Comment, I'll add you. If you're real nice.

My brother, my child, my creation, my companion. My innocent killer, in time, more than likely. One cannot blame he who is so utterly without ill intent. Truly, he is far too good, more guileless and gentle and uncorrupted and new than I ever was. Than I ever could have been...

Come, bright little shadow. It's far too late; let us take to softer privacy, and I will sing us to sleep until our tiny world dissolves for the night. The humming and calculating can wait for another morning.

Patience.

I've never considered myself a patient man, though in practice I suppose I've become one out of necessity. Playing the long game seems to hold greater reward. I don't like it by any measure whatsoever, but it is a necessity as said. I don't build up my hopes as time passes, which seems unusual. My hopes remain the same, set in a point of stasis, and I simply wait.

Yes. I have grown very good at waiting.

Holding up the masks required to make me appear not just human, but competently and likeably human, puts far more strain on me than can be borne without end. To consider myself acceptable for human interaction, I must be friendly. I must be clever and charming. I must be approachable and considerate. The nicest monster you'll ever meet. When I succeed in this, I feel I have done my job adequately. But I do not have the energy for it for too long.

I spend my time alone at home, which does some small good in granting me rest. It gives me time to vent the pressure a while. What it doesn't do, however, alone in my little house, is release the inevitable tension that simply living creates in me. The longer I merely exist, the tighter it turns. It drives me mad, sends me howling into the darkness at night to scream my bestial rage and sorrow at the sky that doesn't care for my small, insignificant torment. After all, the pinpricks of light are from millenia-dead stars, and a star, alive or not, cares for nothing. In my claustrophobic fury, I might drive myself until my muscles burn, just to stop their incessant nervous twitching. The flesh of an upper arm might become dented from fitful snapping and nipping, as a means to some short distraction to the endless, hungry, demanding, constricting wanting of it. Their bruises are almost always gone by morning.

It is a categorical insanity, a tide that has forgotten how to ebb and merely rises. I know how to make it stop, of course, because that's all my mind screams for by now. Some days, beyond even that for food, or sleep.

And I, alone in my little house, can do nothing. Because I can't do it on my own-- I should know, I've tried often enough and to my boundless frustration. By myself, there is only brief sedation. It has been so very, very long that I can barely remember who it was that helped me last time. Years ago, now, and not much at all like how it is now.

This is something new, more or less. I must remember the old adage, that that which yields is not always weak. What that means if your weakness is your hunger to yield, I'm not sure precisely. If existing as myself requires nought moreso than strength, than endurance, then how can I admit what I so clearly desire? Although, when put like that, I don't suppose it's much surprise at all.

But of course, it isn't simple, because nothing is simple. Because of course, it just has to be only one person who I could ever allow this, allow to have this one closely-guarded piece of myself. Ignoring grammar there for the sake of things. Because of course I couldn't ever make it easier on myself, I had to be discriminating. I had to be particular in how I chose to end my starvation. I had to be loyal, and in that I have likely doomed myself, perhaps forever. Because I don't see this ending.

Cut me, it says. Bite me, before I turn and bite you instead. But even that seems like bravado. I don't think it would be possible for me to...

No. I would just disappear into the night again. Rage and howl where no one would hear me, or where no one would care. Go back to my little house, and wait.

Because I have grown very good at waiting.

Greetings, programs.
This story grabbed me by the brainstem and just wouldn't let go. After about a week or so, it's finally finished! I hope you like it.

Follow the links to the chapters, they'll take you to mgs_slash 


Title: A Break In Character
Pairing: Big Boss/Ocelot, Liquid/Ocelot, Mantis/Ocelot's Mind
Rating: MA15+
Word Count: 9477 (my longest fic yet), but cut into four pieces to avoid eyestrain and TL;DR.
Summary: Mantis finds a crack in the old man's armor.

Notes/Warnings For Part 1: No warnings for this one, I don't think. Some angst and vague allusions to sex, maybe.
PART ONE

Notes/Warnings For Part 2: Physical contact and attempts at comforting. From Mantis. 
PART TWO

Notes/Warnings For Part 3: Being inside Ocelot's brain. Some psychic manipulation. Emotional/psychic vore. BB/Ocelot dreamsex. Accidental literal mindrape, allusions to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
PART THREE

Notes/Warnings For Part 4: Emotional/psychic vore. Character death (in dream). Rape (in dream). Introduction of Liquid.
PART FOUR

I went to go see the arena show for Walking With Dinosaurs. This was both a completely amazing and peerless experience for me, and a dire warning of things to come for the rest of the world. The raptor suit armies will be made now. And they will be great and terrible, and I shall rule from within my turret-mounted Utahraptor.

The sound of leather is a true delight. I had missed it so.

I have acquired membership to a 24-hour gym. While I am not yet capable of the full 24 hours, the 3 hours a day (though temporarily every second day, due to other obligations) shall have to do for now. I should probably do less, but it is no longer enough for me to simply become thinner. I have so, so much work to do, and I just need to...

---------

What was I saying?

I have been going through an oddly sedate and dreamlike crisis of identity. Somehow, I failed to feel the appropriate levels of fear, or panic, or whatever would be more typical. More, I simply felt a vague confusion, a little unease likened to leaving something important behind somewhere but being unable to recall what. A flickering, elusive tickle taunting from one of the far rear rooms of the thought-mansion.

