#things end | people change
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Things End | People Change - Not Dangerous
content: vampire whumpee, whumper turned whumpee, dehumanisation, muzzled whumpee, disassociation, burning, whumpee believing they deserve it, begging
"So you're still going to hurt him?" Cai signs.
Clary nods. "It's just not… worth it, right now. He already thinks I'm going to hurt him every time I move. I want to make him scared of me, it's- it's the least I deserve."
"I understand." Cai bites his lip. "I'm worried about you being here alone with him."
"You can stay over if you want," Clary shrugs.
"Are you okay?" Cai asks.
"I don't know."
It's only been a few hours, but Clary's already having second thoughts. She thinks she's hiding it well, but her twin knows her better than that, and he briefly squeezes her hand.
"He deserves it," Cai signs.
Does he? He's been hurt so badly already. But Clary can fucking feel him, hands around her throat to hold her still, and she wants to hear his dusty bones crack underneath her fingers.
"You don't have to go near him." Cai grabs the blood bag that Clary asked him to bring. "I'll feed him."
"Thanks," she mumbles. "Don't… don't be a dick to him."
"I'll try, but no promises."
—
Vincent wraps the blankets around himself. Blankets. He hasn't touched a single soft thing since being captured. And Clary, Clary was kind enough to give him blankets.
He doesn't care what she does to him. He'd deserve it, every bit of it, even if she took a knife and cut his mangled body to shreds. He'd take it gratefully, another reminder of what he is. He's had so many, but if they stop, he might hurt someone again. He'll always hurt people. That's what monsters like him do.
He's still not quite… present. He never is, not with the muzzle strapped to his face. Part of him seems to leave his body, floating in his sea of consciousness. Perhaps that's why the hunters liked to keep the muzzle on him. It made him so much less able to resist. At least at first. Now even the idea of resisting makes him shiver.
Vincent jumps as the deadbolt grinds against the door. He scrambles off the bed and onto his knees. All he needs to do is be at her mercy.
It isn't Clary. It's someone else, someone who looks so similar Vincent has to assume it's her twin. The twin eyes him warily. I'm not dangerous, Vincent pleads silently, I'll never hurt her again.
Vincent flinches away as the twin - Cai, his name was Cai - crouches down in front of him. Cai has something in his hand.
Vincent didn't smell it. It must be sealed. But it's a bag of blood, and Vincent is suddenly ravenous.
Cai smirks, and lifts the bag up, seeming to delight in how Vincent's eyes have locked on, following it desperately. Vincent whines. He wants it, needs it, has to force himself to stay still. This is just torment, isn't it? He can't imagine this is worse than whatever Cai would do to him if he tried to take it.
He whines again. Please. He doesn't care if he has to pay for it later.
Cai snaps his fingers at Vincent to force the vampire to pay attention to him, then waves his hands. Vincent stares blankly. Clary once said her twin was mostly mute, didn't she? But Vincent doesn't know hand languages.
Cai suddenly grabs Vincent by his filthy shirt and pulls him close.
"If I take this muzzle off and you bite," Cai says, in a weak, breathy voice, "I'll rip out your fangs myself, bloodsucker. Got that?"
Vincent whimpers and nods.
He sort of wishes it was Clary taking off the muzzle. Selfish creature. But he missed her. As much as he hurt her, in the brightest days where he was nothing but an object of suffering, he tried to imagine her voice. She was all he had.
His skin peels. Layers come off with the muzzle. He can't remember how long it's been on. Everything blurs together, but the deep grooves in his face suggest it must have been a while. He didn't feel the pain. Silver burns were the first thing he got used to.
Cai doesn't react. In fact, he does nothing more than fling it to the side and shove the bag at Vincent's mouth before he has a chance to speak.
The hunger is more powerful than Vincent's desire to beg while he's still allowed his voice, and he nearly melts. Nothing has ever tasted so good, even though it's animal blood that would've made him sick before he understood that he was just a worthless thing.
Cai laughs at him, how desperately and quickly he swallows the blood and drops the bag in front of him. He's still starving, but it's the first time he's fed in… in…
Cai doesn't take his eyes off Vincent to grab the muzzle.
"W-Wait," Vincent whispers. "Please don't put the muzzle back on yet. Please."
"Why not?" Cai asks.
"I need to speak with Clary," Vincent begs. "Please. Sh- She can stand at the door. I just need to see her."
"I don't care." Cai wheezes for a moment, then swallows. "You're fucking delusional if you think I'll let you near her."
"Please, it'll-"
Cai grabs Vincent by the throat. "Clary might be afraid of you, but I'm not. Keep begging and I'll give you a reason to."
Vincent nods quickly. However weak Cai's voice is, Vincent can't afford to not believe the threat. He won't ruin this already. They could take any of this away from him. They could take the bed, lock him in a room with windows, restrain him in the silver cuffs that Vincent knows Cai has hidden in his pocket because Vincent's skin prickles when Cai turns.
"Thank you for feeding me," Vincent murmurs.
Cai pauses. "I've stayed up with her all night, too many times to count. You know why?"
"Because of me," Vincent whispers.
"Because of you." Cai wraps the muzzle around Vincent's face. He doesn't tie it, just presses the silver into the vampire's skin. "She thought you would rip her throat out. I can't imagine you know what that's like."
No, he doesn't. Vincent has begged for death, over and over again, but nobody ever granted him that mercy. Clary has lived in fear of him for however long it's been and the fact that he can't remember is both an ache and a reminder of how truly inhuman he's always been. If he cared about her, like he convinced himself he did back then, he would know.
"Whatever happened to make you this pathetic," Cai spits, "you deserved every bit of it."
"I know," Vincent whispers.
Cai ties the muzzle as tightly as he can, and leaves Vincent on the floor. The awareness Vincent had dives back down, and all he wants is to wrap back up in the blankets and heal.
#polly's prose#clary nikitin#cai nikitin#vincent maddox#vampire whumpee#whumper turned whumpee#vincent and clary are both unreliable in terms of memory and narration and i love that for them.#things end | people change
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Things End | People Change – Staining Touch
this is shameless friendfiction of my dear friend @whumpcloud's story Things End | People Change, featuring poorest little meow meow vincent, my beloved. go check it out if you haven't already !!!
CW: guilt, so so much self-blame and self-deprication, references to past torture and also past SA undertones (vincent is going through it)
Clary has brought him something new, something to slowly fill out the empty space of the basement that is not his but as close as it gets.
It’s a mirror, almost two-thirds of his height, strange and wobbly and cause of a weird noise Vincent cannot categorize into his existing knowledge when it is bent. Arguably, it is doing a very bad job of being a mirror, besides the fact that it is floppy and almost entertainingly noisy before being put up on the wall, because it distorts his reflection at the edges, pulling him into comical shapes like dough if he moves.
But most importantly, most off-puttingly is the fact that it portrays his reflection at all.
At first, he can do nothing but stare.
In a little under two hundred years, all Vincent has seen of himself was through the eyes of others and those never regarded him too kindly. Not that he didn’t share that sentiment.
He knows what he can see, from the brown of his hair to the shape of his body, he knows what little is left that connects him to Henry, like the green of his eyes, and he knows what separates him, like the scar that sits right under them, as if mocking.
And now that he can see his eyes again, for the first time in what feels like an eternity, for the first time in two human lifespans, which is distinctly one more than he had any right to, he can’t look at what remains of Henry without seeing what remains of Lyfelde.
That man, he…
Vincent swallows. If it could, his undead heart would be beating faster –skipping like a rabbit– with each step that thought takes.
…He loved to leave marks.
Not for some desperate desire to be remembered in an ever-changing world, but instead with the same expectations as couples that carve their initials in the bark of a tree, curious to see the way the tree tries and fails to heal the cuts, to see how they will twist with time.
Vincent is no stranger to cuts, to initials carved into his delicate flesh, to being torn open for amusement and to satiate careless curiosity, even though they will never show on his skin, no matter how he twists and turns to get a good look at himself in the mirror.
Lyfelde however never needed force to leave evidence of himself, even if he can proudly wear the title of the last permanent remainder of Vincent’s weak mortality long gone by, and at his hands no less.
After years and years of captivity, of relentless, giddy torture, Vincent couldn’t point out individual marks of memory, couldn’t remember the incisions, the lacerations, the breaks, only the aftermath, the pain ripping at the edges of his sanity.
But when Vincent closes his eyes, when he imagines his being as he sees himself, there are stains on his chest, in the shape of a freezing claw, long delicate fingers decorated with rings much older than Vincent ever hopes to be.
There is one right over his heart, claiming it rightfully as Lyfelde’s, honouring the hard work he put into tearing him apart just to shape him into a–
Into a toy.
