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#but it's like. maybe you fail but your choices still MATTERED yknow?
paigemathews · 1 year
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@fullybeautifultheorist replied to your post “I know I have some drafts that at least mention...”:
Tbh the fact that Cole was possessed doesn't really change much. Cole was egoistical and obsessed murderer in season 3 as well as in season 5. There is literally no meaningful change in his behavior during all 3 season. And even un season 7 he is playing peeping Tom
​Hmm, honestly, I see your point, but I think I would disagree. I’m not a fan of Cole’s, by any means, but I think knowing that he did not purposefully become the Source of All Evil and he wasn’t in full control would change things for at least Phoebe. I don’t want to whitewash his sins, because there are many but there is at least some kind of inherent tragedy in his loss of agency and autonomy after he tried to redeem himself. He really was trying to become good, even if it was for flawed reasons. I also think that it could bring either more pain or comfort to Phoebe and the sisters, because on one hand, they hadn’t been tricked so badly that Cole had never actually changed sides but on the other, they’d still been manipulated enough that they thought he never did if that makes sense.
#fullybeautifultheorist#abi speaks#cole turner#anti cole turner#charmed#i have a LOT of issues with cole and his storylines and ESPECIALLY the way his fans treat him#but at the same time i do think that it still mattered. do i necessarily think he's redeemable? ehhh#but i still think that the fact that he did not voluntarily betray the sisters and try to take power#is something that would be important for the sisters to know#like yeah he was a bad person and abusive and it was of his own volition#but at the same time i dont really think its fair that what they see as one of his biggest betrayals was something he had no agency over#or even limited agency over. i dont really know how much agency he had over the source tbh bc they dont really show us but#but it's like. maybe you fail but your choices still MATTERED yknow?#idk if that makes sense#my original post is more about how the sisters deserved to know more than it really changed anything for cole tho like#idgaf about him like sticking the happy ending or whatever but i think that phoebe (and the sisters) deserved to know#idk man i have a lot of thoughts about cole and phoebe and s4 and 5 and they change all the time so#bc i actually never had that much beef with him when i first watched the show (at like fucking. thirteen lmao)#i only started actively disliking him bc of his fans and tbh a decent portion of it still is how so many people act like he was an innocent#when he still had that blood on his hands#and i also havent really rewatched like s3 thru s5 for a hot hot minute especially not consecutively so like#my opinions may do a complete 180 in either direction once i actually. do that#(we're ignoring that i've been saying that for literally two or three years at this point life is time consuming)#annnnnd we're back to tags being longer than the post whoops lmao
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akunya · 2 years
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"sour mood."
pairings: floyd leech x m!reader
summary: you should know better by now - avoiding floyd always ends in punishment!
tw: CHOKING, asphyxiation, breathplay, exhibitionism. noncon/dubcon (not sure tbh), slight nsfw, groping. degradation, humiliation, etc. yandere!floyd?
notes: i wanted to write for twst for a long time, so here we are! of course i will still be writing for njsj and other things. please be kind. your hands feebly tried to grab at floyds wrists, choking as tears pricked the corners of your eyes. the rough bark of the tree felt as if it was stabbing your back, adding onto the discomfort of the mans hands wrapped around your neck like a collar. his knee forcefully spread your legs open.
when floyd had threatened to squeeze you, this was not what you expected.
“floyd, please, let go!” your voice wavered, panic settling when he would press a bit harder. it was all a game to him, the sadistic smile on his face reminding you just how different you two really were. he didn’t seem to care that you were struggling to breathe, giggling as he made a routine of squeezing tightly and letting you catch your breath.
“eh, but why, shrimpy? this is fun!” his laugh sent shivers down your spine. while jade had longer nails than floyd, the blunt ends of his fingertips digging into your throat hurt even more. he choked you out again, watching as you sniffled on the ground, having no choice. he seemed to stop just as you were about to become unconscious, your body becoming limp from the abuse and lack of oxygen. “look, now shrimpy’s neck is turning purple!” the eel seemed to find joy in your panic, your own hands grazing on your abused neck when he let go. you were terrified to look into a mirror later.
“i like playing with you, shrimpy. so why did you avoid me? it made me reaaaally sad, yknow!” he huffed, body towering over yours as he leaned in to speak. you took the chance to calm yourself down a bit, as much as you could anyways, sniffling. it didn’t matter if he kept his voice down or not. if a student even dared to look in your direction right now, you weren’t certain they’d make it out alive. you gulped, stuttering as floyd stared into your eyes for some sort of answer. voice dropping low, his pupils fixated on your own, glaring as he warned you. his hands hovered near your throat again.“tell meeee, before i make you hurt again.”
you weren’t stupid. you valued your life, so you quickly tried to stutter out a reply. that was, until floyds knee had dug into your crotch, cutting off your explanation into a pitiful whine.
the eels body shook with laughter, still towering over you as you covered your mouth. his knee didn’t move either, rubbing painfully against your cock as you tried to squirm away. if you weren't feeling shameful before, you were definitely feeling it now, wishing that you could become invisible. it was too embarrassing. “y/n, did you seriously get hard from me squeezing you? didn’t you want me to stop? shrimpy is a liar!” you shook your head, trying to deny his allegations as he pushed his knee further, groaning again from the feeling.
your head was dizzy enough from floyds punishment squeeze — his teasing aimed at your crotch only made your head spin even more. you weren't getting off to this.. right? maybe floyd is just messing with your head. your voice meekly protested, making him grin widely. "floyd, cut it out.." your voice was rough. “stop? i can’t stop now, shrimpy! what if i let you leave? then everyone will see how hard you are and laugh at you!” he was, in a twisted sense, sort of correct. whether you stayed or not, leaving would result in desperately failing at trying to hide the tent in your pants. if you stayed, however..
“shrimpy hasn’t been coming to see me lately, i should just leave you like this. it makes me really mad when i can’t bully you, yknow.” the mans voice dipped lowly, his smile dropping as he stared into your eyes. his gaze was intense. he didn’t have to explain further, you were reminded that he was upset and you wouldn’t make the same mistake of avoiding him again. the unspoken promise of your punishment being worse if you tried to think about leaving him was in the air, zipping your mouth shut. floyd had a habit of not being able to show his emotions properly, except for when he was angry. if his mood was sour, the entire campus knew.
and right now, his mood was definitely sour, no matter how much he would laugh and smile at your misery.
the only choice you had at this point was to give in. your throat felt dry, silent for a moment before finally speaking up. "im sorry, floyd. its my fault. i wont do it again, okay? please, let's at least go back to your room?" you tried to sound as gentle and calm as you could, masking your annoyance with the eel as he stared into your eyes. the bright gold in his pupils was unsettling to the say the least, however, you couldn't tear your gaze away from them. his face was neutral for a minute or two before he smiled again, his sharp teeth peeking out.
"no." floyd's hands went back to squeezing your throat. panic seeped into your bones, making your stomach drop. you coughed, voice struggling to come out as he laughed at you. "i don't believe you're sorry, shrimpy! you cant just ignore me for this long and pretend you feel bad when i caught you. im not dumb." his blunt nails dug into your precious skin, leaving crescent marks on top of the bruises starting to form. he had loosened his grip to let you breathe, heaving and gasping for air.
"besides, i don't think you want me to stop, y/n. you're really hard over this! haha, it's so gross!" the eel didn't bother to keep his voice down, laughing as you tried to close your legs to no avail. floyd was naturally bigger and stronger than you. avoiding him so much lately made you forget how easily he overpowered you in nearly every way, making you tremble in fear. unexpectedly, the man coo'ed at you, holding your face in his hands and forcing you to look up towards him.
"dont worry shrimpy! it wont hurt too much, okay? just stay still and take it aaaaall in."
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iamanartichoke · 3 years
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[please blacklist spoiler tags: #loki tv series spoilers, #loki series spoilers, #loki spoilers]
I need to talk about the Avengers. 
I just want to express how much I hate that the Avengers aren’t on the hook for all their time travel nonsense bc they were “supposed to” do it and Loki is on the hook bc he wasn’t. 
I mean, I am glad that they addressed it right away - that Loki was inadvertantly caught up in the Avengers' time meddling, and that apparently they were doing what they were supposed to and that's why none of them were on trial, but - there are two things going on here that I have issue with. One is, of course, the scapegoating of Loki once a-fucking-gain, but the other is that there's a legitimate problem inherent in framing the Avengers' deeds as The Right Thing So There Are No Consequences, especially because it directly leads to Loki (and only Loki) being scapegoated since, apparently, someone's got to answer for all of this. 
Why Were The Avengers Supposed to Undo the Snap?? 
Of all the possible options they could have gone with (such as reversing time back to just before the Snap happened), going back through time to gather the stones and use them to undo things five years later is, like, one of the worst?? Best case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously incompetent in managing the sacred timeline and worst case scenario, it implies that the TVA is ridiculously adept in managing the sacred timeline, if their goal is to have it be the worst possible timeline anyone could end up in. 
The Avengers may have done an arguably good thing in undoing the Snap - I don't disagree that those people should've lived - but they also royally fucked over a lot of things in the process and left Earth (and presumably many many other worlds) in total post-Snap chaos while fucking off to die be with their families and/or start new lives. 
This goes back to the plan itself. One of my many issues with Endgame is that not only is the plan convoluted and, frankly, stupid, but also I have a real problem with the concept of the Avengers just saving the world as they see fit, regardless of whether or not that's actually the best thing to do. (If the Russos hadn't done such a shit job with explaining what the Accords were actually supposed to do, then maybe this could have been addressed somehow - like, okay, together we may have the brains and resources to carry off this plan but does that mean we're the ultimate authority on whether or not we should? Maybe we should check with, like, the UN or something about this? [and it’s entirely possible the UN was mentioned and I have forgotten it bc I’ll be honest, I watched Endgame once and have bitched about it ever since.] I digress.) 
The narrative in Endgame and into the MCU beyond plays like the Avengers only care about saving the world when they stand to personally gain from it (they want their friends and family back, they want to feel like they didn't fail, they have unilaterally decided that what they want is the Best Thing for everyone) and once the Good Deed is done and the smoke clears from the battlefield, there's no concern with saving the mess of the world they created. 
TFatWS addressed so many of the problems with the post-reverse-Snap, which implies that the MCU (both in-universe and out) is aware that things are fucked up now. People's lives were literally ruined by what the Avengers did. Refugees are displaced. Humans are coming back to a world where they've been dead for five years and their loved ones have moved on and their homes have been sold and their bank accounts have been closed and they have no jobs. And that’s just on Earth. Yet no one (again, both in-universe and out) feels the need to hold the Avengers accountable for any of this. 
Plus, what about the people who died as a result of the Snap but not from the Snap directly? What about the planes that fell from the sky when the pilots turned to dust? The cars that crashed and collided when the drivers poofed? Etc. Like, fuck all of those people I guess? 
And who, exactly, is "supposed to" clean up the Avengers' mess now that the actual Avengers are either dead, old and living on the moon, or retired? Is it on Sam's shoulders alone (or, rather, Sam and Bucky's)? Is Peter Parker (yknow, the 15 year old Nick Fury went and recruited bc there was no one else) supposed to be fixing things? 
The TVA takes responsibility for none of this. They sit back in their nightmare DMV-esque office and claim that all is as it should be but my question remains: please explain to me how the outcome of the post-Snap universe is ultimately satisfactory to anyone besides the Avengers? 
There's also the fact that Loki figures out right away that the Avengers were engaging in some time travel shenanigans ("the cologne of two Tony Starks is hard to miss” lmfao Loki you snarky shit). Loki recognizes that there's been an opportunity created of which he can take advantage, but he isn't responsible for creating it. The Avengers messed up and created that opportunity so, even if they were supposed to be doing what they were doing, there are still no consequences for the fact that they made a mistake that allowed Loki to then branch off and create a new timeline. 
Let's also say that we accept that the Avengers were supposed to undo the Snap exactly as they did. Okay, sure. BUT: 
- Was Steve, then, also supposed to decide to fuck back off to the 1940s and marry Peggy (which created two Steves, right? The one who was married to Peggy all along and the one who was in the ice?? The TVA is just okay with two Steves?)? 
- What is the actual point of Stephen Strange having the time stone and using the time stone both to gain the advantage over Darmammushumuuyourmom (I’m sorry, I can’t remember his real name) and to look at all the possible timelines to figure out how to defeat Thanos? 
- How is it possible that there are 14 million potential timelines in which the Avengers failed if the TVA’s entire thing is that there can only be one true ring timeline to rule them all? The fact that Stephen can look ahead and determine so many outcomes based on the choices they're making would mean that people do have free will and that their actions aren't automatically dictated by what's “supposed to” happen. They had to make the right choices in order to get to the one timeline in which Thanos failed. 
- What’s the point of Stephen having to protect the time stone, anyway, if there are presumably a few others in Casey’s drawer?
- On that note, if there are a lot of infinity stones hanging around in the TVA’s desk drawers, what makes the original six the specific, correct ones that Thanos had to collect in order to pull off the Snap and why is it then those specific six the ones that the Avengers had permission to go back through time to get in order to undo the Snap as the Timekeepers intended?
- And actually, in fact, if there’s only one sacred timeline and anyone who fucks it up without permission gets “reset” (aka made nonexistent, along with their timeline branch) then, again, why does Stephen have to protect the time stone? Either anyone who steals it was supposed to, or their timeline gets eliminated and the theft ceases to matter. 
