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simp4wom3n · 1 year

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The Quiet One Pt.II

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x fem!reader

Requested: Yes/No

Summary: After losing Dewey right in front of their eyes, y/n decides to try and run away with the only other person she can trust. That plan however, turns sideways as Tara and y/n experience yet another real-life nightmare. ~ Word Count: 6.319k ~ Warnings: swearing, a lot of description of blood and gore, scream 5 spoilers obvi

A/N: HELLLO pt2 is finally hereeeeee!! I'm sorry it took me so long uni work has been killing me + I think this might be my longest fic yet so. Hopefully, you guys enjoy it and I did end up listening to the poll so hopefully everyone is happy with the ending <3

Pt1 ~ Pt2 ~ Pt3 ~ Pt4 ~ Pt5

"I would fucking love to."

"Let's get you out of here then", Sam smiles at you, a stray tear escaping your weak grasp at her soft words. She gives your hand one last gentle squeeze before she stands up to get the nurse, your soft gaze shifting to Tara, whose warm smile still adorned her face. Your eyes scanned her tired features, the mental and physical weight of the situation clearly catching up to her - and yet her smile still managed to set your body alight.

When Sam returns with the nurse, you gingerly sit up as they help you swing your legs off the side of the hospital bed. With Sam holding one arm and the nurse on the other, they balance you as your feet touch the ground, your knees shaking slightly as you stand up. You chuckle lightly when the young nurse hands you a black walking stick. You catch Tara choking down her laugh in your peripherals, causing you to playfully glare at her as you try to get used to walking again.

After some initial help from the nurse, you were allowed to leave. When you walked towards Tara on your own, hobbling like a stiff post due to your aching torso, she offered you another small smile before teasing your rigid form. "Hey there, old man". She chuckled at her comment as you made your way towards the elevator, your mouth dropping in feign offence as you placed your hand over your heart. "Jeez, It's good to see you too."

You were so focused on not falling on your face when you all entered the lobby that you didn't notice the two familiar figures watching you as you approached the door. It wasn't until the Sidney Prescott approached the four of you that you lifted your head away from your walking stick, your eyes widening considerably when you noticed Gale sat just behind her.

The familiar burn of tears returned as your eyes lingered on Gale, and as her broken eyes met yours, you ripped your gaze away from her as your tears escaped down your cheeks. You had no idea whether Gale knew who you were, hell, you didn't really care if she did or not, but you certainly knew who she was. You and Dewey were each other's safe haven; for every piece of information you ranted to him about, he returned in the same volume, meaning that you had heard many of Dewey's rants about his ex-wife.

Knowing how strongly Dewey felt for Gale only made your heart ache more as waves of grief started crashing down on you. The more you tried to grasp that you had lost the one person who had always been there for you, the further you sank into the endless depths of grief, the ice-cold water infiltrating your lungs as you started to drown.

You were the first out the door when Richie suggested that the three of you bring the car around, the rush of fresh air causing your tensed muscles to relax slightly as you slowly inhaled. Richie was leading the way to the car with Tara in front of him, leaving you trailing behind with nothing but the sound of your stick connecting with the cold concrete beneath you and an emotionless and blank stare on your face.

As Richie helps Tara out of her wheelchair and into the backseat of Sam's car, you cautiously lower yourself next to her, a huff escaping your mouth when you're finally seated. You close the door before letting your head fall back in exhaustion, your eyes glued shut as you attempt to take the world's shortest power nap, the tidal wave of emotions finally starting to drain away.

Even as the car started moving, your eyes remained shut as your breathing began to steady, continuing to be blissfully unaware of Tara's worried gaze. It wasn't until Richie honked the horn obnoxiously that you finally opened your eyes. Catching a glimpse of Gale and Sidney, who continue to talk to Sam, makes you immediately regret looking out the window.

Turning away from the window, your eyes land on Tara, who had been sending you a worried gaze. "You okay?" she asks, her voice so soft that you almost miss her. The corner of your lips flutter with the essence of a smile as you send her a slight nod, your heart singing at her gentle words.

"Let's get the fuck out of town, huh?". Internally chuckling at Richie's words, you watch the two women try to stop Sam from leaving, failing horribly as she moves to get in the car. "No. We're leaving. That's the only way I can protect Tara.". You cast a hesitant glance in Tara's direction, her face dropping ever so slightly as her sister's words sink in.

Those exact words had you on the verge of tears once more. You had no idea where Sam had been all this time, having never met her before. Still, Tara obviously meant a lot to her, which made you both feel relieved that Tara was receiving the love she deserved and jealous that you lacked that same unconditional love.

You wanted to be cared for and loved - and not because they felt bad for you.

Obviously noticing the absent look on your face, Tara inhales slowly, trying to compose herself, before she gently reaches for your hand. You flinch slightly at the contact, not used to the affectionate and comforting gesture, but you take her hand nonetheless. Your heart is pounding as her fingers interlock with yours, and she gently squeezes your hand.

As Sam got into the car, she explained what Gale and Sidney wanted, and whilst you understood where they were coming from, there was no way you were letting whatever psycho was behind that mask take the only two people in this fucked up world that you cared about - one was already too many.

"Fuck that. Let's go."

The silence of the car trip was both eerie and serene. Both you and Tara had been tenderly looking at each other in silence for minutes on end, your eyes glancing back and forth between her flawless features and your conjoined hands.

Whilst losing Dewey was easily one of, if not the worst thing that has happened to you, as you admire Tara in the backseat of her sister's car, the passing street lights dimly lighting her face, you finally face the thought that you could have lost her too.

"I'm really happy that you're ok." you whisper, trying to hold onto your emotions as you swallow the lump in your throat. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you too". Squeezing your hand gently in response to your words, Tara looks similarly overwhelmed with emotions, her breathing becoming erratic.

"I don't know what I would've done if I lost you either", she responds breathlessly, her hand finally slipping out of yours as her attention shifts to her packed bag. Her sentimental words fail to sink in as you worriedly watch her search through her bag in a panic.

"Fuck, where is it?" "Where's what?" you asked worriedly, her frantic search causing your heart to race with anxiety. "My inhaler. I usually keep an extra one." "Should we go back" Sam chimes in, which causes both you, and apparently Richie, to internally panic. "Whoa, okay. I vote for not going back to the murder hospital" he speaks as if stealing the words from your mouth. "Should we stop at a pharmacy?" Sam suggests. "I'd need a prescription, but I left one at Amber's."

The pounding of your chest grew as you diverted your eyes outside the window. Just when you thought you had finally escaped Amber's murderous gaze, here you were finding out that not only were you probably about to go pay her a visit, but for Tara to have left a spare inhaler at her house, they must have been close - closer than you would like to imagine.

The thought made your body burn in unwarranted jealousy. You scolded yourself for feeling such a childish emotion. After all, you were the one who started ignoring her, not the other way around. "Is there seriously no other way we can get you one?" you spoke sharply, earning a confused glare from Tara at your tone. You refused to look at her as you felt her eyes scanning your side profile, your clenched jaw apparently obvious as her gaze softened slightly, "No..."

You slowly nodded your head in defeat as your heart plummeted. Your body clenched in agony as you turned back to the car window to watch the passing scenery in an effort to block out Richie's request for the location.

You would have preferred the murder hospital.

"Oh, perfect. She's having a party"

The loud music echoed through the car's closed windows as it came to a stop. The modest home on a dark and ominous street was now full of drunk teens who, for some unknown reason, decided to gather during the middle of a killing spree.

"I'll go in quickly and get it. I'll be back in five" "I'm coming too." Tara moves to unbuckle her seatbelt as Sam gets out of the car. "I'm coming with you" You follow Tara's movements as you unbuckle your seatbelt, albeit a bit more stiffly than Tara, a dull ache still in your torso.

Your words had caught Tara off-guard, her eyes studying you for a moment before she exited the car with Sam's help. She knew how you felt about Amber, how uncomfortable she made you. Even from miles away, she could tell how your body shifted uncomfortably whenever she was around you or how your usually lively expression would drop instantly when you caught a glimpse of her - or at least that was before you stopped talking to her.

Situated with her crutches under her arms, she looks over at you as you pull yourself out of the car, your posture still incredibly rigid as you close the door behind you and walk hesitantly around the vehicle until you are standing next to her.

"You ok?" she asks faintly, a hint of concern evident in her tone despite her inability to walk. "Yeah... You?" The ghost of a smile passes over your lips as your eyes meet hers, the softness in her gaze causing your heart to melt. "Yeah", she nods, her lips creeping upwards before Sam pulls her attention away from you.

The blaring music overwhelms your already delicate senses, the coloured lights straining your eyes as everyone starts the cheer at Tara's arrival. Although you felt like you were going into sensory overload, you couldn't help but admire how Tara looked under the euphoric lighting. Her typically gorgeous features now completely captivate you as you stare in awe - how could someone be so fucking perfect.

Your blissful admiring ended abruptly as Amber pushed her way through the crowd. "What are you doing out of the hospital? Should you even be up and around?" she said as she hugged Tara, your eyes averting themselves away from their affectionate embrace.

"I need my spare inhaler." "Why? where are you going?" You notice Tara's eyes shift towards Sam, who shakes her head at the question - a relief, considering you really didn't want Amber to know where you were going. "It's fine. Don't tell me. I get it. Just be safe, ok?.... I think it's in my room."

You couldn't help but scoff at her words. Of course it was in her room. Where else would it be. Your internal rant about how insufferable Amber was was sadly cut off by her words, "All right, everyone! Thanks for coming, but the party's over!" As you leant on your walking stick, your brows furrowed as the music stopped playing and the confused and angry calls of the partygoers came from all directions.

'Why is she ending the party?'. As far as you knew, she didn't need to do that. All she needed to do was disappear into her room for a minute to get the inhaler, and you would all be on your merry way. You now watched as everyone started to walk out the door, but your eyes were drawn to Tara as she shifted uncomfortably at Richie's mention of her attack. 'Prick'

Amber captured her attention as she rubbed her back sympathetically, earning herself a small smile from the girl. Your scowl grew due to the interaction, and your feet now carried you instinctively towards the one person left who meant anything to you.

"Can we just get the inhaler and get the fuck out of here" you interrupted, both of the girl's eyes landing on you with confused expressions - and a hint of anger on Ambers's part. "Sure thing, ghost face... but you're staying right here, away from Tara." her harsh words stung, your pained gaze landing on Tara, who simply looked at you blankly.

You tried to find words before Tara eventually spoke up, "Just stay here, y/n I'll be fine." she spoke plainly, already moving away from you with Amber on her tail. "You sure?" you call out. Tara turned her head back towards you with a small smile.

"I'll be right back I promise."

Sam was pacing around the house as you stood awkwardly in the entryway, shifting your weight between your stick and your feet as you tested whether you could walk without the irritating clicking that now followed your every step. If you were honest with yourself, you just wanted to leave. You wanted to run after Tara and pull her out of this goddamn house.

You obviously didn't know the layout of this house, but you were sure there was no way she could have taken this long to just grab her inhaler and go. You tapped your finger anxiously against the handle of your walking stick as Sam walked towards you, yelling, "Tara! We're leaving!". 'About time', you thought before you heard a phone start to ring.

You watched as Sam pulled out her phone, staring at it hesitantly before she inevitably pulled it up to her ear. "Hello?" you always hated only being able to hear one end of the phone call, but this one particularly angered you as you stared expectantly at Sam. "How do you know where I am?"

Silence.

You watch Sam's eyes flash with fear, her face going blank as she slowly scans her surroundings. As she finally stops still, terror overtaking her features, you begin to panic. "Sam? Sam, what's going on?" She blinks out of her trance, her mouth ajar as she sputters. "We have to get the fuck out of here."

As the last words left her mouth, a high-pitched scream pierced the air, followed by the sounds of furniture breaking, shattering the overbearing silence of the house. Sam bolts in the direction of the screams whilst you, being far less mobile, stumble in no particular direction, your head whipping around for any evidence of where Amber's room might be as your desperation to find Tara reaches your bursting point.

Eventually, stumbling into what looks like the living room, broken lamps and blood splatters covering a corner of the room. In that same corner, you notice Sam standing over Mindy's weakening figure. "No, Mindy, stay with me." You hobble further into the room, using the remaining furniture to support yourself as you make your way over to Mindy as quickly as possible.

Just as you make it over to the two girls, now covered in blood, you hear another piercing scream from behind you, causing your head to whip in its direction. "What did you do to her!?" Amber screams angrily as she storms into the room. 'Wait, is that Ta-' your thoughts are cut off as Amber throws you into the wall, her eyes staring daggers into your own.

You grunt in pain as Amber presses you into the wall, her hands gripping your shirt as your torso erupts in pain, causing your words to catch in your throat. "N-nothing. No, I didn't do anything." She scoffed before she let you fall to the floor, a whimper escaping your lips as you landed with a thud.

Curled up with your back against the wall, you squeezed your eyes shut in pain as your body throbbed. Feeble whimpers escaped your throat as your mind fogged over, the rapidly approaching clicks of crutches flying over your dazed head.

"God, Y/n!" your eyes crept open at the sound of a familiar voice calling your name. You watched as Tara made her way over to you in a panic. You couldn't tell whether it was the traces of painkillers left in your system making you loopy or whether you were just that desperate to feel like someone cared about you, but you couldn't help but admire her as she 'ran' over to you, her face painted with fear and yet you found it kinda cute.

She was stopped in her tracks when the sound of glass breaking echoed through the room. You silently scoffed as Amber stood protectively next to Tara, everyone's eyes darting towards Richie, who stood at the kitchen door with a broken beer bottle at his feet.

"What the fuck?" "Richie, where the fuck were you?!" Whilst everyone shouted at each other and Liv had at some point stumbled into the room, fuelled by pure desperation and jealousy, whilst Amber threw names around, you tried your best to stand up and close the remaining distance between you and Tara. Pushing with all the strength you had left in your legs, you managed to grasp onto a wooden set of draws and pull yourself up, now resting against them.

"Fuck you, Amber. I'm not the fucking killer!" Liv screamed in agony as you finally returned your attention to the chaos unfolding before you. Tara was already glancing at you with fear written all over her face as you glanced back and forth between her and the other group members.

"I know"

Liv's body fell to the floor with a loud thud as the sound of a gunshot filled the room. Breathing heavily, your eyes widened as they darted towards Amber, a smug smirk on her face as she proudly swung the gun around and pointed it directly at you.

"Welcome to act three"

You think you hear Richie scream 'Run', but as your eyes stare down the barrel of her gun, you remain frozen. A wave of nostalgia washes over you as your stitched wounds start to burn at the memory of the very night in the hospital. It slowly sank in that Amber was behind the mask that night.

The one that stabbed you mercilessly whilst undoubtedly plastering a smile all over her sick face.

The one that killed Dewey and, in doing so, took everything away from you.

The one that was about to kill you.

Your face was emotionless as she smirked at you. You had accepted your fate. The world hated you, so why not let it take you. Anticipating a bullet straight to the head like Liv had suffered moments ago, you were surprised when the gunshot went off, and your lights weren't immediately turned off.

Instead, you watched Tara intervene at the last second, putting Amber off as the bullet missed your head. You would have sighed in relief if your leg hadn't collapsed. Dropping onto the wooden floor, you gasp in pain as your eyes divert to your thigh, which is now spewing blood

"Y/n!" you hear Tara desperately cry, your eyes diverting away from the gaping hole in your leg to land on her tormented figure as Amber drags her out of the room. "Tara! Tara, no!" You attempt to push yourself off the floor, getting up onto your hands and knees as you work up the strength to follow her.

"Y/n! please!" she screams again, her voice becoming more distant every second. Sucking in a deep breath, you struggle to pull your good leg up from beneath you before your hand slips in your own pool of blood, causing you to fall flat on your stomach.

"No... N-No" you cry softly as you bleed out helplessly on the floor.

The sound of a distant gunshot causes your eyes to shoot open. The house has been eerily quiet for the past few minutes. When two more gunshots ring out, you turn your head from your position on the floor, attempting to see if you can see anything through the doorway.

The sound of approaching footsteps catches your attention as Amber appears from around the corner, gun still in hand. When she spots your fragile figure lying in a small pool of blood, she tilts her head playfully as the corner of her lips crack into a smirk.

Taking slow, calculated steps towards you, she crouches in front of you so her eyes meet yours. "Oh y/n... y/n, y/n, y/n." She taunted as you chewed on your bottom lip, knowing that if you made a snarky remark, she wouldn't hesitate to put a bullet right between your eyes.

"This feels awfully familiar, but I can't seem to think where from... Oh yeah, that's right... the hospital" she chuckles as you begin to cry, a solemn tear falling down the side of your face. "Look at you, so pathetic... Dewey can't save you now, can he." Any grip you had on your emotions was broken as soon as his name left her mouth.

"Fuck you", you spat, your body now seething with a mixture of anger and heartbreak. "Aw, aren't you feisty? You know, normally, I would just shoot you right now, kill you while I have the chance, but... I don't know, I think I'd rather see you die slowly... painfully."

She gave you a sarcastic pat on the shoulder as she stood back up and walked away, probably going to put her costume on. The eerie silence returns as Amber disappears, the front door opening, which you presumed was her leaving to continue her bloodbath. However, when you heard what sounded like Sidney calling out, your head lifted in hope.

"Anyone hiding, killer or not, you have five seconds to show yourself!", "In here! I'm over here! Help me, please." you begged as you continued to keep pressure on your bullet wound. When Sidney enters the room, you let out a wet chuckle in relief before she points the gun at you.

You raise your spare hand up in surrender, your eyes pleading with her for her help. You see her eyes flash in recognition. Although extremely hesitant at first, she eventually takes one last glance over her shoulder before she comes closer to you, kneeling down next to you as her eyes follow your hands to your thigh. She sucks a breath in as she reaches for a blanket on the couch behind her, tearing off a strip of its fabric before she ties it tightly around your leg, causing you to hiss in pain.

As soon as she tied the knot, she quickly got back to her feet and had her gun ready. "Stay here, okay?" You nod softly as she retreats from the room, a soft thank you escaping your lips as she disappears further into the house.

Staring at the ceiling, your hands sticky and painted a crimson red, you take slow, steady breaths to calm your racing heart. With numerous gunshots ringing through the house as Sidney undoubtedly searches every inch of it, you take in what will most likely be your last peaceful moments, knowing that this nightmare will only get worse.

Your suspicions were confirmed when the ground shook violently underneath you, the sound of gasps and groans accompanying it as your ears perked up in concern. Despite being riddled with pain, your leg feeling like a dead weight on your already weakened body, you push yourself up off the ground, grunting as you finally reach your feet.

Using the remnants of furniture as your crutch, you limp towards the commotion as a steady stream of blood escapes from your tourniquet, painting a thin red path down your leg. Your head spins as your heavy blood loss starts to take its toll, your eyesight becoming blurry as you eventually slump against the doorway leading towards the home's entrance.

"Yes! Yes!" "Shoot him!" Your jaw went slack as your eyes focused on what was happening before you. You watched as Sam stood over ghost face, who you presumed was Amber, with a gun pointed towards their head. You couldn't help but sigh slightly in relief at the thought of Amber getting what was coming to her, but that was cut short as Richie forced a knife into Sam's side.

A gasp fell from your lips. Both you and Sam are in complete disbelief. "I really, really wanted to be the one to kill you." You cringe in pain as Richie twists the knife in Sam's torso, the girl screaming in agony as her knees buckle underneath her. The smile on Richie's face made you sick, diverting your eyes away from the pair to try and escape the torturous sight.

