#ember fics

every action he takes has to serve him in Some way

his amusement is his top priority (cause surviving is EASY) and counts towards his self serving nature

his amusement can take lots of sometimes kinda fucked up forms also he has a passion for acting (lying to people for fun/pity points)

FURTHERMORE scott has very specific talking habits, he tends to use bigger more fancy words and he doesn't swear often, i think he has the mindset that if one needs to swear to convey their emotion, they don't have a large enough vocabulary at their disposal. aka a very classist take on cursing . i do think there are a few characters who tend to swear more casually as they talk, which im not sure if i'll have time to explore but most notable are cleo and martyn, i think Pyro does as well but usually when he's alone, because i think he was raised not to swear at all (cause he was raised upper class) but i think he does on occasion . i also think owen swears mostly out of frustration/anger and i think doc would probably be similar

specifically i need to talk about shelby's mental state in the most recent chapter, to start with, her denial and warped memory of the events of her turning . in attempt to make it easier for herself to exist in Scott's world, she managed to convince herself (with the assistance of Scott's off page manipulation) that Pyro was the one to turn her, while in this series, it was Scott to be the one to actually bite her, and Pyro did the rest - luring her to the woods, holding her in place. she blamed Pyro immediately after more than she did Scott, and in the month or so since her turning that shifted into convincing herself that Pyro was the one to turn her. it's not an event she thinks about often, it was just a subconscious shift that she wasn't even aware of until Pyro asked what she meant . pointing out her mistake caused her to think on the night, which she does remember with a decent amount of clarity, save for the bloodloss and a little bit of adrenaline fuckery . she realises that Pyro was too far away for the initial bite, she could see them and their mouth and Scott was behind her. Since the memory conflicted with the way her brain interpreted the events, she then scrambles to justify, falling instead into it being voluntary, and Scott wanting her by his side for eternity . it's a weak justification, and still conflicts with the memory (she ran and Pyro had to hold her down as she struggled and fought until her dying breath) all of it is in attempt to justify Scott's actions, to make him being her best friend feel better than it is. she KNOWS he's a bad person, she KNOWS that he hurt her and that undoubtedly he's going to hurt more people . but she CANNOT think like that, because if she does it will be impossible for her to live with him and be so friendly as she is . and she Likes being Scott's friend . she likes it a lot .

then Pyro calls Scott dangerous. and immediately that sets alarm bells off in her brain, Pyro isn't allowed to talk bad about Scott in her mind, because she isn't allowed to think or speak bad about him, and if Pyro is doing it then something is really wrong. she insists that Scott is a good person . that he's her friend .that he would never hurt her . that he wouldn't do that because he's a good man . and it's intentionally very reminiscient of the way people talk about men that are accused of being rapists or of sexually assaulting someone "he wouldn't do that" and "he's a good man" and "i've known him for years and he isn't like that" thats the rhetoric Shelby is pushing, except she's a victim of Scott, and since she can't bring herself to accept that, she won't allow anyone else to view her as one and she definitely won't allow Pyro to view himself as a victim .

except . shit . is she hurting pyro with this mindset? is scott hurting him? pointedly ignoring scott's actions when they affect her is fine but if its her friends? she cant lose herself to that degree.

and Pyro's response . "He wouldn't do that." echoing her very own words, the very delusion she's set up for herself . that specific sentence establishes a mutual understanding between the two that they then very quickly agree not to dwell on . that they are both victims of Scott, but neither of them can afford to look at it that way . with one sentance Shelby understands on a more subconcisous and buried level than she can see . and that links to the curtain symbolism of the chapter title:

That single sentence from Pyro is a light shining beneath the curtain, but she knows she cannot look further than light scattering through the cracks. She refuses to, and Pyro gives her the perfect out, the perfect excuse to pretend there's nothing behind the curtain worth seeing. So they agree not to speak of this mutual understanding. The light, however, is still there. Shelby can still see it if she looks, and maybe, for what she'll tell herself is no reason at all, she appreciates and respects Pyro a little more after that short interaction, because she knows and she understands that they're two sides of the same coin

i havent decided on how i wanna shorten it yet, either DIJTSOP, DISOP or DSP . one of the three . or another . disop also looks kinda like dish soap... something to think about

disop is a vsmp au series, focused on v!pyro and majorscythe as a dynamic - the initial idea for the au (which was intended to just be one fic) focused on majorscythe starting as something that had the potential to be romantic, but quickly turning much more sinister after pyro's turning and the establishment of the power dynamic between pyro and scott, it also explores vampirism as an allegory for rape through pyro (there are no explicit rape scenes in the series, but sexual assault is a very present theme) AND when someone is turned it's not instant, they're like actually dead for a while before they're undead

after building upon the world of the au, it's a much more realistic(?) take on the situation the characters have found themselves in, the timeline is a lot longer. Scott choosing to take a more social game aproach in the people he decides to turn into vampires, and the humans being a lot more cautious about exploring the forests and therefore slower at turning the beacons. there are other elements, such as humans being perhaps a little less observant/intelligent in order to portray scott as extremely good at lying to and gaslighting people

but then if i write a worse/equally as bad ending for pyro . they went through all that extra trauma and it didnt change a thing . in the end the world is just as unfair as it always was and THEM in particular just simply dont get to have a happy ending . no matter what they do, no matter what he goes through, in the end he still has no mourners.

Gilded is different. It hasn't noticed yet, it might never, and perhaps that's for the better. Perhaps that signifies a gradual change, and not a sudden, unnatural one.

Gilded is calm, peaceful, one could even say happy though he would never say so himself. Content. He's picked flowers, he's wandered aimlessly, he's spent his first day following his love across oceans and stretches of land and into the depths of the world. It's familiar — maybe flare hasn't changed so much — but it is different now.

They've travelled, experienced brief glimpses of places: fighting, fishing, parkour, a land he could live peacefully in the nether unharmed by its ever-burning flames, and a land he could rest in a field of flowers. Their drive for chaos and anarchy has subsided, though perhaps that's a result of the laws of this world changing, and it does still itch to kill.

That part is different.

Not the urge by itself, Gilded has always had that, but the nature of it. He tore a rabbit apart with his bare hands, did the very same to three horses. Sparrow had questioned gold on that one, glitch was unable to answer her unfiltered confusion. Maybe it was just for the thrill. Maybe it was just to feel the pixilated flesh give way under his claws. Claws? When he looks at his hands there are only blunt fingers, nails picked and jagged — too short to call claws.

The creature that is Gilded, has never been one of self reflection, so perhaps he will never realise any of this, perhaps their change will go unnoticed by all including themself, but that won't remove the fact that they have changed.

There is a beast inside of Gilded, a beast that wants to snarl and bite and bark and scratch and tear and sink its teeth and claws into anything and everything it can reach. It wants blood to stain the porcelain white of flare's mask. It wants to fight. It doesn't care for winning or losing, living or dying, as long as something perishes

It has been sleeping for so long, trapped between a mask and a face — it has always been a part of flare, since the very beginning, or more accurately, since the first time glitch witnessed spilled blood.

This is the first time it has been left hungry.