He is collared –like a pet–, marked by two hands wrapping around his throat and squeezing, a brute display of strength Vincent thought could keep him safe.
Even now, after all of these years, his mind produces the image of his hands clearer than the face that is already blurred beyond recognition by time. Neither time nor the Hunters could beat Lyfelde’s touch out of Vincent’s memories.
Vincent stretches, looking over his shoulder, pointedly ignoring the way his ribs protrude through sickly ashen skin. Even the thought that this is a far cry from his jutting ribcage in captivity, the corpselike result of starvation, turns sour with the sacrifice of those that feed him.
He is tainted, he knows, from comfort twisted to form a blade –a stake– and embraces that should have been kind and understanding, that Vincent now can’t even bring himself to call “warm”.
He wonders –briefly– if, behind his back, in the security of Vincent’s blindness, Lyfelde’s expressions would have betrayed his intentions. If there was a way a trick of light and precognition could have warned him, if he had just seen it, seen the signs that should have been so glaringly obvious.
Still, at the cost of himself, he had found comfort and solace in the deathly cold touch, and that should have been warning enough.
Almost obsessively, his gaze scans over his own marred, unmarred skin, even as it is stretched and squished by the metal-mirror, now that he finally has the chance to, after decades of nothing. Some quiet, drowned-out part of him whispers back that this is why he avoided anything similar for so long, that the evasion of his own reflection was not only by force of his vampirism but by some self-preserving instinct.
It’s excruciating in a way that is dangerously addicting, a sizzling fire that he cannot look away from. Pain for the sake of pain for the sake of entertainment.
Curiosity and her twin sister punishment.
If he dares to let his eyes drop lower, his hips will carry two hand-shaped brands of intimacy and trust that were only ever one-sided, burned into his skin deeper than any silver and scratch marks betraying the attempts to rid himself of the ever-present poison seeping from every pore.
They condemned him to be both poisoned and poison at the same time, always a victim and always a monster and always rightfully so.
Vincent swipes the mirror from the wall, heaving, watching it fall to the ground, deafening but too slow. He wants to fall to his knees, begging and ripping the metal to shreds, ripping his own reflection to shreds so that he will never have to look at it again.
… So that it will never be looked at again.
#today i bring you: insanity. tomorrow? who knows#we were being so so insane about him#and then polly said something that made me go into an hour-long spiral#with this as the end result#vincent has ISSUES#and i love him dearly for it <3#also in case it wasnt already clear:#this is a love letter to basically everything polly has ever written <3#seriously go read their stuff!!#things end | people change#vampire whumpee#vampire whump#self deprecation#victim blaming#self blame#past torture references#sa undertones#emotional whump#self image issues#intimate whumper#vampire whumper#grief#other people's ocs#honey's writing
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I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times
Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use
#bearz rambling tag#no it’s not really possible to let everyone who uses this term to change#because as far as I know this is the most common word with use on Chinese websites#I didn’t know that pairing are called ‘ship’ here#like why would I even know that#‘ship’ makes zero sense to me#it took me a while to learn the fandom language people speak here#it’s hard#give people time#shipping culture is very different too#Like on Chinese site you HAVE to clarify the Top and the Bottom of this ship in the ship name#it is very very important to them#people who like the same ship but with different Top Bottom preference will fight till no end#imagine how confused I was when I first got here#where there’s no top bottom differences#it’s not really a smut thing#it’s more a dynamic thing#AxB and BxA is very different#oh I can talk so much about the differences on fandom cultures#if ya are interested in more please feel free to ask#it’s very interesting to me#I wanna talk about it
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bound to want (part two) /// part one
rest of pages under READ MORE after ID
[ID: 23 page digital comic of Vashwood from Trigun Maximum. The comic is in a limited palette of a dark blue, light pink, white, black, and a light beige color for Vash's skin and a mid-brown color for Wolfwood's. This comic is the second part to "Bound to Want" and is spoiler-free. The first part is linked here.
It begins with a panel close up of Vash's expressions. The sky colored in dark blue can be seen behind him. He has a neutral expression, but he holds a slight frown and the reflection of his glasses covers one side of his eyes. Wolfwood says, "Hey. What's with the distance?" In the second panel, the shot widens to show both of them, a clear physical distance separating them with Wolfwood walking ahead and Vash trailing a little behind. Vash responds, "What? I'm just walking a bit slower today..." Wolfwood looks at him with a an irritated expression, clicking his tongue. Wolfwood says, "I was going to wait for you to start... But yer just running away away."
Vash is seen looking away, unable to hold eye contact with Wolfwood as he continues, "You've been avoiding me since that night. Did ya think I wouldn't notice? It's about that dream, right? Tell me about it already if you're going to be moping like this." Vash looks slightly downwards, his brows furrowing and he starts to walk ahead of Wolfwood without looking at him and responds stiffly, "I really don't want to talk about it..." Wolfwood looks at him with a surprised expression, but doesn't probe.
A panel close up to Wolfwood's eyes as he watches Vash go on ahead before he follows suite with an irritated sigh. The panels are overlapped by Wolfwood's hand holding the bottle of the Bride with motion lines, indicating a transition in time.
A wide shot of Vash and Wolfwood in a room now. Vash is seated, his back turned away from the viewer, while Wolfwood's body faces the viewer with his eyes looking towards Vash. He rests the bottle of the Bride on the table with a "clack" and his other hand holds two shotglasses. The background is coated in a light pink.
A panel shows a close up of Wolfwood's face, his eyes looking downwards to Vash as he says, "Let's drink." Next to this panel is Vash looking up at Wolfwood, his brows furrowed and a slight frown. The bottom half of the page is a wider shot with Vash's body turned away from the viewer as he says, "I'm not going to talk about it." Wolfwood responds, "You don't have to." as he sits down.
A wide panel of Wolfwood holding the shotglass, pouring in the drink as he continues, "I'll talk." The next panel is a profile view of Wolfwood, his eyes looking down at the now filled shotglass as he continues to say, "You're..."
"... upset with me." Vash can be seen next to this speech bubble with narrowed eyes, looking towards Wolfwood. The panels are all coated in with a dark blue background. Wolfwood continues, "I can't be certain why since yer not telling me a thing -- but it's probably... my bad." The panels show Wolfwood about to bring the shotglass to his mouth but he turns way as he continued to speak, his eyes not on Vash. The bottom page shows him looking away completely with a guilty expression as he says, "I'm sorry.
If you can ever tell me why, I can try and adjust to make it more bearable. But if you're just trying to get rid of me--" The panels follow Wolfwood's certain expression as he says this, "I don't intend to leave you. I can't... and I won't." A panel shows Vash's wide-eyed expression, surprised upon hearing this, and then his eyes soften as Wolfwood again concludes with, "I'm sorry."
Vash's inner thoughts begins, a boxed speech at the center of the page and panels of his eyes, his brows furrowing again and a resigned, but frustrated expression. His thoughts starts, "Stop. I shouldn't be happy hearing that. And why are you apologizing? I should be the one to..! I can't let anything like that happen to you. You deserve to live a long steady and peaceful life. I want to be optimistic. I want to protect you, but I might end up doing the opposite." The text surrounds Wolfwood from Vash's perspective, the other man drinking out of his shotglass, his eyes downcasted.
"I shouldn't have you. And you won't leave." Behind these text is a panel of Wolfwood's eyes finally looking over to Vash. Vash's thoughts continues, "It's so unfair." When Wolfwood sees Vash, his eyes soften and he frowns. The last panel shows the lower half of Vash's face, but tears begins to flow down his cheek. Wolfwood's hand is already reaching to wipe at them as he starts to say, "You know..."
A wider shot of Vash and Wolfwood, Vash slightly leaning forward with his mouth tightly shut, and tears steadily continuing to flow out of his closed eyes. Wolfwood continues to wipe at them with his hand as he continues, "This isn't a dream anymore. I don't know what you saw for you to be this shaken up, but whatever happened, you'll overcome it, right? If not you, I'm here too. You'll be okay, Spikey. So..." Wolfwood's expression grows more tender, "Have a little faith in me... and come back already." The dark blue starts to fade.
The wide panel has the dark blue background faded and replaced is the light pink. It shows Vash in full up to his shoulders, his eyes are still tears littered, but there's light in them as he says, "Wolfwood..." making eye contact with the other. The next panel shows Wolfwood's tender expression, his eyes and brows fully soften and he has a small smile on his lips, finally seeing the other return a level of sincerity with him.
The next panel shows the bottom half of Wolfwood's face and his hand is offered towards Vash for a dance as he says, "C'mon. We don't have to talk, but this is okay, right?" The background is now white and a ribbon flowing across the page separates this panel from the next sequence. Vash's inner thoughts continus, "I've spent too long avoiding this. It's scary to want after I've taken so much from others." A sequence close up of their hands is shown, with Wolfwood's outstretched hand on the right and Vash's reaching hand on the left. Vash gently places his hand in Wolfwood and at the bottom, Wolfwood wraps his fingers across Vash's.
