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#which is a weird moral to the story but

ofbreathandflame · 6 months

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(heavy discussions on sa - this is actually an older post that i made like months ago, and was actually the first draft of the amarantha taboo post, so some things sound similar! just a heads up!)

you know i actually think there is a wider discussion to be had about rhysand's sexual assault - or sexual assault and trauma as it functions in the wider narrative. ive always felt that bc the story puts rhysand in this vulnerable position (i.e. a victim of sexual violence) the story always needs to like...make up for it, if that makes sense?

what i mean is: the story creates this dynamic where rhysand is a victim; he has no power, control, or say - but it also has a very hard time reconciling to the fact that he was placed in this position. and so there's these weird placeholding pieces of information that often addle or confuse the narrative. and i talked about this before with rhysand's framing of his 'service to amarantha.' i also contributes to the moments of hyperviolence with rhys in the books, as if he constantly has to make up for the fact he was placed into these vulnerable positions in the first, implicitly.

the first book - and other books thereafter - imply that rhysand's court is specificially shielded from amarantha because he aligns himself (action word). rhysand's decision is framed as a 'sacrifice' which implies a choice (that he didn't really have). it always implies that rhysand is the one consciously 'one-upping' amarantha by 'agreeing' to be her 'right hand man' again - notice how despite the fact amarantha is characterized as a sexual deviant, she's rarely the focus. its what rhys 'gave' and not what 'amarantha did.'

and this is fine if this is the way rhysand chooses to see what happened to him - bc then that's a trauma response. he can't acknowledge it so its better for him to rationalize it - that would have been great writing.

but thats not how his sexual assault and role utm is discussed.

other characters view rhys sexual assault as a statement of heroism (which ew) and not a just a statement of amarantha's capacity for sexual violence. tarquin literally says something along those lines. which again is implying that RHYS HAD A CHOICE. we can't frame this as heroism. he was raped, he did not sacrifice something...it was taken.

in the initial scenario - where we remove the idea of autonomy (e.g. the idea that rhys purposely aligns himself with amarantha) he's a victim. but then - so is tamlin, tarquin, beron, kallias, and helion. in short - rhys being taken advantage of says nothing about him. it's a statement on amarantha's cruelty. but the story isn't satisfied with this bc...how would he be any different than tamlin whose vilified for being directly affected by his trauma, who 'sat on his ass for fifty years' as the book says.

its the tragedy of how male sexual assault is rationalized in this series. the story literally purposely sets up a mirror position where rhys and tamlin are consistently compared for how they work through some of the craziest trauma ever known to man. the level of trauma the story is asking these characters to 'overcome' is actually quite insane.

so the story ups the ante, it doesn't want rhys to be 'just a victim,' it wants him to be the MAN TM. bc tamlin and tarquin are 'just victims' so ewww. like even lucien is given another horribly written experience with sexual assault (which it literally has to bend the worldbuilding to accomplish) and then kind of position his complaints abt ianthe as whiny. or how tarquin's trauma is...not 'dark' enough for feyre. these men are often characterized as cowardly or not enough in relation to rhys. helion, thesan, tarquin, and tamlin are all consistently characterized as 'cowards' with little to no initiative or backbone.

so the story does that thing where it provides impossible situations: rhysand is the most powerful being in the world, he's so powerful that even without his 'real' power, he's still light years more powerful than the others when they're powers are ripped away. he can read minds, and has two wraiths that can literally walk through the walls and spy. he's often sent on missions on behalf of amarantha and can waltz in and out of the spring court without any issues (ie. its easy for him to convince amarantha he needs to go to the spring court multiple times. and then when he works for amarantha - he's the mastermind, not her. he's playing her all along and blah blah blah). but then it doesn't know how to write this dynamic with rhys and amarantha. and then it depowers him, while shaming the other men in the series for not doing 'enough' even when the most op character with all of those advantages isn't even able to over power her.

there's little introspection into amarantha as a character and as a villain -- and you'll notice she's hardly ever mentioned after the first book...despite the fact that she was literally the high queen of prythian and was the governing oppressive force for a half-century. as said in this post - the story isn't actually concerned about making a point about male sexual asault.

and that's why i talked about why that amarantha taboo is...kind of important to how the story chooses to conceptualize sexual violence/assault. the choice to create amarantha (and ianthe and maeve too) as these caricatures of sexuality - which is pretty much the case of all of sjm's villains.

the story doesn't want to fully commit to a tactical scenario, because it doesn't believe that he's a victim in that capacity - or at least that the victimhood is valid. bc its spends so much time invalidating the male trauma around rhys, the only way to make a distinction between rhys and the others to have rhys "orchestrate" his own assault to save everyone.

