~ Ace ~

"I love the smell of ash in the morning." -Abolish, Vampires SMP

[theabolisolation]

Intro Post

Hello, everyone. I am @abolisolation, or well, I suppose I'm @theabolisolation now. You may find my old things on the former, and obviously everything from then on will be on the latter. I've lost access to that old account, and now I'll be reigning here :)

I'll be putting everything under the cut

You can still call me Ace, I go by he/they (mainly) and I'm biromantic asexual and in a relationship with my lovely girlfriend

My main fandoms are Vampires SMP, the Life Series, Sdra2, and... well, that's really it. I'm into Pokemons too, but it's not really a fandom of mine.

I'm an artist, writer, and I sing for myself. You'll find plenty of things on my blog, but I hope most of all you'll find a safe space =]

My tags are:

#RainbowStreaksOfBlood - Art Tag

#TakeABiteOfMyMind - Yapping

#IRestateThisClaim - Reblogs

#NotTheVoicesInMyHead - Asks

I... doubt I'll be on much, but when I'm on? I'm excited to say hi to both people I know and those I have yet to meet ^^

[theabolisolation]

Hi :DDDD

hiiii Mio!! :D

[multishipper33]

pyrophilia, n.

CHARACTERS: myself as moth, @abolisolation as iso/acid, and @jimmysbrainandsoul as jamie. (two other members of ss, gray and mulsea, are named)

BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER: this is a FICTIONAL WORK about the second seed universe/cast from the pov of moth, one half of the Silly Saucers. now. this is not canon unless everyone agrees it to be so - the only things you should take are mannerisms and thoughts moth may have. for instance, towards the end of the chapter, we see the tail end of a fight between iso and jamie… which HAS NOT HAPPENED. fictional. not canon. just messing around :D

tw/cw: toxic/codependent relationship (mentioned here on iso’s end: overprotectiveness/attachment, anger; mentioned on my end is separation anxiety + the whole addiction thing taints my perception of iso a LOTTT), blood used as a metaphor quite a bit, mentions of killing/red names/death in the context of a life series, addiction (a part-moth character being addicted to red light sources). lmk if i missed any !!

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

pyrophilia, n. • the (often unhealthy) love of fire, flames, or explosives.

~~~~~~

people wax far too much poetic about the difference of a house and a home - really, it is only in concept that they contrast. a house is an architectural structure. there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die. not necessarily the builder, nor the person who approves the design, but an innocent bystander, someone hoping for a roof over their heads. a home is a figurative thing, a place of belonging.

there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die.

i cannot feel the pair of eyes upon my neck as i sort through chests, but i see them dance along the wood, little slits cutting through red nectar as scarring in the wood matches up with scarring in the gaze. red is nowhere else to be found, though, as my stash of redstone was all used for traps. i suppose it makes sense, we have to get kills at some point, but what does it matter if the last thing someone sees is a sight as damning as red, red eyes? a trap offers anonymity, but if you known well enough, fingers will point in your direction.

still, i gather up sticks and turn around. like blood in charcoal, iso's eyes are discs of liquid, tearing real holes through my fake excuses the same way acid forms faux scars on wings that could carry me far, far away if i so wished. they only move when i do, sliding the disc of charcoal, daring to make a mark on the paper that has been clean until now. when all the dust is brushed off, the scene may be tragic - it may be beautiful.

"out mining again?" his voice cuts through my reverie, tinged with too little venom to sting. when i stand my flower crown feels heavy, as though i'd dipped it in water before leaving, mixing with the roses to create the scent a façade leaves behind.

because the roses are gone, replaced with mourning flowers that remind me of iso, black seeping into red, fangs finding a creature with a scarred neck, blood on the charcoal-stained page. which consumes which, i am not sure. "we're low on redstone. gotta get a kill at some point, right?" i almost feel jamie's words echoed in my own, one of the only people who can catch my companion's gaze.

jamie, and me.

"it's dangerous out there," they murmur, "want me to come with you? two swords beats one."

bile, in the back of my throat. i cannot gather if he is right next to me, because if something goes wrong, i will freeze until told to do otherwise. if i am safer with or without him remains to be discussed. because there is strength in numbers, but i feel my strength unnecessary if they are around, and that is not a mindset i can have at this stage.

i reach upwards, blindly fiddling amongst the cornflowers and the twigs i attached to act as thorns before i find the poppy. it makes its way upwards, nudging itself at the top of his ear, petals just avoiding its point. "here. i can't leave for good if you have this, right?"

iso cannot meet my eyes. it hurts like a hunger, so i offer my best smile, hoping it conveys how much i would rather paint with blood than sketch with charcoal, how much i despise the darkness the night creates. the moon is so dim faraway torches are more tempting.

like the warmth of a fireplace they look at me, chasing away the chill, the layer of too much too much faint compared to the wispy strands of light he gives off. "can you promise you'll stay safe, moth?"

"as much as i can promise that this house is made of spruce." my smile doesn't stretch as far as it should, because i am nocturnal only in theory, and my fatigue sets in even further when all i want is but a whispered ask away. i cast it off. "don't worry yourself, acid. i'll be back before dawn."

before they have the chance to object, to offer anything further, i am out in the night. forest presses in all around me, even as the crunching of my footsteps on a gravel path drowns out the sound of nearby mobs. when i take out my torch, it is as red as my surroundings seem to be lately, but there is not enough flame to justify it as an expense -

my ally does not know where all of our redstone keeps going -

so i shiver, fearful that my wings and my noise make me stand out like blood on charcoal, prey to larger bugs. that instinct rears its head when i catch my hair on webs or hear a hisssss from afar, and it is sickly green, neon and pulsing and melancholy compared to the sour taste of red haze; if iso is a healing potion that stings going down, i grant night vision with addiction to the blinding.

my fingers are covered in dust that makes men monsters, glows when i hold it up to torchlight, reminds me that i need to brace the sour to get to the sweet. when i am a panicked and inconsequential thing thrashing around blindly, redstone keeps me ethereal, because iso is reflected in it.

when i get back, the sky is tinged the shade of pink my fingers will be even after a good wash, or the tips of my ears under the scrutiny of an enemy - when we go to meet opposing factions, iso makes sure my hair is covering my ears, so they do not see my weakness. i hear voices inside, so as sneakily as i can muster, i press my pink, pink ears to the door. i hear jamie, names like gray and mulsea and even mine getting thrown around, but iso's words are quiet enough where they are obscured.

i open the door. any conversation comes to a halt, though i can see the way this interaction has irritated the both of them, my ally's eyes wavering like blood in the water. jamie's are wide as saucers, living up to his honorary title, and he asks, "why are you back so early?"

"what does it matter to you?" iso snaps.

jamie turns on his heel and leaves. i sidestep him, giving our ally an awkward smile, still not sure what had just happened. iso sucks in a breath through their teeth when the door is left open, and when it slams, a vase nearly topples to the ground. my eyes are questioning, but he gives me no indication that anything can happened, only sighing and leading me with their eyes to somewhere warmer.

~~~~~~

ended up around 1.1k words … hope yall liked it :D

[the-canary-wives]

it. it had not occurred to me that we could make fanfics of this. wait. wAIT. WAIT FRICK MY NEURONS HAVE ACTIVATED AND NOW I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING.

[the-canary-wives]

wait hold on can i lowkey write Gray's pov of moth and iso's whole Situation

[multishipper33]

YESSS YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION AND. I HOPE ISO’S???

[the-canary-wives]

WOOOOOOO (im already 830 words in. i. why can i not do this for my vsmp wips.)

(ALSO YOURE AWARE THAT ISO'S ACC GOT SENT TO EEBY DEEBY, RIGHT? THEY HAVE A NEW ONE NOW! JUST TRYING TO SPREAD THE WORD :DD!)

[the-canary-wives]

*ahem*

CHARACTERS: me (as Gray), and mentioned Moth ('tis thou) and Iso @theabolisolation :DD

~DISCLAIMER~: this is a fictional work that is NOT NECESSARILY CANON to Second Seed, the concept which it is based on. This is mostly just me trying to properly characterize Gray and explore her perception of the events around her!!

TW/CW: mentions of a toxic relationship, mentions of death, realizing that your friend is a bad person, contemplations of gray morality and general introspection.

helpless, adj • marked by an inability to act or react

—- — —

Gray had the inherent ability to make just about anywhere a home.

Sure, there was the ever-so-common rhetoric that it was people who made a home, not just a location. Gray would beg to differ. Gray had stayed in many-a-home in her time, not all of which were comforting due to the presence of others.

She’d had her fair share of friends, of course—anywhere she went, she made it a habit to be kind to her neighbors. Gray liked being kind, yes, but it was also something she kept in the back of her mind as strategic. If all were to go wrong, she’d need someone to borrow a cup of sugar from, as the saying often goes.

Her homes had, from time to time, been shaped by the people around her. She once stayed in a swamp, damp and too hot and miserable, just for the company. She’d moved on eventually, to greener pastures—she never stayed anywhere too long, not anymore—but that sweet smile and those sad, watery eyes, and that wobbly, “are you sure you can’t stay,” almost clung to her.

All the same, though, she’d made plenty of homes in places without any humans at all. This lovely brook, running over smoothened stones, babbling endlessly through the nights. The stars had been clear, and the air had been crisp. The animals were plentiful, the soil was fruitful for farming. After a few peaceful months, the silence grew pressing, and Gray moved on once more.

Gray was a traveller. She never lingered long. And yet, each house she made was a house she did her best to make a home.

If it didn’t hurt to leave behind, if it wasn’t a conscious choice to close the door for the final time and tear herself away from a home, then it wouldn’t hurt. The only real way for a place to stick to her, she’d found, was through that agonizing pain of loss. Maybe that was a cruelty she didn’t deserve, but she took pleasure in it. Every day she spent dawdling, delaying the inevitable; each moment she spent leaned against the front door, tracing the floorboards with a half-lidded gaze until they were an inflamed scar on the back of her retinas. It all mattered.

There was a new sort of pain now. The pain of grief, hot like melted candle wax on her fingertips, stinging like splattered oil from a pan. Nobody had died, not yet. But the thunderstorm raging outside of her window was awful. Each flash of lightning could be a death. Each rumble of thunder could be a looming threat.

Which strike would be the first warning? Which delayed canary was the one to die?

If someone is to be the canary, she mused, eyes flicking out of her window, what is to be the coal mine? What danger does await us? Death would not be kind to me, I think. She would scorn me. Is her looming presence my own mine? Will her smothering hand be the toxin to choke my lungs? Is that inevitability my own undoing?

Gray could not know. She wouldn’t, not until too late. Another stinging pain through her chest, brief and sharp. Another thought that would linger, a memory that would stain. Good.

