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hafanforever · 4 years

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Pride and Prejudice

WOW!!! I am so, SO thrilled about the reception of my previous analysis “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”! I only submitted it one week ago, and it’s already reached over 1K notes! Thank you SO much to all my friends, followers, and other users who have checked it out! It is this kind of response to my analyses that motivates me to keep writing, especially for Frozen II right now, so here is my next one on said film! 😁😄

This analysis is my second one about King Runeard and his villainy. Like the first one I wrote about him and all the other Frozen II analyses I wrote after seeing the movie, I came up with a pun for the title: “Pride and Prejudice”. This analysis focuses solely on my thoughts and interpretations of his real nature, which Elsa discovers when she sees the snowy ice figure of him in Ahtohallan. This moment is only 15 seconds long and Runeard barely says more than 30 words in it; yet he displays pride and prejudice VERY well here, and that’s how I came up with this title! 😆

Although I previously talked about such detailed thoughts about Runeard, I can’t help but single out this one scene to discuss again because even though it’s brief, this scene alone provides enough about him that I can describe what he was really like. Now I don’t want to repeat my descriptions about him too much…but at the same time, it feels a little hard to do. 😉

So while Runeard was briefly seen and had only a couple of lines of dialogue in Agnarr’s story in the prologue, it is while Elsa is in Ahtohallan and sees figures of him and of other people from moments in the past, both in and near Arendelle, that Runeard’s true colors are finally exposed.

In summary, while Runeard was revered as a kind, noble, generous ruler in his lifetime, Elsa and Anna discover that he was actually an arrogant, manipulative, ruthless tyrant who detested magic and distrusted the Northuldra solely because they associated with magic. Runeard constructed the dam in the Enchanted Forest with a claim to the Northuldra that it was a gift of peace and would bring prosperity to their land. But in truth, he plotted to seize control of and eliminate the Northuldra using the dam with its true purpose of weakening the forest and starving the people of their resources so that they would be desperately forced to turn to Runeard.

As I described him before, Runeard’s lines in this short scene provide plenty of information for me to translate just what kind of person he really was in life. Runeard was in the highest social rank since he was a king, which gave him the most amount of power over everyone else. He was at the very top in society, and he wanted to make sure he remained at the top. In being a king, he had a VERY high opinion of himself. He saw himself as supreme, superior, the greatest person of all in regards to his social rank. He believed that all the power he ever needed was in his own status as a monarch. Runeard’s position as a king made him very arrogant and inflated his ego so much that he was determined not to let anything or anyone stand in his way of power. His determination was such that he was willing go to any lengths he considered necessary to prevent his authority and legacy as a monarch from being challenged, threatened, or ruined.

When the manifestation of Runeard appears in Ahtohallan, he is walking alongside his second-in-command officer, who says that he doesn’t understand what Runeard is trying to tell him. He orders the officer to round up Arendelle’s whole army and bring them to the Enchanted Forest, which the officer questions by wisely pointing out that there is no reason for the Northuldra to be distrusted. Immediately after these words are spoken, Runeard stops dead in his tracks before he states his reason why the Northuldra can never be trusted. When Runeard stops walking, he scowls as he turns to the officer, who immediately recoils. The man looks surprised as he does, but his face also shows fear, which is aimed at the king’s expression. Runeard’s scowl suggests that he is very displeased that the officer disagrees with him and is trying to argue about his decision. It suggests that Runeard was extremely intolerant and unaccepting of his judgment and kingly authority being questioned, particularly by someone below him in rank. It’s also clear to me by his scowl that he thinks that the officer should know better than to argue and disagree with him about anything. As quoted by my friend @victortky, the way Runeard’s tone of voice sounds as he says his next line is like he’s actually saying to the officer, “I’m always right and you are a fool for questioning me.”

Then Runeard says his infamous words that the Northuldra can never be trusted, simply because they follow magic, and he goes on by explaining what magic does to people, or rather, what he believes magic does to people. The fact that Runeard says “never” in this sentence underlines the concept that he was definitely set in his bigoted views about magic, that these views of his were conclusive and final, and that nothing could ever be said or done to make him believe otherwise. This theory is supported by his scowl before he makes his declaration; he immediately, clearly, and absolutely refuses to take the officer’s advice, AND he adamantly refuses to even CONSIDER doing so, just because he despises magic. The subtle revelation of his supremacy and arrogance here also emphasizes his severe stubbornness and flat-out refusal to ever give a chance to anyone magical, and all simply because he hates and fears magic.

Now it’s not known what Runeard’s motives are for hating magic, but I believe that one of his reasons is because magic is the only form of power some people consider to be greater than that of a monarch. It is the only kind of power that would be his competition, the only kind that could stand in his way as a ruler. Hearing him speak these words out loud is evident that Runeard feared and hated magic so much that it corrupted his judgment to the point that he would develop instant distrust towards any beings who either possess magical powers or have any kind of associations with magic. With this kind of judgment, Runeard presumably believed that anyone and anything with magical connections would view themselves as superior, as the most powerful beings of all, and thus far superior and more powerful than a king like him. I even think that Runeard was severely consumed by his fear of magic that it stretched further into feelings of paranoia. Such extremities would have made him develop a false concept that the Northuldra would believe that their relations with the forest’s elemental spirits made them more powerful than him. And who knows? Maybe Runeard actually wanted to eliminate the Northuldra because he thought that they might one day try to usurp him and take over his kingdom. If he saw them and their magic connections as a threat to his rule, then that, besides his coldblooded murder of the Northuldra leader, reinforces the idea that Runeard truly would have gone to any lengths he viewed as necessary to avoid having his kingly authority and legacy destroyed.

But Runeard’s final sentence of “It makes them think they can defy the will of a king!” is the one that I consider the most vital in deciphering his character. In particular, the deep scowl, head shake, and gruff tone of voice he exhibits as he says “of a king” really support my idea of what Runeard was truly like: power-hungry, arrogant, egotistical, mighty, hateful, callous, spiteful, superior, bigoted, and haughty. Furthermore, only seconds ago, Runeard said that magic makes people feel too powerful and entitled; yet when he says these last three words, HE is acting very entitled, like HE’S the most powerful person of all! He just looks and sounds VERY full of himself! He speaks as if he has a superiority complex. He also gives an impression of being a complete hypocrite. And even though he may realize this hypocrisy, he probably doesn’t care at all! Like I said before, Runeard apparently viewed himself as supreme and superior to all others, as the greatest person ever just because he was a king. And he PROVES all of these beliefs of mine with these words and the expressions on his face! Heck, I also think that Runeard’s monarch status went to his head so much that he wrongly believed that he was ALWAYS right in any situation, which, again, shows his arrogance, supremacy, and superiority.

But at least poetic justice was met when Runeard fell to his death during the battle that HE started between the Northuldra and Arendelle after murdering formers’ leader. And even though it took over 34 years, Runeard’s evil legacy is finally destroyed when Elsa and Anna discover his crimes, have the dam successfully broken, and form a true alliance of peace between the Arendellians and Northuldrans.

In life, Runeard was desperate to prevent his legacy as a king from being destroyed in the first place; yet ironically, his pride and prejudice are what led to his downfall and ultimately brought his terrible legacy to an end, effectively proving that in the long run, crime doesn’t pay. 😉

#Frozen 2 analyses #Frozen analyses #Disney #Disney Frozen 2 #Disney Frozen #Frozen 2 #Frozen #King Runeard #Disney Villain #villain #pride #prejudice #my stuff #mine

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47pictures · 3 years

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“All-Star”

Link to original r/nosleep post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/mv9j9a/for_my_blog_i_toured_a_movie_studio_to_find_the/

________________________________________________________________

I finally made it to Hollywood… at least, I suppose that’s what I’d say if I were trying to make it big. That wasn’t exactly the case, though. On the contrary, my old hometown friend was the one who I’d say ‘made it big,' and she was the only reason I managed to get there. No way in hell I could just stroll through these Hollywood gates without some sort of reputation associated with my name.

I’m currently pursuing a degree in journalism, and right now I’ve got a pretty successful status as a blogger, and hopefully podcaster in the near future. My topics typically cover things involving entertainment, specifically movies, television, some celebrity gossip here-and-there, the ins and outs of the film and occasionally music industry, nerd topics about comic books or comic book movies, and I could go on. Essentially, all the things you’d expect from an entertainment blogger.

I don’t have a secret or special tip for how I grew a mass following. It just sort of happened. I did it since I was in high school - sophomore year, to be exact, and it started mainly as a hobby. Most people are surprised to hear that I was such a good writer and articulate for my age when they look back on the articles I’d put up during that time, speaking on topics such as the ‘downfall of blockbuster films,’ and the ‘toxicity of media's body standards on the youth.’ Truthfully, I didn’t know all of what I was saying half the time. Writing was sort of just my natural gift that I honed to where I could essentially bullshit anything well enough to make a great story. However, being ethical always remained my moral code.

The topic I was covering now involved my own personal ‘investigation’ of a famous movie studio known as Gemini Films. They’ve put out several flicks now that have garnered what most would consider moderate success (they're no Warner Bros. or Paramount, that's for sure). They deal mostly in the thriller/horror genre, sort of like Blumhouse. I’m a bit more in the sci-fi, comedy realm when it comes to my tastes, but really, I’m a bit of a pussy when it comes to scary stuff.

So why am I 'investigating' them? Well, as it turns out, it's their amazing use of special effects. Yep, that’s it. Special effects, that thing we fell for as children we called ‘movie magic,' and growing up learned that some of it were all the crafty work of well-put CGI. Though that’s usually the case, this time, something about Gemini Films seemed different. They’ve always been praised for their ‘hyperrealistic’ visual effects and pulling off stunts that would otherwise seem impossible. I was watching one of their action/horror films titled Last Thorn, and in a particular scene, a character’s on-screen death is, well, very lightly put, gruesome. I’ve seen my share of on-screen gore and played plenty of Mortal Kombat growing up, but I gotta say, I found the scene hard to watch. To clarify, it involved a character literally exploding before the camera, and from the way it was shot and the lack of cuts and edits typically required to create the illusion of a scene, it seemed quite real. A little too real…

They’ve done other things aside from their special effects department that some people on internet discussion forums found a bit too impressive. Take the actors, for instance. In their dramatic scenes, especially the horror flicks, I’m almost always convinced that the actors are actually going to die on screen. I’m surprised all of them haven’t been given Oscars yet, ‘cause goddamn, you’d think the director was holding them at gunpoint. We all saw just how amazing the acting was in films like Hereditary and The Babadook were, but I gotta say, after watching these films, they make those two look like child’s play (no pun intended to the Chucky series). I was so impressed with the actors that I had to look them up and see what other work they’d done, but from what I did find, their resumes didn’t seem that much greater than the work they’d done for GF. It was almost as if that was the peak of their careers unless they decided to further their contracts to star in any more of their movies. Anything else they did pale in comparison that showcased their acting chops.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jamie Douglas.

It had somewhat of household name potential, I thought. She was the next rising star. She’d just won a Golden Globe for her leading role in a TV series I’m sure no one had high hopes for in the beginning, and her name was now attached to an Academy Award-winning film for Best Original Screenplay, all at the age of 22. Her acting was stellar, always had been even growing up back in high school when we did theater together. I was never for the acting side of things; I always preferred the technical realm and behind-the-scenes work. She, however, had the ‘it’ factor. I never once doubted that she’d be famous. It was destined for her.

The taxi driver dropped me off in front of a luxurious one-story home in the Beverly Hills neighborhood, surrounded by other similar houses with a property value larger than what I’d probably make in my lifetime if I was being honest. From the outside, her home reminded me of that gilded, golden age of Hollywood back in the 60s, with a slanted roof and art deco-styled exaggerated features. It was nice and simple. But that’s how Jamie was. Nice and simple.

I could see her peeking through the curtains of her window before she came running out the door to meet me in the front yard. That big beautiful smile and those joyous eyes came rushing at me with open arms.

“Christian!” she screamed my name with excitement, as she gave me a big, suffocating hug.

I hugged her back with my free arm, as my other one was still carrying my trolley bag and she had that one pinned in her grip.

“I’m so glad you made it,” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, I made it to Hollywood, right?” I dryly humored.

Jamie giggled as she began to pull back from her hug and put both her hands on my shoulders.

“Yes we did,” she said with a big smile, flashing her perfectly straight, white teeth. “We sure did.”

She led me inside the house and gave me a tour. Compared to the outside, the inside was the complete opposite in regards to the decorative era. Whereas the exterior was ‘groovy’, the inside was a bit more with the times. Wide-open spaces, tan or beige-colored furniture and walls, a wide sliding door for the backyard where you can see the pool. Jamie recently moved into the house, so I figured there wouldn’t be a lot of things to fill it up with just yet.

“Someone said Bette Davis used to live in this house, which I knew was bullshit, otherwise the value on this home woulda been way outta my league,” Jamie commented.

I chuckled. “Oh, I think you’re well on your way, trust me,” I reassured.

I was going to be staying with her for a week while I did my journaling/blogging. We did tons of catching up. She gave me all the inside scoop of what goes on in Hollywood - or ‘Hollyweird’ as I liked to call it - and even some of her other famous neighbors you might recognize living double lives on the down-low. She said she’d been to a couple of big mansion parties as well, where you’ll see all sorts of celebs from different categories of entertainment. Actors, athletes, musicians, models, influencers, you name it. But Jamie insists that she doesn’t attend those very often, if hardly at all. She prefers to be a homebody when she’s not seeking work through her agent, and her extraversion mostly comes to play when it involves networking.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The rest of the night we stayed up watching TV and YouTube videos. One that fascinated both of us was a video explaining how scientists managed to find a way to make a perfectly cooked steak from a cow, but without actually harming or slaughtering it. Instead, they extracted a small sample of the cow’s cells and took it to a lab where the cells would essentially grow into muscle for it to be cooked later.

“I’d consider that over going vegan,” Jamie said.

But I grimaced at the thought. “I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem right,” I remarked.

"What, are you vegan?"

"No, not that. Just the thought of cloning animals, ya know?"

“I mean, it’s not like they’re killing the cow or anything. They said it’s perfectly unharmed.”

“I know, but still…”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning was day one for me. Jamie had the right connections to get me an on-set tour of the studio lots associated with Gemini Films. I was greeted and led by the third assistant director (or AD as they’re commonly referred to).

“Hi, I’m Tiffany, nice to meet you,” she said, with a rather forced smile and handshake.

She carried a clipboard in her other arm, as well as a hand-held radio clipped to the pocket of her jeans, and I saw that she also had an earpiece nestled in her right ear. I could tell she was about her business and probably didn’t have time to be overly nice or talk too much.

I got a sneak peek of their most current production under the production title *"*Cold Silence", which required me to sign an NDA beforehand, of course. That wasn't actually their final name for the movie, but it's a common thing for them to do when shooting a film when either they haven't decided on a name yet or to keep the nature of the project a secret. It sort of took me back to my theater tech days with all the set designs and props lying around, except these were much more detailed and intricate thanks to their higher budget than what my high school had at the time. Here, there was limitless potential. Tiffany also introduced me to the other ADs, PAs, boom operators, cameramen, make-up artists, and then last but certainly not least, the director.

“Jeffrey?” Tiffany called to the man sitting in the director’s chair. The man turned to face her and then me. “This is Christian Watkins. He’s the man we’re giving a behind-the-scenes scoop for his… blog?” She looked to me for confirmation, to which I nodded. “Yeah, for his blog.”

The man in the big chair stood up with a cool smile and classy charm and extended his hand for me to shake.

“Christian, nice to meet you,” the man spoke in a tenor pitch. “Jeffrey Bachmann,” he introduced himself.

I didn’t take too much time last night trying to read up on his bio, but from what I could tell at first glance I knew that he was about in his mid to late fifties, as his hair was greying and skin was starting to wrinkle, and I could see that he had a surprisingly calm and laid-back demeanor. Surprising to me, at least. I always thought directing was a high-paced, chaotic mess that never ceased to present a myriad of complications onset that’d make any man want to pull their hair out. But Jeffrey seemed calm, collected, and very personable.

