#If somebody would treat me like this I would simply be in heaven <3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

polaristranslations · 4 years ago

Text

Shinobu Mustard Episode 3

019

What goes around will come around.

The fact that I had silenced Oshino Shinobu with a kiss in an abandoned building that was once a cram school had become a mere memory, but now I was reaping what I sowed by being silenced with a kiss by her predecessor, Princess Acerola, in heaven. After all this time.

I'd been hit where I least expected it.

It was a scene that I could only describe as bewildering, but at the same time, maybe I should feel honored by it... Not even the princess from mythology and fairy tales, who went around destroying nations everywhere, would have killed her people with such a beautiful kiss.

Not one you do on the back of one's hand, but a genuine, lips-on-lips kiss.

And happening in heaven, at that.

Or it could be that it had just been a wild delusion of mine (in which case, I had better rush to the hospital as soon as possible, instead of worrying that my vampire constitution might be exposed—my mind had to be in serious condition to fantasize about a naked princess with a demon mask), but, like in hell, there was no dying, living, or killing in heaven.

If there was.

It would be—coming back to life.

"......"

When I came to, I was back in the main shrine of Kitashirahebi Shrine—a dark indoor scene, a complete change from the scenery that I'd been seeing previously. No matter how I looked at it, it wasn't great Mother Nature of the Middle Ages, but Japanese architecture of the present.

A scene I was quite familiar with.

However, the circumstances around me, I wasn't familiar with.

After my early return from my trip to not hell but heaven, the ones who greeted me were my oni partner, Oshino Shinobu, and my godly friend, Hachikuji Mayoi—and their tears.

"M-master! Master, my master! You came back!"

"A-Ara... Arara... Araragi-shan!"

The crying girl and little girl came and squeezed me in a tight hug.

What was this situation? For Hachikuji to normally flub my name like this...

"Since you were showing no signs of coming back to life, Koyomin, these kids were worrying that they'd accidentally messed up and killed their partner or friend, up until now."

Said a voice.

Behind the bawling pair, there was the shadow of somebody who stood there, shocked—and that somebody was casually carrying, not an oodachi, but a kodachi, against her shoulder.

It was Gaen Izuko-san.

There was no one else that would call me Koyomin—she must have revived me with the Demon Blade "Yumewatari", that formed a pair with the Demon Blade "Kokorowatari".

"Although, they actually did mess up. Since Shinobu-chan comes from the position of being sealed, she couldn't break the pairing between herself and you, Koyomin, so it just ended up being a half-baked near-death experience."

So basically—I was fine up until the point where I was blown to smithereens, but afterwards, since I wasn't returning from hell, Shinobu and Hachikuji panicked and asked for help from Gaen-san?

"To be precise, they actually asked for help from Yotsugi. And she was the one who contacted me. And since I had so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much free time, I came."

Gaen-san, are you perhaps mad?

Well, of course she'd be mad. Since they were both willing to ask for help, both Shinobu and Hachikuji probably gave all the information they had to Ononoki-chan, and by extension, Gaen-san.

At the very least, Gaen-san should now be aware that this shrine was sheltering the mummy of a little girl—Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.

The ancient vampire that Gaen-san had been attempting to seize all throughout tonight... Incidentally, I had completely ignored the mission entrusted to me by Gaen-san and tried to fall to hell of my own accord.

At this point, the promise that she wouldn't get involved again until I graduated from college was most likely no longer valid... Or rather, it was a breach of trust that may as well have earned me a permanent breaking off of relations.

It was natural for her to get mad.

"I'm not mad, Koyomin. I'm hurt. I thought you'd have a little more faith in me."

That was what Gaen-san said before she returned the Demon Blade "Yumewatari" to the still-sobbing Shinobu—the sword capable of reviving oddities, complementing the sword capable of killing them.

Of course, Shinobu and Hachikuji had probably intended to use that kodachi to revive me, but it didn't go as well as when they had sent me to hell—but that made sense.

After all, I hadn't fallen to hell in the first place.

I'd been sidetracked with a drastic change to my route, sent to heaven instead of hell—and that was when Hachikuji's plan fell apart.

So for me to have been revived now, Gaen-san, the onee-san who knows everything, had surely managed to grasp what sort of experience I'd undertaken—it was hard to gauge what was going through Gaen-san's mind, as she would have had to urgently interrupt her carefully planned all-nighter after receiving the request through the young girl from the girl and little girl.

It was likely a loss of face for a commander to abandon the mission she had planned.

I really felt sorry after she told me that she felt hurt—yes, when I was in high school, it felt like school was almost everything to me, but now that I'd become a college freshman and expanded my world somewhat, I'd learned that it was not only children that get hurt, but adults, as well.

Even the onee-san who knew everything wasn't Superman—after making an adult feel hurt, making a girl sad, and making a little girl cry, I was so wracked with guilt that I almost did actually want to go to hell this time.

I wondered how they must have felt while looking at my dismembered body, and I swore to myself that I would absolutely never tell them that I'd been talking to a naked beautiful woman wearing a demon mask in heaven.

The difference in elevation and temperature was really something else.

The difference in elevation between heaven and hell.

And the difference in temperature between the pond of blood and her lips.

"What's the matter, Koyomin? This onee-san is waiting for your words of apology, you know? I'm ready to forgive you, so you should really reconcile these things quickly."

Regardless of what she felt inside, she was showing a lot of generosity, quite like an adult, or perhaps even an onee-san. However.

However, I was unable to offer any words of apology, nor was I able to offer any words of comfort for Shinobu and Hachikuji—well, of course I would do those things afterward, but before that, there was something I had to do first.

Something I had to do.

If I didn't do that, I wouldn't be able to speak.

I picked myself off of the floor, broke away from the new god and the old demon, and turned my back to the administrator of the specialists. And I crawled over to the mummy sheltered in the main shrine, the center of this conversation and the center of this problem.

The mummy of the naked little girl.

The gourmet vampire.

The mummy of Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster—I carefully cradled that mummy's head so as not to break it, but with the force I'd used to crawl forward, I kissed the mummy with all my might.

A kiss on the lips of a mummy.

These college chapters had become rather adult.

020

To be precise, it wasn't a kiss, but mouth-to-mouth feeding.

I had wondered what was going on in heaven when Princess Acerola kissed me out of the blue, without any preamble—I even wondered if I had developed an elegance that could charm even a princess, and I simply hadn't realized how attractive I really was, but that wasn't it at all.

It was true that it was a thesis-like kiss to try and bring me back to life (being brought back by Demon Blade "Yumewatari" was an explanation that only applied in this world, and there needed to be an explanation in the next world—essentially, the same thing as what Teori Tadatsuru had done with me in hell), but there was yet another reason.

The princess had, of all things, entrusted it to me via mouth-to-mouth—that is, the wonder drug.

The medicine in place of the soup from the Blood Pond Hell.

To go even further—the food.

Though that gourmet vampire would even refuse treatment for the sake of her epicureanism, there did exist food that she would absolutely take into her mouth.

For example.

Princess Acerola's blood was the prime example.

After all, she'd already partaken in it once before—but just as heaven had no place for a Blood Pond Hell (or perhaps, no place for me to belong), neither could bloodshed occur in heaven.

So the "gift" entrusted to me by "Princess Beauty", as a further generic drug to replace blood—was saliva.

Not blood, but saliva.

However, saliva did hold the same characteristics as blood, and I had personally treated Hanekawa Tsubasa and Oikura Sodachi before, using a treatment of saliva based in a vampire's recovery powers.