#anti sjm #anti rhysand #anti feyre #anti sjm: rhysand #anti feysand #anti sjm: amarantha #anti acomaf #this was actually something ive thought about for while #i can never quite put into words the weirdness in narrative framing around #amarantha #in which the story can never just allow rhys to actually be a victim without having to moralize his actions #believe or not #it actually would be much more compelling if rhysand's behavior were framed #as trauma responses. he doesn't have to be moralized #he just has to make sense in the given frameworks of the story #or the story could just drop the morals an just allow these characters to be shitty in a grimdark way

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pandora15 · 6 months

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I wonder if I'm getting a bit sick of star wars

like there are the things that make me happy about it, especially obi-wan and the prequels and tcw but also like

I'm frustrated about what they did with ahsoka, and then I'm also just not finding fic that I can vibe with and the fandom just feels so…empty?

which is wild because it's definitely got bigger since I joined, but idk, it just feels like in the obi-wan fandom circles, it just feels like it's shrinking. and I think part of it is everyone being really busy with irl things (myself included) and then whatever is left in the sw fandom in general is just stuff i don't vibe with

but then I keep seeing it over and over and over again so now it's just irritating to me

like. yeah there are ships/tropes that I don't vibe with at all and I usually try to steer clear of them when looking for fic to read, but these days it feels like that's all I can find. so now I'm frustrated and tired and not really getting the fic fix that I want

and normally my solution to this is to just write what I want to read, but I don't have the mental space to do it, so I'm just. stuck.

a part of me feels bad to complain about this, but idk I'm gonna put it out there anyways. it's just like the fandom feels completely different than it did when I first joined, or even like 2-3 years ago, and I'm not sure if I'm happy about it.

#i think a lot of this also has to do with being firmly in the post kenobi show era and trying to figure out how to move on from that #like i don't feel much excitement for any upcoming sw content now #that might change depending on what they announce yet but. idk the ahsoka series really put me off #like idk if i'll continue watching mandoverse stuff. kinda feel like i'm done with that stuff #i'll definitely watch andor s2 and i'll definitely play the third jedi game #and then when it comes to fic i think it'll help once i have the brainspace to write #but i feel like i'm right about finding fic to read #which to be clear is no one's fault exactly #people are gonna write what they wanna write and they SHOULD #but as a reader i'm also gonna read what i feel would appeal to me most #and right now it's very difficult to find anything that does #even when it doesn't feel like i have a lot of things that i'm looking for maybe i am? without realizing it at least #idk #anyways #i have a weird relationship with sw. moral of the story #pandora's ramblings

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thedreadvampy · 5 months

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so me and Sam FINALLY watched the last season of Capaldi's Who

and tell me how, after literally over a decade and for perhaps the first time in his fucking career, Steven Moffat wrote a not just tolerable but really actually good two-parter and fully stuck the landing. like the editing and pacing were still a bit off but the storyline was original, fun, interesting and emotionally invested, and most importantly, rather than ending on a damp fart or the most furious autofellatio in history, the final part didn't fumble it and ended in a way that felt emotionally satisfying and like it made sense for the characters. like the last time he successfully wrapped up a multiparter in a way that didn't feel cheap and hollowly disappointing to me was literally The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, and a) that was in 2005 and b) tbh The Doctor Dances is about a tenth as compelling and memorable as The Empty Child.

so after 12 years of either hackery or great ideas that fall apart in the second act, Steven Moffat writes what I would genuinely consider to be a memorable Good Doctor Who serial. it ends with bittersweet pathos, a solid closer for all the main characters, and sends Moffat's showrunning career out on a genuine high despite failing ratings and budget cuts (and the fact Doctor Who hasn't been consistently good since about 2009). good job Steve. with grudging respect I admit you pulled it out of the bag on this one.

wait what's this there's one more episode left? and it stars Mark Gatiss? and you literally spend the whole episode inexplicably just shitting all over the legacy of Doctor Who by inventing a version of the First Doctor that bears literally no resemblance to the character that William Hartnell actually played, just so you can spend the whole episode saying misogynistic things to run yourself off to how much more Totally Feminist your version was than the version you made up in your head of what Doctor Who was like in the 60s? and it added literally nothing to the season except to take all the wind out of the sails of the actually good finale you already wrote?

even when he writes a good episode this fucker still finds ways to disappoint me.