“Hi, thank you for having me,” I replied. “Seriously, this is like a really cool opportunity for me and my blog.”

“Hey man, it’s my pleasure,” Jeffrey said. “I heard you got a big following behind your name. Props to you. I respect the work ethic, especially giving your readers what they really want to see, ya know?”

I shrugged modestly. “Well thank you, but this time was mostly in my own interest to seek out this idea for my current blog,” I said.

“Ah, an interest in GF, huh?” Jeffrey replied. “Well, what would you like to know? We’ve got nothing but time today. In fact, we’re just getting ready to shoot the mangle scene for today and then we’ll wrap it up before we review the dailies.”

“Mangle scene?”

“Oh yeah, if you’ve got a weak stomach or aren’t into gore you don’t have to watch.”

At least he gave me discretion. “Hmm, I think I’ll tough this one out,” I said. “For the blog.”

Jeffrey gave me a sincere but slightly unsettling grin. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.”

He was a nice guy so far, but you know how you just meet certain people that for whatever reason, out of their control, their aura seems off? Maybe it was my preconceived notion and warranted cynicism I had of people working in Hollywood. Just a bunch of sharks in a pool with hungry eyes for desperate young talents eager to take a dive in the spotlight. But as I’d imagine with any field, there had to be a decent share of lambs among the many wolves.

Suddenly, one of the makeup artists scampered over to us, their attention directly at Jeffrey.

“Hey,” they said to him with a noticeably fake inflection.

“Hey, what's up?” Jeffrey returned.

“Savannah? She’s losing it back there. Said she wants to talk to you and only you.”

Jeffrey nodded. “Don’t worry, I got it,” he said, as he patted his hand on the MUAs shoulder. He then gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, Christian, duty calls, but hey, Tiffany?” he looked to the stern AD. “Make sure he gets a front-row view for the martini shot.”

“Yes sir,” Tiffany replied.

Jeffrey and the MUA stepped off to handle whatever business needed handling regarding one of the actresses backstage in the dressing room.

“Martini shot?” I asked.

“Last shot for the day,” Tiffany explained. “For me, that’s a term I like to take literally.”

She seemed so serious all this time that I found the joke almost funny.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

There was now quiet on the set. Shooting was about to start shortly. At this point in the movie, the main character has a stand-off that turns into a big fight scene with the main bad guy at a warehouse factory building. At first, there’s a gunfight, then eventually they both run out of ammo and it comes down to a fistfight before finally having a standstill on top of a rail just over a giant industrial shredder.

Right now, the actor playing the bad guy, Will, is hanging on for his life over the rail above the shredder, while Thomas, the main good guy, is standing over him victoriously. My question was, is the shredder real? ‘Cause it sure as hell looks like it. It wasn’t turned on yet, but just from a glance it seemed legit enough that if I dropped something as sturdy as a microwave in there, it’d come out jelly on the other end.

For the blog, I told myself. For the blog…

Suddenly, my suspicions were confirmed once Jeffrey called to have the shredder turned on. The machine roared to life, the inverting sharp metal gears rotating past each other being a black hole eating everything that passes through it with no escape. Holy shit. It was actually fucking real.

Jeffrey gave the nod to the 1st AD, and the AD returned the same.

“Action!” the AD called.

Based on what Jeffrey showed me from the script, Thomas is supposed to stomp on Will’s hand that’s gripping onto the edge of the rail, causing him to fall to his death into the shredder. The camera was now rolling, yet, I didn’t see Thomas do the deed. Was he pausing for dramatic effect? Was he acting for the camera? I wasn’t quite sure why he was hesitating.

I peaked over to notice that Jeffrey, the once calm and collected man I met backstage earlier, was now beginning to seem noticeably impatient and about to snap at any moment. There was now that dark edge I noticed about him from before but couldn’t quite put a finger on that I could see now coming to light.

Hesitation filled Thomas’ veins, about to raise his foot, then not, dragging on the scene longer than intended. From this distance, I tried to see Will’s own expression, and I regret ever doing so. Surely he was acting, but I’ll be damned, it was too good. Whatever fear he portrayed transmuted itself into me now. It was the kind of fear that I didn’t think could be replicated on command. Jeffrey stood up from his seat, but just before he could say anything or call ‘cut’, Thomas stomped his foot down on Will’s hand, and we all watched as his fingers slip from the railing. Will sent out a bloodcurdling scream as he plummeted to his ‘death’. What followed will haunt me forever.

Do you know what it sounds like to have a person’s body mangled to death? Have you bitten into the bone of any sort of meat? Heard and felt the crunch? Or maybe even the crunch of celery? I myself have never broken a single bone in my body, but imagining what it might sound like other than what I’d heard in movies or video games all seemed elementary now. At first, I had to look away, but what forced me out of my seat to leave was Will’s horrifying screams. He’d fallen feet first into the shredder, so his lower body had to suffer first before reaching his upper body and finally silencing him at the head.

I ran to find the nearest trashcan and hurled. I guess I really didn’t have the stomach for gore, at least, not to this degree. Will’s screams kept looping in my head. It was a new primal sound that evoked a dread within me that I wish I never discovered. The sound of torment. One thing was for sure, Will was one fucking hell of an actor - if this was acting. But the shredder…

It seemed so real. And there was no greenscreen besides the ones to be used for the background later in post-production. I saw him fall right into the damn thing. With my own eyes. In living color. There were no edits, no crazy tricks, no lighting effects. There couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I was sitting down trying to recuperate, as everyone else around me was wrapping up set for the day. Tiffany came over and handed me a bottle of water.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it.

“You feelin’ better?” she asked.

“Hmm,” I answered with a scoff, raising both my eyebrows and taking a sip from the bottle.

“I’m surprised you stuck around if you had such a weak stomach. I mean, he at least warned you.”

“I usually don’t. But that?” I shook my head. “How do you guys do it? It looked so real.”

“I’m just pulling your leg. I almost vomited too my first time. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

If it was a shame to flinch at something so vile, I don’t wanna know what goes on in Jeffrey’s mind to even come up with such a scene. Speaking of which, I still didn’t get a one-on-one interview with him as I’d hoped. All I had was the end result of his ‘movie magic’, but not how he did it. At this point, I'm not sure I really wanna know.

I went to go get my belongings, which were left in one of the dressing rooms, and was stopped by the sound sniffling from the one a couple doors ahead of mine. I looked on the door to read whose room it belonged to. It read: SAVANNAH YOUNG. She was one of the lead actresses in the movie, or rather I should say the only actress in the whole film. With the makeup artist and Jeffrey thing that happened earlier, it was evident to me that something sour had gone on behind the scenes I didn’t know about.

The door was cracked open and I couldn’t see her face entirely from my view, but I knew she was sobbing. She looked to be sitting in front of her mirror. I was about to just ignore it and go on about my business.

I lightly knocked on the door. “You okay in there?” I asked.

She stopped and I could hear her get up and approach the door. She pulled it back just enough to where I could see her whole face. She was beautiful, just like Jamie, even if she had been crying.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Savannah said. “Thank you.”

There was a brief awkward moment of silence between us. Clearly, she wasn’t fine, but I didn’t wish to pry any further than that.

“Are you one of the new PAs?” she asked. I arched a brow. “Production assistant?” she clarified.

“Oh, no, I’m just a visitor,” I assured. “Writing for my blog. I was supposed to be writing about behind-the-scenes things and how it all works around here, but I bitched out from the ‘mangling scene’.”

Savannah gave a short nod. “I see,” she said. “Well… I don’t blame you.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the way she said it or just from the state that I was in, but her words gave me chills.

“I should get going,” I told her. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” she replied, and then shut the door.

I got my stuff from the dressing room and got ready to head out. I wonder what could’ve made Savannah so down to where the director had to get involved and set her straight. Jeffrey seemed pleasant to work with at first glance, but who knows, maybe he had a mean streak to him after all, especially the way he looked during the shooting of the scene. God, I just wanted to forget about it. I can’t unhear the sounds. The bones crunching, the blood splattering, and the screaming. The fucking screaming…

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As I was leaving the studio lot, I noticed the cleaning crew of two men dump a large amount of black bags in the dumpster. From the way they swung the bags over into the bin, the shit didn’t seem light. The bags were in several different sizes, some small, some big, some disproportionate. I stood there and watched as the two men finished disposing of the junk and walked away to go about their other duties.

Regular, common sense me would’ve just picked up the phone, called Jamie to let her know I’m ready to get picked up, and go about my day. But the nosy blogger me kept itching…

I made sure the coast was clear and made my way over to the bin. I can’t believe I was actually dumpster diving, and for what? What did I really expect to find? In my head, I knew the answer, but was avoiding it, either out of how ridiculous it may sound or, God forbid, I was right.

The trash wasn’t stacked high enough from the bottom for me to simply reach, so I had to literally get in there myself. I climbed over on the other end, raised the lid, and jumped down on the piles of plastic bags, holding the lid up with my arm and my breath so I didn’t get a huge whiff of the smell. Though, if I did need to puke again, I supposed this would be the place to do it.

I immediately noticed the bags the men threw away, but in order for me to check what was inside, I’d have to crouch down and let the lid close on me. Fine. That’s what the flashlight on my phone was for. Surrounded in darkness and garbage now, I turned the flash on, illuminating the four dirty walls around me and I pulled back one of the bags. I felt around to try and see what sort of contents might be inside. Mush. It felt all mushy with chunks of solid and a little bit of liquid.

This was stupid, I thought. I realized how stupid I probably looked right then and there, sitting in a bin full of filth looking for clues like some sort of private detective. My followers have no idea how far I’d go, but this was ridiculous. Oh well, I’m too deep in it now, no pun intended.

I held my phone in my mouth as I used my hands to rip open the plastic. My heart began pounding as I slowly pried the bag open. Once I got a peek inside, shame and embarrassment came over me.

Food.

I should’ve just called Jamie to come get me. Had I really become that desperate? I threw the bag over and out of my way. Then I noticed the bag underneath had trickles of fluid. Curious, I shined the light down on it. They were red trickles. Considering how I’d just overreacted only to find a bag full of thrown out lunch, I wasn’t about to get all up in arms about finding red drops behind a Hollywood studio lot. I didn’t know the full recipe for fake blood, but if I recall correctly, Alfred Hitchcock used chocolate when they filmed the shower scene from Psycho.

I tried to follow the small trail and see if it led to another bag. I slowly pointed the light further up and it led me to the bag just behind the one I tossed to the side. Looks like it had a small bust that caused it to leak. When I pulled this one over, a very noticeable smell filled my nostrils and erased any other scent of the trash that surrounded me. It was a metallic, rusty sort of odor, like copper from a penny. However, that smell also belonged to something else…

I ripped open the bag, and with the shine of my light beaming down, I was welcomed to a bright crimson sight of mashed blood and guts. It had to be fake, I thought. It had to… but the way I recoiled from the putrid metallic fresh scent of carnage, my primal instincts told me that wasn’t the case. I innately knew that it was real. I was staring at Will’s mangled body.

Frozen from fear, I sat there for who-knows-how-long. What the fuck was I supposed to do? I’d call the cops first, of course, but they would need evidence, and even then they’d probably dismiss me after I told them I dove into the dumpster of a movie set where fake blood is a common prop. I’d tell Jamie the same, but she’d look at me crazy, too.

I unlocked my phone and started snapping pictures. As much as I could. I even opened some other bags and did the same. I tried to snap every bit of remains that was left of Will and saved them into my phone. It felt like a sick test to see how long I could hold my breath so I wouldn’t gag, and I think I broke a new record that day.

I snapped probably about 47 pictures on my phone before I finally shot up and threw open the bin. The wave of fresh air hit me like a truck, and enjoyed it for only a brief second before turning to see Jeffrey, Tiffany, and the other AD standing by his side. My soul left my body right then and there.

“Christian?” Jeffrey said, sounding concerned.

Fucking say something, I told myself. I did my best not to stutter and look stupid.

“Hey, Jeff,” I said, raising the inflection of my voice, probably sounding dumb.

“Going for a swim there?” Jeffrey joked.

I fake laughed, then put on my best acting skills. “I cannot for the life of me find my ring.”

“Your ring?”

“Yeah, my mom’s ring?”

Then, with the slick subtle motion, I hid my hands to where they couldn’t see them behind the walls of the bin, and with careful coordination used my fingers on my right hand to pull the ring I already had on and flicked it down onto the trash below. I shuffled my feet over the bags I stood on to make noise so they wouldn’t hear the ring drop. Please God, don’t let the ring hit the hard bottom floor or one of the rusty walls, I thought. To my relief, it didn’t.

“Oh man, I’m sorry, Christian, I haven’t seen it,” Jeffrey said, as he looked at the other two as they also shook their heads. “But we can definitely look around again and let you know if we find anything.”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” I said, trying not to make my voice tremble with anxiety.

“Now, c’mon, let’s get you outta there,” Jeffrey said, waving his hand over.

I nodded and shot a quick timid smile. I climbed out of the bin and faced the three before me, wiping myself down.

“Hands a little messy there,” Jeffrey said.

Anxiety raced through me again, but adrenaline had my back to make sure I didn’t fuck up by saying anything dumb.

“Oh, the fake blood?” I chortled. “Yeah, you guys lots of that shit in there. Smells like a chocolate factory.”

Jeffrey fell for it, and laughed. Good. But he could just as easily be playing me right now.

“Given how you ran off earlier back there I’m surprised you can stand to look at it, better yet, touch it,” he remarked.

“I’m sorry about that,” I stammered but stayed on track. “It’s just… I now see for myself, no one does it like GF.”

“Haha, you don’t have to flatter me to get back my respect. Don’t sweat it. I totally understand.”

Is that so? I thought.

“You could use that martini shot right about now, huh?” Tiffany joked.

Definitely not with her any time soon. Or any of them, for that matter.

“Well we’re just heading out for the day, you got a ride?” said Jeffrey.

“Yeah, I should probably call Jamie now and let her know I’m done,” I replied.

“It’s no problem, man, I can give you a lift. I can drop you off wherever you need me to.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Seriously, I insist-”

“Jamie and I got a spa appointment to catch in a bit. Otherwise I appreciate the offer.”

Jeffrey had a brief look in his eyes, a glint of what I could only compare to a wolf’s gaze hiding behind that sheep’s clothing he carried himself around as, and then smiled and nodded.

“Okay, Christian,” he said. “Once again, nice to meet you and I hoped you enjoyed the tour, and hopefully make some good content for your blog.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Thank you so much again. Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“It’s nothing, Chris,” Jeffrey said, throwing me off a bit. “Can I call you, Chris?’

I shrugged. “Sure. I mean, I called you Jeff by accident,” I said.

“It’s fine. Chris and Jeff it is.”

I needed to get away from here. Now and as fast as possible. But I still needed to do one more thing.

“Any chance I can wash these off inside?” I said, raising my bloodied hands.

“Oh of course,” Jeff said.

“I can lead him back,” Tiffany said, ready to go with, but Jeffrey stopped her.

“Ah, he knows his way in, right?” Jeff looked to me for reassurance.

“Yeah,” I answered confidently.

“Good, well hopefully I’ll see you around, Chris, and you enjoy the rest of your day.”

“Thank you, Jeff. And you all do the same.”

As I walked past them and towards the studio lot, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was being set up. Why hadn’t he let Tiffany escort me back inside? I’d think that would be customary for them to do for visitors entering and exiting the building. But I felt that they were watching me from behind, and with every step, I grew more and more anxious.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I’d made it inside and the lot was now nearly empty and quieter. I didn’t see a single person in sight, and only a few lights remained on, making it mostly dark. I hurried the fuck up and did what I came to do, as I didn’t wanna be here any longer and didn’t feel safe.

Down the hall where the dressing rooms were, I rushed over to Savannah’s door, and saw that it was closed. I tried opening it only to see it was locked. Looking down, there was no light shining through the cracks either, meaning there was no one inside. She wasn’t there. Shit.