You could also say it was the easiest medicine to transfer by mouth... So, for that reason, even though I was embraced by a girl, even though I was cried at by a young girl, and even though I was reprimanded by an adult, I could not open my mouth to console or apologize without first getting rid of the liquid that had filled it.

From mouth to mouth to mouth.

It was like I was mediating an indirect kiss between Princess Acerola and Suicidemaster, and I had some mixed feelings about it, but anyway, I placed a kiss upon the mummy that was way out of my strike zone.

Seriously, if it weren't for this life-saving procedure, I didn't want to play the role of this laughingstock again.

"M-my master... So your degeneracy has finally gone that far..."

Shinobu, who seemed to have stopped crying from shock, did not seem to understand that my action, which I carried out as soon as I came back to life, was a noble medical procedure—but I was eager to expel every drop of saliva that had been stored in my mouth.

I'd gotten a taste of what it felt to be a squirrel hoarding acorns in my cheek pouches... Well, what I'd really gotten a taste of was the saliva of a princess.

There was still a small amount of vampire in my composition, so it took a lot of strength to keep from swallowing it myself.

I wanted to praise myself for my impressive self-control.

If I may say so myself, as someone who had the privilege of tasting it (maybe that's why I was able to come back to life), it was a soup that would surely satisfy even the most discriminating gourmet vampire... Well, as a result, there may have been a little bit of my own saliva mixed it, but then again, I was a man that had once been a thrall of Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, the future form of "Princess Beauty".

Perhaps she could think of it as a spice to enhance the flavor.

And so, the mummy, who had been force-fed the medicine by me, showed no signs of spitting it back out.

Quite literally—she drank it.

And then,

"Oh—ohh! It's kind of like that, isn't it? When you put dried wakame back into water—"

Though Hachikuji Mayoi's voice was still tearful, her comment seemed truly pertinent, as one would expect from the girl with a reputation for her powers of expression.

The mummy began to regenerate.

Dried-up skin and bones were gradually returning to youthfully dewlike skin and flesh—like an overly-CG-enhanced commercial for hair treatment, even her hair was becoming springy and shiny.

It most likely didn't have to do with the fact that she was the progenitor who birthed and named the golden-haired, golden-eyed Kisshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade—but her hair was dazzlingly gold.

"How splendid—but the same thing won't work on the mummified high school girls. Because this 'reversion' is basically vampirification."

Gaen-san came in with her specialist-like commentary—and, as always, it was spot on. It was true that, if we used the same form of treatment on the victims of this case, then the girls who had failed in becoming a vampire would instead become "successes", putting us in a tight spot.

That would be putting the cart before the horse.

"—Suicidemaster. So it was you, after all," muttered Shinobu to the mummy in super-recovery.

It seemed she'd decided to put aside her shock at my treatment for the time being. Although it would be nice if she could just forget about entirely, as she did with her past self.

Even though she'd called out her name at first glance, she could still not be one hundred percent sure in that mummy state—but now that she was on the mend, it seemed she was finally convinced that it was her former vampire master.

"Though you haven't changed—that you're still a mess."

...? What did she mean by that?

As far as I could see, the naked little girl's mummy had finished her "reversion" to a naked little girl, without any defects—I didn't know if all vampires were like this, but she turned out to be a cute little girl, as if the mummy form she'd been in before had just been a lie. She was a cute, naked little girl.

Naturally, it was hard for me to lay my eyes on her, so I took off my jacket and covered her with it.

We weren't in paradise. This was a holy shrine.

"About six years old—I'd say? Her appearance, that is. So there are child vampires, too."

Her size was such that would fit perfectly in a child seat.

Well, if I inferred from what Shinobu told me, this vampire had lived for almost a thousand years, so her age surely didn't correspond to her appearance.

Just as a dog years are different from human years, vampire years must also be different from human years—although, I'd been under the assumption that vampires grew quickly.

If there was someone that didn't look his age, then the half-vampire vampire hunter Episode looked to be about middle or high school age, but he was only about six years old.

"I wonder if she's like a chibi jiangshi."

Yet another analogy from Hachikuji (who was also someone who didn't look her age), but to that, Shinobu said, "Nay," and shook her head harshly.

Both her appraisal and her expression were harsh.

"This little girl form was not the form that Suicidemaster was in when I first met her—hmph. Now we're both little girls, though."

"...? What does that mean...?"

Shinobu didn't seem like she wanted to speak further on the subject, so I had no choice but to ask the person herself about it—that was why I'd revived her in the first place. However, while the body had regained its moisture, there were no signs of her opening her eyes.

Had the treatment failed?

"It'll take some time for the fluids to get from her capillaries to her brain. At this rate, it shouldn't take more than a day. Hmm—I've gotten a pretty good grasp of what's going on, now, Koyomin," said Gaen-san.

As always, she caught onto things at a terrifying rate—surely not even this onee-san had caught onto the fact that I'd been honored with a kiss from a naked beautiful woman wearing a demon mask in heaven, but I couldn't be too careful.

It wouldn't take more than a day.

In other words, it would take... until tomorrow night or so.

"Then, before this vampire—before the first suspect on my list, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster, wakes up, I'll have you catch up on my end of things, too. To the point of no return."

"Eh... Please wait. So are you saying that I'm not fired yet?"

"I have more faith in you than you think I do, Koyomin. And that faith won't be broken just because you betrayed me once or twice."

It sounded like praise, but she spoke with a hint of sarcasm.

But I had no choice to content myself with it... Even that sarcasm, and even that faith that felt a little too heavy.

"Hold on. What do you mean by suspect? My old pal?"

Shinobu had been left astonished—uh oh, the fact that she'd been kept out of the loop was about to be exposed.

So Gaen-san hadn't actually explained any of that yet. It hadn't really been the time for it, but she surely wouldn't feel calm now after hearing that her old friend (old pal?) that had just escaped from the critical condition of mummification was actually a suspect in an oddity phenomenon.

"Heh."

With a cool attitude as if she understood everything from the beginning, Hachikuji folded her arms and nodded, but it seemed a bit suspicious to me.

In her own way, she was at risk of being deposed from her godly seat—it was possible that Hachikuji was the number one person in trouble in this town.

After all, Hachikuji in trouble meant that this town was in trouble...

"It seems we'll have to throw out both your feelings of not wanting to rely on Hachikuji-chan and my plan to keep Shinobu-chan at a distance. From now on, we're going to have to band together, so let's have a lively discussion—yes, with everybody. Even including the sleeping vampire, Suicidemaster-chan."

Even including Suicidemaster?

As I was about to inquire into the mind behind this thought-provoking and unexpected statement, Gaen-san gently reined me and said, "First, a report," getting the ball rolling.

"As she was sheltered here, naturally, I was unable to find the suspect and target of our search, Suicidemaster, no matter where I looked in the town... But until I was approached by Yotsugi, it wasn't as if I hadn't found anything."

The fourth mummy had been discovered.

A mummy of a high school girl.

With the fact that it was not an achievement, but a loss—that was what Gaen-san told us.

021

The fourth mummy—if you included Miss Suicidemaster's mummy in the count, that would make it the fifth mummy. But no, I think it made sense to call it the fourth mummy here.

Gaen-san was unhappy about it, but to put it coldly, there was no doubt that this was less of a development in the incident and more of a development in the investigation—because, regardless of whether she'd been found, it didn't change the fact that she'd already been turned into a mummy.

Not to mention, if the circumstances of the discovery narrowed down the timeframe of the crime to sometime tonight, didn't that mean that Suicidemaster had an established alibi?

If she was being sheltered in these holy shrine grounds, then that could also mean that these holy shrine grounds were keeping watch over her.

