#tw: existential dread

[origins-obsession-of-the-fox]

So speaking of body horror for Viper that I mentioned not that long ago. I'm thinking about side effects of magic and especially Lachrimas that I want to add to my rewrite, and I just had this lovely idea in regards to Viper. :)

I'm thinking about a little idea, I don't know if I'll make it canon to my rewrite this is just me being evil to him. I'll need to watch Viper's S4 pov, and rewatch his S5 later. Seriously I should refresh myself on Viper's character so I don't mischaracterise him. Also this includes some HCs for my rewrite.

Also I'm gonna test out color coding names and pronouns so it's easier to tell who's being referred to.

TW: Body horror, slight existential dread, mention of: injuries, organs, blood, sickness (? (almost passing out))

He doesn't know when it actually happened.

His heart doesn't beat anymore... He noticed sometime after.. what happened to his village.

It's not like his blood isn't being pumped, it is. But no longer does he have a discernable pulse. He can feel a pulsing in his chest in time to what should be his heartbeat. It speeds up and slows down just like a heart beating. It doesn't beat, it feels more like how a fire radiates warmth. When his blood should be pumping hard it feels more like a sloshing, he can hear it in his ears then.

He wasn't the one to notice it at first. A few other people have noticed, usually by getting healed up after missions mainly in the early years of being in the wandering coins.

Pat noticed too although she just kinda accepted it after he brushed it off as being part of his magic. She does that with a lot of things he realized, her understanding of magic is strange to say the least. Probably from a less magically inclined area, especially since she uses a gun of all things for requip magic.

Allumos had an even stranger reaction she just accepted it as an aspect of being a dragon slayer. Like that's just what happens to her. Dragon slayers lacking a heart beat is like saying the sky is blue, an absolute fact. She seemed surprised that she had a heart beat when she and Pat shared a body.

Allumos... actually seems to know the most about his magic, even if he's never said anything about it. It makes sense in a way, she did create dragon slayer magic... but also she seems to know about his magic specifically not just general knowledge of dragon slayers.

With other dragon slayers her knowledge seems to fall short. Slayers who were trained by dragons are different. He had a vague awareness of the Cavern dragon slayer of Divinus Magia, he chalked up any differences at the time to the different generations and magic types between the two. But then they got the Runt, he was different too. But unlike the Cavern dragon slayer they were the same generation and in the same guild so he knows more about him. He knows that he has a heart beat, they had to at least do a basic medical check when they brought him back to the guild.

Even with Allumos saying that it was normal it wasn't. Because even if dragon slayers having no heart beat was just as true as the sky being blue, then it is only true some of the time.

His oddities compared to the others don't even end with the heart beat, because of course they don't.

His teeth are are another weird part of his magic. Getting his sharper teeth was not the most pleasant of things to happen but still relatively tame for him. Not long after he... got his Lachrima, his mouth, jaw and gums began to hurt, a lot. He remembers spitting up his own teeth, his mouth pooling with a mixture of acidic venom and blood. He had his new teeth grow in rapidly after the old ones fell out and they all came in very sharp.

He also got a new set of teeth that are right behind his canines, they fold back and lay flat in his mouth. Like those of a snake. It was only fitting that those are the teeth that release venom. That's part of the reason he chose the pseudonym Viper.

Now his tongue he didn't notice as much over the pain radiating from inside his jaw. He also... refuses to talk about how long it took to adjust to his new mouth. Or how many times he's almost bitten off his own tongue.

His blood if you can even call it that is very toxic, sometimes it's acidic or poisonous he can't tell which one it will be.

He also swears that since becoming a dragon slayer his wounds don't heal as well as they used to. Like his injuries won't stop bleeding...

Suffice to say he needs to keep stocked up on healing potions and always carry one on himself just in case.

No idea why his ears are pointy, the only others with pointed ears are Allumos and he thinks he's seen the Half Devil Dragon slayer with pointy ears. Pointed ears aren't that weird all that considered Pat's mentioned stuff about fair folk; Whatever the hell that means and then there's people with demon magic. He knows that pointed ears are fairly common among stranger magic users.

