#i might do the player character one bc i do like ghost and have had a piece in my mind for them. so maybe ill sketch it out that day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

latimeria-fell-from-heaven · 2 years

Note

Since you said about disembodied reader.

I like to thought of how player just mocking them and talk badly of how bad they're (those who hurt Nikki) whilst the player compliment the others but still saying "I still don't trust you tho" and Nikki having hard time to ignore her "ghost-friend" since they're talking so loudly (as if they're in the loud party) but no one can see them.

Little did the player know, they(characters) heard it.

I imagine that once they see her and even can interact with her, then they add "You know I know of how you thought to us" then other things she said, and made the player shock about that...

Prayed that Nikki will come and find them since they left without notice.

—°u°

hi hi °u°!

ooh this actually probably would've happened, especially with the ones who have betrayed/hurt nikki and those who have helped her. but since our input as the player about any of the characters in pretty limited in general, we actually have no idea what they think or how they talk about said characters, other than what we talk about in nikki's home. but yes, i do like to think of this ghost that follows nikki around that smack talks literally everyone and curses them out and roasts them and poor nikki is trying to keep a straight face bc we're practically cursing up a storm and very loudly might i add.

just the mental image of ghost player ready to throw hands is so fucking funny man,,,

lil scenario up ahead !

you've always been the type to be a bit more abrasive when it comes to how you speak and think, regardless of your appearance. that's the difference between you and nikki; she's far sweeter and trusting around others, and she always tries to see the good in everything. so of course she couldn't even say anything bad about anyone, especially cursing them out. you, on the other hand, couldn't really care less and you tend to be blunt about nearly everything. poor nikki had always panicked when you would bluntly say the words she couldn't say and would tryーkey word is tryーto wave it off.

so it's no real surprise that you become much looser once you've come to the realization that no one can see nor hear you. only nikki can hear the words you sayーnot that you mind. but it makes everything interesting, because you can say the words you could never say, and no one can do anything. it's practically paradise for you. of course, you give nikki any of your advice should the situation call for it, such as trying to pick out certain outfits from helz's store, picking out the best discounts at the store, and which new anime to cry over, but you digress.

but your status as nikki's "companion ghost," as you kindly put it, also let you practically say anything about the many diverse people that nikki had met in her travels. of course, many themselves were good people whom had aided nikki in her journey, such as the ever cute helz ( who you really want to smother by the way ), the mysterious yexiao, who had been the first other than nikki to finally see you, the charming lover boy loen ( you debated on insulting or complimenting him, so you chose both ), and the bold and fierce zoey ( whom you would very much like to step on you ).

but there's an invisible boundary between you since you know that truly involving yourselves with them could bring potential harm, and after seeing what your precious nikki had gone through, you didn't need to see it once more. they had helped you - nikki - but they still held brewing emotions and secrets and motivations underneath those faces that you couldn't even begin to say, much less get yourself involved in. it stings, especially knowing that both you and nikki do want to befriend others, but then you remind her of kimi, of orlando, of bobo, and tearfully, of lunar, and she agrees, a sad smile across her thin lips.

" think of them nikki, we'll see them again, okay?" you whisper, embracing her tightly though she cannot feel it too much, she still brings a hand where your forearm should be. " i know, i know," she whispers back, voice cracking as she holds back the emotions from remembering her times with said companions. you smile gently, but she can't see it. so you settle for combing your fingers through her pink locks, and she sighs, before taking a breath, having her resolve firmed out.

and then, there are those whom you hold with utter disgust and hatred in your heart, such as mercury, qin yi, and nightbane themselves. you can feel your blood utterly boil each time someone even so much as mentions them. you hate them, very much so. if it weren't for your current situation with you being invisible and all, you'd have strangled them long ago.

you hate them for the pain they put nikki through, you hate them for how utterly despicable they are, and you hate them for just existing in the first place. a part of you almost feels sorry for them, for the pain they went through and what it shaped them into. but as you had stared down at nikki's tear-stained face as she felt the utter guilt for something that wasn't even her fault, the burning hatred rises up again and whatever pity - sympathy you suppose, has rotted and crumbled away.

" he's a weirdo nikki," you nonchalantly say like you've just told her the weather," he looks like a playboy that didn't get lucky," you snicker at that last part. said girl looks ready to curl up on the spot, although she's doing her best to not look bothered by your words. you don't mind loen too much, but he reeks of lover boy vibes-

and he seems fun to bully.

" i've seen frat boys cuter than him nikki," you lean on the tavern counter as you stare right at the blonde who's busy staring down poor nikki. you snicker once more, before your smile fades and you lean close to her ear. " don't trust him too much, he could betray us y'know," you wrap your arms around her neck and hold her close, staring down loen.

before you speak once more -

" if he tries to flirt with you, i'll kick him in the dick." her grip on her dress tightens as the profanity is said right into her ear.

his grin falters and he blinks.

haha.

qin yi.

you hate him. you fucking hate him with every fiber in your being. his very presence gives you chills and makes you want to throw up. something felt so inherently wrong about him, and it near claws at you from the inside, eating you away -

" you disgusting son of a bitch-!!" you hiss at him from behind nikki, unintentionally digging your nails into her shoulder but she doesn't even feel it. she slightly flinches at your words, face grimacing as she tries to keep a straight face.

" nikki, don't trust him, please..." you plead, something akin to dread crawling about in the pit of your stomach. she only gives you an apologetic look, as if wanting you to stop being so crude and trust someone for once.

but you can't.

just the very sight of qin yi makes you recoil and want to claw at your own eyes to remove the image of him from your vision.

just hearing his silky smooth voice makes you gag and want to stab away at your eardrums until you can hear nothing but the stinging ringing within your head.

" please-"

but she turns away, only giving you one last lookover trying to soothe your growing unease. you sigh, silently standing as she follows qin yi alongside joy. you grit your teeth, before jumping to the pinkette's side-

and turning your head to face the two-faced bastard.

" i'll fucking kill you."

his silver hues shift, until they bore into you - nikki is right next to you. he's observing.

but it didn't change your words one bit.

" i hate you."

ǎ̶̞͈͕͎̟̮̥̰̠̫̖͈͋͜

̸̗̠̘̦͖͔̙̣͕̪͕̫̃̃̉̾͋̑͋́̚͘͜͝͝ ̸̥̖̿̍ ̵̲͖͓̟͉͓̭̳͓̿͗͌̒͊͌ ̷̲̺͈͉̘̘͇̈͒̿͆͋̔̍͘͘à̷̡̧̤͙̻͔̿̄̅̈́́̊̽̓̐͋͠

̴̨̢̰̤̦̘̳̽̾͋͜ ̸̙͙̿̐̒͒̾̇̕ ̶̢̧̙͈̘̙͓̱̮͉̜̝̜̎͐́͒͝ ̷̡̨̡͓̫͙̜̩͈̺̤̘̦̗̽͛͌̎̄̊̊̾̏̒͠ͅ ̵̫̼̘̗̮̓̒̓͊̿̅͐̚͘͝ ̶̪̙̙̹̠̩̹̖̩̹̮͐̉̃̑̆̚͜ ̶͇̤̩̜̻̺̮̥͖͉͈̞̗̈a̴̛̫̞̪̻͈̍͗͑̌̈́̔͘͝

̶̧̗̱͎͚͍̂̀̑́̓̿̓̊͜͜͝ ̵̛͍́̈́͐̾͒̃̀͆̕͝ ̷̧͇̩͖̯̞͔͗ ̶̨̭͖̼̥̻͔͔̳͔̹̙̫̦͒̄̊̋̑́̋͛́̒͂̾̂ ̸̨̛͍̠̲̦͙͔̘̩̝̪̜̄͊̆͂̈́͒͌͋̈́͂͌͐͝ ̸̢̨̣̺͖̝͚̭̩̬̯͖̜̠͈̔͑̃͗̏͊͋̚͘͠ ̵̡̤͉͎͖̠̪̰̖̹̜̟͍͔̰͑̈̇̓̅ ̷̥̪̥̹̖̬͈̟̦̤͇̘̩̥̅̉͒̑͌͂̉͌̿̽͑̔̀̕ ̵̢̨̘̣̘̩͍̳̠̝̱͉̺̱͑͑̓̋̀̏͠ ̴̫͖̻̼̟̝͉̤̮̼̰̗͕̎̒͂̇́ͅá̴̛͈̘̪͚̲̬͗̆̎̇̊̋̓̿͌̀

̶̦̉́͆͐̐͌̇̓̿̒̽͝ ̵̘̠̪̥̫͈̩̖̺́̅̂͝ ̵͕̅́̐͛̏̈́͒̑̓͊̕̕̚͝ ̴̮͈̏̑̾͘ ̶̩̺̓̿̾̏̂̂̂͌͘ ̶̨̢̙̳͍̣͕̪͈̗̼̾́͋ͅ ̸͉̳̩́́ ̵̼̖̟̹̜̣̹͐̈́̍͆͋̄̐͐̑̅̓̾̅̚͠ ̶̨̪̤͍̖͈͖͉̎͐̈́̎̍̀̓̊̾̑̀͒̚ ̷̤̀͌̕̕ ̴̡̢̧̫͎̫̣̪̮̱̭͓̗͙̏̀̒͑̇̆̐͝ ̵̢̇̉̓́́̀̚a̶̟̯͔̍̂͑̀̉ͅ

nikki lets out hiccuped sobs, once lively amber eyes now puffy and reddened with hours of wails and sobs wracking her body. she looks damn ready to scream, but it can only come out forced and choked while the tears continue to fall. her thin arms are wrapped around her chest, her desperate attempt to comfort herself through the pain. she does not give the usual "you were right" cry, she only drowns in her guilt for poor joy and her stupid and blind trust in something so disgusting.

but you do not blame her, you do not begrudge her for being so naïve, you do not smugly hold it over her.

you gently hush her, embracing her as tightly as you could, although she couldn't feel it. but you stroke her pink locks, patting her shuddering head and whispering sweet nothings.

" it's not your fault nikki," you say, voice soft and somber as you continue to hold her close to you. you don't stop her sobs, since you know she needs to get the sorrow and tears out of her system before she can be talked down again.

that fucking bastard-

you can feel your gaze sharpen as pure rage fills your every vein, and you pull one hand away - she doesn't notice - to dig your nails into the skin of your palm. your teeth grit so hard you can almost feel your jaw lock in place.

qin yi.

the name feels like poison on your tongue. you near gag, but hold it in for nikki's sake. but you know that if given the chance-

you'd fucking kill him.

