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myhairpintrigger · 10 months

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MY SWEET WRITER PLS DO ME FAVOUR OF A DARKLING AND FEM READER CARRIAGE SMUT . I need the desperation factor where they couldn’t even wait to get back to the little palace . In other terms extremely h o r n e y reader and darkling .

i hope u like and choose to write this if not it’s completely ok

thank u and stay safe u beautiful mind

this is just… somewhat plotless ;) IF U FEEL ME. all my work is done at 3 am so i apologize for the mediocrity. also this is literally just … porn with a slight plot. no other way to describe it. pls don’t interact unless ur 18+.

warnings: NSFW CONTENT. it’s literally just smut. it’s all just smut. smut under the cut just go away if ur a child

word count: 1.7k

Desperate (aleksander morozova x fem!reader)

The ride back to Os Alta was painfully long. You sat across from your husband and kept your eyes on his. His stare was heated and your fingers itched to reach for him. This was probably the most time you’d spent with him in the last few weeks because of his duties with the Second Army, and you wanted him. In any way that you could have him.

You sat sandwiched between Feydor and Ivan who were bored and looking out the window. Aleksander’s eyes were wide and he was staring at you with a type of desire that made you press your thighs together underneath your dress.

Of course, you still had hours to go before you reached the capital. Though, you weren’t sure you could make it. And by the look on your husband’s face, you could tell he was thinking the exact same thing.

“Ivan. Feydor.”

Both men turned their heads towards your husband as he spoke their names, and you bit your lip.

“Get out.” Aleksander commanded sharply. His voice had a sharp edge to it and Ivan raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

“What do you mean?” He asked incredulously.

“What do I mean? I mean get out of this carriage immediately and ride a horse or something. Walk for all I care. Just get out.” He breathed.

Ivan looked at him and then looked at you, seemingly not understanding what was going on. But he tapped the back of the carriage a few times hard and it came to a stop. When it stopped, he and Feydor climbed out and left the two of you alone. Your eyes once again met your husband’s and he unblinkingly stared back at you as the carriage lurched forward again.

You couldn’t help your next action, because before you knew what you were doing, you had pushed yourself off of the seat across from him and threw yourself across the gap keeping you two apart. His hands received your clumsily tossed body with grace and reassurance, catching you by your waist. He tugged you onto his lap as comfortably as he could and lifted your skirts hurriedly, pushing them up to your knees so that you could easily straddle his lap.

“You are never coming with me to camp again, do you understand me? You’re such a terrible temptation.” Aleksander groaned as you leaned forward to pepper sloppy kisses all over his neck.

You only gave a hum in reply, rolling your hips down against his just once. He groaned and reached up behind you to grab a handful of your hair as gently as he could. He pulled your head away from his neck and brought you up to press a needy kiss to your lips. The desperation shared between your lips tasted delicious on your tongue and you let out a moan into his mouth. His fingers tightened in your hair and he pulled you closer, his nose pressing against yours as he kissed you. When the two of you had a desperate need for air, he pulled away from you, leaving you gasping and starving for him.

His forehead laid upon yours and his jaw tightened as he held the back of your head with his free hand, “I’ve needed you so badly.” He grumbled, leaning forward to peck your lips a few times.

“Just as I’ve needed you.” You managed to whisper out as you rolled your hips down against his again.

He tipped his head backwards and closed his eyes with a quiet groan and he reached down to grab your waist with both of his hands, “Don’t be a tease.” He hummed, clicking his tongue.

“Then touch me.” You pleaded and leaned your head down to rest against his shoulder.

He wasted no time in pushing the hem of your dress up to your thighs and he slipped his hands underneath your skirts. He gripped your thighs tightly and pushed your legs apart and you took note of the wetness that pooled between your thighs. You bit down on your bottom lip and tucked your face into the crook of his neck, letting out a quiet whine.

“Aleksander, please.” You whispered, pressing your lips against his skin.

You swore you heard him growl quietly and he pushed your underwear aside swiftly.

“You’re already so wet. Is that for me?” He asked cockily and you let out a little huff and rolled your hips forward.

“No. Answer me.” He commanded sharply as he dragged the tip of his middle finger up your folds.

You shivered deliciously and nodded once, face still pressed against his neck, “Yes. Always.” You breathed, and were instantly rewarded with his middle finger sliding inside of you slowly. You reached up and gripped his upper arms near his shoulders and you let out a quiet, relieved huff of air as he slowly curled his finger inside of you.

He was wasting absolutely no time though, because before you could comprehend the first finger, he was sliding a second into you with ease. Normally, he’d take his time with you but you suspected his patience had been thrown to the wind with the way he’d started to pump his fingers in and out of you at a moderate pace. A moan fell from your lips and you pulled your head away from his shoulder to look into his eyes.

You stared up into his lust-darkened eyes and bit down on your bottom lip just a bit. Your cheeks heated up a bit under his gaze and you leaned in to lay your forehead against his. A little, lazy grin formed on his lips and he moved his fingers a bit faster, leaving you whimpering his name quietly.

A few moments of this had you close to your climax and you reached up to cup his cheeks. You leaned in to kiss him heatedly, but he pulled back after just a couple of seconds and he shook his head, feeling you tighten around his fingers.

“No. Not yet. I want you to cum on my cock.” He growled and quickly pulled his fingers out of your cunt.

You gasped in shock and opened your mouth to protest but he was faster than you. He silenced you before you could speak by sliding his pointer and middle fingers into your mouth. He raised his eyebrows at you as if to egg you on and you wrapped your lips around his fingers and licked them clean, enjoying the taste of yourself on his skin. He pulled his fingers out of your mouth and you hurriedly reached down between your bodies and unfastened his belt and undid his pants. You reached down into his pants and gently freed his nearly completely hard cock. He groaned quietly at your touch and you wrapped your fingers around him, slowly stroking him.

The sound that came out of his mouth was heavenly, even more so the second time he moaned, because it was in the form of your name. You smiled, pleased with yourself, and you continued to stroke his cock until his hand was around your wrist and he was stopping you.

“Stop. I need to be inside of you.” He breathed and adjusted you in his lap just a bit for comfort. He reached between the two of you and positioned himself at your entrance, his tip brushing against your folds, slick with your arousal. You were ready to whine and tell him to not be a tease before he wordlessly lifted you just a bit and lowered you down onto his cock. The movement had you gasping and you reached up to grab onto his shoulders while you adjusted to his size and sunk down onto him entirely. You flickered your gaze up to his and he gave you one quick smile before he grasped your waist and held you up while he set a rapid pace with his hips. You let out a loud moan that resembled his name somewhat and you tossed your head backwards, moving your hips with his, in time with his thrusts.

It was likely the most unceremonious and rushed sex you’d ever had with your husband. Normally Aleksander took his time with you, made you beg and plead before he finally gave in and fucked you. Not now. The desperation between the two of you was palpable.

You let out a soft whine and began to lift and drop your hips in time with his movements, holding onto his shoulders for rapport. He swore loudly and reached up with one hand to grab a handful of hair from the back of your head.

“Fuck. I love you.” He growled and then pulled your head backwards with your hair. He lowered his lips down onto your throat and he flicked his tongue against your skin, “Such a good girl for me.” He mumbled, his voice making your skin vibrate.

His free hand made its way between the two of you and he pressed his thumb down against your clit, rolling it in slow circles. You let out a cry and rolled your hips into his touch as you continued to bounce on his lap, meeting his hurried thrusts. You moaned out his name as you chased your orgasm, feeling it build up quickly inside of you once more.

“I’m so close, Aleksander.” You whimpered, tightening your hold on his shoulders.

“Do it. Cum.” He commanded through labored breaths against your neck.

It didn’t take long for your climax to make you see white and you let out a gasp before you moaned his name, your head lolling backwards. Before you could even comprehend what was happening, you heard your husband moan in tandem with you and you felt his release just after your own.

The two of you sat in silence for a long time trying to catch your breaths and come back down from your highs, Aleksander’s thumb lazily still moving around your clit. Finally, he moved his hand away from you and he wrapped both of his arms around you and pulled you down against his chest.

“I’d like to say we were discreet but I reckon we are going to catch hell for this from Ivan and Feydor.” He mumbled, resting his cheek against your shoulder.

You laughed and then shrugged, reaching up to run your fingers through his tousled hair.

“It was worth all the hell in the world.”

#ben barnes x reader #ben barnes imagine #the darkling imagine #the darkling x you #the darkling imagine #the darkling x reader #the darkling #aleksander morozova imagine #aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #shadow and bone imagine #shadow and bone #general kirigan imagine #general kirigan x reader #general kirigan #grishaverse

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vvatchword · 1 year

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In Defense of BioShock Infinite

Although I had preordered BioShock Infinite with all its bells and whistles, I did not actually play it until January 2023. And lordy, I had me another Experience with a capital E. How the hell a bunch of urban Yanks could capture my experience as a queer democratic-socialist atheist struggling with her roots as a rural evangelical-cum-fascist is kinda magical, honestly. As to the game itself, it didn’t hurt how good it looked—the kickass skyhook gun battles—that novel setting—the complex characters—that delicious historical setting—that bloodthirsty critique of America—and to top it all off, they had pulled yet another Cassandra. Hell, speaking of which—not only was the game fun, it was fucking smart. It was intelligent, memorable, and meaningful in a way I hadn’t experienced in video games for years.

Now, back in 2013, when I had realized that I would be spoiled for Infinite, I left the BioShock fandom. After completing the game, I headed to Tumblr to re-engage, wagging my whole body like an excitable golden retriever, only to discover that BioShock Infinite was remarkably absent, and when mentioned, brutally derided.

“I hate BioShock Infinite and all my friends do, too,” someone said in the tags under a post.

I was utterly befuddled and deeply sad. I wanted to talk about BioShock Infinite! I wanted to dig into it, uncover unexpected ideas, learn new things, talk shit, make new friends—the full fandom experience. And instead I kept stumbling into hateful diatribes and super-charged disgust.

Obviously, I first looked at myself and my own judgment. Had I missed some obvious problem or misread some theme or dialogue? This wouldn’t be the first time I’d snapped down on a hook. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

There are two parts of BioShock Infinite that are unquestionably terrible: the fridging of Daisy Fitzroy and the false equivalence of violence between haves and have-nots (lol what are the have-nots supposed to do, ask nicely?). Additionally, one could look at the use of real Native American tragedies as tasteless. Personally, I do not—in the same way that I don’t find it tasteless that real war victims were used as inspiration for Splicer deformities. This is what really happened; this is commentary on events that really happened to real people.

At this point, I’m sure I don’t have to explain why two of these themes are Unequivocally Bad.

Anyway, I thought that perhaps these were the reasons BSI had been condemned to Super Hell.

I was wrong.

How Criitcsim Werk

This wasn’t the fandom I’d made friends in over 2010. Hell, this wasn’t the fandom of 2013. This was a fandom made up of Babies. They were making their first coltish stumblings into media criticism and with it, dredging up the same brain-dead bullshit from Tumblr circa 2008.

Suddenly I was brought face to face with people who seemed to think that if a character couldn’t be likable or good that the story itself couldn’t be likable or good; that one bad element means the story is unsalvageable (lol u pussies); the implication that one is bad for liking it; the destructive juvenile insistence that media accurately measures its fans’ moral qualities en masse like an astrological sign. This goes far beyond simple like or dislike and plunges head-first into Puritanism: praying loudly on street-corners instead of quietly in a dark corner where God might hear you.

At one point I had a kid go off about how they wouldn’t take time to understand Booker DeWitt’s perspective because he had (fictionally) taken part in a genocide. (That same person said the Native American element had been employed for shock value, a thought that sometimes keeps me up at night, because it is legitimately one of the dumbest criticisms the game has ever received.) At another point I saw someone acting personally offended that (fictional person) Dr. Suchong’s (fictional) data was being stolen (in a fiction) by a (fictional) racist who would (fictionally) take credit for (fictional person) Suchong’s (fictional) inventions “while calling him slurs”. Sure, a better question would have been, “Why would the creative team opt to do this” rather than assume intentional racism from a Jewish creative director with an in-office multi-ethnic team in the year of our lord 2013, but why not handwave the choice with prurient moral dismay so your audience won’t beat you to death with bats?