I washed my hands in the bathroom, scrubbing the dried blood off as thoroughly as possible, getting under nails and all, cringing at the thought of it being Will’s. Suddenly, I heard a noise from outside the hall leading to the bathroom. Petrified, my heart sank into my chest, and I froze. I shut the water off, and carefully approached the door. I listened for any other sounds as I placed my ear closer. After a few moments, I heard the noise again, but then realized that it seemed to be coming from one of the dressing rooms just outside in the hall.

Since I carry a notebook around most of the time for jotting down notes, I certainly always carry a pen. What most people don’t know is that I carry a military tactical pen for a variety of uses, and in times like these, it can be used as a subtle but effective weapon. I switched the tip from an ink ball to a small slick blade.

I opened the bathroom door and crept through the hall over to the dressing room door that made the noise, holding the pen underneath the breast pocket of my sweater. On the outside of the door, it read, “WILL BANKS.”

Confused, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Common sense me once again kept barking in my brain telling me to GTFO, but I had to be sure. I gave three shy knocks and waited. There was definitely someone in there because whatever noise I thought I heard from behind came to an utter halt. I could hear faint whispers of someone’s voice, and then another. There was more than one. My hand trembled as it tightly gripped the pen underneath with sweat as I heard whoever it was on the other end of the door approach.

It swung open, and there stood Will Banks, the man whose blood was just on my hands moments ago, alive and well, in the flesh. It couldn’t be, I thought to myself.

“Can I help you?” he said.

I just stood there, baffled, without answering. Behind him, I saw Savannah, who instantly recognized me and came over.

“Hi,” she said. “I thought everyone left.” She looked to Will. “He was visiting the set today for his vlog, or I’m sorry, blog.”

Will nodded, understanding now. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t get to meet you. Will Banks,” he said, pointing at his name on the door. “As you can see.” Savannah chuckled, and Will extended his hand for me to shake.

“Christian, or Chris,” I said, releasing the pen from inside my sweater and reaching my own hand out to take his. "Whichever you please."

He had a firm shake, and it felt uncanny considering what I’d just witnessed. I was touching him, feeling his skin and bone underneath, the warmth of his body temperature through the flesh. He was real. He was alive and breathing. That couldn’t be faked. That couldn’t be a visual effect. This was real. After we let go, suddenly my hand went cold. Everything about this seemed off and downright strange.

“Did you stick around for the shoot?” Will asked.

“I did, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, what’d you think?”

I wanted to say so many things right then and there, he had no idea.

“Um... y’all are some damn good actors,” I said.

Will laughed a bit, accepting my sham form of flattery, but Savannah, not so much. She gave one of those forced gestures as to not make it feel awkward, though, I noticed it right away.

“How do you do it?” I asked.

“I would give you some artistic bullshit answer like ‘study your craft’ or ‘years of training,' things like that, but honestly… it just kinda clicks, ya know?”

I fake chuckled. “No, I don’t. It looked kinda real from my end. Too real, I might add. Care to go into detail how you guys pulled it off?”

“Well, uh-”

Savannah interrupted. “Wait, you know what Jeffrey would say,” she whispered to him.

“I know, but it’s for his blog,” Will argued.

“But still.”

“I mean, Jeffrey’s not here, right?” I chimed in.

They both looked at me, then at each other. There seemed to be some sort of nonverbal understanding between them, and Will looked back at me.

“All right, for the sake of your blog, I’ll give you what I can to the best of my wording, that sound good?” Will proposed.

I took the pen back out from inside, switching it to the ink ball with a short click, and whipped out my small notebook. “Hit me,” I said.

“Get ready for this one. Basically, we’ve been using a new thing in the biz lately sort of like mocap but it’s not exactly. It’s also kinda like hologram sort of tech?”

“Really?” I said, eyes widened with interest as I wrote words down.

“Yep. That’s how we did it. What you saw, was as real as the hologram thingamajig allowed you to.”

“Hmm.”

“The shredder, too.”

“What?”

“The shredder. That was a hologram also.”

“Really? Okay…”

I finished writing on my notepad then turned it so that Will could read it.

BITE ME, I wrote with a big circle around it.

He laughed. Savannah did, too, but, again, in a strange nervous and restrained demeanor.

“That’s a nice story,” I said. “So if you’re ready to quit bullshitting with me, and tell the truth, I’m ready,” I spoke in a playful yet no-nonsense tone. “How’d you do it?”

“You’re good, man,” Will said with a smile, pointing his finger at me. “Like a true journalist.”

Any other day I’d be pleased to hear that, but I was serious. I needed to know, so much that I’d forgotten how long I’d actually been here. I told myself I was gonna leave as soon as I could, but now, for some reason after talking with Will and seeing how personable and genuine he came off, he put me a bit at ease. Maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. But then the screams echoed in my head again, and the smell...

“You’re not gonna tell me, are you?” I said.

“Look, I wish I could, honestly, but if I did, Jeffrey may not be too happy with either of us,” Will responded sincerely. That much was true, I could tell.

“All right, I think I tortured you enough,” I said, then immediately regretted my choice of words.

“No worries, man. Nice meetin’ ya. Good luck with the blog.”

“Thanks.”

I looked at Savannah one last time, and she looked back with a serious and almost scary gaze as though she needed to tell me something very bad. That’s who I came back for anyways. But that opportunity was a lost cause now, as I left with nothing and still no understanding of how Gemini Films did their visual effects? And I lost my mother’s ring. Fuck, I didn’t have time to go get it right now. I didn’t wanna risk being seen again. Hopefully, Jeffrey keeps his word and they somehow manage to give it back. That being said, I'd be fine with not having to see him ever again.

Whose blood was that? Whose body was that in the dumpster? Was it real? Was it actually just that well made to where the average person could be fooled into thinking it was actual flesh? Who’d go through the trouble of all that?

The screams of losing your life inch by inch, the sounds that would haunt me forever. And the smell of what was inside that bag. That instinctual gut feeling… how was it not real?

#writing #story #horror #nosleep #horror stories

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5sosbitchfest · 4 years

Text

Alrighty, Nonsters. We currently have 290 Asks in our box! As much as we might try, I know there is NO WAY we’re going to be able to get through all of them. Everything exploded this weekend when MessyGate went down! I don’t want to ignore any asks just because I already answered a similar one. So, I’ve tried to gather as many similar Asks as possible to let your your voices be heard. Y’all are definitely NOT alone in your feelings. Get ready for a lot of opinions on Messy’s Twitter Drama.

Also, if you sent in an Ask and we haven’t answered it yet, please feel free to resubmit it! I do try to scroll through all of them but it is a daunting task and personal stuff and work make it difficult for me to get through everything in a timely manner!

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Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’m really disappointed in Luke and this band in general, the way they deal with things. “honest policy” with messy? So he knew all of this and it was okay? Or he confronted her on this and he is okay with what she has done? I’m not sure this whole thing would be a deal breaker for me, but it certainly would make me real mad at my SO and some whiny excuses wouldn’t be enough to make things alright. Radio silence would’ve been much better than that story he posted, made himself look like a fool.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls will sooner or later become their downfall if their management or them does not realise they should rely on other things than bringing relationship up front to sell their music. I find it extremely bad that they are behaving as if nothing happened, I hope there will be changes once touring will be possible again and we won’t see these girls tagging along everywhere or being brought up in interviews all the time but somehow I’m not counting too much on that.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder if Luke knows everything that Messy got exposed for or just the parts Messy wanted to show him. Bc Luke said in his Story that he wasn't online lately so maybe he wasn't on Twitter too and Messy just showed him the parts that make her look good and he still doesn't know that she spoke bad about Ashton or how she stalked the fans also after she knew that they didn't hack his email adress cause he wasn't on Twitter so he couldn't see the screenshots.🤷‍♀️

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm just waiting for the day one of them date someone who isn't a part of their circle. tired of them passing around the same toxic girls.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls are just digging a whole for these guys and they want be able to get out of it soon

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: It was a chicken move for Sierra to do it as a reply and no one has talked on twitter that she deleted it because they probably think her deleting it is saying it wasn’t true

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Am I the only one who thinks that guys really only heavily interact with us when they want to promote something or say something about the music? I do understand they have lives so being on Twitter isn't number one priority and with all the drama that surrounds this fandom its very easy to not want to be online a lot, I just can't help but feel that way

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm talking about this messy situation (no pun intended) with my friend and she said to me that Messy should consider changing her career if she can't handle that not all people are going to like her. (that ofc doesn't include any form of harassment bc that's not cool)

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I really don't know how to feel about the Luke situation. At first I was upset and disappointed of Luke but now I almost pity him bc real or not either the management would want Luke to defend her or Messy. And I think Luke isn't the kind of person who would stand up against the management or Messy (even though it would probably be better for him if he would). And most people don't realise when they're in a toxic relationship so I can't really blame him. I just hope this ends asap.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I literally was so angry and frustrated with Luke and this whole situation yesterday that I couldn’t even look at him on my home screen, I had to change it. It’s really a disappointing thing to witness. Whether management put him up to this or he genuinely believes this toxicity is okay, I’m just very grumpy with him at the moment. He deserves better and WE (the fans) deserve better.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I think Luke really needs to be in a relationship with sb who either isn't famous and doesn't want to be or with someone who is famous bc they have a successful career too and who doesn't need Like to be famous.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’ve only seen a few accounts on Twitter who are attacking Messy and Crusty to the core and exposing every bad thing they’ve done with receipts for the sossies defending them! I’m happy that karma is finally getting to those con artist who think they can get away with anything

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: that recent lierra picture is photoshoped lmao. if you look at Sierra's hand you can see color coming off from it and her arm looks hella weird.her forehead looks hella weird and look couldn't have taken the picture because I doubt that he could stretch his arm that far and make a perfect picture. also we haven't even seen Sierra's face so I still don't believe they're together

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The Lemon pic was like a punch in the face (even though Petunia and Luke are looking cute there). But I've been asking myself lately if Luke has seen the whole drama going around on Twitter or just the posts Messy wanted him to know so the ones who make her look like the victim (and not the ones where she insulted Ashton or she made it clear that she stalked his fans). Cause Luke said he hasn't been online lately.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I mean we dont know how much of the story he truly is aware of and how much s changed to fit her narrative and get L to feel bad for her. Plus he was under pressure from management to do damage control and not standing up for his gf is a very bad look for outsiders who dont understand why she's at fault. It was a pretty neutral statement and he was obviously told to make the post so I dont blame him and just blame her more for putting him in the situation in the 1st place

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder how much toxicity happens behind the scenes, we know S is very manipulative and L is very much a people pleaser so.. and with how much they have to sell their "love" and "happiness" in the relationship. Minipulation is a powerful thing and it could explain why hes out of touch with reality, especially lately since he's isolated with her and doesnt have the voices of the band to raise any concerns and he's been getting skinny again and seems very "meh" rather than happy, idk

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel so disconnected with this fandom rn. I feel like no one is streaming CALM and that makes me sad bc it's such an amazing album. The boys aren't even online anymore, everyone is mad at each other and now Luke comes up with this shit... tbh I wish I would wake up tomorrow and see him tweeting something like yeah I'm sorry about my ig story I still love y'all lmao

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Wait wait wait wait ive been gone from the fandom for a little while now and what the fuck is going on with Luke and S? What did S do that she made a fake ass apology for?? I’m so lost please help me! 😂

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm seeing a lot of my mutuals unstanning and I'm just so mad bc Sierra started this drama and got Luke into it and I'm sad that people are leaving bc of this, it's just too much toxicity and it shouldn't affect the band and their connection with the fans but with Luke saying this he makes it seem like he supports the ugly things she does

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I am a Luke stan and I've always loved him bc he has inspired me so much through the years but when he does this things it's like...damn. I feel like he's invalidating the fans' feelings by being like "if you don't like my girlfriend, ur fake" like he has never noticed me on Twitter or anything but my biggest fear is to be blocked by him or just ignored bc I don't like her (although I never expressed it publicly) n yeah anyways :// It feels weird

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Going back and re-reading the DM’s messy literally confirms that she accesses Luke’s account by saying “we couldn’t get in” or some shit like that

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I hate being a luke stan, sometimes it just seems like he doesn't care? he always puts these toxic gfs before the ones who adore him and pay his bills. might just move into Cashton's lane. unproblematic kings.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: He literally posted a picture of him cuddling her and petunia within the hour

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The saddest part of this situation is it’s like a repeat of Arzaylea. Luke has no idea what a respectful, mature relationship is. We saw it with Arz and were seeing it again it’s just a little bit different. He stays being controlled and manipulated by toxic partners. I really think homeboy needs to be single for a WHILE and focus on himself. He needs to unlearn the things his past and current relationships have taught him about love because if I know anything, it’s that this ain’t real love.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Is it bad that I just want the larzaylea drama back?? Like everyone could at least agree on their feelings then...

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Just checked messy’s insta and of course, everyone that still supports her filled her tagged with just the single picture

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel like the reason Sierra is getting away with what she’s done is because she isn’t that known. Like yeah she’s associated with 5sos, but they’re also like not that big which is probably why it’s getting swept under the rug. I’ve only seen the 5SOS fandom calling her out for her actions. If this had happened with a well known celebrity, they probably would’ve been dragged and been trending on Twitter. I might be wrong but I feel like this is what’s happening which is just unfair.

#kirby #luke #lemon #messy #messygate #messy's twitter drama

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sharyrazade · 4 years

Text

Maybe it’s because I was spoiled by Ashnard (BL/AM spoilers)

Having pre-battle convos with everyone and their grandmother, but as hype as the battle with a certain Lovecraftian Juliette Caesar in Three Houses was, I was a little...disappointed by the lack of pre-battle exchanges with her. I mean, it’s completely justifiable plot-wise to only have Byleth and Dimitri having them, but I was still mildly disappointed by the missed opportunity, so I took the opportunity to correct it myself! This was originally only supposed to be with the other Black Eagles, but you know how things get with me; they snowball.

Okay, I can’t (and won’t) take credit for ALL of these. Just most of them.

HE: So I see you have betrayed the Empire after all, Ferdinand. It seems you truly are so petty to commit treason over an old rivalry. Or perhaps you simply want the throne for yourself...

Ferdinand: I am anything but, Edelgard. This mad dream of yours- it ends today.

HE: You always were an arrogant bastard. Do you truly believe you can match my power?

Ferdinand: I cannot and I accept that fact. But as long as I have the Professor and all of our allies by my side, we cannot- will not lose!

HE: Arrogant insect! I’ll crush you like I should have done ages ago!

Linhardt: So your crests did hide such power after all...fascinating.

HE: Stare all you like, Linhardt. For I will be the last thing you see!

Linhardt: [sighs] It’s a shame. In all of the Empire’s history, perhaps no other ruler has used the talents at her command to the degree you have...But all the same, no other emperor has chosen a path so incredibly stupid. Farewell, Edelgard. I suppose it won’t do anyone any good to let you live in this state.

Caspar: [shocked] Edelgard! W-what the hell happened to you?!

HE: I’ve become more powerful than you could ever dream of, Caspar. You have chosen very poorly to stand against me.

Caspar: I could say the same! I’ve got no interest in gaining power just to trample on the weak like you do! And that you’re ready to become a monster to get it?!

HE: Come, show me how strong you’ve become- let me crush you!

HE: Is that you, Bernadetta? Tell me; what does the little mouse have to say before the eagle swoops in to claim her?

Bernadetta:..I finally understand what it is I wanted. I wanted you to acknowledge me. To accept me as an equal, not a vassal...But that’s not enough. You said to me “can you not live unless you were born for some purpose?” I’m not living for anyone else. There’s no special meaning in living. When I sensed my own death, I wanted to live. I know now. That’s all I needed. So...I don’t need you anymore, Edelgard. It doesn’t matter if you accept me or not. Here I am. Alive! And we will defeat you!

HE: You’ve acquired some impudent wisdom, Bernadetta. Too bad you’ve acquired it too late to do you any good! Die!

HE: [Angry monstrosity noises]

Dorothea: [sadly] Oh, Edie...what’s become of you...? I suppose...it would be the least I could do...

HE: You would dare raise your weapon to me, Petra? Your sister of sorts? After everything the Empire’s done for Brigid?

Petra: Yes, I will. I believe in the Professor. And I will not sacrificing the life of my people for your dreams, Edelgard!