Then in Salode there was the strangest difference. He felt... lightheaded a lot. He assumed it was due to the lack of mana while also trying to use Jasper to see. He's passed out from mana exhaustion before, but this didn't feel like mana exhaustion. More like no matter how much he breathes it won't be enough. That if he stood up too quickly his vision would black out around the edges, not that it should, he was using Jasper to see even if that was pretty shitty vision in Salode. It felt like he lost too much blood and was going to pass out. He remembers at certain points having to hold on to something and gasping for air. No one else was acting like they were having any real difficulty in Salode, well except Ech. He really hoped the kid didn't feel like he did.

Then there's the more 'cosmetic' of his differences.

His markings are the most visible at first glance and the most superficial of his changes. Both himself and Allumos have black markings on their skin, that they apparently have for no other reason than being dragon slayers. Davis and the Runt have markings too but their markings appear to be more from magic misuse or overuse. The Runt's come and go appearing to almost fluctuate. While Davis' looks more like lightning scars glowing with his magic. The glowing part is at least a little similar to some of his own markings. Other people who have markings connected to magic are other slayers, the closest to his and Allumos' would be the Devil slayers'... huh

He also knows that the Demon knew something about his magic as well. She was friends with Allumos, but he seemed to know more than her. The Demon seemed to taunt him with her knowledge.

She knows his Lachrima, and who it used to belong to. He knows what fate will befall him and the fate that befell all who previously had it.

But it all makes him wonder...

He wonders what it looks like underneath his ribs. To peel back his skin and take a good look at what is underneath.

He wonders where the Lachrima that was shoved into his body lies. He has a guess about where it is.

He wonders if it has replaced his heart and taken over his veins and is pumping its venom throughout his body.

He wonders... what else has been changed... and... is he still human...

.

.

.

I'm gonna explain more about the Lachrimas of the original dragon slayers later. Not tagging anyone for the weird horror that my brain cooked up, I'm tormenting Viper not the people who read stuff for my rewrite.

[imaginethathaikyuu]

dead end 

TRIGGER WARNING / CONTENT WARNING: mentions of non-main character deaths, this entire fic is about depression and existentialism and bad parts of life, an unhappy ending 

-

this is obviously very different than anything i’ve written for my blog and i apologize for that. writing has been extremely hard for me as of late in the wake of losing someone very important to me, who was always supportive and proud of my writing. and, to be completely honest, i’ve found it really hard to write anything knowing that they will never be able to read it. regardless, i’m trying my best, and even though this is nothing more than a journal entry written under the guise of a story about tanaka ryuunosuke, i want to share it. i’m not always happy and i don’t want to come off like i am, and my writing has always reflected my life. unfortunately that means the bad parts too. i hope you like it, and if not, i will have more stories out eventually - i can’t really say when right now. this isn’t a character x reader fic, so i know most of you probably aren’t gonna be into it - that’s okay.

AGAIN, this story touches on extremely sensitive subjects that some people may not feel comfortable reading. it is not happy at all. it has little to no narrative and it is generally upsetting. the only fanfic tag i’m going to put it in is the tag i use for all of my fics, all potential TWs will be tagged, and it will be under the cut for those of you who feel comfortable reading it! 

-

word count: 806 

There was a comfort in being alone. And for Tanaka, his life had to become a single player game in order for him to recognize that. 

He was lost in a maze with no one but himself. It was scary at first, before he knew who, or what, could be lurking around every corner he turned - before he knew how truly alone he was. 

And his entire life, he had been there, stuck in that maze making languid turns, going in circles and not caring about finding his way out because there was so much inside. He didn’t want to find the exit until he realized he was trapped. And he didn’t need to turn around until he ran into his first dead end. 

He was eight years old, only a kid, when he realized this trap he was stuck in. When he hit a wall and lost the biggest piece of himself in the process. And he still hasn’t had a best friend since his mother sat him down at the kitchen table and told him he’d never see his only friend, Mori, again. 

And he feels guilty, now, because fifteen years later he remembers the ache of that impact more than he remembers any precious memories with his first ever friend. He remembers the tears on parents' faces and a casket that shouldn’t be so small and bouquets of white lilies, and he remembers not crying at all. 

He remembers knowing, immediately, that this is what life was. That living was synonymous with losing, and he could either be okay with that or live the rest of his life being shocked by it. 

And he didn’t like surprises. He didn’t like losing. He didn’t like knowing that any day could be the worst of his life. And he couldn’t live happily because he was constantly anticipating the next natural disaster.