"The fourth victim, the fourth mummy, is Kanguu Misago-chan. Of course, she's a member of Naoetsu High's girls' basketball team, and one of the two that had 'gone missing'—so, Koyomin, your information gathering was not in vain, in the sense that we were able to link it to an early detection."

In that sense, it happened just as we expected. It wasn't exactly comforting—but we'd managed to find one whose location had been unknown, in the form of a mummy.

"Where was she found? Was she in a location even harder to find than the shack that the third mummy and second victim, Kuchimoto-chan, was found?"

If that wasn't the case, then it was possible to infer that the crime had taken place tonight—if she had still been alive before tonight, then it meant that she had to have been mummified during the period when Suicidemaster had an alibi.

Because a mummy was something that had failed to become a vampire, there wasn't exactly an estimated time of death—she wasn't alive, but she wasn't dead, either.

However, although it was a bit strange to find it disappointing, the fourth mummy, Kanguu-chan, was in fact found in a location "harder to find than that shack".

"It was at the bottom of a reservoir. The mummy had been weighted down and submerged at the bottom of the water. Unless you were searching on the assumption that there's a high probability of a victim that hasn't been found, well, it wasn't a place that would have easily been found."

It wasn't a place that would have easily been found—a terrible location.

I could feel the malice.

Or, rather... Even if Suicidemaster's alibi couldn't be established, "attacking a high school girl and sinking her in a reservoir" did not exactly feel like the crime of a vampire.

If the criminal had broken into her room and attacked her in her sleep, or left a signature, or anything like that, then it was still possible for me to say that it very much held an oddity-like nature... But, the bottom of a reservoir?

That was like throwing a human into the Blood Pond Hell.

Not to mention—while she was alive.

It was a huge deviation from Shinobu, or Suicidemaster as had been depicted by "Princess Beauty"—it was the spiteful, narrow, and extremely ordinary way of thinking one would expect from a human.

Or perhaps they had gotten some inspiration?

Influenced by Princess Acerola, who invited even a treasonous person like me to heaven in order to revive Suicidemaster, perhaps the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire was trying to provoke the theory that she wasn't the culprit?

"Of course, even though she'd been submerged in water, she didn't 'revert' or anything."

Gaen-san glanced in the direction of Suicidemaster's sleeping form—what had been placed upon her revived naked body was no longer my jacket, but instead the white clothing taken from Hachikuji's wardrobe. And that, somehow, increased her aura of death.

Well, it could be a simple seal by Gaen-san to keep her from suddenly going on a rampage when she woke up... Although, if that was the case, it would be strange that Shinobu didn't say anything in particular about her "old pal" having been sealed, simple as it was.

"...At this rate, should we assume that the last club member has also been mummified in secret somewhere?"

"It doesn't seem like there's room for optimism. It's not like it will end with the fifth victim, either."

The fifth victim—Kiseki Souwa-chan.

Right now, they were probably out using all their strength to search for her...

"If it were me, I'd bury her in the ground. To make it even harder to find her."

Hachikuji suddenly and nonchalantly unveiled her gruesome deduction—though, no matter how gruesome it was, it was a possibility that had to be considered.

"Yes. I believe that it's highly possible. Or rather, when I took Suicidemaster into my care, her situation was more or less something like that."

"...Was she buried in the ground?" Shinobu asked doubtfully.

"In the ground, or rather, in the mountain," responded Hachikuji. "In this mountain, that is. Rather than having been buried, it's possible that she'd dug herself in on her own. Mummies can be like that, after all."

Hmm... Well, rituals such as burying oneself in the ground and becoming a mummy have been seen in many places since ancient times.

"I can't agree to that reasoning. In the first place, if a vampire wanted to hide a corpse to destroy evidence, there would be no better place to hide it than in their own belly."

It was a rather composed opinion coming from Shinobu.

Really, coming from Shinobu.

No, she seemed a little unhappy, but that may be because she was offended at having been left out of the loop so far. She didn't seem like she was particularly trying to protect Suicidemaster in any way.

The worst-case scenario—that she would take Suicidemaster's side and end up in another heated confrontation against Gaen-san and the other experts... But right now, any signs that she would do such a thing seemed virtually nonexistent. ...Why?

Is it because she knew?

Knew that there was no need to cover for her—was she as convinced of Suicidemaster's innocence as her predecessor, Princess Acerola, was?

"Well, I'd like to come back and hear about the relationship between Hachikuji-chan and Suicidemaster later, but for now, I have something I want to tell Koyomin."

Gaen-san smoothly returned to the main topic—she made a great MC for someone like me who got easily distracted.

Well, I wanted to hear not just Hachikuji's opinion but also Shinobu's opinion later, but of course, those would not prove Suicidemaster's innocence by themselves.

In the first place, once we put aside the premise that bloodsucking is not a sin for vampires, there's no guarantee that the missing high school girl won't be swallowed whole when her blood is sucked.

As I thought about that...

"Something you want to tell me?" I asked, repeating her words. I didn't have any idea what she could be talking about, it seemed to have been a perfectly natural continuation for Gaen-san.

"A code."

She said.

"Where the fourth mummy, Kanguu Misago-chan, was discovered, just like when the third mummy, Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan, was discovered, a code had been left behind—and it's not clear if it's what you called a living message, or if it's the signature of the vampire."

022

Aha, so that was why I hadn't been fired. That emotional-sounding reason of "faith" hadn't necessarily been a lie, but more realistically speaking, I'd been given the okay to stay in the investigation squad to handle the cryptanalysis.

Thank you, Meniko! Hooray for friends!

My strength as a human did go up from making friends!

...I wasn't sure if such a flippant change in policy was okay, but regardless, the message (or signature) that had been left behind by Kanguu-chan (or the vampire) was as follows.

"820/280/610/160"

Perfect for a mathematics major.

Well, not for me, but for Meniko, was what I meant. But it was a code made up of purely numbers, without any letters mixed in like last time.

Four numbers.

Could the fact that exactly four mummies had been discovered be some sort of key?

Did it have to do with prime numbers again? No, with all of them being even numbers, and all of them ending in zero, they definitely weren't prime numbers...

"That reminds me, if you're considering this a signature, then I believe Suicidemaster doesn't even know what prime numbers are."

And neither do I, said Shinobu brusquely from beside me—I wasn't exactly thrilled by her cavalier attitude, but it was a certainly a far cry from the time with Shishirui Seishirou, when she had refused to even join the discussion.

Could this also be considered a change in policy.

Thinking about it, since Shinobu was no longer a pure oddity, change was now something that was allowed for her—it was no longer something that would cause her to be extinguished.

It wasn't so strange to think that the little girl had experienced some growth after the battle over the Demon Blade "Kokorowatari" against Shishirui Seishirou, with whom she shared a history—and though I didn't know what she thought about what I'd just thought, but Gaen-san spoke up.

"Yep. The truth is, I didn't suspect Suicidemaster as much as I might have implied. It was just that, with a code like that being found, we certainly couldn't ignore her as the prime suspect," she said, agreeing to what Shinobu said.

It was a retraction of her previous statement that I'd thought was unthinkable for Gaen-san—or no, I guess it wasn't. In the first place, Gaen-san had never actually told me that Suicidemaster was a suspect.

It was most likely that she didn't have the conviction.

"Then, what sort of vampires are the other suspects assumed to be like?"

The culprit was undoubtedly a vampire, at least.

And even though she was more like the dregs of a vampire, Shinobu was still technically a potential suspect.

"I won't name anybody specific, but I can think of a few beings that might want to pin the crime on Suicidemaster."

"Pin—the crime?"

No.