HE: Insolent girl! Once I’m done with you, I’ll raze those damnable islands and salt the earth!

HE: You lowly lapdog! You would dare turn your blade against the savior of your people?! On behalf of the King of Faerghus?!

Dedue: [smug] Yes. Yes, I would. It seems you’ve taken on an appropriately monstrous form to match your soul, Emperor of Adrestia. And THAT is exactly why I believe in His Highness and the Professor- instead of you.

HE: Prepare to justify your poor choices to your butchered kin and people- your reunion with them is imminent!

HE: Grrrah! Fraldarius dog! Had it not been for you and your cursed family-

Felix: Shut up. This will be the greatest fight of my life. I don’t intend to have you ruin it with your babbling. Besides, I’ve got a score to settle with you on behalf of my father and brother anyway.

HE: Discuss it with them in the next life! Die!

Felix: Show me what you can do, Emperor of Adrestia.

Ashe: [disturbed] Waaaah! E-edelgard? Is...that really...you?

HE: You! You are the lowliest scum of them all! Raising your bow against me in favor of the murderers of Lonato and Christophe!

Ashe: Don’t...you dare speak their names, Edelgard! The very last thing they would want is for me to “live” like you- obsessed with revenge!

HE: If you are so confident in their answer, ask them yourself! Die!

Sylvain: Eeesh, I’ve heard of stress aging people, but this is ridiculous.

HE: You insolent fop! You want nothing more than to be liberated from your crest, but turn your blade against your liberator!

Sylvain: Oh, you know what? I changed my mind. That won’t matter after we beat the snot out of you anyway.

HE: Allow me to relieve you from your tortured existence then!

HE: Do you truly seek to meet your goddess so soon, weakling?

Mercedes: [softly] Dear Goddess, please forgive what I’m about to do- please grant this tortured soul the peace she was unable to find in life.

HE: [angry] Don’t you DARE pity me!

Annette: (Alright, Annie, this is it. Just stay calm, and start casting)

HE: You weak-hearted fool. Still content in your servitude for nothing in return. A pathetic old fool of a knight sires a pathetic, foolish daughter- how poetic.

Annette: [angry] Alright, you’ve done it now, Edelgard!

HE: You insignificant gnat! Do you truly love your sorry lot in life so? You hate your station and its burdens, but wish to throw your life away for this rabble?

Ingrid: Maybe I do. But I do know one thing for certain: I hate tyrants like you more!

Lorenz: [shocked] Edelgard?! How ghastly!

HE: This is what true power looks like. Your foolish notions of chivalry and noble obligations have no place in my new world.

Lorenz: [irritated] I might say the same of you and your tyranny. En garde!

HE: You musclebound dolt. What is it you truly hope to gain, standing against me?

Raphael: I made a promise to myself and everyone when you attacked the monastery. No matter who I had to do it from, I’d protect my sis and all of our friends from the Empire- even if I’ve gotta throw down with you, Edelgard!

HE: I assure you, all of them- and your dear sister- are not long for this world!

HE: I’m somewhat impressed that you found the courage to stand against me, worm. Do you truly hate your life so much?

Ignatz: [slightly disturbed] N-not at all. I love my life- I love this world. That’s why...I’m willing to give it to protect the world from you!

HE: The world needs me! It does not need insignificant specks like you!

HE: This is most unfortunate. We are very much the same, Lysithea. And yet you still have chosen poorly- for that, you must pay with your life.

Lysithea: If I had followed your path...would this have happened to me, as well...? As someone who shares your fate...Edelgard! I will destroy you!

Marianne:..

HE: Out of all our school chums, you probably confound me the most. You should be crawling to me, begging to be a part of my new order. To take revenge on those who scorned and mocked you your entire life. Called you a monster.

Marianne: [softly] Monster...

HE: I am Fódlan’s only hope for a future not shrouded in darkness!

Marianne: [angry] Edelgard! Your life ends at my hands!

Hilda:...Yikes! Talk about a bad look on you.

HE: All you EVER had to do was hand over the Hero’s Relic and TRY to convince that scheming bastard to stand down. You could have had a life of comfort, luxury, and more wealth than you could have ever known what to do with!

Hilda: And betray Claude, the Professor, and my brother? Don’t think so!

HE: It seems I misjudged you.

Hilda: Damn right you did, you freak!

HE: My new world has far greater use for your skills than this lot. Why then have you chosen these bluebloods and malcontents?

Leonie: What kind of use? Trampling on the weak? Brutally killing your enemies, real or imagined? No thanks! I’d never be able to look myself- let alone Captain Jeralt- in the eye ever again!

HE: Your reverence for that admittedly-powerful freak of nature shall be your downfall, Leonie.

Leonie: “Freak?!” Oh-ho, that’s it, Edelgard; your freakish ass is mine!

Assuming he’s engaged Myson (because that’s what I did)

Seteth: [shocked] Of course! Those attacks...THAT’S what you needed with Flayn��s blood and Rhea both. You and your friends!

HE: Nosy old fossils such as yourself have no place in my new world- or any world! Do it a favor and die already!

Seteth: [simmering anger] Well said, Edelgard. In the name of Fódlan, your victims, the Goddess, and Nabatea alike, may your tyranny wither and die at my blade!

Flayn: Edelgard please! Cease this madness and release Rhea! For everyone’s sake!

HE: A creature like you is incapable of appreciating the ideal world that I have envisioned.

Flayn: How can your world be ideal when you’ve killed countless innocent people?!

HE: You...beast! Don’t tell me what’s right and wrong!

Hanneman: Edelgard?! Goddess, THIS is the sort of power that lies dormant in crests?! I suppose, given the potential complications with Hero’s Relics and incompatible crests...

HE: I tire of your babbling, old man! Die!

Manuela: [sadly] I always knew you were a little rough around the edges- hell, I was back in my day- still am. But this-

HE: Manuela, you insufferable old hag! You couldn’t have just left the stage gracefully, could you? Allow me to grant you one last curtain call! Die!

Gilbert:..

HE: [smug] Well, well, this pathetic old knight has come to me to seek penance for his failure.

Gilbert: Not quite, lass. In the name of both the daughter and king whom I could not be there for, your tyranny ends here, Emperor of Adrestia!

HE: I shall grant you the death you seek, you pathetic wretch!

Alois: Edelgard! It is high time you answered for your crimes!

HE: What, no stupid jokes or puns?

Alois: No. For Captain Jeralt...I would have followed them to the ends of the earth and into the eternal flames- even if it meant serving you. Boy, that was a close one!

HE: Well, discuss it with him in the afterlife! I shall send your dear wife and daughter there to greet you as well!

HE: [smug] Take a good look, Cassandra. It seems your beloved Lady Rhea’s existence has finally contributed something of value to the world.

Catherine: [furious] EDELGARD! I’ll cut you into a thousand pieces, then grind you into dust!

HE: Show yourself, wretch! Know that I will find you eventually, and when I do...

Shamir: Yep, that definitely settles it. No way am I getting paid anywhere close to enough for this.

HE: What a pest you are!

Cyril: I fight for everything living and breathing and all of your victims. I fight for the Professor and all of our friends. But most of all, I fight for Lady Rhea! And it’s in all their names that I will crush you, Emperor of Adrestia! I won’t let you steal another innocent life!

#my writing #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #three houses spoilers #azure moon #hegemon edelgard #edelgard von hresvelg #luke fon fabre #van grants #lloyd irving #zelos wilder #mithos yggdrasill #pit (kid icarus)#just look at Bernie Sylvain and Flayn for why I didn't do the DLC characters it would have all just been Vesperia quotes lol

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jadenjace · 4 years

Text

⤿ ⋆ JADEN JACE LAPOINTE | TWENTY-NINE | ALABAMA ➜ ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO. ( @roswellstarters )

hello hello !! my name is emily and this is jaden -- he’s my little angel bug , a sweet joker of a boy who loves sports & video games and is working part-time at forbidden planet . he’s had time off from working following an unfortunate accident that took most of his right leg but that doesn’t get him down -- him , his wife , their dog buffy and pet frog named legs have all recently uprooted and moved to roswell to start their new life away from any potential triggers . i seriously want connections with everybody and will be reaching out to bother anyone who even sniffs around this intro post , so drop a like and i’ll come a-knockin’ .

TW : car accident , mental illness , amputation , injury .. all that good stuff .

character info –

Name: Jaden Jace Lapointe Age: Twenty-Nine Pronouns: He/Him Hometown: La Fayette, Alabama Time lived in Roswell: Three months Occupation: Employee at Forbidden Planet

biography –

1991 brought the birth of the greatest lapointe child , at least according to jaden himself. he was always a little rocket running excitedly from place to place , high-energy , much to the despair of his parents who were left with the task of keeping up . their lifestyle in the early years suited the little powerhouse – his mother and father loved the travelling life and before he was even old enough to speak they’d state-hopped and explored every hidden nook and crevice that the world had to offer . being that young he didn’t realise that it was due to his father’s native american roots – alabama wasn’t known for their open minds , especially twenty odd years ago , and the idea of his mother marrying a man anything other than white seemed unheard of . circumstances relaxed with the realisation that hilary was pregnant and they settled in maine now things had calmed , the small closed off town that didn’t seem to have enough space for a boy desperate to see it all . thankfully , unlike his rather conservative and old-fashioned grandmother she heard so much about , hilary let jaden do pretty much whatever he wanted ( within reason , of course ) . it started off with semi-permanent hair chalks , washable markers on pale skin , an ear piercing when he was old enough to sign the forms , then another , an impulsive nature taking root and leaving him with some questionable scars and stick ‘n’ poked imagery .

during high school he never fit in , but unlike some of the ‘ loser ‘ kids he didn’t fit the mould for the simple reason that he didn’t fucking want to . he didn’t care if teachers told him to dye his hair a normal color , to take those ‘ foul pieces of metal ‘ out of his face , he was there to have fun and maybe learn along the way .. even if not much of it got through . one passion though was computing class . it was the only textbook that wasn’t filled with doodles of basketballs and surfboards , of little aliens and crazy superheros , simply because the world of pixels didn’t seem so far away when he was learning the facts . if he had been more dedicated maybe he would’ve become an video game developer , a big time sports star maybe ; the dream is still there somewhere at the back of that widened mind of his , and one day he hopes he might actually see his name in lights instead of just staring up at them . alongside the nerdy part of his mind was his sporty nature , gravitating toward the basketball team ( which was the only crumb of street credibility he could get his hands on ) and frequenting the skateboard to try , and fail , complicated tricks until they were finally perfected .

meeting ezra was a turning point in the boy’s life . their relationship began with a fateful meeting , a few awkward encounters across the basketball court and in her previous job at the movie theatre . asking her on a date was something that would impact his future in more ways than one , both positively and detrimentally .. on the drive to the arcade for their first real moment as a couple their car flipped and , in a final moment of sacrifice , tipped over on the driver’s side and in turn crushed the lower half of his right leg . beyond repair , the male was forced to have it amputated merely a few months ago . with his existence put into perspective the couple decided to uproot and move somewhere with more options , more opportunities to heal , grow and recover from a moment so traumatic it was difficult for the both of them to cope , using money gifted from the lapointe parents ( who had practically adopted ezra at this point ) and some stashed away from savings they managed to find a little apartment to rent between them .

roswell is now their sanctuary , and jaden spends most of his days cooped up playing video games or watching cult movies to distract himself from the ever present demons inside of his head . now that he’s on the mend the male has landed a part-time job at the comic book store in order to help with bills and hospital payments alongside his new wife , the pair having wed just a few weeks ago in the height of the forest , a ceremony that was fit for a fairy tale . the two aren’t very financially stable thanks to the payments from extensive surgeries

personality –

if there was one word to describe him in the dictionary it would be a GOOFBALL – nothing is taken seriously , which is maybe a downfall when he comes anywhere close to a halfway serious conversation or figuring ‘adult’ things out for himself . everything is a joke , followed by a witty comment or obscure reference , a type of humour that would’ve been suited to a late-night television host if he had half the confidence to execute such a thing . jaden never takes anything seriously , before his accident and after it . jokes have been his coping mechanism and they’d continue to be for the near future at least , the only way he is able to forget about what happened to him and figure out a way to cope is through puns , quips and jokes at his own expense . unfortunately for the boy that attempts to be a ball of sunshine 99% percent of the time he is haunted in flashbacks by his accident , old film reels that play back in his mind at the most inconvenient of times . jaden doesn’t admit to many people that late nights are spent fighting tears or crying so hard his head pounds , hiding from the outside world beneath countless of sheets just for a hint of solace , a sanctuary among the fear .

#car accident tw #mental illness tw #injury tw #amputation tw #roswellintro

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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoldretired · 4 years

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I would like to hear about the punny girl

hnng thank you

i present you: kanon fukuda the ultimate filmmaker. do you get the pun?

kanon is my best girl. her backstory isn’t anything too like. angsty bc i know some can be angsty but her’s isn’t supposed to be about that. she grew up as the only child in a middle-class family with two parents who were confused by her hobbies and love of film but very supportive. also they grow to feel bad they gave her the name kanon bc all the jokes but it’s ok she kinda likes it kinda hates it. she actually got into filmmaking because she had an older cousin who acted as a sibling figure, and they would make home movies together. kanon would throw herself into her movies and kept producing and producing as fast as she could. eventually, she started entering them in both national and international youth film competitions and began winning titles. it’s at this point when she was scouted and started making professional short films. she had just finished working on her first feature-length film, which early reviews were calling her magnum opus to date, and exciting work from an up-and-coming filmmaker.

the reason why kanon chose to attend hopes peak is that her older cousin died in the tragedy. she doesn’t know they died. she just knows they went to school and never came back, and the family keeps it hush-hush. besides the promise of success, she mostly wants to find out what happened - she assumes it was a bad accent or suicide but oop! additionally, kanon chose to attend because her feature film is to release to the public soon, and she wants to be occupied during this time to take her mind off of the reception.

while kanon’s family backstory is pretty angst-free besides the missing cousin, kanon is still suffering p bad. she is diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. but! (unlike p much every other character in the series, it seems) she treats her mental health through medication and regular therapy (until she’s trapped at school). she’s very open about her struggle with mental health and enthusiastically tries to get better.

as a director, she specializes in dark comedy, parody, and farce. she likes irony, and can always see the twisted humor in a situation, no matter how dire. this issss about where you might start seeing her fatal flaw.

kanon thoroughly subscribes to the idea that comedy is born from tragedy, and that the rawest types of humor come from pain. she is known for going off her medication during the production of films and making a martyr of herself, taking pride in her horrible sleeping and eating schedule for her art. basically, every film student i’ve ever met.

she enters the killing game very upbeat. when she finds out the truth, she is very defiant, confident in their ability to escape. she is constantly cracking jokes about the situation and observational humor, and her ideas during the trial are generally very….original. she is known for monologuing and speaking in paragraphs. during trials, she creates elaborate example situations that might seem like they’re unrelated or inconsequential but morally always tie back in. queen of the non-sequitur. early game free time events/island mode would mostly be about movies and genre, with the occasional mention about working hard to be healthy again.

she’s pretty friendly with monokume, subscribing to the philosophy that if you’re kind to him, he’s more likely to do what she wants. she’s often the student who will ask monokume clarifying questions on school policy or for access to supplies. for example, i like to think she asks monokume to provide another student needed insulin. when monokume initially refuses, she goes into a tangential scenario where if this student dies, then isn’t monokume the culprit? he’d have to be executed for harming a student. and what’s this? monokume has been harmed? the person who harmed monokume must be punished. and go round and round in a helpless circle while the students figure out a way to escape. at this point, monokume provides the insulin.

however, after watching the first punishment, she begins to be filled with a deep despair. she is already dispositioned for despair, given her incredibly unhealthy habits regarding her mental illness and success, but she tries to resist. she remains upbeat, but after the first punishment, her dialogue takes a sharp turn towards dark comedy and macabre. from this moment on, she’s also a lot more skittish and easily startled.

after the first trial on, she will always make a point for thanking the group for being a good group of friends and making the time in hopes peak as tolerable as possible, in case they end up choosing the wrong blackened and all get executed. at the third trial, she follows this speech up with, “but if i die, you are all fucking idiots, way to let me down.”

most of her dialogue is biting, and despite the horror and despair she is filled with after every murder and execution, she can still find ways to crack a twisted joke. occasionally she will have a moment of clarity where she is candid about her feelings.