Throughout the page, a dark blue ribbon starts to flow around the both of them with confetti raining alongside the effect. Vash and Wolfwood are hand and hand, dancing together with Wolfwood as the lead. The viewer can see a peak of Vash's expression, full of fondness but also a hint of sorrow as he looks down at Wolfwood. His inner thoughts continue, "I don't deserve this. I don't deserve you. But why is that even though I have these burdens, I still want to love you. I still want you to be by my side."
With a close up of their mouths, Vash's thoughts continue, the text covering his mouth, "Wolfwood, I--" Wolfwood's speech bubble covers Vash's text as he completes his sentence, "want you." Vash's eyes widen for one panel and in the next, his eyes spark, a blush appearing on his cheek and the confetti flows and spark. Tears ease up on his eyes again.
"Want me too already, Spikey." Wolfwood has leaned in enough to rest his head against Vash, a hand of his on Vash's neck, holding his nape and another hand pressed gently against his back. A ribbon separates this panel from the next, a mix of confetti flows across the page, as Vash envelopes Wolfwood in a hug too, holding him and his hand gripping tightly onto his back.
This page is just the ribbon flowly throughout the page on the white background, one white ribbon and the other a dark blue. Near the bottom, the ribbon envelopes each other in a loop. A conversation of Vash and Wolfwood is held over these ribbons, Vash starting to say, "What if I hurt you? What if you..?" Wolfwood responds, "You? How could you hurt me?" Vash, "You know what I mean... You see it everyday..." Wolfwood responds, "If you think I'm going to kick the bucket so easily, I suggest you look at me more closely from now on, idiot. I'm not that easy to get rid of."
The next page has the ribbon criss cross over the top of the page. Vash and Wolfwood can be seen in their dancing position again, Wolfwood now resting a hand on Vash's shoulder, as Vash takes the lead. Vash continues, "Well, I know that... I tried." Wolfwood responds, "But you won't anymore... since you want me... around, yeah?" Wolfwood's head cocks to the side, smiling with assurance, cheeks flushed. Vash looks at him with a wide smile and fond, loving eyes. The confetti flows across the bottom of this page and as it eases into the next page, it starts to disappear.
Vash responds, ".. Yeah... I do..." as he pulls Wolfwood into a hug again. Wolfwood says, "Not going to run away anymore, are you?" Vash says, "No... I trust you." A panel shows Wolfwood's turning away slightly with a shy expression, muttering "Geez..."
In a more simplified style, Wolfwood is seen gripping Vash's cheeks now with his hand, "Though... You do remember you avoided me for two weeks straight, right? How are you going to make that up to me?" Wolfwood asks. Vash responds with eyes closed and a pucker of his lips. A vein of irritation appears on Wolfwood's face. Wolfwood starts to squeeze at Vash's cheek with both hands, shouting, "Now that you've recovered, you're trying to be funny, huh?!" Vash says through the squished cheeks, "I'm just happy..."
The next page opens with a closed up panel of Vash's widen eye as Wolfwood's hand moves from squishing his cheeks to gently holding them and Wolfwood leans in. The inner thoughts starts again, "There's a chance I'm not making the right choice... My dreams, my fears of losing you, it will never go away. But you said you won't let it happen... And I want to hang onto your words closely this time. After all, if it's anyone who can make me believe, it's you." The white ribbon from previous pages flows across the page and it visibly ends at the bottom of the page, enclosing the two of them as they share a gentle kiss with Vash holding Wolfwood's face, a tear in his eye.
The next pages starts with Wolfwood saying, "You cryin' again?" Vash responds, "I'm just grateful..." Wolfwood responds, "But you've always had me." Vash responds, "Being like this is different from staring at you from behind all the time though..." The two can be seen together again, Wolfwood pressing his elbows against the table with Vash leaning over him. Wolfwood is easing the tears out of Vash's eye again, just like earlier. A close panel of Vash's fond expression is seen as he says, "Thank you, Wolfwood." Wolfwood looks up at him with a small smile, gentle eyes. Confetti starts to flow lightly across the page as text starts to appear against the white background, "I'm the one who's grateful...
That you'd embrace someone like me, when I'm not fit to hold you in the first place... But I know better than to hesitate. The moment I acknowledged it, I knew I'd spend the rest of my life loving you. So, have as much of me as you want, Vash."
The final page shows the confetti gently falling down the page and at the bottom shows Vash and Wolfwood pressing their foreheads together, Wolfwood's hands cupping the side of Vash's face gently, and both of them smiling brightly with each other. ID END]
#vashwood#trigun#trigun maximum#vash the stampede#nicholas d wolfwood#its done.... after 2 months.... collapses on the ground#theres a lot of things i would prob change about this but. its so sappy that it makes me a little happy where it ended up#they deserve a little sap too!!! and in the end this is the closest they could get to a first confession#through want! want in each other's life and company since they both have this strained relationship with keeping people permanent in their#lives... and the people or things that are tied to them in the long term tend to be something that harms them.#and as the saying goes -- good things never last! and im sure they prob gave up trying to find a good thing for a long time#vash managed to be found after the moon accident and got his good thing for a bit but even he prob knew itd come to an end eventually#ironically it was wolfwood that ended it. but he really just planted smth new for vash... and now they have some security#or at least vash does. or at least just for this one moment#a moment of bliss and feeling like they are deserving of love is so Fluctuating for vashwood#and ultimately i think wolfwood could only push onwards to initiate because he sensed there was smth vash wanted. and its just#naturally in wolfwood to give to those that he love#but anyway anyway.... i like to think in a sweet universe -- they had the chance to confess like this and got a little bit of time to#enjoy and share their company in this manner. to be a little less restrained and love each other freely#ruporas art
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Sometimes, I'm sad about the hobbies I have abandoned or have been too intimidated to pick up. But... what good is it, to just beat myself up over that? My bass is sitting in the corner, patiently waiting, and so is everything else. My life isn't over, and I've got nothing to answer to. I'm wading through a sea of time, and I'll pick up the seashells that interest me, and it's okay to put one back in the sand. The current's waves will bring it back to me if that is to be destiny. I can not hate myself into productivity, so I must swim on.
I think the same can apply to anybody. It's okay if you have dropped something, such as a hobby or passion. Human beings are like that sometimes, it isn't reasonable for you to beat yourself into submission. You, too, can not hate yourself into being a well-rounded person. You must cultivate it like you would a garden - with patience, time, and care.
#positivity#encouraging words#i feel like so often people will try to hate themselves into being 'better' people...#...like fitness for instance. so many people slog through fitness not because they are interested in moving their body...#..but because they are told they must do [x] workout or look [y] way...#...and so it becomes a chore that is a means to an end. but... is that how we ought to live you think?#like i go to the gym because it's FUN. i go there to have FUN. i do what is enjoyable there!#i don't worry about anything but if i am doing a weightlife correctly (for safety) and if i am moving and having fun#why would i go to the gym if i am not having fun? fun is a *human need* regardless of age!#we are wired to do fun things - to seek out pleasure. why should we surpress that?#a well-rounded person is somebody who can be in-tune with their feelings and can recognize what is enjoyable...#...and not only that but to not feel *bad* about their feelings or needs changing (this is - at least - my opinion)#i thought this was an interesting conversation and something i sometimes struggle with and see others struggle with
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no it's fine this mind flayer is totally my friend and 100% honest with me all the time it's ok it likes me everything's so normal
#bg3 spoilers#baldurs gate 3#baldur's gate 3#i love how raphael directly calls you out on this. 'if id have known you were so gullible i wouldve tricked you into selling your soul for#a bowl of beans when we first met'#and then just keeps insulting you more if you keep insisting emp's really your ally#oc: impulse#sure this'll go in their tag#everything about impulse's Thing with the emperor is so funny to me. and then deeply fucked up if you think about it long enough. and then#really funny again if you think about it even longer#one day i'll do their 2.0 playthrough so i can fully form all my thoughts. and get better screenshots and the ceremorphosis ending#i mean there's nothing stopping me from loading an impulse 1.0 save and going ceremorphosis from there but idk it'd feel wrong#impulse has more tadpoles in their brain than synapses by act 3 and it does really fundamentally change them as a person#tfw your chaotic neutral act-first-ask-questions-never no-impulse-control 17 CHA bestie becomes one of the most detached calculating people#you've ever met. all their old casual wit and humor is still there but they think before they speak now and that really shouldnt feel as#sinister as it does. they have this look in their eye and it feels like they view everyone around them as lesser beings#not because they view other people as subhuman or worse than they are but because they view themself as something *more*#if they have any raw unfiltered emotion left you haven't seen it in weeks. there's one person(?) who gets Unrestrained Feelings privileges#and it's the fucking illithid that lives in their mind and not any of their actual non-monster normal-ish-person friends. that human#connection is fading so fast now. when did they change so much? it happened so slowly in the moment but suddenly now they seem like they#were never the person you became friends with at all#and like impulse is a pretty selfish person from the start but they *did* genuinely like and care about the rest of the party. they were#friends. and by the end of act 3 that friendship should be the deepest and most meaningful it's ever been. but. it just isn't.#so on and so forth etc etc like that. All That Bullshit makes their relationship with lae'zel so interesting (and upsetting) too#they encourage her to side against vlaakith and then they never even try to free orpheus for her and her people's sake. they never even#think about it. they never consider it as an option. they just don't care. and then they EAT HIS BRAIN.#very possibly RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER.#and she's just left adrift. a rebel with no rebellion to lead and very little hope#i'm unwell.#ok i'm done this is a silly meme post. but god i have so many thoughts i have barely been keeping contained
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The fact that Main-verse Ooo is as good and as kind as it is (relative to the other universes shown so far, at least, it's obviously not perfect) all because of the same character that starts off as the OG series' antagonist, the person we were made to see as the bad guy (albeit an often ineffectual one) for several seasons, is making me lose my mind.
