time to fly

[originskey]

@downbursting

“Lower your stance, I’m not here to attack you.”

Even if he was, Forcystus was unarmed in every sense of the word. No, Kratos was walking back home when he spotted the other. And while he really felt like just being alone… they both know he’s not going to just seek out the other. This was a decent opportunity.

“I came to ask how you’re adjusting to this place.”

[downbursting]

Helplessness is not a new feeling. Forcystus has known it all his life. Learned to wear it like armor, using fear as both shield and weapon. 

He gets to his feet, his eyes narrowed.

“Don’t pretend like you give a damn.”

[downbursting]

Well, in the end, we’re the same. Nobody wanted us to be born.

Forcystus is silent for a moment, absently swirling a glass of wine in his hand.

There had been a time when he believed in humans, elves, and all those in between existing in harmony.

"No," he says. "My parents were delighted to have a child that resembled the both of them."

He'd forgotten that throughout the years. The wine tips to the point of nearly spilling before he rights it and sets the glass on the table, a melancholy look in his eye.

"So I cannot rightfully say no one wanted my birth."

[downbursting]

how do you feel about your world?

"It's unsalvageable."

[roleplay-rescue]

Tales of Symphonia Inspired Meme Part II

[divineshadows]

SEND ONE OF THE FOLLOWING FOR MY MUSE’S REACTION.

Is it a sin to be weak hearted?

I…I’m going to wait here. Go on ahead without me.

Even if you become an angel, you’re still you, okay?

Is this what happens when one is raised by a dwarf?

In order to change the world, I must first change myself.

Okay, that’s enough. You’re not allowed to apologize any more.

Wow, that was an amazingly corny speech. Congratulations.

Are you hiding your face because that outfit is embarrassing?

From the moment they are born, everyone has the right to live.

The deeper the wound, the more important it is to overcome it.

Well, in the end, we’re the same. Nobody wanted us to be born.

All I want is a fun, easy life. That’s it- nothing more, nothing less!

What value does one burdened to exist with cursed blood have?

It’s more painful not being able to believe, than to worry about betrayal.

No matter how painful things have been, you just can’t dwell on the past.

I have no intention of becoming part of the food chain without a fight!

What will you accomplish by dying? Nothing! There is no meaning in dying!

I promised I wouldn’t make another mistake, but it looks like I have again…

Sometimes I think it’d be easier if everyone and everything were just destroyed.

I don’t have the right to ask for your forgiveness, but I still want you to forgive me.

Not everyone’s strong. Not everyone can stand being despised.

I’ve got no choice but to work with you. Don’t think I want to be your friend or anything.

At this moment you have two options:choose what you desire to do or what you must do.

No matter how right your words are, you have to actually carry it out in order for them to have any meaning.

[the-write-ideas]

Ask my character "How do you feel about ______?" Can be an idea, person(s), place, or thing, and they'll have to answer honestly.

Ⓦ

[fightabear]

i think a lot about how what the desian grand cardinals must've been like when they were younger and sort of imagine forcystus to be a little like lloyd.

and i think even more about how magnius is more loyal to forcystus than literally anyone else. and then i remember how magnius and forcystus gave up their lives for a lie.

they're terrible people who decided to walk the darkest path possible but tales of villains and all their untold tragedy will never stop fascinating me.

[downbursting]

forcystus really over here like, “i’m not telling you my traumatic backstory, go ask kratos. he likes feeling sorry for what a shitty person he is so he can feel bad about how cruxis exploited my trauma & i don’t have to talk to you anymore. win-win.”

[downbursting]

And no matter how much time passes us by, We’re drunk on sweet and hypnotic lies. With all our sources of hardened pride We try to erase and hide now The homework I can’t take, no answer there is no way I’m through I never knew how, I guess that’s just my life now, But then sometimes I wonder, why our hearts close off and stutter and we all close our eyes, and we wish we’d just die.