i̶̢̨͈͉͈͉͍̟͍͉̝̱͓̠̼͇̔̂̿̕̕ ̵̡̢̺̠̫͈̜̬̗̬̹̤̠͑̄͑̒͐͑̌̕͝ͅh̶̡̢͍͓̖̗̰̬̥̹̝̪͚̦̟͈̘͈̘̃͗́̀̆̍̔͆̾̅͝ą̴̡̢̟̦̖̩̜̠̦͓̥̩̩͉̜̌̄̍̌̿̀̇̂̓͂̊̿̿̇̈́̆͜͝t̴̯̱̹̥̖̳͐e̶͙̠̥̰̣̜̤͓͎̲͋͗̉̿̏̈̾͝͠͝ ̷̢̗̰̰̳̱̠̫̳̱͖̭́̾̓̎̌́̊͜y̴̡͎̝͕͕̲̞̥̣̻̗̟̣̯̓̈̇͐̊̐͆̐̊͊̉̅̃̚̕ͅơ̸̢̰̹̜̞͙͙̠̏̂̄̈́́́͒̽̊̔͒̀̿̍́̕͘u̴̡̧͈̹͚̩̙̪̱̦̻̗͓͈͍̭̐̍̒̃͆͛͌͗́͛͜ ̸̲̠͖͇̝͉̩̬̠͔̯̬̜̱̣̘̣̄̉ͅî̷̮̟͐̅̈́̂̅̍̅̾̑͒̅̊̚ ̷̨̰̞̺̬̩̔̂̈́̒̔́͆͒͠͝͝ĥ̷̙̝̳̪̝̩̜̝̥͍̗͌͠ͅą̸̢̞̰̭̩̥̪͇̬̼̻̯̤̩̝͓̍̾̍̾̆̈̀͜ṭ̴̨̨̱͕̞̺̙̞͇̜̞̫͙̦̗̲̖̊̍̂̃̀̒͂̄̃̐ḙ̵̡̤̬̭̺̖̙̹͎͉̮̖̝͚̥̂͒̈́̾̌̃̂̕͠ ̷̮̰̯͑̋̂̽̑̑͋͆̏͋̅̏͗̄̍͘͝͠y̴̨̫͙͆̾̾̇̈̂̀̑̕͝o̶̧̨͖͓̤͓̗͚̗̠̼̖̙͔̞̘̦͑͆̒̀̽̎̈́̋͑̂͜͝u̴͕̼̙͖̲͕̤̮͙̔̆̎͗͊̂̃̋͋́̿͘̚͝͝ ̸̹̯̱̰̘͚͖̲̙̫̮͕̀i̴̪̼͚̊͆͋̄ ̵̢͓͇͓͍̣͓̩͆̇ͅh̵̩̮͒̀a̴̢̪͔̪̱̣͇͖̮͊́͆͗̀̌̽ͅť̵̢͉̥̹͉̺̻̜̂͗͜ḙ̶̪̬͇͎̯̹͉̬̣̯̆̈̂̄̎͝ ̸̧̨̡̡̗̺̯̬͖͚̖̻̞̣̫͉͍̈́̍̐̏̔̓̌͒̚ͅy̵͉̻̩̠̩̗͎͖͙̼̠̮͐̈̾͐o̸̧͋ŭ̶͍̬̗͓͓̺̲̖͉̰̝̯̜̳̖̟͍ ̵̛̼̣̃͐̈́͋͂̕͝ị̵̺̣͎̭̼̻͍̤̞̹͕̲̰̆͋̈͛̀͂͑̒̉͐̽̀̓͛͌̒̚ ̵̧̧̜͈̙̼͇̟̰͎͐̇̿̉̂̀̅͛́͗͒̆̚͜h̷̢̡̭͎̮͕͕͉͈̣̯̜̒͑̒͒̇͌̓̓̅̓̅͒̐͠͝ä̸̧̡̢͉̠͚̯̭̯͚̠̞̒̿̈́̃̓̅̓͂̇̃͌̑̐͘͘͝t̷̟̟̙̭̗̤̲͍̣̬̭̳̮̏́̅̏̃͂̐̂̿̄̌͑̉͠ͅȩ̵̡̧̡̛̥͈͉̺̘̮̩͎̦͇̖̯̑͛̅̍͛̍͐͒̋̅͌͘ ̶͎͇̻̪̀̊̐̿͂̈́͐̊̓̒͋̽͋̄͜͠͝ÿ̵̭́ở̵̗̩̻̐u̵͇̬̬̗̤͗̒͑ ̷͖̺͖̦̩͓̖̠̜͎̞́̓̌̚̚̕͠͠ȉ̸̢̪̼͈̗̼̼͙̇̈̒̈̈́̎̋͒̃̀̀̾̇̈͜͝ͅ ̴̙̱̠̹͈͎̲͓̻̫̮̗͚͈̲̹̫̻̈̄͂͆̑̋̽̿͛̀̂͜͠͝h̸̢̯̟͇̘͈̙̠̬̹̟̮̿͐͐͋͝a̸̢̡̢̛̫̺͉͇̦̲͔̞̝̻͈̜̥̥̺͛̈́̈́̃̓̚̕͝ͅt̵̲̥̞̖͖̭͖͑̇̍͋̍̅̆̾͒̚ͅe̴̪͕̬͎̠̣̬̯̥̩̮̲̥̎̓̊͋ͅ ̵͓̜͚̦̟̝͇̙̭̮̟̰̔͒̅͊̄̃̃̓͆̚͝͠y̴̪̩͚̦̪͋͊̈́̄́̽̔͗̑͒ó̵̧̡̧͈̗̱͕̐͐͂̓͆̏̇͂͝ư̴͙̽̈́̈̀̈́̑͆̄͒̇̀͂͑̆ ̸̨̢̧̛̛̛͓̜̪̼̜͖͈͔̗̦̖͎̒̄̒́͒͛͋̚͜ï̶͈̰̦̥̩͎̦̞̬̲̰͑͆̃̍̒ ̷̨̨̨̰̩͎̲̯̹̥̞̫̝̃̇̓̔̀̿̐̍̉̈̕͜͜͝͠h̷̢̛̙̹̻͎̓͐͂̑̎͊̂͊̆͛̆̚̚ä̷̻̮̼́̃̂́͛͋̆̒̚͝t̵̨̙̥̠̥͔͍̩̝̬̻̝̻̱̪͎̐̊̑̾̑́̔̉̿̽͊͜ë̴̢̛̯̤̹̰̳̯͇̜̳͖̣́͗̊̍̋́͂̔̑̕͜͝͝ ̸̡̢̙̣̱̫̞̭͕̭̱̦̰̹̞̌͂̇̈́̅́̍͆̃̾̑͠ͅẙ̶̘̜̎̅͊̆̓́̓̈͋̽̅͂͗͘͜͝o̶̡̼͕̣͕̠͐͒̃̇͑͑̈́͊̀̆̔́͋̈̿̑̍͜͝ú̸̡̡̦̪͓̫̲̝̩̖̰̰͕̘̥̹̝͉̐̇̈͗̌̌̃͊͋͋̎͋̈́̓͜͠ ̵̛̛͈̼̀̾̑͒̑̃̎́̄͌̚͘i̵̧̨͙͇̳̪̮̼̣̖̥̖͓͚̞̘͍͙̋̆͋̆ ̷̡̛̝̝̥̟̓͋́͗͊̎̓̎̋̓͗̓͂̈́̐͝͝h̴̛͕̱̙̺̊̓̿̋̌͛̈́̈́͗͑̉͗̀̓̚͜a̵͇͕̟̯̗̥̪̪̜̤̞̬̽̈́̀̑̉͐͘̕͜͠ț̶̡̨̛͓͙̳͚̘̫̹̰̭̩̣̻͔͕̰̭̐͗̾͋̑́̉̽̇̚ẽ̶̛͉̼̮̰͕͉̗̟̱͉̫͛̔̆͆̈̍̾̌ ̸̢̛̣̖͓̯̠̗̓̂͠͝ͅỵ̴̡̨̧̢̼͈͕̞͕̳̩̬̼͔̥̈̒͘ͅͅő̸̡̨̢̪͉̩̦͕͍̦͉̯̺̩͉̝͕̝͍͂̀̂̐͊̍͌͐̏́͝ǘ̸̢̠͚̗̣̙͕̺͈͉͒͐̊̓̔̈́͘͝ ̴̡̪̟̟̬̖͕̰̮̗̘̳̰̥̭͇͕͖̊̕i̶̡͙̦̗̼̞̗̙͙̐̈́̀̿̀̂͂͛̐̿͐̈́͌͘̚ͅͅ ̶̡̱̰̬̭͈̻̱̭͔̮͕̬̻͔̟̀͜͜h̵̡̢̛͚̜͇̤̳̦̯̮̻̟̬͉͈͑͗́̐̂͑̽͌̾̑͗͠a̷̡̢̝̪̖̪̗̩̦͙̻̠̯͙̻͕̺̜͖͆̓̿̓͊̉̚͠͠t̶̛̫͍͉̥̣̼̑͗̐͊̄̈̀̍͊̈́̎͒è̷͓͔̞̯̺̠͈̱̝̣͚̭̋̍͌̌̋̈́͒̓͛͒͘ͅ ̷̧̲̫̺͇̩̬̯̑̀̀̆͊͋̕̕͘͝ȳ̵̧̫̹̞͉̘͉̬̰͇̰̦̃̔̃̔̽̉̎̿̓̔͐̑̾̿̚͜͝͠͠ő̷̠ǔ̸̢̢͎̠̻̹̺̣̝́̀̃̇́̔̆͊̚̚ ̴̛͙̬͍̳̭̈͑͐́̔̓̋͘͠͝i̵̩͇̻̤͖͍̖̭͘ ̴̡̡̯̩̫̱̣̠̮̰͍̬͍̼̥̖̐͗̋̅̓͜ḩ̷̱̙̮̪̹̖̽̐͊a̴̛̪̝̔̈́̓̔̓̾̊̾͊͛͊̚t̵͙̱͎̦̱̜̺̃͒ͅe̸̺̙̗̥̹̹̜̤͎̩̘̣̠͎͕͛̽̽̓͛͊̽̊̈́͋́̅̕̕͘͝͝ ̸̛̛̦̗̭̲̉̐̑̒̑̀̿̄́̿̏̈́̒̕y̶͕̤͓̼̭͔͓͍̟͒̑̌̃̽̔̾̽̃̑́̒͂̈́̈́̔͠͝ơ̸̢͓͎̹͎̣͈̲̠̩̩̪̳̤̲͚͕͇̊͊̔̆͛͗̎̆̉̅̂͛̚ų̶̡̣͈̫̲̳̗͌̂̃̐̿͂ ̴̢̲͔̣̝̮̺̝͐̍̔͘ȋ̵̪̫̬̐̅̉̏̃̀͊͒̉ ̵̧̢̨̩͈͈͎̲͖̜̫̻̫̖̽͜ḩ̸͚̼̮̺͎̳̬̫͂̊̇̏̓̄̓̒ạ̶̢̣̠͈̖̙͌̃̈́̐̏̓͝ţ̸̺͚̝̰̗̝̺͉̫̻̬̣͍͖̑͗̎̌͜ͅę̷̡̛̠͕̹̺̜͙̣͎͈̯̜͍͔̩̀̈́͛̿͑̑͗̅̒̑̓̚ ̸̡̲̗̯͔͖͎͓̤̹̬̪̜͈̠͚̥͊͒̍̊͆̓͠ỳ̸̋́̋́̈́̆̔̇̆̏̓̾̈́͌̚̚ͅơ̸̬̣̝̦͔̟̖̖̩̲̟̪̺͎͕̹͐̅̈́̊͊̃ͅư̴̢̨̙͍͉̣̩̱̼̪̟̠̜̺̝͖̄̆̈́͛̊͊̎͂͒̂̏̅̐̃̈͘ ̶͙͖̘͙͉̻͇̲̐̓̈́̈̈́͗̆͐͐͊̌̀͝i̸̧̝̘̤̩͍͇̙̭̪̯̘͓̞̤̜͖͈̊̋̀̔̋̈̓̆̊̀̎̋ͅ ̷̬͇̥̘̓́̏̆́͐̔͝ḥ̶̢̪̝̲̜͍̥̣̬͉̤͎̞̺̭̙̎́͂̐̀̀̃͝a̸̮͙̹̰͙̮̳̾̌̎̒͆͊͊̀̊̇̑̕̕͝t̸̡̧̬̠̱̥̦͖̜̤̪͓͉̲̤̙̞͎̽̀̑̎̇è̸̼̻̂̎̃̌̆̏̓͛́́͊͝ ̷̛̛͉͓̜͖̭͚̯̜̻̪̠̟̈́̀͌̐̅͘͠͝y̸̨̛̜͚̭̹̩̤͎̮͍̫͔̫̝͖̽̀͌̈́̈̐̽̚̕o̴̳̠͙̞͈̫͕͈̭͠u̶̱̰̪̻̭͖̩̜͎͋͛̅̅̄́̀͊͂̃͑̚͘ ̵̧̻̬̥͖̻̃̌̇͘ĩ̷̢̜̼̬̻͙̙̤̗̟̳̯̬̙̳̜͇̆̔̀̆͜ ̶̨̛̮̙̜̹̮̘̳̼̗̋̓͌̓̌̽̓̔̃̿̐̈́̎͐̚͠͝ͅh̴̩͙̣̟̍͂͗͌̈́́̓̽ä̸̢̩͙̪̗̤̦̻̫̠̖͔́͌͒͒́͛́̄̕͘̕͜͠ţ̵̱̗͇̯̗̹̼̦̩̮̟̼͈̬̊̀̃̈́̃͊͜͠ę̸̦̹̲̞͖̘͈̺̠̠͓̀̈́̒͒͋͒̋̃̿̀̋̉͛͘ ̷̼̭̲̮͔̹̝̖̩̤͓͚͍̾̃̊̐̍̀̓͝͠͠y̷̨̫̹͐̑̒͋̎͒͐͆̑̿̅̈͂̚͝͠o̵̧̡̨̧̘̰̱̲͓͈̮͚͓̦͚̥͂̑̌̀ũ̸̧̧̝̱̥̹̙̱̦͉͇̈́̚ ̶̨͚̙͕̜̻̇̑̏̄͊̉̏î̸̛̻͎̪̬̀͊̄̐̀̑ ̵̻̼̹̣̤̫͖̜̪̥̬͚̗̼̰̝͙͍͒̑̿̒̔̆͐̏͐͌͛͜h̷̢̠͎̭̱͙̣̠̺̻͎̭̠͉̥̝͙̤̀͌͂̃̈́͆̇̂͂̀̽͛̈́̚͜͠ả̴̧̧̫̤̫̻̘̞͇̙̩͖͍̅̃͆̃̌̀͛͋̕͜͠ͅͅt̸̞̪̪̣͈̙̯͇͒̒̃̉͋͗͊̕͜͝ę̶̣̫̮͈̥̯̱͉̖̥͗̑͆͊̾̈́͌̈́̿͐͊͂͋̅͐̕͜͜͠ ̸̜̜̻͆͐̎̏̆̀̕ÿ̸̛͇͓̊͊̈́̑̆̃̊͛͘̚͠͝͝͝͝ǫ̶̰̼̟̙̳̮̘̊́͛u̸̹̜̦̼͙͉̜͔̟̮̙̯͛̈́͋͂̒͋͐̇͆̏̈̋̚͝ ̴̭̞̫̭̔̈́̋̈́̾͛͒̾̿͛͒̍͌͐̈͛̃͝͠ī̶͖̰̼̥̭͉̤̘̲̣̥̬̪͇͓̋̊̓͜͠ ̴̨̨̬̺̗̙̮̻͔̭͕͐̄̍̏͆̊͋̈́̓͗͊̎͐̔͘͝͝h̶̞̽͛͊̈̽̑́́͐̊͋̈̄̿́͂̎͊͘ą̴̯̖͖͈͍͈̟̻̔͆͐͆͆̎͗̆́̈́̎̀́̋̀͛̐͜͝͝ţ̶̛̫͉͚̫̩̝͉̘̝͓̬̮̞͑̽̈́̈́͋͑̂̏͝ͅe̷̼̭̮̻̝̔̋̃͂̑͜͝ ̷̨̛̛͓̟̪̞̤̯̙͌̿̍̓̀́̑͆̀̿̓̾͠ẙ̵͔̪͖̳̹͇̰͔̖̜͔͕͙͛̀̑ǫ̷̹̲̼͓̤͖̦̥̝̭̲̳͇̟̪̱͖̙̊̏̂̀̂̀͋̉͂̀̉͋͊̐͐͘̚͘ũ̴̡̢̳͖̪̭͈̯̫̙̺͖̳͇̖̟̍́̂ ̸̡̘̞̭̣̦̜̬̳͎̠͕͇͉̰̭̳̿́̄̃͋̇į̷̨̖͓͚͔̻̼̮̱̇̍̓̽̓̔̕ ̵̢̧̨̹͎̤̣͖͈͑̎̿̐̃̏̔͛̕͜h̶̨̠̥̹͈̠̣͉̭̞̲̩̰̳͍͕̽͌̾̾͋͑͋͋́͗̾͂̃̾̏͝ͅa̵̡͓̳̎́̈́̿̎̔̀́̈́̽͊̕͜͠ͅț̵̨̨͓͔̹̼̺͉͓̣̟̦̗̣̣̥̄̈́̊̽̿̈́e̴̡̟̗̮̩̝̟̘̦̪̒̈͛̽͠ ̷̧̧̥͍̯̣̩̞̀̒̂̀̌́̀̔́̇̓͝ẏ̷̻̻̭̙̳̥͙̰̼͙͇̺̫̭̱̆̐̊̉̂͆ǫ̶̧̝̮̖̺̠̲̣̩̰̖̬̞͍͇͎͊͗͛̔̄̔̎͊͑̈́̕ȗ̴̢̗͕̺̰͎̺̬̫̼̣̺̯̹͚͈̈́̍̂́̓̈́͂̈́̐͛̈́̈̿̏͘̕͜͜ ̴̧̨̰̮̣͎͍͇͉̗͓͓͑͆̈̃̏̆̿̐̽̋͆̌͆̿͑̔̒̅͠ȉ̶̝̰͍̖͚̬̺̼̥͍̲͇̳͖͚͓̳̞͊̽͆́͝ ̵̺̤̖̣̬̬̲̜̍͐̿h̴̦̲̝͇̖̠̣͍̭̳̻̓̊̀̾̽̇̋̓̑͆̏͜ȧ̷̛͇͚̲̹̘̻̪̹̻̞̼̬̱͓̞t̴̨̢͔̞͖̲̠̭̺̙̗̯͎͐̂͑̊̀́̃͌͑͜é̴̢͙̲̻̟̟͇̍̀ ̷̧̦̞͕͚̱̫̫͓̦̎y̴̹̥̠͕͚̭̖̝̲̪͇̙̤̰͖̬̯̝̮̎͐̽̄ơ̴̤͈̬̜̙̎̀̓̏͌̈u̴͈͍͙͓̬͙̬̻̔ ̸͔̰͚̳̦̞̺̜͖͈͓͉̱̟̳̮̈́͑͜ͅi̶̹̩͇̥̥͆̉̽̈́̅

̸̨̢̢̦̺͖̦͉̖̼̘͈͔͈̩̮̩͒̄̏̽̆ḫ̸̨̢͉̞̙͕̞̬͇͈̗̱̝̜̜͕͛͌͐̌̄̈́͠à̷̛̲͔̺̬̿̀͐̓͋̔̕͝͝t̶͍̲̬̟̝̟͓̖̘́͂̋̐̽̈́͋̀̏͜͜ȇ̵̞͍̲̻̳̯͍̤̰̥̘̯̮̣͒́̾ ̴̬̟͓̺̠̮̭̗̱̪͓̹͇̏̉̾̍̈́̍̔̀͛̉͂̉̋͐̑̕̚͘͜ͅy̷̡̭̤̙̜͍̰͉̹̘̱̅̏̑͆̉̓̅̚͜ͅȯ̷̺̮̦̼͙̪̜̹̤̃̐̓̇̀͐̿͋̍̆́͐̕͘͠͝ǔ̶̡̢̡͖̦̯̩͕͙̙̦͗̅͌̐̋̓͝͝ͅ ̷̡͔̞̦͍̭̞̻̞͚͌͆͋͑̃́̿́̈́i̷̧̢̛̲̤̟͔̫̝̺̥̬͚͉̥͔̥̔̈̊̿̏̎́͗̄̎̓̊̽̚͜͝ ̴̢̨̧̥͓̝̭̖̮̉̐h̶͕̝̲̪̖̲̹͙̱͈͌͋͊́̈́̄̚̚ả̵͕̋̓̄̓̈́̐̆̓ţ̵̲͚̞͎̗̫̘̗͕͚̳̮̣̠̤͈̠͙̄͗̓́̎́̃ȩ̵̗̬͕̺̠̖̋̒̃͌́̐͗̚͝͝ ̴̮͖̭̬̠͓̩̙̹͙̼̙̠̦̩̪̯̜̈́́̽̈́̑̌̐̓́̄̓͋͛̀̂͘͜y̶̧̡̨͓̥͔̯̦̫̯̻̠͚̟̘͇̥̟͌̋̆́̒̈́͘͝ͅö̸̡͉̲̖̜̰̼̬͋͛̔͗ũ̴̦͈̆̾̀͋̔ ̵̮̩̜̝̬̼̦̐̉̏̐̂͋̎͑͆̔͆͊̆̐̆͜

zoey.

you were rather intimidated by her, but then again, who wouldn't be? her gaze was sharp, she was the type of beauty that could whip a knife at your neck with only a smirk and you'd be dead. you gulp, feeling the nervousness for nikki arise to a near tenfold, and you whisper many " good luck" to her each time she is to approach zoey.

but she isn't that bad, far from it. she seems to see nikki in just as a precious way as you do, and you are ever so grateful she can also see that herself. but neither does she coddle her or try to sugarcoat anything that is expected of her. you can at least appreciate that of zoey.

but you still cannot trust her. she is involved with the shady underbelly. her very work itself put nikki in hot water and in a life or death situation where she near gave into desire itself. that in itself painted a target on nikki's back and you had to deal with the aftereffects and panics of nikki thereafter. so you cannot help but warn her to keep her distance and to stay safe around the sharp-eyed zoey. this time, she agrees, maintaining a friendly smile while still remaining distant.

