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dragonmasterkaylz · 1 year

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Becoming a Serial Killer

Evie had been bought, abused and hurt. She was walking through the sand, rage almost consuming her as she reached the camp just after it went dark. She needed to see her sister again… but to do that, she would need to get her hands dirty. Evie was normally a very sweet girl who wouldn’t dare dream of hurting anyone else. But now, she was done.

Done being prey.

Done being an innocent young girl.

Done being someone’s toy.

As she walked into the tent, she noticed something was glimmering in the moonlight. Her red eyes started to glow with insanity as she stared at it. A black scythe with a steel grey edge. Evie giggled as she walked over to it and picked it up. Despite its weight, she could pick it up with ease. She was naturally strong, so swinging it around wouldn’t hurt.

And her sanity levels had dropped so far down that it wasn’t going to easy to come back. Now, all she had to do was find her own prey. She removed the pink ribbon in her hair and tied it just under the blade before rummaging around for food and water. She smirked once she found what she needed and then ran out of the camp very quickly.

Evie walked down into the fissure and ate what rations she could find before drinking some water, then sleeping. Meanwhile, Jack returned to camp and found that the scythe was gone. “Shit…! Was no one keeping watch?!” Derek rode back on his bike and asked, “What’s up with you…?” “The scythe has vanished! No one was keeping watch!”

In the morning, Evie woke up and looked at the scythe before smirking. Her sense of morality was gone, but she wasn’t going to kill the innocents. No… just the hunters. The murderers that had torn that poor innocent girl to pieces yesterday. She walked into the sun and swung the scythe onto her shoulder before giggling as she walked up the hill.

She saw the camouflaged door and grinned before swinging her scythe, slicing the fabric and then kicking the door down. Dragon and Komodo looked behind them and saw the girl holding a scythe. “A sacrifice, eh…? You two are so dead!!!” The two attempted to tackle her but she dodged with skill, causing them both to fall onto the sand. “I hate your kind”.

“‘Our kind’…?”, Komodo questioned as he stood up, clearly offended. Her eyes started to glow bright red and she swung the scythe at him, only for Dragon to take the hit. Blood sprayed all over the sand, as well as her as the sharp object tore through his guts. “All you do is kill people because you enjoy it!!! And now… I’m gonna enjoy killing YOU!!!”

Dragon stumbled backwards before falling to the floor and he mumbled, “Y-You won’t be able to kill… all of us…!” Evie smirked and then raised the scythe in the air. “It’s too bad you’ll be too dead to see it for yourself!!!”, she shouted before slicing him apart, more blood splattering all over the place. Komodo then ran away and she took Dragon’s mask.

“These will be my trophies…!”

She ran after him into the open desert and then jumped before the scythe collided with his back. He screamed and tried to get away just as she pulled the weapon out of him. Evie then kicked him back over and smirked. “Now that the tables have turned, you’re terrified!” Then her smirk vanished. “You’re nothing more than a coward!” “Please! No!”

Jack had made it his top priority to find who took the scythe and to punish them. Derek didn’t understand why it was so important. If anything, the victims having a weapon only made everything so entertaining for him. But he kept looking around in the open desert, until he found someone’s body. He stopped and his eyes widened when he saw Komodo.

He was dead. He had been sliced up. Derek gulped. This person wasn’t after the other victims as well. No. They were after them. He cursed to himself and tried to make his way back, when something punctured his tires from behind and he jumped off of his quad bike. “Ah shit!” It hit a hard rock and then exploded, making him punch the ground.

“So… how much money did you spend on me?” Derek looked behind him and saw the girl he had bought. Dyed blue hair with her brown roots showing and bright red eyes. He laughed as he stood up. “You?!” “I have a name, ya know! … Dickhead”. He pulled out a knife. “Call me that again…! I fucking dare ya!!!” “I’m the one with the scythe, idiot!!!”

Then she pulled out something else. A knife that looked identical to the one that pierced his vehicles tire. “Oh, and a knife!” Evie threw it at his leg and he screamed before falling to the ground, dropping his own knife. “Y-You bitch…!” She walked up to him and aimed the scythe at his throat. “So… I’ll ask again. How much? And was it worth it?”

Derek held his leg in pain and said, “Three hundred and eighty thousand dollars! And no, it wasn’t worth it! If you slaughter me… it’ll be a waste of money!!!” Evie frowned and then raised the scythe up. “We’re not your tools to play with, you arrogant bastard…!” Then she tore his guts out and he spat out blood before falling the ground. “B-Bitch…”.

She grabbed his knife, along with his red bandana before throwing the scythe over her shoulder. Evie watched the fire burn down before grabbing Dragon’s knife, adding it to her collection. Then she made her way to the camp, ready to face Jack and Machete. But she only saw one. Machete was just stood there, staring back at her. “You killed them”.

Evie frowned and said, “Get in my way and I’ll kill you too”. He held his hand out and said, “I can tell that you don’t see me as a threat”. Then she said, “Because you’re not. From what I’ve seen. You put people out of their misery once they’ve had enough. That’s mercy in my eyes”. He nodded and mumbled, “I’m not like the others. I don’t want to be”.

She nodded and then asked, “Where’s the other bastard? Jack, was it…?” Machete then pointed behind her and she looked over to see him standing there. “Y-You…!” Then she threw the masks and knives over to him. His eyes widened in shock. “You killed them all?” “Yeah! And you’re next, Jack!”, she told him, positioning the blade behind her. “Tch!”

Then he grabbed a gun and pointed it at her head. “I didn’t want it to come to this. But you’ve left me no choice. I’m outnumbered, so I’ve had to resort to this”. Jack squeezed the trigger and Evie closed her eyes, only to hear a groan. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw that Machete had taken the bullet for her. Her eyes widened in shock.

“Y-You…! YOU BASTARD!!!”

Jack’s heart stopped and blood splattered everywhere as he split in two. Evie somehow had the energy to use the weapon to slice him into two. She grabbed his mask and his knife before running over to Machete. “Why would you do that…?”, she asked. “T-To stop this… because killing people for sport… isn’t right…”, he choked out, removing his mask.

“Take this… and my machete. There’s a reason why this place… is deserted. Go to that man… and… kill him… please…”, he said softly before falling limp. Evie teared up and nodded before standing up, collecting the masks and weapons of all of the them. Dragon, Komodo, Derek, Jack and finally… Machete. “So, there’s a game master, huh?”

Jaqueline, Tom and Richard all found her, covered in blood while holding her scythe. “Did you… kill them all?” “Yeah, they’re all dead. But I didn’t kill Machete. He saved me from Jack”, she said before walking to the desk in the tent. And that’s where she found it. “W-What now?”, Richard asked. “I’ll get you all somewhere safe. I have to finish this”.

Weeks later, Derek’s Father learned on his sons death and sighed. “He was always such a disappointment. I thought this game would at least keep him occupied… but it ended up getting him killed”. Then he heard the screams of his security guards and flinched. He reached for a gun and pointed it at the door, shaking. “W-Who are you…?!!”

The door was knocked down and a girl wearing a white shirt with matching shorts walked through, holding a scythe. “Is that how you greet someone who’s here to deliver a very important message to you?”, she asked with a smirk before approaching him. “I’ll shoot…! Don’t test me—!” Then his hand came off and he screamed in pure fear.

She dropped the masks and knives in front of him before saying, “I’m the one who killed your son, as well as the others who enjoyed playing your little game for years on end”. Then she raised her scythe above her head before saying, “And I’m here to end the game once and for all!!!” He cried out as the blade came down and blood splattered all over.

Once she was finished, Evie walked out of the office and threw her scythe over her shoulder before walking out. Then a smirk creeped up on her face as she realised something. “Thanks Derek. I think I found my purpose in life”. She walked out of the front doors and then into the streets, her eyes glowing red as she heard a woman scream.

“Cleaning up trash like you…”.

“Fufu~! You’re such a good girl, Evie~”.

END

#derek goffard #derek tpof #tpof derek #tpof dragon #tpof komodo #tpof jack #tpof machete #the price of flesh

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ollyarchive · 3 years

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Interview

Olly Alexander on success, sanity and It's a Sin: 'All those hot guys. I loved it!'

Simon Hattenstone

The Years & Years frontman is starring in Russell T Davies’ new drama about the Aids crisis. He talks about bulimia, his ‘dark’ clubbing days – and how he learned to enjoy filming sex scenes

Mon 11 Jan 2021 06.00 GMT

Olly Alexander was so certain he was destined for success that he saw a therapist to help him prepare for his future fame. It was 2014 and his band Years & Years had just signed to Polydor when he visited the shrink.

“I said: ‘The album’s coming out and I really want it to be successful,’ and he said: ‘What happens if it isn’t?’ I said: ‘Well, that’s not an option because I have planned it in my diary since I was a teenager.’”

That diary was less about chronicling the present than a series of promises he made to himself. “I planned my life till I was 25. I would be a famous musician ’cos musicians were the coolest people in the world. The biggest thing in the list was buying my mum a house, and I did that. That was the coolest thing to be able to do with my money.” He smiles. “That was the coolest thing ever.”

Now Alexander might well benefit from another visit to the shrink because he’s about to become a lot more famous. He stars in It’s a Sin, the brilliant new TV drama by Russell T Davies, about a group of young gay men living and dying through the Aids epidemic in the 1980s. The five-part series is funny, vibrant, sexy and heartbreaking.

This is by no means the first time Alexander has acted – he has appeared in the TV series Skins, films such as Bright Star (about Keats), Gulliver’s Travels and Great Expectations, and on stage in the West End alongside Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw in Peter and Alice; a pretty impressive CV. But with It’s a Sin, he knows he has struck gold. “Some actors would wait their entire careers and not get such a good role,” Alexander says, and he’s right. Davies has made a habit of creating groundbreaking TV series (Queer As Folk, Bob and Rose, Torchwood), and this is his best yet.

Alexander’s character, Ritchie Tozer, is an aspiring actor/singer who has just moved to London from the Isle of Wight in search of fame, fortune and a good shagging. He embraces his new freedoms with promiscuous abandon, while also struggling with his sexuality. Ritchie is equally cocky and vulnerable, lovable and insufferable.

Although It’s a Sin takes place in a time before Alexander was born, he says there are so many ways he relates to Ritchie’s life. There is one crucial difference – whereas Ritchie is secretive, Alexander is an open book. If there’s anything to tell you, he’ll tell you, even if he is embarrassed a second later about his indiscretions. It’s an endearing quality, and one that makes him great company.

We meet in his agent’s east London office in December, when Tier 4 restrictions are yet to kick in. Alexander is a boyish 30 – half punk, half catwalk model, with orange hair, earrings, multiple rings, stylish khaki trousers and a handful of inky tattoos. He is garrulous and giggly with a huge toothy grin.

Like Ritchie, Alexander was a stranger to city life when he came to London. He was born in North Yorkshire, went to primary school in Blackpool and Gloucestershire, and a comprehensive in Monmouth, south Wales. He was a natural performer who wrote his first song at the age of 10. “I performed it in my year six assembly.” Can he remember it? He squirms. “Yeah!” Let’s hear it then? “No!” Oh go on! “OK, OK. ‘The leaves are falling outside my window. I’m lay here all alone,” he sings quietly, in that delicate falsetto. He giggles, blushes and continues. “And now I’m a knowin’, the way it’s goin’, we won’t last for ever, for ever my love.’”

Wow, those lyrics are pretty sophisticated – and melancholy. He giggles again. “Oh thanks. It’s about unrequited love. Doomed love. I was getting in early on my themes. I had a bit of help from my dad.” He wrote it after experiencing his first pangs – for a boy in his class.

At secondary school Alexander was a victim of homophobic bullying. He responded with elan. “I would still come to non-uniform day in eyeliner.” Did he fight back? “Sometimes I would scream. I was not a good fighter. We did rugby a lot at my school – a Welsh school. The one time I scored a try, on the way back to the changing room the two popular boys from the year put their arms around me and said: ‘Well done, Olly,” and I was like: ‘I can’t believe it, this is it!’” He pauses long enough for me to get a glowing feeling. “Then they tripped me up and pushed my face into the mud. That was hard to live down.” After that he never went to another games lesson.

When he was 13, his parents separated, and from then he was brought up by his mother, events organiser Vicki Thornton (his real surname – Alexander is his middle name). His father had been a talented but disappointed singer-songwriter who made a living marketing theme parks. Although he gave young Olly a lifelong passion for adventure rides, there were tensions between the two of them. After his parents split up, he broke off contact with his father. When Alexander became successful, his father tried to rekindle their relationship via Twitter. Alexander wasn’t impressed.

With the sod-you eyeliner and supreme belief that he would make it, he sounds incredibly robust. So what else was in that teenage diary? “Pppprrrr.” He blows his lips as if feeling a sudden chill. “It’s a bit dark. I used to write that I really wanted to be skinny.” He exhales deeply. “My mantra was always: I’m not going to eat this again, I’m not going to eat cake again. I’m never going to eat pasta.” He was barely into his teens when he became bulimic and started to list the things he wouldn’t eat. Actually, he says it was worse than that. “I was writing down: don’t eat, don’t eat, don’t eat. Did he have a weight problem? “I was a little chubby at primary school, but no.” What does he think it came from? “It was something I could control. I felt very out of control in the rest of my life. I was struggling with my sexuality, my parents were divorcing, and I wanted to punish myself.”

I want to give him a hug, but I’m not sure he would appreciate it, particularly in the pandemic. Why did he want to punish himself? “It was self-loathing. I didn’t want to be gay. I was convinced I was the reason my parents were splitting up.” He never considered that their divorce may have had nothing to do with him.

He started to cut himself, too. Has he still got the scars? He points to his upper arms and thighs, “because people can’t see there. I was deeply ashamed of doing it. I wanted to hide it.” Are there many scars? “No. A friend saw a plaster on my arm and jokingly asked if I’d been cutting myself. After that, I was so embarrassed that I mostly stopped doing it. Bulimia carried on well into my 2os, but it became less and less frequent. It’s really hard to hold down any kind of job if you’re throwing up food all the time, and ultimately you have to choose.” It becomes a full-time occupation? “Yes, it’s all you think about. And you’re doing so much damage to your organs. I got taken into hospital once with my mum because I had this irregular heartbeat, which can happen through constant purging, and that really scared me. I thought I’d done something irreparable to my body, and my mum was so distraught. She couldn’t understand why her son was throwing up all the food she was trying to give him. She found out because I hadn’t cleaned the toilet properly.”

After studying performing arts at Hereford College of Arts, he moved to London and was liberated. He had a heady time of it – more drugs, clubbing and sex than even he had hoped for, while also getting regular work as an actor. But there was a downside. He saw friends struggle, sacrifice themselves to excess, fall by the wayside. “Everything was about going out and connecting with people at the clubs. I had a great time, but it was also a dark time. A lot of people took too many drugs. A few friends attempted to take their lives and one succeeded. That was devastating. You can see how easy it is for a party lifestyle to turn into something negative.”

Alexander has a strong survival instinct. There was his destiny to fulfil, the house to buy for his mother. He still struggled with his mental health, so he cut down on the destructive stuff. Today, he says, his main drug of choice is the antidepressant sertraline. “I was worried about longterm use, and the doctor said: ‘Well, the latest research shows it can promote neurogenesis, and I was like that’s the coolest thing ever.” Neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain. “She was basically saying antidepressants are giving you superpowers, and I was like: ‘Amazing, I’ll keep taking them for ever.’” He starts giggling, and he can’t stop. “Neurogenesis – ooh, I love that. I’m going to be neuro-supercharged.”

Years & Years formed in 2010. Founder member and synth/bass/keyboard player Mikey Goldsworthy heard Alexander singing in the shower and asked if he wanted to become lead singer. When Alexander joined, Years & Years were a five-piece band, before shrinking to an electropop trio (Alexander, Goldsworthy and fellow guitarist and keyboard guru Emre Türkmen). Alexander, the main songwriter, has an ear for great sweeping choruses (think Sam Smith meets Pet Shop Boys with a dash of New Order). Their first album, Communion, went to No 1 in the UK, while the song King topped the singles chart and its follow-up, Shine, reached No 2. Many of their songs are about yearning and doomed love – particularly on their second album, Palo Santo – just like the first one he wrote aged 10.

Alexander also became known as an LGBTQ campaigner. He made a documentary, Growing Up Gay, for the BBC in which he talked to his mother in a tear-filled exchange about coming out; he also interviewed people about struggles with their sexuality, the pressure to be promiscuous and take drugs, and addressed schoolchildren about homophobia and mental health problems. Does he think of himself as an activist? He shakes his head. “It does a disservice to actual activists. There’s a tendency to use that word for anyone in the public eye speaking up about any issue. Going into schools and talking about mental health isn’t activism. I like doing that. If I can be helpful, I want to help.”

