#anyway the horror here is only barely the implied possession it's more the implied. emotional abuse.

[theminecraftbee]

hermit horror week day 4: season 7 or taken over

Xisuma slowly blinks at the console logs for the server again. He's very tired; he's been collecting blackstone again, and it's very tiring, collecting blackstone. He's been building a lot of pretty houses, and stocking a lot of shops, and he hasn't had time to look at the console much recently. He probably shouldn't be now, because he's tired, and tired people make mistakes.

He makes a lot of mistakes; he's silly like that. A big derp. It's why he has to be careful, since he's been tired so much lately. He definitely shouldn't have the console open.

It's just, earlier Impulse had a question, since his moss farm kept lagging, and Xisuma thought it would be easy enough to try to find the root cause of. And he did find the root cause of it--Impulse's farm is too fast and his storage simply doesn't keep up with the amount of moss--but there's... some other things...

He blinks again at the dates on the server files. The last edited dates. Slowly, he clicks again on his own player data, and tries to make sense of what he's reading. Files like this, they aren't really meant to be that human-readable. It's--well, it is mostly json, so it's mostly human-readable, actually, but a lot of it is still encrypted, for player safety, which would. Maybe explain what he's looking at? He thinks? He's--well, he does have root access, is the thing, because he's the admin, but he still shouldn't be able to look at any player willy-nilly.

He's a little too much of a derp to be trusted with that. He probably shouldn't even be looking at his data! It's just. That last edited date. Xisuma doesn't edit his own player data. That way lies madness. He's, uh, pretty sure he knows some people who went a little mad doing that. So the fact of the matter is--well, it's not the only file that's been edited recently, he tells himself. Just because it's a lot of memory files that seem to have been edited, as well as access permissions--that's... normal enough for a new season, right?

He's...

He doesn't notice his other self walk up behind him.

"Oh, hey Xisuma. You finished gathering materials for our next build, then?" Evil Xisuma says. All of Xisuma's hairs stand on end.

"I mean, I've gathered enough to get started," Xisuma says.

"Pity. I was really hoping you'd manage to get everything. I thought maybe we'd finish today, but I guess we can't now."

"I--you're right. I'm really sorry."

"No, no, don't worry, don't worry, my friend," Evil Xisuma says. "We probably couldn't have finished today anyway, even if you said you'd try for it."

Xisuma's heart is in his throat. "Sorry, my head's just been. You know how I am. Silly me, forgetting things."

Evil Xisuma shakes his head. "It's awfully lucky I came back this season. Think of all the important things you'd be forgetting without reminders!"

Xisuma looks down and away.

"Gosh, and now you're... playing around in the admin console?"

"Oh!" Xisuma says. "It's, er, nothing really big..."

"Can I see it?"

He barely resists the urge to close out of his player data and hide that's what he'd been looking at. He doesn't know why he wants to hide it. It's not like--well, if Evil Xisuma got mad about it, it would be... right, wouldn't it? Because, well, Xisuma knows full well he shouldn't be looking at or editing his own player data. Editing your own data is the way to madness, and Xisuma, well, he's been so tired lately. He could easily accidentally hit a button. He could easily accidentally hit delete. He has root access, after all.

His heart is in his throat again. He shuffles his feet. "Sure," he says, finally. "I, er, I promise, I wasn't doing anything. I just noticed the last edited date on, uh, files that aren't automatically created by the system? And I thought, gosh, that's weird. I'd only been in there to check on Impulse, really, after he'd had some lag issues. I was just finishing up. It's nothing--the date's weird, though, right? That's all I was noticing."

He watches Evil Xisuma's fingers scroll through all of Xisuma's data. It's not quite fast enough that Xisuma isn't sure he's reading it, and suddenly, Xisuma feels very small.

Finally, Evil Xisuma hands Xisuma's tablet with the admin console open back to him. Xisuma looks down, and Evil Xisuma has closed out of the player data again.

"You just forgot the last maintenance date," Evil Xisuma says.

"Really?" Xisuma says.

"Oh, yeah, for sure. You're so tired lately. You silly derp. You've just been forgetting things easily. You should really get more rest!"

"Oh, but then we won't finish our projects," Xisuma says.

"I guess we wouldn't," Evil Xisuma says back.

"It's just--it's. Most of the time, access permission for player memories isn't edited during maintenance, and I just--I don't remember putting your name down?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

Xisuma tries to think.

"I don't know," he says finally, small, unable to meaningfully articulate anything about what's wrong with it. "I guess it only makes sense, if I'm forgetting things so easily."

"Exactly! Gosh, we make a good team," Evil Xisuma says, and he smiles at Xisuma. Xisuma crookedly smiles back.

"Yeah, we do," Xisuma agrees.

"Don't pull that out again unless I say so, okay?"

"Okay," Xisuma agrees automatically, and then he knows he will not. It makes sense. If he was upsetting himself over nothing like this, why, imagine what he'd do if he could open it whenever? He'd just constantly be upsetting himself!

"Now, my friend, let's return to building the Evil Empire."

"Let's!" agrees Xisuma, and just like that, the entire encounter slips from his mind.

#hermithorrorweek2023 #a bee fic #hermitcraft #xisuma #evil xisuma #emotional abuse #mind manipulation #(like genuine warning for emotional abuse here albeit like. somewhat subtle manipulation type.) #if this fic is late in my time zone. no it isn't. #anyway. i will never stop thinking about. whatever was going on between xisuma and evil xisuma in season 8. #anyway. ANYWAY. god one day i'll write the Very Dead Serious Take on that plotline. maybe this is one piece of it. #anyway the horror here is only barely the implied possession it's more the implied. emotional abuse. #GOD i will not stop thinking about the implications of that storyline whether intended or not #like. i'm forever like. did he INTEND to imply the abuse that so many of those cutscenes imply #or was he just trying to write evil xisuma acting like a villain? #anyway this isn't how i'd write evil x for any season that isn't season eight specifically btw you can blame it on jeff if needed

[dr3amofagame]

so... the red banquet, huh?

im not going to lie, i was cheering on the eggpire the entire time (/lh) - what can i say, something abt the demon possessed resident evil crew just speaks to my heart. theyre FUN, ok? 

anyway, a lot of people were theorizing abt what c!dream showing up at the banquet could look like - and, well, i thought i’d write my version of it. this takes place in the “guard dog au” developed primarily by a gc im in on twitter (@stabbysideblog being the main originator of it, do check sunny out !!) - the basic premise is post-getting the revive book from c!dream, c!quackity continues to get his, uh, “use” out of him by basically treating him as a bodyguard/guard dog as he goes around the server - which should probably give you a pretty good idea of how this is going to go :] 

tws: death, grief, implied torture, starvation, abuse, blood, murder, unhealthy relationship, dehumanization, possession, trauma, mental illness, violence, dark content, dark imagery, emotional distress, mental instability, pandora’s vault/prison arc, c!quackity critical (not really, but a very dark portrayal of him) 

A strangled sob claws its way up Puffy’s throat as she watches Foolish fall.

He drops in a spray of golden ichor in the crimson, brilliant green eyes trained on hers, jaw slack in horror, pain, dipping to the ground and whiting out before he’s even fully collapsed. The others’ screams hardly even meet her ears; all she can see is her son, falling, her son, dying, her son, that same sunlit kindness still held in the curve of his lips in this room that knows nothing but pain and betrayal, gone gone gone gone-

Because of her.

Ant’s still staring at her, pupils thinned to needles from the brightness of the lava at their backs, ears alert but stance entirely calm as he twirls his sword, still dripping gold. His mouth is moving but she cannot hear anything above the ring ring ringing in her ears, the world swirling and blurring dangerously from the tears gathering in her eyes and spilling over her cheeks, Ant’s eyes polished rubies where there had once been a cloudless sky. Bad gestures at the crowd, pushed back towards the lava’s fire in their fear, leaving her to stand in the middle of the room as one desperate dying scream, the egg, standing as a silent witness to it all-

“Bad-” a flash of blue, and there’s someone standing in front of her, shoulders pulled back, a diamond sword glittering their right hand, “Stop it.”

“Quackity.”’

Bad snarls, tail whipping back and forth; Puffy takes a step back, then another, shoulders still shaking in grief for her son, for her friends, for everyone who’s about to lose their lives in this twisted realm of crimson and hellfire. There is no fear on Quackity’s face though he stands unarmored, and for the first time in this awful day something like worry flashes over Bad’s face. There’s history here, she realizes - what did Bad say about Quackity attacking? - but none of this is making sense, not the self-assured way Quackity is carrying himself, wings relaxed and folded at his back, not the simmering unease making itself known in the foreign cadence of Bad’s voice.

“Oh my gosh, look at what you’ve done,” Quackity says, voice almost patronizing, like a parent stumbling in on the mess their child has made out of their bedroom, “this is impressive, I’m not going to lie, this is quite impressive.” Puffy swallows thickly, hears the shuddering gasp of someone behind her - Fundy, probably, or Sam - as Quackity’s voice drops. “You have to stop right now.”

“Stop?”

“This whole Egg thing is just getting out of control - you just killed a man,” Quackity stalks across the netherbrick floor like he has all the time in the world, ignoring the crossbows that the Eggpire has trained on his back, guarded only by the off-white shirt he’s wearing, an untied tie hanging limply around his neck. She sucks in a sharp breath through her teeth - my son, they killed my son, she means to say, but the words stick to the walls of her throat and only escape her lungs in another series of wracking sobs. “Is that what you wanted to do, Bad?”

He laughs - laughs, of all things, and there is something here that Puffy is missing, that isn’t clicking through the muddied fog of grief hanging grey and suffocating around her head, but Quackity is speaking again and she can’t think about it all, not now, “-and I’m not gonna have it anymore, Bad.”

He slips over by the crowd, eyes glancing all of them huddled in one fearful mob over the tables, eyes dark and daring and cold; the Eggpire keeps their eyes trained on him, Bad’s eyebrows furrowed, Ant’s muzzle twisted in a snarl. Puffy watches, their words passing over her like water skidding against the surface of a rock splitting a stream in two, heart thudding in her ears, marking out the heartsick beats in this poisoned melody - one-two, her-son, her-son, her-son-

He stops in front of her in the middle of monologuing, eyes trained on her own like he’s trying to tell her something. His eyes flick down and she follows their gaze to his other hand, the one not clasped around a sword handle, watches as he gestures vaguely in the direction of the Eggpire. She frowns, confusion cutting through the grief - what is he trying to say? - and Quackity sighs, index finger slashing in the air in the shape of what might be an A as he spins on his heel to walk back towards Bad and the others.