#red said #as I remembered it is by a LONG shot the best that Doctor Who has been under Moffat and I do think giving Capaldi more creative control #helped a lot. cause he's a massive nerd and also he approximately knows how to construct a story.#bill is the first female companion Moffat has ever written with an actual fucking personality #(even if being mean that personality is maybe kind of just what you'd get if you put rose Martha and Donna in a blender)#(at least she's not a blank slate with the words SASSY. SEXY. written on it)#matt Lucas is genuinely surprising bc despite hating the man it's kind of impossible to not like Nardole by the end??#michelle gomez finally gets some room to get her Anthony Ainley on and be the Master PROPERLY #i was hooting and clapping my hands at the John Sim Master's dumb disguise #like the cast is GREAT #(and while he still can't shut the fuck up about her at least Moffat isn't shoving River fucking Song down my throat 24/7)#buuuuuuuut uhhhh the politics are. incoherent and the vibes are rancid in a lot of the episode plots.#they clearly WANT to do Social Commentary but weirdly keep bringing up colonialism and capitalism and then taking the side of the baddies?#how are you doing to do a piece about the British Empire colonising Mars with a posh villain and a whole comparison to the British Raj #then come down on the side of the British state? same with the ninth legion piece? and the zombie spacesuit one is fun #but it wraps up with 'and then they complained to upper management and capitalism ended forever the end'#uhhhhh in the one with the microbot colony again we conclude the Morally Correct Answer is colonialism #don't get me started on the monks plot which is a) literally just ripping off the Year That Never Was but without the emotional impact #but also b) has some really weird and genuinely fucked up ideas about both geopolitics and uhhhh consent????#so yeah the philosophical core is either incoherent or Fucking Horrendous in almost every episode #it's frequently derivative but tbh that's often to its benefit bc it vibes like trying to figure out what actually makes episodes memorable #and the budget is clearly cut to the bone bc the visual effects look worse than 2005 and the post edits are really weird and janky #like the pacing and ordering is weirdly off and a lot of the shot to shot transitions are awkward or confusing.#plus the sound design in the first few eps is. unhinged. it sounds like offbrand versions of standard stings it's all just Slightly Wrong #but for real i liked it more than I've liked any other season of Moffat Who. it's messy incoherent and often politically INFURIATING #but it has some actual heart and energy. and it feels like doctor who. and i would say moffat is spending like 10% as much time #wanking over his own past triumphs (and Alex Kingston)#and a lot more time like. trying to write something which works. he's not like successful 100% of the time. or even 50%.#but there's a lot more warmth and creativity. mackie capaldi and lucas have actual chemistry as a core cast #and i think it helps that everyone in the core cast is SO PSYCHED TO BE THERE. like it just wasn't a slog like all Moffat's other seasons.

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illeaadante · 8 months

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Concept: the Alien Legendarium

We (the people in the Humans are Weird fandom) have touched on humans love of story and storytelling despite medium, but what I don't think we've really gone into is just how much.

And especially stories from other cultures. Every kid I knew growing up went through a(t least) a phase of obsession over different mythologies. I myself have a deep love of all fairytales.

So, maybe Aliens would be surprised at how much we love stories and how many stories we tell and retell, especially to them. What if other alien cultures didn't share their stories? Their histories, sure, that's necessary for politics and stuff, but what if they never thought to be interested in each other's myths or religions.

We all know that would never fly with humans. The first time someone caught a whiff of a culture's founding myth or creation story there would be at least a small, dedicated group of humans ready to ferret out every version they could get their little raccoon hands on.

Even more interesting if an alien culture doesn't seem to have any myths, legends, or urban legends. I honestly can't imagine a society without things like local ghost stories or religious conspiracy theories, so seeing one, or at least one that appears to not have any of those things, would be fascinating.

Of course, my definition of legend is very broad, so, for instance, it would be incredibly funny for an alien to come up against some of the common social myths. (The first alien to take an exam with a bunch of humans and hear "Y'know that if someone dies during an exam, everyone else gets an A. So, who's takin' one for the team?" definitely almost has a heart attack.) And, and! the aliens know that plenty of humans are alien/monster fuckers, but they're absolutely flabbergasted at the idea that the humans want to fuck their monsters??? Like, the ones from their mythologies??? How did you even know what a Xin'krakx is much less what it looks like?

