#some stuff there mortal minds just can’t fully comprehend

[the-deep-fog]

The moon and sun have lost themselves to obscurity, and Fog descends. The environment is as classic a superpowered showdown setting one can get while still playing hospitality to a meandering mist that prefers uncountably many corners to hide itself in. One villain, a radioactive rebel holding to life like a weed that takes in pesticides for dessert, scouts the area, freshly healed and eager for a bout of vengeance. Another, the spitefully surviving embodiment of Harlan Ellison’s worst fears, calmly scours the playing field with no end of possible ending gambits stored in its motherboard/mind. Fully beknownst to their individual selves, whispered wonders and warnings reach them from unseen mouths yawning in the mist, subtly and ever so maddeningly guiding them further within the misty maze. Until, they meet. “Oh, Haricot,” CD crows, “back so soon? Why couldn’t you have stayed in the ground to rot a little longer? Are you that eager for another easy loss?” “Far from it, Chess,” returns Haricot. “Surely you don’t think I’d simply waste my time while relieved of your presence for ever so short a while?” It scoffs. “I should hope so, or else this will be over far too quickly to even be fun.” Ey smirk and start to reply, but cut emself off as the air between the two collects, gathers, and confuses into the outline of a figure sitting cross-legged with its chin resting in its hands. “Why, hello you two, Fancy meeting you here.” Both let off annoyed sighs (the similarities stopping there). CD speaks up. “Ugh, can’t you ever take this seriously?” “Yeah, way to kill the vibe,” Haricot follows up. Their complaints are met with only a grin. Suddenly directly in their faces, Fog actually replies, “So. I bet you’re wondering why I’m here.” The villainous duo look bemused, in a conniving sort of way. Haricot speaks first. “Believe it or not, I do know why you’re here- and Chess, trust me when I say it’s not a pleasant reason for you.” Incredulous, Chess replies, “Excuse me, but it’s not like I don’t know their reason for being here, and though your reaction seems improper it’s not like it matters that you think you know the situation, when in fact you’re in for...” “I didn’t lie, you know. To either of you.” Fog’s everlasting grin shifts slightly to a smirk, and the two rivals come to a realization at the same time. “Oh, you slippery little- “I knew that promise was too good to be true!” Well aware that riling up two of the biggest supervillains round the block leaves them in dire straits, the formless figure untangles their stature, giving off the appearance of taking a fighting stance. “Now, now, I’m not going back on my word at all! I shall deal as much damage as I can, just as promised. It’s only up to you whether to take advantage of the situation as it concerns your adamant adversary, or, yknow. Direct your avenging attention elsewhere.” Haricot reaches for a thorny beanstalk as they rise from the earth in numbers. “If you get dealt with permanently through all this, that’s one less thing getting in the way of me taking down Chess for good.” CD, in tandem, tessellates a jagged aspect of the ground and nods. “The less you bug me, Fog, the easier I’ll have it claiming victory over Haricot as well.” Zer smile grows even further, accompanied by the emergence of eyes from countless nooks and crannies in The Fog one could not imagine. For just because nobody could possibly know how one misty menace might pose a tangible threat, inflict damage of a directly mortal kind, it could be true all the same.

...

“Why are you doing this?” shouts Haricot, steadily growing a host of shrubs to shield emself with. “You must have a motive, nobody ever does stuff like this without a motive.” The Fog laughs, gleeful as ever, a booming sound that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. “You think I have a motive? That I am driven by anything to do what I do? Such things are the creations of you individuals; I have never had use for them. I go, and I act, and if that’s too much for you to comprehend then...” Though irradiating to demolition an eye that can hardly be described as there at all is a daunting task, Haricot pulls it off with determined flair. “Yeah, but you’re clearly going after me and Chess with some specificity- why go through all that extra effort? I know we’re not easy targets.” Fog lunges from & through nothing, resting in midair directly in front of them and looking at them intensely- less in a means of observation and more as mere eye contact for the first time they can think of. “Oh, the questions I ask have you asking questions in turn, what a wonderful relationship we have!” Haricot takes a step back, trying to develop personal space in a place where space itself can hardly be relied on, much less personhood, while Fog holds almost violently still amid the malevolent maelstrom. “I ask you this because you ask me the very same. Never has my question been, ‘why do you do this?’ because never have you, the one in my domain, done something humans don’t, and never has your question of ‘why’ been something I-” The ground beneath Haricot’s feet, steady as carbon-14, dissolves into murky air. Fog is torn to shreds above em as ey hurtle an unfathomable distance downward, till a web of vines and sludgy wood dense enough to support em forms. Though unclimbable walls extend around them, and depths great enough to distort the definitions of up and down yawn in every other direction, Fog reemerges from around a corner that cannot be found with an unprecedented frenzy in xer eyes. “You fight for your life, to survive, and I know how-why that happens. I know it,” they speak, with enough force to shatter a barometer. “Survival and curiosity are what motivates a human, but you two aren’t human, you reject it entirely, and you’re driven by more than this basic, primal duality, the intrinsic and extrinsic.” Can it yet be called an invasion of personal space when one has lost any sense of their body’s own position in space, and the other never had one to begin with? “You’re like me, and everybody questions me, and I too question everyone, but, I never- Sticks and stones degrade at the rotting hand of nuclear fusion. Haricot Heretic fights on.

...

Chess offenses, enacting gambit after glitchy gambit. “Damn you,” it mutters, then speaks more loudly into the stormy still. “What’s your goal in all this? Where are you trying to take this?” A cackle, harsh and untraceable, answers it at first. “Now, why would you assume I care for the results of my actions? That I aspire to achieve anything at all, beyond what you bear witness and contribute to as we speak?” Every word from The Fog’s mouths slithers through the air without discretion, almost as though it cares more about being heard than having its words said. The sharpness is turned down, resolution diminished, and threat put aside in a display of defensive tactics (though, how a cloud could ever be sharp enough to threaten in the first place remains bewilderingly unclear). “Look, you say you’ll never be satisfied, that it doesn’t matter if results are insubstantial- I don’t buy that. But you must know how we fight well enough to tell this won’t end well for you, so why devise all this in the first place?” CD asks again. It’s greeted by a face, ferocious and fanged, thrusting from the warring pixelation and obscurity besieging them. “I am transparent, you devil. You’re right, this is all futile, and for you to be correct at all shows my failure beautifully. I know not where this capacity for failure and determination in spite of such came from, because if I did, if my years spent interrogating the human race turn out to now have a tangible point, a lesson for me to learn, then-” Something or nothing or another scrapes hard against Chess’ horns, toppling it backwards into freefall. The ground, or whatever is passing for it, meets it immediately; jagged, hungry, & inviting. Something, many of it, planar and sharp enough to cut, is propelled or flung from the floor at it as it tries to pick itself up again. “You ask me questions I cannot, rather than will & would not answer, and I give you information I would & will not rather than can not.” Hir words seep through the condensation, slithering forward from behind its back just as easily as toothy mouths stretch as far as it can see in front of it. “You’re asking me questions none other have asked me- it should be inevitable. So why do I ask you, is it because you are different from any I have met before, or because I am different than-” The hard line between ones and zeroes forces separation and relief from the unclarity oppressing itself unto it. Checkmate is sought for ever longer. Checkered Devil fights on.

...

The fog is in no way noticed shifting, and yet Haricot & Chess find themselves in a clearing all the same. The two stand poised, not yet tired nor in peak form after all that has passed. Fog hangs in the air in front of them, not in form either. Sharp eyes, inhuman teeth, fill up space surrounding as they always have; a face, almost an outline, is arranged on Fog as it never has. It’s hesitant. Acting on impulse. Cowed and afraid. With all the cards in its hands. Ready to give up. Surely unstoppable. The target of infinite inquiries. Uncertain. “What do we have in common? Nothing of your motivation unites you with humanity- I am filled with questions, and that unites me with... them.” To Haricot and Chess, the sensation of eyes sliding their attention off them and onto another had never before been so very tangible. Nor had anything to do with Fog ever been tangible, though, only this far. “I know humanity when I see it- I don’t think these roles were meant to be reversed, okay?” they cut themself off, with their form almost seeming to be headed in a similar direction. Towards our villainous pair, a hand stretches forward. The wind picks up, drowning out sound & blurring vision, forcing the two to brace themselves; the only thing left clear in the maelstrom is a pair of eyes & a simple mouth- a face -and that hand, reaching, grasping, searching as far as it possibly can. “I am faced with the incomprehensible, filled to my limit with questions thanks to you two,” they yell, and scream, and whisper into the wind, “and it’s maddening. Every time i look at you two, it’s so, so, familiar it hurts

...

The sun rests comfortably in the sky. The moon, desaturated, finds a place above our villains’ heads as well. The Checkered Devil and Haricot Heretic stand, alone, on a simple grassy field. The air has cleared, only in a literal sense, and on the flat, clean, ground, rests a notebook, plain as can be.

...Does it get opened to the very first, or the very last page?

#writing #[that last sentence is indeed a prompt. an answer will be necessary] #hhvcd

[project-ohagi]

Katsuki Bakugou x Reader {Fantasy AU}

Buy me a coffee!! <3

Crimson.

A most enchanting crimson. That was the sight awaiting your rest-deprived eyes, as they dipped in and out of the mountain springs connecting the queendom of the faeries to this mortal coil. Had you happened upon a particularly beautiful fairy, or were you perhaps still dreaming? There were so many emotions swimming amid those starry pools...anger, mystification, irritation, suspicion, even a hint of nervosity. But only a hint. It was innocent, it was vulnerable, and it certainly didn't match what he chose to display. Actually, it reminded of the children who made merry in the castle's courtyard; the ones who weaved flowers into crowns and were excited for you to read to them tales of faraway lands, of dragons and masters, of mages and knights.

Well, if this man who knelt before you belonged to the plane of reality, and wasn't a tempting illusion...might you have been transported into one such tale? You reached out a hand, almost unwittingly, to ghost your fingers across his skin. It was pale and smooth. He made no effort to cease your actions, instead watching, as if an astral projection, as your fingers wandered the entirety of his face. His nose scrunched in mock disgust, lips silently begging to be claimed.

How could a seemingly small and fragile woman incite such a fierce reaction within him? He didn't understand, but he wanted to.

And then, a seraphic voice called, to snap him from a pleasant reverie. It took a few seconds to realise that you were its origin. "Um...my apologies - I must be disturbing you! B-But...may I ask...where exactly am I?"

"...My land." He grunted, after some careful consideration.

Was your ignorance genuine, or a mere deception? No-one arrived at Bakugou's territory without the intention to usurp him, or to slaughter him alongside the countless dragons who inhabited the land. But...would a frail-looking girl be selected for such a dangerous task? It was unlikely - though the possibility couldn't be discounted, for safety's sake.

"Your land? Are you perhaps the king here? Ah, what should I call 'here'? And, please pardon the intrusion! I-I'm not certain myself how I wound up on the forest floor. Not - not in foreign land, at least. I remember talking to the elves...oh, my goodness! I must have succumbed to sleep. How foolish of me! Father always warned against sleeping in the forest! Oh...what if there is a changeling replacing me right now, in the castle? What am I to do?"

"Quit mumbling. It's annoying." Those four words immediately flustered you, but he continued. "...You don't know how you got here? And...what's that about a castle? You royalty or something?"

With a quick gesture of affirmation, you replied, "My father is King (K/n)...not an awfully nice man, but saying anything more could be considered treason. Rest assured, he is not above executing one of his own."

Bakugou's expression soured. "That's fucked up."

Yours erupted in shock and awe. "T-That word...you use it? Is it not too vulgar?"

"Hah? Do I look like a gentleman, to you? Sorry Princess, but I curse as and when I like." He puffed out his chest, secretly hoping that you might compliment his muscles.

"'Princess'?" You gazed forlornly at the dress you wore. "This is your land. I'm no princess here."

You didn't wish to offend this man, especially not when the spears and swords you anticipated weren't being pointed at your throat. Bakugou's tongue was sharp, his responses crude and unrefined. Despite this...there was a warm aura emanating from him. And, from the way he started patrolling the length of the cave (as you soon recognised it), he was focused, protective. Even as the idle conversation whiled away the hours, even though he never really abandoned your side (whether this was due to doubt or care, you remained oblivious), he made a point of checking and re-checking, for any anomaly. When the western wind targeted you quite harshly, Bakugou forfeited his fur-lined cape. He draped it over you, grumbling all the while.

Though, your keen eyes caught the faintest of shivers, and before he could protest, you wrapped the cape around your bodies, snuggling into him. Bakugou's heart fluttered. His mind was failing to comprehend this new feeling, this sense of...home, and the sudden need, no - urge to provide and cherish. The small breaths against his chest, the hair tickling his skin...

Bakugou had little experience with human women. Until your arrival, the dragons were his only companions. Well, maybe the merchants (Ashido and Kaminari) could be classified as such? Definitely not that wannabe-knight, Deku, nor the fully-fledged knight, Iida, nor the Mage, Uraraka...

What if you were special? His pair - his mate? During your slumber, in the absence of any words, any reason for being here...he guessed either a fairy, a witch or a succubus, for your breed. But faeries were blessed with wings, and witches never ventured without their brooms. As for a succubus...you seemed too easily-flustered. The disbelief still permeated his mind. You, a creature of such ethereal beauty, were human? Like him? It was a simple mistake, to imagine you as something greater. His fixation had been instant. He knew what he wanted. Whether it would prove to be love, or some other, unfamiliar emotion...well, he wasn't renowned for patience, but...this was surely something to cultivate, something that required natural growth and progression.

Hopefully, your departure wouldn't be swift. Hopefully it would be messy, complicated, and eventually you would realise your true home: right here, by Bakugou's side. Together, you would spin a tale of love and devotion for the ages. Hopefully. If you didn't choose to leave.

If you left, if this feeling faded...what dreadful emptiness might consume him? He wondered about your interests, relatives (were you betrothed?), friends, future plans...he needed to sync your dreams and passions. You were perfect for him, so he needed to be perfect for you! This was his final, grumpy thought, before sleep lured him closer, closer, closer...

The morning brought forth a barrage of questions and quandaries, like: where the fuck were you? And: when had you abdicated his side? "Shit! Fuck! Shit! DEKUUU!"

"Hm?" Hearing the commotion, you poked your head around the corner.

"Who is 'Deku'?"

"Tch. Nobody. Where were you? When did you leave? Why didn't you wake me? You could've been hurt!" He scolded, loathing the slight wince caused by his raised voice. "...Sorry. I was just...urgh, nevermind!...Did you cut your dress?"

Sure enough, the distasteful garment (distasteful only because he wished to rip it off your body), once trailing on the ground, now settled just above your knees. "Yes! I would rather something shorter, anyway. Um...did I...does it not look..."

"It's better. If it's long, you'll just trip over stuff..." There lay a subtle blush upon his cheeks.

It went unnoticed. "Oh, thank you! I was hoping for practical and cute! And, um...I shouldn't intrude on you for too long, but perhaps I can be useful? I can cook...although that is probably all I can do."

"'Cause you'll wanna go home soon, I guess."

You laughed the most glorious melody. "That place is not my home."

Bakugou couldn't allow the silence to fester, lest this golden opportunity be wasted. "I can find work for ya. The dragons always need feeding...I can cook and clean, so don't fuss over that."

"B-But...I should repay you somehow!" Your whining flipped a switch in his heart.

I can think of a million reparations, but I can't say a single one of them...God, was I always this useless?

He groaned. "Like I said, I'll find something. You just...stay here for now. I'll go and catch breakfast, since I couldn't do that last night."

"I'm so sorry!"

While you wallowed in undeserved shame and guilt, Bakugou rejoiced at the memory of your conversation - all the monologuing, that transitioned into stumbles and stutters when you spoke for an extended time...the housewife air surrounding you (definitely a product of Bakugou's delusion), the way you smiled and laughed...It was ecstasy, Heaven, warmth! It was everything, and so, so much more! It was pure...

He started collecting little trinkets alongside the food - things he thought you might appreciate. Gifts, if you will. He imagined you smiling brighter, wider than before. He imagined receiving a kiss, whether a shy peck or a fiery lip-lock. He imagined decorating your neck with a dragon's teeth necklace, and showing off your bond to the world. If you would...accept him, accept everything about him, then...bliss would rain upon his heart forevermore.

She'll be my mate. She has to be! I won't let her be with anyone else...! I'll lay my claim soon enough, just you wait!