“So how about we just stop playing?”

Quackity smiles, teeth white and glittering from the lava’s glow even as the Eggpire surrounds him, pushes him back against the wall. Bad seems to hesitate, hand clasped around the trigger of a crossbow he keeps pointed at the other’s head; when he speaks, he almost sounds mournful.

“I can’t,” he mutters, quiet, stepping forwards as his shoulders straighten, pushing Quackity back in a motion that the others are quick to follow. Puffy watches, an awful sinking feeling falling through the hole left in her chest by the sight of her son, falling, her son, dead - watches as Quackity’s wings open, shine golden in the lava’s light - what is he planning?

“You know why I can’t stop.”

Quackity heaves a heavy sigh through his lungs, “Bad- you and all your buddies here, drop your weapons, and leave. Let all of these people go.”

“Or what?” Ant’s voice is sharp, but Quackity barely pays him a second thought, swinging a glare at his head and cutting him off.

“I’m not talking to you,” he laughs, dismissive, “I’m talking to Bad.”

“No-” Puffy watches as Bad’s hand tightens on his crossbow, punctuating the word with a step forward. “You put your weapon down. If you wanted to stop us?” He’s too close to Quackity for Puffy to make out either of their faces, crossbow bolt aimed and ready to send straight through his skull. She stiffens, sees from the corner of her eye as the ones beside her look away, and resigns herself to the inevitable spray of blood on brick - not again not again don’t make me watch again - “You should’ve brought more than just yourself.”

Quackity laughs.

“I did,” his voice is dangerous in its levity, making Bad, then the rest of the Eggpire step back as his wings spread open further, watching with bated breath and wide eyes as a swarm of white descends from a hidden hole in the wall, “Or, well, I did the next best thing. I brought my worst enemy.”

“What?”

“Alright Quackity, where’s this Egg thing?”

Technoblade jumps down into the room in a familiar purple-black blur of expertly enchanted netherite armor, form impeccable despite the seeming exhaustion in his voice. At his feet, a pack of wolves gather, pace, muscles coiled and clearly ready to strike; he rolls his shoulders back, signature fireworks loaded into his crossbow, and the crowd behind Puffy immediately breaks into shocked murmuring and soft cheers.

On Quackity’s other side, someone else flips into the room, wearing a suit of all things, crisp and well-pressed; Purpled grins, entirely too gleeful as the Eggpire presses back further, held off by the dogs swarming and growling at their feet.

“Purpled- we hired you!”

“To be frank with you, Bad, a sword appears in Purpled’s hand and he flips it casually, blade thin and gleaming, “Quackity just had the better price.”

“We- we still outnumber you!” Bad’s voice is a near-scream in its desperation, his tail lashing back and forth as he shifts his weight forward, “It’s four against three- we’ll still win-” Despite herself, Puffy’s mind spins; either way, they’re still at a disadvantage from sheer numbers alone, never mind Quackity’s lack of armor. Maybe if they all work together, they’ll be able to sufficiently stop them, but there’s no way she can see this ending in anything less than a bloodbath-

“I didn’t want for it to come to this, Bad,” Quackity’s voice drops low and sweet, the sincerity in his tone belied by his glittering eyes and jagged grin. The shift in tone sends a shiver down her back, has even his allies shifting uncomfortably in what seems to be confusion - Puffy catches something like a murmured no from Sam, behind her, before Quackity whistles, loud.

It all happens too fast for her to follow; one moment, the Eggpire is standing, weapons raised and ready to fight; the next, and there is a new netherite-clad figure in the middle of the room, signature sparks of purple from a pearl still glittering around them, axe buried into Antfrost’s chest. The room devolves into shrieks as his body dissolves, Bad gasping sharply and something dark bubbling in Puffy’s chest - good - as the newcomer in the room moves over to Ponk, bloodstained axe swinging in a downward arc, only barely stopped in time by a diamond sword catching on the crook of the blade.

“Go!” Quackity’s voice rings out above the chaos, and Techno and Purpled - seemingly shaken from their shock - fly into motion, fireworks bursting in flashes of red and black that send Puffy blinking out stars from her eyes, Purpled moving to match blows against Hannah and Techno’s army biting at the ankles of the Eggpire leader. Around her, people scream in relief, cheering as the Eggpire, clad in eggshell-blue, are pushed back one by one, hindered by a shifting wave of teeth and claws and clashing blades and netherite moving smoothly over the uneven floor - Bad screams, “RETREAT!”, and they disappear into the wall.

Purpled curses; “I’m going after them.” Puffy watches, still reeling, as he dives into the corridor that Bad had revealed, a flash of purple and blue melting into the shadows; the mystery figure - still hauling a heavy, bloodstained axe, nearly dragging against the floor - moves forward as to follow.

Quackity snaps his fingers, and the figure stops, turns, immediately moving to the winged man’s side. Behind her, Puffy can make out cheers, gasping, hysterical sounds of relief; she can’t join them, feels nothing but the shuddering weight of her grief pressing further on her lungs as the adrenaline fades, head dizzy with Foolish’ sharp gasp in pain, Ant’s yowl of agony. Her eyes flick to the side, catch on Sam pacing, muttering under his breath; when his eyes meet hers, they widen in something like - alarm?

She shakes her head; she can’t think about all of that, right now. Her hooves stumble over the vines and rot strewn over the floor, carrying her forward to the glitter of gold on red, to where her son had fallen and she could do no more but watch with a scream caught between her teeth.

A hand lands on her shoulder- “I’m sorry we couldn’t make it in time.”

She whirls around; Quackity’s looking down at her, face twisted in sympathy. Behind him, the armored stranger looms, hair long and tangled, helmet keeping their face in shadow and hiding their features from view. There’s something distantly familiar to them, in the way they shift from one foot to the other, something that makes her eyes narrow and throat tighten-

“Who are you?” The words tumble from her mouth, making Quackity freeze, jaw snapping shut, the figure behind him tensing almost imperceptibly under their armor. “Who-”

Quackity’s eyes are dark, piercing; she can’t read them, the flat line of his mouth as confusing as it is frustrating. His eyes flick up to somewhere over her shoulder before moving back to her own

“How rude of me,” He smiles, gold tooth glinting, “I didn’t even introduce our special guest.”

His right wing presses against their back, and they drop, immediately, to their knees, making her step back in shock. Quackity’s hand slips easily under the edge of their helmet, ripping it off with little care and letting their hair fall in a wave of dusty browns over their face; he pulls the strands back roughly, revealing the paleness to their skin, the hollows in their cheeks-

“Dream?”

Her breath shudders in her chest, eyes snapping up to Quackity, still smiling, hand still pressed against the back of his skull. Dream’s face is pale, thin, clawed with new scars that highlight the jut of his cheekbones and the dullness of his eyes. He looks up at her, eyes glassy, skin almost grey, and for a moment she’s looking at Foolish, eyes unseeing in death, the luster of his skin stolen like the air from his lungs, and she nearly screams.

“Puffy, Puffy,” Quackity murmurs, almost kind, “It’s alright, see? Everything’s fine now.”

“He- he’s supposed to be in prison,” she hisses, not missing how he flinches, not missing how even that is hindered by the hand braced against his head. He looks strangely small kneeling at Quackity’s side, dwarfed by the netherite he’s wearing; even with an axe strapped to his back, the blade still wet with crimson and reeking of iron and decay, he hardly looks like the villain that had terrorized the server, the son she could no longer recognize in the midst of the bridges he burned.

“Oh- don’t worry about him,” Quackity shrugs, wings fluttering, “It’s all being done with the Warden’s permission, Puffy, I know what I’m doing.” As if to prove his point, his hand tightens on the other’s hair, tugging his head back by the roots; Dream hardly even reacts, simply letting himself be manhandled, throat bare and exposed to the air, similarly criss-crossed by scars. “He’s perfectly well-behaved now, you see?”

Her throat closes, the pit in her gut torn open by the sight of her son with a blade skewered through his heart only growing wider, hungrier, by the dullness in the eyes of the other. Foolish’ death had happened too fast for her to react: one moment, he was staring at her, eyes mournful in goodbye; the next, he was a tumble of gold and green and blue against the floor, half of his name still not having left her lips. Dream’s head swivels to hers, face entirely blank; there is nothing quick written in the gauntness of his face, more scar tissue than skin, in the shadows under his eyes or how they seem to stare, unseeing, in the long, knotted strands of hair twisted over Quackity’s knuckles. He looks like he’s been dying, slowly, for months, and the screaming cry of YOU FAILED ringing in her head in Ant’s voice only grows louder.

“What did you-” the words scrape roughly against the inside of her mouth, “What did you do?”

Quackity shrugs, letting go, and Dream’s head tips forward to stare at the floor. “What had to be done.”

He clicks his fingers again, and Dream stands, falling behind Quackity with his shoulders pulled up to his ears. Quackity hands him back his helmet, keeping his hand stretched out, palm up, even after Dream takes the netherite and fastens it back over his head. Puffy watches, heart stuck in her throat, as Dream fiddles with something by his throat, pulls out a thick coil of iron chains, pressing the end to Quackity’s outstretched hand - the other side, she realizes, fastened around his neck.

Her breath stutters when he looks back at Quackity, gut roiling at the familiarity - it’s an imperfect copy of the way he used to look at her, a skittish shadow at her tail, all awkward smiles and fidgeting hands. Only now, his eyes don’t dance with the same light, his lungs shivering in fear instead of wheezing laughter; she watches as his head follows Quackity like he’s the only person in the room, a duckling imprinted on the nearest person and ready to follow to the ends of the world and further, and her heart shatters all over again.

“Anyway,” Quackity’s eyes soften, lips curled in sympathy, “My condolences, Puffy, for your son. It really is a tragedy.”

She watches him leave with tears in her eyes, a sob once again caught in her throat. The images overlap - Foolish, smiling under the sun’s glow, sitting on the roof of his summer home - Dream, grinning in the treetops, eyes as green as the leaves surrounding him - Foolish, falling in a spray of ichor and a gasp of pain, Dream, grey-eyed and silent, dead as the crimson rot surrounding his beaten body-

My condolences for your son, Quackity’s words echo in her skull, and not for the first time, she laughs miserably, tears falling from her eyes.

Which one?