It was as though fans were treating these completely fictional characters as real people whose personal gods had opted to torment them, and that their tormentors merited the kind of censure that psychopaths should receive. As I hope all of you understand, this is fucking madness.

More than once I saw people posting about hating the studio or the creative director in ways that seemed intense, unreasoning, and excessive—notably an “I Hate [Irrational Games creative director] Ken Levine” stamp (rofl the more things change amirite). People get so performatively moralistic about it that I started wondering if I missed something big along the way. Was there some secret Voxophone I missed swearing fealty to baby Hitler or some shit?

Double Standards

At the same time, I was utterly confused. BioShocks 1 and 2 both featured some absolutely ghastly bullshit based on real-life horrors and a thick mix of complicated human beings—many of them victims who have become monsters. The fact they are grounded in historical tragedies is a huge part of their appeal. Hell, I don’t think those games would have had half their meaning without World Wars I and II and the threat of a third.

A gay man who feels so cursed by his orientation that he is incapable of intimacy and systematically destroys his ex-lovers—including the man he loves the most. A Korean who survived Japanese occupation and a Jewish Holocaust survivor repeat the violence and traumas exacted upon them and their people, subjecting a new generation to agonies unthinkable. Chasing the shadows of Bolsheviks, a Russian citizen becomes the brutal tyrant that he loathed. A rich lawyer with an easygoing drawl designs a concentration camp and systematically harvests hundreds, if not thousands of political prisoners, selling them out to medical testing for a quick buck.

But a Native man who destroys his own people and class to ensure his own survival and social acceptability is too far? This character is where people drew the line, so much so that the entire game is disavowed? Hell, if you’re just talking about Booker (rather than Comstock), he doesn’t have anywhere near the largest bodycount. If we were to judge on the metric of human misery alone, Booker wouldn’t even hit the top ten.

Keep in mind that the most-discussed BioShock game on Tumblr is BioShock 2, and that one of the biggest fandom favorites is Augustus Sinclair—the easy-talkin’ Georgia lawyer who sells your character into horrors past all human comprehension, as he sold hundreds before and after you. Sinclair is a motherfucker so vile that BioShock 2 gives you no choice but to murder him. But Sinclair is also pleasant; good-looking to some; spends the whole game making sweet love to your ear; is one of the only true positive experiences you experience in a horror story. Unlike DeWitt, a man who is brutal and awful from step one, Sinclair is smooth and sweet. Unlike DeWitt, Sinclair’s victims are faceless, completely fictional, and carry no political or social baggage.

People fuckin’ ship this guy with Subject Delta, his explicit victim. He’s usually described as a squishy cinnamon roll. In most fanfiction, he often gets to escape to the surface and fuck Delta while helping raise Eleanor as Dad 2. It is rare that I find fanfiction that acknowledges his monsterhood in all its glory. In fact, I can only think of two.

Literacy Comes in Levels

My problem with the over-the-top hatred of BioShock Infinite is along the same lines as my confusion at Twilight and Harry Potter hate: there is so much worse out there (how much do the haters actually engage with media if they think this is that bad—yes, even considering the shitty creators themselves!), the hatred far outweighs the sin committed (in BioShock’s case, the truly bad bits are not central enough to derail the larger narrative), people don’t seem to hate it so much as they want to be seen hating it, fans want to enforce an unspoken rule hating it (bitches this is poison. Stop this), and there’s something about the hate that stinks of poor reading comprehension.

A great metric for general literacy is the newspaper. In journalism, you’re writing for the lowest-common denominator, which for years here in the USA has been about a fifth-grade reading level (about 10-11 years old, for my non-American readers). The AP posted an article a couple years back about how the general reading comprehension of Americans needs to be dropped to a third-grade one (8-9 years), and baby, I’m here to say it’s true.

Most of the problem is that the American education system is shitty as fuck. The rest of it is from an extremely American disdain of intellectualism and the arts. People are not taught how to interpret art or literature—a difficult and subtle skill which involves accepting such truths as “multiple contradictory readings can exist and yet be simultaneously correct”, “the author can be a complete tool and still be right about things”, “the author can be a great person and still write horrifyingly incorrect bullshit”, and “worthwhile works can be ridiculously long and it really is your fault for not having an attention span”.

Media criticism must be learned through trial, error, asking questions, confidently swaggering into a public space to announce your brilliant insight only to have your ass handed to you (usually by your older self ten years later), being willing to admit you swaggered confidently into a public space to state bullshit and then amending your bullshit only to produce more bullshit, and otherwise making a complete and utter cock of yourself. We are taught to fear and flee pain and failure, despite the fact this is how we learn and improve. Because we judge our value by whether or not we are “smart,” we are afraid of displaying that we don’t know something or might be mistaken–better not to try at all than to reveal ourselves to be fools. And yet the best way to learn is to crash up against someone else and be proven wrong!

American parents are terrified of hurting their children to the point that they spare them cognitive dissonance of any kind, disavowing difficult art—without any appreciation for the fact that art is how we provide safe spaces to explore key human experiences, better preparing us to face those difficult subjects when there are real-world consequences (sex, gender and social expression, grief, violence, predation, illness, interacting with people of different ideologies, whatever new issue is pissing off some smooth-brained old motherfucker somewhere).

If parents and teachers aren’t teaching us how to interpret art, we’re probably never going to develop the skill at all, or crash unsubtly into it in a piecemeal fashion (hello it me). Another unfortunate side effect is that these readers tend to be blitheringly superficial: they are literally intellectually incapable of reading deeper than the uppermost layer of a text. The curtains are always blue.

And let’s not forget the role moral performatism plays in media criticism, which although faaar from new, has reached hilarious levels in the age of social media. What’s important isn’t understanding something, it’s finding something to symbolically burn at the stake so everyone knows God loves us: please keep loving me, please don’t hurt me, please don’t throw me on the fire—for performatism is not for outsiders. We long for human connection so fucking much that it’s more important to destroy what might point out our fallibilities than it is to let ourselves stand in the furnace and burn out the dross.

What do you think the point of BioShock Infinite was?

Emotional Machines

Let’s face it. Human beings give a lot more credence to how something makes them feel than they do its complex invisible reality. We are not logical creatures; we are emotional ones. Our logic is too new a biological mechanism to override something as powerfully stupid as our primal lizard brains.

Knowing this, let’s take BioShock’s most popular characters. The first two are Subject Delta and Jack Wynand, the protagonists of BioShocks 2 and 1, respectively; and why not? They’re the characters we play. In the first two BioShocks, whether or not you kill Little Sisters determines the ending you receive. In other words, Delta and Jack can only be as “wicked” as the players are.

How do people want to see themselves? As good. What do people want to see around themselves? Good. (What is “good”? Uh, well,,,,,,) What do they want? Simple moral questions with simple moral answers. And in the first two BioShocks, what is moral is obvious: don’t kill little girls. It’s actually kind of insulting once you say it out loud.

In-fandom, Jack and Subject Delta are almost never painted as murderers or monsters, but as victims and heroes; I saw someone musing about putting Subject Delta on a “gentle giants” poll and I nearly choked on my own tongue. I only saw that musing because someone put Subject Delta and Jack in a “Best Fathers” poll. Nobody in-fandom really considers the “evil” or “complicated” endings as canon choices, despite those versions being fully understandable alternate readings, with a story that doesn’t make sense without them. (I don’t believe Burial at Sea is necessarily canon; in fact, I would bet good money that it is a huge middle finger lol, mostly because a number of brain-dead motherfuckers won’t take unhappiness for an answer.)

Most fandom art and writing is gentle, sweet, good: the symbolic healing of the damaged, the salvation of innocents, the turning of new leaves. These things are not just saccharine sweet—they tend to be unrealistically sweet. Now, far be it from me to demand these works cease. There’s a reason they exist. People write them because they need hope and happiness; I have enjoyed them greatly myself and intend to enjoy them in the future. But if y’all get to have your dessert, I demand the right to have my dinner.

The Colours Out of Earth

Let there be media where the opposite can also be true: where everything is unbelievably complicated and unforgivably fucked-up. Let there be characters who slide slurs into their speech without thinking. Let there be characters who destroy themselves in a thousand different ways, not all of them obvious, some of them horrifying. Let there be well-meaning people struggling with all their mights to do what is right only to destroy everyone around them and then completely miss the fact it’s all their faults. Let there be wickedness painted as goodness, superficial appearances accepted over essential and inherent values, denial of change and transformation, failure to accept that what is old must die and what is new must live, human stupidity and short-sightedness and cruelty in all their flavors. Let’s smash it all together and see how it plays out.

Oh, badly? No shit! But “badly” isn’t the point. How does it play out?

Let there be a world of gradients—a place I can float from color to color, hue to hue, value to value, while attempting to figure out where, why, how, and by whom they transform—to taste concepts in a hundred different ways, test their textures by a hundred different mediums, insert them into a hundred different contexts. I need to understand why I feel the way I do; I need to understand morality in all its hideous, fragmentary glory. For I have been sold to a ideology of blacks and whites, and let me tell you: it prepares you for nothing, and it will always destroy what is most precious about human life.

I can no longer believe in a world where what is lost always returns, because that world does not exist. I have a reflexive need to come to terms with Finality: what I have lost, what I have destroyed, what will never return, what will never be better. I have a reflexive need to understand Transformation: what I am now, what is as of the present, what has risen shambling from the ashes, what turns to gaze upon me in the darkness. I need to understand what is wretched about me as much as I need to heal myself. How can I heal if I can’t understand how I have hurt and been hurt?

I need to shine a light in the dark. Not to remodel it, not to destroy it—because I also can’t believe in a world where the wicked is destroyed forever—but to behold it, to learn from it, to view my own impact upon it, to accept how it has become a part of me, to learn how to do my best (because that’s all one can do). I must learn to love people more than causes, I must learn to love people rather than the act of winning, I must learn to love people rather than battle. I need to stand in that endless black with the lamp off and my eyes closed, letting the agony roll over me, burning with a fire that throws no light, rolling back and forth from an intense self-loathing to a fury at a society that destroys what is most valuable because it didn’t make them feel the way they wanted.

The Unforgivable

I believe that there are only two differences between Booker DeWitt and his equally cursed cohorts.

In the Hall of Whores: The Unmarked Slate

First, unlike the previous two games, where you enter the world as a tabula rasa and might roleplay as what you perceive as a good person, you are explicitly put into the shoes of a monster, and nothing you do can save you.

With other shitty BioShock characters, you are passively watching other people, and you are able to hold yourself apart. Sure, everyone else is crazy as fuck from using biological Kryptonite, but you’re too smart to end up a crazy fucking asshole like them! Sure, you are now technically a mass murderer, but those fuckers deserved it, damn it!

“Look at this crazy bastard!” you say, rolling your eyes at the Steinmans and Cohens and Ryans and Fontaines. “It sure is a great thing I’m not a crazy bastard!”

You are able to escape acknowledging that you, too, in certain circumstances, might be the crazy bastard. You are being challenged to stand in the body of a person who has committed unforgivable sins. Imagine if you yourself committed those sins. Imagine what sins you have already committed. Imagine what brutalities you cannot take back. Imagine what horrors you have wreaked just by breathing.

“Ahhhh!” said players, probably. “What do you mean I’m not allowed to be good?”

Because that’s what the game was designed to do. Because “good” is a fucking cop-out and if it’s how you live with yourself wait until you find out you’ve been doing horrifying bullshit all your life without question. You can be evil by association through no fault of your own.