Whether or not it's a crime for vampires to suck blood was a different matter entirely—was it wrong for lions to eat people?

It was a theme I'd touched upon in my conversation with Princess Acerola.

"If they could set up the renowned Suicidemaster as the imaginary culprit, then they'll be able to safely go around sucking blood—there could be a vampire that thinks that way."

For that purpose, they went and turned Suicidemaster herself into a mummy?

Then, assuming "B777Q" was indeed a signature, then that signature was a fake signature? Then Suicidemaster wouldn't have to know what prime numbers were for things to make sense.

Because it was a fake signature left by someone else.

"That goes for if it was a living message, too. Let's say the vampire had went up to the high school girls and claimed, 'I am the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster'—then the probability that the victims would want to leave that name behind is pretty high, wouldn't you say?"

"Mm..."

She was right. I should've put more thought into it than just being satisfied at cracking the code... Not that I had cracked the code with my own power to begin with.

However, when she put it that way, I couldn't deny that it felt like a bit of a letdown. Because then, for what reason had I been keeping watch over Shinobu?

"Well, in the end, I got to descend to hell again, so it's fine."

"As if that could be fine!" retorted Shinobu.

Well, to be precise, I'd actually ascended to heaven, but things would get more convoluted if I brought that up now—it was hard to figure out how exactly I would tell Shinobu about "Princess Beauty".

So at present, the story was that I had taken some of the soup from the Blood Pond Hell into my mouth, and somehow managed to revive a second time—not the princess's saliva.

Well, whether it was heaven or hell, with the way I made Shinobu and Hachikuji cry, it really wasn't acceptable to die in such a casual, easygoing way.

It was something that Ougi-chan had harshly pointed out—continuing to die and revive was certainly risky. Above risk, and beyond risk.

I could stray off the path again.

As a punishment to myself, let's swear to go and visit Oikura at her new lodgings.

"However, unlike Shinobu-chan, Suicidemaster is not a vampire that has been certified as harmless, so even if she turns out to be innocent in this case, she will still be targeted by specialists for extermination. Well, I'm a part of the moderate faction, so I won't do something like that—but it was fortunate that I didn't call Episode over for this case."

Episode, huh.

It was true that, if Episode had been called to this town like with the case of Shishirui Seishirou, then it could have turned into a reproduction of last spring break—in that sense, it was Gaen-san's usual foresight, but there was one thing we shouldn't forget.

With that foresight of hers, Gaen-san had called for Kagenui-san.

For that violent onmyouji, the term "moderate" was even less appropriate than the term "gothic lolita"—the only human weapon in the industry, capable of beating even immortal oddities to death.

"That isn't really something I want to think about."

Gaen-san crossed her arms behind her head, speaking as if escaping from reality.

"However, when push comes to shove, I'm sure her power—her violence—will be necessary in the end. If I could go and call Tadatsuru now, then maybe he could cancel her out, but unfortunately he's always off on his own."

In any case, it seemed there was no change in the fact that the safest course of action was to resolve the matter before Kagenui-san arrived.

But anyway... The code.

If it was the victim that had left it, then was Kanguu-chan also a fan of Ellery Queen? Well, with two people belonging to the same club, it wasn't impossible for them to have a sense of solidarity in reading the same mystery author...

Though it was hard to believe they would leave such an elaborate dying message (living message) unless they were huge fans—if this code were to be solved, would it also end up being "D/V/S", or something pointing to "Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster"?

Or did it lead to a completely different answer... I couldn't say anything yet. But if possible, I wanted to get as much data as I could for decoding before relying on Meniko again.

"Under what circumstances was this code discovered? You said that Kanguu-chan's mummy was found submerged in a reservoir... How exactly had the code been left in the water?"

Had she written it with her finger at the bottom? Something like that would probably have gotten messed up while pulling the mummy out of the water...

There do exist writing implements that can be used in water, but I didn't think a high school girl would use those normally like they would with flash cards.

"As expected, Koyomin, you sure are discerning. As expected of a pro of high school girls."

"I'm not a pro of high school girls. Huh, what exactly did I discern?"

"The message was indeed left with a tool that a high school girl would normally use... Her cell phone."

"Her cell phone? No, but in the water—"

Wait.

My cell phone wasn't like that, but there did exist some tough models of cell phones that were completely waterproof—they were fine even when submerged in water, and as long as there was no problem with water pressure, they would be just as functional underwater as they were on land.

"The code was displayed on the screen. At first, I thought she was trying to make a call for help at the bottom of the water, and ran out of power before she could dial, but it didn't make sense as a telephone number, and they weren't area codes—so, I wondered if it was a message. A code."

"820/280/610/160"

Well, it definitely seemed more like a code than a telephone number.

Hachikuji must have been reminded of it from the cell phone, because she spoke up.

"In Gaen-san's time, didn't you and your friends use pagers to send each other these kinds of codes?" she said.

It was a bit uncalled-for.

Even though I'd thought the same, I'd kept my mouth shut considering Gaen-san's age was unknown.

"Ha ha ha. Even in my time, pagers were no longer being used. Hachikuji-chan, please do not forget that whether or not you can continue to be a god depends on how far I am willing to go."

"Eep!"

Hachikuji went pale at the influential person exerting her influence. She was weak to adversity.

This part of Hachikuji meant she could never become like Chinou-chan.

"W-wait a minute, Araragi-san. If you put it like that, it makes it sound like I started out after that loser..."

"If you really want to act like a senpai, you should make way for the next generation. Isn't it about time for the elderly to step aside?"

"Elderly? Out of everyone in the world, you're the last person I'd like to hear that from, Araragi-san. You could stand to learn a bit from the gallant natures of the Nonsense User or Risuka-chan."

"Risuka-chan hasn't even been completed yet!"

"Rumor has it that the final volume will be published in seventeen years."

Wasn't that still a ways off, then?

Anyway, putting aside the judging of people based on whether they came first or not... It was true that it was a pager-like code—but in that case, it meant it wasn't mathematics' time to shine. It could be a play on words.

Meniko was pretty good with puns, too, so she surely wouldn't have a tough time with this, but if there was a problem, it would be that Meniko was not in possession of any communication tools like cell phones or smartphones, despite coming from my time.

If I wanted to ask for her help, I'd have to wait until first period tomorrow—even if I wanted to meet her in person, I couldn't just go and barge in on her in the middle of the night, unlike with Oikura.

I wanted to remain a good friend, and in order to preserve that friendship, I had to draw the line.

"Understood, Gaen-san. I'll try what I can on my own, but I believe something like this should be decoded by the same person in order to provide uniform results, so would it be possible for you to wait until tomorrow morning for the solution?"

Manase University's first period started at 8 am, and Meniko was going to be there 15 minutes early. Assuming that I skip the lecture itself, we could expect to make progress by 9 in the morning.

"Is your new friend a clock or what? But, well, I'll be counting on you. I may know everything, but codes are a weakness of mine. Stuff like that did appear fairly often in oddity stories, but it was really Oshino-kun that was good at those—but the fact that she left the code on her cell phone is much stronger data than the fact that she left a code behind."

Because, unlike those of the previous victims, we were able to get past the lock—said Gaen-san with a smile. It was a smile that showed the true potential of the authority of cell phones (and not pagers).

"With this, I've been able to get my hands on the victim's personal information—since I had to come rushing all the way over here to help you, Koyomin, I haven't had the chance to analyze it yet, but I'm expecting lots of information."

She was putting pressure on me every time.

But still, while I knew it was necessary, it didn't really feel right or ethical to search through someone's cell phone. And I couldn't honestly say I was looking forward to having to peek further into the darkness of the girls' basketball team.