She turned back to the sword in her hands. She was no good at forging weapons, but she’d been able to get enough on the good side of Iso to be given one. She would admit that the rafters incident had certainly been an interesting way to introduce herself, but it’d ended well, albeit with a few diamonds lost.

It was worth it to befriend the others. Borrowing a cup of sugar, right? Some of them were more violent than others, but she could shrug that off. It was a death game, after all; people had different ways of… managing.

She pursed her lips, eyes drawn back to the window, hand falling to her side. The tip of her sword barely scraped the wood flooring.

Gray clouds spiraled, far above.

Iso was… an interesting character.

He’d been nice, she admitted, but even when they’d first met, Gray had noticed something off. She couldn’t place it. Not then, and she could still just barely grasp what might have been the root of the problem.

Now, Gray wasn’t observant. Especially when it came to people. But even she could tell that something was off between Iso and Moth.

Maybe it wasn’t any of her business! That’s what she’d told herself, day after day, visiting that wooden house, day after day.

After one of the two had lost their first life, green burning into yellow—she could no longer remember which it had been—the house felt pressing. Gentle worry had pressed into tense concern, and what Gray had seen as a lovely friendship began to give the warning flags of something other.

Hugs looked too tight; words felt too sharp. The light in Moth’s eyes metaphorically dimmed, and Iso’s own began to quite literally glow.

Something about that felt wrong.

A sharp glare on Iso’s part, a sudden clinginess from Moth. The flickering light of a torch in the distance, and a hurried goodbye from Moth before Gray could only catch the barest glimpse of purple hair in the distance.

A moth to a flame. A fish to an angler.

Gray hated it. But what could she do about it? Realistically—she hated reality, sometimes—the answer was a big, fat, nothing.

Direct confrontation would just lead to being shut out by Iso. Any chance of being able to reach Moth could be compromised.

Subtly offering an out? Maybe. But a maybe it’ll work was still a maybe it’ll blow up in my face. Too risky. At best, Gray could help Moth escape, but then Iso would be after the both of them.

She could just try and be there, maybe. Not doing anything, per se—plausible deniability worked wonders—but offering a helping hand to Moth. A few resources slipped into her hands behind Iso’s back, a promise of safety (from any dangerous red names, Gray could say), an extra bed in her house for “emergencies”. Precautions, things to let Moth know that, should she be left without a teammate, Gray would happily welcome the moth into her cottage.

Maybe if Iso went out early… no, no, that was a bad idea. Killing Iso would only draw Moth’s ire. Probably. Maybe not? No.

Agh! Look, Gray said she was bad with people!

She could think of long-term plans later. She was bleary with sleep deprivation, anyhow. It was late, late enough to hear the distant screeching of the hungered phantoms of the night. She’ll sleep on it. In the morning, perhaps some sort of epiphany would hit her.

Gray went about her nightly routine. Drawing the curtains, double-checking her food stores to make sure no bugs or rodents had crept in, ensuring the place was tidy, and changing into her night clothes.

The last step of her night was to turn off the lights, which she did. She stepped outside, hand stretching to flick off her lantern, when she faltered. If she turned off the lantern, well, things would continue as normal. And if she left it on… what if it drew a moth?

No, no, absolutely not. Those were the thoughts of someone like Iso. The very person Gray wished to fend off from Moth in the first place! Gray would not stoop to that level.

No.

She couldn’t.

But if Moth, by some stupid facet of the universe, was wandering around at night—one as dreary and rainy and lightning-filled as that one—would it not be the perfect opportunity for Gray to pull her away from Iso? To claim that it was dangerous for her to be wandering around, when nobody in the area had a lightning rod; to coax a clear answer out of Moth about whether she felt safe?

…

No.

She… she couldn’t.

But…

…

The lantern stayed on.

Gray sped off to bed, shoving her face into her pillow, and pretending not to perceive the world. She stared listlessly into the dark for many long hours. She must have eventually fallen asleep, as she awoke to a thin light shining through a crack in her curtains.

(At dawn, dim with the rumbling of those still-present storm clouds, Gray sat on her footsteps, staring blankly at a patch of grass in front of the hanging lantern. Some blades had been… not singed, but damaged. As if droplets of acid had landed on them. The poppy in her flower pot was now entirely unrecognizable, merely a thick stem, and ashen stumps of petals.

Even when the thunderstorm finally faded, the swirling clouds in her head remained, a thick swath of complexity trapped within Gray’s mind. Her forehead fell to rest on her knees.

She felt helpless.)

[theabolisolation]

yess yesss... Iso is the bad guy... He's making damn sure of that... Ehehehe...

I love this SM I'm crunching it

[the-canary-wives]

aaa!!!! :DD

iso im stealing maddie. my fren now. moth protection squad. *dangles lantern* :D (dont kill me please)

[theabolisolation]

Maddie? Hm, odd, I only know Moth. And I believe that Moth is, ah, my friend and I've made it clear that they are the silly to my sauce. Are they yours? Aha!~ Nice try, Gray, but stick to your biggest offense being breaking into the rafters, heaven knows I'd already shoot you with a flame arrow for that one, you'd beg me to just do that if you happened to get a little too close to "Maddie." ^^

Best wishes! Our doors are always open 😁

[the-canary-wives]

O_O

aha

yup! mhm! you got it! uh. are. are we still on for cookie baking tomorrow. i can bring the cocoa beans. uhm. uh. aha.

[theabolisolation]

Of course!!! I'd love to cookie bake!!! :D

[the-canary-wives]

YAAAAAY COOKIES ARE STILL ON! okay cool i can work with that. friendship repaired!! cookies save the day! (for now!) (probably?)

[theabolisolation]

ish! :D

[multishipper33]

pyrophilia, n.

CHARACTERS: myself as moth, @abolisolation as iso/acid, and @jimmysbrainandsoul as jamie. (two other members of ss, gray and mulsea, are named)

BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER: this is a FICTIONAL WORK about the second seed universe/cast from the pov of moth, one half of the Silly Saucers. now. this is not canon unless everyone agrees it to be so - the only things you should take are mannerisms and thoughts moth may have. for instance, towards the end of the chapter, we see the tail end of a fight between iso and jamie… which HAS NOT HAPPENED. fictional. not canon. just messing around :D

tw/cw: toxic/codependent relationship (mentioned here on iso’s end: overprotectiveness/attachment, anger; mentioned on my end is separation anxiety + the whole addiction thing taints my perception of iso a LOTTT), blood used as a metaphor quite a bit, mentions of killing/red names/death in the context of a life series, addiction (a part-moth character being addicted to red light sources). lmk if i missed any !!

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

pyrophilia, n. • the (often unhealthy) love of fire, flames, or explosives.

~~~~~~

people wax far too much poetic about the difference of a house and a home - really, it is only in concept that they contrast. a house is an architectural structure. there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die. not necessarily the builder, nor the person who approves the design, but an innocent bystander, someone hoping for a roof over their heads. a home is a figurative thing, a place of belonging.

there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die.

i cannot feel the pair of eyes upon my neck as i sort through chests, but i see them dance along the wood, little slits cutting through red nectar as scarring in the wood matches up with scarring in the gaze. red is nowhere else to be found, though, as my stash of redstone was all used for traps. i suppose it makes sense, we have to get kills at some point, but what does it matter if the last thing someone sees is a sight as damning as red, red eyes? a trap offers anonymity, but if you known well enough, fingers will point in your direction.

still, i gather up sticks and turn around. like blood in charcoal, iso's eyes are discs of liquid, tearing real holes through my fake excuses the same way acid forms faux scars on wings that could carry me far, far away if i so wished. they only move when i do, sliding the disc of charcoal, daring to make a mark on the paper that has been clean until now. when all the dust is brushed off, the scene may be tragic - it may be beautiful.

"out mining again?" his voice cuts through my reverie, tinged with too little venom to sting. when i stand my flower crown feels heavy, as though i'd dipped it in water before leaving, mixing with the roses to create the scent a façade leaves behind.

because the roses are gone, replaced with mourning flowers that remind me of iso, black seeping into red, fangs finding a creature with a scarred neck, blood on the charcoal-stained page. which consumes which, i am not sure. "we're low on redstone. gotta get a kill at some point, right?" i almost feel jamie's words echoed in my own, one of the only people who can catch my companion's gaze.

jamie, and me.

"it's dangerous out there," they murmur, "want me to come with you? two swords beats one."

bile, in the back of my throat. i cannot gather if he is right next to me, because if something goes wrong, i will freeze until told to do otherwise. if i am safer with or without him remains to be discussed. because there is strength in numbers, but i feel my strength unnecessary if they are around, and that is not a mindset i can have at this stage.

i reach upwards, blindly fiddling amongst the cornflowers and the twigs i attached to act as thorns before i find the poppy. it makes its way upwards, nudging itself at the top of his ear, petals just avoiding its point. "here. i can't leave for good if you have this, right?"

iso cannot meet my eyes. it hurts like a hunger, so i offer my best smile, hoping it conveys how much i would rather paint with blood than sketch with charcoal, how much i despise the darkness the night creates. the moon is so dim faraway torches are more tempting.

like the warmth of a fireplace they look at me, chasing away the chill, the layer of too much too much faint compared to the wispy strands of light he gives off. "can you promise you'll stay safe, moth?"

"as much as i can promise that this house is made of spruce." my smile doesn't stretch as far as it should, because i am nocturnal only in theory, and my fatigue sets in even further when all i want is but a whispered ask away. i cast it off. "don't worry yourself, acid. i'll be back before dawn."

before they have the chance to object, to offer anything further, i am out in the night. forest presses in all around me, even as the crunching of my footsteps on a gravel path drowns out the sound of nearby mobs. when i take out my torch, it is as red as my surroundings seem to be lately, but there is not enough flame to justify it as an expense -

my ally does not know where all of our redstone keeps going -

so i shiver, fearful that my wings and my noise make me stand out like blood on charcoal, prey to larger bugs. that instinct rears its head when i catch my hair on webs or hear a hisssss from afar, and it is sickly green, neon and pulsing and melancholy compared to the sour taste of red haze; if iso is a healing potion that stings going down, i grant night vision with addiction to the blinding.

my fingers are covered in dust that makes men monsters, glows when i hold it up to torchlight, reminds me that i need to brace the sour to get to the sweet. when i am a panicked and inconsequential thing thrashing around blindly, redstone keeps me ethereal, because iso is reflected in it.

when i get back, the sky is tinged the shade of pink my fingers will be even after a good wash, or the tips of my ears under the scrutiny of an enemy - when we go to meet opposing factions, iso makes sure my hair is covering my ears, so they do not see my weakness. i hear voices inside, so as sneakily as i can muster, i press my pink, pink ears to the door. i hear jamie, names like gray and mulsea and even mine getting thrown around, but iso's words are quiet enough where they are obscured.

i open the door. any conversation comes to a halt, though i can see the way this interaction has irritated the both of them, my ally's eyes wavering like blood in the water. jamie's are wide as saucers, living up to his honorary title, and he asks, "why are you back so early?"

"what does it matter to you?" iso snaps.

jamie turns on his heel and leaves. i sidestep him, giving our ally an awkward smile, still not sure what had just happened. iso sucks in a breath through their teeth when the door is left open, and when it slams, a vase nearly topples to the ground. my eyes are questioning, but he gives me no indication that anything can happened, only sighing and leading me with their eyes to somewhere warmer.