Original Sin

Second, the plight of Native Americans is a sin that non-Natives will always carry, and the socially conscious are aware of this even if they don’t know how to put it into words. The state of affairs being what it is, it is unlikely that First Peoples will ever be treated humanely, much less have their land returned. They must struggle for scraps of what is rightfully theirs while we lounge on their corpses. We cannot help but benefit from their destruction; we are made unwitting partners with our forebears; we steal the fruits of their lands and make mockeries of their faiths and identities. We have destroyed part of what made this world fascinating and unique and most of it can never be returned. Even if everything were to be made right tomorrow, their genocide is a sin that we will carry until we die, because the only reason we could be here at all is because they were killed.

The obvious solution stands before us, but the powers that be are so much greater than we that we are effectively powerless, and achieving anything less than total restoration smacks of anticlimax.

This is unbearable.

How can one think of oneself as a good person if one sees the good that must be done, but cannot achieve it? If one’s actions are meaningless? Goodness without action is pretension.

We are all Booker DeWitt. We have all set fire to the tipi. We swept the ashes away, we ignored the sizes of the bones, we built a CVS on their graves, and then we made statues and holidays commemorating Native Americans like the world’s cheapest “Thinking of You” card. We have de-fanged them, transformed them into cardboard cutouts, and set them up as cute little side characters in our sweeping American dream.

Booker is not a man. Booker is America and Americans—and America and Americans are monstrous: one part hypocrisy, two parts incessant violence, three parts constant peacocking, and four parts dumb as a stump.

The Monsters We Make

Outside of the message about “choice,” an enormous part of BioShock’s thematic ensemble is the creation of monsters. How are monsters created? Who or what is responsible for creating them? What do the monsters think made them the ways they are? Can a monster be saved? How? Is it enough to acknowledge you did wrong and want to be a better person?

Maybe most people are aware on some instinctive level of what facing one’s own monsterhood means. No one wants it. It’s not fun. It hurts. It’s embarrassing. It’s destructive. It’s admitting you don’t have it all together and might never, ever—that despite your best actions, you can have it horribly wrong at any point. In an age where we demand moral perfection, it demands vulnerability: you must admit that sometimes you’re the racist, the transphobe, the sexist, the nationalist, the classist, the homophobe, the violent, the wrong, the dumbfuck.

Human beings are not built to be moral; human beings are built to survive. We so rapidly learn how to deal with our contexts at such young ages that we don’t have the time or capabilities to question why those contexts are the ways they are or why it is demanded we perform the ways we do.

In a very real way, BioShock Infinite demands vulnerability of us. It demands you look in the mirror and see what is monstrous in you—how you have been created—manufactured—a tool, a machine, a trained animal. It asks you to recognize that you can be a monster simply by association. And if we can’t look into the mirror and truly acknowledge that monsterhood, we run very real risks of becoming or enabling those monsters in one way or another.

Worst of all: perhaps monsterhood isn’t optional. Perhaps the monster was inside of us from the very beginning. It’s not a matter of if you become a monster, but when, under what circumstances, by whose hand. What is more, believing the “right” moral stances will not save you. Monsterhood can afflict anyone, in any ideology, any political stance, in any social movement, in any faith. The only element that can save you is to truly love other people, and even then, you can fail, for there can be states where there is no winner and ways to misread how best to treat another person.

Environment and Society: Context Will Not Be Denied

BioShock 1’s original ending is Jack-as-monster, regardless of how many children he saves, regardless of your feelings as player. He passes through the gauntlet of Rapture, but he has supped of its poison. And he wasn’t poisoned when he entered Rapture the second time—he was poisoned the minute he was conceived. He was born of it. He had no hope of ever escaping it—he never could have—he’d never had a choice to begin with.

No matter what choices you make in BioShock Infinite, Elizabeth will always kill you. Why? Because she has seen every world—every context—every limitation—every boon. And there is no way to stop what has been; there is no way to undo what has been done. The minute you have committed to a decision, you have split the universe; there is no telling what kind of person it will make you. In fact, there’s no telling which of your decisions will matter at all. Only Elizabeth can see because she is the unlimited future: your offspring stands before you, judge and jury, and you will have no choice but to accept her verdict, for despite your name, you are incapable of controlling how you are interpreted.

Elizabeth sits across from you in the boat and stares without blinking. She sees a million million similar Bookers. Some are a little bit taller, some a little bit shorter, some a little heavier or lighter. Some more-resemble one grandparent or another. They have different colored ties. This one blinks when rain hits him in the eyeball. That one took a brutal beating back on the airship and one eye is swollen shut. That one can’t stop shaking; this one is unable to speak at all; one hasn’t yet lost hope, although even he doesn’t realize it.

They all lowered the torch to the tipi.

The baptism determined Comstock; what determined Booker?

Why Booker Is

In BioShock 1, characters are often stand-ins for larger concepts. Thus Ryan stands in as Ayn Rand’s Objectivist Ubermensch; Bill McDonagh as Andrew Ryan’s conscience; Diane McClintock as the citizenry of Rapture; Captain Sullivan as law and order; Frank Fontaine as the truest expression of Objectivism in its distilled form.

Who is Booker? Most importantly: why is he?

Booker is a fictional character with a brutal background based on historical events, alternative and true. Booker might be Lakota; Booker might have undergone forced Anglicization; Booker might have been ripped from his parents; Booker is a product of violence, perhaps literally. Booker is American exceptionalism distilled. Booker is the past in constant judgment of itself, unable to live with itself and unable to die. Booker destroys what is best in him and around him in exchange for belonging. Booker has sold the future to absolve his sins. Booker has sold his daughter because he is a fictional character in a work of fiction who needs to be propelled.

Booker is a shell, a sluice, an environment. Booker is the broken shape you are meant to fill, horrified. His internal shape should torture you as it has tortured him: the messy slaggy soul of a shitty tin soldier.

Does Booker take the baptism and become Comstock? If so, it might be his second one. His last name literally means “the white.” His first name can mean “author.” It is most likely his second name: an attempt to rewrite himself. And when he was unable to rewrite himself the first time, when the cognitive dissonance boiled at the edges of his skull, he found there was only one way to cleanse himself the second: to remake the world entirely. To force transformation on everyone else. To take vengeance on a world that could never love him, never want him—to create a world that has no choice but to love him. If he can’t change the world’s mind, he’ll change the world.

Note what he opts to do: to take the fight to the environment–to the unyielding universe.

Context Is Everything

It is no mistake that BioShock Infinite occurs in 1912: the sinking of the Titanic is often credited with ending an unfettered optimism, a period when the Western world believed technology had brought the human race into a golden age. With World War I—which would follow a mere two years later—came modern warfare and all the horrors thereof, not the least of which was the realization that humans had created a kind of war that could destroy the entire world. World War I also seeded the rise of the United States: much of the wealth of warring Europe—itself fat on the blood of subjugated peoples and stolen lands—would rattle into America’s coffers.

It is also no mistake that BioShock 1 directly follows World War II. With WWII came a heightened terror—that this war is not the last war, that there will never be an end to war, that war will go on expanding and expanding until it has consumed us all. World War III would not be denied: prettily packaged in the ideals of its children, it simply followed the utopians down to their underwater tombs. According to BioShock 1’s original ending, World War III is not a matter of if—it’s a matter of when.

But even more important than the history in the BioShock games are their settings. Mute leviathans, Rapture and Columbia determine all of your behaviors: from where you can exist in space to all of your desires and goals to how you choose to present yourself to how you opt to behave. Isolated in extremism—whether that extremism is the crushing depths of the ocean or the unbearable lightness of the air—most of their power is that they simply cannot be escaped. You can’t outrun them. They are everywhere. They are everything.

Like Lovecraft before it, BioShock acknowledges the greatest horror of all: you cannot escape your context. Your context does not only involve your immediate surroundings. It is also historical; contains zeitgeists from various cultures and subcultures; is filled with pressures both personal and impersonal, human and nonhuman. Many of these forces can hurt you. Many more can destroy you. What you do to survive depends very much on where, when, and with whom you must live.

Human beings are not built to be moral.

The Death of the Future

In the film Operation, Burma!, a soldier asks Errol Flynn: “Who were you before the war?”

“An architect,” says Flynn.

Who were you? Because that “you” doesn’t matter now. That “you” is irrelevant. So you’re an architect. What the war does to you; what these deaths mean to you; your past, your education, your loves and desires and forward motivation, the you that could have been outside war, the you that slogs alone into the brutal future—all completely irrelevant. Your forebears don’t care so long as you can bleed.

Children are the manufactured tools of their creators—helpless before the enormous strength of their elders and the zeitgeists that enclose them, poisoned by their parents’ insecurities and flaws, utilized like weapons regardless of the cost—often with great love.

Consider something more than the traumatized culture: consider the society filled with traumatized children; consider the traumatized society. Consider channeling children through that trauma over and over and over again, if you can. Poisoned—poisoned—poisoned—all of us poisoned. Poisoned by those who loved us most. Poisoned by the people we trusted. Poisoned by the people who meant to make a better world.

I believe it is notable that creative director Ken Levine is Jewish; I have read from multiple accounts that the European Jewish diaspora was uniquely traumatized from the Holocaust and passed that trauma down upon their own families. I sometimes wonder if he saw that firsthand.

The fathers eat sour grapes; their children’s teeth are set on edge.

Choice: Player Expectations and Entitlement

For players who experienced BioShocks 1 and 2 with their multiple endings (Good, Bad, and “ok bye then I guess” respectively), it must have been jarring to suddenly reckon with being a monster. How often I see players grousing that nothing they do will change their wicked pasts! These players completely miss that the only meaningful choice had already been made, that it had nothing to do with the player at all, and even if they had been there, DeWitt was still unforgivable. The only way to go on was to bow out and allow the future to redefine herself.

Nobody was ready for that shit.

Like it or not, BioShock 1 had set a precedent. Not everyone’s going to read up on creator intentions. If any keyword came blaring through the noise, it would have been “choice.” Most players only recognize choice by the ability to make it, not the absence of it, and most of them weren’t equipped to recognize that its lack was the point. The meaningless choices were commentary, and they were as much about the player as they were about DeWitt himself. Not every choice will be meaningful, will it? And there will be choices you make that will be momentous, but they will seem very small when you make them.

Because most players had experienced what they thought was a basic moralistic tale in the first two games, and would see Infinite not as reflection upon America’s destructive personality, its obsession with a meaningless Good/Bad duocracy, and the infinite, cyclical nature of violence, they saw Booker’s death as corrupted artsy claptrap.

“I did the good schuut,” they say. “I want the good schuut end. Where happy end??? Where treat :(”

Bitch the future is here.

Time to die.

It’s Not Me, It’s You

Generally I despise essays that end with, “But the real fault lay with the clueless motherfuckers who played the game!” Often, if enough people complain, there’s something to it; the message has been obscured somehow. Details or explanations weren’t clear or intuitive enough, some mechanism isn’t working somewhere, some character needs to talk more or less, some setting needs to be transformed. O artist: stop whining and get cracking. If everywhere you go smells like shit, it’s time to look under your shoe.

But sometimes it’s true that a piece of media is on a level folks aren’t equipped for. Think of every literature and art class you’ve ever had, if you’ve been fortunate enough to have one. There’s always someone scoffing in a back row, like here are all these jokers making more of something than they should. Similarly, some of you have been arguing with me this entire time, saying: “I just wanted a video game. I just wanted to shoot something and feel better and instead I get this bullshit ending that makes no sense.”

