regret. She loves her family, and doesn’t regret giving up everything for love, but there are times where she wishes she could have given her children more.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

Former Betrothed: Before she married, Cassandra was engaged to this character. Her elopement effectively ended that. If not a Great House, this character would have to be from a house that is quite rich and powerful. At no point was there any love between them, and the marriage was entirely arranged by their families. There are two ways I can see this playing out. The first is that they were blindsided by her running away, and angry at the embarrassment it caused. For the second, the two of them have a good relationship and remain friends to this day. He was as against the match as she was, and actually helped her make her escape and wished her luck on the way. 

Childhood Friends: What it says on the tin tbh, childhood friends who grew up with Cassandra. Since her wedding, they may have drifted apart or intentionally decided to keep their distance due to the scandal it caused, resulting in a bit of an estrangement between the two, or else they may be a fierce defender of her choices. 

Enemies: Cassandra leans towards sarcasm, but at times can be harshly blunt and downright insulting. This character has been on the receiving end of her less pleasant personality traits, and the two clash madly and cannot stand each other. 

Trade Partners: Under Cassandra’s watch, the Seaworths have risen to prominence, using their skill at sailing to deliver goods all around Westeros. She has an extensive network of trade partners that she utilises to help build a legacy for her children. 

Misc. Friendships: I honestly just love all kinds of friendship connections! Especially F/F connections, competitive friends, unlikely friends where opposites attract, friends who don’t really like each other all that much but pretend they do while making little jibes at each other, or platonic M/F friendships would all be very much welcomed and adored! 

[alpaca-writes]

Hi! For the ask game, can I do 1, 2, 64, 65, and 71 for Arch and Lyrem?

~ myst-in-the-mirror

Thank you for the ask!!!

1. What common traits do you share with your oc? What about them is the least like you?

I think Arch and I are both very chill people. We don't hold ourselves to high expectations, but we still try our best for society's sake.

Lyrem and I would share a love for travelling and telling the most bizarre stories we can think of, sometimes to the detriment of people around us who might get bored or weirded out.

Arch sometimes has little regard for other people- they've become so jaded that they really can't care what others think of them anymore. Whereas, I am thinking about what other people think of me constantly, so that is a big difference between us.

Lyrem also has little regard for others in a much different way. I care about people even if I've never met them, and he really couldn't care less about others unless they are very near and dear to his heart.

2. Do you think you would get along with your oc if you could meet them? What things would you talk about?

I think, oddly enough, that I would get along with Lyrem much more than I would get along with Arch. I think Lyrem and I would share a lot of stories and be talking for hours over coffee if we could.

I don't think I would have that same kind of connection to Arch. I think I would feel like mothering them a bit because they've gone through so much.

64. Which of the seven deadly sins does your oc fall under most? What about the seven heavenly virtues?

Arch is definitely sloth. They are lazy and sleep in to insane hours if they are able to and will try to get out of chores if they can. Arch's heavenly virtue would be hope. They never give up on themselves and are always determined to find their way out of a difficult situation.

Lyrem falls under envy. He sees the power that other creatures/ gods/ demons have and he will always want a piece of it for himself. I would say he's probably a bit greedy too-

"Ahem," Lyrem announces his presence behind Alpaca, the typist. She stops for a moment, feeling the eyes of judgment burning into the screen.

Reading over her shoulder, he furrows his brows in disgust. "Greedy? Greed is a sin of simple men who find worth in only what they hoard, and nothing of worth within themselves!"

Okay, Alpaca concedes. Pride then.

"Ah, yes. I do consider my pride to be a virtue."

Lyrem straightens himself, and checks his stopwatch quickly before vanishing into the ether once again.

65. If you were to give your oc a new superpower, what would you choose and why? If *they* were to be able to choose, what would it be and why?

I would give Arch the power of shapeshifting. That way they can be whatever they feel like in the moment. A pretty rock, a bird, or somebody completely different. I think they would like that too.

I am not giving Lyrem any more powers than he already has and are still to be revealed, but I think if he could, he would choose long-distance time-travelling abilities.

71. What is your oc’s go-to for offense? What weapon, what style of fighting? Or are words more their weapon of choice?

If Lyrem was ever under physical attack, he would use his body to defend himself primarily, but then he would use more subtle techniques to dominate them- likely an incantation or spell.

Arch would try to find anything they could to fight back and promptly run in the opposite direction after throwing it at the person. They aren't exactly the most skilled in fighting styles, though that may change in the future.

[frozcnhcart]

Task 001 : Getting to Know You ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

What were their best subject(s) in school?

Literature, History, and Geometry.

Do they have any allergies?

She’s not allergic to anything specific, but her allergies every spring and summer can be fairly intense.

What is their opinion on Mystiques and Supernaturals?

Elsa regards them cautiously. She can’t control her own powers as a Mage and doesn’t understand how others not only have full control, but also show off their abilities without any fear. She actually might be a little jealous. When it comes to Mystiques like Fae and Merfolk, Elsa finds them fascinating and beautiful. Supernaturals are darker and often dangerous, but she sees many of them as just misunderstood. After all, is she not dangerous as well?

How they react to being flirted with? How do they flirt?

While she is very intelligent in most all areas of life, Elsa is completely dense when someone is flirting with her. She doesn’t understand the concept of someone being romantically or sexually interested in her and will almost never read someone’s actions towards her as flirtatious. For that same reason, she herself never flirts.

Do they prefer white, milk, or dark chocolate?