- Less significant but also still kinda significant is how Agents of SHIELD figures into all of this. The TVA knows that Loki killed Coulson but they don't know (or don't care?) that Coulson was brought back to life and proceeded, with his team, to go on and get heavily involved in time travel and going back and forth and bringing people from the past into the present? So the TVA is okay with Daniel Sousa leaving his timeline but not with Loki leaving his? 
... I have literally confused myself with all of this, so if anyone followed my train of thought here, congratulations and maybe you can explain it to me lmao. 
But here's my ultimate point: the sacred timeline that the TVA is tasked with maintaining is not sensical or linear. It's full of gaps and holes and people taking matters into their own hands to determine both their own fates and the fates of others. As a result, a lot of people suffer kinda needlessly based on the events in said timeline, and apparently it's perfectly fine for all of this nonsense to occur so that everyone else has some element of control - 
- but Loki is literally the only one who is told uh, actually, no, you are supposed to live a shitty life and die a pointless death and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it bc it's supposed to happen. 
What in the actual fuck kind of logic is that??? 
Thus, either the TVA (and the Timekeepers) are grossly incompetent, or else they're extremely competent and also really fucking shitty beings who just enjoy the needless suffering of others. 
And somehow this is all Loki's fault!!
And then Mobius has the fucking audacity to say, to Loki's face, “you only exist to prop up everyone else and you, Loki Odinsonson Laufeyson mischief god and king of space lol, do not have any inherent worth or value as your own person. You were born to be a scapegoat and you will die a scapegoat and there's no getting around that, if we have anything to say about it.”
To quote Loki, in a very twisted way - yes, it's funny. It's absurd. 
Does, uh, does this make sense? At some point I crossed over from meta-writing into straight up ranting and so, well, here we are. 
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malewife-darkling · 3 years
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Evil Father Darkling headcanons?
So, this is assuming that Alina still grows up thinking she's an orphan as per callstolike's post
The fact that he is both Her Dad tm and Hundreds of years older than her is definitely used against Alina.
Like, "little girl", "young lady", "*miss* Alina" - all his favorite names to call her.
I feel like any Dad Darkling's attempt at parenting is him trying to heal the inner child that was hurt by Baghra. Especially Show Darkling, who when we meet him in canon obviously despises her. I like to think that he would train Alina to use her powers personally. And like, he would definitely push her to her limits, but he would also give her lots of praise. And he definitely would NOT hit her. (If he got her when she was a younger child he would probably ruin her by spoiling her rotten. Just turn her into an absolute bratty monster)
There is definitely a turf war over Alina between Baghra and Aleksander, but the Darkling has the upper hand bc he'd actually be nice yknow? I could see Baghra being nice to try and manipulate Alina to her side but honestly i think she would be worse at it than him.
The Darkling definitely tries to make her hang out with David, bc David is his Son tm and it's only right for his daughter and son to interact. I could even see him trying to encourage a relationship between David and Alina, just for getting David both as like, an Official Son, and getting that much more power over Alina by having her be with someone who is very much in the Darkling's kefta pocket. (Literally everyone but the Darkling thinks this is a bad idea, for the record. David is still clearly in love w Genya)
Zoya would deeply despise Alina like in canon, bc what is this New Girl that is taking all of Darkling's attention (no it doesn't matter that she's literally his daughter), and she'd be dropped by him in a heartbeat. Ivan would try to be nicer than he is in canon, but I imagine Alina still kind of hates him. She also doesn't understand why he's being nice to her until someone (Genya) points out "Alina he's literally dating your dad"
Alina and Fedyor adore each other. He definitely takes on a more Dad role than in canon, and I could see her being almost as close to him, or maybe even closer to him, than she is to the Darkling.
There is no way Alina would call Darkling "Dad" right away and this fact crushes him.
Alina: I mean, Mr Kirigan. Mr General Kirigan sir. Isn't there something else I could call you than... Dad? Like for now?
Darkling, holding back tears: How about P-Papa?
Alina:
Darkling, sobbing into his soup: They took you from me before you could even call me Papa, Alina
Now, the thing about Mal:
On the one hand, he fucking hates him. He is non-Grisha, he’s like dust to them, and also Mal hates Grisha and I cannot imagine him standing for his Little Girl having to deal w that 
And yet, Darkling knows the pain of having a parent push away and forbid a love interest. 
So on the one hand, he might outright forbid her from seeing Mal... but on the other hand,  I could see him allowing her to see him, but assuming they will fail bc Mal hates Grisha, and Mal is a mayfly compared to Alina. And she’ll love her Dearest Papa all the more for allowing her this choice 
So, w the way this au is structured, it would work best w Cis Darkling, just so the pregnancy would be able to be an accidental one off thing, so Alina would be able to grow up thinking she's an orphan when her mom dies
But if this was trans Dad Darkling, there are a few spicy possibilities:
I can't see him ever willingly carrying a baby to term himself, bc it would leave him way too vulnerable. Like, I could possible see him willing to as part of some Grand Design for Grisha Good (a Noble Sacrifice, if u will) but not until Grisha are safer
So, this would have to be a very planned pregnancy. Im thinking he could do something with merzost to create the equivalent of a magical bone marrow pregnancy. He either Loves This Person Very Much or this Mom is a Very Powerful Grisha)
But during her pregnancy, two things could happen: either the mom is kidnapped... or the mom runs away. Im leaning towards runs away, for the drama of it all. Maybe something like in canon, where Baghra gives the mom cold feet (reveals the darkling's past, reveals his plans for her child), and so Mom flees to the middle of nowhere (maybe she stays in Ravka bc she figures Darkling will think she fled him for Shu Han?)
Trans Darkling would also use the fact that Baghra is transphobic towards him to his favor. "You know that she likes to lie about me, to spread such nasty rumors about me Alina. You have to take what she says with a grain of salt"
"Baghra humiliated me in front of everyone at the last winter fete, do you really think she's above using her own granddaughter to hurt her son?"
Dad Darkling would still want to use the stag on her, but I can see him bringing up the idea early on. Especially since in this au he’s her mentor-dad, so having a strong, capable Grisha guiding her power would make a lot of sense to her. He could even have her think she was agreeing to it of her own volition.
Or he could even float his idea of using the fold as a weapon to her, and get her in on his plan. He would spin some lie about his wife being kidnapped by Fjerdans or Shu (or maybe he himself thinks she was kidnapped and didn’t leave of her own volition) 
------------------
Anyways thats my thoughts on this au for now. I probably have more. Thank u anon this was so much fun to answer 
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summoner-kentauris · 3 years
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What does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir? (You can either just answer or write a lil story if you feel like it)
OOOO now i have thought in my free time a fair amount about what líf thinks of zasha but, and i cannot believe this, i have not thought about what zacharias thinks about líf and thrasir. full disclosure, book III happened to be going on when i formally stopped playing feh. i kept up with the story after that but, theres my obligatory knowledge base disclaimer.
also minor cws through this whole thing because i talk here and there about zacharias and his... mm, canonical relationship to death/selfharm
-
so, i spent a lot of time thinking about this one, and i keep coming back to my gut reaction, which is that i don't think zacharias would like them very much. i dont know why i think that, though.
PART ONE
i think a lot of it would depend on how they approach him, which is maybe why i've spent more time thinking about the reverse of this ask, come to think of it. see, i think zacharias could go any which way in terms of what he thinks of them. i think he could hate them, as two people who killed versions of everyone he ever loved, including metaphorically killing off the two people closest to him.
i think he could love him, having seen the hell (ha ha literally) that they went through. understanding what that feels like. given the way he talks about his suicide attempts, and honestly that he spent most of book I trying to get people to kill him, really his whole relationship to death. i mean the man talks a lot about death and killing. he might not be the feh OC who best understands how manipulative and... whats a good word. alluring? what im trying to say is that besides eir, he might be the one most likely to understand why Hel and hel's offer appealed to líf and thrasir. i feel like this bit has a place here: "With his dying breath...he begged for his life. He called out your names! "I'll do anything you ask! Just let me live!" excepting of course that i still am not sure if i think he said/thought that or not. ive never been sure who really is in control of speaking right then and there. Anyway. Probably he could come to understand Líf and Thrasir's stance, enough that he could care about them the same ways he cares about his versions of Alfonse ann Veronica
on the other hand, i can see him being fully horrified by the choices those two made in response. this bit: Not anyone... This dark god...seeks death. And it cries for the destruction of Askr. Like. Líf and Thrasir are intentionally enacting the same thing as the dark god's desires, in order to correct a mistake they made that, uh, also enacted the same thing as dark god's desires. talk about awkward. and i think Zasha, who has lived with this nightmare in his head for so long, might recoil from people who are so directly aligned with it. who wants to be around someone who has become, who has chosen to become, everything you ever feared you'd be? especially when you're nearly drowning from the effort of fighting to stop yourself.
i could also see him meeting them and it being incredibly, incredibly bad for him. i feel like, he puts a whole lot of... mm. what am i trying to say.here:
Yet it is you that says this, dear friend, and so I must consider it. I see the faith reflected in your eyes. Perhaps it is possible...
SPEAKING OF BUNNY ZACHARIAS I ALSO THINK YOU COULD TAKE THE FOLLOWING:
You never change. All you see is a lofty goal, even if you lack the means to achieve it... The idea that gods would fall by the hand of man is a fantasy... and a preposterous one. This is a goal that even our ancestors Líf and Thrasir could not achieve.
setting aside the obligatory wtf zash i know you know your lore (fuck, maybe there is no killing the gods, maybe all Fire Emblem victories are temporary at best and Zenith is the only one who knows it. but i think, probably not), i think you could spin a very believable scenario where zacharias takes one look at these two ambitious, arrogant posers and absolutely refuses to speak to them any further.
so, part one, i think that zacharias could think any number of things about líf and thrasir. which i suppose means that i think he's fairly neutral on the subject of líf and thrasir. makes sense to me, i suppose. i feel like zacharias | bruno has practice (regardless of whether he's any good at it or not, or whether its any good for him) at holding and maintaining separate personas, so I don't think the fact that líf and thrasir were alfonse and veronica would necessarily be all that important to him.
which brings me to part ii
what happened to dead zenith zacharias
if zacharias is neutral on the subject, I think a lot of their relationship is going to pushed in one direction or another by líf and thrasir themselves.
and, complicating matters (when do I make things simple?), i think their approach to zacharias would of course depend on what happened to their zacharias. correct me if im wrong, but i dont think we have even a hint what happened to him.
there are three ish options I'm seeing. one: as dead world zenith is further along in its timeline and as zacharias claims he's almost out of time with his curse, other zacharias died due to that before the war with hel. i feel like scenario one is the most likely to lead to a good relationship between main zacharias and líf and thrasir.
two: mr. professional "knows plot relevant things out of knowhere" was the one who found out about angrboða's heart in the first place. especially given "As destruction took hold, we joined with Embla to seek the forbidden heart...", which to me sounds a lot like, "hel was kicking our ass then zacharias showed up and said we should go get this mystical plot object from embla". thrasir even says she and líf weren't allies before the world went to shit. anyway. hear me out here:
Yes. The heart is sealed within an Emblian blood temple. If that seal is broken, someone will die each time the heart beats... Those who perform the rite are the first to die.
Now. Líf claims he was the one who broke it open, but he also was present for the war that followed and only after was he killed and inducted into hel's army. so. both of those things can't be true. i propose that the magic mcguffin located in a sealed emblian blood temple was unlocked by our dear zacharias and thats what killed him in other zenith. i think its possible that other veronica was the one who did it, but you know. its all imagination at this point. also, and i forgot this, but thrasir does go off about how she can't lose until she saves her brother, so. something especially tragic happened at least. and oh boy is scenario two a nice fresh tasty tragedy. so that's scenario two. other zacharias directly died as a result of attempts to fight hel
number three thing that could have happened to zach is boring. he's always off doing things, he could have just died off screen. i mean. everyone did, eventually.
frankly he could still be alive for all i know. the heart appears to take the lives of people in the world, not of the world, or else the summoner would have been fine. so, if zacharias was on one of his off world jaunts, he could conceivably be a-okay. well. as okay as someone who's whole world died. i don't think that's what happened, because thrasir is pretty clear about feeling that she failed him, but yknow.
líf and thrasir's reactions to the above
thrasir is i think the most straightforward. i can't really see her approaching main zacharias with anything but positive intent. even if she's only a little bit open, i think thrasir and zacharias will probably have a decently tolerable relationship. if zacharias can come back to a country that exiled him as a kid and let his mother die in a dungeon and then go on to not just befriend but protect and care for a half sister he didnt know before then, then i think he'll find a way to care about thrasir. you know, intsys could have had fun making another perpetual older brother character. as i understand it, xander gets brother'd a lot, he and zach could have talked. could have been fun. a whole, zacharias, a historically traumatized child: *arrives in a world* every currently traumatized kid in a five mile radius: oh shit this one's ours now. you know what im saying? found family except zacharias would very much like it to stop finding him. he's got important brooding to do. but anway, they didn't go that route and its a tragedy.
líf is... more complicated. i think scenario one creates the most positive outlook. i can see him still having guilt over zacharias' loss, but i think any of it would be overshadowed by everything else that happened. in this scenario, líf finally gets back a piece of the world he'd lost. yeah, it's not his zacharias, but still. it is a zacharias, who is living and breathing and frowning and asking why you are staring at me, knight. i think the two of them could get along rather well, although i see them having significant issues with pessimism. inch-restingly enough... the dark curse bades its hosts to kill askrans. and líf is, well. dead. so... perhaps... perhaps líf wouldn't trigger the curse like alfonse does. in that case, not only does líf get someone back he thought he'd never see again, but so does zacharias.