First of all, smart bullshit (and even fucked-up attempts at smart bullshit! Hi BioShock 2) gets to exist on this Earth along with Gmod and Roblox or Schuut Big Tits 84 (there are 84 tits and you must shoot them all. They explode into smaller tits) or whatever-the-fuck-else you think is a worthwhile gaming experience. Second of all, miserable bullshit also gets to exist, and what did you fucking expect if you played through either BioShocks 1 or 2? When you hear a football player quavering out in the darkness for his mom to pick him up, how’d that make you feel? What did you think was going to happen to Jack after pounding back the entire Plasmid library, the cancer cocktail that explicitly destroys the fuck out of its users? Third of all, if you missed the smart bullshit going on in BioShock 1 and didn’t think BioShock Infinite might be larger in scope in more ways than one, that’s on you. Fourthly, if you were simply satisfied with saving like, 15 kids from a violently-perishing city of thousands and call it good, I mean… is that really where your thoughts end? Are you really that fucking small?

It’s Not You, It’s Me

You ever meet those motherfuckers who talk shit about Shakespeare or modern art? And you’re just left there staring with dead eyes at this poseur who mistakes playing devil’s advocate for intelligence, cheek resting on your fist, thinking about the fanfic you’re writing, wondering who it’s for, remembering that all your smut-writing friends get ten times the viewers, and considering throwing yourself in front of a bus.

Yeah, there’s a personal element to this: the fact that BioShock Infinite is the kind of art I like and long for and want to make myself, the fact that the game was successful and yet the studio was closed, the way its DLC was so rushed that the story plopped out like half-baked mystery meat—realizing that the same forced rush was at 2K’s behest for BioShock 2, as well, and wondering how good art can ever be made in this unforgiving capitalist hellscape. The game was weirdly niche and I’m not 100% sure I’ll ever experience anything quite like it again. And with the whiners in this fandom, the loud ones controlling the narrative, some fresh brain-dead exec in some brain-dead publisher might be like: “We must keep it safer and simpler for these fuckin babby adult!”

Nah bitch nah. Naaaah. Cry some more while I enjoy me my fucking dinner. I’ll eat it while making loud smacking noises and keeping unbroken eye contact. Come here. Let’s look at each other. It’ll be like Lady and the Tramp but we want to punch each other. What truer form of love can there be here in the modern world?

I keep having to remind myself that this response isn’t new. I keep having to remind myself of my place. I keep having to remind myself why I write, why I read, why I like to experience art to begin with. It’s not for the reasons other people do it. Oh, I want the same emotional release as everyone else, I want the same rollicking plots, I adore the same tropes. I seek out everything and anything for a good time; I’ll read Moby Dick today and a smutty 5,000-word abortion with the world’s most suspect grammar tomorrow. I don’t give a shit if it’s low- or high-brow; there are all kinds of ways to have fun and there are all kinds of ways to engage with art, and lord knows I’ve done my share of smooth-brain criticism. The problem is that I’ve always wandered off by myself, sunk into an all-consuming reverie, on tracks that no one else ever seems to be on, and then looked up to talk excitedly about something only to realize I’m alone. And whose fault is that?

By the same token, maybe I haven’t talked enough. Maybe I spend too much time with my mouth shut. Maybe I haven’t stood up enough for things that are worth our time, worth talking up, worth setting on pedestals.

I tell you, BioShock Infinite will stand the test of time. It’s too good for this. It’s too good for you, warts and all. Some of you will grow to understand that; some of you won’t; many of you will shrug and go on with your lives (and this is fine; it is only a video game). But I’ve truly not seen anything like it. I can’t believe a mainstream video game was allowed to be so fucking brutal about the American juggernaut, and what’s more, that it sold like hotcakes. Plus, I can’t think of any works in recent memory that have struck me so close to my own heart. No creative work has made me start beating a monster’s face into a washbasin for ten hours only to lift her by the scalp and see my own eyes looking back.

Look into those eyes. See your own stupid impulses pouring out. Your own stupid excuses, your violences, your sins—your claws, your teeth, your costumes, your hilarious attempts at interpretive dance. The beast doth protest too much.

O, monster—behold thyself—and tremble.

#bioshock #bioshock 2 #bioshock infinite #bioshock infinite burial at sea #booker dewitt #subject delta #jack wynand #augustus sinclair #essays #video games #spoilers #vvatchword #vvbsreceipts

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lukeywritesstuff · 6 months

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this request might be a little confusing to type out but hear me out😭🤣 could u write something ab the reader having a kid and the devils having a event where the players get to train with the kids! the readers kid is one of the kids at the event and luke falls for the reader somehow through that! idk i have this vision in my head but idk how to type it out😭

Little League

Luke Hughes x mom!reader

Note: don’t worry! I totally understand what you’re saying. I read this and kinda had a social media/irl storyline come to my mind so I hope that’s alright! Also I kinda made them slightly know each other, but like acquaintances and they have like mutual friends kinda sorta.

Warnings: a shit ton of fluff. Literally it’s all fluff. Like I don’t even think this has cursing in it. And if so maybe once.

My name is Y/N, and when I was 15 I had a son. He is absolutely everything to me. I was young, and dumb, but if I was given the option to go back and never hook up with some senior at my school, I wouldn’t take the offer. I love my little man too much.

When he was 2 he fell in love with hockey, so at 3 I let him start learning how to skate and grasp the basics of playing hockey, even though for his age it was just floor. Now at 5 he’s playing fully on ice and his team was even invited to practice with the New Jersey Devils, as his team, and we, are based in Newark.

Once we got to Prudential Centre the boys were sent to the main locker room, their names were on tape right under their buddy for the day. I was looking around and right under ‘Luke Hughes’ in full capital letters read ‘Ethan Y/L/N’. I walked my son over to the stall where his name was (obviously avoiding the logo) and I helped him change into his pads, uniform and skates.

After all the kids were settled and ready, coach Ruff started explaining to the kids and the parents how this practice session basically works.

It’s a 4 week training camp, and it’s every Wednesday that the devils are in town. (So 4 Wednesdays, but sometimes there’s a week between the practices without one cuz they’re away) after everything was explained, the Devils were brought into the locker room to meet with their buddies for the program.

The second Ethan saw Luke the smile on his face grew by about 100%. He watched him on Michigan last season as my sister goes there and is friends with some of the older players on the team, and they’ve met before, so he’s excited to see his old friend.

“LUKEY! You’re my buddy! I’m so happy! I missed you! Are we gonna shoot pucks and score on everyone!?” My 5 year old said acting like I just fed him 3 coffees with a side of 10 pounds of sugar.

“Oh yeah we are! We’re gonna be the best group on the ice! With the best cheerleader! Right Y/N?” He said and I smiled at them giving a thumbs up.

After the rest of the kids got to know their buddy a little more the teams were ushered onto the ice, and parents were to stay along the sidelines and not interfere unless there was an emergency.

The team had several smaller nets put up along the boards to practice shooting, cones near centre ice to practice skating, and pucks EVERYWHERE. The kids were all having a blast, and so were the professionals.

By the end of the 2 hours all the kids looked ready to nap, and honestly so did most of the players. Everyone went into the locker room and the players helped the kids with their skates before they talked to the parents.

“So, how was Ethan out there?” I asked the curly headed man smiling at me.

“He’s great. Future NHL superstar I think. The next Gretzky! Forget about bedard!” He said.

“I’m glad my kids THAT GOOD.” I smiled.

“Yeah he is. How are you though? I haven’t seen you since you and Ethan visited Sarah?!” He said bringing up my sister.

“Everything’s great here actually! He’s loving kindergarten now and I got a raise which is why I put him into this. As a little treat for him.” I smiled.

“You’re such a good mom to him. You know, since we’re both in Jersey, I think we should finally exchange numbers, and maybe we can go out for lunch one day Eth’s in school and you’re off and I don’t have practice!” He said smiling.

“You know what, sure Hughes. Pass me your phone and we can text tonight about said lunch date.” I said before taking his phone.

Ynstagram

Had a great time with the @njdevils and @lhughes_06. Eth will never forget this. Thank you so much 🫶🫶

╔═══════════════════╗

The second week was 2 weeks later as the devils had their first road trip of the season. The kids were extra excited because the wait was longer than they expected it to be.

The second Ethan saw Luke he ran to the man and attached himself to him, it didn’t seem weird because quite a few of the kids did the same to their buddies.

Today on the ice they were doing more team oriented practices instead of just one on one. So Luke, Jack, Dawson, and Nico were working together with Ethan and 3 other kids. It wasn't too eventful, just 2 on 2 scrimmage and small drills that 5 year olds can handle.

But this time after helping Ethan change and it was time for Luke and I to talk about his progress, he asks me out for the next evening, I said yes because Ethan was already gonna be at my parents so I'll be home alone anyways, why not spent that evening with Luke!

#luke hughes #luke hughes x reader #luke hughes fanfiction #luke hughes imagine #luke hughes fanfic

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amphitritesmuse · 1 year

Photo

Request by: anonymous

Original Request: Imagine how Namor would react to seeing Reader defend Namor and the son she had with him when Nakia went to rescue Shuri and Riri.

Pairing: Namor x Talokanil!Reader

Word Count: 1,266

Warnings: N/A

A/N: I apologize but I don’t remember exactly the conversations that happened when Shuri and Riri were held as prisoners. I saw the movie 2 months ago so my memory is kind of blank but I also changed the plot to make it interesting. I just hope you enjoy the story, nonnie! I had fun writing it 😉

Translations:

Wokol: Enter

In pixamech: My angel

In yakunaj: My love

Jump’éel tercio u bin yano’ob táan u yu’ulo’ob: A third of their kind is coming

______________________________________________________________

I looked down at my son, as he puckered his lips in deep contentment while I gently stroked his black hair. He resembled his father so much, I thought to myself as I chuckled at his attempt to reach for my fingers and bite at them. As I continued to play with him, I recalled the day when he had decided to enter this world. The sun was nearly setting and the people of Talocan were gathered around the Capital City, joining their hands together.

There was much about his birth that was truly auspicious.

He was born under the Twelfth Heavenly Abode when the Morning-star had risen at the peak of the sky or the planet Venus as these surface-dwellers had named it. This was especially significant as it was also the same day his father was born. K’ukulkan had described that the descendants of his mother’s tribe had told stories of my son’s special birth and had given him the name, Quetzalcoatl. In their honour and my husband’s, I accepted.

I sat up on the cushions of the chair, eliciting a sharp cry from my son. “Shh,” I soothed him, carefully keeping him at my breast and rubbing the small of his back. Suddenly, a distant rustle of sandals approaches my chambers and there was a soft yet urgent knock at the door.

“Wokol,” I announce and Izel, my maid, rushed in. Her features as pale as alabaster and her dark eyes held fright.

“My Lady,” she greeted, “the Wakandans have arrived. They are being held in the prisons near the King’s Cave. Though, there is no one in their attendance.”

I frowned at her words. “What of the King? He is not overseeing this matter?”

Izel momentarily hesitated, wringing her hands together, nervously before she replied. “That is right, my Lady. However, I fear that the prisoners may be plotting their escape as I heard of a third Wakandan arriving soon. Possibly to aid them in their escape.”

My lips twisted into a sardonic smile while holding up Quetzalcoatl in my arms. “Then it is only proper that we greet this newfound guest. Shall we go introduce ourselves and say hello, in pixamech?”

My son squeals and throws his hands up and I walked to Izel, placing him onto her arms as we walk out the door.

I held a basket of guavas, papayas, custard apples, and mamey, while Izel walked next to me with my son in her arms and the other servants brought the other snacks. As we approached the Wakandan prisoners, we placed the baskets down and I reached back for my son.

“What is all this?” One of them inquired.

“A few snacks.” I reply, with a quick calculating glance. “I thought you’d be hungry since you’ve come a long way and I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

“We haven’t come here as guests of the King, we were captured by your people and now, being held as prisoners.”

“Well, that could change if Wakanda decided to become allies with Talocan.” I approach the prison cells and look to the tall woman with the dark eyes and willowy neck. I smiled, “You must be Shuri, the Princess of Wakanda and heiress to its throne and your friend, Riri Williams, a surface-dweller.”

“I see you have been well informed,” Shuri says while her friend, next to her, rolled her eyes in pure annoyance.

