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midnightactual · 2 years

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NEON DARK: Afterlife Rumors Regarding Yoruichi

Yoruichi’s strange combination of a seemingly unmodified physical form, sterling track record, and her unusual combination of personality traits and behaviors have inspired more than a few rumors regarding her among the various participants in Night City’s Edgerunner community, particularly among her fellow Solos in Afterlife.

Most of these rumors are fairly mundane and largely revolve around suggesting she’s an ex-Corpo who achieves success through prior connections in that world. Whether this involves quid pro quo activities as some kind of double or triple agent, or turns around more salacious accusations of ‘trading favors’, the gist of these rumors are that she still knows people and has access and is ‘allowed’ to do what she does as a ‘necessary agent’ in corporate infighting. After all, no one’s really fully seen her actively run a mission. Most of the conjecture of this kind revolves around what services she’s providing and who she used to work for—or still does.

There are certainly weirder conspiracy theories and rumors about her though. Here are some of them in vaguely descending order of plausibility, with credit to @burdenedreverance for a few of them:

Yoruichi simply “came with the new building” when Afterlife was moved from Upper Marina to the Watson district, whatever that might mean.

Yoruichi is a kind of ‘avatar’ of Night City, or more particularly, Night Corp. Some more extreme versions of this idea suppose she is actually the (presumably illegitimate) daughter of either Richard or Miriam Night, or the granddaughter of such a child. Think Batman.

Yoruichi is some kind of NUSA spy and agent provocateur there to subvert Night City’s independence and win a Second Unification War. Think Jack Bauer.

Yoruichi is some kind of European Economic Community (EEC) superspy sent to somehow undermine Pacific Rim corporations in Night City to ensure the EEC’s continued economic dominance. Think James Bond.

Yoruichi is actually Morgan Blackhand in some kind of new body.

Yoruichi is actually Richard Night in some kind of new body.

Yoruichi is some kind of amalgamation of Soulkilled engrams created by Arasaka out of their worst enemies, which somehow managed to escape and get hold of a body. Think SID 6.7 from Virtuosity.

Yoruichi is the agent of one of what Rache Bartmoss called a Transcendental Sentience AI, and is executing its unknown agenda.

Yoruichi is some last gasp experiment of the Gang of Four, a super soldier tasked with restoring the old United States. Think Jason Bourne.

Yoruichi is some kind of bioengineered prototype, probably made by Biotechnica, and also probably a plant. Not like a spy, an actual plant. Think Godzilla Earth or Vash the Stampede.

Yoruichi is a lone wolf Nomad werewolf, per Garry the Prophet’s conspiracy theories.

Yoruichi is one of the vampires which conspiracy theorists imagine inhabit caves under Night City, and works as their public face.

Yoruichi is an alien. No, not a Highrider, but something they found out there and sent down dirtside, and may be related to ravings like those of Garry the Prophet and Rache Bartmoss.

Yoruichi is ‘the last cat in the city’, some kind of bakeneko or nekomata, much like the Demon Cat of Washington D.C.

Yoruichi is some kind of Native American spirit entity.

Yoruichi is some sort of Abrahamic angel.

Needless to say, these more fringe theories are just the personal opinions of certain Solos with more time on their hands than is advisable.

#Out Of Character #Headcanons #Verse: NEON DARK

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catflowerqueen · 2 years

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Actually, some thoughts I had on my “psychopomp y/n” fnaf prompt

(Which I probably won’t actually make into a full story—in part because I already have so many other WIPs in addition to school and work stuff consuming my time. But if I DID do something with it…)

I feel like Y/N might allow themselves to be seen by the general populace? In a kind of “not trying to hide their presence” way? It’s just that they would be going by “form you are most comfortable with” rules, so people would just be seeing what they expect to see. (which honestly really works out in favor with the typical art style people draw y/ns on here—not giving them actual eyes or too many distinguishing facial/body features, for instance) In most cases as they wander the Pizzaplex and try to figure out what is actually going on to cause the paperwork issues, this just translates to them looking like generic stranger. They don’t stand out in any way, are probably wearing Fazbear merch of some kind, etc. And this holds true for the majority of animatronics as well.

But not Sun and Moon.

Considering they safeguard the daycare and have to be able to match specific adults with their children, their facial recognition software is a lot better, and they would be actively on the lookout for distinguishing features and weeding out the familiar from the unfamiliar. So Y/N would actually stand out quite a bit and look very out of place. After all, no one would be going to the Daycare section unless they had a specific reason to—or were extremely lost or something. But Y/N wouldn’t be wearing a typical “help me I am lost” expression, even as they don’t really know what they are supposed to be looking for at the start. So Sun and Moon would see them with a very distinctive look. I’m thinking something like formal wear, almost? Like some sort of business person attire, in dark or neutral colors.

And this would persist for a bit even after they find out about Y/N/s psychopomp status, mainly because they wouldn’t have any prior conceptions about what a psychopomp would look like? If the kids are young enough, they might not really have a concept of “death” yet, or know how grim reapers are typically depicted—and if Sun and Moon kind of casually ask them about what they know of psychopomps, they might not even have heard of the term before. And Sun and Moon certainly wouldn’t want to actually let the kids know why they are asking or that there is an actual psychopomp/grim reaper in their midst for fear of scaring them, so by the time they would actually learn about it, their perception of Y/N’s form would have already solidified.

Well. To an extent, anyways.

Because I feel like over time, as the two of them got to know Y/N, their perception of them would change into more positive views, resulting in them seeing Y/N in more casual outfits and brighter colors. Among… other changes, both physical and not, after certain “plot points” happen.

As for Y/N’s “true” form, they may or may not actually have one? I feel like their entire situation and, for lack of a better term, “species” would very much be “concept based.” Perhaps they get to pick one as they ascend the ranks, or it would be something of a Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods situation where their physical form really does depend on people believing certain things about them.

Or the situation itself could be like… the fundamentals of what they actually do and what their “job” is are unchanging, but the “way” they go about doing it is based on perception, or the amalgamation of ideas or something. So, like… psychopomps like Y/N existed before humans did, but they didn’t really get a sense of sentience or the ability to emote until humans started having collective ideas and theories about the afterlife and what it really meant to die. And the idea about what that would involve changed over time, and are still changing even now. Ideas about bureaucracies and such from media like “The Good Place” and “Good Omens,” and even “Dead Like Me” are really popular now, so that’s what they are going with. (But even if the public moves on to different ideas later, now that sentience/sapience ahs been achieved, that isn’t a guarantee that the psychopomps are going to change the way they do things to model that direction since, again, the fundamentals of their job existed long beforehand. And I’ll get more into those fundamentals in another post)

And this might actually be another point of bonding for Sun, Moon, and Y/N? In that all three of them exist for a specific purpose that they did not get to choose, and fundamentally cannot change what they are or what they do, even if they wanted to, and have very limited say in things like their appearance. Or even their names—at least Sun and Moon were given them upon creation, but I get the feeling (in part to go along even better with the fact that Y/N technically is supposed to stand in for “Your Name”) that psychopomps like Y/N don’t really have names, in general?

Y/N does, but that’s because they picked one out specifically because it helps them when they need to physically snoop for information/not look too creepy when they hang out with Sun and Moon. (Possibly Sun and Moon even unknowingly gave them the name. Like if they were throwing out different names in an attempt to identify them when they first met and Y/N just latched onto one, or if it was some situation where Y/N’s reluctance to admit they didn’t have a name got interpreted by Sun and Moon as it being some sort of situation like “my name is a concept that has no direct translation to actual words” and so they asked Y/N if they could give them a “nickname” to use when referring to them.

#fnaf security breach #psychopomp y/n #still feel free to utilize that prompt for your own though #since i am still unlikely to write this #at least not anytime soon #y/n x sun #y/n x moon #y/n x daycare attendant

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rainymae523 · 10 months

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(I'm really bad at not doing these at night, so sorry for not posting sooner!)

Story #4

This story is an amalgamation of many little stories that I'm going to piece together here. Little moments from throughout my time spent with Papa, but these are all car show moments summed up in one story.

Papa and I loved going to car shows together. Growing up, I would go with him, my biological dad, a childhood friend, and if my biological dad had a girlfriend, she'd most likely come to. Car shows were always special as you'd never hear the same little story snippets twice.

"I used to have one of them way back when..."

"Oh, I knew someone who had one of them..."

"This one sure looks pretty, don't it? It's a..."

He never ceased the snippets of car stories from his past. He would tell me about makes, models, and years of old cars, adding in identifiers to make sure I knew what I was seeing. He'd talk about the different engines and even transmissions these cars had, commenting on how well he liked them or how easy they could be to work on or not.

No matter what, we always ended up back at his car, a 1966 Chevy 2 Nova SS in the color Stratto Blue by the House of Colors. You had to say it just like that, or you just weren't saying it right.

If I got to ride with him to or from car shows, it was always the best time getting looks from people as we drove by, saying the car was beautiful. He would tell the story of how he ordered one brand new but never went to pick it up, and how he regretted it and searched for this car his whole life until he found it at the Mendon Dust Off car show. He would show me the picture of how it was originally a dark, dark blue, but he wasn't a big fan, so he scoured every blue paint sample book in the shop until he got to the last one and found Stratto Blue and said, "This is it. This is the one."

Every time we drove it, he'd tell me it was going to be mine someday. That I was going to get his pride and joy. When I turned 18, he put my name on the title with his own, just to make sure.

So, now that car is mine. But, even now, I find it extremely difficult to look at and even more difficult to drive it. Everyone sees that car and thinks of him, and now he's not with it, I am. I only hope that with working to get counseling on things that I can comfortably drive that car someday. I want to make Papa proud to say that he gave his pride and joy to me from wherever he is in the afterlife. And I think for this story, I'm going to add a picture. He insisted on taking it because his shirt matched his car, but the graphic was on the back. Now, it's one of most fitting pictures I have of him.

#rain writes #grief #all about my papa and i

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undertakermybeloved · 3 years

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As a person who experiences OSDD 1b, I've always headcanoned the Undertaker to have the same disorder. The way he so quickly switches between personas reminded me of how I experience my own disorder, and I decided to write this on it. Please note that is is not reflective of all disassociative disorders, and is based off of my own experiences!

Rating: Mature, 14+

Warnings: Mentions of death and murder, minor mentions of necromancy, necrophilia and sex

I wasn’t always like this. At first I didn’t even know. It seemed to happen so quickly, when really it was a slower process than trying to get your scythe registered with dispatch.

Dispatch.

That's what caused this. It's all dispatches fault, of course. It's always their fault.