Intensely dark chocolate is the only kind she doesn’t like. She thoroughly enjoys both milk and white and struggles to pick between the two.

How are they with children?

Around children she tends to be rather distance/awkward at first, but if the child is sweet then she all but melts.

Are they religious?

Elsa considers herself to be Agnostic.

Which of the seven deadly sins do they most embody? Which virtue?

None of the sins really align with Elsa’s personality, but if I had to pick one I would probably say Envy? Not that she’s a jealous person, she just constantly wishes for something she does not have (control over herself). As for her heavenly virtue, I think she best aligns with temperance. Her whole life has revolved around self-restraint - though it isn’t exactly a good thing.

What’s their sense of humor like?

Elsa isn’t the type to crack jokes, but she can be heard making little sarcastic comments under her breath every now and then. 

How do you know when you’ve upset them?

Concealing her emotions is something she’s become very good at, so if she looks/acts upset then you know you really hurt her. She often has to remove herself from situations where she knows she is becoming upset.

What does their room look like?

Back home in Norway she has a nice size room that she moved into after the accident - she used to share a large room with Anna. The walls are covered in a lilac colored wallpaper on all sides of the room. On the opposite wall from the door there’s a large, triangular window with a widow seat. The color scheme is blue, purple, and white. On the left wall is her bed, a nightstand, and her desk. The right wall is covered in bookshelves with dozens upon dozens books from her childhood into her teenage years.  Here in Porthaven, her apartment is very sleek and minimalist. It’s modern, but has a slightly rustic feel to it.

Do they have a favorite color?

Blue. More specifically: icy blue or teal. Though she really likes purple as well.

What do they usually eat for breakfast?

Since taking over the company she’s found herself increasingly more busy in the mornings and often skips breakfast. She often picks up a cup of coffee and a muffin or danish on her way to work. On the weekends when she actually makes an effort to have something substantial for breakfast she enjoys a small fruit and cheese platter with some sort of bread and a soothing cup of tea. Or crepes!

At what time of the day are they most productive/have the most energy?

Elsa doesn’t have much of an issue with being productive except for in the evenings when her energy begins to drain.

How do they handle money?

Elsa is very careful with her money and prefers saving to spending. Outside of necessities she doesn’t often shop for herself. The only time she “indulges” herself is when she occasionally buys herself an expensive clothing item for a formal event. Anna’s spending habits are more difficult to control, but Elsa doesn’t often reprimand her sister about it.

When a craving kicks in what’s the first thing they go for in the kitchen?

Macarons! As a child she used to sneak into the kitchen late at night and bring some back for her and Anna during their midnight adventures. In her current apartment she keeps a small container of them in a cabinet for whenever she needs a sweet pick-me-up.

Are they patient?

Incredibly so, though she does have her limits.

What’s their favorite kind of weather?

Elsa may not like that she has magic, but she truly does love the snow. It’s the weather she feels most comfortable in and she finds it absolutely beautiful.

If they were to attend Hogwarts which house would they be placed in?

Ravenclaw! Once Elsa begins questioning something, she develops an intense need to understand and learn more about it. She also loves learning for the sake of learning and loves to read classic literature. Elsa has incredible creativity, but she puts restraints on herself that limit her expressiveness and individuality.

What is their voice like?

That depends on who she’s talking to. Those closest to her are see a side of her that is gentle and soft-spoken. She sounds lighter and more genuine. At work, around people she finds gruesome, or when she is feeling cautious her voice becomes cold and formal. She can take on a very authoritative tone. For Anna, it’s often a mix of both. Elsa tries to be as gentle and warm as she can to her sister, but often has to become more firm if Anna begins acting out or starts getting too close.

Do they feel like their astrological sign is accurate?

Certainly not. Elsa doesn’t know a whole lot about astrology, but from what she’s heard about Sagittarians remains entirely confused as to how she could be classified as one. She feels much more connected to the star sign that comes the day after her birthday: Capricorn.

Which of the four elements do they feel the most connected to?

Water, of course. Though she does sometimes feel an odd pull towards the other elements. Like she’s drawn to them somehow. She’s not sure if it’s just her mind playing tricks on her or something to do with her being a Mage.

What’s the easiest way to annoy them?

Push her beyond what she’s comfortable with or is willing to permit. People who repeatedly questions her gloves also tend to irritate her.

Can they dance?

She can, but won’t.

What’s their personal style? What do they most often wear?

Multiple layers. Lots of turtlenecks and long sleeves. Color palette consists of blue, teal, dark purple, white, and black. Hair in a neat bun whenever she leaves the house. Minor gold or silver accents. Always gloves.

Are they affiliated with any political groups?

Elsa tries her best to stay out of politics, both for the sake of her company and because she just finds them exhausting.

What is their favorite hobby?

Reading! It’s what she spends a great majority of her free time doing.

Where were they born?

Arendelle, Norway (fictional city located along one of Norway’s many fjords)

What is one question they’ve always wanted an answer to?

“Why was I born with magic?” Her parents never found any trace of Mages in their family tree, nor any other reason as to why Elsa was born with magic.

How do they sleep?

She’s a very light sleeper and is prone to waking up to any noise outside her room. Often has trouble sleeping as well and takes melatonin on the nights she’s most restless. Usually wakes up in the same position she fell asleep in.

What’s their favorite game?

Chess, and she’s very good at it.

Are they a very private person or, for the most part, an open book?

