#unsympathetic nightmare | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dilatorywriting · 1 year

Text

Heroes vs. Villains : Pomefiore

Gender Neutral Reader x Pomefiore vs. Neige Leblanche Word Count: 2.8k

Summary: Woe to the Ramshackle Prefect, being caught up in the drama between the Disney Villains and their respective heroes. Pomefiore Version ie. Wherein Vil tries his very best to correct your abominable wardrobe and you swoop in to kidnap save an unsuspecting gentleman in distress.

[PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3]

“Your wardrobe is atrocious. And I’m not going to be seen with someone who looks like they rolled around on the floor of their closet and put on whatever stuck to them first.”

Firstly, your closet wasn’t big enough to step inside, let alone roll around in. So take that, Mister Metaphor.

Secondly, you didn’t even own enough clothing for that to be an option. Dressing yourself like some kind of confetti monster? Yeah, no. You had three pairs of donated, grey, uniforms and a couple over-large sweatshirts that Jack had kindly donated to you once fall set in. Today it just so happened to be Uniform #2 that was the clean one of the set. So.

All of that being said, from the sounds of things, your Crimes Against Fashion had spurred an emergency shopping trip. A shopping trip spearheaded by the Vil Schoenheit, and very hopefully being funded by his seemingly never-emptying wallet. Also, to be perfectly honest, Ramshackle was cold. And you would very much like some new socks and at least one fuzzy pair of pajama pants to go with Jack’s old crewnecks. Maybe a nice throw blanket. That alone was worth the blow to your dignity.

“Will I survive?” you lamented, as Rook fussed with your sad excuse for an umbrella.

“No,” Epel drawled, entirely unsympathetic. Not that you could blame the guy. An afternoon that the House Warden spent with you was one less hovering over Epel—one less hour stuck in front of a mirror, one less etiquette class that was more punishment than lesson. Perhaps one more secret rack of barbecue ribs snuck in from the Savanaclaw Dorm.

“Mon Coeur, you are going to get soaked,” Rook tutted, finally conceding on trying to fix your shredded nightmare of a parasol. You’d found it in one of the many dusty closets Ramshackle had to offer. One of the ghosts said they recognized it from their time on campus two-hundred years ago.

“Sorry.”

“It is far from your fault!” Rook gasped, and Epel rolled his eyes.

“Why don’t you ask Vil to buy you one?” your purple-haired friend mocked, and you fought the urge to stick your tongue out at him.

“Maybe I will,” you sniffed, indignant.

“More likely he’ll just see it an’ get all upset, and be like, ‘ah! How ugly this darn thing is! Throw it away before my eyes bleed!’” he crooned, dramatic—so caught up in his theatrics that he nearly dropped the little apple carving he was working on.

“Yeah, right. Like Vil would ever be caught dead saying ‘darn,’” you jabbed, and Epel hurled the fruit at your head. Rook caught it gracefully and returned it to the grumpy farm boy with a gentle toss. “But otherwise, spot on.”

“‘Spot on’ about what, precisely? Your collective complete and utter lack of decorum? This is a public space, show some class please.”

And with that scathing remark, Vil Schoenheit had officially entered the scene.

The venomous beauty’s purple eyes traced over you in the way that they always seemed to—picking apart whatever things he deemed worthy of plucking. His gaze landed almost immediately on your near-disintegrated umbrella, and it narrowed with distaste.

“You’re not bringing that with us. In fact, you might as well just toss it with the garbage on the way out.”

You and Epel made painfully long eye contact.

Rook shoved a red-and-white checkered parasol into your hands with an indulgent smile.

The journey to the outlets from there was actually pretty pleasant. Vil’s private car was swanky and smelled like the fancy sort of air fresheners that didn’t prick at your nose with an oversaturation of chemical fruitiness. He rattled off list upon list of ‘essentials’ that was sounding longer and more expensive by the minute. But (as he immediately confirmed upon seeing your mounting horror) this was to be a Schoenheit Expenditure, so you decided to let him enjoy himself and tally up a ridiculous amount of brand name garbage.

The stores had private parking. And that was immediately intimidating.

Vil fixed his ‘normal people disguise’ more firmly in place before walking you through the building with a surprising level of enthusiasm.

“It works a bit differently—” he continued, piling item after item into a cart that was already close to overflowing. “—Most of these products are meant to be customized, but I suppose we can look into that later. Off-The-Rack is not usually my preferred method of browsing, but it will have to do until we’ve bulked out your general wardrobe into something passable.”

He was muttering to himself like a mad scientist—holding swatches to your face, tugging bits of various fabric against your fingers. His efficiency and complete competence in all things was endearing, if not a bit terrifying.

Then, Vil draped a soft, amethyst, scarf around your neck.

“Here,” he said, still mostly buried in the racks. “You can wear this now—for the cold. This color suits you.”

“Really?” you hummed, doing your absolute best not to let your eyes fall to the price tag dangling off the end of it. You failed. “It’d fit you better,” you rambled, trying to take your mind off the triple-goddamn-digits you’d just seen. “It actually matches your eyes kind of perfectly, don’t you think?”

There was a pause then, and for a moment you worried that you’d said something irritating—maybe unintentionally questioning his fashion judgements or blablabla. One thing that you knew for sure was that when the King of Poisons had to stop and ponder on a reply, you’d done fucked up. And were his ears red? Oh no you must have really pissed him off—

“I am trying to focus on turning you into an even marginally acceptable member of society,” he rushed out finally, sounding strained. “So if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Fine, fine,” you sighed. “I’ll go grab us some coffees or something.”

“Don’t wander too far,” he called, sounding distracted. “And no—”

“No caffeine, decaf only. Stimulants will ruin your skin, and digestive tract, and blablabla,” you droned. “I know your drill.”

“That goes for you too, potato,” he tutted, a pleasant warmth coasting over the reprimand.

You waved him off with a grumble and headed out into the main building. It was bright—nearly unpleasantly so—and every surface looked like it was made of a stone so expensive that you probably wouldn’t even be able to pronounce its name.

You wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes, wondering idly if a place this upscale would even have a café kiosk. Surely rich people still drank coffee, but you’d also heard something once upon a time about how ‘to-go cups’ and ‘not savoring the brew’ were some kind of gross social faux pas. You sighed, and as your shoulders slouched you felt a brush of sinfully soft fabric against the back of your arm.

You froze and reached hesitantly up to your neck. You were still wearing the purple scarf. You pinched at the ridiculously expensive cashmere with wide eyes. Did this make you a thief? I mean, no one had bothered to stop you or anything. Did these sorts of stores have different rules? Like an honesty policy maybe? And you technically hadn’t even left the building yet! So maybe—

WHAM!

“Ah! I’m so sorry! I just—I have to—!”

You were ripped out of your morality spiral by a sound like a storm, and you looked up past your assailant to see a herd of people stampeding in your direction. Immediately, your I-was-shopping-with-an-internationally-recognizable-superstar instinct kicked in, and you bodily hauled yourself and whatever poor sap who had nearly mowed you down into the nearest store and then into one of the changing rooms beyond that.

The tempest that followed was a roar of cacophonous noise, but thankfully brief. Only a few people ducked into the store you’d taken refuge in, and none of those ventured very close to your hiding place. You breathed out a sigh of relief. It sounded weirdly muffled behind the changing room’s thick, velvety, curtains.

“Th-Thank you for that,” stuttered whoever you’d just kidnapped.

“Don’t worry about it,” you shrugged, and turned to get a better look at your new partner in crime. Immediately you froze, an odd sense of recognition working through you. “Uhm—Are you Neige? Neige Le Blanc?”

“Leblanche,” he corrected gently, and then winced. Like he’d only just realized that maybe outing himself after being nearly accosted by a mob was not the best idea.

“Oh. Alright,” you said, dazed.

This was Vil’s arch nemesis? He reminded you a little of a cocker spaniel—with big, wide, heavy-lashed eyes and soft, dark, curls framing his perfectly petite face. Sure, he was lovely. And maybe you were a little biased here, but this guy—this, this walking cherub—was standing in the way of Vil’s absolute, tyrannical, reign over all things sexy? Sure, he was adorable enough. But most beautiful of them all? Come on.

“U-Uhm…” Neige stuttered, nervously clasping his fingers. “Do you… Want an autograph or something? As a thank you?”

“What?” you blinked, allowing yourself to be pulled back into the very surreal situation unfolding around you. “Oh. No thanks. I don’t want to be massacred.”

He gasped. “I know that they may not have left the best first impression just now, but I promise that my fans would never do that!”

It wasn’t his fans you were worried about. Vil’s high heels looked sharp enough to gut a man, and you did not want to be the first test subject for that hypothesis.

“Don’t worry about it,” you shrugged.

“…I might have to camp out in here for a while,” he mumbled after a quiet moment, morose.

“Probably,” you sighed, sympathetic. “Sorry.”

“You, uhm, you don’t mind keeping this a secret, do you?” Neige smiled, wobbly.

“I’m not going to turn you over to your ravenous fangirls,” you reassured. Because sure, the mean-spiritedness of the residents of Night Raven College may have been rubbing off on you, but you had yet to become that heartless.

“Thank you,” he relaxed, genuine appreciation warming his dark eyes. And then he aimed that kilowatt, darling-of-the-world, smile in your direction and fired. “You’re my hero.”