scenario two is just a nightmare. frankly, i initially thought this scenario would lead to líf just ignoring zacharias (out of guilt, pain, etc), but i was rereading the scripts looking for the spelling of angrboða and this came up:
Tell Hel. She'll erase those memories. She'll erase them all...
so, honestly? i think that in scenario two líf just straight up gets hel to remove his memories of zacharias (as an aside maybe this is also why he never ever ever talks about other anna >:{ )
in that case, líf wouldn't really have any reason to talk to this man, who causes this empty deeply sad feeling to well up in him for now discernible reason. and zacharias has no reason (or time) to talk to this standoffish general of the dead. so. that's a real ships in the night moment.
number three i think líf would still hold the same guilt as in number two, but i don't think it would be as horrifically tragic, so i think it's more likely he'd be willing to approach zacharias. he does appear to have even worse of a thing than alfonse about not opening oneself up to people, but i think that even if he's líf, he once was an alfonse, and being that this is me answering this, i don't think any alfonse can really keep away from a zacharias for very long. its a version of the person who once knew him as well as any other person in the world. like líf can't really seem to stop himself from associating with main sharena, i don't think he could stop himself from reaching out in his own way to main zacharias. and god does that man need some more friends. i think zacharias would probably be a little frightened of líf, and of what an alfonse could become. but i think probably... i feel like a lot of book i issues stem from the fact that, justified or not, zacharias thinks alfonse would risk anything, any harm to save him. i don't know that confronting an alfonse who literally risked everything and did all harm to save his world would be a comfort, but i do think zacharias would get a lot out of having someone who's already done the worst they can do. been there, done that, got the tshirt. i think zacharias would be a little afraid of what an alfonse could become, but i think he would no longer have to be afraid of... no, anxious about it. i think there's a kind of calm in having something confirmed that zacharias could appreciate. healthy? unhealthy? fuck if i know. i also think that in líf, zacharias has a friend who he can't physically hurt anymore. lífs already dead. been there done there got the.... glowing gel torso. i think, curse nonewithstanding, zacharias will always have some degree of tension and fear about hurting people he's in a relationship with, be that because of his issues with abandonment, of abandoning, of harm, etc. but you know. líf's kind of a rock. and he's already hit his rock bottom, now that i'm thinking about rocks. i think that kind of steady, placid deathness could really help zacharias. and i think he would find it soothing, whether or not he knew why.
plus he will be able to know that if the curse gets him, if he dies... he'll still have a friend in the realm of the dead. he doesnt have to be so afraid of leaving and getting left
so there we go! lots of musings. i have been thinkin about why my headcanons are less that and more elaborate branching theories, and i think it is because i would change my opinion depending on which story i wanted to tell or hear or see.so yeah. dunno which one of these answers belongs to the question, what does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir?, but hopefully at least one of them is interesting to read about!
OH also. i think he would be petty-ly annoyed about them cribing líf and thrasir's name. like full on scholar petty. probably showed up to the order in a nerdy huff excited to meet the actual factual líf and thrasir and turns out its just those two, sitting around glowing and reciting death metal lyrics like they're spoken word ballads. dont think he'd get over that ever.
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Text
Demons - D. Malfoy
Warning: VERY BRIEF MENTION OF SELF HARM
It is currently 1:46 AM here in Sydney, and my eyes are hanging out of my head but here we are. I apologize for any tired typos.
The lovely @starshonerose and I adore Mr Malfoy (who totally deserved a redemption but yknow) and my Slytherin ass just HAD to write something for Draco based off of Demons by Imagine Dragons.
Hope my fellow Potter Heads enjoy.
And to all of my followers, love you and goodnight.
Original story by Sarcastically-defensive17
His shaky hands grasped the porcelain basin. He fought his eyes to remain forward, but every time he glanced in the direction of his arm the toxic symbol stared back at him.
He was forever marked, and there was nothing he could do to defy the branding. Nor could he defy the dark lord.
His grey eyes stared back at him, and he felt sick as he spotted the red veins that stretched across the white of his eyes. They stood out in stark contrast to the purple circles underneath the orbs.
His skin was more pale than usual, almost blending in to his white blonde hair, and in that moment he could only think of two things.
One: how much he hated his father, and two: how determined he was to keep her away from this nonsense.
If he was to go to his death because of his fathers choices then he would do that on his own. He wouldn’t drag Y/N into it and risk the Dark Lord getting his hands on her.
She was too pure.
When the days are cold, and the cards all fold, and the saints we see are all made of gold.
He was surrounded by people who worshipped Voldemort. People who wanted to eradicate all of impure blood and who believed Wizards were superior to Muggles.
He thought the same until she came along.
She was the most interesting Half-Blood he had ever met, and he was enamored by her almost as soon as she sat next to him in Potions the previous year.
He had seen her in the Slytherin common room and in other classes, but he had his head metaphorically shoved too far up his arse to know anything other than his self-absorbed nonsense.
Now, he was her light while everyone around him hailed the worst wizard of all time.
When your dreams all fail and the ones we hail are the worst of all, and the blood's run stale.
Soft footsteps echoed behind him. He knew who it was before even casting a look in the direction.
Of course she would find him, after all, she had access to the prefects bathroom as much as he.
“Draco? Darling?” Her soft voice echoed off of the tiles, and he felt his body relax at the sound of her. He almost turned to her, but he realized the mark on his arm was close to being in her view.
If she stepped closer, or looked in the mirror at the right angle, she would see what he wanted to keep hidden.
“I’m fine, Y/N.” He was short with her. He hoped maybe, if he angered her enough she would leave.
Maybe she would leave him. Then it would hurt her less when he met his fate.
He was a death eater after all.
He could selfishly cast her away to make things easier for himself, or he could push her away to save her the pain of losing him.
If she would feel the pain at all.
I wanna hide the truth, I wanna shelter you but with the beast inside, there's nowhere we can hide. No matter what we breed, we still are made of greed.
She inches closer to him and he made the move to hide his arm from her sight, moving his hands quickly to reef his sleeves down to his wrists.
“Darling, you can always talk to me,” he jumped as she places a soft hand on his shoulder. “Always.”
Her touch sent his nerves alight, and he could feel the warmth spreading through his body. It was a calming heat, unlike the near constant burning that erupted under his branding.
He could always find comfort in her presence.
If only he didn’t feel the need to defy the Dark Lord. Then he wouldn’t be expecting death.
This is my kingdom come, this is my kingdom come.
He couldn’t stop his body from jolting away from her warmth. It felt unnatural. It felt selfish.
How could he allow himself to revel in her presence when he knew he is hurting her in the long run.
Her mother is a muggle born. The same type of people his father is hell bent on eradicating along side Voldemort.
He isn’t worthy of being around somebody so perfect.
He turned away from her hurt expression, but he could see her lower her hand slowly in the reflection of the mirror.
“Please leave,” he choked out, blinking tears out of his eyes.
She pinched her brows together, walking around to his front and placing her hand on his arm again. Only for it to be shaken off.
When you feel my heat, look into my eyes. It’s where my demons hide; it’s where my demons hide.
He couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. He knew that she could tell he wasn’t okay by his appearance alone but one look into his red rimmed orbs and he would break down. She could always see through the window of his soul.
“Draco, please,” she was begging.
“I need you to go. Please.” When she didn’t move, he knew he needed to try harder. He clenched his jaw, daring to look into her eyes. Her face dropped. “I want you to go. I don’t want you near me.”
She placed her hands on either side of his face, laughing as if he told her a secret joke, “Is this another one of your tricks. Tell me what is wrong, my love. You look like you’ve been crying for hours.”
Don't get too close; it's dark inside. It's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide.
“There is nothing wrong. Why do you never listen?” He snapped.
Guilt swelled in his stomach as she recoiled. Any other girl would let their eyes pool with tears if he snapped at them. Many girls had many times before in the past.
“I’m trying to listen. Why won’t you tell me what is wrong?” Her voice was strong. She was a true slytherin.
She didn’t buckle under pressure. She didn’t give up easily. She was the strongest woman he knew and he adored every aspect of her fiery personality.
He knew he needed to get her to walk away from him. He needed to make her hate him, so when the dark lord grew tired of him or found out that he loves the daughter of a mudblood, she will be less affected.
“The only thing that is wrong with me, is you.” For the first time, he saw her face shift in emotion. “You’re suffocating me. You’re too needy.”
He was venomous. Y/N’s eyes glazed over before hardening.
“I can’t stand to be around you,” he practically snarled at her but she knew his eyes told a different story completely. He was hiding something, and she was determined to get the truth out of the man.
“You don’t mean that,” he turned to walk away from her, but he tended completely when she clasped her hand around his forearm.
A sharp hiss escaped his lips, and tears flooded his eyes as the burning intensified at her touch.
At the curtain's call it's the last of all. When the lights fade out, all the sinners crawl. So they dug your grave and the masquerade will come calling out at the mess you've made.
He always appeared so strong and stoic on the outside, but he allowed her to get to know him. She could see right through him, and at the moment he regretted it so much.
“Draco?” Her time was accusatory and as he turned to face her he couldn’t contain his emotions any more.
“Im sorry. I’m so sorry,” the tears held in his eyes began to cascade down his porcelain cheeks.
Y/N busied her hands with his sleeve, raising it up to determine if there was an injury of some kind. Her mind raced to the worst scenario, expecting to find self inflicted wounds.
Instead, she found something just as bad.
A gasp left her lips and she dropped his arm from her fingers, choosing instead to cover her mouth in fear.
Draco’s knees crumpled underneath him and he let himself collapse on the ground, sobs shaking his body violently.
“I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want it. They made me. They made me do it. They made me do it,” his words blended together, the tone wet through his sobs.
Don't wanna let you down, but I am hell-bound. Though this is all for you, don't wanna hide the truth. No matter what we breed, we still are made of greed...
She lowered herself to the ground, wrapping her arms around his shoulder delicately.
She shushed him in a soft manner, “it’s okay, Draco. It’s okay.”
“You should hate me,” he sobbed against her shoulder, staining her uniform with tears. “I want you to hate me. I need you to not care about me.”
“What did you mean?” She received no answer, so she placed her hands on either side of his - now blotchy - face and raised his head to be level with hers. “You didn’t choose this, Draco.”
“No, but I said yes to what they want me to do. But I can’t do it.”
She fixed her eyes on his grey ones. It was almost as if she could see the internal demons floating through ever bloodshot vein in his stunning eyes.
“What do they want you to do?” Her heart stalled forever a minute in anticipation.
“Kill Dumbledore,” more tears fell. “But I can’t do it. They’re going to kill me if I don’t, Y/N.”
This is my kingdom come, this is my kingdom come.
The time had passes by quickly, and Draco stood opposite the man he was tasked with killing. His wand was heavy in his palm, and with each second the branding on his arm burned with a more intense ferocity than before.
The Dark Lord had his claws sunken in the boy and there was no escape.
They say it's what you make, I say it's up to fate. It's woven in my soul, I need to let you go. Your eyes, they shine so bright, I wanna save that light. I can't escape this now, unless you show me how.
Y/N stood by his side, just out of his view. He didn’t know she would be there with him, as he had specifically asked her to stay away.
He wanted to preserve the light within her as long as he possibly could. Even if she refused to leave him after he commits the most important murder known to the Wizarding World.
She watched as Draco battled with himself. She knew he didn’t want to kill the headmaster who had provided him an escape from his torturous family for so many years.
Dumbledore had been a mentor and a confidant for the boy, and it would kill him to take his life.
Draco raised his wand, and she could see his hand shake.
They could both hear the death eaters begin to scale the steps, and if they saw Draco hesitate then it would not be good for her Love.
Instead, she made a decision that would seal her fate alongside Draco’s forever.
When you feel my heat, look into my eyes. It's where my demons hide, it's where my demons hide.
She raised her wand, cedar wood, 10”, and muttered the most unforgivable of all the curses.
“Avada Kedavra,” green light emerged from the tip of her wand, and she fought back tears as it struck the chest of her headmaster.
The older man fell backwards, gravity taking his body down.
Don't get too close; it's dark inside. It's where my demons hide.
She did it for him. She knew she would never be able to forgive herself, but so long as it didn’t add to the large burden plaguing Draco’s conscience, then she could handle it.
So long as his demons were easier to manage.
“I love you,” she whispered through her tears, holding the blonde boy close as they wept for the death that was on their hands.
“I love you, too,” Draco replied.
No matter how hard he tried, Y/N would stick by him.
She would battle his demons for him, despite her own taking control.
it's where my demons hide
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stxn-the-mxn · 5 years
Text
Alone Time || 2019!Bill Denbrough X Reader
IT CHAPTER 2 SPOILERS
! blood, death, mentions of rape !
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He couldn’t believe he forgot about her. Of all the things about Derry, he forgot, why did it have to be her. He knew there was something holding him back from marrying Audra and later breaking up with her. 
There was always something in the back of his head, yelling at him, telling him to hold back. And now he knew, it had been her the whole time. That voice in his head, his subconscious… they were all her.
When they passed by her at the Chinese restaurant, he paid her no mind, trying to get out of their as quick as possible, especially after Richie lost his shit at some poor child. He hadn’t even realised it had been her. 
***
Back in 1990, she had been his everything. It was a while after Beverly had left, and he could feel his feelings for her dispersing quickly. In time, he would find every second of the day was taken up with thoughts of her.
He was disappointed in himself for never having noticed her before. She was in literally all of his classes. Every single one, and yet he never paid her any attention. He had mentally slapped himself after that discovery.