I'm digressing a bit. Think of how strange humans would seem though, if aliens suddenly had to figure out how to deal with converts to their religions? They go out to see a movie and it's a human retelling of their creation myth that most of them barely know, so how did the human know about it?

And then! The aliens start hearing their own stories, songs written about their folk heroes and legendary kings, seeing artwork and religious writings hundreds of light years away from their home. How did it get there? The humans liked it. Your culture's creation myth is now written down in this beautifully illuminated and hand bound leather tome in both a human language and your native language.

Imagine the confusion.

Imagine the culture clash.

Imagine the space sjws who are convinced that making a short film based on a myth from an alien culture is appropriative, despite the people from the culture in question having no problem with it other than being perplexed at why the humans care about heroes that aren't human or otherwise from earth and from their own stories.

And of course, humans being humans, we would do what we do and collect all of these myths in one place. I can imagine that each alien culture would have at least one volume of legends translated into a human language each that are constantly getting new additions when the researchers resurface. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther multilingual folktale database expands rapidly as well as any cryptid compendiums. Children start going through Andromeda-6 and Corscal-14 mythology phases as well as greek or egyptian or japanese or aztec.

And we do what we also do, and we mix up those stories. We retell them and mash them together regardless of cultural origin. We tell them and retell them and many of us dedicate our lives to studying and learning about them and what they can tell us about the perceptions of the early culture and their values and experiences.

Idk, I just think it'd be interesting.

#humans are weird #humans being humans #I'm talking about those (primarily) white people who think that only people from a culture should be able to tell those stories #which is incredibly funny to me #especially if it's something like a morality fable #sorry. you can't write about the Jersey Devil because you aren't from New Jersey #I just imagine what it would feel like if some alien came down from space and started gushing about. like. Arthurian legends

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temunitu · 1 year

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Apparently the 80 Mona Lisa is in her 20 (college student) and 80 raph is a teen….haven’t see the 80 show yet but umm yikes

I rewatched it cuz I remember enjoying the episode.

starting out, Raphael is mostly bewildered and then angry with her since she’s kinda acting shady. later there’s compliments and some flirtatious comments. the episode leaves off (and trivia tells me) she was supposed to be a recurring character, but she never shows up again. (if she had been a recurring character and dated Raphael, that would be a Huge Yikes. glad they cut it)

1987 has a couple instances of this sort of thing. Leonardo also has a crush on an adult lady working for Shredder by the name of Lotus Blossom (although she doesn’t reciprocate, as far as i remember). then of course there’s Irma the simp who makes tons of comments about how it’s “romantic” the turtles save April all the time, and Irma is sorta vying for any man’s attention (not to mention an entire episode where 3 of the turtles fall for Irma???? geez, 80s).

it’s a product of its time, honestly. i don’t think the writers really thought about it, but i do get where you’re coming from.

#ask #anon #you’re still allowed to enjoy things that are outdated or have outdated ideas so long as you watch it with that understanding #like honestly? the writing in the episode was legitimately cute. i enjoyed it #i get why people liked it then and why there’s fan remakes of mona but as the same age as the turtles #the eighties just had… very different ideas about what was ok to portray (i.e. a teen and an adult having a romance)#you can see it a lot in the movies and other shows that came out #like… the movie clueless was fucking weird. the main gal ends up dating her step brother which is FUCKING WEIRD #anyway. excuse my tangent #moral of the story: consume media with your brain turned on

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kallowrites · 1 year

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Will this make sense without extra context? Probably not... but just know I have read many (very good) Micolash centric fanfics over the past while and I want to attempt one for myself SO bad, so this is a snippet of an idea where he's barely even present except for like one passing mention LMAO

(it is LONG so beware - 3775 words)

Mostly hunter-interacts-with-hunter content tbh:

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The cacophonous chants from above came to a sudden, horrific end with no forewarning. The hunter halted in her struggle against the shackles keeping her confined to the chair in this cell and listened for something, anything. The abrupt dead silence hung so heavy in the air, it threatened to choke her, had she not already been contending with a rapidly growing sensation of something that could only be described as existential dread.