#tw death #tw grief #tw torture #tw injuries #tw blood #tw violence #tw abuse #tw mental illness #tw mental instability #tw dark content #tw dark imagery #tw starvation #tw unhealthy relationship #tw toxic relationship #tw dehumanization #tw trauma #tw emotional distress #tw possession #pandora's vault #prison arc #c!quackity critical #-> my writing #queue <3 #long post #my writing :D

[solastia]

Day 14

As You Are, Yoongi x Original Female Character, 3/? Chapters, 10 k words so far

I missed yesterday!!! AHHHH! But that’s ok, that just means you get 2-for-1 today, whether you want it or not, muahahahahaha!!!

Ok, Sunny, our MC in this story, is so fucking relatable it hurts! How many of us have been there? Stuck in a shitty job, working hard and not getting anywhere, dreaming of a different life that seems completely unattainable. I am Sunny, Sunny is me!!! Or at least I’ve been her during various stages of my life.

“She looked over at Bang PD and suddenly felt lightheaded. He was smiling too, and clapping. They were saved.”

That’s right, our mans Bang PD is the hero of this story, as he should!!!

And what’s with Yoongi being so aloof in the beginning??!! Admit you liked the performance Yoongi!!

“The girls all rushed to hug him, except Sunny, who elected to grin at him from the table she was leaning against.”

OOOH BOY, our girl has walls built thick and high, doesn’t she?? I get the feeling she’s been hurt and has been disappointed by life one too many times.

“She needed this to work. THEY needed this to work. She was tired of having nothing, tired of seeing her girls hungry and exhausted. She was just tired….”

“She put everything into the song. All of her hopes for the future, her love for her girls, her desire to be happy for once in her life, despite the demons that lived inside her.”

Ok, yeah, I’m ready to throw down for Sunny. Must protecc

“All of the girls were getting excited. This was it. They’d made it.”

WHY DO I FEEL LIKE THIS IS SO OMINOUS?!?!? LIKE, SOMETHING REALLY BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN?? Maybe because I know how much you like to hurt us :|

“I wasn’t actually going to do it. I was just…” she sobbed.

“I know. Believe me, I know.” He sighed, propping his chin on her head.”

Oh, so our boi Yoongi isn’t so cold and distant after all!!

“Manager Sejin was a teddy bear, but a HUGE teddy bear.”

I welcome any and all mentions of Manager Sejin, thank you so much!!!

AND THE END OF THAT FIRST CHAPTER….BIIIIISH!!!

Ok, so...I am absolutely speechless about Chapter 2. There is so much that is implied, so much hurt, so much pent up anger, and then the little girl!!! I cried. I shed real tears over this chapter. Sunny is so incredibly strong, I love her!

And now, a shift in the tone of the story, something you are really good at!

“We are watching some horror movie now. I think it’s called “LazyTown.”

Mina chuckled. “Sis, that’s a children’s television show.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not. It’s terrifying. Those puppet things have the most expressionless faces I’ve ever seen. I’m almost certain they are possessed. I’m also pretty sure the pink haired bitch is a serial killer. And they all keep bullying the only decent guy on this show, the one with the chin.”

YES SUNNY!! That show was so freaking disturbing! Our gurl is talented and smart, she knows what’s up!

“Yes, Mom. I have my pepper spray, the alarm thingy, and that knife that looks like a key. I remember everything you taught me about punching my hand into the nose, kicking them in the nuts, and using my shoe laces to get out of a zip tie.”

Ok I am both impressed and concerned, Sunny. Our girl is determined to keep the other girls safe!

“ Ruby squeals and throws her arms around Sunny, who looks uninterested in the show of affection to the casual observer, but all the girls know she secretly adores it.”

Hmmmmm, reminds me of someone...but who????

“You have tiny ass legs.”

There you go, Sunny, take him down a notch.

“You have a big ass nose.” He replied in a monotone.”

Awwwww, love is in the air! LMAO!

“Look at me for a minute. I’m being actually serious here. That’s not going to happen. However, IF you hear something like that, bring it to me. I will not hesitate to shut that shit down. Got it?”

Well dayuum Yoongi, why you acting like a dreamy Knight in Shining Armor all of a sudden?? I like it! Don’t get me wrong, I’m just curious. Perhaps it’s because YOU HAVE A RAGING CRUSH ON SUNNY?!?!

“Enjoy your porn!”

“Thank you. I will.”

😂😂😂 I can’t with these two!

“She noticed a few longing glances between certain people, and made a note to have “the talk” with the males in question. The talk being “Hurt them and die.”

SUNNY HAS ZERO CHILL!! Someone please switch her to decaf. Wait, no. Then someone will surely lose their life! Nevermind

“Close your mouth and eat, wife. You’re setting a bad example for our daughter.” His deadpanned voice barely hinting at it being a joke.

Nope. That totally didn’t just give her goosebumps.”

ME TOO BITCH!!! AAAHHHH!!!!

“Her plot for revenge was interrupted as she felt fingers threading through her right hand. Long, elegant fingers. She looked down and stared at their hands, palm to palm, interlocking fingers, what the fuck…

She glanced at Yoongi, who was looking around the room completely straight faced, occasionally taking a bite of something. Nonchalant as hell. He offered her a sip of his beer, unfazed by her glare when their eyes met.”

OOOMMAAAGGAAAHHHH!!! YONGI YOU SLY BASTARD!!!

This fic was an emotional rollercoaster, from start to finish! This was the first time I’ve read this one, and I was not disappointed. I honestly don’t know who I’m feeling more, Yoongi or Sunny!!! AAAHH! Thank you!

Ok, be back with the second part of this 2-for-1 deal in a bit...

This one needs some serious rewriting and I’m always embarrassed when people read it 😬

Can I just mention something real quick? I think I’m hilarious, right? I mean, we all think that we are the funniest people we know, but I write certain lines that are sarcastic and dry because that’s just how my humor is, and I always go back and reread those lines and crack up because I’m apparently narcissistic when it comes to my own humor.

Anyway, I’ve noticed during this venture of yours that you have a talent for picking the lines that I myself go back and read. So thank you for validating my belief that I’m the funniest mf out there 😂

[adobe-outdesign]

It's time once more. Based off of the summaries, which Step Closer stories were good and which ones were not so good?

Step Closer: This one’s frustrating, because we got really close to having a solid story here - guy is a jackass, gets cursed, curse is completed by the end. It has a solid follow-through that most of the other stories lack (for example, the end of Lonely Freddy has little to nothing to do with the beginning set-up). HOWEVER, there are quite a few problems that we run into:

First, what does a curse have to do with FNAF? Why is this following To Be Beautiful where there’s just literal magic now?

For a story centering around Foxy Foxy is barely in it

Not as important but why is this called “Step Closer”? It has nothing to do with the story

Chuck’s characterization seems inconstant in how he views his brother

And whoo boy, that ending:

Why is he possessing his own corpse? He never got injected with remnant. And if the remnant isn’t important, then why did FFPS establish it?

Not a big fan of stories that play up organ donation as something horrifying. We already have a severe lack of organ donators as it is, we don’t need fear mongering chasing more people away

“just got a call in, someone needs an eye and a hand” uh, bullshit? there are like year-long waiting lists for organs

also, a hand and an eye wouldn’t be urgent anyway because you can live without both of those things fairly easily, compared to something like a kidney

Internal organs are taken out first because they die pretty quickly compared to everything else. Things like eyes and skin come afterward

Why can’t he move? Michael literally has no bones and he can move no problem, same with GF. Actually I can answer this one: it’s lazy writing because if he could move it would ruin the payoff and force the story to continue on so they just ignored rules of canon

HANDS AREN’T EVEN TAKEN FROM ORGAN DONATORS

The thing is that all of this is easy to fix. Here, watch:

During a visit to Freddy’s Pete threatens his brother Chuck by forcing him to get close to Foxy while he’s active. Foxy malfunctions and starts repeating the phrase “You’ll make a fine pirate, but first you’ll have to loose an arm and a leg”. Pete returns to Freddy’s day after day, and keeps having close encounters with those body parts - he almost gets his hand crushed in the pinball machine, Foxy malfunctions and nearly gouges out his eye, etc. (basically implying the “curse” is poltergeisting by one of the kids, who were upset by the bullying).

He’s wracked with paranoia over time and believes this is karma for threatening Chuck. He finally stays home from Freddy’s and apologizes to his brother, admitting that it was wrong to scare him and that he doesn’t hate him, which Chuck accepts. Now feeling like his “curse” has been lifted he leaves to go to Freddy’s again, only to be hit by a car on the way there. Cut to the medics inspecting the corpse on the scene, who note that his eye and hand are mangled beyond recognition. End it on the reveal and let the suspense and realization do the talking rather than just focusing on shock value.

Dance With Me: The last section was long so I’ll try to keep this brief. This story has little to actually do with Ballora, it has more magic bullshit, and nothing particularly interesting happens. Ballora just basically t-poses at a kid until she gives up someone’s purse. Riveting. It’s not even really a FNAF story at all and there’s no real horror in it as Ballora doesn’t do shit. It’s not audacious enough to really be bad, it’s just a solid “meh” that you’ll forget about soon after reading it. Ballora deserves better

Coming Home: Everyone keeps praising this as the greatest FNAF story ever written, praise Scott, but I think it’s just decent? It’s by no means bad, and in fact speaking from an objective standpoint it’s probably the best story in these books so far. It’s emotional, actually focuses on the dead children and MCI (you know, the things that make FNAF FNAF), and has a satisfying ending.

But with that said, I do have some issues. First, this might not be fair to the story, but the mere fact that it’s an AU rather than a canon story kind of pisses me off. We could’ve gotten actual canon characterization for one of the ghost kids along with lore reveals, but no, Scott’s allergic to focusing on old characters so we just have some random AU that only parallels the event. Which in turn means I don’t care as much as I should, because none of this actually happens in canon. It’s not even canon-divergent like TSE, it’s just a random AU (and unlike TSE, which focuses on Charlie, there’s no canon characters in this either).

Also, what the fuck was up with the bullshit about Chica coming by to claim Susie’s soul? Like, the fuck was that a thing? Doesn’t that like, kind of completely ruin the point of the games? The entire point was that these poor kids are trapped possessing these animatronics who have to stay in the pizzeria they died in, driven mad with grief and blindly trying to kill the nightguard because they think he’s their killer. It’s incredibly sad and haunting. Here, the kids can just leave whenever and go wherever they please, and for some reason it’s the animatronics who are doing the killing, despite it never being implied that the classics are even sentient on their own, and also allowed to walk around the neighborhood with attracting attention??? And I realize this is an AU and it doesn’t have to affect canon, but that’s the problem with these damn parallels - I have literally no idea what’s supposed to be canon or not.