After that summer, Bill didn’t really hang out with the Losers Club as often. Every now and again he would talk to Stan, maybe Eddie or Richie. Ben and Mike were a different story. Bill never seemed to see them anymore.
So, he turned to her for a new best friend. At lunch, he joined her at the table she sat at by herself usually. She smiled at the boy, and Bill swore his heart skipped a couple of beats. After that day, they seemed to be spending days on end with each other.
Later that year, the school decided to put on a play. The most basic school play, Romeo & Juliet. The week before auditions, Bill had discovered Y/N’s love for Shakespeare. She had been talking about it non-stop since the announcement was made.
“Y-yknow, you s-s-should audition for J-Juliet.”
She had choked on her juice, staring at Bill, waiting for him to laugh it off. It had to have been a joke, after all.
“I’m s-s-serious, Y/N/N. You’re a g-great actress. Look, if y-y-you audition, I will t-too.”
Bill regretted that promise. He wasn’t ready to play Romeo and was most definitely not prepared to kiss you on stage in front of everyone. But he was ready to admit that he loved you, truly he did.
You had believed him. He said he loved you. He said that he wanted to be with you forever.
And then he left Derry.
***
How could he have forgotten his Juliet? He could feel the kisses on his lips again, her hands tangled in his hair. He could feel everything he felt for her, just like he did before he left Derry. Had Y/N left Derry?
He wasn’t sure, but he sure as hell wanted to know. He would search this damn town top to bottom if it meant finding you again. But first, he wanted to pass by somewhere that meant a shit ton to him.
He pedalled up to his old house, and he was surprised to see it hadn’t been changed one bit. It was the same colour, just freshly painted. He glanced up at the top window that used to be his bedroom and saw a woman in the window.
She seemed familiar, and the second they locked eyes, it didn’t feel awkward. It felt right. He watched as the woman ran downstairs. The door swung open, and the woman ran out to Bill.
“Bill, holy shit, it’s you! You’re right in front of me, breathing and everything oh my god.”
He knew it was her. He knew immediately. How could he not? All these years later, and she still had the same smile.
“Y-yeah, yeah it’s m-me. You h-h-haven’t changed. And you live in my old home?”
She chuckled, and it sounded like music to Bill. Her smile was the same, except the silver braces were gone. He examined her face. She had more noticeable freckles, her glasses gone, likely being replaced with contacts.
She was still the Y/N he was utterly in love with.
“What can I say? I missed you, this was the closest I could be to you.”
“Mom? Sewer guy?”
Both adults whipped around to meet the small kid with his skateboard. Bill’s jaw dropped, as he stared at the kid he had yelled at only an hour ago. It was just his luck, wasn’t it? He and Richie had both yelled at this poor kid, only to find out he belonged to the love of his life. 
“You know Dean?”
Y/N questioned, pure confusion in her voice. How on earth did Bill know her own son? Bill didn’t answer, just staring between Dean and Y/N.
“Bill? Come in, we need to talk. Dean, don’t stay out too late, I need you back from the fair at least 10 pm.”
Dean skated off, staring at Bill weirdly as he passed him. Bill watched the kid go, his eyes darting between Y/N and skateboard kid. 
“Fuck,” he thought “that probably means she’s married.”
Sensing that Bill was in a state of mild shock, Y/N sighed and dragged him inside. The floor plan was still the same as when he had lived there. Georgie’s old room now belonged to Dean. His old room was now occupied by Y/N and her husband.
They sat down on the bed, closer than Bill expected for a married woman.
“I’m not married.” Y/N seemed to read Bill’s mind. He glanced at her hands to find, to his joy, not a single gold band in sight.
“Well, where’d D-Dean come f-f-from then?” Bill had genuine curiosity in his voice, as he glanced at a photo of Y/N and Dean. he couldn’t help but smile at how happy they were. He had to ask about Dean’s father, but he didn’t want to come across as pushy or nosey. He failed that last part.
“He, uh, he never had a father. It’s always been just me and him.” She was holding back the truth. He needed to be nosey and pushy. He didn’t feel like he had any other choice.
“Y/N, even after 27 y-years, I k-know when you’re not t-t-telling me the truth. You d-do the thing with your h-h-hands.”
She looked down, seeing her right ring finger tapping her thigh. He really remembered everything after all those years. 
“Dean… he wasn’t a child of consent. That’s all I want to say on the matter.” Y/N’s words were quick and sharp. Bill could tell she was touchy about the subject. Who wouldn’t be? Silence fell over the room.
Bill held her tightly, as her sobs broke the silence. It was painful, seeing the woman he loved break like this. She had always been the second strongest woman he knew, as no woman would ever be as strong as Beverly Marsh, and that was fact, not opinion.
“I remember when Dean first asked about his dad. I told him he was off in California, writing stories and making movies that he wasn’t allowed to read or see yet.” Y/N laughed softly as she saw Bill’s dumbstruck expression. He still seemed to be processing it all, but that didn’t stop her from continuing.
“He had smiled, yelling that his daddy was famous while jumping in circles. I never had the heart to tell him the truth. I still don’t think I could.”
“So, what y-you’re telling m-m-me… is that y-y-your son thinks I-I’m his dad?”
She had looked down awkwardly, mentally calling herself stupid for bringing that up. Bill probably thought she was insane at this point.
“Maybe… maybe he n-n-needs a dad. One who’s a-actually around.”
“W-what?”
Bill pressed his lips against hers, those 27 years of lost emotions rushing into this one kiss. It was messy, rushed, somewhat chaotic. It was everything the both of them had wanted. It was perfect and beautiful and everything in between.
***
Bill, Ben and Beverly surrounded Eddie as they stared at the hole in his cheek where Henry Bower’s switchblade had been. Everyone was in a panic, not knowing what to do when someone gets stabbed through the face.
While Bill was also worried for Eddie, his mind was elsewhere. Specifically, his mind was on her. The voices of Ben and Bev and Eddie’s painful moans dissolved as Bill saw a skateboard roll over to them. It looked identical to Dean’s.
Bev noticed it too. Blood trailed upwards. It was floating. 
They flipped the board over, and Bill’s knees buckled.
Guess he couldn’t cut it either.
“I have to go.”
He ran, ignoring Silver and Bev’s calls for him to wait. He couldn’t let Dean get hurt. He couldn’t let Y/N get hurt. The fair was quite the distance from the Inn, but he ran the whole way. Dean wasn’t safe, no child was in this devil town.
The screams, happy screams, of kids and neon lights signalled his destination was extremely close. As he turned the corner, he immediately scanned the crowds for the mop of curly blonde hair.
Like a hitman finding his target, his eyes closed in on Dean L/N. He had made it time. Dean was there, breathing, all limbs attached. Bill continued sprinting. Dean was running with his friends towards the funhouse.
“Kid! Dean! Stop!” His pleas were useless as Dean ran through the spinning walkway. Bill stumbled across the walkway, feeling dizzy.
The next hallway was filled with swinging clowns. Dean must have already made it through. A clown slammed him into the wall, but he got back up and ran, only being hit by one more stuffed clown.
“Oh, you can not be serious?”
Bill faced the mirror maze, his head spinning. He didn’t stop to get his bearing though, sprinting through the maze, running into almost every mirror. He turned the corner successfully and saw the blonde boy up ahead.
“Kid!” He yelled, running at full speed, before cracking his head against another mirror.
“Kid?” He looked around, feeling his surroundings. It wasn’t possible. Not in some attraction designed for kids.
He was completely surrounded by those fucking mirrors. He continued to feel around, eventually finding an open passage. Bill stumbled through more hallways, this time avoiding running into anything.
Around another corner was Dean, walking idly. He ran towards the kid again but found himself stuck behind another barrier of mirrors. He shouldn’t have been shocked, running into mirrors in the mirror maze.
Spinning around, he saw him again. Dean was at the end of the hallway, staring through the mirrors. Bill ran, for the millionth time that day, calling out for Dean. and, for the millionth time that day, he found himself trapped behind a wall of glass.
Dean spun around at the thump on the glass. He stared at the man who seemed to be following him around this town and had been hugging his mom not that long ago. Bill clutched his face in pain, muttering “shit” not so quietly.
“K-kid! Hey, hey!” Bill smiled, and Dean backed away.
“What are you doing here?” 
“H-h-hey, I-I’m here to help,” Bill said, and Dean scrunched up his face in annoyance.
“Stop following me!”
“I’m gonna, I’m g-gonna get you o-out of here.” Bill walked backwards, and as his eyes drifted down past Dean, he seemed to freeze.
Dean followed his gaze, his breath catching in his throat as he saw the creature staring them down.
Pennywise The Dancing Clown stared at the two of them, trailing his tongue up the glass. He had hunger in his eyes as he watched Dean’s every move.
“No.” Bill pleaded. Pennywise moved up the glass, his tongue still licking the glass. Dean didn’t move, frozen in place.
“P-please..” Bill felt helpless.
Pennywise stared at Dean, who was shaking. Bill realised he was shaking too, as strong as he always made himself seem. The fucking clown smiled creepily at Dean, the poor boy crying and trembling.
Neither Dean nor Bill could say anything, both standing in silence as Pennywise reared IT’s head, before hitting it on the glass.
IT laughed at their fearful silence, the only other sound being Dean’s wavering breaths. IT smashed its head on the glass, harder this time, and Bill responded by pounding on the glass. Dean backed away, straight into the glass Bill was on the other side of.
IT repeatedly smashed its head on the glass, not holding back. Bill did the same, only with his fists. Dean yelped in fear, each cry a spear through Bill’s heart. The clown was relentless, never holding back as its head came in contact with the glass.
Dean was crying, and Bill felt tears welling up too. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. But it was, and it was a real as the fear pounding through their bodies.
The glass was cracking, Dean was screaming, and Bill was trying, but to no avail. IT slammed its head faster, more aggressive. Dean turned to Bill who was punching the glass. He knew he couldn’t do anything, but he didn’t want to believe it.
Two pieces of glass separated Dean from either safety or… something else. 
Bill moved to kick the glass, but it still remained intact. The other piece of glass did not. Dean’s screams echo through Bill’s mind, and they motivate him to try harder, to be stronger. He tries everything. Kicking, punching, pushing against it, all while looking into Dean’s fearful eyes. The same eyes he would have to look into after this. The same eyes that would fill with uncontrollable tears.
IT stops. But the glass is one tiny hit away from shattering. ITs face contorts, the horrifying smile it displays burning into Dean’s memories. Bill and Dean breathe heavily, and Pennywise can smell their fear.
IT rears its head back, before smashing it through the glass. Razor-sharp teeth slash out, latching onto Dean, who is still screaming. 
A gruesome blood splatter signifies Bill’s failure.
***
The incident had happened two days ago. In those two days, Bill had never felt more enraged. That anger, however, had been one of the keys to defeating IT. But as the Losers left the sewers, hauling an injured but living Eddie with great difficulty, the anger wasted away, and the sadness took its place.
He didn’t know how to tell her. He now knew how his parents felt, the day they had to tell him of Georgie’s fate. He felt so utterly useless. He had walked to her house, not ever wanting to arrive.
On the slow travel to the house of death and despair, Bill had contemplated how he would tell her. Nothing seemed right. He knew he needed the other Losers by his side if he was ever going to make it through.
Once the six of them had made it to your doorstep and rung the doorbell, Bill had broken down. And that’s how Y/N found them all, huddled around a sobbing Bill. They had all immediately noticed the tears in her own eyes.
“B-Bill?” 
She brought them all inside, making each one a cup of coffee or tea. They sat in silence, waiting for someone to say something. No one spoke, Bill and Y/N simply let out quiet sobs every now and again. An hour after, and a few coffee/tea refills later, Bill finally spoke up.
“Y-Y/N. Can we g-g-go upstairs?’
Bill held the woman close to him as they made their way upstairs. They both froze outside Dean’s old room, and Bill made the move to push her next door.
“What happened to Dean? Why did he never come home, Bill?”
Bill knew that deep down, she knew the answer to that. Not the specifics, of course. But he knew that Y/N could not have ignored the signs, like the missing posters that only seemed to be around when he was.
“Y/N, h-h-he’s gone.”
She couldn’t do this anymore. Bill held the sobbing woman, and he knew the other five Losers downstairs could hear everything. Her crying eventually brought the other five upstairs, one by one.
It reminded them of 1989 after they first defeated IT, when Bill had found Georgie’s yellow raincoat. Bill made the connection too, which hurt even more. They all found their tears dotting each other's clothes as they hugged the woman that they had not met until an hour ago.
“I… I think I need some time alone.” She mumbled, and the Losers left her room. Bill was about to leave when she pulled him into a kiss. It was like the one he shared with Beverly all those years ago; a farewell kiss.
***
It had been more of a farewell than Bill hoped. Not even two months after he left Derry for the second time did he receive the letter. It was addressed to him, from an address he didn’t know.
Opening the letter, he immediately recognized her handwriting. It hadn’t changed since high school. The note was short.
I’m sorry. I tried to be strong, I really did. I couldn’t do it without you and Dean. And I feel so selfish for doing this, and I don’t want you to be mad. It was best for everyone. I promise I’ll see you again, but as I said that horrible night, I need some time alone.
Yours forever, Y/N L/N
Dropping the envelope, another piece of paper came flying out. He didn’t want to, but he had to pick it up. Turning it over, he wanted to believe he was back in Derry, and this was just some cruel trick that clown was playing on him.
