Summary: Blade is a master in the art of violence, but lately the art is feeling empty.
Warnings: Blood & violence, implied torture, choking, implied sexual content
AO3 Link || Masterlist
((Truth Saga taglist: @unclefesters))
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Blade learned at a young age how malleable flesh can be. How it gently parts for the sharpest blade and blooms beneath the roughest hands. He might have considered it beautiful, once. Crimson streams flowing through canyons and mountains dotted with blue and purple and green like fields; glistening on canvasses in every shade.
It wasn't so beautiful, most of the time. Wasn't anything. Manufactured, identical trash printed to please demand — no artistry permitted, no joy derived. Body after body beaten bloody and bruised for the sake of warning or punishment or covering their tracks.
It wasn't that he didn't think his Purpose was beautiful. He didn't dare think otherwise. It wasn't even that he didn't enjoy the work he did for it.
Still, over time the artistry was lost. He could only truly indulge on occasion — everything else was just… the same as ever.
He hadn't even noticed the change until Erik was his canvas. Purple and blue on honey-brown skin provided such rich contrast he wasn't sure he had ever truly seen colour before. The crimson was velvet draped over silk so smooth he was sure he'd be chasing the feeling for the rest of his life. Every breath he stole was a piece he never wanted to return.
He would cut, and Erik would writhe. Tears would streak glittering paths across Erik's cheeks even as their lips pulled into a pained smile. Blade would grip his throat a little too hard and Erik would choke out a shuddering sigh like the hand of God was upon them. He would bite and they would arch like their body couldn't be close enough; like the bruises were markers on a map that always led to him.
Sometimes they would make art together. He would watch Erik slice and snap and Blade would cut and bruise and the bodies they left in their wake were statues paying tribute to the carnage. Erik's craft was brutal and swift. They did not take their time the way Blade did. But the flow of his body made the violence a dance; the glint in his eyes a spotlight he directed where he pleased. They were a pleasure to watch — a stage show to accompany Blade's carvings.
When Blade went under the knife, over and over in service of the boss's art, he did not feel like a canvas. He did not feel malleable. No amount of crimson and blue could make his ashen skin a landscape. For a time, Erik had looked at him like he was. Erik would tend each cut and bruise and crimson trail like he was made of delicate painted porcelain. Admire the mottled, mangled shape of him like he was meant to be that way.
When Erik left, so did the artistry. Without the dance, the carvings meant nothing. Without brutal, his artful was flat and empty. Beauty became business. Colours faded to the same muddy dimness they always had been.
He tried to convince himself he was still an artist. Tried to find pleasure in the torture. Convinced himself delirium was the same as euphora. Fear was the same as worship. Stabbing was the same as carving.
Still, in the end, he was empty. Blade could little more derive pleasure from his art than he could pretend the agony was worth the finished product. Purple and blue was just bruises. Crimson was just blood. Pain was just pain.
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“So the Controller’s a xenophobe, gotcha,” Ivy hummed, top lip quirking in that cheeky smirk Blade knew she used to manipulate women in bars. She was insufferably smug about it.
@ockissweek day 3 - stolen kiss - Ivy Redheart
Check out The Truth Saga
Children go missing all the time. That's what they're told. They run away, they're kidnapped, they die. Scattered throughout Scotland, a handful of families remember the truth of what happened to their families. The violent, paranormal attacks that destroyed their lives and took their children from them.
Twenty years after the first incidents, the disappearences are happening again. The missing children are adults now, and reconnecting with the people they lost, but everything has changed. There is something sinister casting its shadow over their heads, and now they must fight to return the light to their lives. To learn to love and laugh and carry on living -- while the truth of their history threatens to destroy them.
Combining science fantasy with interpersonal drama, The Truth Saga is an ongoing series following themes of love, family and grief wrapped in a bundle of supernatural mystery and violence. Step into the Controller's world and you may never turn back...
BOOK 1, RECKLESS TRUTH, IS AVAILABLE NOW TO BUY IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK FORMAT
@ockissweek Day 2! Tori and Lydia's first kiss uwu
It's just a WIP sketch but I'm trying to get braver at posting unfinished art instead of missing out on every event/challenge bc I wanted to squish an 8+ hour artwork into one day Imao
About Reckless Truth
When they were children, their brother was stolen and their mother killed. Elyan and Lydia Moore have dedicated their lives to finding out what really happened that night, and where their brother was taken – but the truth will throw them into chaos they could never predict.