And while that might not sound like such a big deal if you take the story isolated on its own, I’d argue it makes this less of a FNAF story. I know that sounds weird when I just said that this was more of a FNAF story than the others, but I say that because it focuses on the right themes, right setting, right events, right emotions, etc. But by having the ghosts just wander around, it kind of takes the uniqueness of FNAF - the possessed animatronics - and turns it into a generic ghost story. I’ve read this kind of story before about ghosts being freed by close loved ones, it’s nothing new, and with the animatronics barely around it’s really not as true to FNAF as it could be, even if all the elements are there. Even the way Susie is freed is just by giving her her doll, it has nothing to do with the pizzeria, the animatronics, etc. Like I said, this one’s good overall, I just don’t think it’s a masterpiece like everyone else does, even if it is probably the best of all the stories (then again, that’s not saying much).

TL;DR: Step Closer is sort of goodish-but-not-that-great-kind-of-between-good-and-meh, Dance With Me is a solid Meh, and Coming Home is flawed but good overall. So it’s goodish-meh-good, which places it slightly above Fetch as the best book as a whole.

#this got overly long sorry #five nights at freddy's #fnaf: short stories #fnaf spoilers #outdesign analyzes things #long post #Anonymous #Ask

[cheezritsu]

Atsumu Miya || Unravelling

[Uhn•rav•uhl] verb, informal. to take apart; undo; destroy

Warnings: implied sex, mentions of sex, quick depiction of self harming behaviors (not explicit.) Inspired by SZA’s Supermodel

It must be considered deviant and demonic how the constant the thud thud THUD! Rings out with an even pace in the hallway of Tokyo’s finest apartment complexes. If it weren’t for the fact that calling the police would no doubt result in a press field day none of the residents of Park Mansion Akasaka wanted, someone would have filed a noise complaint. It’s a shame they did not—perhaps there might be a certain clout that comes with exposing MSBY setter Miya Atsumu’s intimate life, but it would also have saved time, money, and tears in the long run.

But, the residents of the 9th floor could not see into the future. They were instead, attempting to mind their business and not be bothered by Miya trying to make back beats by fucking someone into a mattress.

That little comparison was Osamu’s first scathing critique, until he froze completely. The disgust melted into horror as he turned his head to his companion.

“Hey-,” he starts, but as he catches the expression, the words dry up.

Yes, it would have been nicer—no, merciful—if the residents of the 9th floor had called the police when this happened, if only to spare you from witnessing it yourself.

Your hands get so clammy, the plastic bag in your hand nearly slips out. You catch yourself before the beer bottles can shatter on the marble floor that costs more than your entire block. It’s an easy clean up, but it would probably be very sticky, and disastrous, you think. Almost as disastrous as—

It starts up again, rhythmic and constant like an orchestrated performance. You and Osamu are mere steps outside the apartment, and you can hear the manic, frayed screams coming from the walls. It sounds like they’re in pain; just the way Atsumu likes it.

“Y/N,” Osamu tries once again to get your attention. The pity in his voice is unmistakable, and you hate that of all the emotions the usually stoic twin shows you, this is the one he’s chosen. Pity. Sympathy.

“Guess that’s why he didn’t pick up the phone,” you remark casually, refusing to look Osamu in the eye. “I’ll just leave it by his door with a note.”

Osamu says your name, this time with a firm edge that demands attention. You don’t give it to him. You’re too busy trying not to actively throw the takeout and beer you bought out of your measly paycheck to help your friend (attachment, entanglement, dick appointment, are all better words than friend) feel better after a crushing defeat at the hands of the Saitama Spears. (Crushing, like his hands must be around her neck for the moans to sound so strangled.) No matter, you say to yourself, hands shaking as you send him a text. Something cute and sweet with a properly sickening amount of heart emojis, like any good (not quite) girlfriend would do. Whatever it takes.

Ignoring how the click of your heels mesh with the steady thrum of Atsumu’s two thousand yen headboard against his 100 million yen walls, you march back the exact way you came; down the white, sterile hallway and passed the doors that housed the rest of the 9th floor, who would, unknowingly, pay for the mistake of not asking the shameless Atsumu Miya to please, please keep his fucking at a tolerable volume. Fame and infamy come with perks, one supposes, but they also come with karma.

You’re not thinking of revenge, though. You’re wondering how you’ll make it to the elevator without completely coming apart at the seams. Something in you unravels, much like it might if Atsumu were playing you like the fool you were; perfectly manicured setter hands curling, scratching, plucking at all the right places. No, this unravelling is much slower, much more painful, as if the single thread that creates your existence is being snipped in half. When you push the call button for the elevator, you think the thread is severed completely, because you have to lean your head on the cold steel to steady yourself.

Osamu’s approaching footsteps really only register in the very depths of your mind. The heavy breathing doesn’t really sound like yours—how could it be anyways, when you were miles away from your body, floating in the ether like a ghost; forgotten, discarded, alone. Untethered.

You lift your head up only to bang it against the wall. The soft thud is reminiscent of the moment that just transpired, and you—subconsciously, like you were possessed—start bashing your forehead to the same piledriver waltz Atsumu had played.

“Y/N!” Pity. Bang! Worry. Bang! Sympathy. Bang! Could you crush your skull this way? The mystery woman’s screams tangle in your brain like an earworm, the salacious sounds on repeat. Bang!

When Osamu’s hand lands on your shoulders, it feels like he’s tethered your soul back into your body. You wrench yourself out of his grip.

“Don’t!-” you begin to scream, but you catch the look he gives you. His grey-brown eyes are wet with concern, darting between the growing red spot on your forehead to the watery snarl on your lips. You take a shuddering breath to keep the hysteria from bubbling into your tone. “Don’t touch me. I’m fine.”

Osamu doesn’t even raise an eyebrow in pretence. His mask of neutrality and sarcasm is completely gone, replaced with anger. “You were banging your head into the wall like a patient in a psych ward.”

“That’s unnecessarily stereotypical, Osamu. I thought you were better than that.”

Crossed arms. He’s seconds away from blowing his lid. “Yer not funny.”

You wonder what would happen if Osamu blanked on you in here. Would these good-for-nothing neighbors actually call the police then? What a headline: Miya twins apprehended in two separate noise complaints. Kita would probably stop sending Osamu rice out of embarrassment.

You don’t want to fight Osamu anyways. It’s not his fault that the bearer of his face is fucking another girl as you speak.

The elevator dings, and you step inside. It’s fortunately empty. Osamu stands right next to you, hovering like an overprotective parent. The chrome doors of the elevator slide shut and you’re face to face with your own reflection: hollow, sunken eyes the most expensive concealer can’t fix; posture hunched from years of slaving over work and school; nails short and busted from part time jobs that barely pay the bills. Nails that have been raked down the chiseled, marble back of a man who didn’t belong to you, and never did.

Her nails were probably nicer. Probably manicured. Maybe he paid for it. You can’t even see your nails anymore, because your head is in your hands, shielding your ugly cries from Osamu, who bears the face of the man who doesn’t love you.

“I should have just taken the fucking hint,” you sniffle, wiping the running eyeliner from the corner of your eye. “Shoulda left him alone.”

Osamu just hums. You wished it was anyone else but him. Osamu isn’t bad at a lot of things, but comfort was one of them. He just stares vacantly at the doors, a grimace replacing his usual thin lipped look, but other than that he appears unbothered.

And then, like he’s reading condolences off a list, he says: “I’m sorry.”

The words in their sincerity sound foreign on his tongue. With one big sniff you pull the thread keeping you together tightly, gathering yourself. “What’re you apologising for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Sorry my brother is a complete piece of shit.”

“Well, we both knew that, didn’t we.”

Osamu can’t place what he dislikes about that phrase, but the elevator interrupts his thought process. The doors open to reveal one of the security guards eying you two up and down. His eyes narrow for a moment on Osamu’s face, and then dip down to yours.

“There a problem here, Miya-san?”

On any other day he might have pulled a fast one on this guard, but you promptly walk out of the elevator, leaving Osamu to follow your lead wordlessly. The world outside the Park Mansion Akasaka is still turning, still bustling with people catching trains home from work, their patent leather shoes from office jobs clicking on the sidewalk to a rhythm you can’t match. The thud of the salarymen’s briefcases hitting their legs echo like the headboard off Atsumu’s walls. It’s everywhere, everywhere, and your insides churn sickeningly.

You stop, one hand leaning against the glass. Osamu catches up, hands halting just before they reach your back. “Stop running away from me, name,” he says softly, exasperated. “I’m trying to help.”

“How long.”

Osamu blinks. “What?”

You’re nearly doubled over with nausea, your free hand pressed flat against your chest to keep your lungs compressing. “How long has he been with her?”

“I don’t know.”

“I swear to god, if you’re lying to me-“

“(Name) I would never do that to you.”

The promise doesn’t reassure you. Osamu runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I know this is a lot to take in right now. And I’m not going to say anything—“

“Like what?” You look at him over your shoulder, eyes squinted in malice. “Like I told you so?”

Your insolence is wearing out Osamu’s sliver of empathy. You’re unbearable like this, you know that, and Osamu is less tolerable than most. “Your words, not mine.”

“Your brother is cheating on me.”

“You’re not together.”

“There it is!” You let your head fall back in rumbling, humorless laughter. “I was waiting for that.”

“I don’t want to be a dick right now.”

“Too late, ‘Samu.” You haul yourself up, buttoning the front of your coat. “Go home, work on your winter menu. I’ll be fine.”

The statement is met with rightful skepticism, but when you start to walk away, Osamu doesn’t follow. You can’t decide whether or not this hurts, because the all encompassing pain finally registers to the rest of your body. You try to numb yourself, dissociating as every step towards home becomes a blur. Akasaka’s beautiful lights and towers fade into lesser Tokyo’s decrepit neighborhoods, with sketchy alleys and dimly lit streets. Your apartment complex is a shoebox to Atsumu’s tower residence, and it feels just as claustrophobic when you step into your crowded, tiny apartment.

It’s nicer than what your friends can afford, but that doesn’t make it any better. Your couch is also your bed, and your desk faces the window even though you can’t properly study this way. The kitchen is perpetually clean because you can’t cook anything in it. You’re sure the fridge is empty, but it’s fine, because you simply peel off your clothing and curl into a ball on your bed.