Every empty seat in class, every positive test result, every tragic accident were all just symptoms of being alive. People change and dogs die and life stays unfair and Tanaka had given up on trying to outplay it. He’d given up on everything.

He dreamt of a life with control, of an existence he had a say in. He could hardly afford to be alive and he had no right to exist. Every hand he reached out to, thinking it would pull him up, only weighed him down. 

So he stopped reaching out. He stopped letting others guide him down blind alleyways to dead end streets - he stopped pretending that he wasn’t alone in his very existence. 

And he was alone by choice. That would give life less chances to drop down on him, less opportunity to show him that nothing ever ends well. 

There were those rare times, though, when Tanaka could see a beautiful sunrise for what it was worth. He could watch the acceptance of a love letter without thinking about the heartbreak that would chase it; he could acknowledge the success of a peer without a gross envy in the pit of his stomach; he could get close to someone without thinking about what he’d say at their funeral in front of all of the people who didn’t love them enough - and still he is trapped. Still he is angry and lost and dreadful. A golden beam of light isn’t enough. Any amount of time spent with someone he loves would never be enough. Is he selfish to ask for more time? Is it wrong of him to expect life to change its rules for him? 

What were all of these things consequences for, anyway? What terrible thing did he do in a past life that led him to this one? 

He only had one answer for any question he stumbled across: he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how selfish he is and he isn’t aware of how to change these rules, because he’s only a player in the game. He’s only a pawn to be moved at something else’s will. 

But at least he has some control in solitude. This way, he doesn’t have to worry about turning a corner to find bouquets of lilies left for someone he didn’t love sufficiently. 

And he doesn’t know when he’ll finally draw to the end of these tunnels, but he hopes that when he does it isn’t at the cost of someone else’s wrong turn leading to a dead ending impact. He hopes that it is as silent and cowardly and blameless as he has lived; he wants it to be as lonely as it can be. To look back and see no tears or flowers left. He doesn’t want to be the one to prove to someone who loves him how unfair everyone’s arbitrary time limit is. Most of all, he hopes that when he gets his game over, everyone else can keep playing without pause. 

[czgoldedition]

Me: When I was five I used to sit up late at night trying to picture what the experience of death would be like, and imagining my funeral.

My spouse: What... the fuck?

Me: You didn't do that?

My spouse: No??

---

Me: [describing a dream I woke up from] -- then I lay there bleeding to death. It hurt at first, but soon everything just became warm and I felt very sleepy. I could just slip off so easily; I didn't want to die, I was frightened, but I was so tired.

My spouse: Your dreams are terrifying, what the hell.

Me: You've never died in a dream?

My spouse: I mean yeah but, because I walked off a cliff or something, never in violent detail.

Me: Oh. I die viscerally in my dreams kind of often?

---

Me: I had a panic attack last night and wrote out a preliminary draft of my last will and testiment in Google Keep, just in case I died in my sleep.

My spouse: Why are you like this.

[stupid-idiot-gamer]

No one likes an ending

(So what's with the attention we keep on giving them?)

TW: Derealisation, Existential dread, Depersonalisation

From the perspective of the challenger, the player character, at the end of the final act as it gains sentience at the worst possible moment.

I'm not too sure if all the triggers apply but still going to tag them just to be safe.

There's a brief moment that lasts forever.

The challenger beholds the data.

The challenger sees so much.

It gains a new perspective.

It sees it's previous incarnations, he sees a lonely young woman, she sees a grieving young man. Both taken before their time.

It sees it's future, finally sees the ending it has been seeking.

It finally sees how the game ends; How it was supposed to end, How it's going to end.

But it's all too sudden, too far too soon.

They've only just gained their mind, gained control over their own actions.

It can finally think... so then why must it all end so quickly? Why does it have to go? Was this it? Was this all there was? All there will be?

...maybe this is how those scrybes fe-

DELETING body(clone)

DELETING head(clone)

[the0verboss]

So back from vacation and I’m hitting a wall.

My therapist has told me to stay busy to deal with the existential dread that gives me panic attacks ( trauma? Yea I got her but that’s not what’s keeping me up at night. Have you heard about the distance between stars? O.O)

And usually id do a round of tv and movies while drawing and reading a fanfic. But I can’t use my basement right now. And my spare art room is full of a new cat.

And my husband is sleeping. And this is day three of being mostly alone in a quiet house with not enough to do.

