#when he goes to the afterlife nothing will ever compare to the time

[nikakistos]

Did Mikasa (re)marry?

Exactly three years ago, i wrote a post with the title "Mikasa will kill Eren". I haven't written a lot about AoT since then. I still keep AoT in my heart and i read news and posts about it daily. Although i do not participate that much in discussions about it, i still read what other people have to say. This is about to change. Yes, i know that the anime ended 3 months ago and i know that AoT's time in the spotlight is probably gone for good, with very few events ahead of us. In time, people will move on to other works. That is the cycle of life for fans of stories of any medium. And yet, now, more than ever, i want to start writing about AoT and my favorite characters (Mikasa, Eren etc) again. I will begin by offering my view on whether or not Mikasa married or, more accurately in my opinion, remarried after Eren's unfortunate end.

Why remarry?

Why do i use the term remarry? After all, Mikasa and Eren were never officially married. There was no ceremony, no rings, no nothing. If anything, in the physical world, the last time Mikasa and Eren spoke was when Eren told her he hated her. That is indeed true. However, Mikasa and Eren spent quite some time in the paths together (be it months, years, or a few minutes). The realm of the paths is (was) not a dream place. It wasn't something fictional. It was reality, just like Armin described it in chapter 136. It is a different dimension where time goes by very differently compared to the physical world.

Eren brought all of his friends in there to speak to them and reveal his true intentions. With Armin, he also went on a journey, visiting all the places they wanted to see. With Mikasa, after talking to her about his plan, they decided to forget it all and spend their time together. They replayed the "What am i to you" scene from chapter 123 and Mikasa chose to express her true feelings to him, while also telling him to run away together. Eren then grabbed her arm and they escaped to the mountain cabin. From the way they act towards each other, it is easy to tell that they viewed themselves as husband and wife. This is also showcased by what Mikasa wrote in Eren's tombstone. The last word is "あなた", which typically means "you" in japanese, but, when used by a spouse to her husband, it means "sweetheart, dear etc". So, it is obvious that for Mikasa, Eren was her husband and the same holds true for Eren. This means that if Mikasa were to marry, it would be her second marriage, or, at the very least, this is how it would seem to her. For all intents and purposes, Eren and Mikasa were husband and wife in the Paths and after his death, Mikasa is presented as a widow.

The extra pages and the songs

Anyone who was reading the manga during its run knows that the original ending, the one shown in the Bessatsu Shonen Magazine, had Mikasa thanking Eren for wrapping the scarf around her while the bird was flying away. The bonus pages expanded the original ending and showed Mikasa visiting Eren's grave again and again, once with a man and a newborn child, still young, and once accompanied by two couples and their young children, while old. The difference between the two is also reflected in the episodic format of the anime ending, where the bonus pages do not appear and the closing song is different. Instead of "二千年… 若しくは… 二万年後の君へ・・・", which played in the special version, the episodic format uses "いってらっしゃい".

The episodic format provides an emotional closure for the relationship between Eren and Mikasa. The lyrics of the song reveal that Mikasa wants to and believes that she will meet Eren again. The original animation of the ED song implies that Eren and Mikasa do meet again in the afterlife after Mikasa's death. They are now free to be with each other for eternity.

The special format represents the theme of "life goes on". Wars never end permanently. They are just interrupted by long periods of peace. The same applies to Mikasas' life. In the anime, Eren's grave is visited by all of his friends, exactly 3 years after his death. Exactly 11 years after his death (7 winters and 8 springs after his friends visit his grave, slow it down as much as possible and count the season changes), Mikasa visits his grave with a man and a child. This scene has 2 very popular interpretations. One is that Mikasa married someone (Jean) and had a child with him and the other one says that Mikasa remained single and virgin forever and that the kid is adopted and that the man is Armin.

Let's start with the second option. The major arguments are that (in the manga) Mikasa still covers her Hizuru tattoo with the bandages and that she she offers roses to Eren's grave and that the number of the roses signify that she never found someone else. Some people also argue that Mikasa loving someone else romantically goes against her character.

I do not agree with this interpretation. Covering her tattoo does not mean that she didn't pass it down to her children and even if she didn't pass it down, it doesn't mean she didn't have kids. Also, in the anime, the flowers she offers are not roses. I would agree that it would be out of character for Mikasa to find someone else, but only as long as Eren was alive. It would probably take her a very long time, but if the right man appeared, maybe she could fall in love again.

During Eren's crying tantrum about Mikasa to Armin, he mentioned that if she were to find someone else it should take her 10 years at least. The anime went out of its way to show Mikasa appearing with her new family, a man and a newborn kid exactly 11 years after his death. This points towards Mikasa remarrying. The anime also added a ring to her left ring finger during her funeral scene. The lyrics that play during Mikasa's visits to Eren's grave with her new family are these "時が運んだ 穏やかな日々 手向けた花のように秘めた言葉は 誰にも告げず逝く". This means that the time brought gentle days to Mikasa and she kept her feelings for Eren to her heart, with the flowers and the words on the tombstone revealing their true extent. In my opinion this showcases that Mikasa spent peaceful days with her new family, but she kept her feelings to Eren deep in her heart, as shown by her constant offering of flowers to his grave and the words she wrote in the gravestone.

For me the biggest indication that Mikasa did remarry is the fact that these scenes exist in the first place, both in the manga and in the anime. Isayama felt the need to show these images, when the Magazine ending was very open to interpretation. There would be no point to adding these scenes, only to make the ending more ambiguous. The bonus pages are there to clarify what happens to Mikasa's life and the island in the long years after Eren's death, not to muddy the waters. If Isayama wanted the ending to be completely open to interpretation, then there would be no reason for the new pages.

Why Jean?

Shipping wars are part of most fandoms and the AoT fandom is no exception. During its run, the biggest rivalry was the one between the EM and EH supporters. Now it is between EM and JK fans. EH was never a thing in the story, but the relationship between Eren and Mikasa was the most important in the story. The entirety of Attack on Titan is built based on the relationship between its male and female leads. They are the backbone of the story and without them there would be no AoT. Of course, a tragic conclusion for them hurts people. Especially when Mikasa eventually gets married to someone that, during the duration of the plot, she didn't show any interest. But, this is not really relevant. The moment Eren died, the plot pretty much ended. The plot does not follow Mikasa's healing process and family life, because it doesn't affect anything. Also, it is so far into the future that the characters involved are practically different people. Maybe in the future Isayama will show this development in a short story, like he will do with Levi in vol. 35, but, for now, this is just an additional detail that is only 3 panels long.

Even without mentioning the physical aspects of the man shown next to Mikasa, Jean, throughout the story has been presented as the "Eren-lite". He is second best to Eren and he compares himself to his "rival". He is jealous of how much Mikasa cares about Eren, he places directly under him in training, he views him as more courageous, strong and cool than him. On the other hand, Jean is presented as a mentally stable person, while Eren is not. Jean of course can never be as passionate as Eren and he can't match Eren's kindness when Eren is kind, but he could also never be as cruel as Eren. He disguises as Eren throughout the story and he is presents himself as the best successor for Eren's titan. Most importantly, Jean shares a special connection with Eren, he understands him and he loves him.

So, it is no suprise that Isayama would have him end up with Mikasa after Eren's death. There really is no one better for Mikasa. Jean is the best option if she can't be with Eren. He cared for her throughout the series, protected her once and he even tried to paint Eren in a better light after the latter offended Mikasa. He is also the only one who can understand her love for Eren and still be with her without getting jealous over the fact that she would never be able to love him as much as she loved Eren. This is something that even Jean's voice actor expressed in the recent Attack on Titan festival that celebrated the 10 years since the beginning of the anime. He felt that Jean got to be with Mikasa and he was comforting her, but he knew that he could never replace Eren in her heart. Yui Ishikawa, Mikasa's voice actress, also said that for Mikasa, no matter how many years pass and how many things she experiences throughout her long lifespan, Eren will always be the number 1 in her heart.

Does that diminish her love for Jean? Does that mean that she never truly loved Eren? No. It simply means that Mikasa fell in love again, 10 years after Eren's death, with a man who is as close to Eren as possible. Jean most likely won her over. She didn't marry him out of some desparate need to be with a man, but because she found the strength in her heart to love someone again, even if it wasn't to the same extent as before. That doesn't make her dirty or impure, like some fans want to believe. This obsession with virginity is frankly stupid. First of all, Mikasa, by the time the she remarries, is, probably not a virgin. Unless she only spent a few minutes with Eren in the world of the paths, the two of them probably did more things than just talking and fishing. Even if she were, virginity is nothing special. Mikasa marrying someone else and having kids with him does not mean Eren got cucked. It doesn't mean that Jean won against Eren Mikasa still loving Eren does not mean that Jean got cucked by a dead man, nor does it mean that he got damaged goods. These points of view are ridiculous and are only expressed by very immature individuals and/or incels. Jean is probably somewhat sad that Mikasa and Eren didn't get to live the life they wanted together and he is probably thankful to Eren for giving him the chance to live his dream life. Jean is not the type to gloat or ridicule his dead comrade, nor the type of guy to be bitter, because Mikasa loved Eren so much.

Mikasa moved forward with her life (not moved on, widows hate this term, because it is closer to forgetting your previous spouse), without ever forgetting her big love or changing her feelings for him. And in the end, after spending many decades with her new family, she passed away peacefully and reunited with her most beloved person in the world in the afterlife. For some, Mikasa reuniting with Eren in the afterlife means that she didn't remarry, because her husband should be her soulmate and if she is with Eren she didn't have a second husband. I disagree here as well. There is no information about how the afterlife works and making assumptions about it based on real world theology is dumb. People can love more than once. If your last spouse is your soulmate, then what happens to people like Grisha? The only thing we can do is go by what is shown and what is shown is that Mikasa both remarried and met Eren in the afterlife.

The same goes for those who believe that Mikasa should not meet Eren in the afterlife, because Eren is a criminal. Attack on Titan does not pass judgement to the actions of its characters that much. Of course, Eren's actions are horrific, but the entirety of the cast and the narrative tries to shift the blame to many more people than just Eren. Eren is not the only one responsible for how things turned out. All the characters sinned. Not to mention, Mikasa expressed her certainty that she would meet Eren again in the end in the final ED song and this is what is shown. Furthermore, after Mikasa's death, the lyrics that play are these "レクイエムレクイエム檜には君た花を 罪を散すなら 暁よ照らせ". This means that if sins are to be forgiven, then dawn will illuminate the flowers under the cypress. Eren's sins by the time Mikasa died have, probably, been forgiven. In any case, repeating my previous words, we can only go by what is shown and what is shown is that the two of them do reunite in the end.

What is the point of the debate?

The debate is probably meaningless. Whether or not Mikasa married does not affect the story in any way. It simply concludes Mikasa's story. Of course, this means that i wrote close to 3 thousand words for nothing, LOL. Nonetheless, i find it ridiculous that large amounts people still debate about the frankly obvious context of 1 panel. This toxic debate should have stopped long ago. What matters is that Mikasa got to live a long and happy life with a person who loved and respected her, just like Eren ultimately wanted and she then reunited with her most beloved. Sure, it hurts that we couldn't see more of Eren and Mikasa as a couple, after being introduced to them from the very first page of the story, but this is no reason to slander other parts of the fandom or the voice actors who did their best to portray these characters for over a decade. Mikasa was lucky enough to be loved so much by two men. She got to spend her time on Earth with one of them and infnity with the other. Despite all of her shortcomings and the bad luck she faced in her life, Mikasa rose stronger from each challenge and earned her happily ever after. This is what's important. In the future, we might get to see more of her family life with Jean and the time she spent with Eren in the paths and her next meeting with him.

#eremika #aot meta #aot theory #eren yeager #mikasa #jean kirstein #jeankasa #armin arlert #attack on titan final chapter #attack on titan final season #shingeki no kyojin analysis #shingeki no kyojin #snk meta #aot #snk #attack on titan #mikasa ackerman #attack fes #yui ishikawa #kisho taniyama

[dirtytransmasc]