She is incredibly private. The only person who’s really seen a deeper side of Elsa is Anna. If she shares something personal with you without feeling obligated to, then you are a special person. It takes a while for that to happen though. She tends to keep to herself and doesn’t like discussing private matters with anyone outside of her sister.

Have they ever had or currently have any pets?

Anna and Elsa always wanted a pet when they were little, but their parents didn’t think it was a good idea. She currently believes herself to be too busy for a pet of any kind.

Do they have any reoccurring nightmares and/or dreams?

It’s rare that Elsa dreams. Or if she does, she never wakes up with an idea of what it could have been about. On various occasions she does have a reoccurring nightmare - the night when she almost killed Anna. As she’s gotten older the nightmare hasn’t occurred as frequently, but it still makes occasional appearances. On days when she isn’t feeling good she often goes to sleep with her gloves on in case her negative emotions follow her into her dreams as well. As a child she would sometimes wake up from a bad dream to her room covered in ice. It seems like even when she drifts into her subconscious she still can’t control her powers.

Is there a music genre they prefer over all others? How about one they can’t stand?

She adores classical music and often has it playing quietly in the background whenever she’s home. Doesn’t care for most other music genres, as she prefers instrumental songs over those with lyrics.

Have they ever played any sports?

Never on a team or competitively, but she does have a talent for ice skating.

What things make them feel the most comfortable/relaxed?

Being alone (oddly enough), reading, a mug of hot chocolate, and being somewhere high above the ground.

How intuitive are they? Can they read people easily or are they oblivious?

Elsa is pretty intuitive. She’s very wary of people so she looks into everything way too much. She isn’t oblivious to other people’s feelings either, but often feels like she has to ignore them for the sake of keeping her formal composure. 

What are their eating habits/typical diet?

Elsa doesn’t eat much. She doesn’t intentionally avoid meals of course, she just often forgets to eat. She’ll get absorbed by work or a book that it’s not until a while later that she feels any hunger. Most days she just has a cup of coffee and a muffin or some other pastry. Lunch is usually whatever she can get ordered to her office. If she’s home then she tends to just lightly snack throughout the day rather than sit down to have a proper meal. She used to be a picky eater, but boarding school helped force her to expand her diet. 

Do they have a favorite season? What about a favorite holiday?

Winter! Nothing matches the excitement she felt as a child when she would wake up to the first snowfall of the season. She and Anna would rush outside and spend all day making snowmen and sledding, then cozy up by the fireplace in the evening with their parents drinking hot cocoa. Even after those days were over, she still enjoyed watching other children play in the snow outside. She considers the icy patterns on her window during the winter to be one of the most beautiful things in nature. Her favorite holiday, Christmas, also happens to fall within the winter season.

Are they ruled by logic, emotion, or some combination thereof?

Elsa considers herself to be a very logical person. She thinks with her head before her heart and tries not to let her emotions get in the way of her life. However - whether she’s aware of it or not - many of the important decisions she makes are driven by fear. Fear keeps her from letting people in and being open to new possibilities. 

How do they feel in regards to their sexuality and/or gender?

Elsa has always felt comfortable being a woman, but her sexuality is something she’s uncertain of. She tries to never actively think about or question it, but as a teenager it was something that sometimes took up the residence in the back of her mind. 

What’s their most distinguishable/noticeable feature?

Definitely her hair. It’s incredibly light - almost unnaturally so - and she keeps it very well taken care of. Unfortunately she usually keeps it up in a bun, so no one really knows it’s true length or volume except for Elsa herself and probably Anna. She also has piercingly blue eyes and very fair skin that help people instantly pick her out from a crowd.

Do they have any particular speech patterns or mannerisms?

She tends to fiddle with her gloves whenever she’s uncomfortable and is prone to keeping her arms crossed at all times. When a stray lock of hair slips out from her bun she is often seen repeatedly tucking it back behind her ear rather than trying to place it back in her updo. 

Can they speak more than one language? Do they have an accent?

Elsa is fluent in Norwegian, Danish, French, and English. Since she is from Norway she has a Norwegian accent, but it is slight since she’s been practicing her English since she was a child.

What’s their opinion on Porthaven, Maine?

Her opinion on Porthaven is not yet conclusive, as she’s trying to give herself more time to warm up to the city. However, she does miss Norway and prefers the old cities and fjords of her home to the rocky beaches and modern buildings in Porthaven. She isn’t a fan of how warm it gets in Maine compared to Norway and seeing so many Mystiques and Supernaturals living openly is quite a culture shock.

[hourglasscinnarose]

The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues are Confusing and I Don’t Understand

Lust is coded for sexual desire, which can lead to things like adultery and rape, but it's also just a sin of longing in general. So, in other words, Lust can long for food and money and take care of both Gluttony and Greed. My interpretation, though, is that it's simply really "longing" and not necessarily the act of stealing or eating too much. So really what it all gets chalked up to is simply just REALLY wanting something, and that, itself, is a sin. BUT ALSO, I get told so many different things about lust from different people, like how, since it leads to adultery, then it's technically also the act of committing it, but then wouldn't that mean that Gluttony and Greed wouldn't have to exist because their both a part of Lust? And it's virtue, Chasity, is all about the resistance of giving into temptations, which implies that Lust requires an action in order for it to be considered a sin. But then it's also about being honest to yourself? (Which makes since in retrospect, because it would be you recognizing that you do have temptations, but overall, it still makes the sin, itself, confusing.)