The week before we meet he was named celebrity of the year at the British LGBT awards. He doesn’t know why – he says he didn’t do anything in 2020. “Maybe they heard about my upcoming role and got in there early!”

He says he has learned so much from making It’s a Sin – not least about acting, and how tough it can be. “Doing an acting job where you have to turn up every day is really challenging. I was so used to my musician lifestyle, which is usually: get up late, get in a car, get driven to an airport, get on a plane, fall asleep, arrive somewhere, get driven to the venue, roll out of the car and do the show. It was too much like hard work every day. I thought I’d got past this!”

We see a lot of Alexander in It’s a Sin – in every sense. He gets more than his share of sex scenes, and says it was fascinating being taught how to do them properly. So he enjoyed them? “All those hot guys. That aspect I loved! And going into it I thought, I’m going to have so much fun doing this, I’m a confident-ish guy, love having sex, it will be great.” That’s so refreshing, I say, to hear actors admit they enjoy sex scenes.

Ah, well, he says, it wasn’t quite that simple – he initially became self-conscious. “I broke down into hysterical tears, like ‘don’t fucking touch me’. I found it really hard.” Then the intimacy coordinators got to work on him. “They were a life-changing experience. Intimacy coordinators are there for safety ’cos there’s a lot of shit that can go wrong between what a director wants and what an actor wants, and boundaries being crossed. They’re there to rehearse everything beforehand with the director and the performers. You talk about animals you might imitate, the sounds you make.” He pays tribute to intimacy coordinator extraordinaire Ita O’Brien, who introduced the Intimacy on Set guidelines in 2017 and worked on Normal People as well as It’s a Sin. “Anything with sex in it, she’ll be involved. She’ll be on all fours at one point, saying: ‘Now I’m going to be like a cow and moo in ecstasy.’ She’s amazing, amazing, amazing.” And yes, he did start to enjoy the scenes.

Did he find them arousing? Now it’s my turn to blush and I apologise for the question. Did he start to enjoy it too much? “No, that’s what I want to know. What if someone gets a hard-on – how embarrassing would that be? Ita said: ‘It’s natural and normal for certain body parts to get excited and if you get an erection that’s absolutely fine, but it’s not appropriate for the workplace.’” He adds a caveat: “Depending on what kind of job you’re doing. And she said: ‘If that happens, you just take a time out. So you’re all there thinking, OK, how embarrassing – because you say time out and everybody knows it’s because you’ve got a hard-on. Hahahhaa!” Did he have to take a time out? “No!” Did anyone? “Not to my knowledge.”

Who did he have most fun with? “I’d say best kiss was the guy who plays Ash [newcomer Nathaniel Curtis]. Great kisser.” And the best shag? “Sexual simulation,” he corrects me. “Best sexual simulation was Roscoe [Omari Douglas, another relative newcomer].” Has he told them? “It’s all coming out in this article, Simon.” And I can sense him calibrating what he has just said. “It’s going to ruin my standing!” But a second later he changes his mind. “No, that’s a compliment right? I compliment them both. Hahahaha!” And he laughs giddily.

I ask about the future. You sense he’s not sure where to go from here, acting-wise – that it can’t get any better than It’s a Sin. Fortunately, he owes the band an album’s worth of songs. He had them done and dusted before the pandemic. “But all that time in my flat going insane made me realise I didn’t like any of the music, it didn’t feel relevant. I just wanted to start again, which is what I did. Now it’s almost ready – again.”

It will be only their third album in seven years. “I know,” he says. “It’s embarrassing. Ariana Grande has had about five out in the time we’ve done one.” In the meantime, he says, Türkmen has had one baby, with another on the way.

What about his own love life? “It’s pretty dire.” Sex? “I’m hopeful to have more sex … it’s very difficult in the age of Covid if you’re single. I actually tried to lock someone down who would be my ‘friends with benefits’ sex buddy, because I saw that Holland were advising people to do that. In the first lockdown I said: ‘Look, we can just have sex with each other. I trust you, you trust me, we’re not together, but this is an arrangement. I’ve not had sex in six months, what do you think?’ But he said no. I was quite upset. So yeah, not a lot of sex in 2020.” For a split-second, the puckish Alexander looks forlorn. Then he grins his toothiest grin yet. “But I’m hopeful that it will pick up in the new year!”

It’s a Sin is on Channel 4 on 22 January at 9pm

#olly alexander #years & years #years and years #yearsandyears #articles #guardian #interviews #itsasin #boys #acting #television

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forevertheyoungs · 4 years

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Here Goes Everything!!

It feels like just yesterday we told the Doc yeah, let’s do the IVF. Oh wait, it was! We have almost all the info we need to move forward now!

Next Week To Dos: Bubba’s semen analysis; Momma’s uterine scan, Fill/receive injectable meds (can’t start if we don’t have those on hand) <10/13/20.

This “pre-mom” spent her evening reading 7 documents detailing the risks/process/requirements. Have a bit of paperwork to do tomorrow - complete with notary public stamps needed... Now I’m slowly digesting the injection videos of how to mix these hormones together...

Have I mentioned, Bubba is so kindhearted he cannot bring himself to jab me with a needle? Bless his heart, also a reminder of why women rule the roost when it comes to tapping into the power within - even when I’m the trigger man, I feel nothing - Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch! As good ol’ Mercutio once said. (Shakespeare reference... yea that happened.)

Right now, I’m struggling with my inner urge to plan my way out of the anxiety of the unknowns, the fears and uncertainty... a few of the details the nurse sent over seems to indicate we’ll need to wait a month to start IVF, but the doc made it seem like we were good to go this month. Plus I can’t imagine why he would get so many resources going the very next day after our appointment if we had a whole month to do this piece... Right?! Pharmacy called by 5PM, coordinator emailed all the details to me by lunchtime today after our call at 5:30 PM last night... Time will tell!

No matter, we are still closer than we’ve ever been to our little one.. who’s dancing in the stars, waiting for us to learn the lessons we need to on this wild ride as just Momma + Poppa before they join our family.

This has been the biggest labor of love that Bubba & I have ever done in our lives, put together (I’m sure). For two years now, we have worked - on the process, on our relationship, on our finances... it’s our third job, and one we’re happy to have, but eager to retire from.

I’ve sacrificed all of my medications, coffee, & sanity (not like I had much to start with tho)... faced my deepest fears that I could not have my own children (when I truly believe I was born to be a mother), quietly dealt with the grief of an early miscarriage, and weathered each crest and trough of the undulating waves of finding my hope only have it dashed again when you are still not pregnant.

Bubba’s sacrificed many extra nights working side jobs, stressing about money, pondering why the best/most deserving folks have to try so hard to get so little from the world, worrying about the toll it’s taken on my health already & what could possibly happen down the line, doing extra chores because Momma’s leg hurts or she’s sick or too tired; coping with every single wave she has (and boy, she has some WHOPPERS with these hormones), & grieving the early miscarriage. He’s tried to solve this Rubik’s Cube we’ve found ourselves in, and has truly been such an amazing support. I don’t think I can truly know all he sacrifices for this cause, but I do know that I could not possibly have the strength to do this without him.

I can only speak for myself, when I say... I would do it all again, over and over, for another 2 years if it would bring our children closer to joining us.

So yes, I’m a little impatient and wanting to grow my eggs right away... but that’s just because we both deserve, and need, a win. I’m sure every parent feels this way... but I truly believe that the children we’ll have together, & raise together... will change this world simply by being themselves.

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missnmikaelson-main · 4 years

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The Forgotten - Chapter 18

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5 , Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17,

1919

++++

She tapped a silver coin against her thigh.

Somehow it always came back to money.

Wealth, power, land; wars had been waged across history over man's desire for those three things. Very few skirmishes could be directly linked to woman – at least in the mortal world – but she wasn't fool enough to believe women were more level-headed. They rarely instigated wars because they lacked the authority to summon the numbers needed for battle, as a result they were often relegated to behind the scenes roles.

Her free hand brushed the fringe of hair from Thierry's brow. His mouth puckered but he remained asleep and she watched his chest rise and fall.

Rebekah kept her in the loop – Bekah always kept her in the loop – but she had already known Papa Tunde was killing left and right; she would have to have been a fool not to notice. Even the humans were catching on. The self proclaimed king had slaughtered humans, wolves, vampires and witches alike.

According to Rebekah, Elijah planned to negotiate a truce with the man nobody could kill – a man who had brought a reign of terror to New Orleans, a man who had brought that terror directly to her door.

She knew both brothers would go to the summit, giving a perfect opportunity to sneak into the compound. She could find Kol and use the dagger to find the others and save Rebekah a nap of her own – it was only fear of Klaus that kept her from waking Kol herself, but she could have him back in twenty-four hours; all she had to do was let Elijah negotiate a deal with Papa Tunde.

He would never be satisfied. She had seen it in his eyes. The man was obsessed with power. He might honour Elijah's terms for a time before he demanded more. Elijah would refuse and cite their former deal. Papa Tunde would return to sacrificial magic.

There was a reason not to negotiate with terrorists.

Her thumb traced the '1987' etched into the quarter, but her eyes never left Thierry.

How long before she saw her son's head on a spike with Tunde's mark?

She knew how to stop him. She knew what to do, but she also knew the cost.

To stop the horror – to save her son – she had to sacrifice Kol and her morals. She could have found another opportunity to get him back because more would arise – of that she felt certain – but to stop Papa Tunde she would have to cross a line that she could never uncross.

++++

There were six streets between her and the Mikaelson family and in her personal opinion it was too close, but today it wasn't close enough.

She was meant to be a human woman, so she could hardly pick up her human son and race at Original speed. She could have asked Rebekah for help, but her only friend was at the sanatorium; even in the midst of chaos life went on.

"Mom,” Thierry tugged on her arm, “where are we going?"

"I have to talk to someone, baby,” she murmured, running a hand back through his hair.

"But we already passed Astrid's house,” he frowned and twisted back to point at the unseeing doll a few yards back.

Elena followed his eyes. The dowager had left a single window open the night she died – normally a board was kept on the interior to ward off the cold – and it was through that small space that she communed with Astrid while Thierry played in the yard and Mary-Alice plead her sanity deep within the coven madhouse.

Astrid was her sounding board; her link to the ancestral world of magic. It had been a discussion with Astrid that led to her eureka moment.

"We are not visiting Astrid, sweetie,” Elena's eyes flicked back to her path; only three more blocks. Her next words were too low for his ears. "Mommy has to make a deal with a devil."

Three blocks later the compound loomed, imposing on her personal space, demanding that she cower in fear. As an Original hybrid she knew logically that there was no reason for her terror, but there was still a piece of her – buried inside – that screamed ‘run'; ‘run from him and everything he represents’: but a second voice – the louder voice – quoted words that wouldn't be penned for nearly a century – a variation anyway: 'kill the girl, so the woman can live’.

She was not a scared little girl anymore. She was a woman; she had responsibilities – people who depended on her – so she ignored the warnings and old internal alarms. She gripped her son's small hand, walked past the 'M' emblazoned on the wall and came face-to-face with one of the few men capable of sending her head into a tailspin.

"Elijah,” she straightened her shoulders. "I'm glad I caught you.” Part of her expected to hear her name roll off his tongue in soft syllables, but that was a different Elijah.

"Forgive me,” his eyes widened, and then narrowed, searching the far corners of his mind, "have we met?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but was stopped by the arrival of the second man who wreaked havoc on her brain.

"What seems to be the delay, brother?” He clapped Elijah on the back. "It's not like you to keep a man waiting. Who is this?"

Blue eyes flickered to Thierry and back to Elena; recognition passed through the depths. He knew her face, but he couldn't place it.

"Isobel Vanchure,” she glanced down when Thierry shifted, half-hiding behind her legs. She wished in that moment for a larger support system that she could trust. Her eyes returned to the brothers. "I maintain one of your properties on the other side of the Quarter."

"Right,” Elijah nodded, placing her glamoured appearance, “if there is a problem with the property it will have to wait,” he moved around her, "I'm just on my way to a meeting."

Her hand shot out, fingers curling tightly around his elbow. She checked her strength at the last second and kept it at a human level.

"You can't make a deal with Papa Tunde,” her eyes flashed.

"I beg your pardon?" He looked with amusement toward her hand.

Klaus' voice held no trace of mirth. "What does a human know of Papa Tunde?"

Her eyes narrowed, flickering to a nearby vase and back; the heavy ceramic flew through the air and came to a stop before it could hit Klaus.

"Do I have your attention?” They dragged their gaze from the hovering vase to her. "Or would you like to check for wires?"

"You may be a witch, Mrs. Vanchure, but that fails to answer my inquiry. Why can't I make a deal?" Elijah watched her with growing annoyance, pulling his arm free with the arrogance of someone whose authority had never been questioned.

“You're over nine-hundred years old and you need me to tell you why giving in to a bully is a bad idea?” Her left eyebrow rose. She ploughed through before either could call her out for knowing their age. "He might want you to think he has all of the power, but he won't until you go through with this. If you give in he'll play along for awhile, but then he'll be right back at it. He won't stop until he controls everything."

"Is it possible you're underestimating his character?" Elijah sighed, deciding to humour her.

Elena searched his eyes for a long moment. “You're not foolish enough to over-estimate Papa Tunde,” she shook her head.

"Mom?" Thierry whispered, tugging at her hand. “Who is Papa Tunde?"

"He was the man who came by the house,” Elena didn't bother keeping her voice low, nor did she attempt to hide the flash of fear in her eyes.

"The man with the funny accent, and quiet sons?" He frowned.

"Yes, baby."

"He was on the property?” Elijah's brow lowered.

"Yesterday,” Thierry chirped, trying to be helpful. "Mommy told me to go to bed," his smile dropped, "even though there was still twenty minutes 'til bedtime."

The way he dragged out the time made it sound like Elena had stolen years off his young life. He brightened a few seconds later.

"It's okay though 'cause Mommy promised we could go see the brass bands next week.” Excitement lit up his eyes. "She said the trumpet player is amazing."

"Do you like music, then?" Klaus crouched down. The genuine smile on his lips took Elena by surprise; his mouth was meant to curve in cruel smirks or a manic grins.

"I love music, 'specially jazz," Thierry bounced on his toes, out now from her skirts. "Mommy says when I was little I would only sleep when she played a jazz album."

"And I suppose you're all grown up now?” Klaus tilted his head.

"No,” he laughed, puffing out his chest, "but I'm bigger; I'm big enough to play the trumpet."

"I've told you already that your hands are too small," Elena reached for his shoulder.

"We'll just see about that,” Klaus' dropped his voice to a solemn level and stood, placing one hand on Thierry's unclaimed shoulder and steering him into the compound. He gestured to a hall beneath a set of stairs.

"The third door on the left is the music room. In it you will see every instrument imaginable; find the trumpet and we shall prove your mother wrong."

Thierry looked back over his shoulder, but took off running when Elena nodded her permission.

"I'd estimate five minutes for you to get to your point," Klaus watched him go before following Elijah's lead and laying an expectant gaze on their guest.

"He came by the property?" Elijah prompted, curiosity winning out over manners.

"I've made no secret of my opposition – I've been wary since the day he came to town. When he knocked on the door he was coming for my head,” she inhaled slowly through her nose. She knew he couldn’t have harmed her, but without the protections she had placed around the house he could have incapacitated her and taken Thierry.

"Thankfully it's still attached,” Klaus smirked, eyes twinkling. "It would be a shame to spoil such a lovely face with that charlatan's mark."

"That mark,” Elena closed her eyes to steel her nerves. The next words out of her mouth may as well have been an execution sentence. "His power lies in his marks. In order to channel the energy from his sacrifices he has to draw it through a conduit...” she told herself that the two men were already dead. "If you destroy the conduit you will weaken him significantly."

"And you know where to find this conduit?” Klaus glanced at his brother – the pair had an entire conversation with their eyes in the space between heartbeats – a human wouldn't have noticed.

She wasn't human.

"Ask yourself this,” she turned her gaze to the hall when Thierry came scurrying back; Klaus had under-estimated the capabilities of an excited human child. "What is Papa Tunde never without?"

"I found it,” Thierry declared, holding up the gleaming trophy.

"Something that bears his mark.” There was no question in Elijah's voice.

"Or someone,” Klaus gave a pointed look to the child at his feet, struggling in vain to reach the valves with his small hands.

Elena followed his gaze and gave a minute nod; Klaus mirrored the motion then turned a bright grin on Thierry.

"I think your mother might be right; you're not quite big enough."

"I'll never be big enough," he sighed, holding the instrument out to Klaus.

++++

The next morning Elena nursed a lukewarm cup of coffee as the sun crested the horizon and cast long shadows through the kitchen. For the first time in her immortal life she had blood on her hands, and even though the information saved hundreds of innocents it still weighed on her mind.

She was so lost in thought that she didn't hear the buzz of the doorbell until the person gave up and began to bang on the door.