[Word Count: 1452]

#bnha #bnha bakugou #fantasy au #katsuki bakugou x reader #my hero academia imagines #my hero academia x reader #bnha bakugou x reader

[kassofchaos]

A Call to Arms

I'm back into writing fanfic shit! Bad news for those people waiting for the batman/ben 10 stuff, this is a Yu-Gi-Oh fic.

Decades. Mahad had spent decades of his life lost in study, sleepless nights spent in pursuit of arcane perfection. Nothing drives the great wizard forward quite like the rush of a new discovery, a new barrier broken, a new secret unveiled… all for his eyes and his eyes only. Each step forward, no matter how much time and pain it took, still strikes him with a high like none other.

With highs, there are lows. Like an addict without fix, sometimes the only thing keeping Mahad going is the spells he’s cast on himself: failsafes should his limited mortal cage wear fatigued. Still, his ambition persists, the arcane will be his.

With time comes wisdom, and with wisdom comes realization. Some Mahad accepts from the moment they apparate, bright ideas from a genius mind made manifest. Others gnaw at him like pests, too stubborn to admit them as truth. As time crawls on, there is no option but to accept them.

Never had a realization appeared to him quite like this.

His private realm, Yami, the dimension of pure arcane dark he’s hidden himself away for eternity, has been intruded upon.

Nose deep in an arcane tome, Mahad catches onto a stray sound. Billowing, a breeze. The wind.

What starts as a gust develops into the swirling and swatting of terrible winds. Pages and tomes fly about his dull and dimly-lit quarters as a tornado bursts into the center of it all. Mahad braces himself, anchoring his feet onto the ground as much as his body can and placing his arms in front of his face. The wind threatens to toss him out of balance and into the wall with a force that would shatter tombstones.

It halts. The winds disperse as rapidly as they had emerged, leaving a towering figure in their wake. Adorned in armor of golds and greens, a darker-green cape and a helmet - avian in design - adds to the overwhelming presence that now finds himself within Mahad’s library.

Before the magus can fully muster his wits and comprehend the intrusion, the newcomer speaks, and his voice is thunder: “Mahad, the Dark Magician. I am Raiza, and you are to come with me.”

“Raiza…” Mahad grumbles. In a flash of violet energies, Mahad finds his armored robes upon him and his scepter in hand. He points it to Raiza, eyes staring at him with all the rage of a cornered cave-beast. “How did you get here… I sealed this realm from all entry, a filthy Monarch like you is not welcome.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to.” Raiza asserts in return, his tone snapping back like the lash of a hurricane. “We need you, Mahad. Come with me.”

“The Monarchs need me!?” He scoffs, the very notion bringing him to reek. “If Ehther thinks she can send one of her lackeys, then let her show up and drag me from here. I don’t need her sending her lap dogs.”

“LAP DOG!?” Raiza growls in turn, a tone like rolling thunder at the peak of bursting into a storm. “I’m not here to argue with you about her greatness, let alone be belittled by an arcane shut-in!” He takes a step forward, the stomp of his armor sending ripples through Mahad’s realm. “I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t NEED you!” “Ehther can kiss my ass for all I care, all you cretins can!” “Can you put the past away for a second and just LISTEN!?”

“Try telling that to my people, to my gods! Where was Ehther then, huh!? Killing my-”

“EHTHER WAS KILLED!” Like the crack of thunder, the storm had been built up, and Raiza’s final decree had set it off. What ensues is a silence from both ends: the eye of the storm brings quiet.

Then, the call to action. “Ehther, Thestalos, Mobius… the Monarchs are dead. Granmarg and I are the only ones left.”

“Something killed them… and you need my help to stop it.”

“...I didn’t know you could read minds.”

“I can’t.” “You wouldn’t need to read my mind to realize, then, that whatever killed them can kill you too. Slay the arcane you’ve slaved your life away for.”

Mahad sighs, looking to his now trashed library of work. “I never expected I’d be preached to by anyone, let alone a fucking Monarch… What's worse is that you’re right.”

Raiza chuckles, crossing his arms as the subtle sounds of breeze ring about the lair. “Easier than I thought: thank god you can listen to reason. We’ll need more people like us, even still.”

“...What the hell did you see, Raiza…?”

“I saw chaos, Mahad, and it stared back.”

Chaos.

Fuck.

#fanfic #fanfiction #yugioh #duel monsters #dark magician

[cosmosfated]

@thecursedhellblazer​    from this ask.

  It wasn’t something he said with the intention of sounding  WISE  . He merely said it with intention of sounding  HONEST  .  Because that’s what it is. True. Infinity is a measure that’s different for everyone, for everything. An infinity is measured not by humanity but by moments, and not the mortals, not the gods, not even eternally spinning cosmos can speak on infinity at any measure. Because infinity? Infinity doesn’t care about you. Granted, many things in nature rarely do, but infinity is one of those things that could really give a shit if it wanted to and change some things, but it just doesn’t.

  He can’t help but be somewhat annoyed at the comment about ‘master Yoda’. It’s nothing about the series or the actual franchise, but rather the memories that come with it. Nothing to do with John, not really, only the words he decided to use. Even so, the bitterness crawls up in his chest, and Fleur can’t help but give John a small warning growl to step off. He doesn’t care how he takes it, but it is just a warning. 

  Fleur rests his chin in the palm of his right hand for a short time, and he thinks for a little while. Should he even do this? Is it worth it? This is something he doesn’t fully understand. He would be messing with forces he doesn’t fully comprehend. He knows magic, specifically his own magic, and that functions on things that people have told him are the stuff of children’s fairytales and daydreams. He can only imagine what someone like John would say about it. “... i would have to study your magic and this synchronicity more over time while i do so... but it’s not out of the question. i’m definitely... intrigued.” He sounds hesitant, at best. Openly worried, at worst. “you seem like you wouldn’t try to openly abuse the power, but then again, what does it matter to me if you do? hm... you wouldn’t mind making a deal with me, would you john?”

#DC&MARVEL: submain verse. #thecursedhellblazer #[[ here we go! #have a fleur being ready to teach john but needing one last thing before he does ]] #[[ he's a bit paranoid when it comes to teaching what he knows ]]

[spicyfloaty]

Give & Take | Chapter 4

pairing: kacchako

genre: slowburn/fluff

words: 2.4k

summary: Ochako's grades are slipping. Bakugo is dangerously nearing suspension, or worse, expulsion. A certain twist of fate pairs them together for tutoring sessions. He teaches her math. She keeps him from getting suspended. A simple exchange, but what if this only brings them closer than necessary?

header credits: @alexbenedetto

[READ ON AO3]

Chapter Three

Chapter Four: Bakugo’s Fingers

If you told Ochako that her first tutoring session with Bakugo Katsuki was going to be as dead silent as it was right now, she would have laughed and thought you were crazy. A scenario she had been playing over and over again in her head consisted of flipped tables, burning paper, and repetitive yelling. She had expected all of these and more, but Bakugo just loved to prove people wrong, didn't he? 

She could have heard the tiny footsteps of an ant, if anything, she bets that she could have counted its breaths in this deafening silence. In all honesty, she’d much rather have Bakugo say absolutely anything if it meant that he would at least talk and give her something to work with. She felt as though she had been having a discussion with a brick wall for the past 20 minutes, given that the brick wall plopped himself on the other side of the room, chin cupped in one hand, looking out a window completely uninterested.

Ochako looks down at the bulk of text on her book and begins to read it out loud. She modulates her voice just right, properly enunciating each term to give off an air of confidence around her even though in reality, her head could hardly keep up with what she was saying, “So basically this means that I should...factor it out?” She asks.

The air of confidence she had while reading almost instantly diffuses after trying to make sense out of what she just read using her own words. She hated the way she sounded so unsure with every concept but asking these kinds of questions out loud was the only way she could get some kind of affirmation that Bakugo was still in the same room as her.

He grunts, not even bothering to look at her. This sound usually meant that she got it right...or wrong, she wasn’t sure, she still had a ways to go in decoding this new language Bakugo had introduced her, he was really fluent in I don’t care. Ochako resists the urge to ask him if he was even listening to her because if there was anything she would dislike more than the painstaking silence, it would be a screaming match with Bakugo. Then again, at least he’d have to say something if that were the case. 

She sighs, then proceeds to read the next few paragraphs. The tone of confidence in her voice falters as each topic she comes across becomes exceedingly harder to comprehend, “This means um,” she quickly rereads the last portion to make sure she has it right, “I factor it again?” Ochako looks up at him hoping for some kind of reaction this time. Unfortunately, the view from that window was still ten times more interesting to him compared to this conversation, if you could even call it that.

“No.” Bakugo says flatly. She waits for an explanation that should usually follow that kind of response, but to nobody’s surprise, it never comes. Ochako almost throws her hands up in frustration, but instead, she just rests her forehead on the palms of her hands. She knew that massaging her temples won’t resolve the steady decline of her patience, but she goes ahead and does it anyways. This way, the not-so-proper things she’d like to say to him right now, bouncing off the walls of her mind, won’t cause an unwanted migraine.

She lifts her head to sneak a glance at the blonde mess that was the back of Bakugo’s head, what goes on in that mind of his, Ochako will never know. She thinks back to Aizawa discussing his situation and how these sessions were quite literally the only chance he has of not being suspended, or if worse comes to worst, expelled. Bakugo’s behavior so far surely wasn’t that of someone who cared about any of that, but one thing’s for sure, he’s here, which meant that he did care. Well, at least to some degree.

Bakugo might think that all he had to do was show up for this agreement of theirs to be fair game, but Ochako couldn’t just let herself be used as his one-way ticket out of trouble when she’s sitting here wasting her time not learning anything.

“Bakugo,” she starts, and for the first time, he actually looks at her, but only for him to glare at her as if saying his name, let alone, speaking to him directly were a mortal sin. Ochako feels herself shrink under the intensity of his gaze, but she doesn’t back down. She wanted his attention, she’s got it right now.

“I don’t think this is working.” she says this in the gentlest way she could possibly put it, her heart rate races as though she was getting ready to poke a sleeping dragon with a wooden stick. One might say that she already did.

“What?” Bakugo snarls. Oh, the dragon was definitely awake now.

Ochako chooses her next words carefully, but she just stumbles over them with nonexistent grace, “I um, I don’t think I can learn just by,” she struggles to find the words to describe the ineffective mess they were doing, “this.” Great job, Ochako.

Bakugo’s eyebrows knit together so closely she’s surprised they don’t start knitting sweaters, “And why the hell not?”

Ochako decides that she’s gonna have to be more specific if she wants to get her point across, even if it means increasing her chances of getting barbequed by flaming hot dragon breath, “It’s almost been an hour and you haven’t said anything to help me understand any of this yet.”

She tries to cushion the slight harshness of her words with a soft expression, but this doesn’t stop Bakugo from narrowing his eyes into slits. He might as well have had trails of smoke fuming from his nostrils judging by the look of disgust on his face, “I don’t know what gave you the idea to talk to me like that, but you shouldn’t”

The point must have missed Bakugo’s head and flown straight out the window along with the rest of the restraint Ochako had been using up until this very second, “You can’t just expect me to not say anything when you’re supposed to be helping me with this,” she dares rival his intense stare with her own, “and I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re not.”

Bakugo grimaces, his scowl sinking deeper into his face as he shifts his whole body in his desk to fully face her, “Listen, round face, I dont know know what the fuck your problem is, but things were going just fine before you chose to complain about it.”

“Fine?” She almost laughs, “You think me talking to myself is fine?” Ochako doesn’t normally raise her voice to anyone, she had always considered herself to be someone who could stay calm and collected in any given situation no matter how stressful it was, but there’s something about him that makes her blood boil to temperatures that would make Endeavor jealous.

“Who says I have to say anything for you to learn something?”

Ochako wasn’t proud of it. Maybe it was all the stress and pent up frustration from her job, her studies, hell, maybe both, that finally snapped the last thread of patience keeping her composed and rational, “Ugh! Why do you have to be so difficult?”

She sends her eraser flying towards Bakugo, but without even flinching, Bakugo catches it before it hits his face, the corner of his mouth lifts to give her a shit eating grin, “Wanna try that again, round face?” He tosses the piece of rubber back and she catches it just in time before it reaches the floor.

Ochako takes a mental step back to close her eyes, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself down before they spend the rest of the hour bickering, and before she runs out of stationery as ammunition, “Don’t you think it would be best if you actually explain these concepts rather than just having me read these over and over again?”

Bakugo lifts an eyebrow, “You got some kind of problem with reading?”

She releases the tightening grip she had on her eraser, she knew better than to do that again since it won’t even have the chance to crash land on where she wanted it to, “No! I--god, how do I put this, it's just that,” She gestures towards her textbook, “I’m not getting anything.”

“Why?” He asks as if she just told him that she didn’t know how to count to ten. Ochako decides that she didn’t want to argue anymore, she had already exhausted enough energy from just trying to make herself make sense to Bakugo and resisting the occasional urge to throw an entire desk at him. The last one took every single cell in her body not to do.

“I don't know, okay?” She exhales, “I’ve already tried reading all of this stuff on my own, I wouldn’t be here if I could understand it just from that.” She attempts to give him the most earnest look her face can muster, “So can you please just try and help me out here?”

Ochako momentarily catches a flicker of surprise in Bakugo’s eyes, maybe she looked a bit too earnest, just before his face twists into another scowl as he turns away to direct his attention to the wall. Bakugo’s eyes seemed to dart everywhere except her direction, but after a few moments of contemplation, he throws his arms up in frustration, “Fuck, fine!”

She expected him to pull out his own textbook from his bag, but nothing could have prepared Ochako for Bakugo making his way towards the other side of the room until he was right in front of her. He grips the corner of her desk with one hand and flips her text book to face him with the other. Red eyes peek at her from behind the blonde strands of hair that fell on top of them as he offers her his free hand.

Wait, is he asking me to hold his hand?

“Your pen, idiot.” He spits.

“Oh! Right, yeah, um here you go.” He was right, she was an idiot. Ochako hands him her pen and the brief contact of their fingers only add to the heat spreading like wildfire from her neck to her cheeks.

He pulls a chair from the table behind him and sits down, “Tell me what you need help with.” he grumbles. Ochako still couldn’t bring herself to string a single sentence due to the sudden change in proximity, not to mention the fact that they were also sharing a table that wasn’t exactly meant to accommodate two people.

She flips to a couple of pages back and points to an especially complicated part of the lesson. Bakugo takes a moment to read the entirety of the text, underlining a few words and phrases here and there as he goes through each page. Ochako didn’t know what to do while he was doing this, she can’t exactly read along with him since she’d be reading upside down. Instead, she quietly watches Bakugo, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, lips occasionally parting as he muttered parts of the paragraphs. She wondered if this was what he always looked like whenever he was studying with his friends or alone in his room back at the dorms.

“You done being a creep?” He suddenly asks, his eyes still fixated on her book.

Her eyes widened as she quickly looked for something else to look at, “Yes--no! I mean, no I wasn’t being a creep.” Her eyes find the ceiling. It amazed her how she could find 30 different ways to embarrass herself in front of a single person within the span of a few minutes.

“Sure.” he mutters flatly, eyes still glued on her textbook.

Bakugo finishes reading and turns the textbook again so she could see the things he had underlined along with the short notes he wrote beside some of the paragraphs. He begins to go over each concept and Ochako had to actively slide her finger along each sentence because of how fast he was going. Despite the ridiculous speed that he was explaining in, she manages to successfully keep up, the difficult terminologies and formulas slowly but surely begin to make sense, each cog in her head finally coming together for her to actually understand the examples shown after each concept.

Bakugo hands her back her pen, “Your turn.”

Ochako doesn’t miss the feeling of their fingers touching again when she takes it. This happens a few more times as she answers a set of questions in an exercise, both of them taking turns writing down solutions to each one. After the fifth time, yes she counted, she asks, “Did you bring your own pen?”

Bakugo’s eyes settle on hers once more, a familiar scowl painting his face, “You got a problem with me using this one?” He retorts. She debates on whether it was a good idea telling him that his fingers were distracting her, phrasing, Ochako, but she ultimately decides against it for obvious reasons.

“Nevermind.”

One problem in particular had her stumped for a couple of minutes and it takes all the little Ochako’s in her head to figure out how to approach it. She had been scribbling down the beginning of a solution when she feels a pair of eyes linger on her for a suspicious amount of time. It’s only when Bakugo’s staring hits the 2 minute mark that she says, “You done being a creep?” She grins, not taking her eyes off the page.