Gluttony is coded for eating too much, but that's not even why the sin is a sin. The reason why Gluttony is a sin is because it's the act of selfishly eating despite the fact it could effect someone else. (Either that, or "eating to the point of waste", whatever that means.) The best way to describe it is eating all the food during a famine and causing someone to starve to death, even though you would have been fine sharing it. But the weird thing to me is that they have a sin specifically about eating. It just sounds weird that that would be a thing because if it's suppose to boil down to selfishness, then all the other sins already cover that and eating food is a weird example of showing selfishness to me. But if it's a sin because of the act of eating, then that just complicates things because, situationally, how are we suppose to know what's Gluttony and what's not? I suppose that if it doesn't effect someone else's life negatively, then it's not Gluttony, but not eating to give more food to others would just be starving yourself, which I don't think should be praised. And then Gluttony's virtue is Temperance, which is being in control of yourself, which is what Chasity is? The only difference is that Temperance also, somehow, has something to do with justice, which makes no since at all to me.

Greed is coded for wanting money, and FOR SOME REASON is considered to be the worst sin against God, even though you'd think it would be Pride because Pride would be you thinking you're higher than God. (Which goes against the commandments.) But, anyway, like Lust and Gluttony, it's a sin of wanting something, but this time it's about materialistic things rather than food and......materialist things but in Lust. Greed is mostly prone to hoarding, though, and has theft attatched to it and stuff. Soooo, Lust, but fancy. And then Charity is " A willingness, or even desire, to help others and better the world, no matter the cost to your personal self." which sounds like a sin, but written backwards. Again, why does it praise putting your own life and health in jeprody? Why would anyone, in their right mind, think that God would want you to waste your life as a salve to other people? It's suppose to be about love and kindness to a stranger, but in reality, it's glorifying self-destructive behaviors.

Sloth is coded to being lazy or sleepy or something, but that's not part of the actual sin at all. Sloth is just being apathetic. It's also just the sin of being bored. It doesn't really make much sense to me at all, though. You know who's often apathetic, bored, "lazy", and passive? People who suffer from depression. And, in theory, God creates such things so we can overcome those obsticals, but depression is a mental disorder that can't be gotten rid of. Not perminatly, at least. And I get apathy. Not caring about anything can lead to all sorts of issues. But boredom? That's just silly. And then it's virtue makes everything even MORE confusing, because it doesn't relate to the sin at all. Diligence is just about following through on the goals you create for yourself and having determination. Which, I guess it the opposite of apathy because it means that you care about something, but the way it's worded makes it seem like it's all about working hard rather than actually caring.

Wrath is coded for being too angry, and finally we get something that's coded correctly AND matters because it's a different Sin than Lust. Wrath is only really Wrath when it's directed at an innocent person (according to Catholics, I think), but is also seeing the revenge before the justice. Wrath is easy to get. We like Wrath. But then it's virtue is Patience. Which makes since, but only when you're thinking about getting angry because you have to wait for something. When you actually look into it, it fits well, but the name could use a bit adjusting. Then again, what else would we really call it?

Envy is coded for people being jealous, and....yeah, I mean, that is part of it. Envy is all about feeling sad or resentful to another person because they have something you do not. Envy directly breaks one of the commandments, which is fun because the others kind of just beat around the bush. The entire idea of Envy is feeling so much sadness that it turns into hatred, which, at that point Envy is just Lust who wanted to be Wrath. And then Kindness is the virtue, which only kind of makes sense. And that's only if you think you need to act out for it to be considered a sin.

Pride is codded for caring too much about yourself and being egotistical. Pride's entire thing is seeing themselves as higher than even God and is the thought of becoming God because you are above them. (Pride is also the "father of sins" and yet is still only considered second worse to Greed.) And then Pride is also resenting your neighbor, but I'm not sure where that came from. Pride's virtue is Humility, which makes sense because you put others first without being down on yourself. But on the other hand, isn't it possible to be modest AND prideful? Again, it seems as though for a sin to actually BE a sin, it requires the person to act on it, which makes no sense to me because it's still in your head. It's like saying "Your not a pedophile because you didn't actually touch the kid", but. yes they are a pedophile, they just haven't acted on it.

So, like, in the end, we have Pride, Wrath, and, like, five different ways to be Lust. At this point, it's more funny than it is confusing, but still.

[sparklycitrus]

Virtus Principalis - Charity (Part 2 of 2)

Remember guys, this is the seven deadly sins. It’s not (just) about our boys being badass motherfuckers, but about them being bad.

I may also have gone a bit off theme but whatever. XD

Virtus Principalis

V. Caritas

(part one here)

The shower, like Q described, is cold and perfectly adequate. Bond scrubs until all signs of blood and dirt and tropical insect bits have been washed away. His camo, however, is a lost cause, so he chucks everything behind a shrub and goes back in as nude as his born day. The Quartermaster did ask, after all, and Bond is not one who disappoints.

Q has moved from his spot on the floor to the threadbare couch. His laptop, sans the thick cable, is perched on the rickety coffee table amidst a large spread of Colombian pesos. A loaded Walther (Q’s) sits to the side, along with some loose bullets, a butterfly switchblade, and box of Cuban cigars. Bond strides over, unabashed, and settles down on the couch. The fabric isn't the smoothest thing rubbing against his bare ass, but Bond’s sat in way worse, and the achieved effect is certainly worth the discomfort.

“There!” Q announces, a bit too loudly. Bond does not miss the furtive look thrown his way before the other resolutely returns to the laptop screen. “Now the Colombian government can’t possibly complain that we've never stuck our necks out for them. Really, every time someone moves a bit of refined coca off grid the entire region goes into fits. And they wonder why we prefer to keep tabs from afar.”