I don't have a title for this, I barely know what it is. it popped into my skull and I need it out, I need it out asap, cause its hurting me.

~~~

Quaritch and Spider are both dead.

Quaritch had been watching, bonding with the boy from a distance. Even if the kid hated him, he was growing on him, making him soft. The boy's well-being quickly became the up most priority. Despite this, Spider manages to sustain a fatal injury in battle, right in front of Quaritch, right in front of his father.

Quaritch gives himself up, offers his life for spiders, begging Jake and Neytiri, anyone who will listen, to save his son. to their credit, they try, they really try, but Spider is too far gone, and all they can do is give him one last moment with his dad. All Quaritch can think to say is that he sees him, he sees his son, he sees who he a mix of pure human and Na'vi essence.

After he loses Spider, he gives his life to Neytiri, and tells her to make it painful (he knows now, he knows the pain of a child's death, your son's death, nothing will ever compare, nothing will match that pain. death, no matter how painful Neytiri made, was bliss to him), takes his death sentence with open arms (he doesn't want to live in a world without his son). He embraces the afterlife with open arms (he never gave life after death much thought; he didn't care if there was a heaven or hell, didn't care where he was going. He already knew if they did exist. But now he had Eywa to question and a son to worry about. he wanted to be with his son, but how hard he would wish for that fate would vary depending on where he goes next).

And when he wakes, he's surrounded by white light, it embraces him. He's standing in front of a Na'vi boy; he's somewhat shorter than Quaritch himself, his locked hair is black, but not like other Na'vi (it's lighter somehow), and his face is familiar.

It comes to him quickly, this is his son, this is Spider; they are in Eywa, or in whatever afterlife she grants her people, and she had given spider the one thing he truly wanted. He was Na'vi now.

It's slow, both are hesitant to move or even breathe too hard, scared one wrong move, and this all fades away. Spider stares at himself with wonder, then his dad, then their surroundings. Quaritch can only look at his son, his beautiful boy who he had already lost too many times.

All at once, he can't stop himself from scooping Spider up, it's harder now, he's not so small anymore, but he manages. he holds his boy like he's gonna disappear, and Spider clings to him.

"I see you," their last words to each other echoed back to them in unison.

for a moment, they pretend, pretend they're not dead, pretend everything is as it should be (maybe it is). Spider tackles his dad, and Quaritch lets him pin him, only lightly batting at him in response. He watches as his boy tests out all his new features; flicking his ears, wagging his tail, hissing even. There's such an innocence to it, and Quaritch soaks it up. but then something changes, spider stills, sits up (still in his father's lap) and reaches for his braid.

He doesn't even ask; it's clear what he wants, but he speaks anyway.

"Eywa can only hold us hear so long, y'know, the whole 'everything's born twice' thing... I just want... just before you go," he can't bring himself to say it, but he gives some damn good puppy dog eyes.

Quaritch has only bonded with his Ikran before, he has no idea what to really do or expect, but he doesn't hesitate to oblige his son. He's slow, gentle, as he binds their tswin.

It's so overwhelming, even for Quaritch, who has bonded before, but Spider practically faints into him. There's so much to feel; emotions, memories, thoughts, love. Spider drowns in it. It's all he's ever wanted, connection, love, acceptance. He feels his father's love for him, the fear that lingered in the older man, and all the while, his father is holding him, cradling him like a baby (like the baby he never got to hold, who he only has memories of his original self hurting, who he wished he could have treated better).

They cling to each other, like they're part of a desperate tragedy (maybe they are) even as the light overtakes them, as they are reborn, but that's ok. They trust Eywa; if they belong together, they'll be together.

#ow #I hurt myself in the process of writing this #just know quaritch was crying like a little bitch the whole time #spider was too #he's just better at hiding it behind those puppy dog eyes #I just want them to love eachother #miles spider socorro #miles socorro #spider socorro #spider avatar #avatar spider #quaritch #they're my fucked up father/son duo #also before anyone tries to make this weird #parents bond with their children when they're young #but they didn't get that chance #so they get it now #avatar 2

[i-am-thornqueen]

I've been through three possible starter drafts of chapter 11 for The Monsters of Paris and I've hit a bit of a wall, so I'm going to ramble a bit below the cut to get some random thoughts out.

Been thinking about things. Overthinking other things. Making myself cry. You know, normal writer stuff.

Right now, I've been thinking about Plagg. I don't know if I'll go into full detail in the story why Plagg absolutely despises demons and forbids all low-beings from approaching his holders, so I guess I could say something here.

Plagg is the honorary King of Demons in the story, and once upon a time he loved the title. He took pleasure in being King, particularly because he enjoyed the largest following compared to other kwami - the most followers, the most diverse followers - and he could rub that fact in everyone else's faces. His love for demons and dark creatures went as far as to let some of them slip through the cracks when he should have been destroying them properly. Past holders had difficulty forcing him to fight demons.

That's very different from present day of the story, where Plagg despises low-beings. He hates demons.

The reason he hates them now is kind of sad.

We've already met Prince Ophelia, the demon Prince of Destruction who devoured Lord Plague's heart. Plagg had been bound to Lord Plagg the entire time his holder had been mad with rage and grief. Plagg had been forced to feel everything while Lord Plague was being eaten alive from the inside out. If pain and suffering had been the only things inflicted, Plagg might have been able to bring himself to forgive, or at the very least accept, what had happened as natural - demons are, after all, naturally occurring parasites designed to eat away at the most toxic traits of humanity to prevent them from spreading out of control and infecting others. They are, in essence, necessary evils.

But Prince Ophelia is a Prince, meaning she had eaten the entirety of Lord Plague's heart. He died. Thanks to her, he's dead dead.

Plagg is a god. He knows that every single human he chooses to be his champion will die. There are no exceptions. As a kwami, Plagg will never pass on into an afterlife. His existence is tied to the universe itself - he will exist for as long as the universe exists, and he will cease to exist when the universe finally goes dark. Although it hurts every time he loses one of his champions, he usually takes comfort in the idea that his champions will continue to exist elsewhere after their life on Earth is expired. Somehow. Someway. They are elsewhere in a place he cannot reach. Cannot see them. Touch them. Speak with them. But they are there, and that's enough.

Except Lord Plague.

Prince Ophelia ate his heart. When Lord Plague died, there was nothing left to pass on. He simply ceased to exist. No afterlife, no peace. No hope that Plagg could hold on to that his champion was out there somewhere. Just nothingness.

That loss has festered with Plagg for centuries, growing into hate for demons and low-beings, especially for Prince Ophelia and everything she represents to him. She's the cruelest thing of all - Plagg can't kill her, because killing her would destroy the last vestige of Lord Plague left in the world, but every moment that she continues to exist is a reminder of what she took from Plagg...

So, Plagg is forced to continue being the King of Demons to subjects he now despises while holding on to a festering eternal hatred for demons he has no intention of ever letting go.

Yeah, so that's what I've been musing about lately. Background stuff. I doubt that I'll ever go into detail about this in the story, so it's nice to expand on these little background points here. I feel like it rounds out Plagg as a character a little more. ^_^

#story musings #The monsters of Paris #a werecat in london #Miraculous monsters & magic #fanfiction #spoilers? #not really #just background #i just wanted to write

[nickitxrres]

Graveyard

where Nicki sneaks up on Zack, Zack and Nicki share with each other what happened when the General had taken them and no wrenches were thrown - this time. @zackastor

tw: mentions of violence, torture and disturbing content

Zack Astor

-he is walking the premises of the graveyard slowly making his way to a relatively new, slightly shoddy looking wooden cross; he stops in front of it, quiet and slightly contemplative-

Nicki Torres

-Nicki is wandering around outside of the walls, enjoying the fresh air and scouting for new areas to check out. She passes by the graveyard and spots Zack staring at a wood cross. She leans up against a tree and crosses her arms- Who you visiting, lobo?

Zack Astor

-he's pulled out of his thoughts by Nicki's voice and turns towards her- You trying to sneak up on me? -he raises an eyebrow before turning back to the cross- The Wolves. Put a cross for them here a while ago.

Nicki Torres

Oh no, if I was trying to sneak up on you, you'd be on your ass by now. -she pushes off the tree and walks closer- That's actually really nice. I'm sure they're appreciating it

Zack Astor

-he scoffs slightly- They're dead. They ain't appreciating anything. Not from me, anyway. -he sighs, offers a slight grin- By now you should know everything I do is pretty self-serving.

Nicki Torres

Oh, sweetie, they may be physically gone, but their spirits are living it up in the afterlife. -she glances away from the cross and back at him- So I've noticed. So what's this for, then? Self-loathing?

Zack Astor

-he casts a glance at her; he doesn't believe in an afterlife, but he doesn't want to argue at the moment- Do I act like a guy who hates himself? -he chuckles- It's a memorial. So I don't forget. And because I like having a place where I can think about them. -he looks at her- You ever miss them?

Nicki Torres

Yeah, actually, you do. -Nicki would never lie or hold back and she casts him an amused look as she nudges him- Yeah, course I do. There were some wild fuckers. They didn't deserve what happened to them.

Zack Astor

Well, you're wrong. I fucking love myself. -he smirks, before his face goes a little serious- No. They didn't. -he takes a deep breath, staring down at the cross- Don't ever fucking compare me to the General again, Nicki.

Nicki Torres

-Nicki shifts her weight a bit as she looks at the cross before turning her attention back to Zack- Then don't act like him. Pendajo was more than happy threatening and blackmailing people to make sure they obeyed him. What does that sound like to you?

Zack Astor

-he doesn't look at her, just keeping his eyes on the cross- You don't know shit, Nicki. -a bitter laugh escapes him- About me or the General.

Nicki Torres

Then enlighten me, Zack.....or are you going to tell me to fuck off?

Zack Astor

I don't know, are you gonna throw another wrench at me? -his sarcasm is biting, but he takes a deep breath, shaking his dead- I didn't do what I did cause I wanted Ike to obey me. I didn't beat him up cause I got fucking off on it. -he puts his hands in his coat pockets- The general slaughtered my fucking people. Because he could.

Nicki Torres

I don't have any wrenches to throw so I think you're safe.... can't promise I won't take my boot off and use that, though. -She listens to him and scrunches her face up- I know he did. I was there. Saw the whole thing. Still have the scar from where they sliced my thigh to prove it.

Zack Astor

No you fucking don't, appearantly. -there is something bitter in his voice as he speaks- Cause if you did, you'd know he and I are nothing alike. Or what- do you think I'd burn this whole place to the ground, kill everybody in it because I thought it was fun?

Nicki Torres

No, you'd rather bite people's heads off because you don't agree with them and then act like you're the one in the right. You use violence and blackmail to get your way.

Zack Astor

-he glances at her, scoffing- I ain't gonna justify what I'm doing again, Nicki. It's clear your loyalty's with Ike and Mayra, and I ain't gonna argue with you about that. -he turns back to the cross- But I ain't like the damn General either. So don't fucking compare me to him.

Nicki Torres

Alright, fine.... but you should really stop acting like a dick

Zack Astor

If I had a penny for every time I heard that. -he scoffs slightly and still doesn't turn to her, but something about him seems to loose his edge- Thank you.

Nicki Torres

-she glances over at him for a moment- For what?

Zack Astor

For agreeing.

Nicki Torres

That you're a dick?

Zack Astor

You gonna make me say it? -he glances at her- For agreeing to not compare me to the General. Jesus.

Nicki Torres

When have I ever made anything easy, lobo? -She grins slyly. - Yeah, well, it's a good thing you're not. I owe that pendajo a machete to the dick.

Zack Astor

-he huffs softly- You and me both. I owe him a lot worse than that. -he turns to look at her- How long were you trapped by him?

Nicki Torres

A month. You?

Zack Astor

Seven months. -he casts a glance at her- They didn't tell me what happened to you. I thought they killed you.

Nicki Torres

Couldn't kill me, even if they tried. You should know that. Pretty sure I'm unkillable.

Zack Astor

Yeah. Guess you are pretty hard to kill. -he huffs with some amusement- They killed everybody else.

Nicki Torres

-She grinds her teeth and her fist clenches- I swear if I ever cross paths with them I will paint the fucking ground with their blood

Zack Astor

-he is quiet for a moment, staring down at the cross- Both of us are going to. -he responds, finally- What did they do to you, Nicki?

Nicki Torres

-Nicki breathes out and avoids looking over at him.- Nothing good. But you already know that.

Zack Astor

Yeah. Figures. -he pulls a pack of smokes out of his pocket; he swiped them during one of his raids; he lights one before he holds the pack out for her- You ever gonna tell me?

Nicki Torres

-Nicki eyes the pack of smokes for a minute before taking one of the cigarettes from the carton- That depends - you gonna tell me what happened to you?

Zack Astor

-he hands her his lighter; contemplates for a moment- Alright. Your turn first.

Nicki Torres

-She takes the lighter and lights the end before handing it back to him and taking a puff - After we got separated, I was passed off to this gorilla of a man.... Ramirez, I think his name was, although I just called him culo. He developed a crush or something and wanted me to be his wife. Well.... that went as well as you expected. I told him to go fuck himself and for the first few days, he thought he could beat me into submission. When that didn't work, he added a new punishment. He had this crate he'd lock me in for hours. He'd wait until there was no more oxygen in the box and would open it and see if I had learned my lesson. That didn't work so then... -She pauses to take a hit- I guess they had raided another group or something because when I the lid opened, there was this girl. Twenty something and terrified. He gave me an ultimatum - I give him what he wanted or he'd punish her. So I gave in.....up until he beat her to death in front of me. He was getting extra paranoid and thought I was stealing things from him. So when that happened, I took him to bed like I did every night and when he was passed out, I slashed his fucking throat and escaped. -She takes another long drag before flicking the ash off- Your turn.

Zack Astor

-he quietly smokes his cigarette alongside her as she tells her story; he is quiet for a moment after she finishes- Fucking hell. -he takes a drag- Good that you slit that fucker's throat. People like that ain't worth the damn air they breathe. -there is an angry strain to his voice; he keeps his gaze fixed at the cross and flicks the ash off- General made me his personal punching bag. Decided he wanted a dog and that I made a damn good candidate for it. Tortured me. In whatever way he could to break me. He was enjoying it. Let his guys join in on it too. -he takes a drag, blowing out the smoke- He tortured me the entire seven months I was there. By the end he thought I was complacent. Broken. I only escaped 'cause he decided to lock me in the damn dog kennel with the other dogs. I got the lock open, killed the guard. Freed Rex too, and by the time they noticed anything, I was long gone. Well... -he scoffs- That's that for swapping war stories.

Nicki Torres

-Nicki listens to his own story and feels her own anger rising.- Seven months....fuck, Zack. Don't think I could have lasted that long, Zack. -she hated to admit it but considering she hadn't even lasted a month without breaking, it seemed pretty pointless to not acknowledge it - How did you not break?

Zack Astor

The rest of my wolves. The other ones he took prisoner. -he takes a drag, taking the moment to think as he blows the smoke into the air- I knew they were alive. That kept me going. -he ashes off the cigarette, noticing that it burned down to the bone- He killed all of them. One by one. I watched them die. And after seven months, it was just me. And Rex. Saw him in the kennels, when they locked me in. Thought I could at least save him. -he watches as the flame of the cigarette dies, twisting the filter between his fingers before he puts it in his pocket- Guess you found something to keep you going, too.

Nicki Torres

-Nicki had a feeling that the rest of the Wolves had perished at some point but still, hearing him confirm it didn't make her feel any better- Guess it's a good thing I got out when I did. Probably would have wound up on that chopping block at one point or another. -her cigarette eventually died and she flicked it away- I don't know, lobo, I think if he hadn't killed that girl, I might not have made my grand escape.

Zack Astor

Yeah. You're right. -he turns his gaze to her- It's not about escaping. It's about going on. That girl kept you going. And when she died, you managed to slit that fucker's throat and get out. -he shrugs- You didn't kill yourself. Or let yourself get killed. That's going on.

Nicki Torres

Wel...never been the one to go down without some kind of a fight. -she breathes out as stares at the cross- So what's keeping you going, Zack?

Zack Astor

-he casts her a considering glance- Rex. And the fact that one day, I'm gonna go and put my knife through the General's throat. -he huffs- What about you, Nicki? Is it Ike?

Nicki Torres

-Nicki considers it for a moment- Ike gave me a purpose. An outlet. He takes care of me in many, many ways. I owe a lot to him.

Zack Astor

So he keeps you going. -he puts his hands into his coat pockets again- What are you gonna do if he dies?

Nicki Torres

-she tries to appear like the thought doesn't bother her but she does shift a little and force-swallow the lump that seemed to appear in her throat- Probably stick around Redwood, keep doing his work. That's what he would want. But that's also assuming I don't go out with him.

Zack Astor