" she's pretty but-"

you pause, taking a glance at zoey who calmly sits, sipping away at a drink whose name you've forgotten. your nose scrunches up at the stench of alcohol - you've never really liked it. it burned your throat.

and it didn't have a good place in your memories.

" stay away from her."

zoey pauses, her eyes shifting until they land on nikki. a smile - it looks odd on someone as stoic and sharp as her - is spread on her deep-red lips. you shudder, almost feeling her gaze burn over you, but she goes back to sipping at the glistening glass, burning alcohol swishing inside.

you lean your head on nikki's shoulder and sigh. you want to go home already.

" i'd let her step on me thou-"

nikki chokes, coughing as her face heats up. zoey looks over, concern splashed across her features as the pinkette tries to deflect any worry from her. you snicker; teasing her is much too fun.

but you weren't lying about the whole thing.

mercury.

the man behind it all. the one who was the criminal mastermind. the one who had it all.

you hated him. you nearly hated him just as much as you did qin yi. you wished to pulverize him and grind up what was left of him and scatter it all over.

that way he'd never hurt nikki or anyone again.

" nikki...c'mon...let's go-" you shakily say, trying to reach her with your voice, anything. she doesn't budge, her amber eyes locked onto his. you whimper, wanting to leave as soon as possible.

she has a gun.

' shit shit shit shit shit shit '

you mentally panic, trying to find any way to get nikki to snap out of it before shit really hits the fan. you can feel your breath growing faster, fear and panic spreading through your body. but you try and grip yourself down, desperate to have the nikki you love by your side.

not this cold-hearted woman whose gaze turns your blood to ice.

mercury.

you turn your head to meet his gaze. he's still staring at nikki, eyes unblinking and face as solid as stone. you grit your teeth, eyes glaring as hard as they can. " you fucking son of a bitch," you hiss through clenched teeth. " i hope you fucking die," you swear you can feel a vein burst somewhere, but you're too full of exhausting and mixed emotions to even truly care.

when nikki collapses, you whirl around, rushing to her side and calling out her name. your gut horribly twists from panic. she looks scared, uncertain, and-

she looks ready to cry.

when the police invade the area with their presence, you lose nikki in their swarm. you can feel her, but you can't see her. you can only see a familiar shade of dirty blonde hair and-

the disgusting shade of silvery hair the stirs in the air. you damn near snarl, so close to mercury you're practically gagging. " if anything happens to her-"

he blinks, gaze shifting off to the side - where you stand.

" i'll fucking kill you."

you can see a disgusting smile spread across his thin lips. it was an attractive smile, but it made you sick and pissed.

you see the familiar smile of loen, and your mood almost instantaneously brightens. you sigh a breath of relief, happy to see the goober of a mercenary. you can at least tolerate his presence. he leads nikki out the engraved doors, into the city, and away from the prison-like building. you follow, before turning back to where mercury stands, still watching like a sick predator.

" this isn't over you bastard," you spit, before running after where loen and nikki stand.

he smiles.

"...what...?"

your lips tremble as you stare into their eyes, your body seizing up as panic ensues. they either don't notice or they simply find it amusing. you feel horrible all over, this can't be happening right? this is just a dream. yeah, it's a dream. they can't see you, it's impossibl-

" so did you mean it?"

" huh...?" your voice cracks - you feel so many emotions all at once.

" did you mean all those you said about me before?" they question, not loosening their grip on your arm one bit.

fuck.

now you remember what you said.

every. single. word.

and every. single. emotion.

" i-i...you.." you want to punch yourself for losing your composure and sounding like a weak child. but who could blame you? you'd had no one but nikki and momo to rely upon and converse with all this time. now suddenly they could see, touch and hear you.

nikki...where's nikki?

you glance around the corners out of your eyes, trying to find that familiar shade of pink through everything. you pray to whatever for nikki to come for you, to come and find the voice of her companion before this can escalate any further.

" she's not here," they simply say, nonchalantly like you had just asked them for the weather. you can feel your heart shrivel up and die. nononono, she should be here right now, you really need her for fuck's sake!

" you didn't answer my question y'know," they hum, gently smiling like they'd just received a compliment. they continue," i didn't know you thought of me in such a way," they chuckle," and who knew you had such a," they pause, eyes drifting up as they try to come up with their next words. "...colorful mouth. haha, who knew."

you tug at your arm, now at least having the sense to try and run away, but they only merely smile, pulling back as a silent warning - or threat, you can't tell anymore with them.

"...let go..." your murmur, looking down at your feet - anywhere other than them. they go silent, before answering. " now why would i do that? this is such an occasion," they let out a breath," and you said many wonderful things about me."

you feel like screaming.

they stand up straight, before gesturing behind them.

" let us discuss this over some food, shall we?"

you can feel your sanity break right there and then.

#lati speaks #°u° anon #this hurt to write holy crap #shining nikki

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rabdoidal · 2 years

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for d&d court (hope u arent getting tired of these asks haha):

your honor,

the case i bring before you is cold, and could be considered settled by the passage of time. however, i still think about it a lot, and the character involved was one of my all-time favs, so i beseech yourself and the court to hear it for closure if nothing else.

i joined a group running 5e and the “out of the abyss” hardcover in 2018. the dm introduced himself as a fan of OSR and “hardcore” roleplaying and promised he wouldn’t be pulling punches running the book, which is set in the underdark and pretty vicious at low level. i signed on for this and the party, indeed, endured lots of grueling encounters. i’m fuzzy on the details now (its been a few years), but we’d found ourselves in a sort of side cavern/tomb dealing with either a demilich or some other undead spellcaster. the main hazard beyond that enemy was a sort of deadly mist that inflicted damage on failed saves.

the party is in a bad way. i’m playing a battlemaster fighter with mostly support techniques bc i like to help back up clerics/bards, but i’m also playing a dex fighter dual-wielding, so i’m not tanky. there’s a lot riding on my turn but i also only have like 5 hp left. the dm calls on me and i get to work— attacking, using a battlemaster technique to give out some temp hp, action surging for more damage, etc. all this to say, it’s a full turn and things are looking up for us. then the dm goes “wait, i forgot to have you roll a save for the mist. go ahead and do that now.” and i do. and i fail. and the damage is enough to down my character. and he says that since that roll should’ve happened at the beginning of my turn, he’s applying it retroactively, and my turn never happened. our cleric couldn’t get to my fighter in time to stabilize me after, so i took damage from the mist while downed and died permanently (along with the cleric, everyone else got saved by late-arriving npcs).

i took this as my cue to gracefully leave the campaign, bc my char dying on the floor to an ambient effect left a very bad taste in my mouth and i concluded i just wasn’t interested in continuing with that group/dm. but ive been haunted ever since by the question: do i have a right to be angry about what went down? applying the save retroactively is i think what the rules would require, but bc it was dm error and i had played out my entire turn, i feel like the failed save and consequences should’ve happened at the end? my char might still have died, but prob not the cleric. and ever since, i can’t mentally shake the char’s death, so i haven’t had the heart to just ignore it and remake her in a new campaign.

thanks in advance for your insight and judgment, from me and the unquiet ghost of tova, the tiefling fighter.

Hey there! I do think rules as written, the save should've happened at the top of your turn, but it was absolutely the DM's responsibility to keep track of their AoE conditions - personally I usually do rolls like that at the end of a turn because I'm nice, but even for a hardass DM, I think making it retroactive is a bit harsh, especially considering battlemasters have a lot to do in terms of initiative economy. I think a middle ground solution would have been to do a luck roll off between you and the DM to see if the effect took place before or after your turn, or perhaps allowed you to take 1 attack rather than both.

Unfortunately, brutal campaigns, while fun and engaging for long-time players, do give you a sense of detachment from your character. If they're just some meatbag that can die during any given session, there isn't that effect of heightening tension - its all tense all the time. It sounds like that isn't your type of play style, considering how attached you were to Tova. I hope you found a campaign (and a DM) more your style in the years since!

#personal #dnd court #long post

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thefirstknife · 3 years

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Hi! I saw the Mara discussion and I got curious. I don't understand very well what people mean when people say smth along the lines "she sacrificed a lot for good" (not the exact wording, sorry). When I read marasenna and the forsaken prince, she struck me as pretty manipulative and just looking to have an obedient following. Admittedly, it's been a long time since I read these books, so I might have forgotten a lot. I also got some kinda bias bc she reminded me of some, uh, not-so-nice folk who had a negative impact in my life, so I'm a bit squicked by her attitude, especially w/ how she treated Uldren and Ghost at some occasions.

Is it ok to ask for some clarifications about her motivations? Totally okay if not if it's too much work. Sorry if it's a weird ask fjjshf

Oh, Mara definitely has a manipulative streak about her.

Marasenna is in general a very biased source because it's coming from Mara herself so there's bound to be some narrator bias there. She presents some of her actions as being done for the greater good and we could debate whether that's true or not.

For example, when she created the Awoken people and the Distributary, a lot of negativity came when the Awoken realised they were created by one of their own and wondered why someone would create them in a way where they could still experience pain, suffering and death. Mara's reasoning is that without those things, there is nothing to advance towards. If you could live forever in perfect bliss, there's no goals to achieve and nothing to work for. They'd just be trapped in the Distributary living pointless "perfect" lives.

I agree with that because I, as a player, know that the Awoken weren't given the Distributary as some great and amazing gift: it was a punishment by the Darkness, just not done in the same way as the Collapse. The people on the Yang Liwei wanted no part in the Collapse and asked to be treated as a separate species and Darkness tossed them into a singularity. I personally don't think this was some sort of a great fate, especially if the plan was to live in the singularity forever and do nothing. So Mara not giving the Awoken a perfect paradise and immortality and life free from suffering IS, in a way, for the greater good. Obviously, this isn't an objective view of things.

Mara definitely manipulated people, lied to people and even abused them, sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly. She also clearly cares, in her own way, about certain people and things. How much, we can't really tell because we only have biased sources about her. I think Mara's biggest crime is when she knows things will end badly but she lets them happen anyway; for example everything with Uldren. His corruption and death could've been stopped if she actually reached out to him and told him she's fine in the Ascendant plane and that the visions he's getting is not her.

I totally understand when people are not happy with Mara's behaviour and if they're also squicked out by her. She's a very polarising and morally ambiguous character. I'm not surprised if people dislike her, nor is that in any way wrong.

The problem is mostly that Mara gets an extreme amount of explicit and gross hate directed at her, the type of hate that no other character in Destiny gets, despite there being characters objectively morally worse than her. Like, she genuinely received more hate than the Darkness, the primary antagonist or the Hive, as close to the primary antagonist as one can be.

This could be because her crimes are more grounded (manipulation and abuse) rather than whatever Darkness and the Hive are doing (nobody on Earth has really experienced their entire planet being killed, not exactly the easiest thing to relate to). But there's other characters with similar stories. Calus is a good example, as he's also a very manipulative character who continuously tried to make the Guardians join him by giving them stuff and praising them and being manipulative in general when his only real goal is selfish. He was also manipulative to the Cabal people, a lot of which followed him literally into death so HE could fulfil his goal of talking to the Darkness. He never cared about any of his people or the Guardians really.

I definitely wouldn't like Mara as a real person, but she's an interesting character to read about. Most ambiguous and villainous characters are to me.

#destiny 2 #mara #ask #hope this explains some of it!#other input is welcome too!#lore vibing #long post

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dsmpdaily · 3 years

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Pokemon i think the dsmp characters should have, based on my memory of any and all events lol (not a drawing req! i just wanna share my thoughts)

Technoblade: this man def owns an Emboar. He used to be a massive battle royale star, now he's retired and looks after lost pokemon in his homebrew day care.

Philza: I get the vibes that he'd own a Honchkrow or Dragonite. Used to team with Techno, now he also helps with the homebrew day care.

Wilbur: Mismagius or Froslass for no other reason than I think Ghost would fit him. Philza gave him the pokemon bc he found it while doing whatever when it was a little baby.

Tommy: Cinderace, Gallade, or Zangoose. Cinderace bc he has those vibes, Gallade bc I think one would simply join him voluntarily, and Zangoose just bc I like Zangoose.

Tubbo: Skiddo/Gogoat from Schlatt (slowly places the headcanon of schlatt being a father figure to tubbo in ur hands), Snorunt bc that bitch was difficult as hell to catch in pokemon ranger, bouncing all over the place, smh. Probably grows to be part of the elite four.

Ranboo: Yanmask/Runefigarus. Mask gang. Occasionally helps Techno's day care.

Dream: this man owns a seviper for the pure reason tommy's Zangoose doesn't like seviper. Other than that, probably Empoleon. I think he might an Elite 4 who wants to be Champ, but only for the reason of being corrupt. The exile arc still happens, just slightly different.

BBH: Grimmsnarl or Mimikyu. Grimm bc i like Grimm, Mimikyu bc I think it fits. He's probably an admin for an evil team and incredibly joyous about it.

Schlatt: Machamp and Hydreigon, raised explicitly to be competitive. Some poison/steel type (Nidoking?) to even out the Dragon is weak to Fairy thing. They are all raised and given EV/IV training explicitly for battling. I'd consider him like Cynthia only bc he'd train all the time, but with the attitude of Giovanni. Probably the leader of an evil team. Gave Tubbo the Skiddo, uhhhhh, dunno why lol

Eret: i think he deserves a legendary. let's give them reshiram. perfect. chin up, monarch. your crown is sliding down. Miotic for normal pokemon.

Quackity: Armaldo or Bisharp, with the fancy coin item to give you more money after battles.

Purpled: Deoxys for the alien theme, Starmie also for the alien theme but less mythic pkmn.

Puffy: Wooloo and a Delphox. Floof,,,,, def a pirate theme bc it just fits Puffy. Probably an elite four member bc she deserves it. Valid. Incredible. Showstopper.

Niki: Lumineon, Raichu, and a Houndoom. She'll make it work. Probs a very end-game gym leader who 100% is incredibly hard to beat. Houndoom was probably a gift from Wilbur. Good for her. Amazing. Wonderful. Can sometimes be seen helping Techno--- they all get together for book club on Saturdays :]

That's all i can remember rn lmao here u go im gonna go nap now

thank you for your thoughts! next time if anyone has long asks like this- u can group them up into separate asks to make it easier to respond to if u want ^^ no biggie

ill go over them all and put a 👍 next to the pair ups that i personally have in my own au!

techno & emboar 👍 he owns a very big emboar, above average size, and they like to wrestle together

phil has a corviknight, but honchkrow/dragonite is good too

yeah wilbur froslass!!!! 👍

ohh i do like tommy and gallade..

tubbo & skiddo 👍 HADHAHDH SNORUNT YEAH

well im givin dream a runefigarus/galarian yamask precisely because of that, mask

dream with a seviper and tommy with a zangoose is so big brain... since those pokemon Do Not like each other

bbh & grimmsnarl 👍

schlatt & nidoking maybe 👍 ah ur right he would be one to selectively pick pokemon to raise for combat, i feel like in my au techno used to be like that too but when he retired he stopped caring

HAHSAHA eret does deserve a legendary, chin up king

oh?? quackity and bisharp is so interesting.. i like bisharp a lot bc i was a big pokepark 2 player and i loved riling up the pawniard in windmill way shdhshf

deoxys would be the legendary friend for purpled totally, starmie is also good!! ur missing out on Beheeyem which really goes for the alien theme also

actually giving puffy mareep & that evolutionary line, bc i want wooloo/dubwool for schlatt i think it works better, and i want to give them different sheep pokemon since they're cool. i think niki & delphox is nice? puffy really works for that too..

BOOK CLUB ON SATURDAYS!!! i believe the syndicate would be a book club

i hope you have/had a nice nap!!

#asks #pokemon_au #long post

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rappaccini · 3 years

Text

so, regarding the Donna Thing,

disclaimer: this is more headcanon than theory. i am fully aware i am grasping at straws and that this is almost certainly not intentional. this is me, more than it is the devs. that being said, headcanoning is fun, donna deserves development, and her level doesn't bother to give it to her, so i'm gonna squeeze the scraps of canon we have until a narrative falls out:

resident evil 8 has an enormous, overarching theme of motherhood, and each of its female characters are mothers... including donna, if you read angie as donna's 'child.' which i think the game actively wants you to do:

donna lifts and holds angie like a woman would hold a baby or very young child

angie behaves like a bratty toddler, from the way she speaks, to the 'games' she leads the player through (yes, donna set them up, but angie's the one who challenges you)

donna's attention to her dolls is the same sort of affection alcina had for her daughters. she has a maternal role when she plays with them and she indulges them heavily

donna and alcina are foils; among many other things, to contrast alcina, who has control of her daughters, donna's dolls seem to dominate her (note that their color schemes are the same, black and white, but reversed), and angie and the dimitrescu girls have similar bloodthirsty batshit personalities

donna's design: she's not only wearing mourning garb, but she's also dressed and posed in a manner that evokes victorian hidden mother photography-- where mothers would conceal themselves under a veil to hold their babies still during photo sessions.

symbolically speaking, donna is not a perpetual child caught in a state of playing with her dolls. she is a mother in mourning, and her child is represented by angie. you could stop there, but personally, i think there's more to it than that.