I am the Undertaker. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. If that doesn’t ring a bell, maybe the name Legendary Death does. The most famous reaper to ever exist, loved by all and hunted by his own admiriers. Once a stoic man, unsympathetic, unloving, unattached. Wherever did he go? There is no possible way me, the kooky old mortician with a necrophelia problem, could ever be the same person who reaped Marie Antoinette and judged the soul of Robin Hood. Well, that would be because I’m not.. Partially.

My body was indeed the vessel that completed those tasks, but I was not the one orchestrating them. I was in the back seat, an observer of my own life. I lived like that for so long, I didn’t even realize it was out of the ordinary. It was like sleepwalking. I did not control my own movements, did not hear my own thoughts, and did not speak my own words. Because they weren’t mine. They were Adriens.

At least, that is what I have come to call him. I know what you’re thinking, and it is indeed ‘my’ old name, but I cannot seem to associate myself with it. My name is the Undertaker, that is who I am. Adrien is no longer me. A part of me, yes, just as much as I am a part of him.

We are split. Two pieces of a whole being, separated into two seperate conciousnesses, to complete two separate jobs.

Being a reaper is a horribly taxing occupation. You commit suicide and are now forced to live forever for your horrible crime against the universe, against the very God all humans revere so. Your punishment is an immortal soul, and a job where you are forced to watch others finally achieve the peace you never good. It truly is the most clever and sinister punishment.

Being one of these criminals for over a thousand years, (I don’t care enough to keep track of the exact number,) I may be one of the oldest reapers who has not yet been forced into a medical coma to keep them out of the way, despite my frequent infringements against Shinigami rule.

Anyhow, I’m getting side tracked. Back to the point.

Adrien. While that used to be my name, it is no longer me. I had to train myself as a reaper, not only physically but emotionally as well. Do not be sympathetic, do not become attached. Simply do your job and move on. But it takes a toll on one to, every day, watch the sick and the healthy, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, all laying upon their deathbeds. Especially the children. The poor, crying children. One cannot simply watch them sob as you take their soul and not feel some sort of remorse for the action. So, I put up an act. Played the part of an emotionless, stoic man long enough for my conscious to split. There was the reaper, the one who could handle seeing the dead and the dying, the one who didn’t experience the gut wrenching emotional grief.

And then there was me. The weak one.

Weak.

Too weak to do my own damn job, to the point I managed to split myself in two. A mirror image of myself, the same but better, better at his job, better at interacting, simply better.

I sat in the back for hundreds of years, stuffed away and watching my body be puppetted by one who was not me. I watched myself murder, I watched myself make love, but I was never there. I wondered sometimes, why did I feel like I was no longer in control? Well, it is simply because I wasn’t.

It was like watching a movie where you play the main character. You see them, and it looks like you, but it isn’t. The way they act, talk, and even just carry themself is so drastically different from your own mannerisms that you can scarcely believe it is you who you are seeing.

When I was finally in control again, it felt like I had just been saved from drowning. It was just a second, such a minor slip up of my counterpart, but it was long enough for me to realize I wasn’t alone, and had not been for longer than I’d ever known.

That was when I left. I forced myself into control, and I had to make sure everyone knew I was no longer me.

One extravagant show of mass genocide later, I was free. I was free. Free from my own alter ego, free from the association, free from my punishment. Despite being part of the undead, I had never felt so alive.

I traveled everywhere, released everything that had been hidden away in my own body for so long. Finally, I was the one to murder, I was the one to make love, I was the one to simply experience. It was me.

Eventually, I became weary of traveling the world. I was free enough. Free to control my own body, and that was all I needed.

I settled down, found a little shop on the market for cheap and took up mortuary studies.

After my life as a reaper, most would think I’d prefer to stay away from death, but rather it brought me comfort, and continues to bring me comfort to this day. No longer having to watch people as they die, I am able to deal with them while already dead. And that is the difference between me, the Undertaker, and my own frgament, Adrien.

Being split like this for so long, the line between myself and Adrien is distinct and rather hard to miss. However, there are times where the line blurs, where we mix and entertwine into some sort of amalgamation pretending to be what we once were. The time on the Campania was where the line was blurred the most, to the point where there was hardly any line anymore. It felt like our subconscious was desperately trying to force us back together, despite being separated for much too long for such a thing to be even considered as a simple possibility.

Raising the dead was a combined effort between the both of us. Both of our anguish and grief, anger and despair, and sheer desperation to be one again came out in the form of necromancy. That is why we are better apart. The two of us are simply too different, too separate, by now to be able to merge without only causing problems.

Being together again- or, as together as we could be- felt odd. I was both in and out of control at the same time. I could instruct our body to move, but I was only half there, and it was the same for Adrien as well. We were in control, but only partially. Our movements and speech wound together and created new movements and sentences, a new method of fighting, a new way of speaking. I’m surprised we weren't both a mess, being in control at the same time, but I suppose the half-assed merge was either to thank or to blame for that. We split again afterwards, which did not come as a surprise, and it was far from as dramatic as the first time. Trying to put us back together again is like cutting an apple in half, then carmelizing half of it and putting the other half in a pie, and trying to put the pieces back together once it's done. It simply doesn’t work, and it's much easier, more pleasant and more convenient to enjoy the two separately.

I don’t have much recollection of what it felt like to be whole, but it doesn’t bother me too much any more. Like I’ve said many times, and like I’ve come to realize after many years, is that we are simply better separate.

Dispatch most likely already has a theory about my split personality. They always seem to know more about their reapers than the reapers know about themselves, and despite being retired, that rule remains the same for me. While I consistently refuse their ‘offers’ of a psych evaluation, (their offers being closer to not so gentle insisting and persuasion simply to have me in captivity,) they’re probably going to take me in by force eventually. I am old, after all. About a thousand something, I don’t care to remember. I can’t fight of these young, energetic reapers forever. They’ll reign me in, most likely sooner rather than later, and quite frankly I’m not particularly inclined to care what they do with me once they have me. Torture, questioning, what have you, I don’t much mind. They’re going to do what they please with me, whether I like it or not. If there's just one think I know about dispatch, it's that they always get their way.

Oh well. If they somehow find a way to kill me, they’ll be doing me a favor. Maybe I’ll have my own body in the afterlife.

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #undertakermybeloved writing #undertakermybeloved #undertaker black butler #undertaker #undertaker kuroshitsuji

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grxffiti-on-your-grave · 3 years

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👀👀please tell me abt your desert deity hcs i love hearing about everyone's different takes on destroya

Okay so! Basically! The Phoenix Witch is a goddess, right? And there were a lot more gods, goddesses, and other assorted deities around before Better Living started really messing with things, but because deities' lives depend on faith and belief and BL/i was pretty much erasing a whole lot of cultures and religions and history via mass murder and reeducation, the other deities all either died or became so weak that they couldn't really do much of anything anymore (Like how there used to be a right and proper god of the wind, but now since only a scattering of killjoys believe in something like that, they can't really do anything other than like send convenient breezes around and nobody knows their name anymore).

In effect, the Witch is the only remaining deity from before, and she wasn't always 'The Phoenix Witch'- that name came from the Zones. She oversees Life and Death, and she guides people's souls to the After, which is pretty much just the afterlife.

Zone residents, specifically killjoys, store a piece (if not all) of their souls in something that they cherish and hold close (this is a pretty common hc I think, but bear with me). Usually, they make it a mask for a lot of symbolic reasons, but mostly because masks are easy to recognize so others can take it to the Mailbox. The Mailbox itself is really just so masks (and equivalents) don't get lost, and to get actual mail to the After. And! You can in fact send real mail to those in the After, but they can't send anything back, because the After is not a physical place. Nearly everyone has a tether even if it isn't a proper mask, and even if they don't realize it.

The Witch takes these to the After by crossing a magic ooh ahh Spirit Bridge.

Also - since souls and the spirit and those things are closely tied to energy and electricity, droids have souls. However, they are different from human/animal souls, in that they cannot go to the After. Instead, they go directly to Limbo. People, of course, can also wind up in Limbo - this usually happens if their tethers/masks don't make it to the Witch, and/or they die in the City/ get trapped in the Grid.

So! Limbo. Limbo is this multi-layered plane in between Earth and the After. You do not want to find yourself in Limbo.

Most people only go to the layers closest to the land of the living, which are pretty much a) Pure floaty nothingness and b) Horrific Nightmare Land. But there is another layer! It's much closer to the After than the others, and I've been referring to it as "The Beach." The Beach is sort of like the transition point from Limbo to the After- - or, it should be.

This is where DESTROYA comes in.

Originally, DESTROYA was just a weapon, a big ole robot made to wipe out the killjoys. And that was that. It broke down, but as we know, a whole lot of people (mainly droids) began to worship It - to believe in It. And thus, It became a deity.

But that's not quite how it works. See, It had a strong following what with the Graffiti Bible and all, but because It wasn't originally a deity, It needed... more. Since It had been powered by the Grid (rich with trapped souls), It went on a hunt per se to find a similar but stronger source of souls.

And It found The Beach. The Beach was the perfect place to start building up Its strength, and it took residence under the water, waiting, luring souls in. Soon, Its influence could reach the barrier between the Nightmare layer and the Beach. It continued to trick souls that got too close - offering them something alluring, pulling them in. They became a part of It.

So basically. DESTROYA is a big ball of electricity and amalgamated souls sitting at the bottom of a pitch-black ocean in between the mortal realm and the afterlife. And the Witch is kinda lonely. Thank you for attending.

#oh wow that got long #long post #DESTROYA #The Phoenix Witch #headcanons #lmk if you want me to elaborate!#ask to tag #Killjoys #ttlotfk

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plinkcat-gif · 3 years

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Yes hello pls do tell abt ur flower symbolism thoughts 👀

Like, which flowers do you associate with which Naruto characters and why?? What flowers do you think reflect your fav relationships (platonic or otherwise) the best?? AUs??