"Anyway, my detailed disclosure of information ends here. Next, shall we hear the long-awaited details from Hachikuji-chan?"

I doubted that the information that Gaen-san held had truly been fully disclosed, but I decided to let it go and turned to face Hachikuji.

I was interested in the code, but there was something I was even more interested in—how exactly had the mummified little girl ended up under the custody of the god of this town?

What did she mean when she said that Suicidemaster's mummy had been buried in the mountain?—emergency lifesaving had been the utmost priority when we first arrived here, so there were still tons of things I didn't get.

If she didn't explain this now, I would have gone to heaven in vain.

"It was partly because it was an emergency, but also because I'd been told not to talk about it, so I'd put off explaining it to Araragi-san... But I guess I can't keep quiet when you're all looking at me like this."

I shall renounce my right to remain silent and exercise my right to speak out.

That was what the new god said, with a bit of a sigh—as if such a right exists.

023

"It was about one week ago from now. As always, I'd been doing my daily routine of training under the waterfall...

"Hm? Don't lie from the very beginning, you say?

"How rude, Araragi-san. You'll never catch me in a lie or in twintails.

"Although I am in twintails.

"It's true that I was lying about training under the waterfall, but the very beginning, when I said that it was one week ago, was not a lie.

"The truth is that I was zoning out on the shrine grounds. Zoning out is my daily routine, you see.

"But then, I sensed an oddity that passed through the barrier that protects the town—I'm sure I don't need to explain, but just in case, if you happened to forget, I'll give you a quick overview. This barrier had originally been set up by Oshino Ougi-san to repel Oshino Meme-san or Kagenui Yozuru-san from this town, before being recycled.

"Thinking about it now, setting up barriers is a strong point of those two, so using a barrier to keep them out is the kind of irony you would expect from Oshino Ougi-san. But it was a good thing that we could recycle it and use it for peace in this town—of course, it was not me, but the resourcefulness of the outstanding specialist over there, Gaen Izuko, that was responsible.

"Even if you tell me not to butter up to influential people...

"In my case, it's my life that's at stake—or perhaps it's not my life, but my duty? Anyway, as it turned out, the oddity that came at that time was none other than the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster.

"Don't make a face as if I should flub it a little. Do you think I should say something like, sorry, I didn't flub it?

"Well, I had no intention of letting down my guard just because she looked to be a child of six years old, but I didn't sense any threats coming from her. Or rather, when Suicidemaster landed on shrine grounds, she showed such concern that she went out of her way to avoid me.

"And because she was going out of her way to avoid me, she messed up her landing and broke into pieces—ahahaha.

"It's not a laughing matter, you say? Yes, you're right. After all, she ended up dying once then and there.

"Although, since she was a vampire, she quickly regenerated.

"Somehow or other, it seems I've died again—was what she said. I wonder if that was her pet saying, something like a catchphrase?

"It was like she really was the death-certain vampire, and it wasn't a bluff or just putting on airs, because she seemed used to death—is that what vampires' immortal natures are like?

"Anyway, when she revived, she told me about the reason for her visit—she might have mistaken me for immigration control or something. You know. I kind of give off that impression, don't you think?

"So, when I asked her about the purpose of her visit to Japan in a formal manner, she said, 'I came to see my old friend, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade'—although, before she even said it, I'd already guessed that she was someone related to Shinobu-san after seeing that brilliant blond hair.

"However, after the case with Shishirui Seishirou-san, I couldn't just greet her with a warm welcome just because she knew Shinobu-san. Just as Gaen-san said, vampires are threatening oddities in their own right.

"But, considering I was originally the lost child of a snail, it would have been strange for me to deny her entry to the country just because she was an oddity.

"With Suicidemaster having come to meet her 'old pal', I didn't have any particular reason to turn her away.

"It didn't seem as if she was lying.

"More than anything, after being asked for directions, I couldn't just not show her the way. Because that's the kind of god I am—my role is to act as a guide for lost children.

"Without mentioning Shinobu-san's current state, I sent her off—and after that, I believed I'd been able to help realize their heartwarming reunion.

"But, one week later. Today.

"Well, it's already yesterday.

"I ended up discovering the visitor that had turned into a mummy and been cruelly buried in the mountain."

024

Afterwards, it would have led to her panicking and calling us over through Ononoki-chan.

It had been a bit of a mystery why Ononoki-chan had suddenly appeared at that point, but apparently, when Ononoki-chan had made a mistake and been in trouble, Hachikuji had come to help her out, so this was returning the favor... It was hard to believe that Ononoki-chan could make a mistake at all, but it was hard to delve into that in front of Gaen-san.

"I see, I see. So that ancient vampire had already come to this town one week ago. Breaking through the barrier... Hmm."

Gaen-san spoke as if slowly digesting Hachikuji's words.

"Yes. For more details, please read the short story 'Mayoi Welcome'. It's a story that's particularly difficult to obtain, but I believe the short stories will be collected in a book in seventeen years, so please wait warmly."

"I can't wait that long!"

It's a case we need to settle by today or tomorrow!

Or rather, if we were still going to be doing stuff like this seventeen years from now, that in itself was a problem. We needed to seriously consider our future.

"Well, that was all within the range of my expectations. Including the reason for her visit," said Gaen-san.

Indeed.

Though there was a difference in class, Suicidemaster and Shishirui Seishirou had indeed come for the same reason, with Shinobu as the cause, or perhaps the incentive—no.

That might not be it.

In Shishirui Seishirou's case, the reason he'd come to see Shinobu had been related to the Demon Blade "Kokorowatari"—but in Suicidemaster's case, the reason she'd come to see Shinobu hadn't come up in Hachikuji's story earlier.

For six hundred years, they had never once met, so why now? After all this time?

Without that clarity, we couldn't be too careful... From what I could remember of my conversation with Princess Acerola, there didn't seem to be a twisted reason like with Shishirui Seishirou, though...

However, even if she hadn't come to hurt Shinobu, there was still a possibility that she was planning on pulling Shinobu back into the fold and conspiring with her on something untoward.

Presumably, even this was all "within the range of her expectations", but Gaen-san continued like so.

"However, I'm more interested in the fact that she—broke through the barrier. Well, I didn't think she'd be able to come to this town without Hachikuji knowing, but... How should I put it? I never expected that she would come right in from the front."

Being a vampire, there would be plenty of ways to enter, like turning into mist or hiding in the shadows—said Gaen-san.

"'Tis true that landing on top of a mountain from such a big jump is the horseplay of a show-off—the height of folly," said Shinobu.

And whose mouth was that coming from?

Do you want to be shut up?

Not to mention that Suicidemaster had been sensible enough to try and avoid Hachikuji (putting aside how we should judge the fact she had died once as a result)—and because of those evasive actions, it seemed Hachikuji had placed a certain amount of faith in her and allowed her entry to the town.

"But if you ask me, Shinobu-chan, such a flashy and flamboyant way of appearing is what makes Suicidemaster, Suicidemaster, and that's what I've heard from the rumors as well. But, as for the reason she managed to pass through the barrier—"

Huh? Wasn't that just because she was a powerful vampire? It didn't seem like it would be too hard for her to break it down by force, whether it was a barrier or hell itself.

"Well, perhaps. That's something we can figure out by questioning the person herself—we won't let the special remedy you brought back from the next world after your solitary struggle go to waste, Koyomin. We'll make sure to do a proper interrogation."

By saying "the next world" instead of "hell", it could've technically included heaven, making me feel as if she'd completely seen through me—it really felt like she was the senior of Oshino, who'd been a master at seeing through people.