For a moment you were honestly, thoroughly, dazzled. It was like you could hear songbirds and heavenly choirs singing all around you—filling the dark space with sparkles and warmth that danced merrily across your skin like the soft fizz in a soda pop.

But then, like a sign from God, your phone buzzed angrily in your pocket and you glanced down quick enough to catch a bright V.S. flash across the screen.

Oh shit.

You turned, ready to make a bolt for it and leave your companion stranded, when something atrocious caught your eye.

“Is that a sweater vest,” you gaped, poking at the stitched material poking out from beneath Neige’s RSA blazer. “With squirrels on it.”

“U-Uhm. Yes?” he squeaked, cheeks dusted pink.

How in the fuck does Vil think he’s less fuckable than this guy, what the fuck.

“I-I’m sorry, but did you just say—"

You hurriedly pulled the (stolen?) scarf from your neck and shoved it pointedly over Neige’s mouth, before wrapping it securely around the rest of his head. Your phone was buzzing again—longer and sharper this time. Like a certain someone was spamming you with indignant, ‘how dare you abandon my magnificent ass,’ essays.

“So that hopefully no one will recognize you,” you (lied) explained cheerfully, and tightened the makeshift gag. Now he could be the accidental thief. Neige gurgled his thanks into the fabric, or at least, you assumed that’s what he was spluttered out. It was hard to tell past the, you know, gag.

You peaked out beyond the curtains and observed the empty storefront like a proper super spy. All clear. Thank God.

You swiveled back and thumped Neige Leblanche on the shoulder with what was perhaps a bit more force than necessary, seeing as his knees had started to shake. He swayed in place, an odd shade of pink creeping past the barrier of the scarf and nearly all the way to his hairline. Hopefully he wasn’t about to faint or something—you really didn’t have time for that.

“Good luck,” you told him emphatically, before darting out of your hiding space and back into the horrible fluorescent nightmare before you.

“Wait!” you heard him call. “I didn’t even get your name—"

But at this point, your phone had graduated from spurts of rage to outright howling in indignation, so you didn’t have much choice but to keep on running. You pressed down on the green ‘accept call’ button with all the enthusiasm of a soldier being sent off to the front lines.

“What?”

“Don’t you take that tone of voice with me,” Vil hissed, doing an impressive job of keeping his voice low and level while simultaneously sounding ready to tear your ass to pieces. “Where are you?”

“I got lost looking for coffee with no caffeine. You know. The best part of the coffee,” you admitted. Sort of.

“You got lost?” he sounded incredulous. “In a single-story shopping center? With maps at every corner?”

“There were a lot of people,” you defended.

He sighed, clearly put upon, and you had the distinct impression that he was pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just meet me back at the side entrance. We should leave—it’s starting to get crowded and I don’t want to deal with the stampede when I’m inevitably recognized.”

“Of course,” you agreed easily, and made your way up to one of these supposed ‘maps at every corner.’ And oh. It was actually… very well drawn and very helpful. Fuck you, huh? “Did you get everything you needed?”

“I got everything you needed,” he corrected. “And we will be trying every single item on when we return to campus.”

You whined, and man, oh man. You didn’t think it was possible to smack someone upside the head through a phone, but somehow Vil made it work.

It didn’t take long from there to find the exits, and just in the nick of time too it would seem! As a steady stream of eager ‘shoppers’ began to flood into the building—most of them twittering about ‘did you catch a photo’ or ‘I heard someone saw him around that one store!’ Vil watched them through the tinted lenses of his glasses, lips pursed.

You were just about to step back into the car and out of the chilly rain when an eruption of screaming broke out somewhere in the near-distance. You immediately braced for impact, but when you were not immediately trampled into a pile of gelatinous goop beneath the thundering feet of hundreds of fanatics, you chanced a glance upwards.

Neige Leblanche was being herded out of the main entrance by a troupe of security guards, each one holding a different black umbrella over his head. It created a shadowed canopy that, despite the rain and gloom, somehow managed not to dull the radiance oozing off him and his perfect-perfectness. The fair beauty rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head, as if perplexed by the swarm of people ducking in and out like a pack of dogs circling a big, juicy, steak. Nevertheless, he waved to each and every fan—smiling demurely and sweetly as he went.

“We should go while they’re distracted,” you whispered, tugging at Vil’s arm. “And in case the swooning is contagious.”

He didn’t move. There was an odd sort of look on his face, one that usually preceded some of the most brutally cutting insults you’d ever heard.

You turned back to the growing mob, curious about what could have possibly snagged his attention—and ire—so completely.

Wrapped artfully around Neige’s neck, and flapping neatly alongside the chilly autumn breeze, was your purple scarf.

The dainty actor lifted the soft fabric to his lips, burrowing his chin into it not unlike how some adorable little round-cheeked bunny might photogenically cuddle into a—a cloud. Or a pillow of cotton candy. Or something else equally as cute and ridiculous. Neige’s cheeks bloomed a fetching shade of pink and his wide, brown, eyes glittered from over the folds of cashmere. His audience squealed.

“Well, at least it’s not you they’re mauling this time,” you hummed, shooting Vil another hesitant glance. That sour expression had twisted into a familiar and awful icy sneer that you hadn’t seen him dawn in a very long time. “Vil?” You called. “Are you alright?”

“Hmm?” he blinked, seeming to come back to himself. That frigid snarl was washed away by a mask of complete stoicism, and honestly, you weren’t sure which was worse. “Oh. Yes. Of course. Shall we?”

The hand he offered to help you climb over the many boxes of clothes and into the backseat was stiff, tight. It clapped around your wrist like a pair of manacles, and he didn’t let go until you were out of the parking lot, past the backroads, beyond the gates of Night Raven, and all the way back into the lavish halls of Pomefiore.

#twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #Vil x Reader #vil shoenheit #Vil Schoenheit x Reader #Pomefiore x Reader #neige leblanche #neige x reader #My Writing #Heroes vs Villains Pomefiore Part 1

3K notes · View notes

jasmines-library · 6 months

Text

14 years

WHUMPTOBER DAY 16: Prompt: Experiment. Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Torn from your parents at a young age, you were experimented on. Your body and your mind were altered until you no longer recognised yourself in the mirror. During your time with HYDRA, your only solace came in the form of Bucky Barnes' voice on the other side of the wall. That was, until he left. Now, years later you have the chance to meet him again.

Warnings: Human Experimentation, pain, minor mentions of blood and gunshot wounds, brain surgery? kinda.

Word count: 2.2K

Note: I don’t own the art work in the header. This has not mention of skin colour despite the image on the right, I was using it for the cybernetics. My work is for everyone to enjoy :)

MASTERLIST ⛤ WHUMPTOBER WORKS

🕸 ⋆ ⁶𖤐⁶ ࣪⋆🕸

Darkness. It was all you had known since you were young and torn from your family’s arms. But that was years ago and you had long forgotten that touch could be tender. Since that fateful day, you lived in constant fear of the men who would drag you away from the little relief of sleep you got at night, although it consisted of curling up on a small mattress on the floor. You lived with the fear of waking up again and being forced through another day of poking and prodding in your mind. There was one voice that offered solace. You heard it drift through the vents many times, offering words of comfort. He had been there when you had arrived, soothing you of your nightmares when you woke up in a cold sweat. The voice would disappear for months at a time, until one day it never came back. Your blood ran cold whenever you began to think about what he had done. Part of you was certain that Hydra had done something to him - you knew he was defiant, and more stubborn than you, but all of you hoped that he had gotten himself out of this hellhole. Soon after his absence, without those gentle words drifting from the vents you began to feel less and began to gain control over your abilities. They had told you that emotions clouded your judgement and you had begun to listen without the defiance of your friend. But you supposed, that still wasn’t enough for them. You were never enough.

As part of your daily routine, you were forced awake at the crack of dawn. This time it was a bucket of icy water. Spluttering, and sitting up abruptly, you groaned when you realised the situation. You hated water; it messed with your cybernetics if it got in the wrong places and wasn’t dried properly, and a malfunctioning cybernetic caused you extreme discomfort; migraines and sharp pains where the metal was connected to your body and to your brain. Sometimes, in extreme cases they could cause seizures or body shut down. One thing you were certain of was that although Hydra were technical geniuses, they had no care about the effects their experiments had on their patients as long as they functioned enough to benefit them.

Dripping wet and shivering, you pushed yourself up onto your feet and were gripped harshly by the two guards. As they walked you forwards, your bare feet padded across the tiles. They were cold and bit at your skin. You were dragged through the corridors quickly and you tried to figure out where you were going, but everything looked the same in this facility; sickeningly pristine. When you saw the golden doorway, your chest constricted and you tried to push away, but they forced you into the room and towards the chair which sat in the centre of the square room. There were a number of unfamiliar faces dotted around the room, each tending to a laptop. It was the cart of tools next to the chair that caught you by surprise. It was lined with rows of screwdrivers and odd shaped instruments.

Shoved down unsympathetically you fell into the chair, and the blinds closed seamlessly around your arms. You furrowed your brow when the halo of machinery that sat aloft didn't descend into your face to cause you more pain. Instead a man slid in front of you on a chair. He spoke to you about your cybernetics. You had one that ran around your right temple and down your cheek, it was the one that connected to your eyes and allowed extreme accuracy, as well as the ability to identify anyone in the database- and that was a whole lot of people. You had two more; one which made up the entirety of your knee- that one was accidental. You had sustained it after a gunshot to the knee on a mission. The second was your largest. It was from just above the nape of your neck and down your spine. Many of the nerves in your spine here had been replaced by cybernetics, allowing for complete motor precision and effortlessness when moving. It also ran directly into your brain, altering its pathways to create an advanced way of thinking. Supposedly, this one was a problem. The man told you that when they had created this cybernetic, they had allowed you to feel too much, and this compromised you in missions. They said it was how you ended up with the machinery in your knee.