However, you didn't find any relief as your eyes landed on Amber as she took off her mask before grabbing the gun from Richie's hand. She smirks at you as she harshly grabs Sidney's hair, pulling her head back so she grunts in pain and points the gun at you again.

Your strength starts to drain from your legs as you slowly slide down the wall, your face becoming a ghostly white as you slump against the floor. Your breathing is laboured as you look back towards Sam, your drooping eyes opening in disgust as Richie pulls Tara's inhaler out of his pocket.

"I can't believe this worked", he said, chuckling maniacally. "You son of a bitch!" you berated him from your place on the floor, staring at Richie with pure hatred burning behind your eyes, begging to be set free.

This was the last time you would let them take advantage of Tara.

"Where is Tara!? Where the fuck is she!? What did you do to her!?" you continued to yell, moving from your place on the wall to try and reach Amber, only for her to hit you across the face with her gun, your back violently falling onto the floor.

"Why do you care so much about her, huh? It's not like she cares about you. Why would she? Hell, I don't even know how she tolerated you... but if you seriously think Tara likes you, oh y/n, you've got another thing coming" Your eyes swam with tears, her words reawakening your most significant doubt about every 'friendship' you had ever had.

Why the fuck would they like you?

"Let's get'em into the kitchen"

"Dewey had to die to make it real. To show that this wasn't just some bullshit, cash-in, run-of-the-mil sequel". Pushed up against the kitchen counter, Amber points a bloodied knife dangerously close to your face as she yells her so-called 'reasoning' for taking your best friend's life, your adopted father, the one person you could wholly rely on.

Her and Richies speech had gone straight over your head, your mind instead focusing on Tara's absence from what would appear a vital part of their plan where they wanted everyone alive to be. They even brought an injured Gale into the conversation, perhaps just to taunt her about Dewey, but it still left you panicking. You had had enough of their useless justification.

You had to find Tara dead or alive - preferably the latter.

"Because our movie has fucking stakes! Cause anyone can die in a requel" As Amber turns her head away from you, you take your opportunity as you reach for a knife left carelessly on the counter. Your fingertips graze the knife's handle as Amber's is shoved into your torso, a hoarse groan escaping your throat as your legs buckle underneath you at the burning pain.

At this point, your entire body is riddled with pain. Your stitches stretch with each way you turn, your legs throb with every step you take, and now with every heavy breath you inhale, your torso burns in agony, the familiar crimson liquid cascading down your body one too many times.

"Whoa, whoa, who do we have here?" Richie mocks as he kneels down in front of you. "Y/n was it?... well y/n, I'm so sorry, but we can't let you live either, can we? I mean..." he humorously chuckles, "you weren't even supposed to be here in the first place... but now that you're here, the more bodies, the better." he smiles at you as if he thinks he is doing you a favour, the bitter taste of defeat begins to resurface as you squeeze your eyes and drop your head.

"Get Tara out of the closet. We got to start staging the bodies!" Your eyes dart towards Richie as Tara's name leaves his mouth, the desperation of your movement causing your head to spin. "What the fuck did you do to her!" You screamed brokenly at him as Amber left the room, your voice cracking in pure exhaustion and fear. His previously playful look turned dark as he stared at you menacingly.

He playfully juggled the gun between his hands before shoving the barrel point-blank between your eyes. "You wanna say that again?" he smirks arrogantly, both of you knowing he has all the power in this situation. With the pistol pushing against your forehead, the barrel still warm from its recent kills, you aggressively bite your lip as you swallow down all the words on the verge of spilling out of your mouth.

"Um, she's not here." You hear Amber shout from a different area of the house. You watch as the smug look on Richie's face quickly drops as he gets back to his feet, his pistol still aimed at your head. "What the fuck do you mean 'she's not here'?" "She's not here!" Your head turned to Sam in conclusion, the hint of a smirk evident on her face causing your own to begin to grow on your lips.

"I untied her." You couldn't help but chuckle at her words. You push yourself back, so your back is leaning against the kitchen cabinets, your body naturally relaxing in relief as the thought of Tara being alive becomes much more realistic.

"Guess you're not as persuasive as you thought" "Fucking idiot", you laughed, the agony your body was in turning into some kind of high as a giddy smile crept onto your tired features. You giggled weakly, blissfully unaware of Richies approaching figure until his face was a few inches in front of yours.

He didn't say anything, instead swinging his armed hand across your face violently, the blunt end of the pistol connecting harshly with your cheekbone as your head turned sideways at the force. You weakly reached your hand towards your now stinging cheek, your fingers gently travelling across a new cut that painted your fingers red.

Your eyes were pulled away from your newly painted fingers when you heard Amber's shouts interrupted by a loud thud. The sound of a struggle echoed through the house and into the kitchen as Richie tried to hide the worry evident on his face as his plan unravelled before him.

"Amber?" he called cautiously as he looked in the direction the girl had gone, leaving the four of you now unnoticed. With him distracted, Sam takes her opportunity to try and grab the gun from Richie's hand. A stray gunshot goes off as Sam tackles him to the ground. You watch as the two of them struggle before, as quickly as you physically can, you frantically crawl out of the kitchen, determined to find Tara.

In your admittedly weak and dazed state, the halls and rooms of Amber's house turned into a maze. Each corner you turned and each room you checked came up empty - and you had no fucking clue where you were. You had been silently stumbling around the dark house, avoiding and hiding from the screaming and shouting coming in the direction you thought was the kitchen.

"Tara?" "Tara, where are you?" "Tara come on, where are you?" "Please, where are you?" you desperately whispered as you navigated the house. With each step you took, you could feel your body growing weaker, your adrenaline beginning to wear off as your energy finally began to deplete.

The echoing of screams and gunshots, as much as you wanted to ignore them, eventually pulled your attention away from your distraught search for Tara. After all, for all you knew, she was the source of said screams, a thought which made your stomach twist in fear.

With a thick trail of blood following your every move, you essentially drag yourself towards the sound of Richie's maniacal laughter. Now apparently incapable of feeling shocked, you eventually find yourself watching blankly as Richie leans over Sam's figure with a gun to her throat.

"Never fuck with the daughter of a serial killer."

You stare, amazed, as Sam begins to 'stab the shit' out of Richie, blood splattering all over the girl's figure as the pool of blood underneath Richie's now mutilated body grows. When she slits his throat, his body begins to seize underneath her as she glares at his dying figure with a vengeful look on her blood-covered face.

Stumbling as she stands up from his body, you limp towards her, the sound of your heavy footsteps catching her attention as she looks over at you. You watch her eyes flash with relief at the sight of you still alive, her lips twitching ever so slightly upwards as you finally reach her side.

The sound of footsteps coming from the kitchen caused both of your heads to turn in fear, a feeling which instantly dissolved as you watched Gale and Sidney walk in behind you, eyes fixated on Richie's body.

"Careful, they always come back." You turn your head away and squeeze your eyes shut as you hear Sam fire three shots into Richie's mangled body, the sound of his blood squelching sending shivers down your spine. After a beat of silence, you look back at Tara's older sister, a new sense of fear reawakening.

"W-Where's Tara?" you ask shakily, Sam's face similarly painted in worry as tears flow down your cheeks. "W-Where the f-fuck is she? Please s-someone t-tell me where s-she is" you begged, looking between the three women surrounding you.

None of them answered you.

"I-I need to find Tara." you said flatly, moving to limp away from the group before your plans were cut short by a harrowing scream. Your widened eyes watch as a disgustingly disfigured Amber comes running at you from the kitchen, a blade in hand as she causes you to stumble back in shock.

Her rampage was quickly ended by yet another gunshot, this time not from one of the girls around you. With a confused look on your distraught face, your eyes dart towards where the bullet came from.

Tara.

You let out a heavy sigh as you spot her shaky figure holding up a smoking gun. "I still prefer the Babadook", she inhales shakily after her words, finally lowering the gun as the realisation that both of the psychos behind the masks were finally dead.

You let out a wet chuckle in relief as you breathlessly limp towards her. She meets you in the middle, where despite your numerous injuries, you wrap her in a crushing embrace, sobbing into her shoulder in pure happiness. "A-are you okay?" you whisper shakily into her ear. She nods as she pulls back slightly, your teary eyes meeting hers as you give her your best attempt at a comforting smile.

"Are you good?" she asks you, her fear still evident in her tone. Your hands are clutched to her clothes as you nod in response, desperate to shut up the terrified part of your brain that thinks all this is too good to be true.

Your eyes soften in her gaze, all the pain throughout your body melting away as Tara hesitantly reaches her hands towards your face, resting gently on either side as her thumb caresses your cheek. She stares at you momentarily with a euphoric look on her face, her eyes scanning yours for any sense of discomfort.

You were moments from pulling away when you noticed her gaze flicker down towards your lips. Catching your bottom lip between your teeth, butterflies erupt in your wounded stomach, and your breath catches in your throat as your eyes now risk a glance at her delicate lips.

Deciding she had waited long enough, Tara eagerly pulls your face towards her own as her lips capture yours in a desperate kiss. Despite having wanted this to happen for longer than you could remember, the feeling of her warm lips against yours surprises you, nothing but her overwhelming your senses.

Your hands snake around her waist, forming a tight grip, your lips beginning to move against hers with a renewed passion whilst remaining gentle in both of your fragile states. As your pace began to slow and your harboured breathing mirrored hers, you entered a state of pure bliss.

You couldn't fucking believe this was happening.

Unfortunately, due to your shared need for oxygen, Tara's soft lips hesitantly left yours as your foreheads remained connected. As your e/c eyes met hers once again, a giddy smile overtook your tired features as the realisation that Tara does like you back sinks in.

She was alive, and she was with you.

And that was all you could possibly ask for.

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#jenna ortega angst #jenna ortega x fem reader #jenna ortega x reader #tara carpenter #tara carpenter x fem reader #tara carpenter x reader #jenna ortega #jenna ortega imagine #tara carpenter imagine #scream 5 #scream 6 #scream #scream 2022

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soleilceirinen · 3 months

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The older I get | Shelby family x sister!Reader Modern AU

Summary: after being away for years, you must return to Small Heath to face the loss of a beloved one. But, will you be able to forgive the past and leave it behind? A/N: English is not my first language, sorry in advance if something makes no sense. Warning: death of a family member, angst. Words: 3.1k

Peaky Blinders Masterlist

"Y/N? Honey, are you still there?" Lizzie's soft voice echoed through the phone.

"Yes, thanks for calling," you said, fighting back the urge to cry. "Hey, why hasn't he called me?"

Lizzie sighed tiredly. "He's busy with work. Besides, he wanted someone else to tell you in case you didn't take it well."

"How the hell am I supposed to take this?" You asked with anger filling your veins. It wasn't Lizzie's fault and it wasn't fair to take out your frustration on her but you couldn't help it.

"I know," she conceded, "but you know your brother, he's having a hard time. Everyone's having a hard time."

Despite the lump in your throat, you nodded. Of course you understood but that didn't make you feel any better. Your Aunt Polly had just died and you had to find out through your brother's ex-wife.

"Thank you for taking the time to call me, see you tomorrow, well in a few hours," you hung up the phone and threw it hard against the mattress, it bounced several times before falling to the floor. The noise that the device made when it hit the ground resonated like an explosion in the silence of the night.

The tears you had been holding back rolled freely down your cheeks. You fell down on the bed, burying your face in the pillow and letting out a choked sob.

It was too late to go to Birmingham, or too early, depending on how you looked at it. In a few hours you would take the first train so you could attend the funeral. You weren't sure what scared you more, facing the reality that Polly was gone or being in the same room with all your siblings again after seven years apart.

Since you couldn't fall asleep in the remaining hours until dawn, you packed some clothes and personal items, not many because you didn't plan to stay in Birmingham for too long, and tidied up your room. Cleaning would keep your mind busy.

The train ride was a fucking nightmare. Despite it being so early, your car was full of people, people with children who couldn't stop screaming and running between the seats. Wasn't anyone capable of teaching their children some manners? The boy right behind you had been kicking the back of your seat for more than twenty minutes, the damn thing.

Taking a deep breath, you rested your head on the window as you watched the landscape and tried not to think. The soft rattle of the train rocked you as if trying to comfort you. However, it was not that simple. Memories of your childhood in Small Heath flooded your mind, some of them good, some others the kind you would have liked to banish from your memory. The kind of ones that made you take the decision to put some distance between you and your family in the first place.

Finn and you, as twins, were the youngest with a considerable age difference compared to the rest of your siblings. Due to family problems, your parents had always been absent from your life, so your Aunt Poll practically raised you as her own. Polly was the closest thing you had ever had to a mother figure.

Your childhood and adolescence weren’t easy. Deep down you felt bad for thinking like that, you knew that your older brothers had had it worse while your father still lived with them, but still. As a teenager nothing seemed fair.

It was all screams and arguments, a house immersed in violence. Aunt Polly began to drink more and more, Arthur only thinking of his drugs or who knows what, which caused more fights. When the shouting started you used to run to your room and close the door, getting into bed, covering your head with a blanket and listening to music at full volume until your ears hurt.

And then you prayed just as Polly had taught you. You prayed that you would fall asleep and wake up with another family, a normal family where no one screamed or came back in the middle of the night beaten up and covered in blood.

You wiped away the tears falling down your cheeks with the back of your hand as you noticed a little girl staring at you.

"Why are you crying?" she asked in a squeaky childish voice.

Before you had time to make up any excuse a man who must have been her father spoke out loud, clearly making fun of you.

"She broke up with her boyfriend, right, pretty face?"

The look you gave him could rival Tommy's. No one would hesitate to say that you were a Shelby. Slowly, his smile faded from his face and he looked away embarrassed, grabbing the girl by the arm to make her return to her seat.

When you finally got off the train, your eyes were swollen and your nose was red from crying. You took a couple steps through the station and then stopped. Who were you looking for? You didn't even know if anyone was going to pick you up.

“Y/N!”

Turning around, you looked everywhere trying to find who was calling you. They could be calling someone else but the voice was too familiar to be a mistake. And then you saw him, a few metres from the entrance, greeting you with his arm and a huge smile.

"Hello, Isaiah," you said with a small voice. He wrapped his strong arms around you in a tight hug and you buried your face in his chest, a position similar to the one you two shared the last time you said goodbye.

"How are you?" He asked when you stepped away but he immediately rolled his eyes. "Sorry, that was a stupid question."

"It's okay, I'm fine. What about you?"

He shrugged. "Great, given the circumstances. I have the privilege of picking up and bringing home the princess of Small Heath," he joked, winking playfully.

You hit him on the arm, of course not hurting him. You followed him only to stop next to the car, he took your bag and put it in the trunk. Once inside, Isaiah pulled out and placed his cell phone on your thigh. "You can choose the music."

The ride was quiet, both of you listening to your favourite songs and humming or making up the lyrics from time to time, like when you were teenagers and ran away from home along with Finn.

"Why did you come to pick me up at the train station?"

Isaiah glanced at you out of the corner of his eye, not really taking his eyes off the road and remained silent for a few seconds. "Why, am I not enough for you?" he joked, in an attempt to light up the mood.

"I won’t hit you because you're driving" you murmured, he laughed softly. "My brothers, why have none of them come? I know Ada was busy with the kids, she texted but they haven’t even talked to me.”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I don't know. You should talk to them about that. You've been away for many years, they've changed."

You nodded silently. It had started to rain. "Sure. Thanks for coming to pick me up, Isaiah."

He squeezed your leg. "You know I'll always be there for you."

The rain was now pouring fiercely as a reflection of your current mood.

Everything in the house screamed Polly, every corner reminded you of your childhood. It would always keep fascinating you how a simple scent could bring you back in time so easily. Blinking rapidly, you tried to clear your cloudy sight. Ada stepped in front of you, hugging you and murmuring comforting words in your ear and you leaned into her. You had missed her so much in the past few years.

As a little girl you felt devotion towards your only sister. You wanted to spend time with her, sometimes you stole her make up and she ended up mad at you because of it. The rest of the time she just pushed you away, not wanting to babysit you. Back then you thought it was unfair but now you understand, Ada was a teenager and she wanted to go out with her friends and her boyfriend, not staying at home with two little kids.

However, as you got older, it was more and more common for your sister to call to include you in her life.

"Will you stay with me and the children? Hey, Y/N. Are you listening to me?"

You looked at her worried face and nodded. “Yeah, thanks Ada. I don’t want to spend more time here than necessary.”

Ada rubbed your arm as she gave you a sympathetic look. “I know, dear. Have you seen the others? Or Polly?”

Your heart jumped against your ribs with fury. “No, not yet.”

“Y/N!” Arthur called out, striding towards your direction. He stopped a step away from you, undecided whether to give you a hug or not. He looked thinner than you remembered. Actually, he looked older. You were the one who stepped forward and hugged his slender body. He reciprocated right away, burying his face in your hair and sobbing.

“It’s okay, Arthur” you whispered against his chest.

Taking a step back, you stared at him once again, mentally thanking that he wasn’t the one picking you up from the train station. He was a total mess.

Somehow, seeing your older brother like that sent a pang of guilt directed to your guts. Arthur used to be energetic, fierce and chaotic, but this man in front of you was nothing like that. He seemed like he needed a warm blanket and a cup of tea, and maybe sleeping for a couple days without worries.

“Arthur, why don’t we go and talk to Lizzie?” suggested Ada, linking her arm with his and pulling him away. He smiled at you with his blue eyes filled with tears and reached to grab your hand but Ada didn’t let him do it. “Let's give Y/N some space, alright?”

You had been holding your breath without realising it. As soon as they left you alone you let out the air, feeling your lungs deflate. Throughout the house you could hear children screaming while playing, unaware of the sadness that filled the air. They were your nephews and nieces. Mostly John’s kids. You wondered if he was a good father now. When you were ten years old he used to make you watch horror movies such as The Exorcist or It, and then he laughed when you cried terrified at night.

The lump in your throat became more noticeable, you needed to get out of there.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Finn and Isaiah talking quietly to Michael and a blonde girl you didn't know. Avoiding crossing glances with them, you headed to the kitchen looking for the door that led to the backyard. If you did, you would have to stop and talk to them, exactly what you didn't want to do at that moment.

You weren’t expecting to see Polly’s coffin in one of the rooms so you turned your face away when you walked by its door, almost running until you reached the knob of the door that led to the backyard and turned it, opening the door and stepping outside. The chill wind helped to cool down your feverish cheeks.

After closing the door behind you, you leaned against the cold wall, eyes closed, trying to calm yourself down.

I'm sorry I didn't come sooner, you thought, placing a hand over your heart. I'm sorry for not saying goodbye to you, Aunt Polly, for not taking time to tell you how much I loved you. I was angry with all of you. I'm sorry, I promise to think of you and to not forget your name. Polly. Elizabeth Gray.

Letting out a choked sob, you opened your eyes. You didn't know if Polly was able to hear you, wherever she was now, but you sincerely hoped that your message would reach her somehow.

Someone clearing their throat made you jump. To your right, leaning against the wall just like you was Tommy, taking long drags on a cigarette, as if his intention was to suck the life out of it. "Damn Tommy, you scared the hell out of me! What are you doing here?" you yelled at him, brushing your hair out of your face and furiously wiping away your tears.

He shrugged and let out a puff of smoke. “Same as you.”

His voice was deep and hoarse, like if he had been crying. He used to be really close to Polly and now that you thought about it, it made sense. Just like Arthur, his appearance surprised you.

In your memories Tommy was a young man with his freckles and blue eyes, the dark hair slightly curled at the ends when he let it grow and an encouraging smile that he only reserved for you and your siblings. That was the brother who taught you how to ride a bike and how to swim in the canal, how to take care of horses during the summer breaks and the one who used to tell you stories with funny voices whenever you couldn’t sleep at night.