A thousand eyes upon her, and yet nowhere near her all at once, for she knew their focus ought to be up above in the chapel. All of her instincts screaming and biting, gnashing their teeth in the back of her mind – Something had gone wrong. She had no way of knowing what exactly, for she didn’t even know the details of whatever this supposed ritual was, but she knew by the way her skin crawled that things had not turned out as what may have been intended. At the very least, it felt unnatural. She jerked her head around, struggling to see if the eyes she felt could be seen in the dark, perhaps incandescent in quality, but the only sources of light were the dimming torches nearby. In an hour or so, maybe less, she’d be in complete darkness. Forgotten, left to rot.

She was completely alone.

The same moment the silence swept through the room - perhaps even all of Yahar’Gul - was when something shifted in her chest, as if a part of her wanted to simply float away and out of this chair, weightless. But she resisted. Fear and paranoia overtook that urge and she began tugging erratically at the shackles, hoping and praying they magically come undone and allow her to escape this cursed fate she’d stumbled into. If her feet hadn’t also been strapped to the legs of the chair, then maybe she could have had enough leverage to be able to break free… Or at the very least, maneuver around the cell a little.

Hell, she couldn’t even reach the augur from this angle. She could feel it every time the muscles in her one arm tensed as she tugged, hidden under the flap of her outer coat and safe from view. If it had been in her hand, she’d be able to break loose with little issue, the strength of Ebrietas making quick work of simple earthly metals like this. After exhausting herself with her continuous failed escape attempts, she slumped back against the chair and stared up at the dark ceiling.

Some hunter she was. First getting taken off-guard and being essentially kidnapped, then being foolish enough to just let herself be placed here despite being vaguely aware of the dubious happenings here. She was no closer to her answers she sought, and perhaps was even further away from them than ever. And now… doomed to rot in a chair in a dingy cell below Yahar’Gul, probably starving to death long before the Scourge ever caught up with her. Not unless she decided to tear her arm off with her teeth to get free. The thought sent a tense, depreciatory laugh through her. Maybe she was already going mad.

…How long was it that she sat in that chair for? Her wrists were growing raw, chafing against the metal even through her gloves. At some point, she must have dozed off, because she could feel herself open her eyes and blink as if to right herself, only to realize the torches had long since burnt out. Her eyes couldn’t adjust because there was nothing to adjust to.

Ah, but then after some other indeterminable amount of time, something faint appeared out the corner of her eye near where she supposed her shoulder was. The softest of blue glows, as a slug-like creature slipped out from underneath a fold of her overcoat, just bright enough she could tell it was looking at her. So the augur finally found its way out through all the layers of leather, huh? What a curious little thing… sometimes the hunter forgot that it was an entity of its own. Micolash had called it a tool, but tools do not have consciences. They did not think or eat or sleep, and they certainly didn’t squirm and leave behind a thin train of phosphorescent slime, either. Though its trail faded almost as soon as it was formed, the phantasm itself didn’t cease to emit that gentle blue light.

The hunter found herself with her gaze completely transfixed by it, as if the glow was the only safety in the room. It slowly slithered down her arm, and she felt her heart pick up speed as she thought it would slip straight into her hand, only to release a huff of air as it sharply turned and decided to instead crawl onto her torso, its sensory tentacles on its head moving about as it seemed to observe her as it moved around.

A nice distraction perhaps, but none of this was helping her get anywhere. But then she heard something so distant, she initially believed it to be her imagination until it got closer. Footsteps. Heels clacking against stonework somewhere up above. The hunter thought it strange she felt very little impulse to shout and yell and make her presence known… but perhaps it was because the nature of the sounds was yet undetermined. If it was another hunter, she may be in luck. If they weren’t blood-drunk. She’d encountered one or two of them in the past, all deceptively placid up until she crossed into their line of sight, and turned erratic and violent. Just because the footsteps up above sounded rather purposeful, didn’t mean it was a good kind of purpose.

The augur had made its way back upwards, momentarily struggling to get its ‘foothold’ as it had to work around a copper trinket that dangled from a buttonhole in her undercoat, before it managed to find purchase on the capelet. Not long after this, did the footsteps return after having faded some time ago, this time much louder, echoing through the hallway where her cell was located. But since it was pitch dark… Would whoever it was dare search around unnecessarily? The hunter felt herself hold her breath for reasons she didn’t know. A light emerged in the doorway and grew ever brighter as the footsteps grew closer… But then the light went out.

What were they thinking?

The steps continued, now accompanied by the telltale sound of a blade brushing against the walls of the stonework just barely, just enough that the mysterious person could feel their way in the dark. She heard them walk straight past the door and for a moment she believed they’d completely pass her by. She opened her mouth to say something, but then she heard the other person shuffle in the hallway, the light being re-lit and momentarily blinding the hunter. She blinked a few times, before realizing that they had in fact seen her.

