#so to have such a massive part of his identity stripped from him... honestly it doesn't seem that he ever fully comes to terms with it

[muninnhuginn]

Thinking about "your weakness is how you always want to be the hero" and how the series returns to this at the end

Li Lianhua hated how he acted as Li Xiangyi and spent years trying to distance himself from it, but ultimately he still fell back into the similar patterns, for all his added experience

His main priority was always to "do the right thing" regardless of how that would impact on those around him. And it *did* impact those around him. From Qiao Wanmian and Shan Gudao as Li Xiangyi to Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng as Li Lianhua

Giving the Styx flower to the emperor so he could use it as leverage to guarantee Fang Duobing and his family's safety. Using the last of his power to save Yun Biqiu. Constantly putting others above himself whilst actively refusing to recognise that his self-sacrificial nature would hurt those he cared about most

And sure, he thinks he's going to die anyway. They're going to be hurt regardless and he can't do anything about that. His odds are low of the Styx flower even working. But ultimately, he refuses to even consider trying. Li Xiangyi has been dead a long time and Li Lianhua is just there to tide things over. What value is the life of a ghost

To the end, he lives and dies a hero. To the end, he refuses to live for himself.

#sth about how he almost managed to live for himself but his past and need to do right doomed him. #those missing years before canon starts were probably the closest he got but even then the knowledge he couldn't use martial arts #must have killed him (no pun intended). because he'd put so much stock in his identity as sigu sect leader + hero + prodigy #so to have such a massive part of his identity stripped from him... honestly it doesn't seem that he ever fully comes to terms with it #but he makes progress and he tries to do better. + that leads to him becoming a different type of 'hero' than the symbol he was originally #deep down he wants to help people with all he has but his capacity isn't infinite + at some point can only be taken from himself #mysterious lotus casebook #mlc spoilers #also to be clear I mention shan gudao not to say lxy should have realised earlier bc for a lot of the time he was too young to notice #and later on sgd did better at hiding his intentions. but more for how lxy tunnel visioned towards his idea of righteousness #and steamrolled over everyone else. both sgd and qwm were placed far below the importance of the sigu sect #and lxy's arrogance made it such that sigu became reliant on him alone as he shut others out (hence domino fall once he went). #idk if he could ever have 'fixed' what was btwn him and sgd bc it was so deep rooted but I do think that his actions #helped convince sgd that sgd was entirely in the right to choose his path #mlc #edit: just went and checked the exact wording of the TL and it's actually 'you like being a hero' rather than 'you want to be the hero' #which is different but still close enough in implications for my point to stand (I think)

[abysskeeper]

What is that draws you to Ruby x Oscar? (I mean it on a 'pls infodump me' vibe.)

I enjoy committing to the bit of less popular ships in RWBY and suffering the consequences

@flytehwire Ok, seriously, to answer this properly I need to explain something about myself. When I am looking for character pairings, I am looking for, in order of importance: 1. Harmonious themes and rhetoric, 2. Character interactions, and 3. Other, extenuating factors. While other factors can sometimes determine how I view a pairing (romantic/platonic/friend/familial/etc) and character interactions can override the thematic element, I am primarily looking for those sweet, sweet story beats.

So, when you give me two kids carrying the weight of massive legacies they feel they have to fulfill, stepping into leadership roles neither were prepared for, and throw in a smattering of identity issues to boot? Yeah, I'm hooked 100%. These two are important to each other on a base narrative level, before even considering we see they're important to each other in their interactions throughout the show. Their arcs mirror each other, but are different enough that they compliment each other and are not going through the exact same thing.

By which I mean, both are struggling with the very same things listed above, but slightly to the left of each other to make them different enough that it makes them both unique and interesting in their own rights. For sake of time and ease of answering, I'm not going to fully cite my sources, but it became increasingly apparent (especially through v9) that Ruby's whole issue is attempting to follow the legacies of those from before her, starting with the general, Hunter/Huntress ideal and the heroes of stories in the early volumes, and then moving over to the SEWs and her mother in the later volumes. A lot of untangling in this personal arc for her revolves around reconciling the fairy tales she believed in and what is being asked of her in reality, and then determining who she is and what she stands for when it becomes apparent those ideals are more lofty dreams and reality is much more complicated. In essence, Ruby's arc is finding who she was when stripped of everything she believed as a child, and we saw that exactly throughout v9 ("What are you?" // "What is a Huntress?" ultimately boil down to "Who is Ruby Rose?")

Oscar, conversely, I would argue, already had some sense of who he was at the start. Sure, he may have wanted more and was unable to voice exactly what "more" was, but he's young...who honestly knew what they wanted to do with their life when they were 14? Regardless, his arc is less about asking who he is and is more about the fear of losing himself entirely now that he's part of the Ozcarnation line--and thus, it's also more about proving who he is to the world around him as everyone else assumes he's just another copy/paste of Oz. Oscar had to have a strong handle of his own identity at the start simply in order to beat the "he's just Ozpin" allegations, which he eventually did do (with some help from Oz's disappearing act).

And that isn't to say that there aren't echoes of each other's themes as well. Ruby very much does lose herself and must reassert who she is at her core (most evident in v9, but definitely starting in v7). Oscar very much does have to figure out who he is in the Ozcarnation line and how he specifically wants to handle situations (most prominent in the "Her name...is Jinn" decision in v6 and his actions through v7, but also metatextually hinted at when he talks to Ironwood at the end of v7 holding himself and acting like Ozpin, and then getting shot, and then in v8 when he tries to act like Ozma and Salem directly calls him out. It's almost like fate is punishing him because he's supposed to think and act like Oscar, and not try to be those who came before him...). And I think ultimately that's what makes them fun for me, they revolve around this overarching theme of identity in the face of legacies and destinies and leadership and each take a piece to compliment the other.

Of course, that doesn't mean they have to be romantic. And that's correct, they don't! Full transparency, I honestly wasn't fully onboard with Rosegarden until the end of v7/start of v8. Oscar's blush at getting rescued was the first time I felt fully vindicated over a ship, but the ending of v7 is really the beginning for the end of me I think. It was at that point where it became apparent their themes were merging and then splitting off again into the projected trajectories they're on now. And, in terms of interaction, throughout v7 and v8, Ruby and Oscar are shown repeatedly to be in sync with each other and trusting each other (even when they don't necessarily agree with each other!) All of those moments for me boiled down to one single, striking fact: because of what they're going through and how similar each struggle was, Ruby and Oscar to me are the only two characters in the show who could understand each other on a deeper level.

(And as an aside, the release of 'Until the End' and 'Fear' being the last two songs of that volume, and clearly being a Ruby song and an Oscar song respectively, completely altered my brain chemistry. That's a separate 3k essay, but the call and response between 'Fear's' "Who will you see there in the darkness? // When no one is watching who will you be? When you're afraid and everything changes will you see a stranger? // Feel proud or betrayed?" vs 'Until the End's' "I promise I’ll be here until...Our story has been told // 'Til our bodies break down every door // 'Til we find what we’ve been looking for // And stare with pride into the face of fear // In our finest hour, I’ll be standing here // And should we fall to darkness // This power, I will harness // I promise I’ll be here until the end" just does things to me on a personal level).

Others come close. Jaune and Weiss both have similar arcs about breaking legacies as well (Weiss with her family and Jaune with...presumably his family, if not his personal views on what he should be and on his promises to Pyrrha), but they're both on a far more personal and less world-shaping level than Ruby and Oscar. Blake as well, with reclaiming her identity, but that as well is a little more personal and also more about regaining what was "stolen" by Adam, so to speak, than finding herself altogether. And Penny is more about learning everything altogether and learning about who she can and cannot trust more than about who she is at her core. And, as an aside, I am a multi-shipper. I do like several of these pairings with Ruby, and Oscar and Penny is an utterly fascinating concept to me.

The reason why Ruby and Oscar come out on top for me is because at the end of the day, they're still the only two who can understand and empathize with each other on the deepest level. They're the two that appear to be entirely in sync with each other. And they're also the two currently slated to be running the show in the next generation. And if there's one thing I love more than seeing my power couple ships completely in love, it's seeing those two characters entirely and implicitly understanding and trusting each other.

This is of course glossing over a lot too. Their scenes together are often pretty striking: the dojo scene in v5 (Oscar admitting he's scared, Ruby for the first time really opening up about Penny and Pyrrha at The Fall of Beacon), the cane scene in v6 (Ruby being the only one to comfort Oscar and reaffirm that he isn't Oz), Oscar's panic during the fight with Cordo, like...every scene they had in v7, Oscar's blush in v8 and the almost hug that wasn't, and of course, THE scene in v9 (and another 3k essay could be written on why that had to be Oscar, though most of the starting points on my opinion for that are above). They also have some other dichotomies going on in their rhetoric, with the silver/gold symbolism and the sun/moon symbolism; and the extra info in the show with the "Warrior in the Woods" fairy tale and Oscar's allusion to the Little Prince. But several other people have written far better analyses on those than I could ever do currently, and this is getting long enough as is.

But yeah, tl;dr thematically and rhetorically complimentary kids just trying to do their best, figure themselves out, and save the world? Yeah, I wanna see them cuddle and comfort and rely on each other in the way they only can with the other.

#don't mind me #well...you did ask for an infodump #the extreme tl;dr is that I like themes #and ruby and oscar themes match wonderfully #rwby #rosegarden #asks

[zerstorerin]

Broken Vow

Summary: Mando doesn't come back to the ship, so you go looking for him.

Warnings: Severe injury, near death, graphic imagery, medical procedures.

Word Count: 2.2k

Comments: The ANGST of injuries bc of the sweet care that follows brings me life.

It was always hard when Mando left, leaving you and the child on the ship for often days at a time while he took part in some scughole backwater job to help the three of you continue barely scraping by. Since joining the crew, you'd grown fond of the Mandalorian's protective presence, and when it was gone, you missed it. You missed him. It wouldn't be a lie to say you'd... become attached to the man beneath the armor.

This time, though, you had felt more anxious than usual in Mando's absence. Your gut told you something was wrong— not that you could do anything about it. Mando made you swear early on that your number one priority would be to keep the child safe, even if that meant abandoning the Mandalorian. You'd of course agreed, not knowing you'd later develop a deep connection to the armored warrior.

As soon as you stepped out of Hangar 3-5, you understood why Mando preferred you to stay back with the kid when you were on Tatooine. This planet was the definition of backwater scughole. You cringed at the acrid stench burning in your nose.

"You better come back alive, you here me?" Peli said, your little green baby cradled in her arms. "Or else that Mandalorian will blame me for whatever tragic end you meet."

The kid cooed at you, ears drooped. Honestly, the only reason you were even leaving the safety of the Razor Crest was because of him. He'd been frantically crying at you and touching all of Mando's in-reach belongings for at least an hour before you finally got the hint.

Mando told you about the kid's powers— things he'd seen that he couldn't explain. You knew that's what was happening now. Somehow, the child could sense that his ward was in trouble.

"I'll come back. Promise." You traced your pointer finger in a criss-cross motion in front of your heart. The kid seemed to relax a little.

By the time the binary suns were dipping over the sandy horizon, you'd barely wandered through half of Mos Eisley. The spaceport was massive and, not to mention, crowded beyond belief. You weren't even sure what to look for or what you'd do when you found him, if you were being honest. During the last hour, you'd been trying not to think about finding Mando dead, stripped of his armor, without any way to know it was him.

It was that thought that made you decide to turn back in hopes of discovering that he was waiting at the ship for you to return. You spun on your heel to go back the way you came, gaze drifting over an alleyway off the main street.

The glimpse of a figure slouched against the wall made you do a double take, and for a moment, you stared at him— if that even was him over there— and tried to muster up some bravery. You couldn't tell if he was breathing from here, and you weren't sure you could handle discovering that he wasn't.

"Mando?" you called out.

No response.

Your heart dropped to the floor. He's dead, you thought as you ran to his side, only confirming his identity by his armor. You didn't even have time to be relieved because there was blood everywhere.

Thick, dark liquid stained the sand around him, soaking into the dry desert ground almost as fast as it was pouring from his... from... Force. You swallowed as you inched closer. You couldn't even tell where it was coming from.

You wanted to throw up. This couldn't be real. It was just a terrible nightmare or some sick, twisted training exercise Mando engineered to test you. Anything else— it was anything else but reality.

It was real, though. You knew that. This was real because you could see it with your own eyes. You could smell the coppery, velvet tang of his blood, the taste lingering in your mouth with each breath. It was tangibly real, but you could fix this.

Mando's voice sounded from your memories.

Turn off your anxiety and worry, he had told you. Rely on instinct and muscle memory. That's how you deal with a crisis— as long as you remember what you're fighting for.

You tossed the ambien rifle off your shoulder, kneeling between his legs as you shoved your hand under his cowl to search for a pulse. Your fingertips grazed the scruffy underside of his jaw and trailed down his neck. The vein pulsed weakly under your touch once you found the right spot.

He's alive. If only just.

You tried again to search for the source of the blood, ultimately failing because of the restricting beskar— the armor that was supposed to make him invincible.

"Wake up," you pleaded, letting out a frustrated cry as you dropped your forehead on his cuirass. "Please, wake up."

And by some miracle, worn leather brushed the side of your cheek. "Cyar'ika?"

Your eyes snapped open, catching his gloved hand in your own and pressing it to your face. It was warm, and however faint, there was some strength in his movements. "Thank the Maker. I thought you were... gone." You choked out the last word. Trying to block out the what-ifs running through your mind as well as all the subsequent emotions, you focused your gaze on his visor, the reflective black glass and beskar as much a comfort to you as any.

"Not g-gone yet," Mando groaned as he tried to move.

You instantly had your hands on his shoulders, gently urging him back against the wall. "No! No, don't try to get up. I gotta patch you up first, okay? Then we can go back to the Crest."

To your surprise, your Mandalorian didn't protest at all, his only response a barely perceivable nod with a resigning exhale.

"Good. Now—" you guided his hand from your cheek down to his chest. "I need to know where you're hurt," you said.

Mando dropped his hand to the side of his abdomen. "Here... and—" He gestured to his helmet, then gasped in pain and laid his helmet back against the wall.

"And your head?" you asked.

He grunted what you had to assume was some sort of confirmation.

Starting to remove his armor, you froze as you tried to remember his Creed. Someone else removing his armor... You racked your brain. That was okay as long as it's not his helmet. "I'll do what I can without breaking your Creed," you assured him, letting him know that you were conscious of the boundaries set between you two. He'd made it plenty clear in the past that he'd rather die than break his Creed.

"I know," he said.

Your chest expanded with warmth— with pride and delight. Or, at least as much as the situation at hand allowed. Mando trusted you with the thing most sacred to him and that... well, that made Storini Glass Prowlers flutter in your stomach.

After undoing the locks that secured his armor to his flight suit, you removed his plackart so you could access whatever wound awaited you. And what did—

By the Maker.

The Glass Prowlers disappeared, and they were replaced with something much more dreadful.

You placed your hand over your mouth, squeezing your eyes shut. This couldn't be real. This was a nightmare. This was your world cracking and crumbling until your feet had nothing left to stand on.

Mando should be dead.

"That bad?" he gasped out.

You didn't want to open your eyes yet. You didn't want to look at the jagged tear from his ribs to his navel or his organs nearly spilling out of his body. But you would have to, preferably sooner rather than later if you were going to keep him alive.

Forcing your eyes open and your nausea down, you shook your head, grabbing a bacta patch from the medpack. It didn't seem big enough. "You're going to be okay." It was a half-hearted assurance, mostly for yourself, but the little confidence it rallied within you dissipated as the patch began to soak with blood.

"Dank farrik!" you cursed.

The bacta patch wasn't sticking.

Mando managed to raise his hand from the ground, his fingertips weakly curled toward his palm. He nudged your arm away. "You're gonna... gonna have t-to stitch me up."

Your already racing heart jumped at the thought of pushing a needle through his skin. Squeezing your eyes shut, you tucked your chin to your chest. "I can't—"

That worn leather cupped your chin, lifting it until you were gazing into the dark glass of his visor again. "You can," he said, his tone firm. Possessive even.

"That'll hurt," you whimpered.

His next breath was ragged. "I can ta-take it."

You shook your head. He wasn't understanding you. There was no way you'd be able to cause him pain. "I can't."

And yet deep down, you knew your Mandalorian was dying. Hurting him a few times with a needle— as unbearable as that would be— was better than losing him forever.

"Gonna have... have to learn to," Mando said as you moved to grab the needle and bacta thread from the medpack. Luckily there was already some pre-threaded— likely a remnant from before you came along when he had to patch himself up.

You chuckled. "Why? Because I'm in love with an infuriatingly reckless bounty hunter who takes on dangerous jobs even after I specifically ask him not to and then I have to be the one to patch him up?"

The both of you stared at each other for a moment longer than you should have, heat rising to your cheeks. Did I just... did I just confess to him? He- he won't remember anyways. Blood loss or whatever. Maker, what you would give for one of those beskar helmets right now.

You averted your gaze, readying the needle in your hand. Here goes nothing.

With your left hand, you gently squished the edges of the wound toward each other, starting at the bottom. He grunted, to which you muttered a quick apology.

And then, you started to stitch him up.

Every time the needle passed through his flesh, the awareness of piercing literal layers of skin and muscle faded a bit. He'll die if I don't do this, you kept reminding yourself. He's the injured one. Pull yourself together. Mando protects you and the kid everyday. The least you can do is return the favor.

You're unaware of your Mandalorian's eyes trained on the crown of your head. "Where's the kid?" he asked.

"With Peli," you respond shortly, trying to focus on your handiwork.

Of course, this is a perfect moment for an argument, so he continues. "I told you to stay in the ship."

The Mandalorian flinches as you halt with the needle halfway through so you can tilt your head up until you're staring coldly up at his visor. You gesture down to his injury. "Do you want me to let you bleed out?"

Mando hesitates for a moment, contemplating the authenticity of your threat. "You promised me the kid was your first priority."

"And he is. But the kid isn't dying right now." You get back to work, nearly complete in suturing the long slice down his side. "You are."

He grunted. "I'm not dying yet."

"Only because I found you," you growl. "You're not invincible, even if we both prefer to pretend you are."

Honestly, it was easier to focus on your mild anger rather than the raging anxiety and fear pitting in your stomach. But he shut up, and that anger dissipated quicker than you would've liked, leaving you to the whirlwind of worry.

But then it was over.

After the last stitch, you tied a knot with the bacta thread and then covered the sutures with a new patch.

"Vor entye," Mando said, more steadiness and... more life in his voice than when you found him.