It’s not even late. You have work and assignments to do, but as you check the time on your phone, you’re immediately taken to your camera roll, where a picture from several days ago stares back at you mockingly.

It’s from his bathroom, the one that has a television screen by the bathtub, the one with hotel lighting that makes you look glowy and ethereal no matter what. You’re half dressed, in the middle of putting on your morning skincare when Atsumu comes up behind you, arms around your waist. Your face is obscured, but you remember how happy and loved you felt to have his lips pressed against your temple, the heat of his body in your side. How surrounded and safe and warm you felt.

But moments are as fleeting and fragile as glass. The illusion has been shattered, and you’re left in a cocoon of blankets nowhere near as satisfactory as his body heat, in a dark and dingy apartment you will probably stay in for the rest of your life.

Just as you’re about to set your alarm for the morning, a notification pops up. The sparkles around his name indicate that Atsumu has finally, finally texted you back.

✨T’sumu✨: sorry I missed you babe I was not in a good place

✨T’sumu✨: you got work tmrrw? You always know how to cheer me up

It’s as if your heart has been snatched out of your rib cage; your chest hollows and collapses as a sob hiccups in your throat. Something wet slides across your temple. It’s not Atsumu’s lips, not even close. You wipe the tears with the back of your hand, and throw your phone across the room.

It shatters.

#atsumu miya #miya atsumu #this makes him seem shitty and hes not #This was hoing to be a very long and spiralling fic where the reader slowly descends into hysteria over being cast aside #i wanted to illustrate how compleltly devastating and upending this is #and i love the word unravelling #haikyuu!! #hq!! #atsumu miya x reader #miya atsumu x reader #reader x miya atsumu #reader x atsumu miya

[teyrnacousland]

Anders Has BPD: a List of Things by Me

Using mostly examples from DAA because DA2 has some Concerning “mental illness is just like ~possession~” type nonsense going on and I don’t want to wade through that. Here we go!

He's hyper empathetic. In the wending woods when he realizes people are dying for nothing and he's just so upset (his tone reminds me of how I feel whenever I accidentally watch/read Bad Things in the news), in Amaranthine he’s absolutely distraught at the thought of leaving even one person behind to die, he risked his freedom to save the life of some Bann when he was 12 years old and freshly escaped and really should have been laying low, pretty much any time someone is hurting he's literally desperate to help them

---Except when it's people who Don't Count. He has zero sympathy for Templars, even joking about the one Templar dying. And he says some pretty awful things to Fenris and Merrill, even when the latter is dealing with something horrible. He’s very black and white about this. Speaking of...

Black and white thinking. Anders is all about Good and Bad. Spirits are Good, demons are Bad. Mages are Good, Templars are Bad. Justice is Good, anger is Bad. Andraste is Good, the Chantry is Bad (he's Andrastian, but even in Awakening he approves of stealing from the Chantry and disapproves of helping it). Saving people is Good, burning a city to the ground is Bad (fun fact, Anders is the only companion who doesn’t approve of that no matter what you say. The others can be convinced. Not Anders. He can just be convinced to give in and accept it, never to agree.) 

---He sorts people he meets into Good or Bad categories too. There is no in between, although there are more extreme versions of the Good box, which are the “I know I just met you but I’m at least 50% madly in love with you” box and the “I would literally die for you, you are the definition of perfection and you can do no wrong” box). 

---Velanna: fellow mage friend, Good. Merrill: Blood mage, demons, Bad. Bethany: mage, related to Hawke, Good. Aveline: guard, married a Templar, Bad.

---I can’t think of an in game example of him splitting (going from total idealization to total  with anyone, but he absolutely would and does trust me I’m an expert. He’s absolutely the type of person who will instantly stop being friends with someone if they make fun of his cat, or if they make One insensitive joke he doesn’t like, or talk to him with the Wrong Tone.

Extreme emotions. When Anders is angry he’s ready to rip apart a half dozen Templars with his bare hands. When he’s happy there are no problems in the world and everything is perfect because he’s free and there’s pie here. (Long term plans? What do you mean long term plans? Things are fine right now?). When he’s sad (which we don’t see so much in Awakening because he’s on an up swing) he’s miserable and hopeless and hides away in his room for weeks on end because there’s literally no point to anything. When he’s in love he’s so in love. (When he’s with Karl he doesn’t even try to escape the Circle, because the Circle and all of its horrors are suddenly bearable because he has Karl. When he loves Hawke, he sees Hawke as perfect and can do no wrong, and Justice is even annoyed by this (at least at first) and sees Hawke as a distraction because Anders can’t stop thinking about them literally all the time). 

Impulsive. He is definitely impulsive. He came back to help you fight an army of darkspawn that just took out every warden and Soldier in the place because he just... wanted to help. You find him hiding around the corner from them because he was likely forced to realize he has no idea what he’s actually planning on doing. Then he agrees to join the Wardens without thinking about it at all. Then he starts a conversation with someone he barely knows by basically saying "So, Jesus is pretty fuckable, huh". The man has no filter or impulse control. 

---He impulsively overshares too. You can tell from the way he answers questions in dialogue and banter that he’d rather joke and deflect than answer personal questions honestly. And yet within like a week of meeting you he’s told you about how he’s run away from the Circle seven times and they kept him in solitary for a year once. One of the first things he says to you is that this Templar used to call him inhuman and that the Templars kick him in the head to wake him up sometimes. And you cannot convince me that any neurotypical person starts a conversation with a complete stranger with “hi, I’ve been abused for most of my life, what’s your name?”

---At least some of his Circle escapes/attempts were likely impulsive. The epilogue says he ran away from the Keep several times but came back which to me implies it’s become one of those “I feel restless and am about to do something impulsive and stupid” things

---One time when he ran away from the Circle he went to Denerim and had an orgy with a pirate

---Even joining with Justice was pretty impulsive and risky tbh. Neither of them really knew what would happen.

Anger. He’s often at least bitter and sarcastic whenever anything even slightly bad happens. If you say something that upsets him or even just reminds him of something that upsets him he either makes a sarcastic quip and gets distant and withdrawn, or he goes into a full on angry rant. Anders was super angry in DAA, and expresses it even in situations where he probably shouldn’t (snarking at the Templar who just said she wants to see him executed, at you (his boss and the only reason he’s not in the Circle or dead right now) even at the beginning when he barely knows you and can’t know how you’ll react to that, etc) like he just can’t hold it in. This anger often comes on pretty suddenly and often vanishes just as fast. 

Gets attached to people so fast. He latches onto Velanna literally as soon as you meet her (he approves of both helping her and recruiting her) and at that point all he knows about her is she’s an attractive angry elven mage who tried to use magic trees to kill you. His banters with her imply it’s at least partly if not mostly because she's a fellow mage (he wants to talk about magic with her!) Also in their banters, he’s more open with her. Nathaniel asks him how the Templars find him and he just snaps “incredibly angry, that’s how” but when Velanna asks about his escapes he tells her that they found him with his phylactery. I’m pretty sure Velanna is the only person he ever actually apologizes to for making a joke to (”(chuckes) I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”). And again, she’s not even very nice to him. He’s attached to her and sees himself as closer to her even when that doesn’t seem to be reciprocated to that level. (He also does this with Hawke in DA2, where he’ll be in love with you even if you’re absolute shit to him.) 

---He gets pretty attached to you (the Warden-Commander) pretty quickly too. 

---Anders is the "he held open a door for me once and smiled at me so now I'm planning our wedding" kind of guy, I think he’s had a bit of a crush on all of your companions at some point tbh (For sure Nate and Velanna and you, and Justice, and probably Sigrun too).

---He falls in love with Hawke almost as soon as they meet too, even if you're horrible and mean to him (Hawke is his FP just saying)(I don’t mean that in a good way I mean it in an unhealthy way that he and Hawke would have to learn to talk through and fix)

Fear of abandonment, absolutely. That’s probably one of the reasons he runs from Vigil’s Keep in the epilogue. Everything’s just too good, it can’t last, something’s going to go wrong and so he might as well be the one to leave because the more he likes it there and likes the people there the worse it would be to lose it all. 

---He keeps people at a distance and acts as charming and endearing as he can, probably curses himself whenever he slips and is honest with people (which is pretty often, see impulsive oversharing) because he wants people to like him and not leave him. 

---(This is why he does the charming thing less in DA2, I think. Because he has Justice. Justice won’t leave him and Justice is always in his head thinking and believing that Anders is good whether people like him or not, and those thoughts are in Anders’ head so they’re calming these fears like subconsciously, if that makes sense?)

Lack of/unstable sense of personal identity. He has no connection to his name as seen by how he just accepted this random nickname as his name from then on, which isn't strictly a BPD thing but it is a feeling I’ve seen a lot of people with BPD relate to. 

---He doesn't really know what he wants to do because he doesn't really know who he is aside from the Circle mage who keeps escaping. If he's not the runaway mage then what is he? 

---And in DA2 he has trouble distinguishing between himself and Justice whereas Justice doesn't seem to have that problem as much (in the Fade it's always very clear when it's Justice vs Anders speaking, because Justice is in control and Justice has a better idea of who's who)

Anyways yeah, Anders has BPD, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. 

#anyways enjoy my self indulgent bs #Anders #bpd!Anders #he's also bipolar but I don't have that one. bubonickitten has some great bipolar Anders posts though! #I have this one so I'm kinda an expert lmao #da headcanons #long post

[centaurianthropology]

The Magnus Archives ‘Web Development’ (S04E03) Analysis

A spooky Web in the web, and a return to anything but normal.  Something tells me that the journey of the Archival staff is going to be a long one from here, and none of them are in a good place.  Come on in to hear what I have to say about ‘Web Development’.

So we got a little more context for what’s happened in the six months Jon’s been in a coma.  It seems that, given that the Beholding has NEVER taken a shot at a ritual (really?), and may be one of the few that hasn’t at least made the effort, every other power sat up and took notice. Which meant that the Archives specifically, and the Magnus Institute in general has been under siege.  The Flesh at least has made one attempt on the Archives, largely defeated by Melanie.

And Melanie really isn’t doing well at all.  She’s unstable, furious, disbelieving that Jon could possibly be himself, and seemed to barely keep from killing him outright.  Her fall to the Slaughter seems to be progressing very fast indeed, likely egged on by the necessity that she do any monster headed their way violence. Losing Tim and Daisy also hit her hard, and she’s jealously guarding the few people she has left.  And it seems like she views Jon as a threat as well.

