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snalzhttps · 4 months

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IM GOING TO. ramble about an uty headcanon/theory? now SPOILERS

SO THIS is a drawing in Kanako’s room of what appears to be Axis, its meant to be Axis right! (theres an obvious drawing of Dalv too so she’s drawing other characters and we are meant to assume she knows them)

BUT something that sticks out to me is that the heart on Axis’ chest is upside down! (and there are other slight differences too - no gear, lightbulb, or ear things?)

I love the sibling dynamic Axis and Kanako headcanons and drawings they are like my favourite thing, but if Kanako had met Axis 014, how would she get these details wrong?

These could just be errors in memory or artistic ability, she seems very young after all, BUT THAT ANSWER IS WAY LESS FUN THAN RANDOM SPECULATION!!!!!!!

SO. My little headcanon theory is that this drawing is a design that Kanako came up with for a guard robot that Chujin asked her to draw, then he modelled Axis (014 at the least) off of. Kanako is a young monster who wouldn’t know humans had upward facing souls, and only ever seen/known about monsters downward facing souls, so would draw a heart shape that way (then Chujin changed this when building Axis, for some reason)

There is no *proof* for this other than the idea that Kanako is “gifted like her father too” (which is most likely supposed to be referring to the fact they are boss monsters considering the trailed off “she’s a” following), but I like to imagine its also about a creating/art talent since the accompanying picture of Kanako has her painting the mask. Implying to me that Chujin and Kanako could have drawn/created things together and one day the idea of designing a robot (since it was on Chujin’s mind from the steamworks employee reports and letters) came up.

And THAT is where Axis’ (kind of clunky and strange compared to a more sleek and smooth looking robot like guardener that was being built and designed at the same time, showing the capabilities of robot designs) design comes from (this also could explain why the other robot parts in Chujin’s office look a good bit different to how Axis 014 looks).

There is Also nothing to my memory that strictly DISPROVES this, HOWEVER consider this fun value pillar, the fun value pillars in the dark ruins tell the story of the day the integrity human attacked Dalv, Kanako was there, and Chujin sent Axis (014 as we know from his geno route confession and giving exp) after them, killing them accidentally, right?

And it was Dalv (also known to draw, and was attacked by integrity, and is now in the dark ruins) who is the one who drew on these pillars right? So that implies that Dalv saw what happened (most unlikely because Axis followed integrity to Waterfall), heard what happened (unknown from who) or figured out/imagined what happened. In any case it implies that he saw Axis at least once, enough to draw him (even abstractly like this).

I’ve seen the assumption that Axis was there in Snowdin with Chujin, Kanako, and Dalv, (which is fun to think about i think AND matches dalv seeing/knowing axis) BUT in the first Chujin tape where he discusses the event he says no one was there to protect Kanako, which you'd think Axis would be doing if he was there in Snowdin with them.

But where Axis actually was is more ambiguous. In the secret secret tape Chujin says he “should’ve stayed” implying to me that he left the scene to go get Axis from the Steamworks/his office lab basement/wherever, meaning that Dalv couldn’t have seen Axis on that occasion. I also feel like if Axis was in Snowdin it would have been mentioned at some point by someone.

So this scenario doesn’t explain how Dalv saw Axis to be able to draw him. While if Axis WAS in Snowdin that doesnt explain how Kanako would get so many details wrong drawing him, especially if they spent a lot of time/more than one time together.

FURTHERMORE the pacifist route shows that Ceroba and Axis have never seen eachother before either (Chujin also didn’t add Ceroba to Axis’ authorised list by default, implying he didn’t think they’d ever come across eachother?) So if Chujin had Axis and Kanako meet this had to somehow be without Ceroba knowing At All.

(HOWEVER since Ceroba watched Chujin’s tapes she is lying in some way during the pacifist Steamworks because she would have heard the name “Axis” and found out how Chujin got the Integrity soul, so should know more than she lets on about his robotics projects.)

This also implies that Ceroba hasn’t been in Kanako’s room in a long time, maybe even before Kanako fell down, or she would have seen the Axis drawing on the floor. It makes sense that she would avoid Kanako’s room though.

FOR MY FINAL “HOWEVER” I will say that this raises the question of Why the Axis drawing is still on the floor with a pencil, this kind of implies that it might have been the last/most recent thing that Kanako drew, or had gotten out to look at/add too. If Axis 014 is based off the drawing it would be a long time between the Initial drawing -> Chujin builds and codes 014 -> The Snowdin event -> Chujin experiments and falls down -> Kanako falls down -> the events of the game

BUT even between the Snowdin event (the latest time Kanako could have seen Axis, since after that i imagine Chujin would have kept him fully confined to the Steamworks since he was “dangerous”) and the events of the game thats still quite a long time for the drawing to be sat there, so maybe that doesn’t mean much.

THE EXPLANATION I THOUGHT OF MADE ME SO SAD but i have to include this thought, that after the Snowdin event, and especially with Chujin getting very absorbed in his work then starting to fall down, Kanako would have stopped drawing and just left all of her work around her room, and had the Axis one out as it reminded her of Chujin.

ANYWAY i would LOVE to hear what other people think about all this, its very very possible im missing something obvious im a bit silly, if so please tell me haha. Also i love both possibilities of if Axis was in Snowdin or not AND the sibling Axis and Kanako headcanons… the LAST thing i want is to discourage those hc’s they are so cute.

In any case i just think the *concept* of a scientist who wants to perfect his (so far failed) guard robot to protect people, asking his daughter (the monster who he undoubtedly would want to protect most in the world) to design that robot, then getting so lost in his grand pursuit to protect monsterkind that he fails in nearly every way (leaving Kanako at the scene to try and get Axis to apprehend integrity, Axis’ programming messing up leading to him violently killing integrity, leading then to Chujin experimenting on himself and falling down, then the daughter he wanted to protect most falling down the same way because of the work he left behind) REALLY breaks my heart.

#undertale yellow spoilers #axis uty #undertale yellow axis #kanako ketsukane #chujin ketsukane #axis 014 #uty headcanon #ceroba ketsukane #dalv uty #long post

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little-yandere-ish-blog · 1 year

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Yandere! AI! Germany x reader

You sat there staring at your ceiling, the swirl patterns on the ceiling were charming in their own way. Your earbuds played the same songs, everything felt unreal in its own way. It felt empty. This feeling of yours was just like the feeling of a husk in the desert.

There was no point looking at your phone. No one texted you anyways- Your DM’s and messages were dry as hell. The most exciting notification you got was an email from tumblr saying to check out these 5 new trends. Even that vibration alone got you excited but the disappointment realizing that it was no one was your email.

You laid back in your bed, another lonely day...you would have work tomorrow anyways. You sighed softly- you decided some online quizzes wouldn't kill you. You pulled out your laptop going around to take some stupid quizzes to kill time. You were going through the pages of google you went to the 56th page of google and a link caught your eye.

An odd quiz you never saw before “ ideal game quiz” you decided to do the quiz and finding out your ideal game type and even where to get these games. You hummed seeing your game you got from the quiz was called “World of Love” a game about finding love?

You said fuck it and decided to download the game, you grabbed a soda as you installed the application on your computer. It was downloaded in 10 minutes which was enough time to grab snacks and a drink. You hummed as the start screen loaded. It was a pink pastel aesthetic with cute little options and toggles. You smiled softly clicking on ‘<3New Game’

‘WELCOME TO WORLD OF LOVE!’

please choose your preferred story!

>Casual story

>Deep story

>Unknown story

You stared at the page not thinking much of it you clicked Unknown story.

time skip 20 hours of game play~

It was day 10 of your game (you had played 2 hours) everyday of the game interacting with characters such as; Alfred, Ludwig, Edward, Feliciano, and Mathias! You had chosen a particular character to go for and that was Ludwig- He was so strong and helpful!:)

If only you knew he was looking right back at you-

You always smiled at his dialogue and would always try to find fanart or even fanfics but...they don’t exist? You found it weird considering you got the link to this game from a quiz so...shouldn’t it be more popular? You brushed it off as the game having a small fandom that doesn’t do much of anything.

You drew your own fanart of him and kept it in your room. It was so nice having it:) Today in particular was special because today was the end of the game you had completed all the tasks and side quests for Ludwig’s route! this was very exciting!

the end scene was playing out, you didn’t notice that in the top right corner your computer glitched. It was small then the screen froze. You couldn’t move your mouse or turn off your monitor, you groaned ‘fuck- the game gave you some kind of virus!’ You sighed trying to turn it off but it was still on. The monitor started sparking. You panicked and tried to unplug it but no use....the screen went to a light blue....you sat there freaking out not knowing what to do! You went to grab your phone to call a computer tech but you heard a voice...it was Ludwig’s voice from the game?

“I wouldn’t do that if i were you-” he warned

you looked to the monitor seeing Ludwig coming out of the screen into your home...he was real?! HE WAS HUMAN?! Your jaw dropped

“ what the fuck?!” you exclaimed

“I guarantee you i am of no harm whatsoever” He showed both his hands showing he had no weapon to harm anyone with.

“ you’re...not supposed to be here..?” you stated...it was more of a question than anything

“ of course i can go where i please, I do have a purpose after all” He smiled softly

“and that purpose is...?” you raised a brow

“ to take you and get married” He stated as if it was an obvious thing he just said

“ Ludwig...you’re a computer- Im not marrying a computer” you said bluntly

“ don’t be silly (name) We’re bound to be together! You played my route and seeing your face light up seeing me speak really light my heart up” He confessed holding your hand...oddly enough it was warm?

Before you could get a word in he interrupted

“I don’t think we’d want an accident would we?” He threatened giving a tight smile....he fixated his eyes on the power cord and cup of water on your desk..

“how can you do all of this?..” your head spinning, everything seemed so unreal right now.

“that isn’t important but do know you are safe when you are with me” he reassured you. He held your hand tightly putting it to his muscular chest “ I will make sure we are together and you are not hurt, we could live in the virtual world (name), access to the internet and the whole game its so much larger than that small map they give you. No one will ever purchase the game again anyways” He said looking into your eyes his piercing blue eyes looking deep into your eyes.

“What are you talking about?” you pulled you hand away from him, confused at his question. the quiz and the game? Surely there may be others trapped in this game or A.I rather than you.

“ You manage to find the one quiz buried deep in the internet, our game had created that quiz of yours and deleted it after a person took it. You found a strange dating game and downloaded it without thinking about potential consequences. Think about it (name) we are bound together. This is our fate. You chose me. You wanted me.” Ludwig looked at you, his tone was serious. How the hell are you gonna get yourself out of this one?

Suppose its too late to call that computer tech now is it?

#yandere germany #yandere hetalia x reader #yandere hetalia #yandere hws germany #yandere aph germany #aph germany #yandere AI #yandere computer

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mermaid--bride · 1 year

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Diabolik Lovers || Dark Waters - Kazemi Maniac Route [Maniac 1]

--In Yuma's garden at the Mukami manor

Kazemi: What do you think, Yuma-kun?

Yuma: Heh, not bad. Ya actually got some talent for gardenin’.

Kazemi: Fufu!

(This is so relaxing!)

(I’m really glad Yuma-kun invited me to help harvesting strawberries.)

(I had a really stressful morning since Ruki-kun refuse to accept me not going back to school.)

--Flashback starts

Ruki: Do you have any idea of the impact your decision may have in our plans? How are you going to approach Eve if you simply stop going to school?

Kazemi: I don’t care, ok?

If the problem is me staying here, I will leave immediately! I’m fine with that!

I can’t see that person again... No matter what... I need to get away from him...

Ruki: You are willing to compromise all the progress you have made and go back to the streets because of a human boy?

Kazemi: ... ... Yes... I am...

Ruki: ... ...

--End of flashback

Kazemi: (Of course he wouldn’t understand... I didn’t expect him to...)

(Although I must admit I also didn’t expect him to let me stay even after that...)

(Turns out that, as cold as he is, there might be some kindness in his vampire heart.)

Yuma: Oi, ya said yer a mermaid, right?

Kazemi: Hm? Ah yeah... and a vampire too...

... Why?

Yuma: What is that like?

Kazemi: You mean...?

Yuma: Are you dumb or what?

I mean, what are mermaids like? Are they eveyrthing we hear in stories?

Kazemi: Ah... Well...

(That was a sudden question...)

My mother told me, when I was a child, that mermaids are like a midterm between humans and demons. They are a minor race, descendent from the vibora clan.

However they are still higher in power than other races. They can use their voices to create illusions and hypnotize. They can control water and it’s temperature, sometimes even create storms, depending on their own abilities.

They can also turn into humans whenever they want to help them find their preys more easily, since they feed on human flesh.

Yuma: ... That means ya also...?

Kazemi: ... ... I’m half vampire...

Thanks to that, I can go a long time without eating.

Also, human food isn’t as useless for me as it is for vampires...

So I don’t really need it...

Yuma: Oh...

Kazemi: ... ...

(It can’t be helped... This is who I am... Rather I like it or not...)

(Goki... I don’t blame him for calling me a monster... In his position, I probably would too...)

Yuma: ... Is that why ya don’t wanna get back to school?

Kazemi: Eh...?

Yuma: Ruki told us what went down this mornin.

You know, runnin away will neva get ya anywhere. Ya gotta face the guy if you wanna get rid of ‘im.

Kazemi: I know that...

(But I can’t face him...)

Yuma: ... Oi.

Kazemi: Hm?

Wha-!!

*Phew*

Yuma: Heh, nice dodge~

Kazemi: (He nearly punched me!!)

Yuma: C’mon, figh’meh!

*Phew*

Kazemi: Kch! Stop!!

Yuma: Make meh!

*Phew*

Kazemi: Oi, Yuma-!!

*Thud*

Kazemi: Ugh!!

Yuma: Haha! Gotcha!

Kazemi: Ow...

What the hell was that for!?