You're gonna be head raider when he goes? -Zack raised his eyebrow slightly, curious, noticing the shift in her- Knowing you, you're probably gonna try and sacrifice yourself for him.

Nicki Torres

-Nicki laughs as she shakes her head- I can't speculate at that. I doubt the Council would want me to replace him. Nah, I'll just keep raiding and do what I do best. -she catches him glancing at her- I've already told him he's not allowed to die for me. But if it comes down to the two of us, yeah, I'll jump in front of the bullet - or biter, whatever the hell it is.

Zack Astor

-he scoffs, but not in a condescending way Both of you are gonna try and jump the bullet for each other. Both of you aren't the types to care about who is or isn't allowed to die.

Nicki Torres

That, lobo, is where you are wrong. When it comes to people I know and care about, I do care about who lives and who dies. I can't think of one person in town I wouldn't jump in front of a bullet for. Even your dumbass.

Zack Astor

Well, thanks for that. Hope you don't expect me to say anything sappy back. -he huffs, even though there's a hint of a grin on his face as he steps away from the cross- I think I'm gonna head back. You gonna stay here some more?

Nicki Torres

Oh, I would hope you didn't. Don't want to lie to people when they ask if Zack Astor really is heartless. -she glances at the cross and shrugs- Might walk around a bit more out here. I'm getting claustrophobic in there. Mama needs to breathe.

Zack Astor

-he glances at her, eyes narrowing slightly- Yeah. Wouldn't wanna lie about that. -he raises his hand- You do that. Don't get yourself killed.

Nicki Torres

-she watches him as he leaves- Don't worry about that. Pretty sure I'm immortal! -she waits until he's gone before nodding at the cross and going back to resume her walk-

#nicki && zack #c: zack 001 #tw: disturbing content #tw: violence

[dreamy-selfships]

Hi I'm manic depressed and drunk so you're getting my ramblings about my selfships

TW: Talk of/romanticizing suicide, murder, yandere behavior, death, etc. etc.

I feel like I'm generally a well put together person. Like, I'm way more well adjusted than I should be, given all the shit I've been through. But when it comes to 🌹, sometimes I get in this headspace (like now) where I just want us to make each other worse. Hearts bleeding for each other but neither of us are capable of saving the other. I'm a suicidal drunk and he's an obsessive lover. Keeping me trapped all the while I encourage his sadistic nature, urging him to go further and further until it's too late, and I'm gone. I want him to plunge that knife into my gut and twist it. I need him to hurt me. He's the only one I trust to wield that knife. No one else is allowed to rip my blood from my veins and bask in the glow. He'll tie me to the bed and fuck me one last time while I bleed out. We'll climax together, and I'll fade out, my last moments being filled with nothing but him. He is all that matters. He is my god. Only he can make me better. Only he can save me. My eyes will gloss over and he will take my body, embalm me, and keep me forever as his. We will be together eternally, and when the cops find us, we'll be intertwined. Our bodies melting together, just as they were always meant to be. It's the only way we could ever possibly express our devotion to each other. Our flesh will rot and bugs will devour us, and our bones will lay together, forever, until the universe goes to black and all of creation ceases to exist.

And that is just so fucking special to me. As someone who has always been suicidal, as someone who has always fallen deeply in love with these characters that will never physically touch me, I couldn't think of a more fitting ending for myself. I have always bled for my f/os. I will always love them more than anything this world could ever offer me. I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, I hope I can be with them. If there is any semblance of mercy in this universe, I pray that I can be with them. If there is one thing that would make all this worth it, it would be them.

Nothing else has ever meant more to me. No real person will ever compare to them. That is the curse that I bear and, while I will walk tall with it, I will also bleed with it. I will carry this weight with me until the day I finally leave this earth. And when I do, all I want is to see them. Even if it's just for a moment.

#ok this turned into a vent #sorry haha #self ship #self insert #self shipping #selfship #vent #🌹

[namonaki-arts]

some capsule monsters inspired doodles

#yugioh #ygo #yugioh duel monsters #capsule monsters #yugi #yugi mutou #dark magician #atem #yami yugi #WAS REMINDED I HAD THESE #Atem was having the time of his life in capsule monsters #when he goes to the afterlife nothing will ever compare to the time #he was running around in his little dark magician cosplay and getting carried like a small animal by his favorite monsters #he will just be sitting on his throne longing for the unbridled freedom of this arc #i have more capusle monsters doodles but theyre less done jdsfkl #my art #fanart #namonaki und drawings

[bumbleklee]

Could you make a fic based on the song Moondust By Jaymes Young? With Xiao or Zhongli? It’s fine if you decline, I enjoyed your Lonestar fic a lot! Also, thank you in advance if you do this! ^^

after this, i decided im a monster. this is so sad, like so so sad. i don't know if this is what you had in mind but since the song is basically about learning how to live/love without someone, i went down a death route. i also went w xiao. pls enjoy (and grab a tissue)

before reading: ANGST!!! you literally die and are a ghost the entire time. mentions of injury and blood as well as self-harm and suicidal thoughts. word count is around 2.1k (under cut for length)

I'm building this house, on the moon Like a lost, astronaut Lookin' at you, like a star From a place, the world forgot And there's nothing, that I can do Except bury my love for you

Death was quick.

You know instantly that you’re dead the second you open your eyes. You can still remember the feeling of the Fatui pyro agent slicing his knife across your throat and if you think about it enough, your neck tingles. You remember falling to your knees, being laughed at, and then you saw nothing.

Well, you saw blackness.

And then when you came to, you were standing in the middle of Liyue Harbor. The world seemed duller but it was real. No one paid any mind to you, so you assumed you were a ghost.

It’s nice to still be able to watch the sun rise high above your hometown.

There’s no panic, no rush to find out what’s going on, you don’t need to. Your hands travel to your throat and the horrific wound is gone. In fact, all of the scrapes and bruises and imperfections on your body were gone. Death brings solace, you humor.

Your peaceful moment was interrupted by two frantic voices. They catch the attention of everyone in the area, including you, and you spin around quickly.

Xiao.

“Break the contract, please, Zhongli-” His voice is frazzled, filled with a sadness the living can’t understand. “I can’t live without them.”

You looked down at your left hand, heart shattering at the absence of the jade ring. Right. You were going to marry Xiao later that year. Not anymore.

A hundred thousand memories of sweet kisses and long nights flooded into your mind. They caused you to hold your breath, too many emotions crashing through your tired form. You felt like crying but couldn’t (ghosts didn’t have tears, you guessed).

You’re standing right in front of the love of your life and he can’t see you.

Maybe it’s a good thing he can’t see you because Xiao already looked wrecked. His eyes were puffy and red and his hair was disheveled. Unhealed scratches wound his arms like ribbon. You had been with Xiao for years, through the good and the bad, and never once had you ever seen him in this state.

He’s pleading still and Zhongli has an indescribable expression on his face. “I can’t,” His voice is barely a whisper, “You know I can’t.”

Xiao wails, falling to his knees. Zhongli feels his pain, you know he does, yet he won’t put him out of misery. You watch as Zhongli bends down and lifts the adeptus into his arms, swiftly walking away from the crowd. You follow ensuite and Xiao’s eyes are hazy, staring through you over Zhongli’s shoulder.

“I’m right here.”

But he doesn’t hear you.

The brightness of the sun, will give me just enough To bury my love, in the Moondust I long to hear your voice, but still I make the choice To bury my love, in the moondust

You begin to follow Xiao around. Not that he goes anywhere, too heartbroken to move, but you keep watch of him like he once did for you.

He resorts to staying in Zhongli’s apartment. The consultant isn’t around most of the day and Xiao rarely leaves his bed. His tears stain the satin pillowcase and he curls upon himself. Sometimes you stand in the doorway and stare, other times you muster up enough courage to go and sit on the unoccupied side of the bed.

The first time you touch Xiao again is at night. He’s crying and without thinking, you wrap your body around his. His chest is pressed against yours and you press your lips to his shoulder.

It’s not warm anymore. In fact, it feels like nothing.

But still, you hold Xiao until he’s asleep. You don’t let go all night, opting to watch your beloved finally get some rest. You wonder if this is how it’s going to be for the rest of eternity? Would you follow Xiao around aimlessly for centuries more?

Or maybe you’re just stuck here. You recall a saying from an elder in Liyue years ago, “Spirits with unfinished business can’t move.”

You decided then that you were going to help him move on, help Xiao bury his love for you.

Nothing can breath, in the space Colder than, the darkest sea I have dreams about the days, driving through your sunset breeze But the first thing, that I will do Is bury my love for you

There’s no book about being a ghost. You have to figure it out on your own and you’ve never been more grateful no one can see you go straight through the wall for the third time that hour. Over time, you create your own handbook in your mind, jotting down anything you discover as your time as a dead person entails.

Within the first week, you understand that no one can see you, hear you, or feel you. And while you can vaguely touch objects and people, the sensation is different than when you were alive. Every human trait was thrown out the window - you don’t need to sleep, breathe or eat and drink anything.

You attend your funeral exactly a week after your body was discovered and someone propped your sword against your casket. You try to grasp it, to pick it up, but you only manage to push it over with a gust of nonexistent wind. It clambers to the floor, the funeral parlor growing silent, and you take this as your cue to leave.

You wondered if Xiao, or anyone of that matter, could sense you at least. Even if Xiao couldn’t see you, just him knowing you were there would ascend you to the afterlife (right?).

You also find out you can’t leave Liyue. There’s an invisible border keeping you trapped in the country and, frankly, you don’t mind. Xiao won’t leave Liyue so you don’t need to leave Liyue. But sometimes you get anxious that one day Xiao will leave Liyue and never return. And if you haven’t accomplished your goal yet, would you truly be stuck as a monster among men?

The brightness of the sun, will give me just enough To bury my love, in the Moondust I long to hear your voice, but still I make the choice To bury my love, in the moondust

On particularly good days, Xiao talks to you. Zhongli was gone early one morning and Xiao pulled himself out of bed and to the living room, opting to open the blinds and see sunlight for the first time in weeks.

You sit on the coffee table with your legs criss-crossed as Xiao mumbles desolate words.

“I keep just wishing I would wake up dead. I miss you so much.”

You frown. “I’m here, I’m right here.”

But he can’t hear you. “You aren’t here to make me laugh at your stupid jokes anymore. And I just...I should have been there! I should have-”

His voice cracks and you move off the coffee table, wrapping your arms around his quivering body. You try to press yourself against him, squeeze your arms so tight that he’ll feel you, but you can’t. You can’t kiss his chapped lips and move your bodies so he’s curled into the crook of your neck.

Sometimes, you watch Xiao hurt himself. He digs his nails into his arms or thighs until he draws blood, only to push it all away and scream into the ground. You want to snap him out of him, tell him to stop doing that to himself, but you can only sit and stare.

You were nothing to Liyue - a common human who added nothing of importance to society. Yes, your death was sad for many people but the world kept turning. Xiao, on the other hand, was so special. He was the Vigilant Yaksha - the people of Liyue needed him forever.

“I miss you. I love you. I miss you.”

I'm a cast away, and men reap what they sow And I say what I know, to be true Yeah I'm living far away, on the face of the moon I've buried my love to give the world to you

Xiao goes out sometimes. It’s either to patrol the city or on a walk with Zhongli. It’s not much but it's an improvement. Like always, you follow him.

He’s started to have nightmares, waking up in a rush. He used to comfort you when you had nightmares and it pains you that you can’t return the favor. You try, by God, you try. You run your hands down his back comfortingly but Xiao only cries harder.

When Xiao sees Ganyu for the first time in months and she gives him homemade almond tofu, he smiles. It’s small and quick but you see it.

Growing up, you had thought that the living mourned the dead. When your grandmother died, you felt broken for a while, but that pain was minimal compared to this. Having to live endless days as an invisible soul while the living grieved was unbearable.

When no one is around, Xiao breaks down. He hurts himself, insults himself and wishes for you endlessly. When Xiao tries to jump off the roof of the apartment complex in the middle of the night and survives with only an injured arm, you realize he’s pushing his body. He’s trying to kill himself.

So, you scream.

Every waking hour of the day you scream.

“I’m right here, Xiao! I love you and I’m right here! I’m sorry for being careless and getting killed but you aren’t ready to join me yet!”

You know he doesn’t hear you, he can’t hear you, and yet Xiao slowly stops hurting himself.

The brightness of the sun, will give me just enough To bury my love, in the Moondust I long to hear your voice, but still I make the choice To bury my love, in the moondust

It takes a year for Xiao to finally begin to cope with your death and you know your journey will be coming to end soon.

He still talks to you except now it’s hopeful and filled with acceptance. On the anniversary of your death, he travels to the Dragon-Queller early in the morning. He sits down in the spot he used to take you to and rubs the grass softly, as if motioning for you to sit down next to him.

You do.

“I’m leaving Liyue next week.”

A million feelings run through your veins. You want to throw up, scream, cry. Is a week enough time to get Xiao to move on from you? Had he already moved on? There were too many questions you couldn’t fucking ask.

You can’t bear to listen to the rest. Your feet travel on their own, taking you far away from Xiao and back into the heart of Liyue Harbor. You didn’t know where you were until you heard a voice call out for you.

“Hey, you!”

You were imagining voices now. You felt sick to your stomach.

“Y/N!”

A short, young woman came into your view and you finally looked up. You had walked right into the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. Hu Tao was staring at you, not through you.

“I knew you were still here.”

Hu Tao could see you.

It didn’t make sense but you didn’t have time to make it make sense. Without thinking, you cried out to Hu Tao and begged her to help you save Xiao, save yourself.

“I want to go with him,” You say.

“But you can’t.”

“Then he’s going to forget about me.”

Hu Tao chuckled softly, “You think Xiao would forget about you?”

You don’t answer. Maybe it was you that didn’t want to forget about Xiao. Either way, it hurts. “He’s going to fall in love with someone new and-”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

It was. You wanted Xiao to be happy without you, to learn to love again. You wanted him to bury his love for you so you could both be free.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Hu Tao says, “Xiao will find you again one day.”

She clasps her hands together and reaches them out to you. You look down and see a moving image of Xiao. He’s still talking softly, this time with a small smile on his lips. You close your eyes suddenly, not wanting to see anymore. You step outside of the funeral parlor and whisper “I love you” into the wind.

The sun is shining high in the sky when Teyvat begins to disappear from your vision.

Maybe in another life you and Xiao will spend forever together. You’ll have a grand wedding, start a family, and grow old together like you should have. But for now, you’ll see him from the moon.

#genshin #genshin x reader #genshin self insert #genshin angst #genshin writing #genshin impact writing #genshin xiao #xiao x reader #xiao #zhongli #hu tao #im sorry for this

[zaina-xoxo]

Harry Potter headcanons (sad)

That Hermione and Ron always wanted a huge family. Like, 5 children filling a burrow. However, they ended up with only two. Why? Hermione’s torture at the hands of Bellatrix left its marks, and she couldn’t have children after Hugo. Dark Magic always left marks.

That Dumbledore never really left limbo. He stayed there forever, unable to allow himself to move due to the blood he had on his hands, lives he sacrificed for the greater good.

That George dyed his hair blue after the battle in order to stop reminding himself of Fred every time he saw a mirror.

That Grindelwald never stopped loving Dumbledore, and during their final duel, he actually had an opportunity to kill him, but couldn’t gather the will. Dumbledore used that moment to win.

That during Snape’s death, those tears with the memories, were also a sacrifice. Those tears were the memories themselves. So, when he died and went to the afterlife … he didn’t remember the person most featured in those memories, the one they focused on. In death, he never remembered Lily.

After the battle of hogwarts, Dennis Creevey becomes a photographer …. which was what his brother, Colin, had wanted to become when he grew up.

That Sirius willingly fell into the veil, which only kills if you completely were thrown into it. What happened was that half of his body went to the other side, and he was immediately assaulted by whispers of his dead loved ones, especially lily and James. He died with a smile, as he jumped in to his next great adventure.

That for the first fifteen years of his life, what Tom Riddle saw in the Mirror of Erised was himself with his parents in a rich household, in a loving family. All he wanted was to be loved. All that changed when he made his first horcrux.

That Dumbledore’s boggart was himself. And, that it really was him who killed Ariana, something he found out in the afterlife.

When Ron was a little boy he overheard his aunt Muriel talking to her friend that how amazing Ron's elder brothers were. But she called Ron ‘Molly's failed attempt for a girl’. She also said that Ron was worthless and he was no one compared to his elder brothers. Ron had developed insecurities about not being good enough from that overheard conversation.