As you fit his armor back onto his flight suit, that feeling of safety and protection settled back into your chest like a heavy blanket and a warm cup of caf. It wasn't the armor, though, that made you feel like this. It was his presence, and you had just assured it wouldn't leave so soon. "You're welcome. Can you make it back to the ship?"

Your Mandalorian's posture softened as he responded. "Need a minute... for bacta to- to kick in."

You nodded, wholeheartedly ready to give him as much time as he needed, and reached to clasp the medpack shut.

A gloved hand locked around your wrist, tugging insistently. "C'mere."

The Storini Glass Prowlers started to tickle the bottom of your lungs again, crawling up your spine to induce a lightheaded grin.

Now all sorts of flustered, you shook a bit as Mando lead you to sit beside him, but not before spreading his cape out so you didn't have to sit on the bloody sand. He even slung his arm over your shoulder once you were tucked into his side.

He didn't say anything, so neither did you.

With your ear against his chest, you could hear his heartbeat— steady, strong, safe. He's alive, you tell yourself, pride glowing in your cheeks because you protected him.

Translations (Mando'a - English)

cyar'ika - darling

vor entye - thank you

Broken Vow (Bonus Scene)

masterlist

#mando x reader #mando x you #mando x y/n #mandalorian x you #mandalorian x y/n #mandalorian x reader #din djarin x y/n #din djarin x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin fic #din djarin #star wars #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian #mando imagine #mandalorian one shot #mando

[gffa]

Initially, I was a little sour-faced about the “M-count” thing because I’m glad to get an official explanation of why they were seeking the baby, I think we all kind of figured that this was the reason, but like the implications. Is Force-sensitivity transferrable?  Because wow I would hate that would every fiber of my being. It would break the worldbuilding, because people would have been doing that for years if that was something that was possible, there’s no way Palpatine or Gideon would have been the first to think of it, given how there is a very strong thread of Force-sensitives being in danger from the galaxy, just for being Force-sensitive.  This has come up in multiple media, The Clone Wars, Rebels, the comics, the books, etc.  Force-sensitives are sought after by bounty hunters for nefarious purposes, they’re hunted for sport, they’re sold off at auctions, especially when they’re young and vulnerable. This episode really went and reinforced that, that a vulnerable child (especially without a Jedi Order there to protect them, like the prequels had and even they could only do so much, especially if they weren’t given permission to adopt a child) was sought after just because of how they were born.  This has always been a thing in the galaxy, even when the first Republic was around--there’s no way that, if Force-sensitivity was transferrable, there wouldn’t be a massive black market for rich people who wanted to hoard that for themselves. But I could accept a temporary power boost as part of the blood transfer, like if Gideon is working on making HIMSELF Force-sensitive Yeah, we saw those clones we saw floating around, but we don’t know for sure that it’s actually Palpatine or Snoke clones.  It would make sense, because of how the New Republic officer was quite possibly talking about the start of the First Order going on in the Outer Rim, so we’re deliberately meant to be thinking about the events of the sequel trilogy.  Though, honestly, maybe they weren’t talking about the First Order?  They were much further out, in the Unknown Regions, but on the other hand, they WERE strip-mining planets in the Outer Rim at that point, I think?  So, I’m putting a big ??? over how much is about Palpatine wanting transfusions for his clones vs GIDEON wanting this for himself. Because Gideon’s possession of the dark saber could indicate that he’s obsessed with becoming Force-sensitive himself, that he wants Baby Yoda because he has the highest M-count and that will at least give him a couple of weeks of the midichlorians living in his body before it rejects them and he needs yet another transfusion. I appreciate that this is another thread The Mandalorian has going on in parallel between the Jedi and the Mandalorians--they’re both sought after for the things that are part of who they are, they both faced the genocide of their people and then the aftermath of everyone trying to loot their things or even their very bodies for what’s part of their culture, their faith, their very identities. I really hope this is something interesting going on, rather than just “lol they’re working on making a Palpatine clone Force-sensitive because TROS brought him back”, but also stick to what makes sense within the worldbuilding, because the thread of Force-sensitives (and Mandalorians) being in danger just for how they were born has always been one of the most horrifying and fascinating thing about Star Wars.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #din djarin #baby yoda #yodel #dr. pershing #greef karga #meta

[vivithefolle]

“Harry and Hermione are platonic soulmates” “Hermione is Harry’s best friend” okay but like..... is she though? Like yes they’re close friends but Ron is 100% the glue that holds the group together and whenever Harry is alone with Hermione he just seems bored and talks about how he misses Ron and I the reader am also bored and miss Ron. Ron is Harry’s best friend. Ron is the person Harry would miss more than anybody else in the world. Ron is the person Harry loves more than anyone else in the world. Hermione is Harry’s close friend, Ron is Harry’s platonic soulmate. Harry is Hermione’s close friend, but Ron is the love of her life.

To be completely honest, I never really felt anything special between Hermione and Harry. And part of it is due to Harry being extremely detached from people, he’s super cold. He rarely tells us about how he feels about people, mostly he observes how people react around him, and he has this... subtle entitlement? Like, Harry tends to complain about how blah blah fame sucks and he hates it, but at the same time he certainly doesn’t complain when he gets preferrential treatment, and at times even seems offended when he doesn’t get any. He kind of expects his friends to be always 100% down with his ideas and endlessly supportive, and sure he protests and goes “no I must do this alone because I’m a danger to you all” but at the same time when Ron was calling him out on his nonexistent plan for the Horcrux Hunt he sure was quick to go all “how dare you question me!”.

As such... Harry feels really detached and cold, and when I read the series, I end up thinking of him and Hermione more as coworkers working together to attain the same objective than as actual friends. They get excited about big breakthroughs in their cases, they share coffee breaks together and stuff, but... there’s not much else. There’s not... some sense of companionship, of being able to stay in a room together without feeling awkward... I really don’t see “friends”. It’s funny, but “siblings” may actually be the best moniker to put on their relationship, because after all you don’t have to love or care about your sibling.

Harry feels closer to Ron, to a point that I would actually call them true friends, and I certainly love their bond and bromance... but I still can’t shake the feeling that Ron’s giving much more than he’s receiving in this friendship. No wonder the poor guy needed a break at times.

Anyway. Even if you can justify it by his abusive childhood and trauma, Harry’s still kind of a cold bastard and I honestly don’t think he’s a good friend. Truth is, many readers are blinded by the fact that he’s “The Boy Who Lived” and so hype and so they think that obviously, it automatically means he’s a great friend to Ron and Hermione... he’s not? I mean, sure he’s ~sassy~ and whatever but, no, sorry, that’s not enough to make me want to be friends with someone.

(Especially since the ~sassy~ bit can be downright hurtful, too. I mean, think of how many people think of Hermione’s “emotional range of a teaspoon” line is ~iconic~. But had it been spoken to Harry, I don’t think Harmony shippers would have been pleased by it.)

Frankly I think Harry’s coldness is not just a character problem, it’s also very much a Rowling problem. She has problems with empathy sometimes, especially towards characters she seems to deem as “lesser” in her mind - side characters, one-off characters, throwaway characters and such. Like, Hermione’s parents are SO important... that she doesn’t even consider them human beings, instead uses them as narrative tools to showcase Hermione’s “bravery”:

Yes, her sacrifice was massive, completely. A very calculated act of bravery. That is not an ‘in the moment’ act of bravery where emotion carries you through, that is a deliberate choice.

I’m sure Hermione’s parents were delighted to be stripped of their entire mind, life story, identity and sense of self as “proof” that their daughter is brave. Not like we already know Hermione is brave. Not like she was member of the House of the Brave or anything like it. We absolutely needed two innocent non-magical people who couldn’t fight back against magic to be destroyed mentally to showcase what a brave person Hermione is.

Rowling does that with so many characters. She has this twisted sense of justice, of morality, honestly kind of akin to that of teenager’s. Marietta Edgecombe’s scarring feels like a pissed-off kid’s revenge fantasy - Rowling said “I loathe a traitor”, but then you realize that Marietta got a worse punishment even than Peter Pettigrew! Peter gets to slightly redeem himself just before dying in front of Harry and Ron (who even try to save him!!!) but Marietta’s the one who’s gonna have to deal with weird looks all her life due to a disfiguring scar on her face! And you’d think that Mister “I have a scar on my face that people stare at and it makes me uncomfortable :(” himself, Mister “I have a new scar on my hand that a horrible woman inflicted to be as punishment for misbehaviour”, MISTER HARRY FREAKIN’ POTTER WOULD HAVE ENOUGH SENSE TO REALIZE THE SIMILARITIES, but alas. In the same book Rowling had her favourite character emulate the character she had created to be the most despicable person in existence... I wonder if anyone ever told her?

#vivi answers #ask #harry potter #harry potter series #hermione granger #ron weasley #hp meta #meta #hp analysis

[imaginedcreaderinsert]

Not sure if this is go this works so I’m really sorry if this is wrong you can just ignore this but could you do 66 and 5 from the prompt list with Jason Todd

Here it comes! Everything was done correctly, don’t worry sweetie. I enjoyed so much doing this! Thanks for being patient and I just wished I could have been quicker about it. I HOPE IT’S WHAT YOU EXPECTED and not too OOC.

Summary: It follows the promtps 5 and 66, which are: “Instead of staring you could join” and “exhibitionism” as kink. Jason and Reader don’t get to give each other their names, so it’s always Red Hood and Vigilate name, until the end, kinda.

Word Count: 2980.

TW: Smut, but that was given since it was taken from THAT list.

Nerve —  Red Hood x Reader

The hunt had been going for some months now. You had not formally met him, but from what you knew, his actions were quite justified. You had nothing against Bruce; he took you in as one of his own, and you were in good terms with the Wayne’s, but you couldn’t agree with some of his late actions or could follow his thought of train. Your complaints had been kept at a minimum, but they Dick and Tim were quite aware on your opinion on vengeance. Unfortunately, it was your first motivation when it came to avenge certain people in Gotham, or when some secret mission was decided where Bruce required your help. Out of everyone, you knew he thought of you as the most unstable of all – he couldn’t quite control, and that’s why Red Hood liked you.

           You met each other because he had left you in charge of Gotham for three days. They had to serve some secret mission you had zero idea on; and honestly, you couldn’t care less. You received having the house for yourself quite well, and you liked solitude, as much as you loved your night conversations with Tim, whom you had felt a little crush on since forever. He just wasn’t very assertive and that bugged you off. You liked sarcastic, witty, quick-on-the-feet people, and he was quite that, but at the same time, not entirely it. He knew he was intelligent, but his self-esteem wasn’t very high – not enough to see at least how you were a lot of days flirting with him. You were quite giving up and decided having him away might help. You didn’t know then how right you were

           .The breeze was light, and summer was around the corner, practically; the skin-tight suit was becoming more and more of a burden as of lately, and even if the material was light and flexible, it was just a relief to take it off every time you came home. And you knew it was risky, inherently wrong, but when they were off into their mission, you took it on and off now and again when you needed to cool down: it became unbearable after moving so fast here and there – you just wished you could just keep the mask off and have a summer version of the bodysuit.

           You started with your little transgression the first day, and in the second, your suit started coming off. The zipper was in the front part, where the start of your neck began, thus letting your shoulders and cleavage breath: nothing wrong with giving yourself a rest, which you didn’t know then you were spied on. You didn’t quite notice him until your third building, your third stop; it was near four AM and you were near the end of your patrol. Maybe you could have waited, maybe you could have avoided it, but luck was not on your side when you, daringly, decided to zip it down a bit more: and it was then that he appeared, from the shadows, as if almost stopping you from continuing where your thoughts were, unfortunately going.

           It had been long since-

           “Whatchu’ doing here all alone? And in such an indecent attire, if I may say so myself”. His tone was teasing, unknown. And had it not been because of the characteristic red, you would not have recognized him, No one thought it would do you both any good to meet each other, and until then, your interest had been close to zero. You had other things to care about.

           But suddenly his strong thighs, his massive chest, his incredible arms were all you could think about: the only word that could come into your mind was “gorgeous”, and for some reason, the only animal you could compare him to was a rhinoceros – huge, strong, somehow virile, powerful. Dick seemed so small in comparison, Damian terribly young, you wondered, who was he? Before actually, of course, coming into the light. The distinctive scarlet hood, his mask covering almost all of his face, the way he moved, like he owned everything he touched – Red Hood, the one and only.

           Your first instinct is to lower your head and step back; you forget about your attire, more worried with your identity and his presence, which seems to corner yours up against a wall. He does not press, but there’s only two steps from his and your position.

           “If you really want to, you can put it on, but I’ve seen it all. You have gorgeous eyes, by the way. Mesmerizing.” He turns around, almost as if giving you an opportunity, which you quickly take to put the mask, rearrange your hair: your heart beats fast against your chest, your legs slightly trembling and yours arms and fingers pressed against the wall like a scared cat. When he hears you are not moving, he turns around again. You can practically hear his grin when he speaks. “As entertaining and seductive as it is seeing you all on your own, where are Bruce and the others?”

           You explain, as concisely as you can (without actually giving too much information) the situation; not being sure about how much you can give in it’s the real problem. He knows Bruce’s secret identity, but can he be trusted with topics of the such? Of that you are not yet sure, but you won’t stand and be a gaping fish in front of him. Even when all you really want him to do is press himself up closer-

           “Is that all?”. He snickers, and you arch an eyebrow, daringly. He stands both of his hands up, as if in peace. “Well then, go, I have much to patrol. They won’t be back until probably tomorrow night.”

           Is all for nothing, really, all of your brave front, since all he has to do is come closer to make you go red, up against the wall like you are prepared for him opening your legs just the smallest amount: and all he does to leave you hot and bothered is zip you up, his thumb caressing briefly your chin. You are sure, of course you are, that he must do that every now and then to all the girls he meets: it’s irresistible, and he is the only thing you think about until your last day of patrolling. Your hormones are all around the wall, bouncing and repressed: you’ve taken two cold baths and you get almost wet from remembering his index briefly caressing your chest as he zipped you up. There are shivers all on your back as you get up from your first stop of the night. It’s still quite early, and things seem to be quite calm: that is until you hear some screaming and ruffling of furniture – your instinct come almost immediately, making you run towards the railing of the rooftop, and immediately, making you stop as you look to the building in front of you, the flat before the top one: two people having furious sex almost against the window, her eyes desperately clutching onto a wooden cabinet and him ramming into her again and again-

           “Jealous much?”. He makes you shriek, obviously catching you off guard. You hit his chest as you step back, instinctively searching for a solid wall which you find, only much warmer and just slightly punchy. “Didn’t take you for a voyeur. Do you have one of those kinks?”

           And is probably the night talking as you zip down your suit and you press yourself against him: he hears it, and you feel his shoulders tensing against your smaller figure. Almost as if not convinced, doubting where to put his hands over your waist, you bend over the rail, the underside of your boobs cold, semi naked as you strip it off until your waist. But he can’t see anything, not really, when you push him with your boot in his chest, making him almost fall over his ass: he clearly didn’t see it coming, and you chuckle as you cover your nipples with your arms, still not giving in and only showing him some back. Naked back. The chest plates made up for the lack of bra, and it was more comfortable that way.

           Red Hood, as you turn your head around, looks mesmerized and in shock. His arms still linger in the air, like he hasn’t really decided yet where to put them. Your butt is tentatively covered, tight and leaving nothing to his imagination, explicit: it’s all he can look at before he pierces your back… You need him to move. Now.

           “Instead of staring you could join”. You dare him, smirking.

           And then, suddenly, he moves onto you like a beast prepared to rave someone up.

           There has been always something exciting about making out with a stranger, letting someone else defile you without actually knowing much about them. There are no expectations or pressure upon the other, just two people letting themselves be swept by the heat of the moment. He grabs, roughly, your breasts, shoving your own arms out of the way; his mouth starts nibbling on your neck and he ruts almost desperately against you, his hard-on clear as he almost tentatively pushes himself against your ass. You moan, offering more of your neck to him and he eats it like he’s hungry, leaving bites and marks behind. But just as he has suddenly started, he stops in his tracks, making you whimper – to which he immediately kisses your neck, but you can feel a question up the trail he’s making, to your chain.

           “What are you to Bruce?”

           You stop rutting against him, maybe too in shock to react to the question. You look at him, with an arched brow, and almost offended. He says “sorry” with his gorgeous eyes, but he does not take it back.

           “I’m not his daughter if that’s what you are interested in.” That’s what he’s really asking, really, you imagine.

           “Are you close to him?”. He almost inquires, biting your chin and getting up to your lips. Your back is a mess of shivers as his left hand abandons your breast and starts caressing the small of your back. Such a weakness, how did he know?

           “No. Not as much as he would like to, I think.” Is he trying to get information out of you, or is it a kink of his? You don’t know which one is sicker. “He can’t tame me.”

           He groans, incredibly hard against your ass and starting to move himself against your hips, this time, trying to lower down your suit so that he can see what’s under it. He grabs your ass, almost all in a full cup with his big hands, in such a way that he makes you feel desired and wanted. It’s been long since someone has made you feel that way, and to him, you are just saying all the right things with the perfect body.

           “Can I please try?”. He murmurs, into your mouth before tasting it. It’s heaven, it’s brute – soft underneath when he licks your lips, almost erotically, making you moan into it as if he can make you imagine how would his sweet tongue feel down there. As if on cue, he presses his middle finger into your core, spreading your wetness in your panties. “Can I please please please try?”. You didn’t know you were into begging, but he makes it sound hot; like he can’t have you even when he’s kissing you like that, asking for consent even when you are hot under his touch, ready to be entered almost. “Stop giving me fucking hell, woman.”

           You laugh and he snickers, hiding into your neck, kissing it back again.

           “Yes”, you murmur, and that’s all he needs before digging in, completely throwing your suit down your legs and lowering his pants down.

           His cock is hot and hard against your clothed core, wet and full of desire: you want him in, but you relish the torture of the slow-burn. Being one step from falling into utter lust is pleasurable to say the least, and you can feel he likes it too because of how he moves into your pussy. Red Hood feels the lubricant against his own, the material too drenched to actually protect you anymore. You desperately start to whimper against him, hips moving and trying to get more, as he gets his own cock wet because of your need of him. You want him. You want him in, you want him opening you, taking you by your neck and leaving you breathless as he fills you in and-

           “Neck, now. Press.” You gasp, almost too out of words as his hand slows himself down your torso, caressing the wetness before actually moving the material aside. It’s hot, it’s incredibly hot and Red Hood can feel it as he gets his hardened member close, rubbing it directly for first time against you. You both moan, his hand going to your throat and pressing himself in, almost slightly, tentatively. Your hand wraps itself against it, pressing in a bit more, which he does confidently. Then he gets in and your world goes black.