Can you read to me Kanji written up on the board? Can you read all of  the words within this heart that is torn? And who stepped in this heart and dyed it all into black? Now who could it be? Now who could it be? Can you solve all these equations using an abacus? Can you loosen up the noose that is constricting our trust? Can we keep on moving forward down this long painful road? Now come tell me how Now come tell me how!

I don’t give a damn now!

[downbursting]

ringcyclone​:

✧ For better or for worse, there was an ex-sacrificial lamb standing before him. One that had set out to be sacrificed of her own volition, but that didn’t change that this was more or less what the role of Chosen had been. “I… see. You know, I’ve thought about it a lot since my journey ended. What I would have done if I had known that everything had been a deception. If I had known what the Chosen’s purpose was, if I had known about Tethe’alla, if I had known what Kratos’ motives were… The people I could have saved.”

“Maybe it’s naïve of me to think this, but if you believe you wouldn’t have done it knowing what you know now, that means you probably don’t have any interest in pursuing those goals here, right? So… I’m sorry again for being too quick to judge.” Colette bowed, hands held tightly to her skirt. She couldn’t give Kratos and Mithos a chance but then not someone who had only been listening to their words. That wasn’t right.

She believed in Lloyd’s vision even now, and over the past two years had been actively trying to work towards it. For the world to heal there had to be understanding. She’d forgotten that when her emotions had peaked. “I don’t think I can forgive you for what happened, it’s the same with Mithos and Kratos. And I don’t expect you to forgive me or humans in general either. But do you think there’s a potential for us to come to understand each other someday?”

The moment of weakness subsides. Forcystus keeps his eye shut, letting his hand slide to cover the eyepatch. A deep breath is drawn in and held. Forcing the rage building inside down, down, down.

He’d truly never realized how much Magnius’ presence had forced him to be the calm one. That was how they had always worked. The pragmatist and the idealist. The passionate and the calm.

“No. I will never understand or trust humans.” 

He drops his hand. Letting his fingers curl around the end of his missing arm. Just long enough to ground himself, then lets it drop and starts walking away.

“Why don’t you go ahead and ask Lord Kratos why.”

[downbursting]

testing a new inker

[downbursting]

ringcyclone​:

✧ “It’s true. I don’t know anything about you. All I can do is gleam from what you have said and done, because you weren’t open to having a dialogue with us in the first place.” He looks at her with so much anger, and Colette cannot see it as unjustified. This was just how things were, really. Maybe this discussion had been a fool’s errand from the start? “But I’ve never believed your hatred for humans was unjustified. I can’t begin to imagine how you’ve been hurt. The world we lived in was designed to be cruel to everyone in one way or another. That’s why we fought for a future where everyone could live as equals. It won’t ever be perfect and it will take time, but…”

Forcystus wasn’t going to listen to her, and she could hear an unintended arrogance creeping in her own voice. So she stopped. “I’m not in any position to talk about your motives, so I’m sorry for overstepping. That doesn’t change what happened though, nor does it justify anyone being hurt or killed.” 

“I also can’t speak for Kratos’ actions. We were just as much in the dark for most of our journey as you were. But Kratos is… he’s trying to take responsibility, and so is Mithos. I can’t just forgive them for everything they’ve done, just as you can’t forgive humans, but if they’re committed then the least I could do was help them, I thought…”

“……” All of her conviction from before seemed to have waned. It wasn’t that she doubted the path she had chosen nor herself, but if she couldn’t find common ground with the Desian then they’d just keep going in circles. “Could I ask a question then? Knowing what you know now… What would you have done differently if given the chance? If you could go back in time and do it all over again?”

Her question cuts the tirade his anger is building to at the quick. Forcystus stares at her a moment.

There’s no benefit to honesty. No benefit to talking to humans. He knows, he knows, he knows damn it. This won’t lead anywhere good. It has never, in his life, lead anywhere good.