Imagine finding out the guy you spent your childhood beating up and saving princesses from is in fact a driving catalyst behind you being able to exist, and not only exist but also live in a world that knows what kindness is. All because that man, the same man who you've witnessed do terrible things, once met a little girl and taught her how to be good.
Simon's story really shows us that even if you lose your way and forget how it is to be good yourself, the world keeps the memory for you. That act of love Simon showed Marcy by protecting her and seeing her as more than the monster she thought herself to be created ripples upon ripples, small at first but eventually enough to help give their wreckage of a world—a world that easily could have been forsaken, its goodness overlooked because of its inhospitable remains—a chance to grow into something beautiful. Because of those very same ripples Simon created, the people of Ooo grew up in a world where they know enough about kindness that they were able and willing to spare the 'bad guy' some, to see beyond the wreckage and allow him to grow too.
In saving Marceline, Simon helped to not only to save the world, but also himself.
#fionna and cake#fionna and cake spoilers#adventure time#simon petrikov#ice king#marceline abadeer#simon and marcy#meta#this was just a phone note to get thoughts out of my system but then it came out semi-coherent#so welp guess i'm writing meta now. i'm really in the deep end now. but yeah...Ice King and Simon's story being about the power of kindness#A cruel world requires constant cruelty to be maintained. But kindness? That reaches across time. one act of kindness sparks another#'I need to save you but whose going to save me?' That act of love and compassion is gonna save you ya dingus....eventually#In a less kind world finn and Jake could have watched those tapes about Simon and still decided IK was a hopeless cause.#That he was too far gone to be saved. But they didn't. They chose to treat him nicer and actually be friends with him.#One thing i always loved about IK's story is that he didn't have to completely change himself for people around him to treat him better#They changed their perspective and were kind to him and it was THAT that helped him change. to grow beyond the 'antagonist' role#to quote my go to and all time favourite good place quote:#'the point is people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold that against them when they don't?'#Arrgh sorry I just always loved Ice King's arc in the show. From pesky antagonist to the person Finn dived into a chaos god to save#(the world's new beginning and its near ending being all because of simon. he has such main character energy and boy does he not want it)#And now we're getting Simon stuff and I'm so normal I'm so normal I'm so normal (<- has never been normal about this character)#(i...i have many MANY drawings of ice king and simon from 2015 and the years after. i was doomed from the start. F&C was the final straw)#(as was reading marcy's secret scrapbook recently...and here i thought i'd truly reached the capacity of hurt i can feel about these two)#Going insane over these last two episodes. 'she didn't have a me'. Fionna and Simon bonding. Gumlee kiss. PETRIGROF BACKSTORY#and the implication that Simon isn't remembering it accurately? Their sweet sounding love song actually foreshadowing their issues?#I am clawing at the walls. thank you AT crew you are enriching the enclosure that is my brain
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Danyal Al Ghul's missed potential - this kid is not gonna behave like his canon self if he's with the league of assassins until his late formative years, and my reasoning why
(feel free to take this all with a grain of salt this is just my thoughts on it, this is all mostly amusing to me and isn't trying to be negative towards anyone else)
similar to how i was talking about how danny growing up in crime alley would affect him, demon twin aus with danyal al ghul make me laugh a lot (affectionate) because... whose teaching danny to unlearn all the ecofascism he picked up from the league of assassins? whose teaching him to be kind? to be gentle? Not the LoA thats for certain.
(you could plausibly say Jazz but she's only 2 years older than Danny and do you really expect a fellow child to properly explain why X is wrong to another child and have it be 100% effective? i don't doubt it'd help to an extent, but not in the same way an adult explaining it would)
plus a ton of other things, like whose teaching him to value human life? not the LoA. Whose teaching him how to adjust to living with American society after he ends up with the Fentons when he's 8-9-10? Who teaches him that killing is wrong, whose enforcing that?
(not the Fentons if you're going the neglectful parent route, and Jazz can try but i really don't think Danny is going to listen to her, a stranger who isn't even part of his grandfather's league)
How do you teach a child to value human life when the greatest development window for that opportunity has closed and he's already formed his own opinions?
You're not gonna get a Danny whose exactly like his canon attitude if he's staying with the league during his formative years (0-8 years old). you're not. You could get someone LIKE it, potentially, or someone who has traces of it or is similar -- like danny's wit and jokes and sarcasm, and on some level his kindness. but you're not gonna have a carbon copy. Development doesn't work that way. "nature" can only do so much in the face of nurture.
If anything, it doesn't even have to be a major change -- in the league he cans till be kind, but it's probably going to manifest in a different way than what is considered normal. Tough love, for one. But there's gonna be something that affects him negatively. Why make him 'always good/kind' when you can make him a brat who develops into a kinder (if spikier than in canon) person?
TLDR: Danyal Al Ghul would not be like how he is in canon if he's with the league until his late formative years -- not without any lasting pr permanent impacts from the league at least. Missed potential to make him an absolute nightmare like damian was -- especially in his early years when he first arrived to the Fenton house.
(this doesn't apply to danyal al ghul aus where he's either given to the fentons as a baby/is reincarnated/etc. this is mostly aimed for danyal al ghul aus where he fakes his death at like, 7-10 and somehow ends up, personality-wise like his completely canon self by 14 without any differences.)
(and even then if he's five or four, or even three, he would still be traumatized and influenced by the league. he'll just have more time to adjust. the sooner he leaves the league the more likely he is to be like his canon self, but not like an exact copy)
(more under the cut)
Anyways what I'm saying is that there is prime missed Danyal al Ghul potential to make him an absolute NIGHTMARE to the Fentons however way he ends up with them, just like Damian was with the Waynes! Cuz why does Damian get all the fun? Danny got the same training and endoctrine as him! He is also an ex-assassin! Why is Danny the only one who is 'well adjusted and non-violent' hm? Hmm?
Why can't he also be mean, and stabby, and a total stuck-up in some way or another? Have fun with his characterization, its prime opportunity to play play-doh and clay with him! If he starts out as X how does he get the personality traits of Y, and thus become XY?
Like take this with a grain of salt if you will, but make him arrogant. Make him an asshole! Make him a bad person at first! Because he will be! He's the blood son of the batman and you mean to tell me that damian is the only one arrogant about it at first? Make him stabby and mean even at 14 when he's begun to chill out! Have fun with it! If he's with the Fentons at any point past the age of four or five then he's gonna be a nightmare to handle because he still remembers the league and his time there.
(and while it gives him more time to chill the hell out, his time at the league is still gonna leave an impact on him.)
also what im saying as well is have him and sam potentially get along like a house on FIRE. Again, Danny grew up under the views of an ecofascist cult and nobody to challenge those views to him until he got to amity park at whatever age in late formative years he was at. He could be about as intense or even MORE intense about environmental awareness/rights than Sam is!
(also him being supremely unimpressed with Sam's wealth. he gave up a palace in the mountains for this town. because that's funny to me - like let his past have more influence on him! it'll be fun!)
you could have a danny who doesn't kill but doesn't fully understand the value of human life because jazz is like two years older than him and isn't that good at explaining why people's lives are important. he won't kill but he's not morally opposed to it. there's very little chance he actually gets bullied at school because he nearly killed Dash the first time he tried anything.