(cut for length and content-- discussion of incest, child death and sexual abuse)

so. victorian photography was wild. not only do you have mothers resembling ghosts to capture photos of their babies, but corpse photography, where people-- including babies-- were posed and shot in a very similar manner (not including pics of those here bc corpses, but i am sure you can find them if you are so inclined). so it's very easy to associate these two trends together.

combine that association with this: not only does angie resemble a child, but she and donna are modeled after ghosts-- angie in particular looks like an emaciated, skeletal corpse. specifically, one being held by a woman in mourning wear, the same way a victorian mother might arrange for a final photograph of her deceased child.

so what we're left with is the implication that not only is angie donna's child-- she's her dead child.

now let me just whip out my tin foil hat here...

there are two other children related to house beneviento to discuss.

the first: claudia.

so, some people think claudia is donna's daughter, and i like that theory a lot, but i disagree with it. given donna isn't mentioned to have ceased aging, we must assume that she's doing so at her normal rate (and therefore that bernadette, who died in the fifties, is simply an ancestral relative, rather than her sister).

if she is older than she looks, then claudia is likely her daughter after all... which opens a can of worms about how a young woman raised and controlled by mother miranda since childhood could possibly have become pregnant, and how consensual that process might have been (and then comes the question of who and where the father is). but that's unlikely because it'd be remarkably stupid of the game to not have donna or anyone at all mention her dead daughter once in the entire game, especially a daughter who'd have died at 9 (aka right around the age eva died) and had time to make an impression on people. especially a daughter of a moldperson, given how Special rose is extolled to be for being one herself. it'd be too important not to mention, and since it isn't mentioned, claudia being donna's daughter is less likely than her being her sister.

so. donna's probably not older than she looks. and since her physical age (somewhere in her 30s) matches up with claudia's birth date (1987) so closely, there's no possible way that claudia is donna's child--therefore claudia is her sister.

now, the massive, carefully-deified gravesite was clearly built with incredible care, meaning that claudia's death was agonized over. she died young, and likely tragically, and she was buried with a precious family heirloom, so she was at least treasured by the family.

and given that donna's parents committed suicide when she was young (which we can only assume would've been in the '90s, therefore right around when claudia died), it's easy to draw a line between the two events: it's likely that claudia's death was devastating enough to trigger it.

we'll get back to claudia.

so. the other elephant in the room regarding house beneviento and children is, of course, Big Baby.

while Big Baby is definitely intended as a hallucination within ethan's mind, playing off his anxieties about something being wrong with rosemary (it's significant to note that in concept art, Big Baby is a girl), i think it's worth wondering how much control over the illusions donna has, beyond simply being able to cause them. if she can control them outright, as i think it's implied, then one must wonder-- how did she come up with Big Baby in particular?

given how the lords' level design and conflicts with ethan tells you a lot about who they are, i want to assume the same for donna. so yes, this is 95% for sure just one big mindfuck playing on ethan's fears, but donna is the only one of the lords to leave behind nothing in her own words that tells you about her motivations or backstory, and i hate that.

so, donna needs a past, and the least invasive way to give her one is to take elements already present in the game and examine them from a new angle: namely, we assume that all that shit in donna's basement applies just as much to her as it does to ethan. after all, all that psychological fuckery had to come from somewhere. who's to say she wasn't drawing from personal experience?

so with that in mind... when looking at ethan's time in the beneviento house, aside from Big Baby and angie, there's also

donna and angie's tactics: attack ethan by playing on his anxieties about Something Being Wrong With The Baby especially in the audio, describing a pregnancy that goes terribly wrong, and leads to Big Baby's arrival

donna being a skilled herbalist with a laboratory all her own

the cradle in the cellar

the baby indentation that you have to find to unlock a door (literally reuniting parent and child in order to move forward and escape a miserable situation)

the painting of the heavily pregnant, miserable-looking woman that you are encouraged to look at by an animation that makes it swing like she's been hanged from the neck

the key you collect from donna having the image of a fetus on it

the female mannequin you dismantle, piece by piece, who vanishes in an explosion of blood from which Big Baby appears-- symbolically speaking, a traumatic 'birth'

donna writing "take care of our little rose" on the back of ethan's photograph when he retrieves it from her (the writing isn't present before this level and matches the same scribbly cursive as the list of film strips that only donna could've written= that's donna's handwriting, not mia's), implying that though angie hates rose, donna doesn't at all

(just to reiterate that: in the vision sequence of the lords dismembering rose, donna's the only one of the lords to not push forward and participate-- angie does, but she hangs back)

and most glaringly, the fact that donna's deformity (where the cadou was almost certainly inserted) literally looks like a fetus. and that donna can't bear to look at her own face because she thinks that deformity ruined her.

donna and her home are full of references to babies and pregnancy (and, given the presence of all those herbs, abortifacients). including that cradle, which is evidence that at some point, there was a baby in the house (or at the minimum, that there were plans for one).

now to bring angie back into the picture: who/what is she? is she a piece of donna's personality, the ghost/donna's impression of her sister claudia, or the essence of donna's own child (who in a sense is still a piece of her)?

especially given that miranda's primary motivation is resurrecting her dead daughter (as is ethan's)... could it be possible that donna, who mirrors her in other ways, found her own way to do the same?

and note that angie hates rose and seems jealous of her ("i'd make a much better daughter than rose") and that donna's note to ethan implies that she actually has affection for rose-- whose attention is angie worried that she could be losing: miranda's, or donna's?

factoring in that angie is meant to evoke the image of a decaying body, that Big Baby's screams directly transition into angie's laughter once you escape the basement, and that the only child in donna's house is Big Baby, a hallucination (that is specifically designed to be female)... what if Big Baby and angie are one and the same?

what i'm getting at is that donna had a child-- a daughter-- that died young, likely in infancy (and if that were the case, the child would potentially have been born with severe birth defects... the kind that might cause them to look like Big Baby). and angie is a way for her to cope with that loss, and to a certain extent, bring her back.

so. then comes the question: how'd the child come to be, and who's the father?

[again, we're assuming donna's as old as she looks, because the alternative, that claudia is her daughter and she had the child while already entrenched in the cult and under miranda's thumb, is too plot-relevant to have not been mentioned in-game, and thus can't have happened. regardless, there's a totally different can of worms at play there.]

well, consider:

that we know nothing of donna having any love interests, that donna is terrified of people and seldom interacted with them even as a child, and that she has had virtually no contact with anyone outside the lords since she joined them

that donna's terror stems from a prominent scar on her face, which she received as a child, while she had little contact with anyone outside her family. which means it's most likely that someone in her family gave it to her, so her upbringing was not a happy one

(that donna's scar resembles the beneviento family crest -> it's a constant reminder of her family)

that donna joined mother miranda after a childhood that lasted long enough for her to have significant memories of her family, but before she was an adult-- so she most likely joined when she was a preteen/teenager (which means that if we're assuming miranda didn't have a hand in the pregnancy, she had that baby when she was very young)

what could cause donna's childish fixation on dolls and playing, and her stunted development

that donna dresses the way she does because of an extreme sense of repulsion towards her own body (specifically, her body as it relates to a trauma inflicted on her, in two separate incidents, by both of her families, and the image of a fetus literally branded into her face forever)

that while donna and angie might not be the same person, they certainly have a mental connection, and to most players they'll read as two separate personalities (a 'split-personality') belonging to the same individual... and what specific trauma famously results in dissociative identity disorder?

what could possibly cause a child to be born looking like Big Baby

that the benevientos are nobility, that the lords are obsessed with bloodline, and the kind of shit nobility does to keep their bloodlines intact

the audio used to torture ethan. specifically, of one parent desperately trying to convince the other that something terrible they did to their child is okay, actually. ("i didn't want to keep it from you. i didn't want to lose you again-- i didn't want to destroy this family. i love you both so much i had to. i had to do it." / "it'll be fine")

that angie accuses ethan of abusing/stabbing/penetrating his daughter.

... and that, on top of it all, something triggered lord and lady beneviento to commit suicide.

what i'm getting at is, the simplest answer is that the child's father was lord beneviento. that the child was both donna's daughter and her sister.

to bring it back around to angie,

donna confided heavily and exclusively in angie after her parents' deaths.

angie, who is donna's symbolic child, and may be the vessel for the ghost/donna's impression of the ghost of her actual child.

angie, who has a facial marking that mimics the family crest-- and donna's own deformity, which at the time of the doll's making, would have only been a scar. which would have most likely been given to her by someone in her family. ergo, angie is a reminder (intentional or otherwise) of how prominent her family is, and how they treated her.

angie, who (according to josef's journals) was a gift** to donna from her father.

angie, who wears a wedding dress.

**cadou means gift in romanian. cadou, the fetus-shaped thing implanted in donna's face that isolates her and makes her unable to look at herself. miranda's 'gift,' implanted into young donna, took the place of the scar and made it worse; one transformative trauma blooming out of another.

when considering her father's gift to her was angie, and what angie represents to donna... he literally gave her a 'child' who's a physical reminder of the trauma her family inflicted on her. and he then... gave her a child by... implanting it into her. so to speak. (or maybe it was the reverse. maybe the doll was a gesture from him to win her over after damaging her trust.)

and to bring things back around to claudia: this is the second time re8 is using the motif of a lost daughter (who died tragically at the age of 9/10). the first was miranda and eva, and the only other lost daughter in the game that fits this description would be claudia. yes, ethan is also trying to resurrect a dead daughter, but rose is an infant, and he's a father, which makes things slightly different. close enough to mention here, not close enough to include fully.

so. given how the loss of a child can destroy a family (and especially a marriage) and given that motif... what if the benevientos wanted to resurrect claudia in another sense?

so. the series of events i'm picturing here probably unfolds like this:

claudia died young.

her death made the relationship between lord and lady beneviento decay to such an extent that donna's father started turning his attention towards her. having her 'fill in' for her mother, so to speak.

bad shit happened, which eventually lead to a pregnancy, at which point lady beneviento found out about what was happening.

the pregnancy was carried to term because the benevientos hoped to get their dead daughter back in some form (and because the village is a fertility cult that worships motherhood and pregnancy, so abortion and contraception wouldn't have been allowed).

but the child died soon after birth, because she was 1) being born to a mother who was far too young to carry her in the first place, 2) so inbred that she developed wrong, and 3) potentially being subject to various toxic herbs (by donna? by her mother? her father?) in the hopes that the pregnancy not take.

that was a breaking point that culminated in lord and lady beneviento's suicide. they couldn't justify what they were doing anymore, and couldn't live with the consequences.

and then, in the aftermath, donna was brought into miranda's fold, moving from one abusive family to another... and her initiation into it was an equivalent violating trauma as she was made into another failed vessel for another dead daughter's resurrection.

just as one final hideous little detail: recall that miranda hates donna and considers her a failure because of that facial disfigurement/her severe mental illness. so in context, given what that disfigurement represents and how that mental illness came to be, she thinks the sexual abuse made her damaged goods and probably blames her failure to be an adequate vessel on that.

(given that the village is a fertility cult that worships the image of a fetus, where motherhood is considered divine, virginity/maidenhood is literally idolized, the process of propogation & reproduction is ritualized and the cult's entire purpose is to produce the reincarnation of miranda's daughter... how do you treat a woman or girl who gets pregnant in the Wrong Way, miscarries, attempts to abort a pregnancy, or has a child with a deformity?)

now consider that the division of the vials of body parts carry a symbolic meaning: four parts of a whole, each performing a different vital function but all combining into one functional being, divided to keep said parts static and vulnerable until miranda can manipulate their unification and make herself the core of it.

and consider that which vial was given to which lord tells you how miranda sees them:

karl, who runs the factory that powers the village and is subtly miranda's favorite, got the torso full of vital organs that connects all the other pieces (instead of the head, which contains the brain, which emits electric signals and conjures conscious thought... which tells you what miranda thinks of his independent streak).

alcina, the most eye-catching lord who takes the most after miranda, got the head (but not the torso, the vital center of the body full of all the blood-pumping organs... which is what ultimate miranda simp alcina would have preferred).

moreau, who does most of the grunt work keeping the village running, got the arms. (something secondary, unimportant, that carries the biggest load)

and donna... was given the legs. and presumably, what's in between them. just to let her know, one last time before she's thrown out with the trash for a newer, shinier child, exactly what miranda thinks she's good for.

#resident evil village #donna beneviento

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seancekitsch · 4 years

Text

Barefoot

warnings: angst, communication issues, talking about relapsing, addiction, drugs and alc, not overtly mentioned but like these characters are like this bc of trauma and repression, spoilers for the movie the graduate which i severely misunderstood as a kid, dirty fuckin smut

When you wake up, Klaus isn’t there. Just like yesterday. Just like the day before yesterday. Or the day before that. The bed is cold even with you in the sheets. Light streams into the window but it does nothing to help. The studio is drafty and it will only get colder in the winter months, and those socks are already coming in handy. Rent is due soon and while you’d be surprised if Klaus left you alone with the lease, you’d couldn’t be sure. People had left you before, but Klaus is the one you wouldn't know how to cope without. His tea from four days ago is still sitting on the bistro table, cold and settling, surely disgusting but you’re afraid that if you touch it, if you clean it up, well then. Klaus wouldn’t return. Klaus would be gone from this apartment . Vanishing himself from this studio and this life like one of his ghosts. The tea would evaporate eventually or grow mold but it was all you had to hold onto for him to come back. Maybe it all wasn’t real. Maybe it was a trick of your imagination. Maybe you’re the ghost. Maybe you’re just a trick of his imagination that he got tired of playing with and-

Fuck. That’s when you realize you’re in a bad way.

What do normal people do when they feel things getting bad again? Do other people feel the backslide and just somersault into it by refusing to clean or get out of bed? By dealing with the pitiful look from their boss by buying absinthe on the way home from work? God, the look Margie gave you. It killed you. By convincing themselves that all of this good they just had was just a Belle Reve and you were Blanche about to be taken right back to the clinic? You actively gag as you sip from the bottle starting around noon, the sweetness at first being a fun distraction, now actively grossing you out as you continued to drain it. Absinthe wasn't actually the plan, it was just there, it was just strong. Now you regret it and wish you got something you even liked. At least this is the worst of it, though. Before you would have fully slid back into your old ways and not thought twice.

You wonder if there was something about your role in what transpired, if there was something you could have done or not done to change the outcome. Could you have kissed him and shut him up so he never would have said ‘I love you’? Could you have done something other than shake your head ‘no’ out of panic and start to cry? Could you have just said it fucking back because you mean it too? Could you have not continued to panic and said something along the lines of “I’m not a replacement for Dave” when Klaus tried to say it again? Could you have said or done anything just to stop him from hastily dressing himself and leaving in the middle of the night, leaving you there silently crying on the bed? If he were anyone else, you would have said it back immediately, because if it were anyone but him, words would be something you just threw around aimlessly. They're just words. You'd said it a million times to your ex-fiance. If this were anyone else, you would have said it back immediately, and probably relapsed the next morning in panic. But it isn't anyone else. Its Klaus fucking Hargreeves. It's the guy from across the hall at the clinic. It's the guy who helped you steal socks, then a table to eat dinner at. It's the guy you literally have traveled across time and space for. And you did love him. It wasn't just a phrase. You knew that for a while now, but part of you would have liked to keep it hidden forever. Because once you say it, the bubble bursts. It's out there and you can't take it back. It's real and tangible and it's not the fantasy of Klaus, it's Klaus himself. In order to say it you'd have to kill the fantasy Klaus. You’d have to murder him and all of the mythology around him and live in the real world with him, which might have even been stranger than any fantasy you could come up with. He deserved better than this. He deserves more than me, you think, than someone who would hurt him to protect herself. Selfish bitch. Gotta do better. By the time you finish half the bottle, eat your cold lo mein take out from two days ago, and decide to take a nap, you've made a decision. If you ever see Klaus Hargreeves again (which is doubtful because you don't plan on leaving this bed unless it's for work and even that feels like not a good enough reason) you'll kill the fantasy Klaus and commit to loving the real Klaus.

