[Network - voice] @ SuprNerd- we could be heroes, just for one day

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[The audio starts with the sounds of rustling papers, as if Quentin is reading this from something he's written down (he is) and his voice starts out stilted.]

Hello? This is for all of you who live here in Beacon and it's about something I've thought about since the town meeting. At this meeting, there was one thing we didn't-- okay, so there were actually two things, but I want to talk about the one thing and-- shit. Sorry. There was one thing we didn't talk about, and that's the fact that several of us can do things. I've talked to some of you and-- fuck. Hi. I'm, uhm, Quentin and I'm a magician? We're from, well, Eliot and I are from the same world? Or, the same timeline? I don't know what to call it, but we came from the same place? But, yes. I'm Quentin. Hello.

And I've talked to some of you and you could do amazing things. Brilliant, magical things and that made me think that, what if there's more? What if a lot of us can do amazing things, but we just don't know because we haven't told each other yet? So I'm proposing that we talk to each other and if you're not comfortable with everyone knowing what you can do-- and I get that, I do, because back home we weren't really supposed to talk about magic either, at least not to non-magical people. But okay-- if that makes you uncomfortable, you could always just talk to me? There's a private setting to these texts or we could meet up. Or maybe some of you will want proof of magic and I can show you?

But most importantly, we can do these amazing things and that could maybe help with some of this? Right now, everyone is searching through the forest on foot and in small groups. If we find out what we can do, maybe it's possible to make teams that can search without having to put themselves in harms way? Maybe someone out there can fly? Someone who could fly out and see which way we need to go to get through? Maybe someone is telekinetic? Or, can talk to plants? Maybe one of you can warg in to some of the spirits? Maybe someone is a shapeshifter or a skinwalker-- or, god, you're getting all of this from popular fiction and now everyone has to hear about it... sorry, where was I?

Okay, so maybe if we talk to each other about this, maybe we can find a better way of exploring this place and maybe we can find a better solution to the problem of World Eaters coming for us.

Because the X-men were better when they were a team? And-- and even Frodo couldn't get the ring to Mordor without the Fellowship. So, maybe we can do something like that. Make powered teams and use this, to defend ourselves and to explore this world.

But, uh, it wouldn't be fair to expect any of you to share with me, if I'm not willing to share myself. So, if-- I can do simple wards? For our homes. To ward places like the church, which we know has been destroyed once already or maybe the Inn? I'd need someone to cast with me, but I think we can do it. Ward it from harm or put a shield spell on it, so it's safe. I can mend things, and if anyone wants help mending small objects, I'm willing to help.

I guess that's all I have to say. I hope you'll consider this and that you'll help me keep us all safe.

[indistinct and muttered] and fuck that guy for saying I couldn't. Stupid, fuck-- [click]

Comments

[moderatelymaladjusted]

No. Without your Shade you'll be empty. Hollow. Missing a piece of yourself.

There are still feelings in the dark. Sure, it's anger and hate and needing revenge, it's jealousy and it's feeling inferior. It's feeling useless and used up and always making the wrong choice at the worst possible time? It's guilt and self-loathing and so much regret you'd do almost anything to make it stop. But you're still FEELING. You can love people in the dark. You can't without your Shade.

[evulsed]

Doesn't sound so different to me.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

You don't see a difference between feeling bad and feeling nothing at all?

#villainmonologue

[evulsed]

[ Oh, Vanitas sees the difference— he's felt nothing but all those negative emotions his whole existence. All he's ever craved is relief. He's come so close, close enough to touch it— through being recomplete, through the echo of emotion when Sora gave up his own life— but that isn't a luxury he'll ever have. Not unless his existence truly ends in this place... and even then, she brought him back the one time it did. This is just the truth of what he'll always be: endlessly suffering. But this guy doesn't need to know any of that. ]

Your Shade isn't Darkness. It's your Heart. I know this thing you're talking about, what happens when you separate a Heart from it's Body. My Master was an expert in it.