- one free time event could feature her talking about her feelings towards actions speak louder than words. her example is couples who say they’re dark and twisted like bonnie and clyde, but really they’re two losers into bdsm. if they’d just say they’re two losers into bdsm, she could respect them. she then explains how the statements of personality are more to convince themselves than anyone else. towards the end, she laughs to herself and explains how she totally screwed herself over because Kanon prides herself in her sense of humor, but if she ever says it aloud, she’s not funny.

- another free time event could be explaining her relationship with death. she’s not afraid of it, but she wants to die on her own terms. she admits to never seeing herself growing old, and that’s she’ll probably be a part of the 27 club if she keeps on the path of a celebrity.

her condition keeps devolving as the game progresses. more dialogue can include wondering why she is still alive and trying to cover it as a twisted sick joke. she stays upbeat, but as time goes on, you can see she’s slowly getting tired and beaten down. she’s also starting to take pride in her unhealthy lack of sleep, eating, or bathing.

it’s after the third execution does she actually show a true moment of despair. after the execution and the classmates are silently riding in the elevator back, she announces how she does not plan to live through the game. she does not see any possible reality where she will escape hopes peak. she does, however, make it clear that she will be dying on her own terms. she gives her blessing to the group that anyone can try to kill her, but be aware she won’t go down without a fight.

her free time events are filled with more raw emotion and despair with tinges of humor instead of humor with tinges of despair.

- she elaborates on what she meant in the elevator as to die by her own hands. she does not want to kill a classmate because she knows her disposition could never handle the trial, let alone the killing part. but she also doesn’t want to die by her classmates without a fight. and she doesn’t want to commit suicide because she has too much pride while also being too much of a coward…

- she explains how this story could be a great script, really, if it weren’t all so real. this generation’s battle royale. she actually gives kudos to the design of each punishment and admits they are inspiring if she ever wanted to do a genre flip and become a psych thriller director.

- just. asking why she isn’t dead yet. why not her? why not?

i want her to be a pretty late game survivor because i think it’s impactful to show her fall into despair, which she uses to harm herself instead of others mostly. it is also after chapter three you truly get to see her martyrdom come out. she has slowly shifted from less of a friend and more towards an antagonistic role, not because she’s a threat, but because she’s literally so full of despair.

anyways. you see her talking to monokume while the rest of the group arrives. before the fourth trial, she does her normal thanking of her classmates and pulls the protag over to thank them personally for the good times and making it the best they could. the protagonist is suspicious of this behavior and wonders if she might be guilty, but the evidence points she is not. the class correctly votes for the blackened. while everyone is waiting for monokume to go forward in the punishment, they’re confused by the delay. monokume is fuming, and it’s revealed. there’s a miscount. one student purposefully chose not to vote, which is a punishable act. the student? kanon.

she always insisted she would die, and she would die on her own terms. she had created a narrative in her head where if she dies a martyr, she will always be remembered lovingly by her fans before any unfortunate career downfall. the director ahead of her time, and gone too soon. she became obsessed with this narrative around chapter three, and the third execution sealed the deal. by the time of the trial, she figured out she could die a death fit for a star while also dying on her terms if she willingly triggered a punishment.

ive kind offfffff figured out what her last speech could be before her punishment? she explains how “comedy is derived from pain, right? and if i intend on being the greatest director of my time, i need to go through the most suffering. i was born to die a martyr, i was just hoping one of you would do the hard part. but since no one has the balls, you can all suffer with me. see you in hell shitheads” she then asks monokume if her cousin who attended here, were they killed or executed? (was it kill or be killed?) monokume thinks for a second and responds. she smiles and says, that’s all she needed to know. gives a wink to the protag and flicks everyone off as the collar yoinks her off to her death.

punishment would probably be something with “light camera action” or “ready steady shoot” and be a LITERAL pun on the camera shoot. bc, she’s shot. alternatively, if i were to decide that instead of a generic dead body in the tragedy, she could be related to an actual main game character pref someone who was executed, she could have to play that part in the execution and die the same death, but this time with like. monokume film crew everywhere and actual monokume in the director’s chair with a beret. either is a fun idea.

____________________________________________________________________

i’m a film major, and her character is heavily based on the kind of students and filmmakers i see and work with. there really are people like this who believe suffering for art truly makes them better than others and will purposefully put themselves through psychological torment. additionally, i wanted to see a more realistic portrayal of mental illness and show a character who (at one point at least) treats and is trying to maintain health. in the end, kanon is a narcist who lets her ego get in the way of her wellbeing and success.

also, kanon’s outfit is so stupid she has strawberry blond hair in a bob with like a widow’s peak, silvery-blue eyes, and wears a big flowy short sleeved button-up shirt, and olive-colored shorts. she has a big pair of aviators she wears tucked in the collar of her shirt, statement earrings, a pop watch, and lots of rings. and she is def not straight ut it’s not like she’s pursuing romance she’s pursuing death

#Anonymous #kanon fukuda #danganronpa oc #thats a whoopah #long one

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fracturedmotivationwriting · 4 years

Text

we summoned... a pizza delivery guy

Datura looked wistfully at the (rather cute) behind of their new demon friend as he followed after Prometheus and Pollux. The shapeshifting, gender fluid was definitely attractive -- both as a man and a woman. Her musings on what other forms the demon could take were cut short by Grisha's irritating voice.

"Well, you heard Prom, we have to clean this mess up," Grisha called out to Datura, fixing her with an expectant look. The kind of look that screamed 'I'm in charge, so you do it.' The look that drove Datura crazy.

Forcing a sickeningly sweet smile upon her face, Datura turned her full attention to the weak warlock. Time to try and feed his ego just enough to distract him. She let out a breathy laugh.

"Oh, Grish, I would love to stay and help clean all this up, but I can't," she pretended to pout, already gathering her candles into a box. "Besides, since you're such a better cleaner than I am. I mean, if I tried to clean this up, the humans would grow suspicious -- what with remnants of the pentagram, and I'd probably forget a crystal or two. And since you're so much better than me, you could probably clean this place up real quick with a little spell. So I've gotta run, but you have fun!"

Grisha was about to protest, but Datura was already well on her way out the door. His magic skills weren't enough to stop her, so short of physically restraining her there was nothing he could do. And honestly, given how drained he was from the summoning, Datura could have taken him. (Well, she maybe could have taken him before the spell too).

*******************

It'd been a long time since Mormo had stepped foot on Earth. Last time he roamed the world, he was assisting other demons in the development of the Black Plague. To say it'd been a while was an understatement.

And boy, did he miss it.

Granted, he expected much more fanfare when he returned. He always expected a large coven of the world's most powerful witches, only true followers of Hectate, to be the ones to summon him back. He was a little disappointed with the sight that befell him when he stepped out of the fire and brimstone.

Four measly little witches. Still in their twenties. Practically babies compared to the high priestesses he used to surround himself with. Not only that, but they couldn't have even been that powerful. One of them fell to his knees. And not in reverence and admiration to the great demon before him! He was simply that weak of a warlock.

Mormo was almost offended.

He rationalized that his restraints in Hell must have grown weakened over the many, many years. Other witches had surely tried to summon him, loosening the chains so-to-speak for the children who had broken the last link.

At least they were attractive. And much more open about their sexuality.

"So, thanks for pulling me out of hell and all that," Mormo murmured, sidling up closer to the young female he presumed to be the high priestess. She was the one giving orders back there, anyway.

He noticed her boyfriend's grip on her hand tightened as he got closer.

"I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything," he continued, flashing a charming grin at the girl, Prometheus. "But, uh, why exactly did your little coven summon me?"

Prom smirked back at him. Mormo could see the balance of chaos and genius in her eyes. A dangerous combination, especially in such a young witch. A combination that (excuse the pun) brewed reckless ambition, which always inevitably led to tragedy. Mormo didn't know what she had planned, but he was already excited to see the destruction and downfall that would come with it.

"We'll discuss that later," she assured him, as the trio entered an apartment. "But first, we need to clarify a few things."

Mormo raised an eyebrow in question.

"Your story," Pollux piped up, earning a confused look from the demon.

"You all summoned me and you don't know my story?" Mormo was definitely offended now. Were these kids even trying to summon him? Or just any old demon?

"Your fake story to tell the humans," Prom clarified. This earned even more confusion.

"Until we can use your powers for Prom's plan, we need to keep you with us. Unfortuantely, that means you're going to be staying with us at our apartment. You're also going to have to blend in with the other college students."

Mormo was starting to regret leaving hell.

"You're going to need a more... human name? Mormo is nice and all, but it would raise too many questions. Obviously, we're going to tell everyone you're a transfer student, but we need to figure out what your backstory is. Where did you come from? Why move here? What's your major? How do Pol and I know you?" Prom continued off her boyfriend's explanation.

"Woah, woah, woah. Wait!" Mormo interjected, holding his hands up. "I have to actually go to school? You summoned me out of hell, and now you want me to attend college classes with you? Do you realize how old I am? I've learned everything I need to learn. Sitting at a desk with a bunch of humans while some geezer drones on about physics isn't really my cup of tea."

"So not a physics major," Pollux replied, a smirk gracing his features. If Mormo didn't find the warlock's sass so hot he probably would have burned him alive.

"You're also going to need a job," Prom added, a hint of laughter in her voice. "So you can help with the rent."

"YOU summoned ME and now I have to pay rent?" Mormo shouted incredulously. "I didn't even ask for this!"

"Quiet down! Our neighbors are humans and don't need to know we summoned a demon," Pollux snapped, his voice reaching a much lower timbre than Mormo thought possible for a man of his physique. Again, really hot. Then again, Prom was also really hot. Maybe it'd just been a while since Mormo had been with someone...

"Excuse me, but you've ripped me from a comfortable living situation and are now telling me I have to go to school, get a job, and pay rent. I'm allowed to be upset," Mormo insisted, crossing his arms.

"Comfortable living situation?" Prom asked, raising her eyebrow. She called bullshit.

"Hells not that bad," Mormo shrugged. "Sure, the whining of the damned can get pretty annoying. And there are more rules about what you can do and who you can eat than you'd think. And you don't get the simple pleasures of Earth to enjoy like alcohol... Okay, fine it wasn't great."

"So, you should be more grateful to us for pulling you out of there," Prom advised, a joking pout on her lips. Mormo wanted to either smack that pout off or kiss it. He wasn't sure which.

But he also knew he needed to comply with these witches. As much as he hated it, they had summoned him for a reason. And for some crazy reason, demons had to repay their debts to witches who summoned them out of hell.

At least this was guaranteed to be fun if the devious look in Prom's eye had anything to say.

"Fine. I'll go by Ambrose," Mormo conceded. "An old warlock buddy named Ambrose had helped me back in the day securing children for dinner. I kinda got him killed by his wife -- long story. Taking his name is the least I can do."

"Alright, now we just need to figure out the rest of your story," Prom grinned, that devilish look in her eye again. “You could be a pizza delivery guy.”

*******************

After summoning a demon, Datura headed straight to the art studio on campus. She had a piece to finish for class, and since Prom had already forced her away, she figured she might as well go finish it. Now it was seven in the morning, and Datura decided she needed some rest before going to class, so she headed back to her apartment. Struggling to carry her box of candles up the stairs and fish her keys out of her purse, Datura almost missed the flash of red hair above her. She almost jumped though at the voice a few steps above her.

"Do you need help with that, Datura?"

Datura looked up, smiling graciously at Fiona. She was one of the humans who lived across from her. Datura got along swimmingly with all her neighbors, but she and Fiona had only shared a few conversations in the hallway. Datura knew the redhead had a class with Prom and had shown interest in their little "friend group" (coven), but Datura had tried to keep herself from getting too close to her. Datura was known around campus for her eccentricities. Her "party tricks" were wildly known, and students often found her at social gatherings to get their tarot cards read, palms read, or other such things. To most humans, it was all just a gimmick of a kooky girl. But that's cause no one tried to look closer. Fiona seemed to be the nosy type. And Datura was not going to be the reason was discovered by humans and hunted down, despite what Grisha had accused and warned her of.

But Datura also really needed some help getting into her apartment.

"Oh, could you just unlock my door for me please?" Datura requested, handing her purse to the other girl. "The keys are somewhere in there."

Fiona dug through Datura's purse, pushing past the deck of tarot cards, a few crystals, and what appeared to be a small, homemade cloth doll, to find the keys in question. Unlocking the door, Fiona waited as the other girl pushed into the apartment and set the box of candles on the floor.

"Thanks, Fiona, you're a doll," Datura cooed, taking her keys back and hanging them by the door.

"Not a problem. What's with all the candles, though?" she smiled innocently enough, curiosity getting the best of her.

"Oh, nothing," Datura waved it off. "Just had a little get together with some friends. Candles were... for the mood."

"Prom and Pollux?" Fiona guessed, having seen Datura with the couple in question. There was often a fourth with them, but Fiona hadn't learned his name. He seemed a little cold to other people.

"Yeah, Prom had us help her summon-"

Datura nearly screamed at herself. While she was a talkative person, she had never effed up this badly. Almost blatantly admitting to the activities of the coven? Datura had never been so reckless. But she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, working on an art piece for a class, and then Prom had forced them all out of bed at an ungodly hour, and now she just wanted nothing more than to curl up in her bed and snooze before her first class.

"A pizza delivery guy," she finished, cringing internally at her cover.

"You summoned a pizza delivery guy?" Fiona asked, skepticism written all over her.

"Yeah," Datura nodded. "Prom called us over to hang out. And then she wanted pizza. So we summoned some by calling the store and ordering some pizzas."

Fiona nodded, still clearly not believing a word Datura was saying. Anyone else, and Datura may have been able to get away with this. She was just "quirky" enough in people's eyes to get away with saying she "summoned" a pizza delivery guy when she meant she ordered pizza. But Fiona was nosy and suspicious of Datura, to begin with. So this wasn't going well.

"Well, I really gotta go take a nap," Datura laughed, offering Fiona a wide smile. "Thanks for the help! Have a great day!"

And with that, she slammed the door in the nosy human's face, praying to Satan that this wouldn't bite her in the ass later.

#witches and ghosts and demons oh my

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justanotherboyinblue · 5 years

Text

@letters-to-lgbt-kids, thank you for the fun ask game! and for the many letters that always brighten my day <3

22 Questions for Nonbinary November!

1. Which labels do you use? i use nonbinary, but agender also works!

2. What are your pronouns? they/them!

3. How old were you when you came out to yourself as nonbinary? i realized i was nonbinary when i was fourteen, it was a process for sure lmao

4. What’s one thing you’d like to tell your younger self? that i would find people who accept me and love me for who i actually am, not the person i act like when i’m around family

5. Is there a myth about nonbinary people that annoys you the most? yes! it bothers me when people say that nonbinary people have to be completely androgynous and have to use only they/them or every pronoun to be ‘valid’. it makes me a bit dysphoric since i like to paint my nails and have my hair long and these are typically female-oriented things

6. Is there a nonbinary celebrity you look up to? i don’t really follow any celebrities, but when i found out Ezra Miller was nonbinary i was ecstatic! they’re a very good actor and i love their movies

7. If you’re out, how did you come out? i kind of came out to my dad in passing by correcting a comment he made about me being a girl, and later that night i sat down with both of my parents and told them that i was trans, that i was nonbinary and wanted to use they/them and my chosen name instead of my birthname

8. Is there a gender-related pun you like?

9. Do you have friends who identify as nonbinary, too? yes! i have three that i know of

10. Do you have a favorite lgbt+ character? not? really? i don’t see a whole lot of lgbtq+ characters in the media i watch and read. i’m really excited to read Leah on the Offbeat though!