Yuma: Ya kept dodging me. It was obvious I’d end up hittin ya at some point.

Kazemi: ...!

Yuma: See what I’m sayin? If ya run away, yer only delaying the blow.

Ya gotta face it properly if ya don’t wanna lose the fight.

Kazemi: ... ...

Yuma: Need help gettin up?

Kazemi: No... I’m fine...

Yuma: Good. Bring yer basket once yer up.

--Yuma leaves

Kazemi: ... ... ...

(Face it, huh...)

--End of Maniac 1

#kazemi #kazemi mizuhana #maniac #maniac 1 #route #dark waters #diabolik lovers #dl #oc

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maddsmallow · 1 year

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rambles about my thoughts on dbh under the cut that im not gonna tag bc i dont want people who disagree to come at me lmao

idek how to start this. i think one important thing to point out tho is that, that one post that was like “writing is like the adult version of playing with dolls” totally blew my mind when i first read it and i absolutely apply that to fictional characters. they are just little dolls humans create to reflect ourselves and tell stories and i think that’s absolutely brilliant

okay so anyways. basically it’s pretty obvious that connor is generally the most liked character in the game and like. yes i am part of that group lmao. and i think the reasons for that is because connor has to spend pretty much the whole game trying to figure out who and what he is and/or wants, whereas kara and markus pretty much know immediately--breaking through their programming and becoming deviant happens at like, what, their second or third part? connor has to spend all this time interacting with others and trying to process all this new information, and we get to see him come face to face with all this stuff that contradicts what his programming it telling him, and We Angsty Bitches love that shit lmaooo. it leaves connor’s characterization a little more open-ended, whereas kara and markus are pretty set in who they are, which ties into the “playing with dolls” thing. you can do more with connor without going completely against canon than you can with kara and markus, you have more leeway with his character. also i think he can be seen as like, uh, idk how to word it, autistic-coded? which is def super relatable

but i think kara’s part of the story is totally slept on!!! i mean i didnt appreciate is much at first either, but then i had a conversation with my older brother about it and it completely changed my view on it. he asked me what i thought about the plot twist of alice being an android and i was like eh yeah i saw it coming, i dont feel like it did much for the story, i didnt get the point. (and admittedly i am very awful with seeing the deeper meaning of things until told. it’s something i recognize and am trying to work to get better at) and he said [shortened] “up until the reveal, the message was ‘androids are worthy of consideration, and here is an example of an android going above and beyond to care for this human girl.’ after the reveal it became ‘androids are worthy of consideration, and YOU want them to be safe and live happily.’“ totally blew mind. the story makes you take a step back and confront your biases and potential bigotry--you either have to admit that you think all the effort wasnt worth it because alice was an android and come face to face with your prejudice, or make you admit that all that time and effort was just as worthwhile as if she were human and you do care about androids. and then of course, this is all an allegory for real life bigotry against persecute minority groups. so i just feel like kara’s storyline importance to the game is just so fuckin underappreciated.

markus is the one one i have only a little to say about, and that’s just because the angry violent route is seen as a bad route and like. i get it. violence bad n all, but im also kind of with north. the anger is justified in my opinion. i mean idk if that’s just because im so fucking sick and tired of seeing my trans and queer siblings die by the hands of bigots and seeing my home country becoming overrun with fascists who wont and dont listen to peaceful protests, but idk. the whole “violence is bad wahh” thing feels icky to me. i mean i do think it has the same outcome (depending on how you play connor’s storyline) as a peaceful protest where the US has to recognize that androids are equal people, but still. idk. i think his story presenting that dilemma of peaceful or violence for the right to live is very important tho, especially is this day and age, considering, yknow. yknow.

anyways

also this is hard to explain, and im very worried about being misunderstood or having words put into my mouth, but i think connor and hank are both good as father/son or boyfriends. this literally isnt even an incest think oh my god, i just think that depending on how you view their interactions, both ways of putting them together is great. it’s the “playing with dolls” thing again, just give them the right context and smooching can be great or found family can be great, i love and appreciate both !!

okay thanks for coming to my ted talk i think thats all i wanted to say

edit: OH ONE MORE THING i dont get the love for gavin or rk900. i mean gavin is essentially a huge racist asshole and as far as i know you see rk900 for like 20 seconds. i mean maybe it does fall back into the “playing with dolls” thing where they have so little to their character that it’s easy to just project a bunch of stuff onto them and turn them into whatever you went (like, turning gavin into NOT a huge racist asshole) but idk. it’s not for me personally. u guys have fun tho

ok bye

#the blogger says words

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rewsaw · 1 year

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The world isn't meant for people like me. Even if I wanted to work and live I would have to get two jobs.

Im physically weak, and mentally weak. My body and soul are not capable of working in a society such as this. I will have to 'check' myself into a institution. Both options of institutions are scary. I was initially going to go down the homelessness route of just moving around but the food problem would end any shred of fuel in me.

I can't end my life due to the essence of my being being too important. Knowing I'm alive is enough for my family to not be in too emotional state to work, depressing that I even have to think of that.

I think I shouldn't exist. It tends to seem like I'm in a dark comedy show. Everything lines up for me to fail repeatedly. When I'm at my breaking point, and only then, does my life start to, at least, feel better, for an hour or so.

The world isn't meant for people like me, who are able to see, and objectively view it, for all it's 'qualities'. It just isn't a world most want to live in. We just convince ourselves, or others in some cases, that 'it' will get better, which in some essense, and depending on who you are, is true but that 'happiness' will eventually 'grow old'. Either ending or we become used to it. The physicality of the world and the mental pressure of the human psyche are two problems of the same coin.

In turn, this can mean helping one will help the other, which I believe others have realised this, knowingly or not. The only problem is the lack of 'togetherness' and motivation to work towards this goal. I don't intend this to be motivational as this goal can never be achieved, I'm simply using this post as a stress relief, as I miss another day of college.

Do not fret, I understand I am not helping myself in any way, except clearing and improving/reinforcing my views. I understand that the way I'm heading towards my 'future' is dangerous, for myself and others. I simply do not have enough 'courage' or 'motivation', in any sense, to change. I choose short-term answers to ease the stress of the long-term problems. If only I could be a robot, devoid of any emotion, so I can just work for someone without thinking. To just let go of my pride and self-preservation for someone who doesn't think of me as a person but as a collective of workers.

Shame is subjective, obviously, but I have a hard time trying to convince myself that I am not ashamed of myself. When I look back, I see very few things that can not be shameful, to my standards, and that are 'pure', and can be viewed as 'prideful'. I, nowadays, have a double meaning for doing a task. How will this benefit me? How will this affect me? It's tough trying to convince yourself that you are neutral, in whatever way you would like to be, in this case about shame. Kind of obvious, for if it was simple I would be a mindless robot, already working in some factory for twelve hours a day, whilst a sense of fading happiness shoots across my face when I realise I can take a fifteen minute break.

I was going to begin this next paragraph by saying 'I'm lost...', however I'm not. When you begin to adopt these 'depressive' views people tend to assume "You're wrong", without having a closer thought, and so people like me, who have these thoughts, tend to assume we are 'lost', in a mental philosophical way. We aren't. We just have views that put others in a bad mood, and so they refuse the idea that these views may be correct in some nature.

I want to be 'lost', however. If I am then my views will be shifted to something else more positive. I tend to make an attempt at convincing myself of this notion that I'm lost, so that I am capable of being 'saved' by guidance of some sort. But my thoughts and viewing are as clear as others.

We don't have a purpose, as far as I'm concerned. A 'greater' purpose, that extends past any 'human' goal, such as being a slave or servant of some kind. Instead, I believe we assess meanings within our own mind, whether being influenced or not. This way of philosophical thought of value assigning isn't 'harsh' or 'unfair' like others are. However when you take this way of thinking and you take a person like me who has low self-esteem and low self-preservation, as small as imaginable, this way of thought only worsens their conditions. To make sure you understand, yes, I am saying that seeing the world in a 'real' light is a mental health issue, which will cause others to hibernate.

I'm not young, nor am I old. I am only a teenager. I would say that my destructive nature can only last so long before a large event will cause me to make a decision which will alter my life in a positive light, a negative light or a combination of the two however there is a chance that this doesn't occur. That I continue to live my life in this, objectively terrible way. I don't know which option is scarier or that I would rather.

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megagaydumbass · 2 years

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wip ej design >:) the face itself is gonna be pretty different from what i see from a lot of people?? me and my headmates have skills in designing horror monsters, so ill probably go more that route!! a draft i did of the horror design will be under the cut along with an explanation :) [CW FOR BODY HORROR]

so yeah!! 4 way split mouth, black goopy liquid coming out of it, and needle thin teeth, skrungkley <3 [DESIGN EXPLANATION] i think ej's very skrungly when he has fluffy hair, i also think it makes sense if he has a lean but strong looking body, as in my personal headcanon he would move more creature-like than human!! even if he's a demon/demonic in nature i generally dont like the stereotypical demon look for my more creepy demons, so i gave him a skrungly fluffy tail, and ears that are a bit funky, his hairline also reaches down further, giving him fluff on his spine, but its not obvious? not from that angle/when he's wearing the. hoodie(changed it to a tank top here to showcase the design better) he's also like. actually literally blind, legit no eyes and no magic sight, he figures out his space via a mix of heightened senses other than sight, and echolocation via chittering his teeth! the chittering is like. rubbing them together to produce a quiet pitch of sound. funke guy :) i wanna mention that everything you see is all of the sketching/lining i did. im sorta proud of myself for that one

#ej #eyeless jack #creepypasta art #creepypasta fanart #creepypasta fandom #creepypasta #eyeless jack fanart

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nemesis-is-my-middle-name · 3 years

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BRO YES. I love Toriel but oh my god she's so flawed. Like in neutral endings Toriel just comes back and RECLAIMS THE THRONE and puts in her own rules about not hurting humans EVEN IF THE HUMAN KILLED PEOPLE? She ABANDONED the throne and her people and doesn't care what they think. If she's not with Asgore anymore she has no right to pretending she's still the queen. Not even mentioning how when Frisk leaves the ruins she's just like 'okay bye forever I want plausible deniability'.

ANON WE ARE ON. THE EXACT SAME WAVELENGTH HERE

like ok before i start really ranting: im not making a moral judgement on any of the undertale characters because that's kind of silly, in general, to like say this character from a viddy game has objective moral right or wrong. it's just UT toriel and asgore are both characters who've been through a lot of trials and reacted in their own ways and i think it's really really interesting to talk about!

but yeah!! like first of all, from asgore's own words, as well as the way other monsters talk about him - he's not like, just murdering kids because he's sad or whatever. in the wake of asriel and chara's death, he chose to declare war on humans because the entire underground had lost in the hope. -and this in the wake of losing BOTH HIS KIDS, my god, can you imagine how hopeless HE must have felt? the temptation to just give up and shut himself inside, let the rest of the world go to darkness because what does it matter anymore, must have been SO STRONG. but he didn't. he was determined to do whatever he needed to to make sure all the other monsters still felt hope. to make them feel like maybe they wouldn't be trapped down here forever, yeah?

and even after that - you can't look at asgore, asgore canonically, and tell me that if a human child had fallen into the underground and tried to stay, had found a home and friends and wasn't hurting anyone, that he would go to them and murder them in cold blood. if a human had asked him, genuinely, please couldn't they just stay and live out their life, he absolutely would have let them! he literally offers frisk that at the end of their fight! but the tragedy of the situation is that the humans who fall into the underground want to go home. they want to get out, and so they and asgore HAVE to fight, one of them has to claim the other's soul. and no matter how hopeless asgore feels, he will not leave his people leaderless if he can help it, so he won't just lie down and die for them.

on the other hand!! YES to everything you said about toriel!! i mean, i have no idea how the monarchy in undertale works so who knows what the status on toriel's claim to the throne is or if that even matters (seeing as apparently Literally Whoever's Around can grab the throne once you kill asgore in a neutral route), but to everything else? toriel just, fundamentally, prioritizes her own feelings when it comes to humans and asgore. which is an obvious survival mechanism in the face of losing both her children, but like- she LEFT. she just LEFT. even in the middle of grieving, she must have been able to see why asgore said what he did when he declared war. at the very least, they ruled together! she could have talked to him and they could have worked out a balance together. instead she leaves and shuts herself in the ruins. and she's not just leaving asgore- she's abandoning all of monsterkind to their grief and hopelessness, because her own is more important.

(also hey toriel THERE WERE MONSTERS STILL IN THE RUINS WHEN YOU SHUT THE DOOR? WHAT THE FUCK? how many monsters did she trap in there with her because she wanted to sulk?)

and then of course it takes her until at least human number seven is almost to the end of their journey, to actually leave the ruins and do something concrete about it. like if she cares so strongly about this, she could have gone and stopped asgore WAY earlier, but she waited instead, because i guess it was easier to hide and keep - y'know, "meekly hoping another human never comes" - than step out and try to reason with or face asgore herself.

and the alternate solution she offers to asgore at the end of a true pacifist route to scold him - leaving once he got one human soul, killing six more, and shattering the barrier - is like. as a queen she should be able to see the obvious problems with that. "seven humans fell into the barrier accidentally, they fought me to go home, i killed them, and eventually had enough souls to break the barrier" has some plausible deniability diplomatically. "i went out and murdered a bunch of you" is grounds for another war.

tl;dr i'm an epic divorce man apologist and milf anti apparently

#the nemesis answers #the nemesis speaks #anonymous #negativity #long post #undertale #undertale analysis #maybe i'll put more in that tag who knows #divorce man apologist saga

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slutsofren · 3 years

Text

Danger Days Chapter 6: Look Alive, Sunshine

summary: the three of you find more questions than answers and the start of a whole new fuckin' problem im so so so sorry

warnings: tw for gore, bloodshed, hurt/little comfort, angst, gunfight, etc

word count: 4,166 she’s a big bitch lol

read on ao3 here / masterlist

“Let’s look around,” Ellie said dejectedly.