She abandoned the nearly full cup and ran to the door. It was a good thing she hadn't removed her glamour the previous night because she didn't think to cast it; lucky since Klaus was on the other side of the door.

"Do you always knock on doors at the crack of dawn?"

"I could hear you awake,” he lowered his hand to his side. “I thought it better to knock; you didn't react so well the last time you found me in the entry."

"I was wondering if you remembered me."

"It took some time to come back,” he smirked. "You're awake early."

"I haven't been to bed," she admitted. "Between the threats to myself and my son, and the execution I all but ordered last night rest has been elusive."

"Then I come with excellent news,” he tilted his head." Your information proved fruitful. Papa Tunde is dead and you may rest easy."

She rocked back on her heels, doubting rest would come.

"Thank you,” she lowered her eyes, frowning when she saw the box under his right arm. "What's that?"

"A small token,” he held out the box, letting go when she took it.

Elena turned the case over slowly, inspecting the clasps.

"I'm not going to find a severed limb in here, am I?" She looked up through her lashes.

"That would be a highly inappropriate gift for a child," he scoffed, expression softening into something she didn't recognize on his face: gratitude. "Get some rest Mrs. Vanchure, and – should you feel so inclined – drop by the compound tonight for the celebration."

++++

2011

One Month Later

++++

Senses returned slowly, they always did regardless of whether he had slept eight hours or eight decades under a mystical influence. His limbs tingled, pins and needles signalling the oncoming consciousness.

Pains gripped his stomach, clawed behind his eyes and clung to every extremity.

A muscle spasm wracked his arm, but he barely felt it for the slim fingers that curled around his hand. A thumb smoothed over his knuckles as the pleading whisper traveled along his skin.

"Please...” the voice wavered, on the cusp of breaking, "please open your eyes. Give me some indication that I didn't screw this up. Please..."

Something wet dropped on his knuckles, rolled down his hand and left a trail over his arm.

"I..." his voice cracked, raw from disuse. He swallowed twice, forced his eyes open and tried again; meeting her red eyes and forming each word with deliberate care. "I’m n-not worth crying over, darling."

A tiny giggle burst from her parted lips, wet and hysterical. She let go of his hand and shifted, grabbing either side of his face so she could kiss him; his brow, his cheeks and finally his lips. Tears slipped from her eyes.

He reached with shaking hands and wiped the moisture with his thumbs.

"I mean it, darling,” he smirked, "I am not worth your tears."

"You let me be the judge of that, Kol Mikaelson,” she touched her forehead to his and moved one hand down to cover his heart. "You earned every tear I shed, and every tear I would have cried and still might if my spell fails."

"You? Fail?" His fingers threaded through her hair. "Never,” conviction clung to the syllables.

"So much faith,” she closed her eyes. "Clearly you've forgotten our early magic lessons."

"You always got it right in the end." Kol pushed up on his elbow gently, holding on to her all the while. "I've died already, haven't I?"

"The moment I unlinked you from Rebekah," she chewed her bottom lip, hoping his sire line would survive the transition as well.

"Then the first part worked beautifully,” his hand slipped down her spine. He hated to let go, but now he knew what the aches were and he had to unless he wanted the death to be permanent. "Shall we finish this?"

Elena nodded, leaned back and reached for a bag of her human blood on the nightstand. She held her breath as he opened the bag and started to drink, sagging only when his face shifted and his body completed the transition.

Kol saw the look on her face when he drained the bag. He reached for her hand and squeezed.

"I never doubted you, Elena Gilbert."

"That's okay,” she caught a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth. "I've had more than enough doubt for the both of us."

"Why would you ever...” he paused to pull her thumb into his mouth and clean the blood with his tongue,"...doubt yourself?"

"You've missed a lot," she sighed.

"Then you must fill me in," he wrapped his arms around her waist, marvelling at the strength he sensed in his muscles, “but first..."

Elena laughed as she was deposited on the bathroom counter.

"You couldn't shower alone?"

"Every time I let you out of my sight you wind up in some supernatural mess; it's safe to say that I'm never leaving you alone again."

"You might get sick of me after a few centuries," she warned.

"Never."

++++

Elena squeezed the worst of the water from her hair with a towel and leaned back against the headboard, folding her legs beneath her body. Her dark eyes flickered to the ensuite door where the final tendrils of steam curled out, evaporating before they could reach her perch.

"That looks familiar," he flashed across the room and leaned against the headboard beside her.

"Someone got my clothes all wet,” she shrugged, pulling a damp curl from underneath his collar. "I had to wear something."

"So you stole the shirt I had for myself?” He cooked an eyebrow.

"It looks better on me,” she tossed the towel aside. The tip of her nail traced a tingling line down the centre of his chest towards his belt. "And you look much better like this."

"Why, Miss Gilbert,” he put on a scandalized air, "are you objectifying me?"

Before she could answer he flipped her over and pressed her body into the comforter.

"I really love this shirt, darling,” his fingers slid over her thigh, working the material higher. "So, despite looking phenomenal on you, I must reclaim it.” As he spoke he leaned lower until the last words were whispered against the shell of her ear.

"You know, most people would be eager to get out after a month in bed,” she breathed.

"Why would I leave when everything I could ever want is right here?" Genuine curiosity chased any teasing from his voice and eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat.

"Four walls can get dull after a time," her eyes sparkled.

Kol turned his head, dragging his nose over her cheek until his lips brushed her mouth. "It is not the walls that interest me." He kissed her softly. "I just want to enjoy the calm before one of my brothers descends with chaos in their wake."

"Your brothers aren't here,” her fingers explored the strong muscles in his back slowly, as if she had all the time in the world to memorize how he felt.

"I worked that out when I couldn't hear them."

Kol rolled onto his back at her silent urging. He drank in her appearance with his eyes, staring unabashed at the curve of her cheeks and the beginning of a frown line that would never deepen.

"Did you also work out that they're not coming back?"

She rested her hands on his chest, traced an all but faded scar above his heart and tilted her head. Kol didn't have to look to see what she had found.

"That's where my father ended my human life," his fingers curled around her wrist. His eyes widened after a moment.

"What do you mean they're not coming back? Did mother –"

"No,” she pressed her fingers to his lips; a small smile crossed her face. "Everyone is fine... for the most part."

"For the most part?" He frowned, arching an eyebrow. He sat up slowly, holding her waist with one hand. "What exactly does that mean?"

He told himself that nothing was seriously wrong. She would have told him the moment he completed the transition. She wouldn't have waited so long to break the news. If one of them had been hurt she would have said.

"You missed a lot,” she shifted, moving to sit beside him, but he held her tight so she settled for resting her weight on his thighs. "What do you want to know first?"

"Start with the eldest. Where is Finn?"

"He left for New York a few days ago. The moment he knew I had things handled he went with Sage; he said something about seeing everything he missed."

"Sage is alive?” Kol tilted his head. He remembered the woman well; after Finn went against everything he believed to turn her, he had made it his mission to learn why. Sage had reminded his brother what it was to be human; she had turned his rare guarded smiles into signs of genuine happiness.

"Yup," Elena nodded. "She has been trying to catch up with all of you for nine-hundred years, and because of her you came this close,” she held her thumb and forefinger close together, "to spending eternity in a mystical coma, linked to Rebekah, but since she didn't know what she was doing, and we managed to locate more, I forgave her for burning the white oak. Now she and Finn are off somewhere with promises to check in,” she waved in the general direction of New York. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Are you upset he's not here?"

"A little,” he shrugged. "I've barely spent any time with him in centuries, but I can hardly begrudge him for desiring distance. What about Elijah?"

"New Orleans,” she licked her lips, "Thierry has been keeping an ear to the ground for me. There were whispers of a witch plotting against an Original, and when I worked out that it wasn't me Elijah went to investigate."

"I see," he nodded slowly, "and what about Nik?"

A line appeared between his brows when her grin broadened into something between smugness and glee. "What did you do, darling?"

"Nothing much,” she shrugged, unable to hide her grin, "I just gave him a taste of his own medicine."

"Meaning?” He tried for stern, but her grin proved infectious.

"Well," she looped her arms around his neck. "Bonnie came around – we won't be braiding each other's hair anytime soon; but she accepted my apology and understood why I had Stefan and Damon do what they did. She helped break the link between us and worked with me to cast a spell I'd been working on for decades."

"Oh, really?"

"Uh-huh,” she nodded. "We actually did the spell first, and it worked out perfectly. Klaus asked if the unlinking had worked and I suggested we test it. He had barely agreed before I lodged a dagger in his heart."

"You stabbed my brother?” He held his breath. "You stabbed Nik and lived to tell the tale?"

"That spell I was working on was the one you had Astrid and Mary-Alice working on," her heart sped up. "I stabbed him with a gold dagger dipped in white oak ash. Klaus is in a supernatural time-out. Rebekah pushed for a minimum of fifty-two years. Finn wanted to leave him for centuries until he regained consciousness – that's a whole other story. And Elijah thought waking him and letting him know what had happened would be effective enough."

"But he is still asleep though, so what did they agree on?"

"I suggested a century, and to appease Finn I promised to find a way to give him back his consciousness near the end." She chewed her bottom lip. "I'm sure they'd renegotiate if you wanted to."

He leaned back, inhaling slowly.

"I think a century should teach him a lesson and keep him from ever daggering one of us again."

"You're onboard then," she sighed, playing with the hair at the back of his neck. "Although, you should know that I made a few modifications to the spell so the daggers won't affect you anymore – not without altering the base metal."

"Base..." he frowned, "what exactly did you do to me?"

"The same thing Freya did to me – assuming I did it right...” She waited for the moment of realization and saw when it flared in his eyes.

"You gave me back my magic?" He spoke slowly, hopefully.

“I tried,” she spun the pyrite ring around with her thumb, "but you're the only one who can tell me if it worked." He stilled and she tilted her head. "What's wrong? Don't tell me you've got performance anxiety,” she teased.

He pinched her hip, but didn't correct her. It had been a thousand years since he felt magic in his veins and he couldn't decide if that was the source of the tingle beneath his skin or whether it was caused by her presence or just nerves.

"Hey,” she held either side of his face. "It's alright; take your time, and if it helps: the fact that you're alive is a really good indication that I got it right."

He fixed his eyes on the shelf beyond her shoulder and the books that lined it, focusing on a slim red volume. It took more concentration then he remembered using before the book lurched off the shelf, soared across the room and thumped against the mattress.

“Your aim is off; you might want to work on that,” she picked up the novel. "Would you like some lessons?"

"Don't forget who taught you," he rolled his eyes. "I'm out of practice..."

"You'll pick it up again,” she gave him a small nudge.

"Exactly,” he nodded solemnly. He couldn't hold the expression for long though before a grin threatened to split his face. Words of gratitude failed him so he did the only thing he could think to do and kissed her, pouring every emotion he felt into it.

Sheer joy raced through his body and he laughed into the kiss. He pressed featherlight kisses over every inch of exposed skin he could reach.

His elation dropped a fraction when the door swung inwards. Rebekah hopped on the end of the bed and he rolled his eyes.

"Your timing is impeccable, sister,” he sighed, but the smile never left his lips.

"I gave you two hours,” she shrugged. "Did you get to the bit about mother yet?" Her eyes flickered to Elena.

"Not yet,” she twisted to sit against the headboard, smiling softly when his hand slid down to rest on her knee. "I was focusing on the happy news."

"What happened with mother?"

"She disappeared,” Elena tucked her hair behind her ear, "reappeared, tried to kill us all again and when that didn't work she killed herself."

"We burnt her body in case she got any ideas about coming back,” Rebekah fiddled with a box in her lap.

“I thought you had to have a Mikaelson witch, and while we're on that topic didn't Nik turn mother?"

"Yes,” Rebekah turned her eyes on Elena.

She swallowed and fiddled with her ring.

"After I turned I started looking for spells that dealt with time,” she admitted quietly. "I found one that allowed me to send someone back a few hours. And before you can scold me, yes, I know crossing into one's own life is dangerous, and I knew, if it came down to it, having you present would work, but I was scared even tied to Rebekah your body wouldn't be able to take the stress of channeling magic, so when Finn volunteered I sent him back to stop Klaus. I've regretted it since your mother made her daring escape."

"And luckily her fear turned out to be unwarranted paranoia. Here," she held out the box.

"Mother is dead," Kol watched Elena take the box and turn it over. "Were there any ill effects from your spell?”

"Aside from the consequences of leaving your mother as a witch no, there were none,” Elena shook her head. "Finn knew to stay out of sight until it was done, at which point the past version of him disappeared and I thanked anyone who might be listening that we didn't get caught in a time loop. What is this?" She looked to Rebekah.

"Present from Elijah, sent by express mail," she shrugged.

"Elijah is sending you gifts,” Kol arched an eyebrow.

"Aw," Rebekah smirked, “don't be jealous; it was just a fling."

"Not funny, Bex,” Elena scolded, but she couldn't help giggling when Kol glowered and mumbled something about not being jealous.

"Kol is three shades of red so I will count it as funny," she hopped to her feet. "I think I'll go take a relaxing bath."

Elena tore into the package as she moved to leave. Gold glittered as it fell, thumping against the mattress, and her heart stopped. Blood rushed from her face.

Wordlessly she picked up the dagger.

She barely heard Kol through the roar of blood in her ears.

Underneath her burning anger lurked the ghost of an emotion she had sworn would never darken her heart again: fear. He hadn't been down long enough to feel beyond vengeance, and immortal or not she didn't doubt Klaus' ability to make her life miserable.

Her eyes flickered to Rebekah and the message was clear; she couldn't be trusted to make the call without screaming into the receiver.

If Elijah knew what was good for his health he wouldn't come within three States of her.

@elejah-wonderland @elejahforever @eternityunicorn @morsmornte @fandomrulesall @xanderling @cry-btch @kol-and-elena-fanfiction @geekofmanyfandoms

#elena gilbert #elijah mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson #finn mikaelson #sage #kol mikaelson #thierry vanchure #kolena #The Forgotten Fanfic

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hugthepanda12 · 5 years

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SVTFOE summary

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Ok, a couple of minutes ago I watched the last episode of SVTFOE and my mind almost exploded. (but in a positive sense!) Wow, that was intense, emotional rollercoaster, but it makes that cartoon worth seeing, right?

1) First of all, STARCO. Yeah, It doesn’t feel right that they used Kelly, Janna, and Tom for ship’s development but actually, it determined the future!? Like, if it wasn’t Marco, who kept helping Star, she wouldn’t ever figure out how to save her kingdom several times? Without Marco, Meteora would not want to get revenge on him and therefore, would not be reunited with her mother. Aaand it is better that she was turned into baby, because she would start anew, without the influence of St. Olga’s brainwashing. (besides Meteora and Mariposa’s sisterhood <3)

Back up to Marco. SVTFOE is not only about Star and Marco’s love. It is about splitting and getting back together. Just look at it:

I. High Commission had taken away Eclipsa’s daughter, but with the help of main protagonists, they reunite. Then, because of Moon’s doing - love of her life is freed from crystal, as well.

II. Ponyhead loses her horn, her spark and she realizes that it is not the end of the world? She even gets an artificial horn. Earlier, she lost her identity in St. Olga’s school for wayward princesses. She was deprived of both of these things, but she RESTORED IT.

III. Ludo wanted the wand from the very beginning, but in reality, he wanted a functional family? His parents deprived him of happiness by treating him like trash, so he took over their castle. Then, his brother showed up to save him. The basketball match with Denis is a symbol of him slowly regaining his sanity/happiness.

IV. The first Mewnians come from Earth. It is very significant for the cartoon as a whole. The end of magic is equal to the end of Butterfly’s dynasty. And there is a tendency that if one thing ends, it must find the way to its roots. Let’s be real. ‘The greatest illusion is the illusion of separation’ and to be honest, MAGIC divided people and Universe. Yeah, I got it. In the Magic Realm, there are portals to other worlds, and we have dimensional scissors. BUT ACCESS TO IT IS LIMITED. There are magic users and non-magic users. It is a very risky deal because some of them misuse their powers. Ultimately, the magic was the reason, why the main villains did what they did. They were jealous or infuriated that such a power is reserved for Butterflies only.

Now let me come back to the ending of ‘cleaved’. The scene where the magic realm was falling apart and Marco and Star decided to stay there, hugging. I really liked that not because ‘ ooh that’s so romantic’. NO. Take into consideration, that the change in the realm of magic started with whispering spell of Queens of Mewni. Could Star do it on her own? No. Unity defeated magic. Then what about Marco? I’ll tell you. 1)He was the last wand user, so he had to end what the queens started 2) together with Star they represent the needs of everyone they love and care about. 3) They consider themselves as EQUAL, just like it should be. I think that ‘magic’ was initially an expression of feeling and beliefs, but later on people by using it as a tool, corrupted it. To conclude, ‘the hug’ was like a reset button. That is why the worlds mixed up into one. Additionally, Marco was the last piece to bring people of Mewni back to Earth, because HE WAS FROM EARTH.