~~~~~~

ended up around 1.1k words … hope yall liked it :D

[the-canary-wives]

it. it had not occurred to me that we could make fanfics of this. wait. wAIT. WAIT FRICK MY NEURONS HAVE ACTIVATED AND NOW I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING.

[the-canary-wives]

wait hold on can i lowkey write Gray's pov of moth and iso's whole Situation

[multishipper33]

YESSS YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION AND. I HOPE ISO’S???

[the-canary-wives]

WOOOOOOO (im already 830 words in. i. why can i not do this for my vsmp wips.)

(ALSO YOURE AWARE THAT ISO'S ACC GOT SENT TO EEBY DEEBY, RIGHT? THEY HAVE A NEW ONE NOW! JUST TRYING TO SPREAD THE WORD :DD!)

[the-canary-wives]

*ahem*

CHARACTERS: me (as Gray), and mentioned Moth ('tis thou) and Iso @theabolisolation :DD

~DISCLAIMER~: this is a fictional work that is NOT NECESSARILY CANON to Second Seed, the concept which it is based on. This is mostly just me trying to properly characterize Gray and explore her perception of the events around her!!

TW/CW: mentions of a toxic relationship, mentions of death, realizing that your friend is a bad person, contemplations of gray morality and general introspection.

helpless, adj • marked by an inability to act or react

—- — —

Gray had the inherent ability to make just about anywhere a home.

Sure, there was the ever-so-common rhetoric that it was people who made a home, not just a location. Gray would beg to differ. Gray had stayed in many-a-home in her time, not all of which were comforting due to the presence of others.

She’d had her fair share of friends, of course—anywhere she went, she made it a habit to be kind to her neighbors. Gray liked being kind, yes, but it was also something she kept in the back of her mind as strategic. If all were to go wrong, she’d need someone to borrow a cup of sugar from, as the saying often goes.

Her homes had, from time to time, been shaped by the people around her. She once stayed in a swamp, damp and too hot and miserable, just for the company. She’d moved on eventually, to greener pastures—she never stayed anywhere too long, not anymore—but that sweet smile and those sad, watery eyes, and that wobbly, “are you sure you can’t stay,” almost clung to her.

All the same, though, she’d made plenty of homes in places without any humans at all. This lovely brook, running over smoothened stones, babbling endlessly through the nights. The stars had been clear, and the air had been crisp. The animals were plentiful, the soil was fruitful for farming. After a few peaceful months, the silence grew pressing, and Gray moved on once more.

Gray was a traveller. She never lingered long. And yet, each house she made was a house she did her best to make a home.

If it didn’t hurt to leave behind, if it wasn’t a conscious choice to close the door for the final time and tear herself away from a home, then it wouldn’t hurt. The only real way for a place to stick to her, she’d found, was through that agonizing pain of loss. Maybe that was a cruelty she didn’t deserve, but she took pleasure in it. Every day she spent dawdling, delaying the inevitable; each moment she spent leaned against the front door, tracing the floorboards with a half-lidded gaze until they were an inflamed scar on the back of her retinas. It all mattered.

There was a new sort of pain now. The pain of grief, hot like melted candle wax on her fingertips, stinging like splattered oil from a pan. Nobody had died, not yet. But the thunderstorm raging outside of her window was awful. Each flash of lightning could be a death. Each rumble of thunder could be a looming threat.

Which strike would be the first warning? Which delayed canary was the one to die?

If someone is to be the canary, she mused, eyes flicking out of her window, what is to be the coal mine? What danger does await us? Death would not be kind to me, I think. She would scorn me. Is her looming presence my own mine? Will her smothering hand be the toxin to choke my lungs? Is that inevitability my own undoing?

Gray could not know. She wouldn’t, not until too late. Another stinging pain through her chest, brief and sharp. Another thought that would linger, a memory that would stain. Good.

She turned back to the sword in her hands. She was no good at forging weapons, but she’d been able to get enough on the good side of Iso to be given one. She would admit that the rafters incident had certainly been an interesting way to introduce herself, but it’d ended well, albeit with a few diamonds lost.

It was worth it to befriend the others. Borrowing a cup of sugar, right? Some of them were more violent than others, but she could shrug that off. It was a death game, after all; people had different ways of… managing.

She pursed her lips, eyes drawn back to the window, hand falling to her side. The tip of her sword barely scraped the wood flooring.

Gray clouds spiraled, far above.

Iso was… an interesting character.

He’d been nice, she admitted, but even when they’d first met, Gray had noticed something off. She couldn’t place it. Not then, and she could still just barely grasp what might have been the root of the problem.

Now, Gray wasn’t observant. Especially when it came to people. But even she could tell that something was off between Iso and Moth.

Maybe it wasn’t any of her business! That’s what she’d told herself, day after day, visiting that wooden house, day after day.

After one of the two had lost their first life, green burning into yellow—she could no longer remember which it had been—the house felt pressing. Gentle worry had pressed into tense concern, and what Gray had seen as a lovely friendship began to give the warning flags of something other.

Hugs looked too tight; words felt too sharp. The light in Moth’s eyes metaphorically dimmed, and Iso’s own began to quite literally glow.

Something about that felt wrong.

A sharp glare on Iso’s part, a sudden clinginess from Moth. The flickering light of a torch in the distance, and a hurried goodbye from Moth before Gray could only catch the barest glimpse of purple hair in the distance.

A moth to a flame. A fish to an angler.

Gray hated it. But what could she do about it? Realistically—she hated reality, sometimes—the answer was a big, fat, nothing.

Direct confrontation would just lead to being shut out by Iso. Any chance of being able to reach Moth could be compromised.

Subtly offering an out? Maybe. But a maybe it’ll work was still a maybe it’ll blow up in my face. Too risky. At best, Gray could help Moth escape, but then Iso would be after the both of them.

She could just try and be there, maybe. Not doing anything, per se—plausible deniability worked wonders—but offering a helping hand to Moth. A few resources slipped into her hands behind Iso’s back, a promise of safety (from any dangerous red names, Gray could say), an extra bed in her house for “emergencies”. Precautions, things to let Moth know that, should she be left without a teammate, Gray would happily welcome the moth into her cottage.

Maybe if Iso went out early… no, no, that was a bad idea. Killing Iso would only draw Moth’s ire. Probably. Maybe not? No.

Agh! Look, Gray said she was bad with people!

She could think of long-term plans later. She was bleary with sleep deprivation, anyhow. It was late, late enough to hear the distant screeching of the hungered phantoms of the night. She’ll sleep on it. In the morning, perhaps some sort of epiphany would hit her.

Gray went about her nightly routine. Drawing the curtains, double-checking her food stores to make sure no bugs or rodents had crept in, ensuring the place was tidy, and changing into her night clothes.

The last step of her night was to turn off the lights, which she did. She stepped outside, hand stretching to flick off her lantern, when she faltered. If she turned off the lantern, well, things would continue as normal. And if she left it on… what if it drew a moth?

No, no, absolutely not. Those were the thoughts of someone like Iso. The very person Gray wished to fend off from Moth in the first place! Gray would not stoop to that level.

No.

She couldn’t.

But if Moth, by some stupid facet of the universe, was wandering around at night—one as dreary and rainy and lightning-filled as that one—would it not be the perfect opportunity for Gray to pull her away from Iso? To claim that it was dangerous for her to be wandering around, when nobody in the area had a lightning rod; to coax a clear answer out of Moth about whether she felt safe?

…

No.

She… she couldn’t.

But…

…

The lantern stayed on.

Gray sped off to bed, shoving her face into her pillow, and pretending not to perceive the world. She stared listlessly into the dark for many long hours. She must have eventually fallen asleep, as she awoke to a thin light shining through a crack in her curtains.

(At dawn, dim with the rumbling of those still-present storm clouds, Gray sat on her footsteps, staring blankly at a patch of grass in front of the hanging lantern. Some blades had been… not singed, but damaged. As if droplets of acid had landed on them. The poppy in her flower pot was now entirely unrecognizable, merely a thick stem, and ashen stumps of petals.

Even when the thunderstorm finally faded, the swirling clouds in her head remained, a thick swath of complexity trapped within Gray’s mind. Her forehead fell to rest on her knees.

She felt helpless.)

[theabolisolation]

yess yesss... Iso is the bad guy... He's making damn sure of that... Ehehehe...

I love this SM I'm crunching it

[the-canary-wives]

aaa!!!! :DD

iso im stealing maddie. my fren now. moth protection squad. *dangles lantern* :D (dont kill me please)

[theabolisolation]

Maddie? Hm, odd, I only know Moth. And I believe that Moth is, ah, my friend and I've made it clear that they are the silly to my sauce. Are they yours? Aha!~ Nice try, Gray, but stick to your biggest offense being breaking into the rafters, heaven knows I'd already shoot you with a flame arrow for that one, you'd beg me to just do that if you happened to get a little too close to "Maddie." ^^

Best wishes! Our doors are always open 😁

[the-canary-wives]

O_O

aha

yup! mhm! you got it! uh. are. are we still on for cookie baking tomorrow. i can bring the cocoa beans. uhm. uh. aha.

[theabolisolation]

Of course!!! I'd love to cookie bake!!! :D

[multishipper33]

pyrophilia, n.

CHARACTERS: myself as moth, @abolisolation as iso/acid, and @jimmysbrainandsoul as jamie. (two other members of ss, gray and mulsea, are named)

BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER: this is a FICTIONAL WORK about the second seed universe/cast from the pov of moth, one half of the Silly Saucers. now. this is not canon unless everyone agrees it to be so - the only things you should take are mannerisms and thoughts moth may have. for instance, towards the end of the chapter, we see the tail end of a fight between iso and jamie… which HAS NOT HAPPENED. fictional. not canon. just messing around :D

tw/cw: toxic/codependent relationship (mentioned here on iso’s end: overprotectiveness/attachment, anger; mentioned on my end is separation anxiety + the whole addiction thing taints my perception of iso a LOTTT), blood used as a metaphor quite a bit, mentions of killing/red names/death in the context of a life series, addiction (a part-moth character being addicted to red light sources). lmk if i missed any !!