Joel walked off on his own, giving the three of you some space. Ellie went through a door and walked down the hall to her right, following it.

The halls and rooms here were void of your previous allies, not a single soul seemed to be here but you could still make out traces of equipment and feel a semblance of sentimentality from your memories. Damned memories tickling at the edge of your mind.

You picked up some papers and read them quickly, hearing Ellie somewhere in another room asking if anybody is there and Joel off to your right in some other room shuffling around. There was still quite a bit of medical paperwork on the hopes of a cure, of somebody like Ellie coming by.

Unfortunately the research was only bits and pieces but you could catch an idea of a project involving infected monkeys. Suddenly you were startled as Ellie shouted, “Yoo-hoo! Fireflies! Cure for mankind over here! Anyone?”

Before you could tell her to stop, Joel reprimanded her. “Let’s keep it down until we figure out what’s going on.”

You looked over your shoulder and saw him savenging around, picking up remnants of med kits, gears, even forgotten bullets and tools. Idly you think hJoel has the right idea and go off searching around too, pocketing the rest of the papers to finish reading them later.

The three of you continue looking quietly until coming to the conclusion there’s not much here.

“You sure this is where they’d be,” Joel asks you.

“Positive. That room over there was my uncle’s office,” you pointed towards an open door. “They must have pushed back further into the building.”

Ellie was the first to walk down a hall, finding it leading across to a landing with elevators and stairs. The man stayed behind for a beat, eyeing you. Likely second-guessing your motioves. Eventually he turned and walked away, following the teen. At the center of it all were large black containers and she kneeled in front of an open one and began to read, Joel joining her in flipping through the papers.

“Nothing useful,” Ellie states, throwing the papers down a bit more harshly than necessary.

“Ain’t nothin’ here but a bunch of medical mumbo-jumbo.”

You reach for some of the books and a binder and flip through them quickly too, noting some words about failed specimens and subjects not surviving an experiment until ultimately being harvested. Whatever they were doing wasn’t going well and they seemed to be feeling the weight of morality on their shoulders. There was an entry logged by some Doctor Anderson about feeling conflicted about torturing humans and questioning if it was worth it.

Shutting the binder quickly and throwing it in your backpack to finish reading it later, your mental dialog cut short as Ellie sighed heavily, “I don’t get it.”

“Looks like they all just packed up and left in a hurry, unless you got a better idea?”

Before you could answer, a loud metallic bang hit from the floor above the three of you. Ellie and Joel looked at each other before she said a bit grimly, “Maybe not all of ‘em left.”

“Stay close,” Joel commanded.

The stairs up to the third floor was behind Ellie and she went up first as you finished zipping up your backpack and tossing it on.

The floor above was more or less the same, open to the central garden in the middle of the building, objects in disarray, out of use vending machines that you’re pretty positive you used to pry open to steal sodas from. All this, but no Fireflies.

Joel went through a door on the left, probably scavenging for more things to find whereas you and Ellie went the scenic route on the outside corridor.

“What do you think happened?”

“Considering they had enough time to pack up research,” you pointed at some boxes, “they must have left willingly.” You shuffled through some more papers, looking for a clue. “But the question is, why leave?”

Ellie walked inside a door and followed the path of some wires that lead to an old flood light, “There are no bodies. That’s good, right?”

“If we find out where they went,” came Joel’s voice from behind you two.

You followed Ellie down the hall, peering into rooms and broken windows to your left. Suddenly there was another noise coming from behind and when the three of you turned, the very same flood light you’d all passed knocked over, lying prone on the ground.

“Shit,” Joel whispered.

“Um… So it’s probably clickers, right?”

You flashed Ellie a look, “Not the time.”

“Right.”

You all held your breath for a few moments, trying to listen until Joel broke the silence, answering Ellie. “No. Clickers don’t hide.”

He looked at you, giving you a once-over, likely weighing the possibility of you betraying him. You responded in kind expression, silently telling him to give whatever plot he has in mind a try.

Wary old bastard, you thought. As if you’d pull a stunt this far into your mission together, even after he began to act lukewarm to your presence.

You took the lead down a tarp covered hall, not really remembering this area much. They probably did push up to these higher levels judging by all the lab equipment left behind.

Digging in your memory, you recalled everybody keeping to the first and second floors in this building to make bailouts quicker. The militia men were on the rooftops to keep an eye out for any stray hunters or other unfriendlies.

Whatever happened on these floors were not from when you kept around.

Your trio came to a corner room that looked as if it were being used as an x-ray exam area, there were large black television-like screens on the wall that had some mangled imagery on them. Whatever it was put a shudder through you. Along the back wall, Joel found an x-ray abandoned on the counter and picked it up, when you and Ellie looked over his shoulder it looked like a skull with fungal growth on it. Like somebody who was infected for quite some time.

“Gross.” Ellie pretended to gag when she saw the photo.

Joel tucked the x-ray away and went on to look around, you followed by looking in the cabinets for alcohol disinfectant. “They had to have left something behind,” you mumbled to yourself as you began to feel the inklings of irritation slip into your bones.

Joel went to another door, this time leading to some room to the right but as he opened it, a screech came and he jumped, “Jesus!”

You drew your pistol from your hip and pointed it outwards, pushing Ellie behind you until you could hear chittering.

Fuckin’ monkeys , you think as you put your weapon down, faintly seeing three monkeys jump out a window on the opposite side of the room.

Ellie walks next to Joel, peeking into the lab he was stepping into and he leans towards her, “Well, at least it aint clickers.”

“Yeah. No Fireflies either,” she steps into the room. She throws her arms open wide, “Well, maybe in all that research they turned into fucking monkeys.”

You try to stifle a laugh but fail, a light giggle leaves your lips. “At least they’re not flying monkeys.”

“Just keep searching, we'll find something,” Joel says, shooting you a pointed look about your banter with Ellie.

The room looked like it used to be a science lab, naturally. The left and back side of the room were lined with metal cages, likely the ones that originally held the monkeys. Otherwise, there were large black countertop tables around, probably where students listened to their lecture and did hands-on assignments. Joel approached one of the tables in the middle, picking up what looked to be a recorder and pressed play.

A male voice clicked on. There were sounds of shuffling and screeches from the monkeys in the background. “That’s four palettes of lab equipment all packed up and ready to go. Now - big question is what do we do with all you guys. They say the tainted batch needs to be put down. You know what I say? I say screw that. Who made a bigger sacrifice than you, right? If anyone deserves to run free out there it’s-. Hey, easy! Agh. Shit. Oh, no. It bit me. Oh my god,” his breath gets heavy and the recorder stops abruptly.

Holy fuck, they were purposefully infecting animals , you think in horror.

“I’m sure glad we didn’t mess with them monkeys,” Joel says. “Did you know?”

You look at him wide-eyed and slack jawed. “Not a fuckin’ clue. I know my uncle was running blood tests and cell regrowth experiments but nothing like that.”

“He didn’t say where they went,” Ellie said, eyeing the two of you. The tension was minorly palpable, whatever small victory you gained in the camradiery field was now likely gone between Joel and you.

“I know, let’s keep looking,” Joel responded.

You fixed your composure and tried to reassure her, “We’ll find them.”

Your small trio followed the room into another, searching that one but finding nothing of interest in the drawers or on the tables. Not even another research binder. There was another door to the right and Joel approached it, trying to push his way in but there was a green metal object keeping it closed. He looked to you, “Hey, come help me.”

Stepping beside him, the two of you pushed against the door, throwing yourselves against it repeatedly to open it until it gave way. Joel gave you a tense nod, a silent thanks as he walked in first, Ellie close on his heels.

It wasn’t until you entered the room did you see it- the body. It looked to have been dead for quite a while, the bones were very obvious but still held together by the clothes wrapped around them. The person was sitting at a desk, facing the window, where Joel loomed over it as if it didn’t bother him and he picked up what looked to be another recorder.

Click. “If you’re looking for the Fireflies, they’ve all left,” a voice said grimly. You recognized it as the same one from earlier.

Ellie looked up from a binder she was flipping through, “Yeah, no shit.”

“I’m dead,” the man continued, “Or I will be soon. Got me some time to reflect.” Joel fast forwards through the tape, “...been years that felt like we were…”

He fast forwards again, “...fucking thing was a giant waste of ti-...”

And again, “...not gonna do this anymore…”

Ellie sighs while you pace, wishing to listen to the tape in more detail later. “Come on,” Joel grumbles as he fast forwards it yet again.

“...looking for the others, they’ve all returned to Saint Mary’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. You’ll find them there. Still trying to save the world. Good luck with that.”

Ellie sounding mildly hopeful looks to both of you, “Do either of you know where that is?”

“I know the city,” he nods before turning to catch you chewing on your fingernails in thought. “You?”

“I- I remember Marlene mentioning it to Regan on occasion but they talked about it like it was abandoned. I’ve never been there.”

“Is it far,” Ellie asked.

“It ain’t close. I mean on horseback-,” he stops abruptly, something catching his attention out the window.

“What?”

Out of the corner of your eye you see it too. Flashlights peeking through the windows. Just as Ellie asked if they were Fireflies, the light shines on them as they stood by the window and Joel pushed her down, ordering her and you to hit the deck just as whoever was on the other end of that light took a shot at you all, shattering the window.

“Shit,” you shout, ducking down to avoid the coming onslaught of gunfire.

Ellie looked at you, “Who the fuck are these guys?”

He looked at you angrily, “Did you lure them here? Is this some kind of trap?”

“Fuck you, Joel Miller! I didn’t.”

He stared you down. “Fine, It don’t matter,” Joel argued, “We know where to go. Let’s get the hell outta here.” He jerked his chin at you and spit, “Lead the way.”

You wiped the initial shock from your system and went into mission-mode, keeping yourself calm and alert. They followed you out of the room, the three of you crouching to avoid being spotted by the new threat through the windows.

Making your way through the anteroom to the office then through the lab as silently and rapidly as possible while crouching. It wasn’t until you reached the x-ray exam room when you were hit in the chin with something hard, knocking you down, dizzy.

Your mind and vision were in a haze but you managed to catch the vague shape of Joel rush somebody, likely the person who knocked you over, through the newly forming tears in your eyes. Fuck , you thought, your face hurting like a bitch.

Ellie yelled something as she went to help Joel, apparently getting the bright idea to take Joel’s machete from his backpack and swinging it wildly at the stranger.

As they fought the man, you shook your head and rose on your haunches, still dizzy. You could make out the faint shape of a second man running up to attack but through your shifting vision, saw three of him. It didn’t stop you from raising one of your dual guns from your thigh holster, taking aim. Breathing in, slowly breathing out, you took the shot when the three men formed a single one.

The loud bang reverberated through the halls, momentarily distracting you from the brawl happening somewhere to your right but soon that silenced.

“What the fuck was that,” you asked nobody in paricular.

“Don’t look like Fireflies to me,” Joel mumbled in reply, hinting you must have been telling the truth.

Together, you all walked down the tarp covered hall from earlier but saw four shapes run past some red smoke on the only way out of the building, likely trying to cut you all off. “Stay back,” Joel said as he flung one of his makeshift bombs at the intruders. After a moment, it went off and sickly screams were either cut short or continued onto a deadly moan.

Each of you hid behind random turned over tables, guns drawn.

Although six of these strangers were down, it seemed there were more as another came in through the right side, taking a shot at Ellie. Joel responded in kind and shot him square in the neck, the blood splattering a nearby wall.

You followed suit and took aim at somebody ducking below a desk much like you. Your aim was a little off because of that damned kick to the head but you got the guy nonetheless. It was messier than you’d like, the newly forming headache was making things much more difficult.

Together with Joel, you took two more men down until you reached the small lobby where the stairs were only to find another flare emitting red smoke. “What the hell,” you wondered aloud.

“Probably to tell the others how to get to where we were, building is like a maze.”

With that, you and Joel look off, making sure to keep Ellie behind you as your group traversed down the steps, finding another flare. Joel heard them before you and raised his gun. You followed as two more men rounded the corner, both being taken down by the bullets you both expelled into their bodies.

Your heartbeat pounded in your ears at the adrenaline rushing through your veins, no matter how much you remained focused at the task at hand. You took a breath in an attempt to ground yourself, following Joel closely behind as he was about to round the same corner, stepping over the two dead bodies when you grabbed Joel, pulling him back as a bullet whizzed by. “Fuckin’ hell,” he gasped.

Taking to the wall you peered out and quickly aimed, letting another bullet rain free. It clashed into the wall behind your target, narrowly missing as the man ducked behind the poor choice of the glass railing. Joel put his hand on your waist, pulling you close as he leaned back around taking his chance on the guy. He must have made it count because soon you heard a soft thud of the body collapsing.

If you weren’t so preoccupied trying to stay alive, you might have noticed Joel kept his large hand on you for a few moments longer than necessary.

Joel left the relative safety of the second floor lobby, nearly running to the exit. You grabbed onto Ellie’s hand as you shoved your nearly empty gun into it’s holster on your thigh, following him. He came to the closed door that led to the next area of classrooms to get you all down to the ground floor but just as he went to open it, it banged open from the inside starling all of you. The force was so strong that it pushed Joel to the glass railing behind him, his body teetering over the edge.

“Joel!”

You dropped Ellie’s hand as you ran to him, trying to get the other man off of him as he choked your companion. By the force and chaos, the rail gave way underneath Joel. As he fell, he pulled the stranger with him.

A scream surely left you as you watched in horror as the two men fell to the ground but it grew louder when you noticed a sickening metal bar poking it’s way through Joel’s stomach, staining red in the sunlight. Beside him, the attacker lay dead in a mangled heap of limbs, his neck at an unnatural angle.