“Tch, you wish.” She didn’t have to be looking at him to know that he rolled his eyes at the remark.

An alarm goes off from Ochako’s phone, signaling the end of their session. She had miraculously gotten half of the questions right this time which was a huge improvement considering that she couldn’t even get one right before. She was about to thank Bakugo when he suddenly sprang up from his seat, hastily grabbing his bag from the other side of the classroom. He glances her way one last time before wordlessly exiting the room, leaving Ochako alone with her own thoughts that seemed to only revolve around the warm feeling of Bakugo’s fingers on hers.

#kacchako #kacchako fic #kacchako fanfiction #kacchako fluff #kacchako slowburn #kacchako week #kacchako week 2020 #bakuraka #bakuraka week #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugo #bakugo x uraraka #mha ochako #urakara ochako #bnha #bnha fanfiction #mha #ao3 #ao3 kacchako

[lucastheunlucky]

Admissions | Jared&Lucas

Location: National Park TWs: It soft, none Summary: Luke and Jared have a few things to confess, and Lucas, with the looming threat of Gotch always on his mind, wants to be sure Jared knows he’s thankful for having him in his life. @themidnightfarmer

Luke had told him not to worry, but like hell was Jared going to let himself miss the obvious trouble in the words ‘should something happen to me’ again. Not after how serious last time had been. The nymph sat on the outer gate of the farm and looked down the dirt track in the direction most people approached the place by car. Luke had said he’d pick him up after all. Jared sat with one arm crossed across his chest, and the other resting on top so that he could chew on his thumbnail nervously. He plastered on a smile and made a show of waving both arms when he spotted Luke coming however, no use in looking worried if he was going to find out anyway. Maybe it wasn’t so bad? Maybe he was thinking too much into the words like Luke had suggested he had. “So, socks or toes? Where are we at with shoes?” He grinned when the other was close enough to call out to. 

When Jared got in, Lucas took them towards the National Park for some rock climbing. Jared’s easy going smile was a nice thing to see, but Luke’s stomach was in knots. Something had struck him hard when he got back from the full moon, his thoughts darker than usual and he knew the ghost that was attached to him was probably amping it up. She would soon be dealt with, hopefully. Lucas pointed to the few pairs of shoes on the floor at Jared’s feet. “One of those might fit you, I have a couple pairs now since some of my other friends like to come with me,” Lucas said easy, and tried not to make the mood heavy like the weight on his shoulders was. “You doing okay? Haven’t seen you online much. Was wondering if you decided the farm didn’t need wifi.” 

Jared almost bonked his head on the dashboard leaning over to inspect the shoes at his feet. He crossed one leg over the other and started to untie his boots in preparation for trying on a pair. “You mean I’m not the first ever friend you've ever taken to climb? I’m hurt.” He said dramatically, throwing his wrist up against his forehead with a smirk and a small laugh. Luke asked about his last few weeks and Jared couldn’t hide his grimace. “It was a bit stressful, I won’t lie. But I think things are going to work out. I’m hoping at least that they’ll think about working out.” He supplied before managing to remove a boot and shifting to the other. “What about you bud? Out of town for something good?”

“No, you are not,” Lucas chuckled at the dramatics. The scent of Jared in the truck was extremely nice, and with the window down, it calmed Luke down a bit. Having worked himself up after he got back and realized that he was falling so easily into life. Not accounting for what that always meant for him. “Stressful? Shit. Life does that crap, if it rains it pours kinda deal sometimes. I’m glad it will or might work out for you, whatever it was. I’d say I’ll help you, but I’m not in any position for that right now.” Lucas clearly meant it, he never wanted his friends in trouble, and his shoulders seemed heavy while he held the wheel. “I was out of town for the full moon.” Lucas simply answered, but sighed. Jared would either get it or not. If he played it like he assumed Regan would, Luke would turn the convo around. “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about.” 

The others words held a lot of weight and Jared abandoned his shoelaces in favour of looking at Lucas fully. The gears in Jareds head were turning, but he was slow on the uptake, it took him a few minutes to put together the tone of voice and the implication. And yet, even connecting the ‘full moon’ to some of the more supernatural stuff in town Jared still managed to get it completely wrong. “For a….ritual?” He asked hesitantly before trying to gauge how Luke reacted to that question. “You thought I’d be...angry?”

“What? No,” Luke’s brows wrinkled, not sure what that meant in anyway. Lucas wasn’t ashamed of being a werewolf in any way, if anything, he was quite proud and loud about it with those who knew, but he also always wanted to be sure people didn’t lose their minds over realizing supernatural things existed. It wasn’t entirely fair to them. But Lucas has definitely eaten a small handful of Jared’s ‘children’ and Luke couldn’t imagine Jared was stupid enough not to know they weren’t normal. He offered a sharp smile, and the faintest amber to his eyes. “I kinda know your children aren’t typical livestock, Jared. I didn’t put it together until I saw you again. But I was the one that broke into your farm. Didn’t realize anyone was there over the winter, seemed empty at the time, and I can’t entirely help a good hunt when the moon is up. I always set something up to keep me occupied, I’m quite dangerous.”

His initial guess was out the window as Luke denied one of the two choices Jared had in his head. Spellcaster was out. So werewolf it was. And maybe it should have been more shocking. But Jared had been finding out a lot about people he’d grown up with lately. This spring when he’d returned to the farm he’d not stopped being surprised by someone else from the past. But he did look at Luke with new eyes. Curious eyes of his own, and eyes wondering how long Jared had been blind to the facts. His stomach did jolt however at Luke’s admission. On one hand he was livid. Hunting. His kids. But on the other he had to rival that with logic. It was a choice to protect others. A choice that hurt him, a choice that went against what he believed in. But given what he protected and everything that had happened recently how could he be angry? A werewolf had an instinct to hunt, and wasn’t that just what he defended his kids from doing as well? Would he be a hypocrite? He was at war and every emotion flashed across his face unimpeded. “I… that’s… uh.” He didn’t know what road to take. He was torn. 

“I know it’s a lot, which is why I wanted to do it in person.” Lucas could tell Jared was struggling and he really didn’t blame him. This kind of stuff could be overwhelming for anyone, and there was a piece of him that was waiting for Jared to tell him to ‘stop making shit up’. But Lucas wasn’t sure if he would be alive in the next month or so, and the low point he had yesterday over his mortality and being a liar to those he cares about-- the weight of knowing that those people he called friends, so many didn’t know the real him. It made it important. Jared had to know. Luke couldn’t face Gotch without saying his sorry. “I’m not human man. Never have been. I was born a wolf and it’s challenging during that time of the month, but it doesn’t entirely mean I’m not apologetic over it. So-- seriously, I’m sorry I killed your kids.” Lucas pulled into the parking lot just near where the trail was and turned the truck off. He leaned on the steering wheel, giving Jared more of his attention now that the road wasn’t important.

One shoe on, one shoe off. It was exactly his reality at that moment as well as where his mind was. “Oh.” Jared settled on as the truck engine ceased and the two of them could make full eye contact. “I didn’t know...you could be born a werewolf.” He admitted after a moment of quiet trying to comprehend it all. “Thought it was all-” he made a mouth with one hand and mimed biting his other arm with it, it was the movement of a child trying to speak before they could properly vocalise but it was what he managed finishing with a helpless shrug. “My kids...I… I suppose I can’t fault you for doing something you felt you had to. Something...natural to your kind? I’ll admit I don’t... “ He took a breath. “I mean if we’re coming clean I can go next?” Jared paused a moment before adding his own admission to the mix. “I’m not...well human either?”

Luke expected that. “We are kinda rare, but my entire family is. Makes for good training though, it’s why I can appear human so easily and why I can reassure you I won’t bother your barns again. I have excellent control, it’s why I left town. Found a different hunt.” Luke didn’t mention the harpy nest Miles and him took out. Jared attempting to justify Luke’s actions which clearly were hurtful to him, had Lucas’ heart aching. He reached out, squeezing his thigh, his expression soft and trying not to appear anything but worried about Jared’s feelings. “You don’t have to do that. To you, if it’s wrong, then it was. I’ll try to make it up to you.” When Jared presented the last bit Lucas could only smile. “I mean, I figured. It’s the only reason I’m even telling you anything. I don’t like to involve humans into supernatural business.” 

“I… yeah, I’d ask you to leave my kids alone.” Jared was so much more closely connected to the charges on his farmland, he would still be distracted by the idea that somewhere else more of his charges were in danger, but truly that was pedantic and even he could agree with that. Werewolves were a part of this world, this natural world he quoted often. Not taking any of his direct charges was more than he could hope for. “…I’ll try to forgive Luke. I’ve been on a bit of a ride recently concerning my kids. I'm...trying to be more understanding that not everyone sees them like I do.” It still hurt, it would hurt. But Luke hadn’t known. So truly Jared felt it was unfair to blame him. He patted the hand on his leg and returned the smile as best as he could. “You’d be surprised at the humans that are running around town in the know. I’m a nymph though I’d say born that way as well if I uh...had technically been born? Bit of a weird one. Josie isn’t my actual twin, but we did arrive on the same day I suppose.”

“Did someone else hurt them? Is it normal for you to fight so much to keep them safe? I mean, I don’t know exactly what they are, but-- shit,” Lucas was more worried about someone coming for Jared if he was honest. Did he get threatened? He could be a soft guy, and Lucas didn’t want to see him hurt ever, which is why this was a conversation that was so hard. Lucas had to reel that overprotective energy real fast before he spiraled. “I see. I’m not overly familiar with the Fae, but I’m not ignorant about it. I’m a little relieved we could tell each other this. I didn’t want such a big secret between us--” Luke trailed off, not finishing the sentence about why. “Come on, let's get to the rock site,” Luke got out, grabbing gear from the back of the truck. “So tell me something interesting about your kind. You are safe on the farm right?” 

“It’s not normal. I glamour them all to look normal, or as normal as I can manage if I know someone regular is coming around. The farm is so far down the track it’s not usually an issue. The only people who know are trusted. But recently I had someone come try to steal one. I uh fixed it though.” He’d shot the guy, taken him hostage and forced him to promise never to tell anyone or return. How did you tell a friend that? Jared glanced at Luke and figured he’d tell him at some point. The secrets were ending. Luke could be trusted completely with every little thing now he was confident in that. The nymph finished changing his shoes quickly and rounded the truck to help. “Interesting? OH I have horns bud! Like real horns, grew in while we were in school. Absolute nightmare at the time, but I think they’re pretty cool!” He tapped Luke on the arm and pointed into his hair, where 4 horns emerged from glamour for a moment. Focusing on the exciting parts of this revelation was a lot easier than dwelling on the other bits. “But hey what about you bud! Growing up werewolf and all?”

This all felt good, and the pressure on Luke’s chest from anxiety, didn’t ache as much. It would always be there, worried, and concerned over the people who wanted him in their lives. Lucas having been told by the worse of people that he couldn’t be loved. Luke was genuinely surprised by the horns and the falling of the magic or illusion keeping them hidden was really interesting. “You know, it’s you. It really suits your face. I am so naive with magic, fae or not. I always joke and say I’ll take on a dragon before attempting to get it.” Luke started walking them to a place he frequented, and kept him in decent shape all around. “Growing up werewolf,” Lucas huffed a laugh. “Shit, man. I dunno. I was a troublemaker. Hormones are no joke, and while dealing with first changes. It was awkward, sometimes I’d be somewhere and I could hear someone’s private conversation or the gym locker room would reek so badly I’d throw up. I was so confused when I was younger. All the time. I had all this information and couldn’t really tell anyone I knew it.”  

Even with the comment Jared covered his horns back up again. It was safer this way, and it was always good practice. With so many more emotionally stressful situations happening since he had gotten home in spring he’d found that he needed all the practice he could get just in case he at some point had to cover a whole lot more than just himself. “I mean if dragons ever decide to become real I will be right behind you in wanting to meet one.” He joked. A childhood like that sounded on par with his own. Growing up was hard when you were something different. Especially when you felt like the only one that was. “But hey. Made it to be an adult despite it all.” Jared chirps, trying to bring the mood up. His elbow pops out to nudge Luke playfully as they walk the trail. “And no more secrets. Us not normies have to stick together now. The good the bad and the musty.” 

Luke could leave it there. He jokingly pushed him back then took off running, taking them to where the rocks jutted from a hill and made for some fun low climbing or high bouldering. It would be so easy to let this be the moment Jared remembers, right? Let this memory overlay the issue with his farm, and maybe, if Lucas didn’t survive it, he could think on this and smile. Knowing Luke a little better, enough to make them feel closer. Gotch’s voice was heavy in his mind, saturated with words that made him second guess why he did things. Jared’s statement is stale on his tongue. He put his stuff down, and faced Jared proper. “Hey man, I have to tell you one more thing. If I am not around at any point, like-- if something happens, just know that I really appreciated this little bit of time, and just being friends as kids too. Having you-- period, making me smile and shit. I’m thankful.” 

Jared grinned as Luke shoved him back before taking off after the man. It was fun to act like kids again with each other after so much time apart. LIke nothing had happened. Like they both hadn’t just admitted to lies and identities that they’d never shared with one another. 

Luke had some heavy stuff on his mind but Jared was feeling light, his secret was held so close to his chest for so long. But lately, finding people to deem trustworthy was getting easier. And he was glad that him and Luke could be so open. This mood shifted rapidly however when Luke spoke again. “Is something going to happen?” He asked. Luke had said something similar over the phone and it had set off alarm bells in his mind, it was so similar to the talk Nell had tried to have with him before she’d left to potentially die getting her sister back. “Is something wrong?” He wasn’t going to let another moment like that pass in stupidity on his part by not picking up on it.

“Yeah man,” Lucas sighed, scratching the back of his head. Along his forehead and into his hairline a rounded scar from getting shot years ago, and the newest one up his forearm that almost cost him his arm and a long stay at the hospital. Not included, the multitude of other ones, all in age, all the same. Starbursts under his shirt, raised lines. “These scars aren’t there because of some fun. I’ve got a hunter problem, and it’s a personal vendetta and it’s not good. I have people looking out for me, but I’ve dealt with this guy since I was young. He won’t let me live peacefully for long. I’m waiting for the shoe to drop. I don’t know how it will end. It’s why I wanted to be honest with you. I just wanted you to have a good memory with me, just in case it goes badly this time.”

Climbing was completely forgotten by the nymph. Jared turned to look at Luke, his eyes flickering over the scars being gestured at before his face screwed up in worry. “I have loads of good memories with you.” Jared said trying once again to process a horrible truth coming to light about his friend. “And we’ll have more. Don’t be…..saying goodbye okay it makes it seem like you’ve given up. Don’t give up.” It came out a little like a plea. But Jared didn’t want to upset Luke, he just wanted to know Luke wasn’t planning on just resigning himself to what he thought was coming. “Can I do something? You could… we could do something?”

“I’m not giving up, that might be the problem though,” Lucas smiled softly, reassuring  and knowing he has good memories with Jared meant a lot to him. He couldn’t always remember well with his old head injury, and the confirmation was pleasing to know. Even if it was all grim around it, and he could tell Jared didn’t like how it all sounded. Luke knew it felt like a goodbye, but in a bad way, it was a small one. Just in case. “In the past, I just let him have his way with me. Even a few months ago, he attacked me and put me in the hospital-- I let it happen. Just sat there man, stuck in my head. He’s fucked me up mentally, I’m a mess around him.” He admitted, and it was rancid on his tongue. He sighed. “I’d rather you not be anywhere near this man. He kills brutally, and without care. The pack will handle him. I know its heavy, I just was alone for so long, and now having you all back in my life, I was desperate for you to know how appreciative I was of having you. Friends don’t say that enough.”

Jared’s emotions always ran a little higher when it came to his friends. Especially considering Luke in particular had come back into his life all of a sudden and not that long ago. Jared had memories of them in school, but the newer ones, where they so easily fell back into friendship wanted his heart the most. So hearing his story was hard, hearing his struggle, and knowing that it was only today he was being granted the knowledge when Luke had clearly been struggling with it a long time. Jared never claimed to be a strong man, he always had and always would be soft to the core in situations like this, and it reflected in how glassy his eyes became. The tears stayed in his eyes but the blonde didn’t hesitate to wraps his arms around  the other. “Friends don’t say that enough. You’re important Luke. Don’t hesitate to ask me for help, if I can I would want to know you’d ask.”