“You have to learn to comply.” The man told you bluntly. “And to do that, you must not let pests like the winter soldier interfere. He does not care about you, child. The only people who care about you are Hydra. Remember that. If you cannot learn that on your own then we must teach you a lesson.”

He reached slowly towards the tools, picking up a screwdriver and a small hand held object that sparked.

“No…No.” You shook your head.

He only moved closer, swivelling on the chair until he was positioned behind you. Then, with one swift movement, he began to fiddle with the machinery in the back of your head. You shrieked as the pain shot through your head as the screws were removed, unsettling skin and bone, but then came the agony of the machine as it sparked away, allowing pieces of the cybernetic to be shifted or removed. You clenched your jaw, grinding your teeth together to try and bite away some of the pain. The man continued to work, inching deeper into your brain. It hurt; a thousand agonies at once all trailing through your body. Your muscles twitched as he worked around your brain, alternating your wavelengths and your feelings. Soon, your body began to feel numb. The stabbing dulled down into throbbing and shortly after, you felt nothing at all.

~~~

Get in without being seen, take out the enemy, get the data, get out. That was the mission. A simple routine mission that hopefully didn’t require you to ambush your way out. You didn’t like to pull the trigger. It was messy and there was an odd feeling that twinged in your stomach when you watched the bodies drop to the floor like a sack of flour. You couldn’t place it, you just knew that it felt wrong. Especially when they were innocent people. They were usually innocent, your cybernetic told you that much. But your programing stated that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and would therefore compromise the mission and Hydra.

Sometimes, your mind would think that what you were doing was wrong. Sometimes you stopped what you were doing completely as you fought to keep a grip on a sanity that seemed more natural to you, though wherever you disobeyed, you were strapped to that chair again and experimented with until they made progress in a way that could get you to comply without fault.

You moved stealthily towards the door; it was heavy and made of metal. You could hear voices behind it, muffled by the thickness of the steel. You could place around three or four, and the sound of keyboards clattering away.

Reaching into the pocket of your suit, you pulled out a small device. It was round and attached onto the electronic mechanism of the door. Stepping back, you allowed it to work, listening to it whirr away and raising your dual pistols. When the device let out a burst of electricity and the door flung open, a set of heads turned towards you. You saw their names flash across your vision. Names, aliases, records, articles, all sorts of information that you processed and stored within your brain in seconds. It was the dark haired man who’s name failed to show up on your database that made you frown. If he was an avenger, surely Hydra would have something on him. You contemplated for a split second, before remembering your objective.

Before they had a chance to move, you had released a round or bullets into the room. Most, although accurately placed, ricocheted off of the trained soldiers armour or shields. One however found itself within the shoulder of a redheaded woman. Gunting in discomfort, she dropped, manoeuvring herself around the room to cut you off from the data. You tried to turn, only to collide with a tall blond. You ducked, rolling across the floor to escape his swing. You fired at him, but it was blocked by his circular shield. Turning to move, you came face to face with the woman again, blood dribbling from her shoulder. You backed away, trying to find a gap between the circle they had created around you. And that was when you realised you were trapped. Then, something blunt hit the back of your head.

The first thing you noticed when you awoke was that you weren’t lying on the cold floor. Instead you were chained to a hospital bed by a tight cuff secured just above the hydra insignia they had messily branded into your skin. There were tiny sicker-like pads pressed to your temples, monitoring your brain activity. They made you feel like a child again; helpless with no control.

The man who wouldn’t show up on your database was watching you from afar, leaning against the doorway with his metal arm folded over his other. You could see the angry scarring around it under the top he was wearing. It was similar to the ones on your face and your spine. His dark hair fell in front of his eyes and he tilted his head, studying your movements. You tried searching the database again for him, assuming that in the action your cybernetic scanners had failed to pick anything up, but once again his profile came up blank.

“Who are you?! You asked, furrowing your brow. Too many thoughts raced across your mind. If you were the enemy, why hadn’t they killed you?

The man frowned, inching hesitantly into the room. His moments were precarious as though he was trying not to frighten you. “You don’t remember me?”

That voice… you knew that voice. He had spoken to you before, a long, long time ago.

“Bucky..?” You queried. There was a name you hadn’t heard in a while. A name you unknowingly had yearned for everyday since he left you.

He smiled at you gently. You weren’t sure how you had really pictured him from the other side of the wall, but you weren’t disappointed. He had this gentle look about him as he watched you, though hidden behind it was a haunted look that only someone who had seen the worst could have. “Yeah Doll. It’s me.”

“You left.”

“I know, doll. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave without you but I had no choice.”

You sighed. “Why am I here, Buck? Why didn’t they just shoot me when they had the chance.”

“Because, Barnes is one annoying man.” Another voice chimed in from the doorway. He was an older man with tired eyes. He had a small beard too which sat below the hair above his upper lip. “He thinks that we can help you, like we helped him. Although, I don’t know if you deserve that considering you broke into our home, shot one of our agents and tried to take all of our data. Nat should make a full recovery, by the way.” He added just to jest.

“Stark-”

“You know I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to get torn apart and pit back together over and over and turned into some weapon. I didn’t ask to be one of their little toys.”

Tony pursed his lips. Hot tears streamed down your face as years of your life replayed on loop in your mind. This feeling was something so foreign to you. You didn’t know how to comprehend it. Bucky faltered as he watched your mind fight itself, as you fought between what felt right and what you were told was right.

“Fourteen years. Fourteen years of pain and loneliness. Fourteen years of my life that I will never get back because they were spent being forced to do things that I never asked to do.”

Tony pondered for a moment, gaze lingering on Bucky. He saw how tender he was with you. He knew that Barnes could sympathise with you better than anyone could. They had given him a chance, so why were you any different?

“Call T'Challa.Tell him we need his help.”

Bucky beamed. After quickly reassuring you that he would be back shortly after your protests, he began to make his way down the hall, with a skip in his step. He couldn’t help but smile at the fact that you were going to get help. They were going to remove your programming, and you would be stripped of the confinement that Hydra had wrapped tightly around you like a boa constrictor. He knew that it would take time and effort, pain and trust, but he was willing to stand beside you for it all because he knew that slowly but surely, you would realise that you were safe. Slowly but surely, you would become you again.

🕸 ⋆ ⁶𖤐⁶ ࣪⋆🕸

<- DAY 15 ⛤ DAY 17 ->

Taglist:

@senjoritanana

@deans-spinster-witch

@amaryllis23

Note: I was listening to the song 14 years but guns n roses whilst I wrote this :)

114 notes · View notes

bimboficationblues · 1 year

Text

I’m not unsympathetic to the worry about restorative justice models - I can see them playing out more or less successfully depending on approach - but I find it kinda absurd that such a system is radically more horrifying to some people than the current system where you get locked up in a sexual-abuse box until you either pay enough money or demonstrate that you have enough “community ties,” debase yourself to a judge whose natural lawyerly egomania has been amplified tenfold because they gave him a special title, get your own lawyer who is likely underpaid and overworked and whose clients are *almost universally guilty of the crime they’re being charged with* and therefore can only hope for triage, while the state throws a team of Paid Sadists at you to make sure that you suffer as much as they can possibly get away with. And that’s without even going to trial. Like I’m not sure I’m particularly encouraged about my “rights” if that’s what they look like.

I understand the impulse towards “this system is tweakable until it’s no longer a nightmare, so there’s no need for a completely new thing” but at a certain point, these awful qualities are so entrenched that the number of tweaks you’d need to make them non-nightmarish would be tantamount to just making a completely new thing

493 notes · View notes

the-lonelybarricade · 7 months

Text

Down the Water Well - Feysand Oneshot

Never go near the water well. For eleven years, Feyre obeyed her mother’s command. Except now, she was standing on the edge of that barren circle, staring at the stone well at the top of the hill. The wooden signs were worn and weathered and still illegible to her. She always wondered, did the signs warn about what waited at the top? She’d never been brave enough to ask. Come, a dark voice beaconed to her. Come, Feyre. See what’s inside. See what waits for you.

A contribution to @officialrhysandweek Day 1: Lord of Nightmares

Read on AO3

The first time Feyre saw the water well, she was eight years old.

It wasn’t the well that she’d noticed to begin with. It was the large wooden posts staked into the ground, each boasting signs that she could not decipher. There were many of them, an equal distance apart, charting the perimeter of a large dirt hill so that those who approached on any side would be certain to see whatever was written on the signs.

She didn’t care much about what they said at the time. What caught Feyre’s attention was that the grass stopped growing beyond the posts. On one side, a green, flush carpet. On the other, dried, shriveled grass. Her eyes followed the dead zone up to the top of the hill, where a large circle of stone erected from the earth.

Feyre didn’t know what it was, but the moment she rested her eyes on those stones, she felt the air drop in temperature. It was midday, not a cloud in the sky, yet smoky darkness clung to the air around the hill. She knew, without quite knowing how, that the well was responsible for the decay around it. Like it leeched life from the surrounding earth. Fed on it.