There was almost nothing of that brother in the man in front of you. Tommy was old. It had been around seven years since you moved away to go to university but time had hit him hard. He was in his forties now and his hair was turning grey in some parts, the wrinkles much more noticeable as well as the deep dark circles under his eyes.

He threw the remainder of the cigarette on the floor and looked at you thoroughly, as if he were analysing you from head to toe. A mix of emotions crossed his face but you weren’t sure to be interpreting them correctly, such as a slight panic, a bit of sadness and finally something similar to approval.

“You look good,” he stated, “how is school? Everything alright?”

Your eyes filled with tears once more but this time you didn't hold them back. All the rage that had been growing inside of you since Lizzie called you a few hours earlier came out freely. “I’m not in school anymore Tommy, I’m a PhD student and I’m writing my fucking thesis so don’t talk to me as if I were a stupid child.”

He seemed taken aback by your sudden anger. “It wasn’t my intention to make you feel like that” he apologised before clearing his throat, raising an eyebrow, “but if you haven’t noticed, you’ll always be a kid to me.”

Tommy didn’t let you say anything back, continuing with his speech. He wasn’t looking at you, instead, he stared at some point far away in the distance.

“When you were born I was the first to hold you in my arms. You were so tiny, I could carry your little body with both my hands. Finn started gaining weight so damn fast but you didn’t and we thought you’d never make it” he pursed his lips as you listened in silence, although you had heard him telling you this story many times when you were younger. “Every hour we had to feed you a bottle of formula and it was no bigger than my finger” he pointed his index finger in front of you as a measurement. “It seemed like a toy. But it worked, just look at you now.”

He turned to you and wiped your tears with his callous hands.

"Tommy, why didn't you tell me Polly was so sick?" you asked quietly, grabbing his wrists.

"You knew she was sick."

"Yes, but not enough to..." To die, you wanted to say, but the words got caught at your throat.

Your brother sighed and when he looked at you again, he seemed more tired than ever.

"I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily. You have your life far from here, you yourself wanted it that way. Your priority is your studies, let me finish," he said, pointing a finger at you authoritatively. "What happened to Poll was so sudden, none of us expected this to happen and it has been a hard blow for everyone."

“I didn’t say goodbye to her,” you muttered.

Tommy held you against his body, hugging you tightly. “Me neither.”

You looked up at him, scrutinising his face. The rim of his eyes was red and his bottom lip trembled a little despite his attempt to hide it. He seemed somehow fragile.

“Oh, Tommy,” you whispered, throwing your arms around his neck and letting him bury his face on your shoulder. You felt the wetness of his tears as you caressed the back of his head. “Next time something like this happens, let me know. Call me and I’ll come. I’m not a kid anymore, I’m part of this family too and I can help. You don’t have to go through stuff on your own. Alright?”

As he nodded slightly with his face still pressed against your shoulder you felt the sudden realisation that you had been mistaken most of your life. All you wanted to do was run away from your family in order to be happier, thinking that they wouldn’t need you after living through your whole childhood feeling like a burden, like someone whom they had to take care of.

For years you had hated them because it seemed that they enjoyed being miserable day and night, continuously fighting with each other… you never stopped to think about the reasons behind all those arguments or their actions. But you were older now and life had taught you that we are all humans and we all make mistakes.

Now everything was different. For once you were the strong one, able to stand by their side to support them. This bunch of sad and broken people were your family and they needed you just as much as you needed them.

Sometimes it was better to put some distance in order to see things from a different perspective, to heal, you realised as you held the shadow of the man who used to be like a hero to you during your childhood. At the end of the day you would always come back to the place where you belonged. The only thing you regretted was not figuring it out sooner.

#peaky blinders au #peaky blinders one shot #shelby family #modern!tommy shelby #angst with a happy ending #sister!reader #modern!peaky blinders #peaky blinders angst #tommy shelby angst #i don't know how to tag this #shelby family x reader #the older i get #soleilceirinen writes

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eldritch-spouse · 1 year

Text

[Part 4 of Gifted. Fem reader.]

Previous poll winner: " I think I'll... Thank the chef, yes. " (37.1%)

TW: Violence; Descriptions of cannibalism; Slight gore; Knife play; Extremely dubious consent.

New choice! [VOTE]

" I think I'll... Thank the chef, yes. "

Do you really have a choice anyway?

You recall him, his voice mostly. A southern drawl that sounded almost goofy, but imposing. Which is fitting, you suppose, he's an intimidating cinder block of a monster. A mushroom monster, you've seen one or two of those before, they're generally quite pretty in your opinion. The chef in particular struck you, the dotted patterns on his arms glowing faintly in the cavernous dark of Sybastian's mouth when he reached in for you.

In truth, you're not too sure how to feel about him. And that insecurity manifests when you purse your lips, possibly regretting your cooperation regarding these two's lascivious suggestions.

" My my, she really is tame. " Vesper fans himself. " Oh how I regret handing her over! You and I would have had so much fun back in Lust, honey. "

You shudder, believing every word he says. Maybe a bit of fear here is healthy, you can only imagine what kind of animal you'd become in his hands.

" Well then, go! " The Icon urges, facing away from you and Santi dramatically. " I won't let myself stare a second longer, lest I ruin this game. " This guy is such a theater dork, you can't believe you sucked him off. And so happily too.

Nevertheless, Santi takes the warning to heart, ushering you up as soon as you have a couple more forkfuls, not enough to last you long. It's a waste of perfect cuisine, frankly. The incubus walks you through the crowd, hand locked with yours, ever determined to soothe you via gentle touches. You appreciate that about him, this demon's been very kind to you so far, for whatever reason. Maybe because you chose him... Well, it was a good choice, you reckon.

Speaking of choices, you're still not too sure about this last one. Every step through the crowd makes your heart beat a bit harder, a bit faster. Will things work out here too?

" You're so tense, love. Is it butterflies? " Santi teases. " Don't worry, keep up this precious attitude and everything will be fine. "

Encouraging...? Not really.

The doors to the kitchen are tall, a brilliant white, and although there's supposed to be windows in each one of them, the glass there is obscured, meaning the inside is a mystery to you. You can hear the sounds however. Nothing too suspicious, chatter and clinking, mostly.

When the two of you reach those doors, your back is basically glued to Santi's front, fear and dread keeping you stock still. The demon is unbothered, simply pushing the large doors apart and edging you inwards.

Now this... This is what you call a real kitchen.

It's absolutely massive. Then again, that's a theme here. You do understand why things need to be larger in general, after all, many of the monsters here are bigger than humans by a considerable amount, their comfort must be catered to- However, this place tends to exaggerate in the dimensions of its overall floors. This entire kitchen is like a house, it's furnished with all sorts of equipment, reminding you of a world-renowned establishment. The brightness hurts your eyes a little, but you suppose it's necessary. How come you've never even once heard of this location?

The first thing your adrenaline-sharpened mind notes is the blood.

On what you very clearly recognize to be some modernized chopping block. On the ground, like something bleeding and squirming was dragged from said block to another huge set of doors, leading lord knows where. A large scarlet handprint you can only guess belongs to the chef on one of those doors. Then there's that cleaver, a scary-looking thing, embedded in the cutting block, some form of viscera and tissue still clinging to it. So he's not just a chef, yes, he's definitely also a butcher. And yet... You know, deep in your soul, whatever creature possibly lost its life here was likely human.

God help you.

That's not all though. As soon as your gradually panicking mind looks at anything but the trails of red present, it quickly finds ambulating creatures. Small. Smaller than the waiter, totally black but reflecting some sort of pigment, their heads floating as they work, each one clad in white kitchen garbs with varying designs. The first thing that crosses your mind nearly makes you vomit. Children?! You blink several times. No. No, they can't be, just because they're small doesn't mean they're infants, you haven't seen a single child here. Besides, you're fairly certain these aren't monsters, whatever the Hell they could be, they all look the same physically speaking, only their color accents and facial expressions distinguish them. This is some sort of clone fest. What are you looking at?! What is this?!

" S- Santi?... " Are you going insane?

" Oh right, you've never seen one of those before. " The demon reminds himself, chuckling at his own antics. You don't question why he's okay with the shady blood stains. " Those things are called bobbles. They're made here, sweetie, think of them as extra helpers. "

Things... They're things. Uhuh.

You watch silently for a couple of seconds. Most of them appear to be absorbed in their own tasks, moving efficiently between each other. Cutting vegetables, passing utensils, cleaning dishes, shouting for ingredients. Some of them occasionally glance at you two, the gray-colored ones completely neutral, the blue ones with a hint of trepidation. They're a bit cute, you'll admit, if you don't question the logic of their mere existence too much. You wouldn't mind having one of these. After a minute or two of watching these "bobbles" work in fast-paced harmony, you relax enough to detach from Santi, standing by his side warily.

Soon, one of the things, with a tall hat and slightly ripped garb, stomps over to you two. Its eyes narrow over pink-freckled cheeks, and he frowns at Santi specifically. A wooden spoon is slapped onto the demon's stomach.

" Ya hav'ta knock! Sir doesn't like it when people don' knock! " It drawls at the snickering incubus, who merely takes the hits without flinching.

" Whoopsie... Can you find it in you to forgive me? "

You muffle an amused noise as well, watching the small critter's face puff in annoyance for a couple of tense seconds. How can anyone take them seriously, with that adorable look? Finally, it gives Santi a bright smile.

" Okay! " Big pink eyes settle on you, after a concerning pause- Like it genuinely hadn't seen you all this time. " Ooh! Ya brought a piggy, sir's gonna like her! "

The bobble grabs your hand with its four-fingered one and starts trying to lead you somewhere, but you stand your ground. Santi's eyes widen and he flicks that intrusive limb away.

" Hey-! "

" No no Turnip, this one's not for the warehouse. " The look on his pale face is serious, making the bobble tilt its perfectly round head. " This one's for sir. He knows her. "

" Ooooohh... " The pink and black bobble waves its hands excitedly. " Special piggy! "

Wait, hold on- It's name is literally Turnip? What.

" Yes, exactly, I need you to get Morell for me, okay? "

" Yessir! "

Funny, didn't Grimbly say that too? Irregardless, the small being trots away, pushing past those heavy-looking doors with great effort and disappearing from sight entirely. You couldn't get a good look at what lies beyond, which is disconcerting.

The incubus begins looking around, and though you can't really tell what he's after, you don't struggle too much when he beckons you over to an empty marbled counter, and sits you atop it. O-Okay. Satisfied, he goes back to waiting, some form of excitement in his gaze, although it mixes with something else, dampening it.

" Am I... " You start quietly, some of the adrenaline crashing, permeated by uncertainty. " Going to be alright? "

The demon faces you, reading into your expression with a carefully neutral one as he ponders. You don't like that he hesitates, that he's thinking about his answer. That in itself should be telling enough. When you look away, defeated, he grabs your hand, a much smoother smile on those handsome features.

" You're tough. " He begins. " I can tell. Trust in your sixth sense and keep it up. "

He meant to be motivating, but truth of the matter is that was neither a confirmation nor a denial. You can see through it, he doesn't know, but the probably doesn't want to scare you either. Fuck.

The humdrum of the kitchen workers chattering to each other and utensils clinking around becomes an indistinct buzz while you recess into the confines of your mind, adrenaline diminishing in the face of relative inactivity. What is the world outside these walls up to, right now? With you missing, your responsibilities unaccounted for, has your family noticed your absence? Is anyone coming for you? Do they even know how you got here? Will you ever see th-

A sudden woosh snaps you back into alertness, the bloodstained doors leading to who knows where parting smoothly. And he powers in. Him being, of course, the chef.

While not nearly as large as monsters like Vesper, he's towering in his own right. You've never been one to realize how much body language matters, but looking at... Santi called him "Morell", you think- You feel more on edge than you ever did around the massive demonic lord. It's his stance. Shoulders always squared, always flexed and tense, he constantly looks as if moments away from lunging towards something or someone. The few minutes of indirect interaction you've had with this monster were enough to transmit an idea of volatility, as if violence is always just one blink too late away.

The white garb he dons can no longer be called white by any stretch of the imagination, coated in splatters featuring varying shades of red. He looks mildly tired, and angry. You're not sure if he's shining from sweat or some differing condensation- The breeze you felt as soon as those doors parted suggests what lies beyond is cold. Like a fridge room.

A crimson-stained towel hanging from his shoulder is used to wipe bloodied hands rather poorly, before the thing is tossed away, a bobble catching it before it can hit the floor.

" This better be worth mah fuckin' time demon, ah'm two seconds away from- "

As soon as those curious cyan hues bounce up to regard the demon, they instantly dart to you, and he stills. Oh yes, he definitely recognizes you. You're being stared down.

" Well then... " The way bold bright teeth poke above that chunky scarf doesn't bode well with you.

" I take it this is worth your 'fuckin' time'? " Santi jabs.

The large mushroom crosses his arms over his chest, not moving from his spot. " Wha's this all 'bout? " Although he makes an effort to glare at the incubus, he keeps looking back to your figure on his counter. You wonder if he might be mad that you're sitting on it.

" Oh relax, I just brought the minx here to see you. " Santi does a placating gesture with his palms, though you feel a slight sting of betrayal when he opens his mouth again. " See, we just had dinner. Our present here loved your work sooo much she said she'd like to personally give her regards to the chef, and who am I to stop her, hm? "

Morell looks straight at you. Nerves force you to gulp, scratching at your arm and face lightly, better to stay silent than say something even more embarrassing.

Eventually, he relaxes slightly. It's a minuscule change is demeanor, but you don't miss it. " ... That so? "

When the demon doesn't reply, you realize it's a cue. What are you supposed to say here? You did agree to it. Besides, if not him, then they'll just toss you at someone else. There's no easy win, might as well do what's kept you alive thus far- Being polite.

" Y- Yes. " You look him in those cyan eyes, oddly shrunk pupils swimming in a sea of black. He seems like the type of guy that values eye contact.

Slow, evaluating seconds pass.

" Aight... Tha piggy can stay with me. " He says it with a chuckle, looking a lot brighter than he did not even a minute ago.

Santi nods, then quickly turns to you, rubbing a clawed hand on your cheek. His face betrays sadness, a little bit of resignation, disappointment. " Sweetness, it looks as if this is where we part. " He leans down, nibbling softly at your bottom lip, before brushing through your hair and taking several steps away. As if forcing himself. " For now, of course. " You can't really tell if that's good or bad.

" Ya done? " A decidedly not amused voice rings. For such a large man, Morell moved quietly, having closed some of the distance between you. " Git tha fuck out already. "

Santi only chuckles, making his way out to the main restaurant area. " Have a great time, love. " One last cheeky wink is all you get, before the demon is out of your sight.

For the first time in a while today, you feel truly alone. Santi had given you a sense of security up until now, even if said sense was erroneous. Here however, you're entirely on your own, feeling hunted, feeling cornered. There's no telling what this monster might want from you.

Keep calm. Breathe. Smile a little.

You'll make it through this.

Morell stares at you intently.

You seem to be faring well for someone who got thrown to the wolves, all things considered. No longer encased in lace, sporting clothes he swears he's seen before, not trembling in fear with your tail tucked between your legs like earlier. Tsk, Santi's been treating you too well, you ought to have some fear if you're staying here for a while. Fear keeps you alive, keeps you sharp.

Point being, you're clearly the clever type, you wouldn't have made it this far in such an intact condition if you pushed the wrong buttons with the demon. Sure, the shroom's certain you had to pay some sort of price to acquire these accommodations, but you probably knew that prior. He can tell you're not like most of the pigs he gets here, the kind that squeal and kick as soon as he nears them. No, it's in your eyes, you're so much smarter than that.

Doesn't matter, you're about to sing to a different tune with Morell now.

The monster moves once Santi leaves the premises, to the sink only a small distance away from the counter you're perched on. Though his back is mostly turned to you, Morell is confident you wouldn't try to bolt out. You know that you can't, know that without the staff's protection you're just mince meat for the crowd. His hands are rinsed and the towel atop his shoulder is wrung dry of the last pig's blood. He's glad to be rid of that one, they were troublemakers since the time they got dragged in to the very last breath- But you gotta appreciate the consistency, at least. If it was a calmer day, he'd play around with them some more before bringing down the hatchet, so to speak.

Ridiculous, here he is saying he's so busy, about to damn it all just so he can fuck with you. But how can he not? Look at you, just politely sitting on his counter with that fat fucking ass. Looking around, occasionally smiling briefly at his bobbles' antics. It's like you fit here already.

" Well pumpkin- " He starts, giddy that your spine straightens immediately. " 'S a pleasure ta have ya 'ere in mah lil' kitchen. "

The mushroom turns then, wiping his hands, cracking his knuckles. " Ya like tha food? "

You study his face for a moment, confused by the hint of mirth there, but eventually deem it correct to nod. Morell doesn't really care, he knows his food is good. Though he's a little upset you didn't get to try the best parts. When Grimbly dashed into the kitchen, the waiter told him everything. You, tangled between Vesper and Santi- To think that you've gotten an Icon of Hell's attention this soon! What kind of honey is up your ass?! Santi specifically requested something without human, and now he knows why.

Out of genuine fondness. Because really, you don't know what human tastes like. His dishes can oftentimes make that meat blend into other types, visually. If he arranges it well enough, you'd deem it a regular old steak, eat it, and call it delicious. All the incubus had to do is stay quiet. But he went the extra length to make sure you didn't obliviously consume your own kind, the sap.

" Good... Tha's good. " He says, after a pause. " Stop by whenever yer hungry. Ah'll get'cha somethin'. " Something worth eating.

" O- Okay. " Yeah, you're starting to click some things together by now, aren't you?

" Y'know, I'm real hurt, piglet. "

You blink, likely wondering if "piglet" was meant to address you -It was- Unsure where he's taking this. The chef paces several steps your way, ending up looming by your side, enjoying the way you immediately cast your gaze to your lap. He twirls locks of your hair idly.

" Mah memory's blankin', who got ya outta that mimic's jaws again? "

Looking up, searching his face for clues you won't find, you answer hesitantly but truthfully. " It was you? "

Morell snickers. " Yeah, sounds right. After all, who knows what could'a been o' you by now if ah hadn't? "

A sour expression crosses over your smooth features. Yes, think about it. Linger.

" An' still, ya pick the fuckin' demon. " The chef shakes his head, ruffling your hair. You shiver beneath him, likely realizing, just as most others do, that there's a great deal of strength behind his spongy-looking hide. " Ya can't make this shit up. "

" ... But- " What could've been an attempt to defend your incorrect choice is swiftly ignored.

" But what, sweetie? I was tha only one who could'a freed ya there! " The shroom points to himself, as if it was obvious.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, you don't need to know that. Morell stands and watches a myriad of expression race on your complexion. Fear, confusion, dread. " I'm... I'm sorry? "

Hah, oh that's so cute!

His guffawing nearly shakes the kitchen walls, rocking his chest. You're adorable, he'll give you that much. Is this your attempt at placating him?

" 'S not a big deal anymore. " He waves, eventually stopping his fit of laughter. " C'mere. "

You hesitate a healthy amount, he can understand it. Though eventually, when Morell makes it clear he's not going to drop it, and that his patience isn't limitless, you plop down from the counter, taking careful steps his way.

" Closer. " He beckons when you refuse to stand in front of him. " Ya spooked? " Of course you are, he's been around your kind for so long, you're all like mindless gazelles, deers in headlights, pigs squealing to the skies and running around in circles.

It's when the chef places a heavy palm on the counter, and it rattles, that you zing to action and get just as suffocatingly close to the monster as he was hoping. " There we are, was it hard? " It was rhetorical, but he's delighted that you shake your head anyway. " Thought so. "

Morell takes a moment to appreciate the sight of you.