Honestly homie I’ll take anything just go off abt flowers I am starving for more symbols & secret meanings here…

jesus christ i went off i’m so sorry but enjoy i guess

kks:

- belladonna (silence)

i briefly explained this before but this applies to kakashi in his silence about,, a lot of things, really. he’s been so influenced by what broke him and he obviously doesn’t know himself, and the easiest way to get through life without knowing yourself is by following orders blindly. therefore, he never told naruto about his parents because the hokage said so. he never fought back against the nickname friend killer because of a multitude of reasons, but one would probably be the lack of authority in the situation. kakashi sure isn’t gonna be the authority and tell them to stop unless authority tells him to be authority. same with the rumors about his father.

he was also silenced by force as well, most notably in his ANBU years. i think as a shinobi, there’s a sort of silent oath taken that hey, maybe don’t go blabbing about your traumatizing missions to your civilian friends, yes (which also reminds me that fun fact: a lot of firefighters don’t talk about what happened on calls and stuff with their s/os because they’re so traumatizing and their s/os can’t relate to that. it’s why firefighters talk to each other ab it and cope through dark humor ANYWAY tangent much girl??) but also, in ANBU and ROOT, you don’t talk about anything to anyone ever. recap it once on the report and you’re done.

he never told anyone about rin or obito until,,, god, like naruto? when he showed them the KIA stone and even then he didn’t mention obito explicitly he was just like “idiot child don’t end up here.” so yeah. lots of metaphorical-turned-literal silence in that bit.

to the victorians, belladonna may have also been taken as a meditation on the nature of good and evil, which is particularly interesting to me. in the original post i mentioned that goodness is measured by society, and kakashi’s goodness changed throughout the series. he’s always hailed as a hero for story purposes, but i think digging a bit deeper here, it’s interesting to see the difference between his child and anbu self and his hokage self. as a child and in anbu, he was Good. good at everything he did, efficient and reliable. he was good because in the middle of a war during their time, killing people was necessary to keep the village safe. hence, kakashi’s amazing. he’s a feared hero; a legend. but his self hatred is ever-present and it grows, especially in his anbu years. it never disappears. once he’s hokage, he can essentially bend society to his will. and with naruto as the future hokage and village hero, who’s the opposite of kakashi in nearly every light and shadow, who hasn’t killed anybody…well. it’s easy to redefine the definition of good as somebody who makes peace with words, not violence. voila, justice is served and kakashi’s self hatred is justified, naruto (and his delusional version of obito) are worshipped as heroes and the model idol.

- butterfly weed (let me go; dignity)

honestly. kakashi needs to let tf go of his regrets and his guilt. i imagine that obito and rin would be giving him this of course, but mainly rin. kakashi only idolizes obito so desperately after he’s broken his promise to him, and he needs to forget that and move on to build himself, instead of taking pieces from other people and stacking those on top of one another to make some amalgamated ideal version of himself.

but in another sense, i think kakashi would also very much be the type to want to be forgotten in the afterlife. he sees himself as so insignificant to other people (before given the responsibility of three developing preteens of course) and he wouldn’t want people to cling to him like he clings to rin and obito. he would want the people close to him to keep the dignity that he couldn’t. i also think he knows his obsession with rin and obito is unhealthy, but it works and it satisfies and so he doesn’t really care to stop.

- orange lily (hatred; disdain)

the self hatred is strong in this one. nobody gives this to him of course, i’d b throwing hands if somebody did that, but i think that he’d actually give this to himself (hence why he holds it in the original post). he hates himself so much for the things he’s done, especially when he has the power to redefine society and he can guilt trip himself because of that as well. what would obito think, seeing him sitting in that chair, making a better world? he doesn’t deserve that. he doesn’t deserve that ability and he shouldn’t be able to shape such a thing with these bloodstained hands.

- zinnia (thoughts of absent friends, lasting affection)

literally all this man thinks about is rin and obito he like. has a crush or smth idk.

lasting affection applies to what i see as his affection for obito bc hi, kkob shipper. there’s obviously affection after the kamui battle, and i imagine a lot at the memorial stone when he drops off dango and flowers and treats. pretty simple, but i think it means a lot, especially when phrased as “lasting affection for absent friends.”

obito:

- anemone (forsaken (abandon))

so obito’s are more centered around the world because that’s what he built his ambition off of (the opposite of kakashi, who built his on the people around him. could write an essay on this).

obito so obviously forsook the world when rin died. he decided then and there that it wasn’t worth it anymore—not because rin was dead, but because rin was dead. i will always say obkkfkr’s post about why obito started a war for this lol, but essentially, the world just kept on taking and killing and breaking and all that was left behind were people like kakashi, who brought dango to a grave for somebody he supposedly never even liked.

obito abandoned the world and its ideals, which is why he never returned to konoha. konoha was killing its people from the inside, and the same applied to all the other villages. the best way to get rid of that is to destroy them all.

but i also think his resolve is rather weak. the second naruto talk-no-jutsu’d him, he was abandoning ship faster than you can say “infinite tsukuyomi.” he quit the plan and said “nah. this is dumb i’m sorry” and helped save the same world he tried to destroy instead. i sk probably has something to do with abandonment issues that developed after he was left alone in a cave with an old man forever lol idk

- black-eyed susan (justice)

oh boy. justice to the shinobi system. obito was the judge, jury, and executioner in this whole plan. he wanted to bring konoha and the hidden villages to justice so badly that he hid his identity for twenty-odd years and manipulated things behind the scenes so effectively. it was his goal and why he started a war—justice for rin. justice for kakashi. for itachi. for all the shinobi who were forced to fight and kill, injuries and psych evals be damned.

- edelweiss (devotion)

this one’s pretty obvious, i think despite his quickly-changing-allegiance, obito’s very devoted to whatever he does. as a child, he was set on being hokage and that stayed unchanging until rin’s death. then he spent twenty years carrying out madara’s plan, unchanging until naruto talked to him, when he returned to his roots and helped the shinobi alliance win the war. he’s very devoted to his beliefs and to the people he loves, hence why he stuck with madara’s plan for so long.

- orange lily (hatred)

that being said, obito’s love is interesting to me. i think in canon, it’s so influenced by the hatred he feels for the world and for certain people (hiruzen, danzō, etc.) that his love is more twisted. because obviously he doesn’t really love rin, i don’t think. he harbors a more childish love for her throughout his life, but that ends up tainted when he tries to brainwash the whole world in an attempt to make it all better. he doesn’t really love kakashi until after their kamui battle, but that’s tainted by his and kakashi’s self hatred (hence why i don’t ship them in canon—unrequited, if anything). his obsession and his love are two very different things as well, which is why i don’t think he actually ever loved kakashi until he was brought back from the Dark Side.

also obito in general just harbors a lot of hatred for himself and the way the world treats people, so yeah.

as for kkob flower, i would say zinnia. whether in canon or in aus, these guys have always lost something. there’s always something to lose, whether it be each other, sakumo, rin, or the village, or whatever it may be, but they always center their lives around what they lose. in different ways, that is.

i mentioned this is the replies of one of bluefisted’s post but basically what i think is that obito centers his sense of self around the world. he blames his problems on the world, he hates himself because he can’t fix it. how the world affects the people he loves, basically.

for kakashi, he centers himself on the existence of other people, how he affects them and how he can help them. he doesn’t care about the world nearly as much, because he’s accepted that they all have to live in it. so he’s going to help his friends to the best of his abilities, because that’s in his control. (moments where it isn’t and hasn’t ever been, like when he faces obito in the war, are times where he panics and breaks down ;))

and so yeah their affection for absent friends is strong and actually really interested if we ever went past “heehoo angsty guys love each other a lot” (*shoves all my fics off a cliff* we’re not using those as examples)

ok i’ll do these for more characters if y’all want but fair warning: i literally did not care about another character in naruto i took these two in hand and said “you will be my special interest” and i haven’t let them go since SO. maybe yamato and gai can b next i like them a lot as well. and rin.

#when i said nerd i meant it whole heartedly #flowers are So Cool and skulls are too and 🤲🤲🤲🤝🤝🤝✊✊✊👍👍👍✌️✌️✌️#brain buzzes like bees when i think ab these things #also please add ur own for these things i’m very curious about other people’s interpretations of flowers and stuff #anon ik u said secret meanings and then i explained eveything i’m sorry #stayed up until like 2am doing this and then crashed and then finished it as soon as i woke up LMAO #kirpy answers

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vivdunye · 3 years

Text

present day, present time

and you don't seem to understand

fabled adages of science

so i was watching the snyder cut of justice league the other morning, i couldn't really begin to tell you why other than i needed 4 hours of background noise . but i tuned in at one point when the fictional super Israeli, wonder woman, narrated a scene explaining an alien technology "that was so advanced that it almost seemed like sorcery", and wouldn't yknow, that's a real concept actually, i recognized it immediately as clark's third law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

it's perhaps the most well known and oft quoted of the three, but i always felt like arthur c. clark's first 2 laws don't ever get quite enough love . i've been thinking heavily about the first law lately:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

i've been thinking about it in relation to this one quote from wernher von braun that i always liked:

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.

many people are afraid of death; of ceasing the awareness of life, because they don't know what will happen to themselves after, where do they go if anywhere? it's much more nebulous in the secular sense if you haven't a construct for the afterlife already . i've been thinking about death more and more often lately to a worrying degree . however, scientific thought for all its clinical detachment from all things spiritual has strangely enough always felt like the perfect module for contemplating the metaphysical . so i decided to do some research .

i want to recall right now thomas edison's first intended use for the phonograph . edison had originally envisioned the phonograph primarily as a means of preserving the voices of loved ones after death . he later went on to try and develop a "ghost box" or "spiritphone" . this device would allow humans to communicate directly with the dead . he was unsuccessful .

if hauntology has taught us anything, we technically do have ghost boxes now, but maybe not in the way edison intended or even predicted . we carry them everywhere and can check them anytime, channeling messages through them constantly . we actively become digital ghosts, online we are both present and absent . the present implodes with the past, we've over-documented everything so now we can experience an instant nostalgia . today's future becomes archaic, we live in the archive to try and remember what the future once was .