But it wasn’t. He wasn’t in Derry. If he was, maybe it would’ve changed things. It would’ve for sure stopped him from receiving the letter he currently held in his hand.
Celebrating a life well lived
Y/N M/N L/N
Loving mother, daughter and friend
1976-2016
***
@chipoisaloser
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stilwaterskeeter · 5 years
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Rewriting Saints Row the Third
So I was messing around writing about my Boss earlier for @occorner and wound up kind of just rewriting entire pieces of SRTT rather than just making small alterations for the character.....So I went ahead and followed through on that accident and wrote out how I personally think a lot of the hollow writing and poor executions of certain parts of the game could have been better and improved. It ended up being a lot more than I was expecting so I’m putting it under a read more. I split it up into 2 parts: Story Changes and Character Changes. And then both of those are broken into smaller parts for each mission arc (the gangs/STAG/dlc) and each character individually.
Also this is just for fun, if you don’t like it then you don’t like it. There’s no point in reblogging this or replying just because you don’t like it yknow? Don’t waste both your time and mine just because you don’t agree with something I just did for the fun of it.
And if you guys like this uuuhhh shoot me a message/ask, I’d totally be down to chat about this stuff and maybe even make more posts like this for the other games in the future!!!
EDIT: Hi....somebody made me regret my decision to keep Kiki’s death canon...so I changed it...thankfully it didn’t have any huge affect on the core of the rewrite, and in fact only very little affect at all
Plot/Story Specific Changes:
Johnny Gat’s “Death”:
Johnny’s “death” wasn’t real obvs, it was like part of Gangstas in Space, like at the beginning that leads up to them going to space and stuff. But in reality Johnny was just kidnapped, cloned, and saved by the Saints after Act 1, but his kidnapping and everything gave the Boss the idea for Johnny’s “death” in the movie
You find Johnny about halfway through the Morningstar mission arc, but he would be seen in a few Syndicate cutscenes beforehand and a lot of implications that he wasn’t actually dead before that
Morningstar:
Loren actually gets like a better mission line following up to and including his death that isn’t just recycled activities disguised as missions
This also includes like a mini-boss fight with the DeWynter twins, that ultimately leads up to them joining the Saints as double agents
Loren gets a boss battle with The Boss, Shaundi, and Johnny fighting him while Pierce and Oleg keep other enemies out of the way and it ends with Johnny getting to personally deal the killing blow and give Loren a beat down like he gave Shogo in SR2 (although definitely not as intense or dark)
Deckers:
I think the biggest things I’d leave the same is the Deckers mission line, I actually don’t think those need to be changed hardly at all, outside of maybe having one or two more story missions without the compulsory activities
STAG:
I would downplay STAG a lot because they were just a weak Ultor carbon copy and took up way too much of SRTT than it should have
I wouldn’t change too much of the STAG missions but I would wait until later in the game to bring them in. Give STAG one or two missions before Murderbrawl XXXI and do the rest afterward
Miscellaneous:
This goes for like literally all 4 arcs, but replace a lot of the compulsory activities with actual unique missions. I think doing One iteration of each activity first is alright because it goes to be like something as a tutorial for them, but past Once, they shouldn’t be reoccuring
Add in one or two missions about The Saints trying to find where Killbane was hiding by interrogating Luchadores and stuff during the STAG arc and then Threeway happens and you find out Killbane is leaving while you’re fighting STAG
Also take out that last choice as a whole no question about it, The Boss lets Killbane get away and saves Shaundi, Viola, and Burt no matter what
While taking the decision out of Threeway, Johnny would go with Angel to try and stop and kill Killbane while The Boss goes to save Shaundi
Ultimately they don’t get there in time but Gat does get a few shots in, injuring Killbane pretty badly in the leg and probably having temporarily crippled him
DLC:
I think instead of the Trouble with the Clones DLC, instead you would get a DLC involving Killbane after he fled the city where you get to fight him and ultimately kill him yourself
It’d be called something like Winner Takes All or like Hell in a Cell which are two types of wrestling matches for those who don’t know. (Winner Takes All is exactly what it sounds like and Hell in a Cell is a cage match with no Escape Clause which is why I think either would fit for names)
Speaking of, make that DLC a double whammy and include Dex, as a business partner with Killbane that you get to fight as well
Angel is a required homie through most of these missions, he helps keep random enemies off your back so you can personally fight and kill Dex, and in turn, you get another mission similar to Murderbrawl XXXI where Angel gets to personally fight Killbane while you take out random enemies, however you also get to help Angel more directly by tossing him weapons to use against Killbane or to use something like a mounted gun to weaken Killbane when he’s cheating and getting the upperhand against Angel
Character Specific Changes:
Zimos:
His character as a whole is,,,,bad imo, so while I didn’t just totall omit him, he’s more or less just a character that The Boss works with to hurt the Syndicate, he’s not really a Saint, just like an accomplice. He would still become a homie at some point though
As a homie he has idle lines to ask how the twins are and The Boss will ask about the secret past and Zimos just says something like “Don’t ask, don’t tell, my man” or keeps the “That’s on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know” line from the actual game
Angel:
Because I would take out the decision in Threeway and The Boss would let Killbane go, he holds a bit of a grudge and cannot be called as a homie until you have another quick cutscene and short mission where you talk and spar with Angel to help him get out some of his frustration at letting Killbane go
The Boss promises they’re still going to get Killbane because they’re not going to give up that easily
Maybe have The Boss tell Angel about Dex and relate to him while talking about how Dex was one of their best friends and then betrayed them, they never got their revenge but they haven’t given up just yet
Angel and Johnny friendship too!! You can’t tell me they wouldn’t be pals, they spar and talk shit about Killbane a lot
They also trade stories of past fights they’ve been in
Johnny also gives Angel a hardtime because he’s fuckin filthy and lives in such disarray
When Angel tries to snap back with the “so you hate discomfort” Gat shoots back with how the main Saints safehouse was ruins of an old hotel under an abandoned church in the really poor red light district and how before that it was an abandoned church also in one of the poorest areas of Stilwater. He’d definitely say something like “It’s not that I hate discomfort, it’s that I’ve lived that shit for way too long and got out, and I’m not planning on going back to that crap just because some bitch “shamed” me.” The banter becomes somewhat a weird and very Gat-esque peptalk
Viola & Kiki DeWynter:
They both join the Saints and work with them in secret against the Syndicate when Killbane takes over and Loren is killed
Viola and Kiki obviously both get more character development
Viola actually ends up being good friends with Shaundi
Kiki on the other hand ends up better friends with Johnny and they trade snarky remarks whenever everyone is planning out missions and when the Boss makes dumb decisions and shit
Johnny and Kiki end up bonding over small things like their concerns with their looks and just both being the more outspoken and witty counterparts in duos (Johnny’s other half being The Boss and Kiki’s being Viola)
Kiki and Johnny never fail to annoy the shit out of Shaundi because there’s just no end to the snark
Kiki also ends up liking Kinzie, meaning Kinzie gets TWO sisters, Viola AND Kiki, Kinzie couldn’t be happier
As homies, the twins have idle lines about how weird it is The Boss works for Zimos sometimes and ask to make sure The Boss never drags them along when they go to do jobs with Zimos, but they’ll never say why
Killbane threatens to kill Kiki after learning that the twins have double crossed him and are working with The Saints. He takes her as like a “hostage” and sends Viola to go tell The Saints to come “rescue” her while in reality it’s a trap and he’s using Kiki as the bait.
This adds depth to his character and makes him more than just some idiot meatsack who’s powerhungry. He’s a gangleader, he knows how to lead and how to manipulate and how to fucking plan things out further than “HUR DUR ME PUNCH THINGS AND MAKE THEM BLEED”
Viola, ever the realist, knows the likelihood that Killbane has Matt wired into her phone or The Saints’ crib or something so that he would know if she tried betraying him and told The Saints that it’s a trap. So she of course doesn’t tell them, she goes along with his plan all the while thinking of her own plan on how to get out of this problem.
Kiki on the other hand absolutely lets The Saints know it’s a trap as soon as she feasibly can, it’s not much but it does give them a slight upperhand for a minute in the ensuing fight
It’s like a miniboss battle with Killbane, towards the end when it’s obvious The Boss is gonna win, he picks Kiki up in preparation to snap her neck. But Viola shoots at his hand a few times and causes him to drop her sister, he then runs off and Johnny, Angel, and Shaundi chase after him but Viola and The Boss stick around to check on Viola
Kiki got struck by one of the stray bullets on her face, it definitely leaves a nasty scar and fucks up her left eye pretty badly in the long run
Kiki is for the most part out of commission as a homie after the whole kidnapping nonsense, but Viola is as ready as ever to fuckin’ go to town and kill some fuckers now
It’s her way of handling the guilt of almost losing her sister because they didn’t cover their tracks good enough and then by her own attempt to save Kiki, caused her sister to lose an eye
Johnny had taken Loren’s eyepatch kind of as a trophy after killing him, he very awkwardly gives it to Kiki after the mission claiming she probably needs it more than he does right now and seeing as it was Loren’s, she should probably have it regardless
Oleg:
Oleg actually has some of the most depth out of the new characters so I wouldn’t change much if anything?
He definitely would have a love/hate relationship with Johnny
They just don’t get along and butt heads but also they bond over their hatred of Loren/The Syndicate and having been used for the cloning experiments
Johnny also would think Oleg is like badass and cool as fuck and he’d make bets about what outrageous things he thinks Oleg can or cannot lift/destroy with his bare hands
Oleg would also have a lot of respect for Johnny for being such an seemingly average human but still having so much strength and being such a force to be reckoned with
Kinzie:
Kinzie is definitely the company’s favorite because she easily has the most content and depth of any of the other new characters and even more than pre-SRTT characters in SR4 so there’s little to no changes to be done
That being said, I really would want Kinzie and Johnny to also have a love/hate type relationship in SRTT that eventually drops the hate
Like Johnny does Not understand half the shit Kinzie says and she’s really pushy and he just hates it at first and Kinzie hates how he doesn’t listen a lot like the whole situation in SR4 where Kinzie’s always talking about how The Boss doesn’t listen to her and stuff? But with Gat,,,who is worse about it let’s be honest
But throughout the game they both start garnering more respect for the other
Like sometimes Gat’s headstrong guns-blazing outlook pays off a lot better than Kinzie was expecting and Gat’s also totally down to do whatever dangerous and reckless and heavy-lifting work she offers which is useful as hell for Kinzie
And sometimes Gat’s “wing it” planning bites him in the ass and Kinzie saves his ass because she planned how to finish the missions when he didn’t listen because he never listens and she wanted to be prepared for anything
Ultimately they have a very Older Brother-Younger Sister type relationship with Gat becoming really protective of Kinzie and totally laughing his ass off and siding with her when she and The Boss have disagreements/get into fights
Shaundi:
Give her back all that character development and exploration of her depression and survivor’s guilt!! why was that cut!! put it back!!
Additional cutscenes and stuff with Johnny and also The Boss sometimes talking about how Johnny going missing and being believed to be dead scared her and how it affected her
This also means we get to see some of Johnny’s soft side and his pisspoor attempts to comfort her
but also Johnny probably also gets on her case about it like Once because “Well I’m not dead so you can stop worryin’ about it, Shaundi” and it starts a whole little fight that The Boss eventually steps in and settles it
Also Shaundi & Viola friendship: I already mentioned it but just...think about it again ok...
It starts as a rivalry and then they start bonding when Kiki and Johnny are getting closer 
They both cannot stand Johnny and Kiki’s snark
And then both of their respective best friends are preoccupied hanging out which leaves them awkwardly hanging out at times
Turns out Viola was actually a fan of Shaundi’s show and at one point considered signing up herself just for the hell of it
Shaundi is completely shocked and they end up doing like impromptu joke-y rounds to get to know each other to pass the time
This includes idle lines when they’re both a homie where they’re laughing while Shaundi asks Viola random questions about herself and stuff and Viola answers
Also completely trash Shaundi’s weird jealousy/hate against Kinzie
Maybe have her as wary and holding a bit of a grudge because Kinzie’s an ex-fed at first, but ultimately they get past it pretty quickly 
Most of their conversations seen and stuff are them talking tech or talking about their relationships with other characters, there’s a few where Kinzie tries digging into Shaundi’s past and Shaundi tries to dig back though
Also definitely maybe talk/show her development between SR2 and SRTT more rather than just suddenly dropping such a dramatic collection of changes and “development” immediately and not really elaborating a lot yknow?
Pierce:
There’s not much I would change because I actually liked his character development a lot, it wasn’t as abrupt and dramatic feeling as Shaundi’s and he had a decent amount of depth so I don’t think there��s much to add aside from what you would expect from his dialogues with Johnny and Kiki
Johnny:
This is just here to be respectful, pretty much 99% of everything I have to say for Johnny has been said in all the other sections
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bigskydreaming · 5 years
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LOL so I’m gonna say something that a lot of people are gonna HATE, because of what it does to the usually preferred canons or headcanons of how Dick goes to live with Bruce after his parents die.
But there is one more reason that I prefer the juvie origin for Dick, beyond what I’ve said in the past, and its that....
There is no possible way for Dick to go straight to living with a single billionaire in his early twenties RIGHT after his parents died, or even just a week or two after that....unless Bruce abused the FUCK out of the system himself, in order to get Dick in his house.
And I don’t see any reason why Bruce would go to the lengths of bribes or calling in ‘favors’ that would be needed to expedite the OBSCENE amount of bureaucratic red tape he would need to navigate before any judge would let him become a minor’s sole guardian - especially considering he undoubtedly had no paperwork or had undergone any of the interviews or visitations or hoops demanded of prospective foster parents BEFORE they take in their first kid....