When Ron left in DH Hermione wrote a letter. Conveying EVERYTHING she felt for him. She was almost certain that she would never see him again. She would never be able to tell him how she felt for him. She kept that letter in her beaded bag. Years later Ron found out that letter. And he cried.

Once during an auror mission Ron was injured badly. He almost died. Hermione didn't leave his side for once. When he was slightly better, Hermione told him that she was pregnant. That was when Ron had decided to quit his job.

When Ron and Hermione were staying at the shell cottage Hermione had a long conversation with Fleur. Hermione told her that there was a huge chance that she wouldn't survive the battle of Hogwarts. She was a muggleborn afterall. So if something happened she wanted Ron to move on with his life. She wanted Fleur to promise her that she would help Ron to move on with his life.

When the flashing green light came rushing at James Potter's way he didn't see death, but was reminded of two pairs of vibrant green eyes staring lovingly at him.

Death works differently in the HPU. Once you die, you have the choice to stay in limbo for as long as you want, or to take the train. You could also become a ghost. However, along with that there’s also the choice of becoming a creature which is the embodiment of death - a thestral. This is why Luna has a favourite Thestral, and why there’s a huge influx of them in the forbidden forest after the battle of hogwarts.

Neville kept visiting his parents. With every milestone that he hit — graduating Hogwarts, marrying Hannah Abbott, being hired as a professor — he made it a tradition to see them. It was not until he visited with a baby girl in his arms, Alice Francesca Longbottom, that he saw a flash of recognition in his mother’s eyes.

The day Harry was born, all the marauders found themselves in St. Mungo’s. Hours later, Remus awoke in his chair just in time to see a black-haired man with a crooked nose regarding the new-born. With a last glance upon Lily he left, seemingly unseen.

As a child Teddy had a huge crush on his Aunt Hermione, and he would often give her flowers and ask her if they could get married someday. Once he grew up, he was commonly teased about his childhood crush on his aunt (not sad)

During the first few years that Severus was teaching at Hogwarts, all of the other teachers were very uncertain of him. They all thought that Dumbledore was mad for hiring him, as they all knew of his reputation as a Death Eater. But eventually he struck up a very playful rivalry with Minerva. They would sit together at Quidditch matches and pass snarky comments back and forth, both of them snorting in amusement. It also wasn’t uncommon to find them sat together in the evenings, having a cup of tea or a glass of firewhiskey. By the time Harry Potter came to Hogwarts, Minerva believed in him almost as much as Dumbledore did. (He often urged Severus to tell her the real reason he defected from the Death Eaters, but Severus always refused.) His hatred of the young Gryffindor was often a point of contention between the two unlikely friends, but their friendship remained strong. It withstood Voldemort’s return and the reformation of the Order of the Phoenix. But in the aftermath of the Battle of the Astronomy Tower and Dumbledore’s death, Minerva was completely shocked and outraged. She couldn’t believe she’d ever befriended him at all and swore she’d never forgive herself for trusting him. During the last year the two taught together she avoided him at all costs, talking to him only when it was absolutely necessary, and when she had to she did so rather stiffly. After the Battle of Hogwarts ended and he was dead, however, she learned the truth about his actions from Harry, who told her about his tragic tale. She cried on and off for days. And the first time she came face to face with his portrait she completely broke down.

Had Fred not died, the twins would have had an overly casual double wedding [and would probably switch places to mess with their brides]

When Remus woke up in Harry’s compartment in POA, he saw Harry giving him the same comforting and concerned look as James. For a moment he thought he was seeing James again. Then in sunk in that his dear friend was dead and it was James’ son.

Teddy saw Sirius’ picture once. He didn’t know who he was, so he changed himself to look like him. It was only when he grew up that he understood why Harry started crying when he saw him.

Once Professor McGonagall was made headmistress, she let Hagrid become a student. Harry saw Hagrid’s Patronus for the first time in his life three years after the war. It was Hedwig.

When Petunia and Lily were little, they would read Alice in Wonderland. Petunia would read Dudley the book, fully knowing he didn’t like it. She was reading it for Harry, who was listening from inside his cupboard. Petunia believed she owed this to Lily.

When Harry was a baby, he didn’t know his own name. Each of the marauders gave him a nickname. (James called him troublemaker.) When he lived with the Dursleys, and they called him a “troublemaker”, toddler Harry would get excited thinking that his dad was going to take him away from these horrible people.

During the Battle of Hogwarts, Nearly-Headless Nick’s head finally came off. Hence, he had to join the Headless Hunt. Thus, Gryffindor needed a new applicant. The new house ghost was a 17-year-old redheaded man and a large group of 12 students were excited to meet their beloved uncle.

When Teddy Lupin was a baby, his color turned into the person he wanted to hold him. Occasionally, it was Harry or Ginny or any other Weasley. But one day it turned pink and he could do nothing about it.

The Marauders used to take turns babysitting Harry, and it became a tradition to pass the baby and say, “You’re it. Good luck.” And the last thing Sirius saw as he fell through the veil was Remus holding Harry, and the last thought that went though his head was, “You’re it. Good luck.”

After Fred’s funeral, George does not return to the Burrow until about a year later. He refuses to go upstairs where his and Fred’s old room is and barely says a word. His hair is some wild outrageous color, cropped short and crooked, and Mrs. Weasley goes into a fit. She loudly asks why he would do that to himself, and is not prepared when he says, “I kept seeing him in the mirror.”

It’s the year after the Battle of Hogwarts. The school is still being repaired and the class size has dwindled down to pitiful numbers. And the Thestrals are so excited about the newfound attention they’d been getting.

Dobby wrote a will in which he sent Harry over 200 pairs of socks, Ron a pair of trainers, and a misshapen hat for Hermione.

No matter what he was doing or who he was with, Harry would always stop and pet any stray dog that he came across. If he could, he would give them any food he had. Eventually he became known as the man with the treats. Not Harry Potter or the Chosen One; just the quiet man with dogbones. When dogs would bound up to him, throwing their paws onto his chest and barking with glee at his arrival, he was reminded irresistibly of Sirius.

At Colin’s funeral, Harry didn’t say a word. He had been to so many funerals recently that pleasantries felt like a waste of breath, and how terrible would it be for him to waste his breath when he was so lucky to have it? He stood silent and watching, and as the last of the attendees left, Harry placed a tiny picture on Colin’s grave, taken by the late boy himself. It was the only autograph Harry Potter would ever give.

On May 2nd, 1998, Hogwarts held a moment of silence for the fallen. Not a single portrait stirred, not a single stair shifted. Even Peeves ducked into a corner and went silent. Then, when the silence ended, millions of different colored sparks took off into the sky.

Tonks is easily excitable and loved entertaining Hermione and Ginny with her Metamorphosis abilities. One day, she found a picture of Harry in Sirius’ room to turn herself into, and ran downstairs to show Remus and Sirius. And it wasn’t until Tonks watched their hearts break that she realized Harry’s eyes were the wrong color.

Harry kept each and every one of the sweaters that Mrs. Weasley had knitted him. One day while cleaning, she saw them folded with so much care in his drawer. She turned to see Harry wearing his newest Christmas Sweater proudly, like it was the greatest honor he could have been given, and she burst into tears.

One day, Harry accidentally calls Mrs. Weasley “Mum” instead of Molly. His face goes bright red, fumbling with apologies, and she (once again) burst into tears.

The first thing Draco Malfoy did after the war was Apparate into Muggle London and march straight into a tattoo parlor. He emerges, his face still bloody and burned, with an arm void of a black skull. Instead, he looks down at the skin covered in flowers and the skull changed into a silhouette of the castle, and smiles for the first time in two years.

George pulls Harry aside:

(“Harry, you’ve died, haven’t you?”

Harry looked up at George and regarded him, careful not to let any incredulousness show in his eyes — he knew all too well of the torment George must be feeling, of the weight in what he was visibly preparing himself to say.

“I have,” said Harry carefully.

George dipped his head; as he did, Harry caught something in his eyes that pained him so deeply, he was grateful George had tried to hide it from him.

“Does it...” George spoke to his shoes, and his voice sounded much older than Harry remembered. “Did... Did dying hurt, Harry? D’you think… that Freddie was in pain when...”

But George did not need to specify. Like he had been smacked right across the face with the words left unspoken, Harry knew, and it was a long time before he answered.

“It didn’t hurt,” said Harry resolutely, like he was deciding it right then and there.“It didn’t?”

“Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”)

When Remus Lupin took the Map from Harry, he sat there for hours, opening and reopening it wrong on purpose just to see the clever insults sprout on the paper. It was almost like his friends, alive and well, were talking to him for the first time in 12 years.

The day Molly Weasley dies, the first thing she sees is a girl with red hair sprinting toward her. She panics, thinking it might be Ginny, but she sees startling green eyes and knows who it is immediately. Lily Potter pulls Mrs. Weasley into a hug and in a choked voice, whispers, “Thank you.”

Harry memorized every name of the 50 Fallen after the war ends. The day he dies, old and surrounded by his children, he repeats their names in his head like a mantra and begs for their forgiveness.

Eleven years later, at Hogwarts, students fill a corridor filled with portraits of those who died in the Battle of Hogwarts. They look for Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and other famous faces, but there’s a blue-haired first year in their midst, trying desperately to remember what his parents had looked like.

James Potter lost both of his parents at once. The news was delivered to him by Professor McGonagall with Sirius by his side, but James was in denial. He kept insisting that she was lying, and it wasn’t until Sirius broke down into tears that James knew, and it broke him.

Crookshanks was the Potters family cat mentioned in sirius' letter and escaped godrics hollow after Halloween and managed to find the magical menagerie. He found hermione and stayed with her because harry was only allowed hedwig and Ron already had scabbers. This is why he was especially angry towards Ron, due to smelling his masters betrayer on him, and didn't run away from sirius’ grim form.

Hedwig was a guardian angel. Hedwig is smarter than most owls and other animals in the magical world, often appearing to harry when he needs to write a letter. Female snow owls like hedwig are mostly white but they have grey marks and spots on their back wings, hedwig is portrayed as a white male snowy owl. White as an angelic being perhaps Perhaps? Perhaps hedwig was sent by his parents as a guard and friend to him, its why hedwig didn't want anyone else adopting her.

Dementors come from the death eater who were thrown into the Veil. Ever wonder why the veil of death is barley used? After the souls escape to the after life the bodies of those who enter become husks of their former selves, hungry for souls. Unmasked before thrown in with only the cloaks on their backs.

Four years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Molly Weasley was busy preparing food for Ron’s birthday. She mistakenly barked to George, “Get that chicken out of the oven, Fred!” George silently whispered, “Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?”

JK Rowling has revealed that Lily Potter was pregnant was her second child when she was killed. Even worse, she had convinced James to make Snape the godfather of the child.

At Luna’s wedding, the whole of the front seats were reserved. Harry went up to her at the end of service and asked, “Luna, who’s sitting there?” Luna smiled her usual smile and said, “Right. They did sit here in a spiritual way I suppose.” She pointed the seats one by one, “Right, that’s for my mother, those are for your parents, that one is for Sirius, that one is for Professor Lupin, that one is for Tonks, then Mad-Eye, then Fred Weasley, then Professor Dumbledore, and then Professor Snape. Right then, bye!” Harry had never felt so touched before.

The reason Bellatrix was so wretchedly insane and slavishly devoted to Voldemort was that she lived for the promise that one day, if she did enough, someone might say “I love you” back. I know that she doesn’t deserve this but for love… wow Bellatrix.

When Harry and Ginny went to search for a house to live in they found an apparently perfect house, Ginny loves it, but Harry rejects with a clear excuse about it being too big for them. Ginny doesn’t notice Harry’s fixed look on the Cupboard under the stairs.

Before the Horcrux hunt, Ron and Hermione decided, that if either of them had to choose between saving each other's lives or Harry’s, they had to choose Harry for the sake of the world. No matter how painful it would be for them to let go of each other.

Sirius and Remus saved memories for Harry. Remus left them for Harry in his will, when Harry got a hold of them he got to see a part of James he never got to see in Snape's memory.

After the battle of Hogwarts, Neville went to visit his parents to tell them about it. After he finished, his mother, who normally spoke nonsense, smiled and said one word: “Proud”

On November 3rd 1981, Sirius Black sat alone in a cell in Azkaban softly singing: “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Sirius...” whilst tears streamed down his face, wishing he could go back in time.

Mr. and Mrs. Potter, James and Sirius were out in public together one sunny afternoon. The elderly couple was talking to someone with that someone asking, “Oh, are these your sons?” Sirius turned beet red and becoming utterly flustered. Mr. Potter simply smiled and says, “Yes, they are.” With Mrs. Potter nodding proudly in agreement. Never once did they think to reply in any other way.

Harry as a preschooler drew two blond blots and a big black blot with a little black one standing a bit further away beside them with “My Family” scratched over the top and presented it to Uncle Vernon who ripped it apart and threw it away right in front of him.

When Harry and Ginny were married they moved to a house in Godric’s Hollow. After Lily was born and got older, she would visit her grandmother and namesake's grave everyday and leave lilies.

Harry Potter died at the ripe age of 101 surrounded by his loved ones, when he opened his eyes again he returned to the place he parted from his old mentor many years ago, but it wasn't Albus Dumbledore who greeted him at the station this time around. Standing a few feet away from him where a young couple patiently waiting for the son they were ripped away from so long ago to take him home and Harry Potter, the boy who lived, went gladly.

After the war, Minerva McGonagall went into a spiral of depression. It was brought on by watching so many students grow and die before her eyes.

At Ginny’s wedding she danced with George twice so it would feel like she was dancing with Fred.

After the second Wizarding War, everyone who died was given a chocolate frog card. When Teddy Lupin was on the train going to his first year of Hogwarts, he got the cards that had his parents on them, and it was like they were sending him off themselves.

These made me cry when I read them, I just can't :(

#marauders #harry potter #james potter #remus lupin #sirius orion black #lily x james #james potter x lily evans #headcanons #harry potter headcanon #sad #emotional

[twisted-in-wonderland-jay]

Birthday from the boys (NRC)

Something to know for reading all of this is that I’m going to try my best to write platonic relationships that can be implied as romantic. Because some people may like a character but not feel romantic feelings towards them but still would like to know how they would act on their birthday.

Part two is the teachers and RSA

Riddle

He would prune the garden himself, regardless of the queen of hearts laws he would paint the roses your favorite color

He would lead you to the garden where the two of you would have tea and talk for hours

Eventually taking you around the garden

Ace

Out of all of these boys, he’s the one that’s most likely to forget your birthday

This man did not write it down

He overhears you talking with the other first years and them saying happy birthday. Then it finally clicks and he remembers that today is your birthday and he plays it off like he remembered

He’s not being mean in any way he just honestly doesn’t remember birthdays well

He talks with the first years while you’re not around and plans a little sleepover of sorts at your dorm

When you come back to your dorm for the night you find all of the first years there and they’re just kind of chilling in the lounge

They bring out a cake for you saying that they all baked and decorated it themselves but with the experience that the first years have it’s a strange-looking cake but it does it taste all that bad it’s just a lot of frosting and decorations because each one of them wanted to add a personal touch.

You guys have fun run around the dorm causing trouble

Then once it turns 12 you guys decide to settle down for the night and plot twist you don’t actually go to bed but instead play Mario kart till 3 AM

Deuce

He would try his hardest the whole day to make it the most perfect and kind of relaxing day ever. But utterly fail

In his eyes, he failed but it’s not that big of a deal

He’ll try to hold the door open for you or carry you around for fun and either, drop you, or trip

He feels really bad the whole day that he keeps messing everything up and it keeps getting less and less romantic

At the end of the day, you assure him that you had the best time and it was very fun. Which he doesn’t really believe because again he feels like he failed but he’s glad you had a good time.

He also stays the night hanging out with you until you fall asleep.

Trey

He would bake you a cake from scratch and decorated it with little flowers of your favorite color

He’s a really sweet guy so he would invite a couple of your close friends maybe three or four of them so that you’re not alone on your birthday and you also won’t have any leftover cake because you’ll eat it all.

A very nice and sweet get together messing around having fun

Cater