"If we were to make a hypothesis based on what's most likely at this point, it would mean that Suicidemaster was sent off by Hachikuji-chan and headed out for the town, but before meeting Shinobu-chan, she began to cause all these incidents for some reason—and then she turned into a mummy for some reason. How perplexing."

"How perplexing indeed."

It really was.

It was probably best to partition the two "for some reason"s and think of them separately—thinking of the former from an ecological standpoint, then illogical as it was to attack only members of the girls' basketball team, if you simply thought of it as a vampire's picky eating, we could ignore that question.

The problem was the second question.

Why would the former master, who was supposed to be here to Shinobu, be found buried in the ground? And, if it weren't for Hachikuji, the god who rules over this town, and if it weren't for Hachikuji, who lives on this mountain, then it would have been a cover-up that would not have been so easily discovered.

They could have pinned the crime on her—

For that reason, they had her die—

And with the dying messages that would pique the interest of mystery maniacs... In that case, was the true culprit a vampire that was a fan of mystery novels?

That in itself seemed like picky eating, a strange kind of favoritism.

"It's true that the only way to find out is to talk to the person herself. I have grown considerably curious, as well. It was already a shock to hear that she'd still been alive—but, my master. If you're willing to change the plot of this mystery drama into a courtroom drama, then I would like to act as the defense for the accused."

The little girl was using words she had just recently learned.

Act as the defense—Oshino Shinobu would stand on Suicidemaster's side.

Rather than being within the range of expectation, it was more like the situation that I'd feared, but before either I or Gaen-san could say anything—"After all, this fellow is not the culprit. I believe I was about to tell you this earlier, my master."

Shinobu continued.

"Right now, this fellow cannot consume anything but the food known as me."

025

The gourmet vampire's diet, unbalanced towards service a la carte rather than buffets, held more weight than Shinobu had suggested, as well as more misery than Princess Acerola had described.

It wasn't that she chose to only eat food that tasted good.

It was that she could not eat anything but food that tasted good.

It was a behavior that went completely beyond stoicism, ingrained to the point that it was impossible to fix. Suicidemaster, who had set her sights on "Princess Beauty", had starved to death many times as a result.

"I don't remember much about those times anymore, but I could tell that Suicidemaster was growing weaker and weaker right before my very eyes—she was transforming into a little girl. Regressing into the form of a very cute little girl—even though she had originally been a fierce, bewitching, older woman, older than me at my complete form."

"Older woman—"

"Koyomin. The fact that you looked at me in response to the term 'older woman' is something this onee-san won't forget when she does become an older woman."

It was a bit of an emotional reaction from the onee-san with a usually laid-back personality.

"If you want, Koyomin, now that you're nineteen. Do you want me to use my tricks to completely crush everything you hold dear? Do you want me to utterly destroy your interpersonal relationships, Koyomin?"

Scary! You don't need to get that mad.

What's wrong with an older woman?

Especially a fierce, bewitching, older woman.

"As far as I can tell, she's regressed even further since I saw her last—as expected. After taking in the blood of 'Princess Beauty', the blood of another human being would end up being thinner than water."

I surmised that the reason Shinobu's memories were hazy was because "Princess Beauty" had been separated from her and had ascended to heaven—but I knew what she was saying.

I had been made to carry only her saliva, not her blood, but even with that, I didn't know what would have happened if I had swallowed it—

"If Suicidemaster had been conscious, she surely would not have even drank the wondrous blood from the Blood Pond Hell, either."

Shinobu had said the same thing as Princess Acerola, but in fact, I didn't think the medicine from the Blood Pond Hell would even have worked.

At the very least, that was what the princess had predicted.

The princess, who had driven her, the picky eater, towards anorexia—had said she'd altered the ecosystem.

The ecosystem—the thanatosystem.

It was like how dogs, who had originally been carnivores, had turned into omnivores after living with humans—or like koalas, who became able to eat the poisonous eucalyptus trees—or pandas, who only eat bamboo, which has low nutritional value.

"Hm...? But wait a minute. Would the blood from the Blood Pond Hell have suited Suicidemaster's taste, even if she wasn't conscious...? Could the blood that my master fed to Suicidemaster perhaps have been...?"

Uh-oh.

Shinobu was starting to be perceptive in a way she hadn't been before—even Hachikuji, who'd been the one to come up with that treatment, seemed to make a face as if saying, "That's right, isn't it?"

I guess I had no choice. This wasn't the time to be worrying about timing—in order to reinforce Shinobu's theory, it was time to jump in and talk about my post-death experience.

"What are you talking about, Shinobu-chan! There's no way Koyomin would lie about something like that, to his eternal partner Shinobu-chan and close friend Hachikuji-chan! Or are you implying that Koyomin is trying to deceive you two!?"

Gaen-san interrupted with quite the unnecessary and exaggerated follow-up—please act more detached about these things, I'm begging you.

I'd only stayed quiet because I missed the timing to speak, but it was quickly becoming an established fact that I was intentionally deceiving them.

Don't force me to be indebted to you!

"That's true." "I suppose that's true."

They had more faith in me than I was expecting.

Faith was coming from all sides.

Well, it would mean having to bring up Hachikuji's mistake, plus, even if the right timing were to come along, the story of meeting Shinobu's predecessor wasn't something I could tell easily...

Shinobu got back to her main point.

"Therefore, I believed that she would have long since perished by now, but I suppose she's made it this far thanks to the quality of my blood. I'm surprised that she's still alive and well, even though her form has become smaller and younger—and so, I cannot think for a moment that Suicidemaster is going around the town binge drinking the blood of high school girls."

If I had to decide what the most unreliable thing in the world was, it would be Shinobu's assertions, but as for this particular assertion, it had a certain persuasiveness to it.

Despite the unavoidable fact that there weren't very many witnesses who could testify to the events of six hundred years ago, even Gaen-san seemed to agree.

"I see. Well, that's testimony worth taking into account," she said, nodding.

Nodding without a whiff of animosity. What a laid-back onee-san.

"The master of the 'Castle of Corpses', Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster—in contrast to her notoriety, she's a peculiar vampire with not many of her victims being heard of, even in rumors. That unbalanced peculiarity was what made her so notorious—but I feel like I understand the reason now. The food that suited her taste—the food that fell victim to her—it was just too rare."

But it wasn't enough evidence to deny the possibility that her rare food had ended up being Japanese high school girls, so the suspicion on Suicidemaster hadn't been completely cleared yet.

At least until we heard directly from her.

"'There are two reasons why you can't eat something. Because you like it, and because you hate it'—that's what they say."

"You're acting like that's some oft-said cliche, but Hachikuji, whose words are those?"

"They're my words."

"Of course."

You were more looking forward to saying "They're my words", weren't you.

"You can say the same thing in reverse, too. 'There are two reasons why you want to eat something. Because you like it, and because you hate it'—Hachikuji-chan's words."

"Wow! You're going to give me the credit? Gaen-sama, you are a god!"

You're the one who's a god.

As expected from the head of a group of specialists full of eccentrics and weirdos, her mind control techniques had reached a level where she could take control of a god.

However, whether or not Suicidemaster was being set up as the culprit behind the serial bloodsucking incidents, Shinobu's testimony had created an unexpected new possibility.

The progenitor who had birthed and named her—the death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire—why, after all this time, after six hundred years, had she come to visit the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire?

After starving and becoming weak.

After reaching her limit.

Could she have come to feed on her 'old pal', the only food she could eat?