But sleep doesn't come. The cold leftovers sit like a rock in your stomach, not at all mixing well with the green liquorice liquor you've downed, so you lay there eyes-closed begging for the pain to subside. It's a familiar feeling, much like the week and a half in the bed before Klaus inserted himself into your life. The ache and the want for more than you have but the inability to give it to yourself. So you lay there. You just lay there, for hours. Thank god Margie gave you a few days off. You lose all track of time just laying there, actively trying not to think, trying to ignore how you feel both physically and mentally, curling into the sheets until you can feel yourself melt into them.

It’s dark when you hear the keys rattle in the lock, and then the door opens. You keep your eyes shut, because if you do you can pretend it’s an intruder, coming to rob you of your mismatched dishes and beat up old record player before killing you. Which is a reasonable and comforting fantasy that you rather hide in than face Klaus. Klaus was real and Klaus loved you and Klaus got in your head. The intruder is a fantasy and the intruder is horror and the intruder might not even let you beg for your life. You can gladly imagine the intruder using keys that maybe he stole off of Klaus to come in here and steal all of your monetarily worthless shit and then just stab you or something anticlimactic. You know exactly what you want to say to Klaus and how to say it but you don’t know if it’ll come out of your mouth when the time comes, so you cling to this stupid horrible thought to take your mind off of the sound of footsteps entering the apartment. So you keep your eyes shut when you hear the sound of boots being taken off, when you hear the deflating sigh, the pattering around the room slowly before you hear the sounds of ruffling, probably his coat being taken off. You keep your eyes shut as there's a distinct silence in the room besides your best fake-asleep deep breathing. Like he's holding his breath and waiting for something.

You lay still, keeping up the fake sleeping, as the mattress creaks and dips next to you and Klaus sighs again. He emanates the warmth that had all but been stoked from the apartment and left you shivering. You can feel yourself pulling towards him, wanting to wrap your arms around him and hold him and never let go again, but you don't. There's always the off chance this is just a very strong hallucination brought on by the bottle of green fairy on the floor next to the bed. But fuck, if you dont wanna just pull him close.

“I know you're awake,” he says lowly, so close to you. His face is centimeters from yours, if you had to guess, nose just almost touching your own.

“You know, I used to watch you sleep all the time. You- you do this… this cute twitchy thing when you're out cold,” he continues. He sighs, realizing you're either much more stubborn than he thought or much more avoidant of anything vulnerable than he is. It took him a day of sitting on Diego’s floor while being lectured for his drinking habits for him to realize that he couldn't give up with you. He made peace with the fact that he couldn't save Dave. He couldn't change history, but he could change the future he could have with you if only he didn't let this go. But it was his conversation with your boss that had him worried. It wasn't like you not to show up for work, even if things were tough.

“You know you’re actually terrible at faking it, right?” he asks, for clarification. You want to open your eyes, to laugh, but you keep them shut and a tear escapes down your cheek.

“Can you— can you just look at me? Please?”

It hurts, it fucking hurts but you shake your head no.

“Oh don’t do that shit again. C’mon, doc, look at me!”

You can’t.

“Your tea went cold. I-I’m sorry,” is barely a whisper. But you say it. And he hears it.

“Hey! Hey hey hey, don’t worry about that. Don’t worry.”

He chooses his next words very carefully. If you were to open your eyes, you’d see him yearning to touch you, a worried and pained expression all over his handsome features. You’d see his hair just as unkempt as yours and the tee shirt he’s wearing is also obviously yours. You’d see those beautiful green eyes doing their best impression of bambi right after the hunting scene.

“What have you... what’s been going on? You haven’t been by the shop.”

“You went there?” you whisper again. Still kind of afraid this all isn’t real. You know it is because you feel his breath fanning out against your face and you feel the bed becoming the warm welcoming thing it once was.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. Margie said you weren’t coming in for a week.”

“She spoke to you?” you wince. Knowing that was probably highly unpleasant for the both of them. Half the time when he showed up at the end of your shift she made him wait outside of the shop and refused to look at him.

“Yeah Margie, christ that woman loves you.”

Your eyes shoot open, startling him a little, but he relaxes by the time your eyes adjust to the dark. You see him and only him. Everything is Klaus.

“Listen, I-“ You start a little too loudly, scaring yourself.

“No, no. Don’t say something you don’t mean. Don’t say it back because I said it.”

Fuck. Fuck is he even going to believe it when I say it? If not what’s the fucking point? You feel more tears pricking at your eyes and you crumble a little. The burst of confidence is gone as you curl farther in on yourself, feeling your legs brush his as you let out just the tiniest choked sob. He’s frozen, and your hand is searching, blindly grabbing against the sheet until it comes in contact with his. Hurriedly, as if he would sift through your fingers like sand, you entangle your fingers with his and squeeze as hard as you can. Like if you let go he goes too. You can’t lose him again but it sounds like a break up. It sounds like what you remember a break up sounding like.

“Please,” fuck you sound pathetic.

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. It’s okay if you don’t love me back. I can go stay at Diego’s or Vanya’s or something and we can figure out how to get out of the lease early. Anything you want. I just wanted to let you know I meant what I said. You’re not a replacement for anyone. You’re who I want. But you don’t have to want me back. I’ll... live.” he finishes flatly, devoid.

Your heart is officially breaking. Into a million tiny fucking pieces. A memory comes to the forefront of your mind in that moment. The first time you choked him. The way he looked up at you. The way you realized at that second just how many people probably took advantage of him in the past. The way he probably thinks you’ve done to him now too.

“No, Klaus please listen to me,” your voice doesn’t sound like your own, doesn’t feel like your own. You feel far away from him even though his hand is clasped in your own. You feel like that scene in the graduate where Dustin Hoffman is interrupting Elaine Robinson’s wedding. Screaming and slamming fists against the glass trying to change your fate. Trying to get him to see.

“I was scared. Fuckin terrified. I- I- I- I’ve never said those words and meant it before,” you gasp between sobs now much more eager to spill out of your mouth, “It wasn’t you, I got in my own head about it. I got surprised. I love you, Klaus. I love you so fucking much I didn’t touch a fucking thing in this apartment because I was afraid somehow that meant you wouldn’t come back. I know I’m not replacing Dave. I know. I don’t know why I said that. I've wanted to take it back since the second I said it. I've hurt so many people and I hurt the one person I didn’t wanna hurt. I never wanna hurt you again. I love you. fuck. I don’t want to stop saying that. I love you.”

Klaus... is surprisingly quiet through your little speech. Maybe it’s because you can’t control what your voice is doing, and you’re crying. He’s staring at you so hard it feels as if he's trying to look through you, see the transparencies, see the truth in what you're saying. You want to shrink under his gaze, knowing he's trying to sus out if you mean it, feeling vulnerable each passing ticking second.

But then his hand squeezes yours back just as hard. If he squeezed hard enough he could easily crush a few of your bones, and you'd let him if it meant he understood.

“You do,” more a confirmation than a question.

“I do.”

“Say it.”

“I love you.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you,” with more force, more conviction.

“Once more, with feeling!” a smile is beginning to grace his lips.

“I fucking love you, Klaus!” you shout pretty much directly into his face. He doesn't mind a damn bit. He presses forward eagerly; releasing your hand only to roughly cup the back of your neck, fingers digging into your skin. It hurts, but in the most satisfying way. Your hands reach and grip for his face, greedily moving your palms over his jawbone as you lock him into place. Klaus is dizzying in his fervor, barely letting you keep up as his teeth clatter against yours, bite at your lips, his tongue darting between your tasting lips and tickling the roof of your mouth. there’s no letting up to the onslaught even as his hands travel, one hand trailing trimmed nails down your back, sure to leave a mark even with the barrier of your shirt, the other groping at your chest, seeking out a nipple to harshly pinch, making you squeak into his mouth in shock at his actions. As possessive and kinky as he could be at times, he has never been this rough with you. And you like it. He takes the time to bite down on your bottom lip, pull away, shake his head a little before mercifully releasing it and putting his forehead to yours.

“Oh you, you—“ he draws out, scoffs, “you wicked thing. You had me worried.”

“I’m sorry,” you gasp.

His grip on you softens, relaxes. His eyes shut just so, full of contentment. His nose nuzzles forward until you're cheek to cheek, and you can feel your cheek isn't the only one that's a little damp.

“Stop apologizing. I have you back now,” he whispers, sounding the most at peace you've ever heard him. He presses a kiss to the skin right at the place where your jawbone and ear meet, making you shiver at the sound of contact. He pulls you flush with his body, a tight hug, just holding you there before maneuvering your body so you were laying flat, your chest and shoulders pressed to the bed while he presses kisses to your face.

“Trust me,” he says, and you do. He lays himself back down, on top of you, and fuck, you love this. You love when he lays on you, when you feel his weight resting on you. Earlier today you thought you'd never feel this again, and the fact that thought was false has you grinning from ear to ear and reaching back to play with his curls as his arms find their way under you to hug you as you chant your love for him like a mantra. And then you feel it. Klaus is hard as a rock. Poor thing, it's been almost a week for him, when the two of you were so used to going at it basically anytime you had a spare half hour. Playfully, you grind back into him a little bit. Nothing that means business, but just a little brush of your ass against his cock to have him squirm a little. He reacts immediately with a growl and buries his face in the side of your neck to kiss and bite your neck and shoulder, while one hand removes itself from the hug to slide up your shirt again and blindly grope at your chest. Two can play at this game. You grind back again, a little harder, a little more deliberate in your movements this time. You're both chuckling as he starts to grind back, both feeling extremely free and confident in your control over each other's bodies. He knows he could have your sweatpants off and be inside you in under a minute, and you know you could easily have him blow his load in his pants if you keep it up teasing him like this. But how long can you really keep it up without wanting to give in to your own desires? You're painfully aware that it's been days you've had to survive without Klaus’ touch, too.

“You wanna end kiddie hour here?” he asks, and he couldn't have asked soon enough, because you're shimmying your sweatpants down with clumsy help from your hand that's somewhat trapped under him and laughing as he just as blunderingly removes his. Neither of you bother to fully remove them because the second his cock makes contact with your skin you're sighing and reminding him you love him. He lines himself up with you without using his hands like this is something he just instinctively knows how to do.

When he pushes into you, you whimper. Full on whimper like it's too much even though this is something you've done hundreds of times with him, but somehow it's new. Maybe making love isn't just a sentimental name for fucking. Maybe you're making love for the first time. Maybe now you know the difference. He brings the arm that was under your shirt back up and trails it down your arm until it gets to your hand, where he rubs his palm against your knuckles, almost inquisitively before tangling your fingers together and squeezing. Holding it in place. His other arm reaches just a little further, hugging you from behind and giving your waist a little squeeze as a ‘get ready’ signal. You tilt your ass back up at him a little as he pulls out, thrusts back in again. Only this time his thrust is punctuated with an “I love you”.

And so is the next one.

And the next one.

Until he works up a rhythm that leaves the both of you moaning and stuttering. You hike up one leg, changing the angle so slightly that his hips snap up into you in a way guaranteed to bruise. You’d happily have it hurt to sit for the next week if he kept fucking into you like he would break you. Klaus puts his full strength into fucking you, legs pinning you to the mattress as he uses the arm that’s holding your hand for extra leverage. Sweat dripping off of his chest as he kisses your back and moans and laughs into your skin. It’s times like this you remember your partner is fully trained in combat. For someone so lean, he’s strong, and he has strong control over the muscles in his body. It’s like a kind of clairvoyance he has to know exactly what parts of your body to touch, what to do to have you losing it around him all the time. Is Klaus Clairvoyant? You think as the angle of his thrusts changes ever so slightly, but still at that rough pace, now making your clit grind into the sheets beneath you making you scream out.

“That’s right, baby. You feel good?” he groans. Little shit.

“Yeah,” you whine, looking back to make eye contact.

“Who’s making you feel good?” Oh, he’s working for an ego stroke as well as a cock stroke. You’ll give it to him. Klaus deserves it.

“Oh, fuck— y-you, Klaus”

“And who do you love?”

“Fuck. You, Klaus! I love you so much,” words leak from your mouth like a sieve. “I love how- how you fuck me so good.”

“That’s right, and now I'm gonna make you come. Trust me.”

That's the second time tonight he’s asked you to trust him. You do, unwaveringly.He gives you no time to react before he speeds up his thrusts and the hand around your waist dips lower. He leans off of you a little, giving you a little more space, but plunges his hand between your legs. instead of stopping at your clit, he goes as far as to push a finger, his middle finger, up into you as well. And then the bastard curls his finger just slightly. The action has you turning into the pillow to scream. It's too much. It's too much. You've never been this full in your life and now it feels almost sinful how easily you are coming apart for him. You're shaking and with the added pressure of his finger you can feel just how hard your body is squeezing his cock. You can feel tears leaving your eyes for the second time tonight as you babble about how much you love him and your body jolts for his touch. He finishes too, inside you and happily pushed into the hilt. The whine that leaves your throat when he pulls out finally is unfair and needy. Already missing being so full of him. He rolls back over so that he's not on top of you, and pulls you in tight.

“I don't want to stop saying it,” he mutters into your hair, and you wait for him to continue patiently.

“I don't want to stop saying I love you.”

“Then don't.”

“I won't. But I will throw away this take out. This lo mein is old. It smells.”

You laugh loud and hearty, and he gets up from the bed, fully kicking his pants off as he does so, and there's no fear that he won't come back to bed with you this time.

#klaus hargreeves x reader #klaus hargreeves smut #klaus hargreeves imagine #klaus hargreeves fanfic #my work #prize buck series

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dannyphantom-rewrite · 3 years

Text

Character ref for; Jack, Maddie and Jazz,

Art by @gally-hin / @gally-hin-phantom

Okay so first off; in terms of Actual redesign, I didn't change a whole lot. I'm actually very fond of Jack and Maddie's design's, my only real issue was with their proportions. Like...look as a lady person who is also thiCC I do not have a fucking wasp thin waist and I'm sure I'm not the only one, lmao. As for Jack? Godamnit he looked like a brick on toothpicks. Just Let him be a fucking Bara man! Anyway of course I asked Gally to do this one bc they're fucking great at drawing different body types

I also cannot and will not take credit for Jazz's outfit. I didn't have any issue with her canon clothes aside from them being a bit plain, so what she's wearing here was literally pulled straight off of her original concept art, which I will link here.

Anyway, getting to the Actual character lore now, let's start with

Maddie Fenton

-Full name is Madeline (I haven't decided on a maiden name yet)

-Born and raised on a farm in Arkansas, had a southern accent that she trained herself out of in college bc it was just one more reason for people not to take her seriously. Still sometimes uses "y'all" completely unironically bc old habits die hard.

-She has a really big family, and they're proud of her accomplishments but feel like she's wasting her talent studying ghosts, because really, up until the Fenton portal was up and running there wasn't even any solid proof they existed. Her sister Alicia is the one outlier there, and even if she doesn't understand, it she completely supports her.

-She majored in engineering and minored in psychology at Wisconsin EDU. Her, Jack and Vlad were all in the same engineering class, and that's where they met.

-Maddie is particularly interested in how ghosts think, analysing their behavior, their motives. Not only that, but they aren't just dead people with unfinished business, they've built an entire culture in the Ghost Zone that is completely seperate from humanity, and she wants to understand all of it.

-skilled marksman and 9th degree black belt, (which is. The highest fucking level there is holy shit? I looked it up after I saw it on her wiki page.)

Jack Fenton

-He's from Minnesota (Amity park is in Illinois and him and Maddie didn't move there until after they got married)

-okay, "but why minnesota specifically" you ask? Because. I crave. Foot ball discourse.

-minnesota vikings vs green bay packers guys do you UNDERSTAND WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS

-The funny thing is that Jack only watches football casually while Vlad is a fucking die hard so when these two got together to see a game it was like....

-Jack: Here to chill and have a good time.

-Vlad: Primed and ready to start a fist fight at any given moment.

-I am never not going to be salty about how Canon Jack was portrayed like a complete moron 99% percent of the time. Like no...theres a difference between Actual Stupid and ADHD induced dumbass-ery.

-Am I saying Jack Fenton has ADHD? Yes. why? Because I also have ADHD and I have always vibed So Hard with his Character.