Bond makes a noncommittal noise. His attention has wandered to the cigar box, once he saw the Bolivar brand on the open lid. He distinctly remembers the last time he’s had a good smoke: it was in the backroom of a colonial hotel in Morocco. There were no less than three different guns pointed at his head at the time, but the only thing Bond could focus on then was the heady flavor of the Montecriso No.2 flooding his senses. The experience was regrettably cut short when he had to go out guns blazing. Would've been a remarkably successful mission otherwise.

He reaches for a stick, sliding it under his nose to take in the rich, loamy aroma. An appreciative hum escapes his throat. Beside him Q makes an interruptive noise. Bond looks over, just in time to see a guillotine cutter and a large butane lighter thrust his way.

Bond quirks an eyebrow. “I didn't know you smoke these.”

“I don’t,” Q replies. “The cutter came with the box and the lighter I stripped from a dead body. I doubt he’ll be missing it.”

“Where’s the body now?”

“Somewhere out back. Keeping your clothes company, I imagine. Why are you naked?”

“I clearly remember you asked me to be.”

“Let me rephrase: why have you decided to sit next to me, naked? This couch can’t be too comfortable, not to mention the health implications.”

To provoke you. Isn't it obvious? But Bond doesn't answer, instead he snips off the cigar tip, sniffing deeply once more before lighting it. The drag he takes in is deliberately slow. He knows Q is watching intently while pretending not to. Bond grins. He proceeds to stretch, arching his back and jutting his hips out so that his abs and half-hard erection are on prominent display.  

“Would you rather I sit on top of you naked?” he says.

He’s expecting the scoff but not the laugh that follows. It’s a nice sound, soft and lilting, and Bond feels an overwhelming desire to make it happen again. Q shakes his head, hands instinctively returning to the keyboard. But Bond can see the bright green eyes dancing mischievously even as he refocuses on the screen.

“As much as I enjoy the absurdity of that image, no, thank you, 007. Not my type of thing to unwind with, you see, and completely inappropriate for the current circumstance.”

It has only now gotten inappropriate? Bond chuckles at the thought, then asks, as nonchalantly as he can manage: “Oh? And what, exactly, is your type of thing?”

“Do you really want to know?”

There’s a pause when they turn to assess each other. Q is biting his lip, clearly debating whether to give a real answer. Bond waits, until the other man finally lets out a half-defeated sigh, subsequently closes the laptop and moves it off the table.

“Well, considering extraction is not for another six hours,” Q stands up, cracking the stiff joints of his hands and neck. “I suppose we have time.”

There are things that Bond expects the Quartermaster to dabble in, both as an inquisitive genius and as a member of a deadly organization with literal and figurative blood on his hands. The sheer amount of legal substances the man must've consumed to brave the flight down is already questionable, not to mention their mission has gone on for the past 40 hours with minimal breaks. In truth both of them should be using the precious time they've given to sleep. Instead Bond is sinking in the exquisite slow rush of a Royal Corona, watching his skinny, strait-laced Quartermaster walk toward him holding a brick of pure cocaine like an ordinary mail parcel.

“They aren't going to miss that either?” Bond quips, recalling their previous banter.

“This whole place will be burned down once we leave,” Q shrugs. “Right after they confiscate the valuables and deposit whatever is needed to keep the heads of state securely in power. Hardly something they’ll notice,” he gestured to the large stack of identical bags leaning against the opposite wall. “And even if they do, it’s not like they can openly declare a kilo of cocaine have simply gone ‘missing.’”

“Plan to do all that by yourself?”

Q laughs, the same melodious cadence, and Bond again is confronted with how much he desires it. “A kilo? In under six hours? You know, I've gone on a few binges in my life but, that may be just a tad too much for one person.”

Bond only smiles blandly in return. He relaxes into the couch, a comfortable haze surrounds him as he watches Q slash open the plastic wrap with the switchblade. The spilled white powder blankets the spread of pesos with a pure, crystallized sheen. Q makes a sweep of the notes, scattering them all over while making a clearing on the table. Bond stares.

“What?” the voice is indignant as Q meets his gaze. “No one claims a coke habit is tidy.”

“I see that it’s far from your first rodeo.”

Q answers him with a rude gesture. He then cuts a small amount with the back of the knife, making a neat, narrow line. A 50 mil note quickly becomes a rolled tube with practiced ease. “Bond,” he tsks. “Did you genuinely think those 60-hour shifts are pulled off on the mere merits of Earl Grey?”

He doesn't wait for a response before leaning down to rail the line. A rapturous look soon envelopes his features, and the satisfied sound coming out of that lush mouth sets Bond’s blood on fire. There’s a spot of white hovering just above the thin red lips. Without thinking Bond reaches over, swipes up the bit, and puts it into his own mouth.

It’s some damn fine coke, alright, Bond thinks as the numbness travels up his tongue. The look Q shoots him is positively filthy, and Bond suddenly has the urge to throw the coltish man onto the floor and fuck him, slow and deep. His body reacts at the thought and he makes no moves to hide it. It sounds heavenly in any case.

“Would you like some?” Q asks. His eyes are still lucid and the flush is very faint. Got a tolerance, Bond notes, as another neat line is cut onto the smooth tabletop.

“Not my vice of choice,” he declines, shaking his head.

“Ah, right. Liver failure. Always a pleasant way to go.”