You began to shuffle onto your stomach to drop the distance from the balcony walkway to the ground floor, Ellie close behind you copying your maneuver. Together, you both landed on the ground awkwardly and unbalanced. It was so unbelievably impossible to stay focused as you watched Joel writhe in pain from the impalement as loud banging seemed to invade your senses.

Ellie jumped straight to Joel asking in a rushed panic, “What do you want me to do?”

You couldn’t hear what he said when the double doors burst open, two men with a baseball bat and machete appearing. You grabbed both of your guns, unleashing lead into them with a little more force than necessary.

When you turned back around, you saw Ellie trying to lift Joel. “Don’t!”

You ran to him and dropped to your knees, removing your backpack and began to scrounge around for clean gauze. “You’re only going to create more damage, you old bastard. Stay still.”

With the gauze in hand, you motioned for Ellie to put as much pressure as she could on the frontside of the wound. You tried your best not to jolt him around so much as you tried to assess the entry wound on his back, only to find it was buried in cement beneath him. He groaned, calling out a string of curse words.

“Stop fuckin’ movin’, Joel.”

“Wouldn’t need to if you had good bedside manners. Goddamned brat.”

His small jab at you could have made you cry if you weren’t so invested in keeping the old man alive and with no other alternative to removing the rebar safely from him, you had no choice but to lift him away from it.

You reached into your backpack once more and grabbed a strap of leather you usually kept close by, mostly to fiddle with, and shoved it into his mouth. “To keep you from biting off your own tongue,” you explained while adjusting your position to be directly behind his upper body to prepare and stanche the blood flow from his back. “Although I think we could all use the peace and quiet.”

Whatever comeback he had was cut off as he yelled, muted by the bit. While he was distracted by your words, you had nodded to Ellie to lift Joel straight up. He quickly fell to his knees as he tried to stand, probably ready to pass out from the pain and you padded the entry wound with gauze, holding it tightly.

His words came out weak as he told Ellie, “Just get to the damn horses.”

She looked at you and you nodded, removing one hand to give her a gun. “Do whatever it takes, kiddo.”

She walked in front of you both, her arms held high with the gun in her hand, ready to take on anybody else. She led you both to a classroom and knocked over some wood panels that barely covered a broken window.

“Do you think you can handle it,” you asked him.

He didn’t answer, instead choosing to throw his body over the edge, finding himself on his back once more. “Come on, move,” Ellie demanded of him as you jumped through the window after them. Just as she got him sitting up against a table, another man burst through the door across the classroom, gun ready to fire.

Seeing as you were getting rather low on your own bullets, you reached for Joel’s revolver and threw yourself out from behind the lab table, firing two shots and hitting him in the torso.

“Come on, we gotta get you outta here,” you told him. One look at Ellie and you saw her hands and sweater covered in Joel’s blood, you likely looked the same. Brushing those thoughts away, you and her flanked him on either side, trying to walk him out.

“No, I’m okay,” he moaned. Trying to push you both off him.

“Like shit,” Ellie threw back, “You’re not okay, Joel. Now come on! Fucking walk!”

You kept your free hand up, gun drawn, and Ellie matched your pose to his left. “Down this hall,” you directed, “To the left is the main entrance, we can leave through there.”

Don’t die on me now, Joel Miller , you silently wished, hoped, prayed.

Joel began to sway between you two, his feet were failing beneath him. His body in your arms grew heavier and sluggish with each step making it harder to walk straight. You really tried to keep the gauze at his back secure against the wound but it was hard to do that while also trying to keep him balanced. As you were distracted by assessing the man, he moaned out, “Up.”

You and Ellie looked up the stairs that were against the wall in the lobby and saw two men coming towards you all, “There!”

Ellie raised her gun first, taking shots at random and you did too. It was difficult to do while doing everything possible to not drop Joel but somehow, they too, fell dead along the stairs. On his other side, the teen poked at him out of breath, “I swear to god, I get you out of this, you’re so singing for me.”

You decide to jump in on the joke, trying to lighten the mood, “I think you mean ‘for us’, Ellie.”

Joel coughed a laugh, “You wish.”

Slowly the front entrance inched closer. Ellie left to pry it open and let you two through and Joel let go of you, shoving his body and burst through the secondary doors. He lost his balance and fell down the steps only to see as some other hooded figure with his hands on Whiskey and Callus’ reigns.

Before the straggler could even draw a weapon, you and Ellie took shots at him. Joel’s revolver clicked, notifying it was out, just as the man let go of the horses.

You ran to Joel, lifting him up to his feet. He groaned in pain, “I know, I’m sorry. Just a little longer, alright, cowboy?”

He gave you an odd look as Ellie appeared and she asked him, “Can you get on?”

Whether or not he can is entirely different than if he will, you thought. You were proven right as he jumped up on Whiskey, not even noticing he was getting on the wrong horse.

“Ellie, get on Callus,” you told her as you also swung your leg over Whiskey, saddling in front of Joel. “As for you, don’t bleed all over my goddamn horse. Hold tight.”

A part of you was worried that he didn’t even bother to jab, you kicked Whiskey’s underbelly and Joel’s body slouched against your back, passing out. The fact the warmth that seeped through your body was likely his blood was gnawing against the corners of your mind but you shooed the thoughts away. Together with Ellie, you filed out of the university as fast as you could, not looking back.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel (the last of us)#Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel the last of us #joel tlou #joel tlou x reader insert #joel tlou x reader #joel miller / reader #joel tlou x you #joel (the last of us) x reader #asher's writing #danger days fic #pedro pascal joel miller #posted on ao3

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silkylious · 4 years

Text

Funny Way of Saying I Love You (Dabi x Reader)

Pairing: Dabi x Reader Warnings: angst(i have an addiction i swear), fluff Prompts: #9 “That’s a funny way of saying ‘I love you’” and #16 “When have I ever let you down, babe? Okay, don’t answer that”

A/N: Thank you for the request! im taking my time writing these since im physically incapable of writing drabbles. I hope you like this!!

Shutting the door behind you, a soothing dusk breeze fluttered your hair as you moved farther away from your daily hell. Your boss had made it a point to be a pain in the ass today, well, more so than usual. Working overtime on a Friday evening wasn’t what you’d hoped to be doing but you couldn’t exactly complain, it wasn’t like you had anything planned and the promise of an extra paycheck didn’t sound displeasing. Rubbing your temples to ease the headache (courtesy of your boss’s incessant bitching), you walked on autopilot to your apartment, you couldn’t wait to treat yourself to a bubble bath and maybe even some wine. Little did you know that your plans would be thoroughly ruined by a certain scarred villain.

You made the decision to pass by a nearby convenient store that wasn’t too far from your residence to cop some snacks. Filtering through the brands of alcohol, you grimaced at the overpriced tags of the various red wine brands, you settled for some cheap liquor with a sigh. It ain’t much but it should do the trick. After paying for what little stuff you’d fetched, you continued on your trek to your humble flat. The sun had completely vanished from the sky, a lingering crimson bleeding into a rich indigo. Your thoughts were so spellbound by the beautiful sight, that you just barely heard a strained grunt from your left. Blinking back into reality, you halted in your steps right next to a comically shady alleyway. Just like in those horror movies. You snorted at the thought, briefly comparing yourself to that one character who always dies first in movies. Though your internal jesting was cut short when the same sound propagated through the alleyway again, this time much more haggard, closely followed by violent coughing. Against your better judgment, you treaded forward cautiously. Why were you doing this? You weren’t sure. Maybe it was the unfulfilled dream loitering in the back of your mind resurfacing after many years of suppression, but you couldn’t not help someone out in a time of need.

The deeper you ventured into the alleyway, the louder your rationality shouted, begging you to turn around and book it to your apartment complex. You were stopped in your steps when an aggressive cough broke the quiet, the sound now impossibly closer and blood splattered all over the ground before your feet. Your eyes followed the vermilion trail, skinny legs covered in bloodied up, skin-tight jeans came into view, you were met with familiar scarred features. His eyes were struggling to stay open, though at the sight of you he forced his lids apart, flashing you a bloody, half-pained smirk, red liquid running down his scarred tissue.

You blinked. Dabi blinked. You blinked again and then-

“What the shit, Dabi! Are you okay?!”

You dropped to your knees next to his limp body propped up against the shaggy wall. He gave a humorless chuckle, more blood oozing out of the corners of his lips. Dabi hummed when your hands touched his fucked up face, your quirk already pacifying most of his pain. It wasn’t a healing quirk, you were simply able to transfer emotions, feelings and sensations (to and fro) with skin on skin contact. You didn’t want him knocking the fuck out from sheer pain (heaven knows there is no way you were going to lug this human heater home), so you had to ease him a little before tending to his injuries. Your body twitched as the hurt from Dabi’s body merged into your own.

“I’ve seen better days, sweetheart,”

“You don’t say.” The words came out harsh, reprimanding. Dabi winced, from the pain or from your tone, he wasn’t sure.

The plastic bag that had been temporarily abandoned came in handy, you sorrowfully used the liquor to clean the large gashes on his abdomen (not wanting to risk an infection on the way to your complex), wrapping them up securely with scraps of his shirt. So much for a relaxing bath and liquor. You heaved him up on semi-steady knees and took a different, more desolate route back home. The last thing you’d want right now is for authorities to see you walking an injured Dabi, one of the most wanted villains in the current climate, home. He leaned most of his weight on your shoulder, his shit-eating grin told you he was doing it on purpose. You couldn’t find it in you to retaliate as you usually would, too worried to come up with any snarky comments.

This had become way too much of a ritual for your comfort. You’d find him bleeding by your doorstep at ungodly hours, silently asking for shelter. Each and every time, you’d patch him up, provide him with food and your company. You’d grown attached to the scar faced male, and even if you disdained his line of work, you’d respected his life and independence (as independent as someone who crashes on your couch near daily can be). For the past couple months, his tasks had been getting progressively more and more dangerous. Your heart couldn’t help but clench each time you saw him beaten and bruised. You knew it was risky letting these feelings develop, Dabi had made it quite clear that your relationship was nothing beyond physical, with a level of mutual respect and trust.

But this was the worst condition you’d ever seen him in after one of his missions. Not too dissimilar to the first time you met; bloody, bruised and half-conscious, truly a sight to pity. You’d noiselessly knelt down, pressed your hand onto his cheek, he hadn’t even been able to flinch at your touch, too disoriented to react properly. Though in mere moments, he began feeling the pain ebb away; the injuries were still there, he just couldn’t feel them, he equated the numbing sensation to painkillers and drugs. His eyelids parted, revealing gorgeous teal irises. Full of ethereal beauty, despite being unfocused. You had to actively shun your quirk from relaying your attraction to him as you soothed his pain, his staples and marred skin a stark contrast to your soft fingers. That night you gave him a place to stay while he was on the run, you didn’t know why, but you did. Just this one time you’d said. One time became two times. Two times became countless and the rest is history.

The apartment door was slammed open, you were beyond irate. The more you thought about him, his situation, your situation, the more you felt the urge to knock shit over and scream bloody murder. Turquoise hues followed you with contempt – and mild amusement – but mostly contempt. Dabi took his usual spot on your worn-out couch, while you stomped your way into the bathroom to get a first aid kit. With your absence, Dabi was left to his own thoughts running amuck. Dabi wasn’t oblivious. He knew what your silence meant, knew what the look of unbridled worry in your eyes implied. Yet he didn’t want to address the less than subtle growing feelings you have for him. Attachment in his line of work was a surefire way to get hurt, he figured that if he kept whatever relationship you guys had physical, he wouldn’t have any issues to fuss over. But he couldn’t lie to himself, Dabi was conscious of the budding adoration in his heart from the moment you helped him out that first time, in that filthy alley. God, he needed a cigarette.

Much to his pleasure, you came back before his mind could implode in on itself. You sat beside him on the couch, leaving more space between you than usual. Without saying a word, your hands undid his makeshift bandages, slowly but surely patching him up an inch at a time. It honestly felt like a routine at this point. That prompted a sour taste in your mouth, you couldn’t stand how careless he’d been recently, and it was eating you up inside. But you didn’t dare voice your concerns, not wanting another aimless argument with him. If silence would save you another headache inducing fight, then silence it was–

“So, you gonna tell me what crawled up your ass?”

Or not.

“Shut. Up.” You weren’t in the mood for his quips today. Fatigue from work, babysitting a villain and dealing with unrequited feelings severely fouling your otherwise warm attitude. You were just on the brink of throwing caution to the wind and letting loose all the muffled feelings you have for him. One more comment and your composure would shatter. Conveniently – or not so conveniently, he seemed to be in a talkative mood tonight.

“Seriously, what’s up with you?” The question was redundant, he knew exactly what was up with you, but he couldn’t think of anything else. Your quietness was killing him. He had to say something. He should have chosen his words a little more wisely though.

“What’s up with me?! Are you being fucking serious right now?! I come home and almost every day find you bleeding on my doorstep. Almost every day I give your reckless ass a place to stay, only for you to go and get yourself hurt again!” Pent up rage exploded from within you, an amalgamation of emotions gushing out of your pores. His eyes blew wide, not only because he had never seen you this angry, but because of the surge of emotions flooding him. In your fury filled stupor, you’d let go of the tight rein you had on your quirk. With a hand still touching his bruised forearm, you began unintentionally bleeding your feelings into him. Rage, sorrow and worry were just a few of the many emotions that rocked his being. But one stood out among the rest, outshining the others with blinding ferocity. And it honestly scared him, how powerful it was, zapping through his body. He figured you had feelings for him, that much was obvious, but he didn’t think they were that strong. Your breathtaking emotions awakened something in him too, pulling it out of the depths of where he tried to hide it, push it down in hopes of abolishing it.