2) Marco and Tom’s bromance. From enemies to besties. I love that trope. It is obvious that Marco triggered Tom’s character development. What is beautiful about their relationship is... (KARAOKE!!!) that later on Tom doesn’t perceive Marco as a rival, on the contrary, as a buddy, who would help him whenever he has problems with his girlfriend. I refer to that episode, where Star, River, and Marco were looking for Moon and exactly to the moment when Tom immediately called Marco right after he hung up with Star. That was adorable, just like their other interactions. Not to mention the fact that Tom would sacrifice for Marco! (3rd season finale)

3) Last minute character development of Janna and HP (i would like to elaborate more in a seperate post)

I must admit that also Miss Skullnick turned out to be a good teacher, who cares about the safety of her pupils. (’Interdimensional Field Trip’ episode)

4) Mewni’s social division:

I like how it was highlighted that if you have money, you are treated differently. It shows how unjust the system was. However, episodes: ‘Monster Bash’ and ‘Cornball’ are the great examples that people and monsters are the same and there’s hope to built together prosperous future. Allow me to quote Buffrog: ‘Our generation is garbage. But the little ones... may turn out ok’. Very good and strong message, to which we can relate to in the real world.

WHAT I REALLY REGRET:

- HP is freakin’ dead. (just like other members of the High Commission, but I do not pity them)

- all Star’s (Eclipsa’s and other queen’s too) spells are GONE/dead.

- Glossaryck, you slippery (probably dead AGAIN) pudding eater I want answers.

Overall, that was a pretty neat show.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#svtfoe #spoiler #personal #just what i liked the most #cleaved spoilers #series finale #but also other episodes included #a little bit of #starco #my theory of total union

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blessuswithblogs · 6 years

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The Forest, Subnautica, and Survival: The Wages of Building a Cool Tree Fort

Spoiler Warning for both games as the article goes on! Do exercise caution.

I love survival games. That's just kind of a part of how my taste in games has developed over the years. I adore Minecraft, Terraria, Starbound and any number of creatively inclined "build and explore" games. I could think of a couple of reasons for this, the most prominent being that this kind of game is extremely good at making incremental progress feel rewarding, and that I've always had a fascination with habitation in extreme environments like the deep sea, space, and Magical Block Land where the Cacti Explode. Lately, I've been playing an streaming both Subnautica and The Forest, two games that belong in a sort of subset of the genre: Survive and Escape.

Both games start out with a cataclysmic (space)plane crash that deposits you and a number of other doomed survivors in a hostile world that wants to eat you. With Subnautica, you crashland on planet 4546B, an ocean world in which something has gone terribly wrong with the ecosystem. The Forest instead pops you out on a vaguely Canadian peninsula out in the middle of nowhere and cannibals kidnapped your son. Subnautica, as it is in most respects, has the more solid premise of the two. The Forest can scratch a kind of The Hills Have Eyes itch if you have one, but the overall setup of the game is sssssslightly too racially charged for my tastes.

In deference to alphabetical order, let's discuss the Forest first. Of the two games, it has the more robust crafting system. While it has overall less moving parts than Subnautica, you can still build a cool houseboat and you have a great deal of freedom in the overall shape and function of your buildings. In fact, that's originally what sold me on the game - I found the idea of having to build a base not only capable of sustaining you but also withstanding attacks from monsters to be very appealing. Base building can take a long time on your own (2 player co-op is a definite point in favor of the Forest versus Subnautica if you're one of those people that has to quantify the better game) but there are some things that can speed it along and make you feel like a regular Swiss Family Robinson - with all of the cultural baggage that entails. Completing a fort and finally creating a safe haven from the mutant hordes is a rewarding feeling, but it is one that the game almost immediately undermines.

The Forest is a game working at cross purposes with itself. It gives you the tools to create elaborate custom buildings or entire complexes if you so choose to do so, but there is also The Narrative, and The Narrative is most insistent on Finding Timmy. Timmy, your son from the beginning of the game, is assumed to be the player's top priority, but in actuality it's really easy to just forget about him. The game gives you a checklist of things to do as a sort of compromise between total freedom and a more linear experience. Most of the items on this list are some variation of "explore this cave". Cave Exploration is kind of where The Forest fragments into two separate halves: the crafty buildy survivey game, and a different sort of first person metroid slash cannibal murder simulator. The minute you enter a cave you basically go completely blind and have to rely on a variety of deeply inadequate light sources just to fumble your way around. The gameplay loop is simple - go into a cave, kill all the mutants, find a point of interest, go as far as you can until you find an impassible barrier, then retreat back to the surface. The points of interest are often interesting, to their credit, vaguely telling a story about A Deep Secret Beneath the Peninsula as you find various photographs and torn magazine clippings to gawk at for a few seconds, but it is impossible to shake the feeling that these spelunking expeditions have nothing to actually do with any of the other things you've been doing. You can find a number of useful objects in the caves - a flashlight, a map, a compass, a fine piece of hanzo steel - that will make your life easier, but are primarily designed to let you go into the caves Better and Deadlier.

Here's where we get to this stark divide: you don't actually have to make a base in the first place. All of the fantastic tools The Forest gives you to make your own log cabin city are, beyond Basic Fire and Temporary Shelter, utterly superfluous to actually progressing in the game. The weird thing about the caves is that they are actually borderline overflowing with supplies. The Forest has you spend your first couple of hours thinking that you're gonna really to have to grapple with the land in a titanic struggle for survival but actually you can just go into a cave and find like six respawning boxes of Fun Drink! soda and Snack brand snacks which work just as well if not better than like. Hunting for food and purifying your own water. Sleeping is entirely optional, too, something that becomes readily apparent down in the caves where it's always pitch black regardless of the day night cycle. You can easily manage just by building the occasional temporary shelter to save your game or just find one of the many tents already in the game world. There's a whole complex system of substats and sanity meters that you can basically just ignore as you go careening through the depths.

Progress in the caves is gated by two things: environmental obstacles, and enemy mutants. You will occasionally find a novel map feature like a climbable wall or an underwater pool too deep and dark to go swimming through without some help that will keep you from moving forward. You can blow up walls occasionally too, but not often or clearly indicated enough to make that feel like a genuinely well implemented system. To overcome these obstacles, all you have to do is find the right items - the climbing axe and the rebreather will let you go basically anywhere, once you get your hands on them. The world of The Forest is big, and it plays a dirty trick on you - most of the stuff aboveground is useless bullshit for idiots. Basically everything you want or need is down below, and if it takes you a while to realize that, I imagine that it would be pretty frustrating to feel like you had basically accomplished nothing for the last however many hours of exploring the lush but ultimately very empty forest floor.

Speaking of the game playing dirty tricks on you, there is one more instance of needing an item to get to where you need to go. But instead of some neat piece of exploration gear or a Really Big Stick of Dynamite, it's a keycard. The door that requires a keycard is at the bottom of an incredibly long and grueling run through several cave systems that empty out into the bigass sinkhole that dominates the landscape and taunts you with secrets and mysteries from basically day one. The keycard, regrettably, is not nearby. It's halfway across the world hidden in one of the many Super Fucked Up and Scary mass graves the mutants like to keep in their cave systems, requiring either foreknowledge or impressive pixel hunting tendencies to find beforehand. The game gives you a clue where to find it in the form of an old photo - located right before the door itself. It is a slog and a half, to put it bluntly, and since this is a survival game, you're working on a constantly ticking timer of hunger and thirst, and this particular cave system is quite stingy with soda and snacks where the other caves were giving them out like it was an afterschool baseball game. It might have actually been faster to simply reload a save file from before I even attempted the journey and just go get the keycard first, but I didn't think of that at the time. I'm harping on this because it's a huge departure from the fairly natural flow of cave exploration that came before and also a HUGE waste of time. Like, why. Fuck you, that's why.

The endgame sequence is kind of a mess, basically the devs realizing that the game had been in alpha for like literally 3 years and they needed to have some kind of conclusion in place for the full release. While I have no doubt that through the game's development history they had been most diligent about slowly developing and uncovering secrets about what's really going on in The Forest, the actual part where they have to put their money where their mouths are and provide some answers it's just. Kind of. Ehhhhhhhh. Basically you tumble headfirst into a SeCrEt PhArMaCeUtIcAl LaBoRaToRy where they were toying with ancient alien artifacts to create anti-aging cream or some bullshit which, somehow, ended up creating a race of weird mutants without private parts except in certain individuals who have like. ALL of the private parts and probably more besides. The Sahara Labs company even had this fucking supervillain Relic Laser System that shot down passing planes so they could abduct more test subjects away from prying eyes and honestly its like if you want to be that evil and kill people just jacking up the price of insulin is way more efficient and easier on the PR department.

Basically it boils down to you finding Timmy inside some alien bullshit device, dead as fuck, and pantomiming being very distraught about it. However, it comes to light that actually the machine he was hooked up to can bring people back from the dead in exchange for a sacrifice, so you continue deeper into the facility with even more murder than usual on your mind. You eventually find Megan Cross, the girl that Timmy's life force was used to bring back from the dead. Unfortunately, because ancient alien technology never works right, probably by design because ancient aliens are fuckers, Megan mutates into this fucking Resident Evil limbs monster and you have a fucking final boss fight. I aallllmost put the game down there because like. Seriously? Seriously seriously this is what we're doing? I have to use this game's janky ass combat systems to kill an angry little girl monster that can kill you in like 5 seconds if you get within 5 feet? I stuck it out because the devs were kind enough to just kick you back outside the Big Final Boss room with a health and energy penalty whenever you died (which was frequently). Eventually the thing dies and you go rushing back to Timmy with the corpse in hand. But, alas! The machine requires a living subject! After that you just kind of shuffle through some more cave systems with spooky skeletons in them until you find the control tower for the Airplane Killing Laser Beam and you are presented with... a choice.

You can either shoot down a passing airplane to kidnap a viable sample to resurrect Timmy, dooming every single passenger to a gruesome, cannibal related death... or you can just shut the damn thing off, which is really the only reasonable thing to do. Like, who the fuck even is Timmy? I don't know Timmy. Timmy can fuck off. Timmy wants to guilt me for building a gazebo? He can stay dead. It's the Fallout 4 problem all over again - you can't just take it for granted that the player is going to care about someone because you screamed "THIS IS YOUR SON" in the first five minutes of the game and then immediately deprived you of any meaningful interactions with them. It is the unfortunate tendency of parents to believe that their children are things owned by them, brought to the logical extreme. You have no reason to feel particularly compelled to rescue either of these kids aside from the simple fact that they're Yours, whatever that means. So when Shawn is actually the sleazy, amoral director of science fascists, fuck him. When bringing Timmy back to life means putting somebody else through what I just went through, keycard bullshit and all, fuck him! Enough! Time to move on! So I turned off the machine and escaped through some more caves and then I burned my picture of Timmy and got the crafting blueprints to a Timmy effigy made of cloth and sticks which was, admittedly, kind of hilarious. You also get one for your dead wife, which is just labeled "Wife". That was less hilarious and more of another look into the mindset of the people who make these games and why they are a problem. Also you can find another alien obelisk in a boat and open up a door to find a god mode sphere or something but I did not have the patience to go do that.

So I've been down on this game quite a bit, but I actually enjoyed my time with it a lot because what it gets right, it gets very right. Plumbing the dark depths of the cave systems with nothing but a shitty lighter for illumination and an airplane axe for protection, straining your ears for any noises that might break the deafening silence of the underground, constantly scanning the edge of your vision range for the signs of movement in the shifting shadows - it's a fantastic horror experience that a lot of games could learn from. Similarly, the crafting and survival elements, superfluous as they are, are also a lot of fun. You can hunt game for meat and skins, find berries and learn to tell the difference between the poisonous ones and the edible ones, make a bunch of improvised weapons like a fishing spear and a shitty bow and arrow set, build fires to cook food and boil water to make it safe to drink - all of these systems are well thought out and fun to engage with. Like I mentioned earlier, base building is fun and The Forest gives the experience a very down to earth feel by having you chop down trees and transport the timber by hand. You can also build a wide variety of traps and defensive structures, but that brings us to another major sticking point. The Forest wields silence and darkness like an assassin's blade, but falters completely when it comes to actually fighting things.

Combat. Do you ever wish a game didn't have it? I do. A lot. The Forest is one of those games. Fighting the mutants that inhabit the peninsula is as tedious as it is distasteful. It's mostly just a bunch of wild flailing about with an axe or other bladed instrument in the general direction of the enemy. If you're feeling frisky you can use molotovs or poison arrows or even TNT, tactics that become necessary when fighting the game's Creepy Mutants (name not mine i swear). The Creepy Mutants are large, monstrous enemies usually comprised of several individuals fused together. They're big and tough and they have soooo much fucking health god christ ass. You can skin them and use their mutated hides as armor which is pretty metal but fighting them is just not fun. Which is the same for all the other enemies honestly. You just kind of get the enemy into a stunlock and try to finish them off before another mutant puts two and two together and stops running around in circles and actually tries to hit you. Your enemies are hindered by very curious AI and stunlock vulnerability, but to even things out you have to deal with some of the same vulnerabilities, as well as certain lighter related limitations when it comes to explosives and incendiaries that really makes using them a chore.

It feels odd to say this, but The Forest doesn't need its mutants. It's better off without them, to be frank. The dangers inherent in spelunking and surviving in a cold wilderness are more than sufficient to create a sense of vulnerability. Like if you really had to you could just put more crocodiles in the game and make them more aggressive, those fuckers hurt. The story wouldn't even have to change that much - the real movers and shakers of the plot aren't mutants at all. They serve very little purpose except to be the architects of a number of grisly tableaus we've already seen in other games with aspirations of environmental storytelling. There are no toilets in The Forest but if there were, by god would they just be filled to the brim with skulls. There's a severed head in a water cooler at one point. That's in the same spirit. And, of course, there's the elephant in the room: the mutants, as a concept, are deeply racist. Facing down a horde of hooting and hollering brown and black miscreants clad in tribal body paint and loincloths while brandishing various sticks adorned with skulls at you cannot be separated from our bloody colonial past and demonization of native peoples. It's just not happening. This game is about the White Man versus the Savage, whether or not the devs meant it that way. They probably didn't, trying to offer assurances that these aren't actually natives, they're mutant hell cannibals with no dicks. But like. Nah. Not buying it. The mutants will occasionally marshal a big attack on your base or settlement, bringing a big creepy mutant or two with them to try and knock down your shit. What should be one of the game's selling points is marred both by really unfortunate historical imagery and the fact that it's really hard to actually defend anything from getting broken because none of your weapons can actually hit straight down a wall without either lighting them on fire or blowing them up. If they really needed to have an enemy faction in the game, there are five million other angles of mutant they could have gone with - lizard men, tentacle monsters, psychic fuckers, zombies, a Mitch McConnel clone race - but the fact that they went with "tribals" instead of something even moderately less racially charged says a lot.

So that's The Forest! Promising game, fun for the most part, but intrinsically flawed in some very inescapable ways. What about Subnautica? Well, I have good news: Subnautica is much better. It starts the same way, with the spaceship the player is riding on suffering a catastrophic crash landing in an inhospitable world, with most of the other crewmen missing or just dead outright. You start with a life pod fabricator and a sassy corporate issue PDA to point you in the right direction, but aside from that, your only real goal is to survive. Crafting is much more hands off in Subnautica - it's handled almost entirely by way of fabrication stations where you input raw materials and it spits out a finished product in a very scifi way. The way you progress in Subnautica is quite organic: you find a recipe in your databanks you want to build, you go searching for the materials, and in doing so you uncover more of the world. You build an enhanced air tank to stay underwater for longer so you can go deeper and farther. You build a seaglide vehicle to go faster, you build a little underwater seabase to hold your growing collection of rare materials and creature eggs, and so on and so on. Unlike The Forest, where the survival aspects can be basically ignored, learning how to maximize and streamline your food, water, and power production is quite pivotal to getting anywhere.

There are a number of ways that Subnautica arrests your progress, from hostile megafauna to severe radiation leaks to hiding important blueprint fragments behind laser cutter doors. The big one, however, is depth. Appropriate for a game about the sea, I think. At first, depth functions as a barrier of how deep you can go before running out of air - the seas are pretty deep, and after some changes from beta, you can only have so many air tanks equipped at once. Once you learn how to get around that by making some sweet submarines, depth becomes a matter of water pressure. Oxygen is no longer a problem, but crush depth certainly is - take your seamoth below 200 meters and you start to have problems real quick. This necessitates a search for ways to better withstand the pressure. Subnautica is a masterclass in making incremental progress feel rewarding. Instead of having your numbers go up slightly, you get extremely tangible benefits from the various gear upgrades you create or find in the world. The Seamoth is both extremely fast and convenient for getting around and your only practical way to bring an oxygen generator with you, and installing a depth module just increases your freedom and utility that much more. Finally putting a Cyclops together is actually just building an almost self-sufficient mobile base. Even something as mundane as learning how to make a planter represents a big boost to your food production and can expand your operational range by a great deal.