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

pyrophilia, n. • the (often unhealthy) love of fire, flames, or explosives.

~~~~~~

people wax far too much poetic about the difference of a house and a home - really, it is only in concept that they contrast. a house is an architectural structure. there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die. not necessarily the builder, nor the person who approves the design, but an innocent bystander, someone hoping for a roof over their heads. a home is a figurative thing, a place of belonging.

there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die.

i cannot feel the pair of eyes upon my neck as i sort through chests, but i see them dance along the wood, little slits cutting through red nectar as scarring in the wood matches up with scarring in the gaze. red is nowhere else to be found, though, as my stash of redstone was all used for traps. i suppose it makes sense, we have to get kills at some point, but what does it matter if the last thing someone sees is a sight as damning as red, red eyes? a trap offers anonymity, but if you known well enough, fingers will point in your direction.

still, i gather up sticks and turn around. like blood in charcoal, iso's eyes are discs of liquid, tearing real holes through my fake excuses the same way acid forms faux scars on wings that could carry me far, far away if i so wished. they only move when i do, sliding the disc of charcoal, daring to make a mark on the paper that has been clean until now. when all the dust is brushed off, the scene may be tragic - it may be beautiful.

"out mining again?" his voice cuts through my reverie, tinged with too little venom to sting. when i stand my flower crown feels heavy, as though i'd dipped it in water before leaving, mixing with the roses to create the scent a façade leaves behind.

because the roses are gone, replaced with mourning flowers that remind me of iso, black seeping into red, fangs finding a creature with a scarred neck, blood on the charcoal-stained page. which consumes which, i am not sure. "we're low on redstone. gotta get a kill at some point, right?" i almost feel jamie's words echoed in my own, one of the only people who can catch my companion's gaze.

jamie, and me.

"it's dangerous out there," they murmur, "want me to come with you? two swords beats one."

bile, in the back of my throat. i cannot gather if he is right next to me, because if something goes wrong, i will freeze until told to do otherwise. if i am safer with or without him remains to be discussed. because there is strength in numbers, but i feel my strength unnecessary if they are around, and that is not a mindset i can have at this stage.

i reach upwards, blindly fiddling amongst the cornflowers and the twigs i attached to act as thorns before i find the poppy. it makes its way upwards, nudging itself at the top of his ear, petals just avoiding its point. "here. i can't leave for good if you have this, right?"

iso cannot meet my eyes. it hurts like a hunger, so i offer my best smile, hoping it conveys how much i would rather paint with blood than sketch with charcoal, how much i despise the darkness the night creates. the moon is so dim faraway torches are more tempting.

like the warmth of a fireplace they look at me, chasing away the chill, the layer of too much too much faint compared to the wispy strands of light he gives off. "can you promise you'll stay safe, moth?"

"as much as i can promise that this house is made of spruce." my smile doesn't stretch as far as it should, because i am nocturnal only in theory, and my fatigue sets in even further when all i want is but a whispered ask away. i cast it off. "don't worry yourself, acid. i'll be back before dawn."

before they have the chance to object, to offer anything further, i am out in the night. forest presses in all around me, even as the crunching of my footsteps on a gravel path drowns out the sound of nearby mobs. when i take out my torch, it is as red as my surroundings seem to be lately, but there is not enough flame to justify it as an expense -

my ally does not know where all of our redstone keeps going -

so i shiver, fearful that my wings and my noise make me stand out like blood on charcoal, prey to larger bugs. that instinct rears its head when i catch my hair on webs or hear a hisssss from afar, and it is sickly green, neon and pulsing and melancholy compared to the sour taste of red haze; if iso is a healing potion that stings going down, i grant night vision with addiction to the blinding.

my fingers are covered in dust that makes men monsters, glows when i hold it up to torchlight, reminds me that i need to brace the sour to get to the sweet. when i am a panicked and inconsequential thing thrashing around blindly, redstone keeps me ethereal, because iso is reflected in it.

when i get back, the sky is tinged the shade of pink my fingers will be even after a good wash, or the tips of my ears under the scrutiny of an enemy - when we go to meet opposing factions, iso makes sure my hair is covering my ears, so they do not see my weakness. i hear voices inside, so as sneakily as i can muster, i press my pink, pink ears to the door. i hear jamie, names like gray and mulsea and even mine getting thrown around, but iso's words are quiet enough where they are obscured.

i open the door. any conversation comes to a halt, though i can see the way this interaction has irritated the both of them, my ally's eyes wavering like blood in the water. jamie's are wide as saucers, living up to his honorary title, and he asks, "why are you back so early?"

"what does it matter to you?" iso snaps.

jamie turns on his heel and leaves. i sidestep him, giving our ally an awkward smile, still not sure what had just happened. iso sucks in a breath through their teeth when the door is left open, and when it slams, a vase nearly topples to the ground. my eyes are questioning, but he gives me no indication that anything can happened, only sighing and leading me with their eyes to somewhere warmer.

~~~~~~

ended up around 1.1k words … hope yall liked it :D

[the-canary-wives]

it. it had not occurred to me that we could make fanfics of this. wait. wAIT. WAIT FRICK MY NEURONS HAVE ACTIVATED AND NOW I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING.

[the-canary-wives]

wait hold on can i lowkey write Gray's pov of moth and iso's whole Situation

[multishipper33]

YESSS YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION AND. I HOPE ISO’S???

[the-canary-wives]

WOOOOOOO (im already 830 words in. i. why can i not do this for my vsmp wips.)

(ALSO YOURE AWARE THAT ISO'S ACC GOT SENT TO EEBY DEEBY, RIGHT? THEY HAVE A NEW ONE NOW! JUST TRYING TO SPREAD THE WORD :DD!)

[the-canary-wives]

*ahem*

CHARACTERS: me (as Gray), and mentioned Moth ('tis thou) and Iso @theabolisolation :DD

~DISCLAIMER~: this is a fictional work that is NOT NECESSARILY CANON to Second Seed, the concept which it is based on. This is mostly just me trying to properly characterize Gray and explore her perception of the events around her!!

TW/CW: mentions of a toxic relationship, mentions of death, realizing that your friend is a bad person, contemplations of gray morality and general introspection.

helpless, adj • marked by an inability to act or react

—- — —

Gray had the inherent ability to make just about anywhere a home.

Sure, there was the ever-so-common rhetoric that it was people who made a home, not just a location. Gray would beg to differ. Gray had stayed in many-a-home in her time, not all of which were comforting due to the presence of others.

She’d had her fair share of friends, of course—anywhere she went, she made it a habit to be kind to her neighbors. Gray liked being kind, yes, but it was also something she kept in the back of her mind as strategic. If all were to go wrong, she’d need someone to borrow a cup of sugar from, as the saying often goes.

Her homes had, from time to time, been shaped by the people around her. She once stayed in a swamp, damp and too hot and miserable, just for the company. She’d moved on eventually, to greener pastures—she never stayed anywhere too long, not anymore—but that sweet smile and those sad, watery eyes, and that wobbly, “are you sure you can’t stay,” almost clung to her.

All the same, though, she’d made plenty of homes in places without any humans at all. This lovely brook, running over smoothened stones, babbling endlessly through the nights. The stars had been clear, and the air had been crisp. The animals were plentiful, the soil was fruitful for farming. After a few peaceful months, the silence grew pressing, and Gray moved on once more.

Gray was a traveller. She never lingered long. And yet, each house she made was a house she did her best to make a home.

If it didn’t hurt to leave behind, if it wasn’t a conscious choice to close the door for the final time and tear herself away from a home, then it wouldn’t hurt. The only real way for a place to stick to her, she’d found, was through that agonizing pain of loss. Maybe that was a cruelty she didn’t deserve, but she took pleasure in it. Every day she spent dawdling, delaying the inevitable; each moment she spent leaned against the front door, tracing the floorboards with a half-lidded gaze until they were an inflamed scar on the back of her retinas. It all mattered.

There was a new sort of pain now. The pain of grief, hot like melted candle wax on her fingertips, stinging like splattered oil from a pan. Nobody had died, not yet. But the thunderstorm raging outside of her window was awful. Each flash of lightning could be a death. Each rumble of thunder could be a looming threat.

Which strike would be the first warning? Which delayed canary was the one to die?

If someone is to be the canary, she mused, eyes flicking out of her window, what is to be the coal mine? What danger does await us? Death would not be kind to me, I think. She would scorn me. Is her looming presence my own mine? Will her smothering hand be the toxin to choke my lungs? Is that inevitability my own undoing?

Gray could not know. She wouldn’t, not until too late. Another stinging pain through her chest, brief and sharp. Another thought that would linger, a memory that would stain. Good.

She turned back to the sword in her hands. She was no good at forging weapons, but she’d been able to get enough on the good side of Iso to be given one. She would admit that the rafters incident had certainly been an interesting way to introduce herself, but it’d ended well, albeit with a few diamonds lost.

It was worth it to befriend the others. Borrowing a cup of sugar, right? Some of them were more violent than others, but she could shrug that off. It was a death game, after all; people had different ways of… managing.

She pursed her lips, eyes drawn back to the window, hand falling to her side. The tip of her sword barely scraped the wood flooring.

Gray clouds spiraled, far above.

Iso was… an interesting character.

He’d been nice, she admitted, but even when they’d first met, Gray had noticed something off. She couldn’t place it. Not then, and she could still just barely grasp what might have been the root of the problem.

Now, Gray wasn’t observant. Especially when it came to people. But even she could tell that something was off between Iso and Moth.

Maybe it wasn’t any of her business! That’s what she’d told herself, day after day, visiting that wooden house, day after day.

After one of the two had lost their first life, green burning into yellow—she could no longer remember which it had been—the house felt pressing. Gentle worry had pressed into tense concern, and what Gray had seen as a lovely friendship began to give the warning flags of something other.

Hugs looked too tight; words felt too sharp. The light in Moth’s eyes metaphorically dimmed, and Iso’s own began to quite literally glow.

Something about that felt wrong.

A sharp glare on Iso’s part, a sudden clinginess from Moth. The flickering light of a torch in the distance, and a hurried goodbye from Moth before Gray could only catch the barest glimpse of purple hair in the distance.

A moth to a flame. A fish to an angler.

Gray hated it. But what could she do about it? Realistically—she hated reality, sometimes—the answer was a big, fat, nothing.

Direct confrontation would just lead to being shut out by Iso. Any chance of being able to reach Moth could be compromised.

Subtly offering an out? Maybe. But a maybe it’ll work was still a maybe it’ll blow up in my face. Too risky. At best, Gray could help Moth escape, but then Iso would be after the both of them.