All humans are petite, and although there's something dainty about your demeanor right now, he can see your muscles tense like coiled springs, ready to snap, ready to run. Fight or flight is a beautiful look on you. You have a good amount of meat on your bones, he can tell with a couple of hearty gropes to those bare thighs. Hmm yes, fine cuts, good stuff. His fingers knead at you like dough, and Morell feels a sick little twitch in his pants when you start trembling.

" S- What are- "

" Sshh, quiet naw. " He warns, letting full hands roam around. The chef thrills himself with your obedience, going from calves to back of the thighs, gripping your ass firmly and snickering at your choked noise.

You're a lovely little thing, the kind he feels sorry for when he butchers, because they could last so much longer. Demand here is crazy, which is good for his pockets, but also saddening at times. Morell doesn't get to fool around with the pigs as much as he'd like to anymore. Especially not tonight! When his hands move to your front, palping at your belly, he shakes his head, clicking his tongue.

Practically empty. As he suspected. You haven't eaten anything properly yet, certainly not with those sluts, they probably think feeding you jizz will work out just fine, typical. They don't know how to care for a piglet at all! And to think you willingly chose him, how dim are you? You wince when he grabs at you more firmly, and it's enough for Morell to give it a rest.

" You don' look so full, piggy. " The chef tuts, patting your abdomen. " Knowin' them types, you prolly didn' get ta eat much since ye got here. "

He watches you squirm briefly, either tickled by the softer touch or wanting to stop it. " I'm... It's okay, I'm not that hungry. "

Liar. You're small and weak, you should be eating anything you can in this environment. So dumb, so naïve, it's a wonder luck has been on your side thus far. " Ya sure? " He squints.

" Y-Yep, thank you. "

Cute.

" Welp, in that case- " Morell lets some of his anticipation show, shrugging and moving to be mere inches away from your form. " We can skip right to tha good stuff. "

The whites of your eyes widen and you give him this puzzled, anxious look. Oh come now, don't play dumb. " Ya wanted ta thank me, right? " The shroom grabs your tiny hand in his and puts it to his chest, a lidded, much more playful and relaxed expression on his face. " Don' lemme stop ya, sweetie. "

Oh, the gradually rising panic in your face is just precious. He's a lot, not to toot his own horn, but Morell gets your nervousness. He's been called "an absolute unit" a couple of times and it strokes his ego. Speaking of, you need to be stroking something else right now. He's been pent up these last couple of days, preparing for this event hasn't been kind to Mori's libido.

The chef is starting to think he's going to have to do things the hard way until you finally move. While your palm shakily slides down his chest, feeling slightly excited breathing, he busies himself with untying the long sash around his waist. Much to his disappointment, you don't grope, not that he expected you to anyway. Chuckling, Morell corners you further against the counter, spotted arms on each side corralling your body. His cock jumps in his pants when you give him a doe-eyed look full of uncertainty. You're purposely lingering on his abdomen, avoiding what lies beneath. The chef responds to this by flexing slightly, allowing you to feel his well-built constitution. Yeah sure, he's showing off, let him have this.

You don't look him in the eyes when you eventually relent, fingers sliding down. He's impatient however, roughly grabbing your hand. He reaches for one of the torn sleeves of his white smock and parts it, shrugs off the other one, letting the outfit fall to the floor, kicked aside by heavy-looking boots. You're apparently fascinated, studying his upper body openly, visibly flustered. Morell smiles when you focus on a particularly dark mark on his arm, stare all you want. He rips you back into focus by firmly smoothing your hand over the raging hard-on tenting his black pants, unable to conceal his laughter when you audibly gasp. Aw, don't flatter him like that.

When Morell drops his grip, your fingers remain static, and he rolls his eyes. " C'mon, ya scared? " He parrots.

Scared is an understatement.

This guy puts you off. Plus, he's packing heat.

At the risk of sounding filthy, you'll admit he's not the biggest you've seen, that title now falls squarely onto Vesper. The Icon's size didn't strike you as something note-worthy- He's already gigantic in comparison to you, of course his junk would be appropriately huge as well. Not to mention your mind was a little clogged at the time. Morell is a whole other story, you might very well have to take him, and he's bigger than Santi for sure. It's cause for some alarm, but then again, this whole situation is.

He seems to have taken your shock as a compliment, though it's very clear the monster's patience is waning the longer you stall.

Shakily inhaling, you give the chef what he wants, stroking generously through the fabric and occasionally squeezing at him. It... It doesn't feel like he has anything on beneath these pants. Your efforts get the monster to sigh in pleasure, looming over you and adjusting, giving you more to work with. There's nothing left to the imagination, the shape imprinted on his clothes lets you know exactly what you're dealing with. And frankly, a part of you is oddly flattered by how much he appears to be getting into it, pressing back against your hand, throbbing, humming lowly.

He seems frustrated, stressed maybe. You don't know how much of a good idea it was to let those two basically nudge you into this.

" Mmf, they teach ya some or are you jus' excited fer me already? " Morell drawls.

Declining to answer, you merely keep going. Part of you was worried he'd call you out, as you're very clearly trying to rile him up so he'll settle for a sloppy clothed grind- As if.

The ring of a zipper coming down is predictable to you, a flushed blue cock already stained by its own precum bouncing free. Fuck, he's really not packing lightly. The look on the chef's face says you better resume, so you opt not to test his patience too much. He's heavy. To be fair, you don't doubt he's dense in general, but the warmth of his member on your hands has you gulping for what might come next. Nevertheless, you try not to look at your own motions while you work him, gaze scanning the kitchen instead.

It's incredible. All this time, the group of bobbles hastily working hasn't casted a single glance at you two. It's as if... This is normal to them. Like they know better than to gawk. You can only wonder what types of obscenities go down here.

You're still staring by the time Morell groans, reaching for your top. The surprise of slightly cold fingers edging up the hem of said cloth has your motions faltering, resigning yourself to letting the cook remove that oversized shirt. What's the alternative? Make him angry? You agreed to this, might as well try to get into it.

Nipples pebble in the cold air near immediately, and the chef laughs quietly to himself at the sight of your breasts, a discolored tongue wetting his teeth. " Everythin' about ya is jus' tha cutest, ain't it? " He grins. " Lookit 'em... "

Big palms frame your tits, and it's only now that the expression "baker hands" takes on a whole new meaning. Morell kneads at your chest in a confident and strong manner that has your breath catching. You're ashamed to admit no one's given your tits this type of attention before, feeling goosebumps rise in the wake of your unexpected pleasure. A high-pitched noise escapes when he plucks at one bud, and you realize your hand has been merely wrapped around him all this time when the monster thrusts impatiently.

" Oh? Did'ja like that? "

" N- No. " Yeah, super believable.

" Lyin' piglet. " The soft scolding is quickly followed by him bending to kiss and lick shamelessly around your tits. You can't help gulping when teeth glide and catch slightly on skin. Fuck's sake, if he actually- He nibbles slightly, spare hand forcing the one around his dripping shaft to work faster. When you look down, seeing a teal shade on his dark cheeks and most of your breast in his blunt-toothed maw, you almost panic.

" D- Don't-! " Did he just fucking throb in your hand? " Please- Don't bite! "

That bright flush intensifies, hot puffs of air wetting your skin as he all but steams, teeth flirting with your pain tolerance, forcing a frightened keen out of you, before he peels back, panting.

" Fuck yeah, yer a good catch. " Morell groans, zipping his pants back up in a vaguely uncomfortably manner. " Don' move a muscle, ya hear me piggy? "

When you don't answer immediately, he gives you an "are you testing me?" glance that installs the fear of meeting the maker into your bones.

" Y- Yes, Morell. "

Why did you say his name? You didn't need to that, you just added a personal touch into this. God damn it. Perhaps it's for the best, because the chef seems appreciative, smiling before hastily cramming himself through the bloodied doors he came from.

You have no idea what he's doing, what he'll return with. And frankly, part of you doesn't really want to know. When Morell's footsteps become distant, instincts beckon you to look towards the opposite direction, to the second pair of tall doors, the one you entered from. It's only a matter of putting on your shirt... Where is it? Who took it?! You look around frantically, but the thing has apparently vanished. Fuck's sake...

Regardless, you can just step outside the kitchen, maybe take your chances... It would be risky, but if you get in that fucking elevator! You know that's the ticket to leave this dump. You just have to figure out which floor leads to the ground level, it's that simple.

You don't even realize you're walking towards the exit.

One of the bobbles, a blue one with a shorter hat, stops next to you, some others giving you side-glances. Although she doesn't utter a word, you can see the silent warning in her face. A cautious shake of the head is all you're given, and then the doors part. Not the ones in front of you though.

" ... Where d'ya think yer going? "

It's as if your lungs collapse for a moment, air refusing to fill them. " No- Nowhere, nowhere, I- "

" And 'ere I thought ya'd behave. Tsk. "

When you zip around, you get to see the large mushroom power towards you, a sturdy-looking rope on his hands. Of course, the thing is adorned with aged red marks. There's a sadistic sort of glee on his dark face, making you take several steps back. His chest puffs, the monster bellowing out.

" Hah! Try it, piggy. " Morell taunts. " Ya take a single fuckin' step outta those doors an' ah'll hunt ya fer sport, pertty baby. "

You don't doubt him.

All you can do is gulp and hope for the best, feet rooted to the tiled ground in spite of the screaming voice that begs you to haul ass. The monster's still snickering to himself when he reaches you. You're no longer spared a hint of gentleness, as the chef grabs your arm tight and drags you to the center of the kitchen, towards one of the horrid, blood-stained chopping blocks.

You're flipped around and slammed face-first onto the wood, assaulted by the sensation of residual, cold viscera on your face. The metallic scent mingles with a woody aftertaste and you start to panic under his hand, very aware a huge cleaver lies only centimeters away from your person. Is this it? Is this the end? Is he going to cut your fucking head off?

" I'm- I'm sorry, please God- "

Your flailing, although definitely amusing to the cook, is halted when he squeezes exceptionally hard on your arm. Your limb grows numb from the sheer force, he's cutting off blood flow. A little more and he'll break your humerus, you can feel it. Getting the message, you go entirely limp, near hyperventilating.

" Easy piggy, easy- " There's a condescending pat to your head. " I'mma jus' tie ya up, 'kay? Don' make me hurt ya. " You can feel the weight of him poised on your back for a moment. " 'Cause ah'll fuckin' love it if I hav'ta. "

You whimper.

" Gonna be good for me? " He tests, already nudging your arms onto your back. You can feel the rope being weaved between them in certain patterns, movements rushed but expertly practiced. You nod rapidly, full of fear, and he hums while tying knots behind your back. One. Two. Three?! Oh, you're not making it out of this one on your own. For sure.

When the chef lets go of your bound limbs, not too tight but not too lax, you give them a test, making the shroom chuckle. " Mm, fine work if ah do say so myself. Good ta know I still got it. "

When fat fingers tug at the hem of your shorts, you can only try to focus on your breathing, shivering when the fabric is dragged down to barely hang by your knees. You still ooze remnants of your slick from prior activities, and Morell doesn't seem to miss that either, because he uses it as lube to jam a digit into you. The insertion is sudden enough to have you jump, leg jerking.

" Ey naw, don' buck at me. " The monster snorts, curling his finger and testing the waters.

You don't know why, or how, but your body warms regardless of the circumstances, walls tightening around that sole digit as if to encourage the chef. And all you can say to yourself is that it's a result of Vesper and Santi's influence. Residual effects, probably. It must be! You wouldn't be into this otherwise, right? You wouldn't find it hot that you're helpless, being molested by a gross butcher on his own filthy chopping block. No... God please no, you don't think you can face yourself after this.

The mushroom monster, oblivious or uncaring of your inner turmoil, simply forces a second finger in, without much resistance. Fuck him and his deliciously thick hands, the familiar stretching sensation sends sparks flying behind your eyelids and you close them. You're not the only one enjoying themselves it seems.

" Damn piglet, lookit that, ya needy girl. " The chef starts eagerly fingerfucking you, giggling and moaning quietly to himself when you reflexively tighten. " The Hell were you tryin' ta run if ya needed me this bad, hm? Too much pride in that lil' noggin'... " He teases, panting.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard you may want to will it into reality, closing your eyes won't simply make this unrequited pleasure fade away. It won't make you any less wet and inviting for the chef, it won't quiet down the shlick of his lurid fingerfucking that somehow manages to ring louder than the humdrum of the constant cooking around you. All that effort is rendered moot when you let out a fevered moan and flex hard around the cook's hand, wanting more.

" Hhn- Fuck yeah. "

Far too jarringly, your cunt is emptied, there's some frantic rustling behind you, a ziiiiip, you know exactly what it is that slaps onto your ass. He doesn't seem very calm.

" M- Morell. " You hope using his name will sweeten your request. " Please be gentle, please. "

" Aww. " He chuckles, stray hand reaching to tickle under your chin, the tip of his member lines up perfectly against you. There's a gentle push, and you do your best to relax, glad he's at least doing that much for you.

Tickling becomes a solid hold of your neck.

" You'd like that, wouldn' ya? "

Morell slams home with a brute strength that not only knocks the wind out of your lungs, it feels like he's shoved your guts up to your throat. It's such an intense feeling that you believe you're sick for a moment, vision blurring as you sob out a mangled cry. For a couple of seconds, you just gasp, pussy spasming and legs shaking erratically, staring straight ahead at the grayish wall.

The chef grunts and sighs loudly, canting his hips to make sure he's fully sheathed inside you, his balls tighten and he shudders in total bliss. " Fuuck, ya wanna milk me dry, don'tcha piggy? "

You really don't care for his taunts, but it's hard not to squeal when a palm strikes across your left asscheek with the fury of a thousand suns. He amuses himself with this, it appears, stroking over the sore spot while he rocks back and forth inside your pulsing walls. He seems to struggle with your tightness, and you struggle with his girth as well, the two of you locked until he thinks to torture your poor clit. " Real fuckin' tight fer someone who's been foolin' 'round with demons. "

He won't let you squirm your way out of his hard rolls, continuing the torture until you're sufficiently relaxed for Morell to establish a slow back and forth, every thrust making you dig your nails into the flesh of your own arms. " Ya oughta stay 'ere fer a while longer. This cute an' this hot? Ah can't jus' let ya out. "

You're just trying to adapt to the cook's size, but he's far too eager, not giving you enough time to adjust before he's speeding up, jostling you. A tongue tries to wet dehydrated lips, tasting nothing but smeared blood while the scent of exotic spices clogs your nostrils and his lewd panting rattles your ears.

You're sure you must have paled like the cauliflower he has laying around when the monster stops to yank that gruesome cleaver out of its groove in the wood you currently lay on. You're not sure whether to cry, scream or simply accept things as they are. Morell grabs a firm handful of your hair, pulls your head back, and allows the blunt end of the blade to flirt with your throat.

" Naw then, do me a favor- " The blade flips, pressing dangerously against frail skin as Morell starts drilling into your small figure. " An' oink fer me, piglet! "

Oh you do.

Even if you wanted to be quiet, you couldn't.

It's everything at once. The absolutely merciless pounding into your pussy, reaching deeper than it should -Why doesn't it hurt?- Dragging hellish waves of bliss through your poor overworked brain, the terror of that cleaver possibly sinking into your body, slitting your throat open so you bleed out while he happily fucks you till your dying breath, becoming nothing more than yet another ambiguous red stain in this morbid kitchen. Nothing could ever prepare you for this, so you moan, whimper and squeal like the animal he wants you to be, doing your best to hang onto anything, tears and drool cascading down your face.

You can't tell left from right anymore, shivering at every bestial noise Morell makes above, feeling his balls slap against you with every hard piston, it's really no wonder your confused body couldn't keep up, and you truly screech in the wake of your jarring orgasm, seeing dots swimming in your vision.

" Atta girl! Nice an' sloppy... "

In spite of his confident tone, Morell's rhythm falters at your clenching. And, much to your relief, he lets the cleaver fall to your side, focusing instead on using both hands to frame your head while he bends to be flush against your back. It's a humiliating position, but you've long since stopped giving a shit about dignity here. In fact, you just want to make it out of this hellish kitchen mostly in one piece.

There's not much room for thinking when he grunts like a bull into your eardrums, gasps turning into silent gasps the second he starts slamming home deep and hard. One, two, three, four and-

His deep growl shakes you from head to toe, legs kicking instinctively as his cock flexes and he fills you like an obscene bucket. It's an uncomfortable sensation that applies too much pressure everywhere, and even if you can't be sure, you think you came again from it, very briefly. The sound of cum splattering to the floor rings in your mind while you simply wait for Morell to milk the last of his orgasm so you can come down.

" Hm, didn' have this much fun in a while, piggy. " He finally mutters, massaging your hips calmly as he rises. " Gotta say, I'm real glad ya chose ta gimme your 'regards'. "

You just groan senselessly. Your legs feel like melting jelly.

You're not sure what he's about to do next, and neither of you get to know anyway, because a group of short pitch black bodies scram in through the front doors.

" Sir! Sir please, you have to help! "

" It's serious! "

" The giant snake woman swallowed Alfredo!! "

... What?

Staring vapidly at the creatures, nothing happens for a couple of static seconds. Then the cook sighs, exasperated, before sliding out of you slowly. He shushes you when you wince, patting your sore thighs before fully laying you onto the large chopping block. You can't muster the energy to care, merely laying there and hissing at the increasing discomfort from having your arms tied this long.

" Ah'll be right back, pumpkin', promise. "

The last thing you hear is stressed murmuring, a zipper sliding up and boots stomping away, another woosh signaling the doors have closed and you're now mostly alone.

Yes, finally, some peace... A smile of relief almost makes its way to your lips before your consciousness fades entirely.

...

" So this is where she's been all this time... "

" Geez, can you believe it? I bet they just threw her in here to fend for herself. "

" In all honesty, I am appalled she has lived this long. "

" She's special, can't you tell Nebul? "

" You're much too prone to theatrics. "

Distant voices lull you back to reality, tired eyes blinking open, adjusting to the lights in the kitchen once more, before appraising the two studying your curled up form. One being the waiter, and the other that guy wearing a cloak, with the strange-looking head.

" Oh here she is, hi! " The smaller one waves, smiling bright.

" You cannot stay here for long. " The other warns. " If you intend to live, that is. This floor has fallen to total calamity. "

Yeah, you bet.

" I'll take care of this, you can go back up! " Grimbly hastily cuts in.

" You misunderstand, I'm not leaving without the human. " Although monotone, even you can sense the warning implied. Not that his coworker seems to care.

" Yeah right, like that's happening. Who knows what you'll do to this poor girl, you freak. "

" It would certainly be better than becoming an impulsive vampyre's bloodbag. "

The waiter's eye twitches. " ... How fucking dare you. "

Alright, back to square one it is. You need to leave before Morell comes back, and these two don't seem like they'll reach an agreement anytime soon.

You'll have to pick again.

Sighing, exasperated,

#Morell oc #Santi oc #Nebul oc #Grimbly oc #monsterfucker #terato #terat0philliac #yandere monster #yandere teratophilia #monster x reader #monster smut #monster boyfriend #minors dni #not sfw

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puella-1n-somn10 · 7 months

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🕊️Puella Magi Madoka Magica x Team Fortress 2: Medic and his Witch Form🕊️

word count w/o intro text: 10,651

(Over...two...months...of writing; thank FUCK I've managed to get this all down right on time for Halloween!)

This has been a long time consideration, and, according to one of my last few polls, ya'll really wanted to see how I would interpret Medic's witch form! Well, after a long-time wait, here's the rundown of how Medic's witch would look like in my mind!