They approached the cell, stopping in front of the door and leaning in to shine the torchlight upon her in full, as if to check for themselves that she was alive or not (which wasn’t something she could fault them for, given the amount of corpses everywhere around here). Their head tilted with a jerk as they addressed her at last, “Who are you?”

The voice was deep, decidedly male but not strained with age or scourge. She made to respond, but found her mouth was suddenly incredibly parched… How long had it been since she’d last had some water, anyhow? Something wet and cold tickled the exposed part of her face, and she shook it away, realizing the augur was now considering her mask or hat as a new perch. The man didn’t miss this, and though she couldn’t see it, she could tell he’d narrowed his eyes with skepticism betrayed by his tone alone, “...You’re not one of them are you? The church folk with their bloody slugs...”

She almost laughed at his disdain, but instead finally managed to speak, though it was a pitiful croak compared to what she last remembered sounding like, “No, I’m not.”

“Even more curious…” He huffed before gesturing above him with a wave of the torch, “What’s happened here? Do you know?”

“Don’t you?” He didn’t appreciate her quip, and she added quickly, “I thought this place was hidden to most.”

“...Me too.” He seemed to glance around for a moment before nodding his head towards her again, “That's your augur, then? Everyone else up top is dead. It’s all corpses and beasts, now. More than just beasts…. Almost woulda missed you if I didn’t see that blue glow.”

She blinked, “I… Y-Yeah…” She frowned and shook her head, more pressing questions lined up, “What do you mean ‘everyone’s dead’? I… I don’t know how long I’ve been down here for. They weren’t when I was up there last.”

The other man – a hunter, she confirmed by his dark, familiar leathers – seemed to relax a little at her words, as though they’d confirmed that she was not an enemy, and he instead redirected his attention towards the lock on the gate. He tried it anyway, giving it a push, then jerking back and pushing again, the clattering particularly sharp and obnoxiously loud in an otherwise silent room. After a moment he changed his strategy and lifted upwards on it, seemingly with much resistance if his posture was anything to go by based on what light there was now, but pulling upwards and to the side seemed to have the exact effect he wanted. With a metallic clunk, he dropped it from his grasp and it swung loosely open.

Well, go-fucking-figure. It was just a finicky door after all… Not that she’d ever had a chance to try. He approached with narrowed eyes as if he believed the same, but his gaze came to rest on her shackles, “They strapped you in good, huh? What’d’ya do?”

She frowned, “I’m sorry?”

He tilted his head towards her again - a characteristic gesture, she was noticing, “I was in this place once before, a while back, but they never shackled me to a chair. Hell,” He scoffed, though she figured it was meant to be a laugh, though she couldn’t see which direction his lips were turned considering he wore a face cover much like she had, “They even left the bloody door unlocked.”

The hunter huffed in disbelief, “Wish they’d been so incompetent with me. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

He shook his head, stooping to place his torch down on the stone floor next to them, before staying on his one knee to observe her predicament, “You’re just lucky I bothered coming down here. Was hoping I’d find something useful…” He gave an experimental tug on the metal keeping her wrists restrained, but hummed in disapproval when they didn’t budge, “But I guess you’ll have to do.”

He’d glanced at her then, a strange twinkle in his eye that had her loosening her shoulders just a touch. From the way his eyes crinkled, she’d swear he just…

But as soon as that look was shared, it was gone and over with. He seemed to fiddle with the cuffs a bit, perhaps attempting to figure out how they worked, but he spoke somewhat idly in the meanwhile, “Interestingly enough, a lot of the corpses upstairs were shackled just like this. Know anything about that?” His head lifted upwards again to look at her, “That or the cages on their heads.”

Ah, “...Mensis cages.” That much she did know, though it wasn’t all that helpful, “I… Don’t know why they’d be shackled though. From what I understand, most of them were all too willing, going into this.”

“Going into what, exactly?” he didn’t look at her anymore, instead having pulled out a knife he seemed intent on using as a shim.

“I’m not sure. Some kind of ritual, but that’s all I know.” She held her tongue from saying more – Telling this hunter that she’d known a couple of the scholars at work here would likely only incriminate her, and the last thing she wanted to do was lose the only ally she had at the moment.