She could just try and be there, maybe. Not doing anything, per se—plausible deniability worked wonders—but offering a helping hand to Moth. A few resources slipped into her hands behind Iso’s back, a promise of safety (from any dangerous red names, Gray could say), an extra bed in her house for “emergencies”. Precautions, things to let Moth know that, should she be left without a teammate, Gray would happily welcome the moth into her cottage.

Maybe if Iso went out early… no, no, that was a bad idea. Killing Iso would only draw Moth’s ire. Probably. Maybe not? No.

Agh! Look, Gray said she was bad with people!

She could think of long-term plans later. She was bleary with sleep deprivation, anyhow. It was late, late enough to hear the distant screeching of the hungered phantoms of the night. She’ll sleep on it. In the morning, perhaps some sort of epiphany would hit her.

Gray went about her nightly routine. Drawing the curtains, double-checking her food stores to make sure no bugs or rodents had crept in, ensuring the place was tidy, and changing into her night clothes.

The last step of her night was to turn off the lights, which she did. She stepped outside, hand stretching to flick off her lantern, when she faltered. If she turned off the lantern, well, things would continue as normal. And if she left it on… what if it drew a moth?

No, no, absolutely not. Those were the thoughts of someone like Iso. The very person Gray wished to fend off from Moth in the first place! Gray would not stoop to that level.

No.

She couldn’t.

But if Moth, by some stupid facet of the universe, was wandering around at night—one as dreary and rainy and lightning-filled as that one—would it not be the perfect opportunity for Gray to pull her away from Iso? To claim that it was dangerous for her to be wandering around, when nobody in the area had a lightning rod; to coax a clear answer out of Moth about whether she felt safe?

…

No.

She… she couldn’t.

But…

…

The lantern stayed on.

Gray sped off to bed, shoving her face into her pillow, and pretending not to perceive the world. She stared listlessly into the dark for many long hours. She must have eventually fallen asleep, as she awoke to a thin light shining through a crack in her curtains.

(At dawn, dim with the rumbling of those still-present storm clouds, Gray sat on her footsteps, staring blankly at a patch of grass in front of the hanging lantern. Some blades had been… not singed, but damaged. As if droplets of acid had landed on them. The poppy in her flower pot was now entirely unrecognizable, merely a thick stem, and ashen stumps of petals.

Even when the thunderstorm finally faded, the swirling clouds in her head remained, a thick swath of complexity trapped within Gray’s mind. Her forehead fell to rest on her knees.

She felt helpless.)

[theabolisolation]

yess yesss... Iso is the bad guy... He's making damn sure of that... Ehehehe...

I love this SM I'm crunching it

[the-canary-wives]

aaa!!!! :DD

iso im stealing maddie. my fren now. moth protection squad. *dangles lantern* :D (dont kill me please)

[theabolisolation]

And hell, I might as well add to this. Not as good of a writer as you two are but I'll try lmfao (it's pretty short tho)

Warnings: unhealthy mindsets, manipulation, slight suicidal ideation, very light descriptions of torture

Friends are... Temporary. They get what they want and they leave. They leave you alone to rot in your own poison whilst you beg them to come back.

Well, not this time.

A red flicker met Moth's eyes as Iso shined them towards his friend, a light grin on his face. A certain someone had been making a few too many moves recently, so it was time to reign everything back into place.

"Moth, you're back, good to see you're safe!" A finger brushed a strand of Moth's hair behind her ear, a chuckle following. "With everyone seeming so interested in you recently, I was worried I'd see a death message pop up."

"You don't need to worry about me, Acid, I'm careful."

"I know, I know, it's just... you're not the best at fighting, heaven forbid someone surprise you, someone like... Gray, for example."

"Gray...?"

"Why yes! Gray!" Spinning his step to behind his friend, Iso placed a hand on her shoulder and tilted her head using his other to let the light still meet her eyes. "That girl has been getting awfully close to you, don't you think? I doubt it's innocent, I assume she's attempting to learn your weaknesses..."

"She wouldn't, I... don't think..." Moth's words trailed off, her gaze becoming more dulled.

"Why don't you stay inside tonight, where it's safe? I'll take care of everything. Okay?"

"Yeah... I'll just stay inside..."

"Good!" Iso patted her head and ushered her towards their bedroom, before he allowed that pleasant smile to drop, Moth out of sight. There was a visit he needed to make.

Each step steady, each curtain closed, Iso headed into the potions room, grabbing one of his potions of poison and stuffing it into one of his pockets. Moth didn't come in here much anymore, she had no reason to after all... Heh... But that meant she wouldn't notice if something were missing. Perfect.

Hm... How easy it would be to drink the very poison in his hand, to end his last life and leave someone rather than someone leaving him...

No matter, the poison wasn't meant to be drank, not by anybody.

Simply exiting the base, Iso watched as the sun fully set, night falling upon the world, torches leading the way to a path. He had every route memorized, but the sign still told him where he was going anyhow; Gray's base.

Footsteps quietly fell into a rhythm against the dirt, the quiet night a perfect time for thoughts to circle around. The ways he could deal with others that attempted to get between him and Moth. Perhaps death was too sweet a treat for them, really. They deserved to have scars ingrained in their skin, and Gray? Well, she was trying to "save" Moth, clearly.

Moth didn't need saving.

She was safe.

Safe with Iso.

Safe and content.

She didn't need Gray.

And Gray surely didn't need Moth that badly. Hopefully a clear warning would keep her out of his way.

Approaching the lantern light,—still lit, evidently for a reason— Iso knelt beneath it, leaning over the poppy plant and taking the bottle of poison from his pocket, popping the cork off and tossing it in the grass. He tilted the bottle, pouring the poison messily over the flower, watching as the beautiful red faded away, a paper within a flame, or perhaps... A moth wing.

Satisfied, he threw the bottle along with the cork and stood, glancing to the front door. There was no use going further now, this would be enough of a message.

Turning back, Iso snickered to himself, gazing to the stars above. He'd just tell Moth he was out mining, and he knew very well that Moth would believe him. Afterall, it wasn't as if she could make the choice to distrust him...

[multishipper33]

pyrophilia, n.

CHARACTERS: myself as moth, @abolisolation as iso/acid, and @jimmysbrainandsoul as jamie. (two other members of ss, gray and mulsea, are named)

BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER: this is a FICTIONAL WORK about the second seed universe/cast from the pov of moth, one half of the Silly Saucers. now. this is not canon unless everyone agrees it to be so - the only things you should take are mannerisms and thoughts moth may have. for instance, towards the end of the chapter, we see the tail end of a fight between iso and jamie… which HAS NOT HAPPENED. fictional. not canon. just messing around :D

tw/cw: toxic/codependent relationship (mentioned here on iso’s end: overprotectiveness/attachment, anger; mentioned on my end is separation anxiety + the whole addiction thing taints my perception of iso a LOTTT), blood used as a metaphor quite a bit, mentions of killing/red names/death in the context of a life series, addiction (a part-moth character being addicted to red light sources). lmk if i missed any !!

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

pyrophilia, n. • the (often unhealthy) love of fire, flames, or explosives.

~~~~~~

people wax far too much poetic about the difference of a house and a home - really, it is only in concept that they contrast. a house is an architectural structure. there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die. not necessarily the builder, nor the person who approves the design, but an innocent bystander, someone hoping for a roof over their heads. a home is a figurative thing, a place of belonging.

there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die.

i cannot feel the pair of eyes upon my neck as i sort through chests, but i see them dance along the wood, little slits cutting through red nectar as scarring in the wood matches up with scarring in the gaze. red is nowhere else to be found, though, as my stash of redstone was all used for traps. i suppose it makes sense, we have to get kills at some point, but what does it matter if the last thing someone sees is a sight as damning as red, red eyes? a trap offers anonymity, but if you known well enough, fingers will point in your direction.

still, i gather up sticks and turn around. like blood in charcoal, iso's eyes are discs of liquid, tearing real holes through my fake excuses the same way acid forms faux scars on wings that could carry me far, far away if i so wished. they only move when i do, sliding the disc of charcoal, daring to make a mark on the paper that has been clean until now. when all the dust is brushed off, the scene may be tragic - it may be beautiful.

"out mining again?" his voice cuts through my reverie, tinged with too little venom to sting. when i stand my flower crown feels heavy, as though i'd dipped it in water before leaving, mixing with the roses to create the scent a façade leaves behind.

because the roses are gone, replaced with mourning flowers that remind me of iso, black seeping into red, fangs finding a creature with a scarred neck, blood on the charcoal-stained page. which consumes which, i am not sure. "we're low on redstone. gotta get a kill at some point, right?" i almost feel jamie's words echoed in my own, one of the only people who can catch my companion's gaze.

jamie, and me.

"it's dangerous out there," they murmur, "want me to come with you? two swords beats one."

bile, in the back of my throat. i cannot gather if he is right next to me, because if something goes wrong, i will freeze until told to do otherwise. if i am safer with or without him remains to be discussed. because there is strength in numbers, but i feel my strength unnecessary if they are around, and that is not a mindset i can have at this stage.

i reach upwards, blindly fiddling amongst the cornflowers and the twigs i attached to act as thorns before i find the poppy. it makes its way upwards, nudging itself at the top of his ear, petals just avoiding its point. "here. i can't leave for good if you have this, right?"

iso cannot meet my eyes. it hurts like a hunger, so i offer my best smile, hoping it conveys how much i would rather paint with blood than sketch with charcoal, how much i despise the darkness the night creates. the moon is so dim faraway torches are more tempting.

like the warmth of a fireplace they look at me, chasing away the chill, the layer of too much too much faint compared to the wispy strands of light he gives off. "can you promise you'll stay safe, moth?"

"as much as i can promise that this house is made of spruce." my smile doesn't stretch as far as it should, because i am nocturnal only in theory, and my fatigue sets in even further when all i want is but a whispered ask away. i cast it off. "don't worry yourself, acid. i'll be back before dawn."

before they have the chance to object, to offer anything further, i am out in the night. forest presses in all around me, even as the crunching of my footsteps on a gravel path drowns out the sound of nearby mobs. when i take out my torch, it is as red as my surroundings seem to be lately, but there is not enough flame to justify it as an expense -

my ally does not know where all of our redstone keeps going -

so i shiver, fearful that my wings and my noise make me stand out like blood on charcoal, prey to larger bugs. that instinct rears its head when i catch my hair on webs or hear a hisssss from afar, and it is sickly green, neon and pulsing and melancholy compared to the sour taste of red haze; if iso is a healing potion that stings going down, i grant night vision with addiction to the blinding.

my fingers are covered in dust that makes men monsters, glows when i hold it up to torchlight, reminds me that i need to brace the sour to get to the sweet. when i am a panicked and inconsequential thing thrashing around blindly, redstone keeps me ethereal, because iso is reflected in it.

when i get back, the sky is tinged the shade of pink my fingers will be even after a good wash, or the tips of my ears under the scrutiny of an enemy - when we go to meet opposing factions, iso makes sure my hair is covering my ears, so they do not see my weakness. i hear voices inside, so as sneakily as i can muster, i press my pink, pink ears to the door. i hear jamie, names like gray and mulsea and even mine getting thrown around, but iso's words are quiet enough where they are obscured.

i open the door. any conversation comes to a halt, though i can see the way this interaction has irritated the both of them, my ally's eyes wavering like blood in the water. jamie's are wide as saucers, living up to his honorary title, and he asks, "why are you back so early?"

"what does it matter to you?" iso snaps.

jamie turns on his heel and leaves. i sidestep him, giving our ally an awkward smile, still not sure what had just happened. iso sucks in a breath through their teeth when the door is left open, and when it slams, a vase nearly topples to the ground. my eyes are questioning, but he gives me no indication that anything can happened, only sighing and leading me with their eyes to somewhere warmer.