Before we start, I highly recommend that you look at the list of trigger warnings present in the tags; the Team Fortress 2 universe, both in-game and outside of it, is no stranger to gruesome elements, so I strongly urge you to take a long look at them before proceeding. If any of the mentioned makes you uncomfortable in whatever form, look away now for the sake of your own health.

As expected, spoilers for Madoka Magica, Kazumi Magica, Tart Magica, Magia Record (especially the anime), and the Team Fortress 2 comics ahead! We are going to talk about one of the many stingers of the Puella Magi universe, after all! On top of that, there will be mentions of Heavy x Medic x Engineer, so if the ship doesn't sit right with you, I must sincerely apologize in advance; it is recommended to click away from this post if said ship is not your cup of tea at all.

With all that being said, let us begin with this mess of an analysis/ficlet post!

-The Wish, Possible Powers, and Soul Gem-

"Oh ho hoh! I have been in zhe wrong profession. I must learn zhis magic!"

Let's be blunt here for a second- he's already laid waste to whatever concept of "morals" present within the human consciousness that would prevent him from furthering his medical and experimental endeavors, and he's done so much without the use of an incubator's powers; from granting his teammates invincibility to bringing them back from the clutches of death. Ludwig's immoral, sickened mind, coupled with his medical skills and treatment of the human body as an art canvas, has allowed him to play God.

On the other hand, though he did align himself with the opposing Classic team for some time within the comics, he explained to the newly-resurrected Sniper that it was purely for financial reasons, and that he never harbored any ill-will towards his teammates. In fact, it would be safe for us to assume that he, in his mind, genuinely cares for his team, and made it one of his missions to turn them into unstoppable killing machines- into gods. He cherishes his fellow mercenaries...albeit in his own twisted, inhumane, and silly way.

Building upon the above, it is also clear that Ludwig is a responsible pet owner and genuinely cares for his doves, especially Archimedes. Yes, he does resort to using animal organs - especially the exotic kind - when fit in order to further his experiments and enhance his teammates' performances, but the contrast between that and his care for the birds is kind of a testament to how he treat other humans - especially the classic team - vs. how he treats the mercs and others close to him. For goodness' sake, he's put Classic Heavy's demands on a back burner and allowed Sniper to escape while he was too busy reviving Archimedes! Ludwig does have a heart and the capacity to care, but not much in terms of morals, if at all.

Wow, he would definitely get along with Alina Gray, huh?

So, right off the bat, it wouldn't be farfetched for Medic to be curious over Kyubey's wish-granting skills; he did make a deal with the Devil himself on two separate occasions within the official Team Fortress 2 comics (though the initial deal's conditions is still unknown to us), after all. How he came to figuring out the existence of the incubators is anyone's guess at this point due to his unpredictable nature, but, in my opinion, it can range from old folklore surrounding the species or simply finding out that one of the mercs had already contracted (my personal bets are either Heavy or Solly). I recommend going off the walls with this one; for all we know, he could have managed to detect spikes in magical activity around the base/island and forced himself into the world of Magi, Witches, and wishes- all the while a certain little bipedal fiend began to showcase an equal amount of interest in him for reasons we are going to dive into soon.

On to the main topic of his wish, it's quite simple, really; it would be related to his hunger for power/knowledge and furthering his research/scientific endeavors; promptly dissipating whatever is limiting his experimental pursuits (maybe even financial, as presented to us in the comics).

Another possible wish that he could have made might be rooted to the bonds he had formed with the mercenaries and the surprisingly deep respect he had shown to each one them on numerous occasions. Such fascination towards his teammates is even presented to us within the beta version of Meet the Medic, where he made his goal of enhancing them and turning them into beings akin to the divine as clear as daylight. I won't deny the fact that this man just keep on finding out new ways to break both the Hypocratic Oath and Geneva Conventions with each passing minute - and it's usually for his own amusement -, but he also seeks to sculpt each mercenary into the best versions of themselves not just as a testament to his own prowess, but also because of his fascination towards them; he just likes those goobers around him and sees the mercs as his fellow pals.

With all that being said, I personally don't believe that whatever power he gained as a result of these wishes would be on a similar caliber as his canonical healing skills; after all, even without Kyubey's interference, he has shown to be exceptionally skilled in his craft to the extent that he had deemed himself to be a god on multiple occasions- and none of them were without reason. Instead, I believe that the core theme of his new magical powers relate to limits- whatever barriers that prevented him from unlocking his and the rest's full potential, and fully dissipating them. Perhaps he can manifest organs, transfer them at high speeds, all the while making his surgeries a little easier for himself. The option of him being able to create little animated "familiars" of his own from the remains of both ally and enemy alike is also there. If you guys have better ideas, please don't hesitate to share; I'll have to admit that this coming up with wish-related powers is a personal weak point of mine, and I will be accepting any and all criticisms coming my way.

Finally, to close this section and move on to the next, I would also like to discuss the matter surrounding his soul gem, and how I would personally interpret it. I am unsure if what I am going to say next has been backed up by canon or not, but a nice detail that I have noticed whilst looking into the soul gems present in canon is that they often correspond with the eye colors of their respective magi; which brings to mind the idea of eyes being the windows to a person's soul. Even if it's not a mandatory rule for when it comes to designing a Magi (especially when we take Nagisa Momoe into account), we can still see this metaphor being at play on numerous occasions throughout the Madoka canons, and where else is it more evident than within Kazumi Magica and the Magia Record anime?

Putting it briefly, aside from just looking at their soul gem, another indicator of a magi's slip into witchhood is by looking into their eyes during their final moments; Michiru Kazusa's sclera turned completely dark as her pupils began to shift into scribbles, and Kuroe - poor, sweet Kuroe - had the same corruption her soul gem was undergoing being displayed from within, you guessed it, her eyes.

So, while I do believe that red could be a nice color for Ludwig's soul gem, as it would also correspond with him being on the RED team - as presented to us on the cover of Fight Songs -, I can also see that a striking blue could also fit our crazy bastard.

As for the emblems present on his soul gem's egg form and its shape upon transformation, I'm gonna be honest; this is gonna be a little more complex than the color part - especially with the soul gems of Tart Magica and Magia Record in mind -, but I will do my best to summarize it to the best of my abilities-

To make this easier for my sanity's sake, the red cross he is already associated with in-game will be present as the emblem on top of his soul gem, though the the one on the middle would probably be based on either his bonesaw, the Ubercharge, a realistic heart (as a tie-in to how the Ubercharge works), or his doves instead. The actual shape his soul gem take on upon transformation, on the other hand, would resemble a large, anatomical heart placed on the center of his chest - connected to the rest of it and his shoulders through glass arteries and veins - due to its sheer size; usually, a magi's soul gem is only large enough to fit within the palm of their hands, while Medic's could be as huge as his curled-up fist or even an ostrich's egg.

The cause behind this peculiarity will be thoroughly explained soon enough, but, for now, let us close this chapter up and move on to the next...

-Descent Into Despair-

Before we kick off this angst fest and start hypothesizing, we're gonna need to take a good look at the nature of the soul and how this ties into the existing similarities shared between Kyubey and Ludwig- yes, this will get wild, especially if you're in only one of those fandoms from the outside looking in, so it's best for you to buckle up, hon, 'cause we in for a fucking joyride.

According to multiple religious and philosophical texts, the soul is a vital, non-physical part of a human being; it is an individual's very core of existence. The soul isn't exactly abstract, per se, as it's believed to actually exist between the lines of this plane of reality and that of the intangible world, and that each person has a unique soul that is distinctly theirs; it is, by definition, metaphysical- that person is the soul, as much as the soul is them.

Despite the limitations placed upon us by the very nature of the soul, it can be treated as a tangible and even physical object within both the TF2 and PMMM canons; in the latter case, Kyubey was able to turn them into magical gems for the sake of both efficiency and "incubation" - the goal of turning his victims into despair-riddled witches that spread the very misery they are drowning in -, all the while, in the Team Fortress universe, they are treated as nothing more than organs that can be removed and then reapplied at will by the very hands of, you guessed it, our very own Ludwig Humboldt for the dual purpose of conning the Devil out of the ownership of his soul and, in turn, extending his own life span.

This brings us back to the very moment where Ludwig made his wish with Kyubey; as presented to us via both Sayaka Miki and Homura Akemi, the process of making a wish and establishing a contract with Kyubey is proven to be quite the painful procedure, as they were able to feel their souls being pulled right out of their bodies by Kyubey in order to remold the very cores of their whole existence into these magical jewels known as Soul Gems; shining with the wishes that bind them to the life of a Magi until they inevitably reach their grisly ends.

Medic, of all people, would absolutely be the first to know exactly how painful it would be to have one's soul be forcefully ripped out of one's own body; he had already done so to 8 other people before grafting the extracted essences into himself. As result of this forced amalgamation, the size of his soul gem would be, as already stated, much larger than average. As for Medic himself and his reaction to his accumulated souls being turned into this grand artifact of magical potential, he would be in a state of shock, awe, and perhaps even a tinge of conflict - from the pain alone, he knew that his souls were tampered with; extracted and reforged -, but they were miniscule when compared to the wave of amazement that washed over him as he held the newly formed symbol of his status as a magi in his hands, shining a brilliant red with the wish he made with the white devil before him.

If Medic had to be honest, he would say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the incubators sure knew what they were doing; despite the tinge of bitterness regarding his souls being torn out of him, it was undeniable that having his life essences be turned into an all-powerful jewel was rather efficient, especially when stranded within the chaotic, unforgiving battlefield. Besides, this deal not only granted him what he desired most in life, but it unlocked a whole new world for him to explore; the realm of the witches.

After his first witch hunt went off without a hitch, he looked at his soul gem...yes, it had dimmed a little, and, according to his newly-formed, four-legged acquaintance, its brightness reflected what magic he had left; the very power he had gained from their infernal deal. This knowledge, combined with the grief seed taking in the impurities he had accumulated, had sparked inspiration within him, and, inevitably, that little glimmer turned into a raging, uncontrollable wildfire.

As his lips curled into that deranged smile of his, he arrived to the conclusion that he needed to research both his soul gem and these otherworldly monsters. Oh, was he was ever-so excited; a whole new world of possibilities had unveiled before him! He knew he had to learn more about these witches, for they were prime candidates for new observations and experiments...

Besides, if things were to go awry, he would have his backup plans as safeguards. He looked at the large jewel on his desk, its light reflecting on his glasses, with a look of complete confidence- after all, he was Ludwig Humboldt, the RED team's medic; he had already played the classic team like the money-hungry fools they were, defied all known laws of life, death, and nature on the regular, and bested the Devil in his own game! What bases of morality and human decency were little more than etches on the wall to him, and he was willing to go above and beyond to ensure his own and the rest's survival.

He cackled; oh, there was no need for any worries, my friend! Whatever that may come to pass, he shall find a workaround. So, with his lips curling into that toothy smile of his, he went to work-

Just like clockwork, it didn't take long for his signature obsession to dig its talons; day by day, he would salvage what parts of these unfathomable creatures and bring them back to his infirmary- even going as far as to capture their familiars and the smaller witches to bring back. After all, killing these wicked creatures outright would just cause them and their barriers to fade away, so he had to think of workarounds in order to harvest as much useful parts of them as he could.

All that, and that is without even getting into the details of the bargain he had made with the little pale ferret- why, that rascal Kyubey could be considered a new good friend of his in his eyes! He had even experimented on the bipedal fiend, and the Incubator held no grudge towards the quack doctor (hence how he came into the knowledge of his entire species and the fact that they were a hivemind). Back on topic- yes, the contract in itself was agonizing, there was no denying that, but at least he had gained a myriad of benefits from their mutual agreement.

Yet, as the saying goes, the higher they soar, the harder they fall.

Within every enforced law and in every deal made, loopholes were an inevitability- Ludwig and Kyubey knew that all too well as the roles of the recipient and contractor respectively. Time and curiosity have worked hand-in-hand in order to nurture their individual experiences and wisdom surrounding this unwritten rule of the universe. As several blazing days turned into howling nights, Ludwig's intrigue towards the limitations set before him as both a mercenary and a Puer Magi grew; his souls being turned into a singular, portable trinket was effective, yes, especially with the magic he had gained and his more than impressive healing abilities making both jobs a lot more easier, but, of course, so much could go wrong in the long run-

Ah, and these witches- at this stage, he had accomplished what many had deemed to be either impossible or far too risky; lining up the walls of his laboratory, amongst the butchered appendages and organs of their kin, were the captured forms of smaller witches and familiars- some were still struggling to be set free, while the others have resigned themselves to their fates. Whenever Ludwig wasn't on either battlefields or experimenting on his teammates, he would be slicing and chopping these poor souls away- trying to see how they functioned, or even analyzing their individual reactions to his little tests. Each of these curse-driven monstrosities' very existence brought forth a cluster of enigmas that only Ludwig could unravel, and the answer to these riddles must be tied to the very core of these beings- whether we're talking about how they would function as a living organism...or their grief seeds.

Besides...in his mind, there was nothing wrong with getting a few more benefits for yourself, was there? So long as such a possibility could help him continue on with both his life and work without any worries over the unknown, he was willing to take that chance. He was more than willing to rise up in the face of these hindrances- even if it took nearly pushing his soul to its breaking point, or unleashing what horrors mankind is not ready for once he manages to crack open a grief seed, he was certain he would find his way through this maze.

Unfortunately, his trickery of the devil himself had rendered him too confident. This unassuming little creature was no devil.

The further he descended down the inferno, the more barricades he had encountered on his way; wounding and injuring him to no end. Even with his soul gem on the edge of shattering, the grief seeds he had gathered were torn apart, watching as his own teammates neared their own limits as he caught up with them during their own witch hunts- the result was the same; he needed to research this even further. The fact that the two objects were apparently made of the same material had led Ludwig to several hypotheses - even coming close to the truth himself -, but, let us be real here for a second- if he did manage to figure out the truth behind the witches, which, logically speaking, he would, would it even come close to bothering him?

In fact...who was to say that, by learning the origins behind these creatures, that he wouldn't embrace the corruption of his soul gem? That he wouldn't lay his old vessel to waste, and treat his ascension to a higher plane of existence as a new experience for him? If that wasn't the case, then wouldn't he also inadvertently boost the process by going through meaningless hoops in the attempt to prevent his pre-written fate?

When looking at a man like Ludwig, a man already too far gone, only cold insanity and sadism irradiated from him- possessing an uncaring glee over the prospect of being able to experiment on the less fortunate souls who got in his way. His insistence on carrying on with his research came to the shock of almost nobody; such was his habit, and the mercenaries got used to his antics over time- yet, as time passed, his grip on his frustrations, desperation, and ever-growing drive continued to waver; everything about this new perspective on life filled him with a sense of wonder, even the countless roadblocks he had encountered still gave him a sense of awe...

His soul gem was as large as it was powerful, yes; it would take a larger accumulation of filth in order to actually affect him in any way or manner, and the reserves of magic he had- oh, how brightly must his gem shine when at its peak! Yet, one must consider at what point will the accumulated filth become...irreversible- how, at a certain threshold, the process of gathering up enough grief seeds to make sure it stays at its brightest at all times will yield more drawbacks than prospects of restoration? That the net value of the magic restored will inevitably hit zero if not the negatives?

How many times must this cycle repeat itself in order for the magi to inevitably give up on keeping their own soul completely pure at all times?

Ludwig still managed to keep his magic reserves somewhat afloat; though his cheerful and friendly mannerisms haven't wavered a bit, he couldn't keep his attention away from the developments that were unfolding before him. The experiments he had conducted on both his soul gem and the grief seeds he had gathered up did not help at all; further damaging and tainting his core only to satiate his own curiosity. He saw no issues as darkness slowly consumed his soul gem- it was simply another phenomenon to experience and document, no? It wasn't like it was hurting him or anything- if anything grim were to occur, he had his backup plans...if he could find one that actually worked...

No matter what Ludwig did, it appeared that his core was strictly bound to this jewel; he wasn't able to separate the souls within it, and, no matter how many times he would place another soul within him, it would just fade away as soon as he reached for it- purifying his soul gem in the process and leaving Ludwig as hollow as he was before the tests.

...He needed to study this further.

Ludwig's worries and starvation for answers gnawed at him. Within his glass heart, shades of ebony and crimson danced around one another, with only a small glimmer of light flickering through the veins existing to provide any form of luminescence, and his eyes-

Mikhail felt a lump on his throat as he gazed into the medic's soul through them- his once bright, fear-inducing blue eyes were beyond bloodshot, and, by his life, he could have sworn he saw the particles of his overheals float amidst the chaos. Still, Misha gulped down his worries as he placed the sandwich on Ludwig's desk and expressed his concerns over his health- to which the doctor thanked him - for both the meal and his considerations -, and assured the Heavy Weapons Guy before him that it was really nothing to flutter his feathers over, in his own words.

It was all going to be worth it soon. He knew it.

Tensions within the RED base grew with every passing day, and nobody sensed it more than Mikhail and Dell Conagher; though Ludwig would insist that he was alright - that it was all a part of the usual routine - and how close he was to a breakthrough, the two couldn't help but look out for the well-being of their medic. For the last few weeks to come, the two would keep a close eye on him- checking on the guy every now and then - as much as they could -, and making sure he hadn't completely lost himself.

His answers were becoming more cryptic as time passed; no matter how much Dell would ask and express his concerns, Ludwig would still act nonchalant, even as his eyes continued to darken with and his health evidently took a nosedive. This was no need for the concern, my friend; he continued to promise the engineer that it was all working out fine, and that he'll be okay once it's all over. Dell still kept his guards up; worried that, one day, Ludwig's gonna go completely off the rails- his and Mikhail's resolution to keep that man safe grew with each conversation they had with him. Something just ain't completely sound here, and he'll have to be there for him when that time comes.

What a hollow vow.

Days blurred with one another in Ludwig's mind. Each passing second held little to no significance to him anymore. No, he had to continue on with his hunts- he needed to. His doves looked at him with worried expressions; the lab was a mess, with papers and feathers scattered everywhere, the lights burnt out, and Ludwig himself slouched on the chair- illuminated by moonlight, and still carrying that damned gem.

And...he was never as satisfied as he was right at this very moment.

He looked down at his beaten-down, darkening soul gem- it was all worth it, no? He gazed into the flickering crimsons as though he was in a daze. He was exhausted, unable to get up on his feet, but he didn't mind that at all. His team will understand soon enough...

The light within his soul gem went into a frenzy- he smiled from ear to ear, for it was finally time; the hour of revelation had dawned upon him. Like a grand supernova, it collapsed into itself.

Ludwig tilted his head backwards, still fascinated by what was happening before him even as all life escaped his eyes. He embraced the corruption consuming him, and, with a crack and a flash of bright light, the entire RED base was sent into chaos.

-The Witch's Nature-

In short, this is tied to the personality/aspect of a magi that did them in; what drove them to slip into despair with their skulls cracking wide open upon impact. To provide a few set examples; Homulilly's was Self-Sufficiency (closing herself off from others as both Moemura and Cool Homu), Oktavia's was to Fall in Love (the infatuation with both Kyosuke and the ideal of a Magical Girl marked poor Sayaka's end), and Candeloro's was inviting (Mami's coping mechanism to deal with her loneliness- and the irony of her dragging innocents into the life of a magi). It can also reflect the intent behind their wish (Sayaka and Madoka) or how they would cope with the life of a magi and the responsibilities that come with it moving forwards prior to their demise (Mami, Kyoko and Homura).