The morning would start very easy with the simple happy birthday and him taking you skateboarding you don’t have to go to a skating park or anything like that he’s just gonna teach you a couple of tricks.

But progressively throughout the day, it gets more centric and fun

At the end of the night can you both watch fireworks after you’ve just got done bungee jumping...

Leona

He’s not going to skip his morning to afternoon nap to tell you happy birthday even if he does care

A prince got to get his beauty sleep

When he wakes up he goes and attempts to find you and if he doesn’t he just goes man and gives up but if he does find you he tells you happy birthday and then walks off

Depending on your relationship with him he could be very distant and not caring but if you go and hang out with him during the afternoon when he’s not sleeping he’s pretty chill about it not really caring that you’re there if you have a negative disposition towards him he might care and tell you to leave.

Ruggie

He would take you shopping for the day

You might think he doesn’t have any money but those are jobs that he’s been working aren’t for nothing

He took all of the money he could for an entire month of work and saved it up spending it on your birthday

“What?! this is only part of my savings, not my entire Life funds” hehe...

Jack

Since magic mirrors make travel very easy he decides to take you back to his hometown

Not to meet his parents or anything but just to hang out because he talks about home a lot and wants to take you. What better time than your birthday

He takes you around his town and tells you about all of these places that he has memories that as well as putting you in the general direction of where he lives

He takes you to do all the fun things you can think of where he lives

When you both go back tonight NRC he quickly takes you by his dorm so he can grab something

He comes back with his gift to you which is a little cactus for you to take care of.

Azul

He wouldn’t have a birthday party for you

He would however have you meet him in the lounge

you two would have dinner together

Just the two of you...

you’ll take a walk through dorms halls just to talk in this moment you share alone

Jade

He would hang out with you if you wanted him to if you didn’t want him to he would tell you to go hang out with your friends since it is your special day

He would give you some sort of terrarium or if you’re not into those he would give you a rare plant for you to take care of as a gift

If you did want to hang out with him and you didn’t care where you went he’d invite you to a botanical garden for the day.

Whether you like it or not he’ll probably talk on and on about each plant and its properties in medicine and poison

Floyd

He would throw a great surprise birthday party for you

He’s got all of your favorite foods your favorite drink an awesome cake

And somehow he surprisingly kept this under wraps until the time of your birthday party

It would be in you’re dorm, and don’t worry afterward he would help you clean up the mess

When you walk in the door he has everyone holding confetti launchers... which he 100% is going to help you clean up after a lot of convincing

Kalim

This man knows how to throw parties and that’s terrifying

He would throw a massive party for you

He’s inviting all of NRC as long as they’re friends with you. Hell if you had friends in RSA he would invite them too.

He would have one of your other friends distract you for the day because it’s going to take the entire day to set up this banquet

He’s got everything a giant cake, fancy lights, a lounge area, a DJ, a chocolate fountain anything and everything that you would need for a successful party

Throughout the day if you try to go see him at all somebody’s always there to stop you and to distract you

You guys party for the whole night

Jamil

He would not throw a birthday party for you

As we all know he’s not really a people person

Chill about it passes you in the hall and says happy birthday

He offers to make you dinner but if you want to you can always decline

Although there is one thing you can’t decline and that’s the magic carpet ride he wants to take you on

He wouldn’t ask to borrow the magic carpet he’d just do it

Vil

He would throw a big banquet for you regardless of what you want

He’ll probably say something along the lines of “Fufufu do you think I have the time to do all this? someone else said it was a good idea and they did all the work it’s not as if I care or have time to.” But we all know he cares

He about all of Pomefiore if you have to invite any of your friends outside of the dorm he would be a little irritated and save fine I guess you can about your “other friends”

Epel

It would be the beginning of the day and he’s down the hall in spots you. He would immediately not yell your name but scream it and run to you yelling happy birthday. It would make quite the scene but he wants everyone to know that it’s your birthday and also Vil would probably hate the fact that he just screamed.

He asks you if you’re ready to “rock and roll” (for anyone who doesn’t know this is just a saying to ask if you’re “ready to go”)

He’s taking you on a trip to go do a bunch of fun stuff in town and to probably prank some people because why not.

Rook

Wouldn’t throw you a party instead he would probably stop by your dorm and announce his presence and sing you happy birthday.

Bring you some sort of small gift

He would tell you that he will follow you the whole day and you can do whatever you want with him

Rook is rather chill compared to some of the other boys. However, if you want him to he can take over because he’s kept note of what you like to do so he would take you to do things that you like.

Idia

He wouldn’t do anything special for your birthday

In fact, he’d probably have Ortho buy three slices of cake only, for the three of you

Throughout the day he doesn’t say anything about it

When you go to his dorm later he tells you happy birthday you guys eat the cake together

He kind of half-heartedly apologizes for not being able to throw a proper birthday party for you and that he’s sorry but his anxiety kind of got the best of him.

To make up for it he offers to play games with him until you want to leave

Before you leave he gives you a flower. An Asphodel The primary symbolic meaning of the Asphodel flower is peace after death and the afterlife, but this is not the meaning that is implied it is a white flower which generally symbolizes purity also it’s a symbolic flower of Hades

Ortho

He throws a big party at your dorm (if your dorm is Ignihyde he’d take it somewhere else), not ignihyde. Because the students are quite antisocial and it would be very disruptive.

He would invite all of your best friends

It is the cutest surprise birthday party ever

There would be fireworks, trick candles, and so many fun childish games that you would play at a party

Malleus

Malleus is somewhere in between depending on what you want so no this won’t be a surprise birthday

He’ll either throw a big party for you in the diasomnia dorm inviting basically everyone from all the dorms as long as they know you

Or if you’re more on the reserve side or you want a smaller party he’ll have a couple of your close friends join him and going to your dorm and having a get-together little party for you.

If you want to though he is 100% okay with just you and him hanging out for the day

Sebek

This man is crazy

He wrote down your birthday and planned weeks in advance

He would write down everything that you like in hopes that when it becomes your birthday he has everything that you could ever want on that day

He tries his best to bake a cake but then realizes that he’s actually really good at it

On the day of you’d think that he be really loud and excitable and overbearing but in fact, he is the complete opposite being very considerate and not quiet but an inside voice because he doesn’t want to stress you out or seem disingenuous.

He doesn’t host a party for all of your friends it’s just you and him. The reason for this and putting in so much effort just for you and him is because he’s rather shy when it comes to not just romantic feelings but platonic feelings as well not showing people how he really feels especially when it’s around other people as well. So it’s kind of to make himself feel more comfortable as well

Silver

Silver isn’t the party kind of person so he’ll probably get you a cute little gift like a bouquet of roses specifically white roses to symbolize purity or maybe a charm bracelet.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to throw you a birthday party it’s just that he doesn’t know how to go about it since the only parties ever really celebrated is his own because of Lilia when he was younger.

If you say something about not having a party or a cake he’ll get a little sad thinking that he might have failed you.

He’ll probably just follow you around doing whatever you wanted for the day as long as you didn’t have class.

He would also have a cute little lunch with you of food that he made before. You guys would probably go sit in the courtyard and eat next to a tree. Be careful though he may or may not fall asleep...

You might have to wake you’re sleeping, Prince

Lilia

He’ll invite you to a concert and then right as the performance is about to start he’ll say something like he has to use the restroom or he’s going to get a drink and he’ll be right back he promises.

As the performance is starting and the lights turn off you start to worry that he’s going to miss it

And then as the stage lights turn on and you see him on stage getting ready to perform

He’s going to perform an entire album that he and the light music club came up with for you as a birthday gift

Knowing him at the end of the performance he’s probably going to get off the stage to go and kiss you (Not necessarily on the lips if it’s a platonic relationship it’s probably on the forehead with the cheek as a sign of affection no love).

#twisted wonderland #savanaclaw #diasmonia #heartslabyul #ignihyde #octavinelle #pomefiore #scarabia #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #cater diamond #deuce spade #ace trappola #leona kingscholar #jack howl #ruggie bucchi #azul ashengrotto #malleus draconia #jade leech #kalim al asim #jamil viper #vil shoenheit #rook hunt #epel felmier #idia shroud #ortho shroud #floyd leech #lilia vanrouge #silver twisted wonderland

[bloodpenned]

cw: stalking, religious themes

Most confessions aren’t all that interesting.

You haven’t held the duty for long, and you already feel like you’ve heard it all before. The child present to fulfill their parent’s wishes, grumbling about how much they regret their disobedience. The old man, sharing that he is losing sight of his faith, now that death is nearing and the existence of an afterlife becomes more of a constant worry. Envy is common, so is unwanted lust. The amount of adultery took you off guard too, at first. It is expected now.

For all you know, your brothers and sisters may have heard far wilder tales. Not that you’d ever find out. But you’re complaining too much, tired after a long day. (Though it’s always hard to keep the stories from blurring into one another. So many penitents without a face.) You are not there for entertainment. No, you have to be a pillar of support for your community. Nothing fulfills you like managing to give advice that relieved another, to bring them back upon the righteous path. You are doing good, and it’s worth the occasional repetitiveness.

From the very first second, this one is unusual.

Instead of asking for forgiveness, they ask for your name. You have no reason not to give it, so you oblige. It must be their first time, considering you don’t recognise their voice either. Right now, they are sitting on their knees in front of a wall with only a slight bit of glass that lets through light but no vision. They must be nervous, or ashamed. More than providing an answer for everything, people want you to lend them an ear. And listen you shall, always.

They sigh, and there is a smile in their voice when they speak. Apologies, of course they knew it was you. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here. But they couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to hear your voice. Does that make their earlier question a lie? Is that their first sin to confess? The stranger laughs. You shift in your chair. There’s… Something about them that makes you uncomfortable. They speak as if they’re a friend. Better to get to the point, they continue, it would be a shame to keep you from your duties.

Forgive them, but they couldn’t stay away. Sermons aren’t enough anymore, they had to visit you again. Your room is plain indeed. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t take something, though… Because could it be called breaking in if your door was unlocked? You take a deep breath to calm yourself, to keep from lashing out. This has to be some sort of bad joke. Nothing to get too worked up over. But then they describe the exact design of your bedsheets, how they purchased similar ones. Then they repeat, word for word, the list left on your desk. They talk of how they stuck their head in your closet and inhaled your scent.

Your insides have turned to ice. This is no man seeking guidance, this is a murderer returning to the scene of their crime. They are not sorry. They don’t seek god’s words, rather yours only. You cannot speak. Instead of admitting how much you’re shaking, you tell yourself you won’t humour them with the sound of your voice. It’s all they can have, right now.

A shadow is pressed against the glass. You can make out no features. They know you can’t tell, they say, voice closer than before. It’d cost you everything if you did. So let them tell you this: Your god is nothing compared to you. Thank you, they will be back.

As soon as they leave, you are nauseous. But they were right; You can’t tell anyone, absolutely no one, or you will be removed. The pentinent goes before all else. They could have told you they killed someone and where they hid the body. Still, you wouldn’t be able to take a single step. Never will you wish for excitement again. You do the only thing you know.

You pray.

You pray.

#so. what is this. #i don't really know either! but i haaaad to get this out there i had this idea on my mind for DAYS #im also sorry i havent been in a church in 4 years lmao #yandere

[snailsnfriends]

This is the third analysis and summary of Tommy’s prison stay with Dream

You can read through the first one here, and the second one here. Dialogue is color-coded: Tommy, Dream, Wilbur.

Stream: Dream Revives Tommy

The stream starts with Tommy in limbo. He asks if he’s dead, and is greeted by Wilbur. He and Wilbur interact with each other normally; nothing seems very different from how they’d interact while alive. Based on what we see and what we’re told, Tommy’s limbo is a whole lot of nothing. There is nothing but darkness, Wilbur, Schlatt, Mexican Dream, and himself. Objects do exist here (Wilbur complaining that he set up cards for six hours that morning), but we do not see them. Wilbur also seems to have knowledge about the universe, including when it ends. Eventually, we get this conversation (there is a lot of crosstalk here, so forgive the messiness of this):

“I’m really happy you’re here, man,” “Stop saying that to me, stop it,” … “You know why I’m glad Tommy? … Me and you were never good for that server… it all falls in our laps, the problems, right.” “When you talk like this, I do the thing where my voice gets shaky, when you talk like this.” … “... if it weren’t for me and you dying, the server would be in shambles. I know for a fact that if I come back… it’s definitely gonna just go to shit again. … I know what I’m like, that’s the issue.”

Wilbur then talks about creating a solitaire arena, and Tommy is on the verge of revival. Now that we have some hindsight vision, we can analyze this a little more properly. When this was first streamed, we had no idea what Wilbur’s limbo looked like or if he had one. Now we know that they were able to speak to each other despite being in separate limbos. The way Wilbur is speaking here plays into Tommy’s fears and challenges his beliefs. Tommy is upset by his death and Wilbur’s happiness over it. Something to note about Wilbur being happy about his own death here is that Tommy grieved over Wilbur for a long time, and arguably, was still grieving at this point. Seeing Wilbur be happy about it compared to his grief is, understandably, upsetting. He has a hard time staying calm while Wilbur talks about this. Tommy, as stated in the last two streams, believes that Dream is the reason why the server is in shambles, not him and Wilbur. The fact that Wilbur, someone Tommy trusts, is saying this, makes Tommy uncomfortable and upset. Not only that, but the fact that Wilbur doesn’t have faith in his goodness if he comes back makes Tommy more anxious. Again, this is somebody that Tommy trusts and cares about. Wilbur speaking like this is concerning, to say the least.

Now, Tommy is revived, and visibly shocked. He can’t get a single word out for a while. He describes his limbo as “void.” He tells Dream who was there, which piques Dream’s curiosity even more. Dream asks what it feels like, and Tommy struggles to give an answer. After more stuttering and pacing, Tommy says it felt like being ripped apart and put back together again, all stretched out, shredded. He asks Dream to pinch him, and once Dream does it, he screams in retaliation. Touch has now become another trigger of Tommy’s. Once Dream tells him that nothing has changed and everyone thinks he’s dead, he responds with this:

“I was dead. I was- you killed me!”

Note that Tommy did not mention this immediately after revival. This acceptance, or, at least, realization, came about when Dream told him that everyone believes that he’s dead. This only comes into perspective for Tommy when he thinks about others, not himself being able to move around with Dream again.

After being told that he was dead for some time, Tommy panics, saying he was gone for plenty of time. He asks for Tubbo first multiple times, then Phil, then Fundy, then Sam. It’s very easy to see that Tommy is having a panic attack. He trips and falls over his words, he is not calm, he paces around the cell, he asks for people he’s friends with to help ground him, his breathing is shaky. Tommy is not stable at all right now, yet Dream continues to ask him questions about the afterlife. Tommy tries to piece together what happened. He knows how he died, but struggles to tell Dream how much time has exactly gone by. As Tommy tries to think, Dream speaks to him, so we get:

“Shut up! Shut up! H- sorry. I’m sorry.”

Though this seems minor, it really isn’t Tommy is not one to apologize for something like this, and he has no reason to apologize to Dream here. Tommy apologizes for his emotions when he’s nervous and ranty, but only to people he likes. It is not normal for Tommy to be apologizing here. He is not stable and is incredibly overwhelmed.

Each time the guardians make a noise, Tommy jumps. He stares at the walls and objects in the prison for a while before moving around again. Tommy is not only having a panic attack, but he’s also experiencing sensory overload; he is taking in more information than his brain can process. This only makes his panic worse. Not only that, but Tommy was deprived of his other senses while in limbo. He has not seen light in a while, nor has he felt anything other than pain. This makes the sensory overload worse because he now has to go back to “normal.” He goes from nothing to absolutely everything at once.