~~~~~~

ended up around 1.1k words … hope yall liked it :D

[the-canary-wives]

it. it had not occurred to me that we could make fanfics of this. wait. wAIT. WAIT FRICK MY NEURONS HAVE ACTIVATED AND NOW I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING.

[the-canary-wives]

wait hold on can i lowkey write Gray's pov of moth and iso's whole Situation

[multishipper33]

YESSS YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION AND. I HOPE ISO’S???

[the-canary-wives]

WOOOOOOO (im already 830 words in. i. why can i not do this for my vsmp wips.)

(ALSO YOURE AWARE THAT ISO'S ACC GOT SENT TO EEBY DEEBY, RIGHT? THEY HAVE A NEW ONE NOW! JUST TRYING TO SPREAD THE WORD :DD!)

[the-canary-wives]

*ahem*

CHARACTERS: me (as Gray), and mentioned Moth ('tis thou) and Iso @theabolisolation :DD

~DISCLAIMER~: this is a fictional work that is NOT NECESSARILY CANON to Second Seed, the concept which it is based on. This is mostly just me trying to properly characterize Gray and explore her perception of the events around her!!

TW/CW: mentions of a toxic relationship, mentions of death, realizing that your friend is a bad person, contemplations of gray morality and general introspection.

helpless, adj • marked by an inability to act or react

—- — —

Gray had the inherent ability to make just about anywhere a home.

Sure, there was the ever-so-common rhetoric that it was people who made a home, not just a location. Gray would beg to differ. Gray had stayed in many-a-home in her time, not all of which were comforting due to the presence of others.

She’d had her fair share of friends, of course—anywhere she went, she made it a habit to be kind to her neighbors. Gray liked being kind, yes, but it was also something she kept in the back of her mind as strategic. If all were to go wrong, she’d need someone to borrow a cup of sugar from, as the saying often goes.

Her homes had, from time to time, been shaped by the people around her. She once stayed in a swamp, damp and too hot and miserable, just for the company. She’d moved on eventually, to greener pastures—she never stayed anywhere too long, not anymore—but that sweet smile and those sad, watery eyes, and that wobbly, “are you sure you can’t stay,” almost clung to her.

All the same, though, she’d made plenty of homes in places without any humans at all. This lovely brook, running over smoothened stones, babbling endlessly through the nights. The stars had been clear, and the air had been crisp. The animals were plentiful, the soil was fruitful for farming. After a few peaceful months, the silence grew pressing, and Gray moved on once more.

Gray was a traveller. She never lingered long. And yet, each house she made was a house she did her best to make a home.

If it didn’t hurt to leave behind, if it wasn’t a conscious choice to close the door for the final time and tear herself away from a home, then it wouldn’t hurt. The only real way for a place to stick to her, she’d found, was through that agonizing pain of loss. Maybe that was a cruelty she didn’t deserve, but she took pleasure in it. Every day she spent dawdling, delaying the inevitable; each moment she spent leaned against the front door, tracing the floorboards with a half-lidded gaze until they were an inflamed scar on the back of her retinas. It all mattered.

There was a new sort of pain now. The pain of grief, hot like melted candle wax on her fingertips, stinging like splattered oil from a pan. Nobody had died, not yet. But the thunderstorm raging outside of her window was awful. Each flash of lightning could be a death. Each rumble of thunder could be a looming threat.

Which strike would be the first warning? Which delayed canary was the one to die?

If someone is to be the canary, she mused, eyes flicking out of her window, what is to be the coal mine? What danger does await us? Death would not be kind to me, I think. She would scorn me. Is her looming presence my own mine? Will her smothering hand be the toxin to choke my lungs? Is that inevitability my own undoing?

Gray could not know. She wouldn’t, not until too late. Another stinging pain through her chest, brief and sharp. Another thought that would linger, a memory that would stain. Good.

She turned back to the sword in her hands. She was no good at forging weapons, but she’d been able to get enough on the good side of Iso to be given one. She would admit that the rafters incident had certainly been an interesting way to introduce herself, but it’d ended well, albeit with a few diamonds lost.

It was worth it to befriend the others. Borrowing a cup of sugar, right? Some of them were more violent than others, but she could shrug that off. It was a death game, after all; people had different ways of… managing.

She pursed her lips, eyes drawn back to the window, hand falling to her side. The tip of her sword barely scraped the wood flooring.

Gray clouds spiraled, far above.

Iso was… an interesting character.

He’d been nice, she admitted, but even when they’d first met, Gray had noticed something off. She couldn’t place it. Not then, and she could still just barely grasp what might have been the root of the problem.

Now, Gray wasn’t observant. Especially when it came to people. But even she could tell that something was off between Iso and Moth.

Maybe it wasn’t any of her business! That’s what she’d told herself, day after day, visiting that wooden house, day after day.

After one of the two had lost their first life, green burning into yellow—she could no longer remember which it had been—the house felt pressing. Gentle worry had pressed into tense concern, and what Gray had seen as a lovely friendship began to give the warning flags of something other.

Hugs looked too tight; words felt too sharp. The light in Moth’s eyes metaphorically dimmed, and Iso’s own began to quite literally glow.

Something about that felt wrong.

A sharp glare on Iso’s part, a sudden clinginess from Moth. The flickering light of a torch in the distance, and a hurried goodbye from Moth before Gray could only catch the barest glimpse of purple hair in the distance.

A moth to a flame. A fish to an angler.

Gray hated it. But what could she do about it? Realistically—she hated reality, sometimes—the answer was a big, fat, nothing.

Direct confrontation would just lead to being shut out by Iso. Any chance of being able to reach Moth could be compromised.

Subtly offering an out? Maybe. But a maybe it’ll work was still a maybe it’ll blow up in my face. Too risky. At best, Gray could help Moth escape, but then Iso would be after the both of them.

She could just try and be there, maybe. Not doing anything, per se—plausible deniability worked wonders—but offering a helping hand to Moth. A few resources slipped into her hands behind Iso’s back, a promise of safety (from any dangerous red names, Gray could say), an extra bed in her house for “emergencies”. Precautions, things to let Moth know that, should she be left without a teammate, Gray would happily welcome the moth into her cottage.

Maybe if Iso went out early… no, no, that was a bad idea. Killing Iso would only draw Moth’s ire. Probably. Maybe not? No.

Agh! Look, Gray said she was bad with people!

She could think of long-term plans later. She was bleary with sleep deprivation, anyhow. It was late, late enough to hear the distant screeching of the hungered phantoms of the night. She’ll sleep on it. In the morning, perhaps some sort of epiphany would hit her.

Gray went about her nightly routine. Drawing the curtains, double-checking her food stores to make sure no bugs or rodents had crept in, ensuring the place was tidy, and changing into her night clothes.

The last step of her night was to turn off the lights, which she did. She stepped outside, hand stretching to flick off her lantern, when she faltered. If she turned off the lantern, well, things would continue as normal. And if she left it on… what if it drew a moth?

No, no, absolutely not. Those were the thoughts of someone like Iso. The very person Gray wished to fend off from Moth in the first place! Gray would not stoop to that level.

No.

She couldn’t.

But if Moth, by some stupid facet of the universe, was wandering around at night—one as dreary and rainy and lightning-filled as that one—would it not be the perfect opportunity for Gray to pull her away from Iso? To claim that it was dangerous for her to be wandering around, when nobody in the area had a lightning rod; to coax a clear answer out of Moth about whether she felt safe?

…

No.

She… she couldn’t.

But…

…

The lantern stayed on.

Gray sped off to bed, shoving her face into her pillow, and pretending not to perceive the world. She stared listlessly into the dark for many long hours. She must have eventually fallen asleep, as she awoke to a thin light shining through a crack in her curtains.

(At dawn, dim with the rumbling of those still-present storm clouds, Gray sat on her footsteps, staring blankly at a patch of grass in front of the hanging lantern. Some blades had been… not singed, but damaged. As if droplets of acid had landed on them. The poppy in her flower pot was now entirely unrecognizable, merely a thick stem, and ashen stumps of petals.

Even when the thunderstorm finally faded, the swirling clouds in her head remained, a thick swath of complexity trapped within Gray’s mind. Her forehead fell to rest on her knees.

She felt helpless.)

[theabolisolation]

yess yesss... Iso is the bad guy... He's making damn sure of that... Ehehehe...

I love this SM I'm crunching it

[the-canary-wives]

aaa!!!! :DD

iso im stealing maddie. my fren now. moth protection squad. *dangles lantern* :D (dont kill me please)

[theabolisolation]

Maddie? Hm, odd, I only know Moth. And I believe that Moth is, ah, my friend and I've made it clear that they are the silly to my sauce. Are they yours? Aha!~ Nice try, Gray, but stick to your biggest offense being breaking into the rafters, heaven knows I'd already shoot you with a flame arrow for that one, you'd beg me to just do that if you happened to get a little too close to "Maddie." ^^

Best wishes! Our doors are always open 😁

[multishipper33]

pyrophilia, n.

CHARACTERS: myself as moth, @abolisolation as iso/acid, and @jimmysbrainandsoul as jamie. (two other members of ss, gray and mulsea, are named)

BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER: this is a FICTIONAL WORK about the second seed universe/cast from the pov of moth, one half of the Silly Saucers. now. this is not canon unless everyone agrees it to be so - the only things you should take are mannerisms and thoughts moth may have. for instance, towards the end of the chapter, we see the tail end of a fight between iso and jamie… which HAS NOT HAPPENED. fictional. not canon. just messing around :D

tw/cw: toxic/codependent relationship (mentioned here on iso’s end: overprotectiveness/attachment, anger; mentioned on my end is separation anxiety + the whole addiction thing taints my perception of iso a LOTTT), blood used as a metaphor quite a bit, mentions of killing/red names/death in the context of a life series, addiction (a part-moth character being addicted to red light sources). lmk if i missed any !!