The stranger shifted his weight suddenly, pushing against the handle of the knife until there was a resounding snap that signified either the blade or the shackle had broken. She was apprehensive to discover which… But she felt a gloved hand over top of her own for just a brief moment, and the pressure on her wrist was now absent. He took a moment to sit back on his heels, having shifted to fully kneel at her feet now, “Ritual, huh? Seems to be all there is to Yharnam anymore. It’s too strange, I can’t wrap my head around it all.”

His attention turned to her other wrist-bound restraint as she questioned, “Does this mean you’re an outsider too?”

Though he didn’t look up, she heard the huff of air from underneath his face covering, as if she’d just told him an extraordinarily dry joke, “Could say that, yeah.”

She watched him work for a few moments, watching how he carefully slipped the blade between two very specific pieces of the metal, before cranking it to the side and then putting all his weight on his knees to break the joint that fastened it to the chair itself. He worked like he’d done this before, and though any other day this would lead her to countless questions about his background, in this instance she couldn’t help but feel unconcerned and full of relief. Glancing out the corner of her eye, the augur still sat upon her shoulder as if it too were watching the stranger, and she raised her free hand to gently brush against the side of its slick skin.

Another loud snap, and she finally released an obvious sigh of relief as she tenderly touched her wrists. Sore, certainly… but at least they were still there. His voice drew her from her thoughts after a moment, “What are you doing here, anyway?”

She glanced down at him, and frowned, “Shouldn’t you be more concerned with why I’m locked up?”

“I’ll take my chances with you, when there’s nothing but dead elsewhere. You didn’t answer my question though.”

“I…” She glanced away as she admitted with great self-loathing, “I got ambushed. I was trying to find my way to the Grand Cathedral and I rounded a corner and… Well…”

“...Big pale guy knocked you out cold?” He didn’t wait for her to respond, as her expression said all he needed to know. He chuckled, a pleasant, impersonal thing, “Me too. Not this time, but the first is always the worst.”

He leaned down to start on her ankle restraints, and she couldn’t help but pry further, “So why are you here now? Why willingly come to Yahar’Gul?”

He seemed genuinely confused when he peered up at her next, brow wrinkled rather deeply, “...You mean you can’t hear it?”

“Hear what?”

His eyes drifted towards the ceiling, “The cry of a baby.”

His words caught her off-guard, even as he returned to his work trying to set her free. There had been nothing but dead silence once the chanting had ceased… She hadn’t even heard beasts or these so-called corpses he’d mentioned. She wasn’t that far beneath Yahar’Gul. She should have heard something.

But a baby? Why the cry of a baby of all things? That couldn't be what that ritual was all about… could it?

She barely realized he’d made an attempt on the shackle, until his cursing caught her attention. The blade of the knife had broken clean off and clattered to the floor, rendering it completely useless for his task. Seeing him look so disgruntled had her speaking without much thought, “I have a couple throwing knives in my belt… Would that work?”

She realized with a delay that she could actually reach for them now, and drew them out, the blades shining in the torchlight. He reached for them, “Might be a little thin… but worth a shot.” He seemed to regard her a moment longer with a look she couldn’t quite place, before he leaned back down to attempt it again. The hunter was quite glad she’d been restrained the way she was. She didn’t exactly want to think too hard about him having to work between her legs…

She shook those thoughts away as soon as they’d shown up. A fellow hunter shows up, shows her a scrap of kindness, and she’d think of him like that? Now, of all times? Good lord… She must have been going mad. To shove those terrible, intrusive thoughts aside, she elected to finally answer him, “I haven’t heard a baby’s cry, no. When did it stop?”

He shook his head as he finally managed to free her one ankle, “It hasn’t stopped since the moon turned red. I still hear it, even down here.”

She was going to inquire about this ‘red moon’, but a different thought rushed to the forefront of her mind, and she caught herself reaching out to grab his shoulder to halt him from proceeding with her last restrained limb, “Aren’t you worried?”

“...About?”

Her brow scrunched up in disbelief, “That I could be borderline blood-drunk, or… I don’t know… Bad? Somehow?” She shook her head, relenting a touch, “I just find it difficult to believe you’d be so willing to help me when you don’t even know who I am.”

From the angle which he looked up at her, she saw how he cocked his brow, eyes steeling a touch, “If you were blood-drunk, you would have been at my throat by now. Besides, I already told you – There’s no one else left alive out there. Not in Yahar’Gul, anyway.”