Yet the words spill unbidden from his lips. His expression twisting into something raw, caught between agony and fury. Woe be it to this sacrifical lamb who is here when the dam finally starts to break.

“... I wouldn’t have joined.”

His hand curls to a fist, then moves to bury in that wild seafoam hair. His eye screw shut, his voice shaking as all the grief and rage slams against his carefully maintained calm.

“I would not have allowed my legacy to be used to trick people who only wanted to be safe. I wouldn’t have repeated lies .. I would have waged war against Cruxis itself if I had known that the Age of Half-Elves was nothing more than a lie.”

[downbursting]

also my general disclaimer: the grand cardinals are all terrible people doing terrible things and i do not excuse that. 

forcystus believed the ends justified the means. that the idea of a world where half-elves could live freely and safely was worth sacrificing human lives for.  whether it be via a war or via creating exspheres.

i’m very interested in forcystus getting help for his raging, untreated ptsd and getting a chance at living in a world that wasn’t stacked against him from the get-go. and most liekly deciding to atone for it once he’s not like

basically having a slow motion mental breakdown and feeling like he’s about to be killed again just by existing.

[downbursting]

everybody: threatens forcystus forcystus: so,,,,,,, are we not going to talk about how you’re having tea with the ones actually responsible for the way things were,,,,,,

[downbursting]

ringcyclone​:

✧ If there was any chance of this encounter ending amicably, Forcystus had seen to it well enough that said chance was gone. Colette’s eyes clouded over as she absorbed his words, not quite believing what she was hearing. Or maybe it wasn’t unbelievable at all? There was no remorse for what he had done, and he was blaming them instead?

Sylvarant’s Chosen was angry, but she also knew better. She couldn’t let that anger swallow her. That was probably what he wanted.

“If I recall, you oppressed us and treated us like cattle. Those of us you didn’t kill outright you turned into Exspheres.” The back of her throat burned just thinking about all they had seen. The smell of the factories, the way her stomach had churned when they discovered the truth. That was something she would never forget. “You’re not wrong, Forcystus. We have killed, but we’re not the same as you. I’ve regretted having to take every life we were forced to, including yours. I’ve mourned and prayed a hundred, thousand times over. But I cannot undo what I’ve done, there’s no bringing back the dead.”

Loathed would she be to see eye-to-eye with the old Mithos and his obsession with restoring what had been lost.

“Those memories haunt my dreams, but you? You barely bat an eyelash at all of the lives you’ve taken, right? Any equivalency you see between us is false, a lie you’re using to justify your actions. In the new world we carved that mentality doesn’t have a place. You may disagree, and that’s fine. But what you did in Sylvarant?”

“It will not happen here.”

“You know nothing about me,” Forcystus snaps. “Not what I feel, not my goals, not what haunts me, and surely not what I have done and endured. I am exhausted by your all of your self-righteousness and grandstanding. Do you truly think I set out to cause nothing but mindless suffering?”

He turns to her then. His expression one of utter loathing.

“You brag about what you have accomplished as though you were the first to attempt it, because human history erases half-elves who fought the same battles as though we were nothing. You were born human, given political and social power by your title which gave weight to your words. And then you had the might of  literal Gods at your back.  You’re the one drawing false equivalences.

Perhaps if Lord Kratos had been so kind as to inform us of the truth behind the Age of Half-Elves, or better yet, had he used his power to protect us before we reached the point of desperation needed to throw away our souls, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

[ringcyclone-deactivated20220307]

@downbursting​​

✧ Colette’s typically soft expression narrowed on sight, her heart a turmoil of emotions the moment it struck her that this man was not an illusion but a reality. She had already met Mithos here and he had shown a desire to change, but there was something about this man that left her incapable of being as open minded. 

No, she knew why. Forcystus had been the direct cause of all of Iselia’s suffering. And he’d almost killed Chocolat right in front of her. Those memories were almost two years old now, but at that moment it felt like just yesterday.