“Just because I live in an underwater city does not mean I am oblivious as to what occurs in the Surface world.” I smiled sweetly, and suddenly, my son began to squirm in my arms. I look at him to see if he is alright but he is pointing behind me with a big grin gracing his face.

“In yakunaj,” I hear my husband’s voice and when I turned to see him, he held a look of bewilderment. “What is going on?”

“Jump’éel tercio u bin yano’ob táan u yu’ulo’ob,” I warn, ominously as my husband’s eyes travel to the prisoners. He moved towards them, each step echoing within the halls of the prison.

“I believe I have made a grave mistake in placing my trust in you.” K’ukulkan spoke, his voice becoming enraged by the second. Shuri narrowed her eyes while beside her, her friend shifted uncomfortably.

“We have done nothing -”

My husband snapped as the blood rushed to his face. “Oh, but you have. I hear that another one of your people is breaching the passage to my kingdom. I had truly thought we were coming to an understanding solely in the interest of our people but I have come to realize that all this had been fiction. You were simply feeding me lies and conspiracies to keep me from knowing your true intentions - to poison my kingdom.” K’ukulkan hissed in mock approbation.

“You are clearly mistaken,” a voice echoed through the halls. We all turn to face a woman in a chartreuse green armour holding ring blades. She looked between us and her face a mask of agony and anger. “We have not come to in the purpose of harming your kingdom. I can understand how you must be feeling. Wakanda was once the seat of complete power. Our supremacy was unchallenged. And now the King has died. As has the Queen Mother. ”

“And I’ve come here,” she continued, “for the sole purpose of taking the only heir to the throne back to Wakanda. With or without a fight, I will leave this kingdom with her.”

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

I quickly kicked the blade ring out of her hand and the Wakandan reached to coil her fingers around my throat and I lashed out instinctively with a sudden, hard punch to her face that made her rock backwards and let go of me. She winced in pain but charged towards me.

Though, before she could hit me, I aimed my fist for her again. This time she dodged my hit, grabbed my wrist, and threw me over her shoulder. I managed to turn the fall into a roll to escape her reach as my heart pounded in my ears. The pounding seemed to be almost enough to drown out Shuri’s shouts and my son’s cries as I blinked multiple times to clear my blurred vision.

Suddenly, she runs at me and in a quick and puzzling moment, got a hold of my leg to twist it, but before she could, I used my other leg to kick her down. As I did so, I grabbed her left ankle and yank her down to the ground. She landed hard and yelped in pain. Before she had a chance to stand, I grab her by the throat and slam her head against the ground.

The Wakandan’s eyes widen as she attempts to free herself but I ensured that she never got that chance.

“You should have thought twice before deciding to intrude my home.” I hiss as she began to choke for air and tears stream down her face. Something told me to look to my husband and when I did, I saw him with our son in his arms and an expression of pure shock crossed his features with a twinkle of admiration hidden behind his eyes. I loosen my grip around my enemy’s neck as she began to gasp for air and cough harshly. I look between her and Shuri and made a point in addressing them both.

“It’s come to my attention that you do not know who I am. I am (Y/N). Queen and High Priestess of the Talokanil and the Second-in-Command of the army of Talocan.”

This time, I turn my attention to the intruder as she rises to her feet, still gasping for air. “Your kingdom may be crumbling but I refuse to let you destroy mine.”

#mcu #marvel #mcu namor #namor x reader #namor #namor imagine #shuri #nakia

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birchbow · 1 year

Text

CLOWN CHURCH THE COLLECTION

For the me and my readers both; my reference document for Clown Church nonsense. Compiled character ref, clown scriptures, fleet ships, saints, schoolfeeder names and specialties, etc. Subject to change and additions.

EDIT: nice lmao

Griefing Specializations

Subjugglator – frontline barbarian/tank, high damage low defense. Not much concerned with stealth, not worried about taking hits. Ex: Feeder Rissan, Sungazer, Cisine, Khalse, Travye.

Laughsassin – stealth and assassination, not good at taking hits but very good at infiltration. Quieter/subtler weapons, or the strength and size to make one hit count. Mime-inspired paint. Ex: Rishet, Kurloz, Untoxxic, Hurrel

Contorturenist – field interrogation experts, armored, usually with long-distance weapons. Clean-up crew for missions where information will need to be extracted during the process of the mission. Ex: Ianche and Verato Uderak, Yettah

Acrobatterer – frontline opportunist, experts in speed and evasion. Many lighter, faster hits instead of one heavy one. Better at taking prisoners. Friendly rivalry with the subjugglators, because they’ll often use a noisy, head-on assault as a distraction to opportunistically whack their target on the head—sound tactics or cowardly cull-stealing depending on who you ask. Ex: Ravell and Raywar Olemma. If asked, some of the younger clowns would probably group Karkat here.

Gymnabsolutionist – On missions, a form of field chaplain, praying for fallen faithful to make sure the messiahs took note of their sick-ass sacrifice. On-fleet, spiritual council and advisors. The oldest is expected to lay to rest the soul of the previous Grand Highblood and help the new one through their prayers/vows, although this role hasn’t come into play in a very, very long time.

Joker – Not technically a position you can train for, but colloquially a highblood who multi-classes or whose style and focus doesn’t fit neatly into a category. Gamzee is technically a subjugglator (very big, doesn’t give a shit if he gets hit) but can rapidly flip to acrobatterer tactics. Travye's bonekind uses subjugglator style, but his bookkind doesn't fall into a category.

Saints And Martyrs

Saint Mortor the Defender — Burned alive to protect other purplebloods from lowbloods; like his giant salamander lusus, he proved incredibly hard to burn, and his execution pyre burned for a night and a day. Saint of aspiring martyrs.

Saint Trasti — Prayed to the messiahs for vengeance as she was cut apart by lowbloods; when they burned her corpse, the messiahs listened and brought up a plague from her ashes. Prayers to bring a plague on your enemies or for sick/poisoned faithful

Saint Ekorot — Patron saint of pupation and cocoons, and especially the faithful who die during pupation. One of the oldest saints, said to have hatched with the lower half of her body deformed/largely missing and survived a perigee before being found by the church, surrounded by dead lowbloods and wild animals she'd killed. She was sanctified on the spot because lo, it was fucking dope as hell.

Her bladekind became the Knife of Messiahs' Mercy, the weapon the Grand Highblood uses for ceremonial culling of the faithful (By the new Grand Highblood to finish off their predecessor after the fight is won, when church kin pupate too malformed to live or are so deeply wounded in battle they won't survive, etc).

Saint Jakill — Fought an entire army despite being ripped to increasingly brutal pieces. Refused to go down, until his skull was finally split with his own hatchet. Patron saint of berserkers, death-rages and suicide missions.

Schoolfeeders Of The Flagship Dark Carnival

Halore Travye — The Stædfast, advanced scripture and exegesis.

Separates his letters with an extra space, capitalizes nouns and the letter I. Square bracket smiles/frowns.

"sacredDidaction: T h e q u I c k b r o w n F o x j u m p e d o v e r t h e l a z y D o g . : o ["

Veneno Krelle — The Untoxxic, advanced mediculling, poisons/antidotes.

Doubles Xs and inserts them in place of similar sounds. X-eyed smiles/frowns. When speaking they tend to have difficulty finding and forming words due to a long, long career being exposed to all sorts of neurotoxins and poisons.

"abstersiveDetoxifier: If you axx me, the foxx has better things to be doing. X...X" (=uX, XnX XsX)

Ianche Uderak — The Inquirer, advanced information management/propaganda.

Hisses on S, ends all sentences as questions except the occasional Shocking Headline. Snake-tongued faces.

"mortalRigor: Sssso why wasss the fox with the dog at all? >:oY Ssscandal!! Quick Brown Fox Hass Torrid Pitch Affair With Ssslothful Barkbeasst?"

Arelux Stelos — The Sungazer, schoolfeeder of galactic navigation, omens and starcraft.

Starts and ends with ~* and *~, replaces I and O with 1 and 0. Tends to trail out words and emphasize with capitals and multiple asterisks/punctuation when worked up, which is often. Smiles/ frowns have starry eyes.

"grandlyCosmic: ~*000h mess1ahs you w1ll **never** bel1eve what the STARS told me today about the fox's dest1ny!!!!*~ *u*

Belico Rissan — Warmaker, Combat/griefing, avid collector of various strife specibi

Largely normal clown syntax but will frequently phrase things with all-caps over-the-top violent language. Doesn't bother to capitalize or use periods but an avid user of exclamation points.

"sanguineEclectica: the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy barkbeast and landed in THE PIT OF A SPIKED AND BLOOD-PUTRID CULL-TRAP as a lesson to complacent wrigglers everywhere! :o)"

Karkat Vantas — Schoolfeeder of quadrantcraft, originally as a joke, but unfortunately for all the elder members of the church the new baby clowns don't know that and he's increasingly accepted and legitimized with every class he teaches.

Minera Tresor — Scriptural basics (deceased)

The Holy Holidays

TURNING NIGHT/DAY

The troll equivalent on New Years Night/Day; for most of the population it's a raucous all-caste night of celebrating that they've made it another sweep without dying. For the church it's their most sober holiday, a reminder that another sweep came and went without the promised Vast Honk and Dark Carnival. Faces are painted white (funeral paint) during the night, and in the morning everyone takes off their paint entirely until the new sweep is rung in at noon.

In the meantime, it's expected everyone will spend the night/day fasting from food and drinks, and tempting themselves with things they want or enjoy, whether that's making your favorite food and not eating it, or hooking up with a quadrant and then breaking off before either of you are satisfied.

Then at noon everybody goes buckwild and indulges until they're sick.

ALL COLORS WEEK

A very rowdy church-wide holiday. Work forbidden, only fun and capricious impulse. Copious colored clothes and decorations, painting, and powder dye are rampant. It’s traditional to stash little brightly-colored objects (and vials of blood) throughout the rest of the sweep and then hang them out a day at a time through the week so that the decorations get slowly more colorful and vivid. They lump the seadwellers in with the rustbloods and the last colors to get hung up on the last day are the colors of the church.

There’s also a different major saint for each day, which some people remember to pray to and some people don’t. There’s a lot less quiet internal prayer at this point too--if you have something for a saint or messiah to hear, you probably shout it.

Also; massive games of--essentially--capture the flag. Teams are assigned according to age group, with the youngest/most numerous cohort starting on the first day. They’re split in half into a team with a seadweller-color flag and rustblood-color flag, which they play for for the first day. After that the next age-group comes in with their color, and all three teams try to collect the flags, and onward and upward until the schoolfeeders and generals come in to play, each with an incredibly high-point-value purple flag. You have to challenge them to a duel to win one, in whatever area they teach/specialize in. It’s pretty widely assumed that you won’t actually beat them, they just respect your attempt enough to hand it over, but if you do everybody is like !!!!!!! WOW HOLY SHIT DUDE and you’re a hero to the rest of your team. The points system is pretty unofficial but the more flags you have, and the higher the blood color of those flags, the more you “score”. Winner gets preferential treatment for the next two weeks.

Ships Of The Holy Fleet

Names of ships are subject to change when a new captain takes over, although they aren’t always changed—when Kurloz joined the fleet, the flagship was the Painted Disciple, and Kurloz changed the name to the Dark Carnival after he successfully challenged the previous Grand Highblood.

The Blessed is intensely focused on prayer and meditation and prophesy—much less in the way of combat training etc. You can get religious training anywhere on the fleet, esp. the flagship, but if you want to basically focus your life on spirituality the Blessed is full of like-minded trolls.