“It’s not nice to judge others’ habits, Quartermaster, when you've just inhaled a gram of pure coke and it’s evidently not enough.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, 007,” Q’s narrows his eyes. “One, I wasn't judging, merely making an observation. And two, please, that was only half a gram, which makes this…”

He bends over and the second line disappears into the paper tube. “…the full amount and quite sufficient, thank you very m – oh!”

Q falls back against the couch with a moan, eyelids fluttering rapidly as the effect kicks in full force. Long, trembling fingers run through the dark curls, traveling down the elegant neck to pull ineffectively at the loose shirt buttons. Bond instinctively reaches out, but before he can touch any exposed skin Q slaps his hands away. He abruptly rolls over, bodily onto the agent, then clumsily deposits himself right into Bond’s lap.

“I’ll have you know, that certain stimulants tend to exacerbate my need to keep myself...busy,” the Quartermaster says as he rubs himself against Bond’s naked torso. The half-finished cigar is plucked from lax fingers and dropped onto the table, and Bond, for a moment, harbors a ludicrous thought to lament the loss. “And I believe, as an elite agent of MI6, it’s your solemn duty to protect your superior from committing any international cybercrime that could potentially endanger the integrity of the entire agency, simply out of boredom.”

“And how do you propose I do that?” Bond smirks. He pulls the man closer, hands sliding up the shirt to finally touch warm skin. Q hovers precariously above him, face flushed and pupil dilated and still covered in someone else’s blood, and Bond has never seen him look more beautiful.

“Oh, you’re a clever and capable man, 007,” Q whispers, lips gently brushing against Bond’s own. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

end

(I erased all my browser history after this because leaving ‘how to snort cocaine’ and ‘drug routes in Colombia’ in your Google search is just not an ideal thing to do.)

Other parts of the ‘sins’ collection: Chastity; Kindness.

[noblecrumpet-dorkvision]

Paladin Week: Honor Systems

image credit: Dan Dos Santos (Fable #136)

Codes of Honor Throughout History

Check out these tenets of honor or virtues from around the world! Use them to create your own Paladin oaths/vows!

Chivalry

From the Song of Roland. The term "paladin" comes from the knights of Charlemagne, and Roland was a huge common thread in the stories about them. So if anything, these are the most paladin-y vows you can ever vow.

To fear God and maintain His church

To serve the liege in valor and faith

To protect the weak and defenseless

To give succor to widows and orphans

To refrain from wanton giving of offence

To live by honor and for glory

To despise pecuniary reward

To fight for the welfare of all

To obey those placed in authority

To guard the honor of fellow knights

To eschew unfairness, meanness, and deceit

To keep faith

At all times to speak the truth

To persevere to the end in any enterprise begun

To respect the honor of women

Never refuse a challenge from an equal

Never turn the back upon a foe

Seven Heavenly Virtues

Originating from the Christian bible. Basically the opposites of the seven deadly sins.

Chastity: Discretion of sexual conduct.

Temperance: Restraint and abstinence.

Charity: Generosity and self-sacrifice.

Diligence: Decisive work ethic and perseverance.

Patience: Forgiveness, mercy, and peace.

Kindness: Compassion towards others.

Humility: Thinking of yourself less.

Bushido

From the Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Nitobe Inazo

Die when it is right to die, strike when it is right to strike.

It is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die.

Benevolence brings low whatever hinders it, as water subdues fire.

In its highest form politeness approaches love.

Propriety carried beyond bounds becomes a lie.

Dishonor is like a scar on a tree which time, instead of healing, only widens.

Demonstrate the sincerity of your words to your lord with the shedding of your own blood.

Stoicism

Founded originally by Zeno of Citium in 3rd century Greece, and practiced famously by Emperor Marcus Aurelius during the reign of the Roman Empire. These are not a set list as very few fragments of the original Stoics' teachings have survived, so I tried to gather the main tenets of it for you.

Happiness lies in the pursuit of virtue, and virtue is the logic that pervades nature.

Everything else is secondary to virtue, and worrying about these only creates harmful emotions.

All creatures are equal to one another

Judgment is based on actions, not words

One cannot rely on luck or faith, only ourselves and our actions

The natural state of the universe is perfect order and all events are acts of fate.

Pashtunwali

Originating from the native Pashtun tribes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This code lasted a long time for these mountain-dwelling tribes who were often outside of governmental control.

Melmastia: Showing hospitality and respect to all visitors without the hope of remuneration or favor.

Nanawatai: Give protection to those who are beset by their enemies.

Nyaw aw Badal: So seek justice or take revenge against a wrong. Even the slightest taunt must be met with the shedding of blood.

Turah: Defend your land, property, and family against tyranny with your life.

Sabat: Remain loyal to your friends, family, and tribe.

Khegara/Shegara: Strive for righteousness in thought, word, and deed towards people, animals, and the environment.

Groh: Keep trust in Khudai (Allah, God).

Pat, Wyaar aw Meraana: Respect yourself and others, have pride in your society, and demonstrate courage.

Naamus: Defend the honor of women at all costs from vocal and physical harm.

Nang: Defend those who are weak.

Hewaad: Protect the homeland and defend your nation and culture.

Sae Sok O-Gye

The moral code of the hwarang, also known as the Flowering Knights, created by Buddhist monk Won Gwang.

Loyalty to country

Devotion to family

Trust among friends

Never retreat from battle

Kill only with forethought

The Nine Noble Virtues

A code of honor used in Odinism and Asatru that comes from the Poetic Edda, a collection of Old Norse anonymous poems, particularly the Havamal - The Ballad of the High One, and the Sigrdrifumal.