Lucas huffed, accepting the hug and wrapped his large wingspan around the other tightly. The unique scent of Jared was easily marked this close, and now knowing that he wasn’t human made their friendship feel even more special. Luke didn’t have to lie as much, and he wanted to learn more about Jared’s life that was just as hidden as his own. But these moments, small pockets of hours filled with friends, and laughter, and feeling like he was living-- made Lucas feel happy. That was what he was after more than anything. Lucas could see Jared’s watery expression, even if he was holding it in, it made a bubble of emotion hit his chest and he matched. “Don’t cry, I’ll win--” he promised softly, neither were in fact crying but close enough that it seemed like he was telling himself not too as well. The slightest of growls vibrating down his chest and in his lungs. “I’ll fucking win and I will ask you, alright?” Though Luke didn’t want to pull him anywhere near this, knowing the violence that wrapped around the hunter, he understood why Jared needed that reassurance. “So, phew, I feel so much better getting that off my chest. Emotions are crazy.” He tried to joke, letting go of Jared. “Ready for fun now? Or you have something you need to work through with me? I’m all ears if so, bro.” 

Too many of Jared's friends were in danger, and so many of them had some sort of idea in their head that he wasn’t strong enough to hear it. And maybe he was soft, a little too emotional at times too, but he wanted to keep them safe. He wanted to keep Luke safe. No matter if he’d unknowingly been hunting his charges. How could he fault a werewolf for natural instinct, trying their best to not hurt people? He hadn’t known about Jared, and had already promised to leave the farm be now that he did know. Sniffling, the nymph pulled back from the hug and nodded his head a few times firmly. “Emotions are crazy.” Jared agreed before shaking his head. “I accidentally kidnapped someone once, but they’re fine now.” and with that, said quickly like ripping off a bandaid, all was out in the open. “Lets climb.”

#x: admissions #x: jared

[times-new]

The Son of Rome, Chapter 1

Hi! This is my PJO fanfic, a Roman!Percy AU that I’m writing as a five-part series like the original PJO. I’ve posted the whole first ‘book’, the Son of Rome, on ffn - but I’m posting it here too for good measure. Hope you like it!

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. You might think I'm crazy for saying that. Being a demigod? Why would anyone not want to be one?

Well, a lot of reasons. I knew that. But I didn't fully understand it until today.

It started several weeks – no, it must have been months now. Several months ago, I woke up cold, confused, alone, and surrounded by talking wolves. It was scary, sure, but fear wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. Being a twelve-year-old in New York is hard enough, and when you add ADHD and dyslexia to the mix, you might end up with something like me. I had to face bullies from classmates and teachers alike. I was raised in a system that set me up to fail. Even when I come home to my mom, the only good thing in my life, I had to put up with my stepdad. Being scared and alone wasn't anything new.

Okay, that sounded a lot more arrogant than I thought it would. Let me start over. My name is Percy Jackson. I'm a skinny kid with thin black hair and green eyes. I guess I don't look too different from my mom, but I got my eyes from my dad. That's the only thing Mom would tell me about him in twelve years. Enough about him, though. Like I said, I'm ADHD and dyslexic, so school never felt right to me. I just felt like I should be doing a lot more than book reports and geometry. I tried to join the basketball and baseball teams, and although using up all my energy felt good, it just wasn't rewarding.

I was stuck in a loop of doing bad in school, disappointing my mom, getting frustrated, then doing bad in school again. Sometimes I even wish that my dad would finally show up and save us from our lives. My mom keeps telling me how proud she is of me no matter what, and I believe her, but I know she deserves better than that. Better than me. And a little after I turned twelve that wish came true.

I woke up in the ruins of what I thought was a castle at first. It turned out to just be a really big house, but my mind couldn't comprehend that people could actually live in places as big as this. That was almost harder to believe than the talking wolves. They surrounded me when I first woke up, all slick dark fur with beady eyes. Then they had parted to allow a much bigger wolf approach me. Lupa, she said her name was. She told me everything in her deep and powerful voice. That I was a demigod, that I had been chosen, that I had to learn to fight and live and survive the legacy of Rome.

Sure. Better than pre-algebra.

She pushed me to the limit. I did things I didn't know I could do and tore muscles I didn't know I had. When she was done with me I was strong enough to be a member of the pack. I had to be, because I'm still alive.

Right now, I'm sitting in a bus with my backpack on my lap, squished between strangers. Every bump in the road made me clutch my bag even tighter, and my hands would twitch to the coin in the pocket of my jeans. Over the past few days I was traveling towards my destination, some place called Camp Jupiter. Lupa had told me to 'follow my instincts' and 'embrace my destiny'. She was a bit dramatic that way.

But I couldn't describe the feeling any better. I just knew in my bones that this was the right way even if my brain says otherwise. A camp? Like a summer camp? It's probably a bunch of cabins with a volleyball court. It's got to be back in the forest near the Wolf House. How could it possibly be in the middle of the city? It made sense. And yet I knew it wasn't right. The trail of monsters probably helped me decide that.

I tried to keep my head down. Really, I did. But one way or another I would always find some weird nasty trying to kill me. They were always bigger, stronger, and meaner than me, but none of them were taught by wolves, let alone Lupa. I had to use my hard-won wits to beat them. Which meant a lot of running away. It's a lot more heroic than it sounds. But I had to stand and fight more times than I was comfortable with, and that meant busting out the magic sword I kept in my pocket. Lupa had given it to me – she said it's made of 'Imperial gold', that it was meant to be used by the greatest sons and daughters of Rome. I didn't understand why calling gold 'imperial' would make it any better, and I definitely didn't understand how I was 'great', but I learned not to question Lupa. That would only lead to running more laps around the Wolf House.

As far as I knew, I didn't have anything to make me great. Though I always had a nagging feeling, something to do with how I get whenever I go near water… like that one time I tried to join a swimming club and outpaced the instructor, or that one time me and my mom went to the cabin in Long Island. But that can't be right. It can't be. Because if it was, then that would make my dad…

No. A couple days ago I went to a public library to get on a computer and Google some stuff about the Roman gods. I found out that out of all of them, Neptune was the most feared and hated - except for maybe Pluto. After a life of being rejected by everyone I knew, this was my one chance of fitting in. I didn't want to be a loner again. Sadly, I also found out that every monster within a five-mile radius immediately knows where I am whenever I use the internet, so I could never find out more about the Roman gods by myself. The only reason I made it out of that library alive was my coin and very inventive use of a rolling chair.

I snapped back to reality when I saw my stop. I got out of the bus and stepped out into the middle of nowhere. Well, not exactly. But it sure felt like it. The bus stop was on top of a small hill, and I was the only person around. I was surrounded by beautiful golden hilltops and flatlands further in the distance where the suburbs of San Francisco sprawled. Far away, I could see the Golden Gate Bridge, and on the opposite side, I could see a mountain with its peak hiding behind a cloud. I wasn't sure where I was. But something just felt right. I had followed my instincts like Lupa taught me, and I would know I was right because I would always find –

I heard a snort behind me. The only thing I heard for a few moments after that was my heart beating in my chest. Then I plucked up the courage to turn around.

It was tall, muscled, and really, really smelly. Like, worse than my stepdad smelly. It was naked except for a loincloth, though that wasn't what I was looking at. Its nose was covered in reddish snot, and its eyes were dull black and fixed on me. But my eyes kept drifting to the top of its head, where two cruelly twisted horns sprouted out like the stunted plants from one of my failed science experiments. I guess it looked pretty normal until you moved past its neck and onto its bull's head. I wondered why I didn't notice it before. The Mist, I realized. It must have affected me, and the mortals even more. It was the magic that covered up our world from everyone else, Lupa had told me. People saw what they want to see, and it's never the truth. Even now the thing's head would sometimes look like a misshapen human head with a cowboy hat. And I figured that if someone saw the man-bull for what it was, it could probably go on all fours and moo and no one would look twice.

That made me choke out a laugh. Apparently cows took offense to that, because it roared and charged at me. My battle instincts kicked in, so of course I turned and ran. Look, I promise I'm a demigod, alright?

My first thought was to think back to what I knew about bulls. Well if I'm being completely honest my first thought was Oh my gods, please don't kill me, I'm sorry I had a cheeseburger this morning! My second thought was racking my brain about bulls. Even when I was sprinting up and down hills with a monster at my tail I could think up a few things. First, beef is delicious. Second, cows don't like the color red. Not a lot to go on, but I was under a lot of pressure. Then I remembered that some people would go in an arena with bulls and wave red flags in front of their faces. I forgot what they were called – mats? Doors? Whatever they were called, they always dodged by moving to the side just before they got hit. I hoped that would help me, because I began to feel the thing's breath on my neck, like my pre-algebra teacher. That didn't help me calm down.

I dodged to my right before I knew what I was doing. Sure enough, there was a surprised grunt and I risked a look back. Now that I was closer I could see that it was a lot less human than I thought. It had fur on its chest and arms, but even under all that I could see veins rippling below its bulging muscles. It looked off-balanced for a minute, until it shook its head and barreled at me again.

I can't outrun him, I realized with a jolt. Even now I was starting to get tired and the man-bull was just warming up. The sharp turns were hurting my ankles, and the thing was starting to get used to my tricks. That left two options. I could overpower it or outsmart it. That first option was crazy, even for me, so I had to use my brain instead. Maybe if I went to the city and ducked into an alley – no, that would just endanger more people. I couldn't do that. Maybe…

My instincts told me that the camp was close. Very close. I needed to buy some time, get on a hill, and look at my surroundings. Right now, the only thing I could see were my feet pounding the soil, and a big shadow getting bigger and bigger. Well then. I decided to do what I do best and did something stupid.

I dodged again, but instead of sprinting I turned around, took off my shoe, and threw it at him. The monster was more surprised than hurt – which made sense, since it flew well over his head. I was no good at archery, so I guess that wasn't shocking. But it did its job. It was distracted long enough for me to reach into my pocket. I pulled out a small golden coin – it was the size of a half-dollar, but solid gold and with weird drawings on it. It had the head of some guy I didn't recognize on one side, and the letters IVLIVS on the other. I didn't know what that meant, but I did know that if I flipped it, it would turn into a Roman gladius: a few feet of sharp monster killer.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, grabbed the sword in midair, and jammed it to the thing's leg. It screamed even louder than me, then reached down to grab me with its meaty hands. I pulled out the gladius just in time and rolled backwards. Golden fluid, what had to be the thing's blood, poured from the wound. Normally monsters would just poof into dust after a solid hit with my sword, but this guy was something else. Still, it fell to its knees when it tried to charge me again, which gave me a few seconds to run up the nearest hill and look around.

I only had a glance. It was enough. I could see huge columns in the middle of the field, then saw that they were holding up a highway above me, where it disappeared into a big hill. To my left were more hills, which began to turn to asphalt streets, while to my right I could reach the suburbs with just a few more minutes of running. But up ahead…

It looked like an old tunnel, built into the side of the big hill. Maybe for maintenance? I wasn't sure what I was looking at, but something just screamed to me, home. The only time I felt that way was when I'm in my tiny apartment, alone with my mom, talking about the rare happy moment in school while eating nachos and her legendary seven-layer dip. It felt right. It felt safe.

That was all the encouragement I needed. I ran through the grass and dirt faster than I thought was possible. I could feel stitches at my side and cramps down my legs, but the smell of monster kept me running. Eventually I could see an entrance in the tunnel, a set of enormous iron doors, and two people who looked like they were wearing armor. They were also holding spears and carrying shields, which reassured me, though they couldn't have been much older than me. But when a charging bull monster was on your butt, you'd take your chances.

"Help!" I screamed. My voice was strained and hoarse – gods, I wish I had drunk before I stepped off the bus. The guards noticed me and looked as scared as I felt. I could see them yelling to each before one of them opened the doors and the other readied his spear. As I got closer I could see his blue eyes and waxy skin underneath his helm. He looked terrified, but he leveled his spear.

"Halt in the name of Rome! Who are – "His voice was shrill, and I might have laughed if my voice was any better.

"Later! Help now!"

He ground his teeth and surged forward. I couldn't believe my eyes. He actually moved to attack.

"Senatus Populusque Romanus!" he shouted. Okay, I thought. Why not.

"Get in!" yelled the other kid. She looked like a girl – it was hard to tell underneath the helmet. That sounded like a great idea to me, and I ducked inside. It was dark inside the tunnel, but I could see a light in the distance. I followed it before turning to the girl.

"What's- "And I realized it wasn't her. Instead, the first guard was running beside me. He had a nasty gash on his shoulder and was breathing heavily, but otherwise looked alright. "Keep going! Gwen is keeping it busy!"

I didn't know what he was talking about, but 'going', I understood. I huffed and reached the end of the tunnel. I thought I had died.

At the other end was a valley, small as far as valleys went, but there was a city in the distance. It looked like heaven, or what I thought heaven would look like: pristine white walls, beautiful arches, and solid buildings surrounded by freestanding columns. It was a couple hundred feet away, and in between us there was a river that ran through. Again, I could feel that tugging feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I forced myself to think about something else. I turned around and my heart leapt to my throat.

I was so taken by the sight I didn't notice the male guard had switched places with the girl again. Only this time, she looked terrible. Her helmet was missing, revealing a mass of reddish-brown hair that stuck to her head with what looked like blood. She was using her broken spear as a crutch and limping as fast as possible towards me. The other guard was yelling at the monster, trying to get its attention by going for the occasional jab with his own spear, but I knew that it could snap the spear or the guard with equal ease. I had to help.

I heard shouting and bells ringing. In the distance, a group of people were running towards us, but it would be a few minutes before they arrived, minutes that we didn't have, and that was if they didn't have to cross the river…

The river.

"Hey! He needs your help! Hey!" I heard the female guard, Gwen, calling out to me, but I swallowed my guilt and ran to the river. You told yourself you'd never use this power, I thought. You said you'd reject your father. I hated that I had to do it, but I hated myself more for not thinking about the guards sooner. If I had stood and fought, if we surrounded the monster three on one, then maybe…

No. This was not the time to regret. Right now, they need me. I heard a pained shout behind me before I stepped into the river and turned around to face the monster. The female guard, Gwen, had fallen to the ground. The other kid lost his spear and was weathering blows with a shield that looked like a saucer compared to the monster's fists. He was the only thing standing between Gwen and the monster. I felt the anger and guilt burst inside me like a geyser. They were taking those hits for me. They were taking that pain for me. I wouldn't stand for that. I screamed, and I felt the water rushing to meet me. I charged the monster, and the river came with me.

I wasn't sure how I did it. I just poured all my emotions into a single thought: Fight. I pulled out the coin and flipped it into a sword. When I was halfway there I jumped and felt the water propelling me like a rocket. I was launched several feet into the air straight at the monster. Time slowed down as I gripped the sword with both hands and held it above my head like I was bringing down a hammer. I saw the monster looking at me with surprise and fear. I could see the guard staring at me, wide-eyed. I could feel the wind blowing at my face and the water giving me the strength of a superhuman – of a demigod.

I jammed my sword between the monster's eyes and it dissolved into dust. With nothing to land on, I fell to the ground, soaking wet and hurting in every part of my body. I coughed up the remains of the monster – it tasted like overcooked steak – and stood up to check on the other two. Gwen was still unconscious, but the other kid took off his helmet and stared. He was even paler than I thought, and his blond hair was now dripping wet. Everything between me and the river was drenched in water.

"That was… that was amazing," he whispered. He was clutching his shoulder where the gash was. "How did you do that?"

"I don't know. I just did." I looked at Gwen. "Is she alright?"

The other guy smiled tiredly. He must have been my age, maybe a year or two older. "She'll be fine once we get some nectar and ambrosia inside her."

He walked forward and stuck out his hand. Even though he was just in a fight for his life, he had a crazy gleam in his eyes, like he was just given a new toy to experiment with. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"My name's Octavian. Who are you?"

"Hi. I'm… I'm passing out." I fell forward, and the world turned black.