“...But…”

“Are you that worried about it? I’m not going to bite. I could use the extra help.” Before she could protest further, he shifted his weight so he was propped up on one knee, and he surprised her by tilting his hat up off his head a touch and tugging down his face cover, baring his teeth in the torchlight, “See? I’m not a lost cause. Now you on the other hand, I doubt… But if you insist…” He reached up to do the same to her, although instead of forcing her mouth open, he simply held his torch close to her face as his other hand - momentarily knife-free - cupped her jaw, gently tilting her head this way and that as he stared straight into her eyes. His voice lowered into a thoughtful hum, “No collapsed pupils… No patches of fur… And you don’t smell like wet dog. Not for now, anyway.”

Seemingly satisfied with his findings, he tidied up his appearance to become obscured once more as he offered the most nonchalant shrug she’d ever seen, as he concluded “So no. I’m not worried. I appreciate the concern, though. More than I can say about almost every Yharnamite I’ve come across.”

The last shackle was removed the quickest, as he’d now had plenty of practice. As soon as she was freed, she stretched her legs and couldn’t help but stretch and crack her back a little, “Felt like I was there for ages.”

He stood tall and offered a hand, though she realized he still held onto her throwing knives loosely in the other. He helped her rise up, and when he bent to pick up his torch, the hunter made a point to pick up the augur and carefully place it back in the spot she always kept it – a hidden little pocket tucked on her side, just underneath the capelet part of her coat. When she turned back, the hunter ahead of her was watching, and made some sound that might have been light amusement, “Pretty nice towards that slug, aren’t you?”

Out of reflex, she responded immediately, “It’s a phantasm, not a slug.” Oh god, Micolash would’ve loved how she’d picked up on his smart-ass tics now… Her gaze unconsciously rose upwards towards the ceiling as she wondered what became of him. If everyone up there was truly dead as this hunter claimed…

The other hunter waving his hand dismissively caught her eye, “Slug, phantasm… same difference. Just odd, that’s all.” He held out her knives so she could grip them by the hilt, “Here. Don’t need ‘em anymore.”

She nodded in thanks and returned them to their respective loops on her belt. Before she could open her mouth again, he cut in rather suddenly, “How much further does this place go, exactly?”

“Down here?” He nodded, “From what I recall of it… Not much? But I could be mistaken.”

He shook his head, “Don’t think it’s worth it. The longer we stay here, the more those things up there roam about. I wonder if they’ll manage to leach out into Central Yharnam as well.” He turned on his heel and walked out towards the doorway leading into the room, but paused to cast a brief glance over his shoulder, jerking his head in emphasis, “Well? Come on, then.”

She paused, wanting to look around the room a moment longer. Sure, she’d still had her throwing knives on her… but two little knives weren’t going to wipe out all of Yahar’Gul, and especially not the tall kidnappers that dragged her here in the first place. Not when she had been shackled most of the time. But she was lacking her saif and her pistol, and felt naked without them, and she vocalized this discomfort, “I’d rather not leave without my gear. I’m just… not sure where it is.”

She could see the way his shoulders heaved that he’d sighed, perhaps irritably so, but helped her look around the room anyway. When they found nothing, they elected to wander down the last portion of the hallway, leading into a small room at the end that held an oversized chest. Lo and behold, her things were there. As she picked them up, taking comfort in feeling the weight of the saif’s compacted handle and her pistol’s grip in her hands, her newfound ally remarked neutrally, “And here you were, suggesting I don’t keep searching.”

“I didn’t say that,” She frowned, “I just said I didn’t know. I wasn’t exactly paying attention when I was dragged down here.”

She thought he’d quip some more, but seemed to steel himself into a more hunter-like persona, only stating, “Fair enough,” Before gesturing for her to follow him.

#bloodborne #bloodborne related #writing #fic #excerpt #uhhhh basically this is very hunter-interacts-with-another-hunter but also the augur has a cameo #i have not stopped thinking about augurs being like self-aware and just funky lil guys in their spare time #...also have been thinking of some *very* weird stuff with Micolash and the augur so..... that's a thing #how far do I want the brain rot to go? how many insight eyeballs do I want to reveal and which ones are less embarrassing?#only the Great Ones know (they don't know)#also not me mispelling 'Yahar'gul and not realizing it until I actually got there today in-game lmao #the G is NOT capitalized just fyi - i just assumed it was and idk why #anyway moral of the story is - treat ur augur with love and respect and it will be ur best friend lmao

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