This is when Dream calls himself a god over being able to kill and revive people whenever he wants. Tommy moves on from this quickly, though, to ask Dream questions, because he does not have the capacity to process it. Now, Tommy talks about Wilbur:

“Dream, I thought he was like my brother, alright? Even before, I wasn’t sure… as much as I hate him, he was one of my best friends, whether I like him or not. Dream, I’ve been there for so long now, I take every last ounce of doubt I had back. Do not bring back Wilbur. Ever. Promise me you’ll never do that.”

We did not see all of Tommy’s time spent in limbo. We have no idea what could’ve been said within that time. However, we do know that what Wilbur said scared Tommy to the point where he was willing to be friends with his abuser to keep Wilbur dead. Wilbur and Tommy were very close, so hearing this from Tommy is major. What Wilbur said earlier, as previously stated, played into Tommy’s fears and challenged his beliefs. Tommy is severely overwhelmed right now, so he may be exaggerating, but the point still stands: What Wilbur said to Tommy scared him so much that he did not want Wilbur back, despite their close relationship.

But, of course, because nothing is that easy, Dream says that it is out of Tommy’s control. Dream suggests that Tommy could go back and take notes, which Tommy refuses quickly. Tommy explains that what he went through is not something Dream could possibly comprehend. Dream admits that the revive book is memorized after Tommy asks him to burn it. Afterwards, we get this:

“We can study it! We can study it together! We can become immortal together by studying it!” “I want absolutely fucking nothing to do with you.”

Dream does not see Tommy as a human being. Dream has heard Tommy describe the pain and anguish he went through in the afterlife, but he doesn’t care. This is also evidence of Dream’s obsession with Tommy; his want to be immortal with Tommy being the reason why. His morbid curiosity is more important than Tommy’s autonomy. We get this right after:

“You owe me your life!”

Again, Dream believes that Tommy is just as obsessed as he is. He does not see Tommy as his own person. He does not understand why Tommy would be upset and ungrateful because he is excited and interested. He lacks any remorse for his actions, and believes that he should be praised. Tommy owes Dream nothing but the blame for his death. This abuse of power makes Tommy realize that he has to kill Dream. Dream accepts this, and Tommy prepares to kill him. As Tommy begins to hit Dream, he realizes that he will be left alone in the prison if he kills Dream. Sam would not visit, so there is truly no way out for Tommy. Here, Tommy notes that being completely isolated would be worse than being dead. After exile, Tommy fears being alone. He knows that at least when he’s dead he has people around him. If he kills Dream, he’ll have nothing.

“I could go and kill Tubbo and bring him back. I could, I could, you know, everyone is my puppet, and I can…” … “You didn’t believe me! I was proving a point!” “You killed me just to prove a point!”

Dream’s dehumanization of people is not limited to Tommy. Dream sees everyone as disposable and controllable. He literally calls everyone his puppet. He killed Tommy to prove a point, which is not something he had to do. Tommy was justifiably upset by this, but Dream disregards it. Dream victim blames Tommy outright here by saying that he absolutely had to be killed. Again, no one was pulling Dream’s leg here. There is not some otherworldly being causing Dream to do this. He beat Tommy to death because he wanted to. He didn’t have to do this. This was a conscious decision he made. He then gaslights Tommy, saying that it isn’t a big deal because he’s alive now, as if he wasn't dead literally twenty minutes before this. Despite Tommy calling Dream out on his behavior, Dream doesn’t care and says that once he gets out, he’ll use the book to his advantage. He’ll bring back Wilbur and have Wilbur help him escape. And so, we’re left with this:

“Promise me you won’t bring back Wilbur.” “I’m bringing back Wilbur.” “Fuck. Fuck.”

And the stream ends there. Within three streams, Tommy has died and been revived. Tommy originally entered the prison to gain closure. He wanted to close the book with Dream. He wanted to focus on his hotel. He wanted to heal. He wanted to move on.

But it’s never that easy, is it?

#dream smp #tommyinnit #dreamwastaken #dream smp prison arc #dream smp analysis #snailtrail.slimes #tw victim blaming #tw gaslighting

[thestalkerbunny]

What are your favorite twilight zone episodes?

Oh god you get me; you aBSOLUTELY get me. So fun fact about me, I LOVE the Twilight Zone. I doubt any series of horror has enthralled me in such a captivating way as the ‘Zone’ did as a kid. The Horror in that show is just so real and authentic because of the time period. So I”m gonna do you what I think is the personal best episodes for me-pictures included!

So let’s get to Stalky’s Top Ten ZONE EPISODES

10: The Masks

A dying wealthy man is down to his last few hours of life on the eve of Mardi Gras and his spoiled selfish heirs are there to watch him die and get what is theirs-with the catch, until midnight they must wear hideous masks that compliment their awful personalities. This one always stuck with me because The sheer anticipation of what will happen in the end and the fact that all their heirs are just so very unlikable, it’s very much like the movie ‘Knives Out’ but much more tame-nobody gets murdered, but just the ending thrilled me the first time I saw it

9: The Monsters are Due on Maple Street

A Street full of neighbors experiencing a black out turn on each other in violent mob mentality of the blame game. This is a CLASSIC, This is true pure and realistic horror because it really asks the question ‘how well do you know your neighbors and do you trust them’ it also was very much a product of it’s time in the era of the Cold War were even in your own neighborhood, even your neighbors could be a ‘communist’ in disguise. The Ending was a real rug jerker for me. For those of you who haven’t seen the ending-you gotta go watch it. Just less than 15 minutes of your time. Iconic. They did a remake of it once but it didn’t HIT the way it did the first time.

8. Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?

A Bus making a stop realizes that there is one extra person among them is not accounted for and they may not be of this world. Now THIS is the originally ‘Among Us’ There is one more person on the manifesto and we gotta find out who the imposter is. This one just felt so witty and just the energy of the Moustache guy really stole the show for me as well as the diner chef. The twist was GREAT and I still catch myself thinking about it sometimes when I’m in a ‘ZONE’ mood

7. The Midnight Sun

The Earth is slowly falling into the Sun. We watch as a woman falls apart as the whole world around her burns. Now being a southern girl with a house whose ac loves to just BITE it in the DEAD of summer I FEEL this episode with all my soul. If you’re ever the littlest bit chilly, you watch ‘Midnight Sun’ and you can FEEL yourself melting along with this poor suffering woman in this apartment complex. Just watching these poor people just lose their minds to the heat is so real because just slight temperature changes just make people irrational and insane.

6. I sing the Body Electric

Children get a New Grandma! A ROBOT GRANDMA! This one is such a heart warming episode and concept, like if you don’t like scary stuff but still wanna know the Twilight Zone, you watch ‘Body Electric’ It’s very much a ‘Mary Poppins’ sort of story and it’s sweet and the way it explains what happens to the Grandmother once her job is done should be applied to all robots concepts of the afterlife. Plus the store the family goes to in order to make their custom grandma is kinda spooky. Like build a bear. But for Grandmas.

5. Number 12 looks JUST like you

In  Future, You can be anyone you want to be, because the cosmetic surgery is Mandatory. One girl protests it. This one breaks my heart because for some people, this is reality, they’re pressured into changing even though they’re happy with their looks but society refuses to accept them. You know how in cartoons there’s the trope of the popular girls being surrounded by identical clones. That. It’s that. It’s often confused with another iconic episode that talks about how beauty is about perspective and what people will go thru to try and be the standard for society.

4. Night of the Living Doll

A little girl’s doll decides to teach an abusive Step Father a lesson. TALKY TINA WALKED. SHE FUCKING STRUTTED THAT RUNWAY MAMA. SO CHUCKY/TIFFANY/BRAHMNS/ANNABELLE COULD FUCKING RUN. She was the ORGINAL Doll that is up to NO GOOD. We are ROOTING for Talky Tina. She is a QUEEN. WE STAN A LEGEND. The Dad is such a douche bag I do not feel bad at ALL for what happens to him.

3. One for the Angels

A sidewalk sales man stalls for time to save another’s life from Death himself. This one is a sweet one, the salesman-Marky-is just so genuine and the ‘bumbling type that’s loved by kids’ and he’s a clever character, if you like the cheating of death story-you’ll love ‘One for the Angels’. And even if it ends a bit sad-it’s a happy kind of sad, a sad where you know that this is the good happy ending even if it’s a little bitter.

2. The Hunt.

An Old man and his Hound explore the trail to the afterlife. This one speaks to my backwoods southern heart-because there are dudes who are just that passionate and affectionate about their hounds. It also does the whole thing where the path to hell looks just as pretty as the one that lead to heaven. It feels like it’d be the kind of bluegrass song I’d hear about a guy narrowly missing ending up in Hell because he doesn’t want to be apart from his beloved dog.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtle

A Young man dies....and comes back to life? Again another southern themed episode that speaks to me, mainly because Wake Culture is a thing where you have to sit up with the body to make sure they’re REALLY dead. Just the whole set up to the ending really just fools you. It’s the kind of story I feel like I would set up. I think I HAVE set up that kind of story with ‘The Diver Boy’ Comic

1. The Obsolete Man

Nothing I can say can compare to the perfection and the dark statement that The Obsolete Man makes. Nothing hits home that hard in that way. A horrible future where people get to decide what is obsolete and once it’s obsolete, it must go away forever.

#TSB Ask #The Twilight Zone #Long #Long Post #Twilight Zone #Episodes #Anonymous

[adobe-outdesign]

The Big Grand TIOL Review/Critique

I’ve been covering my thoughts on this a bit during my liveblog, but I figured I should punch out a proper review.

No spoilers review: This one’s a bit tricky in terms of reviewing it. The reason for this is that, in a way, I feel like some its weaknesses are part of its design, so it’s not fair to critique them.

Basically, DCTL is the essential BATIM novel, in that it does exactly what you’d expect a BATIM novel to do. Don’t get me wrong, it was by no means paint-by-the-numbers, but you had all the BATIM staples in there. Game-canon characters, the machine itself, people getting turned into cartoons, the Ink Demon killing shit, ect ect.

TIOL is different because it’s basically an in-universe memoir written by Joey about his life and philosophy. So the thing is, when you boil this book down, it’s kind of almost not a BATIM book in a way. It features a game-canon character and dives deep into his backstory, but most of the book has little to do with the studio until like the last 4/5s or so.

So on the one hand, I feel like that’s a problem, and we needed more game-canon characters, more about the cartoons, ect. But then again... it wouldn’t make sense for Joey to spend his entire life rambling about the studio instead of talking about his early years at all, would it? So in a way I can’t really fault the book for it.

In terms of flaws, it honestly has less than DCTL--while DCTL had some major glaring problems, TIOL is fairly solid all around, but is less of a satisfying read due to its premise, making it hard to compare the two.

In terms of whether or not you’d enjoy the book, I guess it’s most important to know what you’re going to get out of it. If you’re like me and like extreme character studies and backstories, de-fictionalized in-universe media, and long philosophical talks, you’ll probably really enjoy it. If you don’t and want something more standard for BATIM, stick with DCTL.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, though I do like DCTL more at the end of the day. I’ll give this one a solid 6/10.

Spoilers below the cut:

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Okay, I lied. I’m not gonna include an ugly section this time, mostly because, as I said before, this book has less glaring issues than DCTL did. With that said:

The Good

If you like Joey, you will love this book. I’ve said before that Joey is the best character (strictly speaking) in BATIM because he by far has the most depth, showing a layered and interesting character. This book takes that and runs with it, giving a deep look into his psychology, philosophy, and overall explaining a lot about why he does what he does and his way of viewing the world. It’s legitimately well done and makes you look at his character in a new way, and as someone who loves character studies this whole thing was a real treat for me.

They do a very good job making this feel like an actual memoir. Nathan is editing and leaves footnotes, he wrote a foreword explaining this is a reprint, Joey blatantly lies a few times because that’s what he’d do, ect. 

Also, if you enjoy foreshadowing dialogue--which I do, very much--there is more than enough of that here.

This one might be cheating because it’s probably unintentional, but there is a ton of Joey being gay in this book, some of it really overt. I’m not going to go into it much here as Dreamfisher already summarized everything for me, but yeah, there is no way this man is straight.

Everyone who was OOC in DCTL seems to be better here. Sammy, while still an asshole, is neither as big of an asshole as he was in DCTL nor is he being racist. Bertrum is still affable towards Joey, but here it makes sense because they literally just met, and unlike in DCTL he even corrects him on his name.

Other characters get some screentime, and while brief, it’s nice to get some more characterization for them, especially because a few of them never showed up in DCTL. Jack Fain in particular gets some much-needed characterization and really shines here, as well as Nathan.

While it’s not overtly ha-ha funny, I did chuckle a few times. Most at Nathan’s notes, as half of them are just blatantly contradicting Joey’s lies.

We get a bit more info on Henry and Joey’s relationship, as well as how the cartoons were made.

The Bad

As mentioned above, there’s weirdly not a ton of BATIM content in this. Sure, it’s about Joey, but the bulk of the novel features book-canon characters only and is more focused on how he got where he ended up than stuff regarding the studio. It doesn’t really feel like a BATIM novel until about 4/5s of the way through. Like I said above though, I don’t know how much I can critique that, as it’s kind of inevitable with a memoir.

There is a lot of navel gazing in this. If you like philosophy you’ll enjoy it, but if you don’t it might get irritating, especially when it’s just Joey’s opinions over and over.

While we get more info about Joey and Henry and how they met, there’s not much info given on their relationship. Joey just talks about how much he totes didn’t need Henry while Nathan indicates that it was way more personal than that, but we never learn how personal. It makes sense as Joey’s the one writing this, but it still would’ve been nice to hear some more remarks from Nathan on the matter or something.

There’s like a 50 page or so detective mystery that I didn’t really care for. There was nothing really wrong with it, but it didn’t feel like it told us a ton about Joey, and there’s not a lot of emotional investment as we don’t know these people. Combine that with the mystery being unsolvable to the reader (because Joey leaves out crucial information until the reveal) and it just kind of felt like a pointless side detour, and like that time could’ve been spent on something more interesting. Most we get out of it is the origin of Bendy’s name.

There’s a weird inconsistency where Joey claims he made Bendy (not surprising), but he also goes over the moment when Bendy was made and it blatantly shows the two collabing, so at best he would’ve been Bendy’s co-creator. It’s just strange that he would describe the process like that instead of changing it to fit his lie. I think the implication is that the process itself is fake--that Henry had nailed Bendy’s design when he first showed it to Joey--but like I said, the scene contradicts Joey’s claims regardless.

There’s not really a... plot? Not surprising as it’s a memoir, but some memoirs do a good job of building a climax by showcasing an important moment in the person’s life. Here, because things are being told out of order, we never really get a climax, as there’s no action and Joey’s little emphianys are scattered throughout. There’s kind of just a lot of people standing around and talking and not much actual action going on.

I was kind of hoping this book would go into Joey’s black magic stuff. I need to make this clear: I don’t think BATIM should ever go into this too much, as it’s really just the macguffin that explains the plot, and it wouldn’t make sense for Joey to sit there talking about all the cool satanic bullshit he’s been doing lately anyway. However, Joey’s mentioned the “Gods” before, so I was kind of hoping for something about his thoughts about religion or something that would hint at the demonic stuff. He thinks about the afterlife a lot, but that’s about it.

Overall

Like I said, you have to know what you’re getting into when you pick up the book. If you read this and it sounds like something you’d enjoy, then grab it. If not, then don’t bother. For me, personally, I’m glad I read it, even if it wasn’t quite on the same level as something like DCTL.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #batim: illusion of living #the illusion of living #joey drew #liveblog #kind of #outdesign posts things #outdesign analyzes things #also I didn't include this one because it's more of an aesthetic thing but it is nicely printed and presented

[zet-sway]

Spiritual Shrios Summer - Release

This is a prompt fill for @rosenkow's Spiritual Shrios Summer! Prompts | release | oasis | moan | delirium | pray | sweat | whisper | afterlife | contaminated | skin | worship | incense | godless | petals | taste | nectar | caress | mirage | ripe | sundown | hallucinate | salt | intoxicated | soul | embrace | hunger | wet | adrenaline | breathe |

PROMPT WORD: RELEASE - | - WORDS: 2686

Rated: "E" for Extremely Spicy - not for children AO3 Link: "Singing Southward" Pairing: Thane / FemShep Summary: "But her blood is singing southward, and that's a good thing, right? A reassuring, human reminder that maybe she's still Shepard - a woman - not just a Cerberus machine."

Full disclosure, this prompt fought me and kicked my ass the whole way. I can't look at it anymore. I hope it's more enjoyable for people who haven't been looking at it for like two weeks lmao. Many thanks to Rosenkow for that excellent playlist that really inspired my Shrios muse.