The Orisoner is Just Straight Up Vibing to an extent that many trolls find unnerving, but the crew of the Blessed are absolutely ride or die with her/him/them/etc. His powers are 100% min-maxed into sucking hate/rage/fear out of people, and the resulting good vibes and soft euphoria are a powerful (and borderline addictive) combination. Secretly terrifying, because nobody wins fights against her--because very few people can even bring themselves to lift a hand against them in the first place.

irenicDevotion: no caps, sooo many smilies :o) and just like... emphasis extensions my duuude :oD copafuckincetic

The Sinner is a party boat, which is considered an act of worship in and of itself. People just get rowdy and wild and live it up at all times. If there was air in space, you would be able to hear it as you approached to board—when it’s landed, you can hear it, and it’s super eerie. Lots of trolls whooping and honking and shouting in a big metal box.

The Libation's powers are addictive in a different way; he's physically intoxicating to be around. If he focuses, he can easily have most people, especially people who aren't used to being drunk/high, blacked out and pretty much incapacitated.

ecstaticEroticism: 8RO h'es. straiht up nightdrinking rn. look hers his 8onkinggourd. all teh 8s their 8s its little drinking gurds. motherfuckr this paryts LIT roflmao

The Joker is a pretty standard barrack ship, although it has the notable reputation that under the current captain if you’re cheeky enough to do something and do it well, you should be allowed to get away with it even if it’s against the rules. It takes the majority of mediocre-to-fair trainees every generation, and compared to the Dark Carnival, a much higher percentage of its graduates go on to live off-fleet on shuttles or colonies.

Sister Waspclaw is a walking test of everyone who meets her's ability to read a passive level of threat and calculate accordingly. Very talkative, encouraging and pleasant, with an extremely dangerous and unhinged core. Her whole philosophy is that you can get far in life by figuring out what the most daring trick you could pull and get away with is--but it's very important you don't try to take even an inch with her. She's tiny, but her claws are incredibly venomous and very few trolls in the entire church fleet can match her for speed.

toxicAudacity: wazpclaw'z zo excited to talk zhe can't even bother with the zentencez and ztuff like that and it all flowz together but if you pizz her off you're DEAD MEAT and you can tell if you've pizzed her off becauze when zhe's angry zzzzzhe zzZZTARTZ GETTING A LITTLE UNHINGED AZZZZZHOLE!!! >:o[

Elixir and Stardust are commercial centers; the two ships used to be separate, but the people living there had so much reason to cross between the two, they put boarding passages up and welded them in place, fusing them together. People who handle the dark, mysterious and miraculous arts of financial management and resource acquisition work here. It’s also the most common place for the few cult members who aren’t purple-blooded, one of the few places they’re comparatively safe. Some non-church quadrants of purplebloods will also set up hive here.

The Abattoir is canny, sober, and calculating, a loyal ally until slighted and then a bitter enemy. The nature of her identity is a topic of fierce public debate, and he's certainly not giving out answers. Whether her consciousness is originally one of his bodies now inhabiting two, an amalgam of two minds indistinguishably linked, or some completely external force puppeting two bodies, everybody can agree she's damn good to have on your side, and that crossing him is a fatal mistake.

duelReactor: II speak clearly and concisely because II respect your time, motherfucker, and forsooth you will respect me similarly. II am busy today: I am on-ship and I am travelling to the flagship for work. II will be back in office by sunrise.

The Freakshow is a cesspit of violence and bloodshed. A very dangerous place, but also prime picking ground if you have strong conciliatory urges and are looking for your One True Diamond. People who want to settle shit once and for all can come here, and the winner will probably get a cut of the pot from the people betting on their death-match. The bloodshed and rage are technically holy and irreproachable but most fleet faithful tend to give this ship a wide berth.

The Behemoth is the epitome of Alternian culture: take what you want through force of bloodcolor and unmitigated violence, and maintain it through merciless supremacy. Sharper than it likes to act, and with a blatant disregard for any power except its own monstrous strength, it's been butting heads with the Grand Highblood ever since it came to power, and only a surprisingly canny ability to judge the rare occasions it's outmatched has kept it from marching on the Big Top and trying to take the throne by force.

brutishAnnihilation: O- BIG MOTHERFUCKER, BIG LETTERS, ONLY LITTLE BITCHES BOTHER WITH PUNCTUATION -O

The Penitent is essentially church jail, for sinners and troubled faithful, especially/specifically those who don’t have any close mentors or quadrants to help rehabilitate them. It’s also where prisoners under suspicion of church-related crimes are kept to wait for inquisition, as well as non-urgent/non-imperial messengers from outside the church who are waiting to be heard by the Highblood.

The Judgment is both incredibly stern and strict, and also surprisingly forgiving--her job isn't to decide who to cull, it's to decide which sinful highbloods can make their way back into the church, through a lot of prayer and ritualized punishment. In person, though, she's a terrifying battle-ax of a troll with zero patience for dilly-dallying or lollygagging or talking back or not talking back enough or failing to use her title or answering clearly and concisely!!! She has shit to do!

consecratedCourtroom: Very rarely embellishes. Very rarely ends sentences with anything but a period. Speaks CONCISELY to get her point across. Uses emphasis scaling that always seems a LITTLE passive aggressive and sarcastic. Occasional interjections of OVERRULED. GUILTY. DISMISSED. IRRELEVANT. Etc etc.

The Dark Carnival is a little bit of everything, but the clowns who work there are generally the best of the best in at least one area, or extremely promising. Intensely-devoted cultists, genii of violence and/or interrogation, artists, artisans, the rare mechanics, geeks and scientists, navigators, or just trolls who show a lot of ambition and leadership, all get funneled into the Dark Carnival to be trained up as heads of their respective fields.

Trolls are always coming and going from ship to ship for whatever they need or to visit other faithful, and there’s always the constant low level of kinship between any members of the church, but there is also a certain amount of distance between the microcultures of each different ship.

Outfitting is pretty consistent ship to ship, with exceptions; on the Penitent nobody but the sufferingmasters and the captain are allowed weapons, armor, or decoration. On the Blessed clothes tend to be plain and austere by cult standard, but they are allowed to wear armor and carry weapons.

Scriptures (to date)

Beginnings - a clown book of Genesis, of sorts. Creation myths and ancient church history.

“When it started we had fuck-all but dark. And so it stayed until Messiahs pulled back the curtain and said ‘let’s get this motherfucking party started’. And they threw stardust down and it hit mud and it made dirtbloods, baked all dry enough like they could crumble if you breathed wrong. And it hit water and it made waders; wet, cold, mirthless salty motherfuckers with too much eye for their own motherfucking sparkle. But where it hit oceanside it made trolls out of sand, all capricious as fuck and changing with the water. Trolls who could go hard or give when they had to. All balanced on the universe high wire and not ever falling sea-side or ground-side but right there on their line like the acrobatterers they were. From the sand were made the faithful; from the beachwood their horns, their goddamn bone snapped off from sea-floor stones on mountains under the water. And what they made was Troll. Only that. Just that and no motherfucking more. And when the last world was all fit together, messiahs looked on it and said ‘motherfucking money’.

“Remember this story, faithful, and remember its lesson. Change yourself always like sand in the water, you motherfuckers hand-shaped of surf and whimsy.”

“Urge of chaos and whim of change be ever on your skin like paint, in your pusher like blood, on your horns like a crown. Mirthful, faithful. Kickass and giving no shits.”

(Book of) Colors - church policy on lowbloods, seadwellers, social order and painting, as well as the meat of the “Dark Carnival” scriptures/afterlife mythology.

“You’re next. You’re motherfucking next, give no mercy because the mercy of the messiahs is only as much as fits in their hands and what’s poured out on shitblooded scum will not be given you in the dark carnival gates and—”

“The Vast Honk will deafen and take from us, and all together we’ll head on up and get our dance on through fire and over skulls and horns—”

“No fear, brothers and sisters, no fear of the waders, the brine-drinkers. There's no mirth in the sea and no painting the water doesn't wash off and you've got your hands on the righteous shit they won't ever know. No fear of the waders, for you're higher than them. You're higher than anybody.”

“I fucked up, I fucked up, the fault's mine and there's no motherfucker I can share it with, I fucked up, forgive me.”

Sacrament - ceremonies, specifically related to new initiates and promotions within the church. Naming ceremonies, promotions, priesthood bestowal, etc.

Suffering - Stories of martyr deaths and heretic executions. Unique in that it is occasionally edited or added to if the church believes a story has been included in error or that a modern event needs to be added to the record.

“…I am lost, kin. My eyes see no colors I know.”

The Cult of Flesh were a heretic movement deemed too dangerous to the faith of the readers to be included in the book of Suffering. Their belief that the Messiahs came to Alternia and were raised in flesh bodies by a troll acting as a lusus has been stricken from this record; their attempt to win over the current Grand Highblood, who they consider the descendant/reincarnation of the holy troll-lusus Brother Immortal, caused a schism and internal inquisition violent enough to be purged from the accepted imperial history.

Hilarities - Platitudes and words of wisdom, including the rules of comedy, the Great Unfunny Jokes, and some really quite good dating tips.

“It’s not a wise one who leaves the place of their motherfucking heart untimely. No laughter in the suffering of those early lost of their quadrants so rest you with heart and spade and club and diamond and speak of the fucking Hilarity to each other.”

“Fill the night enough full of holy deed and you’ll have no need of sopor to bless you with dreaming.”

“Ha ha, you salty motherfucker.”

“Let your spade burn hot, drive you up and make you great. In this motherfucking way your kin will increase you and I’m not just talking about your bulge, LOL.”

“The wage of weakness is death; fear the only edge sharpened by waiting.”

“Take all you can grasp in your greed and your lust. If something you want comes to your fronds, motherfucker, take it and run like it’s yours.”

Hot Shit – Letters from a historical Grand Highblood to his matesprit. Considered by some to be a holy template of pity and matespritship, and to others a hot piece of smut that has been hilariously canonized.

(Hot Shit 1:1) "My sister in mirth, blessed in hilarity, peerless in holy rage; u up girl? :o?"

“Only let me hear you want me! Hold me down and devour me, my love.”

“When my feet touch soil again I’ll make my way to you. Take me as you like, heart of my heart; throw me down and fuck me under night sky and the Messiahs will only hear me sing praise out louder. I’m hollow as a thunderstruck tree for you, sister. I need you like starving needs food, like rage needs mercy, like sin needs forgiveness, like pain needs pleasure.”

"In grandest tradition of hot motherfuckers at the prime of their lives, fuck if I don't get mad stupid when I'm horny, sister. :o("

"Well the fuck I will reward you when you come back to hive. So well will I show my love for your thicc motherfucking ass, not for a night and a day and a night will you get feeling back in your motherfucking legs."

Revelries - Praises and adulation to the messiahs.

"I'll sing out my praises with wicked flow to the messiahs who saw fit to smile on me. I'll praise and shout how I'm greatly blessed, I'll cry and weep how I'm not fucking worthy; their claws are in my soul, in the shape of my body, in the beat of my pusher. Oh, my holy kin, we are color and light inside. We are stardust. Hands raised and faces laughing, spitting sick and delirious, together in glory.”

“…the halls around you will be painted bright and all the glitter and shine you’d want; get ye lit as fuck, brothers and sisters, let the beauty of their holy color and noise spin your pan like a motherfucking top.”

“Oh that I’m of use to you, all times and ways and places, my idle rest is to watch your show and my dreaming to hear the holy motherfucking noise."

“For not a troll was ever made, who didn’t fuck up nightly; never a faithful hatched who deserved their seat at the show.”

“Never will we be anything but loud, nitty-gritty dirty little freaks. Lo, pour elixir and raise a glass.”

Conviction - The duties and trials of the church

“…leave ye not the dirtbound warm of blood to crawl and scrape, and waste offerings in vain. They owe you penance and awe and what they give you are owed to take. A good ruler does the mercy of taking.”

“When your feet are unsure and what comes on you is un-fucking-funny, seek you holy suffering in penance.”

“Dumbass, don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“If fool-ass jokers fail to learn from looking, let their bodies learn it for them; scars teach best what a motherfucker’s too deaf to hear.”