#fanfiction #pjo #percy jackson #Percy Jackon and the Olympians #fanfic #writing #OC #au #octavian #thesonofrome

[zuziasuchor]

reflection. 03.04.20

In one part of 'The Mind In The Cave', David Lewis-Williams explains that writers on Upper Palaeolithic art, as well as archaeologists, are constrained by the modern associations of the word 'art'. They ascribe the portable and parietal art to not only the word itself, but the Western criteria of artists: "The Notion of inspired individuals who, by their almost spiritual status, are set apart from ordinary mortals is a concept that gained acceptance in the more recent West during the Romantic Movement." He argues that 'art' and 'artists' are formulations that are made at specific points in history and cultures. It's interesting that 'art' has a collective association, yet when we come to define it everyone struggles. I agree with the idea of art being a formulation made in specific points of history and culture, which we are naturally bound to. I believe contemporary art is bound to heightened ideas, grand concepts and farfetched modernity- all things that I really struggle to understand or connect with. Despite contemporary art honing its focus to a more social and anthropological viewpoint, it has distanced itself from the everyday and the daily life we mold and associate with- why is it so serious? Where's the humour? Where are the human bits (not those sort of bits)? Why do billionaire artists exist, what is that all about? Why does a bullshit painting of a black square sell for 20 grand?

The importance we attribute to a painting interests me. In truth, it consumed and overwhelmed me for some time. We have had an innate urge to communicate, represent or capture something through mark making ever since the parietal art made during the Upper Palaeolithic era- why do we grant such privilege and preciousness to a vertical surface? I struggled with this for some time, I have a need to bring the everyday closer to art, to adapt the art object to personal lives, but simultaneously keeping a humble attentiveness to its value as an art object. I want to study pottery as it encapsulates all that I stand for, but the other half of me is very drawn to this frustratingly hard to decipher painting scene. I can’t even explain the content or context of my paintings, then again, maybe there isn’t a context or content. I can’t form a fully comprehendible sentence on the motives behind anything I’ve drawn. I think it’s a mixture of so many different things, and a constant ebb and flow between ulterior rationale and sensuous clarity. It may be comprehended as everything or nothing by others, as physical reference or emotional planes, but for me its none of those -or maybe a complicated mixture of them all. From reading back at old stuff and old evaluations, I’ve realised how flighty my decision making is, nothing is ever set in stone for very long; I’m like a puppet on strings to my intuition at the moment, maybe that will change and I will be able to understand my painting in the future. 

This weird mystic side of painting, just that- without romantasising things too much- is part of the reason I paint (I’m still trying to figure out what those other reasons for why I paint are… I’m sure there are more, just haven’t gotten there yet.) Seems like a closed circle at the moment: I paint, I don’t know why or what I’ve painted and the reason for not knowing why or what I’ve painted lures me in to paint more. Part of me hates the privilege and lack of functionality, and the other longs for it.

[meet-me-at-kingsmeet]

Why I don’t like the OT3 (Damen/Laurent + Erasmus)

This obviously involves shipping in the fandom so please read this post and understand I’m not making this to personally attack anyone.

Conditioning definition:

have a significant influence on or determine (the manner or outcome of something). Synonyms: constrain, control, govern, determine, decide

Bring (something) into the desired state for use. Synonyms: treat, prepare, prime, temper, process, acclimatize, acclimate, season

I’m going to be using this word a lot. It can have types of meaning, depending on how it’s used. There can be innocent, cute ways such as giving your crush a piece of candy every time they see you, so when they see you they think of candy. But we’re not talking about that. We’re discussing slavery and it’s affect on relationships. Human Conditioning is “the characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of human existence, such as birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, and mortality.” Basically, how treatment and situations affects you as a person. It’s often talked about how it can be used sadistically against humans and their nature (i. e. slavery) (It’s quite an interesting psychological study and I recommend anyone who likes psychology learn a bit about it!).

Let me start off by saying in most fandoms I let people ship whatever they want. For the most part I don’t think most of fandom stuff is harmful (some truly can be don’t get me wrong). I’,m an extremely open minded person. Both online and irl. It is one of the things I truly actually respect about myself. Captive Prince is a bit different though. It touches sensitive subjects and already has discourse surrounding it, so I automatically am very particular about what I feel and do in the fandom (of course i sometimes mess up or change my feelings/ideas about something, I’m only human and it’s bound to happen). However I’ve come across this ship for weeks and it’s been bothering the absolute fuckery out of me and i can’t not express myself anymore on why it’s bothering me.

Now Erasmus was the only character I liked book one and half way through book two. I don’t say that lightly. I didn’t like Damen, or Laurent, or Nicaise, or anybody. Erasmus showed up and I was like “oh thank fuck finally, a character who doesn’t annoy the absolute fuckery out of me.” So he’s very special in my heart.

And… boy. BOY.

Erasmus has been trained since he was a child to be a [pleasure] slave. Now I live in an area that has a high percentage rate of human trafficking, so I’m going to talk about something that’s very upsetting and real. There was a girl whose parents sold her into human trafficking as a baby. Her whole life she was a sex slave. Yes, there are disgusting human beings out there who have sex with two year olds. And she was a victim of that. By the time she was 18/19 (around Erasmus’ age) She had been rescued. After lots of therapy and attempts to help her learn and understand how society morally is (not the trafficking society she was raised in), she still had trouble understanding what happened to her was wrong. She didn’t comprehend that being a sex slave as a child was wrong, and didn’t understand that she was rescued. It’s all she knew. There are lots more awful stories like this, too many. But human trafficking is modern sex slavery. That’s it. Period. So here is definitive example of human conditioning in sex slavery.

Akielos had this fetishized ideology that if they didn’t beat their slaves or have sex with them when they were children, that it was perfectly okay! Damen believed this 100% and didn’t even really see slaves as people (because he was raised with the idea that slaves were property). Erasmus was conditioned since a child (at least starting at age 11/12) to be a sex slave. And before that, probably a regular palace slave (it’s most likely he was born/sold into slavery at an extremely young age, especially considering how obedient he is).

That is the same exact shit this poor girl went through. At a young age, sold into [sex] slavery. Now brains work in different ways I understand this. Look at Kallias for example: Kallias was a sex slave, raised just as Erasmus, but he was a bit more rebellious. He outwardly would state/express in some way that he wanted to be with Erasmus and be free. He only remained obedient for reasons I will assume like: Wanting to remain close to Erasmus, not wanting to be punished, not being able to obtain a job and survive (Meaning, perhaps slaves can’t work if they’re disobedient, and he was also a high rank slave being Kastor’s main slave and all. He probably hoped for a bit more freedoms coming with being a High ranking noble’s). But his personality was definitely more rebellious than Erasmus’. Who was straight up obedient to a fault.

Erasmus was training to be Damen’s slave. Lykaios was also Damen’s main slave. How did Damen describe her as she was being murdered? Something along the lines of “soldiers didn’t even need to forcefully kill her. If they asked her to show her neck to cut it, she would obey.” THAT IS THE KIND OF SLAVES DAMEN OWNED. So don’t try and tell me that Erasmus, the sweet little angel who would try to not cry out when he was being tortured with fire, not because he didn’t want to be hurt, but because he wanted to obey, was not trained to the point where if Damen told Erasmus to take a sword to the throat he would (spoiler: he would).

So far: Erasmus has been trained and conditioned since childhood (an early development phase in which affects a person through the rest of their lives) to obey all royalty or higher rankings without question, specifically King Damianos.

I’ll circle back around to this but let’s turn our focus onto Laurent and Damen. The second main reason I don’t like this ot3 is because it’s so out of character. Like above and beyond. I’m gonna break it down through each character:

Laurent:

Even as a child was an introverted bookworm. Did not really have any friends besides his brother, Auguste

First sexual relationship was a nonconsensual relationship between him and his Uncle (whether Laurent was aware of it as wrong/nonconsensual during the time is unknown. Metas have talked about both cases. Personally I believe he didn’t, and was groomed prior to the relationship becoming fully sexual)

Laurent became known as “frigid” in the Kingdom for his active showing dislike of sex (at least having sexual relations himself).

Spent months accepting he loved Damianos

Still suffered from the trauma of his sexual abuse (“Yes, Uncle,” automatically getting on his hands and knees to have sex with Damen in PG, dissociating as if it was common practice when he was almost raped in PG, being shocked when Damen wanted to kiss Laurent even after Damen had finished in his mouth, etc)

Laurent is described by Damen in Summer Palace that he “kissed Damen like he never wanted to kiss anybody else”

Damen:

Owned slaves/ viewed slaves as property

Was known to be a big slut (no slut-shaming LOL this has a point)

Laurent being the only person he has ever had an emotional connection to (“It’s…it’s never like this”).

In book one actively treated/spoke to Erasmus as if Erasmus was lower rank. Attempted to protect him yes, but not to no longer be a slave, but to give him/sell him to better masters.

Laurent is an extremely sensitive and vulnerable character who, due to his prolonged abuse, has extreme difficulty with all kinds of relationships. Damen works well with Laurent because he doesn’t take shit from Laurent, even when he was a slave, and never used his size as a tactic to scare Laurent. They are equal rank, therefore they see each other  mentally as equals. There’s lots of wonderful meta’s on Damen and Laurent’s relationship so i’ll stop there.

Now why is Damen/Laurent okay but not Erasmus? Well, first of all Damen and Laurent are exact equal rank; Prince and Prince, then King and King. “but Damen was a slave too, just like Erasmus!” It’s canon that Damen never once saw himself as a slave, and laurent admitted to knowing that Damen was never truly a slave. If Damen had wanted to, he could have killed Laurent/been free. Every abusive thing laurent did was a tactic of revenge for Damen killing Auguste. If he hadn’t known it was Prince Damianos, Laurent would have let Damen go.  Secondly, Damen was not trained like Erasmus. Damen was brought up as a child that he was the prince. He is higher rank. He is boss and in charge. Damen knew this, thrived off it when he was laurent’s “slave.” Every time laurent asked him to do something he did it, but the back of his mind always said “this is survival. You are not a slave. When you are free (notice it’s ‘when’ and not ‘if’) you will have your own revenge.” This is a strong mind that was built into Damen’s brain. In fact, he had more of a confidence/control rank over Laurent because Laurent was constantly scared and saw himself as second-best (mostly not even best, just second choice).

Circling back to the beginning, Erasmus was raised as a slave. There is no “when you’re free” or “This is survival, you’ll be free soon and you’ll be a king.” No!! Erasmus’ thought process was “Don’t scream no matter how much it hurts because your masters don’t want you to scream.” Damen had to protect Erasmus because Damen knew what protecting was. Erasmus didn’t. Whatever his masters wanted he did. Even if he felt they were being abusive his only true worry was that he didn’t understand what he was doing wrong.

Damen knew the abuse was wrong and was waiting for the opportunity to be free again and take his rightful place as king. Erasmus didn’t understand what he was doing wrong to prompt the abuse. That’s the difference of their minds and how different they’ve been conditioned to think.

Laurent actively hates slavery through every book. There’s lots of great metas about how it’s because he understands what it’s like to be forced into doing things (specifically sexually), and how much of a mindfuck it is to be conditioned to think a certain (abusive)  way.

So far part II: Damen would never see himself as equal rank with Erasmus because he never once saw himself as a slave. Erasmus would always feel beneath Damen and Laurent. One, because he will always see himself as a lower rank, being trained as a slave/to think of himself as property since he was a child, and second because he was specifically trained for several years to bend completely to whatever Damianos desired. Laurent would feel uncomfortable being in a relationship with someone outside of Damen because of his past abuse. Damen would never be able to have an emotional connection with Erasmus because the only person he’s experienced that with is Laurent, who is the same rank as him, and it took three fucking books for them to gain such an intense emotional connection.

He [Erasmus] was specifically trained for several years to bend completely to whatever Damianos desired. There’s obviously a lot to go off of from this, but Erasmus will never be able to be “reconditioned” by royalty, specifically Damen, because no one will ever know if he is able to think like a free man, or if he is still only doing what his “masters” are telling him to do. (Basically, imagine you do a love spell: Do they love you because they truly love you? Or do they love you because of the spell? That’s what Erasmus’ “teaching” would be like.)

Let’s really think about this: There is nothing different between Torveld being in a relationship with Erasmus, and Damen being in a Relationship with Erasmus. It’s not good. It’ll never be equal, and Erasmus will always see himself as a lower rank. Even if he is taught not to see himself as lower.

Even if he is not taught to see himself as lower. Slavery may be gone, but even the most close in rank and best friend of Damen, Nikandros, still spoke to Damen starting his words off with “exalted”. Erasmus would say that and be reminded of his lower rank. Maybe it’s nice to think “aw but Damen would never make him say it” jkdsnfskdjc If Damen has Nik do it you b e t Erasmus would have to do it.

I’m not saying Damen/Laurent can’t be nice to Erasmus. But a relationship? No no.

But  "Erasmus could learn how to not think like a slave by hanging out with the very person who he was trained for"

See: ‘love spell’ example

Reconditioning someone’s brain can take years and constant work at it. Damen and Laurent are Kings. They don’t have time to do that. Especially when they have their own personal issues they’re still dealing with (Laurent’s past, Damen’s time as a Slave, probs other shit too). They need to focus on each other and themselves.

And this is saying that Laurent/Damen is okay with having a third person in their very special relationship:

Erasmus would act like a slave →  Laurent would feel uncomfortable → Damen wouldn’t notice immediately because of how he was raised →  Laurent would probably get upset with damen for not noticing → arguing → Erasmus becoming upset for ‘causing problems’

But LMAO: Damen was jealous/worried about Laurent hanging out alone with women in Adventures of Charls. Even with their relationship so loving and stable, and Laurent being explicitly not interested in women, Damen was still jealous. Not to mention, Laurent doesn’t seem to get jealous, but he does get insecure. Damen treating someone else the same as Laurent would probably make Laurent feel unimportant or second-choice.  

And Torveld too!! NO! That’s literally a relationship that could never be truly equal and healthy! Because he bought Erasmus as a slave. Like yeah thanks Torveld for having basic human decency and not abusing human beings just because they’re slaves but, you’re not really reaching very far! Sksgksjdskbf Like Laurent sent Erasmus to Torveld because it was the best option at the time. Not because he felt Erasmus would be freed/experience freedom. He is still a slave forced to have sex with a master (because as a slave he legally can’t say no).

I’m usually a very open and accepting person when it comes to fandom stuff. But other things just make me uncomfortable. And this is one of those things. I’ll be honest and say I ship Kallias and Erasmus hard af. I love them together. They’ve been through extremely similar experiences (born and raised as slaves). They’re best friends and love each other in every way. They’ve got that agonizing tragic ache of forbidden love which I am a sucker for. They’re the same age and rank. Kallias seems more able to jump into freedom, but he can also gentle help Erasmus understand the world. Kallias has been the only person to help Erasmus admit to wanting to see the world. Kallias could travel the world, any time with Erasmus, and they would both be so mesmerized by traveling, and there wouldn’t be “we have to stay at the palace” etc. it would be their own decisions based off what they, as free men, would want to do. Two people, who have been in love for years, finally being together as free men and traveling the world. How is that not the most romantic (and healthy) thing?!

My argument isn’t diminished because I ship them. Honestly, I’m fine with Erasmus with Kallias, or Isander, or some random guy he could meet while traveling the world, or even just being by himself and enjoying his freedom. I’m fine with any of that because it’s equal ranking and there won’t be any foul play. But being with Torveld or Damen/Laurent? Nah, it’s too ooc and unhealthy. That’s just how I feel.

#captive prince #damen #laurent #erasmus #okay to reblog #please y'all don't hate me too hard

[phandide]

London Street Club

Title: London Street Club

Word Count: 6521

Warnings: use of opioids and heroin, discussion of opium, suicide (not dan or phil), character death

Genre: Drama, angst, non-chronological

Description: Cure for all boredom, vandal to all well-being, and the vice that compels itself. This story about how relationships are destroyed by opioid addiction.

A/N: I wrote this ages ago and I’ve been fiddling with it for months. Obviously I don’t think dan and phil are addicted to heroin, but in some ways it’s not about them its just about my feelings.