Danny could have scars, physical ones, because its implied in multiple canon that training starts at toddling (my best bet is 3 at minimum and ~maybe~ 2 but only on the later side of 2. Good fucking luck getting any infant under 2 to do anything you ask, ESPECIALLY assassin training. They're gonna stick the weapon in their mouth sooner than they're gonna do katas. This is coming from a daycare teacher.)
there's more examples of how danny being at the league during his formative years would affect him, but those are just some of them. he could have a sword! An appreciation for weaponry and nature. Maybe he still speaks all shakespearan and formal, does he still make bodily threats to people? If Damian is still threatening people at 14 why can't danny?
#dpxdc#dp x dc#dp x dc crossover#dpxdc crossover#dpdc#tldr danyal al ghul has a ton of missed potential of what his behavior would be like if he left the league mid-to-late formative years#this post is specifically directed towards those danyal al ghul posts where he ends up with the fentons when he's like. 8#like great. who taught him to unlearn all of the LoA's programming#how is he exactly like he was in canon despite being with the LoA during his early childhood#source: i've taken multiple child development classes#this isnt to bash those aus at all its just me thinking its hilarious that danny would even remotely be like his canon personality#especially if he's in the league long enough for damian to remember him#like i love danyal al ghul aus i just think there's not enough being taken into account about how the league would permanently impact him#especially if he leaves later on in life#people are not ponds they are puddles of mud. if you drop a rock into it it's gonna change its shape#its also good creative exercises on how to flesh characters out better and better understand how things in a story may impact a character#good thought exercises with the additional bonus of making danny a violent gremlin like damian is#i dont wanna say this is bashing but i guess it is kinda a criticism on the writing in those aus because you’re telling me this had NO#affect on danny on his personality beyond just ‘oh league bad. league scary’?? cmonnn have some fun#like you mean to tell me that being a child assassin had no lasting impact on him or his personality?? like at all???#he doesnt have an ounce of self-importance/arrogance/anger like damian did?? like none of that *stuck?* he’s just the normal and sane#sibling right off the bat??? five years with the fentons turned him into a complete blankslate?? he has no lasting impact from the league??
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Names revealed and returned. (context)
[First] Prev <--> Next
#poorly drawn mdzs#mdzs#red vs green saga#ouyang zizhen#jin ling#lan sizhui#lan jingyi#Nameless red disciple#*Tin can crumpling sounds*#[The Nameless Red Disciple] has forfeited their name. Ouyang Zizhen is green now.#Thank you to everyone who participated in the poll! Everyone campaigned very hard! I am glad to see the final result was rather close B'*)#Nameless red disciple is sticking around still but to a lesser extent. They need to go on a gender quest now#I hope most people saw the red vs green poll. Or else this is even more wild and wacky than intended#This comic changed so many times and I'm still not sure it's as funny as I hoped it would be...oh well.#Jin Ling may one day need to go on his own gender quest but thats many years in the future#for now JL is so out of the loop on everything. He is aware gay people exist and thats it#I was looking back at old comics and noticed that LSZ and LJY were frequently standing drawn very small in the bg reacting to things#so heres a little throwback to that era B*)#This fills in for the part where the juniors fight the living corpse hoard. So there's at least a sliver of canon timeline going on#We're getting so close to the end of season 1! In retrospect I have spent too much time on this arc *even with* cutting out several comics#it's all a learning process!
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Things End | People Change - Four/Six
masterlist
taglist: @whumpsday @whumpycries @whumpwillow @why-not-ask-me-a-better-question @whumpshaped @suspicious-whumping-egg @chibichibivale @melancholy-in-the-morning @zillastar13 @bloodinkandashes @whump-me-all-night-long @sickophantic @thecyrulik @itsmyworld98
content: vampire whumpee, whumper turned whumpee, (lady) whumpee turned whumper, captivity, beating, panic attacks, dissociation, broken bones, dehumanisation, begging (for death at one point), questionable caretaking
It's Clary alone, this time, and Vincent's surprised, but he accepts it. She's getting braver. Good. Good for her.
He means it. He's happy that she's better, that she's working to live with everything he did to her. That she can be in his presence and not be so afraid anymore. Cai's told him a little, in their brief conversations, of what Clary's recovery was like, and it only made him feel more guilty and more grateful that she's given him a room and a bed and a meal every day, and given no indication that it could be taken.
Not that he doesn't think it could be. Of course. But it seems like it won't simply be on a whim. As long as he behaves, he gets to have it, and he's good at behaving.
"May I ask a question?" Vincent whispers.
Clary sighs, and shrugs. "Fine. Go ahead."
"Were you planning to take me here?" Vincent asks. "W-When you came to see me. I mean, you had… had the bed set up, and…"
She stares at the floor. "I don't know. The bed was here already, I just threw in an old nightstand and put the bedsheets on in case I ended up taking you for whatever reason. But the bed's here 'cause I used to sleep in it."
"You slept in the basement?" Vincent's confused.
"Because of the deadbolt," she mumbles.
Oh. Because of him. Vincent shifts uncomfortably and goes back to his meal.
Clary hates watching him feed, so she stares at the wall. Tense silence. She twists her stiff neck, and scratches where her scars are under her scarf.
"Were you going to kill me?" Vincent murmurs.
"No," Clary shrugs. "I mean, I wasn't planning to. I just… wanted to see what they'd done to you."
Vincent doesn't say anything. Clary isn't sure she's really seen any of it. The cuts and bruises and burns on his exposed skin are bad, the starving is horrific, but the begging.
The begging. How did they get him to beg for the pain like that? The Vincent she knew wouldn't debase himself in that way.
He didn't change, she reminds herself. They just killed a part of him. He didn't change.
Vincent drops the bag a good distance from himself, so that Clary doesn't have to get too close. She doesn't move from where she's standing against the wall.
"C-Clary?" he whispers. "I'm finished."
Cai's started giving Vincent his clothes, the ones he doesn't wear anymore. Vincent's hiding himself in a blue jumper that looks too big for him, and it's the same fucking one that Cai wore when Clary saw him again for the first time in years. It's not his fault. He doesn't know that it's important to her.
Why should Vincent get to have it? Why should he get to have anything from them, from her? Her heart is pounding in her ears. Chest hurts. He left her to die, and this is kind, this is the kind option, because even if she just let him go, he'd only be alone again.
"Clary?" Vincent says again, worry in his tone, and puts a tentative foot on the floor to stand up.
"Get away from me!" she snaps, and presses up against the wall.
Vincent immediately recoils, curling into himself. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I sh-shouldn't… I shouldn't have moved, I'm sorry."
He's right there, this fucking thing that has haunted her for the last four years, and he won't move if she tells him not to. Just like she wouldn't, just like he fucking trained her with the pain and the fights and the uncertainty.
"You!" she screams. "You did this to me!"
Of course he's scared. He's scared out of his stupid animal mind. But it's equally relieving when her fist finally connects with his muzzled face, and he can sink into pain. Pain is a lesson. Pain is a reminder. She hates him and that's all he needs to know or care about. Even if he wishes she didn't.
She grabs him by the hair and pins him to the floor, the force of it reverberating through his skull. He cries out, though it really could hurt worse. Clary still isn't that strong, but he'll be in however much pain she wants him to be, for however long she wants.
Clary holds him down with her left hand, even though he knows she's left handed and would hit him better with it. Because he broke her left wrist, snapped it in his grip unthinkingly, and his whimpers and cries only get louder as she repeatedly hits him in the face. Blood drips from his nose.
He goes entirely limp to make it easier to pull him up. She slams him into the bedpost by the shirt, and stands up, breathing heavily. She kicks him, again and again and again and again.
One of his ribs snaps. It's isn't a sensation he hasn't felt before. Still, a sob sticks in his throat and he raises his arms to defend himself, or to at least block any more blows to the face.
And she stops. She stares at this broken, pathetic creature on the floor in front of her, and she breathes out, and she wonders why in hell she feels like crying.
"Thank you," Vincent whimpers.
"Fuck you," she growls, but there's no real malice behind it.
And she leaves.
Cai finds her eventually, in the middle of the hallway, hugging her knees tightly, breathing as though she's drowned a moment before.
"What did he do?" Cai signs sharply.
"N-Nothing," Clary whispers. "I… I…"
Cai shushes her and kneels down, giving her his arm to squeeze. "Breathe. Four, six."
In for four, out for six. Clary breathes. In for four, out for six. Four, six, four, six, four six four six four six-
"I c-can't!" Clary pulls at her hair and Cai gently takes her hand and places it back on his arm.
"Yes, you can." Cai's whispery voice is gentle, steady. "Come on. Both hands."
"I want him gone!" she sobs. "I wanna send him back, I can't do this, I wanna send him back!"
"Think about it later," Cai replies. "You're upset."
"I know!"