“If your kin gets you sinning, cut them away, no true fucking family can they be. If the noise from your flap be blasphemous, carve it from you and stitch shut your filthy mouth, motherfucker. If your flesh leads to sin scourge it clean, washed in blood; cut away rot, and leave only what’s holy. Repentance by mouth never saved a soul; spill blood and flesh in price of forgiveness.”

Angels - Death, last rites, damnation/double death, hell, etc.

“[death] itself is not a glory; more glorious far to walk on and trail paint where you walk.”

‘I suffer pain, and want become need…I am allowed no motherfucking means to make resistance. I wait for death, brothers. Pour one out for remembrance of my soul’.”

“Why seek martyrdom when you could bring a hundred down with you? Turn martyrdom to murderdom. Paint the way; make them pay. Shit, kin, let’s be destroyers.”

Devotions - Prayers, repentances and rituals. (”Leader.” “Congregation/faithful.”)

Repentance of sin (ending) - “Hail messiahs both.” “Their works, their great motherfucking joke in the pits of the worlds they left and in the space in between.” “Hail messiahs both.” “Your penance is paid.”

Reaffirmation of faith - “If I go false on promised devotions let messiahs grind stardust out my bones.” “If you’d paint the face of flawed unholy troll with the shades of our holy messiahs, answer yes brother I will.” “Yes brother, I will.”“If you believe truly in what holy mess and bloody riot will come at end of worlds, if you plan on being full and motherfucking ready, make some motherfuckin’ noise.” “(Response, freeform).”“Have your ticket ready when you kick it, give me an amen brothers and sisters.” “Amen.” “No mercy, faithful one.” “Amen.” “No fear.”

The Dark Scriptures - only shown to religious sacrifices before their deaths. Readers must subsequently die. Contents are a mystery.

His/Her/Their Mirthful Majesty

King/Queen/Crown of Colors

His/Her/Their Holy Hilarity

Biggest brother/sister

The Ringmaster

#Homestuck #CLOWN CHURCH BAYBEEEEE #anyway I have always had trouble finding my much older (now outdated) post of scriptures so this one's getting pinned lol #Hopefully this helps the people who have had to scroll through my whole-ass blog in the past trying to find ref #I keep this plus story notes at the bottom of the document because there is SO much lore and bullshit I have to remember #and my memory is NOT that good lol #art time!

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dani-says-stuff · 1 year

Text

Myrtles Plantation

❥ Back to the Control Center

❥ Nate Hardy Masterlist

- note the reader is afraid of dolls in this one - also my love for Amanda spills through... a lot... but I think it adds character, spice, and humor, so I'm leaving it in

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Nate Hardy x fem!medium(?)reader

Summary: Based on this request

« could u do a nate x reader (in a relationship) at the haunted plantation?? like she sees something and amanda lets them know it was evil??? »

Thanks to this anon for reminding me this was in my drafts

Thank you for my first request anon!! so so so sorry it took so long!

I hope this is what you were looking for, I kinda went off the deep end with it lol

Word Count: 4.1k

Warnings: language, hauntings, evil spirits, creepy stuff, inconsistent capitalization, my disregard for run on sentences and “pRopEr gRammAr”, unedited ramble writings bc i just wanted to finally get it published for y’all, maybe incorrect timeline? technically? bc i can’t remember if Nate was in a video with Amanda before this one…

Dialogue Key:

Y/N

Nate

Sam

Colby

Amanda

Spirit Box

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

You and Nate were currently in his car, driving to the plantation for Sam and Colby's video.

Nate was nervous. That much was obvious from the tight, white-knuckled grip he had on the steering wheel. You could practically see the the tense emotions rolling off his skin in waves. You however, were practically buzzing in excitement.

You opened up the camera app on your phone to record a little clip. One you would either post to your instagram story soon, or you'd send it to Colby to put before the video... you hadn't really decided what you were going to say yet.

First, you brought the camera really close to your face, barely anything other than your forehead, eyebrows, and eyes in frame, "Ok so- I don't really know where this clip is going to be shared yet... or if it'll be out at all... but Nate is being boring and having a panic attack and I'm super excited and want to talk to someone about it."

You extended your arm, full face now in view as you smiled widely at the front facing camera, "Guess what!" you yelled, "We're filming with the boys again!" you spoke, flashing the camera to show Nate as he drove, "and that's not even the best part... drumroll please... the love of my freaking life is coming with us!" you squealed.

Nate's eyebrows furrowed, barely sparing a glance in your direction, instead keeping his eyes on the road, "Babe, you already showed me?"

"Oh not you." you scoffed, rolling your eyes, "You're just my boyfriend."

"Mhm..." he hummed, blinking a few times trying to figure what exactly it was he was failing to understand, "Yeah no. I don't get it N/N... pretty sure 'love of my life' and 'boyfriend' are the same thing."

You tilted your head pondering the thought for a moment, ultimately shaking your head innocently, "Nah, it can't be. There are two very different people that take up those positions."

"Oh really?"

"Oh yeah." you turned your gaze, meeting the side of his face,"You may be my boyfriend, and I love you so, so, so, very much..."

"But?"

"But.." you grinned turning to face the camera, "The love of my life is the wonderful and beautiful Amanda~" you sang, moving your phone forward once more blowing kisses at the screen.

"Oh my gosh! I'm so excited!" you yelled, shaking the screen for emphasis.

The brown haired male next to you laughed at your actions, "Babe, be careful, you're going to make 'em all dizzy."

"True" you shrugged, focusing your phone once more, "anyways, you've probably guessed it by now, but we're doing another investigation tonight!"

You flipped the camera, showing nothing but trees surrounding the vehicle, "We're currently in the middle of nowhere- but that's because this location is a little different than usual."

"Yeah, instead of like a house with like- other neighbors around it and stuff" Nate spoke up, "were going to a plantation, in the middle of just like- trees" he shivered awkwardly, hissing in discomfort, "so if we get in trouble or something there's nothing for miles."

You scoffed, pulling the view back on yourself, "Yeah I guess, but that's fine because nothing is going to go wrong!" you exclaimed happily

"Mhm, and how do you know that?"

You winked at the camera, patting the area over your chest, "I have a good feeling about it."

"Yeah ok then- remind me how you feel when we actually get there."

You laughed loudly at you boyfriend, finally getting a small crack of a smile across his lips. "Anyway, that's all for right now. See-you-all-when-we-get-there-bye-bye" you rushed, quickly ending the video.

As soon as he could tell you stopped recording, Nate spoke up, "now what was that for?"

"Updating the public" you shrugged, starting a quick conversation with Colby over text.

Hey~ might've just filmed a little intro clip for you

You're welcome of course

And you better use it

I put a lot of effort into it

Oh really?

Obviously

Send it over

I'll check it out

About 2 minutes later after your mini vlog went through, he responded

Oh yeah, thats going in

You're good if I do a little editing over it?

Ofc

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Later, when viewers clicked on the video, they would be greeted to a huge tone shift between the first 2-3 minutes of the video, versus the of it.

First, your little intro, which basically became a fan cam for Amanda. Bright hearts and anime blush- the whole nine yards.

Broken, of course, every once in a while with a freeze framing on your real partner. The video going gray scale, with rain and violin music playing in the background.

Then, hard cut straight to the footage outside the plantation. ━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Soon, the group of five were all stood before Myrtles plantation, waiting for the tour to begin.

Sam turned to Nate, camera pointed to him, "Are you excited?"

"Dude- I- just-" your boyfriend sighed dramatically, bringing his hands up to rub at his eyes. You, however, could be seen lurching forward in laughter at his reaction, "It just like everytime you bring me on one of these."

You walked up, placing a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm your breaths, "Yeah, so thats a no." you looked up at him, pouting when he met your gaze, "He's very nervous"

"You look terrified."

"I can tell by your- genuine face of excitement right now"

Nate forced a sarcastic smile on his face that turned out more of a grimace, "Oh yeah? This face? Right here?"

You struggled to hold back your laughter, "All excitement from him on the way up here"

He turned his head, looking down at you as you were still holding onto his shoulder, "You know, usually you're a bit more cautious about these things."

You shrugged, "But we have Amanda here this time," you gestured to her, "There's finally someone else to help me keep you guys from doing something stupid."

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

The five of you entered the house, deciding to take a quick look around before the tour guide arrived.

Almost immediately upon entering the door, something caught your attention- and no it wasn't the smell the boys were busy commenting on.

Hung on the wall of the foyer, there was a mirror. You couldn't quite put a finger on it, but you could tell there was something strange about it.

For now, you just assumed it was how dated the mirror looked. Nothing from today looked like that.

Soon, the boys called you over to the steps, wanting to take a peek upstairs. Sam and Colby had already made their way up with Nate following behind them, leaving you and Amanda still on the first floor.

"Hey" you tapped the blondes shoulder, "Just to- uh, to make sure... you feel that too, right?" you asked, looking up the stairwell.

She hummed, "Yeah, thats probably because of what happened on the 17th step."

You simply nodded enthusiastically despite having not clue what the significance of that specific step was, "Oh yeah of course. Just making sure I wasn't the only one feeling that sense of impending doom" you joked

Amanda laughed breathily at your phrasing, "Yeah, after events like that, they tend to leave a heavier, darker feel behind."

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

You didn't find out till later that night, it wasn't just a slip down the stairs, but a death on the 17th step.

Thanks a lot for leaving that out Sam.

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

By the time you made it up the flight of stairs, the group had entered one of the bedrooms. Everyone was inside except for your boyfriend, who stood before the doorframe waiting for you.

"Hey babe..." he spoke scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, grabbing your hand with the other, "so, just like a heads up, there's like... a shit ton of creepy ass dolls in there."

Your eyes widened looking up at him, "What?"

"Yeah, like the entire mantle?" he gestured with his hands, "Just- completely covered."

"I don't wanna go in there" you shook your head quickly, eyes still wide as saucers gripping his hand tighter.

"Just- just don't look to your right when we walk in?"

You squinted you eyes at him, "...why?"

Nate shrugged, "Oh you know, there might be one that is kinda-sorta positioned to look at you when enter." he spoke nonchalantly as he dragged you through the door.

You glared up at the brunette, "what?"

"By the way, we have to sleep here tonight-" the both of you heard from further in the room, "So someone is getting the room with the creepy doll staring at you."

You knew your friends- so without even thinking you threw your pointer finger up, touching your nose.

"Woah, woah, woah" you rushed when the other three looked in your direction with shit eating grins, "No I did it- it was Col-"

"Nope, I'm safe" the black haired man cut you off.

You looked up slowly, glare pointed directly at your shocked boyfriend, who hadn't done it in time. "I'm going to kill you."

You looked over his shoulder, seeing the dolls for the first time. You quickly dropped his hand running over past Amanda and out to the next room, "Nope! I just wont be sleeping with you."

Nate quickly followed, arms extended "Wait babe! No please! Don't leave me alone!" Leaving a laughing Sam and Colby behind, filming the entire thing.

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

"Sam" you spoke up once the tour was over, "next time we do one of these things you've got to tell me more than just 'oh were going to a haunted mansion'" you mocked

"What's up?" he laughed, "What do you mean?"

"Oh you know" you gestured around, speaking with your arms, "yellow fever death child, owner of the house killed on the steps, poison murders, voodoo queen death, ghost mirrors-" you listed propping your hands on your hips, "I could go on and on."

"It's haunted Y/N, what did you expect?"

"Not this!" you shrieked.

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

Soon, the five of you began the investigation in Chloe's room, each wearing a set of clip on earrings. Thanks to your wonderful, amazing boyfriend, you and Amanda were wearing the hoops.

In addition to the earrings, Amanda came with some gifts with the four of you. she gave Colby a crystal to help amplify his empathic skills, and evil eye bracelets for both Nate and Sam.

"These are just because I felt bad getting something for Colby and not you two." she spoke handing over the bracelets.