026

Afterwards, we greeted the sunrise with no particular progress having been made—no report came to Gaen-san about the discovery of the fifth mummy, Kiseki Souwa-chan, and neither did any report about the discovery of a 'true culprit' that wasn't Suicidemaster.

If there was any consolation, it would be that we also hadn't received any reports of other, unexpected victims being discovered, or of Gaen-san's collaborators being attacked, either—so the investigation was back to square one.

"The sun may have risen, but Suicidemaster will most likely completely recover by nightfall, as expected. Until then, this onee-san will come up with a new plan of action based on the newly discovered information... But nevertheless, during the day, it'll be the same as yesterday. Gather as much information as we can."

"I'll be in charge of the living message left by Kanguu-chan."

"The living message maybe left behind by Kanguu-chan, or the signature maybe left behind by the culprit, or the diversion maybe left behind by the culprit while pretending to be Suicidemaster, that is. In other words, in charge of the code—meanwhile, I'll be analyzing the cell phone that we found that code in. I'll be taking a look into the darkness of these girls and their club activities."

"Please take care that you don't get swallowed up by that darkness."

It wasn't the kind of advice you would give to an adult who's seen the best and the worst of life, but I couldn't help but say it—well, there's no way Gaen-san was thinking something so cute and pure as the thought that "all children are cute and pure".

"I may be a little late in doing so, but I will go and patrol around the town. After all, I'm the god of lost children, and the god of walks."

Allow me to assist in the investigation from the point of view of a god, said Hachikuji—she probably was just looking forward to saying "the point of view of a god", but she probably couldn't act neutral anymore after the suggestion that the oddity she let in from overseas was potentially causing harm to the town.

Rather than being in a dilemma between humans and oddities, it was more like having Hachikuji work as the ferryman between humans and oddities.

Up until now, everyone's assignments had turned out as expected, but then,

"During the day, I'll be going to sleep,"

Said Shinobu.

"When it becomes night, I shall cooperate. It will probably be better if I were there when we listen to Suicidemaster's story—if you want, I can take charge of the interrogation."

"—Then, I'll leave it to you."

Gaen-san did not bother questioning why the sealed oddity was being so cooperative—and that was good.

Rather, she approved the appointment with a terse reply before Shinobu could change her mind—when interrogating a vampire under suspicion, the presence of her old acquaintance was the best we could ask for.

However, the possibility that I'd thought of just a moment ago—the possibility that Suicidemaster had come to eat Shinobu. With that in mind, wouldn't it be dangerous for Shinobu to be there...?

In any case, I couldn't go against the leader's decision. Don't forget, Shinobu and Hachikuji and I were 'Team Failure', after all.

If we made any more blunders, we could end up having our harmless certification be revoked, or deposed from the godly seat—if "Team Failure" sounded bad, then let's say we're "Team Probation".

If we didn't show Gaen-san what we were capable of, it would be just as dangerous.

Well, I doubted that Shinobu offered to help Gaen-san because of such fussy calculations (since Shinobu couldn't plot things anyway)...

It was a delicate matter, so I decided to talk to her about it when we were alone.

"Then, I'm about to head straight to school without dropping by at home, but where should we meet afterwards? Since we're talking about deciphering the code, it might be better to explain it directly, like yesterday."

If it turned out to be a code where I'd need diagrams or figures to explain it, then it would certainly be hard to explain it verbally over the phone.

"Then, let's meet up at Naoetsu General Hospital. I'll introduce you to the fourth mummy, Kanguu Misago-chan."

It wasn't like we could shake hands even if she were to be introduced to me, but still, I suppose it would be good to see her directly...

If I only thought of victims of oddity phenomena in terms of numbers, I would be no better than that con man who only thinks in terms of money.

"With four victims having been discovered, it's getting tougher to manipulate the flow of information. Even this onee-san that knows everything has limits to her barrier that can hide everything. The incident has gotten convoluted, but no matter what the truth is, we're going to have to settle this by tonight."

It's gonna be a ruckus—said Gaen-san.

But the reason for hurrying to resolve this issue was more than just because it would be a ruckus... There was the sense of justice of wanting to not have any more victims, but it was more than that.

If, by tomorrow morning, the series of incidents had not been resolved.

Kagenui-san would arrive.

027

I'm sorry to say this after having been the one to call her in, but if I'd known in advance that the famous Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster was involved, then I wouldn't have called that living bomb here at all—was what Gaen-san had lamented, which I recalled as I gripped the steering wheel of my New Beetle, heading for Manase University.

"That lady must have been looking for an opportunity to bring back her cute junior from the North Pole, is what I feel," said Shinobu, appearing in the passenger seat.

She appeared in the child seat that had been placed there.

Since Shinobu was a mere shadow of a former vampire, while she wasn't exactly at her best in the sunlight, it wasn't like it could completely stop her in her tracks... She wasn't strictly nocturnal, just more of a night person.

With a strong will, she was capable of appearing even in the daytime... In other words, if she was out and about in the daytime, that means she currently had a strong will.

"What is it, Shinobu. Weren't you asleep?"

I tried probing into her intentions.

"I'll go to sleep soon. Before that, I figured that you had something you wanted to ask me, my master."

She'd seen right through me, as if this were a competition with Gaen-san.

No, perhaps this was our empathic link—from our master-servant relationship.

Our deeply entrenched relationship.

"Well, I was just thinking that you were being pretty cooperative. Cooperative not just towards me, but towards Gaen-san as well. Even though you refused to cooperate last time."

Rather than just refusing to cooperate, she'd gone and run away. Completely rebellious—I'd already explained that this time she'd been kept out of the loop because Gaen-san had been wary of her doing the same thing again.

"What's with the change of heart? Can I just understand it as you having grown up a bit since that incident? Grown up to the point that I shouldn't have bought that child seat?"

"The size was never right from the beginning! It feels like my entire body is being bound like feet. Yes, well, it's fine to think of it like that. I've grown up a bit. I learned that, at that time, I should've just listened to you and that administrator from the very beginning."

I'd be happy if it was true, and it probably wasn't all lies, but something didn't quite add up.

"You and I are in the same boat, two hearts beating as one. With you having changed, I've changed a bit as well. The me that had a high schooler as a partner and the me that had a college student as a partner may as well be different people."

"It's true that before, you used to sit in the front basket of my bicycle, and now you're sitting in a child seat."

"You can't really call that growth... No, well, that's fine, too."

Was it fine?

It did feel like she'd mellowed out a little by not being stubborn at these times, but for whatever reason it felt like she'd gotten harder to handle.

Like she was just nodding along.

Sloppily.

"Hey, Shinobu. You're not thinking about anything weird, right?"

"Weird? Of course I am. Do you think there'd be someone who could preserve their sanity after being placed in a child seat when they're 599 years old?"

"You're not thinking about something admirable like, getting yourself eaten by Suicidemaster or anything?"

Just as I had done during that spring break when I was seventeen.

Or perhaps, just as Princess Acerola had done for Suicidemaster at the time, six hundred years ago—

"Ka ka. I was wondering what you were going to say, but that came as a shock. I've never even thought about doing something like that, right up until this very moment—you're the one thinking about something weird, my master. What I was thinking was, if we put you in girls' clothes and fed you to Suicidemaster, would that make her better, or would it just make her regress further, becoming around four years old?"

"Why would she turn four years old after eating me. And don't put me in girls' clothes. Once was enough."

"Enough to become a habit?"

"I haven't done it once since then!"

Without that onee-san to keep things on track, the conversation kept straying.

Such sloppy chatter.

"As soon as that code pointed to Suicidemaster's involvement, you should've relied on me from the beginning. If you did that, then we might have been able to settle this last night. You'd better reflect on yourself—you've forgotten your promise not to keep secrets about oddities from me."