   Phil wakes up in a small room, a basement. He’s tangled in a heap of blankets that don’t seem very clean, on top of a floor that seems far dirtier still. There’s a damp layer of grime and refuse all around him, harsh on the slate grey concrete.    He looks to the left, seeing Dan curled next to him. He’s face down, cheek pressed against the awful mud and scum that stains the place around them. He’s not moving, and Phil fancies for a moment that when Dan dies, he could look the way he looks now. Piteous and wretched on the floor of a place they don’t know. Phil prods his shoulder to wake him, and he groans. “We need to go home,” he says, when Dan seems coherent enough to understand it. “Now?” He asks slowly, touching his face where dirt is smeared all over it. Phil shrugs. “We can’t stay here.” That seems to be answer enough, and they both leave the pile of blankets and go to a rickety set of wooden stairs that has daylight coming through the top. Phil hangs on the banister, finding it difficult to stay upright under his own power.    Upstairs, there are three people sitting around a kitchen table, having tea. Phil and Dan stop in their tracks a moment, staring wide eyed at the people who stare right back. “Who are you?” One of them asks. Neither of them answer immediately. “Um,” Phil starts. “We came by for the party last night.” “You went to the basement?” one of them asks. Phil feels distinctly uncomfortable, a feeling that almost becomes physical pain as the strange tension in the room thickens. Dan looks confused, and stiff, like he’s feeling the same tension. “Look, sorry about your basement,” Dan says shortly. “Where are we?” “Throgmorton,” is the answer. They don’t stay any longer, going out the door into the chill of early spring.    They go some ways down the street in silence, it's the early afternoon, but Throgmorton is a small street and they don’t see many people. Phil feels like he’s walking through a cloud, the world around him is just as blurry as his mind, and he feels like a pilgrim lost in the reaches of his own skull. “What did we do last night?” He finally asks. His eyes ache where he’s been wearing his contacts for far too long. “Took something,” Dan says. Phil appreciates that he does, even though his memory is not suffering in any sense. “Took what?” ‘Taking something’ seems so abstract, as though they’re characters in a movie. Not a movie Phil particularly likes, he’s vacant and vacuous and feels as though he’ll be that way for the rest of his life. He feels nothing about this, his emotions are diluted. “Pills, dunno what they were.” “Why did we do that?” “Look, Phil,” Dan says, sighing heavily. “I don’t know. All I know is that I’m filthy, and I want to go home and take a shower. Do you feel awful about what’s happened?” Phil takes a moment to evaluate the question. What does he feel about this? About talking to those strangers, waking up in their basement, walking home at two o’clock on a Sunday. “Not awful. I mean, I’m confused.” “Let’s talk about it later. I feel kind of shit right now.” Phil nods listlessly, and they continue the walk to the station. -------------------------------- Dan hardly ever does anything without Phil, this is one of the basic facts of their relationship. There was a world, once, where touch was a rarity and emotional closeness even moreso. Now he can have Phil, and touch him, and hold on any time he cares to. By all accounts, he has ascended to an unimaginable richness of situation, to always have Phil in his access. But he still knows himself, and he holds to the hope that he can be happy. He can be happy, and maybe even content. The ability must be hard-won, a war for Dan’s soul that seems fought by sheer power of will. But Phil only has so much strength, and Dan himself only has so much strength, and the last bastion of self-loathing and years of practiced pain is something even their combined efforts have trouble conquering. Phil has his own problems. Problems that Dan desperately wishes he could wipe away, siege until they are withered and forgotten. But Dan can’t even solve his own problems, and he feels woefully inadequate in the arenas of comprehending Phil’s. ---------------------------    Phil thinks that opium must be very Romantic. At some point in the distant past, it was squalor and money and degradation. Wars were fought, wars were won for opium. Dan has pills in his hand, pills that Phil thought he must’ve asked someone for. Phil wondered for a vague moment why he would do that. “Do you want to?” Dan is timid, uncertain. It seems sweet on him, Phil thinks. “Maybe. Do you know what it is?” Dan shakes his head. Phil is fighting a battle, then, resignation and hesitancy roiling inside him. “I think it could be nice,” Dan says. “I don’t want to do it alone,” he adds, quieter. Phil understands then, that regardless of whether this is right or wrong, it is something Dan wants, very much. Phil tries to do the right thing by the people he loves, to refuse the offer, but the Romantic notion threatens to steal him away, too.    Phil thinks. The party is loud, he can barely hear his own thoughts, but he thinks. One night won’t do any real harm, and maybe it will be a learning experience. Maybe it will be fun. “Yeah, I will,” he says, and they do.    It takes a long time to kick in, Phil thinks. But when it does, he is so, so glad. Happy he’d said yes, happy Dan had gotten the pills, happy that the stars had aligned to give him this feeling.    He’s smiling at Dan, and Dan’s smiling back. The very air around them is sweet.    Later, though, he thinks it stops being okay. Dan is crying, sobbing really, and making a scene. Dan doesn’t turn all red and splotchy when he cries, not the way Phil does, and Phil finds that he thinks the look of Dan crying is quite beautiful. And then he remembers that this means Dan is upset. “What’s wrong? Try to quiet down,” he says. People are looking at them. He takes Dan’s hand, drags them away to the first door he sees, down some steps into an unfinished basement that Phil is dismayed by. It seems important to be alone, though, so he grits his teeth and guides Dan to sit on a lone chair covered by a blanket. “What’s wrong?” He asks again. “I h-hear things!” Dan cries, his breath is coming in fast, hitching gasps that even in his intoxicated state Phil finds worrying. “What do you hear?” Astonishingly, Phil feels fully prepared to deal with this. Invigorated by his artificial jollity, perhaps, and full of passion as he stares at Dan and wonders how a person could possibly hold such delightful stuff inside themselves. Even Dan’s pain and hurt are nectar, like Phil could have all of it, understand all of it, and love. “Memories,” Dan gasps, and seems to have difficulty speaking, his mouth moves silently before he can get more words out: “I remember all the things they say!” “Who are ‘they?’” Phil holds onto Dan with both hands, tensed like he’s watching the most suspenseful movie he’s ever seen. Maybe he is. “Why do they hate me so much?” Dan moans, like he’s received a mortal wound, like he can’t bear the pain of what he’s thinking. Phil is thrown back in time, back in time to what grade school bullies said to him, to what people said about him when they thought he could not hear, and when they knew he could.    Dan is still weeping, Phil still holding on, but all Phil can think of is the people who have passed away into time, the people who he can never talk to or touch or even see ever again. Remembering isn’t pleasantly nostalgic, anymore, but an oppressive wave of the past that turns his insides dark.    He cries, he looks up to the shadowed rafters, shedding the misery that had come to him unbidden. Dan has slid down off the chair, lying at Phil’s knees, and even though Phil knows that he must be sad, he must be sad because he is crying, there is a part of him that marvels at the idea that they are, at this moment, very beautiful.    It seems right. ---------------------------------------    The next morning is filled with the kind of emptiness Phil cannot hope to penetrate. As though the very air is holding him in the bed, unable to move or speak. But he listens very hard, trying to detect if Dan has already awoken. It’s never silent though, not in London. Phil wonders if he would be able to hear Dan, even if he were making any noise.    He is suddenly filled with the urge to go and check, make certain that Dan is alive and present and in existence. He rises from the bed, fighting a bout of dizziness that tells him he is still not completely sober. Down the hall, he pushes open the appropriate door, and sees Dan still asleep.    Phil stands still in the threshold for what feels like an eternity. He’s not thinking, or even really observing, just standing there and experiencing the emptiness in his own head. He wonders, eventually, at the enormity of the gulf between him and reality. Phil is an island, not to be reached by the world or anyone in it.    He thinks that maybe, if only Dan were awake, things could be normal and Phil would be able to be present in reality.    But Dan’s not awake. It’s been a day and a half since the party, and Phil still feels something he can only describe as strung out. He thinks that maybe he’ll never feel the way he did before, the way he did for the first twenty four years of his life. Actuality gone, replaced by a nothingness that Phil can’t put a name to. How apt, he thinks, how fitting that he should lose the passion that he had so painstakingly fostered, tailored expertly to suit his job, to suit his art.    It’s so easy to lose things like that. But Phil isn’t upset. Nothing could upset him, now, nothing at all. He lays down on the floor, and the door is still open, and he falls to sleep right on the carpet. ---------------------------------------------------    When Dan awakes, he realizes first that he has a splitting headache. He realizes second that he doesn’t care at all, he knows the pain exists and he can even feel it, but he is not upset. In fact, he feels rather jovial about it.    As soon as he identifies that feeling, he goes still. Why doesn’t he care about the headache? Does this signify some larger self-loathing? Some microcosmic demonstration of Dan?    After a moment, the suspicion seems pointless. Dan already knows how he feels about himself, but he also knows that when he took the pills, he didn’t care anymore. He recalls crying, and being upset, but it doesn’t seem real, anymore. Certainly not real enough to upset him now, or make him regret his actions.    He climbs out of bed, and then sees Phil lying on the floor, half in the hall and half in the room. In a puerile fit of whim, he crosses the room and puts his toes in Phil’s hair, prodding until his flatmate groans and sits up. “What are you doing on the floor?” Dan asks. “I was just tired,” Phil explains simply. “Tired? Tired enough to leave your own bed and have a nap on the ground?” Dan chuckles and Phil shrugs and stands up. “Awfully tired, tired enough to sleep on the toilet, maybe,” he says, and Dan rolls his eyes. They go into the kitchen, the clock on the oven reads 10:00. “Do you want food? I want food,” Dan announces, looking around but making no real move to procure any food. “Order takeout. I feel too undead to cook anything right now. Or later. Or ever.” “Do whatever you’d like. There are no coffins about, but I’m sure the toilet suits you just fine,” Dan remarks.    Dan tries to behave inconspicuously, but inside he feels devious, already devising what party they’ll go to in a week, and how he’ll convince Phil to go out two weekends in a row. He almost can’t convince himself, but in the end, the promise of that happy feeling makes him certain that whatever else happened, they would be going out again. -------------------------------------------------    When Phil is drunk, he finds it difficult to even speak. Not in the sense that he’s physically unable, but that the place in his brain where words usually come from is just...empty. Back when he was in university, his friends discussed other friends, and classes, and pets. Phil was silent, feeling remote distress over the fact that he simply did not care about what was being said. This apathy felt like a prison.    Therefore, he is immediately enchanted by opium when he finds he can say anything he likes. Memories and ideas and jokes all float to him uninhibited, and he spouts them as easily as the sun expounds light.    The second time he takes pills with Dan, he feels light, and happy, and as though he is being driven mad. The tunnel of memories and old thoughts seems to pull him ever farther back, away from Dan, no matter what he says. Still, a frenetic need to engage makes him yearn to be free of the constraints of his own mind, to pull free and simply be with Dan.This dichotomy pulls at his being, tearing him asunder and filling him with hysteria the likes of which he has seldom felt before.    However hard he tries, however beautiful Dan looks in that dimness on the dilapidated couch, he is far away. Maybe farther than he ever has been. Because even with the siren call of the present, he is drawn back in perfect clarity to a moment in year two when he spilled glue all over the carpet, and another in year ten when he dropped his mother’s wedding china on the floor in the kitchen.    When they return home, he falls asleep. He dreams in stilted images and sounds, first Martyn, screaming incoherently about some pain Phil does not know of, and wishes he did. After that it’s Dan, saying nothing but staying still and remote and unreachable until Phil’s own tension wakes him from the dream, disoriented by what he has seen. He finds it difficult to fall back asleep, the things he saw in the dream won’t leave him and he begins to feel as though they’ll be imprinted in his mind forever. ---------------------------------------------------    Dan prefers not to look at the piano, anymore, let alone play it. He sees it, and is drawn away. Away from Phil, away from London, into a world that only exists to him. Memories and fear and distress. He can’t stand the impressions that come to him, when he played the piano for his family, for his friends, for a million instances.    There is something about the solo performance, he thinks, that is ultimately infantilizing. He has no music to read, and he looks out at the faces of whatever strange assortment of relatives and acquaintances are listening, and sees the blankness, the emptiness, the lack of interest. He feels as though he is being tolerated and humored and burdensome. Pressure wells up inside of him and he can’t bear it, he can’t stand the feeling of ineptitude that swallows him, it is so, so painful. “Why do I remember so many pointless things?” He asks Phil one day, when they are both of them sober. “I’ve unrepressed everything.” Phil nods, sagely, perhaps. Dan has always thought of Phil as someone who knew quite a lot about the world, even if he was not concerned with the gruesome details in the same way Dan was. “I do, too, lately,” Phil admits. He looks vaguely perturbed, and Dan finds himself wondering what it is that Phil is remembering. “It’s not just remembering, it’s...thinking about it. Almost constantly.” “Yes, I know. What do we do?” Dan asks, but Phil doesn’t answer, probably because Phil does not know any more than Dan knows. -------------------------------------------------