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

pyrophilia, n. • the (often unhealthy) love of fire, flames, or explosives.

~~~~~~

people wax far too much poetic about the difference of a house and a home - really, it is only in concept that they contrast. a house is an architectural structure. there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die. not necessarily the builder, nor the person who approves the design, but an innocent bystander, someone hoping for a roof over their heads. a home is a figurative thing, a place of belonging.

there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die.

i cannot feel the pair of eyes upon my neck as i sort through chests, but i see them dance along the wood, little slits cutting through red nectar as scarring in the wood matches up with scarring in the gaze. red is nowhere else to be found, though, as my stash of redstone was all used for traps. i suppose it makes sense, we have to get kills at some point, but what does it matter if the last thing someone sees is a sight as damning as red, red eyes? a trap offers anonymity, but if you known well enough, fingers will point in your direction.

still, i gather up sticks and turn around. like blood in charcoal, iso's eyes are discs of liquid, tearing real holes through my fake excuses the same way acid forms faux scars on wings that could carry me far, far away if i so wished. they only move when i do, sliding the disc of charcoal, daring to make a mark on the paper that has been clean until now. when all the dust is brushed off, the scene may be tragic - it may be beautiful.

"out mining again?" his voice cuts through my reverie, tinged with too little venom to sting. when i stand my flower crown feels heavy, as though i'd dipped it in water before leaving, mixing with the roses to create the scent a façade leaves behind.

because the roses are gone, replaced with mourning flowers that remind me of iso, black seeping into red, fangs finding a creature with a scarred neck, blood on the charcoal-stained page. which consumes which, i am not sure. "we're low on redstone. gotta get a kill at some point, right?" i almost feel jamie's words echoed in my own, one of the only people who can catch my companion's gaze.

jamie, and me.

"it's dangerous out there," they murmur, "want me to come with you? two swords beats one."

bile, in the back of my throat. i cannot gather if he is right next to me, because if something goes wrong, i will freeze until told to do otherwise. if i am safer with or without him remains to be discussed. because there is strength in numbers, but i feel my strength unnecessary if they are around, and that is not a mindset i can have at this stage.

i reach upwards, blindly fiddling amongst the cornflowers and the twigs i attached to act as thorns before i find the poppy. it makes its way upwards, nudging itself at the top of his ear, petals just avoiding its point. "here. i can't leave for good if you have this, right?"

iso cannot meet my eyes. it hurts like a hunger, so i offer my best smile, hoping it conveys how much i would rather paint with blood than sketch with charcoal, how much i despise the darkness the night creates. the moon is so dim faraway torches are more tempting.

like the warmth of a fireplace they look at me, chasing away the chill, the layer of too much too much faint compared to the wispy strands of light he gives off. "can you promise you'll stay safe, moth?"

"as much as i can promise that this house is made of spruce." my smile doesn't stretch as far as it should, because i am nocturnal only in theory, and my fatigue sets in even further when all i want is but a whispered ask away. i cast it off. "don't worry yourself, acid. i'll be back before dawn."

before they have the chance to object, to offer anything further, i am out in the night. forest presses in all around me, even as the crunching of my footsteps on a gravel path drowns out the sound of nearby mobs. when i take out my torch, it is as red as my surroundings seem to be lately, but there is not enough flame to justify it as an expense -

my ally does not know where all of our redstone keeps going -

so i shiver, fearful that my wings and my noise make me stand out like blood on charcoal, prey to larger bugs. that instinct rears its head when i catch my hair on webs or hear a hisssss from afar, and it is sickly green, neon and pulsing and melancholy compared to the sour taste of red haze; if iso is a healing potion that stings going down, i grant night vision with addiction to the blinding.

my fingers are covered in dust that makes men monsters, glows when i hold it up to torchlight, reminds me that i need to brace the sour to get to the sweet. when i am a panicked and inconsequential thing thrashing around blindly, redstone keeps me ethereal, because iso is reflected in it.

when i get back, the sky is tinged the shade of pink my fingers will be even after a good wash, or the tips of my ears under the scrutiny of an enemy - when we go to meet opposing factions, iso makes sure my hair is covering my ears, so they do not see my weakness. i hear voices inside, so as sneakily as i can muster, i press my pink, pink ears to the door. i hear jamie, names like gray and mulsea and even mine getting thrown around, but iso's words are quiet enough where they are obscured.

i open the door. any conversation comes to a halt, though i can see the way this interaction has irritated the both of them, my ally's eyes wavering like blood in the water. jamie's are wide as saucers, living up to his honorary title, and he asks, "why are you back so early?"

"what does it matter to you?" iso snaps.

jamie turns on his heel and leaves. i sidestep him, giving our ally an awkward smile, still not sure what had just happened. iso sucks in a breath through their teeth when the door is left open, and when it slams, a vase nearly topples to the ground. my eyes are questioning, but he gives me no indication that anything can happened, only sighing and leading me with their eyes to somewhere warmer.

~~~~~~

ended up around 1.1k words … hope yall liked it :D

[the-canary-wives]

it. it had not occurred to me that we could make fanfics of this. wait. wAIT. WAIT FRICK MY NEURONS HAVE ACTIVATED AND NOW I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING.

[the-canary-wives]

wait hold on can i lowkey write Gray's pov of moth and iso's whole Situation

[multishipper33]

YESSS YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION AND. I HOPE ISO’S???

[the-canary-wives]

WOOOOOOO (im already 830 words in. i. why can i not do this for my vsmp wips.)

(ALSO YOURE AWARE THAT ISO'S ACC GOT SENT TO EEBY DEEBY, RIGHT? THEY HAVE A NEW ONE NOW! JUST TRYING TO SPREAD THE WORD :DD!)

[the-canary-wives]

*ahem*

CHARACTERS: me (as Gray), and mentioned Moth ('tis thou) and Iso @theabolisolation :DD

~DISCLAIMER~: this is a fictional work that is NOT NECESSARILY CANON to Second Seed, the concept which it is based on. This is mostly just me trying to properly characterize Gray and explore her perception of the events around her!!

TW/CW: mentions of a toxic relationship, mentions of death, realizing that your friend is a bad person, contemplations of gray morality and general introspection.

helpless, adj • marked by an inability to act or react

—- — —

Gray had the inherent ability to make just about anywhere a home.

Sure, there was the ever-so-common rhetoric that it was people who made a home, not just a location. Gray would beg to differ. Gray had stayed in many-a-home in her time, not all of which were comforting due to the presence of others.

She’d had her fair share of friends, of course—anywhere she went, she made it a habit to be kind to her neighbors. Gray liked being kind, yes, but it was also something she kept in the back of her mind as strategic. If all were to go wrong, she’d need someone to borrow a cup of sugar from, as the saying often goes.

Her homes had, from time to time, been shaped by the people around her. She once stayed in a swamp, damp and too hot and miserable, just for the company. She’d moved on eventually, to greener pastures—she never stayed anywhere too long, not anymore—but that sweet smile and those sad, watery eyes, and that wobbly, “are you sure you can’t stay,” almost clung to her.

All the same, though, she’d made plenty of homes in places without any humans at all. This lovely brook, running over smoothened stones, babbling endlessly through the nights. The stars had been clear, and the air had been crisp. The animals were plentiful, the soil was fruitful for farming. After a few peaceful months, the silence grew pressing, and Gray moved on once more.

Gray was a traveller. She never lingered long. And yet, each house she made was a house she did her best to make a home.

If it didn’t hurt to leave behind, if it wasn’t a conscious choice to close the door for the final time and tear herself away from a home, then it wouldn’t hurt. The only real way for a place to stick to her, she’d found, was through that agonizing pain of loss. Maybe that was a cruelty she didn’t deserve, but she took pleasure in it. Every day she spent dawdling, delaying the inevitable; each moment she spent leaned against the front door, tracing the floorboards with a half-lidded gaze until they were an inflamed scar on the back of her retinas. It all mattered.

There was a new sort of pain now. The pain of grief, hot like melted candle wax on her fingertips, stinging like splattered oil from a pan. Nobody had died, not yet. But the thunderstorm raging outside of her window was awful. Each flash of lightning could be a death. Each rumble of thunder could be a looming threat.

Which strike would be the first warning? Which delayed canary was the one to die?

If someone is to be the canary, she mused, eyes flicking out of her window, what is to be the coal mine? What danger does await us? Death would not be kind to me, I think. She would scorn me. Is her looming presence my own mine? Will her smothering hand be the toxin to choke my lungs? Is that inevitability my own undoing?

Gray could not know. She wouldn’t, not until too late. Another stinging pain through her chest, brief and sharp. Another thought that would linger, a memory that would stain. Good.

She turned back to the sword in her hands. She was no good at forging weapons, but she’d been able to get enough on the good side of Iso to be given one. She would admit that the rafters incident had certainly been an interesting way to introduce herself, but it’d ended well, albeit with a few diamonds lost.

It was worth it to befriend the others. Borrowing a cup of sugar, right? Some of them were more violent than others, but she could shrug that off. It was a death game, after all; people had different ways of… managing.

She pursed her lips, eyes drawn back to the window, hand falling to her side. The tip of her sword barely scraped the wood flooring.

Gray clouds spiraled, far above.

Iso was… an interesting character.

He’d been nice, she admitted, but even when they’d first met, Gray had noticed something off. She couldn’t place it. Not then, and she could still just barely grasp what might have been the root of the problem.

Now, Gray wasn’t observant. Especially when it came to people. But even she could tell that something was off between Iso and Moth.

Maybe it wasn’t any of her business! That’s what she’d told herself, day after day, visiting that wooden house, day after day.

After one of the two had lost their first life, green burning into yellow—she could no longer remember which it had been—the house felt pressing. Gentle worry had pressed into tense concern, and what Gray had seen as a lovely friendship began to give the warning flags of something other.

Hugs looked too tight; words felt too sharp. The light in Moth’s eyes metaphorically dimmed, and Iso’s own began to quite literally glow.

Something about that felt wrong.

A sharp glare on Iso’s part, a sudden clinginess from Moth. The flickering light of a torch in the distance, and a hurried goodbye from Moth before Gray could only catch the barest glimpse of purple hair in the distance.

A moth to a flame. A fish to an angler.

Gray hated it. But what could she do about it? Realistically—she hated reality, sometimes—the answer was a big, fat, nothing.

Direct confrontation would just lead to being shut out by Iso. Any chance of being able to reach Moth could be compromised.

Subtly offering an out? Maybe. But a maybe it’ll work was still a maybe it’ll blow up in my face. Too risky. At best, Gray could help Moth escape, but then Iso would be after the both of them.