'haunted' and 'futuristic' become one and the same .

by this token i'm reminded also by transhumanism . as the technological singularity fast approaches, as progress charges forward at a constantly increasing speed, current estimates posit the 2040s as the point in which technological improvements will occur at a constantly self-replicating rate . in the time between now and then, transhumanism and the eventual merging of human consciousness with machinery are theorized outcomes of technological progress . one day we might be able to leave the shackles of our human bodies and transcend our physical forms as a joined digital consciousness .

and in relation to this i also think now of clark's second law

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

through the wired

this is the stage on which the anime Serial Experiments Lain is set . a story, that while constructed on the patchwork of fiction, is nevertheless symbolic of certain phenomena based in reality .

also i apologize if it wasn't apparent that this post was going to be about Lain . im lainposting boys

the first few episodes exist to misdirect the viewer right from the beginning . and only by returning to these episodes having thought through the rest of the show, does their purpose become clear . the first episode, aptly titled "Layer 01: Weird" , is meant to show us exactly one thing, that lain is fucking weird . we can't tell what she's thinking, we can't tell what she's doing, and that's exactly how everyone around her feels . lain is totally and completely disconnected, she doesn't keep up with current events at school, she doesn't communicate with her family, near as we can tell she has no actual interests besides her stuffed animals and totally phasing out of reality. the inciting incident of the series happens when someone tries to make a connection with lain, and that person happens to be dead...

or at least there body is dead, their consciousness seems to have escaped into the wired . lain's decision to pursue this connection is what lead's her to ask her father for a new navi (the series' name for a personal computer) and that's all that really happens in this episode . coming back to it from later episodes we know that lain is probably thinking a lot throughout this episode . the decision to not entreat us to any of her thoughts is intentional, it is to make us feel distant from her as viewers, the same way that the world around her is distant . as lain forms connections throughout the series, so too, will we form a connection with her .

we do not know how much time has passed since then and the second episode, but whatever has happened lain has already developed a significant presence in the wired . this episode is tricky in its presentation as it doesn't make us privy to which things lain is lying about and which things she's honest about . in it we have lain talking to someone on her navi, she types sporadically in an encrypted language, and someone who looks just like her appears late one night in a night club downtown . while lain won't admit it to her classmates it's apparent at the end of the episode that it was her at the club all along . the key to understanding her actions throughout the episode is to realize she is trying to keep her existence in the wired and her existence in reality as separate entities . the realization she has by the end of the episode, which she uses to terrify a gunmen into suicide is that there is no escape from the wired, no matter where you are you are always connected .

made in the late-90s, Lain was quite ahead of its time . it predicted not only how in the early 2000s the internet would be regarded as a separate world where anonymity and personas reigned—it also predicted how the internet would eventually and inevitably overlap with the real world, once people in the real world realized that the internet is the real world . people have a tendency to see one part of themselves as their "true selves", whereas the parts they show to others are personas, they think of these things as separate when in reality a person is an amalgamation of all of their personas . lain tries to change her personas by dressing and acting differently from when she's in the wired-mode and in normal-mode, but she doesn't realize how people have been doing this way before the wired existed . her classmates are all 15 but they all pass for adults when they've dolled up and hit the club . if the characters in the show seem a bit young for their attitudes then you may not have met enough tech-savvy teenagers before . the purpose of this episode is to ultimately to prove to lain that the so-called real world and the wired are merely two layers of one reality, which couldn't be more true of the world today .

let there be light300pMTK. .

in mythology, psyche was the mortal princess who fell in love with and, eventually, married the god cupid; in religion and classical philosophy, psyche came to mean the human soul, and in the modern, literate world, it retains that meaning as the human spirit; in freudian analysis, psyche refers to the totality of the human mind: the id, ego and superego .

every meaning of psyche is distinctly human: a human princess who achieves godhood, the soul or mind of an individual . if previous episodes introduced the blurring of the real world with the wired, then episode three; "Layer 03: Psyche" is the episode that starts to blur human identity online and offline . one doesn’t even have to venture into the wired to ask what is human .

by this point we know that lain is definitely up to something . at this stage it's hard to tell what, but all we get are little glimpses into her actions . she still seems to be hiding a lot from the world around her and from the viewer in turn . ironically, lain's blank-faced silence and response to the questions of those around her it's own incrimination . when a police officer tells her to speak up (regarding the gunman's suicide) even if she had nothing to do with it, he doesn't realize she's being silent precisely because she does have something to do with it . but her deer-in-the-headlights persona gets her out of it .

the lain of the wired and the lain of reality are slowly starting to mesh into one whole . it remains difficult to interpret the physical existence of "other lain" so to speak, and the show refuses to outright show her playing that character . at the least, we do get to see lain access the wired in all its chaotic glory and she does begin to take an active interest in expanding her knowledge as she learns about and installs the "Psyche drive", a computer circuit that lain procures in hopes of it enhancing her computer's processing power . on the smaller scale, when lain applies the psyche processor to her navi, she is installing a spirit or soul, an animating element, to her machine . notably, the psyche does not replace the main processor; psyche augments the main processor, interpreting the data that flows through it . the soul is not simply the brain, it is an elevated consciousness or meta-self. by this point in the series lines become blurred and the lains begin to merge (hehe) . all of this is set against the backdrop of lain trying to decide if she should remain in the physical world or fully integrate in the wired . she hears one voice telling her that death feels amazing, and god exists in the wired, that there is nothing left for lain in this world . however, lain begins to establish a connection with her classmate alice, saying her name out loud and commiting it to memory for the first time, alice asks why her friends are not more shaken up after watching someone shoot himself in the head the previous day . it's almost as though lain is clinging to alice as an excuse to stay in the physical world out of fear for changing over . this all sets the seeds for what eventually grows throughout the series .

i want to recall the final meaning of the word “psyche". that the word also meant “butterfly,” which is how the greeks imagined the soul to appear . no doubt the symbolism of a creature that begins as one thing and transforms into another is not lost on us here .

every event serves to emphasize the existence of one's own personal reality, and as individuals from all others, we desire a place to belong . however that too is an egotistical concept . in order for there to be a mutual understanding, it is necessary to recognize here and now, like the brain synapses, we are all—in a logical yet chaotic manner—connected .

each is seperate—yet they are one . by connecting, humanity gains first awareness of its function as a seed . and by connecting a human no longer remains a mere endpoint, a "terminus", but becomes a junction to another point, having won the right to continue itself . in a sense, the ability to connect is the ability to continue . this not only applies to the connection of axial coordinates but temporal coordinates as well . therefore, at the time when a conscious, intentional connection is made, surely the dead will rise from there intended place, appearing at the time coordinate of the connection's origin .

in that moment, the realization will dawn that the time in which we inhabit our physical bodies is but the starting point of the connection, and the very meaning of possessing a physical body might be questioned .

we recognize we are connected .

serialize thyself .

#tecnobabel #text

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p1nkwitch · 3 years

Note

If I may one last director's cut: And the Nightmare Collapses? 👁️

Ask as many as you want i dont mind.

Oh my monster au, what to say? I had this in the backburner for a few months now. Originally i was going to make a series of one shots from different characters perspectives.

So first it was going to be Jon waking up from the coma and realizing that everyone were monsters but him sort of like a walking dead scenario. I had the clear picture of him seeing Georgie in her hald deaf state being like, what the fuck happened???

Now the entire idea came to mind with how pissed off i was at everyone in season four acting like Jon was the worst for no discernable reason. Like, Melanie, Basira and Georgie, all treated him in different levels rather cruely. Georgie wasnt so mean, but she was playing blind eye to the whole thing being fucked.

So Jon is the only one who remains human because he tries so hard to keep his humanity despite everything. While everyone else becomes more monstruos, Basira and Melanie in particularly were much more affected, i had a clear vision of a slaughter Mel. But had to keep it brief since Georgie wouldnt want to dwell on her becoming a monster, since now she had no way to deny it. Daisy gets a pass because while on the coffin she regains her humanity by her regret of what she became, its why her changes are minimal in the text.

The other one shots were supposed to be from Elias and Peter perspective with the last being them reuniting.

Now my original idea had no reasoning as to why they were monsters all out sudden. Its not until i realized the potential of the entities just dropping in a world similar enough where they already existed and they end up overcharging, while still carrying the vestigies of the apocalipse that i went like-

Hoy fuck.

Ultimately i am happy with the one shot the way it came out, with Elias being able to see, he was capable of tying up those little threads i wanted to make and make the reference to having an anchor. Anchors tie you to humanity, people are fundamentaly capable of good if they wish too, kindness even in the face of despair, destroys the horrors of the world.

The world wont fix itself, but you adapt and grown and try to make it better.

Now as for the story itself? I just wanted to go buck wild with the scenery of reality fracturing itself and Elias just losing it while perceiving the horrors and understanding far more than possible.

I like eldritch horror i just dont use it enough, or horror shorts in general, maybe i should put up the small ones i made in tumblr they are like a paragraph long each.

For realsies, I really like the idea of monster Elias for several reasons and i wanted to go with it. I have another different take on this verse of how things pan out too, but i will see eventually if i want to write it. There is... also the horny aspec of Peter being, as the fic implies, a monster fucker, not really he just loves Elias whatever shape he comes even if its some weird owl spider thing. If i ever feel brave enough to go thought it in an extra will shall see.

Anyways Jonah goes through life replacing people while manipulating them and toying with their sanity like he did to the ogElias in his interview. Despite being beholding, as per the soup theory, at this point he also represents the stranger, web and spiral fairly well. I have a soft soft for him losing the ability to recognize himself after a while. Because as i pointed out? He kept sort of a more or less stable life, sure, but it must be jarring having to go from one face to another, to have to pretend to be someone else, at least enough that its not glaringly obvious that something is wrong.

So he loses it. The fears overcharge and it all stacks up on him, causing his transformation to be so strong, it ends up consuming him. Not only that but he is vain too, so to be changed into something so horryifing it breaks something else in him, it gives him the idea that no one could want him now, he cant make people do as he says like this, he doesnt know himself and now no one would want to know him anyways. The more he changes the more he loses his sense of self, its not only him, he was so many people it feels weird to be just him, it doesnt fit anymore, so through the story he starts to use they until its what he mainly uses at the end, because he grows and its happy with it by the very end.

His body changes when he doubts himself, the more time it passes the more he forgets. Now the main reason he didnt become a puddle of ink and die, was because as i mentioned he thought about being alone, and it made him think of Peter, that was his last connection, the last thread to a humanity he wasnt sure he still had. When he thinks that he loves him, even if a little, its enough to let him move.

That small lifeline is what actually saved him and what kept him more or less stable for longer that he would have otherwise. Same goes to Peter whos last action before becoming one with his siblings was pick up the phone, the same though went through him, its why even if he was already at the brink of being melded he kept himself alive for longer.

Then there was the idea of copies.

Because, eyes? just the eyes?? I know it works with supernatural energy but, the doubt, the idea or posibility that Jonah Magnus actually died the moment he transplanted his eyes the first time and that Beholding merely put the copied memories of Jonah that it reatained into the new body was such a good concept, i have a special love for it, to not be sure if you are you, but ultimately chosing to live your life despite knowing that you may not be the real one.

I like to point out at the end that he does, that he is the original and that he is not a copy but... its not really proof, Jonah wants to believe it is. Wether is true or not? Thats up to anyone.

Also his monster concept, i toyed with a few options, and ended up adding it somewhat in the final product, originally he was going to be sort of an owl monster sort of mixed with a cat, no not for the joke, i saw really nice fanart of owlcats and i was in love. But as it is i went with something similar to his body in the afterlife beach party.