           You bend over the railing, hands securely grasping the material, eyes closed and expression full of bliss as he presses himself in perfectly, still, maybe waiting for your permission to continue. He rubs your clit, as if you needed it, but you stop him: your own hand hitting his lightly, hissing as you moves your hips against his.

           “I don’t want to cum so soon”. You murmur, and you can feel he relaxes; did he fear he would break you, damage you? He’s in for a ride. “Now just fucking move, Red, or my virginity is going to-“

           He thrusts in, almost hammering your stomach into the rail and making you moan; his pace is brutal, fast, deep – and if it’s even possible, he makes you put up one of your legs so he can deepen up even more, which feels incredible. It’s amazing. He fills you, and you fear that when he leaves you will feel empty all over again. No man has ever made you feel this safe in such a compromising position, with such a view underneath your toes, traffic lights and other people walking down the streets without knowing what a show it’s going on over their heads.

           You cum, too needy, too sensitive, after the first few minutes, and clamp down on him. He has to stop, kiss your nape up and down so he doesn’t cum immediately as well. You like it, you like it so much you think he might make you purr, moaning and trembling due to his mouth.

           “Eat me out some time, please”.

           “Next time. I know an excellent place.”

           He resumes slowly his pace, and you try to relax, close your eyes and let him make himself home into you. You don’t resist this time and he gets as deep as before, you occasionally trembling and eventually shouting out, babbling out, incoherent curses and all that you know of his name, Red.

           The closer he gets, the more his free hand gets to lower down on your clit, the other grabbing a handful of chest still, playing and pinching your hardened nipple. He plays with it as if making sure you get to come a second time, and you feel grateful for it, because your body is demanding it as he gets there. You wouldn’t be able to let him go without cumming a second time.

           “Please please kiss me”. You almost demand, and he complies. You are out of breath, in a similar state to his, but still, you moan into his mouth, forehead sweating and tired. Just as much as him. “Red, Red, I’m going to-I have to-!”

           “Jason, Jay. Anything for you, babe”. He quickly says, and you nod, desperate to reach it, claw his name out in his arms as he grabs you closer to him.

           “Jason, Jason, Jason!”. Like a chant, the only God you know as he cums inside and you tremble, his hand moving frenetic on your clitoris and making your shiver as you press yourself into him, hoping you don’t fall.

           But he grabs you like its nothing, making you sit into his lap, almost, his own legs supporting you both. Naked and tired, you feel like dying. And on top of that, “they” were coming home that same night. You didn’t want to explain a thing, you didn’t want to see them yet. Was it wrong of you to want more out of this stranger?

           “Can I crash in yours today?”. You boldly ask, making his eyes widen. He finally takes the mask that covers his mouth off, which didn’t hide his voice much; but he must have figured out that it’s pretty much useless now with you.

           “We’ve just met. You sure you want to trust me that soon?”

           “We’ve just fucked.” You say, plainly, making him laugh. One of his hands wraps itself across your chest, the other along your waist; as if he were protecting you, your body, from the world. “I just don’t want to go back to that Manor today. They are coming home and-“

           “Shit, what time is it? They’ve probably already landed and-fuck, fuck, move. They are going to catch us otherwise.”

           It feels like a slap in the face until he makes himself clear, kissing your neck.

           “I don’t want them to see you naked. Or with his dearest brother’s cock still very much out and interested in you.”

           You laugh, and concede, starting to get dressed, zipping up and getting as close to prepared as you can be after that incredible fuck.

           “So is that a yes to-?”

           “Just follow me loser. Try not to walk like a new born fawn, or I’ll leave you behind”

           “Jackass!”

#red hood #jason todd #reader #reader insert #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #dc universe #dcu x reader

[enccrypted]

romance headcanons

name:          park tae-joon (alias: kim hyeon)

nickname:          “Joon” !! Though generally the only people to ever call him that were Mila and Mystik.  And “TJ,” maybe, I can see that one being thrown around a bit.

gender:           male.

romantic orientation:          he generally avoids relationships and is not extremely interested in others sexually or romantically, but it all comes down to the circumstances and particularly to how he connects with someone. He doesn’t care about the specifics of sex or gender — I do personally tend to lean towards writing gay relationships, but that’s a me thing, and I want to emphasise that it doesn’t really matter to Crypto. I’m generally willing to try what he is willing to!

preferred pet names:           hasn’t had any to speak of.

relationship status:           single, but might fuck around, might settle down and find happiness in a committed relationship with mirage apex legends, haha just kidding....... unless????

favorite canon/fandom ship:         God I have a few... I know that Cryptage (Crypto and Mirage) is a really big thing for the fandom (fic author once called it a “rarepair” and i was like huh??? are you kidding fam), and I personally love exploring their dynamic with vanishout. They have a rough start, but there’s no other person Crypto loves more... im emotional over Them, and Crypto is honestly so smitten. Their ship make me happy

I am also a big fan of Crypto and Octane! Something I’m messing around with whilst writing with deathchasing. They’ve got a lot of potential to go places, where exactly I’m still unsure, but guess we’ll sort that out later. :)

I am generally interested in shipping anyone with Crypto if there’s enough chemistry or an interesting enough dynamic. The only other characters I have on the brain though that I want to ship Crypto with are Bloodhound, Caustic, and Gibraltar. As of now though, I haven’t really properly discussed a ship with anyone else but Julie and Kabu. 

favorite crossover ship:           I don’t really have any! I can’t really think on the spot of one, either. I haven’t really taken Crypto out of his default Apex verse yet, but I’m willing to try.

opinion on true love:         It exists, that much he knows. Love is what carried Tae-joon through life even as an orphan on the streets with nothing to his name. It’s what helped him survive, because he worked and fought tooth and nail every single day for the people he loved. Mila, and later on Mystik, proved without a doubt to him that platonic love exists and is one of the most powerful forces he could know. Without them, I’m not sure where he’d have ended up. He believes in love, perhaps with more conviction than most things.

BUT as for romantic love... sure, he’s absolutely sure it exists. But he’s convinced it’s just not something he can have. Like... Tae-joon’s been through shit, earnt the life he had before the Games with his own blood, sweat, and tears. He knows full well that he has worth, that he is deserving — but the way the Syndicate directly and indirectly stripped him of everything that he loves and cares about really hit him hard. It’s tough for him to reach out and connect with people, and even tougher to allow himself to love again after he’s been taught time and time again that he will lose everything he has valued so dearly, worked so hard for.

And he’s afraid for the people that might be in a relationship with him; loving Crypto doesn’t just make him vulnerable, he puts anyone who cares about him in direct danger as well. In that sense, he doesn’t think he deserves love. Even if he found it with someone who’s willing to care about him, the guilt of making them a target for the Syndicate... bad. It’ll take a hell of an exceptional partner (willing to put themselves in danger and to convince him that they’re okay with this) for Tae-joon to reach a point where he believes he is allowed to have love, and that he deserves it.

opinion on love at first sight:         "amused at first sight” more like when it came to Mirage. I don’t think he’s really met anyone he instantly feel in love with on sight though, not as Park Tae-joon and certainly not as Crypto... it’s not hard to feed into the craving for human affection and for someone who really cares when he does slowly edge closer to someone. Like, when he actually allows them to be near him and lets them start forging some bond of trust. Honestly, love is never the first thing on his mind when he meets people, not even when he was living a civilian life as Tae-joon; there were always more important things to focus on.

how ‘romantic’ are they?:           Even before the Games, he didn’t really have a great way of going about expressing emotions and communicating how he feels, let alone when it comes to unfamiliar notions of romance. He’s not entirely emotionally stunted, but he has a way of hyperfocusing on work, on taking comfort in things mechanical more than human, and rarely lets people interrupt him when he’s on a roll. He’s fairly aloof, but once he loses his previous life and identity, he comes to a realisation that he took human affection and contact for granted. Unfortunately he has no choice but to live without it after that; I think getting into a relationship, he’d be massively awkward about it to start with, but would quickly warm up and learn to be affectionate. He wouldn’t go out of his way to be, but he definitely would know the importance of even the simplest of gestures. He’d make it a point to show he cares, because he knows it’s not always obvious to someone that they’re loved — even fi it may seem obvious to others. At heart, Tae-joon’s a very soft and very caring person and does try to show it where he can.

ideal physical traits:           Doesn’t matter to him. If he starts to love someone, he WILL find attraction in someone inevitably whether they are conventionally attractive or not.  

ideal personality traits:         he is... weak for soft and kind people. also loves someone who can match him in terms of intelligence and ability, someone who is good with banter. a good sense of competition. people with drive and ambition. there’s probably a tonne more, but it’s just not coming to mind right now.

unattractive physical traits:           Tae-joon grew up on the streets as a child, parentless and homeless. He saw it all. It wasn’t hard for him to learn that there’s far more admiration and beauty to found in other things than in the physical appearance. 

One point I do want to cover though: He thinks the physical result of his own augmentations and implants are unattractive. They’re a huge part of his survival and certainly technological marvels (designed all by himself, though he found outside help to have them implanted). But having to virtually gut and replace so much of himself really dealt a blow to his whole concept of his humanity and physicality. He has trouble seeing himself as a person sometimes, much less an attractive one with the enhancements he’s gone through.

unattractive personality traits:         stupidity. ignorance. unwillingness to learn. taking things for granted, wasting life away. selfishness and lack of empathy / sympathy for others. betraying the loyalty and the trust of the people who love you. complete lack of morals or ethics. acting like you’re something you’re not. people who view themselves above others (even though.. he often does... hahaha)

ideal date:           He doesn’t really have any standard of one, not really having been on one before (though can bet that Mila has tried to hook him up multiple times with a blind date or something, they always fell through or Tae-joon just didn’t want to). 

do they have a type?:        not entirely, I do like to joke around that he’s into himbos though. One himbo specifically, but overall there’s not any real pattern... I guess he would like soft people capable of showing kindness, who are the exact opposite of him in the sense that they still see beauty and value in the world for all the cruel wreck that it is. People who are willing to be kind without expecting kindness back, who is... willing to show crypto that sort of kindness and teach it to him again 😳😳 people who allow him to be vulnerable and understand the place he’s coming from... 

average relationship length:         So we’re making up pure lies and saying that he’s had actual past relationships? Fuckin wig... but I think he would enjoy moderate to long-term relationships when he does actually get into them. Obviously, he’s not going to start something with ease (commitment is a bitch when you’re in his situation), but he’s not going to start a relationship with the intention of dumping the other person early on.

preferred non-sexual intimacy:      i’m thinking he probably values non-sexual intimacy a lot more than sexual actually, especially since i’m exploring current ships where sexual intimacy is involved but human affection and connection isn’t... which, in turn, just makes tae-joon feel a hell of a lot more emotionally disconnected and lonely. He really values the comfort of just being close to someone, around them in close proximity without worry. Being there with them, listening to them speak and paying them attention even if he’s not the most vocal or performative person... there’s a very real comfort in that. Just leaning against someone, I think, sharing contact that isn’t even necessarily romantic. He just wants to feel, and be felt — that simple human connection is Wildly important for him.

commitment level:           Really fucking incredible. Like really fucking incredible if you get him to care enough, help him to open up and allow himself to care.

opinion of public affection:        It flusters him (though I think he could learn to like at least a little bit of it. Having someone he loves and can show off in a subtle sort of way), and he probably doesn’t ever allow it anyway on account of not wanting anyone with their eye on him to pick out vulnerabilities. He’s very careful about keeping any relationships during the Games highly secret — no point in putting someone he cares about in harm’s way, and honestly I don’t think he could stand losing another person after he puts in all the effort to learn to trust and to love again. Affectionate gestures in private though, as said, is all good with him.

past relationships?:           once he talked to a girl on an online mmorpg and they traded items and he thinks he got the better end of the trade so that was pretty epic. But no, he hasn’t had any.

tagged by: @incnspcuous and @deathchasing!!! thanks lads tagging:  @aeiiope / @thunderolled pls bless me with yr girls.... @vanishout, @slature​

#you're predictable‚ and i'm not. \` * file: headcanon. #long post cw #dash memes.

[clarabosswald]

yo so it’s the middle of the night (almost morning actually) and i’ve been laying wide awake for at least an hour thinking about how y’all have been doing my main girl lyra the dirty i was trying to actively avoid the discourse in the his dark materials tag but i’ve just finished reading lyra’s oxford for the first time and i can’t just stay quite while you’ve been getting my All Time Favorite Female Character so damn wrong 

so let’s start with the basics who is lyra by the beginning of book 1?

arrogant, extremely self assured

emotional, with a wild personality

HIGHLY impressionable

most importantly - she grew up almost her entire life in an extremely sheltered environment, protected by jordan’s scholars and servants alike

fucking 11 years old. a Child

then you (or a certain philip pullman) take this lovable little prick and drag her through an utterly ridiculous plethora of traumatic events let’s make a list, shall we? just... some highlights. because this list got so ridiculously long as i was writing it, i literally cannot include all of the traumatic events in this kid’s life

her best friend gets kidnapped by notorious child kidnappers - probably the first truly big blow to lyra’s sheltered world, imo bigger than the attempt on asriel’s life (being herself, she vows to save him, which as we all know is crucial for future events)

she learns the real identity of her parents. the man she thought was her uncle her whole life is actually her father. and the woman who so deeply betrayed her trust, whom she learned to hate, is her mother. that’s fucked up

almost by herself, she finds a boy without his daemon, his soul, a half-boy, an inhuman boy, a ghost, a nightmare - then she shows him compassion because the entire world had turned its back to the poor thing and because she’s just that good - and she brings him to safety only to have him die a few hours later while she was sleeping. what the fuck

she finds out the truth about the operation her own mother’s leading. cutting away the souls of children. and she sees all of them. in cages.

then some men casually grab her and pan - with their human hands - and almost cut them apart. that was clearly a breezy, fun experience 

then, of course, comes the best part, where her father kidnaps her best friend - the one she just saved, the one she was just reunited with after a long and dangerous journey - and cold-bloodedly kills him right before her eyes - she held his body as he died - such a massive betrayal of trust i’ve barely got words to describe it. and after all of that she decides to follow him into a different goddamn world?????

and hey that’s just book 1 the next 2 books only add and add and add to this already impressive pile, here are some highlights:

remember how the alethiometer - her trusted guide, the one thing making her feel special and safe - was stolen by a powerful evil man

and how she and will were hunted by a mob of crazed children who were wholly intending to murder them

and oh that nice bit when lyra spent what was probably weeks drugged to sleep in a cave up some mountains, and that whole time she had a continuous dream about the same best friend she vowed to save and blamed herself for his death - seeing him in the world of the dead, begging her to come help him. lovely experience for any child

a lot of people forget this bit but this kid faced the personification of her own death................. and followed it

a lot of people don’t forget this bit, probably one of the single most traumatic experiences so far if not the most traumatic, when this child forced herself to leave her soul, her closest friend, literally half of herself, on some foggy beach without knowing how she’ll ever find him again. remember how hard she fought two books ago to escape a similar fate? now she’s willingly doing this to herself? how fucking fucked up is that

then comes another underrated event which i think changed her forever. when she failed lying to the harpies. lying. the one thing she was best at. that defined her. that she relied on in so many dangerous situations. failed. this child is in the world of death and torn apart and terrified and now stripped of her power of lying her way out of danger. god

she fights against doubt and her own weakness to lead uncountable trillions of souls out of the world of the dead. then she nearly falls to her death in the hole created by an interdimensional bomb designed to kill her. you know. another casual day for us all

she fights her way through a battlefield full of soul-eating monsters looking for her lost soul what the sHIT

and here i’m gonna stop before the next major trauma and say something. as a kid i didn’t understand lyra’s and will’s romance. couldn’t see the point. as an adult i do. these two children have been through so. goddamn. much. by themselves. learning to trust each other. then protecting each other. being each other’s only ally, only friendly face, only hand to grab. saving each other so many times. they proved themselves, their friendship, to each other for so long. helped each other. believed in each other. two fucked up children in a fucked up situation. honestly? no wonder they fell in love.  and when you read the books and see how it evolved... yeah. so you take that - these two kids finally finding peace and comfort in each other, having that blissful experience of falling in love for the first time - and you rip it away from them. suddenly. violently. they can’t anymore. so you consider all these things i’ve listed above and some things should seem to make sense. 1. lyra cannot possibly be the same person she was in the beginning of book 1. remember how impressionable she is. how protected she grew up. then you drag her through the minefield of everything she’s been through. yes, she will be broken. she will not be exactly as fierce and confident and she was before. she cannot possibly retain that.  you know why?  because she’s not a caricature of a ~strong female character~. she’s human. and amazingly written as such. 2. considering the above while making the next point - will made a huge imapct on lyra and her personality. she learned from him. she admired him. she drew strength and confidence from him. remember again - she’s impressionable. then there’s this quote from the end of book 3:

They looked at her: her eyes were glittering more than usual, her chin was held high with a look she'd learned from Will without knowing it. She looked defiant as well as lost, Dame Hannah thought, and admired her for it; and the Master saw something else--he saw how the child's unconscious grace had gone, and how she was awkward in her growing body. But he loved the girl dearly, and he felt half-proud and half in awe of the beautiful adult she would be, so soon.

and this one soon after:

Once they were in the Botanic Garden, Pan ran away over the grass chasing a mouse toward the wall, and then let it go and sprang up into the huge pine tree nearby. It was delightful to see him leaping through the branches so far from her, but they had to be careful not to do it when anyone was looking; their painfully acquired witch power of separating had to stay a secret. Once she would have reveled in showing it off to all her urchin friends, and making them goggle with fear, but Will had taught her the value of silence and discretion.

and then there’s one from lyra’s oxford:

The poor thing looked so wretched, huddled there in the cold shadow; and the thought of his witch, waiting in the north in the faint hope that he’d bring back something to heal her, made tears come to Lyra’s eyes. Pan had told her she was too soft and too and too warm-hearted, but it was no good telling her about it. Since she and Will had parted two years before, the slightest thing had the power to move her to pity and distress; it felt as if her heart were bruised for ever. 

and this bit a little after that seals the deal:

Lyra’s mind was whirling. They’d nearly walked into a trap - and now Lyra, weaponless, would have to fight to stay alive. She thought, “Will - Will - be like Will - “

and god i just [inhales]

points made: 1. lyra is a growing child  2. lyra’s life circumstances and personality made her vulnerable to trauma 3. she’s then gone through an extremely prolonged chain of highly traumatic events 4. her relationship with will was unusually strong and impactful on her life and personality and feeling of safety and security, being violently forced to be away from him hurt her profoundly 5. she’s a young human being, she grows and changes 6. LEAVE MY CHILD ALONE

#his dark materials #lyra silvertongue #lyra belacqua #i just spent over an hour writing this damn piece of tasty meta #you better appreciate it #and i might be able to get some goddamn sleep now

[gotatext]

by this point im p sure u all know the drill.... i’m nora, 23, she/her, gmt and tonight matthew im going to be greta o’driscoll, a terrible person but a hot one which frankly makes it almost ok. here is her pinterest..... this intro is literally just copied n pasted frm the last time i played her so soz if u’ve read it like 10+ times.... 