And Melanie isn’t the only one giving themselves over to another power in order to keep the Archives safe.  I would imagine that even the ‘safety’ they’re afforded now is being bought by Martin’s continued work with Peter Lukas, who has extended the Lonely’s protection over the staff of the Institute in Elias’ absence.  

But in turn, not only are the various departments being put into less and less contact with one another—effectively isolating the Archival staff even more—but Martin himself is being taken away.  He’s the only direct emissary to Peter, and all other communication is done through email. It’s interesting that, when we recall Peter’s appearances in the show thus far, they have been exclusively around Elias or Martin.  I think Peter marked Martin out as an easy target well before his takeover, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Martin wasn’t part of the arrangement between himself and Elias.  

Martin might not even know Jon is back yet, or could know, but may have been instructed to stay away from him lest dire consequences happen.  It’s good to know that Basira, at least, doesn’t blame Martin for what’s happening, and even seems to understand that he and Melanie are doing very similar things to keep her and Jon safe, albeit in very different ways.

And speaking of Basira, it was worrisome exactly HOW detached she really seems to be.  It may be the grief of Melanie’s death or the shock of so much horror happening at once, but her equanimity is setting off alarm bells in my head.  The fact that she doesn’t know what to do about Melanie, and isn’t bothering to try, that she’s essentially holed herself up in the Archives and seems willing to let whatever horrific things might play out to those around her proceed without interference is also worrisome.

She’s been around the Beholding for a while, with a natural affinity for the power.  And I worry that Basira, like the others, is succumbing to a Power, but hers is the Beholding.  It’s urging dispassion, observation, standing back and letting things play out with as much emotional involvement as a scientist watching bacteria grow and die on a plate.  I don’t even know if she realizes that’s what’s happening to her, but I’m almost 100% convinced that it is.  Because she’s always been self-contained, but this detachment?  It reminds me of Gertrude.

Jon, at least, seems fully emotionally engaged, which is a relief after last week.  His consternation that Melanie would be angry at him for a six-month coma, his shock that she would hate him so much she would threaten him physically (something even Tim never did), and the growling anger that Martin seems to be voluntarily working with Peter Lukas all do speak to emotional engagement, albeit that very specific, very selfish engagement that is Jon all over.

After my worries last week that the Archivist is stronger in him now, this is at least somewhat comforting. His jealousy over Martin’s current predicament might still also be influenced by the Archivist, and the Beholding’s possessive attitude toward Martin.  Because while Jon certainly seems concerned about Melanie’s state of mind, he doesn’t seem jealous that she’s being stolen by the Slaughter.  The jealousy seems far more related to Martin. Maybe that’s because the Beholding’s had Martin for a decade, while it never really had its hooks into Melanie properly.  Maybe it’s because Jon is just realizing he has more of a personal connection with Martin than he thought he did, and Melanie he just doesn’t know as well.  I think it’s mostly likely a bit of both. Jon and the Archivist are blended in a way they weren’t previously, so much so that its influence on him will be insidious.  Change him in subtle ways rather than obvious ones.  

But Melanie knows he’s different.  Georgie knew it too.  This is Jon, but it’s Jon with new bits tacked on, and for those people who either knew Jon before or who are primed to sniff out the differences, this man who’s come back is pinging all of their alarms.

We’ll have to see how everything plays out, because it seems that the team is stuck together for the long haul.  If these attacks on the Archives are as common as Basira implies, they won’t be going home often.  Jon and Melanie’s conflict can’t possibly be dealt with so easily, if only because they can’t help but remain in proximity.  And if Basira isn’t interested in helping them sort things out, it may be down to Jon to be diplomatic and empathetic.

Because that’s not guaranteed to end in disaster.

As for the statement itself, it’s classic web, though it’s interesting that it seems to also be a bit of technology too.  The notion that the next fear will be technological isn’t confirmed by any means, but I still thought of it, given the context.  

But this is almost certainly the Web, given the secretive website that moves around with gibberish in its code, its demand for stories to be spun and given to it in exchange for killing someone—and apparently those who fail to satisfy whatever entity receives the stories will mete out a cruel fate to those who wrote the story.  At least, that is if the thing that Angie and Greg encountered under the street lamp, filled to brimming with spiders and screaming in pain, is any indication.  It also very much sounded like the person who hired Greg may have been Annabel Caine.  

And of course, Carlos Vittery, he of the spider that wouldn’t go away, is back in the story, as his name appeared on the list.  It’s very possible that he died because someone submitted his name and a story that met with the approval of the ‘story-spinner’.  

And much like previous victims of the Web, once snared Greg couldn’t help but go deeper and deeper, his own passivity lending him excuses, but the compulsion to serve also still there. This almost-hypnosis is very much another hallmark of the Web.

But what really interested me was the demand for stories.  This doesn’t feel like a Web thing so much as a Beholding thing.  That got me wondering if the spiders don’t live in the tunnels under the Institute because they also feed on stories, albeit in a very different way.  For one thing, it doesn’t sound like the Web requires a story to be true to feed on it. In fact, given the Web’s nature, I would wonder if the ‘discredited’ stories that we don’t hear on the podcast are actually what are feeding the web.  All those lies and half-truths and delusions are feeding it.  It makes the Web a bit of a scavenger, which I think also fits its tendency to play all other Powers off and against one another.

Of another interesting note, I tried looking up Calisari, but the best I could find online was Călușari, a Romanian secret society that performed a dance called the căluș which involved the impression that they could fly.  This was to imply the flight of fairies, and their leader was called the Queen of the Fairies.  Despite this name, the group was apparently male-only, and often thought of as disturbed. I’m not sure if this ties into the name or not, but that’s what I found.  I couldn’t find information during my brief Wikipedia foray on their beliefs or reasons for being a secret society.  Just that they were dancers who liked to imitate flight.

What this has to do with the Web, if anything, is a mystery to me.

Conclusions

“I wish I could talk it through with Martin … or Tim, or Sasha.  But we never really did that, did we?  Everything’s changed.  Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.”

And in one line, I was destroyed.  Thanks Jonny, I didn’t need those feels anyway.  

While the statement was a solid bit of spooky fiction, Jon’s reality seems more and more desolate. Everyone he used to rely on isn’t available now.  Georgie’s stepped back, Basira seems to only want to interact with him at a great emotional distance, Melanie wants to hurt him if he’s in the same room as she is, and Martin’s just … gone.  I would say that last one is Jon’s best hope for reestablishing a connection, but we don’t know what the Lonely has done to Martin at this point.

But he is the person Jon keeps mentioning first.  He’s the one that Jon shows real anger about losing, even moreso than Tim or Daisy. The reasons for this are probably tangled up in the Archivist, but a part of it is also clearly that Martin is the last speck of Jon’s life before the horror he’s got left.  Martin, who was always sweet and considerate, who brought him tea and sandwiches.  Martin, who Jon must know by now was in love with him.  May still be in love with him.

And as for Jon’s feelings on the matter, I doubt he knows.  As much as Jon knows his wants and needs, he’s almost at the same remove from his emotions as Basira is to everyone else’s.  But he does dwell, and so I would think that would be the relationship he wants to start with rebuilding.  Tracking down Martin is likely not to be easy, but given Jon’s depression and isolation, I think it’s necessary.  After that, trying to break through to Basira and Melanie might be easier with two people working at it.

#The Magnus Archives #analysis

[tiang0u]

peri have you been doing well recently? i hope that your christmas break is going well! have any projects planned or stuff? or anything that you want to share with ur fannnnnns, complete, incomplete, in the works, and the like? (sorry if i sound too thirsty or anything xD i just miss your writing so muchhh)

Anon, my friend, thank you for your concern! As you may be able to tell I don’t possess my usual lowercase spastic exclamatory aesthetic; currently bedridden from a pretty debilitating cold so it’s taken quite a toll! I’m finishing up some things for the td/dk zine, so I don’t have anything recent… but exploring emotional relationships and trauma narratives have always been on my mind, and I do feel pretty guilty that I’ve left a few people hanging, so here’s a piece that I’m always thinking about! (Ahaha, sorry, I took the opportunity to vent out some WIPs, since I’m currently at an impasse with writing!)

Of course, I haven’t really fleshed out any major plot points. Haha, I have all the tags and everything ready, but beyond that, a vague outline and some scenes. Even then, it’s long as hell; the outline itself. I estimate this fic would take at least 20k-30k, because I love wasting words. I guess this will give you perspective into just how disorganized I am~

I’ll probably never write it though. Just the thought of it is depressing, and writing angst fics always bums me out really long afterwards. I like the complexity of human interaction, but it’s draining. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to bring it into the world though!

we met in a sea of dreams (and again when i woke, you were not there, and i was alone.)

rating: mature

tags: angst, implied/referenced torture, implied/referenced child abuse, emotional hurt/comfort, emotional constipation, codependency, body horror, dreamsharing, trauma, friendship, pain

no pairings.

Midoriya Izuku is taken by the League of Villains in their second year. It goes exactly as well as you’d expect. Because the truth of it is they can’t be kids anymore, and the tragedy of it is that they can’t be anything else.

Todoroki Shouto’s first kiss is a sequence of clashing tongues.

A thick, heavy, wet one, in his mouth, pulsing the way a person retches. Pushing mingling saliva down his throat. Forcing him to swallow viscous spit.

Midoriya’s eyes are wide open, lips parted widely against his own, and it’s obscene, wet, profane, and horribly off, and when he catches his breath, Midoriya looks at him, conveying remorse, gratitude, sorrow, guilt, f - e - a - r—and the warp gate closes over his beaten form and falling arm, and separates them in all dimensions.

Todoroki Shouto wakes up choking, lungs burning for air.

As you can tell, this does not bode well. Todoroki is catatonic for a few days; and then one day, he asks for water. And Todoroki doesn’t like hospitals, so he doesn’t cooperate with the nurses; he gets released, gets cleared for school, but not for training or active duty, not by the psychiatrists or Aizawa. One, psychologically. Second, his right arm is entirely shattered.

“The principal and All Might,” Aizawa says, as an afterthought, “want to check up on you.”

“Is that the only reason why,” Shouto says.

There are multiple questions. Why Aizawa has asked him to sit this one out. Why they want to meet him. “Recovery Girl’s orders,” Aizawa answers. “And no.”