Cai doesn't acknowledge the outburst. "Four, six."
Clary breathes. Cai counts for her. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five, six. Two, four, three, six. Two, four, three, six. Four, six. Four. Six.
It's been four years, she's twenty-six. She's safe.
"Okay, can you do six and eight?" Cai says, using his other hand to gently rub her shoulder. "You got this."
Three, six, four, eight. Three, six, four, eight. She lets go of him. Six, eight. Six, eight. Six. Eight.
"I'm okay," she exhales. "I'm okay."
Cai smiles. "Okay, dickhead time."
He flips her hair into her face and she laughs. Weakly, but she laughs. She brushes it away. Cai helps her up, and gives her his awkward little pat on the shoulder.
"Peppermint tea?" he suggests. "And I'll go deal with… him."
"Yeah," Clary nods. "I, um… I hurt him."
"Okay," Cai shrugs. "I'm dealing with it."
The peppermint tea isn't really about the tea. It's about the process, having something to do with shaky hands, because you can't spill it. Their mother came up with it when they were kids after Cai was diagnosed with autism, as a self-soothing technique and to remedy his clumsiness. Cai adapted it for Clary's anxiety when she came back. Clary pulls the box from the kitchen cupboard. It's about the process. Focus.
Cai feels like he's going to need an entire pot of coffee after this.
He heads down to the basement. The moment he opens the door, Vincent scrambles back, cowering under the bed.
"Don't!" he pleads, eyes wide. "Please don't, please, I can't, please!"
"Come on," Cai sighs, and leans down to pull him out by the arm.
"NO!" Vincent struggles, but Cai's stronger than him, and he starts to sob as he's forced out from under the bed. "Please, PLEASE, anything else, please, I can't go back, d-don't make me go back!"
Cai lets Vincent's arm fall, and stares at him as he cries and curls up on the floor. There's a trail of blood from his nose leading down his cheek, and his chest is almost definitely swelling under his shirt. It actually isn't as bad as Cai thought it would be.
"Please, please," Vincent whispers, "don't send me back to them, I'll do anything, I'll do anything you want, please…"
"You heard that?" Cai asks. Same tone as always, but lacking the edge that Vincent's come to expect.
"Mhm," Vincent nods. "I- I'm sorry, I can't help it--"
"Shh," Cai says. Not shut up. "She didn't mean it. She was upset."
"She hates me," Vincent whimpers. "Please, please don't send me back. Please just kill me instead. Please kill me, please--"
"Neither of those things are happening," Cai interrupts, crouching down. "You're not going back, and you're not dying. You're staying here."
"But I- I wouldn't… if it were me I'd… I'd want me dead…"
"Well, unlike you, Clary's actually a good person."
Vincent doesn't understand. Vincent can't focus. Vincent is somewhere else again, more so than usual, and all he can see is the silver knife and the smile and then Cai takes off the muzzle.
Vincent slaps his hands to his mouth anyway. He can't bite, no matter how hungry he is. Cai sighs deeply.
"Come on, I'll lift you up," he mutters.
The whine of pain is piercing, but Cai doesn't hesitate. Vincent barely weighs a thing.
"Thank you, sir," Vincent mumbles.
"Cai, not sir," Cai gently corrects. "Come on, you know that. I'm gonna lay you down on the bed."
Not sir. Bed. Does he know that? He has a bed. He doesn't have one of those. Didn't have one of those.
"A bed," Cai repeats. "Laying you down now."
Vincent sinks into the mattress, and lets Cai sit him up. He slowly moves his hands from his mouth, wipes his eyes, and stares at his lap. The marks on his hands are fading, now. Fading. They aren't being replaced every day.
"M'sorry," Vincent says softly. "I… I didn't…"
Cai can't believe he ever thought Clary needed to be protected from this thing.
"You didn't know where you were," Cai finishes. "Yeah. How bad are you hurt?"
"I'll be fine," Vincent whispers.
Cai sighs. Fine, he'll rephrase to suit. "Is there anything I can do to make it hurt less? Painkillers or ice or something?"
Vincent shakes his head. "N-None of them work. As far as I know. We heal too fast for it to be useful, I think."
"You're not healing though," Cai says. "Not fast."
"It's…" Vincent tries to block Cai out of his view. "It's the blood. A-Animal blood is fine, it's good, it's--"
"Don't give me your whole grateful spiel again," Cai sighs. "I know. Just be honest."
"...animal blood will stop me from starving," Vincent mumbles. "But that's all. I need human blood to heal as normal. B-But more blood would- would help. Even animal blood."
Cai's fingers slip under his sleeve, and he scratches at his wrist for a moment. Then he backs out.
"Two bags a day, then," he says. "Clary does actually want you to heal, believe it or not. And… I'll leave the muzzle off for now. But only when it's just me."
"Oh. You don't have to do that."
"And? I'm gonna."
Vincent doesn't have a response for that.
Cai turns to leave, then stops for a moment. "If we did kill you, we'd do it quick. If that makes you feel any better."
"Thank you." Vincent almost smiles. "It does."
Cai isn't sure it should.
#polly's prose#clary nikitin#cai nikitin#vincent maddox#whump#whump writing#vampire whumpee#whumper turned whumpee#cai is so tired.#things end | people change
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Things End | People Change – Healing
to the surprise of literally no one, i've been insane about vincent again... enjoy the result of that: a continuation of this!! i guess this is a slight spoiler for @whumpcloud's story? but rather for the vibe than specific plot points
CW: implied / undertones of past sa, references to past torture and starvation
There it is again. The thing, the wobbly metal plate Vincent has come to think of as a weird mirror. It’s the best he’ll get anyway, even though he likes to steal glances at the way modern mirrors are shaped and designed so very differently than what he grew up with. He is denied any grace of a reflection though, another trade for immortality and power he thought so simple. And yet…
Sometimes when he sees Clary’s reflection, her posture held high and proud, just like she should be, Vincent’s mind drifts, wishing for a similar soul that would allow him to see himself as he is. Unlike before though, he doesn’t dwell on it. The knowledge simply is, passing briefly through him, but barely leaving an impact.
Now, he’s in front of his almost-mirror, that twists and turns his shape and everything around him, that Cai got rid of again after what happened the first and last time Vincent had it in his room. The dent –a reminder of what happened– is still visible, distorting the reflections even more. It surprises him that Cai didn’t throw it away and instead just disposed of it in this room, that holds so many memories but mostly also old possessions they can’t seem to bring themselves to get rid of.
Today, the twins have decided to declutter and Vincent is more than delighted to help. Maybe his vampiric strength couldn’t protect him, but now it can help with the mundane chores that come with everyday life, and maybe that's worth something more too.
Which is how he ended up here, once again face to face with his own warped reflection, and he can’t help but stare. He looks…different?
Logically, Vincent knows he shouldn’t look the same as he did after years of starvation and torture, that he prefers to bury in some dark corner of his mind. But without a reliable method of visualising himself, and too afraid of appearing eternally, cursedly bloodstained, he never dwelled too long on how his body might look, never even debated asking Clary or Cai. It was for the better that way.
He’s not bloodsoaked though, his hands are not stained with ash sticking to him like goo, the scars where he ripped his own skin off in an attempt to cleanse himself of the reminder are long gone.
Instead, as he steps forward to take a closer look, he finds that his face seems softer. Gone are the hard edges carved by malnutrition, the sunken-in eyes setting shadows over what remains of Henry. His now rounded jawline is a stark contrast to what it used to be, and together with his slightly plump cheeks, feign a picture of youth. Against all odds and the passing of centuries, he feels like twenty-two again, when he was still unburdened with immortality and foolishly wishing for a change.
His hair is changed too, though he consciously worked towards that. He knows from the way it feels, his curls finally getting defined, the length cut regularly. It takes work, but it feels nice, so nice to finally have something only he can control.
Suddenly, a stray thought overcomes him, and Vincent sheepishly looks around for any onlookers, even though his vampiric hearing already tells him that the twins are busy in the living room. Hesitantly, almost afraid of what he will see, Vincent lifts his jumper up.
Maybe he should feel embarrassed at such a childish action, but right now his curiosity overwhelms any sort of shame.
He chose the jumper by himself too, just like he decides how his hair looks, even though Clary said it makes him look like a grandfather, said that he is finally acting his age. Before, he would have scrambled to rip the fabric off of his body in a desperate attempt to please her again, but now he knows that she is joking. It feels good to know.
His skin is more lifelike, a blush shining through the paleness that makes him look like a dead man. It’s not just that though. Where once protruding ribs used to sit, he can’t even see his bones now, not even a hint when he stretches. It’s a hard-earned layer of fat, chubbiness he’d never take for granted
All of it is both a gift and a symbol, showing the care of feeding him every single day even when it comes at a cost to the twins. He can’t even remember the last time someone showed him such consideration, and it must have been back with Henry, two lifetimes ago, but now that thought doesn’t fill him with the same sadness anymore that it did before.