Unless he really truly had reason to believe that every viable alternative to him greasing the wheels like he HAD to have, in order to get Dick there with any kind of swiftness.....like, I honestly don’t see a mid-twenties Bruce Wayne, with his myriad of issues and his own self-image, honestly thinking that he’s SUCH a better candidate for taking care of this traumatized eight year old kid that he’s going to cut any corner he possibly can to speed up the process....unless he was utterly convinced the alternatives were so much worse.
Like say, if he found out that the system had decided the best thing for Dick was to be tossed into juvie.
I mean....the process for fostering a kid, becoming a legal guardian, ANY which way you go about that....its not as simple as just, signing a few papers. No matter WHO you are, UNLESS you leverage that ‘who you are’ bit to get people to step on the gas to a degree far beyond anything they’re supposed to allow. 
It takes TIME. 
And even in scenarios wherein Bruce takes Dick in as a kind of witness protection while Zucco is on the loose - first off, that’s far more unrealistic than even the juvie take because like....the police HAVE protocols for that sort of thing. They don’t just hand over a kid to the first civilian who steps up and volunteers.
Honestly, the canons and headcanons where Bruce just ‘arranges’ for Dick to come stay with him almost immediately after his parents’ murder....like, they honestly skeeve me even more than the juvie thing, because of how matter of fact people are about it? Y’know? Like nobody seems to see anything wrong with the idea that a billionaire just, with zero prior experience or qualifications just says “oh I’ll take this boy home with me” and everybody goes “yes sir, well you’re a billionaire so if you want him, you got him,” like....it treats Dick like a toy. That’s not how things work, and its not how things SHOULD work....and most importantly IMO, I can’t fathom Bruce thinking that he’s the best option for Dick to such a degree that he’d break all the rules in order to get custody that fast. For that matter, if he really could arrange all that, in spite of the way the process is supposed to go, then shouldn’t it beg the question “why couldn’t Bruce pull similar strings to ensure Dick could stay with the circus, the people there who clearly loved him and wanted him to stay?”
And honestly, I kinda feel like the way people have reduced that whole process to the shorthand of “well Bruce is the good guy and we know with the benefit of hindsight that he’s Dick’s dad in every way that counts, so of course Dick has to end up living with him, so why NOT quicken the process to just a few days”....like, I feel like that actually contributes a lot, albeit unintentionally, to this tendency to take Dick for granted both in universe and out of universe, because it lends this air of like...’only the destination matters, the end result.’ Which is usually how Dick gets screwed in most cases....because people only ever look at the end result of his stories, the last position he ends up with...and completely fail to consider any of the steps in between that happened along the way, and all the things that might have happened alongside each of those steps, that lends important context to his final position in a given story.
Like this idea that well Dick has to end up with Bruce, that’s the part that matters, so its not really all that important how or why.....I feel like that really has a lot to do with how it so often gets just accepted at face value that Dick’s the one in the wrong for keeping his distance from Bruce at later points in life, or for leaving the manor, or for digging in his heels with stuff....because it all loops back into this mindset that “everyone knows Bruce loves Dick, the best place for Dick is in the manor with Bruce, ergo, everything else - like how he comes to live with Bruce or his reasons for storming out of the manor - are semantics, irrelevant details, etc.”
Except...they’re not.
And so again, as an example like....you can’t really just cut out the entire process of Dick coming to live with Bruce...because it really, truly, EXTREMELY doesn’t make SENSE for Bruce to get custody that fast without having SOME kind of leverage.....and it similarly doesn’t make SENSE for him to think he’s so clearly the most qualified person to take in this traumatized kid (no matter how much he empathized with him), that he would circumvent the system he USUALLY is so militaristic about upholding as much as he possibly can, while still being a vigilante. And that last bit sure doesn’t feel in character for Bruce, from that particular angle.
UNLESS.
Unless he’d discovered the system had MASSIVELY FUCKED UP with Dick, and he no longer trusted it with him whatsoever....and so THEN he took matters into his own hands, and did whatever necessary to get custody of Dick ASAP - realistically helped along by the MASSIVE leverage Bruce would have had at his disposal if he threatened to publicize what they’d done to this eight year old orphan.
THAT, to me, feels far more realistic, and far more in character for Bruce....and it at no point takes for granted any of Dick’s own personal journey along the way, or renders it irrelevant or an unnecessary detail.
Idk, maybe its just me, but I’ve always been super uncomfortable with the level of detail fandom puts into fleshing out Jason and Tim’s backstories (and with precedent established by his taking in Dick, any of his later kids would have had very expedited custody arrangements....but that makes it MORE likely that the FIRST kid and the process of gaining custody of him would include hoops that later kids’ stories wouldn’t), while at the same time, hollowing out Dick’s origin story to a barebones outline of ‘well his parents died and then this and this happened and then he lived with Bruce and became Robin and happily ever after until he hit his teenage years and developed an attitude problem.’
Like, there’s just something very....unsettling about how much fandom has romanticized the idea that this billionaire with a quite frankly TERRIBLE public reputation, like this is a guy who has DEDICATED himself to appearing totally irresponsible as far as the rest of the world can tell.....and just....being like ‘oh hey, no big deal about this guy of all guys just being like hey I see you have an eight year old orphan there, howzabout I take him off your hands for you’...and fandom’s like....swoon. Y’know? I mean yes, WE know Bruce is a superhero, WE know that years of cute Batman and Robin and father and son bonding would lie ahead of those two after that.....but...ANY scenario in which Gotham is like....yeah we see no problems with just letting Brucie Wayne take a traumatized orphan home to live in his big old manor with him....like..yeah. 
I mean, even as I’m typing this out, I’m thinking that yeah, there is something to be said for streamlining the process in the name of escapism, so that there’s a smoother, easier transition for this poor kid and he doesn’t have to go through so much.....BUT like at the same time, its one thing when we’re talking cute fluff stories and others when the angst is clearly a focal point of the story and yet the story STILL romanticizes this....Daddy Warbucks swoops in to save little Orphan Annie and like, this is definitively treated as like....nobody should be raising objections to this or being like wait a second....
Because the latter feels less like its being done in the name of escapism and more, like....in that sense I was talking about where it all loops back to how often Dick gets reduced to a prop within his own narratives like...things happen because they HAVE to happen, not because like....he’s a person going through things that inform the choices he makes and the things that happen from there, yknow?
Or maybe its one of those things where its like....I feel like that story is one that’s meant for a different time, at this point? Like, there WAS a time when the billionaire swooping in to take the poor orphan off to live in a manor was the kind of escapism people were looking for, but we do live in a different time now where I think most of us would agree like...wait, a decision that big deserves more than being treated like the billionaire just stops in to shop around for an orphan to accessorize with, kinda?
Idk, I feel like I’m not explaining this well, the precise reasons this disturbs me so much, which is why I’ve never posted about this particular angle before, but its been on my mind a lot lately, so maybe it makes more sense than I think it does here? LOL.
*Shrugs* Idk, I just honestly do feel in the long run and in the big picture, Dick’s personhood is ironically better preserved in the scenario where he was definitively stripped of it by an uncaring system and thrown into the last place he should’ve been....with Bruce then, upon discovering this, moving heaven and hell to see that personhood or awareness of personhood, more accurately, restored to Dick, no matter what it took, even if he had to do it himself. Because again, I also think that there’s a heeeeell of a lot of hubris in Bruce thinking that he was equipped to care for this kid right off the bat....and its not even that I don’t think he is (because I think Bruce really was a good father to Dick in their early years, and the majority of their problems arose later, when Bruce was unable to reconcile that this kid he’d once thought himself so alike to was growing into a man with his own ideas and choices that Bruce couldn’t understand or relate to). 
Again, I think its more that I don’t truly see BRUCE actually having that degree of confidence that he’s truly a good fit for taking care of Dick, not being more worried that all his issues and his focus as Batman would be a deterrent....unless he had an external kick in the ass that made him feel like no, I don’t trust this job to anyone else at this point, so I HAVE to be up to the task myself, its that simple.
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tumblunni · 5 years
Text
Be a lil beeper and squiggle around the cosmos: the game
Concept: game where you play as a smol wild animal surviving in a tough world, watership down style. But also an element of customization! Your choices matter as you can spend points on evolving new adaptations and truly making your own creature.
Possible ways to make this work: fantasy version where you're some sort of shapeshifting dragon (which ive already talked about before), space version where you're a shapeshifting alien.
Alien version could maybe be more fun for a tabletop rpg, as each player could play a different species on this planet and collaboratively work to decide what the planet is like and shape your own complete ecosystem. And maybe compete to be the most successful predator?
Fantasy version could maybe work better as a console rpg where you'd need to have some sort of preset design for a character yet still have enough customization to be fun. Different types of dragon takes less work to draw then every possible alien anyone could imagine, yknow?
But also it could be fun as a choose your own advebture book/Twine app? Cos that way you wouldnt need any visuals for the creature and you coulld let the player's imagination fill in the gaps. Itd be a good balance for making a singleplayer version of the tabletop idea, yknow? So i think im gonna try fiddling around with this idea first cos it seems the most doable.
Ideas for text adventure alien time:
You couldnt just have it be a free for all on a custom setting with custom plots, but also it needs to be a vague enough plot that it coukld have a lot of player choice and leave stuff ambiguous for headcanonry. So i was thinking maybe you'd play as this baby shapeshifter alien hatching on a meteorite, not even knowing where their homeworld is or what happened to it. And you have to adapt to this tough environment and fly from meteorite to meteorite, trying to find a new world suitable to settle down on. With a bunch of potential ending worlds depending on which route you take, and all of them could potentially be the best or the worst world depending on the evolutions you chose along the eay. Just a short and sweet adventure! A good preview for the concept and a way for me to judge people's interest so i can know if anyone wants to try and play a dumb tabletop rp with me, lol.
Stuff you could potentially face along the way: choose between carnivore/herbivore and face different challenges, run from/fight off/outwit predators, try and find a mate and potentially have some cute space monster kittens, maybe they'd act like “extra lives” and be able to take over if the original one dies from a failed choice? And you'd get an extra hapoy ending if you make it to your new home without losing any of the family! Oh also potentially some chances to encounter humanity along the way as lil easter eggs? Like find remnants of a crashed space station and nom on a freeze dried snack food or an astronaut shoe. Or have a brush with a “scary predator” who's described as a one eyed giant but is actually just a guy in a spacesuit. And maybe one of the ending planets could be earth, and depending on what kind of creature you've become you could either befriend a cute child and have an ET moment, or eat all the humans and take over the planet. Mwahaha!
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irregodless · 7 years
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so i wanna tell yall a thing. a little story. a story which, as the timestamp might imply, is nine years old, thereby placing me in seventh grade
i had the nastiest wretch of a science teacher. she was condescending and told the class i was going to shoot up the school one day every time i left the room- contributing to both my personal problems and the potential for me being liked by NOBODY later in life in school. but this isnt about that. (note: i also never shot up the school so she can go eat ass)
but were studying cells because. you do that in middle school science. and we have a project assigned us to bring in a model cell. it could be a plant cell or an animal cell, didnt matter. the basic response was using a shoe box for plant and a styrofoam ball for plant yknow basic stuff. but- and now this is pertinent- the list of possibilities also had an option that spoke to me DEEPLY as being creative, fun, and interesting. one of the suggestions was to MAKE A CAKE. as you can see, thats exactly what i did. and as you might guess from the green color and rectangular shape, i chose to do a plant cell.
i went home and i was like “MOM I GOT IDEAS” and she was like “yeah?” and we set to work on this mf. i was so excited. like i was gonna bring it in and we were gonna eat it in class and maybe also people wouldnt hate me for no reason. yknow. unreasonable dreams of a middle schooler. we looked through those instructions THOROUGHLY
so i come up with ALL of the details, with, of course, some input from my mom. but she only helped make my ideas work better. imma walk yall through my choices here.
the main attraction was that i made my vacuole out of JELLO. yeah. u see that dark green circle there. its lime jello. i put jello IN THE CAKE. the vacuole is a cells reservoir of water. so like. WOW JELLO. but also: JELLO INSIDE A CAKE. this is pretty much the only part my mom helped me with because. i mean. it wasnt even easy for her to put jello in a cake let alone a seventh grader who doesnt exactly bake all the time. NOW i REALIZE the vacuole is awfully small for a plant cell, but if it were much larger, the integrity of the cake wouldve been thrown off. like you can only have so much jello in a cake. i have learned this.
the dark green frosting u see, is the cell membrane whereas the sides of the cake were the cell walls, and the lighter green frosting is cytoplasm.
the sprinkles? ribosomes. the gummy bears are everyones FAVORITE memetic phrase: the mitochondria. the gummy worms? those are the chloroplasts.
the nilla wafer was the nucleus and the gumdrop on top of it is the nucleolus. the (i believe) sour gummy worms were the nuclear membrane. and the twizzlers were the endoplasmic reticulum.
now i left out a FEW parts looking back, but theres the possibility we didnt go over those parts. i highly doubt i would have actually left them out on the project. i had no reason to do so, and had the picture we were supplied in class to go off of.
so we took this picture on the night we finished it, the day before it was due (because thats really the only time to MAKE a cake) and my mom and i were SO proud and SO excited like omg
and i take it in and i list off all of the stuff, showing my knowledge of the cell and thereby fulfilling the requirements of the assignment. so she takes it and the other projects and puts them on the windowsill to continue class. despite bringing silverware and plates, we did not eat my cake in class. i was disappointed, but fair enough i guess, she needed to observe it closely to grade it right? she says i can pick it up after school to take home.