The heavy thrum of battle is where she loses herself. Shepard would take sweat and the pounding pulse of combat any day over the silence between stars.

Swirling winds whip sand across her face and body. It crunches in the joints between her armor and she hates the sound but it's easy to ignore as she slams another heat sink into her shotgun and charges into the last remaining crawler. It's thrown by the impact, the momentum of her body splits the carapace against her armored fist. The smell of viscera in the air, the humming of biotic barriers. Her body sings. She feels untouchable. The keystone slams the ground again.

The ground beneath her feet rumbles and she hears an unholy sound. A thresher maw. Her battle-lust is broken instantly and she snaps to attention, every sense laser focused.

Her shotgun and fists will be little help to them now. She exchanges glances with Grunt and Thane, waving them toward cover while she hunkers down on point, grenade launcher at the ready. It's not the biggest thresher maw she's ever seen but their size isn't the only thing that makes them dangerous. Positioning is critical when fighting something that can burrow and spit. Her combat HUD tracks its movements through the ground and she directs their movements, their gunfire to its next point of exposure.

But there's a problem. Her visor's sensitive electronics were never meant to be used in a sandstorm.

The maw dives again and this time the data is wrong, pinging across the arena, indicating wildly different trajectories that conflict with the laws of physics. Not great, but there's nothing she can do about it now. Adapt, improvise.

She tears the headset from her face and makes her best approximation of where it's going to appear next, signaling the team. They open fire, it dives again. Then the rumbling stops. Her best is not enough. There's a split second of silence before the beast bursts forth not twelve feet away from her position. Dust and debris erupt in a disorienting cloud and she can tell by the shadow cast over her that she's in deep shit, struggling to find her footing on the fractured, quaking ground.

A scorching heat envelops her and her vision goes dark. There's a shout in her comm, a weight pressed upon her, and the grenade launcher is wrenched from her hands.

Then a burst, an explosion, a blinding flash of light. Acid sizzles against her barrier and it pops, the sound rattling her ears in the darkness.

The orange sun of Tuchanka blinks back into existence as the dust begins to settle.

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

Thane slumps into the stinking puddle of meat and organs, still clutching Shepard's grenade launcher. His scales are stinging and the pain is growing more intense by the second. Beside him, Shepard is calling in an evac while she rips at the panels of her hardsuit. Her under armor is a patchwork of holes beneath, and her skin is a frightening shade of red where the fabric is being eaten away. Thresher maw bile.

He's never actually seen a thresher maw before, much less fought one - he's more shaken than he would like to admit. Her voice is his anchor. By the time she's done shouting for Grunt to maintain a defensive position, she's torn the suit at the waist and stripped the top half from her body. She uses it to wipe the viscera from his head, chest, and hands before tending to herself.

Her ease of determination has him transfixed. He's trembling from their encounter, but Shepard- he's never seen her more focused. Brows knitted in concentration, voice firm, but calm. Her chest rises and falls with each measured breath. Wearing only her belt, legplates, and a black compression bra, she's slathering herself in medigei, a whirlwind of sand and dirt sticking to exposed burns across the hard expanse of her body.

Her skin is so vulnerable compare to his scales that she should be shrieking in pain. Instead, she seems completely unfazed. Adrenaline, perhaps. Or maybe she's every bit as otherworldly as he's coming to understand she is.

Their evac shuttle arrives and they pile on. Grunt is the first one to break the silence.

"Quick thinking back there, Krios."

Grunt looks at him with the same piercing gaze all krogan seem to have. Thane has always found them hard to read.

"Never thought I'd see a drell dive into the mouth of a thresher maw. You're tougher than you look."

He smiles, then. And Shepard smiles with him.

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

Doctor's orders: 24 hours rest.

Shepard's armor clatters to the cabin floor and she strides into the bathroom, trying not to itch the scabs tightening over her skin. The burns are superficial - irritating, but not serious. In the mirror, they look worse than they feel. The sting is enough to drown out the other weird pains that live inside her reconstructed body. Her ears hurt. Her tear ducts feel swollen and pressurized. Her fingers are sore. There's a constant ache in her sternum and a soft wooshing in her ear. It's from her synthetic heart, and the abundance of blood it requires. But it means she'll heal faster, too.

The water hisses out of the showerhead and she sets to work cleaning the caked on grit and viscera from her skin. When she's focused on herself like this, it's hard not to think about all of the ways her body has changed.

On the SR1, she'd been in shape, perhaps even proud of her body. She'd thought of herself as a well oiled machine. She watched her nutrition carefully, spent just as much time honing nerves as she did strength and endurance. Her body, a product of her own work and service.

What she sees now is not what she remembers.

Notably, she's about 70 pounds heavier, almost exclusively due to her implants and the additional muscle she's put on to carry them. Adapting to the added weight of cybernetics and artificial bones had been an uphill battle since she rolled off that Cerberus operating table. Even her breasts are one cup size larger, and that one change carries perhaps the most bitterness. Her body is no longer her creation.

She sees herself as though through a stranger's eyes - a construct. The Commander they wanted. Not the woman she remembers.

Her new body is all about performance, both in the public eye and on the battlefield. Miranda had already told her she should be grateful for her various "upgrades." Her titanium fingers that never tremble, her artificial eyes that can see colors and details normal human's can't. Heightened olfaction, improved hearing, even joints with a higher range of motion.

A superhuman.

No, she corrects herself, with no small amount of vitriol.

A supersoldier.

The trouble is, being a soldier is what she wants. Control over her body is as much a necessity as a beating heart, and she demands it of herself every way she knows how. The problem isn't the upgrades. It's the autonomy ripped from her hands as soon as she was too dead to spit in their faces.

But this is the hand she's dealt, so she works with it, even if learning how to use her own body is still a learning curve. Testing her limits, evaluating response times, and sometimes... trying out shitty supplementary tech that can't stand up to a little bad weather.

Outside the bathroom door, the remnants of her visor are crumbled together next to her terminal. Thane had crushed it underfoot when he dove between her and the thresher maw. That split second confusion in the field could have cost her life if he hadn't intervened. She hadn't expected a lone wolf assassin to mesh so well with the team.

She towels off and stuffs her armor back in its locker. The automatic cleaning cycle hums to life, and her thoughts whirl with it.

Thane's opened up a bit more since the night they spoke about Alchera. He has a surprising way of coloring the air with his words. And, perhaps most alarmingly, the more time she spends with him, the time she wants to spend with him. She tries to chalk it up to regular team synchronicity, but there are moments she catches herself wondering him on more than just a professional level. Tiny curiosities slither into her brain. Does he kiss like humans do? The very notion warms her blood.

How long has it been since she'd kissed someone? It feels like a lifetime.

And then - just one impulsive little thought, summoning the things she's not even dared herself to think. Does he fuck like humans do?

Almost timidly, she allows her imagination to wander.

Greeting the morning together in the shuttle bay, the harsh fluorescent lights casting dramatic shadows over his body as he bends through another impossible stretch. All that tension coiled within him, the hard planes of his torso, those absolutely delicious ass-kicking thighs...

For a moment, she feels as though he's close enough to share his heat. There's an old, familiar warmth in her blood - exquisite, tiny shivers flickering just beneath her skin - arousal.

Her eyes drift closed. She owes her XO a mission debrief, and she owes her pilot new destination coordinates. But her blood is singing southward, throbbing between her legs, and that's a good thing, right? A reassuring, human reminder that maybe she's still Shepard - a woman - not just a Cerberus machine.

Maybe those obligations can wait a little bit longer.

Scooting up her unmade bed to rest against the headboard, she tentatively rests a hand against her belly and traces a line from her navel to the juncture of her legs, almost as if she's afraid of what she'll find. Her flesh is reassuringly warm, and she passes over her center, teasing and smoothing back over blood-warmed skin, testing its sensitivity. At least here, her body feels like she remembers.

Thane's unfamiliarity excites her. She's never spared much thought for bunking with another species before, but he's more than handsome. Shepard wonders if drell are as introverted as Thane. Likely not, but his guardedness only intensifies her intrigue. The idea of touching him seems forbidden, like a closely guarded secret. She wants to run her tongue over the darkened skin below his lower lip, wants to trace the ridges down the back of his neck and feel the warmth of the flushed skin at his throat.

Her mind fumbles with the thought of him, unclothed and willing. He could be any number of iridescent shades of green under that tight leather getup - by the tantalizing gradient of color across the firm swatch of his exposed chest, he must be. Those dark stripes down his shoulders are trails she's hungry to travel, winding paths across the exotic unknowns of his body. Her fingers itch to follow them wherever they lead - with any luck, all the way down.

And down to what, exactly? For a moment, Shepard considers pulling up the extranet to satiate her curiosity and then decides against it. If he's not biologically equipped the way she hopes, better to find out later, when she's not vividly imagining the shape and color of his erection. Maybe green? But then, he hopefully isn't packing scales down there. No, more likely a familiar blush of color, like the frills of at his neck, or the inside of his mouth.

Her fingers brush carefully over her clit at the thought of his mouth, those gorgeous clit-sucking lips. An excited chill zips down her spine, settling - picturing him in this exact spot, head bowed reverently between her legs to worship her with his tongue. It's been so fucking long since someone ate her out.

The memory is old and faded - breaking fraternization rules with a youthful dark-haired recruit in the barracks. They hadn't even finished basic yet. Shepard had come harder than ever before in her life, only to later discover that recruit had told nearly everyone that they'd hated every second of it. She wouldn't have been upset if Cerberus took that memory from her.

But there's something about Thane. He's nothing if not a gentleman, she likes to think he'd be wickedly good at this. Warm, firm lips, an agile tongue... those fused fingers edging her on.

She uses her own to test that hypothesis, biting her lip at the familiar slick of arousal concentrated in her core.

There was a time when she'd rather be incinerated than suffer gentle lovemaking. She wanted it hard and fast, pleasure so blindingly hot she'd sneak out to the airlock for a cigarette in the afterglow. But her new body is a labyrinth of unknowns. Sex in this new skin, not knowing her limits, how much she can take. She wants to take her time.

Middle finger first, then following with another, she tests her reconstruction. Maybe she's just imagining it, but she feels a bit stiffer than she remembers.

But in the blurry comfort of her fantasy, Thane is a gentle lover. He's slow and patient, giving her ample time to acclimate both her body and her racing thoughts. Her fingers slip inside as far as they'll reach, leaving her palm to flex against her clit. She sighs, luxuriating in sensation.

It feels so good to be touched.

It's been years, in fact, and the roaring flame of her lust is surprising even to herself. To have him here, moving inside her, filling her with every stroke...

When her hand curls against her inner walls, her eyes roll back and an unholy sound leave her throat. Holy shit. Either this is the pleasure time forgot, or Cerberus spared no expense reconstructing her nerve endings. It wipes every other thought from her mind.

She's lost in the fantasy now. Hopelessly spellbound beneath the roll of her own hand - Thane's hips - languidly pushing the heights of her pleasure in body and mind until she's deliberately edging her orgasm because it seems a damn shame to end it so fast. Her head is swimming, discomfort collecting dust in the rational corners of her brain until her nerves are burning with adrenaline and wanting. Scattered thoughts come in incoherent bursts. All that matters now is the caldera of pleasure between her legs. Her mind. His body.

She can almost feel his voice. The words are lost but the sensations are loud and clear, encircling her, flowing through her, filling her. She wants to feel his desire, wants him to come undone inside her, calling her name, riding the high of his climax and all but demanding she come with him. In her mind, they gasp together, his arms tightening around her, his face buried in her neck, her walls clenching around him.

The electricity of release pulses through her nerves - organic, synthesized, and everything in between. For one sweet second, she's weightless. Then the spots are clearing from her vision and she's floating down from whatever far flung corner of the galaxy her soul's been launched to.

In the silence that follows, the gentle hum of the ship is the only sound.

"Fuck," she breathes out into the empty room. He's gone. The reverie slowly evaporates, vanishing into the metal bulkheads of the hull.

The familiar guilt of indulgence tugs at the edges of her fading euphoria. She hadn't banked on masturbating to her crew, but here she is.

It's just a daydream, no harm done.

But as she gets dressed, she asks herself why it's been so long since anyone's crept into her mind like Thane.

Shepard shakes her head, straightening her back. A little movement to clear the errant thoughts trashing her rationality. Her scabs itch. Her mouth is dry. There are more important things to be doing. Things that will quiet the tiny voice in her head that whispers 'no one wants your weird cybernetic body.'

At least she can still show herself a good time. Small victories are perhaps even sweeter during wartime. Maybe she feels just a little more human than she did an hour before.

#shrios #spiritualshriossummer #thane krios #fshrios #spiritual shrios summer #zet writes things #me in the background screaming like that video of the old man in the mountains with the cowboy hat #ITT: femshep gets herself off #aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[captain-apostrophe]

I saw that no one chose [2]Shakespeare for your prompt fics. I admit I have gone overboard (because I love Shakespeare), so you can do whatever you want. Choose one, pick whichever sparks joy or completely ignore this. Here goes

1. Richard ii - A III. 2 let us sit upon the ground (jgy having a breakdown before the Guanyin temple scene)

- A IV. 1 Alack, why am I sent for to a king, deposition scene (JC convinces WWX to surrender himself instead of WQ+WN and a trial at Jinlintai ensues)

- A V. 5 I have been studying how I may compare/This prison where I live unto the world (WWX in the burial mounds)

2. Jin Ling as Hamlet (because his uncle murdered his father, see)

-A III. 1 Good my lord,/How does your honor for this many a day? (...) Oh, woe is me,/T' have seen what I have seen, see what I see! (WWX as Yílíng Laozu tries to push LWJ away)

3. Much Ado About Nothing (JC/Beatrice + Huaisang/Benedick - A III. 2-3 either one of the trick scenes)

4. Romeo and Juliet A III. 2 Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,/Take him and cut him out in little stars,/And he will make the face of heaven so fine/That all the world will be in love with night/And pay no worship to the garish sun. (XY & XXC)

5. A Midsummer Night's Dream - based on this Sam Rockwell scene from the 1999 film https://youtu.be/1TiNAYpVVr4 (some kind of reincarnation au vibes, where XY and XXC are amateur actors, and playing the suicide scene knocks something loose in his head)

- A III. 2 “Puppet”? Why so?—Ay, that way goes the game. fight scene (the juniors idk who the smallest in height is, but Jin Ling does seem to have a similar fiery temper; a night-hunt gone wrong maybe because of some interfering spirits)

6. Titus Andronicus - A II. 4; A III. 1; A V. 3 An if your Highness knew my heart, you were.—/My lord the Emperor, resolve me this (XXC discovers SL's mutilated body before it's turned into a fierce corpse and he kinda snaps)

7. MacBeth - A III. 4 banquet scene (jgy sees the ghost of NMJ)

-A V. 1 away damned spot (LXC in seclusion)

8. The Taming of the Shrew (instead of throwing him in the Burial Mounds, WC takes WWX with him and psychologically torments him with the same tactics as Petruchio; plot-twist: instead of being tamed, WWX kills him, because I hate TTOTS)

9. Othello A III. 3 (Othello/NMJ; Desdemona/LXC ; Iago/JGY; Cassio/NZH)

- A V. 2 It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul. - Oh, the more angel she,/And you the blacker devil!(...) I have another weapon in this chamber, - Oh, Desdemona! Desdemona! dead! Oh! Oh! (...) Soft you, a word or two before you go.-I kissed thee ere I killed thee. No way but this,/Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. (to DESDEMONA) I kissed you before I killed you. Now, killing myself, I’m dying while I kiss you again. Kisses DESDEMONA, dies (established relationship; JC realizes what NHS did at Guanyin temple and all the scheming before and is driven to murder)

10. Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead "Two ELIZABETHANS passing the time in a place without any visible character.bThey are well dressed—hats, cloaks, sticks and all. Each of them has a large leather money bag. GUILDENSTERN’s bag is nearly empty. ROSENCRANTZ’s bag is nearly full. The reason being: they are betting on the toss of a coin. (...) It would have been nice to have unicorns."+" Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it? (...) Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, Where’s it going to end?" (JGY and XY in the afterlife, but they don't know it)

-"We could play at questions. (...) Yet he sent for us. And we did come." (JGY +NHS)

Now that's what I call a prompt! It was fun to have so many to choose from and to look at the different parallels you drew. I might be doing another, but this was the one that really caught my eye. Hope you like it!

(also on ao3 if you prefer to read there)

[gen; Lan Xichen; references to Macbeth; guilt and sleepwalking and blood]