It should be noted, for those unversed to the kind of being I am, that 'I' is a difficult thing for me to properly contemplate. What is displayed is, barring certain specific instances and scenarios, a mask of some kind. These masks range from the simple mannerisms borrowed from people and things both real and fictional; all the way up to the very complex pre-made personas of characters I create or appropriate. It needs to be made clear, I am a very different beast from systems, or gestalt entities, though I suppose I can see how some may regard it like a distant cousin. I liken it more to a series of puppets, articulated by the man behind the curtain. None of these masks truly have awareness of their own, though I may talk to them sometimes or imagine what they would say. They are not alive, so to speak.

I haven't made this public before, not out of any particular sense of shame or fear, but simply because it seemed irrelevant. Though, it does bother me that of the few I have disclosed this to before, a majority of that number had taken the information I gave to mean I was a liar, which is not at all the case.

The issue I was dealing with for something like a few months now, was that I now possess a number of masks in the area of a hundred and sixty. It had long passed the point that 'the man behind the curtain' had become forgotten, lost behind the masks. It is unsettling to realise you do not know who you are, or at best, you are becoming splintered in ways you do not wish to be.

I did not feel lost; I have all the stability and security I need, all I could want really. Merely confused, and disoriented. I wondered how long it had been so, like how you may not notice your hair thinning until one day you see a real bald spot in the mirror. And so I was for months, in a languid kind of existential anaesthetised-horror.

Until one night, I was given a new name.

I have many names, though few are still known or used. This new one is special to me, however, as Ledarius was to me once. It had been a long time since I had been named, knowing or not of the weight of tradition and ritual being named holds for me. Going home after the event, being kindly driven through the cold and quiet night, my sleepy mind fielded a yipping howl from somewhere, and I had a small but deeply satisfying epiphany.

None of the masks I have are kept against my will. I have crafted every single one with a keen eye to what I desired from them, and what I could best use. I made them to help me be whatever I needed or wanted to be at any moment: the sharp-eared gentleman with infinite patience and utter command of impulse, the bright-eyed curious creature with the clever hands and quick mind, the sly and smooth-tongued beast that harnesses the predatory centres of the brain to his best advantage, and so many others. They served me well, and do to this day. Each was made or cobbled together to enhance me, to assist me in becoming whatever it was I wanted. Through them I improve, diversify my abilities, temper my raw instinct and impulse into something finer.

I have so many because they work. They work because, whether scratch-built or appropriated, they are reflections of myself. They are reflections of myself because I can perceive how I am and how I wish to be, and adjust accordingly.

I once wished, fervently, to be a shapeshifter. And that is what I have finally become. Having sought and found the greatest shapeshifter several times, it is not a surprise the old trickster rubbed off on me.

I am whatever I wish to be. I am the beast that forms itself. I am the puppet and I am the puppet master. I am no less for my talent, for talent is what it is. I am not wrong, I am not a liar, and I am not something that should have this 'fixed'.

Identity is fluid. There is no identity crisis.

I feel good.

Not morally, of course. That never happens. But otherwise and in general, good.

The greatest thing about Celtic fusion punk is that it makes you want to punch tigers. In a good way. In a good-natured-split-lip way. There's no better way to express your joy to someone than with fists.

I'm quite a well-behaved monster nowadays. In a way.

Writing, writing, writing. So much writing. I break occasionally for exercise, errands and dinosaurs. I am surprised at how little of my writing involves cocks.

I refuse to believe that Cobra Commander has been shot.

I've come into some handy merchandise that I will be selling at MiDfur, all goes to plan. I'm quite excited about my stock. I think people are going to like what I have for them.

Fun, fun things lined up this week. To work!

Character(s)/Pairing(s): Psycho Mantis/The Sorrow
Summary: Perhaps in death, just maybe, Psycho Mantis might be able to find a special someone to tolerate him.
Rating: PG, I think.
Warnings (if applicable): Might be spoilerish for MGS1, 3 and 4. Be warned
Author's Notes: Kind of dedicated to the fine people over in fissionmailed  who gave me ideas. Not quite so blatantly slashy, since, well, it's Mantis/Sorrow. Mmm, telekinesis. Oh, also, it looks like Sony and/or Youtube have blocked this clip in Germany on copyright grounds. This makes me kinda nervous; inb4 it gets taken down or force-muted.

Title: "Cowboys Are Frequently (Secretly)"
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Big Boss/Ocelot, from the Metal Gear game series.
Summary: Kind of a time paradox, Naked Snake finds a recording from future!Ocelot. But basically it's just a musical fanvid.
Rating: M15, or PG but with some humping in an airplane.
Warnings (if applicable): Very slight possibility of spoilers for MGS4, probably some for MGS3.

I think about a lot of things when I am waiting for my train, and I cannot find a handy power socket for my battery-less writing laptop. Why is the train always either late or overpacked, or both, but never neither? Why make it possible to post from this phone, but only by disabling the feature that allows you to write with any speed? What in the name of hell is my sexual orientation, if I can still feel physical lust? That one fucks with me quite often.

Tonight, while picking up my bag from the still-warm concrete, I thought about the Metal Gear Solid series, Big Boss and Ocelot's relationship in particular, and the precise meaning of loyalty.

Is it just as good to serve as to be obeyed? Is remaining true to your word through all times and trials worth it, if you end up spending your whole life doing nothing else? Could you stay loyal to just one person, forever, even if that doesn't go both ways? Could you wait literally forever for something purely hypothetical?

I think I've found the answer to those.