now lemme explain how my middle school worked. it was three stories, not counting the cafeteria that was like, in the basement. the science rooms were all on the third floor and i believe i was on the first floor for my last class that day. lemme explain another thing: im fat. and i always have been. stairs are my natural enemy. yknow what makes it worse? People. more specifically middle schoolers. more specifically middle schoolers who REALLY wanna go home. there was never a hall NOT congested in my school. so i work my fat nerdy legs up the stairs to get my grade and take my cake. lemme also explain another thing to contextualize: the bus lot was a fair distance from the doors. like they were accessed from a breezeway some way off the school with only one pair of stairs that was nearby. and as you might know, they WILL leave you.
so anyway i go upstairs to get my cake and my grade. and shes at her desk and i make myself known and grab the cake.
lets take a guess at what my grade was. you can probably guess by context clues, but tell me, what grade do YOU think i deserve on this? mind you- for its faults like the vacuole i was also a seventh grader in public school.
go ahead. make your guess. what grade do you think this cake deserves? wanna know what grade it GOT?
a d. a fuckin. D. not even a high d like not even a 69 or something, no, like a 62. i was. HEART BROKEN. i had worked so hard. my mom had worked so hard. I HAD FOLLOWED ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS. any minor mistake was NOT enough to lose me 40 points and gain me a failing grade for my work. i was also in seventh grade and a constant victim of bullying and had onset deprssion and anxiety. so like. things in general werent GREAT for me.
so she goes somethin like “u wanna leave it here we can eat it tomorrow or whatever im a terrible person and so are my daughters that tried to kill a bus driver lmao” and i, like, heart audibly broken in my ears dont really hear her and say “no thats fine ill take it.” THAT MF AND THOSE TINIER MFS WERE *NOT* EATIN MY CAKE IF THEY WERE GONNA DISRESPECT IT LIKE THAT. not this abusive teachers and not those bullies.
so i took the cake home. and i tried my damnedest to get to the bus lot and get on my bus to go home. i succeeded in THAT much at least, but not by much. and nearly running while holding a cake isnt exactly FUN.
anyway i get on the bus. and u wanna kno what i DO?
i start crying. like. a lot. and i eat. the whole. mother. fuckin. cake. i eat the WHOLE THING on my ride home (which was aided by the fact i have always been the last person off the bus every year of my life). i ate the WHOLE DAMN CAKE. WHILE CRYING. ON THE BUS. and refused to share it with anyone.
so i got home, still crying, with an empty cake tin in hand. and a fuckin d to show my mom.
so yeah, anyway, basically she can eat a dick and i have not gotten over this in, as you can see, a little over nine years. fuck her.
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Day 5.2
Everyone draws themselves out to be the hero, Overselling their merits, down playing the faults. I’m going to try to play that down here.
-grass is always greener m I rite?-
This ones about my side, my angle on what we did for each other, maybe one day you’ll let me know yours. Probably not. Not that I see an amicable end anymore.
So i’m going to start with my cons, it’s easier. They’re always sitting around in my head somewhere waiting to haunt me.
I’d like to point out that tumblr fucking lost my post and i’m retyping from here. Fuck. First I’m sorry that I didn’t spend more time at your place and with your family, that I let you accommodate to my awkwardness and insecurity, and we always spent time at my place. I’m sorry I let that become our norm. It might not have seemed like much, yknow we we’re still together right? But no, I robbed you of time with your family, time in your own space , luxuries you afforded me and maybe that’s why you lost yourself, you were just too deep into me. You know how i’m always sweating the “ small ” things, how like I’m always fussing about things. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was fighting you about it, if I belittled your beliefs and watered you down. Truth of the matter is, like I told Joel, I’ve know for a long time that I would wife you, and despite my differences and yours, I would give you everything I could if you’d ask for it. Me fighting back sometimes would just be me fishing, trying to see if it really mattered, but more so you wouldn’t find out that I was such a pushover when it came to you. On some level I didn’t want to lose myself giving you everything, but on another I wanted to, but I just couldn’t let everything go so easily, I wanted to seem rooted, so maybe it seem like I could say no. I’m sorry if this divided us. For example, sometimes when you ask it’s not only about over promising, what if I promise and you take it for granted? I’m sorry I wasn’t vulnerable enough. I didn’t like to go out; and you really liked to go out. It got to the point where when we did go out, you’d tell me that you didn’t feel comfortable, that I was rushing you. I should have assured you it was fine. I didn’t. Since that failed, we fell into the situation where you would go out with you friends and I’d just be home waiting for you. Seems like a win win right? I get what I want and you do to. But thinking back I don’t think you did get what you wanted. You didn’t just need to be out, you didn’t need someone with you, on some level I feel now that you needed me to be there with you. I was never really one for mixers, and I slowly shied from contact under the umbrella of your love. It really didn't hit me till we were talking about me cutting my hair today. I was so dependent on you to finish my shit for me, to do my shit for. It's never really felt like much and I don't know if you noticed but yknow how we ordered food and I'd say what I wanted you and you'd do the rest. Yea it wasn't really nice to find that out today. And I guess you knew all along seeing how you are always afraid to take me out know that be a stick in the mud ruining your fun. I'm going to need to fix that about myself. __________________________________________ Now then let's talk about things I think I did do right, at least in my opinion. When I first met you I was in a weird place, I was running from my classmates, trying to find a safe haven for me to just set up shop and let walls down. I was finding some one I could click with, cause I needed to. This involved talking a a bunch of other girls. From early on I could pick up that you didn't like it, you were disturbed by them, more so than you'd like to admit so I got rid of them all and decided not to hang around girls anymore. What did I need them for? I had you. Sure the gay jokes about me were sad and yes it felt pretty lonely not having anyone to turn to but I don't know I felt if that help keep us happy, it was worth it. But now you're gone, and there's no one. Last point was sort of weak and the original captured more of how I felt but whatever i'm really numb now. The limbo of us talking is so weird. On one hand I like that you're here but it's not the same and it just makes me feel so insecure. Moving on, I know we were talking about unconditional love it's the other day, and you were saying that was what you gave me. Truth of the matter is you did, and I hope that I was able to give the same to you. I felt that I did my best to take care of you; ferrying you point to point, taking you out for meals and stuff, supporting you in everything you did. It felt nice, and sure you could say "Na fuck you, you just spent your parents money.. " you wouldn't be wrong but you're missing the point. I've never really been good about spending their money, and with you I could just do it guilt free because I knew it was worth it. Spending a years worth of my money so we could watch Coldplay, worth it. Waiting till 5am so I can send you home and make sure you were okay, worth it. Selfishly on some level I wish Rachel was still around. Her and Doug really made me shine, and hopefully in your eyes too. Yes she makes you shine too but you've always shined , that's why you're you. But I wish she was around to tell you how lucky you were, and what a dick other guys can be. I didn't like that she wanted you to be crazy like here but she did make me feel assured, and sometimes you'd echo her praises. I really miss those praises. ------------------------------------------------------ There's more to say above but I can't right now, i'm hurting so I will just add this last one in. York, yes York. I feel that I've handled her quite well. The crazy shrew. It started out with us talking, and we clicked, she felt that she could be open with me about her family problems, and I could relate. For the first time in 10 years, 17 year old me had found someone I could talk about with my family problems. It was liberating, being able to bounce things off her, and her relating back to me, our responses verbatim. We tried dating but that didn't work out, no not because she's crazy or anything but because I couldn't open the rest of myself to her, I was so caught up in sharing one facet of myself, it was the only part of myself I could share. As the years went on I tried to excise her from my circles, but it was hard, we still clicked and I still needed someone to talk to about these problem, but I trotted on. I'm sure you knew that she was always trying to pull me away from you to revisit us, and I was never at nipping that at the bud. There was the incident of bawling at a stay over at kierons, the entire disaster which was the batam holiday; a holiday which she single handedly put together so she could get me in a room alone to talk about her unresolved feelings. I'd always be able to say no to her, but there was once I was tempted. I'm sure you know, remember when I had lost feelings? Remember the week where we almost broke up because I didn't know what I felt anymore? I was lured by exploring unfinished paths, or exploring the world alone, I was afraid that I hadn't done enough. I was afraid to commit. I'm sure you do, that's where you gave me the talk, you told me that love was a choice. Some days would be easier and some days would be harder and but the end of the day you'd be the one to choose whether we continued together, you decide to work on the issues we would face. This opened an entirely new angle to love for me, something that's I can only describe as accountability or responsibility, that what happens is ultimately down to us, and i'm glad that resonated with me because at the end of the day, I chose you and our relationship blossomed. So the next milestone in this part of our story was what happened at Christmas. Everything as usual, my classmates come over and you wanted to be here for reasons I'd let you tell me. But something happened that day and I think I should be honest about it now. So everything was going smoothly, it was getting late so we moved to the basement, Mayank hosted a game and me and York got paired. Mariann came along and started talking to us. I thought she wanted to catch up, but she started asking personal questions about our relationship, points that she probably knew we were in contention about ( our sex life, our plan for kids, our plan for raising kids, how we were going to handle religion, how we would deal with family) and like she dig and claw into every crack she could find. Looking back now I know she was priming me. For what came next. So next up York goes on about how William almost didn't come and how they were fighting, because she had a sex dream about me. (Lmao bitch I haven't seen you in a year the fuck you on about) and ask if I thought about her, I told her sometimes I would but we were seeing people now and we owed it to each other and both you and William to see things through. She countered back with this. She said yea I was right, but she'd like to be done with these thoughts, she asked how she could talk to me without you knowing, I asked why, and then it came. She wanted to meet me for one night, to end everything, a night of "crazy sex " and we'd say goodbye. In that moment I was thrown off, like what the fuck but I wanted to find you. Not because I needed to hold you to find the strength to say no, but because I felt nothing in that moment, that I was so sure in my commitment to you, it was a happy moment for me, and a breakthrough, but it was only fleeting cause you'd already left, you didn't like me sitting with her so you left without saying goodbye. I wrestled with telling you about that happened that night, I struggled with it for a week. I couldn't tell anyone because I only have you. Luck would have it that me and Robin would run into daphne, and I managed to pour everything out to her. She told me not to tell you, a decision she would turnover. She said no good could come from it. I took her advice, not solely because it was sound but because it was easy. Now i'm not trying to say i'm a hero for the choices I made, im just trying to give context to why the " love is a choice " thing means so much to me, and maybe you'd understand how much it hurts that you don't think so. I also want to be able to tell you anything, I want us to be honest with each other, so that we can work through things together. I want to be able to share everything with you. But we'll see how that goes.
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readxclouds · 7 years
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but for now, I’ll survive on these ramblings
I don’t remember how it’s like going to bed because I am genuinely tired, and knocking off without realising. It’s been either accidentally falling asleep when I decide to roll around on bed (or the sofa even) for a bit; or looking at the clock and counting how many hours I have till it’s time to get up, then deciding it is time to fall asleep except, I spend what feels like hours rolling around trying to get my brains to shut down for a bit.
Last night it was the latter. It was about this year, how indecisive I have been about life, generally. How I thought going through and completing my degree was going to be the last of the hell, but no two years down the road I feel more lost and more uncertain than ever. One moment it feels like it was a mistake jumping into wanting to take these exams – a decision I made in 2015. It was so random. It makes me annoyed that nobody stopped me. If it were anything else, like I don’t know maybe a master’s degree in English literature* or a fancy non-conventional job, I’d definitely have had people breathing down my neck checking if I was sure. Heck, I’d probably have been told to take some time off to decide properly. Are you sure, you don’t just wake up one morning and decide you want to do this – what happens halfway through it when you decide you don’t want to do it anymore? But no, this is the Bar papers we’re talking about, so of course it’s some rite of passage, right? To get it done because the degree on its own isn’t enough. Because it’s only correct to do it. If you change your mind in the middle of it, well you don’t have much of a choice. It absolutely doesn’t matter that you decided to do it after having only an hour-long conversation with someone you can’t even stand.
Who am I kidding. It was a decision I made on my own, something I would’ve wanted to do even if I was told not to do it (yet). But I’m not even angry at myself. I’m so worried, that it’ll screw up (which at this rate, it WILL screw up), and I look back and regret having wasted this year. Wasted time dragging myself to the books to study. Then you fail more than one paper and it’ll be like it never happened. Wasted the months I could use planning out a getaway, wasted the time I could’ve had doing the one thing that keeps me moving forwards – travel.
The insanely rational part of me keeps soothing the anxiety stricken part of me reminding myself of the last time I was not close to being prepared for exams berating myself like this. But after it was all done and dusted, it felt worth it. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t going to do anything in the same line, but I learnt, I grew – I got something – out of it.
So maybe it’s just like that yknow? I make random decisions in life, somewhere along the way I hate myself for it, but I still go through it, and once I get to the finish line, it’s a whole new story. None of these sleepless nights would matter.
Just maybe, I’ll live to read back on all this and think how silly I am to have allowed panic to cause me to lose sight.
*It happened by the way – I spoke about how I was considering doing English literature after my final degree paper. I not only got some weirdass response from people suggesting I do a different course, someone actually said something along the lines of “And what would you do after that, work in a college, be a receptionist?” I think my family were the only supportive ones, for once, and yet I lost confidence because I let all the other voices make me stop believing in it.
I gotta work on shutting voices up.