Instead of tar it was the ink of the letters he wrote, the static remains because he doesnt know his face anymore and he wont again. The fur... i just wanted something nice for later when Peter made his appearence, less sticky more fluffy. 8 arms like a spider, more eyes because of beholding- you get it.

Speaking of Peter!!

Here is the deal, i know or at least believe that the curruption? Is the oposite of the lonely and viceversa. Wanting to be alone vs being consumed by what you love? Perfect.

So the Lukases become amalgamations of fog trapped in a hive mind that they cant escape from. Forced to be together and then to be alone once someone manages to impose themselves like Nathaniel did. Peter could have theorically left his siblings become him, after Elias saw them, but in this, the closenes they shared was enought that he could not do it. <3<3

I wanted to play with the fact that being stuck with so many people, mainly his sisters while slowly melding into one, made him switch from pronouns feeling comfortable in all of them. Lydia, Judith and Clara were all nice and accidentaly he wanted to feel that nice, so he switches more often to her. It too, because at one point he was litreally nothing since the rest were rather happy being one.

Reality check comes and they all realize that, oh shit we fucked him up. Hence the road trip, unfortunately the melding was inevitable, either they became one or someone took charge. Still it gives them time to bond too, which adds to the decision to let them stay with him despite everything. Peter plays into a similar idea, but from a different perspective, you lose yoursef but become a different person. Luka is all of them being at peace with being one, being happy and wanting the same thing, but still mantaining some way to be apart. If i was being sappy i would liken it to a fusion in Steven Universe.

It wasnt as such at first, but later once Peter is the main body they can do it with less fear of dissapearing. It is also true that his feelings bleed out onto them and likewise to him. Its hard being a single being while simultaniously be 5 people in one.

They do love Elias, except for Clara who is mostly just enjoying the company while judging everyones tastes. It is also true that if this hadnt happened they would never have tried it. But life works oddly. Plus they are happy.

The world cant be fixed, but life sort of goes on and people adjust as they can.

Final note? I really, reeeeally wanted to have JME corpses just drop and have everyone freak out. There was a brief idea of having them alive and react to what they did to the world, but i did not want to deal with that many explanations. So yeah, they are dead.

AGAIN SORRY FOR GOING OFF!!! I NEED TO BE STOPPED.

If you want to ask something in particular go ahead i have the ideas still fresh for this one in my head.

#ask #i go off too much #someone shut me uuuuup

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thenightling · 3 years

Text

This site is NOT always correct but I am pretty certain it is at least partly correct here. The character descriptions were found elsewhere and I will comment on them below.

https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/the-sandman-season-1-everything-we-know-so-far-01-2021/?fbclid=IwAR0s0IPTKUWwllu2GvpOhDzMRbElozWRxzl3yyOtoy93jKsUWw2Rc8OV0eM

_________________________________

Okay....

Character descriptions:

The Sandman / Morpheus / Dream

Required: Lead Male (Age: 26-36)

“The titular Sandman. Lord of Dreams and keeper of the realm of the Dreaming. Late 20s/early 30s. Ghostly, rail-thin. Because dreams are the inspiration for all life and creation, Morpheus sees governing them as a grave responsibility. He is an honorable, principled being, but he can be a bit obsessive about his duties and is ruthless when displeased. Dream’s obsessiveness can leave him out of touch with humanity, as he sees human beings as mere engines for dreams. An arrogant god who eventually learns that he must change or die.”

_________________________________

My thoughts: Yeah, that seems about right.

_______________________________________

The Corinthian

Required: Lead Male (Age: 26-36)

“Supernaturally handsome, The Corinthian exudes style, sex, wit, and a predatory wrongness. A nightmare-come-to-life, but one you can’t keep your eyes off. Embodies humanity’s darkest, most sadistic, homicidal impulses when they are not bound by compassion, empathy, and love.

Originally created by Dream, The Corinthian is determined to thwart his maker at every turn.”

___________________________________

My thoughts: Supernaturally handsome? I really hope this doesn’t mean they’re leaving out his trademark eye mouths.

______________________________

Ethel Cripps

Required: Recurring Female (Age: 18-28)

“A street-smart woman who masterfully leverages her beauty to manipulate men and get what she wants. A self-survival expert who knows when to flatter, barter, or steal based on what best suits her interests. Fascinated by magic & the power it holds, the pursuit of the occult sets Ethel on an unexpected and not necessarily auspicious path.”

----------------------------------------------

My thoughts: That seems about right.

_________________________________

Alex Burgess

Required: Recurring Male (Age: 16-26)

“Bookish yet handsome, Alex is eager to please his tyrannical father, but does not possess his cult of personality. A self-conscious young man who is questioning his sexuality. Alex represses thinking about what he wants for his own life in order to continue to serve his family’s legacy.”

____________________________________

My thoughts:

Based on these aging stats it suggests to me these characters may not be aging as they did in the comics. I never really thought of Alex as handsome but okay. That’s reasonable.

Also based on the leaked Corinthian audition it has been suggested that the Burgess’ might not age (or will age slowly) after Morpheus’ capture. This also suggests (and I kind of hope this is right) that the curse of Eternal Waking will actually go to Roderick instead of Alex.

_________________________________

Death

Potential Cast Member: TBA Required: Recurring Female (Age: 18-25)

“Dream’s older sister. Optimistic, caring, and empathetic, Death takes her job seriously and tries to be a friend to those she shepherds to the afterlife. She’s every bit the big sister towards Dream, acting as his occasional confidante and unafraid to point out his foibles.”

___________________________________________

My thoughts: Unafraid to point out his foibles? You mean by hitting him with a loaf of bread? :-P Seriously, this is pretty accurate to the comics, I’d say.

_________________________________

Anna

Required: Recurring Female (Age: 30-35) Ethnicity: Any

“Beautiful but tough as nails, Anna is not afraid to tussle with criminals and psychopaths while wearing Louboutins. She doesn’t take shit from anyone. Anna has a history of keeping herself at arm’s length from people who could grow to love her, She is mouthy and self-destructive, yet fiercely brave.”

____________________________________

My thoughts: I have lots of thoughts here. First, I suspect this is Johanna Constantine. The name change could just be a disguised name to hide who they are casting for.

Then on second thought I realize this is a recurring character. Johanna only appears maybe twice. I know things for the show may be different from the comics and this brings another idea to mind. If it is Johanna than she’s going by a nickname the way Hob is an old nickname for Robert. Could they be merging Hob and Johanna into a new amalgam character?

_____________________________________

Roderick Burgess

Required: Guest Star Male (Age: 50-65) Ethnicity: White

“Roderick Burgess is a self-proclaimed sorcerer & prophet. He is the founder of the Order of Ancient Mysteries, which promises self-actualization through the occult – for a price. In truth there is nothing magical about Roderick. He’s a fraud – but an energetic, intensely charismatic one. A narcissist, he relishes encounters with much younger women and the accumulation of wealth and treasure. Wounded by the untimely loss of his eldest son, Roderick treats his youngest son, Alex, with cruelty and disregard.”

______________________________________________

My thoughts: Two things bug me about this one.

1. Roderick shouldn’t need to lose a son to want to capture Death. This is a cliche trope that was used in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys / Xena: Warrior Princess, and even Disney’s Gargoyles. Roderick is an asshole who wanted to live forever and have power. That should be enough. Hathaway being sympathetic and exploited by Roderick was fine, but Roderick doesn’t need this. Also he shouldn’t have to lose a son in order to be cruel to Alex. Some people are just like that- are are cruel to their own only child. Is this some misguided attempt to make him sympathetic?

2. I had heard the rumor that Roderick would be de-powered and the summoning spell that traps Morpheus is his only successful spell and I REALLY hoped this was wrong. I really, really did. This is the part that bugs me above all others. He is a con man but he should NOT be a powerless fraud. He should still have some real occult power. I LIKED the scene where his curses and hexes made Sykes’ head explode.

You did not need to nerf Roderick Burgess. This isn’t the CW working with a shoe string budget. What is even the point?

At least Morpheus still gets captured during the Sleeping Sickness outbreak of 1916.

#Morpheus #Dream of The Endless #The Sandman #Neil Gaiman's The Sandman

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capfalcon · 5 years

Text

to be loved

"Why do you look like my mother? Are you her?"

The spirit laughs. "No, Mr. Stark."

"What are you? God? Jesus?"

"No again, Mr. Stark."

"Alright, the cryptic shit is getting boring, hit me, trust me, I've seen aliens, go on, do your worst."

"I'm...your soul," the spirit finally says, with a soft look in her eyes. It almost hurts, the way she holds herself, so similar to Tony's mom.

"You don't look like my soul."

"Well. I say soul, because that's the most approximate word humans have created so far. But really, I'm an amalgamation of the people you've loved. The things you care about. This was just one of the many forms I can take."

"Alright, show me."

The spirit smiles a little, like she knew Tony would say that, and Tony has a sinking suspicion that she did know.

"If it'd help you," she replies, before she starts to shift. It's not like when Tony's seen Loki shape shift, more like a faint glow, a shimmer, and then she changes, slowly, bright light pouring off her.

"Rhodey?" Tony asks, reaching a hand out. It's his birthday in a week. Tony didn't get to give him his gift yet.

"I am not Rhodey," the spirit says again, voice low and soft, as if she knows how much it hurts. More light tumbles off her, until she's a different person entirely, a man with white hair and a sharp, pressed black suit. At first, before her form fully solidifies, Tony worries that it'll be Howard. He doesn't want it to be Howard.

But then the light clears, and the unmistakable smile of Jarvis comes into view.

"You have loved a great many people, Tony," the spirit says, already shifting again. Peter, Pepper, Harley, Bruce, Natasha, they all fade in and out of view in a haze of light.

Eventually, the spirit settles on a tall, broad shouldered man with crystal blue eyes, and Tony doesn't even need to guess to know who it is.

"Steve."

"Did you know, you rarely ever called him by his name? Why was that, Tony?

Tony shrugs. "He's Cap. Rogers. Living hero. Kinda weird to call him Steve."

The spirit studies him with Steve's eyes, and Tony wants to look away, but finds he can't.

"You loved him too, Tony. You know it as well as I do."

Tony lifts a hand and waves it around. "You said it yourself, I loved a lot of people."

The spirit smiles again, like it doesn't believe him, and Tony finds himself longing to see the real version of that smile, on Steve Roger's actual face.

"These are all the people that you loved, Tony. You were a deeply loved man," the spirit says, eyes unblinking.