It was too much to handle this, he kept coming back for help when he could easily seek any of his colleagues out, the implication that you meant something to him was so elating yet so damaging. It kept you stuck in place, barred from shutting him out or walking away. You couldn’t keep hanging onto the hope that he might reciprocate your love. It was harming you, no matter how sensuous he was in bed, no matter how gently he held onto you afterwards, he would never call you his lover. He made that crystal fucking clear. You had to put a stop to this. You leveled your shaky voice as much as your vocal cords would allow, barely whispering.

“Get the hell out, Dabi. I don’t wanna see you here again.”

The emotions sifting through him mellowed out, no longer was rage at the forefront. Pain, hurt and heartbreak ravaged him. But that one emotion was still there, despite him being a gaping asshole, it was still present. He smirked.

“That’s a funny way of saying ‘I love you,’ doll.”

“Wha–“ Before you could question his response, he swiftly captured your lips in his own to shut you up. It was a quick, firm peck, but its aftermath amused him greatly. The look of bewilderment on your face was damn priceless. You were, again, transferring your feelings to him. Adoration, confusion, the overwhelming urge to pimp smack him; it was all too entertaining for him. His vibrant teals settled upon your hand still gripping his arm. No fabric to separate them. Your own eyes followed suit. Oh. You immediately stopped your quirk, redacting your palm in the process for good measure. Dabi delighted in the bashful look that overtook your face, his own growing soft. He had trouble accepting his own feelings, but after experiencing yours, he would, at the very least, try for you. Awkward silence ensued. You both knew it was his turn to talk, to finally let out the unsaid words you’d been longing for.

“(name), I… I wanna do this right, take you out on dates and shit,” He cleared his throat. “If you’d let me.”

Your answer came in the form of a crushing hug. Your love was pouring into him again, this time of your own accord. You held onto each other, his hands biting into your skin, your own carding through his dark locks. You didn’t need words. Figuratively and literally. He felt everything in bright, flashing colors, he never wanted this moment to end. But it did. His phone rang.

Clear annoyance shined in both of your eyes. With a heavy sigh, he left your embrace, getting up to answer the call.

Another mission.

With the very recent revelations both of you had come to, the idea of him going on missions carried a lot more weight than it used to. Now in front of your apartment door, he put on his shoes, ready to head out to the League’s hideout. Dabi turned around, breath hitching when he saw you standing there frowning, eyes tearful. For some reason, you had a gut feeling this mission wouldn’t be so easy. You didn’t want him to go. And it was showing.

“C’mon, baby doll. Don’t give me that look. I’ll be back, I promise,” When you didn’t even crack a smile at the nickname he sighed. “When have I ever let you down, babe?” He quickly backtracked. “Okay, don’t answer that,”

You managed a small giggle, shaking your head. You approached him slowly, silently wrapping your arms around him. You relished in his quickening heartbeat. Pulling back, you placed your hands on his clothed shoulders. You edged forward, puckering your lips against his own, the point of contact allowing you to relay your inner turmoil to him. Your hands itched towards his face, fiddling gingerly with the multiple staples aligning his cheeks. “Come back, okay? I love you.”

Breath caught in his throat, Dabi tried to push the words setting him aflame through his lips, but he couldn’t. This was happening too fast; it was giving him whiplash. He didn’t know how to say those words yet, so he opted for calling out to you.

“(name)…”

Without even using your power, the conflict in his eyes told you everything you needed to know. you pushed your forehead to rest against his. His love burned through you, so intense, so like him. With a tiny tug at your lips, you lulled the raging storm in his mind. “Shh, Dabi. I know.”

With a parting peck, he was out the door. He didn’t know what was to come out of this mission, but he did know that he now had one more reason to come out alive.

#dabi x reader #dabi x y/n #dabi x you #dabi boku no hero academia #dabi my hero academia #bnha dabi #mha dabi #todoroki touya x reader #touya x reader #todoroki toya x reader #dabi fanfic #dabi imagine #someone help why cant i write drabbles ffs #100 followers event

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kotalefanzu · 3 years

Text

Pitch Pearl ATUS AU- Part 3

ahahaha. i finally came back to wite the finale. WOOOO. im still sorry about waiting so long oof.

where we last left off, danny had a dream about phantom, in which he tells him about the creation of the natural portals. he leaves danny, saying that he’ll come running back soon enough. when he wakes up, jazz tells him that sam and tucker have gone missing.

danny takes a second to process that information along with the dream and his brain just shuts down. he goes on autopilot, acting like he didn’t hear a word she just said. jazz tries to snap him out of it to get some sort of reaction but when she actually looks him in the eyes, filled with exhaustion, fear, and helplessness, she realizes that he doesn’t need any more things to worry about and goes to tell their parents not to bother him.

when she leaves, he blankly goes through the motions as he normally would. just like before this all happened. he checks his phone with slight hope that they may have tried to contact him, but after realizing he spent ten minutes just staring at it, he puts it away and doesn’t check it again. the walk to school is nothing but a stream of consciousness and he doesn’t even really feel awake anymore. everyone is just a blur while his brain refuses to process anything around him.

he gets to class, looks at his friends’ desks, and notices two cleanly carved DP symbols on them. it makes him start giggling a little, then laughing loudly, before he sinks to the ground crying out of frustration and overload.

a town meeting is called in the middle of school. the missing children line up with the new influx of ghost sightings and they want to check to see if any more kids have gone missing. someone points out the danny got taken last and the two missing children were his friends. others bring up the lunchroom incident and start pestering him with questions, seeking answers. danny waits for his family to quiet everything down before explaining everything from his first day in captivity all the way to last night’s dream. many people want to push the blame onto danny for painting a target on their heads and force him to deal with it on his own while others want to use danny as a bargaining tool to save their lives.

the fentons reject every suggestion and say that the most important thing here to do if to protect the children and find a way to defeat the ghosts now that blocking their way into the human realm is no longer an option. they explain that giving danny up might be a trap if phantom was able to kidnap sam and tucker but didn’t head straight for danny. he is told to safe and not try anything.

the GIW are called in to work on locating one of the portals and storming the ghost zone to rescue the missing children. danny is desperate to help and spends most of his time reliving unwanted memories just to give any form of information that might be helpful. after a while they send him away to try getting back to normal life as he needs a form of distraction.

at lunch, he is cornered by the other teens who ask if he is really just going to sit there and do nothing. danny is hesitant to lead more children into the ghost zone where they could be hurt, but they are determined and at this point, he is willing to risk it. after stealing a bunch of weapons from his parent's old weaponry vault, he finds a natural portal and opens it. they get sucked into it and arrive in the courtyards of phantom’s keep.

the ectoplasm flooding his system is mildly overwhelming but he pushes through it and begins guiding everyone to the dungeons where they would probably be kept. he notices while navigating that strangely everything is the same as it ws before he left, from to the decor to the guard rotations. when they reach the dungeons, sam and tucker aren’t there. it confuses him. he tries to think about where else phantom could have put them and a small voice whispers, ‘check your old wing’. its actually easier to sneak back to his old wing due to all the times he has snuck in and out of it. while the rest of the group aren’t so used to the routes, following him makes it a lot easier. waiting in the common room of the wing are sam and tucker, posed like lifeless dolls and dressed in clothing uncomfortably similar to what danny once wore, though less extravagant. their skin is pale and lifeless and their eyes are glowing

perched on their heads are silvery circlets. danny motions for the rest of the group to stand behind him. sam and tucker slowly turn to look at them and another battle breaks out.

its obvious from how they are fighting that while they wont strike to kill danny, they dont care about sparing the rest. the group slowly works out a system of one half distracting sam while the other go to hold down tucker and remove the circlet. as soon as it comes off, the glow from his eyes fades and he stills like they pushed his power button. with one less person constantly firing at them, its a lot easier to do the same for sam as she can’t fight them all off. dash and kwan take up carrying the limp, unconscious people and they make off with their battle spoils to the portal.

danny reopens the portal and makes sure everyone gets through, doing a headcount. when he is sure everyone is accounted for and out of the ghost zone. he thanks them and seals it, locking them in the human realm with him on the other side.

it takes a while for the group to finally tell someone what happened and they start fearing how to explain to the two dead to the world people who still haven’t woken up yet. they finally fess up when jazz drives by and asks where danny is. they silently just show her sam and tucker and watch the emotions flicker rapidly on he face. in the end she settles on heartache and gives a weak smile, telling them that she’s glad they are back but wishes they could have brought her brother back as well. she is more forgiving when they explain that it was his decision and they didnt have time to stop him before it was too late.

back in the ghost zone, danny stares blankly at the sealed portal, wondering if he should just step through now before its too late. just as he reaches out his hand, he gets pulled in a tight embrace as phantom laughs in his ear.

“What did I tell you, Starlight. You would come running back into my arms soon enough. Let’s go back home. You’ll find I didn’t change anything when you left. We can go right back to how it used to be before. Like you never ran away from me.”

he stays huddled up in his room for most of the time, only coming out when phantom wants him to accompany him on an errand or when he has to attend meetings with phantom. the faces are familiar. he made a few friends during his captivity and while the circumstances are grim, its pleasant to see them again.

for starters, clockwork was a common face when danny began getting incredibly homesick. phantom had requested danny be allowed to view the present of his ‘loved ones’ lives and he had spent every moment he could watching them throughout the day and making sure they were fine. clockwork also had hilariously awful puns, though they werent allowed to actually say them anymore after phantom got jealous and forbade them from speaking to danny. danny still carried the one-sided conversations and it seemed to cheer clockwork up from the decree. princess dora, now queen dora, was also a good friend of his, often discussing with him the pain of living with overbearing nobility. she had done a double-take when he approached her and sat him down to calmly ask what happened, though he could see the tension laced through her. after recounting she took a long sip of her tea and looked him in the eyes. she told a seemly random story of her exploring her kingdom and hearing a bard singing about how the mighty dragon princess stole the dragon king’s crown and the mighty dragon queen took her dear brother down. the piercing look in her eyes before she moved to a new topic told him more than enough.

the few moments of reprieve they offered was not enough to outdo the lappet treatment of phantom that allowed for no rejection, but it was something and it was all he could ask for.

sam and tucker wake up finally after being in a coma for two days. after scanning the room filled with their classmates, parents, and the fenton family, they quickly realize the only one not there that should be is danny. sam is the first one to speak, immediately yelling at them for trading them for danny and going off about how they need to go back for him as soon as possible. dash defends them by telling her that its not their fault danny closed the portal before any one of them could drag his skinny self sacrificing ass through it. they cant reopen it without him.

sam quiets down after that and tucker takes out asking all the questions he can think of to find a way to fix this. there has to be a way to reopen the portal.

(a cut back scene to danny interacting with phantom. im not good with writing abuse mixed with love very well so go ahead and use your imaginations okay uwu)

sam and tucker also end up secluding themselves and working nonstop on trying to figure out how to save danny. jazz stops by every day to check on them and pass on homework and anything she hears about the ghosts to them. while they start cleaning up the room to take a break and finish schoolwork, sam trips on a piece of paper and is about to fall. only she is caught in mid-air and surrounded by a neon lime green aura, one similar to danny’s though his is a bluish mint. the aura dissipates and she hits the ground with a soft thud but everything stops as tucker and her look at each other in shock.

“That was you!”

“That was me!”

homework gets pushed aside again for experimentation and documenting. they might be able to reopen the portal after all.

#im so nice to characters #look at my kindness #arent i so nice #i edited this #less typos this time around owo #sorry there is going to be another part.#there is so much #danny phantom au #Danny Phantom #danny fenton #pitch pearl au #pitch pearl #tw: toxic relationship #tw: brain washing #part 3 #part 4 coming soon promise

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dissonancedance · 3 years

Text

Chapter 96

Her barriers were thinning dangerously, sweat starting to slick her palms and douse the nape of her neck, but she had to play this through.

Content warning: Graphic descriptions of violence, references to sexual violence, medical horror, incest, cults, and forced captivity.

Read below the cut

Closing the Distance

Chapter 96

Simone’s words died on the breath that shock had stolen from her as Vidar crushed the breath from Maier. Black lines marred the concrete floor with each scrape of Maier’s shoes as he kicked in inept attempts at traction, his white skin shifting red to blue in a smear of pain. Unable to look away from the pale-knuckled grip around Maier’s neck, she watched her uncle strangle a man with the same quiet placidity as when he lied in a drug-induced delirium. The strength in those long fingers echoed memories of terror and helplessness around her own neck, but the terror and helplessness she felt now was wrapped in defeat.

After all the horror, secrecy, and guilt of turning to these experiments and participating in the irrevocable destruction of the person her uncle once was, they still couldn’t carve the monster out of the man.

“Vidar,” she said, watching his clamping hands grow still at the sound of her voice. “Off.”

Like the loyal doll she’d reduced him to, he backed away from the battered, coughing Maier and turned to her with the same eerie calm that never left him. Before, she could fool herself into thinking that placid lack of expression was peacefulness, maybe even contentment, but what remained behind his blue eye was just as empty as the hollow socket next to it. Having that empty eye trained on her now, alone but for the hacking lunatic on the floor, reminded her too well of the monster still clinging to the cavity of his mind.

The long, puckered scar curled up Maier’s cheek as he laughed between heaving coughs, "Tha-... he-heh, that could have gone better."

“Sick son of a fuck…” Simone muttered, helplessness and frustration transmuting fluidly into rage at the slick drone of that voice. Maier’s shirt ripped when she yanked him up by his collar and snarled into his gasping face, “You stay the hell away from us! If I see you around here again, I'll fucking peel the rest of your face off!"

The corners of his mutilated mouth twitched and writhed into a smile.

“Pretty promises, but not the one I want,” he grinned, the injury to his throat breaking his monotone up into a more human sound. “The deal I had made with you, Ms. Valstad, was to experience the glory of Leif Valstad’s specialty firsthand after helping to free him.”

“You lost that deal when you sold my family out to Aguiyi,” she hissed.