Subnautica is a game that delights in its own world. The vibrant underwater ecosystems you explore and uncover range from beautiful to the slightly terrifying, but there is a genuine love of nature - even scary nature - evident in Subnautica that's infectious. Subnautica does not really have combat, as such. You have a survival knife and a couple of space age tools like the Stasis Cannon which you can use to defend yourself in a pinch, but there is no mutant menace to contend with on 4546B. Hungry Reaper Leviathans and Crabsquids, maybe, but wild animals are wild animals. No moral judgment is cast upon the Stalker's tendency to try and take a bite out of your ass. In fact, you can learn to pacify and even play with them by bringing them fish to eat or scrap metal to sink their teeth into. There is only one entity on the planet that is actively and determinedly hostile to the player, and it's a real fucker, but there's a good reason for it.

The reason for your unexpected visit to the ocean planet is revealed to be the work of a planetary quarantine system installed by Ancient Aliens (again) a long time ago to prevent the spread of a particularly virulent and deadly variety of bacteria. You gradually find evidence of the Kharaa bacteria and the involvement of a precursor civilization as you explore: certain fauna will be covered in green pustules, the PDA will inform you of the presence of infectious agents in the water and how some biomes are curiously lacking in biodiversity, and you'll occasionally find vents and structures of an obviously alien design. A refreshing thing about Subnautica's Ancient Aliens is that they aren't depicted as magic space gods. They have advanced technology compared to that of Earth's, but ultimately they were just some dudes who got caught on the wrong side of a very nasty bacterial plague and didn't quite figure out how to cure it in time. At this point, you have two goals: get rid of the infection, and find some way to disable the giant quarantine laser gun and get off the planet. Finding a cure for the kharaa bacteria requires going deep into the depths with a heavily armored PRAWN suit designed to withstand crushing water pressure and even the most angry and enormous of predators, where you can find a number of alien facilities using the abundant geothermal energy of the planet's magma layer. Finding a way off world involves putting on a radiation suit and exploring the wreck of the Aurora to both fix the catastrophic radiation leak and to get in contact with the home office, who in between ordering ham and cheese sandwiches are gracious enough to send you the blueprints for your very own interplanetary rocket ship.

Throughout all of this, you'll get intermittent distress calls on your radio giving you the coordinates to various points of interest like other lifepods and bits of the Aurora that were unceremoniously scattered to the four winds upon impact. You can also find evidence of people who came to this planet before you and learn their story from PDA logs and the condition of the temporary shelters they left behind. I am not especially fond of the whole audio log method of storytelling, but in Subnautica it's framed less as "the entire population of earth compulsively records their thoughts on tape recorders" and more "corporate issue malware will obsessively observe and catalogue all interactions between you and your fellow employees." There is a definite undercurrent of anti-capitalist criticism in Subnautica, from the Alterra Corporation's insistence on framing interpersonal relationships as business transactions to your PDA's intermittent reminders that all of the things that you are building to survive and get off the planet with are steadily incurring a ridiculous amount of debt to your employers due to exploitative contracting. It can get a little on the nose, but more and more I am finding that even the most on the nose satire is leaps and bounds more subtle and nuanced than actual reality so I can't complain too much.

As the game goes on, a rescue attempt by the Sunbeam freighter ship goes terribly awry when the quarantine enforcement platform blows it the fuck up and your own level of infection steadily progresses. You start to receive periodic telepathic messages from a mysterious being, who claims that it wants to help you. When you finally make your way through the briny Lost River and into the dangerous Active Magma Zone, you find the alien's primary containment facility housing a remarkable organism: The Sea Emperor. The Sea Emperor is an enormous leviathan class entity, twice the size of the gigantic magma spitting Sea Dragons hanging out nearby. However, like the enormous cetaceans of Earth, the Sea Emperor is an intelligent, sapient being that feeds by filtering microorgansisms from the surrounding seawater. The story of the last remaining Sea Emperor is a sad one, contained by the precursor aliens for over a thousand years in order to study the mysterious Enzyme 42 that it produced. This enzyme was the only compound they had ever found with the ability to neutralize the Kharaa virus, but due to the Emperor's advanced age and their inability to communicate with it, they reached an impasse. The Emperor was no longer capable of producing large amounts of the enzyme, and its eggs were trapped in a sort of indefinite stasis due to the conditions of the holding tank not being optimal for their hatching. So its basically been waiting all alone for a good millenium or so for somebody to come and help hatch its eggs.

Fortunately, the survivor of the Aurora's crash is a determined and compassionate soul, and by working together with the Sea Emperor, manages to put together a vial of artificial hatching enzymes by gathering samples of flora from the outside ecosystem. The eggs hatch, giving both the Sea Emperor species and planet 4546B writ large a chance at a future. The adult Emperor dies of Being Over a Thousand Years Old shortly after. Most likely, it was only its determination to see its children grow and flourish and save the planet that kept it going this long, so once that purpose was fulfilled, it finally felt able to go to its final rest. The Emperor is a philosophical individual, with complex ideas about other minds and the potential of life after death and reincarnation, idly wondering as it dies if it might come back as an ocean current or a tiny being that fits between the grains of sand. It's an affecting sequence that taps into a lot of our hopes for maybe one day being able to truly communicate with and understand our own huge marine life. Once the young are released into the wild, you follow them and obtain a sample of Enzyme 42, which completely cures you of the Kharaa infection. All that's left after that is to disable the quarantine platform and build the neptune escape rocket.

After you complete the rocket - an impressively large construction, even bigger than the Cyclops submarine - you are prompted to create a time capsule before you take off. The time capsule includes space for a few items you can leave behind , a screenshot, and custom text note. The idea is that other players might discover it on their adventures and find what you left behind, another surprisingly emotional touch to the game. Admittedly it was slightly ruined for me because when I exited the cockpit to go and take a screenshot the entire launch platform was flung into the sky for no reason, me along with it. I did have the presence of mind to take a blurry screenshot of the several tons of plasteel sailing through the air as if by magic. We both eventually landed and I managed to climb back up and (properly) launch the rocket. As you leave the atmosphere, the spirit of the Sea Emperor contacts you one last time to thank you once again for giving its family a future. As the credits roll and you reenter Alterra space, your PDA happily congratulates you on making it back and assures you that you will be cleared to dock just as soon as your outstanding debt of several trillion credits is settled. As the music fades and you return to the main menu, you can't help but think: man, maybe I should have stayed.

It is this sentiment, I think, that truly separates the quality of the two games as experiences and statements on the human condition. The Forest presents you with a superficially beautiful peninsula swarming with Evil Tribal Cannibals that must be overmastered in order to rescue your darling son object, that exists to be exploited and despoiled in your quest to build a Sick Fort that isn't even really necessary. You can even get an achievement called "climate change" for cutting down 100 trees and like. Fuck off. Not funny. You can legitimately deforest huge swathes of the game world if you find the chainsaw and some fuel. In the Forest, you are an invading conqueror masquerading as a victim of circumstance. In Subnautica, you are an observer and survivor. The primary building material is titanium, which you get mostly from salvage from the Aurora, occasionally supplemented with some more exotic ores and corals found naturally on the seabed. The ecosystem of 4546B, even though it is devastated by plague, is bigger than you could ever hope to be. It's beautiful and fascinating and glorious, and the attempts that your predecessors made to exploit and subjugate it ended in abject failure. Your seabases are compact and efficient affairs, equipped with machinery for survival and research. The game specifically forbids you from building most kinds of weapons, citing a historical massacre that necessitated all weapon blueprints deadlier than the survival knife to be scrubbed from the database. Combat is fruitless and difficult, even in the PRAWN suit - it's better to just evade hostile fauna and slip by undetected with silent running. The only way to survive and escape is to work in concert with the indigenous life, not thoughtlessly destroy it.

I didn't expect, going in, to feel so compelled to compare and contrast these games, but when presented with the reality of the situation and how similar they really were, I didn't have much of a choice. They're almost dark mirrors of one another, the Forest presenting a Bad Future where the nazi sound designer from Subnautica was in charge of the entire project. I enjoyed the Forest, but there is a deep moral emptiness within it that I have trouble compartmentalizing, especially when Subnautica offers an alternative outcome that doesn't make me feel vaguely monstrous for playing it. Subnautica is, at its core, a more beautiful, more engaging, more thoughtful and even more frightening work than The Forest. The Forest comes close to offering a genuinely scary experience during the cave sections, but undermines its own premise by filling the haunting void beneath the earth with giggling naked canninbal men. The dark, trackless depths of the ocean, however, remain a fundamentally terrifying environment, populated by the strange and terrible lifeforms adapted to living deep beneath the crush depth of even the hardiest submarines. The Ghost Leviathans that lurk in the endgame areas and in the tremendously unsettling open ocean beyond the crater's edge are frightening to behold and terribly dangerous, but their presence is almost comforting, a reminder that other beings still exist in the lightless void. The hooting and hollering of The Forest's mutants simply cannot compare to the otherwordly cries of Subnautica's megafauna, and indeed, The Forest is at its most tense when all is silent.

I would be awfully interested in a game that took The Forest's robust crafting, building, and survival mechanics and transplanted them somewhere far away from the wretched peninsula and its ravening caricatures, perhaps a kind of Subnautica that took place in an alien jungle, or an earth jungle, for that matter. Anywhere less relentlessly ugly and hateful would be fine. Subnautica makes good on most of its lofty promises (except when it crashes. Stability is an area where The Forest has an unquestionable advantage) and presents a strong, unified experience. The Forest is a jumble of compelling systems mashed together in an unconvincing way with set dressing straight from the production of Birth of a Nation. A missed opportunity at best, an extremely questionable exercise in tone-deaf xenophobia at worst. I would be interested to know how the developers of the game justified their design decisions as not-racist, or if they even bothered. Subnautica is reflecting and uplifting, while The Forest, in all of its cynical attempts to push boundaries and put blood and titties on the screen, ironically only ends up feeling safe and derivative, contradicting itself and wasting the genuinely strong mechanics it developed. With certain statements from E3 about how certain developers try to distance themselves as much as possible from political statements while simultaneously creating deeply political games fresh in our minds, I think we should be more insistent than ever that this kind of cowardice is both ridiculous and transparently self-serving. All culture is political, because all human experience is political, inextricably intertwined with the struggles and conflicts between nations and groups that serve as the backdrops of eras. Subnautica knows this. The Forest either does not, or does not care.

#subnautica #the forest #games #survival games #games criticism

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divinationcentral · 3 years

Text

General Reading.

Main Energy: Seven of Swords & The Four of Cups

Someone is being deceptive towards you. You should remain firm, and reinforce your boundaries.

You’ve got a lot going on, and right now you don’t need to be inviting any negative energies into your space. Protect it at all costs. You’ve worked way too hard to let someone just waltz in and cause any damage, or sabotage your work or your career with their careless thievery.

If you have ideas: patents/copyrights/trademark. Please. It is your creativity.

If this is about your home - get insurance. If you’re buying something? Protect it with a warranty. Anything you can imagine right now that you’re investing your time and money into requires protection.

If you are a witch (like me), ward negativity, banish evil/bad/unwanted energies, and protect your space by setting a boundary from outside forces (to keep them from coming in and out as they please); no more negativity...

Spread:

King of Swords

Page of Wands

Knight of Swords

Then:

Think quickly, and act quickly. Don’t just rush in for answers, take your time to devise a strategy, and when you speak to this individual - make your intentions very clear.

Leave them no room for errors. They will see themselves out once they realize that you can’t be made a fool of any longer. They’ll have taken a little piece of what was meant for you - but it’s not in its entirety. The rest belongs to you, always.

This person may try to contact you again, but you have made your boundary. They can no longer approach you the way they used to, because you are no longer who you used to be, that is why it is wise that you be discerning: if this individual has hurt you in the past, stole from you, lied, made you feel belittled or unworthy? What’s to stop them from doing that again? Have they really changed? And are you really going to let them into your house, which has been/become guarded /because of them/ (your house can represent anything, metaphorically speaking).

The answer is no. They are not allowed on your premises, and it is something they need to learn to respect moving forward.

The Seven of Swords energy is sneaky. People in this energy wear disguises: “A friendly neighbor,” your “ex coworker,” ANYTHING...even more dangerously “A peer mentor,” a “good, helpful colleague,” a “damsel in distress,” it knows no end. Some people will act like your friends for extended periods of time, just to get at something they wished for from the very beginning.

This is where things become more tricky. But again - people can only get so far without your permission. Today, exercise your agency. If someone is treating you in a way you don’t like, guess what? You have all the authority to say: No, you are not welcome in my energy (not anymore).

And you deserve your self-respect. You are important to somebody, even if that person is only you. You are still another human being.

As stated: be wise and protect what is yours now that you’re moving forward.

Additional:

It’s wise to note that you are distracted by some sorrow or grief right now. Protect yourself right now, please (especially).

It really is time to ward yourself from negativity, so that people don’t use this time to take advantage of the way you’re feeling.

Energy vampires are crazy...they only really know how to feed off of somebody. You can’t expect them to be anything else, if that’s how they’ve chosen to be. And guess what? When you cut them off from their food supply - they’ll just move onto the next.

They may claim “well, you aren’t important.” That’s far from the truth.

Don’t let someone continue to leech off of you by letting them state that you are unworthy of their feeding.

That is some backwards logic, if I’ve ever heard of it.

They clearly fed off you. You have something they need.

That’s like someone saying to you that you are no longer worth stealing from, because they have already stolen all your money/your time/your patience/even your sanity... OR even more backwards: someone claiming they are entitled to stealing from you, because you have no money...you clearly have something they want.

It’s your prosperity. It’s your potential.

It means your life energy is potent with creativity, imagination, passion, joy...anything, anything you can think of that feeds YOU. They want it.

And people who steal from others are willing to get it by any means necessary.

Why? Because they are greedy. It doesn’t need explaining. They have become something they need to manage, tend to. It is not your responsibility to mend the consequences of their life.

They may say things to you like “I can’t do this alone/on my own! You need to help me!” No. No, you don’t. If they can’t be patient, if they can’t be forthcoming, if they can’t say sorry, if they don’t respect your boundaries, or your time, or your money, or your patience, or your schedule, or the conditions you placed down from when you entered this conflict... No. You don’t.

You don’t owe them anything. You offered to help them.

It is not an equal give and exchange when someone comes to you to burden you with their baggage, but is unwilling to pull their own weight or does not even try (at the least). Especially if they are unwilling to take responsibility for it - ever. And especially if they are just consistently careless towards what they are doing.

You’re not in danger. I’m not trying to scare you, but people don’t take these messages seriously. Because they don’t think they are worthwhile or important.

Everything about you is worthy and important. You are a human being, amazing, and full of potential. You must find that potential.

It’s not going to be by letting these people waste your time, energy, or your resources.

Stop this madness from happening. You have all the authority. You need space to think clearly. Get away from all the people who shroud you in negativity, cause you conflict for conflicts sake, or try to weigh you down by making choices for you.

You can make your own choices. Learn to utilize your agency. Learn to master your intellectual capabilities. Learn to use your voice.

Stumble and fall as many times as you need to, but that’s the beauty of taking ownership. You can fix it if you need to. Right now you need practice more than anything.

And practice makes perfect. You will get better at this. Warding negativity, saying no, and conversely and effectively - shielding yourself from toxic people, environments, and energy vampires. It’s a weird term, but, hey...it’s fitting.

You’ll get better at this. I believe in you.

PS.

For some reason I feel like sharing this, but: even some tarot readers will lie to get what they want out of you...it’s a weird feeling, and a weird thing to be saying, since I’m a tarot reader, myself...But I share my experiences and guidance as reference for what someone else is going through that I clearly see a similarity in (I would be neglecting to say something important to my client if I didn’t share with them the knowledge I needed at that moment in time, where I was at a point in my life when I needed it the most - where I know it will make a big difference, where it is integral to my spiritual growth).

Why would someone do such a thing? Easily, they are human. And they are experiencing feelings of greed, envy, and jealousy. Even bitterness, resentfulness, or insecurity...entitlement. The list goes on and on...

You are all a part of my spiritual community. I’m nervous to say such a thing...but even so. I have faith it will reach the right audiences.

This tarot reading is as much for me as it is for you, because it is general guidance.

But I have come across a plethora of tarot readers who are “spiritually awakened to their purpose” or using the “word of god,” to steer people towards very toxic patterns in their lives, and who do not help them with releasing these patterns.