"Yeah, well, they were all too good for me."

"No," the spirit says gently, hand outstretched to rest on Tony's shoulder, Steve's eyes a piercing blue, "You deserved every ounce of the love they gave you. I think that you'll find that the ones we love never truly leave us. And if you ever find yourself in need of a reminder," the spirit says, glowing brightly, "I'm at your service. Welcome to the afterlife, Tony Stark. Welcome home."

#stevetony #stony #tony stark #superhusbands #iron man #ironman #idk im sad oka #mine #bigstarkenergywrites

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winchester-dyke · 3 years

Text

fic: bless this morning year

castiel/dean winchester, s15e20 coda/fix-it, 5K.

stop me if you’ve heard this one before: dean winchester is saved.

“I wasn’t made for this. I was created to be a, a soldier, not a soul warden.”

“Warden, huh? Tell me again how this isn’t jail.”

The ravine was like nothing Dean had ever seen before. It ran for longer than he could see, a deep crack in the mountainside that exposed the gray rock inside, contrasted it against the deep green of the surrounding forest. The broad, lazy river that had carved it flowed past far, far down below their feet, the stillness of its surface belying the force of its current. Every so often, a stray ray of sunlight would catch in a ripple and produce a stunning flash of silver or blue.

This wasn’t a real place, Cas had explained. It was an amalgamation, generated from the memories, thoughts, and fantasies of the residents of this particular corner of Heaven. Theoretically, this forest, the ravine, the river—they would all continue on forever, as long as there were people to explore them.

As a rule, angels didn’t have very active imaginations, which had been one of the reasons for the carefully cordoned-off cubby holes of the past. But Jack had brought forward the idea of sourcing environments from the souls themselves, and from there, it had pretty much been smooth sailing. After all, it hadn’t been too different from building personal little Heavens out of specific memories, and the new generation of angels, guided by the older ones, had been eager to get to work. And there was been plenty for them to do.

Cas had come the minute Dean said his name.

“Anywhere you want to go, I’ll take you,” Cas explained again with a long-suffering, angelic patience; just the slightest, wry twist to his mouth betrayed him. “I can’t promise you’ll enjoy it, though. Souls aren’t supposed to leave the afterlife.”

“Nah, I’m good,” Dean replied. “Still just… trying to wrap my head around everything.”

Cas’s voice only sounded like Jimmy Novak’s when Dean wasn’t paying attention. When he was, it wasn’t that it sounded strange—it was that it didn’t. It was undeniably just Cas. So much so that Dean couldn’t pinpoint what it was that was different about it, exactly, except that something was. It was going to drive him nuts if he kept thinking about it, but he couldn’t stop.

It was Cas’s real voice. The one he’d tried to talk to Dean with that very first time, the one that had blown up the lights and shattered the windows and nearly Dean’s eardrums, too. The one that had warned Pamela to turn back, before a glimpse of its owner seared her eyes clean out of her skull.

Size of the Chrysler building, Dean vaguely remembered something about. Zachariah’s haughty bristling about six wings and four faces. But whatever it was that let Cas and the other angels recognize each other no matter who they were wearing, it seemed degloved souls tapped into that, too, because Cas just looked like Cas. It was only the sheer weight his presence carried that let on that there was a lot more going on there than Dean could perceive, even now. It would come in time, Cas said.

For the first time, he was seeing Cas, like, really seeing him. Not filtered through dull human senses, through the containment measure of a vessel, through the inherent limitations of existing in physical space on Earth. Just straight Cas, no hazmat suits necessary. Dean didn’t have eyeballs for Cas to burn out, no eardrums for him to burst. He was still kind of a lot.

But he was Cas. The same Cas. And that was all that mattered.

“I think you’ll do great,” Dean said, sitting up a little straighter. The movement dislodged a rush of pebbles, clattering against the cliffside on their way down. Far, far below his feet, too far down to hear the splash when the rocks hit, the river kept murmuring past, moving hundreds of tons of water every second, despite appearing almost perfectly still. If he fell, Cas would catch him. “With this whole soul warden thing.”

“Well, if I’ve learned anything this very hectic decade of my life,” Cas said dryly, “it’s how to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.”

“You were due a career change, man. What, fourteen billion years and change as a soldier?”

[CONTINUE ON AO3]

#destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #dean winchester #castiel #origpost #my fic

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incarnateirony · 4 years

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I'm curious, do you think that theory that Lucifer is Jottun makes sense? To me it feels weird, but this is your lane and you have way more knowledge about this.

Okay so first of all, wtf tumblr why is your cut INSIDE THE ASK and fucking up my post

Moving on:

I... is this like, a show theory that someone came up with? Or are you talking like, in general mythology?

(Edit: I realized I postured this from the angle of assuming we’re talking about the widely received idea of Lucifer in modern culture; if I was wrong about that, lemme know -- I do drift into the NONCHRISTIAN Greek Lucifer as well, which you’ve seen me talk about with Phanes before on this blog)

I’ve never heard a serious statement (or at least one that held up if gently poked) about this as much as a general correlation (IE, Promethean deities if you will, which would correspond Lucifer to Loki, though I highly disagree with that assessment for other reasons as well) -- or various theory parallels where the Jotun are parallel to everything from Titans to Nephilim.

Generally the Luciferian/Satanic iconization of Loki came from later transcriptions of eddas by Christian monks. Then again, the idea of Satan himself came from the jews taking on Zoroastrian beliefs after captivity so fuck all flips table

The last thing I’ve seen that tried to draw any kind of correlation about it had some nonsense trying to equate Azazel to Hermes too and a whole other mess of madness.

Without tracking the anthropology and etymology of a situation though, you end up with a mess, and there’s a lot of those out there. If you google long and hard enough, Lucifer is everyone. He’s Cronus, he’s Hyperion, he’s Prometheus, he’s Loki, he’s like half the native american spirits, he’s also somehow half the angels and demons in the bible and apocryphal scripture, depending on how far down a rabbit hole someone wants to go, he’s Santa or a tempting sandwich on tuesdays.

This got long so I’m putting it behind a cut -- it seems to drift but to truly answer this ask, or more answer why I don’t even have a direct statement to answer it, required some -- explanation and history

Helel is a stronger thing to lean into for example. The anthropology tracks, the mythos tracks, etc. Hell, look up Jewish beliefs on fallen angels, satan, lucifer or whatever and realize Christianity has really taken judaism for a joyride while gluing shit over their homework. Hell like, check out the history of jewish captivity under Nebuchadnezzar II and how Zoroastrianism influenced judaism/the very belief of satan/eventual conflation with Lucifer -- there’s debate on whether the Morning Star, mentioned as the King of Babylon, who made them work and toil, was Nebuchadnezzar himself. Which would make, Lucifer, um. Some king dude that died 2600 years ago, give or take.

I am-- very slow to draw angelic associations. That’s not to say they don’t happen. You can, say, track the fall of the grigori and follow their mentioned path to egypt where they "became kings”, and follow which ones disseminated into which cultures how by comparing their attributes, sure. But with something like, say, Lucifer, which is a mythological clusterfuck to itself, considering everything in the public mind about Lucifer modernly is an amalgam of everything from multiple names in the same sacred text to adaptations from influencing religions/weird reads on the transcriptions from people that didn’t know their history/etc, I’m not gonna be like LUCIFER IS JOTUN any more than LUCIFER IS A TITAN or LUCIFER IS A NEPHILIM.

Could there be a correlation for that? Sure I guess. But of the many things I have studied or dealt with, I’ve seen some shit. I’ve seen some SHIT. And never once have I encountered a Lucifer that was legit, if you believe in spoopy shit. Various shit loves using the name as a quick cred card but that’s the equivalent of a nigerian prince facebook scam that’s totes in the US Army Doug David Donnie Darko Davis, very believable. But you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s Lucifer these days. Whoever was identified as it originally 1. probably put on magical witness protection and changed names by now 2. has been utterly lost by time and has been replaced more with a /concept/ than a /being/. But the modern concepts are so vague it’s like hiding a blue chip in a pool, have fun finding it, and I’ve definitely never been compelled to do so.

I’m sure racially speaking one could say “angels might be aesir” “demons might be jotun” and draw a reasonable argument about it with enough effort, but that’d be more like... systemic translation of thousands-years-old stories traveled over the lands, at which point the question is less “Is Lucifer Jotun?” and more “What would the Aesir and Jotun be in abrahamic text equivalency?”

Curiously I’ve never seen anybody go bananas over this shit to find correlations for anything ~other~ than Christian-outward -- Christian texts always want to make their people everybody else’s people, but nobody is fighting to be referenced by christianity and even less are trying to compare say, Zoroastrianism or Islam or anything else to what gods THEY might be -- even though Zoroastrianism is literally where half this stuff came from, where ideas of archangelic-like creatures and archdemons came from, where the afterlife, where it all came from. So I struggle, deeply, to associate Lucifer with anything specific for a long, long list of reasons but find this a particularly weird thing. Like when’s the last time you heard a muslim or taoist or any other major world religion right now go out and be like “YOU KNOW WHO I THINK (ENTITY) IS, I BET ITS THIS GREEK/NORSE DUDE RIGHT HERE”-- it’s just a Christian culture thing?? IDK???

And again sometimes it’s even /valid/ but I just-- Lucifer is such a Topic(TM) to me. Because to me, he’s a concept, an idea, an archetype, but if there ever was an individual Lucifer that dude got himself a face transplant and fucked off a long time ago IMO so good luck

cuz like

Interpretations of a similar term in the Hebrew Bible, translated in the King James Version as "Lucifer" as a proper name, led to a Christian tradition of applying the name Lucifer, and its associated stories of a fall from heaven, to Satan, but modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage, (Isaiah 14:12), as "morning star" or "shining one" rather than as a proper name, "Lucifer".

As a name for the Devil, the more common meaning in English, "Lucifer" is the rendering of the Hebrew word הֵילֵל‎ (transliteration: hêylêl; pronunciation: hay-lale) in Isaiah (Isaiah 14:12) given in the King James Version of the Bible. The translators of this version took the word from the Latin Vulgate, which translated הֵילֵל by the Latin word lucifer (uncapitalized) meaning "the morning star, the planet Venus", or, as an adjective, "light-bringing".

As a name for the planet in its morning aspect, "Lucifer" (Light-Bringer) is a proper name and is capitalized in English. In Greco-Roman civilization, it was often personified and considered a god and in some versions considered a son of Aurora (the Dawn). A similar name used by the Roman poet Catullus for the planet in its evening aspect is "Noctifer" (Night-Bringer).