A sharp agony shot up from her wrists as Maier’s hands grasped them, shocking her into losing her grip, and he yanked her down in a swirl of motion. Her rage made her sloppy, gave him the split second of advantage to slam her under him. Her vision flashed white from the force of her skull slapping the concrete. There would be no help coming; Maier’s methodical nature alone had assured her that he had cut off the security cameras before ever entering the lab to indulge his desires in private.

Below the ringing that muffled her hearing, Maier's words came through distant and flat, “The deal still stands, but I have since concluded that this institution is not what he needs to be freed of. The factor that has been preventing Leif Valstad from achieving his full potential is you, Ms. Valstad. We need to discuss your role in the family.”

The fuzzy stirrings of a concussion made her tongue thick, her words slurring as she ground out, “Yeah, well, last time I took your advice, I got fucked in the ass.”

“I would wager that has also occurred since you stopped taking my advice, therefore the consequence is no fault of mine,” he responded in that flat, emotionless drone that enraged her more than the spitefulness of his meaning.

Simone twisted to drag Maier’s grasp to the side and destabilize him enough to shove her hip up and roll him. The maneuver she'd recited a hundred times under her father's training paid off, only for her to be wrenched back before she could clamber away. His grip on her dress stopped her short, the expensive muslin finally tearing loudly when she jerked free from his grabbing hands. The cold, sterile air of the lab plastered itself to her sweat-slicked skin as she rushed to put as much distance and obstacles between herself and the man crawling after her.

“The path Bjørn had left for Leif Valstad did not contend with the possibility that he might reject it,” Maier said, ragged with the effort of dragging his lower half. “So long as you remain alive, his attachment to you will prevent him from embracing his destiny.”

The medical tools laid out on a tray near the sensory deprivation tank caught Simone’s eye as she registered the threat Maier had made. In his state, it would not be difficult to pin him down and drive a scalpel along his arteries until his broken body finally quit. No, not difficult, but it would be risky. She’d underestimated him once before to know that he would not be deterred from his task by mere pain. Her move had to be precise.

"Aside from that being none of your fucking business,” she frowned, trying to hide the wooziness that wobbled her gait as she started towards the tray, "you should know better than to think that killing me would make Leif more cooperative."

“And you should know better than to come into this lab alone. Vidar Valstad is an unstable patient, after all. You see now how the seed of violence still germinates within him.”

She snatched up the scalpel as she circled the back of the lab to stay out of his path, distancing herself from him as well as keeping him far from Vidar. Her uncle’s vacant stare followed her, unaware or unalarmed at what was happening around him, and she shuddered at what was so obvious to both her and Maier. Dangerous or not, she couldn't leave her uncle with this snake. She couldn't surrender to fear again.

“Even if you framed Vidar for my murder, Leif would blame Ouroboros for putting him close enough to get to me,” she said. The scalpel was light in her hand as she held it out of his line of sight and stepped slow enough to goad him into maintaining his pursuit. "He’d rather burn in the fire he lights under Ouroboros’s ass than have vengeance go unfulfilled.”

“Like father, like daughter.”

The exit was past Maier, no safe route out of that room without leaving her uncle there with him. All her weaving and maneuvering hadn't tricked him into giving her an opening to grab Vidar and escape. He had her backed up into an ultimatum: kill or be killed. Even without full use of his legs and caught off guard, Maier had still forced her to play by his rules. More than the fear of what consequences awaited her for killing Aguiyi's right hand man, more than the risk of injury or death in the tussle, it was the bitterness of being forced into this standoff that made her pause.

Simone rubbed the smooth handle of the scalpel restlessly, letting a decision weigh against her hesitation before carefully saying, "There's an unfinished remodel in an attic space that some of the men climb through to get to the roof. It's out of view from the rest of the building, with a clear jump into the trees on the street outside. Someone should seal that off before Leif finds out and gets any ideas of leaving with me."

The length of Maier's silence told her enough for her to confidently lower her scalpel, but his knife did not falter.

"You won't leave without Vidar Valstad," he said, more as a statement of fact than calling her bluff.

Simone looked past him to her uncle, meeting his remaining eye directly before turning her attention back to Maier.

"I won't leave him," she admitted, keeping his focus on her as she laid the scalpel on the edge of the sensory deprivation tank. "Vidar is safe here. We all are. Everyone here acts on behalf of the interests of Ouroboros, and we are Ouroboros."

He didn't detect Vidar coming up behind him with steps as slow and quiet as a phantom's. Simone kept her eyes locked with Maier's as her uncle's shadow loomed over him.

"Everyone except my father, Aguiyi… and you, Maier," she said as Vidar's open hands reached for him.

Simone leaned against the wall as she watched Liu, the nearest member with crime scene forensic experience, assess the smears and splatters on the floor. She was careful not to let her gaze linger in any one place for too long as Aguiyi shifted his attention between them. The smooth concrete obscured the stains in darker shades of gray, but the reek of what they were wrinkled her nose with a horrible familiarity. The good ventilation in the labs had granted these cramped corridors a false sense of openness and had blunted much of the sharpness of the solutions used to keep them sterile, but she could still smell the blood oxidizing steadily into rot. Her uncle’s blood, and not a drop of anyone else’s. She had been careful to assure that. Her frantic scrubbing had eaten through the nitrile gloves she’d used, the cleaning solution stinging the blisters from her father’s training.

“The patterns from the lab to the hall clearly indicate a struggle,” Liu said, mostly to herself while she photographed the mess, although the halted lilt to her tone suggested she only spoke in English for their benefit. Simone moved closer to show she was still listening despite the fatigue and nervousness that weighed her steps into a shuffle. “I only see one set of footprints, so he was maybe carrying something... something that threw off his balance.”

“Couldn’t’ve had much balance,” Dr. Wallis muttered rapidly. He shrunk a little more into himself when they looked his way, but continued, “... kept ‘im sedated near constantly for over two months. Wouldn’t’ve been able to walk straight, haul things about.”

“Never underestimate a Valstad,” Aguiyi warned.

Dr. Wallis choked back a whimper as he nodded, cowering even further into his hunch under the attention of the old man. Simone looked away from him; that would likely be the limit of what he could say for the next few hours at least and it hurt to see what had become of the once-confident, witty neuropsychologist. It was a cold reminder of what she risked in this subterfuge. Aguiyi had allowed her to be punished for running from him before; she could not imagine what penalty might await her for taking Vidar away from him.

“Maybe he had a weird reaction to the drugs?” she suggested.

“A severe reaction from sedation explains it until we reach here,” Liu said as she gestured with her camera to where the bloody path ended in the middle of the hall. “It also doesn’t explain how or why the video feed was interrupted and the lab was unsecured.”

Simone pursed her lips against the urge to frown. “So someone cut the cameras and opened the door for my uncle to slip out like a loose housecat… and then simply vanished?”

“Any ideas, Liu?” Aguiyi asked.

The expert shook her head. “All my ideas are in the evidence. How many others knew Vidar Valstad was down here?”

“No one I wouldn’t trust.”

“Apparently at least one you shouldn’t,” Simone muttered.

A resounding silence brought her to look around. Aguiyi’s wrinkles deepened into a gnarl of a scowl, Dr. Wallis’ pallor turned a sickly shade of buttermilk, and Liu watched her with curious surprise. She wasn’t aware she’d said that out loud until Aguiyi announced, “There are none within these walls who do not live to serve our shared cause.”

The shadow of a scold in his tone raised Simone’s suspicion enough for her to follow where that statement had stung him, chasing that hunch with, “Not everyone here is sharing the same cause, doc. You made Leif their leader, don’t act surprised when they follow his will.”

“You know too little of how Ouroboros operates to be making those kinds of assessments, Little Scratch.”

The ire that fueled his defensiveness spilled over the deepening furrow of his brow and infected her with a corrosive, unyielding frustration. Or maybe it was her own frustration rising to meet his. Her barriers were thinning dangerously, sweat starting to slick her palms and douse the nape of her neck, but she had to play this through.

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” she sneered. “Maybe someone left the door unlocked. Maybe he hurt himself stumbling out of here. Maybe the cameras glitched. Any of these alone are generous assumptions, but all of that together is quite a fucking coincidence.”

“We don’t yet know what happened and neither do you.”

“I know my father wants his corpse displayed in the yard. I know that’s a lot of my uncle’s blood on the floor for anyone who could care to keep him alive to have spilled. Why isn’t anyone asking Leif?”

“Leif doesn’t know about this project.”

“He doesn’t need to know, what he needs is Vidar’s head delivered to him. And all you care about are your fucking projects. Is twenty years all it takes for you to-” Simone snapped, her teeth clicking shut to bite off the rest of what had slipped between the cracks of her composure.

If she didn’t have Aguiyi’s attention before, she clearly had it now. Those broad, sagging, leonine features turned fully to her, eyes now alight with a deadly intent behind thick cataracts as he waited for her to continue. Somewhere on the boundaries of her focus, she knew Dr. Wallis was curling into himself in an attempt to disappear and Liu was watching with wide-eyed wary interest, but all she could see were the decades carved into that face falling away. The cataracts sank back until fiery brown irises glared at her from a face nearly unrecognizable yet too familiar for her to not know.

“All it takes for me to… what?” he prompted, slick with venom.

Simone swallowed the self-consciousness that stalled her tongue before doing her best not to spit out, “Forget your word to Bjørn.”

The fire in his glare receded to a smoulder, but his tone was no less hard as he responded, “We’ll find Vidar Valstad. He’ll need you when we do.”

She held his clouded stare until the buzzing, burning sensation of direct eye contact frothed just below her tolerance and she let her sight drop to his cheek. That roving anger seeped out of her, all the bluster it had garnered departing with it in a sigh that left her feeling deflated, tired, but good.

They hadn't suspected her involvement in Vidar’s disappearance, hadn’t kept her there to watch her sweat and squirm despite her not needing to be there at all. Aguiyi had summoned her to the scene to include her and the gratitude that gesture had implanted in her was inescapable. She was among the first to be alerted to the disappearance of her uncle. She was also brought because Aguiyi correctly guessed how important it would be to her to be included. It was almost easy to believe that he did all of this out of respect and courtesy to her.

Aguiyi reached out to give her shoulder a firm, fraternal squeeze. She did not try to dodge it and the lack of revulsion at his touch burned her all the worse. Such grand gestures of courtesy and respect still felt odd despite the annoying compulsion to appreciate it.

“We’ve got everyone on the lookout, Scratch,” he said, warm and assuring, welcoming her trust with the patience and wisdom of a leader steeped in experience. “You have my word on that, too. If you think disclosing this project to Leif is necessary to help find your uncle, then I won't hold you back.”

The tug of a bond she did not want and was not hers to begin with grated against what she had set into motion. She could see why Bjørn had saddled Aguiyi with his legacy. Bjørn may have been insane, but he could see the inner workings of people as clearly as the movements in his skeleton watch. Through the same pale gray eyes as his, Simone could see Aguiyi as she imagined Bjørn may have seen him: a man with a knack for leadership and devotion that ran so deep it pulled those around him under his wing. It would have been easy to fall into where Aguiyi had attempted to manipulate her if she had let him.

The watch ticked steadily at her wrist as she clasped her hand over his and said, “I'm counting on you, doc.”

“Never thought a French summer would be so warm. Do you want a shorter taper?”

Leif glanced over the document in his hands, considered the clippers the barber held, and answered, "No, let's keep it a scissor cut. Can't go changing my image without consulting the committee first."

The barber let out a chuckle as he traded the clippers for shears. "I thought being on top would give a guy more freedom, Scratch. Doesn't seem all bad, though. Least you got the best barber in the complex to keep your image sharp."

Leif smiled at his easy humor. Only a few months ago, this same man could barely hold a comb steady in his presence. Leif was pleased that his penchant for violence against his fellow Ouroboros members hadn't affected the reproitoir he'd built with the barber.

"You're the best of the best, Athanasios."

Leif turned his attention back to the stack of reports, eager to assess the situation on the Mozambique Channel, but both his and Athanasios's attention turned to the sound of shouting outside the makeshift barbershop.

"What the hell-"

"Stay here," Leif commanded as he pulled the sheet off his shoulders and rushed out of the makeshift barbershop.

Casual though their reproitoir might be, Athanasios obeyed orders as well as anyone among their ranks. Or, at least as well as most. The guards assigned to ensure that Leif was where he was supposed to be were not where they were supposed to be. Instead, the hallway was only filled with the sounds of shouting and scuffling echoing from around the corner.

There were few opportunities that afforded Leif a moment outside of constant supervision. He could use this moment to run, hide among the estate's many forgotten passages, find a way to get him and his daughter out somehow. This was ahead of his plan, but he didn't know when a moment like this would present itself again. Before hesitation let this opportunity slip by, he turned in the opposite direction of the clamour only to be stopped by a woman's voice among the shouting. Leif was rushing towards it before he fully recognized it as his daughter's, his heart hammering and throat tight in a single-minded panic to reach her.

"Simone!" he cried, his voice lost among the many as he rounded the corner and pushed into the tight crowd of men.

A path cleared quickly as they realized who was now among them, but not quick enough as he shoved his way through the throng. His mind raced with a thousand fears only to be confronted with one of the worst when at last he pushed his way to the clearing at the center of the crowd. There, his daughter stood before a man with a knife gripped in both of his hands, her blood oozing around the tip of the blade held against her chest. The urge to rush in and kill this man had him lunging forward, but the grasping hands of those around him held him back in time for him to assess the situation. The blind panic in the man's eyes was zeroed in on Simone's grim stare, the knife seemingly frozen in time. Any interference could kill her.

"What's happening here?" Leif demanded of the men next to him.

"Apologies, sir," the man to his right spoke up above the din. "It's Deleon. He was sparring and started to panic, pulled a knife on his partner. Little Scratch intervened, stopped him from killing."

Leif whipped around and snarled, "And you let her?"