Aizawa doesn’t lie to him. That’s nice.

“When.”

“Lunch time. You can take your lunch over there.”

Aizawa is halfway out the door, making his way to the training field where Shouto’s classmates wait, before he leans back in. His face is unreadable.

“If you don’t submit to a psych evaluation by next week, you will fail this course,” he promises. His tone is flat. “Take this time to think about what you’ll do.”

Shouto gives a clipped nod.

/

He didn’t have dreams in the hospital. They sedated him so hard that he had to be helped up to piss. Because he woke up yelling one day and tore all of the catheters out of his arm. He doesn’t remember why.

So, at lunch time, when he goes back to the dorms, he thinks about the reprimand he’s going to get, and then shrugs to himself. He takes the elevator to the second floor and waits outside of Midoriya’s room.

He’ll probably have nightmares without sedation. That’s a given. Thick, black, curling mist. Shoved down his throat, gagging him. Probably. Losing the gravity inside of him, organs getting tugged through a dimension of non-existence, coming out on the other side, reborn and regret. These are the kind of dreams he predicts because Midoriya was dragged through that warp gate with his teeth gritted. And when he caught Todoroki’s gaze, he smiled—

A groaning sound, whining metal. His fingers are suddenly killing him.

He looks down. The door knob is crushed in his palm, his fingers are bent, and when he pulls back, they dangle like dolls with snapped necks.

This is not a dream. The formless scrap hanging from Midoriya’s door has the shape of his fingers pressed permanently. His fingers are killing him.

This is not,

a dream.

“Todoroki, my boy,” a voice calls to him, and when Shouto turns to look, hand dropping to his side, All Might is there, without a smile, and Shouto can’t be saved.

/

“I told the principal that it may be better if I spoke to you alone,” All Might says.

His voice is different in this form. It has a layered quality. Baritone. And grief. Probably.

“Sorry,” Shouto says.”

“I would have come to you anyway,” All Might replies, waving a bony hand in reassurance. He slides a tea cup on a coaster over to Shouto.

All Might is sitting in his room. It turned out like this because he had to go to Recovery Girl for his broken fingers, and All Might walked with him, and then asked if they could speak in private. Shouto wasn’t sure how to respond. And All Might had asked so formally, like he was giving him a choice.

So he bowed his head and waited for All Might to take the lead. They ended up walking back to the dorms. They were almost to the elevator when Shouto finally asked if they were doing this in his room. All Might blinked at him, almost nervously, and then answered, if that was comfortable for him.

All Might is sitting in his room. All Might has just poured and offered him tea. All Might looks like he has attended several funerals, one of them his own, one of them his, and yet he is here, and he is trying to offer something close to salvation. Shouto does not look into his eyes. There are other, more satisfying ways to practice masochism.

“How was your day?” All Might asks.

There are other, more satisfying ways.

“I can’t participate in training,” Shouto says. “My provisional license is suspended until I get a psychiatric evaluation. I’m going to fail out of the hero track if I don’t get one within the week.” He goes silent. And then, just so he doesn’t sound overly petulant, “It was good.”

All Might folds his hands over the table. How will he respond? Shouto just described an obviously really shitty day and then topped it off with flippantry.

“It is okay to say that it was bad,” All Might says.

“I’m not upset,” Shouto returns.

“You don’t have to be.” All Might’s expression softens. “But know that your grief is just as valid as mine.”

So this is where he paves the segue.

“Are you comfortable talking about it?”

Shouto doesn’t know.

“A safe word,” All Might insists.

There. Are. More. Satisfying ways. To practice. Masochism.

“Enji,” Shouto says flatly.

“I would like to explain a few things, then,” All Might tells him, brow quirking at his choice. 

Shouto nods.

“Young Midoriya gave something to you.”

The saliva thickens in his mouth the way a foreign tongue might have filled it. “Enji.”

All Might immediately stops.

This marks the end of everything coherent, as far as what I’ve written! But the first few days back at UA go like this: he doesn’t train. But he doesn’t sleep. The first time he did, he had a nightmare; he woke up cold and sweating and someone was knocking as his door and his back must have been bleeding the skin was literally stripped off he 

was dreaming. He missed dinner; Iida delivered it. Shouto then went to the corner of his room, pressed in from both sides, and waited for the sun to rise again.

And that’s how it goes really, the first few times. The next nightmare is skin stripped from his arms. Water dripping down on his forehead, rolling down his cheeks. Or tears. Then his fingertips. The skin stripped from his fingertips, taking his identity, he wants to die

And then the skin is stripped from his bare feet. He becomes afraid to get up to walk, so he stays in bed.

He has a week to decide to get that psychiatric evalution. Thanks to Recovery Girl, his arm has healed. Aizawa still won’t let him train, and Shouto can’t even punch a wall out of frustration without obliterating a) the wall and b) his hand. With a no-holds-barred he could probably kill his classmates. He can’t control it.

Aizawa doesn’t pressure him to get the psychiatric evaluation. But Bakugou lingers during lunch time and strides up to Shouto’s desk. They are the only two people in the classroom and Bakugou says flatly that Shouto has Midoriya’s quirk. They have this really one-sided discussion that Shouto really does not want to have, and Bakugou ends up giving him a flat ultimatum–either get his head out of his ass or pass it on.

Shouto first wants to clarify that, one, his head is not in his ass. It’s in a place far worse, so if Bakugou wants to jibe, he needs to up his game. Two, didn’t think you cared–

And he wonders if Bakugou will punch him, but Bakugou just levels him with a very, very blank stare.

“You aren’t gonna save him?” he says, and fucker is that a punch.

Shouto blinks, and the sound of existence becomes white noise on the brink.

He thinks about the way Midoriya smiled at him. When they were on patrol that day, they were talking about Shouto’s mom. She was moving out of the hospital. Going to Ito. It was—

“I want to punch you,” Shouto says honestly. He knows Shouto can’t. Not without killing him. “The principal has guards stationed on me. I can’t even leave campus. I don’t know what you mean.”

“Because you’re fucked up in the head and you need a psych evaluation,” Bakugou replies and repeats, “If you’re not gonna do shit, pass it on.”

Shouto has two more days to decide and ultimately, after a few more nightmares, he decides he wants to talk to Midoriya’s mother. He should, since he was the last person to see her son, so he tells Aizawa he’s headed out and Aizawa’s like, you already know that you’re not allowed off grounds without someone posted on you.

Shouto tries to reason he won’t do anything, but Aizawa shrugs. Shouto’s a liability until he gets evaluated, but luckily, someone else is going to see her too. After school. Teacher’s lounge. It’s All Might, of course. They go to see Midoriya’s mother, and Shouto can’t go inside, so he grits his teeth and waits in the car as All Might returns, and he finally decides that he’s going to get that psychiatric evaluation. And he tells All Might that he wants to save Izuku, and so they end up with training sessions! And when Shouto returns that night, he realizes what those dreams were. Izuku’s and his consciousness are linked, the way all OfA users are; and the dreamsharing has occurred because both users are still alive. And so begins a saga.

Points that I really want to make:

And so all of this is the set-up to All Might and Shouto talking, All Might and Shouto taking on a similar mentor-student relationship to All Might and Izuku. It starts off awkward, not necessarily rocky, but their common ground is first Izuku, and then Endeavor, and Shouto doesn’t try to let slip the abuse, it lives with him and in him, but–but when All Might becomes more of a father figure to Shouto, it’s harder for him to draw the line. In turn, he has a lot of resentment and burgeoning feelings of longing for All Might to be his father instead–and even if he was taught to hate All Might by Endeavor, he could never demonize this man. It’s not that he hates All Might. It’s that he hates feeling the complexity of his abuse, and he doesn’t want to think about it, but being around All Might in close proximity like this could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

It does, in fact. Shouto is humiliated when he explains to All Might what happened throughout his childhood. All Might is furious, and then All Might promises him, and says that he is doing well, that he is strong, and he is brave.

They find out that All Might could probably do the dreamsharing too. But he takes sleep medication because sometimes, if he doesn’t, all he can dream of is the way he crushed All for One’s skull and shifted his skin and bones irreparably. 

“He was originally quirkless.”

“Yes.” And All Might’s firm gaze tells him everything he needs to know.

Shouto doesn’t ask.

“You won’t ask why…?”

Shouto shrugs. “It’s Midoriya,” he says, and All Might’s eyes widen before he turns away. The shadow is cast over his face.

“Do you want to talk about it?” All Might asks him softly after regaining his composure.

Shouto stares at him.

“Todoroki, my boy?”

Shouto realizes his face feels warm. Because above all of the shame and anger at himself for not being strong enough, he can remember the distinct sensation of Midoriya sticking a tongue in his mouth.

“…No,” Shouto says.

One of the reasons why he does not pass One for All onto Mirio is because he can’t be sure that Izuku will get One for All back, if the administration have anything to say about. All Might hears his concerns loud and clear and accepts his decision to keep One for All until Izuku is returned.

Mirio personally admits that having a quirk again would be nice. Mirio knows that if he pushes the issue, he, more qualified, would naturally be given One for All. But Mirio says Midoriya wanted to save that girl, above all, despite everything. And then Mirio says, All Might and Midoriya are really the same. He smiles wryly at Shouto and says that Shouto seems to be of the same stock.

Bakugou and Shouto are not friends. But they’re allies. However, this fic does have Bakugou redemption, or post-redemption + exploration of how Midoriya and Bakugou are. Shouto and Bakugou do not get along, but they come to understand each other more than they want to. Shouto is cruel in how he pushes away others. Bakugou is cruel in the way he pulls them in. That’s an antiparallel that I like writing, so I’ve included it, haha. But ultimately, Bakugou wants to save Midoriya, and if asked why, he would answer, Ask questions that can actually be answered. Shouto asks him once exactly what Bakugou thinks of Midoriya, because he knows that Bakugou would never directly admit that he wants to save Midoriya out loud. Bakugou responds, he’s Deku. And that could mean any sort of thing from insult to identification, but the utter disdain in his voice, like Todoroki even has to ask, like it’s obvious to all and every, really takes the cake.

Shouto has purely platonic relationships. He is purely asexual. This story really has no sexual or romantic pairings. It does deal with some aspects of asexuality that I personally wanted to address. In this fic, I headcanon that Shouto is ace while Bakugou is aromantic asexual. Anything with these two characters is either platonic or one-sided from the other party’s perspective. Of course, there is subtext. You never know.