-Jack is loud and easily excited about things that interest him. He's impulsive and fidgety and yeah, a bit absent minded. He has a mouth that clearly runs so much faster than his head. His train of thought doesn't get derailed so much as it stops and takes several different detours on the way to it's final destination.

-and that's only the tip of the iceberg, really, I'd need an entire essay to get into this completely, but I just really relate.

-Jacks skill-set / interests regarding ghosts vary a bit from Maddie's, most notably in the sense that he doesn't believe that they're static entities already set in their ways, completely incapable of change.

-Jack majored in engineering and minored in Biology at Wisconsin EDU.

-Jack's work with tech is a bit hit or miss. He definitely HAS the engineering skills, but the intrest isn't always there and he's constantly jumping back and forth between different projects. He tends to focus on the concept work and schematics and leave most of the assembly to Maddie as a result. It's an arrangement that works well for them, and has drastically decreased the number of unintentional explosions in the lab.

-A lot of Jack's work tends to revolve around ghostly biology and Ectoplasm, figuring out how ghosts are made, what makes them tick, what the hell Ectoplasm Actually Is, how it's used as an energy source, ect.

-and yes, that does also mean he handles the dissections.

-See that facial scar? Yeah, that's not actually there at the start of the series rewrite but it's very important for plot reasons so I had to include it. Can't say much more on the subject because SPOILERs owo.

Jasmine Fenton

-Jazz is a 18 years old, and a senior at Casper high.

-Which means she prepping to go away to college and won't be around to keep an eye on Danny.

-Obviously that doesn't mean I'm just writing her out of the story, oh no. Know why? Because she's also gonna go to Wisconsin EDU. ya know who else is in Wisconsin? Fuckin' Vlad.

-Jazz is autistic, Although she passes for neurotypical in part due to symptoms being completely over looked in girls due to gender stereotyping and also the fact that she doesn't have any special interests that are considered " "too weird.""

- Her hyperfixation with psychology started at a young age in an effort to better understand people, and social/emotional cues and all that.

-Jazz is well liked at school but she's not popular or apart of any specific group or clique. She's very kind and compassionate to people, and just about everyone knows her, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually Considered her a friend. Except maybe Spike.

-I'm gonna have to give spike his own Character ref at some point, but he's this scary looking goth kid that's been held back twice. He's actually super sweet, just really fuckin' quiet and anxious. Him and jazz kinda ended up gravitating towards each other. She might do most of the talking, but they look out for each other.

-its not like jazz doesn't try to socialize, but it's difficult and she's found it much easier and less stressful to just. Keep to herself and let her interactions with her peers stay shallow and superficial. Sure, it's lonely sometimes but it's better than constantly worrying about saying the wrong thing or making some other misstep.

-One of Jazz's other special interests is football, and it's not so much the players or the game as it is the strategy of it? Started out as one of those things you do to bond with your dad, and she ended up getting really into it.

-She absolutley winds up getting into stupidly intense discussions with Vlad about it, too, lmao.

-Her and Danny probably bonded over SBNation bc that shit has both sentient satellites and ridiculously complex football mechanics.

-She's completely oblivious to the fact, but Dash has a massive crush on her bc holy shit this girl understands football (hey bud your toxic masculinity is showing put that shit away)

-I mentioned that Danny was in Cheer for a bit in middle school so it makes sense that she'd also be pushed into doing some kind of extracurricular activity.....so.....she was in a martial arts class for a bit thanks to Maddie and has a good grasp on self defense.

I think that's everything? I feel like I'm leaving things out tho? Idk if I did I'll come back and add on to this later and also pls don't hesitate to ask questions bc it really helps me flesh things out better.

#danny phantom #art #danny fenton #maddie fenton #jack fenton #jazz fenton #ref

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rarebowgart · 3 years

Text

Writeblr Introduction

Hi hello hey how ya doing! My name is Remington and I'm a new writeblr, I just want to share my stories somewhere other than my friends DMs asfdhakdk

I write mostly fantasy and adventure type stuff, and a lot of the things I write are coping stuffs because we got mental illnes luv x

Other Places To Find Me

my main blog is @rarewubbox (you'll find my carrd there as well if you want more info about me!)

my art blog is @c0ttonberries

my AO3 is ToTheMax

Current Wips Under Da Cut (because this got long)

No Name, Fair Game- a story about a boy named Colt-Lynx who runs away from home, meets a cute girl named DeLaney, and they go riding on a train to escape his old life. DeLaney isn't everything she claims to be, however, but Colt-Lynx doesn't seem to notice. The only people that can tell that something is off is the quartet of strange humanoids that they've acquainted themselves with on the train. Full of Drama, Fantasy, and of course the recommended amount of Gay

LOVE–LOVE- a High School Romance story between tennis players on rival teams. Lee is the charismatic yet forgetful heartthrob, and Cliff is the pessimistic yet caring stuffed animal doctor. When their schools agree to have an after-school program dedicated to preaching good sportsmanship, the teams have no choice but to get together and mingle. Lee and Cliff start to realize that they don't mind each others company, despite being supposed rivals. This is just gay high schoolers in love what else do you want from me

Infamous Weapons 101 [title might change]- This is another high school story about a group of juniors who decide the adults aren't going to do anything about their dangerous school system, which encourages burnout, coming to school sick, and- worst of all- coming to school while there's a serial killer at large. These kids have to put their personal squabbles and family drama aside, because now lies a threat that only they seem to care about dispatching, and they can only do this together. This is planned to become a webcomic to be a social commentary on the American school system and all of its fatal flaws, with a wide variety of humanoid and animal characters. There's angels, demons, furries, zombie dogs, and everything in between!

Chërophobia- Chëro is a doll that came to life after being thrown into a dumpster for the millionth time. He wanders into the forest and meets a ghost, who brings him to the wonderful lightshow of Meinstro and Family's Bright-And-Wild Circus! There, he finds a home and people genuinely worth caring for, who won't chuck him in the trash. The only problem is... he's caught up in the family drama now. It turns out the ringleader of this circus he cares about has to carry her parent's burden and answer for their crimes against other circus families around town. This WIP can be summed up as "if I had a nickel for every time I met a family who ran a slaughterhouse disguised as a circus in the woods, I'd have... three nickels. Which isn't a lot but its horrifying that I've met three of them." Oh yeah did I mention the circus is a slaughterhouse? Thats kind of important. I'm writing this with a good and close friend of mine and we've been working on the story for a good long while now!

I also have a smattering of other fics and ocs so I might post about those later but here's my Main Writings!

No Better Version Of Me; a Henry Stickmin Fanfic- this is the only fic I'm putting up here bc its the only one I'm actively publishing lmao. It takes place after The Revenged ending in Henry Stickmin: Completing the Mission. I'll refrain from spoilers but there's DRAMA, ACTION, and MAYBE ROMANCE BUT NOT A LOT OF IT. I have my own separate blog for this fic here @nbvom

[CURRENTLY UNNAMED]- A boarding school far away from any neighboring society finds themselves in trouble when students and teachers alike start turning up dead on the courtyard. They'd call the police, but the phone lines are cut. They'd e-mail for help, but something is trapping their signal. Three assumed targets of this unknown killer are placed under a rudimentary bodyguard program, so now these rowdy music majors are going to have to coexist with the prim, proper and intimidatingly dark students of their Academia majors. (Everything about this is still under heavy development but I've had this idea for like literal years)

#writeblr #writeblr intro #uhhh what else am i gonna tag this as #did i get everything? i hope i did

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a-hundred-jewels · 3 years

Text

cruel summer ch 12: i have these lucid dreams

Ao3 Wattpad

Summary: sabrina starr, pegasuses, and oh no! the fourth wall broke! do we have a carpenter in the audience?

Word Count: 9000 ish

Tags: Rachel Elizabeth Dare/Jane Penderwick, Rosalind Penderwick/Tommy Geiger, Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jane Penderwick, Rachel Elizabeth Dare, Rosalind Penderwick, Skye Penderwick, Chiron (Percy Jackson), Martin Penderwick, Elizabeth "Batty" Penderwick, Elizabeth Penderwick (senior), Iantha Aaronson-Penderwick, Ben Aaronson-Penderwick, Nico di Angelo, Will Solace, Annabeth Chase, Jeffrey Tifton-McGrath, Percy Jackson, Demeter (Percy Jackson), Apollo (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Camp Half-Blood AU, Demigods, demeter!elizabeth penderwick, demeter!rosalind (second generation), demeter!batty (second generation), apollo!alec mcgrath, apollo!jeffrey (second generation), demeter!jane (second generation), demeter!skye (second generation), all of that's in no particular order, main focus is on jane because i love her and she's so so fun to write, tomsalind is there (and stuff will happen - i can't really say what, it will really be eventful though), yes of course there's solangelo, takes place right before Penderwicks In Spring, After Trials of Apollo, more tags to come??, Minor Swearing

Notes and Full Chapter below cut:

Hello everyone and welcome back! I'll admit, this is a little later today than I'd been planning to post (was hoping to get an early start), but hey! If the Puppet History season 4 finale can be late, then so can I!

First off, a massive massive thank you to waterbottle_stickers for being the best beta reader ever. This chapter would be a mess without you. Also, if you haven't already, please check out their enola holmes fic wherever you stray, i follow it's truly wonderful.

If you've been following me on tumblr, then you'll know that, in addition to reblogging an alarming quantity of good omens fanart, I've been making some plans for fics this month. The original plan from back in august was to post every day of the month, but... ahhh.... I just don't work that fast lmao. I'll have to be content with just posting a fair amount this month. Happy october! Anyway, stay tuned.

On this fine day, we've got two lovely QUEER fanfic recommendations that I'm very excited to share. Up first is one from the tumblr blog izzielizzie (which you should all absolutely check out! especially if you're into the one of us is lying fandom!). it centers around the skye/melissa pairing and their senior prom, which Skye is said to have only gone to last minute, and also wearing a lab coat, in a passage of the penderwicks at last. featuring some oblivious lesbians and also jane. once again a massive thanks to izzielizzie, as this fic is one of my favourites!. click here to take a look! (also keep an eye on her blog in general bc her penderwicks fics are awesome!)

The second fanfic is also one I'm very fond of, as it focuses on the siblinghood of skye and jane, which is one of my favourite topics on earth. check out rolling down the ancient high street by hanchewie/ramblemadlyon (tumblr and ao3 respectively) for the sibling antics of aroace skye and bisexual jane when the latter visits the former at her college in california! and, if you like it, ramblemadlyon has two other penderwicks fics from the past couple days that look fantastic as well, and that I look forward to reading.

This chapter is dedicated to my therapist, since I've decided this will be the month of oddly specific dedications. thank you for telling me to stop referring to cruel summer as my "trash baby" and help me recognize the true worth that it holds in my life.

Disclaimer: not my characters, you know the drill. Jeanne Birdsall and Rick Riordan are lucky ducks indeed. chapter title is (obviously) from "lucid dreams" by Juice WRLD.

FROM THE POV OF JANE PENDERWICK

The woods loomed around me, seeming as tall as buildings as they invited me in further. I took another step, the sharp pain of a pinecone digging into my foot barely registered in my mind. I kept walking. A crack sounded throughout the air, and, behind me, a tree splintered round its base and fell down, only inches away from crushing me dead, and completely blocking the path out.

Frightened, I began to run, looking for a way out of the forest. But no matter which way I went, there were only trees in front of me. Where was the path? Where was the grassy hill I had walked down to get in here in the first place. Had I even walked down that hill to begin with? Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure I remembered coming here. I wasn’t sure I remembered waking up this morning, or going to bed last night, or anything besides existing in the forest. Who was I? What was I doing here? How could I get out?

Panicking, I stood in the middle of a clearing, looking frantically at the trees around me, trying to find something familiar. Nothing. I was exhausted. How long had I been here? An hour? A day? A lifetime? I collapsed at the base of a tree, sobbing as I tried to remember. Something. Anything.

Then, a voice echoed around me. “Welcome,” it said, and my mind went black.

I bolt upright in bed, a scream halfway out of my throat. I clamp it back, not wanting to wake my cabinmates. Thin light whimpers through the window--enough for me to see my white-knuckle grip on the sheets, but not enough to pass as daylight.

What time is it?

Our cell phones don’t really work here--that was one of the first things Miranda told us when we arrived, and Batty’s been gleefully lording it over us that her Mp3 player will still play music and, like, function, while our smart phones recline sadly in our duffel bags. That being said, I don’t feel quite brave enough to get out of my bed just yet and tiptoe over to the big analog clock that Rio bought at a pawn shop in Colorado. Maybe my phone will at least show the time.

I reach under my bed and fumble for my duffel, hooking my pinky through the zipper loop and yanking it out onto my floor. My phone’s in the front pocket, buried under two pairs of headphones, several gum wrappers, and some strawberry leaves (?????). A piece of gum peels off the screen as I disentangle my phone, and I mentally chide my past self for being so messy.

My phone does not turn on. Big clock it is.

I tiptoe across the cold tile and peer around the tree.

5:45 .

Jesus Pagan Christ.

It’s too early to wake anyone up (as I think this, Batty lets out a snore to rival any crabby Tyrannosaurus Rex), so I wrap a blanket around myself like a criminally attractive burrito, and creep out onto the porch, with my notebook and pen tucked into my shirt.

As long as I live, I will never get tired of summer mornings. There’s something deeply lovely about the soft light of the still-sleepy, pink lemonade sun, the quiet anticipation of the cool air, damp from dew and preparing for the upcoming heat. At home in Cameron, Skye’s woken me up many an early morning to go for a run or do soccer drills or for a grueling “Seven Minute Workout Except You Don’t Follow The Rules And Torture Your Sister by Making It Actually A Forty-Nine Minute Workout.” (But it’s okay, I’m not bitter). But, as delightful as those experiences have all been, I don’t think Skye really gets it. The beauty of the summer morning is not what it can do for your workout schedule, but rather in its gentle softening of an otherwise boiling day. It is to be appreciated in the way that I am now, sitting curled up on this frighteningly creaky porch (I mean, seriously, who built this?) and calling up the Sabrina Starr section of my brain to try and write away the residual panic from my nightmare.

Sabrina sighed as the plane took off. She wasn’t sure if she should have followed the voice in her head telling her to come here. Saying it out loud--even just thinking it--made it sound ridiculous. A dream, a voice in her mind. Barely more than a whim.

Worse than that, Sabrina wasn’t even sure where this whim was taking her. On a napkin in her pocket, she’d scrawled everything she remembered about the dream from the night before. The dark sky, lit only with spiderwebs of lightning, the shadowy figure huddled on a beach and soaked through with rain. The voice crying for help.

And a name. Aeaea.

After she’d woken up, Sabrina had looked up Aeaea, too tired to fully connect why the name felt familiar. Her heart had sunk further after reading the Wikipedia entry, and a breath of hopelessness had left her lips. According to the internet, Aeaea was not a real place. It had been the island prison of Circe. Fiction wasn’t new to Sabrina, and neither was mythology (she recalled an adventure spent with a ghost called Rainbow from a few years back).

Fictional places, though, were another matter. How could she get somewhere if she didn’t know where she was going? Was she trusting her gut with too much this time?

Sabrina folded up the napkin and put it back in her pocket. There was no point in worrying about that now. She’d looked at enough maps to make a guess at where Aeaea might be if it was real. When she got there, she could get more information. Sabrina Starr had survived this long in her career of rescues and whims. She could survive one more adventure. Worst case scenario, she said to herself, I spend a few days running around for nothing and have to brush up on my Greek.

She repeated it to herself like a promise. Worst case scenario, worst case scenario… Eventually, tired out from all her anxieties, and from trying desperately not to worry about what would come next, Sabrina fell asleep.

FROM THE POV OF RACHEL ELIZABETH DARE

“Okay, I give up. Tell me what’s wrong.” Annabeth’s voice startles me away from my plate of eggs, which I had been pushing around with a fork. Anxiety bubbles in my throat, just as it had been since I woke up, and food just doesn’t sound like a good idea.

“I--what?”

Annabeth waves her hand impatiently. “Don’t play dumb. I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and I don’t think you’ve looked up once. Also you’re always hungry in the mornings, so unless you, like, ate an entire cow before I got here, this ,” she gestures to my uneaten eggs, “is unusual behaviour.”

I give her a look. Sometimes, I get the feeling that Annabeth exists as a part of multiple different dimensions at once, like she’s having four other conversations that I can’t hear, and is still ten steps ahead of me in the one I’m actually a part of.

Or maybe I’m just easy to read.

“Nothing’s wrong.” I don’t want to talk about it. “I’m fine.” I’m terrified.