「 diana silvers. cis-female. 」have you seen greta o’driscoll around yet? i hear she decided to be in POTENTAS for their SOPHOMORE year as a CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY major. the 20 year old SHEPHERD is known to be tenacious, magnetic, capricious and evasive. ➨ the muse is written by nora, she/her, gmt.

was adopted as an infant. had two foster moms and two older sisters so always surrounded by women. lived in a boarding house, very much like the one in 20th century women, with lodgers coming in and out all the time, mostly artsy young women because her gay moms were both high school teachers trying to set up their own arts collective. one of her moms left when she was 4, n she doesn’t really remember her.

while living with entirely women made her super into catlin moran and the guilty feminist, as a teenager she often let boys walk all over her bc she just craved male attention jst bcos she’d never really experienced it. saw it as something aspirational, like sitting in the back of chad’s second-hand truck while he drove you to macdonalds and offered you and his five friends with identical haircuts weed was the height of being cool to greta, she wanted to be their dream girl, even if it meant compromising her beliefs

was always a really sporty bitch. it started with a junior athletics squad, which turned into athletics and cheer, which then became athletics, cheer and hockey until she basically was doing a different activity every night. she came to see her body as a tool that she could make work for her if she trained it up and this attitude’s always kind of stayed with her that as long as her body is strong she is capable of anything. runs every day. 

bubbly bitch but also massive snake. metaphorically and literally, always shedding her skin. loyal to few, ruled by none, out for herself, babey!! every place she goes, she becomes a new character, someone who’s a figment of her imagination, as if each city is repertory theatre and she’s a character actress, so as a result som ppl think she’s called rita, some ppl know her as margot, she just flicks through identities like nobodies business.

left school at 18 n went backpacking around the states making money in the casinos by being a shot girl (yeehaw) and trying to make it as a mysterious 1920s widow with a smoky voice, a dark secret n a heart of gold, looking for love in the big city. all she found was producers and acting agents who’d promise her stardom n actually just fuck her in a motel n then ignore her calls.

TW domestic violence, TW gun, her watershed moment came when she met luke in sioux falls while she was working at a strip club. he was a few years older and had a car, and they kind of went from seeing each other to being that super intense couple who are just necking all the time.

they got engaged like 3 months after they met n rented a flat together, much to her family’s annoyance but she was 19 so there wasn’t much they could do. their relationship was super super intense though, often really heightened and when they fought it could become quite violent, but she’d pass it off as just him being really passionate.

one of their fights got really heated and greta threatened him with the gun he kept in the glove box of his vauxhall corsa, but the safety was off and she accidentally shot him. she pleaded self defence in the trial n cos of the amount of times she’d been hospitalised for various concussions n things like ‘fallling down the stairs’ the police were like yea… pretty watertight evidence that he was a bastard who [chicago voice] had it coming….. 

she’s now under witness protection, rehoused in livingstone as a sports-scholarship student, due to the amount of police involvement in the area, it would mean should one of luke’s family members try to track her down, she’d be relatively safe

massive sports fanatic. plays tennis. on the cheer team. was a track superstar in her high school. honestly just that sporty bitch, you’ll see her doing lines at a party at half four and then on your way to your 9am lecture you see her running across the park like a fresh fucking daisy who is this bitch. maybe it’s maybelline, maybe its coke.

massive feminist. low key quite scared of powerful men bcos of her ex. wants to start a female only lesbian commune bc she misses her childhood in a south dakota boarding house and has endless support for women. honestly annoyed that she is attracted to men, would so be 100% gay if it was a choice. cuffs her jeans and can’t drive. is That bisexual. skateboards. wears backwards caps.  i hate her 

isn’t a foward-planner, however. greta prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manners so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.

has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning. 

not afraid to go after what she wants !! ambitious academically and romantically thirsty !! she loves the adrenaline of the chase. when someone’s easy to get, she becomes bored. very bisexual and very proud of it. feminist as fuck nd part of a queer representation in the arts group which holds fortnightly meetings to discuss lgbt representation in film, literature, art etc.

old soul in a young person’s body. all the shit that has gone on has kind of aged her. she’s quite cynical about everything now. always smoking smoking smoking. very edie sedgwick in that way.  little girls skirts bought for next-to-nothing at the market because she’s skinny enough to get away with it, barely long enough to cover your bum, and then the ugliest baggy sweater you’ve ever seen thrown over it.

likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramphone because “The Sound quality is Better” kfdsjj.

super into pop art and andy warhol. puts female friendships above everything but at the same time, would fuck her best friends man

her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk.

aesthetics:

a bubble of pink gum on chapped lips, mom jeans, a beaten up pair of adidas, denim jackets, strawberry laces, knee-highs, chapped lips, peeling sticky plasters, split knuckles, bruises you try to cover with concealer, stick and poke tattoos, hot coffee, sleep caught in your eyes on a lazy afternoon, kissing girls, cigarette smoke shrouding you like a veil, alien conspiracy theories and sci-fi paperbacks, doc martens with fraying laces, the red string of a thong peaking out purposely from jeans, leonine arch of your back and that stellar smile that says ‘you have no idea who you’re dealing with’, a rucksack permanently packed for the move, a streak of red across your lips, roller blades, cut knees, not eating your greens, smiling with a mouthful of blood, and piercing your own ears with a safety pin when your mom wouldn’t take you, kate moss posters lining the walls of a teenage bedroom, his name scrawled in rage across the pages of a diary, thumb holes poked through the cuffs of your sleeves, a tennis racket you punched through in a fit of temper, feet pounding the earth until your soles bleed crimson, sleeping in a cherry lip balm and scrunchies to keep the wild locks from your eyes.

wanted plots

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sports rivalries ! sporting friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!! 

since greta literally can’t differentiate between romantic and platonic love, she’s got off with so many of her mates, so i want awkward friendships where they nearly dated, or exes that have now just turned into weird friendships

 girls from the cheer team who she’s like, weirdly intimate with like the shower together but its not a Thing cos the other girls straight !!! what do u mean !! aha just fun !

and I want like, fellow criminology students who are like?? how is this bitch still passing?? i swear she goes out every night?? 

she works part time at a fast food restaurant, i want a mate that just goes and sits in there talking to her until her manager gets angry. 

ppl she did a few modules with ie. art history, bio-med, film studies, before changing course and somehow sort of remaining in touch with

 ppl who she runs track with. 

someone she’s trying to make a zine with. 

here’s a list of plots on her old blog if u want any of them w her.

would love plots of any type, throw them all at me please, i cnt wait to interact w all of u. like this if u want me to message you about connections / plots! xo

full biography if u can be bothered

trigger warnings: drugs, domestic abuse, gun.

you never meant for it to happen. you’d heard the stories, of girls who let their man walk all over them, and thought to yourself “i’ll never be one of those girls…” the kind that eat low-fat yoghurt and drink slim fast to shred a few extra pounds because he said she was getting round in the tummy, or the ones who spent their evenings tied to a kitchen sink drinking wine while him and the boys played poker, wishing god, if only I could get out of here. not you, not you raised by strong women, four bright shining beacons. single mother with her hard-as-nails attitude and her stony glares, elder sisters (twins) one ginger, one blonde, one doctor, one lawyer, both determined to take a bullet to the brain and a hammer to the patriarchy before they let a man touch them without asking. you were always so inferior, so insecure and small, like a bird (like a sparrow) with blonde plaits down your back sucking tropicana whilst your busom buds sucked dick, their lips permanently ripe with stories of their sexual exploits, fake tan and glittered nails whilst you sat in the unbroken egg of virginity wondering what it was like to be loved. one day you found out.

lily milligan’s parents gone and a free house for the night, bottles of ouzo and tequila swiped from your mother’s liquor cabinet thinking she wouldn’t know (she always knew) your legs, hardened from pep squad, slut dropping on a kitchen table because the boys thought it would be fun to get the quiet girl drunk. you’d never had a sip before that night. band t-shirts, denim shorts and the split soles of rotten converse that you refuse to let go of, you still clutched with both hands to your youth, but in a tube top now (borrowed from alice carmichael who had a sister in college) and a short tennis skirt, your feet not in trainers but in thigh-high boots. uncomfy as hell but lily said you needed to look sexy. you didn’t know if you wanted to be sexy. you didn’t know what kind of girl you were, if you were even a girl at all. but robbie looked at you like he knew exactly who you were, like he knew you better than you knew yourself, and his lips had the pink cupid’s bow of a movie star, and his hair was dark locks, curling like a mane. his hands were soft, and suddenly on your waist, and after three more shots his lips were on yours and his name was the only sound in your head and on your lips as you lost it in lily’s college sister’s bedroom beneath the glare of a T-Pain poster. you bled for what seemed like hours, his hand still in yours, kissing on the sofa as truth tellers and dare devils continued to spin a bottle of unprecedented youth. you thought it was love. robbie was the one. he loved you, you knew it, how else could someone be so soft? but soon he grew bored, scrunched up your paper heart and set it alight. then came the tears, the hatred, the ‘fuck robbie, in fact, fuck all boys.’ and that you did.

you were known for being easy. any boy could be yours for a night, as long as he promised to love you for those few short breaths and pants before you cried yourself to sleep. you felt poisoned, but poisonous as well, as if by ensnaring these young boys you were gaining power over them, and not the other way around. soon it started to work. they’d want more, but you’d deny them it, sick of sucking off silly schoolboys, they’d call you a tease, a vixen. maybe you were, but you couldn’t help but want older men. you got the history teacher first time, him bending you over his desk to sneak a hand up your tennis skirt as the after-school clubs carried on next door, unawares. love didn’t exist, not for you. it was nothing but a game for pretty young girls to play, bubble gum in their canines and a hand tugging at the hem of their cheer skirt.

there was so much anger inside of your small body, ‘beware of boys and their hook-like words’. hockey helped. there was something formidable about the feeling of a stick like a weapon in your hands and the thwack it made against thighs in the heat of a scrum - “slipped, sorry!” - you’d utter with a snakeskin smile, millicent quinn knowing that you’d hit her on purpose because she shagged robbie at that party last week. she couldn’t prove it, cobbled acne on her forehead turning green with disgust. ben came into your life like a car crash. two years your senior, with a baseball jacket and shoulders like a god. he became your personal hero. on the pitch, he was lethal. together, you could bring anyone to their ruin. each day after last period he’d be waiting in his car. you’d leap into his arms like a girl-half starved, love me, love me, love me, your heated kisses the envy of every junior girl. he was yours for three blissful years, utterly yours, and you were his, his star-spangled girl, and he was your knight - you were both the same, playing games, always difficult to predict. it was a shock to all when he proposed, high-school sweethearts find love in south dakota.

the engagement was a bittersweet affair; three months – you barely out of your gingham print skirts and into a graduation gown, him, a surly quarterback towering above your sisters, cigarette at his lips and a scowl like a fart in a lift. they hated him. so did you. but you were eighteen and in love, and he fitted the cookie cutter mould. everyone wanted him, and you had him. you had him and you were happy, happy, happy, and he loved you. he said he’d give you the world, anything you wanted hand-picked and given to you. instead, he gave you a jack russell terrier and a flat you couldn’t swing a cat in, wallpaper peeling like the rotten bits inside of you, the bits that only he knew. and you got tireder and tireder of the sad excuse of a life he’d picked out for you, him out doing god knows what to pay the bills, and you dancing on tables to pave your way to stardom, and this was love, this was real, until the shine wore off and your fresh-faced, dimple-cheeked cheerleader facade faded and the ugliness started to reveal itself, the whining, the petulance, the sharp-tempered cruelty, the mind games, the need to always win, win, win. he was dull, he was boring, he was nothing like the boy the girls had said he was and no chiselled six pack could hide his lack of anything remotely interesting, your patience wearing thin until it snapped like rubber, a rucksack on your back, running shoes on your feet and the joint bank account emptied into your eighth grade birthday wallet.

you built your small fortunes working the casinos of sioux falls, a crimson dress and an attitude to match. bookish archie with his little dipper freckles was fun for a month, before he became just as dull and dreary as the rest. a three hour bus and you were in minneapolis, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fresh meat ready for the pickings. a hostel here, a friendly co-worker’s sofa there as you made what you could by taking off your clothes and shaking your ass like you were back in pep squad, doing what you did best. you met your fair share of creeps, and soon it was back on the road to escape a wide-eyed stalker and a restless itch for more. milwaukee, chicago, you made the roads your own. log cabins and lodgings, and the occasional motel, a beaten up pick up truck purchased at a scrap merchants – you got a few miles out of it before it bit the dust, and when you finally set it alight after nights spent lounging across the driver’s seat, a parka tucked over you as a duvet, you were sad to see it go. you’re nomadic by fault, never attaching to place, people or things, creating a new personality in every place you go like a character actress; each town is a different repertory theatre, and you’re the star. a compulsive liar, you even fib about your own name, to some you’re ellen, nineteen, bookish, a law student who likes smoking and cosmos. to someone else you’re rita, you’re twenty five and look young for your age, like smoking, comics and fucking in public places.

in the bright lights of michigan, you found charlie, sweet charlie, too good for you, though you let him spoil you while he thought you were the small town girl of his dreams. next came abigail, who was fun until the jealously kicked in, and then luke, gorgeous luke, dangerous, exciting, who despite his temper, despite the fights, despite bruises down your spine and your teeth marks on his arms, loved you with the strength of a wild fire. there was destruction in your wishbones, a savageness from the field, from the pitch and now somehow in his arms, you were godly. he was cruel, he was careless, and he refused to fall at your feet like so many other boys had, which only you made you want him all the more. you were rage incarnate. you hated him so fiercely you thought you might kill him, so he played the only card you wouldn’t predict; proposed.

the house you shared was a backstreet flat in detroit, you making your name as a downtown singer while he footed the bill with pills. they had a drug for anything these days, to dull the senses, to pick them up, to drive you to insanity or pull you out of the madness hole. the two of you lived like criminals on the run (you never told him that you were, living out your days as the enigma he wanted you to be), you with your voice like caramel and fishnet legs. you were his and his alone until his hand was at your throat and the gun was in your hands screaming at him to stop, stop, stop, until a bullet stoppered his brain, crimson staining linoleum as you cast yourself out like lucifer. self defence was decreed the moment they saw your violet neck, black tears and headlight eyes and mind screaming red, red, red like the pom-poms you shook so willingly in school and the insides of his skull. you were gone, and “you” was born, renamed “greta”, boxed, shipped-out, and next-day delivered to livingstone where under witness protection you were a student, blank slate, fresh-faced in a place where no one knew your name, doing what you always did and starting again.

#this is soooOoOOO fuckin long cos every time i play greta i add more shit to it..... her seventh form will just be an entire fuckin novel. #anyway call me beep me if u wanna reach me #aka pls msg me either here or on discord. my discord is linday lohan's meth8664 #wshedintro

[livingdarwinaward]

Isle of the Lost

I stumbled over the side of the small boat, legs cramped from the days at sea. I stretched, then looked around. “Damn.” The island was creepy, the rocky beach filled with bones, bodies, torn sails, and driftwood from ships. The tidepools glowed with lost souls, and heaps of trash were caught between boulders. I kept my hands on my knives as I walked toward the massive building in the middle of the island, warily eyeing the sirens dotting the beach.

“A shame,” one of the sirens told me. “Had you come in a larger ship, Heran could have added to her hall.” She indicated the building in the middle of the island, clearly made from wrecked ships. “I’d like to at least live up to my grandmother’s legacy.”

“That is exactly why I came in a small boat. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have business with Heran.” I continued walking toward Heran’s hall.

A mermaid stopped her weaving for a moment to smile at me. “You’re clever. I like you.” She kept weaving, hiding her face as she continued, “And between you and me? Take everything she tells you with a grain of sand.”

“Heran?”

The mermaid nodded, and I started walking again, coming up on an actual path, the entrance of which was littered with bits of old statues. I made to step over the pieces, but a stone hand shot up and floated in front of me in the universal ‘stop’ signal. I stopped, wishing I could step around it as the pieces cobbled themselves together into a mostly human form.

“All the missing statue parts of the world and you couldn’t find a nose? Seriously?”

The statue glared at me (somehow, even though not a single change in facial expression) and said, “You seek entrance to Heran’s hall.”

“Yes,” I told it. I sensed spirits, but they felt different than most. Trapped, somehow. Bound. I couldn’t tell how I knew. “Who are you?”

“We are Lost,” a different voice said. The statue crossed its arms, somewhat awkwardly due to the arms being in multiple pieces, and the same voice spoke again. “Do not become Lost yourself.”

Don’t. Don’t take the path. That was a normal spirit, one only I would be able to hear. Apparently sensing my confusion, the spirit continued. If you get lost on the path, you lose yourself, you become Lost. Bound to Heran. It will be worse for you than most, being what you are.

Meaning? I asked it.

You’re a raven, you’ll be tasked with keeping all of the spirits on the island, an enemy of Helcor. The scrap of mist next to me resolved into an image of another raven in human form. Our beloved goddess made that very clear when I was stripped of my cloak.

“Do you wish to pass?” A third voice came from the statue of the Lost.

I looked between the other raven and the statue. “I have to take the risk. I have to find Dicey.” The statue moved aside and I started onto the path.

The second my feet were on the path, ground ahead of me erupted. Sand, pebbles, rocks, and just about everything else launching up to form a city, mud brick buildings decorated with primitive murals.

Okay, now the high possibility of getting lost on the path makes more sense, I thought. I jumped at the voice of the other raven, who’d apparently followed me onto the path. I couldn’t see his face anymore, As he was back to being just a wisp, but I could just feel his grin on me.

What? He asked, Did you think I’d let you go alone? I’m Haloti, by the way.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Pan. Thanks for helping, but no, I really didn’t expect you to,” I said in a rush. “I’m assuming we have to find the hall through this.” I paused. “Whatever this is.”

Lost civilizations, Haloti told me. More than just objects and people can be lost. Heran has a ‘library’ of all lost knowledge and ideas, or so I’ve heard.

“This will be more difficult than I thought.”

It always is with gods. Haloti shivered. We should start looking. Stay together— separating can get one of us lost easier.