But that isn't the Darkness. It's all that negative emotion you're talking about, the monster you become when the light is sucked out of you. And the best place for it to grow?

It's a world just like this.

You can try and hide from it. You can even use magic to try and keep it at bay. But the only way you're going to stop it from spreading is by returning the Light.

Hiding from it?

That'll never work.

And then you're all going to tear yourselves apart, piece by piece.

*standing ovation* [cw- depression, gore and suicidal ideation]

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[That's not how watching someone rip the still-beating heart out of a person looks, not the true, gritty feel of it, of watching that arm just explode through a ribcage and there's more blood than you'd expect. And all it takes is the blink of an eye. Reading over the words again, Quentin frowns. Because that's not Darkness, not capitalized and underlined like it's something special, something rare or dangerous. It sounds like depression. Like everything his fucking counterpart from the Depression key sounded like.

Like all the words you tell yourself to get through the day, when they fail. When all you can do is lie in bed at night, hoping that tonight will not be the night that your courage fails. The deepest, darkest parts of yourself, the parts you keep carefully away from everyone else, so it doesn't taint them. So it doesn't start tearing in to them, because it wants to.

It's the voice whispering in your ear when you're alone, about how worthless you are, how little you actually matter despite all your protests and yours quests and your good intentions, how much better the world would be without you in it. It's the voice, shouting over the music when you finally do go out, reminding you that they only put up with it because of JuliaMargoEliotAlice and if you were on your own, they'd all let you drown.

It's the letters, thoughtfully written and hidden under your bed, never to be read by anyone, ever, because they're all lies. They are the lies you tell yourself to justify why you're still here, why you didn't jump, didn't swallow, didn't push down on the knife.

It's watching your best friend be paraded around like a meat-puppet, filled and possessed by an ancient evil without remorse and without pity, being dragged around and beaten, broken, bleeped through the world to watch murder after murder after murder.

No, it's having that thing like you a little too much. So what does that say about you, huh, Quentin.

The darkness Vanitas is talking about isn't the darkness outside the windows or even the darkness in the human heart, the selfish, craving part. And neither are the World Eaters who are waiting and gaining on them, at least with them, it's all over. Oblivion. Done. Dead.]

I've seen fucking worse, and that's still not darkness. That's-- that's fucking NORMAL. Those feelings, and having them is better than not having any at all.

And how do I know? Because having those feelings you're talking about doesn't make me a monster? It doesn't make me in to something less or something soulless.

But not having a Shade? There was a version of me who tried that, killed a Kingdom, slaughtered his friends and every magician he could find, and cut the antlers off the Winter's doe. That's Shadeless.

[evulsed]

So you were recompleted. You must feel lucky. Not all Nobodies get that same treatment.

How was it, then? That first surge of emotion, remembering all the pain you caused?

Is that why you're trying so hard to make up for it now?

What you did will never go away. It's still there, inside you.

I wonder if it'll show it's face again, if you spend enough time in this darkness.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

I've never been without my Shade, but timeline-23 me did. I don't know if he ever regretted what he did, but I don't think so?

Oh, fuck you. I don't have to explain myself to you, I'm just saying there's this huge difference that you're just refusing to see, like a complete idiot. Surge of emotions? I've always had emotions! Always, I've always felt like this, too, not that it matters? And don't you fucking call me a nobody, jackass.

[evulsed]

Those Shadeless of yours, we call them Nobodies. A heartless creature with no feeling. Maybe you never were one— but some version of you was. And you know what he did.

And that capacity is inside you, too.

But you don't have to be Shadeless to succumb to those dark feelings.

Don't you want to hurt the people that make you feel so badly?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

What the fuck, dude. NO. I don't want to hurt people. I want to help people.

[evulsed]

We'll see how long you last.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

And just what the hell is that supposed to mean? Do you WANT everyone to get reset?

Not working together, not HELPING each other, that's how we're going to get reset and I'm not getting reset because you want to be an asshole for no reason.

[evulsed]

I don't really care.

But it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Good luck. You're going to need it.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Fuck off, asshole.