Annabeth sighs. “Is this about the prophecy?”

“No,” I spear another piece of egg, and don’t eat it. “Maybe. Yes.” I feel like going back to my cave and staying there for the rest of my life. Waiting with a book and some paints for the prophecy to get bored and go away. Maybe I’d take Jane with me, or Nico, for some company. That sounds nice.

My plate is pulled away from me as I aim my fork again. “I can’t pay attention when you do that,” Annabeth huffs. I think I wouldn’t invite her to stay in my cave. She’s too on the nose when I want to mope. Then again, she says the same about me.

“Fine,” I turn and face her. “Let’s talk feelings.” Connor Stoll, who had been making his way towards our table, abruptly turns around and walks the other way. I should get Chiron to hire a therapist. Gods know we need it.

Further proving my point, Annabeth’s eyes widen a little, before she remembers it is I who will be spilling. (I make a point to corner her later. It’s a routine we have). “Wow. You broke fast.”

I nod. “I’m tired and you’re annoying.” (False. We both know it. Another routine). “Like you said, I’m nervous about the prophecy.”

Annabeth nods. “And?”

I frown. “What do you mean, and ? There’s no and.”

Annabeth frowns back at me. A mirror, a mime, an annoyance. The nerve to look disappointed in me. “I thought you were spilling, Red.”

I roll my head back and study the roof of the pavilion, which Annabeth designed, and slowly lean my head down to stare at the table. I really don’t want to have this conversation. I go along anyways. “I’m worried about Jane.”

Annabeth leans back, triumphant. “Ah, yes. Your girlfriend.”

Maybe if I try reeeeeeeally hard, I can activate the Oracle of Delphi and freak Annabeth out enough to make her go away. “ Not my girlfriend. You know that.”

“You called Percy my boyfriend for weeks before we actually officially decided.”

I wave my hand dissmissively. “That’s different, you guys were dancing around each other for like three years. You needed a bit of a push. Jane and I kissed once! Over a week ago! And nothing came of it.” We actually haven’t really talked about it. We’re in this sort of in-between zone where we spend a ton of time together, but don’t have a label for it. Honestly, it’s been nice.

Annabeth grins, apparently reading my thoughts. “You’ve been eating lunch with the Demeter cabin, like, every other day. I saw you doing archery together yesterday. Both of you were awful at it, but you stayed there for hours. I’ve never seen you focus on something that long outside of your paintings.”

I stare at the ceiling again. Maybe Annabeth designed it so that a single square foot of rock might fall down onto my head and relieve me from this conversation. “Yes, fine, we spend a lot of time together. But that doesn’t make us a couple, and has nothing to do with what I’m actually worried about!” I can see in her face that Annabeth is more serious now, and is about to fully listen to me, when Percy and Malcolm show up, sliding into the seats across from us, and clanging several plates of pancakes down onto the table in front of them.

“Made them ourselves! Wanna share?” Percy gives Annabeth heart eyes and a kiss on the cheek when she folds a large blue pancake into thirds and bites it like a burrito. I roll my eyes at them because they are a horrifying and disgusting couple and also I kind of want to be them when I grow up. Malcolm ignores them, instead turning to me. “Were you talking about Jane?” he asks, pushing wire rimmed glasses up his nose.

I frown. “Sort of. Why?”

He shrugs, sheepish. “You know. Just, uh, just wondering.”

I narrow my eyes at him, then Percy, who tears himself away from looking at Annabeth to sigh dramatically. “Malcolm wants to ask out Jane’s sister. You know, the blond one.”

I snort. “ Skye? Seriously?”

Malcolm looks vaguely offended. “What’s so weird about that?”

“Sorry, it’s not weird.” I reach over the table to pat him on the shoulder with my fork. “Perfectly normal teenage hormones.” He glares at me and I smile sweetly back. “I just can’t imagine Skye going out with anyone, that’s all.”

Malcolm stares down at his pancake, disappointed. “Oh. You sure?”

I nod, feeling a little more normal with my friends and less doom-related breakfast conversation. My eggs are past the threshold of “warm and appetizing” but I take a bite anyway. “Pretty sure. Jane told me that she’s aroace and, based on past occurrences, there’s a seventy percent chance she’ll punch anyone who asks her out. Anyway, why the interest? I didn’t know you guys talked.”

Malcolm shrugs. “We don’t, really. She just seems cool.”

Percy pipes in, “He’s been practically obsessed with her since she won that soccer game against the Nike kids and made them cry.”

I nod approvingly. “Well, Malcolm, at least we know you have good taste.”

Annabeth pats him on the head, ignoring his complaints that her hand is covered in blue maple syrup. “Better luck next time, brother of mine.”

Piper and Leo join us next, contributing an alarming volume of grapes and a single hardboiled egg to the breakfast display. Leo grabs a pancake and wraps it around some grapes, before taking a big bite. “I hear you’re discussing Malcolm’s romantic failures,” he says around the world’s worst breakfast burrito. Piper gasps in mock offense, then swallows the unpeeled hardboiled egg whole, like a snake. (This is a regular morning routine. She’s trying to work up to being a sword swallower, since her dad did it in a movie once and she thought it looked like fun). “ Malcolm, why didn’t you come to me? I could have given you a verdict within five minutes!”

“I wanted advice on whether I should ask out that Heaphestus boy two weeks ago and you told me to fuck off.”

Piper pouts at him. “That’s on you, you caught me at a bad time.”

Annabeth holds up a pancake with the air of a respected royal and we turn to her. “As delightful as this is, Rachel and I were initially talking about her romantic prospects and also her worries and fears, and I feel that we should get back to that before she slinks off and avoids the rest of the conversation.”

I glare at her. “Why would you bring this away from the very nice conversation we were having about everyone else’s problems? Do you hate me?” Annabeth rolls her eyes. “No, dumbass, I’m just not letting you walk away from a potential breakthrough. Now, where were we? You were saying that you’re worried about Jane but it has nothing whatsoever to do with your relationship, or lack thereof.”

I give a long suffering sigh, and try to communicate telepathically with Piper that she needs to Save Me Now, but she’s looking at me in interest with her chin resting in her hands, her long fingers adorned with rings sent to her from her Mortal girlfriend, Shel, who bought them at a vintage punk store. The traitor. Defeated, I turn back to Annabeth.

“It’s just that, whatever ends up happening with this prophecy, I don’t want it to fuck her up, in the way the quests have sometimes done to us. Like, we’re used to this by now, but it hasn’t been a smooth road. I don’t exactly like going on quests, and at first I was really worried at the prospect of being included in a prophecy, since that’s fairly abnormal, but Jane was only made aware of her heritage a couple months ago! What if this turns out like Silena or Beckendorf or-or Jason, and the prophecy destroys her, and it’s all my fault because I’m the one who pulled her into all this?”

Everyone tenses up at the mention of Jason, but they continue to look at me with a mixture of concern and love that makes something soften inside of me. For the hundredth time, I think of how lucky I am to have these people who love me unconditionally. Even if they really, really need therapy.

“I know that I didn’t plan any of this, but we’re both tied in now, especially since both Chiron and I had the prophetic dream and I actually gave the prophecy that day in the woods, and, well, this isn’t her world yet. She’s only got a little bit of ichor in her, and she grew up knowing nothing of any of this. In a way, I did too, and I have no ichor, but I had clear sight. For me, it was ineffable, but she could technically leave any time, if it weren’t for the prophecy. She can leave, and I feel like it’s up to me to make sure that doesn’t change.”

“Oh, Rachel.” Annabeth reaches her arms out to me and I let myself be pulled into an embrace. “Jane’s going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it.”

Sabrina stood in line at the boat rental hut, her arms crossed and a frown plastered on her face. It had not been a successful afternoon. For hours, she’d been searching the coastal towns near where her plane landed, looking for some trace of Aeaea, or anything else she’d seen in her dream. She was used to working with dregs. It was normal for her to have to squint a little at the evidence, have to shuffle things together around big holes of “Maybe,” like she was working a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

But this was something else.

Sabrina had read about places where mythology shaped the culture. Places where the tourist draws were events that had supposedly happened thousands of years ago, or creatures that only existed in grainy photographs and people’s imaginations. Hell, she’d met the Loch Ness monster. Was it insane for her to have assumed she’d be able to find the same kind of thing here? All her training and years of experience had told her that, if you sniff around long enough, you’ll find a conspiracy theorist or a slightly off-the-rails guidebook.

So far, though, Sabrina had found nothing. Absolutely nothing. She hunted around, searching up library catalogs, checking every store on the street. “Aeaea,” “Circe,” even “the Odyssey.”

Nothing.

The line edged along slowly, and Sabrina ran her hands up and down her arms. The air was chilly from its proximity to the cold sea water. There were three people in front of her now. She just had to wait a little longer, then she would have a boat and be able to explore these waters herself.

Something was wrong with this place. Something was wrong with all of these places. And Sabrina was going to figure out what.

Later, Jane and I are taking our time walking to the pegasus stables to watch the riding lesson that Rosalind has reluctantly agreed to let Batty take (provided that Percy, who’s teaching today, doesn’t let her fly high enough that she’ll die if she falls off, and that Batty wears all of the necessary protective gear). Jane looks lovely, wearing a sunshine-y yellow bandana that sets off her dark curls and warm sepia skin. She has on her Camp Half-Blood shirt again, and a short green skirt, and all of it should clash horribly, but it doesn’t.

We’ve decided to cut through the strawberry fields, and I swallow a sun-warmed strawberry while Jane tells me about the dream she had last night. I think back to my conversation with Annabeth this morning when she tells me of the dark woods and the feeling of drowning, the memory warping and the echoing voice. At some point we sit down in a patch of grass, a simple circle amidst strawberry plants with a couple logs where the campers and satyrs take their breaks when they work here. Jane finishes her story and we sit in comfortable silence for a few moments, only broken by the grunts of annoyance Jane makes while trying to get her plant powers to activate again. She’s been doing that a lot.

“Well that sucks,” I say finally. “Have you been having other dreams like it?”

Jane shrugs, the neon orange fabric of her shirt wrinkling on her shoulders. “One or two, I think. Last night’s was the first one I really remembered. ” She smiles out of the corner of her mouth. “I hardly ever remember my dreams. It used to upset me. I thought I was losing potential writing material.”

I laugh. It’s such a Jane thing to think, that I can’t help it. She goes quiet, like she’s reminiscing, and I picture a tiny version of Jane, sitting crossed-legged on her summer quilt, writing. I look at her now, scrunched up nose and big brown eyes. Oh gods, she must have been an adorable child.

“My mother used to say that my imagination was the eighth wonder of the world,” Jane says. She’s looking down the hill at the cabins, plant powers temporarily forgotten, and I remember her telling me about her mother, the first Elizabeth Penderwick, who came here and was a daughter of Demeter and loved opera. The Penderwick siblings’ beloved mother who died so young.

I move closer to Jane on the log. “I can understand why she’d say that.”

Jane smiles again, a little sad this time, a little absent, but full to the brim with love.

“Bet you she’s in Elysium,” I say softly. I explained the Underworld to Jane a couple weeks ago, and she’d gotten this same absent look on her face, that I now know means she’s thinking about her mother. Jane nods, now, then turns to me. “Could we talk about something else?” Her voice is quiet, her eyes a little shiny.

“Course,” I say. “Shall I regale you with tales of dimwittery at this camp in the years past?” I told her last week about the time some Hermes kids tried to order pizza to the camp, accidently causing Chiron to think we were under attack. Jane had nearly fallen off the bench laughing.

She grins now, but shakes her head. “Tell me what it’s like being an Oracle.” I give her a look. She’s asked me before and I never really know what to say. When I give prophecies, it’s like I black out. I’m taken over by another entity who shares my body. (“Like that lady in Suicide Squad ,” Leo had said when I tried to explain it to him once, but I’d refused to be compared to such a gods-fucking-awful movie). So, in a way, I don’t know what it’s like to be the Oracle.

As if reading my thoughts, Jane shakes her head. “Not that part. I’ve seen you all green and smokey, and I know you can’t feel it. I mean the other stuff. How did you know it was you? What did you have to do to become the Oracle? That kind of thing.” I relax a little. Jane’s asked me all sorts of weird questions about Greek mythology and the gods recently. She calls it “research for her book,” but sometimes I think she’s just nosy. It’s cute.

Jane shrugs and looks off into the distance. If you tilt your head a little you can kind of see the stables from here. We have fifteen more minutes to get there, according to my watch. I decide to take it easy. “Delphi is this weird ethereal spirit,” Jane continues, “but there’s also just everyday, Oracle you, who likes paint and denim and bagels.” At that, I laugh. “I actually don’t like bagels that much. I’m just late to breakfast so often that they’re usually the only things available.”

Jane pouts at me and plays with the bracelet tied around my wrist--the one she gave me. “You know what I mean! You know all this weird shit about me because my siblings don’t shut up at lunch, and I know stuff about you, like the denim thing, which I still think is funny by the way. But you’re also the freaking Oracle! Your dormant self lies waiting!” I laugh at her, and she rolls her eyes, but I see the corner of her mouth tilting up. “Rachel, that’s very cool!”

I give in. “Honestly, there’s not much to say, that’s why I don’t talk about it.” I pause. “Well no, it’s that a lot of the stuff beyond the obvious is actually sort of creepy and weird, and not in a good way. There’s stuff I try not to think about, is what I mean.”

The edge of her yellow bandana sticks up as Jane tilts her head at me. “That makes sense. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

I shake my head. “No, it feels okay right now.” I mean it. Now that I’ve gotten into the swing of it, I do want to talk about it. Still, a small sigh escapes me. “I like being the Oracle, because that’s what brought me to a place where I feel like I belong and I have people who love me. It’s nice to know that I’m fulfilling my purpose in life.”

Jane pulls her knees up to her chest. “But?”

“But I also get lonely.” It comes out in a rush. “There are other oracles, but I didn’t know about any of them until the Apollo thing happened, and even then, they’re all supernatural beings--I know, I know, but not in the way I am. It’s not the same. Also, there are all these weird rules. Like I have to stay an unmarried virgin my whole life.”

“That’s fucked,” Jane says softly.

“I know! Chiron won’t even tell me why, just that it’s ‘the rules’” I let out an annoyed huff. “And, like, it’s not even that the idea itself bothers me. That’s pretty much what I was planning to do with my life anyway.”

“Same.”

“But it’s the principle of the thing!” I flick a strand of hair out of my face, offhandedly noticing that the tip of my pinky finger is slightly green. I ignore it. It’s not important. “Just because I don’t want to have sex or get married doesn’t mean it’s a fair rule to impose on me! Besides, why is it always the women in these things whose identities are tied up in who they do or don’t fuck? Last I checked, Grover didn’t have to sign an ‘I shalt not fornicate’ contract when he became Lord of the Wild!”

“Exactly!” Jane raises her hands and shouts up to the sky. “Don’t you fuckers realize we’re more than that?”

“The Hunters of Artemis, too!” I’m a jack-in-the-box, and something’s winding me up. “Thalia and Reyna send me letters all the time, and they seem really happy! Which is great!” I pause to emphasize the greatness of their happiness. My pinky is completely green, now. “But, they also had to make a stupid ‘ode of chastity,’ like I did!”

“Are you kidding me?” Jane’s hair flips as she turns to me. “I thought Artemis was one of the good ones!”

My voice lowers to a husky rumble, and I stare into the distance towards you, the reader. “In a broken system, there are no good ones. Abolish the police.” I clear my throat and my voice turns back to normal. “Sorry, zoned out for a second.” My green pinky has begun to vibrate.

“Happens to the best of us,” Jane’s voice is light and nonchalant. “And yeah, I know. Pretty much all of the gods have skeletons sitting on their shoulders, but it just seems out of character for her. I thought all of Artemis’s groups were supposed to be safe havens, not oppressive structures in their own right.”

I frown. “Yeah you’re right, that is weird. I’d never thought of it much beyond the gods having weird rules, but I wonder if something bigger is at play. The gods might be fucked up in the way that regular people are, and are undoubtedly responsible for all sorts of crap. But then there's more personal things, like the ‘chastity vows’ the Hunters and I had to take, and the fact that Nico was initially outed by Eros, and the weird unexplained eye condition that Piper had during some of her quests that made her eyes a bunch of bright, Eurocentric colors, rather than their natural brown. All sorts of other stuff, too.”