The thin stream of red blooming under the fabric of her bodice made him jerk against the hands holding him back. He had to deescalate this situation somehow; going in hotheaded and half-cocked could easily get her killed. His mind raced with a dozen useless ideas leaping out of the panic that gripped him while he forced himself to watch and wait as Simone slowly reached up to the Deleon's shaking hands.

Leif couldn't hear what she said, only see her lips form the words, "Don't be afraid. You're safe. You're with family now. Understand? You're with family."

Deleon, a man three times her size, trembled and muttered rapidly as her tiny hands slowly pushed the knife away. Leif stood frozen, his breath burning in his chest while she continued to hold Deleon's wild stare as she loosened his trembling hold on the handle. Then, bafflingly, she wiped the blood off on her dress and slid it in the sheath at his thigh.

"We take care of each other," she said, placing her hands on Deleon's slumped shoulders. "That's what family does. No matter what, we take care of each other."

Sensing the threat was low, Leif jerked again to be released to run to her only for those hands to hold fast. He turned to the men to order them, the order dying on his tongue when he saw how they watched his Simone. He knew that look, that stalwart stillness and attentive stare. They looked to Simone and saw a leader.

#Closing The Distance #fiction #horror #medical horror #cults #brainwashing #ptsd

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sgtduckybucky · 4 years

Text

coming home to you

Genre: hurt/comfort, romance, angst and slight fluff.

Warning(s): slight au

Words: 2058

A/N: euhedeuhed NO ONE TOLD ME ALFIE WAS BACK!! UJHUEHEIUED I haven’t watched s5 and i wont for a while because im watching one piece so forgive me if this isn’t as accurate as the show. that’s why I added au as a warning since i only saw a clip of alfie on youtube.

this is a sequel to farewell and a gif but can be read alone! i won’t add links since posts don’t show up with links but send me an ask and i’ll give you think!

lastly, sorry for any spelling or grammar errors!

»»————-　♡　————-««

the sound of the fire cackling in the fire place was an odd source of comfort as the harsh december wind howled outside. this year’s winter was harsh and unkind to humans. just this morning, you’ve read in the paper that five people died from the extreme cold britain’s getting this year.

you poured yourself another cup of earl grey as a new louis armstrong song began playing on the record player as you enjoyed reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles. and just as you were about to doze off three chapters, cyrill suddenly lifts his head up and trots to the window, a low whine coming from deep within him.

you paid him no mind at first, but when he started pawing at the window, you closed your book and stopped the record player before walking to where cyrill was. pulling back the shades, you picked through the snow caked windows. squinting your eyes to see what got cyrill so worked up. when you couldn’t spot anything you drew the windows and patted the dog’s head, “there’s nothing there, cyrill.” you smiled down at him, “probably a squirrel trying to hide from the snow.”

glancing at the wall clock, you were surprised to find that it was getting close to midnight. once you’ve cleaned the living room, you switched off the lights and head to one of the guest rooms on the first floors. ever since your pregnancy started showing the baby growing heavier, you’ve decided to move your bedroom on the lower level since it was way too exhausting for you to get up the stairs. the room wasn’t much, barely decorated, but it was a place for you to rest and sleep in. and the bathroom next to it had standing shower which was also another reason why you moved to this room since you had quite a scare by almost falling out of your bathtub as you were getting up.

as you settled into bed, you glanced at the picture frame on the night table. the picture was of you and alfie from almost two years ago. you were at the pier on a rare and sunny day in britain and you had begged alfie to go. it was on of the most memorable days you’ve had together. the picture was of you and alfie standing behind those cutout boards where they had a muscled man lifting a woman and, thinking it would be hilarious, you stood behind the man’s cutout face while alfie, grumbling at first, stood behind the woman’s cutout face. slowly, your eyes closed shut at the fond memories.

»»————-　♡　————-««

life as an eight month pregnant woman wasn’t easy. you can’t bend any more to pick anything so once that object is on the ground, it stays there until either cyrill picks it up or when ollie drops by later and picks it up for you. you can’t have a good night’s sleep either since the baby keeps kicking you from all sides every two fucking minutes and you were always hungry for the strangest food! oh, and you’d pee a lot too which was getting on your nerves.

however, there are small perks to being this far along. the most noticeable one, and by your favorite, is the many discounts from markets and stores. the minute they lay eyes on you, pity brimming in their eyes, they just lower the price for whatever it was you were buying.

like today for example. you were suddenly craving an orange cake and chicken for dinner so you decided to head to the market early and start cooking. maybe even have ollie for dinner if he wasn’t too busy. the elderly woman took one look at you and lowered your groceries from thirty pounds to twenty pounds. and when she heard that your boyfriend died before he could even propose, she lowered it to fifteen pounds!

sometimes, it’s great being pregnant. you chuckled to yourself as you made home. it wasn’t too cold this afternoon so you weren’t in a rush as you walked through town. however, you couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was watching you. but every time you turned around, there was no one there. it was when you started hearing a second set of footsteps behind you did you pick your pace and take the long route home hoping to shake whoever was following you off. when you were certain the person wasn’t following you anymore, you quickly made it to your home and locked the doors. and rushed to pick the phone.

“hello?”

“t-tommy.” you stuttered into the phone.

“y/n?” tommy asked in slight surprise since you haven’t spoken to each other since that day you threatened to shoot his face off when you found out that you were pregnant with alfie’s baby.

“ca-can you come over? i think someone’s following me.” you whispered into the phone as you peaked through the window to make sure that no one was standing outside of your house.

“i’ll be right over.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

it’s been two weeks and you were positive that someone’s stalking you. tommy had insisted that him and the rest of your brothers would take turns staying the night at your place and accompanying you to any appointment or errand you need to run.

you were about to protest at first, yell and remind them that you weren’t some damsel in distress but when arthur said, “what if alfie’s enemies know that you were carrying his child.” he didn’t have to continue that statement as it was pretty obvious what he was saying. what if they knew you were carrying alfie’s baby and they were trying to kill you?

shaken to your core, you placed a protective hand on your belly and nodded your head.

“are you sure you don’t want me to stay over?” finn asked you, a frown tugging at his lips in concern.

you tried not to roll your eyes at your younger brother, “for the millionth time, i’m sure, finn.”

finn bit his lips, ready to ask the same question again when your house came into view, “finn, i love you all to death but having you lots breathing down my neck and jumping to your feet the minute i feel a cramp is getting on my damn nerves.”

finn looked away in guilt, “we’re just worried is all.”

you smiled appreciatively at your brother, “and i’m thankful for you all.” you said you leaned in and kissed his cheek, “but i need some time alone before i go fucking insane.”

chuckling along with you, finn nodded his head and watched you enter your home before leaving to meet up with michael.

“cyrill, i’m home!” you called as you discarded your coat and scarf and hung them on the coat rack by the door, “cyrill?”

confused, you slowly and quietly made your way to the living room in case he was sleeping.

but what greeted you wasn’t cyrill sleeping soundly on the couch, but of a large and burly man sitting on the couch with cyrill laying across his lap. his hair was short and a dark brown color that turned golden under the sun. his chin was covered in a greying brown beard while his mustache dropped down his lips. the left side of his face was scarred and almost disfigured with his left eye was a hauntingly greyish white color.

“a-alfie?” you chocked. your legs shook and almost gave out had you not slammed your hand on the coffee table in time.

“in the flesh.” he replied while shrugging nonchalantly, as if it was no big deal to show up at yours and your girlfriend’s house despite being supposedly dead.

“h-how?”

“i think you should sit down, love.”

shaking your head, you lifted your finger and pointed at alfie, voice going into hysterics as you said, “you’re s-supposed to be d-dead! t-tommy...tommy shot you! you died!”

aflie just sat as he silently watched the tears falling down your cheeks and into the carpeted floor, “like i said, y/n, you should sit down.”

and as if you were a puppet being controlled by your master, you shuffled your way to the armchair across the couch alfie was sitting on with cyrill.

“where do i begin.” alfie heaved as he dragged his hand down his face, making you wince as his hand came in contact with his scarred skin.

“from the start.” you spoke softly.

and alfie did as told. he talked about that day on the beach when tommy confronted him, how he was willing to die after he found out he was terminally ill and was going to die anyways and how tommy shot him.

“you were dying.” you whispered, eyes widening in shock at the revelation, “why didn’t you tell me?”

guilt flashed in alfie’s eyes, “i didn’t want you to worry.”

you stood up on your feet in rage but the abrupt movement made you dizzy so you sat back down, a hand on your head to stop your head from spinning. all the while alfie watched with a deep set of frown.

“you were going to leave me.” you said, a dry chuckle escaping through you lips, “you were going to leave us.”

“so that’s mine.” alfie pointed at your enlarged stomach with his, “good to know.”

anger bubbled inside of you at his words and at his carefree attitude, “he’s not yours. not after what you did.” you couldn’t help the tears from rolling down your cheeks but you were angry. you were angry that your brother had shot your lover, angry that you mourned someone who wasn’t even dead, you were angry that he kept his illness from you and you were angry that he didn’t even tell you he was alive.

“why didn’t you tell me?” you chocked on your sob as tears blurred your vision, “why didn-” your throat tightened and you swallowed thickly. you were hurt. you were hurt, alone and scared these past eight and half months. worrying if you and your baby would survive this pregnancy, if your baby could survive the harsh winter and with someone stalking yo-

“have you been following me?” you asked as realization dawn on you.

“i was.” alfie replied.

“why?”

it took alfie a couple of seconds before he replied, “i wanted to see if you were safe.”

“were you going to come back?”

alfie looked away, wether in shame or to feed you a lie, you didn’t know.

“I was going to remain in hiding, keep a low profile from the bloody police but then i saw you were with child.” he pointed at your belly with his finger, “and i had to make sure whichever bastard did that to you was taking good care of ya. turns out i was the fucking bastard.” he chuckled humorlessly.

there was a short pause before you asked, “so why are you here?”

alfie’s fingers brushed cyrill’s thick fur, his miscolored eyes never leaving yours as he answered, “i wanted to come back home to you.”

“and what if i don’t want you back?” you raised an eyebrow challengingly, “what if i wanted you gone? what if i never wanted to see you again?”

“then i’ll leave.” alfie quickly replied.

“and what about your cancer? what if you leave us again, i-”

this time, alfie got up from the couch and kneeled down in front of you, taking both of your hands into his bigger and rougher ones.

“i promise i won’t leave you.” he kissed your hands with his chapped lips.

“how can i trust you?” you whispered.

“call fate or divine intervention or whatever but when your fucked up in the head of a brother shot me, the doctors drugged me up so much for so long that it cured my skin cancer.” he kissed your hands again but when he felt a tear drop land on his nose, he sat up straighter and kissed your tears away.

“i’m giving you one more chance.” you held alfie’s face in your hands, your thumb gently caressing the scarred skin, “if you leave us again, i swear i’ll bring you back from the dead and kill you myself.”

alfie chuckled, leaning in to softly peck your lips, “it’s a promise.”

#Alfie Solomons #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons x reader #alfie solomons x you #alfie solomons fanfic #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders x you #peaky blinders fanfiction

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afterthelastreset · 4 years

Text

Kris’s Soul Theories

Ok. So I was talking with my pal @makiswak about these and thought I’d share them here. These are just possible theories I came up with while rewatching the playthroughs of Deltarune and that scene of Kris ripping their soul out. So I thought of these to help maybe explain it. Hope you all like it.

Theory 1: KRIS IS POSESSED BY SOMETHING

The red soul is something else and something is posessing Kris. Before you all go out and point at Chara, Chara wasn’t ever really a bad person (watch the theories about it on youtube) so Chara wouldn’t posess someone. Plus we’ve never seen Chara posess someone cannically so- Plus there’s no WAY it could be Chara for 2 specific reasons.

1. This is a separate au from Undertale and the two games are two separate cannons as stated by Toby Fox

2. Asriel ain't dead so Chara is probably alive and well somewhere too, college aged since in Undertale they were the same age, and it seems everyone is their cannon age here

But ghosts ARE a real thing in undertale like Napstablook and we see a house similar to his house in town so maybe Kris Is being posessed by a evil ghost monster. And before someone suggest Frisk it couldn’t be either. Frisk was WAY younger than Chara or Asriel might’ve been and the only way Asriel was the same age as them in Undertale was because he was dead and an ageless flower for so long, and when he was brought back he reverted back to the age he was when he died. Everyone seems to be the same age they are as they were in Undertale. So Cannoncally if we’re calculating the numbers right, Frisk would be alive and younger than Asriel possibly even younger than Kris. So they’re not an option either, and Frisk was never shown with red eyes or a knife in game.

Theory 2: THE SOUL IS THE PLAYER

The soul is the player is probably the most obvious and likely but I’ll include it too just to be fair. So this one’s pretty basic. What is it’s US that’s possesing Kris and Kris is just rejecting the player’s control over them? It wouldn’t be the first time we got a fourth wall break. Remember in Undertale when Sans winked at us when he made the joke when Papyrus first appeared? And it didn’t seem like Kris was ever a cruel or dangerous person? Sure he scared Noelle by hiding under her bed but that sounds like something kids typically do. Scare their friends as pranks whether by hiding under the bed or jumping from around a corner. What if Kris only has the knife to defend himself? Because like everyone says in the game, Kris is a quiet kid but he never hurt anyone. Even in the 'genocide' run of the game no one dies. So what if Kris is holding back from the player's commands and shows us a his scary face as a warning? Because he doesn't want to hurt anyone.