They spit out this fairy tail garnish, and claim to be above certain behaviors from others, and yet can’t be humble enough to understand they are still a messenger, or a vessel for something higher...They create victim mentality in their clientele, because it keeps them coming back for more answers. Some even jokingly calling it “tea.”

Be mindful of who you are listening to. We don’t all have your best interests in mind. And not all of us are “awakened.” Awakened is such a broad term...I don’t claim to be some higher being. I struggle with mental health issues, and I’m not gonna lie: I am currently struggling through an identity crisis.

I think that makes me human, just like the rest of you. And therefore more willing to cater to a cause, because for some reason, I have been enriched by my spirituality and my clairvoyance. And that just...makes me happy.

A gift is just that: it has been given to you.

It is something we can learn to appreciate together.

Someone wanted you to have this reading today, because they care about you vastly.

Someone wanted to gift you with clairvoyance, because they wanted to enrich you and your life, or makeup for what happened in your life that lead to so much instability and pain - so you can avoid it (see clearly when you move ahead into your successes, and so you are not tethered by your insecurities or past baggage, so it doesn’t reverberate in your life forever).

Someone gifted you with talent, because it is meant to lift you above the things you don’t have at this current moment in time.

Your gift is your redemption to put it simply.

I sacrifice myself for these tarot readings...not because I think I’m important, or my message is better than any one else’s...But because I need this guidance, too, and I imagine someone else might be out there who needs to hear it just as badly.

And if today was my last day on earth, I would wish for it to do some good (if my life meant nothing more before then).

#general reading #tarot #guidance #advice #personal

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booksbeyondimagining · 3 years

Photo

Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries #2), by Melissa McShane

Publish Date: January 19, 2017 (repub: January 8, 2019) Published by: Curiosity Quills Press (repubbed by Night Harbor Publishing) Length: 355 pages Genre: Historical Fantasy My Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 stars)

Synopsis:

Sophia Westlake is an Extraordinary Seer, gifted with the ability to See past, present and future in Dreams and Visions. When she accuses a prominent politician, Lord Endicott, of embezzling from the Army, her Dream is “proved” false and she is disgraced, her reputation ruined. Furious and desperate, Sophia takes the only course left to her: she sets out to discover Lord Endicott’s criminal enterprises and bring him to justice.

Sophia’s allies are few, but loyal. Cecy, her best friend, supports Sophia in her quest, while her cousin Lady Daphne, an irrepressible Extraordinary Bounder, is always ready for a challenge. And always watching her is the mysterious Mr. Rutledge, who claims to be interested in Sophia’s friendship—and possibly more than that—but who has an agenda of his own.

But as Sophia delves deeper into prophetic Dreams, Cecy and Daphne begin to fear for Sophia’s health and sanity. Driven to collapse by her frequent Dreaming, Sophia is forced to reevaluate her motives: does she want Lord Endicott brought to justice, or is it revenge she seeks? Sophia’s Dreams and Visions are leading her to just one place: the destruction of Lord Endicott. But the cost of her vengeance may be too high—and may demand the sacrifice of her own life.

My Review:

After exuberantly loving the first book in this series, I eagerly started the next - only to be utterly put off by the main character and completely disinterested in the plotline. I literally had to force myself through this book and I only did so because I want to read the third one (and I swear, if it ends up being as bad as this one I might scream).

First off, Sophia is just a completely unlikeable character. She is proud, self-righteous, arrogant, and has very little redeemable qualities. She believes herself to be infallible, and as such, anyone who disagrees with her is therefore against her. She refuses to let Mr. Rutledge - the love interest - be her friend, because he did not believe she was right in her claim against Lord Endicott because the evidence did not support it. If her definition of friendship is unquestioning belief in anything she says, then she shouldn't have any friends at all. (Also, she shooed away a starving dog because she thought it would attack her and had another negative thought/action about dogs that I can't quite recall but which definitely made my opinion of her even worse.) Sophia is constantly making horrible and stupid decisions. The entire plot is forced into action when she decides to search for evidence that Endicott is still participating in criminal activity - without any indication other than her own desire for revenge to do so. If he had said something that inidcated he was still doing illegal stuff, or she came across a piece of evidence that led her to believe he was, that I could understand. Instead, she was just trying to force the issue by Dreaming incessantly about him in the hopes of finding something that might stick. It was infuriating in terms of getting the plot going because it felt so forced. Part of me wanted her to discover an entire counterfeiting scheme only to have it turn out that Endicott had no connection to it whatsoever, especially since that would have brought about the moment of downfall Sophia sorely needed to give her a good kick in the hubris to remind her that she isn't all that perfect. Then, to make matters worse, she constantly tried to show him up by actually telling him what she was doing. Well, really she used a metaphor about hunting and prey, and that itself got far too overused, but still. How stupid can you be to tell your enemy that you are trying to catch him doing illegal activity? No wonder she doesn't understand card games - you never show your hand until the end. And on a side note, I still don't understand why Lord Endicott was embezzeling and counterfeiting money? He's a titled Lord with an estate, money and power in the government - what was the point in all this criminal activity? Then there was the love interest. Mr. Rutledge was rather bland and boring, with his only redemption coming from his work as a spy of some sort? Still not clear on what he actually does. Anyway, their interactions were few and lacking up to the point when Sophia decided that she was falling in love with him - all based on conversations and interactions that occurred off-page of course. I therefore have no idea what exactly she finds so attractive in him because I did not see that chemistry spark or why. (In case you haven't gathered, I hate off-page romance). He seemed to show almost no interest in her romantically until the very end of the book. Of the other characters, I liked Daphne the best. She is engergetic and enthusiastic about everything, and honestly I love how she tends to meander in her conversation, constantly swerving from one topic to another. I hated how Sophia thought of her as childlike and annoying at times, as if she were better than her. That's just her personality! And yes, she is younger than you. Cecy, on the other hand, was just okay. She is constantly supportive of Sophia, and aside from getting angry at her for overdoing it with Dreaming and wanting a child, she only ever seemed to exist as Sophia's cheerleader. She did have some pain that had a mysterious origin, and is stubborn about it like Sophia, but otherwise she tended to blend into the background and wasn't all that interesting of a character to me. This book was such a drag. With the catalyst for the plot being so frustratingly forced, the story itself was a such a struggle. It felt like it took forever for anything to really start happening, and when it did it still took a long time with most of the action taking place through Sophia's Dreams. And with a protagonist I could not stand nor feel any sympathy for, I could not bring myself to really care about what plot was intriguing. I spent so much of this book not wanting to see Sophia win, and to me that is a problem if I am supposed to enjoy the story as well. I honestly don't know how this book exists in the same world as Burning Bright. I adored that book, the characters, the plot, everything. But this one? This one made me want to scream and punch Sophia in the face. Again, I forced myself through this book in hopes that the third one is more like the first book. I really like Daphne as a character, so I truly hope it doesn't disappoint. Or at least, not tear my hair out in frustration.

#book review #wondering sight #the extraordinaries #melissa mcshane #Historical Fantasy #regency #curiousity quills press #night harbor publishing

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beautyandthewarcanons · 4 years

Text

Life Is Risky: Entry Six

I exhaled, pulling up Ambrosia’s number. I bit my lip as I waited anxiously, growing more antsy with each ring. Finally, I heard the line open up, springing to alertness.

“Ambrosia? Oh, thank God. Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but just tell me where you are, please. I’ll come pick you up. I‘m not mad, I just want to get you home.”

“… Ambrosia is here with me, dearie. And who does this lovely voice belong to?”

My whole body became rigid. I felt every muscle tense up, prickles dancing along my spine. “… Where is my sister?”

“I already told you. She is with me. Ah, you are her sister? I wonder if you are as lovely as she is.” He had a French accent.

I gripped the phone. “What did you do to her?! Put her on the phone right now!”

“Now, now. No need to too excited. You can do that when you see me. We haven’t done anything… yet.”

My throat was becoming drier by the second. “What do you want? Money? I’ll rob a whole damn bank if I need to. Let my sister go.”

“Mm… money would be nice right now… but your sister is nicer.”

My breathing was becoming more erratic. I could feel myself slipping. “Put. My. Sister. On. The. Phone.” My teeth were clenched like a vice. I knew exactly what I needed to ask her. He had to put her on the phone.

“Alright. I’ll give you… thirty seconds.” The man hummed. More than enough time.

“Kara?”

The sound of her voice almost shocked me into silence- but I pushed through it. Time was ticking.

“Ambrosia, I don’t have time to get the full story. I need your Drivr password.” I said.

A pause. “Eh? You need my-”

“NOW, Ambrosia, please! Give me the password to your account. Just say it out loud.” I begged. My heart pounded when she said the word. I scrambled to find a pen, scribbling it on a piece of paper. “Okay. Ambrosia, I’m going in there and looking up the address. I’m coming to get you.”

“Not if I don’t cancel it, first.” I froze when I heard the man’s voice again. “Oh, time’s up, by the way.”

My throat became dry again. “What the hell do you want with her?” I growled.

“Don’t you know? Your sister has professed her love to me. Now, we’re going to be together. Forever.”

“Listen to me, you deranged psychopath. I am getting to you one way or another. I am taking my sister home, and soon after, YOU are being taken to prison. You will never see her again, you will never speak to her again, you will never even THINK of her again. Do you have any idea what I would do for her?”

“Do you have any idea what I would do for her?”

I was about to say something then when I heard it.

Laughter. But not just any laughter…

As soon as it began, it cut off. I looked at my phone- the battery had run out. It was dead.

But the laughter still rang in my head. I gripped it tightly. I felt the very fabric of my mind unraveling.

It was no witch in my nightmares all these years. It was a man. This man.

Time was still ticking. I had to save Ambrosia. But I needed a computer, and fast.

[-1 Sanity]

I grabbed my phone and my bag. I quickly scribbled a note, leaving it on the table. I dashed out to my car, throwing my bag inside. I plugged my phone into the car charger, trying to get my breathing under control. I was about to start the car, when a hand suddenly grabbed my arm. I gasped, my head snapping to the side to see I was no longer alone.

And just where do you think you’re going to go? Her voice was a sharp edge, the ring in her words lingering in the air. You don’t even have an address.

I placed my hands on the wheel, staring ahead. It was raining. “I’m not that stupid. I’m going to get one. I don’t have time to waste going over this with you.”

Really? Do you think you can change your fate? Hers?

“I will not let anything happen to her!” I slammed the steering wheel.

But something already has… like a snake slithering past the ever vigilant bird to snatch up her precious eggs. I jumped when she suddenly pinned one of my hands to the wheel. A sacrifice has to be made. For one of you, your time is almost at its end. For the other… your suffering has only begun. So… remember this. You still have to forge the path. You have… other resources to help you.

I glanced over my shoulder as Rayne’s eyes burned into the side of my head. In the back seat, The Queen and Her sat. I slowly turned to look at the dark woman. “No. I can’t do that.”

It’s your choice. But if you really would do anything to save her… then you’ll weigh your options.

I gasped when a car sped by in the street. I glanced back to see that I was now alone in the car. I exhaled shakily, swallowing thickly as I started the ignition. The engine roared. I had to get to a computer.

---

Flashback

The first incident happened about two years after I was taken into Ambrosia’s family. At the time, we were both still in the Elementary school- I was in third grade, she was in first. That year, socially, had been particularly difficult for me. For months, I was jeered at daily in the lunch room, the group seemingly growing greater by the day. I was already under a great amount of distress, but I had done well in hiding it. On this day, however, it all unraveled.

It was after school. I arrived at the playground to get Ambrosia so we could walk home together. Rosemary and Jasmine already had gone home via the bus. I scanned the area before seeing Ambrosia approach a sandbox where a few other children were to play. I smiled lightly. I hoped she was better at making friends than I was.

In an instant, that thought was shattered to pieces.

It was as if it all happened in slow motion… one child reared her hand back, slapping Ambrosia hard across her face. She landed right into the sand, the blow harsh as she silently nursed her cheek. My brain could not register what just happened. I didn’t even hear the jeers they shouted at her as they prepared to take their leave.

By that point, everything went black. Before that, I heard an inhuman scream come from my mouth that was not my own. In a way, it was like the cry of a child being birthed into the world. But there was no innocence to this sound, or what was to follow.

The next time I came to, I was home, blinking my eyes open as I sat up in my bed. I groaned, my head still spinning a bit. I finally regained enough sense to look around. As I did, I noticed Ambrosia jump off her bed next to mine.

“Ambrosia… what happened-” She slammed the door shut, cutting me off. “Ambrosia?” I got to my feet, going over to the door. When I tried the handle, it wouldn’t budge. “Did you lock the door? I wanted to talk to you.”

“… I don’t want to see the monster again.” I heard her small voice from the other side of the door.

“Ambrosia, there’s no monster in here. Besides, it’s day time. Come on, let me out.” I said.

“I don’t want to.” She whimpered.

“Ambrosia, this is silly. I just want to know why I fainted at school and how I got home.”

“… I pulled you.”

“You pulled me? You mean, you dragged me all the way home?” I furrowed my brows. “Ambrosia, please open the door.”

“No… the monster might come back. Please don’t hurt me.”

At this, my breathing became shallower. “What monster? Ambrosia, please let me out.” No answer. “Ambrosia, where is the monster?”

“… You turned into the monster.”

At this, my mouth hung open. “But-… Ambrosia, I-… I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ambrosia… don’t leave me in here… Ambrosia, please!” I began to cry. “Ambrosia, where are you? Please, please don’t leave me!” Ambrosia!”

I was on the verge of a breakdown when the door finally opened. I was hyperventilating, tears streaming down my face. I felt small arms pull me into a hug.

“I’m sorry. I was scared.” Her small voice spoke. “I thought something bad was going to happen.”

She held me until I stopped crying, and longer still. She told me what happened, and promised she would never abandon me again. No matter what, I was her sister. And no matter what, I would never hurt her.

The next day, rumors spread through the school of a ferocious wolf attacking the children on the playground that day. Officials could not find the culprit, but all three children did not return to school that year. In fact, they never went to school in that town again. The damage done to them, both physical and the mental trauma, would stay with them for the rest of their lives. It was if they had been reduced to rag dolls.

And Ambrosia had witnessed the carnage, the birth of the first monster. Even when she covered her eyes, she could still hear the chorus of screaming.

As time went on, we named the monster Her- there was no name or title terrifying enough to describe it.

---

Present

I pulled up in front of Dev's place, parking and shutting the car off. Realizing how late it was, and unable to message or call until my phone was charged, I had to figure out a way to speak to him. Now.

[Choices with glitched text represent a summoning on one of Kara's "alters" to carry out a task. Choose wisely- to gain is to lose.]

---

Choice A: Knock on the door.

Choice B: Go around the side of his house to knock on his bedroom window.

Ç̴̧̧̛̞̰̬̞̬̟̩͍̻̘̈͑̓̑͜h̷̨̛͇͉̝̱̀̏̀͒́͋̾́̒̿̊̒̂͜ǫ̴̡̛͔̗̜̠͙͚̬̳̯̺̟̺͇̏͂̏̑̈̈́̾͒͋̃̉̚̚͝ḯ̸̧̨̮̻̯̠̫̗̰͈͙̏͐̈̈́͊͝c̴̨̫̱͍̭̝͍̙̣͋́̒̃̈͂̋̈́̚͠ȅ̶̝̬͚̮̝̖̰̬̣͓̝̗̃̚ ̵̝͓̅̇͛̋̅̐͘C̶̺̺͉͎̱̫͐̓͛͒́̋͌͗̇̚͝͝:̴̡̢͓̬͖̰̝̟͙̹̦̺̘̿͊͑͂̈́̅̂̈́̎̍̽̌ ̵͇͓͇͗̇͋̔̈̓̈̊͂̂̀͘͘͠F̷̡̯̬̝̗̖͍̼͚̼̃ȏ̸̫̟͖̞̝̥͚̯̩̖̲̝̪̀̊͐̀̋̽͐̇ͅr̸̢̛̼̥̠̦͔͕̲̀ͅc̸̜̮͇̖͉͇̳͂̓̓͗̈́̐͘͠͠ͅe̷̺̤͉̤̝̰͔̲͚̲̬̙͐͒̊̇͂̽͘ ̶̢̲̺͍̝̖̮̖̤̠̦͗̈́̀̓̉̾͜͠y̸̡̛̱̰̘͉̣͔̻̱̺̖͚̦̎̑̉͐̑̍̕ͅͅǫ̴̨͔̣̘̦̼̎̎͆͆͘͝ṷ̶͈̀̀̏̃͒̈̌͑̍͘͘͘̕ŕ̸̝͓͎͍̞̬̩͊̎͑̍̌̐̐̀̏͊̕̚ ̶̢̛̛̹̤̦͓͎̦̘̳̦̑͗̈́̋̀̅̄̒̐̆̈w̸̺̫̉͐͑̅̌̉̅̔́͊͘͘a̴̛̙̬̻̮̖̿͂̔̎̌̾̾̊̉̆́̽͘͝y̶̡̳̤̮̱̣̬͛͋͗̔̿̏͛̃͒͂̎͛͝ ̶̧̛͓̫̭͒̈́͋̏͑͆̾͑̓̈́̽́͠i̴̡̢̡͉̪̙̥̼̳̳̗̖̟̺̐̓̐̈͜ņ̶̢̢̩͍̬͈͈̱̻͓͉̞͚́̊͌͑.̶͈̱̩͓̺̭̬̝͖̯̺̲̄͗̃͑̿͑͊́͒͑̆͊̋̚ͅ

---

Results:

Choice A: 0%

Choice B: 75%

Choice C: 25%

#poisonappletales #donttakethisrisk #ambrosia #unknown #dont take this risk #fanfiction #interactive #roleplay #participation

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a-vast-horizon · 6 years

Text

The Debt He Owes: Exploration (2/3)

Larry Bower, the first Searcher, finds himself locked in the bowels of Joey Drew Studios. But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and Larry is about to discover the best motivation for breaking out.