“Wow!” Jane says, sitting up straight on the grass. Her hand moves from where it was resting in her lap to cover her heart. “It’s almost like a bunch of genuinely good and inspiring material, such as including prominent queer people and characters of color in fun children’s fantasy, as well as having an immortal group of warrior women who support each other and are free from the gaze of men, was taken into the hands of a cis white man armed with unchecked misogyny and a fair amount of white Twitter feminism, both of which really showed when he tried to create an inclusive and empowering book series for children! Like yeah, it had its moments, and definitely some good characters, but overall, a lack of meaningful research in certain areas really made it fall flat!” Once again, I stare through the bindings of URLs and internet coding, now joined by Jane as we lock eyes with you, the reader. This time, we hold eye contact for nearly a minute, giving you time to read and process the long tangent spat out by this fanfic’s author, who, if we’re being honest, has gone just a tad off the rails right now. Finally, Jane and I look away from you, and resume our roles as fictional characters, still shaking off that strange cloud that comes with staring into the soul of those who give you life.

“Ugh, what’s going on with me today?” Jane groans at the same time I mutter, “What’s Twitter?” We turn to each other, blinking in the sunlight, then grin. This is normal. We’re fine. Jane looks up at the sky again. “I wonder if the gods are watching us. Maybe we should make them think we suck so they’ll leave you alone.”

I laugh as she sticks her tongue out, grinning wickedly at a nearby cloud. “Better yet, make them think we’re too powerful to be messed with,” I say. Jane sees me watching her and opens her mouth, sucking the cloud in between her teeth. The sky seems bluer in the space where it had been, and Jane’s eyes glitter with mirth as she swallows. “Mmm, tastes like sugar.” I giggle, feeling a small shiver on the top of my head. When I peer up, I see another cloud has floated over to me. I open my own mouth, and take it in, just as Jane did hers. “Sugar, yes. But there’s a touch of blood, too,” I say. Jane nods sagely. “What were we talking about?”

“The inherent misogyny in much of Greek mythology and the world of Camp Half-Blood in general.”

Jane nods again. “Right. A very important topic. It makes it weird when I’m writing sometimes. You know, cause I want to bring in Circe and Zeus and Apollo and all these fascinating characters, but there’s just so much bad stuff tied up with them that comes up when I research.” She looks down at our feet, which are standing in the midst of a strawberry patch. We seem to have been walking, crushing sweet summer strawberries as we go, which is odd because I don’t remember getting up. “You know Rachel, I’m feeling a bit strange.”

I look at her, and see an odd blankness in her warm brown eyes. “Now that you mention it, Jane, so am I.”

“My thoughts and words are my own,” Jane says, “But there’s something up with my body. I can’t really feel it.”

“I agree, I’ve honestly gone a bit numb.” I try to glance down at my fingers, wondering idly if they’ve gotten any more green, but find that my neck won’t bend.

Jane’s eyebrows furrow. “Yet, at the same time, I feel as though I could do anything. Grow another grass blade. Grow a flower. Grow a tree. Bend the world to my will if I wanted to.”

“Or is it the world bending me to its will.” I grin at my own philosophical point, but find that the smile won’t go away. Pretty fucking inconvenient, since the next thing I was going to bring up was part of the whole serious misogyny conversation. I decide to go for it anyway. “And I’m not the only one with weird rules!” Jane nods, as if this is a perfectly normal segway, and the only extraneous thought that floats through my mind as we find ourselves walking down a hill is how unfair it is that she still has control over her neck and I don’t. “Remember when I told you about the Hunters of Artemis?”

“Oh yeah! Your friends Reyna and Thalia, right?”

“Yeah, them! They send me letters sometimes, and seem really happy, which is great.” I pause, meaning to add emphasis, when I’m hit with a great sensation of deja-vu. “Wait a second, we already talked about this, didn’t we?” I try to remember, but something in my mind is rapidly melting. I cannot find it. I cannot find anything.

“Jane?” My voice quivers, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh gods, please let this be a dream. For a moment, I try to convince myself that it’s the Oracle of Delphi taking over, just like she did the other day and generally does a couple times a year. But I know that I’m lying. This is not what that feels like. “Jane, where are you?” I can barely move my mouth to say the words. I can feel nothing but the frozen fear of paralysis, of lost control. When I open my eyes, this other thing in my body has brought me to the edge of the forest. “Jane? Jane?” She could be right beside me, unable to speak, and I wouldn’t know because I can’t turn my head, can’t move my eyes, can barely even hear right now.

It’s okay, something says.

“Jane?” It’s not her voice. It’s no one’s voice.

It’s okay. You’re home.

With every cut the wooden oars made through the choppy ocean water, Sabrina knew she was getting closer. She could feel it in her bones, in her brain, a little voice that whispered in her ear. It had been three hours. Her body was worn down, energy levels dipping dangerously low, when she felt something scrape the bottom of her boat.

A rock.

Frantically, she peered through the fog that had begun to surround her boat a mile ago. The island. Had she finally made it?

As if answering her call, a peel of thunder rang out, and Sabrina’s boat began to fill with rain that pounded down from the sky. The storm from her dream. She rowed even faster, then, fear sparking a renewed strength in her tired muscles.

Just as Sabrina was about to reach the shore, a massive wave crashed over her, and her boat capsized. She came back up, sputtering, holding her sopping wet bag above her head. Another wave swept against Sabrina’s face, and she found herself spitting out a mouthful of saltwater. Finally, she washed up on the shore, heaving breaths raking through her lungs.

Sabrina blinked, pushing herself up onto her elbows. It was real. She was here.

She had made it.

FROM THE POV OF ROSALIND PENDERWICK

It’s been a pleasant day so far. Breakfast with my siblings and some of the Demeter cabin (though Jane did seem a bit absent-minded). Miranda, Florien, and Rio convinced me to practice some plant magic with them for a couple hours and I built up to growing a small sunflower. Lunch (again with Jane seeming distracted, though Rachel ate with us this time, which appeared to help). Then, Skye and Jeffrey disappeared with some of the older campers (supposedly for a regular game of soccer, but the unsettling gleam in their eyes had me doubting that was all there was too it), Jane and Rachel went to take a walk in the strawberry fields, and Batty and I were left to prepare for a pegasus riding lesson. If it had been up to Batty, the latter could have easily taken up the entire afternoon, but changing into durable pants and finding a bandana can only take so long.

After a somewhat restless hour, during which I grew three peonies and Batty rhapsodized about the stable of unicorns that another demigod camp apparently has, Batty and I arrive at the stable. We’re ten minutes early, and she’s been talking a mile a minute the whole time, not stopping from before. I swear I now know as much about pegasuses as she does. According to Rachel, the teacher today is Percy, her friend, who’s very responsible “when he puts his mind to it.” I wasn’t sure how to tell her that’s actually not very comforting, but Batty looked so excited and I figured there will be plenty of other people there, so. Why not. She’s been spending so much time there anyway.

Needless to say, I very much regret my decision now.

The stables are modest, made of wood and painted green, and I’ve been there several times by now. There’s a long line of stalls visible when we first walk in, but Batty skips straight to the far end, where a massive pegasus the color of a carrot pokes its head over the door and nuzzles Batty’s hair. She looks up at me with a smile that could melt anyone’s heart, and pats the horse on the nose. “Rosy, this is Queen Lotus Flower. Percy said we have a impenetrable bond.”

I look at the two of them with a questioning gaze. How can they both have the exact same puppy-dog eyes? I swear to god. The gods. All of them. “Batty, sweetheart. That horse is like ten feet tall.”

She nods enthusiastically. “I know, she’s so much taller than any other horse I’ve seen. Percy says she has the biggest wingspan of any horse at camp.”

I nod, slowly, wondering why my sister picked the biggest pegasus to fall in love with. At that moment, Percy pushes the door open. “Hey Batty! Ready for your lesson?” Batty leaves her post by Queen Lotus Flower to wrap her arms around my waist and nod. I look Percy over. He’s a few inches taller than me, with brown skin and curly hair. A beaded camp necklace, orange tshirt, and jeans. Weird arm tattoo aside, he’s one of the most normal-looking people at camp. I’ve only met him a couple times before, but, my nerves over Batty flying around on massive horses aside, I do trust him. Rachel seems to have a good taste in friends. Also, Batty likes him, and she’s still shy around a good number of Skye and Jane’s friends back in Cameron.

For the next few minutes, I watch as Percy instructs Batty on buckling Queen Lotus Flower’s giant saddle and looping the bridle over her nose. Not wavering a bit from the “lesson” aspect of all this, he steps back to let her show what she’s already learned from hanging around the stables so often, only stooping in to guide her when she gets confused. As the minutes tick by, more people show up for the lesson: three other students, and a good sized crowd of people who just like watching the pegasuses. By then, I’m seated on the grass outside the stables, soaking in the blistering sun and watching as Percy (seated atop a wiry black pegasus who Batty pointed out as Blackjack) darts around the large dusty enclosure, making final preparations for the lesson.

Skye and Jeffrey show up then, and sit on either side of me. I want to ask them where Jane and Rachel are, but they’re talking non-stop about a game they just played in the woods with some of the other campers, only switching the subject when Percy and Blackjack return and they begin discussing whether or not it should be scientifically possible for a horse to fly.

Just as Batty and Queen Lotus Flower begin a gentle trot around the enclosure, I feel a tap on my shoulder, and hear the familiar sound of Tommy’s chuckle. “She’s got a weird knack for that,” he says. I nod, grinning.

It’s been good with us. We’ve had breakfast together a few times, even played a game of basketball one afternoon. Our conversations aren’t the same as they used to be, and there’s a sense of newness that feels cold and strange every so often. But it’s good. It feels right. At least for now, this feels like where we’re supposed to be.

As Percy starts demonstrating how to take flight, I look around again. Jane and Rachel still aren’t here. They promised to come. (“For moral support!” Jane had said. “Wouldn’t miss it,” Rachel had added with a smile). I try to push it out of my head. This lesson is a big deal. Batty’s going to be flying.

She leans forward on Queen Lotus Flower’s neck.

They begin to run, moving together like a single being.

Just as they burst into the air, Batty’s euphoric smile lighting up the sky, Katie grabs my shoulders from behind. I shush her so I can lean forward and watch Batty silhouetted against the pegasus’s wide orange wings.

“Rosalind. Rosalind, guys. ” Something about the panic in Katie’s voice makes me turn around. Her usually tied back hair is loose and her clothes rumpled, giving the impression that she was dragged out of bed for this. (Some part of my brain distantly remembers her saying she was going to take a nap). Skye and Jeffrey turn around, too.

“What, what’s happening?” I reach out my hands, trying to calm her as she collapses into a squat, breathing heavily.

“Billie… found me in the cabin… had been looking for you guys… been running all over the camp… lucky I remembered about the riding lesson…”

Jeffrey leans over and puts his hands on her shoulders. She stares down at the dirt while her breathing levels.

“Katie, what are you saying? Why were you and Billie looking for us?”

She looks up, and I see that her forehead is drawn into well-worn creases of worry. “Jane and Rachel have gone into the woods.”

Something was wrong. Sabrina crouched on the wet sand, straining to see through the heavy rain. In her dream there had definitely been someone else on the island. She remembered the hunched figure, the sound of sobs leaking through the rain.

But she’d circled the shore at least twice by now, and there was nobody to be found. “Am I late or something?” she wondered aloud. Somehow, she’d gotten that dream It felt like it had been sent to her. Why did it show a person when there was no one?

Sabrina sighed and began to traipse inland, tucking a knife in her pocket. It wasn’t a big island, and she might as well find some shelter aside from her boat, which was now overturned somewhere on the beach. Circe lived here, didn’t she? There must be some sort of roof, especially if this kind of weather was standard.

Or maybe this was just a random island and there was no Aeaea and Sabrina’s dream had just been the unhinged work of her unconscious mind.

There was a small grassy hill set aside from the sand, which Sabrina crawled up with the determination of a dying warrior. Something was pushing her back. An invisible force, a last crumb of survival instinct, plain old fatigue, she wasn’t sure. But something wanted her out of here, and it pushed back harder and harder as she climbed.

She let out a cry of frustration, clawing at the ground, at the air, at whatever this goddamn thing was, and found a renewed burst of strength that pulled her to the top of the hill. Once there, the force that pushed back ebbed a little, like it was giving up. Sabrina let herself relax, and simply took in the view for a moment.

The hill she lay on top of gave way to a deep valley, sprawling and green. In one corner, there was a cluster of trees that looked healthy and comfortable, despite being on a random Greek island in the middle of the ocean. A modest garden lay next to it, somehow appearing unaffected by the rain, and a narrow river wound around the whole scene.

There was also a house.

Sabrina wasn’t sure what she might have expected from the lair of an infamous Greek enchantress, but it wasn’t this.

She hauled herself up on the hill and started down, rushing through the rain onto a wide wooden porch. There was a large stone vat of something dark and crumbly, with a heavy looking staff of sorts leaning against it. The door to the house was short, and Sabrina heard it scrape on the floor when she pushed it open.

The scene awaiting her was surprisingly cozy when she stepped inside. There was a fire in the hearth and rows upon rows of little viles arranged on a set of shelves beside it. A broom leaned against the wall. Sabrina looked around, noting the way that the rain didn’t make any sound as it thrashed against the roof and window, and the almost drug-like stupor that threatened to take over her brain, whispering that everything was fine, she was safe, nothing bad could happen to her.

Sabrina had encountered hypnosis before, and it only ever made her more jittery.

There was an open hatch in the floor with stairs that lead into darkness. She followed them down, feeling the air grow cooler with every step. Sabrina was quiet, taking tiny steps on her toes, and wincing when one of the stairs creaked. She didn’t know what was down there, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way. But there were no arrows flying up from the space below, no sounds of footsteps or slashes of swords.

Sabrina stepped onto a dirt floor and let herself exhale, shuffling along until her toe hit something hard. Only seasoned reflexes made her reach for the knife in her pocket instead of crying out in fear. She knelt down and squinted in the darkness, trying to see what she’d hit.

A leg.

She frowned, shaking it until she heard a low growl. “Stop that.” She stopped.

“Who are you?” Sabrina leaned closer. If they hadn’t killed her yet she was probably safe.

Instead of answering, they reached out a hand. Sabrina could see a gold ring on the thumb that glinted in a little sliver of light that had crept down from the room above. “Pull me up,” the figure said. “I’ve been paralyzed by the witch.”

Helping the stranger sit turned out to be no simple feat. They were tall and muscular, wearing a cape and a heavy metal chest plate. “The witch?” she questioned, propping them up against one of the cellar’s dirt walls. Her eyes were beginning to adust to the dark, and she could just make out their sharp chin sticking out as their head lolled back.

The figure made a noise. “The witch, the sorceress, the woman. Whatever you want to call her. I figure she sent you down too?” They snorted. “Good luck. I told Zeus not to sent mortals, but does he ever listen? You’re gonna die.”

Sabrina tried to piece together what she could from all this. The witch must be Circe, unless she’d wound up on an entirely different island. And if Circe was going around paralyzing people, then something must be going on. She must be hiding something. As for the person in front of her, Sabrina wasn’t sure who they were. By the way they talked about Zeus, and casually said “mortals,” she’d guess some sort of god? As if that narrowed it down. She’d have to be careful.

“Why did she paralyze you?”

Another weird gutteral noise. “She didn’t like my offer. It’s not the first time this has happened.”

She was growing impatient. Why’d he have to be so vague? “What?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why he always sends me. I don’t think he trusts me. He’d rather me stay her paralysed in the basement of a witch than come back home.”

Sabrina let out an exasperated sigh. This wasn’t working and she needed answers. A whole coast of people with mythology-shaped holes in their memories awaited her. “You’re going to need to be a little more specific. I don’t think we’re on the same page.”

The figure sounded confused. “What do you mean? Don’t you know who I am?”

She leaned forward and inspected them in the darkness. “No. No I don’t.”

They slid their eyes down to her face. “I am the god Apollo. I came here for Circe and she did this to me.”

“What? Why?”

The stairs creaked behind Sabrina and she felt a long nail drag up her back. “I just want to be left alone,” said a voice as deep and powerful as the smell of red wine. “You don’t mind, do you?” Before Sabrina could grab her knife and turn around, before she could even scream, strong arms had surrounded her shoulders and a hand was clamping a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. Shock made her breath in, sharply, and she smelled the sweetness of sleeping drugs.

A heartbeat, a brief struggle, and Sabrina Starr was gone.

#cruel summer fic #cameron writes #the penderwicks #penderwicks #camp half blood #camp half-blood #rachel elizabeth dare #jane penderwick #rosalind penderwick

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