The raven haired man gasped, bringing his hands up to his chest, "She has a favorite!"

Nate placed his hands up on his waist, popping out his hip, "Well that's ok." he shot back sassily, dangly earrings swishing by his neck.

The blonde girl however, hummed in agreeance with Colby reaching back into her bag, "Yep, but it's not you." setting off scandalized gasps from the two men and hysteric laughter from sam. Amanda approached you with a small bag usually used for jewelry.

You took it smugly, leaning forward to kiss her on the cheek, "Thank you m'love"

"of course darling" she played along, "I heard you also have some abilities, so I picked out three things to help" she spoke as you opened the bag, pouring the items in your hand, "Ok, so this one is Labradorite" she pointed to the darker, slightly iridescent one, "It is one of the best crystals for enhancing abilities, it extends your awareness, helps you connect with the spiritual world and can be very grounding and helpful for mediums." she moved to the brighter crystal, "This one is Angelite, the same as Colby's-"

"oh." the mentioned male scoffed playfully, crossing his arms, "I see how it is... I feel very special now."

"-and the last one," Amanda pointed to a pitch black stone that was attached to a corded necklace, "is Black Tourmaline, which is really good at protecting and shielding you from bad energy. It can basically cleanse you from any unwanted energy that comes your way."

"Ok!" sam exclaimed, "Now that we've handed out the gifts and the pity gifts" he raised his wrist up to the camera, making the rest of you laugh, Lets get on to the investigation!"

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

The group decided to move on to the seance room after very little seemed to be happening within Chole's room.

"I hated this room earlier" Nate shivered next to you, "It just... I don't know, it's just weird."

You nodded as you followed him in, "Yeah? Now imagine feeling heavy when you walk in"

"Really?" he looked down at you, "What do you mean?"

"It's just like what Amanda said earlier," you shrugged softly, "it's just very heavy in here, it feels tight."

You let go of Nate's hand, leaving him as he went to look at a painting in the corner, approaching Amanda instead. You stood next to the blonde as she looked up at the mirror that faces the one in the other parlor.

You shifted you gaze between her and the mirror quickly, "So... whatcha lookin at?"

She gestured you to stand next to her facing the mirror, never once moving her own gaze from the glass, "so look up there," she pointed at a specific area, "and unfocus you eyes- almost like youre trying to look through the mirror" she explained.

Within a few seconds she could feel you tense beside her, causing the blonde to grin, "you see it?"

"yeah" you breathed, nodding slowly, "yeah I see it"

"Yo wait" Nate whipped around, "see what? exactly?" he moved up behind you, placing his head over your shoulder, squinting his eyes to find whatever the two of you seemed to see, "I dont see it"

"I keep seeing things move behind me" Amanda spoke

"I cant see anything specific" you added, "but I can see shapes moving" you explained gesturing up to point in the direction of the areas you spoke of, "like I saw something move like this" you dragged you hand, "and something over there"

Amanda hummed in affirmation, "yep, where you just pointed, between this wall in the candles, there's someone" she moved her other hand, "and over here, where you saw something move, there was some kids."

"thats crazy"

"are you feeling anything right now?" Nate questioned, as Colby moved to flip off the lights.

The both of you answered simultaneously, gaving very opposite answers,

"No."

"Yes."

and for the first time in what felt like hours, you and Amanda broke your gazes from the mirror turning to each other instead.

"You really dont feel that?"

she shook her head, "no, I'm seeing them. I feel that someone is here, like I have full goosebumps"

"N/N" Nate placed a hand on your shoulder, "what are you feeling?"

You looked back to the mirror, looking for anymore blurs, only to see nothing, "It felt like- happy? I guess? Like you know that feeling of when you'd go to the park when you were younger and you were just like- excited? it felt like that."

Amanda nodded slowly in thought, "well, that could be the kids I saw, they did look pretty happy."

"but now" you spoke up once more, causing the boy's eyebrows to furrow, "now it just feels crowded. I cant pull one emotion from another. Its so weird."

"the energy in here is insane" Amanda agreed, "I feel like if we did a seance at the seance table- we could get some pretty gnarly stuff"

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

So, that what the group did. you broke out the spirit box, and immediately you were greeted with several hellos.

"Is there any sign you could give us of who were talking to?" Sam spoke up, "a name, an occupation?"

Kate

Colby looked up with squinted brows, confused at the sound "what did that say"

"it said Kate" you responded from next to Nate, hand on his arm, "im pretty sure it said Kate"

"yeah" Amanda added, "I wrote Kate right before it said that"

"is it true that this room is a portal?"

you stepped back at the question, making Nate look to you in concern "guys I just got really nautious-"

Evil

"oh no-no-no- I don't like that" you rush out, placing yourself on the other side of the doorframe, "i'm definitely not a fan of that"

Sam, Colby, Nate and Amanda continued to speak to the spirit box within the room while you stayed in the hallway. Nate moved from the group and closer to you to make sure you were ok.

"Can you tell us how many spirits are in here with us right now?"

three

from the doorway, you couldve sworn you saw a flash of green reflect in one of the glass window panes. Green, like the head wrap Chloe was said to wear.

"do you think.." you trailed off moving closer to your boyfriend, "could Chloe be one of them?" you whispered.

he stepped out of the room upon seeing your expression. You seemed paler than usually and he could almost see you shaking with wide glassy eyes staring back at him. He wrapped his arms around you, rubbing your back to give you some semblance of comfort.

Nate, his chin resting in your head, repeated your words louder to for the group still inside the room to hear, "Was that Chloe?"

Look

you whimpered, pressing your face into his chest, "nope. tell Amanda to look at the window-"

"-that candle just got so bright at the far end-"

"-yeah that one." you mumbled, "the window by the candles. I saw something green over there."

the brown hared man nodded, raising his voice to cut off the trio 's conversation on the candle's, "Amanda? N/N said to check around that window. She said she saw something green flash overthere earlier."

"Yo! What?" sam exclaimed excitedly, moving to you both with the camera while Amanda looked by the window pane, "What happened? what did you-"

he was cut off by Nate shaking his head quickly above you, "not right now" he whispered to the blonde, "later."

Sam nodded understandly, moving to film Amanda by the window, "You see anything?"

"no, not anymore." she stated, "its all clear, whatever it was must've moved by now."

━─━────༺✧༻────━─━

A few rooms and a short reenactment later, it was time for solo investigations. Well, at least it was solo for Sam and Colby, you, Nate, and Amanda were able to go out on the porch together.

The three of you were given the spot where Chloe's picture was taken, and had decided to take turns doing the Estes Method. Amanda was first up in the rocking chair.

"I've got some information"

"woah" Nate turned to the camera to you, who was laughing softly from shock.

"We didnt even ask anything yet," you looked into the camera lens, "and were already getting answers? this is crazy"

Nate hummed, "Yeah this is insane- what type of information do you have?"

"lets go"

"Go where?" you questioned, "where do you want to go?"

after a few minutes you received no response. you shrugged, looking over to Nate, "I don't know, you ask a question" you laughed, "it doesn't like me I guess"

He shrugged at your statement, readying his next question "Chloe, did you put yourself at risk to get the information?"

"ready"

you squinted at one another, "are you ready to put yourself at risk?"

"for the information?" Nate added on.

"yes"

you shook your head with a smile, " I guess she's ready ti talk"

"yes"

"Chloe was it you that they photographed in this alleyway?"

"Accident"

"You didnt intend to be in the photo?"

You turned around, looking off the balcony as Amanda shivered, brushing her arms, "something just touched me"

Nate turned his head, looking your direction as you gazed out onto the dark field, "Babe?" he whispered, "You alright?"

"yeah" you muttered, scanning the yard, "yeah, I just got that feeling that something was watching me." you shook your head and rolled your shoulders, "it was probably nothing."

Nate nodded slowly, continuing his questioning of Amanda rather than you, glancing at your from the corner of his eye to make sure you were alright. "Chloe, does guilt keep you here?"

"I knew it was wrong"

You and Nate brought Amanda out of the trance to add a trigger object, things for more intense from there. The answers seemed more and more on the nose, and the small inkling you had of being watched quickly increased tenfold.

You soon felt like you spent less time engaged in the investigation, and more time peering over your shoulder.

"it was the family name"

"Woodruff? Did you hear Woodruff?" Nate rushed, "are you trying to tell us about the Woodruff family?"

"It went silent" Amanda exclaimed, "like full complete silence for a full 'Mississippi' and then it started again"

"it was in the house"

"Are you tired"

"I hope you don't mind" Nate mentioned, gesturing too the plant, "We have oleander in Amanda's hand-"

"I know"

"-was the death an accident or was it an act of revenge?"

"Nate" you whisper, looking out into the yard, "I...I don't think this is a good idea anymore."

his eyebrows furrowed, peering at you while keeping the camera on Amanda, "Why? What's up"

you sighed, "I just- I think we should stop. something doesn't feel right." you tore your gaze from the dark, looking up to him, "something's wrong-"

"its time to wrap up-"

The blonde spoke removing the blindfold and headphones, "I swear, it said, 'its time to wrap up'"

"See!" you gasped hitting the man's arm, "told you!"

Amanda looked between the two of you, both of your eyes were wide and your posture screamed that you were both worried, "what's going on?"

Nate set the camera down on the bannister, still filming, as he went to get all the equipment together, "N/N was just talking about how something feels wrong and we should quit." he looked up at the blonde, "she's been feeling weird this whole time"

The two continue talking while you walk further up the porch. The feeling of being watched became stronger and stronger as you surveyed the yard, eventually catching a glimpse of something off to the side. You leaned over the wood and squinted, trying your best to get a better look.

Soon, you saw it.

"Guys" you muttered, trying again louder when they didn't respond "Guys!"

Nate looked up seeing how far down the porch you'd wandered, "N/N? what's going on?"

you looked at them eyes wide, "There's someone out here." you panicked, "please, please tell me you're almost done because there's someone in the yard and they're getting closer."

Nate straighted his back, looking into the grass too. he didnt see anything at the moment, but you were so far down and it was dar enough that it could simply be that he was too far. He waved his arm gesturing you over to them, "N/N I need you to come down here right now"

For all he knew, that was some psyco trying to add a new spirit to the home. That spirit, would not be you if he had anything to say about it.

"oh my god" you yelled, running up beside the two, "its getting closer."

The brown haired man moved to shield the two of you, shoving the equipment you three brought out to you an Amanda, only keeping a flashlight, "Go inside."

"but-"

"Y/N go inside."

"Wait" Amanda spoke up, peeking around the man's shoulder, "to the left?"

you were shaking at this point, "yeah, It followed me down from that side"

The blonde moved forward, pulling the flashlight from Nate's grip, illuminating the patch to see nothing there, "There?"

you tilted your head in confusion, "well... yeah? it was-"

Amanda turned off the flashlight and the both of you were greeted with the dark figure once more, this time it was only about 10 feet from the railing.

"oh my god" you breathed, heart hammering in your chest.

The urgency in your boyfriend began to dissipate, believing that while a spirit following his girlfriend wasnt the best- it was better than her being followed by an actual crazy person.

However the seriousness of the blonde nearly doubled once she caught sight of the glowing red eyes. "You are not allowed to be here." she spoke stern, making you stiffen even further, "you do not have permission to follow us or come any closer."

"Amanda, what is happening?" you spoke, eyes trained on the humanoid figure before you.

"move back to the door" the blonde spoke softly to you and nate, before strengthening her voice once more, "You do not have the right to follow us into the home, you must stay out here."

Once the door closed, the blonde watched the figure through the window until it dissolved into the air.

"you see that stuff all the time?" you stuttered, clinging to Nates arms that wrapped around your waist, "like thats what a ghost is? I've never actually seen something like that before"

"no." the blonde spoke turning to face you, "that... Y/N, that wasnt a spirit. that was a demon."

#nate hardy x reader #nate hardy imagine #sam and colby imagine #request #nate hardy

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