Unfortunately, it is rather....difficult to describe the traits and convictions that cause such complex characters to do what they have done in a single sentence, much less a word or two. For all anyone would know, any of the mentioned above - cause of their wishes, how they cope, and what finally marked their ends - could have been driven by a multitude of a magi's traits and goals, and Ludwig was no exception.

To make this easier on everyone, myself included, I have divided most of the traits that have pushed Lud over the edge into separate segments. The suggested natures listed below are in no particular order; one can fit the bill more than the other. Though I have chosen only one of them for the witch card, ya'll are free to reinterpret it with any of the other suggested natures.

Desperate

Cunning

Wonder

Sadistic

To Experiment

Observant

Curious

-The Witch's Appearance-

"I have a bird head! You're dominated! We're both having a bad day."

This might either be the most fun or the most agonizing segment of the entire thing. As a matter of fact, aside from his descent to despair, this part took me the longest to conceptualize, and it's still not 100% complete in my eyes, oh dear oh me-

Right off the bat- the witch has to be gruesome. I am not placing heavy emphasis on this one just because this is Medic we're talking about and how we're all aware of his...peculiar views on his job and the human body, but it's also due to the aforementioned souls he's surgically implanted into himself prior to contracting. Let me state this again- before managing to find and ensure a contract with Kyubey, the man had already managed to turn the abstract concept of a soul into nothing more than an organ that can be grafted into himself; that ferret's nifty trick is no longer special.

To showcase exactly why the topic of Lud having multiple souls is so integral here, we have to recall that, throughout the Puella Magi canon, we have witnessed witches fusing with one another via various means; it has been stated that Walpurgisnacht was a singular witch who fused with others over time, and Kazumi Magica's Hyades Daybreak was an artificially-created witch born from the fusion of multiple soul gems. You could argue that Madokami is another such example thanks to Homura's resets and wish having her as the main focus; thus binding her to multiple iterations of herself across numerous timelines (as is it made clear to us with Madokami's transformation sequence in Magia Record).

The point being is that not only is Medic's witch's stupidly powerful, but I doubt it would be pretty to the eyes; unlike Madoka, those souls weren't originally his, and the way that he fused himself with said souls is thanks to his, let's say, bizarre surgical skills, and not due to whatever logic is behind the witches' ability to fuse with one another. Think of the core of his very being as an amalgam; whether he's retained his original soul from the Devil's ownership upon contracting or not is up to you, but the idea still stands nonetheless. It wouldn't just be some Frankenstein-esque monstrosity with stitches, additional appendages, and mismatched skin, either; the organs representing the souls he had stolen are there for all to see just beneath his unassuming, reliable, and even charming exterior.

Now that we've gotten some key details written down, we are going to have to examine his role, self-image, history, and the impact his actions had on the rest of the team in order to actually, well, design the bastard's personification of obsession and despair; these four elements are crucial for when it comes to designing a decent witch that would not only fit in the world of Madoka Magica, but also drive home the idea that these witches were once Magi themselves- with their own dreams and goals.

We'll kick this off by looking at Ludwig's role in the canon of Team Fortress 2; he is the de-facto healer, but he's less interested in actually helping the ill and is more into the idea of tinkering with the human form- going as far as to use animal organs for his whack scientific endeavors for the goal of satisfying his curiosity. His healing abilities are also stated to be side-effects of his knowledge regarding human anatomy- even the Medigun wasn't initially supposed to be healing the mercs, according to the lore provided for us.

While on topic, I should also bring Medic's gameplay onto the table; though he is one of the weaker classes when speaking in terms of strength, making sure your team's medic stays on the map for as long as you could is crucial. Think of him as the king piece on a chess board; once your doc out of the picture, not only will your team start to drop like flies, but you'll lose some of that sweet, sweet Uber time. There is a reason as to why Medics tend to stay around the more resilient classes rather than glass cannons like Scout; survival and defenses.

Next up, we'll talk about his self-image and how he is perceived by the rest. As we can tell, he takes much delight in his work and his experiments on other human beings- he doesn't see anything to worry about his interests and the peculiar way he goes about it, no matter how extreme it is. Obviously, the man's not in-tune with the concept of human morality- going as far as to see these unwritten rules of humanity as nothing more than roadblocks on the way of his life.

In spite of his...screws being more than loose, as I already stated above, it isn't like he sees his fellow mercenaries as lesser beings when compared to himself; he does like them, albeit in his own amoral, gory way - he wouldn't have granted them the power of invincibility otherwise, among the other feats in modern science he had accomplished in order to save his team's asses -. Yeah, he does experiment on them, but, at this point, that's just how he says "hello"- and, when compared to what he did to the Classics, the adjustments made were for the active benefit of his team (...most of the time).

From all this, we can tell that his witch is on the more dangerous side (AS IF THE EXTRA SOULS DIDN'T DO THE JOB?)- with a dash of grace, of course; a reflection of his friendly exterior hiding away his twisted interests and "job"- and, fellas, he adores his work. He holds no regards for the safety of his patients and how outlandish his experiments are; he already kept an enemy Spy's head alive in a fridge, for corn's sake. Nonetheless, he is still a competent doctor- more than competent, in fact; when given the right tools, organs, time, and budget- death is no more than a small hurdle to him. He also genuinely cares for his fellow mercs, even going as far as to call them his friends; maybe that's how the witch will see his own familiars? What if he also tries to smile, joke around, and sing lullabies as he cuts open his human victims?

By looking at this being, only unfathomable, suffocating dread surrounded you- for you were in the presence of he who holds the thread between life and death. This creature before you- no, that isn't right...this deity looked down upon his next patient; surrounded by the lifeless husks of his familiars and their victims, he was rather annoyed over the prospect of having his work be interrupted, but he was also more glad that a living being had wandered into the operating room. Yes, he knew it now; a sadistic sense of glee beamed from the monster as he knew that the next medical trial will be a lot more interesting than he had expected.

Finally, to wrap things up, we glance at his history. Now, I am going to give you guys the heads-up in advance, because not only will this segment be composed of speculations for the most part, but we will be discussing themes of ethn1c gen0c1de. If this topic is in any way triggering, scroll down to the part where we talk about either the latter part of his design, his barrier- or just skip right to the Witch's Card. Clicking away from this post altogether is also highly encouraged.

Much of Ludwig's history is currently kept wrapped under shadows- we were told of Mikhail's, Tavish's, Jeremy's, Dell's, Mundy's, and even Jane's lives before they joined RED/BLU and partook in the Gravel Wars, but, aside from the enigmatic Pyro, Medic was the only one whose backstory was never clearly given to us. All we have to go off of are the bits and pieces peppered across the official website(s) and several official cosmetics-

We all know that he was native to and lived in Germany "during an era where the Hippocratic Oath had been downgraded to an optional Hippocratic suggestion" until he had escaped it by hijacking a catering van during a prime minister's wedding for reasons currently unclear to us - it has been speculated it was due to him having stolen a man's whole skeleton, but he had stated that he lost his medical license soon after the incident -. In the Two Cities update, one of the signs present in Rottenburg, his hometown, was that of a pharmacy advertising a number of...odd products, one of which being Baboon Hearts (leading to the speculation that his name has to be Humboldt- as it was the name of said pharmacy and the confirmation that Medic descended from a line of mad scientists like himself). We also know that he had found and then adopted his doves, namely Archimedes, as he escaped via grand theft catering van.

These should be all he scraps we were given in regards to Ludwig as a character outside of his job and the mercenary business, right? Weeeeeeelll....not quite. There is still one more jigsaw puzzle we should piece together, and, when combined with the time period TF2 takes place in, it does not paint a pretty picture of his life prior to becoming a mercenary. Folks...

We have to talk about Ludwig's Jewish coding, and the implications it has in regards to his backstory when combined with the timeline of the Team Fortress universe.

Though it was never explicitly stated to us, several aspects of Medic do shine a light towards this specific direction; to make this easier for us all, I'll just be listing down the evidence present across the canons of both the game and the comics-

The theme song of his bird, Archimedes, that plays during his surgery on Heavy in Meet the Medic is Klezmer music- Yiddish folk music

His pronunciation of "Danke Schon" is the Yiddish way

In the Gargoyles and Gravel comic, he was dressed up as the openly Jewish Albert Einstein for Halloween

The most damning of all, Valve's insistence that Medic is NOT a N-zi; especially with how fanmade cosmetics that portray him in such a way are often taken down almost immediately

Now, I do understand the fact that Ludwig is far from a saint, but...you have to understand the sheer, vile evil the N-zis and their ideology embody- and, unfortunately, he was also another target for their venomous rampage. Add in the fact that it was at full swing back when Lud was a young adult and he probably witnessed the rise of the heinous ideology when he was a little sap, and...there is no way I can say this lightly-

Ludwig had lived through dark, heinous years. Maybe he's always been this crazy, maybe what was left of his sanity had shattered to brittle pieces thanks to what he and countless others were forced to experience- perhaps he was already insane, but the slaughters and oppression were a whole other degree of evil to him; of course, until the writers at Valve say otherwise, all this falls upon how you personally interpret Medic as a character and how he coped with his backstory.

Though this is all just simple speculation based on what bits and pieces of the man's background we were given officially, it does bring into question what Lud had experienced outside of his medical endeavors. Besides, topics surrounding the second world war have already been explored in the world of TF2- Heavy's backstory is one example, where he and his family were sent to a gulag following the imprisonment and execution of his father, a counter-revolutionist; they only managed to escape once it had burnt down. The trauma of the experience still lingers within Mikhail, as was shown to us in A Cold Day in Hell, so such a backstory for Ludwig is not out of the realm of possibility.

With all that in mind, one must wonder about the kinds of thoughts that were running through Ludwig's mind during that time, and place his escape from Germany under a different light. I must, once again, repeat the statement that Ludwig is not a good man, but did that justify whatever he possibly went through? He even went as far as to crash a political figure's wedding in order to flee; was it because of the hilarity factor TF2 and Medic as a character are well-known for - namely after he stole that dude's skeleton -? Or was there another aspect at play- one of utmost urgency? After all, leaving one's home country for good has got to be a difficult decision- he didn't even return to Rottenburg when Grey Mann took over, implying that, unlike the rest, he didn't have anything waiting for him back home...

Ah, it wasn't like it mattered to him nowadays, anyway; nay, he dared not to think about it any further- all that mattered to him now were his research...his experiments...

So, with all the complicated stuff set on the table, let's move on to the simpler bits of a witch's design- the glue that tie all these bits and pieces together!

Where do we start? With the Magi's own design, of course! After all, Oktavia's knightly theme didn't just come from Sayaka's desire to become a hero/Kyosuke's knight in shining armor, and don't get me started on Homulilly's final form. I am certain that there are other witches that would also help get the point across, like Charlotte, but let's not extend this segment too much.

Upon taking a closer look, we can see that Ludwig's design invokes the imagery of a dove - just like how the little nubs on Nagisa's hat are reminiscent of mouse ears (and we all know how her witch form looks like) -, especially with the ends of his coat resembling a dove's tail feathers. Several cosmetics of his that are present in the game also boost this specific theme of his, especially the Blighted Beak mask, the Wings of Purity, and, of course, the infamous Medimedes bird head.

Of course, this might be a reference to the doves in his lab - there we go, simple as that -, but I don't think that's all there is to it; remember, for an amoral, crazed man like Medic, he is still represented by holy themes, much like any other healer in most media. When you think of a healer, you think of a person who swore under the oath of not doing any harm, and have devoted themselves to the life of pacifism...everything that Medic is not. In fact, Medic himself invokes the fear of being before the almighty; how small and utterly insignificant we are in his eyes, and that, to a being with a mind like Ludwig's, our lives are in the palms of his hands to toy with.

Ah, sacricore and holy themes- don't we just love them? The idea of a savior is definitely written down; a brilliant being with evidence of the slaughter staining his hands. Doves are also gonna be heavily referenced- what kind of Medic-related design are we working on if we didn't give him a pair of wings or two?

As a matter of fact, who is to say that the witch isn't a mad, humanoid-ish dove? With his crooked, bright smile and unfeeling red eyes being hidden by his aura and brilliant, white feathers? You think you might be in the presence of a god of hospitals and medicine, and he even approaches you with such a cheerful demeanor; happy to see a patient stumbling into his lab! That is, until you see how red the ends of his feathers are, how wide that smile is under that plague mask of his, and his eyes...

Hang on- is this a plague mask to begin with? As your eyes finally focus...you can see that it is jutting out of his skin- it's not a mask, but a part of his skull.

Next, we are going to focus on the magi's weapon and what powers they had prior to witchification; now, I am aware that their weapons and their powers are not always reflected in their witch designs - coughs coughs, Kriemhild and Homulilly -, but it does appear to be an "either/both/neither" case for when it comes to analyzing and designing them - I mean, just look at Ophelia -. Besides, Team Fortress 2 is a combat-oriented game, so it would be of great disservice to the game if I did NOT incorporate the main vessel in which you would use to bludgeon your enemies to smithereens with.

Once more, the Medic's main shtick is healing and granting your team a wide number of buffs depending on the medigun equipped; the Kritzkrieg grants a 100% crit chance upon activation, the Vaccinator provides immunity/reduced damage against several damage types, and don't get me started on the number of buffs a Medic can grant their team alone in the Mann vs. Machine mode. For now, we'll just be focusing on the classical Medigun, and how it grants invincibility to both himself and the person he is healing upon activation.

As seen in Meet the Medic, this was possible due to the adjustments made on each of the mercs' hearts- or, what replacements they have received in place of said organs, considering that even HEAVY'S had burst from the pressure caused by his medigun's rays. It is shown to us that the heart begins to pump at an accelerated rate upon activation, likely to spread the influence of the medigun at full power through the subject's veins; turning them into a bulletproof behemoths ready to turn the enemy team into a pile of mush.

From this alone, we can pinpoint the idea that hearts are an important motif in his witch's design. I'd also wager that he'd also possess powers that aren't unlike the functionalities of his medigun; allowing him to heal himself, his familiars, and even other witches at close proximity- bloodthirsty, erratic mercenary or not, he is still the team's doctor. Once the witch starts glowing red, you only have a few seconds to either find a weak point as soon as you could or make a break for it.

To further build upon this theme, attached to his back, not looking too dissimilar to how his medigun backpack, are vials filled with fluid that each resemble the lights of a soul gem at its limit. Within them, he stores his victim's souls, blood, guts, and organs for future usage. How did they get here? Why, with his other appendage hidden inside his forearm; resembling a combination between a saw and a needle. It is easy to use a surgical knife, yes, but some patients are...less than cooperative.

Before we unveil the finalized-ish idea for the witch, I should also take a second to talk about his hypothetical barrier and possible witch's kiss/warlock's whisper. It is true that the most powerful witches in-canon don't exactly need to hide in their barriers - case in point, Walpurgisnacht, Kriemhild Gretchen, Hyades and Shitori Egumo -, but, if we go by the concept art pertaining to Kriemhild Gretchen, we can see that they do have labyrinths they call their own. Even Walpurgisnacht has a pocket space she calls her home; it's the none other than the monochrome hallway Madoka was running through during episode 1, as confirmed by the PSP Game. If neither Walpurgis nor Kriemhild were exempt from this rule, then it shouldn't be surprising to see that this also applies to Ludwig's witch.

As stated in the January 2012 issue of Dengeki Playstation, a witch's labyrinth represents "the magical girl's mental landscape before they became a witch"; Oktavia's was a concert hall- resembling the one where she would watch Kyousuke play the violin, Candeloro's a tea party for one- representing how she would cope with her loneliness and the fact that she arranged her meetings with Madoka and Sayaka as tea parties -, and, according to the aforementioned concept art, Kriemhild's barrier is an obsidian and magenta void full of floating furniture- specifically those of her and her mother's rooms.

From these examples, we can assume that the barrier represent core memories of the magi before they fell into despair, and are either tied to the reason behind their wishes or how they coped with their lives after contracting:

Madoka had a healthy family life in comparison to the other members of the holy quintet, and it is thanks to the environment she was raised in that she ended up becoming the merciful, selfless girl that we all know today

Everything about Homulilly's barrier just represent how much Madoka meant to Homura, even if she didn't exactly see her perspective 1:1; as such, the rundown state of Mitakihara City not only represents her time loops and how it is the setting for all her time loops, but also how she failed to protect Madoka in the end and to grieve the normal life they could have had- had it not been for the universe and everything it stood for standing against them (it might also foreshadow the choice she had made at the end of Rebellion; trapping her team and the rest of the city in a gilded cage so that the incubators will not have a chance at hurting Madoka ever again)

Nagisa didn't have much of a social life outside of school, her run-down home, and visiting the hospital where her mother was at- and it is within that hospital that she proclaimed that she was done with being the perfect daughter to someone who barely deserved it; that it was her turn to take control

We can even tell that Sayaka watching Kyousuke's concerts was such a pivotal moment in her life because of how this specific memory was shown to us at least twice during the series; when she explained what happened to him and the cause behind her wish, and as soon as her soul gem had reached the point of no return- albeit for a split second.

Of course, this is not necessarily a strict rule to follow for when it comes to designing and deciphering witch labyrinths; H.N Elly's barrier resembles a snow globe in composition - according to production notes -, Charlotte is having a tea party with a doll in which both of them are unable to respond, and...I am not 100% sure on what to make of Ophelia's barrier- though I will come back to it later. Barriers don't have to be based on actual locations that are significant to the magi's life; rather, they can be manifestations of their desires prior to witching out- Elly wished to preserve a happy memory that gave her a shred of respite in the midst of the stressful life of an idol; and the tea party symbolizes the relationship Nagisa craved from her mother, that she was the timid one of both parties- silent as a doll, and how ultimately hollow that wish is- in the end, it's just a toy; it cannot respond to her even if she could speak, nor could it comfort her.

Unsurprisingly, I can see that Ludwig's barrier could be an infirmary...no, that can't be right; after all, Ludwig does what he does not out of compassion for the sick, but because he could. He seeks to change and perfect the mercs; turning them into unstoppable killing machines forged by his own hands and mind. He usually does all this to satisfy that itch in his mind and the excitement whatever results he gets from these surgeries bring him. It looks like a place of respite for one's health, but it is a death trap, first and foremost.

As a reference to his escape from Germany, maybe Ludwig's doves are still flying around the barrier; blood and feathers staining the floors and hallways, and themes of uprooted trees are peppered in as paintings and ruined potted plants. This represents the panic setting in and high speeds of the van, on top of how he came to discover and adopt these feathery companions of his, while the uprooted tree symbol suggests that he has nothing waiting for him back home in Germany; the other mercenaries went back home after the events of Rings of Fired (sans Pyro and Engie) except for Medic, after all. Maybe he was just lucky(?) enough to immediately land a job amongst the classic mercs, or perhaps...he just couldn't go back "home", not after everything.

Going back to the canonical barriers for a sec, one part of when it comes to designing a proper labyrinth is that, sometimes, a person can sway your heart so much they could change the trajectory of your ideals and influence the way you look at both your actions and the world around you.

This is most evident in Ophelia's barrier, as seen to us in Madoka Magica Portable; though it's hard for me personally to decipher exactly what it is, there's a fuck-ton of symbolic elements literally swimming around there, including musical notes floating from the ground and into the air. I don't think I need to specify exactly what said notes represent here.

Since there are multiple rooms within a barrier that can serve different functions, perhaps there's an outdoors segment where the magi first end up in; a frigid winter wonderland threatening to turn this labyrinth's visitors' limbs into unfeeling, darkened blocks of frozen meat falling off their bones. The only salvation from this bitter cold is to enter the interior segments of the barrier, and, even then, you are still not at all safe; his familiars are still on high alert- whenever they aren't "looking after" the other patients present -, and the infirmary in of itself is nothing more than the lure of an anglerfish- fooling the humans who have stumbled into it and punishing them to a fate worse than death.