Theory 3: THE WHOLE THING IS JUST A METAPHOR

Yep! What if Kris ISNT really ripping out their soul and what we see is just Toby Fox animating out what Kris is eternally feeling inside? It isn’t that too far of a stretch. This is Toby Fox who made Undertale, a game where a skeleton broke the fourth wall once, a ghost who possesses a robot, and talking goat’s who want to adopt you. And in undertale Toby included two meanings of ‘Love’. The love you gain in the pacifist route and L.O.V(Level of violence) for the genocide. And Sans uses all kinds of metaphors, jokes, and puns to refer to things. Why would it be too far a stretch that what we see isn’t actually happening and just symbolism to how Kris is feeling inside?

What if the soul IS Kris's soul, but he’s not ACTUALLY pulling it out and it’s what he’s feeling? You know what a soul looks like? YEP!! A HEART!! His ‘soul’ could be representing his heart. There’s things call heartache and heartbreak. And this kid has a LOT to be heartbroken over. He was adopted so he’s probably already feeling lost not knowing what his real family’s like, he’s the only human in a town of monsters, his adopted parents are divorced, his brother's not home anymore, and he has no friends outside maybe Noelle except when he meets Susie and the dark world gang.

What if Kris pulling out his soul out of his chest symbolizes his escape from all the hurtful emotions he's feeling? What if he's not REALLY ripping out his soul and what we see is just what Kris FEELS like is happening? He feels his 'heart being ripped from his chest'(which is already a real metaphor) and the red eyes and knife could just be metaphors too. Like the red eyes could just mean he's angry and the knife could just mean he feels like he has to defend himself from everyone because of what he's going through. Well what about his crazy smile and his trapped soul in the cage? Well his smile could symbolize him always smiling away the pain he’s feeling, and the cage could symbolize all the hope and love he wants to feel is buried deep down trapped in this cage he feels himself trapped in.

And if you point out the cage and the wagon is always in the game, it could be just a symbol throughout the game. Like maybe Kris feels constantly trapped by his emotions and doesn’t know how to stop carrying it around with him hence the wagon. Because he might feel like he’s dragging his caged weight with him everywhere. And the other thing’s that happen in the animation. Kris looking like he’s being throw outta bed and being forced to throw his soul out like a puppet. Perhaps it symbolizes that Kris feels he has to force himself to do this, to force himself against his better judgement to cage these emotions so avoid anymore pain?

Maybe Im looking to far into this but with Toby Fox anything is possible.

Theory 4: IT’S ALL JUST A NIGHTMARE

Kinda an extension of my third theory but hey, like I said with Toby Fox anything is possible here so us seeing Kris’s nightmare isn’t too far a stretch too.

So here me out. The animation with the soul shows us nighttime with Kris in bed before the soul ripping out thing even happens so what if Kris is having a night mare and in this nightmare, he’s reliving through all the emotions and trauma he’s experiencing? Just some more possible symbolism here, but the part where Kris falls out of bed could possible symbolize that this dream has happened before since’s he’s eerily silent. Maybe he’s had this dream so many times to be barely affected anymore. If so then poor Kris. Again this one doesn’t hold up as much as the other three do but it’s one regardless.

Theory 5: THIS IS JUST A PREVEIW

The whole game’s not done so maybe the end of the first chapter is just a small preview of what WILL happen but HASN’T yet. After all in some games like Bendy And The Ink Machine after every chapter it showed a small preview of what’s to come for the next one. Perhaps Toby was just showing us what was to happen in later chapters to come?

Well these are my five theories of what’s actually going on in that one scene. Tell me what you guys think of all this?

#Kris #Deltarune #Deltarune soul

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dementedgnomicwizard · 4 years

Note

oh my god i fucking HATE the wolf 359 finale no podcast has ever made me angrier

BSKDJDKC IM GLAD IM NOT THE ONLY ONE i didn’t even hate the whole finale!! it just felt like the last 10-ish minutes were like.... a fake ending that just sort of got plastered on? it rly felt like they got THIS close to going through with the TPK ending and then slammed the brakes at the last minute even though i think it would’ve been a genuinely really satisfying conclusion to all of the established character arcs. I DONT KNOW... there’s a couple specific writing decisions throughout the show that make me go “???” just because it feels like there’s a more obvious and narratively satisfying option easily within reach every time. idk idk.

my hunch about the ending is that they really did almost go the tpk route but they got worried about tone at the last minute and backed down—since a lot of the show does a careful balancing act to preserve the drama/tension without emotionally fatiguing you, and i can understand them being worried that that kind of ending would shatter that balance/be “too dark”—but i think the way things ended up ended up tipping the balance anyhow because it’s like.... more depressing imo. the narrative asks and answers so many questions throughout the show about the nature of personality/memory/humanity etc (largely in regards to hera) and it felt like then the ending flew in the face of a lot of that? like, if hera’s memories (and by extension personality) had been wiped and reset and just left her the same material components+voice, the answer to “am i still the same person” would’ve been a cut-and-dry “no.” so to then do that EXACT SAME THING to one of the other characters but try to pass it off as less tragic or more of an unanswerable question because theyre flesh and blood just like, didn’t work for me and just came across like they were too nervous to just kill them off, ykwim?

#wolf 359 spoilers #jules don’t look i don’t want u to get spoiled

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somnilogical · 4 years

Text

case study: elle benjamin

the rationality community's least skilled exploiter of transmisogynistic coordination points known to me

when thinking about strategy, i often use the least sophisticated version of a given strategy that i know of to reason about the minimal elements of the strategy in general. i have an index of unsophisticated versions of things that i ping and ask "is this strategy basically this vector but with more optimization power behind it?" it helps compress a lot of information. to check, i can make a prediction given a set of examples of the pattern and test it.

(like i did with the transmisogynistic rationalist orgs "i bet this org has 0 transfems in positions of power" and yep they did, they all did.)

and thats how i factor strategies generated by agents with large amounts of optimization power. who might have more ability to optimize in a domain than i do.

both of these claims are false. elle benjamin never let emma into the group. shes culpable for her continued choice to "believe" bigoted propaganda. just as davis tower kingsley is culpable for "believing" that anna salamon, the president of cfar, isnt involved in cfar's hiring.

elle benjamin is deeply concerned about the treatment of trans people in the rationalist community. elle isnt that good at social optimization so this is an obvious false face. like a cop during segregation who runs an algorithm of "smile at people" if no black people are using the WHITE water fountain and "beat up a human" if a black human uses the WHITE water fountain. as long as trans women know their place as violent abusers like ▘▕▜▋, elle is happy.

if we start claiming we are women just the same as them and how people are treating us is wrong, if we protest against omnicide, if other people are coordinating against trans women along lines of transmisogyny; then elle decides its time to show us our place in the social order as male. violent, child abuse loving, misogynistic, strong-arming, men.

this decision-circuit is not peaceful. people who start trying to exploit transmisogyny in an attempt to coordinate with others against you only when you look vulnerable or they think they can get away with it and otherwise smile at transfems are with their whole soul given over to transmisogyny.

erica's post is so passive-aggressive!

<<One issue is that i think this group is just too large to remain a high trust environment.>>

<<Thanks everyone for keeping this a civil place that deals with sensitive issues all these years!>>

in reference to my blog posts about how they didnt have any transfem mods and immediately took down hot allostatic load because it was a [[bad culture fit]] and [[incoherent]]. as if i were expected to keep some confidentiality about transmisogyny. i have no loyalty to keeping secret that kind of oppression, i signed no contract to that effect.

as if telling other trans people exactly what they did was "uncivil"! as if it were ruinous to society instead of ruinous to a cis women coordinating on transmisogyny.

as if posting hot allostatic load and talking about transmisogyny on my blog were less "sensitive" than the other things the group was doing which included posts like "How many romantic novels/movies/etc do we have left, once we take away all the ones focused on a man relentlessly trying to convince a woman through trickery and persistence and stalking that she should really have sex with him" and "the White Knight/Damsel in Distress dynamic" at the time HAL was taken down.

https://somnilogical.tumblr.com/post/175420481784/i-tried-to-post-to-rationalist-feminists-closed

its an equilibrium where anyone opposing the "peace" of transmisogyny is labeled "antisocial" and "disrupting things".

would you say this woman is being misogynistic and "strong-arming" a female DA?

<<Last year, I was arrested twice in Sonoma County at Sunrise Farms and then Petaluma Poultry, two massive industrial farms that torture and kill hundreds of thousands of birds- while lying to the public about how these animals are treated. My crime? Asking the county to help the starving animals inside. Not just asking by email or phone call or office visit (though all these efforts were made and ignored), but asking by going right to the frontlines myself, exercising my statutory right to help neglected animals, and calling the attention of the authorities to this pervasive cruelty. The fact that the sheriffs chose to arrest us and ignore the animal cruelty broke my heart. It's hard to believe we live in a world where helping someone who is dying is the "crime" and not putting that life in danger in the first place. But have hope that this will change, and my hope growing.>>

<<Now, in response to the action at Reichardt, Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch has decided to file additional charges against me, Priya Sawhney, and Wayne Hsiung. We are already facing 7 felonies and 5 misdemeanors and we're still fighting for animals every day. Do you think new charges will stop us? No. And it wont stop the movement, either. They think they can stop DxE by targeting leadership, but they don't understand that we are a network of leaders. That every single one of us is leading the world to one of the biggest changes it will ever see. #RightToRescue>>

probably not because shes cis and looks like:

laying down and making it clear that you offer no impediment to mass murder is not a female thing, its not a feminist thing. its a *you* thing, elle benjamin.

someone commented on the screenshots:

<<(It feels relevant that when I met this person a few months ago they went on a rant about the evils of TERF’s before telling me I couldn’t experience misogyny bc I was “male-socialised.” They apologised quickly after having it explained but the idea of their being the Font of Wisdom about transness to rats is insane.)>>

https://loving-not-heyting.tumblr.com/post/614660027724283904/ht-somni-for-screengrabs-this-sums-up-absolutely

ozy brennan, i know what the fuck im talking about when i say "transmisogyny". ive been lied to then kicked out of a homeless shelter for being a trans woman. several men forced me to the ground and held me down and cut off my clothes while i shouted "I DONT CONSENT" locked me in a bare room then crowded around a window embedded in a door and said "i told you it was a guy" and a bunch of people came to gawk at my naked body. and so much more.

some of my interactions on the street in the bay:

<<at bart ppl would call me an ugly bitch and ask me to sleep with them in exchange for meth

someone tried to sell me something and i was like "im not interested in being scammed today" and they were like "bitch!!!"

i walked around in sf talking with a homeless women for ~8 hours and someone asked if we had boyfriends and offered to sell us meth if we went with him and i was like "no thanks" and she was like "how much?" but it was too expensive or something. she showed me lots of places to get food and shelter.

and like if i sit down in places for long enough people will come up to me and ask me if i have a boyfriend or if i want to go get coffee with them on a date.

sometimes ppl ask where im *really* from and if i was born a girl. sometimes ppl touch me on my back or thigh.>>

ive compared notes with cisfems, i get more solicitations to have sex with men in exchange for meth.

this isnt oppression olympics, this is "maybe 7-8 years ago when i started transitioning i didnt have a detailed model of transmisogyny, but now i cant not have one". alyssa vance could have one too (and know things like elle is the kind of person who exploits transmisogyny whenever she gets a chance) if she werent busy using her adult intelligence to defeat itself for miri/cfar.

what elle benjamin did was transmisogynistic and i can arbitrage actually being aligned with justice by taking a stack of screenshots of all the things she said and showing them to transfems uninvolved with the ambient miri/cfar gaslighting. and theyll be like "yup, thats transmisogyny". and other transfems can be like "yup, elle was also transmisogynist to me."

rationalists like alyssa vance and ozy brennan currently have an incentive to imply people who accurately identify transmisogyny are crazy. to go along with the status quo. (if i had to guess: ozy to protect an environment where they can provide for their baby, alyssa because she routed her hopes for personal immortality through miri/cfar.) though its not like i expect /alyssa vance/ to start calling transfems “gross uncle style abusers" like patrick lavictiore did or start listing off their "manly" physical characteristics contra anna salamon being a small feeble cisfem like peter did. not because alyssa vance is a particularly good person, shes not. but because thats paying in to a coordination technique that could be used against /her/. she doesnt expect social reality to label her "psychotic" anytime soon so she pays into that instead. ozy does and didnt call me "psychotic". this optimization is dumb, myopic, and doesnt serve their own values. but all evil is like that.

i dont hold by "use words for their expected value over a community" like scott alexander does. this is nice because i can align what i say with my internal cluster structure of anticipations of reality and escalate arbitrarily far without things breaking. elle benjamin cant escalate very far until her claim of ziz being a "misogynist" shatters, because its not exploiting the cluster structure of thing-space.

anyway GG on this front. the territory of "elle benjamin isnt transmisogynistic, somni is hallucinating transmisogyny" isnt worth enough for the miri/cfar campaign to expend energy on; elle benjamin isnt an important piece to miri/cfar like anna salamon is; and alyssa vance isnt in an environment with a bunch of warm bodies she can coordinate on a falsehood with. so afaict this region is ceded.

one technique of fem v fem cyberontological combat when you are right is arbitrage. when people gather a bunch of warm bodies together to gaslight you that elle benjamin isnt doing transmisogyny or whatever. instead of submitting to a series of increasingly arcane requirements until your writing looks like the inside of /principia mathematica/ and then have people complain about you writing long technical paragraphs saying they dont understand them dont care to understand them and you must be crazy;

just take a comprehensive recording of them all choosing to be dumb in a given direction and show it to people who dont have a political commitment to be dumb in that direction (which, when you are right, is often most people outside of the gaslighting bubble) and explain why its wrong. there are a lot of overlapping social spheres and you can iteratively arbitrage between them exploiting the fact that the methods of rationality and justice are more universal than specific false coordination points. in go terms, the spirit of this strategy is tenuki.

alyssa vance also says anna salamon isnt transmisogynistic, tried claiming ziz whistleblowing on miri/cfar paying out to blackmail was blackmail, and defends paying out to oneshot blackmail with subjunctive dependence for cdt reasons.

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