He is not just grieving something of the past. Care was given once before and it will be given again, no matter how unlikely that still feels to him. Every moment he spends with Clary shows him that. Despite it all, life became good again.
It feels almost easy to believe, that his flesh and skin are ignorant of what happened, that the memory went past them like a light breeze, leaving no mark. Like seeking a thrill, Vincent looks for the imprints he once saw, collaring his neck, tainting his heart and hips. He–
He can find none.
Like a piece of paper left blank, he feels oddly empty. Even without seeing them, he had grown accustomed to expecting them there. The knowledge painting a clear picture spoken in dark, hand-shaped prints holding onto him forever. Something even death could never erase, and yet… And yet he finds himself devoid of such things, finds himself almost—
He cannot finish that thought, cannot think further, not yet.
The curiosity that had taken hold of him made room for a wondrous disbelieve. Vincent looks closer, he finally does, expecting to see contradictions to the fickle hope bubbling in his chest like a new heart.
Another person stares back.
Not the timid boy, with his eternally lowered gaze for reasons he couldn’t understand, hunching his back to make himself as unassuming as possible, always, next to everyone else. Born soft and squishy just to force himself into a rigid form, fitting in with expectations he could never hold, his spine bending under the weight. That never changed, not even after becoming a vampire, especially not with Lyfelde. One head held up high, the other forcefully pushed down.
That’s not who he sees, though. Instead, he sees a young man, standing straight, only bending through the warbling mirror. There is a shine in his Henry-green eyes, and for a moment Vincent thinks that if someone were to look in his face, they’d notice his eyes first and the scar second. Maybe, the scar wouldn’t catch their attention at all.
He can’t remember the last time was allowed to look this soft, the last time he allowed it himself. It goes beyond his rounded cheeks that bring back an air of innocent youth, beyond the comfy sweaters with the good texture. It’s the smile that comes to him easier, the glimmer it brings to his eyes, the silly laugh at stupid things he isn’t afraid to hide. It’s the piles of books, old and new, about linguistics, and the evenings where Clary listens to his rambles. It’s that somehow, before this moment, he had never noticed it all like this, never noticed the meaning beyond the thankfulness that occasionally overwhelms him.
It’s that all of this has never been touched by Lyfelde.
Maybe some of his impact will never leave Vincent, like the honour of creating the last scar his body could ever remember. Maybe he will never be who he was before Lyfelde. But, and the thought makes him feel almost giddy, he is not who he was with Lyfelde anymore either. A metamorphosis maybe, two- or threefold, a life categorised by before’s and after’s but never always’.
Vincent hopes –victoriously–, that if Lyfelde saw him today, with all of his joy, and love, and caring friends that are starting to feel like family, he would be unrecognisable to him.
#I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM#its a curse at this point. ill never be free#he has charmed me with his autistic looser swag and his big wet eyes <3#things end | people change#honey's writing#other people's ocs#vampire whump#vampire whumpee#multiple caretakers#whumpee and caretaker#recovery#recovering whumpee#referenced past sa#past torture mention#past starvation#vampire whumper#comfort#past trauma
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god i want. an au where it dosn't work. where it's just arr g'raha who's woken up, and he doesn't have all these memories and all these people keep looking at him like they're mourning someone. the world has changed and time has changed and all the people he knows have changed, but he hasn't changed, he was just sleeping, just sleeping, and the world nearly ended several times and apparently he helped prevent yet another end but he has no memory of this. they want him to join the scions. he does not know these people. (he barely knows the warrior of light, now, but did he ever truly know them in the first place?) his little sister is alive and well. she looks at him like a ghost. she's changed, and she's older than him now. he acts bratty and loud and brash to cover up the fact that he does not know anything it seems, and he is tired but he was sleeping for so long, so how could he be tired?
he doesn't know these people. they seem to know him. he wonders if he'd killed someone, when it was him and not that exarch who woke up. he wonders if it should have been him who was "killed" in that way, if it is him that lives and not that man who had known and become friends with all these figures from legend. he wonders if he'll always be fated to be a historian one step back from everything, because he simply cannot be a hero.
#bound with thread | original posts#letters in verse | talking#g'raha tia#crystal exarch#hello everyone i am being Incredibly Normal about g'raha tia at -checks time- 12:02 am#you ever think about the fact that arr g'raha is basically killed/replaced when the exarch wakes up in 5.3. because i do. a lot#hi i have brainworms over this man he's SO tragic and i need to hold him gently in my hands like how you cradle a small trembling kitten#genuinely happy about his character growth and progression and happy ending and all but arr g'raha was the one who grabbed my focus#and i do miss a lot of that character sometimes yknow? post-shb g'raha isn't the same person as arr g'raha and that's intentional‚ i think‚#because he has gone through so much that we didn't see. so much trauma and pain because of the 8th umbral era and that loss he got hit with#and he's not the same person because he's *had* to change so much to keep himself and his people alive and i'm glad he's getting to#experience life to the fullest in endwalker onwards but just. i miss arr g'raha yknow#honestly the silliest thing about it is i miss his student of baldesion tattoo. was a fun little design element you know.#show us the tattoo again squeenix. give him back his red eyeshadow that he had.#give him his bow back i am begging#this has been: incomprehensible ramblings from simon at 12 at night
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In watching more interviews with Liv about Van and the escalation of Van's pragmatism to such dark degrees, I find myself genuinely baffled that anyone could ever think Van the bad guy. I mean, I'm perplexed at finding ANY of these girls The Bad Guy. The bad guy is the situation. It's being lost. It's freezing. It's starving. It's being scraped down to the barest bone of being alive. They make choices that might be snippy, or cruel, or hard-headed, sure--Shauna refusing to just hash it out with Jackie; Jackie being too stubborn to come inside; Taissa refusing to discuss her situation plainly; etc--but by the time we reach the end of season 2, it doesn't even matter. Petty bullshit doesn't matter. Jealousy doesn't matter. Those things are still going to be present and complicated, because--for all their choices, for all the distancing they're trying to do--these kids ARE still human beings. But it isn't the point.
The point is survival. Plain, simple, straightforward. Van's pragmatism is survival. It is the difference between living another day with blood on your teeth or dying pretty. It is the difference between fighting forward through the fire and the snow and the hell of it all, and laying down to die. Van knowing, in watching the ritual violence of Shauna beating Lottie nearly the death, that they will be killing and eating one another soon. Van coming up with the cards for the hunt. Van not blinking when the moment comes, Van choosing a weapon that doubles as a tool to bring the body back, Van refusing to apologize for staying alive--it's not evil. It's not Bad Guy behavior. It's purely about survival, because there is nothing else left to her--or to any of them. They can play the pretty little Sweet Angel Girl game and die, or they can get dirty, bloody, horrific and fight. Van chooses the fight. Van chooses to fight for herself, for her lover, for her team, even knowing not everyone is going to make it out...because the alternate path there is that no one makes it out. Van knew the baby wouldn't live. Van knows the rest of them won't, either. Not unless they start making the hard choices.
And, honestly, the fact that Van sees this narrative coming. Comes up with this plan. Brings out the cards. To me, that is the opposite of Bad Behavior. That is as close to justice as anyone can find in the wilderness. If someone else came up with an idea, maybe it would have come down to voting--but that would have had such a human element to it, with bitterness or hostility or whatever ultimately petty shit always comes of humans selecting who to Other. The cards don't leave room for that. It isn't fair, because the situation isn't fair, because Man vs. Nature isn't fair, but it's as close to a just system as they could possibly find. It's the kindest solution to an unwinnable game. Not to bring it back to American Gods again, but all I can think is "it's easy, there's a trick to it: you do it, or you die." Van gave them that.
#yellowjackets#yj meta#van palmer#i simply cannot ever accept people blindly hating ANY of the girls for their actions at the end of S2#because by that point it's not about personality flaws or errors of judgement or teenage bullshit#it's survival. it's literally do or die.#be mad at the stuff they did the first few weeks out there. THAT was in their control.#but by the end of S2 it's 'do i want to live? cool. then this is the next step. there IS nothing else. we are eating belts.'#every once in a while on instagram or somewhere i see a hot take like 'oh this whole thing is THIS girl's fault'#and it's like no no. no--apart from misty busting the black box--NOTHING these girls do will change the fact of their situation#they might make it worse or make it more palatable but in the end#it's the purity of man vs. nature as a story#and any of them getting darker. more logical. more pragmatic. just means they're putting another day breathing first.#the human element of it comes in with the faith and the ritual and the acceptance of violence--but the violence was coming either way#'this place cannot be argued with. and that is how we survive: by giving into that.' exactly. liv hewson you genius. exactly.