The conveyor belt stretches through the halls of the labyrinth and leads right to the center; the operating room. There, the doctor awaits either his next batch of organs - human or otherwise - or a new patient. Ah, how everything runs smoothly; the bloodshed, the violence, the screaming- such fine melodies, they nearly compelled him go and play a tune on his "bone" saw at this very moment.

Another small detail that I want to pepper in is that there are the sounds and vibrations of a heart beat that echo through the halls of the labyrinth's interior sections. Perhaps there are slices of lavish wedding cakes (the van), pretzels (Germany), and all manners of bread (the mercs and that bread monster) that are being served in the canteen- and, before you ask, no, I would not recommend eating them. I know I already said that hearts are a core theme of the witch's design itself, and maybe the canteen thing is a bit too farfetched, but, hey, a nice detail is a nice detail.

Finally, so we can wrap this whole segment up already, we'll discuss the details of his witch's kiss/warlock's whisper. Now, Witch Kisses in-canon are...weird; they hold less consistencies than the witches themselves and their barriers, so it is hard to draw out the necessary similarities needed to create a decent design. Some witch's kisses are tied to the witch's type (Uhrmann, Homulilly), designs (Oktavia, Elly), and their grief seeds (Kriemhild). Sometimes, I have no idea on what they represent at all! (CANDELORO) I'm just gonna go on a limb here and just...wing it.

-BADUM TSS-

Okay, okay, that was horrible, I'm sorry. Indeed, wings will be a key theme- specifically 6 of them; not only are they reflective of him being a dove, but also to boost the holiness theme he has going on and to symbolize his earlier deal with the devil. In the middle of it, a clawed, red hand grabs on to an anatomical heart; whether he is handing it out or taking it for himself is unknown. Upon closer inspection, one can see that it is affecting the victim's veins, causing the area around the whisper to turn into a deep, glowing red; remember how the ubercharge works, people.

Finally, finally, after two months of hard work - two months of AGONY -, we have it; the moment we have all been waiting for...

-Witch Card-

Asclepius, the Warlock of Reconfiguration. His nature is wonder. A revolting, mad avian who conceals his sickened mind with the appearance of a plague doctor, and a charming, silver tongue. Upon gathering up those who would become the volunteers and patients for his latest medical trials, his very own ward begins to choir and hum with every slice and stitch made on his victims' bodies; readjusting and mutilating their forms to fit what piqued his mind at the hour.

The leftover organs are then either stored for his future endeavors, swallowed whole by the warlock in order to improve upon his own self, or are kept alive - perhaps even conscious - within his barrier as a testament to his prowess; eternally trapped and wailing for the liberation of death.

-Familiars-

Galatea. Servants of the Warlock of Reconfiguration. Their duty is to worship. The warlock's beautiful creations- the culminations of his medical curiosities. Right out of the operating tables, they would test out the enhancements blessed to them, and continue to be of good use to the warlock by defending his infirmary and the operating room. Those who cross paths with the Galateas will not see a hint of hesitation- they are willing to keep the bloodshed around the labyrinth ongoing for the sake of their doctor, even at the cost of their own lives.

Though the warlock prefers the blank slates that are the humans who get admitted to his infirmary, he would still pick apart at and experiment on his Galateas, whether in order to fix them, enhance them using the organs of his victims, or to salvage as much of their parts as he could- perhaps in order to rebuild them in the future.

(Familiars are said to be "projections of a magi's heart before they became a witch"; as result, their duties can range from directly serving the witch - the Holgers representing Sayaka's desire to be in the center of Kyousuke's attention, and the Anthonies are tasked to care for the roses Gertrud cherishes from the bottom of her heart -, to becoming obstacles to all, sometimes even to the witches themselves - the Klarissas' only task is to dance around Oktavia, Anja's stated to have been separated from Albertine, and dare I talk about how the Clara Dolls represent Homura's self-loathing over her inability to save Madoka? -. It isn't uncommon to see that a familiar can be based on significant key figures in the magi's life, especially if they were either related to the wish they made or the cause(s) behind their despair.

These buggers here symbolize Ludwig's love for not just mutilation, but also reinventing the way his teammates' organs function- and, as I mentioned before, his deep trust in the mercenaries. He also compared himself to the divine on numerous occasions and is followed by multiple holy motifs in spite of his little deal with the devil going on; he was even followed by a choir and his doves flying behind him as soon as he stepped into the battlefield in Meet the Medic.)

Hubris. Servants of the Warlock of Reconfiguration. Their duty is donation. Bound by their hauteur and the broken bones of their bounties, these pathetic prisoners of the warlock have been chained and are treated as nothing more than livestock by both their master and his other servants. Watching their own organs and other body parts be pulled apart from one another before regenerating once more for the continuation of this cycle has drained all hope of ever escaping their punishments from their eyes- not with these atrophied limbs and sore boils.

Their stringy, rotting flesh provide little to no sustenance for neither the warlock nor his other familiars, and are too fragile to use for his medical trials - hence the need for human patients -. Nonetheless, they are bound to these spare operating tables, awake at all times, as the claws of the other servants pick apart and toy with each and every one of their fibers. The warlock finds humor in their agonized howls.

(They resemble misshapen versions of the TFC team - barring their own medic -, since we are going with the assumption that he took their souls rather than those his own teammates. Why I went with the idea of the classics themselves becoming his familiars is and are not just projections of how Medic saw them during his time working with them is due to how both Walpurgisnacht and Hyades Daybreak had their respective original forms re-manifesting as their own familiars.

Yes, Cheavy gets the worst of it.)

Archimedes. An old friend of the Warlock of Reconfiguration. His duty is attendance. As he glides through the bloodstained halls of the infirmary, this dove, whose pristine feathers have long since been soaked with a deep crimson throughout his master's countless trials, would not only take part in the warlock's surgeries as the role of a willing audience, but he would also stand by and even assist (Asclepius) - all the while satisfying his own morbid, sickened curiosity -. Of all familiars, the warlock treats this one with the most respect, understanding, and fatherly affection.

(Not a familiar that looks like the bird, not a familiar that is inspired by the bird- it's the fucking bird itself.)

-Inspirations-

In-game:

His doves, and the fact that Archimedes was a WEDDING DOVE before Medic found him

Him hijacking the chancellor's van during his wedding in order to escape Germany (and eventually finding then adopting Archimedes who was within it)

His silver tongue clashing with or weirdly complementing his deranged personality and actions; would it translate into his witch looking more humanoid, among other traits? Well...

His usage of animal organs to compensate for the fragility of human organs might make the humanoid aspect of his witch sort of moot

His bonesaw and how he plays it like a violin (non-conventional musicals?)

The Vita-saw

Ubercharge

Him playing cosmic systems like a damn skipping rope to his advantage (reviving Sniper and having multiple souls sewn into himself in order to scam the Devil out of their deal). This does not work with Kyubey, like, sir, your surname ain't Kaname, if memory serves me right

The Blighted Beak cosmetic; its Vibrio Cholerae style specifically, as it would better fit Inu Curry's art style

Medic's gameplay in both the vanilla game and the V-Script Zombie Infection mode

"And no wonder! For even the devil disguises himself as a being of light." - His association with themes that are considered "holy" and "good" in Meet the Medic and several of his own cosmetics...yeah, no need for me to go into detail as to how ironic this all is

Outside Influences:

The Greatest Living Show by Itoki Hana and Toby Fox (wow, I have an addiction to Itoki Hana's songs, don't I?)- evident especially with the heart beats in his barrier

Repo! The Genetic Opera

German fairytales- especially with how some of them revolve around mortals dealing with otherworldly beings

-Closing Statements-

To be completely honest, I wish I was able to actually draw this shit and not make ya'll read through this drag of a document and leave the gist of it up to your imaginations. I also have to apologize for how rushed it is near each segment's ending; I initially wanted to publish this around the start of October, but it was far, FAR from finished by the time it rolled around.

This has been a wild 2 or so months; constantly looking up references and refining the concept time and time again along the way, and it is still not perfect (especially with how the description of the warlock's appearance), but, overall, I am very happy to have managed to deliver it during spooky season.

I should also give a huge thanks to @bluethepearldiver! Not only did they support me incredibly so throughout the process of writing this in ways I cannot write down so easily, but they've also helped me with the names of his familiars and that RAW line ("Unfortunately, his trickery of the devil himself had rendered him too confident. This unassuming little creature was no devil.")! So, please, do give them the support they deserve ;0;

Once more, I am more than willing to listen to suggestions and criticisms; I'm aiming to not just improve upon Asclepius, but also the other mercs' witch forms when the time comes (I even have a concept for Scout's)! Do not be afraid to send an ask or even tag me regarding the matter- I'll do my best to reply (if Tumblr gets its head outta its ass and does its job notifying me for once)!

Thank you all so, so much for reading all this! I appreciate any and all engagements and feedback coming my way.

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askblueandviolet · 13 days

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DF: Hey so you guys know how once upon a time I had mentioned that I would be writing an LBD centric prequel to Blue and Violet in an author's note in one of the last chapters of Colours?

It's definitely still happening if some of you were waiting for it!!! It's just, I haven't been working on it lately (⁠^⁠～⁠^⁠;⁠)⁠ゞ. Actually, I've barely worked on it at all. Technically, I am more than a third way through writing it because it's only a three chaptered fic (well, that's the plan as of 'right now') and I have the outline of the whole thing pretty set in stone (aka, I know exactly what's going to happen).

The first chapter of it is... Actually, it's already done! Pretty terrible draft but not something some quick editing can't fix! But me being me, I don't particularly like to publish chapters unless I have some more chapters in the backlog to be published the following week (to uphold a consistent schedule). Hence, why I'm able to keep up the weekly update schedule!

However, I... Genuinely don't know how long it is going to take me to write the other two chapters. Because my brain is not good at multitasking. So, since my main focus is on Winter Mornings, Summer Nights (WMSN), this ask blog, and my life outside of the internet, it's hard to find time and energy to actually... Write the prequel I've been wanting to write for ages. A piece of work that I really wanted to share before WMSN came out because it's actually meant to be read after Colours (despite literally being a prequel. But it contains so many spoilers for the timeline beyond it because ITS LBD'S POV) but lmao it is what it is.

HOWEVER: If you are all willing to endure the very unreliable production of the prequel (it literally could take me months to dish out the second chapter), I could publish the first chapter for it! Just so you guys can like, I don't know, consume it.

Um, do bear in mind though, I might not end up following the results of this poll. Because I don't know, I'm a little silly I guess (or just incredibly unreliable lmao). But I will take the results from this into consideration! Ultimately, I will try to do what I feel like is best for you guys and the series (and my own sanity too I guess).

So, this is more of an update post than anything else. To tell you guys that I'm working on the thing, I swear XDDD!!! But if you guys really want to see some of it now, I am willing to share what I currently have :DDD.

#blue and violet #while I could be bold and say that technically everything before Colours is basically prequel stuff-#-because technically Colours is actually THE MAIN FIC- its where all the shit goes down and all the stuff I had been building up to #the LBD prequel predates the time period of TQFTSK #before she was imprisoned #because haha I really do want to explore her character more and give her more depth to who she is in the Blue and Violet story #I want to write her thoughts and feelings and her logic and OUGHHWBSOFBSIF I love her so much

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ealvara7 · 3 months

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Hello again, everyone! ✨️

I'd like to thank you all for your input on my latest poll! I needed a hard yes or no to help determine my decision, hence why I only left two options, but I appreciate everyone in the replies who elaborated on their decision a bit further!

After a lot more consideration, I have decided...

🪲 I'm going to go see Beetlejuice the Musical this spring! 🪲

While I agree with some of the replies that the tour may not be the same as the original Broadway production, I also agree with others that an opportunity like this only comes once in a lifetime.

I simply refuse to let this pass. I always told myself that if I had the chance to see a musical I like nearby me, I'm absolutely gonna take it. I will always have the bootlegs, the Playbills, and this site as keepsakes of the original Broadway production, but I want to focus on what's in front of me right now.

I'm welcoming the tour with open arms, because they have given me an opportunity that I have been waiting for years!

I'm actually gonna see Beetlejuice the Musical live! Near me! I'm excited!!!

I'll share some of my thoughts after I go see it in a later post! In the meantime...

Let the anticipation begin! ✨️

#rambles #beetlejuice #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice the musical tour #i actually tried to get tickets to see hadestown a while back bc i love that musical as well #but sadly found out about it the week of so tickets were already sold out #beetlejuice has straight up become my all time favorite musical and just #having the chance now to prep and get good seats just feels like such a goddamn blessing

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rmd-writes · 8 months

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ok so say i *may* be getting into the tarlos fandom courtesy of the overlap between the tarlos and rwrb fandom, what are the *must see* episodes you would suggest that i check out? also pls include that hurt/comfort hospital scene for reasons aaahhhh

hey nonnie!!

I keep saying it but I love the way all of my fandoms are overlapping and colliding so much. I love the way that you say you *may* be getting into the fandom . If my instincts are correct, you're more than halfway there already so there's no point denying it lolol - the last two people who told me that they *might* be getting into the fandom very quickly spiralled to become people who write/make gifs for the fandom 😂 (hi friends, yes I'm calling you out, you know who you are).

I didn't want to mislead you with a list of must see Lone Star eps, so I polled a few friends to make sure that this list was supported by more than one person and I'm pleased to report that there was almost universal support for every ep on this list😅

A list of must-see Tarlos episodes for your consideration, if you don't want to watch every ep:

Season 1: 1x01-1x03 (1x02 is the source of some of *those* gifs), 1x08, 1x10

Season 2: 2x04, 2x08, 2x10-2x12 (2x12 is the source of *those* gifs)

Season 3: 3x01-3x04 (3x04 has the hospital scene you're after), 3x07 (baseball!)-3x08, 3x13 (some suggest 3x11-3x12 are also essential, but if you're trying to minimise, then just 3x13), 3x15, 3x18

Season 4: 4x01-4x04, 4x08, 4x12, 4x15-4x18 (4x16 has that soulmate scene)

If anyone thinks I've missed anything essential, please feel free to let anon know in the comments!

There is also this collection of Carlos Reyes edits (thanks @howtosingit) which has every scene Carlos has been in on the show, which means that it also includes every Tarlos scene (and the all-important brightened proposal scene where we can actually see their beautiful faces). If you choose to watch that way, there will be some important TK scenes that you miss, but I don't know of a resource with just those clips available.

I hope that helps and feel free to come off anon and say hi sometime!! 💖💖

#rmd answers #tarlos #911 lone star #tarlos essential episodes

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annoyingblondebracket · 5 months

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Round 1 | Poll 6

~ Note: This poll is being done out of a genuine love and affection for these types of characters! Please keep that in mind when adding commentary.

Propaganda (very long on both ends 😭) under the cut!

Madeleine Cookie:

~ everyone he has any kind of relationship with thinks he's insufferable (espresso cookie, financier) except for his family and he is so full of himself and always makes a show out of being a noble divine hero or something like that. His in-game story description says " On the day of his Commander's Oath-taking, Madeleine Cookie dedicated himself to the Divine and was granted the Sword and Shield of Radiant Light, which he prizes the most among his numerous possessions. The glorious Knight Commander's usual duties included trotting around the city on his snow-white sugar horse or letting his heavy cape flutter dramatically on the wind during his sparring sessions." (this is not all of it btw just the part abt him being annoying) and just fuckin look at him that's the face of a man who is never going to shut up about himself ever some trivia from his wiki page: - According to his unique loading screen's flavor text, "Madeleine Cookie excels at swinging his sword to heroic music with his cape fluttering in the wind." - According to his aunts, Madeleine Cookie has a sweet tooth and wouldn't eat anything if it wasn't sugary as a child. They also mention that he used to kick the blanket away when napping as a baby. -In the Halloween Commotion Costume Set Story, Strawberry Crepe Cookie analyzed Madeleine Cookie's dough and found "the most ridiculous amount of narcissism", alongside a considerable amount of light energy. also an interaction between madeleine and espresso M: Another magnificent day of my cloak waving in the wind! Wouldn't you agree? E: Of course. Yes. How marvelous. Please excuse me, I have rather urgent business to attend to. M: Too busy to even marvel at moi? What's the point of living then? also has a bond story with him and espresso called "we've never met" and it's about espresso avoiding him like the plague after seeing each other for the first time in a long while (if i remember correctly) another thing: just compare him to Financier Cookie, who is essentially madeleine 2 except she's not annoying and actually has respect for people and tries to protect people without looking for the satisfaction of being given praise or adoration. madeleine and financier are both paladins, they both are sworn to the divine, they're both from the same place, and YET financier turned out SO much better than he did. in one of financier's quotes, she says "Ser Madeleine Cookie could be so much more than... that." and in the kingdom overworld quotes, she also says "Light, guide my blade! ...What?! Madeleine Cookie says that?!" GIRL DOES NOT WANT TO BE COMPARED TO OR ON THE SAME LEVEL AS HIM JUST. WHAT IS HIS FUCKING PROBLEM

~ Theseus was an auto-admission and thus has no proganda! However as a Theseus yumejoshi it would be remiss of me to add nothing here, so here's some of my favourite lines of his <3

#💛 | polls #💛 | round one #annoying blonde bracket #madeleine cookie #cookie run kingdom #theseus hades #hades supergiant

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web-novel-polls · 2 months

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Priest (Author) Character Lower Bracket

[“Anti-propaganda” is not allowed. Please only give reasons to vote FOR a character, and please be courteous in the notes.]

Chu Huan from Of Mountains and Rivers / Shan He Biao Li

Submission:

His vibes are insane. A character pipi made by putting Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu in a jar and shaking, and then wrapping the result in the most unassuming shell possible. That one post that went like "perfectly normal man that has something seriously wrong with him" might as well have been made about him. Kills like 20 ppl in his introduction scene, falls off a cliff, gets on a bus, and agrees to become a teacher for those random guys he met because one of them is hot. Speaking of, his bi awakening and accepting it happens in a span of like, one second. *Sees a hot guy* welp, homosexual attraction is not a sin! Also, somehow has perfect tumblr shitposter vibes. Was asked what's a word for "good brother" in his language and after careful consideration said "bitch". Did I mention he's insane? "Play me a tune, and I'll go along with your BDSM play." Or that time he woke up after being clinically dead for a bit (saw his deceased loved ones asking him to go into the light and all) and to his bf's frantic questioning of "Does it hurt?" immediately went "Yes. It hurts a lot. You have to kiss it better." like bestie your priorities.... Anyway yeah what a guy.

Tong Ru / Lord Beiming from Liu Yao: The Revitalization of Fuyao Sect

“Beiming? Who deserves the title of Beiming? That’s merely an arrogant title given by some short-sighted people.” - Lord Beiming, Liu Yao: The Revitalization of Fuyao Sect, Chapter 16

[No propaganda submitted]

“It’s just death, nothing serious.” - Lord Beiming, ch.30

***I, the poll runner, have not gotten to the Lord Beiming reveal, so I’m not 100% sure the quotes from where I’m at are correct/for the same person (since there’s another person trying to claim the title of Lord Beiming)

(Also, Tong Ru and Han Muchun are sharing a picture because it’s way too blurry with just one lol)

Mu Xiaoqiao from Bandits / You Fei / Legend of Fei

Submission:

"People tended to apply the highest of standards when judging the behavior of revered saints like the Sword of Mountains and Rivers: if they made even the smallest of missteps, they would be deemed unworthy of their sterling reputations, and be lambasted for hypocrisy. But people were much more magnanimous towards Mu Xiaoqiao and those of his vile ilk, for as long as these fiends didn’t go around killing everyone in sight…or as long as this violence was directed at others instead, they could sometimes even find something perversely charming about these villains." (Bandits, book 3, chapter 13) Callout for who? Callout for me. Pipi is very right about this but also she is the one writing her murderous gays so epic and sexy and fascinating and irresistible and…

#chu huan #of mountains and rivers #shan he biao li #tong ru #liu yao #mu xiaoqiao #bandits #you fei #legend of fei #priest #polls #priest lower round 1 #priest lower bracket #priest character tournament #queue

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altraviolet · 8 months

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reader polls for Echo Garden

Every once in a while I make a poll and take the winning answer into consideration for writing Echo Garden :) Important to note that I like all the choices- I don't think setting yourself up for something you don't want to do is a good idea in a poll.