It was eerie. Strange. Though Feyre had never been a skittish child, the sight chilled her. And yet. Yet she stepped toward it. Curious, drawn like a puppet being pulled by the strings. She wanted to know what lay on top of the hill, why it was there.

Yes, it seemed to call. Come to me. Come see.

“Feyre!”

She paused, her toe just past the perimeter of dead earth. Glancing over her shoulder, Feyre spied her mother striding toward her on furious footsteps. Feyre thought that was strange, too. Her mother rarely paid any attention to what she was up to. They were on the outskirts of the village because a seamstress lived here, in the cottage that her mother had swiftly exited. Feyre had snuck out as soon as her measurements were taken, and she’d assumed her mother would be too preoccupied with choosing designs for Nesta and Elain’s dresses to notice that her youngest daughter had snuck away.

Ordinarily, Feyre might have been delighted at the attention, if her mother’s face wasn’t twisted in rage. When she caught up to Feyre, she wasted no time with scolding. Instead, she grabbed Feyre’s arm so fiercely that her entire body jostled, and in Feyre’s shock, she bit down on her lower lip. Copper burst into her mouth a moment before tears swelled behind her eyes, and her sobbing began.

It was impossible to forget through her wailing and the unsightly blood dribbling down her chin, splattering to the dirt, the way her mother scooped her up and hissed, unsympathetic, “Never go near the water well ever again, Feyre.”

Never go near the water well.

For eleven years, Feyre obeyed her mother’s command.

Except now, she was standing on the edge of that barren circle, staring at the stone well at the top of the hill. The wooden signs were worn and weathered and still illegible to her. She always wondered, did the signs warn about what waited at the top of the hill? She’d never been brave enough to ask.

Come, a dark voice beaconed to her. Come, Feyre. See what’s inside. See what waits for you.

Darkness. Death. Something worse, perhaps.

Come, it repeated, more insistent. Less patient.

“No,” she said. What was she doing here?

Wind twisted her unbound hair, pulling at her nightdress like it was trying to tug her past the perimeter, away from where it was safe.

You’re hungry, it purred. Come to me, and I’ll see that you’re fed.

“No,” she repeated.

You would let your family starve?

“I know how to hunt,” she protested, tearing her eyes away from the well, towards the forest she ventured into every morning. “I don’t need you.”

Oh, but aren’t you tired, my little huntress? Tired of fighting and scraping to survive? You’ve been working so hard for so long. Let me take care of you so you can rest.

Rest. That sounded so nice. There was scarcely enough food to supplement the energy she expended on every hunt. And though she often came home worn to her bones, body so, so heavy, it was always difficult to sleep. Knowing what waited for her.

Lies. Lies, lies, lies, she chanted to herself. It wanted something from her and knew what to say to draw her in. She never liked to examine too closely how the creature knew so much about her.

She whispered, “What are you?”

Your loyal servant.

Feyre snorted.

It’s true, the midnight voice crooned. Free me, Feyre, and I am yours. Your every desire is mine to fulfill.

“Like… a wishing well?” she asked, feeling so childish to even entertain the idea. But she remembered the stories, as a child, of the water wells that would grant any wish for a coin dropped inside them. The cold stone at the top of the hill didn’t evoke the same whimsy, but she could certainly feel the power emanating from it. Pulsing, like a heartbeat. In time with her own.

There was humor in that voice as it answered, in a sense.

“What has you trapped?” That was a less intimidating question than what she truly wanted to ask—Why are you trapped?

Humans are fearful creatures. They push away things they cannot understand. But you are not like them, Feyre. You could free me. My huntress, my salvation. I’ll grant you any wish for that debt.

Don’t ask how, don’t ask how, don’t ask—” How?”

The darkness rumbled as if pleased by her question. Come to me. I will show you.

It wasn’t a far distance up the hill. Ten strides at most. How deep was the well, she wondered? If she fell in, would she ever come out? For years, she had nightmares about tumbling inside, falling down, down, down into an abyss of darkness.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and stumbling back from the perimeter. “No, no, no, no—”

The ground beneath her began to shake, and dirt and stone started to ripple. Feyre screamed so loud that she could again taste the copper in her mouth from years ago, when she’d bitten her lip and bled onto the earth, and her body began shaking, shaking—

“Feyre!”

She blinked, opening her eyes to find Nesta’s snarling face leaning over her in their shared bed. Elain was hovering, too, her pretty face pinched with concern as Feyre shook off their touch and pressed a hand to her head. It felt as if something had coiled around her mind and squeezed, leaving a blistering migraine in its wake. A usual remnant of her nightmares.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You were screaming—”

“I’m fine.”

The words were as cool and icy as the stone atop the hill. Nesta and Elain didn’t say anything, only shared a glance with each other. Feyre couldn’t stand the words they were exchanging, passing their judgment without saying anything at all. With a huff, she pushed out of the bed.

“Where are you going?” Nesta asked as Feyre began shoving on her hunting clothes.

“Where do you think?”

Feyre hadn’t caught anything in the woods yesterday. Somehow, the creature in the well had known that, known that she was more desperate than usual. Maybe her mind was weak from the hunger.

“I’ll be back by sundown,” she said, grabbing her bow and slinging her quiver of arrows over her shoulder. She didn’t wait to hear if Nesta or Elain responded before she darted out of the rickety door of their decrepit cottage.

Feyre glanced down the path to the woods, the same trek she made every morning, now laid with a fresh layer of snow that had settled in the night. If she was wise, she would venture down the familiar path and check if her snares had managed to catch anything. But there was another path. One she never allowed herself to glance towards.

But some residual talon of the nightmare must have still been hooked in her mind, because she found her neck turning. And then she was staring down that path, the one which led to the outskirts of the village, where the water well would be waiting for her atop a lifeless hill.

Come to me, Feyre, she heard it call. The voice of her nightmares. So disarmingly sweet, gentle. Lulling. That’s it, the voice purred as she took a step, then another. Such a good girl for me.

She continued walking until she passed the seamstress’s cottage, her footsteps swallowed by the silent, killing snow. It was winter. The animals in the forest had treaded past where she was willing to follow. She was desperate. Desperate enough to look, though she promised herself she would not do anything more.

Her mother had made her promise to never come back here. But her mother was dead, and their family was starving, and that voice was calling to her. Chanting, Feyre, Feyre, Feyre. How bad would it be if she looked? What could possibly be waiting for her that was worse than the winter woods?

Feyre paused outside of the circle, squinting at the signs like she might finally be able to make sense of them. B… Be… war…

Come closer, Feyre darling.

There was no use trying to read them. If her mother was truly determined not to forbid her from walking past the signs, she would have taught her how to decipher them.

Feyre took a deep breath that condensed in the winter air, blending with the clouds hanging low around the hill. Drawing her bow, she notched an arrow and drew the string taut. Then, she took her first step past the circle. Even the wind died.

Despite the snowfall in the night, not a single flake had fallen to the dirt at her feet. It was dry, utterly devoid of life, apart from the energy humming through the earth, crackling in the air. Feyre was reminded of standing outside in a thunderstorm, the way every single hair on her body stood at attention.

Feyre, the voice sang, louder now.

The hill was steep enough that she felt breathless by the time she ascended its peak, and her heart was thundering, though she suspected that had less to do with exertion. The well looked ordinary enough—a large circle layered in stones and flattened at the top. It was boarded up beneath slates of iron held down by four large rocks. Maybe she could kill whatever was down there, and the nightmares would finally stop.

Each of the stones was heavy. She pushed them, unable to lift, and gasped as they tumbled to the ground with large thuds, kicking up small clouds of dirt. Whatever lived in the well, it would certainly know she was here, though the voice had gone mysteriously silent. Like it was holding its breath. Waiting.

When she’d managed to push the last of the stones to the floor, Feyre pushed the iron slates just enough to create a small opening. She winced at the scrape of rusted metal and more so at the pitch-black darkness she uncovered. Heart leaping in her throat, Feyre pushed the metal a little bit further, hoping to let more light in.

She gasped as a pair of violet eyes met hers, and a white-toothed smile flashed through the thick shadows.

“There you are, Feyre darling,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

#rhysandweek2023 #feysand #feysand fic #feysand fanfic #feysand fanfiction #Feyre x Rhys #Rhys x Feyre #Feyre x Rhysand #Rhysand x Feyre

94 notes · View notes

stargirlfeyre · 8 months

Text

“Feyre’s not compassionate”

She held the hand of a Fae who had just gotten his wings torn off even though she was raised to fear and hate them.

She gave away her own jewelry to a Fae who was struggling to pay the tithe even though she knew it went against her fiancé’s laws.

Even though she was arguably suffering the most in the cabin she put that and how her sisters treated her aside and forgave them because of how much they suffered in the cabin. Even though she was the one doing most of the labor and constantly being degraded and isolated, she looked past it because her sisters were hurting.

She comforts Rhys after his Nightmare even though at the time she still “hated” him.

She sympathizes with Mor for how she was brought up in a close minded and abusive family. Before even meeting Mor’s family, she dislikes them because of what they did to their daughter.

She allowed her sisters back into her life because she understood that even though they spent years hurting her, it was only a coping mechanism for their own trauma and a result of their environment.