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tumblunni · 7 years
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Another patented Bunni Brand Random Game Idea I Will Probably Never Actually Make(tm) Guess what, its another pet raising game! Why am i so obsessed with these! Maybe because there AREN’T ENOUGH GOOD ONES and I DESPERATELY NEED THEM, YO
Anyway, the theme of this one is kinda S.C.P-esque? Not actually set in that series since I haven’t read much of it and I’m a huge wimp for psychological horror anyway. But I mean its set in a vaguely similar “organization for paranormal creatures” type of setting. The idea I had was “an artificially created god”. The facility only has one monster in it, and it’s like a homunculus they created themselves and are struggling to control. Flew too close to the sun! The aim of making this creature was to try and make an angel, or a channeler, or just something that can bridge the gap between life and death and answer our questions about what the afterlife really is. But they failed to think about the mental strain on the creature, they basically took a child and poured all of infinity into its head! Plus it doesn’t even know how to interpret any of this stuff, or explain it to humans. It has no perspective on any life other than this, so like... “what? I didn’t mention that cos I thought everyone already knew!” Or when its asked to predict the future it doesn’t know what any of these things mean since it’s never seen the outside world- “people will fall” could mean a mass death from disease, a literal death from an earthquake, one person tripping in france, or even just “my dolls fell off the shelf”. This small room is this creature’s entire world, how is it meant to know that you don’t consider the dolls equally important?
So, anyway, the player’s perspective in all this would be as... the janitor! Well, former janitor turned caretaker for a terrifying oracle child. How did this happen to meeeee?! Sort of an accident happened and the creature imprinted on the first person it saw when it was born. And the researchers are WAAAAAY less equipped to control it than they expected! All their containment facilities failed, which led to it getting far enough away from the lab that it bumped into this janitor in the first place. He was just a hapless dude sweeping the fakey harmless business exterior of the place, completely uninitiated into the true purpose of the place. Until someday some baby monster came flying through the wall and somehow it ended in a hug??? Now he’s their only method of (at least temporarily) containing the monster. For some reason it seems to be bound by oaths and words, if its “father” orders it not to do something then it obeys. Sit here in this room and don’t leave, don’t hurt any humans, stop breaking all the locks and bars just to boast that you can, it really demoralizes our staff! But it’s always searching for loopholes to someday escape. That would be exceptionally dangerous- humans are a fun toy to play with, and it doesn’t understand why you can’t fix them when they break...
So yeah, thats why this random ordinary man has now been forcibly initiated into a high position in this organization, and Has No Choice In The Matter. He has a huge amount of power as the only one able to control the beast, but also zero power in the organization as the latest noob and totally unqualified candidate. And they can’t kill him cos they need his power, but they can always torture him until he cooperates... (”We’d really rather NOT do that though, it would be such a waste of resources~”) Also this guy’s personality is just a super shy and anxious Good Dad who wouldn’t have the courage to be able to pull off a daring escape even if he had the opportunity. He’s sorta spent his whole life already just saying “ok” to everyone bullying him, this is no different. I was imagining this story as maybe a place to put the Iggy character I created for that random lets play, cos I’ve grown pretty attatched to him! Or maybe it could just be a similarly adorable shy dad, or another gender even? I was just thinking that a short round huggable parent is what this story needs, so Iggy is the perfect puzzle piece to slot into it~
So you’d spend every day selecting between different options to try and parent up your new monster child, similar to stuff like Princess Maker. The goal of the organization is to make them more obedient and find ways to make use of their powers to profit humanity. But the protagonist’s personal goal is just to show the monster love like a normal child, prove that it can live peacefully with humans someday. You have to balance these goals, otherwise if this whole project is deemed unprofitable the higher ups might just trash this monster and build another... And then in-between all this you’d get scenes of the protag being generally bossed around by the higher-ups, and learn more about this organization and how to operate within it. You can potentially expand your protagonist’s skills too, form relationships with your coworkers, and navigate a complex web of lies to eventually find some way to escape...
Though I think that the “just escape” ending would probably be the bad one, cos without you they have no way to control the oracle child. It’d be the ending of sacrificing everybody to save yourself, and spending forever on the run as you keep hearing of the cities destroyed by this monster trying to track you down. Of course, the ending where the two of you escape together and become a real family would be way more positive, but you’d need to complete your quest to earn the monster’s love and socialize it and etc first. Possible other endings: Go full organization and get sucked into their perspective of seeing this thing as just a thing. Stop caring about the monster child, treat it like shit, and experience success in your new job! Be a mindless yes man! Live happily ever after! :( Alternatively, maybe you can end up synmpathising TOO MUCH with the monster child? Instead of convincing them of the virtues of humanity, the general assholeishness of the organization makes you lose faith in it. But what would even happen if you refuse to cooperate with your orders? Maybe even could end up as just another monster locked up in this facility, and forget you were ever human :(
And then for the oracle child itself, I actually have no clue what kind of design I’d like to give to them? i was initially thinking a very humanoid one, cos it’d be creepy to have a creature that looks human but doesn’t act it, and everybody treats them like a mere object that’s never gonna be capable of real sentient thought. But then I’m also kinda like “ehh maybe people would be dissappointed the design isn’t a more monsterous monster child”. And I’m not sure exactly what sort of humanoid design I want, even? Their powers were meant to be mostly like psychic and such, so maybe a big ol monster eye in the middle of the forehead. I want something that’s at least a little bit spooky but can also be cute once you get to know them. Oh, and all I know about their gender is that I definately don’t want them to actually be a “them”, yknow? Nonbinary characters only ever being non-human is a weird trope in fiction. Its like the only representation we’re allowed to get is stuff that reinforces that we don’t exist in real life, both as an intentional and unintentional message. So yeah if there’s gonna be any Characters That Are Like Me in this story, they’d be one of the human characters. The kid will be a boy or a girl, even though I’m using “they” here until I decide it. Also i don’t know whether they’d be a formerly human child who was experimented upon to give them powers thus “oh no organization is evil cos they did that to an innocent”, or they were just created out of nothing like a homunculus and have always been a monster. That would lose that establishing aspect for the organization, but it would perhaps be an even more powerful metaphor for like.. love and stuff. This kid is worth loving not JUST because “there’s some human in them, deep down”, but because they’re an innocent and they’re a sentient being, and them just not being human isn’t a justification to treat them like an object. Anyway! Their personality! They’re just as innocent and have as much potential for goodness as a normal child, even though they seem scary at first. And they don’t understand humanity very much, and nobody’s ever really shown them kindness before or tried to teach them morality, so why would they know what it is? Its not like they’re intentionally being “evil” though, if they understood the consequences of their actions properly it would destroy them.
I was actually thinking of a particular potential scene where they temporarily escape and cause some chaos. It would initially be like “oh god they really are evil and you were stupid to trust them”, because you see that they killed a guard during their escape. And the guard would be one of the few nice npcs in this evil organization, and someone the child seemed to be developing a friendship with. It would be a REAL punch in the gut! So now you’re not trusting this kid anymore, yet you still have to come to work the next day and pretend like nothing’s wrong. And the kid acts like nothing’s wrong too, they don’t seem to comprehend why you’d be angry or upset, reinforcing the perception that they must be pure evil at heart. And its just a really awkward, messed up day at work, for the first time feeling like you’re being held hostage taking care of some dangerous monster that doesn’t care about you, even though that’s what they told you on the first day of the job... And then.. at the end of the day... they ask you when their friend is coming back. And you realize that they don’t even understand what they’ve done. Nobody bothered to explain death to them. They don’t understand that these “toys” can’t be fixed when they break. Possibly even a super creepy scene at some other point where their arm gets ripped off in an accident and you have to sew it back on, to establish that this homunculus creature is super hard to kill? Also i was thinking that.. well its not like they can’t understand pain, its just that they feel so much pain constantly that the minor additional pain when they take physical damage doesn’t matter enough to notice. You have to try and explain the concept by being like “you know that thing you feel 24/7 when your power is overloading and it burns inside your head? Other people feel that when their arms fall off.” And also maybe they have trouble understanding their own powers? Like, they have to learn to be able to turn the oracle visions on and off at will, initially they just happen at random and the kid can’t choose what they look at. They don’t even know if its from the past or the future, or how far in the future its gonna be, or what it’s about or who its happening to. And sometimes they don’t even realize they’re in a vision, so it’s hard to understand the consequence of your actions when you might have been seeing the events out of order. Also imagine the kid being like “you lied! you said they went somewhere where they weren’t coming back but I just saw them!”, but then they realise that their friend was just repeating stuff that they’d already said, and nobody else saw them there. So they realise that it was just a vision, and it really is true. Maybe they just go catatonic for a few days and try and live forever in the past, only waking up when they’ve finally managed to come to terms with the meaning of death... :( Or maybe they break out of their cell and run to the morgue and summon up every ounce of their power, try EVERYTHING to wake up the guard, and finally break down crying for the first time in their entire life when it doesn’t work. And imagine how SCARED they’d be to see a corpse! They ran down here expecting to see their friend just sleeping, and they see this cold and empty doll that doesn’t even look like them anymore... :(
Also, less depressingly, I was thinking of endearing moments where the kid’s emotionless facade would break in the rare event you’re able to show them true happiness. Like for example, their everyday life is just sitting here in this cagey room with barely anything to distract them from the boredom. They only even have a sparsely occupied bookcase because the organization was like “ugh, if it’ll make the thing more cooperative i guess we HAVE to”. And so the kid has just obsessively devoured those two or three textbooks, and one day comes to you like “So when is the test?” They’ve read the books hundreds of times and memorized everything right down to the punctuation and spelling mistakes. And they don’t even understand the CONCEPT of recreation, because every day is just testing. If these books were here, there must have been a purpose, right? When are you going to test me on them? Hell, they might even get a bit pissed off when you say there’s no test, cos those books weren’t even fun and the only hope they had of some minor enjoyment was the mystery of the test at the end. So then you introduce them to STORY BOOKS and they’re like HOLY SHIT WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THIS WAS A POSSIBILITY.
And you find a lot of trouble trying to explain the outside world to them, when the idea of “grass” and “sky” just seems so ridiculous. So you go get a carpet swatch for the sake of comparison, and you find out the kid hasn’t even ever experienced THAT! Imagine them going totally nuts, like this thing is goddamn catnip. MY PERCEPTION OF LIFE IS EXPANDED BY THIS CARPET SWATCH! Imagine the protag convincing the scientists to put a carpeted floor on their cell, and the kid just being so impossibly happy that they never stop rolling around on it. “Goddamnit we can’t predict the future if our secret weapon is doing floor cartwheels for two straight weeks” (Relateable note: I literally feel this way as an autistic adult. For some reason carpet swatches work as a low budget stim toy for my stupid brain XD Also jam is like the opposite to carpet. if even the tiniest drop of jam lands on my hand, the grossness freaks me out so much that I can’t concentrate at all until i scrub my hand to death. Even if i wipe it off I can still feel it!!)
Oh, and its also surprisingly endearing to imagine when Creepy Moments intersect with these cute scenes! Like, moments where the kid is being pure and innocent but also reminds you they’re a monster. Getting too excited by a new toy and causing everything to levitate around in a tornado of poltergeist activity! Or, maybe moments where the kid is trying to say something completely normal and cute, but it accidentally gets misunderstood as creepy cos of their social inexperience? “Father I have the SKIN HUNGER.” = “Yknow that feeling when you really want a hug, but I don’t know the word for a hug cos none of these science guys ever show any affection.” The closest thing the kid has as a reference is being picked up and carried to the latest testing room when they refuse to walk there on their own, so sometimes they misbehave on purpose to experience this almost-hug. Tho having a hug with a hazmat suit guy while locked up in handcuffs isn’t really all that enjoyable, the scientists wouldn’t dare touch monster-kid without eighty billion protections. Actually, having a hug could be a really monumental moment, like a milestone for both of you. Kid understands humans enough to be able to vocalize this wish, and trusts you enough to think you’d give a different answer to the scientists who always say no. And you’ve overcome your fear of the big ol scary monster enough to hold them, and you’ve grown to understand them enough that you can figure out what they want when they’re not able to explain it well. And then it could be super sad and heartwarming cos when you have them in your arms you realise how fragile and thin they are, how much pain they must be in from their shaky breathing, maybe you can even see scars you never noticed on their scalp from all the experiments...
And probably there’d be a lot of other scenes like this, where all of their “creepy” actions can be linked to a misunderstanding or a cry for help, and you can always resolve it and help them become more human. It would help make the scene of them accidentally killing someone be even more of a misdirect, like “oh my god, was I wrong this entire time and they really are evil?” But at the same time you’d also have more reason to want to hear them out, even when the situation looks impossible to explain. And it would be even sadder that this time the “and in the end they learn to be more human” part would be learning something horrible, a part of life that’s just going to make them suffer more. :( And speaking of which, the protagonist would also have to develop away from his initial optimism, kinda? Like, the bad result is where the job makes him become more jaded and he eventually becomes an asshole just like everybody else in this organization. But the good result would be becoming jaded in a different way. Becoming less oblivious and naive, aknowledging that evil exists in this world. And addressing his blind cliche optimism, and replacing it with like.. actual real optimism that he came to out of his own free will. Like not just being nice cos you’re too scared to argue with people, but also being brave enough to stand up and say that something is wrong even when you’re scared of arguing! And also reexamining his rather cliche views on good and evil. This job has also been showing him how evil humans can be, as well as how innocent this monster is. Maybe its wrong to look at it as “I’m teaching them to become more human”...?
...anyway i have a lot of ideas for this idea, lol sorry this post is so long
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