“Makes sense.” I stepped forward, and shades appeared, not true spirits, but images is the past. “D’ya think we can ask them for directions?”

Where would we ask for directions to?

“Places with things of value or things that get thrown away, probably.”

Or places of power or importance, Haloti said. If I had my cloak, I’d be able to sense spirit trails and corruption.

“Take mine.” I got ready to unclasp my cloak, dreading the loss. I’d never taken it off, never wanted to lose my identity, but if it came down to Dicey, I’d do it.

Haloti changed back from his wispy most to his own form, just to give me a look. Are you kidding? He asked, as near to shouting as a spirit could get. I’m not getting you in trouble, too. The consequences will be more severe for lending it to me of all people.

“Why?”

I was stripped of my cloak for a reason. That’s all I’ll say. I won’t take it.

“Wait.” I pulled up my hood, launched myself into the air, spiraling up and up. I looked out across the maze, and saw Heran’s hall. “Ha.” The hall was somehow more distant than before, and more so than I thought the size of the island would allow. If I could grin with a beak, I would have. I dove back down to the maze and Haloti, who seemed to have figured my plan out. “I think we can just fly over.”

You can. I don’t have my cloak.

“You can’t fly without it even as a spirit?”

Yes.

I paused. I honestly didn’t want to go on without Haloti, as he seemed to know more than I did. “I may have a way you can come with me.”

How?

I scraped my foot against the ground. The hard dirt of the illusion held, so I knelt and pulled out my stylus, drawing a rune on the ground. The illusion melted away, but only where the rune was. Right, I’m dealing with a goddess’s magic here. I drew a circle around the spot where I’d drawn the rune. The illusion in the circle melted a bit, but held. I cursed. Some more trial and error experimentation eventually got me a circle of the actual ground, with a bit of driftwood that was half carved into a dolphin. I held out my hand to Haloti. What should his rune be? “Give me your hand,” I told him.

Haloti looked dubious, but gave me his hand. I thought for a moment, then wrote alone on his hand. “What does that rune mean?” he asked.

“It’s what I’m naming you. That one means alone,” I said as I wrote that rune on the bit of driftwood, surrounded by binding runes. “I’m binding you to this--” I held up the wood “--so that I can bring you along when I fly over.”

Haloti looked even more dubious now. “If you think it’ll work.”

“It should. I’d test it by throwing the wood, but I feel like you’d just end up as a Lost.”

I pulled my hood up, then grabbed the wood in my claws and flew upward. Once the hall was in sight, I flew toward it. I didn’t look down, fearing that if I did, I would get lost. Haloti’s thoughts were loud, but incomprehensible. He seemed worried, but I didn’t focus too hard on him, trying to keep Heran’s hall in sight as it seemed to flicker and shift. Then it vanished. Shit. I dove, trying not to think too hard about how it was ruching up far too fast to account for my own speed. Haloti’s thoughts became a scream in my head, just as we hit the ground.

The impact was delayed. We went through, Haloti said. We’re underground.

I shrugged off my hood, stretching as my body shifted and grew into my human form, then picked up the stick I’d bound Haloti to. “What is this place?” I didn’t expect any true answer, but Haloti was completely silent. I looked over at him. There was no definition to his features, a wisp of soul standing far too still. I could feel the current of unease in his mind. “Haloti?”

This is the Limbo. I didn’t know it became lost after… after I came here.

“‘Here’ being the Isle, I’m assuming?”

Yes. Haloti seemed to turn around, looking at the hazy wisps of trapped souls kept from the after. Have you heard of what happened? Why the Limbo was lost?

“Legend was that the Limbo was sealed to all but the gods, but something happened to lock even them out, so the whole system was lost, but no one was even sure it had ever existed. Many ravens I knew thought it was an old story the gods told to keep us in line somehow.”

It most likely was, but I doubt anyone is told the whole of it. Haloti formed just enough to smile at me, but it was strained. I wouldn’t have— I never knew it ended like this, though.

“You—“ I stopped as I noticed Haloti staring at one soul.

No, not her. That should be— Haloti looked at me. I should explain, he started before another soul caught his attention. I felt a whisper of relief go through him as he looked at it.

“You don’t need to.”

I should. Someone needs to know the whole story.

Leaning on the nearest wall, I gestured for Haloti to go on.

That man, Haloti said, gesturing to the second soul he’d seen, pulled Avi— he gestured to the first soul —into his scheme to bring an army from the Limbo into the world to destroy the gods. Avi was human, one of my closest friends, and when he— a rude gesture was aimed at the second soul —tricked her into helping him, she went to me to borrow my cloak and come here. The Limbo hadn’t yet been sealed, so she got past the barriers and nearly got souls out. My cloak was stripped from me because I’d lent it to Avi, but I was given the option to bring Avi to justice… Haloti trailed off for a bit, and I understood why.

I couldn’t kill her, so I ran. For five years. I knew someone else would be sent, but I couldn’t bring myself to betray Helcor so completely. I didn’t realize Avi’d ended up here. I’d heard the Limbo had been sealed, but not that it’d been lost.

“Why’d you come here?”

I heard somewhere that cloaks that we’re stripped came here. I wasn’t sure if it was true, but I came anyway. I wanted to find my cloak. Destroy it. Hopefully then I could escape the shame of letting Avi die.

I stood up. “I doubt that’ll work, but you can try. Now let’s try to find our way to Heran.”

Haloti nodded. Yes. Perhaps some souls may know.

We had to be careful to find a soul who wouldn’t trick us, but we could only do so much to ensure that we followed a trustworthy one. Haloti advocates for Avi, but I argued that she would be the obvious choice and may give the wrong directions.

You have a point. Haloti said as we left the room we’d been in to explore the catacombs further. As we followed the voices of souls, we went deeper, even as we never picked one.

Suddenly light broke out and we found ourselves in front of Heran’s hall. The door looked ancient, ornate.

“We come to deal with Heran,” I said.

The door swung open. When Haloti and I entered, we were faced with a maze. Heaps of things that had been lost forced us to have to find our way through, and when we could see the walls, ancient artifacts— probably priceless— were hung up or on shelves. We eventually found our way to the back, where Heran herself lay, her long tail coiled over the ground and around swords, bones, stones and other ancient, lost treasures.

“You come for your cloak,” she said to Haloti. “And you come for your friend. She is not here, little one.”

“I know,” I said. “I come for information. Can you find her?”

“Perhaps, for a price.”

I pulled out my bag, tugging out the bones inside. “Bones of a mermaid who died on land. Her body was lost to the sea, and she rotted like a human.”

Heran grinned, and I fought back a shudder. “How nice,” Heran said, drawing out the phrase. “Yes, this may do. For your request. You, however--” she addressed Haloti now, “--must pay your own price. Think hard.”

Heran turned back to me and beckoned for the skeleton. When I handed it to her, she tucked it behind her, then dragged herself over to a crack in the wall and stuck her head in. something inside began to glow, and I heard Heran chanting.

I looked at Haloti. He hung as a wisp of mist in the air, and I barely heard the whisper of his thoughts, only the faintest trace for me to know that he was thinking, but not enough for me to tell what he was thinking. A sound pulled my attention back to Heran, and I saw her pull her head from the crack, frowning.

“I cannot find your friend,” she said. “She either is not lost or is dead.”

“Or she is lost beyond your reach,” I muttered.

Heran looked at me with raised brows. “How so?”

“She opened a portal to disappear. I’m not sure it was to any place in this world.”

“You think she is in the Rift.”

“Or another world.”

Heran looked at me. “Hope that that is so. You should go to the City of Heroes. There is a way to travel between worlds there, much safer than portals.”

“Thank you.” I bowed, then turned to Haloti. “Would you join me if I asked?”

He materialized, then shook his head. No. I thought of my price. At Heran’s encouragement, he continued. I will give my soul.

“You wish to become Lost?” Heran asked. “Truly a strange request.”

I wish to forget. If that is the way to do so, I will take it. I only ask for my cloak to burn first.

“Haloti--”

“I will grant it.” Heran heaved herself to find the cloak.

The last thing I heard before I found myself back in my boat, the island nowhere in sight, was Haloti.

I’m sorry, Pan.

#writing #my writing #fantasy #original #gods and goddesses

[the-awful-falafel]

Ghost in the Machine - Chapter 6

Read the full story on AO3 here!

Fandom: Rick and Morty

Rating: M, Genfic (no pairings)

Chapter Wordcount: 6.4k

Chapter Summary: Time passes. A routine is established, and progress is made. Rick is getting desperate, while Morty starts getting impatient.

Rick felt like he was slowly losing his grip on reality.

It had been, what, one week? Two? Probably not more than that, although he could barely keep track anymore. He was mostly estimating based on the number of sleep cycles Morty had put him through, but even then it was increasingly difficult to tell. Time simultaneously seemed to be moving too slow and too fast.

Morty had wasted no time after they got back from the alien market. With the first drone fully operational, the teenager had uploaded a highly complex blueprint to its database, and it immediately got to work constructing new fabricators. It made sense that Morty would require more drones in order to build whatever he was planning, but since a fabricator was an extremely delicate component that needed exact precision to build correctly, each one took almost two days to fully assemble. And this wasn't even mentioning the fact that a fabricator was useless without a drone body attached to it.

So in the meantime, the two of them had fallen into a… routine of sorts. It mostly consisted of more drone construction and intensive, if varied work to advance Morty's agenda, and while they didn't always stay within the bunker or do the exact same activities each day, it still slipped into an easily recognizable pattern.

It was almost identical to the structure established before. Every morning, right after Rick woke up, he would be recalibrated. It barely seemed like a punishment anymore, and the only explanation he could come up with was that the process had become more like a general maintenance procedure. Rebooting and readjusting the mind control tech on a regular basis seemed like something that would be useful in keeping Rick securely under control. It was like restarting a computer every day in order to keep it running smoothly and prevent data overflow.

And the process still left Rick too disoriented to even attempt fighting back, so Morty was free to make him do whatever in the time it took for the dizziness to wear off. The teenager didn't always take advantage of this, but every so often he'd drag Rick over to the helmet room and hook him up again. This was always followed by Morty uploading a new program or fix, and Rick had gotten to the point where he stopped trying to figure out what they did. He later discovered one of them improved his dexterity with weapons, and another shortened the time it took for him to respond to complex orders, so it seemed like Morty was refining how he behaved on autopilot, but he didn't want to theorize about the rest. He'd never learn their purpose until it became relevant, and he already had so much other shit on his plate, so why bother?

Don't think about it, he thought, almost instinctively. A small part of him wanted to laugh. That was happening a lot more, lately.

On some days, it was limited to just the helmet, then Morty would unhook Rick and they'd leave. On others, it was followed by, well… he wasn't sure how to describe it as anything other than a “check-up”.

Morty would make Rick sit down in a chair, then he would proceed to take his vitals and evaluate his physical condition. The first few times it happened, Rick was honestly terrified the kid was going to make him strip, but it ended up being surprisingly tame, aside from the fact that it frequently involved Morty touching him. It never got weird, necessarily, especially with how clinically detached it was, but it was impossible to not feel uncomfortable with fingers pressed up against his jugular to take his pulse, or when a bright light was shined in his eyes to check pupil contraction.

Not to mention how Rick's body was unnervingly relaxed and permissive in response to being handled, no matter how vulnerable he actually felt and how much he wanted to flinch away. The whole process made him feel like a workhorse being inspected.

Following that, they'd eat breakfast. Like before, it was almost always something from a can, since Morty had a massive supply in the cabinets that vaguely reminded Rick of how one would stock a bomb shelter. He had never seen the kid prepare anything more complex than canned food, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to. When he was hungry it was easier to ignore, but it was obvious that Morty's cooking skills were… passable at best.

After that was when it got more complicated. They'd work on whatever Morty thought was most important at the time, which was usually nothing unexpected, but sometimes it seemed to be completely random and unrelated.

The first few days-- was it only a few days?-- it was nonstop drone building. Morty already had the underlying frames built, so it was more of a matter of screwing compartments together, fitting in the circuitry, and welding the external plating. With concentrated effort, they could get one finished per day, minus the fabricator. Like before, Rick was made to fetch tools and components for the most part, but Morty actually enlisted him to help out with the more complicated assembly a few times. Rick was still prevented from sticking his hands anywhere critical, but it was clear that Morty had regained some confidence in his control over the man to even risk that much. Or maybe he just wanted to get it done faster.

Eventually, however, Morty started alternating with other activities. One of the more notable ones was distilling the venom that was still stored in the fridge. This involved heating it up repeatedly until all the extraneous compounds were vaporized, leaving a rather viscous substance behind. It would then be mixed and diluted with another chemical, creating a liquid solution that was faintly tinted pink. Rick wasn't sure that he had the willpower to fully analyze what the final mixture was for, but it was clearly going to integrate the venom's sedating effect in some way. Perhaps that additional chemical worked as an amplifier?

Again, Rick was permitted a surprisingly in-depth role working with the venom, but that was also probably because resisting was far more likely to damage himself in this case, especially since it involved handling boiling chemicals. Even without his other reservations holding him back, he wouldn't want to fight when the risk was this disproportionate.

Morty also started taking them on brief trips outside the bunker, portaling to other planets rather than exploring the one they were currently on. Of the three visited, none looked the slightest bit inhabited, although their habitability in the first place was questionable. The trips took less than fifteen minutes each, as they mostly consisted of Morty looking around aimlessly. Rick seemed dragged along almost as an afterthought. It was almost like the kid was scoping out the locations for… something.

The first location was a scorching desert planet of lilac sand, with scraggly, half-dead trees scattered everywhere. It was wide and flat, with occasional stretches of sandstone. The temperature seemed like it'd get unbearable after a while, but thankfully Morty had the forethought to leave early before the risk of heatstroke became a real possibility.

The second location was a murky swamp planet with a green foggy sky. Spiky outcrops of rock and moss stood out in the terrain, and alien trees grew up out of the muddy soil. The atmosphere was breathable enough, but Rick couldn't help but be suspicious about whatever vapor was coming out of the glowing vents in the ground.

The third looked to be in a massive cavern where the ceiling was hundreds of meters above them. Bioluminescent lichen on the rocks allowed some amount of visibility, and deep ravines in the ground were bridged with giant root-like structures. The air was a little thinner than what Rick was used to, leaving him somewhat light-headed, but it didn't seem worse than what one would find in Earth's highest mountains. Aside from the enclosed and limited air circulation, admittedly.

After all that, their evenings were relatively unremarkable in comparison. They'd have a canned dinner, squeeze in a little extra work if possible, and then Morty would order Rick to sleep. Rick's personal hygiene was only addressed every other day, and it was slotted in right at the end. He was made to shave, brush, and take a five-minute shower with uncomfortably cool water at full blast. It was a miracle he didn't get hypothermia by the time he changed into a fresh set of clothes.

Rick had no idea when Morty would go to sleep after he did. He had a suspicion that the answer ranged from “much later” to “never”. Some days the kid looked downright exhausted. Once, in the middle of a work session, he straight up fell asleep on his desk, leaving Rick to stand there and slowly panic for twelve minutes until Morty finally jerked awake again. He must have been working on something well into the night, which showed some unhealthy commitment if nothing else.

Rick tried to keep track of all of the different activities as they happened, if only because he was still trying to figure out what Morty was even planning, but it was… difficult, more than it should've been. It wasn't just him losing the ability to track time effectively, either. Lately, it felt like he was losing sense of his body entirely. He was still getting complete sensory feedback and everything, but sometimes, he didn't feel like himself. And in a way, he wasn't. His body was following Morty's orders, moving without his input, which made it easy to forget that it was still technically his. His eyes and limbs would feel too weird, too alien, like he was looking out of a stranger's body. He'd be so distant and detached from his own skin that when he'd snap back, several minutes would have passed, or even a half hour, and he wouldn't remember what had happened. It was like he was… drifting. It took conscious effort to anchor himself down enough so that he could focus.

He couldn't even argue with Morty's increasing boldness in making him do important tasks, since half the time, he felt too numb and mentally exhausted to try taking advantage of it anyway. Occasionally he tried to muster up the energy to disrupt something, but then the spark of fear would hit and drain him of whatever gave him energy in the first place.

It felt like a warning sign that he should be paying more attention to. That was happening a lot more frequently. Another problem Rick was noticing was his growing inability to control his emotions, which seemed to fluctuate without warning. He'd be neutral for a while, watching his surroundings without feeling much of anything, and then there would be a sudden surge of anger blotting out all his thoughts. Other times he would find everything uncontrollably amusing, no matter how minor or stupid. And sometimes crippling despair would hit and he'd just wish for it all to end.

Each mood swing would last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, and they were almost impossible to predict or notice while in the moment. His train of thought would stop and shift abruptly. It'd feel like an uncontrollable surge of energy in some cases, driving him to think things that he'd recognize as batshit insane or reckless any other time. Especially in his intensely angry and murderous moods-- fuck that fucking piece of shit Morty, what does that asshole think he's doing? I'm not going to sit back and take this shit no fucking way let's see how he likes it when I fucking kill him-- where for a moment, he'd almost, almost lash out again. And then he'd get the whiplash of returning to a more stable mindset just in time to stop himself. Sometimes he was too late, and he'd only snap back once the pain hit.

Rick supposed his complete isolation had something to do with it. Being unable to talk or interact with the world around him in any meaningful way was more maddening than he first realized. He had all these thoughts circulating with no real outlet, and it caused him to sink deeper and deeper into his own head until he felt like he was driving himself insane. Focusing outward on what his body was doing was a decent enough distraction, he supposed, but it wasn't enough to be a long-term coping strategy.

The problem was, the only person who he could possibly talk to in this situation was Morty. Not only was the idea ludicrous, but the teenager seemed committed to barely acknowledging Rick's existence in the first place. Several days had already went by without a single word spoken between the two of them.

It wasn't like Rick didn't try to incite anything, either. There was a point a couple days ago where he mentally cursed at and insulted Morty for nearly forty minutes, getting more and more elaborate as time went on. It was an attempt to get any sort of reaction out of the kid, because fuck it, Morty had already provoked something out of him a few times, so he might as well return the favor.

Because it wasn't like Morty was actually ignoring him, far from it. Rick could practically feel the uncomfortable sense of the teenager watching his every move, tracing his every thought. And he knew Morty was paying attention most of the time, because despite the silence he would subtly react to what Rick was thinking. If Rick was handling something important at the time his thoughts started turning mutinous, Morty would instantly make him stop his current action and switch to something lower risk. If Rick made a particularly scathing observation or comment, he sometimes saw Morty pause in whatever he was doing, if only for a second.