It’s weird when people say Feyre isn’t compassionate when her compassion is the only thing keeping the clothes on your favs’ backs. If she was the unsympathetic bitch y’all love to claim she is then she would have left Nesta and Elain to fend for themselves after they turned Fae. She would have let Nesta rot in her apartment and drink herself to death. She would have left Lucien in the Spring Court to deal with Hybern and Tamlin. Her being loving and compassionate is literally the only reason why your favorite characters are still standing. Say thank you.

#feyre archeron #feyre supremacy #complaining about people mischaracterizing her as you mischaracterize her #morrigan #nesta archeron #elain archeron #rhysand #pro feyre

89 notes · View notes

katyspersonal · 2 months

Note

Katyyyyy where are you, new way to hate gehrman just dropped. Basically now he disrespected maria because doll is a levelup maiden that helps hunters during the hunt despite the fact she hated the hunt.

He is even at fault for not doing enough to prevent it in case it was moon presence doing. Its that absurd

fdsjhfh Hrrrrg sorry anon, I've been taking a break from the internet for health reasons (and still need more of it). But, damn, this sounds so... forced? Honestly, I do not understand such a strong hate-boner for a sad man in a wheelchair some people in this fandom have. I can't really think of any benefit of the doubt to spare here, it just feels like some people are unable to enjoy any piece of media without pulling real life problems, grudges and extremely unsympathetic judgement into it, especially towards characters and stories where they do not apply.

ANYWAYS, TWO-PARTER!

1) "Maria hated the hunt"

I think an important point to make here is that Maria's disdain for the hunt was, first and foremost, rooted in personal reasons! She was that strong, capable hunter of beasts (and undead Pthumerians of the Chalice Dungeons, for all we know!) but slaughtering the fish "monsters" that could still speak and think and pray was what broke her and made her unable to kill any longer. The way I see it, it was a trauma, and damaged self-image. She could not stand herself as that horrible killer, SHE was the real monster and it was plain to see!

If the point here is that making the Doll, a creation to immortalise Maria('s softer side), help Dreaming Hunters to become stronger and carry on the night, I don't.... understand it? Maria was no longer willing to hunt herself, and in the end, it was very likely that guilt that driven her to su1cide. We don't know that, though. It could've been losing Adeline, it could've been that Cainhurst massacre happened while she was still alive and she hated feeling like a traitor of the sinking ship, it could've been madness and misery of patients rubbing onto her, or all at once, or something else.

But let's say, dreading her past as the hunter was the core thing. I believe this as well, because in the Nightmare part focused on tormenting her, we can see a Chalice and a picture from Abandoned Old Workshop. This is very telling about what she does not want to remember the most:

The problem with the hunt and the beasts though? Beasts attack and eat people. Maria maybe never wanted to draw a blade again, but we can't say she would be opposed to helping the hunters. If nobody hunts the beasts, while they are growing in numbers, they will just... eat people? It actually reminds me of a misconception about Djura hating the hunters in general! He specifically asks to not attack the beasts of Old Yharnam, for the reason of them not being able to harm anyone unprovoked! Meanwhile, he encourages the Paleblood Hunter to go and hunt beasts out there, that can and will just attack humans! I think that Maria must be similarly rational: she can't fight anymore, but she can't deny that if no one else fights as well, beasts will just overcome people, and there will be no one.

If anything, Maria spent the rest of her life, after having revoked her hunter status, to help in the walls of the Research Hall. Research Hall was laboratory of the Healing Church, who were having and governing the hunters by proxy, even if their own type (the Holy Blades) and not Gehrman's type (the Old Hunters)! I would not say that her helping to sustain the hunt past death is so alien to her! The Hunter's Dream was Laurence's plan, and very likely the purpose of it is so that the Dreaming Hunters are able to sustain the full-moon nights with their power and immortality - all so Healing Church has more time and resources for research on ascension. In conclusion, Maria resorted to the role of passive helper, the support, rather than fighting force, even in life. Doll, in a twisted way, continues that quest.

P.S. Just because Maria hating all hunt and hunters as concept would be irrational, it doesn't mean that it can't be! It is still possible that she went 'may Chaos take the world' and spiralled into thinking that maybe humans of Yharnam had to pay the price for messing with things beyond their comprehension by simply perishing. Just.. not only I think this doesn't work so well for the character, but also in this case, Gehrman's "disrespect" would only be charitable! As in, 'Maria lost all sympathy and hope for humanity in life, but she might be her real caring self once more, in this new form', you feel? Not disrespect, but feeling like he must carry on the image of her true self when she no longer could.

For the next part though, let's assume that Maria would not want to ever help the hunters with no other ways around it, and that Gehrman was aware of it, to cut to the main points!

2) "Gehrman did not do enough"

Moon Presence is a literal God that owns the Hunter's Dream, I strongly doubt that Gehrman would be able to have much of a say in this...? If it was Flora's intent to animate the Doll, she might just do what she sees fit regardless of his wish. Or, more twisted yet: even if Gehrman asked her to please leave the Doll out of the hunt to honor Maria's wishes, Flora could read in his heart that he was miserable and lonely so still chose to give him a company. Great Ones might not understand the complexities of humans, such as the conflict between "selfish" needs and their integrity! Whereas for us it is a known thing to understand we must not want what we want, and we must do what we should, for her it was just that the host of the Dream was sad and missed a dear friend that looked just like that doll thing over there!

+ Moon Presence is only able to be defied with a large amount of insight and ascension-potential gained from consuming Umbilical Cords that Gehrman most likely didn't consume. I think it's worth pointing out as one of the reasons why he couldn't even "fight it" if he wanted!

This also made me think of another possibility I discarded long ago, I guess time to blow the dust from it!

Doll's face notably has these cracks on it, and at first I wondered if maybe, it was Gehrman himself who was trying to either beat the influence of Moon Presence from her, or simply destroy her. And yet, every time, she rose back to life, as eery and unfeeling as ever, until he gave up trying over and over... What if he did not want Moon Presence and the Hunters to tarnish precious memory of Maria, to the point of trying to break the Doll to stop mocking him. To stop mocking Maria. And although Doll always assembled back, something was still always off, as the evidence of his attempts - these cracks!

...in the end, I've personally decided it worked better as manufacturing mistake because his hands were shaking at Maria's face part. But like, imagine: Moon Presence cannot be reasoned with, and the next option, to attack the Doll itself, as much as it hurts to hit something Maria-shaped, doesn't work either. It is possible that he did not quite have a choice here, and Doll was animated regardless of his will. Could be for the sake of the Hunter's Dream, could be Flora's twisted "gift" for him that she would not take back... could be a coincidence, too.

Not only it is strongly implied that Maria was buried near the Old Hunters Workshop, since Old Hunter's Bone is found at the same grave Doll prays to and that leads to Hunter's Nightmare, but Doll also has two-to-three confirmed belongings of Maria herself in her design! It could be not Moon Presence's choice and not Gehrman's, but Maria's soul simply dwelled in this body on instinct because of all the odds that attracted her! Maria's soul could be split between Nightmare and Dream, since the two have spiritual connection (Doll remarks that she felt at ease after we kill Maria), Doll sometimes sleeps and we find Maria sleeping too, they have the same voice although Doll's body has no vocal cords (she is a doll, not a robot!) and we know Maria cared about Gehrman at least at some point.

It could be the odds not even a God would have the power over, let alone a man!

+ The cut lines of dialogue offer to her NOT hating the hunt entirely too. She literally tells you that "you will not find your enemies here", and since she seems to know you are a hunter under Gehrman, it makes sense to think she is referring to actual beasts to hunt that would slaughter people in the waking world... So, yeah, her "hating the hunt" isn't outright stated nor supported by both canon and cut content, but can still be a headcanon.

But what if Gehrman did it himself?

I will admit though, there is a potential for an idea! After all.. I love this take a lot. That maybe, initially, Doll was not animated, and Gehrman was the host of the Hunter's Dream all alone by himself. But his sanity was giving up from carrying the Dream by himself and being completely devoid of company. He was losing it, he could no longer trust his own restraint, he needed to keep his distance from the Dreaming Hunters for their own safety. After all, as we can see from one of the endings, if he allows a Dreaming Hunter to kill him, he will be free and the Dreaming Hunter will take his place. The freedom from endless solitude, nightmares and torment of the wait, always so close....

( x ) for translation of his lyrics. Also I want this to be written in the protocol that I hate listening to Gehrman's theme and it makes me cry every time even these three years later fsdhfhdsds

It might have been a sad necessity. To perform some sort of ritual to bring the Doll to life, so someone could take the duties off his shoulders while he is not stable. Because he could not trust the power of his will any longer. Why not direct this to someone that could not feel the loneliness and the pain? Even at the cost of tarnishing his precious memory of a special person?