And I can feel the abyss sniffing me. I need to be busy. Or I’m gonna let it in like I did on the airplane and yea no. Nope. No.

Any idea on what to do with my time? I’m like about to just go to the gym or something

[glitchedcoyote]

It has been some time since I really posted on this wonderful hellsite.

I have been going through a funk. More than usual. It is a strange thing to contemplate your own existence.

I don't even feel therapy can help. How can it when some of my...why am I even trying when I didn't ask to exist shit is straight up caused by the hell of late stage capitalism.

Here I am, forced to exist. Born, allowed some small time where life was okay before decisions made by those meant to care for me causes my life to spiral. All this an than I am forced into working myself until I die, somewhere probably in my sixties to seventies, with my mind stripped away due to the looming threat of dementia or Alzheimers that runs rampant through my family.

I fear therapy can't really fix that.

If I could wish myself out of existence I would. And I hate it when people feel this way and all that is given is cheap compassion. 'Oh things will get better.' 'Life is hard and you just need to work on it and it takes time.' and other such platitudes.

That is not...helpful. I am in my mid thirties. How much more time will it take? How much more time will it take before I fail to the crushing responsibility of existing?

I don't even know where I am going with this. I'm tired. Tired of trying everyday. Tired of waking up. Going to work so I can eat. Exercise so I don't have to spend a fuck ton of money in the hellscape known as American healthcare. Have no motivation to do anything I used to love. Go to sleep. And repeat.

I am tired of being handed this life and being told that now I get to chain myself to working unfufilling jobs until I die because I was born to two people who spent my childhood ignoring me and not cultivating the skills and dreams I did have. Crushing them under the weight of disappoinment and neglect.

I suppose it is helpful to...vent. I am glad for this void. A place I can yell into and sometimes. Sometimes it answers back.

[theoscout]

Hey guess who had their first relapse into Existential Crisis induced Nausea today? 🙃

[aoooooga]

You know those daydreams that want to be heard? The ones that play so vividly… you have to write them out. It would be wrong not to, right? It’s common for me to daydream about how it would be to live with the OM boys since it is a recent obsession of mine. Today I had a nightmare that felt very sweet. I’ll warn you that the following may trigger those who are sensitive to themes of death, loss of a loved one, or existential eventualities.

~Reader’s POV~

I woke up feeling content and warm, but empty. There was a longing lingering from the dream I had just experienced. By the time that I could taste the bitterness on my tongue, recognise the night’s rot in my breath, I felt a chill on my cheeks and the tears that cooled to cause it. I was crying. Oh my heart is breaking. I can not bear this alone.

I wrap my smallest blanket around me. It’s not yet morning, I will not wake my boys. Maybe I can catch Beel in the kitchen for his late night snack. I’m still crying. I wish I could stop but I can’t. It’s embarrassing. And just like always Mr. Pride himself catches me at my lowest. I’ll have to thank him for it later. I must be more tired than I remember because I really can’t make out what he’s saying. It’s warm in his arms and I sleep once more…

~Lucifer’s POV~

I’d been a quarter of the way through my nightly paperwork when I went to get a fresh cup of coffee. It was cold and I needed a breath of air away from the desk. It really shouldn’t come to a surprise anymore after their first year here, but I am thrown through a loop seeing MC out of bed so late. I go to chide them about getting enough sleep for the school day when I see that they’re crying. As experienced as I am in my age, I’m out of my depth emotionally. All I can do for now is ask what it is that upset them so horribly. Luckily for me they fall asleep easily and I carry them to their room. It’s not my place, but I lay by them for a moment. I’ll allow it, under the excuse that I’m due a break. It’s what MC would say, I think. They’re so beautiful when they’re asleep. I sigh, brush the hair out of their face, and allow myself to lay and breathe in the quiet. It’s nice.

~Reader’s POV~

Like a kid in the backseat on a late night drive. I wake up once we get where we’re going, but I keep my eyes closed. I want to know what he’ll do. I nearly give myself away when he caresses me and sighs. After a contented moment of quiet, I roll over, surprising him, and say “you know I try not to think of the inevitable, but for whatever reason my subconscious decided that tonight’s the night.”. He sighs again and rolls over to me holding me against him with my face just at his chest and looks down. He whispers “do you want to talk about it?” Of course I do, but I’m not comfortable talking about my future so candidly. I offer an alternative. I say “Let me tell this story to you the way it was told to me.” He breathes in slowly, nods, and closes his eyes. I roll over and I lift our hands to the ceiling, straight up, fingers interlaced.