So it wasn't surprising that after a short while, Morty had put down the vial he was holding and looked straight at Rick. The older man hated how that emotionless stare always made his insides go cold.

“I didn't install that program because I wanted to talk with you,” Morty said, tone indifferent.

That had made Rick fall silent. Because fuck, that was really what he was doing, wasn't he? He didn't really irritate Morty as much as he intended, and yet here he was, feeling almost relieved that he got any response at all. He knew by now that Morty paying attention to him was never a good sign and never something he should be seeking out. Was he really that desperate for any kind of social interaction?

Morty turned away soon after, seemingly returning to ignoring Rick as well. But a few moments later, after Rick had already been made to resume his own work, Morty muttered something under his breath. “… Although having an audience is kind of interesting, I guess.”

Rick had paused at that, but Morty didn't say anything more. The older man wasn't sure what to make of that statement, if he even heard it correctly. Was that all Morty saw him as? A spectator?

If only Rick could get himself drunk, maybe everything would be slightly more bearable, but he hadn't been given a drop of alcohol since he first woke up. It wasn't like Morty didn't have any, either. Rick had personally seen the bastard dip into a stash of whiskey at mealtimes, although only in small quantities. It seemed to be denied to Rick purely out of spite. The sight of the substance gave him an aching feeling in his stomach that wouldn't go away, not even after he'd eaten his fill.

Rick knew all of these… symptoms were an effect of being trapped in his own head for an extended period of time, but he still couldn't help his frustration. Two weeks wasn't even long. It shouldn't be any problem for him to deal with. He could vaguely recall a memory where he was imprisoned in solitary confinement for almost a month before he managed to break out. Compared to that, this was nothing. Certainly not long enough for him to start slipping like this.

He ignored how he also remembered similar side effects appearing in the second half of that memory, enough that his recollection of that part was even fuzzier than usual. And he also ignored the difference of how occasional interrogations had broken up the monotony, meaning he didn't deal with the isolated feeling on a constant basis.

Most importantly, he had full control over himself, had an escape plan, and could take refuge in both of those facts. Even in dire situations, if he felt that he had a certain amount of control, he could push through it with a level head. But this? This was a situation of absolutely no control, of being locked in the back of his brain and not being even able to move his body to confirm that he was still real. Even his nightmares didn't normally approach this level. He couldn't do anything.

He recoiled and wanted to slap himself for that thought. That wasn't true, fuck that. He still had one sliver of control afforded to him. Even though Morty was working like hell to condition it out of him, Rick was still capable of resisting the commands. Hadn't it been Rick who damaged the drone? Hadn't it been him, working of his own free fucking will, who had interrupted the venom hunting and consequently got Morty slashed in the side? Yes, he also had gotten a deep and bloody bite wound in his shoulder, which had long since scarred over, but it had been worth it.

Rick needed to be single-mindedly focused on that. He needed to stay alert, aware, not losing his concentration like this. It didn't matter how much Morty was aware of Rick's thoughts and intentions now-- sooner or later, the bastard would slip up. When that opportunity showed itself, Rick needed to seize it without any second of hesitation.

Maybe he could actually get Morty killed this time, wouldn't that be interesting? He almost found it unsettling how much the idea satisfied him, and he vaguely wondered if it was normal to want to murder a teenager this much. There was a solid chance that it still wouldn't break the control, and Rick would be forced to stand idle until his body broke down, but… he didn't really feel like that mattered. Better than continuing to be a tool and scapegoat, at any rate. If he was going to die, it might as well be in the process of taking Morty down with him.

So Rick kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting. That's all he could even do right now. But he wasn't sure how long he could hold out. Days, weeks, months? As long as necessary, he stubbornly told himself, but it felt like a lie. There was that growing sense of hysteria that he was just barely suppressing in the back of his mind, that crawling sense of unreality like a caged animal who couldn't find an escape.

He wasn't sure if it was that more desperate mindset that led to him starting to resist again.

It had started yesterday, sometime in the afternoon, when they were out hunting. Morty had recently introduced a new, albeit familiar activity to the daily schedule-- going outside and harvesting animal parts. For better or for worse, it didn't involve any dangerous venomous aliens this time around, nor did it involve killing the creatures afterward. That wasn't to say it was done in the most clean and humane manner, though. It usually involved seizing a sample of carapace or skin or blood, without any regard to the distress of the alien in the process. Morty seemed to be harvesting genetic material, although as usual Rick didn't have the energy to try to figure out why.

They were going after a wide variety of creatures, too, spread in different areas across the planet. This desolate rock had a surprising amount of biodiversity when examined closely. They started easy, targeting slow or immobile species. There was a land-dwelling organism that resembled a sea urchin crossed with brain coral, and Rick broke a few spines off of while avoiding getting pricked. They tore a chunk of carapace from a passive multi-headed millipede-like creature, which screeched in pain and scuttled away afterward. They even snapped a branch off of a vividly purple alien tree, which curled in on itself and retracted its leaves upon being damaged.

The day afterward, they had moved on to creatures of more moderate difficulty, ones that required a bit more stealth to approach. One of them was a green lobster-looking creature with a frankly disturbing amount of teeth, scuttling around near tide pools, although it thankfully only came up to Rick's knees. The other one was an armored gecko-like alien with eight limbs and a forked tail, barely the size of a cat, and it tended to quickly disappear through cracks in the ground when it noticed danger.

They were hunting the toothy lobsters when Rick ended up resisting. It was a spontaneous, split-second decision, and in hindsight he couldn't really tell the reason behind it. One moment he was distantly watching himself sneak up on the lobster alien from behind with his weapon drawn, the next moment he felt a surge of something, and he pushed back. His legs suddenly jerked and gave out for a half second, causing him to stagger and scrape his feet against the ground. The sound alerted the alien, and it bolted away immediately, submerging itself in the local pool in the span of a second.

Rick was swiftly punished after that, familiar pain lancing through his synapses and almost making him regret everything. And despite return of the torturous pain and overwhelming fear, for the first time there was another quality paradoxically mixed into it. The pain was so viscerally real that Rick found himself clinging onto it more than he expected. It was like a shock to his system, anchoring him better to reality than anything he'd attempted previously.

Still, at least initially, the conditioned fear and exhaustion won out again, leaving Rick compliant enough to not interfere with the next few alien lobsters they sampled. Morty chose to involve himself much more closely, capturing the creatures himself sometimes, so it wasn't like Rick had much of a chance to mess things up anyway.

But that lack of opportunity didn't bother him for some reason. There was this weird intoxication rising up in his mind, clashing with his twitchiness but somehow also being accentuated by it. And before he knew it, Rick resisted again, this time causing his muscles to relax when he was holding a squirming alien gecko-thing, which nearly let it slip out of his grasp. Morty waited until after they had managed to successfully grapple the creature and slice off a part of its tail tip before inflicting punishment on Rick again.

And Rick kept resisting, and he kept getting shocked. Again, and again. He resisted four more times that day. It was a mental seesaw of being paralyzed by panic and snapping back every time the pain hit, his survival instincts desperately screaming at him to stop stop stop STOP, and then that strange overwhelming feeling that would return and make him do it again. It didn't matter how pointless it was, how little he was affecting things. He couldn't stop himself.

The pattern continued into today, where Rick had resisted twice during the morning and about three additional times so far during the midday routine. But the crippling pain was starting to get to him again, the more logical part of his brain starting to protest. The impulse fueling him was already withering away somewhat, as if he was getting more hesitant. This couldn't be worth it. It wasn't like he was even hurting Morty with this. What was he even doing?

But it was okay, really. It was fine. Everything was fine. The pain meant he was feeling something, that he existed. It shocked him out of the deadened fugue he was falling into more and more often. He was forcing the universe to acknowledge him for once in his fucking life.

He didn't care. He didn't care. He didn't care.

And then the next time Rick resisted, Morty didn't punish him.

It had been one of the few times Rick had actually caused damage, too. He had been kept away from anything critical for a while now, so this time he ended up breaking something relatively unimportant, almost by accident. He had resisted in a way that made his body lose its balance, causing him to stagger to the side and bump into a table. An empty glass flask was knocked off and shattered into pieces against the ground, the sound deafening in the silence.

And yet, even though Rick's chest tightened in anticipation, no pain came. He looked up and saw Morty staring at the mess with a completely blank expression. After a moment, the teenager gave a heavy sigh, and he got up and silently approached it. He leaned down and started cleaning up the pieces, being careful not to cut himself on the broken glass. Eventually, he gathered them up in a small pan and carried them over to the wastebin. He didn't even look at Rick.

Rick didn't expect that to be what sapped away the rest of his energy. He expected that manic impulsiveness from before to return and encourage him to resist again, especially because there wasn't any punishment this time, but he just felt... hollow. Something was very wrong here. Why wasn't Morty reacting?

And for most of the remaining day, it definitely seemed like Morty wasn't going to make any response to the incident. They continued working as usual, and it went by even faster now that Rick had unexpectedly lost his motivation to fight back. Most of the work was focused on the drones. The fabricators had finally been completed last night, so all that was left was to attach them to the drone bodies that were already built. Due to it being a rather simple operation, it didn't take any more than an hour, and all the drones added up to a small fleet of six in total, including the initial drone they had created.

Individual testing confirmed that each of the machines could construct and deconstruct without error, which already cleared the biggest hurdle. However, it was unclear how well they'd work as a synchronized unit, so Morty took the drones down to the base of the mountain for some outdoor experimenting. Rick was made to follow, although he wasn't sure for what reason. The sun was setting, casting long shadows and a violet tint over the landscape.

They walked to their destination rather than taking a portal. It was probably to save on portal gun charge, considering the relatively close distance, but it still took nearly half an hour to reach the bottom. The entire way down, Morty kept his back turned to Rick. He still hadn't acknowledged the man since earlier, and Rick couldn't help but be unsettled by the prolonged silence.

Once they reached the bottom and walked ahead for a short while, something came into view. Resting at the foot of the mountain cliff, hidden in a crater-looking alcove, was a ruined alien spacecraft. It didn't look much bigger than a small fighter jet, but it was impossible to tell its original shape since it had long since shattered into messy pieces, as though it crashed and fractured against the ground before colliding into the solid rock. It looked like it had been there for decades, with its titanium exterior being well-worn and coated in a fine layer of dust and grit, and the insignia along its side being too faded to make out. A few spindly weeds had even sprung up in cracks in the plating, like nature was reclaiming it.

It was barely surprising, then, that this was what Morty planned on testing the drones on. It wasn't like it was too big an object to take apart, after all. All construction drones utilized pocket dimension technology in order to absorb several tons of material at a time.

With a single order sent via tablet, all six of them flew forward, surrounding the ship like a swarm of wasps. With a light blue glow and a synchronized hum, they started deconstructing different parts of the wreckage, slowly and meticulously. Even with all six of them, it still looked like it would take a few minutes to completely eat away at the hull.

Morty had put away the controller and was simply standing back to watch. Rick could understand why. Watching the outer plating disintegrate was oddly hypnotic, like seeing a newspaper burn up in a fireplace, holes growing and burning at the edges. For a moment or so, there were no sounds except for the faint sizzling of the deconstruction and the whirring of the drones.

“I honestly thought you would have given up by now.”

Morty's voice was quiet, but it still gave Rick a jolt. He turned his head to look at the teenager. From this angle, the only visible part of Morty's face was his eye patch, rendering his expression unreadable.

Rick was mostly surprised that he was actually being talked to again, after… how many days had it been? Although the comment still took him off guard, as well as sending a prickling feeling down his neck. Why would Morty think that? The kid must have detected his confusion, because he continued speaking only a moment later.

“I mean, it's a reasonable assumption to make,” Morty said. “I've been trying to be patient, all things considered, but it's getting to the point where it's a little… grating. I'm not sure what you're even getting out of it anymore. Is it pride? Spite? Satisfaction? It's weird, it's like even you don't know.”

The older man felt heavy at those words, because they weren't wrong. There was really no point to casually resisting anymore, not logically anyway. But some part of Rick still wanted to do it, because… why? To prove something to himself? And he had even less of a clue why he suddenly started doing it at extreme frequency yesterday and the beginning of today. Because it wasn't like he enjoyed being shocked or anything, far from it, it was just… at the time, the alternative had felt so much worse.

There was a brief silence, and then Morty gave a small sigh. “I wish I could say I'm surprised. You've made me start considering my options, though.”

Rick's thoughts stopped at that. Wait, what?

“I could just wait a little longer,” Morty continued. “You won't admit it, but you're in a pretty poor state right now. It would probably take only, what, two weeks? Three? But that's the thing, Rick.” He finally turned to look directly at the man, and there was something resigned in his expression. “Keeping an eye on you is tiring. Entertaining, sometimes. But mostly, I'm just worn out. A few more weeks of this isn't really something I'd enjoy dealing with.”

… Morty had never come this close to admitting weakness before, especially unprompted. A cold, crawling sensation was creeping up on Rick as the seconds trickled by. Fuck, where was this going?

“I could do it, if I had to,” Morty said, in an almost matter-of-fact way. “You're hardly the worst Rick I've put up with. Still, it leaves me wondering… it would be nice to speed the process along, wouldn't it?”

Then the pain hit before Rick could react.

It immediately sent him reeling from its unexpected intensity. It was so much worse than all previous shocks, in a way that he didn't even realize was possible. It was more than simply every nerve in his body being set on fire. It was that deep nauseating sensation of his bones being cracked and broken apart from the inside out, fragments spreading out and lacerating his tissue until everything was shredded. His senses short-circuited, blinding him. There was only pain.

Rick didn't even realize that he had outright collapsed until the agony receded slightly, allowing him to somewhat regain awareness of his surroundings. The dull ache from hitting the ground was almost invisible compared to the fading shock. But something was wrong. The pain wasn't leaving. Instead of ebbing away completely, it held at a fixed level, churning across his skin like a flame.

“That's the convenient thing about simulated pain, isn't it?” Morty's voice was somewhere far away, no louder than before, and yet it cut into the haze of Rick's thoughts like a knife. “It can be exactly as strong or drawn out as it needs to be. Maybe the constant level from before was leaving you too comfortable.”

Rick wanted to protest the idea that those prior shocks could ever be considered “comfortable”, but he couldn't piece together a coherent response. Every instinct and reflex of his was screaming to get away but there was nowhere to escape to. His body was shivering violently and his breathing was coming in kind of funny, and that was a bad thing, wasn't it? Distantly, he could hear footsteps walking up to him, stopping merely a few feet away.

“But, obviously, pain by itself isn't sending the right message anymore. Really, this is just me being self-indulgent. So let's try something else.”

A wordless order constricted around Rick's mind like a strand of barbed wire. He flinched away mentally, but his thoughts blurred with that sense of have to and before he knew it his body was moving, pushing itself up. The pace was slow and staggered, hindered by the pain that flared up when he so much as shifted a limb, but eventually he managed to get himself in a kneeling position. He was slumped and breathing harshly, his vision darkening at the edges as he stared at the ground. He felt like he might faint.

Rick could tell Morty was watching him. It only took a few seconds for the teenager to speak up again. “… It was painful doing that, and yet you can't do anything else, can you? That's what you're not getting, Rick. You can resist all you want, but you never affect anything when it matters. So then--” There was suddenly a harsh pressure around Rick's collar, causing his breathing to stilt as he was dragged upward, fingers digging into his shirt with unexpected strength. His gaze was forcibly locked with Morty's as his body was yanked up and his head tilted back. “Why are you still doing it?”

Rick's stomach dropped the second he recognized the look in Morty's eye. Unblinking, intense focus, with a cold fire behind it that hinted of something just barely suppressed beneath the surface. Like there was a ticking time bomb of anger and frustration leaking out more and more as the situation progressed.

Morty had never raised his voice, never broke from his usual cadence, and yet it was chillingly obvious that he was absolutely pissed.

Too paralyzed with fear and too disoriented by pain to respond, Rick hung there with shallow breaths, desperately hoping beyond all reason that Morty wouldn't kill him. The stare held for a moment, then the teenager's expression became more guarded as he let Rick sag in his grip somewhat. “… Maybe I just haven't made myself clear,” he said, almost to himself. “I could never get through to you before, so I'm not getting my hopes up now. But it's not like you have a choice in the matter.”

Rick mentally twitched as he felt a pressure forcing itself over his brain, pushing him down, although he was far too dazed and weak to attempt actual resistance. All he could think was no no no no NO NO--

“Listen,” Morty said in a stern tone, although it sounded weirdly distant. “You're not actually stopping anything here. I'll get what I want no matter what you do to get in my way. But you continue to make things difficult, you will be replaced with another Rick who's more cooperative. Do you understand me?”

Rick couldn't think. It took a moment, like his vocal chords were sluggish from disuse, but the pressure intensified and he spoke out in a hoarse voice. “… Yes.”

“Who is the one in control here?” Morty asked.

“You are.”

“Who do you belong to?”

“You.”

The pressure around Rick's brain and neck released simultaneously, letting him fall back down to the ground. His body caught itself on his hands and knees, breathing labored. The constant pain was finally fading, too, leaving a numb feeling in its wake. He tilted his head up to see Morty's back turned to him as the teenager walked away, slipping the remote back into his pocket.

Now that he was finished with Rick, Morty seemed to be turning his attention back to the drones. They had just finished deconstructing the last of the spacecraft, and they hovered in the air on standby. All that was left of the original wreck was a large, oddly shaped indent in the ground.

But that was hard for Rick to care about, at least at the moment. He was weak and empty-feeling, and he felt disconnected from his surroundings, with everything being somewhat blurry. He was unable to do much but focus on his gradually steadying breathing and trying to hold himself together. To not crack any further than he already had.

It looked like Morty was cracking, too, but just a little bit. Just enough to suddenly snap and take out his frustration on Rick, before relaxing and then returning to business as usual. And even then, he still didn't completely lose his composure or lash out in a physically damaging way. Nothing had pushed the teenager far enough for him to lose his sense of self-restraint, it seemed.

It was like this whole thing had become an endurance match between the two of them. Each move they made, intentional or not, was systematically working to wear the other one down. To eat away at their resolve until something broke.

And, deep down, Rick knew which one of them was going to break first.

#rick and morty #evil rick #evil morty #fanfiction #rick sanchez #morty smith #prequel fic #ghost in the machine #tw: torture

[wheezefeed-unsolved]

The odd death of Michelle Von Emster (theories)

Okay people, I haven’t yet written about this one so let’s do this.

I honestly think this was without a doubt, a murder case. A planned homicide, either driven by passion or revenge. The facts and hints of this case are way too specific for it to have been an accident.