11. Lgbt, lgbt+, lgbtqa+… which one do you usually use? i use lgbtq+ and sometimes saga! but that’s lesser-known so not often

12. How do you explain the term “nonbinary” to people who have no idea what it means? a person that is nonbinary is someone who is off the gender binary which is male and female. being nonbinary could mean so many things, but simply put it means to not be male or female.

13. Tell us a fun fact about yourself (gender-related or random!) i love to bake! and color, and play video games, and buy beanie babies because they’re too darn cute and soft okay don’t judge me

14. How did you find your name? Quinn is my brother’s middle name, but that didn’t even occur to me until i was seriously considering using it. i think i just found it in one of those ‘gender-neutral name’ lists that i think every enby looks up on google

15. If you’re in a relationship, how did your partner react to your coming-out? uhhh i’m kind of in a relationship? i think? it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s a qpr or a romantic relationship and i don’t think it matters to the others but i love them both very much. and there wasn’t a moment that i ‘came out’ they both knew from the start! one of them is also an enby

16. Do you prefer partner, datemate, significant other or something else? any is fine! partner is the only one that’s been used so far, but i love the idea of joyfriend as an alternative to boyfriend and girlfriend. idk it just makes me sappy

17.A piece of advice for questioning kids? please, don’t come out to anyone if you’re not ready for them to be disapproving. and never come out if there is even the slightest chance that they will hurt you or kick you out. be safe above all. and i know that i might be bad right now, and you have no one to lean on, but i promise you from the bottom of my heart you will get through it and you will make the most amazing friends that will be there to support you every step of the way. it’ll all be worth it in the end

18. Which flag(s) do you use? the nonbinary flag, this non-chevron queer flag, and the asexual flag!

19.Any tips for bad days? distract yourself. that’s literally it. i used to browse pinterest for depressing poetry like a basic bitch to make my bad day as bad as it could be. watch a youtube video, some tv, read a book, talk to friends, anything you can do to distract yourself. it’s worked for me anyway

20. Do you have a favorite nonbinary blog on tumblr? oh but ofc, @ephemeral-afterlight, the love of my life, the apple of my eye, my dziecko, Jasper

21. Feminine, masculine, androgynous - or none of those things? none! i don’t put any thought as to how i present, personally, i don’t think it matters. i put on what’s comfortable and what i like, simple as that!

22. What are your three favorite things about yourself? oh that’s a hard one. like, the best things about me are also in a way the worst? i love so easily and i’m extremely kind, but at times it ends up being my downfall. i do love my arsenal of puns, and my quick humor that is mostly on the spot and i didn’t even know i was gonna say that. 9/10 it gets a laugh and if not i still think i’m hilarious so. and i make some banger cookies, which makes everyone happy because duh, cookies

#meet the blogger #long post #this was fun!#ask game #nonbinary november

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secretlyatargaryen · 5 years

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The Strings of Those Who Came Before: Part III - I'm You Writ Small

In part one I wrote about Tyrion's conception of justice and how that clashes with Tywin's values and leadership, and in part two I discussed how Tyrion compares himself to his father and often tries to imitate Tywin as a leader.

I often see the quote that lends itself to the title of this installment used to indicate how similar Tyrion and Tywin are, but here I am going to show that it means exactly the opposite. In part two I discussed how Tyrion's attempts to draw on his father's ruthlessness backfire for him. In this part I am going to talk about how Tyrion's attempts to mirror Tywin fail because Tyrion just isn't as ruthless as Tywin. Which is also why I think Tyrion's political (and moral) successes are when he isn't following his lord father's example.

Previously I discussed Tyrion's challenge of Cersei to protect Alayaya, and how he draws upon Tywin to make himself play the part of the monster Cersei expects him to be. In part two I said that this ends up backfiring because his threat is used against him at his trial, but it also backfires for another very important reason: because Tyrion isn't Tywin. For all that Tyrion cites that his father taught him to follow through on his threats, he can't follow through on his threat against Tommen.

"I promised my sister I would treat Tommen as she treated Alayaya," he remembered aloud. He felt as though he might retch. "How can I scourge an eight-year-old boy?" But if I don’t, Cersei wins.

Moreover, for all he thinks about “winning” against Cersei (someday I will write about Lannisters and their obsession with winning and games, and the “game of thrones” and how that translates to how they treat people), he is shocked when Tywin thinks he would have.

"You were the one who taught me that a good threat is often more telling than a blow. Not that Joffrey hasn't tempted me sore a few hundred times. If you're so anxious to whip people, start with him. But Tommen . . . why would I harm Tommen? He's a good lad, and mine own blood."

What’s also kind of interesting about this quote is that we hear from Tyrion two contradictory lessons he’s absorbed from Tywin. One, that sometimes a threat is better than the actual punishment, but also that you shouldn’t make threats unless you mean them.

This entire subplot highlights a fundamental difference between Tyrion and Tywin because not only can Tyrion not be the monster he was both raised to be and raised to believe he was, but he also does something that Tywin absolutely cannot understand because he does it to protect Alayaya, a common woman of disrepute, the kind of woman Tywin sees as nothing. That Tyrion would put the life of one innocent above the reputation of House Lannister is incalculable to Tywin.

Although Tyrion is morally opposed to Tywin's red wedding, he does commit his own share of war crimes, but even in his ruthless use of wildfire, he is appalled by the true amount of devastation it causes.

He found himself outside the city, walking through a world without color. Ravens soared through a grey sky on wide black wings, while carrion crows rose from their feasts in furious clouds wherever he set his steps. White maggots burrowed through black corruption. The wolves were grey, and so were the silent sisters; together they stripped the flesh from the fallen. There were corpses strewn all over the tourney fields. The sun was a hot white penny, shining down upon the grey river as it rushed around the charred bones of sunken ships. From the pyres of the dead rose black columns of smoke and white-hot ashes. My work, thought Tyrion Lannister. They died at my command.

[...]

So many dead, so very many. Their corpses hung limply, their faces slack or stiff or swollen with gas, unrecognizable, hardly human. The garments the sisters took from them were decorated with black hearts, grey lions, dead flowers, and pale ghostly stags. Their armor was all dented and gashed, the chainmail riven, broken, slashed. Why did I kill them all? He had known once, but somehow he had forgotten.

This is consistent with Tyrion having grown up believing that he has to imitate his father to be taken seriously politically, but not truly being able to cast empathy aside the way Tywin is able to, which ultimately does make Tyrion a better leader and lead to Tywin's downfall.

Moreover, Tyrion's own political downfall is punctuated by his statement that he is just like Tywin.

"You . . . you are no . . . no son of mine."

"Now that's where you're wrong, Father. Why, I believe I'm you writ small.

Many people read this as literal, but it's delivered with a huge dose of irony. Despite achieving conquest over his father, Tyrion does not say this in a moment of triumph or political success. He says it because he has failed. He is leaving Westeros a ruined man and guilty of the more terrible crime of Shae’s murder, and Tyrion doesn’t deny his own guilt. Which foreshadows that, rather than achieving greatness from mimicking Tywin, Tyrion's political and moral triumph will be a rejection of Tywin's philosophy.

Now, when we talk about Tyrion as a future game player we have to talk about his current goal of joining Daenerys. And I've written quite a bit before about how even though Tyrion's is motivated by violent desires, when he gets to Daenerys, he is going to be affected by her just cause and desire to protect others. He already is.

The dwarf shrugged. "I know that she spent her childhood in exile, impoverished, living on dreams and schemes, running from one city to the next, always fearful, never safe, friendless but for a brother who was by all accounts half-mad … a brother who sold her maidenhood to the Dothraki for the promise of an army. I know that somewhere out upon the grass her dragons hatched, and so did she. I know she is proud. How not? What else was left her but pride? I knowshe is strong. How not? The Dothraki despise weakness. If Daenerys had been weak, she would have perished with Viserys. I know she is fierce. Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen are proof enough of that. She has crossed the grasslands and the red waste, survived assassins and conspiracies and fell sorceries, grieved for a brother and a husband and a son, trod the cities of the slavers to dust beneath her dainty sandaled feet.

He also has a moment where he criticizes Daenerys' political decisions and compares them to what his father would have done. Which is not surprising, since Tyrion is always comparing his own actions to what his father would have done.

The fact that there were any good wells at all within a day's march of the city only went to prove that Daenerys Targaryen was still an innocent where siegecraft was concerned. She should have poisoned every well. Then all the Yunkishmen would be drinking from the river. See how long their siege lasts then. That was what his lord father would have done, Tyrion did not doubt.

What's interesting though is that when considering how Tyrion tries to position himself and where he stands between Tywin and Dany, I don't think this is necessarily a reflection of what Tyrion thinks he himself would have done or what Daenerys should do. It’s not even really a good military strategy, just a ruthless one. I think this is really just another example of Tyrion trying to work through his father’s bullshit. As I said above, Tyrion has a pattern of both idolizing Tywin and criticizing him, sometimes at the same time, mimicking him in some ways but not being able to really follow through with imitating his father, and that's a good thing. Whether or not he will realize he is not a smaller version of Tywin, and can be much more, will remain to be seen. And I think this is also tied up with the big/small imagery often associated with Tyrion, which I think the character would approve of because he was %100 making that pun on purpose when he said he was Tywin "writ small." Many people interpret this to mean that Tyrion is Tywin’s copy, or double, but the specific wording of “writ small” not only is there for the pun and the metaphorical meaning, it’s also there to emphasize that Tyrion is a product of Tywin, not an exact copy but a smaller version. I’ve also written before about how the word “imp” has a medieval meaning of “sprig” or “shoot”, and how Tyrion is literally the offshoot of House Lannister, raised under Tywin’s long, black shadow, so that comparison seems fitting. By saying that he is Tywin “writ small” Tyrion is laying his claim as Tywin’s son and saying “I am what you made me.” It's Frankenstein's monster confronting his creator. It's an accusation, an indictment of everything that Tywin is. Not an endorsement.

Will Tyrion repeat the small-mindedness of his father, or will he, in the end, stand tall as a king?

#tyrion lannister #tywin lannister #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #house lannister

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maxieflowers-blog · 6 years

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maxwell flowers is a twenty-eight year old staff that works as a pre-law professor. it has been stated that they are charming & witty, but they can also be manipulative & unemotional. he happens to be into roleplay & daddy kink, but won’t do non-consensual & ageplay. it just so happens that they look like chris wood and are bisexual. {syds/20/est/she/her/none}

helloo!!! i’m so pumped to be here skdfj i’m syds (or sydnie) and i’m bringin y’alls my lame annoyin bitch ass character, max. i’ll put some stuff abt him and some connection ideas nd i’d love to plot w/ all of you!!!!!!!!!! pls!!!

soo maxwell was born to an infamous lawyer and a baker. his mom was the lawyer and she was rly well known for helping people that a lot of the media was against. bc of that she got a bad name and got a lot of threats and stuff but she was like whatever! i’m a bad bitch with money, fuck y’all!

his dad was much nicer. he had his own bakery and after school every day max would go there and do his homework. his dad would check over it and if he did a good job he got his fave doughnut ( one with sprinkles......obviously.....)

even still his parents were also part time con artists. they’d con their way to free meals mostly and as max got older he’d get included in the things. he’d fake cry or anything else to get free ice cream and other bullshit like that

so from an early age he was taught manipulation tactics. which were and still are very key to his personality. the downfall for him was when he spent the night at a friends at 10 years old only to be woken up and find out that someone had broken into his house and ‘hurt’ both of his parents. it wasn’t until he was at the funeral that he realized he wasn’t gonna see them again.

after that dealing with his emotions was NOT a thing maxwell did. he put up a ton of walls and refused to ever let anyone in. early on it made him come off angry, but eventually he became a RLY enthusiastic and friendly boy. he was nice to literally everyone in school. that Dude who somehow seemed to be pals with every friend group? he was that bitch

it was what made him popular bc tbh he was a big nerd his whole school career. he’s lowkey v GEEKY and makes a dumb bitch of himself a lot and if he hadn’t been purposely going around making friends with everyone he would’ve been p low on the ladder.

he was in theatre!!!! he loves bein dramatic as FUCK and Truly it was his passion besides law to follow after his mom. if that inspo hadn’t been in his life to make his mom proud he would’ve followed the Hollywood Dream but instead he’s just dramatic in every moment of his life to make up for it!!!!!skdjf

emotions are still a big NO for him. he usually fails in relationships bc he gets freaked out once the commitment gets TOO real. on the other hand he also falls in love w/ everyone always. he has a very soft nd pure heart deep down and if u catch his attention he’s swoonin for a few months at least. at least until he writes a poem abt his feelings and gets it all out so he can move on to the next.

he teaches pre-law, but he’s also still working on actual cases too. idk how bein a lawyer works if i’m gonna be real but his cases are def criminal based. tho unlike his mom he's not defending ppl who committed crimes but working to get them behind bars!! and he only takes on stuff where he’s 10000000000% sure that they’re guilty. he doesn’t wanna be the one putting innocent ppl behind bars and has in the past helped cases where he thinks they’re innocent. he’s v moral when it comes to being a lawyer.......... as moral as one can be u kno. he cares abt people!!!!!!

but he’s also kinda self-centered???? in a way. he’ll talk about how pretty/talented/great he is a lot but it’s always in a light jokin manner i promise he’s only a lil overly-confident. but also kinda doesn’t like himself. it’s COMPLICATED!

UM i could keep going but this is getting rambly he’s just one of my fave most developed ever muses so i care abt him A LOT !!!! if you’d like to plot just like this and i’ll bug u! but if u see an idea that u think might fit ur character pls come bother me i hate the awkward start of plotting so i’d love to SKIP IT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE skdjfasdf (it’s only awkward bc i am Awkward i kno but kdjfsd) ANYWAYS HERE’S SOME IDEAS!!!!

exes. boys and girls. max is v bi and loves them both but also sucks at dating so u know how lucky. everyone gets to deal with max sucking (pun INTENDED)

high school friends. he was friends with as many people as he could handle in every group so anyone could work for this. there can be added drama of crushes/hook up/dated for 2 days, rly whatever!!

best friend. his #1 fave!! they make him a LITTLE more emotional but if they exposed him he’d be v angry. they know everything abt his life and vice versa, and they just mean a lot to each other! love that

crush. tbh since he’s weak he might have a few of these at once. he just gets drawn to good convos and fun ppl and he’s kinda weak from then on.

hook up. just someone he hooked up with maybe recently where it’s a lil awkward between them now. maybe they had a close friendship and WHOOPS they banged and now they’re not sure what to do or how to talk to each other. ://// tho max tries to just continue as normal whenever he sees them sdkfj SMOOTH

favorite student. P STRAIGHTFORWARD I THINK? like the student who doesn’t even have to be the smartest tbh. just the most fun since that’s what he likes the most. he def gives them special treatment smh :////

first love. prob a high school connection but this was the first person he TRULY loved and wanted to be with forever but then they broke up with him?????? i picture they’re older so it was a college thing but he was THE MOST HEARTBROKEN and still feels it to this day :/

fwb. casual, cool. they bang whenever they’re bored but that’s it. the kinda thing where they high five afterwards and congrat each other. sdkfjsd

childhood best friend. someone who was there for him through his parents deaths and maybe there was cute fake marriages and playing house and all that cute as Hell stuff ok pls..........

that’s all my brain can do for tonight bc it’s late but PLS GIVIE ME ALL THESE PLOTS!! I’LL CRY

#seasidesintro #;ooc #tw: death

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junker-town · 4 years

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The most outlandish characters on ‘Tiger King’, ranked

The Netflix show has gifted us one of the most outrageous cast of characters imaginable.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers about the Netflix series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness.

Every few months, a docuseries gets dropped onto one of the numerous streaming services, quickly gains steam on social media, and becomes the next big thing that you have to watch.

Netflix’s newest series, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, is many things molded into one. Although it could easily be categorized into the true-crime documentary genre, it’s equal parts reality show and stranger-than-fiction biopic. It also happens to include one of the wildest and strangest casts of characters that has ever appeared in a series.

Although the story is centered around the antics of Joe Exotic — described on the show’s IMDB page as “an Oklahoma polygamist, country singer, and gun toter who houses a horde of lions, tigers, and bears in his roadside zoo and is accused of planning the killing of a local animal rights activist” — there’s a deep stable of other unique individuals who each have their own oddities that take this story to a new level.