   Phil wonders if he’s losing himself. He’s not one to share opinions, not without necessity. But where they had once been secret, they now seem non-existent. He had been sure that he didn’t want to get high again, not because he didn’t like the feeling but because he didn’t like the hangover, did not like the absent feeling that had gone on for days. Phil had thought that his surety would matter, at least about this one thing. ��  It doesn’t matter. They go to another house party, and Phil knows it’s out of character and Phil knows that he should wonder about the real reason they’re going out again so soon. Even though Dan has a remarkable ability to make it seem innocuous, make it seem like they’re just fulfilling a social obligation, Phil knows better.    It would be difficult for Phil not to know better, because he feels he can identify the element in Dan that is pursuing something out of his own control. It feels as though Dan is on a quest for happiness, and Phil is pulled along to the Siren call. This is an absurd notion, and Phil knows it, he knows deep down in his heart that he is desperate, too, and they are both naive enough to ignore what that desperation indicates.    There was a life before the first party, and a life after. Taking the pills makes Phil feel closer to Dan than normal, this is a loud statement, because they are always close. But this artificial happiness erases those long established interpersonal struggles, it erases the delicate dance to the truth of what the other is feeling.    Old pain comes up, with the chemical influence. The pain of grief and insecurities that are so long embedded into them they will never leave. Things that would never see the light of day, come out and suddenly Phil is at the mercy of all those old horrors and cureless ails. But it feels good. It feels good to be reminded of what he is, and to feel those primordial things right alongside Dan, who he thinks must be the most important person in his life.    So even though Phil knows that Dan is the conquistador, and that his younger companion is the one guiding them deeper into the cartel, he knows better than to think himself guiltless. When Dan says “do you want to go?” Phil will always respond in the affirmative, and he does nothing to stop what is happening.    He thinks then, that he must bear the burden of the blame in this. He should be older and wiser and more resistant, because he could stop Dan, too. But he doesn’t stop Dan, and he doesn’t stop himself. And two becomes three and four and five. And he stops counting. -------------------------------------------------    Dan laughs, laughs harder than he can recall ever having laughed. He’s on the couch, next to Phil, and he thinks that even if he wanted to stand he would not be able to. “I really love you,” he says to Phil. The television is on, but it’s contents are nothing but flashing colors, utterly incomprehensible. Phil smiles, and Dan is glad. He has noticed, in their way, that Phil tends to be more temperate during these times. Less prone to the long bouts of talking that Dan is ever prone to. Phil looks and stares and laughs and cries, but he doesn’t speak what he’s thinking very often at all. Like the things in his head are so engaging that he can be thrilled by it all without ever coming out. Dan finds this enthralling. “I love you, too,” Phil does say, and Dan is gone laughing again. “It’s so easy to be happy,” Dan says. “I spent so long thinking it was impossible, but it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.” “You were really that  unhappy before?” Phil asks. Dan catches the thread of self-doubt in his question, with an astuteness that he feels proud for possessing. “I was happy about you,” Dan explains. “You made me happy, and our life made me happy, but Dan didn’t make me happy at all.” Phil nods, and looks like he’s returned to the internal world, and Dan is filled with glee, squeezing at Phil’s arm and awed at the universe inside of his flatmate. “What about now?” Phil asks finally, he’s smiling now, like he finds Dan’s excitement charming. Dan thinks that he probably does. “Now?” Dan exclaims, gesticulating. “Now, who gives a shit!” ------------------------------------------------------------    A number of days later, Phil has just filmed a video. He feels that he displayed an appropriate amount of energy, an appropriate demeanor, and he feels relieved to have found himself capable of the task. Editing the thing seems to take half his life, but it does get done, and he reassures himself that he is up to the rigors of employment.    Their daily life is strange, these days. Phil remembers things from his childhood that he thought he would never recall again, and it is not a pleasant experience. Not so much because the memories are negative, but moreso because they are entirely too vivid. He can hear his mother chastising Martyn, and he can see the people at his grandfather’s funeral, an event he hasn’t even thought of in years. It feels like a strange form of madness, where the past is fighting to swallow Phil whole. This feeling makes him feel as though he needs Dan far more than he rationally ought to, needs the reminder that the present exists, and that the past has all given way to the life he lives, now. A happy life. Only rarely does he go into a room his flatmate is not in.    Sometimes, he can tell Dan feels this, too. He stares into the wall and looks entranced. On these occasions, Phil remembers the first time they took anything, Dan crying out about the things he hears. Phil wishes that he could find the cap for the wellspring of repressed moments that seem to have caught them both in a vice. At one time, they had had a future, and now Phil feels them regressing from that supposed Golden Age with a frightening rapidity.    Phil is reminded constantly that he and Dan have both had years and legions of people and events that have made them who they are. There are details of Dan that he will never know, simply because he was never there. The reverse is also true, and Phil wishes that they had been together forever, each knowing everything about the other. This is not rational, or even normal, and Phil knows that in some sense. But it hardly matters.    He has headaches when he sobers up, now. Phil thinks, when he holds his head and tries to resist the urge to take more pills, that nothing can save them, anymore. -----------------------------------------------    The first time anyone offers him heroin, Dan does have a long moment of hesitation. The person who offers it to him is someone he has often gotten pills from. “I have some, if you want it,” is all he says. No pressure, no pushing. Just if you want it. Does he? He’s seen the movies, he knows that it won’t be good. Not for him, and not for Phil, even if Phil doesn’t decide to do it with him.    Still, Dan has always been plagued with grand ideas about the universe. His life lacks any fundamental meaning, except the pursuit of happiness. He has happiness, this premise he does not dispute, even to himself, for he is far beyond determining the distinction between ‘sincere’ happiness versus the chemically induced sort. The two main tenants of his philosophy have been torn asunder, for he has happiness, but that happiness does not preclude the meaningless damnation that he’d always thought would be cured by contentment.    He has not fully conceived of this idea before, and suddenly the knowledge that happiness has not saved him seems monumental and destructive. The belief structure, that castle he’d carefully constructed for himself, had proven defeatable. He has nothing, no more intellect to protect him and certainly no more to protect Phil. This thought hurts more than the others, in some deeply intimate sense, Dan is able to function because he thinks of himself as clever. This is gone. Almost everything has gone, but this loss is more acute. Nothing can be regained, but only mourned over.    Dan takes the heroin, he takes it home and he cries. Phil sits with him in the lounge and Dan wishes that he could feel good without taking anything. He laments the fact that being high causes him pain, enormous pain, and yet he still needs it.    His crying is hitched, like a spasming fit that he cannot control. When he stops, he leans on Phil and looks around their flat. He wonders how long they will be able to continue living in London. He wonders how long they will be alive at all. ----------------------------------------------------    Phil does not mind watching Dan tie off, though perhaps he should. The image is spectacularly vulgar, and spectacularly lovely. The scene reminds him of stone and bitter tastes and lights shining off into darkness, and other things after that fashion. It seems heady and honest.    The allure of it is inexplicable. Phil has not lost the capacity for rational thought, after all. The wise thing to do, and indeed, the adult thing to do, would be to stop. But he doesn’t stop. He waits for Dan to finish with the needle that both of them use, and he follows suit. He’s pale, it’s easy to find a vein. Phil supposes that the world must be composed of many small blessings. -----------------------------------------------------    It is near noon when Phil’s phone rings in his ear. Waking from a fitful sleep, he answers the call from his mother. “Hello Mum, how are you?” He asks, and the silence that follows makes him grip the phone tighter. There is a noise that sounds like a sob, then, and Phil holds his breath. “Phil, it’s your brother…” she says slowly, like it takes great fortitude to simply get the words out. “He’s passed on,” she finishes.    Phil knows that his mother said something else, wanted to tell him something else, but he cannot hear it. He cannot speak, he can barely think, because Martyn Lester, and all instances of him in Phil’s mind, are all coming at once and they are married to disbelief and shock, horrible shock that will coagulate into pain and fear and despair.    He drops the phone, leaving it on the floor without hanging up. Dan is asleep in his own room, and Phil leaves his own bedroom and wanders dumbly in, sitting on the bed. His weight shifts the mattress enough to wake Dan, and he must see the look on his face, because he immediately sits up and asks what’s wrong. “Martyn’s dead,” Phil announces simply. He sees Dan’s eyes grow wide with shock, musing on the idea that his emotions and Dan’s are nearly in perfect sync, separated by only a few moments. In that vein of thought, Phil watches the connections in Dan’s mind, feeling as though his own emotions are deadened by seeing them mirrored on Dan’s face.    Phil knows, he knows the moment that Dan finally settles into the gripping despair that Phil himself is feeling. He feels, for a bizarre second, that he is so glad that Dan cares that Martyn is gone. Quickly that is overshadowed, though, by burning anger that sickens him even as it invigorates him. “How did it happen?” Dan asks, and this throws Phil off. “I-I didn’t ask. I didn’t think of it,” he explains haltingly. Dan seems satisfied with the answer, but Phil is angry about this, and his anger imagines that Dan is still wallowing in morbid curiosity, imagines that Dan is picturing the ways Martyn could have died. Of course, this makes Phil imagine them, picturing a thousand different deaths that all leave Martyn broken and cold and he cannot think of this.    In the frenzy of these thoughts, he leans forward, encroaching into Dan’s space until their lips are pressed together. Phil is pushing, he has his hands around Dan’s wrists, wrists marked by injection bruises. Dan allows this, maybe because what is happening seems insurmountable, and maybe because he doesn’t mind indulging Phil in this.    Phil knows, peripherally, that Dan has injected far more often than him. Some far away, rational part of him knows that Dan has grown weaker than him, and that his feebleness perhaps throws suspicion onto what Phil is now doing, holding him, pinning him, squeezing at the tenderness around his bruised arms. But then Phil leans down, biting at Dan’s neck, and the noise this elicits makes him forget that doubt, and it makes him forget that the way he is acting is very much not Phil.    For the first time, perhaps in a very long time, Phil feels as though he is doing something decisive. No longer is he lead along to the bewitchment of opium, no longer is he in the thrall of the past. The past is gone, the connection is broken, any continuity between the Phil of juvenescence and the Phil that exists now is dead. He thinks again of the dream he had, the dream that stays with him even now; he can’t hear Martyn, anymore. Before, that screaming had dominated Phil’s imagination and driven him mad. Now, he focuses his energy into the second part of the dream, he dedicates himself to pursuing the Dan who is remote, he endeavors to drag him closer until they are inextricably connected to one another. It does not occur to him to think that perhaps they already are.    Phil feels at once soothed and deeply aggravated by the sexual act. No longer is Dan the conquistador, and his love for the poppy has made him frail. Phil has become Alexander, taking as he wishes, with no burden of judgement from others. Dan’s face twists in an image of ecstasy that Phil finds perversely gratifying. More than gratifying, perhaps, it is obscene. Phil has always found Dan immensely beautiful, an amalgam of the ancient, classical beauty that is as physical as it is incorporeal.    That fairness has been smeared, by now, though. Where once Dan’s face had been rounded by generosity, it reeks now of fatigue, a starved appearance that balances on a knife’s edge between the old beauty and the debasement that encroaches further by the day. Normally, Phil strives to forget this, to lend the future threat to oblivion. But in the fervor of the sexual frenzy, it seems thrilling.    Phil releases Dan’s wrists, instead electing to cup his face, and he bites at lips he imagines to be lovely, and heart shaped. Perhaps they are, but reality and fantasy are nearly indistinguishable, now. He can feel Dan’s nails scratching into his back and he feels the urge to scream. It has all become too much.    It is this, more than anything else, this feeling of being crushed inside his own skull that compels Phil to move lower. Still, his ministrations are acts of aggression rather than plain sexual desire: he bites and sucks, Dan doesn’t move much except to put his hands on Phil’s head as he mouths at his stomach. Phil takes this as encouragement until Dan makes a wailing sound out of tune with Phil’s attentions. “Phil, it hurts,” Dan cries out, and Phil sits up abruptly. “What hurts?” He asks, utterly confused. Dan clutches at his own skull, curling in on himself as Phil tries to understand what has happened. “Everything...my head hurts, my bones hurts,” he is crying, now, Phil realizes slowly. Dan’s face is ruddy and scrunched not in pleasure but in pain. Phil realizes with terrible awe what has happened, and he feels dizzy from the revelation. “Please,” Dan grasps his arm. “Please go get the needle.” “I-what? Why did you wait so long?” Phil thinks to ask, even as he stands to go to the kitchen where he knows the thing is. Dan still lies prostrate on the bed, in as much agony as Phil has ever seen a person in. “I wanna feel fine without it,” Dan moans. Phil’s brow bunches, he can feel himself make the expression, but he feels only an echoing astonished horror, so disparate from the stress he knows he ought to be feeling that he flees without saying another word. -----------------------------------------------------------    The next call Phil gets is from his father, who tells him that the funeral will be in a week. They will go back to Phil’s hometown, and Phil spends a scant few seconds trying to imagine what that is going to be like before he spares himself. “You want to come to the funeral, don’t you?” He asks Dan. Phil’s initial anguish has petered away, leaving only the rancid numbness that has become familiar to him. “Of course I do,” Dan says, and a moment passes before he realizes the problem at hand. Maybe Phil can go without for long enough to be discreet while they deal with this, but neither of them have a similar confidence in Dan. They stare at one another for a long moment before Dan seems to come to a decision. “I’ll manage,” he swallows. “It doesn’t matter how, but I’ll be there for you.”    Phil is hardly reassured by this, but the larger part of him is relieved, maybe warmed by this declaration of Dan’s affinity. The idea that Dan possessed love for him, and was not wholly taken with heroin. “Okay,” he says. -----------------------------------------------------------    As means of being discreet, they take up in a cheap hotel room once they arrive in Lancashire. A day early, they visit Phil’s parents. The idea that he no longer has any family except for them is difficult. Phil had long had the rather hopeful notion that one day he and Martyn would both be old, they would both have families. The notion that they would remain brothers, simply put.    Still, emotions are stilted and awkward. Phil finds it difficult to arrive at an acceptable level of empathy, instead floundering and finding himself staring into space. Dan is cordial, but not much more than that, with eyes emptied by weariness and nebulous undertones of distress. The elder Lesters seem to distracted by their own pain to put much stock into these details, and Phil is too tired to think much more about it.    That evening, the day before the service, Phil leaves the hotel and walks. The night is cool, but he has come to expect this of the place where he grew up. He arrives at a park bench before he sits, putting his head in his hands. He understands, of course, the precise events that had lead to the way their lives are crumbling, but he still feels compelled to ask why?    Nothing about it seems logical. Not that Phil demands logic of the world, necessarily, but he feels deeply wronged, on some level. Wronged, because their careers languish while Dan fades away into himself, laughing hysterically and falling back on the floor, unaware of the world. Wronged, because Phil himself feels as though he is becoming someone he never wanted to be, someone angry and resentful, someone with no options. What could they have done to deserve this?    Phil can feel the tears run down his own face, knows that he is incapable of fixing all the things that have gone wrong. He can’t bring Martyn back, he can’t undo the long series of foolhardy decisions he and Dan have already made.    If addiction is an ocean, Phil has thus far managed to tread water, to keep his head afloat to some degree. Dan is pulled ever deeper into the waters, and Phil doesn’t feel equipped to save him. He doesn’t feel like it’s fair that the responsibility falls to him, he wants someone, anyone, to help him, to save them. He imagines, somewhat fantastically, that this person would’ve been Martyn.    The idea that their salvation lies in a dead person seems indicative enough in itself that they both are damned. Phil stands up and wipes his tears. He returns to the hotel.    He slides the card through the door, and sees Dan lying on the bed. He lies down next to him, and hears the sound of people talking loudly on their way past the closed door. Phil turns on his side and stares for a long time at Dan, who is on his back, eyes closed. He closes his own eyes for a long moment, listening to the silence, before his eyes fly wide open.    Dan is not breathing.    Desperately, Phil shakes his arm, prods him, and gets no response. He leans in close to Dan’s face, and feels no breath. Pressing fingers to both wrists, he searches for a pulse, and finds none.    Standing, he runs a hand through his hair, his own breath comes heavily. He paces for several harrowing moments, before he stops and looks back at the bed. Falling to his knees, he cannot help the sound that comes from him. Even to his own ears, it sounds horrid, ragged and terrifying.    Once he begins, he cannot stop screaming, the sound is filling his own ears, drowning out the view right in front of him, but it cannot. His head is pounding, his throat strained by the effort, even as the sound degrades into sobbing, the kind of grief that moves his whole body and puts his heart in a vice.    People bang on the door, and he doesn’t answer. A few minutes later, they come in anyway, and look at him with expressions of shock and confusion. He is cowering against the wall farthest from the bed, now, but he lifts his hand, pointing without being able to look at the body.    He doesn’t look, but they do. And even then they don’t immediately understand. It takes them an age to grasp that this man they have never seen before is dead, and in this time they look between Dan and Phil blankly. In this blanket thick of time, Phil begins to wonder if they are even human at all, with their empty staring.    How nice for them, to forget what death looks like.

#phanfiction #phanfic #phan #tw suicide #tw drug use

[not-poignant]

even though north and jack are both from the creches, i get the vibe that they weren't raised the same way? like maybe north is from a different part or they were much different in his day? cause pitch was like "there are no darkrooms in the creches" as if for a fact (probably got this info from someone who was FROM there, re: why he thought it was reliable info). 1/3

and also the fact that no one REALLY seems to understand the extent of Out Of His Depth jack is made to feel, like how he was basically conditioned during childhood to think that he's inherently less important as a peasant. which doesn't seem to be the same for north, who seems quite proud of his heritage. // he seems to sort of empathize with jack's ignorance of lune's inner workings, but he doesn't seem to fully grasp that it's almost been beaten into jack that the things he's been taught must be true or he might have focused on how jack feels personally about himself than just how he thinks of lune and the tsar? i'm sorry if i'm reading too much into things!!

Yeah, some awesome observations, anon. :D And now I’m gonna ramble about them, heh.

There’s a reason that when Jack says he’s an Overland, people/Jack have this reaction:

* ‘An Overland,’ another one said, derisive. ‘He’s one of the creche kids.’* ‘This young, unlikely soldier. An Overland at that, to give the peasants hope.’* He remembered his brown hair being shaved short a few times in his life, so that they could give the Overland creche children the delousing that they didn’t need, all because they were certain that anyone poor enough to be in the Overland creche had to be infected with crawling things.*‘I don’t get why [me having bruises is] a big deal all of a sudden. It’s not like this kind of stuff hasn’t happened all the time. I’m an Overland, remember?’* ‘You think it was easy for an Overland to get to where I got to?”* If they didn’t understand that he was just a peasant – a creche kid, an Overland, then how could he even explain it to them?* You know, with the whole me being useless and a peasant – like oh no not another Overland - and everything else.* (from North) ‘I would love to simply tell you my way of seeing the world, like it is what you should believe, but Jack, you are an Overland. The entire world has always told you how to think and what to think’

-

The upshot of all of this is that not all creches are created equal, and the Overland creche is the worst.

North came from the North creche, which focused on mechanics and industry (i.e. grooming children into these careers via unpaid/state labour). His creche did have a ‘quiet room’ (i.e. isolation) but North never saw the inside of it, and nor did anyone else he knew in his time there, because in most of the creches, children are raised once they’re weaned and still infants, and don’t have sibling attachments etc. to break the rules like Jack did.

The Overland creche is at the furthest populated reaches of Lune (before you’re going into uncharted waters and potential Asylum territory). Those children are raised to farm the least arable land with crops that have poor nutriment, and certain animals (like glacier goats, lol). Because the farms are so isolated from each other, and because no one wants to work in the Overland creche as a ‘team leader,’ it is actually possible to hide children from the creches for some time. So Jack was taken from his parents very late by creche standards - late enough to have a sister, and to have bonded to her. (None of this is in the story yet, and may never be in the story, though Toothiana knows).

Overlands typically never rise above their station. They never see the City of Lune - to them it’s like a fantasy, or a myth. They never see the Tsar except on coins and brightly coloured posters - and it’s the only access to bright colours they have. There are harsh weather considerations that they’re not equipped enough to deal with and so death from hypothermia etc. isn’t uncommon (like, there’s a reason Jack got the powers of winter).

And because they’re so far from the core of Lune, they’re also further from idk...general regulation? The punishments are more extreme, the team leaders are often the worst that Lune has to offer and are more likely to be unethical and do whatever they feel is necessary to create order. Because Overlands as adults are often more desperate for food / warmth / resources than even other creche kids-turned-adults, they are more likely to resort to situational crime. So they have a reputation - even among peasants - as being ‘criminal stock.’