She could just try and be there, maybe. Not doing anything, per se—plausible deniability worked wonders—but offering a helping hand to Moth. A few resources slipped into her hands behind Iso’s back, a promise of safety (from any dangerous red names, Gray could say), an extra bed in her house for “emergencies”. Precautions, things to let Moth know that, should she be left without a teammate, Gray would happily welcome the moth into her cottage.

Maybe if Iso went out early… no, no, that was a bad idea. Killing Iso would only draw Moth’s ire. Probably. Maybe not? No.

Agh! Look, Gray said she was bad with people!

She could think of long-term plans later. She was bleary with sleep deprivation, anyhow. It was late, late enough to hear the distant screeching of the hungered phantoms of the night. She’ll sleep on it. In the morning, perhaps some sort of epiphany would hit her.

Gray went about her nightly routine. Drawing the curtains, double-checking her food stores to make sure no bugs or rodents had crept in, ensuring the place was tidy, and changing into her night clothes.

The last step of her night was to turn off the lights, which she did. She stepped outside, hand stretching to flick off her lantern, when she faltered. If she turned off the lantern, well, things would continue as normal. And if she left it on… what if it drew a moth?

No, no, absolutely not. Those were the thoughts of someone like Iso. The very person Gray wished to fend off from Moth in the first place! Gray would not stoop to that level.

No.

She couldn’t.

But if Moth, by some stupid facet of the universe, was wandering around at night—one as dreary and rainy and lightning-filled as that one—would it not be the perfect opportunity for Gray to pull her away from Iso? To claim that it was dangerous for her to be wandering around, when nobody in the area had a lightning rod; to coax a clear answer out of Moth about whether she felt safe?

…

No.

She… she couldn’t.

But…

…

The lantern stayed on.

Gray sped off to bed, shoving her face into her pillow, and pretending not to perceive the world. She stared listlessly into the dark for many long hours. She must have eventually fallen asleep, as she awoke to a thin light shining through a crack in her curtains.

(At dawn, dim with the rumbling of those still-present storm clouds, Gray sat on her footsteps, staring blankly at a patch of grass in front of the hanging lantern. Some blades had been… not singed, but damaged. As if droplets of acid had landed on them. The poppy in her flower pot was now entirely unrecognizable, merely a thick stem, and ashen stumps of petals.

Even when the thunderstorm finally faded, the swirling clouds in her head remained, a thick swath of complexity trapped within Gray’s mind. Her forehead fell to rest on her knees.

She felt helpless.)

[theabolisolation]

yess yesss... Iso is the bad guy... He's making damn sure of that... Ehehehe...

I love this SM I'm crunching it

[theabolisolation]

Ahem-

POW Creations type portraits of everyone I could find a ref for :]

[theabolisolation]

yooo is this reincarnation or something¿?¿ (welcome back) (also I was the ghost)

No I'm a clone

Also I FUCKING KNEW IT I JUST COULDN'T PROVE IT... THE WAY YOU TYPED SO SIMILARLY TO THE SPIRIT (soul mentioned) WAS UNCANNY BUT LIKE I WANTED TO BE SURE GRAHH

[lgbtlunaverse]

Obsessed with characters who portray themselves as worse than they are. Who are lying to everyone including themselves about it. People generally assume if someone's lying about themselves they're trying to look better but sometimes they're trying to look worse. They attribute agency to where they had none, add intent to accidents, try to convince everyone that this is something they did instead of something that happened to them.

[multishipper33]

pyrophilia, n.

CHARACTERS: myself as moth, @abolisolation as iso/acid, and @jimmysbrainandsoul as jamie. (two other members of ss, gray and mulsea, are named)

BIG GIANT DISCLAIMER: this is a FICTIONAL WORK about the second seed universe/cast from the pov of moth, one half of the Silly Saucers. now. this is not canon unless everyone agrees it to be so - the only things you should take are mannerisms and thoughts moth may have. for instance, towards the end of the chapter, we see the tail end of a fight between iso and jamie… which HAS NOT HAPPENED. fictional. not canon. just messing around :D

tw/cw: toxic/codependent relationship (mentioned here on iso’s end: overprotectiveness/attachment, anger; mentioned on my end is separation anxiety + the whole addiction thing taints my perception of iso a LOTTT), blood used as a metaphor quite a bit, mentions of killing/red names/death in the context of a life series, addiction (a part-moth character being addicted to red light sources). lmk if i missed any !!

~~~~~~

~~~~~~

pyrophilia, n. • the (often unhealthy) love of fire, flames, or explosives.

~~~~~~

people wax far too much poetic about the difference of a house and a home - really, it is only in concept that they contrast. a house is an architectural structure. there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die. not necessarily the builder, nor the person who approves the design, but an innocent bystander, someone hoping for a roof over their heads. a home is a figurative thing, a place of belonging.

there are rules, and if you break those rules, someone could die.

i cannot feel the pair of eyes upon my neck as i sort through chests, but i see them dance along the wood, little slits cutting through red nectar as scarring in the wood matches up with scarring in the gaze. red is nowhere else to be found, though, as my stash of redstone was all used for traps. i suppose it makes sense, we have to get kills at some point, but what does it matter if the last thing someone sees is a sight as damning as red, red eyes? a trap offers anonymity, but if you known well enough, fingers will point in your direction.

still, i gather up sticks and turn around. like blood in charcoal, iso's eyes are discs of liquid, tearing real holes through my fake excuses the same way acid forms faux scars on wings that could carry me far, far away if i so wished. they only move when i do, sliding the disc of charcoal, daring to make a mark on the paper that has been clean until now. when all the dust is brushed off, the scene may be tragic - it may be beautiful.

"out mining again?" his voice cuts through my reverie, tinged with too little venom to sting. when i stand my flower crown feels heavy, as though i'd dipped it in water before leaving, mixing with the roses to create the scent a façade leaves behind.

because the roses are gone, replaced with mourning flowers that remind me of iso, black seeping into red, fangs finding a creature with a scarred neck, blood on the charcoal-stained page. which consumes which, i am not sure. "we're low on redstone. gotta get a kill at some point, right?" i almost feel jamie's words echoed in my own, one of the only people who can catch my companion's gaze.

jamie, and me.

"it's dangerous out there," they murmur, "want me to come with you? two swords beats one."

bile, in the back of my throat. i cannot gather if he is right next to me, because if something goes wrong, i will freeze until told to do otherwise. if i am safer with or without him remains to be discussed. because there is strength in numbers, but i feel my strength unnecessary if they are around, and that is not a mindset i can have at this stage.

i reach upwards, blindly fiddling amongst the cornflowers and the twigs i attached to act as thorns before i find the poppy. it makes its way upwards, nudging itself at the top of his ear, petals just avoiding its point. "here. i can't leave for good if you have this, right?"

iso cannot meet my eyes. it hurts like a hunger, so i offer my best smile, hoping it conveys how much i would rather paint with blood than sketch with charcoal, how much i despise the darkness the night creates. the moon is so dim faraway torches are more tempting.

like the warmth of a fireplace they look at me, chasing away the chill, the layer of too much too much faint compared to the wispy strands of light he gives off. "can you promise you'll stay safe, moth?"

"as much as i can promise that this house is made of spruce." my smile doesn't stretch as far as it should, because i am nocturnal only in theory, and my fatigue sets in even further when all i want is but a whispered ask away. i cast it off. "don't worry yourself, acid. i'll be back before dawn."

before they have the chance to object, to offer anything further, i am out in the night. forest presses in all around me, even as the crunching of my footsteps on a gravel path drowns out the sound of nearby mobs. when i take out my torch, it is as red as my surroundings seem to be lately, but there is not enough flame to justify it as an expense -

my ally does not know where all of our redstone keeps going -

so i shiver, fearful that my wings and my noise make me stand out like blood on charcoal, prey to larger bugs. that instinct rears its head when i catch my hair on webs or hear a hisssss from afar, and it is sickly green, neon and pulsing and melancholy compared to the sour taste of red haze; if iso is a healing potion that stings going down, i grant night vision with addiction to the blinding.

my fingers are covered in dust that makes men monsters, glows when i hold it up to torchlight, reminds me that i need to brace the sour to get to the sweet. when i am a panicked and inconsequential thing thrashing around blindly, redstone keeps me ethereal, because iso is reflected in it.

when i get back, the sky is tinged the shade of pink my fingers will be even after a good wash, or the tips of my ears under the scrutiny of an enemy - when we go to meet opposing factions, iso makes sure my hair is covering my ears, so they do not see my weakness. i hear voices inside, so as sneakily as i can muster, i press my pink, pink ears to the door. i hear jamie, names like gray and mulsea and even mine getting thrown around, but iso's words are quiet enough where they are obscured.

i open the door. any conversation comes to a halt, though i can see the way this interaction has irritated the both of them, my ally's eyes wavering like blood in the water. jamie's are wide as saucers, living up to his honorary title, and he asks, "why are you back so early?"

"what does it matter to you?" iso snaps.

jamie turns on his heel and leaves. i sidestep him, giving our ally an awkward smile, still not sure what had just happened. iso sucks in a breath through their teeth when the door is left open, and when it slams, a vase nearly topples to the ground. my eyes are questioning, but he gives me no indication that anything can happened, only sighing and leading me with their eyes to somewhere warmer.

~~~~~~

ended up around 1.1k words … hope yall liked it :D

[the-canary-wives]

it. it had not occurred to me that we could make fanfics of this. wait. wAIT. WAIT FRICK MY NEURONS HAVE ACTIVATED AND NOW I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING.

[theabolisolation]

jesus Moth your writing is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!

[darklightthedragon]

reblog to tell your moots that even if they disappear from the face of the earth you will always remember them.

[darklightthedragon]

reblog to tell your moots that even if they disappear from the face of the earth you will always remember them.

[theabolisolation]

HEYYYY glad i caught this early so i can refollow your new account!! :D

YESS TYY!! :D if you can, could you possibly send me an invite back into the Second Seed community lmao? Can't figure out how to get back in XD

[theabolisolation]

HEY TWIN!!! Do you need me to look through your old blog for anything you want back?

Wait I just realized I think you're still able to view it...whoops-

BUT the offer's still there anyway so if you need anything from your old blog lmk and I'll send it to you!

THANK U VRO!! I think I'ma just... Start anew! Any art I'd wanna put on here is on my phone and anything else? I'll just @ my old account in my new intro post whenever I make it lol. Thank you, gang :]

[theabolisolation]

Did Tumblr term your old account?

nope, mom deleted chrome and it's fuckin' with my ability to use my secondary email 😭

[theabolisolation]

Hello, Tumblr. @abolisolation... Let's just say that account is gone. I can't use it anymore, but! I have this new one, and my mom let me create it. I need to start anew, and this was a one time thing, but this one will remain. I'll build my page from scratch, get back in communities, etc. I'm just glad I can be here again in any capacity. Hello again, Tumblr :)