Strength is better than weakness

Courage is better than cowardice

Joy is better than guilt

Honor is better than dishonor

Freedom is better than slavery

Kinship is better than alienation

Realism is better than dogmatism

Vigor is better than lifelessness

Ancestry is better than rootlessness

Machiavellianism

I would call this a code of dishonorable strategy than a code of honor. It stems from Niccolo Machiavelli's book on leadership, The Prince. I would use this for a lawful-evil or lawful-neutral paladin. These are a collection of Machiavellian values in no particular order as there is no set list:

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

Reliable allies are those who benefit from your successes.

There is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and you should turn both to your advantage.

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

Forgiving those who wrong you is a mistake, for it undercuts the efforts of the loyal.

Passion is the best motivator.

Trust the honesty of enemies over that of friends. Enemies are quick to criticize.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

The difficult path is often the best, for you learn from your difficulties.

I am not interested in preserving the status quo. I want to overthrow it.

The Art of War

Again, more of a strategy guide than a code of honor, save this for war-driven or cunning paladins. Here are quotes from the Chinese general Sun Tzu's The Art of War, in no particular order.

The best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this.

An army may be likened to water...so an army avoids strengths and strikes weaknesses.

Know the enemy and know yourself.

To be prepared for any contingency is the greatest of virtues.

Those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.

Move not unless you see an advantage, use not your troops unless there is something to be gained, fight not unless the position is critical.

Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

When one treats people with benevolence, justice, and righteousness, and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind and will be happy to serve.

image credit: Kirsi Salonen

“Evil” Codes of Honor

Evil codes of honor are more difficult to come by in history, so it’s encouraged to write your own. When writing vows for an evil paladin or ex-paladin, be sure to write it so it seems like something one could feasibly believe in or agree to. Don’t write vows like “Kill everyone you see who isn’t evil” or “be a dick to everyone you meet.” Those aren’t reasonable. Evil vows are simply a matter of perspective. Use some of these as examples or ideas:

Mercy: Only those who align with your faith deserve mercy.

Self-Reliance: Those who cannot defend themselves are weak and are not worthy of aid.

Trust: The only people who can be trusted are your deity and your self.

Strength: Power yields to power as you yield to your deity.

Justice: Those who have committed what you perceive as an evil deserve to suffer or even to die.

Passion: Pride and fervor in your mission and vows are the pinnacles of virtue.

Necromancy: The forms of the dead are borrowed for your purpose before returning to your deity.

Truth: Your word is your bond, but the terms are very specific.

Honor: Your foes must be met on equal terms even if you intend to slay them.

Survival: Your own life is worth more than anyone else's.

Allies: Ensure your allies have a reason to aid you, because generosity is an illusion.

Faith: Keep your faith with the rites and rituals ordained by your deity, potentially including blood sacrifice.

[beyondthepalerpg]

Dichotomy of Heaven and Hell

Beyond the Pale was set up to be a morally ambiguous setting, where good and evil are points of view rather than cosmic forces. The concept of good and the concept of evil would be for the players and the GM to decide, rather than have it foisted upon them through an alignment. Characters could be played to whatever end, with specific lines that they can’t cross, rather than a set morality through a code established through rules.

This becomes an issue when dealing with heaven and hell, demons and angels. After all, in nearly all myth and legend, the demons are defined by their evil and angels are defined by their service to a god who is entirely good.

I wanted to avoid the concept of some ‘greater God’, capital G. In Beyond the Pale, there is no God, just beings that one could ascribe the title of god, lower g. Beings like the Archangels and Archdemons. When creating these two factions, the concept of seven was important to me. Historically, there have been seven Hebrew Archangels. There are seven deadly sins and seven heavenly virtues. In Islam, there are seven levels of heaven and seven layers of hell. There are seven disciplines of Bushido and seven lucky gods.

I modeled Heaven and Hell around the number seven. There are seven Archangels and seven Archdemons, based on the seven virtues and seven sins. There are seven kingdoms in hell (and one neutral city) and there are seven districts of heaven’s great city (and one spire where the Archangels meet).

But if I model the Archangels after virtues and the Archdemons after sins, they must be good and evil, something I wanted to avoid. The solution was to consider the virtues and sins in different lights. Given the sources for the seven sins, from heaven’s perspective these qualities are evil. The inverse must be true for hell, wherein these virtues become sins and the sins become virtues.

Virtues and Vices: Order and Chaos

Ultimately, I decided to put heaven and hell on the order vs chaos axis, ignoring the concept of good and evil entirely. In the broad strokes, the virtues enforce stasis and the progress of a whole society. Likewise, in general, the sins promote individual desires and for one to act out of personal need, something that causes a person to act out of personal interest, creating chaos.

By making the entire struggle one between order and chaos, I eliminated morality from the equation. By adding in personal desire against societal cohesion, I added back in the mortal struggle. Somebody who embraces the infernal virtues is not somebody who is inherently bad, they are an individualist, somebody who embraces their own needs, goals and emotions and puts them above society overall.

In this conflict, I wanted mortals to remain … not neutral, but caught in the middle. People are people, with the potential to instill order or wreak chaos. I wanted to impart mortals with something special, a middle ground. People aren’t angels, nor are they demons, and so either’s lifestyle and philosophy cannot work for them.