The reason that Shouto and Midoriya can share dreams is because Midoriya is the ninth wielder and Shouto is the tenth. It was said that Midoriya could actually see the previous wielders, including All Might, so I thought it could be extended that the ability to communicate with previous wielders becomes more available as the power of One for All increases, as a consequence. YOLO. First, Todoroki just has nightmares of being tortured, unbeknownst to him that this is Midoriya’s visceral experience, and then he finally synchs up with Midoriya after five nightmares, and they appear in the same dream.

Half of this fic is interactions between the two of them in their dreamshare. The other half is interactions with All Might, Bakugou, introspection, and the like.

The relationship that they build is codependency on Midoriya’s part. Being alive in the League of Villains’ dungeon is such a living hell that he’d rather be asleep, so he’s always unconscious. Shouto, on one hand, somehow becomes addicted to sleeping. Or rather, he thinks about the way that Midoriya is floating alone on the wavelength shared between them, and he thinks about the way that he must be the only reprieve in Midoriya’s currently miserable existence, and he starts sleeping a lot as a result. All Might mistakes it as depression—which, correct diagnosis, but wrong symptom, there were other signs — but Shouto explains that it’s that he’s talking to Midoriya and doesn’t respond otherwise.

The first dream that they have together, Midoriya sees him and asks if he’s real. And then he apologizes for the kiss, and when Shouto takes it in stride by waving it off, Midoriya wonders if this isn’t really a dream? Shouto says that it really isn’t, and Midoriya insists that it is, he was sure Todoroki-kun would have been at least a little disgunrlted? And Shouto is like, this isn’t a dream and I was fine with it. And Midoriya grimaces and says, I forcefully kissed you and made you swallow my spit. Todoroki-kun, seriously.

There is one instance of tension. Midoriya wonders if he’s going to die here. Or he wonders if it would be better to die. Shouto says that they are going to save him. Midoriya says that it’s okay, the fact that he could become a hero in this life is enough for him, and Shouto orders him to stop talking like that, and Midoriya says jokingly that he guesses if he did have one regret, it would be that he didn’t really get to experience anything else. He says, “I’m really glad that I made friends in high school.” But he guesses that he really will never have a first love, or hold someone’s hand, or be held by them, or go on a date, or a kiss—

Shouto pulls Midoriya forward and kisses him, brief, angry. It’s the dream. It’s made him something different. You kissed me back there, Shouto points out, pulling back, a little sour. It was his first. Then he laces their fingers together, wrapping his other arm around Midoriya’s shoulder, and he says, even though I can’t give you those things in the way you want, here.

Midoriya relaxes against his hold. Do tears exist in a world of dreams? Todoroki-kun, are you in love with me?

I don’t think I am, Shouto admits. Not in love, at least. But I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill someone. Until Shigaraki.

And Midoriya replies that that’s fair.

Are you, Shouto asks.

In love? Midoriya responds. Faraway, he says into Todoroki’s shoulder, I was. Once. Someone. I don’t have the capacity for it any more.

Shouto is relieved to hear this. 

Anyway Midoriya doesn’t let on when he’s getting tortured far worse. When Shouto asks him if All for One knows he doesn’t have One for All anymore, he doesn’t know if it’s better or worse when Midoriya rasps, he knows.

At some point, Shouto tells Midoriya to stop wearing his projection. Midoriya falters and says that it looks pretty bad. Shouto says that he needs to know how bad.

Midoriya asks if Shouto can share dreams with All Might. When Shouto asks if he wants for him to bring All Might into the dream, Midoriya seems to think better of it and says no. When Shouto asks why, Midoriya finalls says:

“He’ll ask me if I’m doing okay, and then he’ll—” and then, face crumpling, he shakes his head.

Bakugou and Midoriya are hard to quantify. I guess I’d say that I heavily implied some one-sided love on Izuku’s behalf, but of course they both realize it’s an unhealthy relationship. It’s complex in a way that I can’t describe in a sick state. But Bakugou figures it out, he’s smart. It’s one of the many more things he avoided thinking about as a result, but Midoriya not being there anymore is scary.

Bakugou didn’t return these feelings at any point.

The reason he was so cruel to Midoriya wasn’t because he was disgusted by the idea of love. It’s his superiority-inferiority complex.

He in no way ever used that love against Midoriya in an abusive way. Just repeatedly pushed him away and the like; got cruel when Midoriya was persistent–but he never used the fact that Midoriya felt this way against him.

That’s really all I can say on the matter. It’s closed. Of course, Midoriya doesn’t feel that way anymore either. They’re kids with the capacity to move on. It was highly toxic, and it won’t be happening in the fic at all.

When they do rescue Izuku, Shouto shatters his index finger striking a blow against Shigaraki in a way that ensures he’ll never be able to touch all five fingers down on any surface, ever. Bakugou even says, what the fuck, Todoroki.

Shouto gives One for All back to Izuku. He says, full circle, that it’s Midoriya’s power.

It ends with the three of them. Unspoken is the sheer amount of trauma recovery that will be required, the fallout and aftermath of this serious failure on behalf of the hero industry. Haha, I was going to take the easy way out and time-skip.

It ends like this:

“Todoroki, my boy,” All Might says kindly. “You are doing well.”

Thank you!

#periaske #anon #replies #writing #mmmmm ahahaha putting a slash through each of their names was already too much for my laziness #so i guess this will just show up in the search....? #i don't know how tumblr works #thanks for asking anon!!! it felt good to vent that fic out since i knew i wasn't ever going to write it #honestly it's just an entire big bundle of hurt wrapped in 20 to 30k words #introspection is awesome but forming the emotional attachments to those characters really makes it hard #to stop feeling bad afterwards rip man

[fedorasaurus]

Transformers #70 (1990)

I want to talk about Transformers #70 (1990) and the fricken... Junji Ito tier [robot] body horror going on, with all the intense feels that it implies in context, but I also don't wanna spoil it, so, under a pagebreak it goes.

-

First of all, for context: Ratchet stopped Megatron from escaping in a previous issue by teleporting armed explosives from the Autobot base (set by the Decepticons) to Megatron’s base and grabbing hold of him as he attempted to flee through a portal. When the explosion occurred, it was assumed that both of them were killed in the blast. However, Nightbeat later discovers that, since the portal was open at the time of the explosion, it’s possible that Ratchet was thrown into “Un-Space” and trapped there when the portal shut down due to structural damage. They send a probe into the Un-Space to lock onto Ratchet’s life energy in the hopes that he might still be recoverable. Eventually, the probe does draw Ratchet back into the physical world, but there’s a horrifying problem:

The explosion actually threw both Ratchet AND Megatron into Un-Space, and the intense heat from the blast fused their bodies together into the genuinely disturbing figure seen above. They can barely talk in this form, and it’s somewhat unclear as to whether or not they are entirely conscious of their actions. They definitely seem to have Megatron’s desire to kill the Autobots, but do they also possess Ratchet’s compassion?

ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES.

This is the point where I start to regret interpreting Optimus and Ratchet’s relationship as romantic, because it makes the emotional pain that much more intense for me. Headcanons aside, this is a very interesting story element that the writers came up with. What do you do when your best friend shares a monstrous body with your worst enemy? What do you do when you believe that murder is wrong, but the monster is doing everything it can to cause harm to your mission and crew?

Optimus’ emotions get the best of him in this understandably jarring encounter, and Kup outright tells him that they’re considering stripping him of leadership because of it (as a sidenote, Optimus was already planning to return to Earth to surrender to Scorponok in hopes of ending the Autobot/Decpticon war and form an alliance against Unicron, a decision that much of the crew is uncomfortable with). While the Megatron-Ratchet creature is destroying the ship’s engines, Kup gives Optimus his gun and essentially tells him to be a true leader and end this once and for all.

Upon confronting the monstrosity, Optimus cannot bring himself to go through with it. Besides, it’s not like the monster is self-aware or--

LISTEN, MY HEART CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH, AND THIS IN PARTICULAR IS BEYOND WHAT IT CAN TAKE.

To spoil the story further, Optimus ends up NOT pulling the trigger, presumably restraining the creature non-lethally and bringing it to the medbay, determined to find a solution to this mess that doesn’t involve the cost of Ratchet’s life (again). I’d argue that he’d want to recover Megatron as well, but this narrative focuses on the struggle of friend and foe, and the sacrifices one is willing to make. If it seems like Optimus is being selfish at this point, not killing the creature when it is pretty clear that Ratchet is willing to die again to stop Megatron, I feel you. Optimus’ love and determination to do the “right thing” is verging on obsessive at this point, but I think it’s worth noting Sureshot’s line, “Ratchet sacrificed everything to save us--can we do less?” But then there is Kup’s argument that, yes, this is a painful choice, but Ratchet’s sacrifice would be in vain if the creature ends up killing them all anyway, and “besides... would you want to live if you were like that?”

There’s a lot in this issue about quality of life, including a parallel subplot that I haven’t mentioned in which Grimlock seeks an alternate source of energy with which to revive his Dinobot companions. While the energy source can restore the dead to life and bring them improved functionality, this “nucleon” comes with consequences that are different for each creature. It may bring madness, great physical pain, or any other horrible side-effects. Grimlock’s solution is to test the nucleon on himself before administering it to his friends, which is something I totally respect. It takes the “...would you want to live if you were like that?” hypothetical into a reality. He’s willing to suffer along with them, or maybe not revive them at all if the consequences on his own body and mind are too extreme. Of course, Grimlock himself notices no immediate problems, and concludes that the warnings of pain and madness are probably nothing but exaggeration and paranoid superstition. 

Back to Optimus and his friend + enemy in the medbay. The medics conclude that, yes, it is possible to separate Ratchet from Megatron. However, due to the nature of their fusion, there is no guarantee that Ratchet can be recovered with his mind fully intact as well as his body. In addition, there is no way to save Ratchet without also saving Megatron. Again with the theme: is it worth it to save your best friend if it also means saving your worst enemy? And again I would argue that it would be in-character for Optimus to believe that Megatron still deserves (and is capable of) a chance at redemption, so it was no surprise that the issue ended with Optimus deciding that the operation should be attempted.

This was a good, thought-provoking story, but it was much philosophically deeper and emotionally stressful than what I’m used to for this comic series. I just came here to have a good time, man!

#Transformers #comic books #analysis #spoilers #disturbing imagery #Marvel Comics #90's comics #MY HEART #I need some heartwarming fluff to restore my emotions with