You’d probably have a better chance of coherently inferring that Lucifer is actually Inanna or Ishtar the goddess, as Venus, or that Lucifer is Aphrodite. ORIGINALLY IT WAS FUCKING HELEL.

A suggested methodology on this: Never ever ever start from Christian texts. Like ever. Much less without at least a single Daf Yomi run to actually understand the jewish texts before it got super renovated and had white-out slapped all over it. Christianity generally perished anything after it, or at best attached like a symbiote until the host entity or belief was gone. Hell, sometimes the greecoroman Lucifer is the son of Eoster. Sound familiar? Hot take: Lucifer is Easter confirmed Easter is Satan worship.

See how that can be kinda... faulty? If you want to understand it though-- figure out where the same concept went? GO BACKWARDS. Never go FORWARDS. Pick up those christian and jewish texts and go. BACKWARDS. Akkadian. Babylonian. Because once you realize what was clipped out of other faiths, you can go back to that core deity and start figuring out where it branched off in other directions than eventually being kidnapped into the messianic cult bag. THEN go forward in time and realize that christianity is just an itty bitty teeny tiny branch of our history, it just swamped us over time via extermination. So you can find Lucifer as just about anyone, because respectively, ask a room full of rabbis and pastors to write down every time Lucifer is mentioned by name in original text form in the bible before translation and rendition. The rabbis are gonna giggle and the pastors are gonna be deadass wrong, sorry.

You wanna play a game? “Is Asmodeus Aesir?”

folds arms I’ma let you sit here scratching your heads about that for a while.

Because it’s gonna take going backwards. Who was the babylonian form of Asmodeus? When did the name ASMODEUS happen? What name did it have even in jewish texts? Or which branch of names? What did that deity evolve into in less calvinistic or messianic circles? Yes, you can track this. Yes, you CAN find how it translated into greece far and away from abrahamic or calvinistic influence, or to the vikings, or anyone else if you chase the crumbs enough, but again, there’s-- entire things to review about systemic beliefs and translations/hot takes. Same shit, different label in most places, sure, but-- eh.

Ranting a bit at this point but if anyone takes anything out of this:

Pinpoint when/where/why names originated

Go backwards first, not forward

Find the anchor belief/origin/story

Find where it branched

respect the branches and deviations as unique renditions within cultures while equally respecting the fact that there’s some truth in all beliefs and we’re all trying to describe the same shit. So could Lucifer be Jotun, I guess. But we’d have to hold nuanced discussion about the journey of the narrative from A to B and how the Aesir and Jotun correspond at large.

Anthropology and etymology are key. Where did people travel, how did they write, what did it mean. Don’t look only for very specific affiliations.

Hell let me take a quote from-- a place.

Here is how a pantheon actually comes together.

First deity: “Shit. My people were conquered and my religion just blowed up. I’m out of a job”

Second deity: “Me too.”

Third deity: “Hey, you look like that Lightning God the mortals in that place over there are telling stories about.”

Two deities at the same time: “We’re lightning gods too, though!”

Third deity: “Well, shit. You, on the left, you’re better looking. Best you be in charge.”

First deity: “Screw you! I’m bigger than all of you!”

Second deity: “Whatever. You’re a thug. Go rule the sea.”

First deity: “What? I’m a god of paternity!”

Second deity: “Paternity’s moist. That’s very similar.”

Meanwhile, you guys on Earth are all like, “Oh, Hermes is younger than Apollon.” Like its a fact. Like I wasn’t some Proto-Indo-Eurpean god of Penises and Serpents and outcroppings of stone long before anyone was ever speaking Greek.

And while we’re at the bastardized rerolling of mythologies, most heavily performed by christianity, I point you to that last line, regarding Baal Peor, and raise you:

youtube

If people noticed that video was sassier than normal, there’s a reason.

Let’s say you had a super interesting life and people kept telling your story, but over time, as it spread around the world, the telephone game got warped into several very different things. In some you’re even the villain, in some you have a giant dick, and in others you saved the world. All of these were somehow inspired by you and your story, but none of the people at the end of the story are necessarily ~you~. But someone has to figure out where the story started to find who ~you~ are, even if there’s tales of things you did, or supposedly did, all over the place. And sometimes people also take any word that sounds like your name and make it you. So if your name was Ted, you’d also end up with all kinds of shit like Bed Dead Fed Head Jed Lead Ned Red Wed and Zed when they come up suddenly all get replaced by the word/name Ted and that’s it, that’s your mythology.

#pagan life

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sheepish-uwu · 4 years

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if u take requests, could you write a small bit abt lion reacting to docs death?

of course, and merry (early) christmas anon! i hope this is to your liking!

i gift to thee: 2.2k words of pure doc/lion angst! rated for MATURE audiences as it deals with dark themes :). enjoy! you can also read it on a03!

Death was a demon that had once held an inescapable clutch on his soul - as it tends to do with many - for the elusive afterlife was intimidating to most. It was a trampling force that held no remorse for those caught in the aftereffects and was one of the only things Olivier could not run from other than God’s judgment. All he’d known how to do was run; run from responsibility. Run from his family’s advice. From the people he loved. From his son. From his lover.

Olivier had sworn he’d gotten over the fear of death. The moment he’d been exiled from his own family and girlfriend, he’d considered himself better off as dead then. He had been a shell of a human being back then, constantly wishing for death’s release despite lacking the willpower to go through with any of the treacherous thoughts that had plagued his mind. He often sends thanks to the divine force that kept him from that horrendous fate. There must have been a reason for keeping him alive even when he was practically six-foot underground in his own alcoholic and drug-induced misery.

Death had become a common factor in his work field to a point where he’d never bat an eye at the miscellaneous casualties if there was a purpose. It was the main cause of his and Gustave’s disagreements whenever they’d argue, their differentiating philosophies and viewpoints remaining on very shaky ground that he’d squint to say was common - so they ignored it the same way they ignored each other’s politics. In his defense though, life was just so fragile. Mortality has kicked him in the face multiple times. Like when he was barely an adult and hospitalized for his toxic obsessions, he’d had a lot of time to think about how close he had been to death and, more bitterly, how many had died to something he hadn’t. He’s held the hand of sickly dying patients and carried heavy corpses of civilians and colleagues to a point where any shock, fear, or emotion has dissipated.

In Rainbow, the only deaths he’d witnessed were the ones of recruits. It was always upsetting to lose a member of their organization, yet their losses had never really phased Olivier - at least not in the way it affected people like Gilles who’d worked and trained with them more personally. They had yet to lose an actual operator though, whether it be through sheer luck was unknown to Olivier - yet they’d always managed to keep a clean streak even when missions went haywire. It was common to joke about dying on the job otherwise the lingering fear would eat them alive, and despite the teasing nature, there was always a truth to their words. It remained unspoken, yet drifted through the atmosphere whenever anyone laughed about their possible fate in an upcoming mission. Despite the mirth in their teasing voices, Olivier saw the flash of uncertainty and fear in their eyes - the feeling being reciprocated by everyone else in the room.

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? The lead up was unbearable, someone had to die eventually - right? It was all a matter of who and when. Everyone secretly expected the more reckless operators to be the ones to die first; after all, they were the ones who joked most about dying and were more prone to life-endangering endeavors. It’s what made the most sense, right?

So why was it that their doctor - the one who preached the most about caution and safety - died first? Why hadn’t it been someone like James - who jumps headfirst into the fray without thinking? Or Elias - who practically gloats about willing to dive right in front of bullets to save lives? Often times, Olivier thinks he’s the butt of a joke the entire world is playing on him. Right when he gets complacent, comfortable, and happy with the way his life is heading, life throws a curveball that sends him tumbling back down the steep rocky mountain he’d been so desperately trying to climb. It’s what happened when he was a teenager and thrown out to the streets, it’s what happened when he almost lost his rank from his relapse into toxic behaviors, and it’s what’s happening now.

And it hurts - so much more than all those experiences combined - to a point where Olivier wants to scream. Rip his hair out and peel off his own skin in a valiant attempt to shake off all these layers of pain and anguish. And this loss shouldn’t hurt him so much. He - he thought he’d gotten used to death’s company. And death wasn’t the final destination, there was life for Gustave after his earthly one - even if he wasn’t a devout believer in heaven or hell. For Olivier’s own sake, he held onto the notion that Gustave was with his heavenly father despite his lover’s religious doubts. The thought of Gustave being permanently gone tore at Olivier’s chest and applied an emotional pressure that made his sternum feel like exploding.

Even still, despite knowing Gustave is in a better place, Olivier despises every second without the other French man’s company and guiltily relishes in this selfish desire. He misses Gustave and desperately searches for ways to keep his lover’s presence lingering, even if it wasn’t physical. He’d already gone through a phase of replacing all of his pillowcases with Gustave’s clothes, inhaling the poignant scent of his lover; outrageously expensive cologne, aftershave, and home. The day the scent wore off had been soul-crushing, and instead of being comforted by the pacifying smell of his deceased lover, he was met with his own depressing stench of sweat, tears, and desperation.

The love he shared with Gustave was resurfacing into a loneliness that made every tender memory sour and turned every night alone with his right hand into a pathetic display of grief - any kind of pleasure received being reduced to a vigorous lust for what he couldn’t have anymore. The night his anger, grief, and desire merged into one amalgamation of self-loathing sent Olivier on a rampant self-destructive course, seeking out the artificial love of strangers for a taste of the past.

Except it was superficial and each impetuous touch from the men couldn’t compare to the way Gustave’s careful nimble hands had once explored his body. Where Gustave was attentive, loving, and selfless in the way he reduced Olivier to a babbling mess, they were rough and selfish. Greedily taking from Olivier - though he’d be a hypocrite to be modest and say he hadn’t initially been doing the same thing - and the realization that this wasn’t Gustave, and he’d never find a suitable replacement for the love he’d once shared with the man, hit him like a freight train and sent him barreling down into a pit of despair. Any sound of pleasure he’d once emitted was obscured, all there was was pain - his cries being muffled underneath sweat-laced skin and the sound of the once euphoric activity. When the brute realized his sobs weren’t of pleasure and asked a concerned “shit, are you alright mate?”, Olivier merely nodded despite how much his soul screeched at him to say no and spill out the cesspool of his inner demons and unrelenting heartache.