I will start to explain why but let’s start from some interesting facts about the victim:

she quit a job due to a persistent stalker who by the way rode a motorcycle

she was known to have been living in a neighborhood related to drug activity addressed as the ‘war-zone’.

now to what we know about the investigation:

her injuries were located on various parts of her body. one of her legs was missing basically as if ripped off to the bone, like in a bamboo stick stripped down with a knife until to a point, her neck broken as if she had been in a car wreck, broken ribs as well as scrapes, bruises and contusions, and sand inside her mouth, throat, lungs and stomach.

the experts said that the bite of a white shark would’ve been clean and unmistakably have left vestiges of a tooth on her missing leg, and there was none found. and the only shark that could’ve done that was this species

the injuries were inflicted when she was still alive, thus excluding those from potential drowning. which means, she suffered the injuries, then drowned and bled to death until she was found.

Blue sharks did feed off her already made injuries when her body was already floating dead on the water.

Her purse was found 2.5 miles away from her body, in the sand of the base of the seawall. it contained her driver’s license, makeup, keys, paste stub, and a fanny pack containing 27$ in cash. bizarrely, the purse was found on a heavily used stretch of beach which means that it’s very unprobable that the purse sat there for 24 hours without any of the money or the purse gone. which means someone could have been keeping watch over it and make sure no one would interfere, indeed murdering michelle and planting the purse there to make it look like an accident. and if Michelle was found with sand inside her body it could have been possible if it were to be in the shoreline of the beach.

 the night before her death it was claimed that Michelle had drinks with one of the suspects, Edwin Decker, after they flirted for weeks, then went to kiss in his apartment and left at 5am from there in a cab. Albeit Decker also mentioned a friend sleeping nearby his apartment that night.

what some of the theories Ryan mentioned in the episode were (excluding the shark attack because it is obvious the shark wasn’t the cause of her death):

 Some believe she may have fallen off the cliff to her death, then drowned due to the injuries she presented. However, from the way the cliff is shaped, and even from such a fall, ripping off a leg in such a meticulous way would’ve been too perfect when falls from cliffs usually present random injuries in any part of the body that might’ve had contact upon hitting the harsh surface and full of irregular shapes and forms formed by nature.

She was murdered. This is the most likely scenario and the most plausable with all the facts and hints we have from this case, if we also take in account not only the physical but psychological evidence.

ANd with that I’ll get into my theory:

It was a combination of a bit of all three theories, but undoubtedly this was a murder case.

here’s how I think the murderer could have proceeded :

The murderer somehow encountered Michelle. Either planned or not is a possibility.

 Although, let’s focus on this one quote from Edwin Decker who, affirmed that Michelle often surfed naked by the latter’s own words. If this is true or he simply made that up we can’t know for sure, because he could very well also stalk her, but since he claims also that he had been flirtatious or even went as far as to the stage of kissing with her at his place this could have been very well normal. Until he mentioned:

Although, regarding seeing Michelle swim naked in that beach, surfers claim to never have seen her do so.

This could suggest Michelle and him had just been hanging out on casual dating, and not officially as a couple as it was hinted by Decker’s words that the relationship wasn’t clear. Therefore, we could assume that if it wasn’t clear either they were friends with benefits and Decker was very obsessed to a point where he even wrote that creepy poem probably implying that he wanted something more. what also bothers me is that the description of the poem was very perturbing :

Writing a poem in itself is not an uncommon practice to mourn the dead, but a sane, empathetic person would not focus on the lustful parts of the person in question when mourning them, instead only an obsessed person would. much as likely in a stalker like manner.

He also asked however for Michelle’s case, in 2008, to be re-examined. Let’s think about this. After the crime had been committed in 1994, why after so many years does he think of re-examining the case? Probable motive? to hide a piece of evidence perhaps, to ommit or confirm something.´

For these motives, I could see Edwin Decker as a highly likely suspect. Even more than the stalker claimed to have followed Michelle from another workplace to there. 

We don’t have however much information about this stalker, all that we know is that, besides stalking her, he often appeared at her workplace and that he requested all the copies of her autopsy. Could there have been an ulterior motive to request such copies when he was stalking her? Michelle as far as we know was not a wealthy person to be blackmailed, but perhaps she could know something she shouldn’t and therefore was being stalked somehow.

 however, most people who know too much are usually silenced, and the fact Michelle had been running away from a stalker but also be living in a neighborhood known for drugs is something that might have a connection to it. Although this we would have to access for ourselves in the site and ask witnesses and unfortunately only the authorities could do that. 

And what also seems very weird about this was that, they claimed the stalker asked for the copies of the autopsy which meant that firstly, they knew he was her stalker, and secondly, they also knew his identity. And autopsies are not just given away so easily to just anyone, much less to someone’s stalker so either: 

a) Michelle’s stalker was a relative or someone acquainted enough to have power to ask for those said autopsies, and wanted his identity to remain unknown to the press.

b) The responsible for those autopsies was in this together with  the stalker or  with both the suspects. 

c) the responsible for the autopsies was bribed or menaced.

 Also an interesting fact is that Michelle was found naked at the time of her death’sn announcement, when the body was found on the beach. There were no signals of any other kind of harm besides the injuries forementioned earlier, which meant that if indeed she had gone swimming naked and carrying a purse, dressed in a trench coat, , Michelle’s murder was therefore conducted as the following :

the murderer was with Michelle at the beach at night. possibly this theory would suggest both of them were acquainted enough and perhaps even taking a stride at night, when the murderer took a dvantage of Michelle's trust and started attacking her as he tried to murder her and Michelle struggled with them leavin g the bruises and scrapes she had on her body trying to repeal the attack.

Then the murderer hit Michelle with something hard enough used as the murder weapon that could inflict injury heavy enough to give her a broken neck and ribs similar to ones found in a car crash to put her unconscious and/or to stop struggling.

to make sure Michelle would not indeed fight off anymore once awoken she was dragged off near the shoreline, forced to ingest the massive amount of sand  into her lungs, stomach , throat and mouth somehow,

when Michelle couldn’t struggle anymore the murderer proceeded to cut off her leg in her already inanimate body, perhaps burying it in the sand to hide it, and give off the impression of a shark attack. although this demonstrated the lack of knowledge about the area’s sharks and their capacity or not to rip off the leg and the obvious nature of the bite which would have left tooth and a clean bite as the experts said. an attempt to therefore fool the police.

the final steps being  the body was pushed to the water left, to be found by the sharks and locals to give the impression of a shark attack provoked by a possible drowning or fall as the waves pushed the body around as he removed the clothes and planted the purse, before leaving the site., 

the problem is like Ryan said how come neither the money or bag was stolen? because if the murderer had been keeping watch over the bag for the night he could have soon be found by someone and interrogated about it. considering the rocky area the beach gave the murderer could have been hidden perhaps but still...how didn’t the bag get stolen or the money either?

The way I see it and knowing all the victim’s habits, the suspect and culprit for me could have very well  been Decker because he could  have lied about seeing michelle off in the cab and going home, instead also  going in the cab or drove her  to the beach per request of either of both of them, accompanied her to the beach , killed her,  got rid of the murder weapon in the sea, washed his hands off the blood in the ame sea water, planted the purse and left the  victim to die.  then when asked by police told a different story to prove his alibi. A reminder that he mentioned that Michelle had told him she liked to surf naked, so this could very well be a hint for it. . 

However without also knowing the stalker’s background story we can’t prove which  one of them could have been the real murderer. And for what reason . Which  is why it will probably  remain unsolved.

WHat do you think was missed in this theory? comment or reblog your opinions!

#michelle von emster #case #theories #my theories #mine #buzzfeed unsolved #ugh i took 2 hrs for this bcs my pc is so sloooow

[dungeonqueering]

Shardmind, Update

Post 1: https://definitelyqueerrpgideas.tumblr.com/post/167585523032/shardmind-the-story-so-far-alegra-a-tiefling

Post 2: https://definitelyqueerrpgideas.tumblr.com/post/167644608547/shardmind-update-our-three-adventurers-handily

Our adventurers successfully use Wilian's Nobility to seek audience with Elerra, who seems to have other plans in store. The scheming Drow agrees to part with her most precious slave (after some good rolls) under one condition. Elerra's family was noble once, but were stripped of this while she was a young girl. She wants to reassert House Tanor'Thal among the other noble houses. To do so, she needs a legal document proving their existence, as the council of Houses in Ched'Nassad erased most legal evidence of their existence. It likely exists in the Drow archives in the city, a combination legal center, public bank, and vault.

Of course, if they are caught, they will have no ties to Elerra, and she will not help them. She threatens, in fact, to buy all of them from the city should they be imprisoned. Honestly, I kind of expected my player to decide to either steal the Psion away, to kill Elerra, or to come up with some sort of elaborate ruse to avoid collaboration. They did not , so now there needed to he a heist.

Orianna went through the city setting up safe houses for their eventual escape. Alegra went to see a forger that Orianna knew to get papers to allow them into the records section of the archives. There was also a trip to the black market where some magic items were obtained from a list I made of what was available.

One night Alegra goes to check on Wil who is nervous since he is a Paladin of a good god, in a city of mostly evil citizens. He also is not very stealthy, and knows that his presence on a heist may be an issue. It is also revealed that he is trans when Alegra unknowingly misgenders him and he corrects her saying "I've had enough of being called a woman for one life, thank you." Alegra apologizes, understanding first hand what that is like.

They also managed to acquire a copy of the blueprint of the archive by bribing one of the people who built it.

The night before the heist, Flora and Alegra have a deep conversation, which I wish so badly I had a transcript for. The summarize, Flora is having issues with no longer being an intelligent construct, and now has capacity to feel certain emotions she hadn't as a living doll. She is disheartened, and afraid that their quest will fail. And she is afraid of what happens to her at the end of their journey, since she will contain so much power. Alegra comforts her, the two confess their love for one another, and spend the night together.

Flora donned a Hat of Disguise to look like a Drow, with her two identical Tiefling guards.

The papers pass, and they are taken to the archive by a Halfling named Henry (pronounced On-Ree). Henry leads them past three airlock type rooms with massive and slow vault doors on each side, guards, and large colored statues. Something on Henry's neck glows the same color as each statue when they pass it. The party never found this out, but the statues will fire spells off at anyone who does not have one of the necklaces.

In the archive, the crew (they left Wil behind because he is not a sneaky man) find nothing on House Tanor'Thal. They cast charm person on Henry and have him take them all room to room, using him to both unlock the rooms and avoid the security statues.

To save time, I don't want to go into major detail about the books they looted. Just note it was a room of small safes, a room of large safes, and a magical safe room. They did not find what they were looking for.

Then, as the Orianna and Flora suggested killing Henry so he couldn't report them (Alegra disagreed), they convinced Henry to reveal that there was a secret vault. They knocked Henry out and, using his key ring, found a hidden keyhole on an otherwise perfectly smooth wall. The wall parted, and revealed a long hallway. They passed another statue (which did not fire because Henry was in their bag of holding, unconscious, with his head sticking out at this point). They found a hidden vault and, after some searching, found the document they we're looking for.

During the escape, the guards found them out and gave chase. Due to some KILLER rolls at the perfect times, they got through the first vault door and closed it just as the guards slammed against it. It took like 30 seconds per door, and no two doors in a row could be open, so they managed to get to the elevator ahead of the guards.

Of course in the upper area, the guards were also on alert, courtesy of the guards below communicating with those above. Our three party members managed to Acrobatic flip themselves over these guards, and flee into the city. Again with excellent rolls, they evaded the guards, and managed to get to a safe house. They remained for several days, before returning to Elerra's manor-home.

Elerra held up her end of the bargain, revealing that the Psion is a Drow woman named Faeryn. She is dressed in silks inlaid with gold, and a magic collar. Elerra gives Alegra the ring corresponding to the collar on Faeryn's neck.

The party of 5 (Alegra, Flora, Orianna, Wil, and Faeryn) leaves Elerra's, and Ched'Nassad altogether.

The session ends.

[illegiblewords]

Doing work rn but a few more Ergo Proxy thoughts very quickly:

- I personally believe, for a number of reasons, that the proxy who killed Donov Mayer and whose arm Re-L shot off was Proxy One and not Ergo Proxy--that said this is one of the points I am extremely unsure about in analysis and I can see it being arguable either way. First, I think the complete lack of speech from the proxy in that scene is there to make it deliberately ambiguous. When Vincent speaks to the body of Monad and to REAL we know that it is him for his mannerisms, for his self-assessment, for his confusion. There is some consistency with who he is as we the viewers have come to know him, although it is possible that it could be Proxy One as he is in many ways a stranger and the base from which Vincent sprung. Of Proxy One we the viewers can know (although the way the narrative is presented makes it fucking hellish to figure out) that Proxy One was in fact clinging to his own city unlike Kazkis or Senex, who destroyed theirs. Proxy One’s city died because of the intervention of MCQ and Raul specifically, not because of his own choice. In response, the first thing Proxy One did was destroy Amnesia, cutting Vincent off from his memories as Ergo Proxy. This was a calculated revenge.

I would argue that it is extremely significant that Ergo Proxy is not blindly murderous as an entity, before or after Vincent gains awareness of him. Ergo Proxy is the Id and the Jungian Shadow of Vincent, his selfishness and his desires and his fears and hatreds but above all else his survival instinct. He makes his choice, repeatedly, not to kill Re-L even when she is a threat to him. This involves integration of the conscious self, the Freudian Ego, and his Superego which involves active consideration of his own identity and values.

Donov Mayer with all of his autoreives worships Ergo Proxy as a god, as something perfect and a means to abandon personal responsibility, choice, and the self. This is something both dangerous and a path to losing humanity, to becoming something truly derivative and empty and dangerous. From this angle, especially given Ergo Proxy’s memories returning and his personal failings as a creator, it would be extremely painful and might make sense for Vincent himself to kill Donov. Additionally, Re-L has foreshadowed throughout the series that she will shoot Vincent, so that poetry is also possible and fitting. And Donov destroyed Mosk, destroyed Monad, rejected Vincent time and time again as an anonymous immigrant.

However, I think frankly that Vincent’s identity as a simple human seeing the purely human aspect of the scene was not sufficiently present for it to make sense being him. In losing his memories Vincent actually severed himself from the purely postmodern and his role within a world built on postmodernism, allowing him to see the reality of life and existence and direct personal experience stripped of symbolism. It allowed him to connect to other people and to understand them only as people, not as flawed creations or test subjects. On a literal level, Donov Mayer is Re-L’s grandfather on whose behalf she was pleading, and he was a broken man victim of the schemes of departed humans no less than Ergo Proxy himself, and he was ancient and dying and desperate and had lost himself utterly.

I could see Proxy One killing Donov as revenge for his own city, as an attempt to destroy the postmodern doom that reigned over himself and the cloned humans of all cities, of despair in the false-godhood he and Ergo Proxy share, of a sign of spite against Re-L who he does not love and whose bond with Vincent he is incapable of understanding as a creature of postmodernism. And I could see him sparing Re-L to make her wonder, for the rest of her life, just who she shot and if Vincent is capable of murder born from hate and of lying to her. In this way it is also a gesture of spite against Vincent, who he wants to succeed but who he also is overwhelmingly jealous of. Because Vincent has the possibility of survival and faith and reality while Proxy One never will.

I think Vincent has too much compassion for the simple, shared experience of living to have killed Donov. I don’t think Proxy One is capable of understanding that. And I think Vincent being integrated in all the ways that matter, having both his identity as Vincent and at least pieces of himself as Ergo Proxy, by necessity cannot be without the literal understanding and his empathy.

That said, again cases can be made for either reading lol. The storytellers were deliberately vague on that scene.

- Jung sort of talks about this but contemporary psychology definitely does, human beings are not tabula rassas like John Locke theorized. Our memories make a very large part of who we are but they are not actually everything and we are not born empty to be shaped solely by society. Our very genetics might make some of us more talkative while others are more withdrawn, some disposed toward this illness and others not, some of us having personality disorders and others healthy, and so on to massive degrees. We inherit from those who came before and we reconfigure ourselves into something new from their genes in a unique sequence. There is a particular line I might actually reblog later from Ergo Proxy that talks about how we are the sum of our memories and if we have no memories we are not ourselves. Scientifically this is actually incorrect and I think it is something that would be interesting to see examined in fic or a prequel or a sequel to be honest.

Ergo Proxy was intellectually bound to his role and had his identity under horrible artificially imposed pressures, but it’s very reasonable and even realistic to believe that Ergo Proxy pre-amnesia would have had a lot in common with Vincent at his base personality. He probably did get embarrassed about things and had a high level of sincerity, he probably overthought a lot and worked very hard, he probably had points he withdrew, he probably tried to push his personal self aside to fulfill the role he thought he was meant for. I’d bet money he was left-handed, too. I think the presence of a highly intellectual voice in Vincent’s head trying to remind him of the practicality of certain things and the impossibility of others is consistent with Ergo Proxy as well. How much various traits manifested proportionally probably reflected memories and environment, but I don’t think the Ergo Proxy would have seemed like a complete stranger or a blindly murderous monster the way Vincent feared at times. Honestly, Monad probably shared qualities with Re-L and REAL too, although that might take closer scrutiny. For them, I think truth and compassion are probably heavily intertwined values consistent across all three but manifesting differently due to experience.

- I actually think it’s very ambiguous what Vincent plans to do with respect to the returning humans. Proxy One wanted revenge, and Vincent calls himself the proxy of death in his last line, but I think Vincent impulsively complying with a scheme someone else made for him would detract in a way. The humans returning are the descendants of the humans who left rather than the same specific people, and holding them responsible for an inherited crime is not honest or spiritually human behavior. It would be like blaming clones, or autoreives, or proxies. I think what Vincent is as the proxy of death ties more to say, death in tarot. He tears down the structures that exist (in this case artificial postmodern structures) so that something new can be born from the ashes. This parallels off of the role of proxies in ending the polluted, artificially corrupted world so that true life and habitable nature can return. Ergo Proxy is the equalizer, he is change, he is biology and inevitable traditions.

- I think Re-L leaving in a final battle she could not make a physical difference in shows her faith in Vincent and her acknowledgment that it is his fight to win or lose, not hers. She tells him to find her again as a mark of confidence. I think it’s relevant that she also goes to try and first see if she can make a difference for Romdeau, then when that fails to wrap up her own affairs with Daedalus and ensure her own survival rather than being a burden. Tradition, faith (Re-L’s last line is even “I have faith” in the dub, this is not strictly religious so much as belief in some greater force than herself or any one individual), and communal bonds are not broken IMO by her trusting Vincent to his fight. She has responsibilities of her own. As a series Ergo Proxy is simultaneously postmodern and a vocal rejection of postmodernism IMO, from start to finish. Pino’s choice not to wait around uselessly but to address her own responsibilities and loose ends parallels in a similar way. All people have responsibilities to themselves as well as to one another, and there are some situations that we can only face ourselves. Re-L, Vincent, and Pino all have trust in each other’s strength to face the individual obstacles and to still be there for each other in their aftermath. And by each facing individual struggles alone, Vincent, Re-L, and Pino are also cut from the same cloth of humanity and are shown to be very similar after all. That’s how it is in real life, after all--we can lean on each other and offer advice, but ultimately we do all have our own choices to make.