Also on Fanfiction.Net (Ava Blook) and Archive Of Our Own (AvaBlook), no links so this shows up in tags.

[previous chapter]

Joey Drew Studios went deeper than Larry ever could have imagined—deeper than he thought possible, even. It had a modest two stories above ground, but basement under basement under basement, tunneling hundreds of feet down into the ground with toy factories and other attractions the public would likely never descend to see.

And the ink was everywhere. Pipes for the Ink Machine snaked and tangled through the whole building, and the lowermost levels wound up drenched in the ink dripping from the dozens of floors above.

And here Larry had thought Joey had been pocketing the ridiculous amounts of cash the Studio spent. All the out-of-place construction and machinery debts that had seemed like fraud made perfect sense once Larry saw the ink-drenched labyrinth the Studio had become.

Not that he'd seen very much of it. Joey had been quick to force him into a bucket and hurry him down the stairs to one of the lowest levels of the basement before anyone could see him. He'd shut Larry into what was probably a storage room, half the room full of wobbly chairs, empty inkwells, and one drum with a rip in the side.

Mr. Drew had come back a few times since then, asking Larry questions and using a syringe to take samples of the ink that made up his body now. He never made conversation, though, and Larry saw what he was like underneath the cheery facade he had put on to lure Larry to his death. The man was ruthless, relentless in pursuit of his goals. He refused to let anything stand in his way: the law, other people's lives, the rules of reality itself. When Larry heard what Joey was planning, he figured he would have once called the man insane—bringing cartoons to the real world? That was impossible!

But look what the man had already done to Larry himself. Joey Drew's wild dream was closer to being a reality than he even knew.

The lights for the basement floors had gone out with the rest a little while ago - it was so hard to keep track of time around here, except to know when the Studio was open or closed, and right now it was closed.

And the lights didn't go out until everyone, Joey included, had left the building.

In the cover of darkness, Larry took a deep breath he didn't really need anymore and started melting.

His legs went first, as always. No matter how detailed he could get the rest of him, sometimes so close to human he could convince himself his body was there under the ink, his legs were the hardest part, and rarely more than lanky, dripping sticks with a simple knee joint, and they melted into a puddle with the slightest lapse in concentration. The rest of him went slower, thicker ink melting down in clumps to join the other ink puddled on the wooden floor. Finally, his head.

As always, there was a moment where Larry lost himself in the vast, empty void of the ink, his mind spreading in tiny pieces across the Studio, from the pipes in the music department to the inkwells in animation to the horrible vat attached to the Ink Machine.

But none of that ink was his, not in the same way his new body, thick with chunks of his old one, was. Using its gentle pull as a beacon, Larry gathered his scattered consciousness back to the thick puddle in the bottommost basement and started to move.

The storage closet would have been a fine prison for a still-human Larry, and it might even have worked for a Larry as solid as Mr. Drew thought he was. But, as Larry had found out and promptly kept secret, his ink was almost as liquid as any the animators used, and the storage closet had a gap of almost an inch between the floor and the bottom of the door. That gap was Larry’s last hope for sanity; shut away in a tiny room, he knew he’d go mad sooner or later, but at least by sneaking through that gap, he could venture out into other parts of the Studio when no one else was around.

He'd considered making a break for it, of course, to leave the Studio. The problem was that no matter how detailed he could get his body, it was always the same glistening, deep black, with drips and ripples. There was no way he could even hope to pass for human, to go back to his old life. The best he could hope for on the outside would be experimentation in some kind of secret government lab, no better than how Joey treated him here.

He’d also considered at least calling the collections agency, to warn them not to try coming to the Studio again, but that would only have people knowing he was alive, and Joey knowing he could get out. He’d just have to hope that his sudden disappearance was warning enough and that the agency backed off.

There was nothing Larry could do to escape the Studio, or warn the other agents. During his brief escapes from the storage room, he would just wander the halls of the studio and try to find ways to occupy himself, looking over drawings and listening to the tape recordings the employees left during the day. He’d grown quite fond of the janitor, Wally Franks, despite never having met the man. He had a personality that could liven up even the most boring of Larry’s aimless wanderings.

So Larry didn’t really have any expectations for this night, though he was still startled when the operating lights for the stairwell clicked on, flooding the floor with half-light that was blinding after the darkness. Larry froze as he waited for Joey to storm the room and find him here, outside his prison, and shut him away somewhere airtight for God-knows-how-long.

But after a few moments, when Joey failed to appear and Larry didn’t hear footsteps on the stairs, he figured it was a false alarm. The lights for the entire stairwell were controlled by a single switch, and most likely someone was on one of the upper floors; maybe an employee had forgotten a belonging or wanted to get extra work done.

Still, it wouldn’t do him any favors to risk being found out. Cutting this trip short might be disappointing, but if it meant he’d be able to get out again in the future, he’d make that sacrifice. Larry turned to make his way back to his closet only to find that his legs had melted down into a puddle in his surprise at the lights coming on.

Well, he’d just deal with that later. Larry began pulling his torso across the room, back to the storage closet, and the puddled ink trailed behind him, leaving only the slightest trace of streaking on the floor. No one would notice it here, where the ink pipes burst and flooded the room regularly, he was sure.

It was humiliating, crawling across the floor like this, another reminder of everything that Joey Drew had stolen from him by putting him through the Machine. Not just his humanity, his life (in more way than one), but his very dignity, the legs underneath him. Larry had never considered himself a vengeful man, but he would make an exception for Mr. Drew, given the chance. To force that man to crawl because his legs were useless, unable to be trusted… just the thought of it brought a smile to Larry’s face.

But he wasn’t in a position to do such things at the moment. No, for now he needed to hide, to play at being docile, to wait for his opportunity to strike back. And so Larry slunk back to the storage room, reaching the door just as the lights flickered and a horrible scream came from above.

That didn’t sound like an employee here to pick up a forgotten item. It sounded like… well, it almost sounded like a reaction to what Joey had done to him, if Larry had been able to scream as the Machine crushed his legs, if he hadn’t been drowning in the ink.

Larry quickly let go of his solid form, slipping into a thick puddle to slide underneath the door. As usual, there was a moment where his mind melted as well, spreading out across all the ink of the studio.

This time, he found another mind there, waiting.

Curious, Larry poked at the other mind, as best as one intangible collection of thoughts could poke another. The other mind seemed familiar to him, though he wasn’t sure in what way. Mostly, the other was confused, quickly sliding out of its tightly-pressed near-human density to slip out into the surrounding ink.

Through the ink in the room, in the pipes and spread across the floor, Larry could feel Joey’s presence, malicious and moving, swiftly scooping up the new mind into a bucket and heading for the stairs.

The stairs to the basement, where Larry’s body proper was still puddled on the floor. Larry quickly collected himself back into his own ink, sliding under the door and reforming his torso the way Joey had come to expect seeing it. He assumed a hunched pose, head bowed in apparent despair, as he heard Joey’s footsteps clunking down the stairs.

Joey barely fiddled with the lock to the storage closet before flinging open the door, a wild look in his eyes and his lips pulled back from his teeth in such a way that Larry couldn’t decide if it was a smile or a scowl. He threw the bucket he was carrying into the room with such force it hit the back wall with a loud clunk and then rebounded to the floor, rolling on its side in a circle. Then he shook his head, forcing a smile, though his eyes didn’t calm any.

“Seems I’m not as close as I thought, Larry. Your friend here’s no more a toon than you are. Any idea why that is?”

Larry stayed quiet, torn between snarking back at Mr. Drew and processing what he’d just said. ‘Your friend’… who exactly was in the bucket? Larry couldn’t bring himself to look.

Joey scoffed.

“Of course you don’t know. You had such a small mind, such small goals. Money? Ha! Who cares about money, with the kind of revolution I’m going to bring to the world. I will perfect the process, no matter how long it takes, mark my words.”

And with that, he slammed the door to the room shut, leaving Larry and his new companion in the dark again.

It took the newcomer some time to collect themself from the ink, piecing the scattered bits of their mind into a whole. Larry tried to help herd them back together, but even so, it was a few days before they were fully coherent again.

And no wonder Larry had thought them familiar—the newcomer turned out to be David Parson, his coworker from the collections agency. Even after Larry had disappeared on the premises, the agency had sent another agent to try collecting Joey’s debt.

Larry felt pretty terrible for David; the man was ten years older than him, with a wife and a young child at home. Larry hadn’t left anyone of importance behind, but David had, and the desire to return to them burned at him like hot oil, Larry could tell.

David explained that while he’d come during work hours, Joey hadn’t dumped him into the machine straightaway, but forced him to write a letter to the agency, urging them to stop trying to collect, which he’d gone to deliver after the Studio closed for the day. Only once the employees had left had he returned, freeing David from the closet where he’d been bound and gagged to paint some strange symbols onto his skin and put him through the Ink Machine.

The mention of the symbols caught Larry’s attention—after all, Joey had gone to no such lengths when he’d put Larry through the Machine. Then again, Joey hadn’t been expecting Larry to come out the other side of it, either, while that seemed to be his intention for David.

Perhaps a bit rudely, Larry had pressed David for details of the symbols, which were nonsense when David drew them out on the floor in the ink of his own body as best he remembered them.

“He kept checking back to this weird book,” David said. “I saw one of the pages, and it had some of these symbols, but with a bunch of normal words underneath, and they said something about shaping the form? I didn’t get a good look, but it was like some kinda magic spell nonsense.”

“Maybe not as nonsensical as you’d think,” Larry said. “Look at the state of us, after all. It’d make sense if something supernatural’s going on in this Studio, and if that book’s got the explanations… Well, maybe we could do a little magic of our own.”

“Get our bodies back,” David said. “Get out of this place, warn people, call the cops or somethin’.”

“Exactly,” Larry said, smiling. “And finally give that Joey Drew exactly what he deserves.”

Searching for the book became their goal, their hope for salvation. David managed to sneak out a note to his family, asking for help, but nothing had ever come of it. The Agency never sent the police to the Studio to investigate their disappearances, either. The book was their best, and only, chance of escape.

Larry showed David how to escape the storage room, how to puddle underneath the door and collect his mind afterward. The two of them made their way through the Studio with purpose on unsteady legs, hunting through every corner and hidden spot they could reach looking for the book.

They spent weeks trying to break into the locked room in the music department, sure something so secure would be holding something as precious as the book, only to find soup and a few scattered sheets of music. They wandered the halls, creeping their way up the stairs as they cleared every inch of the lower floors, making their way up towards the surface, towards Joey.

It was slow going, and absolutely disheartening every time they turned a floor top to bottom and found no trace of the book. Worse still was when Joey started up the Ink Machine again, and a new mind joined them in the ink.

The plane of his mind that Larry had once thought was infinite was quickly getting more crowded, the minds of the new arrivals bumping into each other without meaning to, unable to help it. Their minds turned liquid when their bodies did, and spread out so easily, even when those more established tried to help them. It was becoming trickier to keep everyone separate and distinct these days.

But they had made their way up to the floors that were inhabited, where Joey and the animators spent their days. The book had to be here, in Joey’s office, maybe, or in the Ink Machine room.

They would find it, soon. They would find it, and its contents would tell them how to undo what had been done to them. They’d rebuild their bodies, return to the world outside. They’d be able to see the sunlight and feel the breeze against their skin. There would be no more hiding in dark corners, melted and spread into puddles to avoid attracting attention.

And then Joey, and all the other employees who had let this happen under their noses, would pay.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #joey drew #bendy and the ink machine fanfiction #batim fanfiction #fanfiction #zen writes #zen talks

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theretreatcounselingcenter · 4 years

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Perusing the marriage help section of your local bookstore will introduce you to many authors writing about the need for being “sacrificial” in your marriage — or putting your partner first. Makes sense right?! “Marriage experts” on the Internet are generally writing the same thing too: To have a happy marriage, put your partner first.

At first glance, most of us can get behind this traditional, time-honored, and well-intended piece of advice to be sacrificial partners, but unfortunately, the simplicity with this idea is missing critical elements of relationship dynamics that are often at the root of couples not doing well. For some, putting yourself first, above your partner, is what will positively change the course your relationship and what is often needed to have a satisfying and lasting marriage. Say what?!

In all relationships, each person falls somewhere on the Dominant / Passive continuum. As we generally reside on one side of the continuum, our partner typically falls on the opposite side of this spectrum. For me personally, I fall on the Dominant side of the spectrum, and my wife falls more on the Passive side. This is not bad. This is not good. This just is. This is our dynamic and each couple has their own version of this. Where it starts leaning toward toxicity for relationships is the degree of severity to which each person resides on this continuum.

**Knowing none of us are perfectly aligned right in the middle of this spectrum, which side of the continuum do you fall?

This might be one of the most important questions you can consider in your marriage.

For the Passive partners, their journey of growth, and what is needed for a more whole and gratifying marriage is to learn how to become, in essence, more selfish, self-centered, or generally just putting themselves first. I know for some reading this, it may sound absurd and counter to everything we believe we know about what makes marriage work well because we’ve all been so conditioned to believe that “sacrificing” is the best option. But learning how to assert ones needs and wants in the context of your marriage is for many, the trajectory of relational health.

If the Passive partner remains compliant in a less-than-assertive role in the relationship, the relationship is not equitable and the Passive partner inevitably grows increasingly resentful over time, and typically begins to act passive-aggressively as a way to communicate their unhappiness. By continuing only to be “sacrificial” and denying their own needs, they end up feeling slighted in the relationship, unimportant, and in many cases can become depressed. And in case anyone is wondering if this Dominance / Passivity dynamic is gender biased toward one side of the spectrum or the other, my answer is “No”. Women and Men equally share roles of being Dominant and Passive.

Chocolate Ice Cream Versus Vanilla Ice Cream

To illustrate the Passive / Dominant continuum in marriages, I often will ask couples this question: “You went to the store to buy ice cream, and you only had enough money for one flavor. Your partner wanted vanilla, and you wanted chocolate. Who wins generally? This simple and seemingly silly example will tell you a lot about your relationship. We can learn how decisions are made. We can learn more about who controls. And we can learn who is more Dominant and who is more Passive. Last week, I asked a wife I’m working with in couples therapy this question and she responded with no uncertainty: “Without question, Steve will get HIS chocolate ice cream every time!”

And so, I ask you this: Does it makes intuitive sense that as a culture, we implicitly communicate to this wife that she needs to be more sacrificial for the betterment of her marriage? Should we be implicitly telling her to simply resign all of her wishes? I don’t think so, and I can assure you this is a recipe for relational degradation. For her, and for many others, the journey toward relational health is about facing her fears and learning to demand she’s being heard. I know it might sound like a tall mountain to climb — but I know you can do this! And of course the ice cream illustration isn’t really about the ice cream. It’s a metaphor to illustrate the more complicated and emotionally laden issues that surface in marriages like money, parenting, sex, and in-laws relationships.

How Children Impact This

Introducing children into the relationship have a way of catapulting us toward clarity regarding the Passive / Dominant continuum. After children, we can see clearly (in case we couldn’t see before) who is more Passive and who is more Dominant. Young children, with all of their unrelenting demands and needs, have a way of testing the sacrificial nature of each parent/partner. Because young children demand so much from us, the need to assert ourselves in our relationships becomes even more important, because truly our sanity sometimes depends on it.

If you identify with being the more Passive Partner, what small changes can you make to begin asserting your needs in your relationship? Or why do you imagine this is difficult for you? If this feels like too big of a mountain to climb — maybe just consider one tiny aspect of your life that you could assert your needs and “act selfishly”.

Having Needs Isn’t a Sin

Many people hold on to ideas that putting themselves first in their relationship is being unloving. And for some people that are more narcissistically inclined, this is of course true. However, this article is written for those in relationships who have a hard time with putting themselves first, but feel like their dying inside because they don’t. It reminds me of a client I’m working with right now who told me that he didn’t have any friends. When I asked why, he stated that his wife didn’t think “good husbands” had friends and demanded he let go of all his friendships. This is Passivity mixed with toxicity — not sacrificial love. He’s awakening now to the damaging effects of being too Passive for too long and realizing he was often not really sacrificial in his relationship, but really living in fear of asserting himself.