Genre | Contemporary Science-Fantasy, LGBTQ+
POV | Third Person Limited
Target Audience | New Adult
Themes | Grief, trauma, found family, self-discovery, death, love, identity, anger and kindness
Warnings | Violence, abuse, brainwashing, sexual themes
RECKLESS TRUTH IS AVAILABLE TO BUY IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK FORMAT
taglist: (click here to be added/removed from taglist)
happy storyteller saturday! are there any animals in your story? how do your characters feel about animals? who is the best with animals and who is the worst?
OKAY SO
This is Tori.
Tori is basically just an irl disney princess. Her primary superpower is communicating with animals! There's a whole chapter in Reckless Truth where she takes Lydia (the fmc of the book) to a zoo and they pet a tiger together. Their first date, if you will.
Every character likes some form of animal, I feel. It's hard to exist and not like an animal. But I think there are obviously varying levels of caution or disdain compared to Tori who just Loves Everything. Instinctively I feel like Violet doesn't much like birds, ironically (considering her power is Wind), and Ivy isn't much of a cat person.
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Truth Saga Webweaving:
>Reckless Truth
>Found Family
christine feehan , toxic game // mike wheeler, stranger things (s2e02) // @wecametobealonetogether, superhero team dynamics // sophia and vivenne, level 16 (2018) // raven elliot o'connor, reckless truth
DESCRIPTION: five images arranged in a column straight down. The images are as follows
First image: black text on white background. Reads: “That was the first time I realized that some people had something truly beautiful and it was called family. I wanted that for myself-and that tea set. It was elegant and beautiful, and it represented that bond they has as well as their connection to the past.”. The first sentence is highlighted in yellow.
Second image: a still from Stranger Things in which Mike Wheeler, a young boy of about twelve years old, is center frame, speaking to Will Byers who is blurred at the right hand side of the frame. The subtitles read: "if we are both going crazy then we'll go crazy together, right?"
Third image: black text on a white background. Reads: "I help you fight evil. I let you sleep on my lap when we get back home. I know everything about you, things your parents never will. We've almost died together. We study for tests together. We are discovering ourselves. I hope I still know you in ten years. You turned evil once. I still got you a birthday present."
Fourth image: a still from the 2018 movie Level 16. The image is under red lighting and shows a teenage girl over the shoulder of another young girl she is hugging tightly. The subtitles read: "You came after me." "Of course I did."
Fifth image: black text on a white background. The first part of the text is blacked out. The rest reads: "I think... when all you have is each other it's easier to feel like the whole world is against you than to risk putting your trust in someone new."
Rules: search your WIPs and attach a snippet containing the word given to you. Give whoever you tag 5 new words to search their WIPs for.
Words I got: Chill, Lift, Wreck, Final
Words I'm giving you: Three, Available, Cross, Trace
WIP I pulled from is Bitter Truth!
Chill
As if to punctuate the point, his eyes flashed red and something flickered in the shadow he cast on the floor. Blade hadn't had much dealing with Luc – the Handler was mostly there as the Controller's personal guard, and thus spent little time around the Squad. He had no idea the extent of the cruelty the boy was capable of, but even this slight show of power sent a chill up his spine.
Lift
“That!” she exclaimed, eyeing him closely, “You keep doing that.”
Erik blinked. “Doing what?”
“Looking like someone's slapped you.” Lydia's brow furrowed, and Erik could see pieces falling together behind her eyes, “Every time I call you a bloke. Why d'you do that?”
Erik matched her frown. He'd barely realised he was doing it, let alone in the pattern she'd noted. It took him a second, but when his hands lifted again they were hesitant. “Because-.. I'm not. A bloke.”
Wreck
So apparently I haven't used the word wreck a single time in any of my projects that I can find. I even searched my AO3 for the word XD
Final
Good. Time to end this. Blade ignored the squeeze in his chest as he moved closer, poised to land one final strike on his squadmate. This was necessary. Sentimentality had no place in the Controller's world and Evie had betrayed them all – they were going to die one way or another. Better it be by his hand than when the Controller found out.
tagging: @smallvillecrows and anyone else who wants to do it!
This scene is going to take a lot of working and reworking, I can tell. I knew from the start that I wanted at least a scene in book 2 where Erik's nonbinary identity is addressed directly, and this is a snippet from that scene. It's a challenge to balance the scene without making it feel forced or unnatural, but I think I'm getting there.
To my writer friends: does your novel or story have a scene addressing the MC's identity? How do you fit it in naturally without worrying you're dragging the whole story to a halt for the sake of it? Idk if I'm just insecure about it thanks to how picky people are with representation, especially as this book is more cozy-adjacent compared to the first (which I'm not used to writing longform).