Here are some of Tiger King’s biggest characters ranked by just how outrageous their actions are.

10. Rick Kirkham

Throughout the series, Kirkham is the closest thing there is to an all-knowing narrator. His role as a television producer of the web series Joe Exotic TV allowed him to take a front-row seat to the daily shenanigans of Joe Exotic and G.W. Zoo. That chapter of his life came to an abrupt close when the studio that housed his footage for the series was lost in a mysterious fire on the property that also claimed two reptile enclosures (including some that once belonged to Michael Jackson). He’s still one of the more subdued personalities despite his role as an authoritative driver of the narrative as he dons a cowboy hat while taking drags from cigarettes.

9. Barbara Fisher

One of the most revealing segments of the series came from an interview with Fisher, who detailed her stint as an “employee” at Bhagavan Antle’s T.I.G.E.R.S. (The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species) organization. Her most jaw-dropping revelations included the claim that in order to climb the ranks of Antle’s operation, one would have to enter into a sexual relationship with him. That accusation may or may not be true, but Fisher’s presence and storytelling add another layer to the intrigue of Antle’s persona. Her stint is short lived but does lack a bevy of intriguing nuggets of the story.

8. Joshua Dial

Dial’s presence in the latter half of the series is not without turmoil. As a young individual with aspirations of a career in politics, Dial served as Exotic’s campaign manager when Exotic was running for governor of Oklahoma. A self-described libertarian, Dial provides a voice of reason amongst the cast of characters that have warped reality. One of the more harrowing moments of the series is the footage that is shown of Dial’s reaction to Travis Maldonado’s accidental suicide in which Maldonado shot himself while trying to prove his weapon would not fire without its magazine, despite there being a bullet in the chamber. Dial understandably looked on awestruck in shock.

In a series in which it’s hard to find someone to root for, Dial’s short arc is one that deserves sympathy.

7. John Finlay

The teeth (or lack thereof) are haunting. The display of his tattoo-covered torso anytime he’s on camera is distracting. However, Finlay’s narration of some of the more personal aspects of Exotic’s life peel back the curtain on his boisterous persona. Finlay was Exotic’s partner for over a decade throughout the saga, although it’s unsure if the two were ever officially married before the joint ceremony with Exotic and Maldonado that the series shows. His trademark tattoo above his groin reading “Private Property of Joe Exotic” was just one of the many interesting quirks of their relationship. As Kirkham explains, “John Finlay came out and said ‘Look I got to tell you, I’m not really gay, I’ve been sleeping with the girl at the front desk.’”

Finlay ultimately ended his relationship with Exotic to continue his relationship with the aforementioned woman.

6. Travis Maldonado

Maldonado was Exotic’s third husband, and the second portrayed in the series. His relationship with Exotic was always one of dependence. As Dial describes it in an interview, “There are people out there who will look at a person who is in desperate, dire need of something. In Travis’ case, he was addicted to meth — and they take that need and they fulfill it, until they become the only person who can fulfill that need.”

In similar fashion to Finlay, Kirkham also proclaimed Maldonado was not gay. “”I told Joe at least three times that Travis was not gay, OK? Travis was banging every girl in the park,” Kirkham said to the producers of the series.

Nonetheless, Maldonado’s story is a sad, tragic one of someone battling personal demons.

5. Mario Tabraue

The mere fact Tabraue is the alleged inspiration for the Tony Montana character in Scarface plays only a minor role speaks to the overall insanity of the entire saga. His past as one of the most notorious drug dealers in Miami was a precursor to his introduction to the world of big cats. Early on in the series, the production crew attempts to enter his property only to be prevented by security. The crew is eventually able to obtain access, and Tabraue delivers one of the best lines of the entire series when he dons a monkey around his neck while saying “sometimes they say that I’m the prototype for Scarface.”

I’d watch an entire spinoff series focused solely on Tabraue. While not as extravagant or flamboyant as some of the other characters, Tabraue carries an aura of mystery that goes just beyond his affinity for big cats.

4. Jeff Lowe

If there’s one word that best sums up Lowe’s persona, it’s sleazy. His standard attire of ripped jeans, a bandana and a baseball hat are showing extreme levels of How Do You Do Fellow Kids. Lowe’s questionable backstory includes illegally carrying lion and tiger cubs in suitcases through hotels in Las Vegas, a description as a “swinger,” and a history of domestic abuse with his former wife. Lowe preys on Exotic’s hardships as mounting legal fees from an ongoing dispute with Carole and Howard Baskin quickly drain his finances and force him to sell the park to Lowe to keep it alive. Despite his involvement in the murder-fire-hire scheme that ultimately winds up being the downfall of Exotic, Lowe escapes unscathed by cooperating with federal agents to save his own skin.

Lowe’s actions are shady through and through.

3. Carole Baskin

The “Mother Teresa of Big Cats” is the perfect foil to Exotic’s bombastic lifestyle, but not without some question marks of her own. The biggest possible skeleton in her closet (or somewhere in her Big Cat Rescue sanctuary) is the strange disappearance of her first husband, Don Lewis. Did she feed him to a tiger? Is he in the property’s septic tank? Did he flee to Costa Rica only to never be heard from again? SO MUCH MYSTERY.

And, of course, there’s the entire, you know, fact her biggest adversary hatched a plot to have her murdered. Baskin is not perfect by any means. Is she the protagonist of the story? Is she an anti-hero? Her portrayal in Tiger King presents a mixed bag that leaves a complex assumption up to the viewers.

2. Bhagavan “Doc” Antle

My one hot take after watching this series was that I wish Antle was the main focus of the plot. There is SO much to unpack with him.

To start, his soul patch and ponytail combo is an absolute look. He looks exactly like what I would expect a guy that calls himself Bhagavan to look like. Even before the series aired, Antle was already regarded as one of the most well-known big cat enthusiasts as evidenced by his appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman.

His portrayal in Tiger King, however, is not a favorable one. It is alluded to repeatedly that he runs a cult-like organization, as mentioned above by Fisher. There is uncertainty surrounding the nature of his relationships with those who work as apprentices, and there is speculation in multiple interviews surrounding just how many wives he actually has. Many of his apprentices begin as teenage women, and Fisher’s remarks stated Antle would have them change their names to something more exotic (pun not intended) and would pick their outfits that were usually some sort of scantily clad big cat print based.

It remains unclear how much of Antle’s reputation is actually true, but there’s no denying the sheer force of his personality.

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1. Joe Exotic

As if anyone else was going to be in the top spot? The antics of Exotic that are shown in Tiger King could easily warrant their own detailed list, but here are some of the most outrageous ones from the series:

Running for president in 2016, then following it up by running for governor of Oklahoma in 2018 and earning 18.7 percent of the Libertarian vote

Literally any of his eccentric music videos from his country music catalogue. “Here Kitty Kitty” might be the most absurd of all of them

Performing a song at Maldonado’s funeral

His affinity for dynamite and blowing things up

GOING TO PRISON BECAUSE OF A MURDER-FOR-HIRE PLOT

There’s so much about Exotic’s entire aesthetic that is hard to put into words. Above all else, Exotic was a showman and an entertainer. As he spirals deeper and deeper into his complicated rivalry with Baskin, we see just how far he’s willing to go in order to preserve his life’s work. It’s fascinating to watch a man so consumed with being on top of his world and the resentment he feels towards those who oppose him that he loses his grip on reality before ultimately ending up in prison.

There are few real life stories and characters — if any — that can match Exotic’s larger-than-life saga.

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caladblog · 7 years

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you’ve long seen your downfall spelled out in another’s bones

He’s going through an unconventional grieving process.

[oh man i forgot to crosspost this when i published it on ao3 whoops

title from the scorpio entry in september's Shitty Horoscopes, chapter xii: obituaries.

i've had this vaguely kicking around in my head since i first listened to the s3 finale. One of Them started it coalescing, and Dirty Work solidified it.]

The Maxwell Voice sounds angry this time she comes to visit, angrier than he's seen (heard) her in years, angry in the way she only used to get during that short slice of time between when she first judged him to be trustworthy and when she hadn't yet gotten used to Kepler's paternalism. Back then those rants had made him uncomfortable in ways he couldn't put into words, caught between needing to defend him (ingrained) and wanting to back her (honest), but now he'd pay good money for a reprise, awkward emotions and all. It's ironic that he can't stop noticing every grating thing about the colonel only now that she can't appreciate it, that he can't stop knowing exactly how she'd react to them, a derisive comment under her breath, a bombastic encore once they were alone. She was always better at mocking Kepler than he was, had a better grasp of his affected cadence even though she hadn't been working with him as long. (She was always better than him at a lot of things.) It's ironic. Isn't it?

It's something. Jacobi doesn't particularly care what.

The Maxwell Voice would be pacing if she weren't only a figment of his imagination. Since she is, he indulges the picture for thirty seconds or so: Alana Maxwell, animate and in one piece, stalking back and forth across the room (Magnanimously, he lets her have gravity.) like she's attacking the floor with her feet, gesturing wildly and explosively for emphasis on every other word. She was always so still and self-contained until she got really angry. It was a bit funny to watch, not that he'd ever admit it.

"Daniel Kenneth Jacobi," the Maxwell Voice says in a lethal hiss, "I swear on your duck-fearing soul, if you find Jesus because I kicked the bucket--"

"It's not finding Jesus." He doesn't have the energy to put as much scorn and sarcasm into the words as they deserve. "It's bargaining. Bargaining is one of the stages of grief, right?"

"Three years ago you told me the only real stages of grief are day-drinking and vehicular arson," she accuses.

"Of which I can do neither at the moment," he shoots back. "I'm branching out, okay? Get off my case, I'm trying to think."

"No, dumbass, you're trying to electrocute yourself in a pointless attempt to rewire the comms panel in your cell to broadcast outside the station so you can, what. Ask the aliens to pretty please with a cherry bomb on top air-mail you a new copy of your best friend because somebody was playing with the old one and she got broken? That's a terrible plan on so many levels, I don't even know where to start chewing you out for it."

"It's not a terrible plan," Jacobi mutters. The snapped-off end of his toothbrush makes a passable screwdriver as long as he goes slow enough that it won't break any further, but it's still a bit too thick. He's progressing through his fingernails for the smaller screws. Hopefully there's no more than ten between him and the circuitry, because both thumbs, an index finger, and a pinky are already ragged and weeping tiny flecks of blood.

"It is a terrible plan, and you know it, or else I wouldn't be here yelling at you!"

"If Eiffel can do this, so can I."

"Eiffel's an idiot savant. Eiffel's a level 100 bard who's spent his entire life dumping his EXP into the one skill tree. Eiffel usually has real tools."

"The aliens already popped out a Lovelace and a me. Zhang's ship from the seventies was fucking lousy with clones. This is possible."

"I don't need to enumerate the differences between the Tiamat mission and this one. Professor Kepler would've left them out of the lecture, of course, but you've known him long enough to hear what he isn't saying in the pauses between what he is. And you're absolutely right about Lovelace and you. They've got one of their own on board, and their attempts to load another didn't work, and they're not likely to waste more resources when one mouthpiece is already functioning just fine."

"Not even if I'm reeeally polite?"

"No, Daniel, not even if you're reeeeeeeaaaaaaally polite." Her eyeroll is audible. "This is an utter waste. I mean, God, at least wait until you've managed to steal a soldering gun."

"You wouldn't mind," he says, very, very quietly.

The Maxwell Voice is silent. The Maxwell Voice has not gone away. The silence is the message, and an extremely pointed one at that.

Too damn bad. If she didn't want him to say it, she shouldn't have died.

"You wouldn't mind," Jacobi repeats, slightly louder. "The captain's shaky now. Flinches at her own reflection. I hear you snorting every time I see her do that, you know? You wouldn't mind at all, not being human. Hell, it's practically something you wanted! All your knowledge, and your personality, and your thought processes, and the only thing you have to give up in exchange for being goddamn bulletproof is a few minutes of control every once in a while? I know you, Alana, I know you would have made that trade in a nanosecond, and you're not around anymore so the least I can do is make that trade for you!!"

His words rose to a shout near the end and it echoes off the metal, for you for you for you for you fading into nothing (like the nothing this is), and when the Maxwell Voice speaks up again she's gentle.

Her gentleness has always been so much worse than her anger.

"And that's what this is, isn't it? You, alone in a little box, praying for a miracle from a higher power. It's the same spirit--pun intended--as turning religious."

Two can play the pointed silence game, but Maxwell isn't actually here, she's just in his brain, and he hasn't been able to make his brain shut up since about an hour after he trapped himself on an experimental module for four days.

"I don't want that, Daniel. I don't want you grasping at straws. I don't want you living one moment to the next on the empty wish for a thing that only might be possible. It doesn't matter what I would have done. What I would have done stopped mattering sometime while I was tied to a chair with a gun in my face, and you know that. You also know what I did want, because I told you, and you remember."

Jacobi doesn't respond, but the words are trapped behind his teeth and his breathing has gone (close to a sob) unsteady and he's picking compulsively at a screw that refuses to budge.

She can wait him out. She's always been better at waiting than him, too.

"'Don't make a big deal out of it'," he recites dully. "Extraction out of that one job in Germany that went kind of south. We had seven hours to kill hiding in the train's luggage car. We hadn't slept in over a day and couldn't until we made it to the safehouse. You started talking to keep yourself awake, but then you went and got it frickin' notarized once we were back in the States. 'Don't make a big deal out of it. When I die, you get my stuff, and that's all. Blow up anything that's classified, sell the rest on craigslist, buy yourself a nice vintage grenade or something else equally dangerous and dumb.'"

"'Gotta stay on brand, don't I?'" the Maxwell Voice quotes with a teasing undercurrent, and this is-- he's imagining his dead best friend imitating his words from one conversation three years ago while tearing his fingernails to bloody shreds trying to open up a comms panel that he doesn't know how to adjust in a repurposed room on a broken-down space station seven point eight light years away from the planet where the conversation took place so he can beg some aliens to give him something that's sort of hopefully a little bit like what she used to be. It's ridiculous. It's stupid. It's not going to work. It hurts so fucking bad that he's almost grateful for the pain in his fingertips that stabs in time with his pulse.

That's what he said in Germany, dry and flat.

This is what he wanted to say, but didn't: You're not going to die.

This is what he wanted to say, but didn't: I won't let you die.

This is what he wanted to say, but didn't: I would rip the universe apart at the atomic level to get you back.

"There's no going back, Daniel," the Maxwell Voice says, and she's even gentler. "You know that. I knew that. I don't want you burying yourself in the past. I want your eyes open. Looking forward."

The petty obstinate part of him lashes out, what you want doesn't matter anymore now does it, but a much bigger part straightens up and says, Alright then.

Forward.

It is a god damn travesty that the person responsible for her death is still breathing the recirculated air in this universe where Alana Maxwell isn't. It's a waste, when you get down to it. Energy and oxygen, all spiraling down the drain at a steady rate of twelve to eighteen breaths per minute.

"Now there's the Daniel Jacobi I knew," the Maxwell Voice says slyly.

He could do something about that.

#wolf 359 #daniel jacobi #alana maxwell #text posts #caladblog fics #wolf 359 spoilers

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jadenjace · 4 years

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𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝘩𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎 𝘩𝑜𝑚𝑒 .

⤿ ⋆ JADEN JACE LAPOINTE | TWENTY-EIGHT | MAINE ➜ ATLANTA | UNEMPLOYED

okay so a little rework / role-change . i should’ve done this a long time ago , but jaden is probably one of my most developed muses and he is so loved by me that it makes my heart hurt a little bit . he’s twenty-eight ( his birthday is soon so .. presents please ) , born and raised in alabama and freshly moved in from maine to settle into a new life with his lovely girlfriend @saintezrajean . jaden has recently been in hospital after losing part of his leg and is still healing enough to be fitted with a prosthetic so don’t be alarmed if he’s hobbling about on crutches for a while .

also , if you’ve been around for a while he’s kind of a gender-bent version of BJ ( who i’m considering re-writing and bringing back too perhaps ... ) i seriously want connections with everybody and will be reaching out to bother anyone who even sniffs around this intro post .