I decided to make both sides toxic to mortal kind when applied like the angels and demons do. Consider the heavenly virtues; patience, diligence, charity, humility, kindness, temperance and chastity. And then look at their infernal counterparts; wrath, sloth, greed, pride, envy, gluttony and lust.

Each virtue is taken to the extreme, as is each sin. Together, they balance one another out, and in mortals this tends to be the case. Nobody is so consumed by greed that they are incapable of charity. Nobody is so patient that wrath never touches their thoughts.

So how are these virtues bad? And how are the sins good? First, I assumed the position of heaven and considered how I’d make each sin look as bad and shallow as possible. If I was preaching my own philosophy in a war against another, propaganda is easy to perpetuate.

Below the break you’ll be able to read the rational I used in constructing each vice and virtue (and therefore each Archangel and Archdemon) and how they interplay with human life.

Pride is one’s self worth. At the extremes pride becomes hubris and vainglory and when it becomes so it can deceive one’s own viewpoint, stir contempt for others and poison every interaction. But blunted, pride in one’s self pushes you to new lengths. It allows you to strive for greatness and do remarkable things, to cause change in yourself and others.

Humility, on the other hand, is pride’s opposite. In biblical texts humility is submission to the divine. Simple humility is important to have, to bring one’s self down to earth and to empathize with others. Humility in the extreme, however, becomes absolute submission to authority and the undermining of self worth. At the absolute extreme, which is embodied in heaven, humility strips one of their own worth and identity.

Greed is good, we’ve heard the saying before. And perhaps in human levels it may. The accumulation of wealth, goods and earthly possessions certainly push people to act, both in good and bad ways. Without greed, progress would have to rely entirely on selfless endeavors, grinding to a halt. In the extreme, however, greed will cause a person to lose all sense of perspective.  People become commodities, the wellbeing of others becomes secondary to monetary gains, and payment always justifies the means.

So how can charity, the act of giving what you have away to those that need it, be bad? In moderation, it can certainly be good and will help society.  But if we take it to the extreme?  Would you give all you had to another?  What about if society enforces charity?  What if you deem action to be charity, to act on behalf of another for their own good?

In lust, I fiddled a bit. Traditionally, lust is about sex but I also considered what also caused one to stray, to cheat and to indulge. Lust is simply not craving for sex but what sex can provide; intimacy, acceptance and emotional fulfillment. Instead of just being about sex, lust became the seeking of emotional experience.

Chastity, on the other hand, became a mirror for lust.  Chastity became complete emotional isolation.  Concepts of intimacy, passion and bonding bled away until only the self remained.  Chastity is the act of separating one’s self from emotional needs.  It allows for an individual to put loyalty above all else, it can create a place where only logic can exist.  And those are good things, but only in certain situations. Not all the time, like in heaven.

Envy, like greed, helps the world go ‘round.  Envy, the desiring of what others have, pushes people to pursue those very things, to better one’s self and to aggressively overcome obstacles.  It allows people to rise through ranks, to voraciously hunt for success and accumulate wealth and prestige.  However, it can also cause murder, treason and theft. Unchecked envy rules a person, where they may choose the easiest method to obtain what they desire.

Kindness, envy’s opposite, was something I had to consider numerous times.  At the root of it, kindness is empathy.  And empathy is good.  It is a very good trait to have.  But human beings are not universally empathetic.  We do not care about children starving when we do not see them.  We can turn off our empathy to be able to function.  Unchecked, unceasing empathy would be crippling and would require isolation for a person to even function, else they would be overcome by the world’s tragedies.

Personally, I felt gluttony was always portrayed flatly.  Gluttony is overindulgence but does it have to simply be food?  Is a junkie not a glutton?  Can you not be a glutton for punishment?  I reasoned that gluttony was not about consumption of food, it was about indulging the senses.  Gluttony is the pursuit of worldly experiences.  To the extreme, of course, this would lead to self destructive behavior. But in moderation?  New experiences help broaden the minds of people, it makes people act in new and different ways.

So, if gluttony is about gorging one’s self on worldly experiences, in the indulgence of the senses, then what does temperance become?  Temperance is absolute control of one’s impulses.  In moderation, it leads a person to stay true to themselves, their purpose or task.  But to the extreme, it would mean not indulging in life’s enjoyments.  If taken too far, it can lead to an empty, boring life.

Wrath is generally considered to be bad.  After all, being angry tends to be something we want to avoid.  But consider, without anger, there would be no vengeance. There would be outrage at inequality. There would be no sense of inner displeasure at failure.  In the extreme, wrath is self destructive.  But just enough of it is the spark that causes people to act, to rise up against tyrants, to pursue those who do wrong.

Patience is opposite of wrath.  And we all know the phrase “patience is a virtue”.  And in human capacity it is.  It allows us to judge our own actions, to assess and to find our center and to prevent us from acting foolishly.  But superhuman levels of patience, patience enforced at the core of a being, may be something different.  When all one does is judge and assess, it becomes impossible to act.

Sloth is the odd sin out in Hell.  While all others are about acting, about pushing people to do something, sloth is the opposite.  Sloth is about inaction and entropy.  In small amounts, sloth allows people to rest and recover, both mentally and physically. But in a greater scope, it means inaction and unwillingness to perform one’s duties.

Finally, there is diligence. Like sloth, it is the opposite of the virtues.  While the virtues are about restriction, diligence is about action.  Diligence is about taking initiative, in pushing forward with one’s task until it is completed.  But if taken too far, diligence can become obsession, overzealousness and stubbornness.