- Spot -

In his sleep, Xichen walked.

There was nobody to see it, secluded as he was, and he himself was not aware. He only knew that he was tired every day, as tired as if he'd risen from his bed and paced back and forth for hours on end. The weariness felt fitting, though. He didn't deserve to sleep well.

He tried not to think about it. He spent a lot of his time now trying not to think about things; sometimes he succeeded.

Each night he went to bed at the prescribed time and lay staring into the darkness. Despite his weariness he always struggled to fall asleep - and the sleeplessness seemed to perpetuate itself. The longer he lay there, unsleeping, the less likely sleep became. Sometimes he didn't sleep until the room was turning grey with the approach of dawn, and sometimes he didn't sleep at all.

But when he did sleep there was no rest in it, and this was why: he would rise without waking and walk circles around the boundary of the home that had become a prison.

"Yet here," he mumbled, on one such night, words slurred and changing from dull to desperate and back again. "A spot!"

He wrung his hands together. He paced. If one were to look they might notice, as the months of his seclusion turned to years, the wearing of a path around the boundaries of the rooms: from door to bed, from bed to desk, from desk to door and around again. And again. And again.

"Hell is murky - out, damned spot! Who would have thought a man would have so much blood in him?"

He held up his hands as though to stare at them, though of course he saw nothing - or if he dreamed, perhaps in the dream he saw the stain of the guilt that lay upon them. Certainly the image of it haunted his waking hours. He was supposed to be spending this time in meditation, this seclusion, but each time he closed his eyes he saw his sworn-brother again and felt the hot spray of blood over his hands.

"No more of that," the sleepwalker told himself, soothing. "No more of - oh, but here's the smell of the blood, still! What perfume could sweeten this? Will these hands never be clean?"

His distressed cry rang out like a bird's call through the night. There was nobody to hear it. The elders of his sect slept easily with the weight of their decisions.

"Wash your hands," he said. His tone was gentle, as if he spoke to another, one he wished more kindness on than he would in waking choose to offer to himself. "Wash them and put on a clean robe. Look not so pale. He's buried! He cannot come out from his grave! Wash your hands."

There was no water in the wash-bowl but he knelt at it anyway and, as if enacting some elaborate mime, scrubbed at his hands. Come morning the skin would be red and raw - but there was nobody to notice how his hands troubled him now, and he did his best not to wonder why.

It didn't matter. What did he need his hands for? Let them ache. Let the skin crack and the joints swell. All his hands were good for any more were a weight when they sat folded in his lap, when he stared at nothing and feigned serenity.

"To bed now," he told himself then, rising with freshly-aching hands and eyes still unseeing. "Come, come, come - what's done cannot be undone. Dawn approaches. To bed."

And on the next night, and the one that followed, and on and on, he would rise to repeat the performance: pacing, scrubbing, muttering. Murmuring in distress but providing, too, the consolation that there was nobody else to offer.

Perhaps one day he would believe that he deserved forgiveness.

#prompt fill #fic-iversary prompts #the untamed #fanfic #lan xichen #as lady macbeth #cap' writes

[haziebat]

Moving Mountains | Ch. 1 | Skyrim x Fem!Reader

[Interactive | Readers Vote]

Word count: 2,700

Content Warning: Depictions of violence

───── ⋆⋅✶⋅⋆ ─────

You find yourself in the courtyard of a palace made of smooth gray stone. Its spires graze the twinkling stars emerging in the green-tinted sky. To either side of you are aged trees. Their gnarled, leafless branches reach toward the twilit heavens. Their roots dig into lush grass that creeps into the stonework of the walkway.

You can't place the scene, but it's stained with an uneasy familiarity. Your feet recognize the stairs beneath them as you begin your climb to the palace doors. They are a stately pair - tall, with ornate filigree designs, standing in proud opposition to each other.

You reach out and take hold of a sturdy handle. It's cold to the touch - a sensation so vivid it could burn your palm.

With an uneven breath, you pull. 

───── ⋆⋅✶⋅⋆ ─────

White light sears your bleary eyes.

Groaning, you pinch them shut. The glow taunts you through your eyelids. It flickers in spots, giving you the image of sunspots shining through a verdant canopy. Leaves dance in a cool breeze. Goosebumps prickle your bare skin.

Your head aches as you're jostled. A throbbing pain resonates through your muscles. Wheels click on a cobblestone road. You're certain you're on a carriage, and almost as certain that one ran you over.

This isn't right.

You force your eyes open.

They're flooded with harsh morning sun. 

Blinking away the discomfort, you begin to take in your surroundings.

You are on a cart, just as you suspected, surrounded by unfamiliar faces. Behind them are towering evergreens. Birds sing among the needles. A light frost clings to the branches. Stray snowflakes meander through the air. On the road before you are more carriages with strangers clad in identical armor sitting in the backs. Carts slip off around the bend toward a destination unknown.

Unknown.

There are a lot of unknowns right now.

How you got here, for example.

You go to search the dustiest corners of your memory just to find that there are no corners to search. No dust has settled because there's nothing for it to cling to. Every stretch of your mind comes up blank. Where you were before and where you're headed... Nothing.

All that's left are the clouded memories of a dream.

Your stomach twists into a knot.

You need to focus on the things you know - on certainties.

First order of business: do you know your name?

(Y,,,,N)?

(Y/N)?

Sure.

Sounds good enough.

You're more confident about that than anything else right now.

Your name is (Y/N) and you're somewhere you don't know, on a carriage headed somewhere you don't know, surrounded by people you also don't know. The strangers share a grim expression that only makes your sinking feeling grow deeper.

You move to rub your temples and massage away the headache and racing thoughts.

Your hand is caught.

Your heart goes still.

You look down to find your wrists bound with an intricately wrapped leather strip. It digs into your flesh with each tug against it.

No.

No, no, no.

This isn't happening.

Panic threatens to seize you. It festers in your gut. Your breathing is uneven.

You look to the man across from you. He looks to be in his late twenties, with wavy blond locks falling to a square, bearded jaw. His eyes are round and prominent, a striking blue and steadfast. He's clad in armor made of supple brown leather with a muted blue sash displaying the emblem of a bear, same as most of the others.

"Where are we?" You croak out. Your throat is dry, but your voice is familiar. It's a small shred of comfort.

"You're in Skyrim, lass." He replies. He bears an accent that marks him as a Nord - a term you recognize.

"Skyrim." You repeat. Another word you know.

You're relieved you still seem to hold some functional knowledge of the world. You're in Skyrim, the snowy, northernmost province of Tamriel. It's a land of harsh frost and cruel beasts, with hardy people and hearty mead. These are all facts - little things that make such a surreal moment feel more concrete. And yet none of these details paint you a portrait of yourself. Frustration seeps in alongside anxiety.

"You were wandering near the border." The stranger explains. "Lost, confused, naked... Seems like you have a few more of your faculties back now, eh?"

You glance down at yourself. Whoever captured you had the decency to dress you, if that's what you want to call it. You're clad in rough burlap rags with dirt clinging to the fraying fibers.

"Well, I'm clothed. That's something." You reply.

"Good. Still got your sense of humor. You're going to need that." The man says.

His words unsettle you.

"How'd I wind up a captive?" You ask, tugging again at your binds. You're aware of the futility but there's little else for you to do.

"You got tangled up in the fight when the Imperials ambushed us. Couldn't get out a damn sentence but you took down two men. Can't say I've ever seen anything like it." The Nord's voice holds a hint of humor. "You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Same as that thief over there."

"Damn you Stormcloaks." The thief spits. Your attention is drawn to him. He has a lean frame and gaunt face with grime coating his skin. Greasy brown hair frames wild eyes better suited for a caged animal. "Everything was fine until you came along. Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could have stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell."

"Stormcloaks?" You inquire. It's the one word that escapes your recognition

"You really are in a state, aren't you?" The blond man replies with a crinkle of his brow. "I was sure everyone had gotten wind of our rebellion."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna be the best gauge of that one." You say with a trace of a smirk.

"Shut up back there!" The driver barks.

A tense silence settles over the cart.

It's broken by the thief, who asks in a hushed tone, "What's wrong with him, huh?"

You follow his eyes to the man in question. They're locked on the Nord to your right. He's an imposing man with a mane of wild, deep blond hair pulled back from his face. It's adorned with braids, fastened with carved beads and leather knots. He has steely eyes beneath a stern brow. His nose is prominent and slightly crooked, giving the impression he's had it broken a time or two before. He wears fine robes adorned with chainmail - attire that indicates both his wealth and his status as a warrior. A gag is tied around his mouth.

"Watch your tongue." The Nord in front of you commands. "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King."

"Ulfric? The Jarl of Windhelm?" The Thief nearly chokes on the words. "You're the leader of the rebellion... If they've captured you... Oh, Gods... Where are they taking us?"

"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits."

Sovngarde, a Nord's afterlife,

If what he says is true - if you're headed to your death - where is your soul headed? Will you be granted an afterlife, or be met with an abrupt nothingness? Or will your lost and confused spirit be bound to mundus, cursed to wander for an eternity?

Plenty of options, and very few appealing ones.

"No! This can't be happening! This isn't happening!" The thief's voice wavers. His eyes dart about the carriage, cycling restlessly from face to face. He seems to be looking for an out you could assure him doesn't exist. His desperation is palpable.

Your heart is fluttering. Your palms begin to sweat. You don't know what life you led until this point but you can't begin to piece together how it led you here. Is this what you deserve?

It's impossible to say where you've been, or where you're headed. You can't even tell how long you've been in Tamriel. Your exact age is as murky as everything else. You can ascertain "adult" but how much of an adult is unclear. You feel as if you've been around for a while though the more you settle into your skin you feel that your body is still comparatively young.

You bring your eyes up along your bare arms and take in the pale scars dotting them.

Your skin tells stories with ghosts of burns, cuts and gashes. Though the details are lost you can make out the meat of them: no matter how long your body has been around, it has been through a lot. You seem to have a knack for getting into trouble, or a history of dangerous work.

The Nord in front of you speaks up, pulling you from your thoughts. 

"Hey... What village are you from, horse thief?"

"Why do you care?" The thief snaps.

"A Nord's last thoughts should be of home."

The thief hesitates. His face contorts before softening, with thin lips curled into a frown. "Rorikstead... I'm... I'm from Rorikstead..."

"What about you?" The blond man asks.

You pause to think on the question.

Yet you keep coming up blank.

You were found wandering at the border? Which one? Southern makes the most sense - this area doesn't share the lush, mountainous terrain of High Rock. It closer resembles the Jerall mountains, with steep hills and muted greens. You could be from Cyrodiil, but something in your bones insists this answer is unsatisfactory.

Sitting on the question too long you stammer out, "I uh... I have no fucking clue."

He laughs - a genuine chuckle with a glimmering smile. "Good an answer as any. I suppose it won't make much of a difference soon."

The carriage rounds a corner and a small village comes into view. It's surrounded by a sturdy stone wall with a broad wooden gate shielding the houses from the road. A figure on the covered walkway above calls out to the man leading the caravan, "General Tullius, Sir! The headsman is waiting!"

"Good." A gruff voice barks. "Let's get this over with."

"Shor, Mara, Dibella, Kynareth, Akatosh... Divines, please help me!" The thief pleads with closed eyes, head slumped and shoulders shuddering.

Entering the gates, you pass the man who led the string of carriages. He seems to be in his fifties, with cropped gray hair, though his toned arms tell you he's still in good shape. His face is austere with near-black eyes boring holes into the Altmer across from him. The golden skinned elves wear dark robes and gold armor.

"Look at him," the Blond man growls, "General Tullius, the Military Governor. And it looks like the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves."

"Thalmor." You barely recognize the word on your tongue. You're unsure what it means. The most closely related term you can conjure is "laughing stock".

"What's their deal?" You ask.

His brow furrows. "I don't know what happened to you but whatever it was, it really did a number on you, eh lass? The Thalmor are with the Aldmeri Dominion, here to 'unify Tamriel'. Serves better to rip her apart."

Okay that sounds like... New information.

You close your eyes and take a deep, steady breath.

This, you have decided, is all bullshit.

You struggle to keep your attention outwards, away from these prying thoughts.

"This is Helgen," The Nord continues. His expression grows heavier with each turn of the wheels. "I used to be sweet on a girl from here... Wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in."

Juniper berries. Piney, with a hint of a peppery bite. 

This trivia is useless.

Above you looms a tower. A flag at its top proudly flies the symbol of the Empire - that dragon that rings so familiar. You know it well, but you do not feel loyalty. It is simply an icon of a frail nation.

"Funny... When I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe." The Nord sighs.

"Who are they, daddy? Where are they going?" A young boy chirps above the murmur of the townsfolk. The people have gathered in the streets and on their porches to watch.

"You need to go inside the house, little cub." His father replies.

"Why? I want to watch the soldiers."

"Inside the house. Now."

"Yes, Papa."

You wonder for a moment - who were your parents? Are they worth remembering? You wait for a melancholy pang and are met with apathy. This, somehow, feels worse. You try and focus on the present - it's the most you have right now.

The carriage draws to a halt in the town square, in the shadows of the ominous stone towers. In the clearing the headsman stands by his block. His axe gleams in the sunlight, drawing your eye back no matter how you try and avoid it. Beside him is a priestess wearing golden robes and a solemn face. She's likely a follower of Arkay, here to give you a proper sendoff to the grave.

You're not sure how much stock you put in the Divines.

At the moment, you'd say not much.

"Why are we stopping?" Beads of sweat begin to trickle down the thief's forehead, leaving trails of fair skin behind. It reveals his flushed cheeks and betrays his terror even further.

"Why do you think? End of the line." The blond man gets to his feet. He's tall with broad shoulders - the quintessential Nord. Looking past him at the others, you'd say he's right at home in this crowd. It seems to be a requirement for a position as a Stormcloak. How the Imperials threw you in among them is beyond you. You're pretty sure you put even less stock in the Legion than the Gods.

You get to your feet on rickety legs and follow the men off the cart. On the ground, you can hardly see past the group.

In the gaps between heads and shoulders you see what looks to be an Imperial Captain in heavy steel armor standing beside a leather clad soldier with auburn hair and an uncertain look. In his hand is a thick tome.

"Step towards the block when we call your name, one at a time." The Captain's voice holds no remorse. If you aren't mistaken, it seems to be dripping pride. Your lip curls at the sound.

"Empire loves their damn lists." The blond man says in a hushed tone.

The Imperial soldier begins to read from the pages in front of him. "Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm."

Ulfric remains silent as he joins the crowd congregating by the headsman's block. He walks with his head held high. He must know he'll die a martyr. If he's a true leader, his fight should last long after him, whether or not it's in the right.

"Ralof of Riverwood." The soldier reads.

The blond man gives you a nod and heads towards his fate. A strange loneliness sets in. For the first time since waking you don't have a companion - or at the very least a voice other than yours to drown out your thoughts. To talk over the terror creeping up your spine.

"Lokir of Rorikstead."

The thief's eyes are that of a cornered beast. Frenzied, he looks to the block, then back to the Captain. "I'm not a rebel! You can't do this!"

Before she can reply, he runs. His legs carry him toward the gate at an uneven pace. They look as if they'll give out beneath him. "You're not gonna kill me!"

"Halt!" The Captain's shout echoes off the buildings surrounding you. Her demand falls on deaf ears. "Archers!"

There is the pluck of bowstrings in near-unison. Lokir cries out as arrows bury themselves in his back. He collapses to the ground, blood running down his side and staining his burlap rags. He wails one final time as his arms give out beneath him.

He falls limp on the cobblestone.

"Anyone else feel like running?" The Captain asks.

She's met with silence.

The auburn haired soldier's eyes wander to the book, then back to you. "Who are you?"

───── ⋆⋅✶⋅⋆ ─────

╭━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━✶━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━╮

Q U E S T I O N S

╰━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━✶━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━╯

1.) What race are you?

✶ Argonian

✶ Breton

✶ Dark Elf

✶ High Elf

✶ Imperial

✶ Khajiit

✶ Nord

✶ Orc

✶ Redguard

✶ Wood Elf

2.) Any last words when you're at the headsman's block?

✶ "I'm not a rebel!"

✶ "Your grip on that axe is sloppy. You sure you've done this before?"

✶ "Fuck you."

✶ Nothing. I'm going out with whatever dignity I have.

✶ Nothing. But I spit on the executioner.

POLL CLOSES: 01/31/2021

#fic: moving mountains #skyrim #skyrim x reader #the elder scrolls #tesv #interactive story #interactive x reader #reader insert #x reader