“…Your aspirations came to an end, Forcystus. As did those of Yggdrasill. So tell me you aren’t here to push them further?” She wouldn’t go through this again. “I won’t allow anyone else to suffer what the people of Iselia, the people of all of Sylvarant did. I’m sure Lloyd and the others feel the same way.”

[downbursting]

His time here has not been kind to him. Nor has the truth of everything. His hand curls to a fist, his gaze purposefully not falling upon the girl before him lest he lose himself to the rage that got him killed the first time. 

As it turns out his aspiration was all nothing but a lie. All he’d fought for had been lost the very moment he agreed to join the Desians. 

Yet these are not the thoughts to divulge to an enemy. 

“If you care to recacll, I was not the one who violated the non-aggression treaty. That was your idiot friend. Nor was I the one left a trail of bloodshed from one end of Sylvarant to the next... Or do the lives of the dead not matter if you’ve deemed their deaths to be just?” 

[downbursting]

headcanon while i try to staple my brain together to write

really the reason no one told forcystus anything, and the reason rodyle definitely didn’t involve him in his mana cannon plans, is because forcystus would either  shut down completely in despair or he would go into hardcore denial and rip them apart for their traitorous actions with his bare hands.

dude’s a war veteran with raging ptsd who survived massacre after massacre. he has no hope for humanity to get along with half-elves. he’s been cast into the role of literal harbinger of doom in the predominant faith of the world and he’s doing things that disgusted him to his core, which run counter to creating a world where half-elves can live in peace (not that its possible when u know, they’re written into the lore cruxis created as a kind of biblical sin) all for the sake of a world where they’re freed from human oppression.

derris kharlan is what he wants. he does not want aselia. humans can have that. he’s done.

i’ve said in other headcanon posts that i think forcystus killing the renegades on his base was probably the last thing he could take. he trusts other half-elves completely. and unlike the other cardinals, he never aspired to power. just a safe place for his people. 

and if it was all for nothing. that would break him. kratos did a kindness when he took the remnants of cruxis away, and that’s. all he ever wanted for them.  and having men he served along side and trusted betray him probably broke something in him, so then being immediately faced with the party being like GET OUT OF OUR WAY YGGDRASILL IS LYING TO YOU was too fucking much for him to handle, he was uh.

he was not all there in that last confrontation. 

( and in my heart of hearts in the anime where they DID NOT DIE and the narrative just forgot about them, magnius and forcystus are with him on derris kharlan and kratos probably hates his life)

[downbursting]

@stormswake​

There’s something carefree about this world. Though tragedy seemed but a breath away, the people here seem weightless. Like their burdens had truly been left behind in their old worlds.

If only he could feel the same.

It’s a life he’s never known. One wherein leisure seemed to take precedence over all else.  It sets him ill at ease, a constant reminder that a soldier has no place amongst civilians. So many of them are human, so many of them impossible to trust.

( then again, can you even trust other half-elves? can you trust cruxis? )

True, the Grand Cardinals had fallen into disarray. Pronyma taking the helm had disrupted whatever harmony they had managed. More often than not he had felt as though he and Magnius were the only ones who truly good goddamn about the cause. Kvar, for all the effort he put into caring for his underlings, coveted power. Rodyle could scarcely be trusted... but near to the end, even Magnius had seemed distracted. Secretive.

Had they known? And if they had, why had they not told him? 

( though he knew the answer to that all too well. what point was there in telling a man who had given up all hope that his last hail mary, the salvation he clung to, was nothing more than a pretty lie to guarantee servitude?  )

... How he hated secrets.

This is the thought in his mind as he catches a glimpse of blue hair out of the corner of his vision, pausing and turning to be certain he wasn’t imagining it. Forcystus squints. 

And then a look of immense relief washes over his tired visage. For no matter how much he doubted, no matter how much the truth was gnawing at him, devouring him from the inside out - he would always find comfort in the presence of another half-elf.

“... Lord Yuan! It is good to see you.”