Literacy is not taught beyond a basic ability to comprehend a farming manual, and numeracy is not taught beyond the ability to calculate land / seeds needed / etc. Crtical thinking is discouraged, and no kid is ever taught about free will, autonomy or agency as a positive thing. Free will is dangerous, it makes you more likely to disobey the Tsar and personally hurt Lune, y’know? (Whee).

Mortality rates are high, and infant mortality rates are very high. Jack pushing to become a Warrior as an Overland was not a decision that was encouraged, and he fought so hard for it. Technically, in a creche, you can choose to become a Warrior if you don’t want to you know, do whatever the creche specialises in. But the Overland creche is so under-resourced they strongly, strongly discourage it by any means necessary (which usually means increased discipline of the ‘that would be considered a human rights violation’ kind).

So when Jack says ‘You think it was easy for an Overland to get to where I got to?’ he really means that. It’s more than just... ‘oh but Overlands don’t become Warriors.’ It’s also that they’re discouraged from pursuing it as a career. So from the time his sister died, to the time he left the creche (at about 13/14) he had to fight tooth and nail to go to the Barracks.

So basically you’re spot on, anon, they definitely weren’t raised the same way (North and Jack). North had access to the City of Lune and was raised with more privilege by comparison, and had more education under his belt by the time he was ready to work as a mechanic or a Warrior (they happily trained him in both skills when he showed an interest). North even has the privilege that his name can be ‘North’ and he won’t be disparaged for it. Jack can’t have ‘Overland’ as a nickname, and it not damn his character. Toothiana says: ‘You can depend on a Jack. I’m not sure you can depend on a Jackson Overland.’ -> At the time I wanted readers to assume that you can’t depend on a Jackson Overland because he’s a troublemaker (as Jack assumes), but the reality is, Toothiana is making an observation about his heritage, essentially, and what names mean.

I’m not sure how much of this I’ll end up revealing in the story. This isn’t the story of ‘saving the Overland kids’ and Jack thinks of his upbringing as pretty normal because he knows no other. He knows other creche kids don’t have it as bad, but he’s internalised the message ‘we treat you this bad because you’re Overlands’ and it’s never occurred to him it could be other reasons. So he wouldn’t complain to someone about it, because that would be like revealing how awful he is fundamentally. You don’t go ‘they’re punishing me and it’s wrong’ if you believe you really deserve it. There’s a lot of reasons he feels he’s ‘made wrong’ you know? He’s more likely to think ‘they’re punishing me and I’m wrong.’

Anyway, yeah, I can ramble about this forever. I’ve thought a lot about the social structure of Lune. A lot of citizens are kind of...blind to it? Even North doesn’t really get what Jack’s lived through. He has no idea Overlands are discouraged from being Warriors, for example. No one would have taught him that, and he’s never met an Overland before to know - and he wouldn’t know what questions to ask anyway, and creche kids are encouraged to keep their upbringing pretty secret. The whole system is designed to keep people ignorant, and people communicate in ways that often facilitate that, even when they think of themselves as very open-minded and willing to be challenged.

Shutting up now. O.O

#asks and answers #TGATNW #TGATNW worldbuilding #The Golden Age that Never Was #institutionalised abuse #abuse #but yeah even though we may never learn all of this in the actual story #we will learn bits and pieces #and thanks for your posts anon #it was fun to write all this stuff out #*pets Jack quietly for all I put him through* #administrator Gwyn wants this in the queue #Anonymous

[fizzyhibiscusteainapoptabsodacan]

rooookieeee

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

nuanced

“The utopian ideal of the internet—unregulated access to information, pure connectivity—now feels antiquated. Also antiquated: trying to determine if the internet is simply good or bad. Possible and necessary: thinking more deeply about how it’s rewiring our brains and warping our experience of time, about the vistas of reality it’s revealing and creating, and what to do with our positions therein, so that we do not go mad from it all nor flee altogether.When the internet was less mobile, the distinction between online and offline was perhaps more defined. There was real life, and then there was the place that hosted our reflections on it. Now we are experiencing a collision between underbaked thought and tangible experience so great and rapid and omnipresent that it’s less of a crash, more in the water supply. Those who use the internet as an escape are thought of as outliers (Catfishers, video game addicts, radicalized young men), but its increasing presence throughout our daily lives has made a state of unreality not only more accessible, but very hard to resist.Rather than providing a shadow of reality, these platforms shape reality. They’re not pure outlets for our feelings and experiences; they are catalysts for what we feel and experience, how we feel and experience, and our shrinking capacity to process any of it. What we share on social media platforms does not disappear into a void, but increase their engagement and make them more profitable—even criticism is additive to the forces we seek to counteract. (Donald Trump: “Without the tweets, I wouldn’t be here.”) What we share also tells people how to sell us more stuff, so that the CEO of Netflix can stand before his peers and declare that their number-one competitor is sleep—“And we’re winning!”The internet feels chaotic, but it is not out of control. The internet is not one giant, democratic forum where opinions rise to the top by their own merit; it is a very deliberate structure, carefully calibrated to convince its users that visibility is the same as power.“

suspended in mid air

PALIMPSEST is the word

The above is a photo of a photo of my aura. I had it read in Chinatown a few weeks ago and nodded adamantly as the woman told me I was “removed, observant, in [my] own castle.” It is very likely that other parts of her reading were far less accurate and that I seized only on what resonated with me, but that itself is an innate part of being removed/observant/in your own castle: picking and choosing what you’ll remember later, curating moments, architecting your own narrative, as opposed to being open to the possibility that she could’ve been telling me something that did not already fit my idea of who I am. She said, “There is something between you and the rest of the world,” and gestured as though to indicate a screen in front of her face.

This year, I graduated from high school and moved out of my parents’ Midwestern home into a New York City apartment and started acting in a play every day, wondering, constantly, what it feels like to bring down that screen. This was for the sake of being onstage but also because I was trying to start my life: How does it feel to exist in a moment, connected to another human being and to the world, without thinking about what it signifies, what it’ll look like in memory?

To be able to consider these questions at all is not only a privilege afforded by a life with time to think about HOW EXACTLY to FULLY APPRECIATE all these MAGICAL MOMENTS I am #blessed with CoNsTaNtLy!, but also just how my brain works. I started a blog when I was 11, and every day after school, I came home and took photos of my outfits for it. I was very picky about the setting and the colors and the lighting, not out of any interest in photography, so much as a desire to draw connections between things and delight at the order of it all. I didn’t feel like they were self-portraits, although I’m in every picture. They felt similar, instead, to doing plays at camp and community theater, or sitting at our family’s piano going through a Bible-thick Broadway songbook and shifting among my favorite characters.

When I stopped writing my blog halfway through high school, I began keeping journals just for myself, each one cycling through a different personality as I had with fashion and with acting. For the duration of each journal, my handwriting would change, I’d dye my hair, I’d hang new posters on my wall, I stuck to a narrow selection of my wardrobe and my music, I chose a new route for the walk to school. I am similarly strict about the monthly Rookie themes, dictating to our illustrators and photographers which colors, motifs, and types of lighting to use in their work for us. My friends get annoyed with me for how often I try to art direct our hangouts instead of seeing where the night takes us—Can we all wear these colors, walk down this street, listen to this song? That cohesion frames the moment and turns it into a scene from a movie. I don’t quite know how to let experiences just unfold and be surprised by how they affect me; I want to know that I’ll write down the aesthetic details of an event later and be pleased at how they fit together: We wore fur coats and wool cloaks, walked down Lafayette, listened to Blonde on Blonde.

Sometimes this quality veers into the realm of vampiric hubris. Like: I sat on my roof on opening night of the play with a perfectly nice fellow who put on “Astral Weeks” by Van Morrison and his arm around me. Why did I let the lovey part of the song go over my head, but hear “to be born again, to be born again,” over and over, marveling before the skyline at my own personal reinvention over the course of the past few months—at how perfect it was that I was wearing my fuzzy pink moving-to-New-Yorkjacket—instead of returning the embrace of a person I liked?

There is a terrible YA novel cliché of a girl who lives her life looking for movie moments, and I recently defended her/myself in my journal:

1. Why worship a life that is movie-esque? 2. Why should something be significant for feeling movie-esque? 3. Isn’t life the real thing itself?

No. Movies are what make life real to us, because they pay attention to and crystallize emotions, colors, movement, human behavior, etc. (When I say movies, I also mean TV, I also also mean plays—even though a play is not recorded, it’s crystallized in that it lives on in the minds and memories of its audience). Movies are like “LIFE: The Best Of.” “LIFE: The Essential Collection.” “LIFE: Not Dead Yet!” So saying a moment is like a movie is how we can comprehend its beauty and grant it significance.

I can defend the art direction and the obsessive documentation, but I also know that there are different answers to the above questions. I know there are infinite moments that could take place and affect me in ways I can’t conceive of, if I could only put down my notebook every once in a while and actually live my life instead of trying to immortalize everything.

“We don’t like to admit it,” said Julian, “but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. […] And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? […] To be absolutely free! […] To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! […] let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”

The above is from the novel The Secret History. It summarizes why I like acting, and why I was so eager to listen and learn from all the times our playwright said to me, “You know the play. You know the character. Why are you still watching yourself perform, telling the audience how to feel about her, dictating the moment? Just be in it.” I’m paraphrasing, from my castle. But that was the gist. And, to throw a wrench in all of this, the characters in The Secret History do end up losing control and being totally present…and MURDERING someone in their state of freedom!!!! But for now, this is where this month’s theme starts: the combined beauty and danger of inventing yourself, owning your experiences, putting yourself on record.

[naiasonod]

Elder scrolls.

Most of the worst wars and deadliest conflicts that have ever transpired in Nirn have been for the sake of dominion, control and primacy.   Very nearly everything destroyed and everyone slain was brought to their ruin in the conflicts that perpetually arise over matters of power and control.

In no other place or thing has the very essence of the power and control sought by very nearly everyone been embodied more literally than in the Elder Scrolls.

For the seeming chance to literally write history, or perchance even to rewrite history as it has otherwise happened, some would stop at nothing, sacrifice everything and consider nothing above or beneath them for the mere chance of claiming such.

Many lack the sort of resolve required to seek that sort of power, just as most lack the insanity and/or vanity required to believe themselves worthy of it...but it is still a lust that burns, even dimly, in the hearts and souls of very nearly everyone and everything.

Some call it darkness or otherwise objectify it in villainous terms, though it is not so simple as that, and should never be treated so shabbily as a topic by anyone interested in actually examining such matters.

Lust for the seemings of power and control offered by the Elder Scrolls has left our unintended wonder of a world in ruins, however.  That can neither be disputed nor denied by even the rankest fool with a single glimmer of a clue as to anything that's ever transpired in the world beyond the tip of their nose.

Every single civilization that has come and gone has fallen under the weight of the lust and greed for greater control, more total dominion and greater authority...and unfortunately, the Elder Scrolls have featured in most of the worst of those conflicts.

I tell you true, journal mine, that I have never observed a more tangible and ridiculously blatant declaration of contempt for mortal life than I perceive to be engendered in the Elder Scrolls.  One could not name a deadlier trap that has ever been placed directly into the hands of the immortal and mortal alike.

It is not what the scrolls say that is the problem.  Neither is it the risks inherent to reading them directly.

It is what they seem to promise that forms, all by itself, the foundation of most of the woes that have ever actually plagued Nirn.  

They offer the power to change reality, some of them.  They offer knowledge that cannot be possible to know unless the future is as static and pre-ordained as the past, yet neither the future or the past are static at all, which yet other Elder Scrolls make pointedly clear.

They are, in the simplest terms, 'Break Reality' cards...and pretty much every civilization has reached for that power to not only break, but control reality and change it, invariably more in their own favor and likeness of function and nature.

The conceit of the Immortals and their obsessive worship of their own reflections is no less present in the mortal.  Its just that mortals are far less individually capable of acting upon that vanity, expressing it or, quite often, even cultivating it in the first place.

Look to a lofty noble that has been served and obeyed from their earliest memories, however, and you will often find a creature of vanities, egotism and megalomania.   We are, every single one of us to the most meager of peasants, the children of the Eldest...and they are vanity, egotism and megalomania incarnated and personified, each in their own unique fashions.

The Elder Scrolls put power mortals rarely have the wisdom and never have the need to use right smack in the middle of their business.  These things were not put here by mortals, of course. They were not created by mortals.

If I scattered terrifically powerful magical scrolls amongst children, and made sure that they were both incredibly powerful and relatively easy for those children to use, what sort of fool would I be?

I'd think myself a negligent fool...or a malevolent one that actively desired the obvious outcomes.  

Malevolence is, to the great surprise of most, rarely intentional. It does not, in fact, require intention at all.   All it requires is arrogance, and arrogance is in no short supply amongst the mortal in particular.

The Elder Scrolls intrigued me once, long ago.  I was fascinated by them once.  I yearned to know what they taught and to seek to understand what they imparted.

And then I saw what their presence in the world amounted to.  I saw what was done with them, and what was done just for the chance to confirm or deny the rumor of one.

It is a common enough debate amongst interested scholars, where they came from, what they are, who or what precisely made them and why.    I fear that I take a dimmer view than some upon the why at least, and my view is informed both by what they are, insofar as my abilities allow me to perceive them...and what their mere presence cannot help but cause, invite, incite and inspire wherever one is known to reside.

Whatever they truly are, I do not blame them for being that...but someone put them here.    There is a reasonable theory that they are 'left-over bits of the stuff of creation itself', and I certainly can't declare that to be wrong with authority...but is that what they are?

I don't know what they are.  Not truly.  I know very well what happens because of them though. I know what people do to seize them. I know what they become in the minds of the many.

Is that the fault of the many or the Elder Scrolls? The many, I should think.  Give a knife to a toddler and it is not the knife's fault when the toddler destroys things and injures themselves with it.

But who gave these penultimate knives to the toddlers?    Who or what unleashed these intoxicating curses that offer the illusions of power, dominance and certainty into the realm of the mortal?

They are that, in function if not in fact; curses.   I've known many that coveted an Elder Scroll. Some of them had truly noble, even altruistic purposes.   Some thought they they could make the world a better place for many with such power and knowledge and perhaps even the means to literally write the future or rewrite the past themselves.

Nothing seems truly beyond the scope or measure of what Elder Scrolls can wind up causing or changing.  

What has power like that and could manufacture and scatter such things in the first place?

Why would they do so?

The toddlers didn't give the knives to themselves.  They cannot make such things.  

Who made these truly terrible knives and left them where toddlers would not only be able to reach them, but were guaranteed to eventually do so?

There's only two fundamental ways it came about; accidentally or on purpose.

So, was it negligence or malevolence?  

I doubt I'll ever know.  Either way, the only wise thing to do with an Elder Scroll is walk away from it and lean not upon it for knowledge, for wisdom or for understanding.  

Seek those yourself by your own power, your own merit and your own ability.   You might inebriate yourself on imaginings and delude yourself with fever-dreams of what you could be or do with the power of the Elder Scrolls at your fingertips, and if you are a fool, you will heed those imaginings and those fever-dreams.

Many fools before you have. Their ends are well documented, and fascinating as the scope and scale of those ends often is, the ends themselves have precious little variation.

You will be the plaything of fate, if you become the toy of an Elder Scroll.  Destiny will use you like a pen to write some story into reality that will be utterly beyond your capacities to grasp in its extents or comprehend in its extremities.    You might even get cast as the hero of that tale, whatever it is, if that's what the Elder Scroll in question 'does' at all, as not all of them have so done.

The point is simple; you will no longer be your own creature.    You never will be again.   And chances are very good that you will have fought and sacrificed much for the illusory privilege of making yourself an enslaved plaything to fate's self-amusing whim.

What truly astounds me is that there have been no shortage of those that knew this, fully recognized that they would never again be their own creature, yet promptly manufactured as many corpses, betrayals and ruins of whatever was in their way to claim that 'privilege' irrespective.

So very many knew well enough what I write here to be more accurate than less, and couldn't have possibly been less eager for it irrespective.  

Its a fundamental difference between myself in my essential nature and these myriad others, though despite frequently cogitating upon it, I have no more explanation for why now than I did at any point prior.

Why do so many others want the blasted things when its so tragically obvious what it amounts to?

What sort of person must one be, to covet that kind of power and control sufficiently to ignore the mountainous evidence of how it doesn't yield much of either to anyone at all in the end?