Maybe take a moment and consider how you may have given up your own wants and needs along the way to remain “sacrificial” in your marriage. I know that asserting your needs in relationships can feel terribly difficult sometimes because we loathe our partners reactions. I want to encourage you to contemplate how this passivity, if left unchecked over the course of time in your marriage, may lead to more dissatisfaction. I know it doesn’t have to be this way!!

Connect with us to learn more.

#Selfish #Relationships

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doeoutofdarkness-blog · 7 years

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The Darkness of Art

Sometimes, I wonder why I bother trying to connect with and lift up a world that either thinks they're too good for or are to busy chasing "fame" driven by greed to notice the little things or the "little people"... I wonder why I bother making art that cost me everything I have, but seems to mean nothing to anyone but me... Why do I make so many sacrifices creating things and chasing dreams that go nowhere... I wonder why I bother living in a world so full of lies carefully disguised... "Don't give up!", they say, "Don't ever stop painting!" Easy for them to say... They're not the ones going hungry for supplies.. They're not stressed out from the bills stacking up because they took a change on themselves again, but no one wants to take a change on an unknown struggling artist that is fucked up from a lifetime of abuse.. No one wants to spend $15 or $20 on an under priced piece of art.. But they have no problem "appreciating" it.. I don't even have space to live. The tiny space I have is just cluttered with the unwanted pieces of my soul... I'm lucky if I even make the money I spent back... But, hey! You're a natural artist! You can make magic happen with little to nothing! Right? ...and the ever constant lose of hope, faith in humanity, and sanity... Sometimes, I wonder how I've even managed to make it this far.. Little to nothing... They expect you to spin gold out of twine..With little to no food, money, space, time, support, or love...or love...but you must create love!.. I wonder if they even grasp the reality of this... If they grasp the toll it takes on one's body, heart, soul, and mind... When art is your lifeline... When it is the only comfort you have when the storms of your past come to haunt you... When you have no one but your ageing dog, who will soon leave you too... And then what do you? Because life and people just constantly push you to the edge and dare you to jump.. So you go hungry until you can't stand it and you watch the bills stake up and go late while the atress just keeps piling up because if you stop running from yourself and your reality... You might drown... Sometimes, I wonder if I can still feel.. If I'm invisible or dead and simply drifting in a world that simply doesn't care... I wonder if anything is real.. Because the words people speak are empty and hollow.. I feel I am lost in a world where empathy and kindness is always passed up for shollow hearted vanity and greed.. Only privilagemeans anything these days and if Mommy and Daddy have nothing and don't know anyone, THAN YOU ARE NOTHING TO SOCIETY! ... Character and integrity mean absolutely nothing... Humility is just another flaw.. A sign of weakness to let the wolves know to eat you! "But you'll be fine! Pick yourself off the ground and just keep painting!"... No family, no love, no support.. Until the sorrow consumes you and you drown... Because you can't outrun the rushing memories of yesterdays.. But you are nothing but the false bias realities others percieve you to be.. And you are left walking the wire of genius and insanity, standing on the edge of life just praying someone will understand me or God will kill me.. Defined by nothing more than bias prejudices, stereotypes, and assumptions.. You can fear me, but you can't be still and hear me?.. The odds are constantly stacked against me and society wants nothing more tnan to see kids like me fail.. And yet here I am... Why?

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ingridgovaninsights · 7 years

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The Charlotte Chapters- Part 5

When Elliott arrived at my parents’ house, we idled for a few minutes in silence. But unlike so many of our silences, this one wasn’t comfortable. There were so many unspoken words between us that probably wouldn’t ever be said.

“I love him,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” Elliott said. “You’re afraid of being alone so you’re settling. He’s not good for you, Charlotte. Hell, I was more there for you than he ever was, and you called him your boyfriend.”

I shook my head. “No, Ross is good. He just… he got confused. I’ll just explain to him. He’s a good guy, Elliott.”

“Don’t do this, Charlotte, please,” Elliott begged me, and I swear I saw tears in his eyes.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, trying for a smile. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

When I got out of that car, for a fleeting moment I thought maybe I was making a big mistake, but I shook it off as quickly as it came on, and I headed for the door.

Part Three: Blissfully Unaware

Things sort of went way too fast with Ross once we got to talking again. My parents had been skeptical, but after we chatted for a bit they concluded they just wanted me to be happy, so if that’s what I thought would make me happy, go for it.

I met with Ross for coffee that afternoon, and I tried to look my best, carefully choosing a new shirt and nicely fitted jeans, even a splash of makeup. I sprayed maybe a little too much perfume. I stared at myself in the mirror and thought, I can do this.

Ross looked just about the same as he did three months ago, except he was also wearing a new shirt. When he saw me, he waved, but his face was pretty neutral. I felt happy to see him. A flood of good memories came back into my mind, and I became a little bit obsessed again, like when we had first met.

He was quite handsome, even without his nice smile. He was already seated at the coffee shop, sipping on a hot chocolate because he never liked coffee. Once again, I was becoming lost with the feeling of lust, the feeling of infatuation, completely forgetting all of the red flags I’d seen when I had distance.

“Let me just order a drink,” I said, my voice slightly shaking. It had been three months, which isn’t a long time if you think about it. But I was still scared, like I was on a blind date with someone that was “out of my league”. I just felt inferior, intimidated, but my body wanted to chase that feeling. Why did I think Ross was so special?

I ordered a double double, and grasping the paper cup with sweaty palms, I took a seat across from him. He looked at me with big, blue eyes.

The silence wasn’t long, because I knew Ross couldn’t stand long silences; he didn’t think there was such a thing as “comfortable silence”.

“I miss you,” he said.

“I missed you too,” I said automatically. “How are you? How has life been?”

Ross sighed, took a sip of his hot chocolate. “To be honest, not that great. I just… well, I don’t want to sound too creepy or emotional.”

“No no, go on,” I urged. At that time, I needed to hear what he had to say. I just had to be fed all the bullshit. Maybe I liked the attention. After all, it’s glorious to feel wanted. To feel needed.

“These past three months have been hell,” he admitted. “I was a wreck. I was depressed. I mean, I tried to move on, I really did, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I tried to go on dates… some were nice, I even really hit it off with a couple of people, but it just wasn’t the same.”

In the back of my mind, something was screaming at me to remember how he treated me, to remember that he was never there for me when I needed him, and that he probably never would be. Something was trying to shout that this was a trap… that I wouldn’t ever be truly happy this way. But I pushed the thoughts aside and they started to fade out…

“Things haven’t been great for me, either,” I said, “at all. I didn’t know what to do without you. I couldn’t sleep, I drank too much… I even tried weed, which is not like me at all. I just wasn’t the same.”

I made myself cringe. I sounded like a fourteen year old girl with her first “real” boyfriend, back in high school when there was no real understanding of what love meant. Was I really still that naive in my twenties?

We talked for an hour or two and caught up. We laughed a lot, exchanged new stories and reminisced on old times. Recalled inside jokes that gave us a false sense of warmth. But somewhere, there was still that lingering problem between us. I knew what Ross would want- for me to drop Elliott as a friend. And for some reason I felt guilty, like I had to, to “clear my conscience”.

We ended up sitting in Ross’ car so we could chat privately. He said he had a few things we “needed to discuss” in order to “work things out”. Elliott was in the back of my mind, reminding me that this was probably a bad idea… but once again, I put that on the backburner and nodded along.

“I have a few conditions I’d like to go over, if we’re to have a relationship again,” Ross said carefully, almost threateningly. He made stern eye contact with me.

My stomach churned. Conditions? I didn’t like the sound of that. But I urged him to go on anyways. I was going through with this.

“The first one is, and this is probably going to be an obvious one, I don’t want you to be in contact with Elliott anymore. I just think it’s a terrible idea, and I’m not comfortable with it at all. So if you want to be with me again, we have to be on the same page with that.”

I thought I’d try to be honest. “I didn’t do anything with him that night,” I told him. “You made that story up.”

Ross raised his eyebrows. “Yeah? There must have been some intent there. Come on.”

I thought about it. Up until Ross started interrogating me about that night, I had never thought of Elliott as more than a good friend. Ever. But Ross had a way of making me question my sanity. Maybe there was intent? After all, how do you prove intent? It was so long ago… I couldn’t remember.

“Maybe,” I said shakily, “I don’t remember that well.”

“See?” he said. “And you probably don’t remember because you were drinking, and because you want to forget that you did a horrible thing. You really messed me up, Charlotte.”

What did I do? I thought, desperately going through that night over and over in my head, play by play. I was getting all muddled up. My thoughts were graying and blurring and I couldn’t distinguish what was real or fake, what was right or wrong.

“Maybe… I don’t know,” I said.

“And I don’t understand why you would be anxious if you weren’t guilty,” Ross went on. “If you have nothing to hide, why are you so nervous?! Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. My mind was racing.

“Why can’t you answer anything with certainty? Why is it always I don’t know with you?”

I started to cry. “Okay, maybe there was some intent there. I don’t know why. I don’t know, okay? I won’t talk to him anymore.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said quietly. Then more loudly, “I don’t even want so much as to hear his name, okay?”

I nodded robotically. He went into the other “conditions”, one of them being I needed to take my medication every single day, at the same time every day, or this would result in an “immediate break up”. He continued to use that term- “immediate break up”. This really scared me, at the time I felt like I would do anything to make sure that didn’t happen.

And as quickly as we had broken up three months ago, we were back together.

***

I sent Elliott one final text message that I would no longer be in contact with him, and that it was for the best. I had a guilty conscience I needed to clear; I had sins that probably couldn’t ever be forgiven. What those sins were, I don’t know.

Elliott tried to bring me to my senses, but I wasn’t listening. I was long past listening to reason. He texted me several times, and when I think about them now they make a lot of sense, but my brain couldn’t distinguish what made sense and what didn’t. My brain was telling me that Elliott was bad, and talking to him was criminal. I needed to get away.

I blocked him on every social media platform I could think of. I went out of my way to “keep the bad away” and “prevent myself from sinning”... I blocked even his family, some of his close friends, too. Just in case. I did this robotically, without a second thought. I had to do it for Ross. I loved him, after all. You make sacrifices for those you love.

Ross was quite satisfied with this, and Elliott was a forgotten piece of the past. Ross and I were getting along quite well; it felt like our relationship was starting anew, like we were in the “honeymoon” phase again. Nothing else seemed to matter.

Only a couple of weeks into our newfound “happiness”, Ross reminded me that he would be finishing his college program soon.

“I will most likely need to move to the city to find a decent job,” he said.

The city. Ugh. Somewhere I enjoyed exploring, but I didn’t want to live. There were far too many people and it just made me extremely anxious.

“If I move away for work… I don’t know what this means for us,” he went on.

“It’s only an hour and a half away,” I tried to reason. “You drive- you can come visit on weekends, right?”

He gave me a look. “That’s just a bit inconvenient, don’t you think?”

I started to panic. So what was he saying, then? Why start all of this up again if he was just going to tear it down in a matter of weeks?

That’s when I had a brilliant idea.

“Take me with you.”

Ross laughed, then he looked at me seriously. “You’d do that for me?”

“Of course,” I said without hesitation. Again, sacrifices.

“Well, maybe… maybe this could work. And it might make more sense financially. I can save some of my money this way. And of course, we’d be living together, so that’d be nice.”

It was a big step, even for “normal” couples that had a steady, healthy relationship. Add the fact that we had just been broken up for three months to the mix and you get a really big leap into what was probably going to end in a disaster.

But I kept my nodding my head like I was some sort of bobblehead. There was no question about it; you gotta do what needs to be done.

Even if it means leaving your entire sense of identity behind.

***

Our big move to the city was not an easy task- moving is never easy, nevermind moving an apartment’s worth of furniture nearly two hours away. We rented two trucks, and Ross’ parents helped us; my parents were quite hesitant to provide the assistance. After I’d told them about my drastic plans, they were a little distant with me. I think they were sad, and maybe disappointed. My father even seemed a little bit angry. But what were we supposed to do, break up?

Ross drove the first truck with me in the passenger seat, and his dad drove the second one with his mom tagging along. His parents were lovely people, but his mother was a bit on the controlling side- I can remember when we were dating in college, his mom would have Ross always text her on his whereabouts. When he was leaving somewhere, when he got somewhere, who he was with, what he was doing… I always found it a bit odd, but those kinds of things mothers grow out of, right?

Not Ross’ mother. She was freaking out about her son leaving the nest for the first time. I mean, he was twenty-one now; she’d have to face this at some point in her life. My mother was not nearly as emotional- that being said, I’d already moved out on my own before, but even the first time she was only a little upset. Who knows, maybe some mothers are better at hiding it.

We chose a basement apartment in a town just outside the city, because the places were cheaper and Ross could just drive the rest of the way in maybe fifteen minutes. There was nothing there for me… well, except for Ross, of course. It was a town of factories and warehouses- what was I supposed to do with that?

The house was nothing to ogle over- it was a pretty standard bungalow, if not less than standard. The lawn was uncut, the front screen door was broken and the roof was falling apart. But hey, it was a roof over our heads.

When we stepped out of the truck, Ross’ parents were arguing.

“I told you, you were going way too fast,” she was rambling on, “this is why I don’t like being in a car with you. Who taught you how to drive?”

“I was driving the speed limit,” Ross’ father protested. “You’re just a nervous passenger.”

Great, so both of them were in a mood for the big day. That is just what we needed when we’d be having a stressful few hours trying to fit large pieces of furniture through doorways and down stairs.

“Thank you so much for helping us, guys,” I offered, trying to keep the peace.

Ross’ mom rolled her eyes, not doing a great job at hiding her annoyance. Since neither of them were willing to be civil for the time being, we waited for our new landlord in awkward silence. He ended up arriving twenty minutes late.

Our landlord was a tall, slender man in his late forties, of some sort of Asian descent, with a casual, sporty look to him. He wore an American Eagle T-shirt that would better suit a young adult; beige cargo shorts; and sunglasses not over his eyes but resting on his head, as if it were just a fashion statement. He was probably the type of dad that all the kids thought was “cool”, but only up until about age eight, then he was simply lame.

He looked a bit flustered as he approached us, extending a hand. “Hello, everyone. I am so sorry I’m late,” he said with a Chinese accent. “Ross, Charlotte. Hi. And these are… your parents?”

“My parents, yes,” Ross spoke up, firmly shaking his hand. “Mom, Dad, this is our landlord, Sean.”

His parents, disgruntled, introduced themselves. Sean didn’t seem too bothered by their attitudes, but perhaps he was trying to remain polite. He pulled out two sets of keys from the pocket of his cargo shorts, and handed them to us.

“I hope you enjoy your new home,” he said warmly. “If you need anything I am a quick call away on my cell phone. I don’t live too far from here.”

“Thank you,” Ross said; he did all the talking.

And just like that, Sean drove off and left us on our own to get settled. Except it wasn’t that settling; it was quite stressful with his parents being the way that they were.

“Cal, you need to tilt it a little!” Ross’ mom shouted as Ross and his dad attempted to get an armchair through the side door. “Are you deaf? I said that already.”

Cal sighed. “Tara, I’m trying, okay? Can you relax a little?”

“Oh, don’t tell me to relax, Cal. You know I hate it when you say that.”

Ross rolled his eyes, and Tara was quick to pick up on it.

“What was that, smartass? You have something you want to add?”

“No, Mom.”

“Maybe you should be a little more grateful for all the help we’re giving you two. We didn’t have to do any of this- we’re taking the time off work, we’re driving back and forth… you two have barely been back together a month! So you’re welcome, Ross.”

I mean, she had a point, but that didn’t make it any less awkward. I stood just outside the doorway, unsure what to do with myself. So they didn’t exactly “approve” of us, either. Was I surprised?

Finally, they managed to get the armchair through the doorway. I could only imagine the struggle it would be getting the goddamn couch through there…

***

When Cal and Tara finally left, it was dark out. Far past supper time, but his parents were too stubborn and upset to eat dinner with us.

We didn’t have much unpacked so we just ordered a pizza and drank Coke straight out of the two litre bottle. To make things more fun, the doorway didn’t allow us to fit the couch through so we ate our pizza on some upside down boxes, because Ross insisted we eat in front of the TV.

It had been an awful day, but at least we had each other. And that’s about all I had at that point. After eating we decided we’d get some sleep.

The bed frame wouldn’t get through the door, so we slept on a mattress on the floor.

#the charlotte chapters #short story #novella #writing #writing blog #creative writing #author #mental health #mental illness #anxiety #depression #novel #story #expressive #arts

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