In this case, sure, he is "guilty". "Guilty" for burying her near this place when she did not want to be a hunter, sure. Again, we don't know the extent of Maria's disdain for the concept, only that she personally did not wish to draw a blade again! And "guilty" for being a human being with human limitations. I think that if someone still wishes to hate him despite it, over their own misuse of the "explanation does not equal excuse" sentiment, this is just the same overly judgemental attitude I actively oppose and I can't approve of this even as much as I want to give a chance to every interpretation. I just recently made a post digging into how the way people treat certain "problematic" characters can reflect their morality towards real people ( x ), and this brings my point again. So, person had every single reason to do the thing, and basically no other choice in the situation, but they are "still guilty"? Context matters a lot, and still willing to hate someone when they had no choice but to do the thing is inhumane, I think. It reeks of pure desperation of excluding and exiling a person "touched by sin" even if it was not their fault, and this very specific sort of superfluous judgement had rotted the society, let alone media analysis!

________________

Alright, I've gotten quite emotional in the last part for someone simply disagreeing with a take on a fictional character, but every other time no matter what reason to hate this guy is touched upon I can't find any explanation but general lack of sympathy and understanding. Heck.. I guess Gehrman was written SO, so brilliantly, that the way people treat him is a great vibe-check? Any character can be disliked, including him, but people's reasoning for why the character is disliked can give away ignorance at least, cruelty and judgemental attitude at worst!

I just hope that I've made my stance on the take clear! Admittedly, it is a more interesting discussion than "misogynist creep" discourse that has been debunked 5000 times now! I think in this case, it is harder to find a final word, and I just offered mine. A lot of this depends on how one perceives Maria and Gehrman, there is no The One True interpretation and I've just suggested my thought process and what I think is more reasonable to assume. Taking away Gehrman's complexity and potential for sympathy for the sake of 'just another man that disrespected a woman' is a pet peeve for me but I am open for surprises. You just said that people "hate" on him yet again, and it just gets old.

#bloodborne #gehrman the first hunter #lady maria of the astral clocktower #plain doll #ask replies #bloodborne headcanons #bloodborne observation #disco horse #back to the bed i crawl #I leave for 2 days and Gehrman is everyone's punching bag again what is going on fshhfdfsd #maria doesn't need your gehrman-hating to preserve her integrity and complexity she had her own demons to fight (and lose against)

33 notes · View notes

otdiaftg · 4 months

Text

The Ravens' afternoon practice runs for four hours, and Neil is in no shape for any of it. He'd been unconscious through the two hours the Ravens took for lunch. They put him on as a backliner, and Neil fails spectacularly.

He hadn't played defense in almost nine years and he was in too bad of shape to keep up with Riko. Every time Riko made it past him, Riko hit Neil with his racquet. Exy armor was meant to guard against fast-moving balls and body- checks, not malicious blows from heavy racquets. By an hour into practice Neil was stumbling over his own feet. Every time Neil fell, though, Jean was there to pull him off the ground. Jean had nothing to say to Neil about his poor performance, neither encouragement nor harsh words. Maybe he didn't have the breath for it anymore. They were in this together, just like Jean warned Neil. Every time the other team scored they were both punished. The rest of the Ravens were completely unsympathetic, even toward one of their own. This was how the team worked, and they accepted it unquestioningly. These five years might be a vicious nightmare, but world fame and seven-digit salaries waited for them on the other side of the graduation stage. They'd be set for the rest of their lives. As far as the Ravens were concerned, it was a worthwhile trade.

Day: Sunday, December 17th Time: 4:15 PM EST

45 notes · View notes

skumhuu · 4 months

Text

✨👑 Throne 👑✨ pages 17-18

Beginning

< • >

#Sku art #throne comic #utmv #dreammare #noncon touching #fear #horror #soft bad end #tasty bad end #suggestive #unsympathetic nightmare #unsympathetic killer #HE’S BACK #KILLER (and Cross) IS BACK!!!#here comes the boooooy hello boy welcome #at long last we get Dream crying his little apple heart out while Cross gets stepped on #I am very happy with this outcome 😌

645 notes · View notes

kalitera-stin-erimia · 5 months

Text

Lovecraft and Cosmic Wonder

"But the thing is, for Lovecraft, cosmic-existential horror wasn’t the whole story. Not by a cyclopean margin. In fact, a look at his overall body of fiction, and also his personal development as an author, and his various essays about life and writing, and the teeming ocean of thousands of letters that he wrote to a vast network of correspondents, shows that his focus on the cosmic horrific theme of existence-as-nightmare was balanced and complemented by a deep craving for liberation into transcendent realms of beauty and bliss. As I observed just a few days ago in my latest column for SF Signal, “Fantasy, Horror, and Infinite Longing,” this pairing of horror or terror with sehnsucht, the emotion C.S. Lewis identified as the “inconsolable longing” for “that unnamable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World’s End, the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves,” is quite common among authors and artists, especially those working in the field of the fantastic. <...>

So Dream-Quest is fully as much about an exquisite experience of cosmic longing as it is about a wrenching experience of cosmic horror. The novel shows Carter yearning for an escape into a dreamworld and to a dream city of eternal solace and beauty, and being opposed by all of those nightmarish figures Tyson mentions. And it’s the recognition of this fact, not just in this particular novel but as it’s threaded throughout the rest of Lovecraft’s life and work, that’s missing from so much contemporary scholarship. It’s not that Lovecraft wasn’t about cosmic horror, but that he wasn’t all about it. Cosmic horror was wedded to cosmic wonder in his psyche. The one bled into the other. They were inextricably united as flipsides or complements in his affective makeup. Their paradoxical pairing was in fact the engine that drove him, since he was perpetually poised on the razor’s edge between perceiving the cosmic perspective as nightmarish and perceiving it as beautiful and liberating. This tension channeled itself into a burning desire to capture and convey both intimations in imaginative form, and the fact that the darker aspect has gotten more press than the lighter one in the popular and even the critical imagination, and has in fact become rote, is vaguely reminiscent of the smear-job perpetrated by Rufus Griswold on the memory of Edgar Allan Poe. But in Lovecraft’s case it appears to have happened by accident, with, perhaps, some help from unsympathetic critics such as Edmund Wilson."

From Cosmic Horror and Cosmic Wonder: Revisioning Our Vision of H.P. Lovecraft by Matt Cardin.

#YES #that's what i kept thinking for the long time #he is about the sense of cosmic wonder as much as about cosmic horror #he even coined the name for it #“adventurous expectancy”#that is one of the things that makes his writing so powerful #that's why i feel like attempts to subvert him by replacing horror with wonder often end up so awkward #they are not as subversive as people think they are #lovecraft #h.p. lovecraft #cosmic horror #cosmic wonder #the dream quest of unknown kadath #donald tyson #biographies of lovecraft

27 notes · View notes

thestalwartheart · 3 months

Text

The Weekend WIP

Here's a fic that may or may not be happening. It's Arthur/Eames (hello Inception fandom!), and the summary goes like this:

Yesterday, if anyone were to have asked Eames about nightmares, he'd have told them he stopped dreaming a long time ago. Today, he might say something different. Or: Eames watches, and waits, as Arthur puts everything on the line for Dom Cobb.

Long snippet under the cut!

The first time Eames meets the twisted facsimile of Mal in a dream, he’s in a maze. It’s neat. Geometric. All the art between the hedges is modern and monochromatic. Anyone could tell it’s one of Arthur’s builds because it has no flair at all. Still, it does the trick well enough. The job is small time, and Eames does it as a favour to Cobb, to whom he owes a few favours. Eames dislikes owing. He prefers being owed.

As soon as Eames turns around the maze’s final hedge and reaches the centre, he loses the ability to hold his forge.

Because there is Mal. Beautiful, charismatic, red-lipped Mal, dressed in a floor-length black gown and looking very much not dead.

And she’s putting out her cigarette on Arthur’s jaw.

Eames is not a forgetful man, but even still. He will be a man wasted, a drooling two-hundred-year-old breathing corpse who has forgotten even his own name before he forgets the twist of pain on Arthur’s face. Even then, he suspects he’ll remember.

Immediately, Eames shoots Arthur in the head to wake him up, then he shoots himself. He wakes up regretting that he hadn’t got a shot in at Cobb.

But it’s Arthur he opens his eyes to. Bloody Arthur, who’s already halfway across the empty warehouse, rolling his sleeves down and pretending like everything is still running smoothly. Even when he’s dishevelled, Arthur is neat. His sleeves aren’t just rolled up; they might as well be pressed. His face is blank. He’s never had many tells. It is, after all, the point of a point man to take the stress of the job and contain it—to absorb it, like foam rubber does to sound, and never let it back out again—and Arthur, oh, Arthur’s the best at what he does. Even before he started working with Cobb that was true. Now, it’s indisputable.

Only the slight downturn to Arthur’s mouth tells Eames something is off. Eames experiences a visceral urge to shake Arthur by the shoulders until something else comes loose.

Unprofessional, that.

Instead, he removes his cannula and watches as Arthur sucks at the bloodied pinprick on his arm.

“Thanks,” says Arthur.

“Arthur.”

Arthur ignores him.

“Arthur,” he repeats slowly. “Darling.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Arthur marches off to the bathroom, and Eames watches as he does. His eyes dart to the same spot on Arthur’s jaw where Mal’s cigarette left its mark in the dream. There’s nothing there. Clean-shaven Arthur. Aftershaved Arthur. Stick-up-the-arse Arthur. He’s as spotless as he ever was.

Beside Eames, Cobb wakes up. Eames doesn’t look at him. Can’t. If he looks at Cobb, he’ll feel sorry for the bastard, and he’s too full of fury for that.

“Now, wasn’t that interesting?” he asks blithely. Instead of answering, Cobb lurches to the side of his chair and throws up.

There’s trouble, thinks Eames. There’s a lot of trouble.

Unfortunately for everyone, the trouble persists all day. Cobb retains a glazed, far-away look about him. It’s the look of a man who’d do anything, anything at all, to be back in that dream, standing next to the woman he loved. Eames isn’t unsympathetic. Few might believe it, but he’s a romantic man by nature. He knows the power of a good woman. He knows what love can do to a man. Eames may never have managed to hold onto it for long—love is always slipping through his fingers, always in a different city, in a different time—but he’s no stranger to it. He’s worried precisely because he knows what it can do.