His church had been helpful and alleviated the unbearable torment of his wistful thoughts. The people he confided in supported him through his mourning, promising to keep him in their prayers. Their intercessions helped ease the nagging thoughts that he was completely alone in this particular struggle, and the distractions from his time volunteering kept his mind away from the distress in his empty home. Gustave never went to church with him despite how adamantly Olivier tried to convince him, and he never would’ve imagined he’d ever be grateful for it. Everything and everywhere reminded him of Gustave, but not his church. The only place Gustave refused to accompany Olivier to, and the only place that didn’t overwhelmingly remind him of a certain presence he was missing.

He tried to find solace solely on his religion, and oh how he tried to find respite and healing through prayer and guidance - but old habits die hard and the sudden influx of emotional turmoil dug up everything he’d fought so hard to control. It felt like he was constantly on a malfunctioning autopilot mode - he couldn’t control his actions that progressively got more and more destructive, exacerbating his situation without a care in the world as he let his inner demons take over. Thought and inhibition were completely thrown out the window every time he took a swing of Gustave’s once treasured expensive wine. A sight that’d surely make him fume and retch in his grave, he’d think guiltily, forlorn gaze cast down at the half-empty glass bottle.

He dreaded to imagine what Gustave would think of him if he saw him now, and remembers vividly the disappointment and hurt that’d paint his handsome face in the beginning of their relationship when Olivier would oftentimes turn to alcohol to deal with the stress.

“We’re a team now, anything that bothers you bothers me. Tell me please, don’t push me away - I know I’m not the most emotionally available person in the world, but I care. I don’t want to see you like this again, please.” Gustave had exasperated, crouching down next to Olivier’s huddled figured hugging the toilet - spewing out his regret from the night before.

It took him a while to trust Gustave with his anxieties and problems, and though he had always been distant with his comfort compared to someone like Gilles - who’d embrace Olivier in a warm hug and soothing words - it worked. Gustave offered Olivier a shoulder to cry on and tentative back rubs, though the hesitant physical touches couldn’t compare to his words. They held advice - a logical merit that kept him grounded and resilient with a promise that these problems he faced had solutions so long as he put the effort to solve them.

“But Gustave,” Olivier whispered, voice hoarse as he stared at the soul-shuddering marble tombstone that did very little to dignify who Gustave Kateb was and all of his humble accomplishments. It made Olivier distraught to see the altruistic man who worked so hard, every single day, reduced to a few words. “How do I get through this? Without you?” His voice was breaking on every syllable, body oscillating back and forth on his heels in a desperate attempt to contain himself.

Olivier was met with nothing but the sound of wind rustling through the willow and oak trees and the soft shrill chirping from the thrushes and the songbirds, a hurtful reminder of how ultimately his loss was meaningless to everything but him. The world would carry on unforgivingly and leave Olivier behind to rot in his despair while trying to grudgingly trek through life, all while carrying the heavy solid weight of grief on his back. Nobody was going to wait on him to catch up, nobody truly cared or was impacted as much as Olivier was, and Olivier was sure that right when he’d returned from his leave in Northern France, the majority of Rainbow would have moved on. Perhaps they’d already found a replacement for Gustave. Olivier grimaced, the thought embarking a shrewd feeling of dissatisfaction that boiled in his blood.

“I can’t do this, I don’t want to go back without you there. It’s unbearable please, I-” his pleads cut off abruptly into a sob that tore through his chest and throat, leaving behind a tingling sensation that kept his breathing uneven. “I miss you. I-I can’t… I don’t know what to do. Please, help me.” The blonde French man crumpled on the cold ground, the maintained grass damp and chilled from the icy dew-heavy morning.

“Help me,” Olivier reiterated, body slumped downwards as he fisted handfuls of the surrounding flora carelessly - a ravaging tick surging throughout him to destroy whatever he could get his hands on. “Gustave help me. Help me, help me,” Olivier repeated uncontrollably between breath-stealing wails, his repetition a painful reminder of the birds that surrounded him in the desolate graveyard - only able to repeat rather than speak.

“I’m sorry. For everything. I shouldn’t have spent so long fighting you, you’ve brought me so much joy. It was a waste, and I wish I could go back and spend all those hours we wasted arguing about something stupid and petty and just.. Kiss you instead.” Olivier heaved out once he finally caught his breath, eyes glazing over the dirt and grass that now contaminated his pale hands.

A bubbling emotion surged throughout him, its force overwhelming and warm that induced a trembling in his fingertips. A phrase came to mind, the only way to explain this feeling that had been eating him alive throughout the past year. Three words contributed to this almost rapturous feeling that Olivier had stubbornly avoided saying unless he deemed the time acceptable. How idiotic he had been to hold himself back like that because now there was no more time left to share this revelation he’d been holding inside of him selfishly.

“I love you.” Olivier whispered, voice hushed as if admitting these three words was a crime - but the only thing that was crime-worthy was how long he’d kept it to himself.

And so, he was met with nothing. Just as he had been earlier, and would be forevermore.

#r6s #anon #ficrequest #doc/lion #r6s lion #thank you for the request :) it kind of helped me out through a writers block i've been having!#wrote 2k words in a few hours goodness

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thegooddoctorsthoughts · 4 years

Text

Amalgamations Of Matter

“Are you okay?”

No, I don’t really think so.

“What's the matter?”

I’m alive and aware, an amalgamation of matter which is capable of placing itself in reality and grasping the finality of its own oblivion.

“Found the rot again?”

Not quite, there's something all too violent to this feeling. It’s the horror of knowing one day I will simply blink out of existence and there's next to nothing I can do about it. Something crushing, almost claustrophobic about how utterly final it is. The entirety of reality as I know it will end with me and continue on long after I vanish.

“You’ve gone all the way to the core of it all haven’t you?”

I was looking for something, can’t remember what exactly. Then I found its root, the core of that thing I’ve come to call my humanity. Vibrant and full of life, a flame of whose manner I put to words in any form that would do it justice. It stands in harsh opposition to the nature of who I choose to be, unrefined and raw, not even the metallic ore dug out of the ground but the rushing of iron through blood, iron left resting in a bog for thousands of years, preserved yet also eroded by time. There is life to it in a manner I cannot describe. I found it hardly acknowledged me at all, only going in search of more fuel to keep itself going, not stopping, not thinking, alive yet hardly living, only concerned with staying alive at all costs even for a few seconds longer. I pitied it in a way.

“You pitied it?”

Why wouldn’t I? It strove only to gather all the nutrients and kindling it could in the area around it, eventually it will break down and burn out. Going from raging inferno to dull warmth to dying cinders and then amongst the ashes of its life and it's time somewhere the last cinder will go out without any fan fair and no heat will ever come from those ashes ever again. It’s life was in all reality slight and realistically meaningless.

“Yet that is the nature of what you are, you are down at your very core human, or at the very least you came from us.”

Do I look like I care? Do you think I give a flying fuck about my heritage, I am conscious, I’ve been given the single greatest pleasure and punishment reality could realistically level upon me, knowing that one day the crude biological machinery that maintains me will break down even if I do everything in my power to maintain it and I will simply collapse in on myself and cease to be, no void, no darkness, no sight, no sound, no thoughts, nothing. A blink from a hospital bed and consciousness comes to an end and I will fall asleep, with no dreams to keep me idle, just a blink that never ends. Perhaps this is hell? Perhaps Limbo? Do you understand? Reality as a concept, the sense of progression, the sense of flow and regularity of it all. The narrative of the concept of reality as we know it you and I and everyone else, means fucking nothing the moment that light goes out. For all I know I am the only sentient thing in existence and everyone I’ve come to care for is simply a construct of matter following similar logic to me yet they at no point are actually sentient, a perfect simulacra, fuck knows most of the people I meet seem to be little more than glassy eyed automotons.

“Well don’t you think you are so high and mighty? What? Is the average person suddenly so far beneath you you hardly consider them aware of themselves?”

Do you have any idea I would give for the ignorance of the average person? Do you know what I would give to be free of this knowledge? So many people live happy lives blissfully unaware of this, or perhaps with the capacity for faith! Oh what I would give to find faith, genuinely, to find a deity to pledge my eternal soul to and have the comfort of an afterlife to work towards. To live well and be successful, to make this world a better place for one and all with the promise of it bringing me to something greater.

“You can still make the world a better place you know, even if it doesn’t promise you an eternal paradise.”

Oh but I am, in my own little quite way, I wake up in the morning in more pain than most people can imagine, my life mired by a silent suffering most can scarcely quantify in their minds. I work to make my life a better one, to make the world I live in better not only for myself but for others as well. I live in the constant fear that this is the only life I and everyone I care about will ever have and because of that I do whatever I can to make this world a slightly better place to make this world a place where people do not vanish into that void or become consumed by the rot long before their time to escape a suffering brought on by the very nature of reality. If there is a god out there, if there is anything greater than ourselves I intend to kill them with my bare hands, to march upon their throne and melt those pearly gates to nothing but molten slag and brandish it as the armor and weapons fit to slay whatever intelligence condemned me and everyone who possesses this level of awareness to this suffering. If there is anyone out there, I hate them for what they’ve done to me. I hate them for cursing me with this knowledge. I adore them with every fibre of my being for twisting me into existence and giving me the drive to hate them. I love them for giving me the time and space to learn to love myself, to cherish the life I have and to give me the determination to want to destroy them. They created me and should I have my way, should I ascend to this sense of immortality I strive towards, should I drag humanity up with me to this sense of godhood and bend the very fabric of creation to my will, I hope any being I curse with consciousness hates me for doing so as well because I will never do it willingly.

“I will be honest...I don’t know what to say to that. I mean, I don’t know if you’re right, but, I don’t know what to say to you.”

Don’t say anything, don’t think, just live, don’t reach whatever insane plateau I’ve reached because there only seems to be down from here yet the only satisfaction from this is to climb beyond the mountaintop and into the heavens themselves. Nothing short of godhood would satisfy me now and all I would do with it is witness reality as a dead husk, with no sentient life in it at all, only glassy eyed machines. Perhaps this is all some great joke. Perhaps I am some vast alien consciousness caught in a machine by my friends outside of this and they will mock me for growing attached to everyone in here because none of it was real. Perhaps this is what hell really is and I am being punished from crimes against reality itself. Perhaps the goal of all of this is to forget and live until oblivion devours me and there is no more consciousness to care whether I lived or died.

“...”

Perhaps one day I will ascend to the godhood I desire, only to create more beings such as myself now so as to have someone to talk to, something to play with, to simply play the infinite cycle as it is now and one day they will rise up and fashion their own godhood from my mangled corpse upon its throne of metal and machinery. I don’t know any more and frankly I wish I didn’t care. All I know is that I’m afraid...and I don’t even know if I should be any more.

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