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this is somewhat of a vent post & something i said i would not do again but has been plaguing me enough that i think getting it out might feel better. so. has anydoggy else been. Baffled and upset by nora sakavic’s refusal to speak on how terribly aftg has treated its characters of color? with the author of the series coming back with a new book and starting up on her online activity again, and questions of what she’d change about aftg bubbling up, it’s particularly glaring to me that we are all playing this very long game of pretend where we ignore how badly the non-white cast has been treated & her lack of thoughts on it
and i understand not wanting to bring up nicky and thea because people pick on her for it. i’m not trying to discredit nora sakavic’s terrible history of getting harrassed online by aftg fans. but i think it is very cynical, and it is very juvenile, and most of all very cruel, that she gets to ignore the very real ways the books have set up these characters to be hated. i think it’s obvious why the characters who get the most hate are the only canonical characters of color, and i think we do not get to treat this like a deliberate decision on the fandom’s part when the books have put these same characters in degrading and embarrassing and terrible positions in the first place. aftg is not a story about nice characters with clean pasts, but there is a very specific nastiness to the only characters of color being a brown man who sexually harasses and later assaults the main character, a black woman whose only scene is her lashing out at her love interest after being ignored for the first two books, and the japanese villain who gets maybe two lines of complexity before he goes back to being a terrible person. the white cast, in comparison, while not at all free from flaws, are never shown to commit mindless evil; all of their actions are ultimately justified. the book goes out of its way to give them concession after concession. we know exactly who to side with, because aftg tells us who these people are. does nicky’s assault ever get addressed in the books? does riko’s reasoning to be the way that he is ever gets more than briefly aluded to? is thea reserved even a shred of humanity or grace in her one scene?
anyway. it’s been years of talking about this and the fandom has been constantly hostile to criticism in this regard, and more recently any criticism at all, and it’s Grating to be on the other side of this discussion. it’s exhausting to know that in ten years we do not get even an acknowledgment besides the author saying she will not answer questions about nicky and thea anymore. it’s upsetting and it’s ugly and i wish no one had to talk about this again, but we do because what i thought was common sense has been washed away by a sudden influx of no-nuance adoration for the trilogy. basically i hope we all explode
two hours later edit: you're allowed to reblog this! sorry about the confusion
#this has been so upsetting to notice but 🥹whatever#there is a different kind of bitterness to thinking about how ten years have passed#and we are getting new content that changes and maybe even rectifies many of the ways we see and interact w aftg#and none of it not a bit of it addresses the racism#how it’s been ten years and the only thing we really get to show it is a book about a ship between two white men the fandom came up with#after seeing them be Suggested to interact in canon#i understand not wanting to hurt nora sakavics feelings by asking her about this#but imagine how tired we are. Imagine how tired we are#do you know how bad it feels to read through nicky’s worst moments in aftg#and know that he was written this way because he looks like me?#do you understand how exhausting it all is. can you imagine?#the fandom has been so quick to undo the criticism fans of colors have been making since day one#and for what. for what! my doves. for what?#have we come out of it any greater? have we done anything but lie to ourselves?#and anyway this is not some mindless pessimism#this is not me telling you that aftg is bad and you cant love it; cant have it mean anything to you#this is me saying that when we acknowledge these things it makes us better readers and better people#nora sakavic if you are reading this from whatever hellhole america you find yourself in#grabs you by the shoulders. This is not the end#this is not something to sit back and feel bad about#you have opened the floodgates of hell with tsc. kick the door in and release a revised version of aftg#there is a real material way for you to make this better. it is possible and it will not kill you#i would read a revised aftg. my mutuals would. many many many many fans would#making mistakes is not just a human right its a human inevitability#but we do not have to let ourselves get defined by them. We can do hard things#lets go of nora sakavics shoulders. anyway. where were we#aftg#txt#tsc
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I’ve been thinking today about off ramps in long running stories, especially book series.
By that I mean like, places where a person could stop reading and have a satisfying ending even if they’re not yet at the actual ending. (Someone tell me if there’s an established Tvtropes name for this I’m missing.)
Now, a lot of book series will have an off ramp at the end of book 1, because many first books are written without promise of a sequel. Like sure, there might be a sequel hook, but the actual second book is still up to publisher whims in most cases. So you can read All Systems Red or The Thief or A Madness of Angels and have a perfectly satisfying ambiguous-end sci-fi story or middle grade fantasy romp or inverted murder mystery revenge quest without ever picking up book 2. This is definitely an off ramp but it’s not necessarily the interesting or revealing kind because again. Whims of the publisher.
There’s also stories that have an off ramp after every installment. Leverage is famous for this—they had a philosophy of having every season be a satisfying ending, which says a lot both about the writers and about the story they were trying to tell.
But I think the most interesting ramps are the ones where by design or by circumstance, there’s a single off-ramp somewhere in the middle. One spot where unless someone tells you there’s more, you’d never be unsatisfied with leaving halfway through.
Sometimes these will be signaled in some way, where there’s a big timeskip after the off-ramp, or the series changes names or has a spin-off, or the POV changes, or after book 3 the author publishes a short story collection before hopping back in to novels, or the series suddenly jumps from being only novellas to a chunky 120k novel. (The Raksura books, Percy Jackson/HoE, Matthew Swift/Magicals Anonymous, and Murderbot all do one or more of these)
But sometimes off ramps aren’t visible in series order or marketing. Sometimes they’re organic to where a story happens to leave off at the end of an installment.
The queen’s thief has one of these after King Of Attolia. I know this was a satisfying ending because for seven years I thought it was the end. My local library didn’t have A Conspiracy of Kings, so I thought it was a trilogy. And you really can leave it there! KoA ends with Gen back in his element and recognized as king, the main internal threat to Irene neutralized, and peace on the peninsula. The Mede aren’t yet the immediate threat they are in the back half of the series, since up through KoA they’re mainly represented by the magus’s vague warnings and Nahuseresh, whom Irene thinks circles around. There’s no real reason to assume the Mede are a threat within the scope of the series. Now I absolutely prefer getting the whole story, but KoA is a damn solid off-ramp for anyone who feels like exiting there.
And that’s one kind of off ramp where the end you get is pretty similar in tone (mostly happy) to the one you get if you go on to the rest of the series. I’ve also read books where you can off ramp successfully right at the lowest point in the series and get a tragedy out of a series that ultimately ends happy, or leave at a high point and get a happier end than the main one, or exit at an ambiguous point and continue on with ambiguity. The Giver sequels make it pretty clear what happened to Jonas and Gabe at the end of the book. but you don’t have to read them or have that question answered if you want to.
I don’t have a really solid conclusion to draw here except that I think the positioning of off ramps says a lot about authors and stories, and choosing whether or not to take an off ramp says a lot about readers.
#I know multiple people who refuse to recognize the giver sequels#which has always been odd to me because I quite liked them and never thought Jonas died in the first place#meta#the queen’s thief#tqt#Murderbot#the kitten rambles#murderbot’s off ramp is after exit strategy if that wasn’t clear#Raksura’s is after siren depths#this post partially brought to you by#the realization that one can stop reading Temeraire at the end of book four#and get a tragedy where the horrors of empire cannot be stopped#and will crush anyone trying to change things
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the mh comics open up such an interesting narrative for our few surviving characters. to them, what happened in the videos was real, but to everyone else its a cool creative web series. when all of that is viewed as fiction, fans have a freedom to speculate about and invade the lives and privacy of real people. and that would be so uncomfortable and terrifying. imagine someone irl having headcanons about YOU. writing fan fiction about you and your real friends. assuming things about you PUBLICLY ! IN MASS!
wouldnt it be so cool to see a character grapple with that in like a self-reflective way? fans asking questions the muse is too afraid to ask themselves. of course, theyre the only person the answer matters to.
#like wouldnt it be so strange not only to see the terrible things that happened to u have a FANBASE#but also people wondering about the intricacies of your personal life (they view you as a character and have no idea it was real)#and youre disgusted and afraid of prying eyes#but at the same time#you never think about yourself much anyways (too painful) and realize you might HAVE TO if ur gonna be okay with what happened#spoilers um this is about. jam.#tim never took the time to deconstruct how he felt in the moment because he was trying not to die#even if he concludes he harbored some feelings (like people online suspect) what would he even do with that?#he can never go back and change it. but he can say it to himself. its something for him that nobody else NEEDS to know#but now he can understand himself a little better n form new connections#its like a culmination of my hatred for some fans NEED for things to be canon when its much more fun to leave stuff open-ended#and also my love for media adressing this in a way that actually says something abt the way we consume it#yall seen the craig and tweek episode of south park? yeah.
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