This is a long post so after the first one I'll put a cut :)

1) puns

This is the only poll I've ever made, I think, where the answer was 100% yes xD I wasn't sure if puns were Rodimus-y or not (he hates hats, for example. his tastes can be esoteric) so I asked. This is why he makes cold puns in Ch 23, Enceladia. Poll date: Mar 28, 2021 Ch 23 upload date: Aug 20, 2021

more 👇

2) spark jewels

I was trying to think of a scientific name for the spark equivalent of kidney stones and liked a few options, so I asked for opinions. The colloquial term used in Ambulon's dimension is "spark jewels," a phrase that Velocity does not know. He switches to the medical term, "lapides stellae," to which she replies "asterliths." I recall not being able to satisfactorily combine Latin and Greek words for "star" with scintill or spitha so I went with both options in the first choice. This scene is found in Ch 26, Fuel Furnace. Poll date: Nov 29, 2021 Ch 26 upload date: Dec 9, 2021

3) other rarepairs

I had a secret goal (it's not a secret anymore cuz I've told you) to put as many of my rarepairs into the fic as possible. I wanted to include more of either of the above, so let readers decide. I had a feeling Nautica/Blaster would win. I'm legit surprised Bluestreak/Hot Spot got as many votes as it did. Hmm. Looking back on this, maybe I'll try to give them another little nod before the fic ends. Anyhoo, yup, sprinkled throughout the fic are little bits of Nautica/Blaster. I like what they have. It's really loving and supportive :) Poll posted Dec 10, 2021. At that time the fic had 24 chapters.

4) liminal Cybertron

Ok ok ok, so originally, Mirage's Cybertron was a destroyed, insecticon-infested world. I actually have most of a full chapter written in this original setting- Rodimus, SW, and Mirage going back to retrieve Skywarp. I might put that scene (and other discarded scenes) up after TEG is done, if people are interested. I don't have the exact date for when I wrote the original insecticon chapter, but I was still considering it in March of 2022 because I put foreshadowing for it in Ch 29 Progress, uploaded March 3, 2022. I don't remember now what made me think of doing a sterilized world instead, and then after I thought of it, I couldn't decide which to do. I was surprised by these poll results. The poll predates when I wrote the foreshadowing chapter, so I was still thinking of doing insecticons months later... I don't remember what ultimately changed my mind, but I remember why: insecticons have been done. The chapter I originally wrote was exciting and there were parts I was sorry to put aside, but a desolate, haunting, sterilized Apple store world was appealing because it hasn't been done before (as far as I know). I think people really liked the aesthetic and horror feel of it, so I'm glad I made the change =) Poll posted Jan 6, 2022 We first see 2938 Cybertron close up in Ch 39: Firelove Part 2: The After Burner, posted March 19, 2023.

5) Most Recents Club storytime

I honestly couldn't decide who to have tell a story at the club, Ambulon or Trailbreaker, so I had readers choose. Ambulon was chosen, so we got some of his background story in Ch 30, Distress Call. I thought his story was hilarious. I laughed a lot while writing it. I suspect readers didn't find it as funny, though, as iirc only one person wrote about it in comments xD Poll posted March 6, 2022 Ch 30 posted April 25, 2022

6) ruining a big moment

I've posted about this one before, but I'll put it here for posterity. This refers to the use of the ᕕ(⌐■_■)ᕗ ♪♬ in Ch 43 Firelove Part 6 The Shattering. The original scene was supposed to be very heavy and dramatic. The After Burner fleeing a bursting and breaking Cybertron, everyone beat up and kinda shocked after the encounter with Megatron. But ahhhhhhh the idea of including the emoji got the better of me. I wanted to do it! So badly! But I didn't know if it would be good for the chapter! So I had readers choose, lol. People seem to like it a lot so I'm glad it went in xD Poll posted March 29, 2023 Ch 43 posted Sept 10, 2023

That's it for now! Thanks for reading =)

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battleofthewawas · 9 months

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After all this time…

The Battle of the Wawas has finally ended, leaving the aptly named Wawa (owned by @thatcreationsureisunending) as the victor! A huge congratulations to you! As a little reward (besides the title of The Ultimate Wawa, of course), this blog’s profile picture will be Wawa from now on, to celebrate the lucky winner!

Of course, we can’t forget the runner up, The Retriever (owned by @north-winds1)! You did amazing this tournament, and you should be proud that you made it this far!

Now, for the question you all seem to be asking me…

Will there be another Battle of the Wawas?

…

I’m not sure if all of you will be happy with this answer, but probably not. At least, not right away. Don’t get me wrong, the Battle of the Wawas WILL be returning, but I may have to put it off until summer break, since I have a rather busy school year ahead of me.

Oh, and before I forget, some of the slugs from the first tournament will get a chance to rejoin for a second shot at the grand prize, as long as they did not make it to the semifinals or the finale. I’ll make a google form once the second tournament starts getting contestants that asks you which scug you want to rejoin the most. The scugs with the 4 highest votes towards their names will get to re-enter the competition!

And if you find the wait for the second tournament a bit too long, there IS another iterator tournament that is currently gathering more contestants, called @stupidsentientsupercomputers (hosted by @rainworld-obsessed-cat), which is a tournament meant to see which iterator is the dumbest, with the creators writing out the reasons why! Go check it out!

With every question answered, I think it’s time to leave it off there.

…

…but wait.

What about love?

You see, back when the finale was still going, you may have noticed a third option on the poll stating “it doesn’t have to end like this”. Well, I wasn’t lying.

Every tournament has one thing in common: there has to be someone who wins. Whether it’s one winner or a group of them, there’s always something that triumphs over the rest.

However, what we usually don’t take into consideration is how the losing side may feel. How would they handle their loss? Would they ever be able to forget the fact that victory was within their grasp, but they let it slip from their fingers at the last moment?

What if there was a way to make both sides happy?

Yes, if that third option had won out over both Wawa AND The Retriever, it would’ve resulted in them BOTH winning the entire tournament, meaning that love would finally win out in the end, and the Battle of the Wawas could finally close down in peace.

Except…that didn’t happen.

Instead, you all ignored that third option in favor of the more familiar setting of scug vs scug with no sneaky shenanigans happening in the background, and here we are now.

Despite the implications, that outcome is not entirely a bad thing. If that happy ending did happen to be reached, the Battle of the Wawas would’ve ended forever. Due to the fact that love had lost one final time, however, I felt the need to give it a second chance in a new tournament. Despite all the times it has lost, love still has yet to die.

#wawawar finale #wawa #post finale post #wawawar results #man I am scared to death that there will be spelling errors or something auuuuuauauauauuuagahgdhd

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blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year

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Anonymous asked: Now that Nicola Sturgeon has resigned as First Minister what are your thoughts on the prospects for Scottish Independence?

Not entirely unlike the passing of another Queen in Scotland, the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon changes everything, but it also changes nothing. Nicola Sturgeon may have exited the stage, but the threat of Scottish independence has not.

Like many people, I was taken by surprise by her shock resignation. But downing a dram of a 35 year old Dalmore single malt whisky, that should be drunk on special ocassions, really helped me wash down my disbelief and my joy. Whilst I didn’t personally disike her, I found her politics personally divisive and even detestable towards the end of her reign.

But whatever the triumphalism in London over the First Minister’s resignation, the idea that the secession crisis has ended is naive as it is short sighted. For the time being, the grim truth is that neither Scottish nationalism nor British unionism is strong enough to triumph - not because of some cult personality problem as Sturgeon cultivated or the debacle and fall out over the Gender Reform Bill, but because of deep, structural weaknesses on both sides.

Today, both secessionism and unionism feed off the other’s incoherence. Sturgeon’s press conference in Edinburgh compellingly proved this: she described her decision in ways that made it sound as if she were some kind of martyr. Under her leadership, she said, the cause of Scottish nationalism had suffered because it had become caught up in the irrational partisanship of her opponents, who had grown to dislike her so much that they could no longer judge Scottish independence on its own merits. She was, she intimated, sacrificing herself in the hope that a new leader would be able to bring more people into the tent of Scottish nationalism.

I think she was re-writing history to cloak the cause of Scottish nationalism as well as varnish over her political humiliation over the fall out of the badly received gender form bill. But nevertheless Unionists should not be complacent about this prospect - she may actually be correct - but the structural problem for Scottish nationalism is not the prejudice of its opponents, but the failings of its own offer.

Although the First Minister’s iron grip over her party has been rusting for some time, there is no question that the SNP has lost a considerable asset. Like Margaret Thatcher, she remained highly popular even whilst she was widely hated. The times were kind to her too: the sense of unease spread by withdrawal from the EU and the Covid pandemic favoured her matriarchal style.

This made for a contrast with the leadership of Boris Johnson, but only to a point. English liberals, amongst some of whom she became a strangely romantic figure after 2016, rarely saw that her politics were not those of a technocratic British Merkel. Nicola Sturgeon’s nationalism was febrile, and it carried all other concerns before it. Both Brexit and the pandemic were ruthlessly exploited to breathe life into the separatist ideal, at times when rudimentary questions about the future of basic services were far more pressing.

The delicate balancing of technocracy and nationalism is not unusual in the politics of modern Western democracies - it may, in fact, be the norm. Sturgeon mastered it. Unfortunately, it was a dead end. The rip-tide of pro-indy sentiment never came. The idea of a separate Scottish state is no more popular today than the day she became First Minister. Against the backdrop of Brexit, Covid, Partygate and Trussonomics, this is an astonishing political failure.

The Scottish people - even those who still call “Yes” - never really took the plan to heart. Polling by the think tank Our Scottish Future last year found that majorities of pro-independence voters supported the continuation of common UK healthcare, welfare and security systems, as well as common UK pensions, a common UK currency and even a common UK passport. The idea of the United Kingdom as the ultimate insurance policy against the world’s ills survived - in surprisingly rude health.

Meanwhile there was paralysis, as constitutional wrangling edged the real business of government off the political agenda. By the end of 2022, NHS Scotland leaders were openly discussing the need to introduce charges for healthcare. A range of experts now agreed that the Scottish education system (the envy of the world not long ago) has foundered - although the SNP’s decision to withdraw from most internationally-recognised performance measures makes it hard to specify the extent of this decline. Neither was there any hope of tackling the unintended consequences of devolution, like the balkanised state of NHS drug procurement and the rising costs associated with it, despite the British government’s growing enthusiasm for sensible cooperation and the new committees designed to facilitate it.

A combination of circumstances and Nicola Sturgeon’s political sagacity kept these problems in the shade. Her successor will struggle to do so. There was no question, watching the First Minister’s resignation conference, that here was a politician of formidable talents. I didn’t like her politics but I will give her her due as a skilful communicator and a street savvy politician.

Ultimately though her political skills let her down with her strategic miscalculation to go into government with the Greens. I’m surprised this has been little commented in most of the press media out there.

Historians will likely regard Nicola Sturgeon’s alliance with the Scottish Green Party as a fatal mistake for the nationalist cause. Patrick Harvie, the Green co-leader, insisted on gender reform being part of the coalition agreement back in 2021. It is and remains the Greens’ ‘red line’. The first minister accepted self-ID in prisons because of her adherence to the Stonewall dogma that ‘transwomen are women’. No buts, no qualifications. As her Green Party coalition partners put it, denying that transwomen are women is the ‘definition of transphobia’. So when the Scottish Prison Service was instructed to follow this dogma it started to house offenders according to the ‘social identity’ they presented.

Many of her supporters tried to downplay the role of her gender policies. Yet, in her final few months, self-ID became the defining policy of her administration.

She used up much of her political capital forcing the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill through the Scottish parliament before Christmas, after facing down the biggest parliamentary rebellion the SNP has experienced since it entered government 15 years ago. The legislation, which would allow children as young as 16 to change their legal sex, on demand, without any medical intervention, has been hugely unpopular in Scotland and remains opposed by a margin of more than two to one.

Many in the SNP would be pretty relaxed if the coalition with the Greens collapsed. The Greens are opposed to economic growth in principle and want to close down the oil and gas industry in the North Sea. Theirs is not a worldview shared by most members of the Scottish National Party. The whole point of independence is supposed to be to liberate the Scottish economy from the ‘dead hand’ of Westminster rule.

Cynics might say that the SNP has been rather successful in promoting the anti-growth agenda, since the Scottish economy has been underperforming the rest of the UK. But this is by accident rather than ideological design. The SNP leadership wants more growth not less to meet Scotland’s enduring social problems, like poverty and homelessness, and to shore up the collapsing NHS.

As for oil and gas, many nationalists, including at least two of the current leadership contenders, believe it is senseless to try to halt oil and gas production in the middle of an energy crisis when many Scots can’t heat their homes. The UK used to be self-sufficient in gas, as recently as 2003. Now it has to import gas from abroad at great cost to the environment and household energy bills. Anyway, the SNP’s economic prospectus had always regarded oil revenues as essential to balancing the books in an independent Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon never sounded entirely convincing when, under pressure from the Greens, she opposed the development of new oil and gas fields like Cambo and Rosebank. She seemed to be going through the motions. The first minister knew anyway that the decisions on production licensing had effectively been made by the UK government. Similarly, she could curry favour with environmentalists by opposing nuclear power in Scotland because any decisions on building new reactors would be taken by the UK prime minister.

But her apparent willingness to collapse an oil and gas industry that supports more than 100,000 well-paid jobs was regarded as reckless by many nationalists, not least in the north-east of Scotland.

Nonetheless despite Sturgeon’s departure, the ‘Scottish Question’ - which is also the ‘British Question’ - will not go away. Its origins are embedded in our political system, in fact more than one system. It arises in part from the incestuous nature of Scottish politics, from the stranglehold that a small cadre of SNP leaders has been able to extend over civil society, business and the public sector. This phenomenon seems to have played no small part in les scandales curieux that accompany Sturgeon’s resignation. There is no reason to assume that ordinary partisan politics is about to materialise in its wake, however.

Brexit has made Scottish independence a far more complicated prospect than it was before. It is now possible that we will look back on the referendum in 2014 as the moment Scottish independence made the most sense.

Fair or not, Brexit means that Scotland cannot dilute the dominating reality of England simply by leaving the union and joining the rump UK in a wider EU. If anything, Brexit has made England’s hulking presence next to Scotland even more pronounced, while demanding answers from the SNP that it does not seem ready or able to provide.

What happens at the border with England? Will Scotland introduce the euro? Will Holyrood accept common European debts? Will it rejoin the Common Fisheries Policy? For the SNP, Brexit has turned out to be both the casus belli for its second push for independence and a strategic disaster. The best thing that could happen to Scottish nationalism would be for Britain to rejoin the European Union.

For unionists, however, Brexit might be an unexpected weapon in their constitutional arsenal, but it is one whose very existence is a reminder of the union’s inherent Englishness. Today, it is impossible to escape the reality that the UK has ceased to function in any meaningful sense as a unified British state; it now operates as an incoherent and imbalanced union of separate entities whose English character has not been softened by devolution, but incalculably sharpened. The fact is, the more Holyrood dominates Scotland’s national life, the more English the actual national parliament in Westminster becomes.

This is a hole in the national barrel, draining the legitimacy of parliament and in time the union itself. The irony, then, is that just as Brexit acts as both an irritant and a salve to the threat of Scottish independence, devolution itself is a prime source of the union’s instability, the unbridgeable fault line in the body politic which no-one in Westminster is prepared to confront.

Watching Sturgeon’s shock resignation, I was reminded of the late Tom Nairn, the great academic pin-up of Scottish nationalism whose book The Break-up of Britain argued that the British state was destined to collapse like the Hapsburg, Tsarist or Prussian regimes of the 19th and early 20th centuries. “It is a basically indefensible and unadaptable relic, not a modern state,” wrote Nairn. “The only useful kind of speculation has assumed a geriatric odour: a motorised wheelchair and a decent funeral seem to have become the actual horizons of the Eighties.” Nairn’s book was published in 1977 and yet the geriatric old relic endures, still supported by half of Scottish voters, despite Brexit and the political crises in Westminster that have followed.

Yet Nairn cannot be dismissed as a false prophet. As a political force, Scottish Nationalism has been transformed since 1977. The SNP is now the dominant force in Scottish politics, with independence supported by almost half the population and most of the young. As a result, Britain is easily the most fragile power in western Europe, or indeed the wider Western alliance. Almost no other country - apart from Canada or Spain - is as close to breaking apart.

Nairn was also right to argue in the 2002 edition of his book, when devolution was being hailed as a great reform which would permanently obstruct the demand for independence, that the British state remained structurally unstable. “A new tide seeking real independence is forming itself beneath the facade of Blairism,” he wrote. “It will rise into the spaces left by New Labour’s collapse, and by the increasing misfortunes of the old Union state.” Thirteen years later, the SNP expelled Labour from Scotland, winning every seat but three.

Nairn, in my view, was right to see long-term structural challenges to the British state, but wrong to believe that this made it uniquely outdated, or somehow destined to collapse. The fact that after eight years as First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has resigned, still unable to answer how Scottish independence will be enacted, is testament to the inherent challenges of secession, not just continuity.

The truth is both sides of the British Unionism and Scottish secessionism divide are making it up as they go along. None of us have been here, everything is new, and nothing is destined. Unionism has yet to offer coherent answers to the problems posed by devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but not England; Brexiteers have yet to offer coherent answers to the problem of Northern Ireland and its border with the Republic; and Scottish nationalists have yet to offer coherent answers to the problem of seceding from Britain after Britain has seceded from Europe. Nicola Sturgeon departs as First Minister of Scotland having failed to find them. But her opponents should not crow, for they have not succeeded in this task either.

The rise and (temporary) fall of Scottish nationalism has been a failure of the British state - and much of the British establishment - to break free of its bizarre obsession with its own mortality and to properly confront the challenge of reconciling devolved with central government and efficient administration with political liberty. This must be done without recourse to any of the lazy bywords - take your pick of ‘parliamentary sovereignty’, ‘devo-max’, ‘federalism’ independence itself - that have promised so much and delivered nothing.

Nicola Sturgeon’s political demise will have inflicted a grave wound on the United Kingdom if it causes the British establishment within Whitehall and Parliament to forget, yet again, about the Union. In this respect, it may turn out to be her parting gift to the cause to which she has devoted her entire adult life.

I believe that it was the pro-Unionist Prof. Jim Gallagher - the UK Government’s most senior official advising on devolution and the constitution - who was supposed to have said during the 2014 referendum, “the problem is, the nationalists have all the music, while the unionists seem only to be able to communicate in dry facts and figures.” Nicola Sturgeon went out with an aria - one that brought tears of sorrow from her supporters and tears of joy from the rest of us - but the music will play on.

Thanks for your question.

#ask #question #nicola sturgeon #scottish independence #britain #scotland #scottish #referendum #sececcion #union #westminster #first minister #holyrood #parliament #politics #politician #devolution #ideology #SNP

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