#Ergo Proxy #sometimes gotta talk deep shit yo #seriously though this is where my college degree went haha

[ncfan-1]

Jack and Ashi: Violence as Self-Annihilation

As anyone who has been reading my blog lately can probably guess, I’ve been loving the new season of Samurai Jack. In a media culture saturated with mediocre and/or outright bad reboots and remakes, Season Five of Samurai Jack retains everything fans loved about the first four seasons, while the TV-14 rating allows for storytelling opportunities that weren’t available when it was a Y-7 show, and yet feel like a natural extension of the original.

The emotional touchstones of the new season have thus far been Jack, as is only fitting, and Ashi, one of the Daughters of Aku, and by Episode XCV, the only surviving daughter of Aku. The Daughters, Ashi especially, have been set up as parallels and foils for Jack in terms of their upbringing and their ‘purpose’ in life. In particular, the show explores a running theme through the both of them: violence as the annihilation of the self.

[CN/TW: Discussions of abuse and indoctrination]

With Jack, it’s a very specific type of violence. Throughout the show, all five seasons, his ‘purpose’ in life has been to return to the past and defeat Aku, presumably by killing him, and set right what once went so horribly wrong. To do so, Jack was given a magic sword that has been blessed in such a way as to make it incapable of ever harming an innocent. In the ‘present’ day, Seasons One through Four, Jack’s modus operandi is that of a wandering protector to all the people who suffer under Aku’s tyranny. Wherever he sees evil, he fights it; wherever he sees good people in need of help, he helps them.

Come Season Five, there has been a shift. At some point in the fifty years between Seasons Four and Five, Jack lost his sword, that symbol of his quest, that symbol of his ‘purpose.’ The sword was itself a symbol of Jack’s righteousness, its inability to harm an innocent a symbol of his status as a protector of the downtrodden. In Episode XCII, we do still see Jack protecting innocent people, but we also see something very new from him, something decidedly discouraging. In Episode XCII, we see Jack observe a village being attacked from a distance, and simply not do anything.

When he does this, when he allows harm to fall upon others, Jack begins to hallucinate. When he goes to drink from a river, he sees visions of bodies floating in the water, people screaming for help. He hallucinates his father screaming “You’ve forgotten your purpose!” In letting apathy rule him in this instance, in letting violence be done upon others with no intervention from him, Jack denies an integral part of himself, and guilt holds him fast. When finally he does go to the village, he finds no survivors—only the culprit, and he hallucinates the victims during the fight.

Later, during Jack’s first engagement with the Daughters of Aku, he seems to have a sense, if only subconscious, that he may not be fighting robots, that he may in fact be fighting flesh-and-blood people. This is another significant problem for Jack, because he has only ever killed robots; he has never actually killed a flesh-and-blood human being. Jack seems to associate robots with Aku’s tyranny, which would make sense. He is a transplant from pre-modern Japan, after all; you won’t find any robots in pre-modern Japan, and if such technology only exists in the future, he might well associate it with Aku. Ultimately, Jack is able to steel himself to fight the Daughters by convincing himself that they’re only “nuts and bolts.”

The immediate aftermath of Jack discovering the truth about that is quite telling. When he sees blood fly from the throat of the first Daughter he kills instead of oil, his eyes widen and his mouth drops open in horror. He freezes as he watches her fall to the ground, grits his teeth as her mask falls away and he sees not the face of a robot, but of a young woman, now dead. He freezes, even though the danger to himself has not passed.

In the immediate aftermath of Jack’s first time killing a human being, he almost dies himself. True, this is down to his physical injuries, to his stab wound, to his fall from the temple into the river, to his exposure to the elements. But Jack’s identity is tied up in his role as a protector; not helping a village under attack triggers a massive attack of guilt. He seems to define himself by his role as a protector to Aku’s victims, to those flesh-and-blood people. To kill a human being flies in the face of everything he is, rocks the very core of his identity. As Jack’s sense of self is put into doubt by that act of violence, so too is his survival put in question.

Jack steels himself to fight the remaining Daughters by telling himself that they chose this path willingly, by offering them a choice to walk away before leaping over the abyss. He does not know that they did not choose this path, not willingly; he does not know that they honestly lack the capacity to make a meaningful choice as to whether they wish to kill him or not. This belief, however mistaken, is sufficient to get him through the next fight, but while he is able to temporarily control his guilt, he cannot banish it completely. After the fight is over and he finds one of the Daughters’ corpses in the forest, he hallucinates the crows in the trees around him screaming “Murderer!” over and over again.

When Jack manages to defeat Ashi without killing her, tying her up in the chain of her own kusarigama, he refuses point-blank to kill her. When they are both swallowed by the giant creature in XCV, he goes out of his way to protect her, and never harms her or allows harm to come to harm, no matter how much Ashi’s hatred for him and veneration of Aku angers him. He goes above and beyond this minimum, actually; when they both wind up covered in needles, Jack takes the time to pull every last needle out of Ashi’s body so that she won’t come to any further harm by potentially having them sink further into her body as she’s jostled around. Even after they’ve escaped from the creature and end up in the ocean, Jack saves Ashi from drowning. When the hallucination of a younger Jack tries to persuade Jack to just leave Ashi to die in the belly of the beast, it’s presented to us as a temptation that would strip Jack of any claims to being a hero if he succumbed to it—even if Ashi is still hostile towards him, is still actively trying to kill him every chance she gets, Jack won’t hurt her and he won’t let her be hurt, because that goes against his nature on a fundamental level.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that XCV is the episode where we start to see Jack acting like his old self again, that we start to see his mild-mannered geniality and his sense of humor return to him. When Jack is protecting someone, he isn’t quite his old self again, because those fifty years of discouragement, bitter defeat and crushing guilt are still with him. But when we see Jack protect someone, he is as close to being his old self as he has been for the whole season, because he’s finally being himself again. This is who Jack is, without violence.

With Ashi, the theme of violence as self-annihilation goes even deeper, and starts much, much earlier in her life.

XCII presents us with the Daughters’ backstory. They are very much foils to Jack in this; like Jack, they were raised from a very young age with the purpose of becoming the ultimate warriors, so that once they are grown they will be capable of killing their target. Jack’s target is Aku; the Daughters’ target is Jack himself. But where Jack is treated with love and compassion by his various caretakers, where Jack is allowed to form friendships with the children in the many places where he is sent to live, the Daughters are allowed no such thing. All their lives, their mother, the High Priestess of the cult into which they were born, and the other adult cult members show them no love, no compassion. Jack was allowed to be a child. Jack was allowed to be human. The Daughters are not.

From the moment they are old enough to be trained to fight, the Daughters are brutally conditioned to be not human beings, but living weapons. Nothing matters but killing Jack, and that is absolutely the only thing they should care about. The Daughters are indoctrinated into believing Aku a benevolent deity, and Jack an evil being. They are taught not to care for one another, actively punished for caring for one another. They are taught to see themselves as tools, and so totally denied knowledge of the outside world that they have no idea what deer are—this, in a region where venison would likely be a major food source. Their mother and the other adult cult members treated them not as children, not as human beings to be raised, but as weapons to be forged, and stripped them of any real ability to have a life.

A thread running through the Daughters’ raising is Ashi’s fascination with the outside world. It first manifests in Ashi sneaking away from a typically violent training session to peer at the outside world through a crack in the wall—her first glimpse of the outside world, and Ashi the only Daughter to ever see the outside world before being sent out to kill Jack. When her mother catches her, she both reinforces Ashi’s indoctrination by telling her Aku created the beautiful world she saw outside and that Jack is the one who threatens it, and punishes Ashi by having her brutally beaten by another cult member. Later, during another sparring session, Ashi is fascinated by a ladybug that has made its way into the cave in which she lives, letting it light on her hand. Her mother chastises her by saying that such distractions, i.e. a child showing natural curiosity towards the world, is not part of Aku’s order, and punishes Ashi by taking the ladybug from her and killing it by squashing it between her fingers. A casual act of violence, a ‘casual’ act of abuse, probably little more than background noise in the constant abuse and violence that dominated Ashi’s life growing up, but one that we see had a profound impact on her. Ashi’s wonder at the natural world is the only thing we know about her outside of the abuse and brainwashing, and her mother does all she can to quash it.

By the time they are grown, the Daughters have been shaped by violence and abuse into weapons that their mother hopes will be able to put an end to Jack. You get no sense of their individual personalities; literally all you see from them is their veneration of Aku and their hatred of Jack. Their love for one another has either been literally beaten out of them, or it has been so severely mangled that it no longer functions normally. When they find the corpse of the first of their sisters to die, they do nothing but drag it out of the temple and leave it to rot under the open sky, with one of them muttering “Death is failure.” When, during the second engagement with Jack, Jack starts picking them off, the survivors exhibit absolutely no emotional reaction to seeing their sisters cut down. Though they are physically flesh and blood, it’s not exactly surprising that Jack can convince himself that they’re robots the first time he fights them; through the brutal conditioning the Daughters were subjected to, they don’t really function as human beings anymore.

Throughout most of XCV, we see Ashi consumed with hatred for Jack. She tries to kill him every chance she gets, both outside of the creature’s belly and within. When she is tied up, she falls back on the dogma she was raised on, screaming it out like a broken record repeating the same line over and over again—the last resort of someone who was never taught to think for herself, who was taught not to think for herself. We see that the abuse and indoctrination Ashi suffered has left her capacity for empathy either broken or very deeply buried—not once do we see her show even a moment’s grief for her dead sisters; it’s like it hasn’t even registered with her. We see that it has left her immature and emotionally stunted—her ranting sounds much more like that of a child than that of an adult. We see that it has left her with no sense of self-preservation (and implicitly, no sense of self-worth)—Ashi literally does not care if she dies in the belly of the beast, if only Jack dies as well. The violence in which Ashi was raised could very well have led her to murder-suicide had Jack not been more alert.

Even at the end, when they have escaped the belly of the beast and washed up on a small island in the middle of the ocean, even after Jack has saved Ashi’s life multiple times, Ashi still intends to kill him, at least at first. As all of XCV has illustrated, a lifetime of brainwashing is not something that can be overcome simply by having someone on the outside say ‘That’s wrong.’ But something happens that stops Ashi dead in her tracks.

Another ladybug appears, first flying around Ashi, then around Jack. Jack opens his hand and lets the ladybug light upon it, allowing it to rest there without harming it. It is at this point that we are shown the flashback of a younger Ashi with the other ladybug, just to hammer in the contrast between Jack’s treatment of the ladybug, and Ashi’s mother’s. Ironically, as violence has led Ashi to view herself a tool whose only purpose is to kill Jack, her mother’s casual act of violence by killing the ladybug in the flashback leads her to drop her weapon, apparently giving up on her ‘quest.’ The only link Ashi has to the world outside of the violence that has all but snuffed out her sense of self is her wonder at the natural world. Jack’s random act of kindness, something that links the two of them, allows doubt to enter Ashi’s mind. Violence snuffed out Ashi’s sense of self. Kindness allowed her to start to feel it again.

Does this mean the end of Ashi’s worship of Aku? Likely not; again, a lifetime of brainwashing isn’t something that can be overcome by someone saying ‘That’s not right.’ Does it mean the end of her hostility towards Jack? Given that XCV is as far as the show’s gotten so far, who can say, but somehow, I doubt it. While she may no longer wish to kill Jack, I somehow doubt that everything’s just going to be hunky-dory between the two of them, at least not for a while yet. But if someone is trying to overcome a lifetime of indoctrination, allowing yourself to doubt is where healing begins. And it was kindness that awakened doubt in Ashi. Violence only ever snuffed it out.

#Samurai Jack #Samurai Jack 2017 #Meta #Jack the Samurai #Ashi #This got long #But I regret nothing #I actually really love this theme as the show is executing it #TW abuse #TW indoctrination

[roboticrelic-blog]

Part 17: Nightmare Begins

Let me tell you. Living where I do now has been really good for my mental health. I get to relax I don’t have to worry about how people view me and amazingly enough I’ve really started to settle in. Hopefully things stay this great.

Prison was worse than I had expected. Being dragged away by soldiers with little hope of overpowering them was terrifying. I screamed and tried to get free but I wasn’t strong then. My cousin stood by watching as they dragged me out of the house, he was looking down on me. The next thing I knew I was stripped and searched, invasively.

I could feel tears streaming down my face as they called me by my old friends name. I’d given them fake information so my dad wasn’t alerted. I didn’t want him to ruin his new life over me. They strapped me to a chair and a general of sorts walked into the room I was in. He was short for a male and he wore all his medals in an almost obnoxious way. I figured he was compensating for the fact that he was third gender, though I never really felt brave enough to throw that in his face. For the record, third genders had to work twice as hard and often hid their identity to make high ranking official status. He was clearly here on this small ship because he was still being discriminated against, even though he was still in charge.

“You’re not very physically matured, which will save you some discomfort. However, to make up for our inability to use that against you we’ll have to go with something a little more permanently scarring,” the general said giving a wicked grin. He pulled out a knife and ran it over my naked body.

“Where are the rebels you’re working with?” he demanded lazily. He knew I didn’t have an affiliation with any of the rebel groups.

“I-I don’t know,” tears welled in my eyes but I refused to let them get any further. He plunged the knife into my side. I shot awake screaming. The heart monitor was beeping to alert the doctor that something was wrong.

Betahl wasn’t there at my side this time, and honestly it was probably better that way.

“Miss Relic are you alright? What’s wrong?” The doctor, a small third gender asked coming to my side.

“I… I just had a nightmare, I’m fine, thank you,” I said breathing deeply to calm down. I touched where the knife had left a huge scar. I would have another massive scar on my stomach. I didn’t want to look but I was naked. The bandage over my wound though saved me from seeing what would no doubt be a massive ugly scar.

“I was looking at previous scar tissue miss, whoever you saw before was very crude, I don’t know how they were given a medical degree,” they chatted eying the scars I gained in prison.

“I was fourteen, just started college, and was a robotics major, I didn’t have nor do not have a medical degree but I think I did pretty good,” I defended. The doctor blushed a little.

“I meant no offense, I just figured someone with your financial background, you could afford the very best doctors.” I wasn’t really bothered by their judgement. I kept myself alive while given no real direction on how to do what I did and only with basic tools.

“I was in prison on a small prison ship. They made me work for my life, they would stab me, cut me, beat me, and give me basic tools to fix the wounds. I had to fix myself if I wanted to live. I’m still here, which is impressive if you knew what they did to me.” I got up slowly causing the doctor to fret.

“I’m so sorry miss, I didn’t know Horrorshek was taking someone with your background. I thought… because of your family name and finances that you weren’t touched by the cruelty… I mean justice the government hands out.” The doctor tried to get me to sit back down but I stood and started moving towards the door.

“Thank you for fixing my wound, I can take it from here though doc, I’m going back to my bed though. I’ll come check in though so we can watch the brain scans. I wouldn’t want those radiation spots to get worse.” I walked out the door. Mednin stood watching as I walked slowly. He pulled his jacket off and gave it to me.

“You should cover up Relic, the Leader wouldn’t like you walking past the cadets quarters without clothes.” Mednin wrapped it around me and buttoned it. I held my bandage and walked slowly down the hall.

Cadets stared but upon eye contact they instantly looked down and bowed a little. Once we were back to the hall where Betahl and I slept I stopped and leaned on the wall tired.

“Mednin, we’re going to visit my dad once I’m a little better, I’ve got a gift for you,” I said. I messaged Ghost asking him for safe passage for Mednin to a place where he would be happy.

He called me. “Relic! You disappeared. Are you okay? Was he stopping you from talking to us?” Ghost was frantic. I chuckled.

“No, I had an accident and spent a bit in the medical wing. I sort of impaled myself.” I laughed about it now that I was up and moving. Ghost, however, didn’t find it funny.

“Are you serious? You’re okay right? Your dad, me, no one knew what happened! You were impaled and none of us were alerted. This is unacceptable.” He was fuming.  

“I have no excuse for not being able to tell you besides the fact that I wasn’t conscious and you know, kind of dying. I’m sorry. I’m fine now just tired. Can you get what I need?” I asked trying to be vague incase someone else was listening.

“I can but I don’t want it here, I won’t jeopardize everything for something that might hurt all the work I’ve done,” Adol was equally as vague but I understood.

“My father then, is there a way we could have the pick up be at dads til you know it’s safe?” I asked looking at Mednin who was looking around.

“I suppose I could help from that point, however, I still think this is risky. They are all the same.” I looked at Mednin with a bit of distrust but the fear in his eyes and the longing to see his family made me believe, with some therapy, he would be free.

“Just… can you do this for me? This one is different.” I knew I was asking him to do a lot. Adol could walk into a trap which is why I wasn’t telling Mednin the plan until it was time to follow through.

“Fine. I will.” Adol huffed.

“Thank you, I have to go though, I think I need to lay down, or at least put on my own clothes.” I muttered taking in the clear scent of Mednin’s jacket.

Adol growled. “Why are you not laying down? Who’s clothes are you wearing?” I could hear the jealousy in his voice but I pretended not to notice.

“My attending guard let me use his jacket so I had something to walk back to my room in,” I said. “Now, Adol, can I please go? I will message you.”

He huffed again. “Fine, you better message your dad too. Bye.” The call ended.

I opened the door to Betahl’s room expecting it to be empty but behind the metal sliding door was Betahl sitting on the bed clearly stressed.

“Relic darling, the doctor called and said you got up and left the medical wing without getting dressed or getting officially released. You needed more rest.” Betahl pulled Mednin’s jacket off me and wrapped me in a blanket. He threw the jacket back to Mednin.

“I’m fine, Mednin took care of my nakedness and I wanted to sleep in our bed,” something in me felt that genuinely. It was like a part of me was starting to really believe the lie I was telling him.

He smiled and picked me up gently and put me down in bed.

“You’re so stubborn,” he muttered burying his face in my neck.

I thought I went to sleep. I remember sleeping, dreaming, however my body had other things in mind. Well she had something else in mind.

She kissed him. She ran her hands over him. She begged him to move the wedding up. At this time though, I didn’t even know she existed.

#aliens #space #relicwrites #writing #story #part 17