No, even Arthur won’t be able to take care of this. Eames has seen better men than Dom fucking Cobb give in to temptation.

In the end, he’s right. It’s two very long years of trouble.

#inception #arthur x eames #arthur/eames #my fic

25 notes · View notes

go-river-flows · 8 months

Note

Hey haven’t seen you around in a while. Hope you’re doing fine :)

Smashes through wall I'm alive! I've been busy with work, but I've been trying to write as much as possible during weekends. For now, I'll upload one-shots as I try to finish off a series before uploading all at once (aka The Humans of Awa'atlu, but throughout the week in the afternoon).

But here's a one-shot!

I've Been Reincarnated as a Na'Vi!

(2,598 words)

When I was born, I felt as if the world stood still. It felt strange and foreign, the water, the air, the gravity. I looked at the world through strange eyes.

Since I was born I have had these strange dreams. I was small and pink. It was these dreams which felt real and familiar, and the life I lived was the dream. I had these dreams every night, it was comforting, and sometimes they repeated themselves. I had a normal life I think, it was nothing like the life on whatever planet I was on. I had two to three friends, great teachers, and colleagues. In my dreams I was growing up on what I think was a planet called Earth. How do I know what planet it was?

I was 5 when I had my first nightmare. I was much older in my dream. Working a job or something like that, on my way to the “office”, I felt like I knew what that was even though I’ve never even heard the word before, walking down the street. It was crowded and busy like it always was, but I liked it, my usual communal walk. When all of a sudden there was screaming, people parted like the Red Sea and a man charged through the crowd. The woman next to me in her haste to get away, shoved me into the man who unbeknownst to me gripped a knife, his blade plunging into my abdomen. The woman somehow saw the knife because I sure as hell didn’t. The man retracted his knife which was a mistake, my stomach burned as sanguine liquid seeped through my white blouse, my ears rang loudly as my brain was trying to figure out what was going on.

I looked at the man as my hand gripped around his shoulder, he looked at me stone cold, his eyes were cold, unsympathetic. I frowned. Was this intentional? My legs felt weak as the red puddle enlarged spreading down to my grey trousers, why was no one helping? Why was no one stepping in? My legs collapsed from under me, air escaping my lips trying to take in more oxygen. Am I dying? I ran my hand over the stab wound. It’s large, wet and pulsating, every breath I take is agonising.

I fell to my side gasping for air. Why is no one helping?! Help! Help! Help Me!!! A person ducks into my peripheral as my vision starts fading. A man. I begin choking, the taste to metal permeating my tastebuds. I’m choking on my blood. The man is saying something to me, he’s shouting something I can't hear, I can’t understand it. What are you saying? My ears rang louder, blocking out any and all sound, I can barely register anything. No one is doing anything. Why aren't you doing anything? The man above me is screaming I think, four words rang through my brain as the ringing subsided a little, as if whatever entity was looking over me wanted me to hear those words.

“You're gonna be okay.”

My vision fades further as all I could see was white. I woke up on the other side. Nothing surrounded me. I felt for the stab wound but to my shock and surprise there was no blood, however, just a wound. I unbuttoned my white blouse to get a better look. Strange. The wound was strange. It was open and untouched. I could see my internal organs scaring me a little, a small gasp escaping my mouth and in that second I noticed something. I wasn't breathing, my lungs weren't expanding, my heart wasn't beating. I really am dead.

Yes, you are.

I looked around, searching for the voice within the white void. It confirmed my fears.

“Where am I? Where is this place?”

Somewhere.

The cryptid voice said. That single word scared me.

You're afraid, my child.

“Where am I? Who are you? Where are you?” These were only just a few questions that I asked aloud.

I am Eywa.

Eywa? Who the fuck is Eywa?

“Okay…Now where is here, exactly?”

The space in between. You do not deserve what happened to you. So I am offering you a second life.

A second life? Huh?

I will give you two options. Reincarnate, or pass on.

Reincarnate? Pass on? I looked at my gaping wound. Suddenly the loud sound of wind gushed through my ears. The scenery changed though it did not completely surround me. I turned to look around, the lush greenery unlike anything I've ever seen before. It was completely different to Earth’s concrete jungle. Wow!

“What is this place?”

Pandora.

Pandora? Like Pandora’s Box? The planet Pandora?

You will live your second life here.

All of a sudden there was a giant mirror in front of me, a tall creature standing in front of me. Blue, striped, with a tail? Wearing near to nothing garments, a headpiece, many bracelets and large neckpiece, carrying a longbow on one shoulder and a woven carrier with arrows in the other.

“Is this me?”

Yes. This is who you grow up to be. You are a hunter and warrior…and a healer…and a provider to your clan…you are Na’vi.

“What the hell is a Na’vi?”

A native to Pandora.

I ask the all important question.

“What if I don’t want to be reincarnated?” Silence. The voice didn’t respond. “Why can’t I just stay dead? I wanted to die before, I am no one important. I’m not a warrior, or a hunter, or provider. I’m not all these things you say I will be. So why do you want me to be all these things? That’s a lot of pressure.”

My child—

“I’m not your child. Just let me die peacefully.” I turn away and walk toward the white void, but it moves away just as my foot reaches the edge. I move toward the white again, but again it moves. “What are you—?” I run to the void and it again moves. “Stop it! Let me die!” A large gust of wind blows me back. This bitch. I move fast, diving for the white void, only for the wind to sweep me off my feet, spinning me around and sending me toward the mirror. As I collide into it, it smashes, the wind sending me through. I scream out in agony.

I wake suddenly. The dream was extremely vivid, sending goosebumps down my back and arms. I cry and my wails wake my father who shot up from his slumber. I planted myself into his chest as he wrapped his warm arms around my torso, holding me tight.

“Calm my child, it was just a dream. I’m here,” he spoke softly, his gentle voice calming me down. He held me swaying a little. The body next to me moved, the familiar face of my older brother scrunched up as he shuffled.

“Dad? Sister?” He whispered out loud to not disturb our mother.

“It’s okay, go back to sleep. Your sister had a nightmare,” our father rocked me back and forth, lulling me back to sleep but I fought it. The tears flooding my waterline, my brother sat up looking at my face. He gently swiped the stray tears from my cheek, the gentle action soothed me but felt somewhat foreign. A part of me felt strange, it brushed it off as a remnant feeling from my dreams. My fathers swaying managed to lull me into a sleep as one question resounded in my brain. Who am I?

That feeling and thought lingered as I grew. I felt like my family was not really my family despite my mother and father telling me that I was their daughter. My older brother, Rau’Txim, stayed by my side being the protective older brother he was. Playing with me with our friends running side by side with each other.

I was ten when I realised that the dreams were memories of my past life. Memories of my former human self. She didn't exactly have a good life just from the memories. From her childhood, she was invisible, treated unfairly, neglected. And as she grew, she learned to just deal with her issues with bad habits despite trying her hardest to become hyper-independent, I got a sense that her death was her relief from the world she grew up in. My dreams were recurring, even the nightmare that tormented me, remained. I got depressed as a result of it. I had to visit our clan’s Tsahik and ask her to remove them, they’re too painful. I found myself in her tent alone, so as not to worry my parents and brother. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents. They were completely different from the parents I had in my memories. Ma Sepmu and Sa’nok give me more love and attention than my human parents. I was an only child as a human, and I now have an older brother. The differences were jarring, but at least I lived happily here at Hometree.

“Now what is it you wanted to see me about, child?” the Tsahik asked.

“I've been having these dreams…I think they’re memories…from my old life…” I confessed to her. She hummed out in thought and I continued, “I keep having this nightmare, that I died. I was killed by a human.”

“A demon?” the Tsahik asked.

“I was a human too…on Earth. And I was killed by a man and I woke up in a white void. And Eywa spoke to me…she offered me a second life,” I paused, “Human me. I refused but Eywa kept insisting, she forced me to reincarnate.”

“My child, why didn't you come to me sooner?” the Tsahik asked as she moved closer to me.

“I was scared…” I look down at my hands, “I thought I could forget them…but the dreams keep repeating. The nightmare, it kept repeating. I feel like this is a dream and those dreams are real.” Those dreams flashed through my mind, the happy and the sad. “I just want to forget them. Why do I keep remembering them? Why does my brain keep playing them? The same dreams every night,” I smacked my head repeatedly with my palms, to clear my head. The Tsahik took ahold of my arms with a firm but gentle grip, stopping me from making any rough movements.

“My child, don't hurt yourself,” she restrained my movements.

“Why does Eywa keep doing this?” I ask her. The flap of the tent opens, a pair of footsteps come closer as my brother says my name.

“What happened?!” his voice filled with concern, "Are you hurt tsumuke?"

“She is fine, just bad dreams. I know a way to rid of those bad dreams,” the Tsahik dismissed my brother out of the tent. Her arms remain around my shoulders. “Oh, sweet child,” she cooed, brushing my hair out of my face. Her eyes softened as if she finally understood the reasons behind my strange behaviour.

As the Tsahik comforted me, my parents and brother burst through the tent opening.

“Oh my sweet daughter! What is the matter Tsahik? Why is my daughter here?,” my mother rambled, wrapping her arms around me.

“I would like to speak to you both, without the children,” the Tsahik said. My parents looked at me concerned, my fathers warm but rough hand caressed my cheek.