And so I tell him the story:

In a field of half mature wheat on a warm day, I lay back on my arms. It would be hot if it weren’t for the breeze. I can’t remember if I wore clothes, but I do remember that it didn’t matter. Maybe I had a nice hat on. I could faintly smell clean clothes and a storm coming in. I welcomed it even after knowing that it would wet the clothes that were out to dry. The sky was a beautiful blue with enough clouds to keep the sun’s rays from being oppressive. No ants to worry about, no hunger, no thirst, this was a place time never really touched…

And I was alone. That remained fact for the duration.

I heard a young man’s voice. It sounded like it was through a call; the audio was distorted just so. It was melancholic and so I lay back fully, watch the slowly rolling clouds, and listened. He went on to tell me a story and I couldn’t help but feel that he was confiding in me and me alone, despite knowing whatever this was was much bigger than myself. He tells me that he regrets not spending more time with his mother. She loved him so well, but always acted strangely. He said that now that he looks back he sees that her behavior was her unique form of love, but as a young child trying to figure out what was normal in the world, it was off-putting. She hung up every scribbled drawing he ever took home, no matter the quality. She never took them down, just put more drawings over the old ones because the walls were so full. 

She was odd for many small things but what was the strangest for him was the way she spoke to the trees in the backyard. She had full single-sided conversations with these trees. They were young trees, just mature enough not to be saplings anymore. There were 3 and their names were something like Charlie, James, and Marissa. She never mixed them up. One lemon tree, one pomegranate tree, and one oak. Years went by and life went on. As I got older I saw her less and less. Maybe once or twice every 2 weeks or so. And she died. He took care of her funeral. It was small, she was cremated and he took her home to sort through her things. Her last wishes being only to keep the house and its land, and to care for the trees. To talk to them as she did.

In her dresser drawer, he found 3 birth certificates for still born children. Names: Charlie, James, and Marissa. He understood now why she talked to them and he took up her ritual of talking with the trees. He buried her urn and planted a pear tree over her so that she might get to be with her lost children.

I turned over again and looked up at Lucifer and said, “After knowing his story I felt rain on my face. The sky cried for his loss and I felt a sadness that wasn’t quite mine. If it were mine I feel like I would be able to hold it, but this stranger’s tears demand to be seen and his sadness demands to be felt. I didn’t know what else to do but to cry. All I could do was cry.” Just thinking about this stranger's story has me all worked up again, and I can’t help but tear up. I could hardly get my sentences out. I press my face to his chest, hold him, and cry. He lets me. Thank you. In the breaths between the sobbs I say “thank you”. I don’t have the strength in me to say much else.

~Lucifer’s POV~

They probably couldn’t see it, but I was moved. It hurt to see them cry and it hurt worse to think of how I’ll have to outlive them. I just hold them closer. I won’t have them forever so I’ll cling to them while I can. I offer what little I can in sweet nothings and they are still and slow. Thank you. Before I really finish my thought they say “thank you” so quietly.

...It must have been five minutes of quiet. Our minds are too turbulent to really call it peace. Much to my surprise, they look up to me and say “I have this weird habit of mourning for those I love. No, they aren’t dead, nor do they show signs of dying soon. I simply mourn their loss. They could be in the next room over and I’ll be a total wreck trying to learn how I’ll ever be able to live without them. I’ve rebuilt my life so many times that I don’t bother counting. It’s a desolation I will never ever build an immunity to. I think… I think that maybe I’m finally mourning for me.”

Again, mc always knows how to surprise me. I must have taken a while to process this because they break the silence again as if they were waiting on a verbal response from me. I run my hand in gentle circles in their back and let them continue. They confess saying “I think I’ve always been at peace with myself, and sometimes I’ve even felt fond of myself, but until I loved and was loved by you and your brothers, I don’t think I ever really did love myself. The proof is in the mourning, I guess.” 

I text Lord Diavolo in apology, saying that our human is unwell and that I’ll personally be tending to them. I decided that my work will have to wait until tomorrow, no, the next day. Tonight I’ll hold them and we both preemptively mourn their death. Tomorrow we’ll celebrate their life.