TW : car accident , mental illness , amputation , injury .. all that good stuff .

@atlanta-rpgstarters

character info –

Name: Jaden Lapointe Age: Twenty-Eight Pronouns: He/Him Hometown: La Fayette, Alabama Time lived in Atlanta: One month Occupation: Unemployed Character Quote: i've begun to heal in all the places your hands have been / there's a battle i must fight alone but it’s you I'm fighting for

biography –

1991 brought the birth of the greatest lapointe child , at least according to jaden himself. he was always a little rocket running excitedly from place to place , high-energy , much to the despair of his parents who were left with the task of keeping up . their lifestyle in the early years suited the little powerhouse – his mother and father loved the travelling life and before he was even old enough to speak they’d state-hopped and explored every hidden nook and crevice that the world had to offer . being that young he didn’t realise that it was due to his father’s native american roots – alabama wasn’t known for their open minds , especially twenty odd years ago , and the idea of his mother marrying a man anything other than white seemed unheard of . circumstances relaxed with the realisation that hilary was pregnant again and they settled in maine now things had calmed , the small closed off town that didn’t seem to have enough space for a boy desperate to see it all . thankfully , unlike his rather conservative and old-fashioned grandmother she heard so much about , hilary let jaden do pretty much whatever he wanted ( within reason , of course ) . it started off with semi-permanent hair chalks , washable markers on pale skin , an ear piercing when he was old enough to sign the forms , then another , an impulsive nature taking root and leaving him with some questionable scars and stick ‘n’ poked imagery .

during high school he never fit in , but unlike some of the ‘ loser ‘ kids he didn’t fit the mould for the simple reason that he didn’t fucking want to . he didn’t care if teachers told him to dye his hair a normal color , to take those ‘ foul pieces of metal ‘ out of his face , he was there to have fun and maybe learn along the way .. even if not much of it got through . one passion though was science class . it was the only textbook that wasn’t filled with doodles of galaxies and moons , of little aliens and crazy spaceships , simply because outer space didn’t seem so far away when he was learning the facts . if he had been more dedicated maybe he would’ve become an astrologer , an astronaut maybe ; the dream is still there somewhere at the back of that spacey mind of his , and one day he hopes she might actually touch the stars instead of just gaze up at them . alongside the nerdy part of his mind was his sporty nature , gravitating toward the basketball team ( which was the only crumb of street credibility he could get his hands on ) and frequenting the skateboard to try , and fail , complicated tricks until they were finally perfected .

meeting ezra was a turning point in the boy’s life . their relationship began with a fateful meeting , a few awkward encounters across the basketball court and in her previous job at the movie theatre . asking her on a date was something that would impact his future in more ways than one , both positively and detrimentally .. on the drive to the arcade for their first real moment as a couple their car flipped and , in a final moment of sacrifice , tipped over on the driver’s side and in turn crushed the lower half of his right leg . beyond repair , the male was forced to have it amputated merely a month ago . with his existence put into perspective the couple decided to uproot and move somewhere with more options , more opportunities to heal , grow and recover from a moment so traumatic it was difficult for the both of them to cope , using money gifted from the lapointe parents ( who had practically adopted ezra at this point ) and some stashed away from savings they managed to find a little apartment to rent between them . it’s now their sanctuary , and jaden spends most of his days cooped up playing video games or watching cult movies to distract himself from the ever present demons inside of his head .

personality –

#atgaintro #car accident tw #injury tw #amputation tw #mental illness tw

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culinarystrategist · 7 years

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@malveiillant

Written as a companion & response to this.

Revenge, so the adage goes, is sweet.

If you take everything away from a man, and he feels he has nothing left to lose, then there are no limits to the depths to which that man will plunge in order to scour his soul of what ails him. Loss has made Ignis bitter. Grief has made him brutal. Anger has made him merciless.

Time does not heal all wounds. His body still bears the marks of his torture at the hand of Ravus. Milky vision, twitchy nerves and nightmares to fray even the sturdiness of nerves all combine to keep those hours Ignis suffered very much alive in his mind. He doesn’t want to relive that time. Who but the most disturbed would? Ravus, he imagines, probably often thinks back to that fateful day, revelling in the torment he meted out not just to Ignis. Did he believe himself justified back then? Did he think his actions were a fair act of punishment against his transgressors?

Ignis simply couldn’t care less. What Ravus did can never be advocated, however it can be replicated and requited. The compassion which ran as a current throughout his life, guiding him through the most difficult situations and acting as a moral beacon to light his way, is gone. The well has run dry and only rancour remains, fuelled by each painful reminder. Catching sight of a scar, or a certain smell invokes unbidden memories which leave Ignis gasping for breath as though he were right back there, in Ravus’ cruel clutches. In those instants, those moment of anguish and terror, Ignis all but pleads for the Astrals to take him from this mortal coil and allay horrors for once and for all.

When those visions pass, and Ignis finds his throat is no longer constricted, allowing breaths of sweet air to flood his lungs, he’s left with one solitary thought: retribution. It becomes all-consuming and he finds himself fantasising about taking Ravus apart, piece by sorry piece, and showing him every inch of the corruption that resides within his body. And so, a plan is formed.

As a man who has always prided himself upon the goodness of his heart, Ignis discovers it’s surprisingly easy to insert himself into the domain of nefarious activities. Money always helps. He spends a little cash here, makes a little investment there, and favours are given and earned in return. It takes virtually no time at all for Ignis’ name to get out there as someone who knows how to get things done. A far cry from his previous life and one he’d never have imagined himself leading, but necessity is the mother of invention and a little diversification never did anyone any harm.

Ignis the kingpin, ruling with a ruthless hand and taking no shit from anyone. You cross him? The consequences are simple: you die. As far as his former cohorts are concerned, he’s taken himself off on a pilgrimage to try and cleanse himself of the impurities Ravus instilled in him. If they could see him now, they’d swear it was a different man altogether.

Ignis? Callous? No, never. Even that time he hit his thumb with the meat tenderiser, the worst that happened was a mild curse. He doesn’t have it in him to be cruel.

That’s what they’d say, dear Gladio and Prompto, because even though they battled their own demons, their faith in the former royal advisor was unshakable. Some thing never change, and that includes - in their eyes - the stalwart Ignis.

Fuck them. Fuck them and their naivete. If they want to sit in circles with other poor saps and talk about their feelings, let them. Ignis believes otherwise. He believes that the only way of solving a problem is through decisive and firm action and when he feels the time is right, he gives the order for capture. How its done, he doesn’t care. The finer details are irrelevant. As long as Ravus is delivered to the specified location and the required time, Ignis’ accomplices will be handsomely paid.

The spot is chosen for its remoteness - a place where a man can scream at the top of his lungs and the only thing around to hear is the wildlife. A table takes up the centre of a barren room, flanked by two moveable carts, laden with instruments. Ignis leans against the back wall, waiting for his quarry to arrive. He’s already ensured that each dagger, knife and scalpel is as sharp as possible, and that the straps which will secure Ravus to the table are impossible to break. It’s just a matter of time before he hears the rumble of an engine, followed by the slamming of truck doors.

“Make sure he is unable to move,” Ignis barks out. “And remove that damnable arm. Rip it off, if you have to.” The men move quickly to carry out the order, stripping Ravus of his long coat and tossing it into a dark, dusty corner of the room. While Ravus is prepared for what is to follow, Ignis inspects the tools of his trade. He’s taken the step of colour-coding each weapon with a little bit of tape around the handle or hilt. Green to start off with - the larger blades. Orange will come next and finally, red. Each step has been carefully plotted in his mind and there is no room for error.

“He’s ready, boss,” the foreman announces, herding his companions towards the door. “Just call me when you need the clean up crew.” With that, he’s gone, leaving only Ignis and Ravus in the room.

In the time it takes for Ravus to rouse from his impromptu nap, Ignis dons a leather apron and a matching pair of gloves - because there’s never any excuse for not wearing a coordinated outfit. As soon as Ignis hears the first sign of wakefulness - a softly confused and muffled groan - he pushes the trolley holding the green knives closer to the table and looms over Ravus.

“My apologies for the dim lighting,” he says, his voice as sweet and as pleasant as it ought to be when dealing with a foreign dignitary. “But I’m afraid my eyes are somewhat damaged and cannot take anything too bright.” His lilting tone belies the pointed barb and his smile hides true intent. “I must also apologise for the nature of your invitation to join me here, however I am certain that had I stuck with conventional means, you would have declined. As for the gag...” Leaning forwards, Ignis tapped the tip of his index finger against the band of fabric covering Ravus’ mouth. “That is entirely for my own entertainment at this stage.”

With a step backwards, Ignis allows himself a moment to peruse his choice of knives. Selecting the right one cannot be rushed. As he runs his fingers along the edge of the cart, he speaks again.

“You’ll also notice that I have divested you of your arm. I realise that must be disconcerting for you, but I’m sure you’ll be all right.” Covering his mouth with a gloved hand, Ignis chuckles quietly. “Ah, forgive me. That pun was terrible. Oh yes, I know, I know. I shouldn’t ever make light of someone’s disabilities. Chalk it up to nerves? I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Ravus bucks against his bonds, his lithe body arching off the table to no avail. There’s enough leeway in the straps to give the illusion that breaking free might be possible, when in actuality, there’s no chance at all. A nice little twist, Ignis thinks, to mess with Ravus’ head.

“Ah, now, here we go!” Knife picked and in his hand, Ignis returns to the table and Ravus’ hateful gaze. The man is proud, that much is obvious, and that is ideal as far as Ignis is concerned. That contempt will contribute to his downfall, which will be crushing. “I believe in openness and honesty, Ravus, and so I will inform you at the outset, so you are under no misapprehension about what is going to occur here, that I am going to cause you as much agony as I am capable. I have twenty-two knives here, and I am going to use each one of them on you. Some, like this one here,” Ignis says, holding up the long dagger so Ravus has a clear view of it, “look like they will inflict a lot of damage. But truth be told, although it will cut into your flesh, it will actually leave behind a shallow wound. Allow me to demonstrate.”

Lowering the knife, Ignis places the point against Ravus’ sternum and slowly draws it downwards. True to what he’d said, the knife did cut, but not very deeply. It hurt, though, to judge by the way Ravus’ brows knitted together and his fist clenched at his side. If he wanted to internalise the pain, that was his prerogative.

“It takes a few seconds for the blood to appear,” Ignis said, leaning closer and squinting through his murky vision. Beads of red slowly formed on the surface of the cut, but not enough to trickle. “You see? Disappointing. One would hope for far more than that. Let’s see if we can do a little better next time, yes?” A second cut joins the first, running parallel, but only a similar amount of blood seeps out, prompting a frustrated scowl.

“I should have known better. I’ve chosen to start in the wrong place! Silly me.” To rectify his error, Ignis stabs the tip of the knife into Ravus’ forearm and that nets him a stifled, yet satisfying yelp of pain. As soon as Ignis pulls the knife free, a strong spurt of blood escapes the wound and rolls in a steady rivulet over Ravus’ wrist. “Shall we see what the next knife can do?”

Twelve knives later - not all of them used as some were discarded as unneeded - Ravus’ skin is a patchwork of cuts, gashes, lacerations and carvings. Admiring his handiwork, Ignis muses that he ought to have been an artist. Red lines intersect over pale skin, and the the only part of Ravus’ body untouched by sharpened metal so far is his face. The cuts on the bottom of each foot were particularly gratifying because Ignis knows that those will take a near eternity to heal. Bruising forms where the harnesses restrain, adding a pretty touch of blue and purple to the red and pink.

“I don’t believe I have ever told you this before, Ravus, and that is most likely because I have never had the opportunity nor the reason to, but I must admit you are quite stunning. Beautiful, one might say. Were it not for that hideous arm of yours, one might speculate that you are the pinnacle of masculine perfection. It’s as though you were hewn from the finest marble, by the most skilled hands.” The smile Ignis wears fades to something altogether more sober. “Mine shall be the last eyes to gaze upon you in your present, exquisite form.”

With something akin to regret, Ignis takes up one of the scalpels and holds the edge just above Ravus’ cheek. Although his vision is far from acute, even he can see the fear reflected back from those mismatched eyes. It’s a pleasing sight to see. The pride that was so prevalent earlier has now completely dissipated, and while Ravus may not yet be broken, he’s beginning to unravel.

“Do you fear for your life?” Ignis asks, his voice barely above a whisper. “Do not, for I do not intend to kill you. You may die, but I promise that I will not strike the final blow.”

Narrowed eyes glare venom at him and he thinks his vow may have fallen upon deaf ears. He knows it to be the truth, though, and that’s all that matters. Nodding sombrely, he closes the gap between blade and flesh, but instead of a clean cut down, he slices in.

“When I was learning to cook,” comes the added commentary as Ignis carefully removes a sliver of meat from Ravus’ cheek. “I studied for a while under the Citadel’s head chef. He used to be a butcher, you know? He taught me how to incise with perfect accuracy. You have to go with the grain of the meat to ensure a clean slice.” Holding up the portion of cleaved flesh, he turns it towards the light so he can inspect his work. “Of course, a carcass would have been hung for a while prior to preparing so there would be far less blood than this.”

The way Ignis tosses the cheek fragment over his shoulder is careless and dismissive. It slaps wetly against the wooden floorboards a metre or so behind him. More joins it, every one wringing deadened screams, jerky movements and death glares from Ravus. The man on the table looks less like a man and more like the floor of an abattoir with each passing minute. White hair becomes streaked with red, fine strands matting together as blood congeals. Throughout it all, Ignis maintains his narration, treating Ravus to a monologue about his journey from novice cook to damned near professional chef, with the odd little anecdote tossed in along the way.

“I believe I am done.” Panting heavily, as though completing a task of great physical exertion, Ignis stands back, hands on hips, and expression pleased. “I doubt even your own sister would recognise you now. Oh my... There I go again, putting my foot in my mouth. May the Astrals preserve dear Lunafreya’s soul. Still, my point still stands. Now, you just bear with me a moment, while I-”

Ignis tails off, drops his scalpel onto the cart and ducks down to retrieve something from the lower shelf.

“Here we go! I’m sure you’d like to see what we’ve achieved here today, wouldn’t you?” Mimicking a barber, showing off a new hairstyle to his client, Ignis holds a mirror up in front of Ravus’ face. “What do you think? Personally, I’d say it’s so you. Perhaps to accompany your new style, you should rethink your wardrobe? Red is the new white!”

A ghoulish sight greets Ravus’ eyes. Barely a scrap of skin remains on his face, muscles and sinew on show for all the world to see. His lips are intact, but stained and bruised, and around his eyes, a hint of pink can still be seen below the smears of blood.

“It has been an honour to work with you, Ravus,” Ignis says and takes the mirror away to replace it on the cart. “As I said, I am done with you, but one last task remains. Before I get to that, I shall advise you that within the pocket of my apron is a phone with only one number programmed into it. The number belongs to the men who brought you here and they will happily provide a taxi service for you to return from whence you came.”

Ignis doesn’t plan on leaving this place. He knows that if he does, and if he leaves Ravus alive, then further vengeance will come. Besides, this is the only thing that’s kept him going since the day Ravus took Noctis’ life and now that it’s over, there’s no reason for Ignis to continue living. Selecting the largest knife he has on either of the carts, Ignis places it down on the table, the hilt at Ravus’ hand. Once it’s in place, he reaches for a second, a smaller knife with a curved blade.

“I recommend you work quickly. No doubt, you are already feeling rather drained and if you tarry too long, you’ll find yourself incapable of cutting yourself free and will likely expire where you lie.” Even before Ignis finishes speaking, Ravus is working the knife into his grasp to try and saw through his leather bonds. “As for me, the time has come for me to bid you farewell. As I said, it has been a pleasure and I wish you luck in your future endeavours. If I see your sister, I’ll give her your best wishes.”

With a smile, Ignis raises his hand and slashes the knife across his throat.

#malveiillant #tw: blood #tw: torture #tw: butchery #tw: gore #tw: suicide #gift fic

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