“Rau’Txim, please take your sister,” our father requested. Rau’Txim came closer, taking me from my mothers arms. He held my hand as he guided me away. I looked back into the tent making eye contact with our father who watched my movements.

Rau’Txim brought me to the edge of the village, our usual spot.. He sat me down on a log before sitting and holding me.

“What's the matter sister?”

“I–I’ve been having bad dreams,” I tell him, “These dreams…they’re memories from my past life. I can't forget them…E–Eywa won't let me.” I explain to him. The sad memories flooding back to my human self slumped on the floor, the temporary pain from piercing her hand using her own fingernails. The constant numbness and dull ache in her stomach is overwhelmingly nauseating. I just want those memories gone. The sad, sad memories I held. I just want the good ones. Eywa! Why couldn't you just give me the good ones?! I feel that pain and numbness in my blue body. Everything here just feels so wrong.

“Sister. Sister, look at me,” Rau’Txim cupped his hand around my cheek, “Those memories don't define who you are now. Let’s make some good ones together, okay? We’ll make them go away,” he said in the most gentle voice I've ever heard from him. Our parents arrived where we were sitting. Our mother and father looked so sad, their eyes wet and ears flat against their heads.

“My sweet girl,” my father knelt down in front of us, hugging the two of us. My mother joined in, “There is a way to get rid of those nightmares. We’ll be here for you every step of the way.”

And for days they prepared me for a ritual led by the Tsahik. She explained it the day before the ritual was to take place. It was called Unil si Aku, Dream Removal. We were up in a cave within a floating island of the Hallelujah Mountains, the ritual had to take place in a body of spiritual water and the Hallelujah Mountains hid one of the most powerful bodies of water. Located directly above the Tree of Souls.

My parents and brother were asked to leave the cave, as the Tsahik and myself were left inside. I was asked to lower myself into the shallow water, only leaving half of my body above the water. I closed my eyes as the ritual began. The Tsahik began chanting as the water surrounding me began to warm, then glow yellow. I fell asleep as instructed by the Tsahik, and allow the dreams to pass. The water rose to cover the rest of my body as my past memories began playing out, but as they finished they faded away as the next memory played out. This continued for a while. The good memories, the bad and the nightmare I had all the time passed and faded away into oblivion. When all was done, the water fully drained from the small concave, I woke with a bit of spiritual liquid still on me, rolling off into the dry pit. The Tsahik held her hand out for me to take.

“Is it done? Are my past memories gone?”

“They are gone for now. But if they return we would have to do the ritual again,” the Tsahik said. I took her hand as she helped me stand, “How are you feeling?”

“Light,” I took a deep breath as the weight I carried for seven years disappeared. I smiled a sad but relieved smile.

And for years I would not dream of my past. All I would dream about are my family, my brother, my happy life. The next seven years would pass in a flash. I would pass my Uniltaron, Iknimaya and claim my ikran with flying colours. Rau’Txim was a fully fledged warrior like my father, as I would become too. I would hunt with my mother, and learn healing from the Tsahik, becoming exactly who Eywa said I would become unbeknownst to me as those memories faded. And that is the story of how I died and was reincarnated as a Na'Vi!

Taglist: @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed, @ducks118, @writerfromcz, @dyingofcookies,

Did I miss anyone from my permanent taglist? Comment it!

#avatar #avatar x reader #avatar fanfic #avatar fanfiction #avatar x you #avatar x y/n #avatar x na'vi reader #avatar (2009)

38 notes · View notes

useless19 · 5 months

Note

All this king boo talk, a further question. In day 15 luigi has that mention that just thinking about boos late at night can give him nightmares. how does bowser react to nightmares if Luigi were to have one while they’re sleeping in the same space? Or is that more of a when sleeping separate thing so bowser is pretty unaware?

I tend to picture Bowser as a fairly heavy sleeper, so I don't know that he gets woken up all that often by people having nightmares. At best he's going to grumble and roughly pat the bed and/or person in the vague direction of whoever's making noise, before sawing logs again. His past experiences with Junior and some of the Koopalings having nightmares also mean that he's not going to wake up in a panic just because someone shouted in their sleep or tried to shake him awake.

(It does help, having Bowser around even when he's just sleeping, because he gives people nightmares.)

It also depends what nightmare Luigi's having. Bowser isn't going to as sympathetic as he probably should be if Luigi describes the sheer terror of walking through endless rooms in a haunted mansion with a torch that keeps running out of batteries and no poltergust. What's so scary about an empty room? (Luigi: the possibility that there might be something in the dark).

Bowser's nightmares are probably more along the lines of how his day to day life went: He arranges a wedding or succeeds in a hostile takeover or finds some wondrous magic item, and then someone (usually Mario) shows up and ruins it all. It's a definitive threat, not a spooky house, and his reaction is anger (as it is with most things). You can tell when Bowser's had a bad night because he'll be grumpy all morning.

Very rarely, Luigi will have a nightmare that's about being left behind (usually by Mario). He doesn't like talking about those ones and they're more likely to happen when his subconscious can't pick up on Bowser being nearby, or Mario being in the same house when Luigi's staying at home for a bit (he tries to line things up so his visits happen when Mario's not on an adventure, but it doesn't always work out that way).

When Luigi does finally admit why he's depressed one day, it hits Bowser harder than he thought it would. It very much triggers Bowser's abandonment issues. At first, he's in denial, but it's the final push he needs to take his therapy seriously.

Ultimately, Bowser is an unsympathetic heavy sleeper, who's lucky that he's good at scaring off nightmares.

#bowuigi #days #ask #this went off on a slight tangent

20 notes · View notes

sailor-hufflepuff · 1 year

Text

I’ve been musing more on my villain binge. As a teenager, I DID NOT GET why so many people liked villains. I wanted a knight in shining armor, treat me right, get along with my mama boy in real life, so why would I want something different for the fictional heroines I lived vicariously through?

Zutara was my first “villain ship”, although I would have passionately argued at the time that Zuko wasn’t a villain, he was an antagonist - not evil, but a child soldier who had been brainwashed into believing he was truly helping the world.

I found the similarities between him and Katara fascinating. The loss of their mothers, their love for their nations, the absolute conviction in doing what they believe is right… the way that, even fighting, they were equals.

Fast forward a few years to Loki. How an abused child desperate for attention did something half prank, half sincere attempt to protect his people from Thor’s wildly unprepared rule spun out of control in ways beyond his ability to handle. The psychotic break that came from his discovery of his true parentage in the worst possible way. I myself had a mental breakdown when I was seventeen when I discovered the truth of my own birth, so that struck me especially hard.

Then in “The Avengers” he was so OBVIOUSLY not in control. The blue eyes. The rote recitation. The signs of torture. The way his “master plan” involved being as obvious a target for the heroes as possible. This was not a villain, this was a victim desperately trying to mitigate the damage he was being forced to do.

Kylo Ren - Ben Solo - took me a while. I was pretty unsympathetic with him at first; I don’t care if your parents fought a lot when you were a kid, that’s no reason to turn into a Nazi. And then it was revealed exactly what Snoke did to him - he’d been hearing voices in his head SINCE UTERO. He could sense everyone’s thoughts and feelings and knew that they were afraid of him, but was too little to know why. He found out that he was the grandson of the second greatest evil thr galaxy had ever known - and that his family had lied to him about it. (See above mental breakdown at 17). And then his parents sent him away, his uncle tried to kill him, and in the ensuing fight everyone he knew turned on him. Where else could he go, but to the voice in his head promising safety?

Once again, this is not a villain. This is a victim, trapped in a nightmare, being used as a tool by a madman to cause harm, and suffering for it

Finally, the Darkling. I’ve written on this topic before, and so have so many other better skilled than I, so I’ll keep it simple. I don’t understand how we are supposed to view the leader of an oppressed minority, trying to prevent the genocide of his people, as a bad guy. Especially when he’s spent the past seven hundred years trying to do things the peaceful way, only to fail again and again and again. What choices did he really have? His actions were acts of war, and arguably caused the least loss of life possible.

So now, I see posts decrying women who ship villains. They say we’re supporting abuse. They say we’re taken in by a pretty face. They say that we’re just rebellious teenage girls, and when we grow up we’ll know better.

My experience was the opposite. As a teenager I was so obsessed with black and white morality, with being a good person, that I couldn’t see the nuances. I couldn’t see that often, the villains were right. I had no grace for those whose lives gave them few choices.

There are still villains I don’t like. Most, actually. Those who kill or hurt for fun. Those in it for their own power and gain. Those who take their pain and lash out against the universe with no cause. Bullies. I don’t like them. I don’t ship them. But I don’t judge people who do, because I don’t know what story they’re seeing. What traumatic event their identifying with. What injustice the villain is trying to correct that they have to deal with in their everyday lives.

We come to fiction for different reasons. Maybe we want a way to explore our pain. Maybe we’re looking for an escape from a dark world. Maybe we feel powerless, and want to live vicariously through someone powerful. Maybe we’ve suffered, and want to see a world where abusers are punished. Maybe we just want to look at pretty people.

All are equally valid. All should be respected. There is a place for all of us in this wonderful online world of fandom, and no one should EVER be belittled for what they like in fiction.

Because you know what? Fiction is first and foremost ENTERTAINMENT, and sometimes the villains have the best stories.

100 notes · View notes