"If my memory serves me right, that promise was something I made to my girlfriend..."

Hmm.

It was hard to keep the conversation going smoothly if she kept making me laugh... Well, it wasn't just Shinobu's fault.

It was at least better than when she didn't even talk to me, but after having had so many meaningless conversations with Shinobu, it was difficult to have a serious conversation with her.

If I were to speak without any fear of being misunderstood—if Shinobu were to follow the precedent set by me and decide to be eaten by Suicidemaster, who was reaching the limit of being a little girl, then I might even say that I'd prefer if she betrayed humans and joined the culprit of the serial bloodsucking incidents. But it was nearly impossible to say that without any fear of being misunderstood.

I wasn't as fastidious as I was in high school, either.

I couldn't just dismiss the act of a vampire attacking a human as something that was evil—I could no longer tell a dying vampire to die for eating people, as I did back then.

After getting to tolerate the existence of Ononoki-chan, a line like that would make me grit my teeth, if not make me want to pull my tongue out.

It was the assertion of a seventeen-year-old youth that could only have said it at that time, at that timing—but if you were to ask if I had a different answer now, then that wasn't the case either.

Hanekawa, who'd been seventeen years old at the time, had said that being afraid of vampires eating humans was like saying you felt sorry for cows or pigs—the middle-aged Oshino had said it was the same as being disillusioned by a kitty eating a mouse.

Well, that was probably true.

However, Princess Acerola's opinion in heaven added another layer to it—she'd said that the relativization of talking about vampires as the same as lions or bears was not quite correct.

To arrive at such a state of mind... It was impossible for a college freshman like me.

Compared to those days, I'd become much more mature, for better or for worse, but I would never become a sage or a hero.

It would probably be impossible in my lifetime.

"Well, don't worry about it too much, Shinobu. When Suicidemaster-chan wakes up, the first thing we can do is recommend Mister Donut. She might get a taste for sweets."

"That in itself would destroy the ecosystem."

"I know, why don't we ask Oikura to make some home cooking? Oikura's lived by herself for a long time, so her cooking is surprisingly really good. Even Hitagi-san was jealous."

"Wasn't that tsundere girl actually jealous about something else?"

She shrewdly pointed it out. How piercing.

Well, Shinobu had gotten hooked on Mister Donut after she'd become a vampire no longer... But, wasn't it worth trying, as long as it didn't do any harm?

Even koalas eating the highly toxic eucalyptus leaves was a matter of survival—though perhaps different from humans eating fugu fish.

"I bet the fugu fish was shocked, though. It was probably thinking, 'Eh? There are people who would eat me!?' ...Well, you've made me think that I'd like to try that crazy girl's home cooking someday. Really, any dish prepared by a monster might be palatable to an oddity such as myself."

You're being described in a pretty cruel way, my childhood friend.

You've been recognized by the king of oddities as a real monster.

"...Even if Suicidemaster wasn't the culprit behind the serial bloodsucking this time, and even if she successfully regains consciousness this evening, will she eventually end up getting exterminated by the specialists? Even if she's not certified harmless, she doesn't have a bounty on her head like you, right?"

"That may be the case, but if we put that violent onmyouji in the mix, then it becomes a different story. That girl wields her fist with justice."

"...If you insist, I can steer the conversation towards certifying Suicidemaster as harmless, you know?"

If I gave up on that promise of noninterference until my college graduation, then I was sure Gaen-san would be willing to listen to that level of recklessness—of course, that would only work as long as she was completely innocent in the current case.

I knew it wasn't exactly easy to certify an oddity as harmless, but if you asked me, there was room for it this time—after all, Suicidemaster has caused almost no damage since she took "Princess beauty" as her thrall six hundred years ago.

That was the difference between her and Shishirui Seishirou, who'd been causing actual damage to the town in real time... At that point, that had just been a completely different risk level from lions and bears and cows and pigs and kitties, without even needing Princess Acerola to point it out for me.

It was like a virus on the level of a biohazard.

It needed to be addressed before it could be discussed.

In contrast, it wasn't clear how much damage that gourmet vampire had caused in the past, but it was six hundred years ago.

According to Japan's Criminal Procedure Code, the statute of limitations for any murder case had certainly passed—not that there was any law in this world that governed over crimes committed six hundred years ago.

It wasn't a situation where we had no choice but to exterminate her.

And this was just a coincidence, but like Shinobu, she met the condition that she was in the form of a little girl—at least on the surface, didn't she meet all the requirements to be certified as harmless?

"Ka ka. Do you want to try sealing Suicidemaster in your shadow, too? If you're going to rear two little girls in your shadow, then finally your fervent desire to create a harem would no longer be a dream."

Don't call it my fervent desire.

The Araragi Harem will never exist, past, present, and future—and don't say that I'd be rearing little girls.

If I'm not careful with my words, I could say this situation was parasitic.

"Give up. That one is not a human-turned-vampire like me, but a genuine, born vampire. Just as you have tried to remain human, she will surely try to remain a vampire—and to a true vampire, being certified as harmless would be an insult."

To be feared, shunned, and dreaded—that was an oddity.

Uncertain and odd.

"More importantly, there's something else that I absolutely needed to tell you, my master. For that reason, I put up with my drowsiness and came to fit myself tightly in this child seat."

"Thinking about it, if you really didn't like it, you could've easily just appeared in the back seat. But what is it, the thing you absolutely needed to tell me?"

"Well," said Shinobu, before pausing.

And then, she spoke, as if having resolved herself.

"When we interrogate Suicidemaster, I would like to show off in front of my old pal for our reunion after six hundred years. So for just this one night, instead of me being your slave, can we have it so that you are acting as my slave?"

11 notes · View notes

spnwatch · 4 years ago

Text

Season 2: The Rankings

Whew. Oh boy.

They were still puttering about in season 1 to an extent. But now? Now they’ve really hit their stride. This season was a veritable chocolate box of delights and I ate my way through it. The overall myth arc was kind of nonsensical, but that emotional throughline? Christ. Spn buries SO MUCH emotional complexity into its leads, and they cashed in every cent in that two part finale. It packs one hell of a punch. And yeah, okay, I knew the broad strokes, the twists and turns. It’s hard not to be spoilered for a season of tv that aired over a decade ago. But reader! It mattered not!! I. Still. Wept. That’s when you know it’s the good kush. 1.) 2x12: NIGHTSHIFTER. This one just snagged the top spot by merit of its sheer ambition. Supernatural often feels like a very empty universe to me, just two guys and one car drifting from place to place. Which is fine, it makes for compelling TV, but they totally flipped the script here and this episode really dazzles precisely because of that contrast. It’s a huge, cinematic episode, a metropolitan setting full of uncontrollable elements, and it’s great to see Sam and Dean so profoundly vulnerable. The outside world is pressing up against the windows. They have sniper dots trained on them! They are, literally and figuratively, out of their depth! We’re not in Kansas any more, baby. God, I haven’t even mentioned the supporting characters. The entire mandroid rant deserves an Emmy. Victor Henrickson’s entrance! Heist movie antics! Agh! 10/10

2.) 2x07: THE USUAL SUSPECTS. Again this episode was a cut above precisely because it showed us what the brothers look like from the outside: sketchy as all hell. It’s so good when reality ensures, because it’s great to be reminded they lead objectively insane lives! Through Linda Blair’s eyes we get to see just how unknowable, feral and amoral they appear to the eyes of polite society. Put under a microscope like this, they’re scary guys! They’re just not socialised like normal people. They don’t really care about being arrested, or about the felonies. Getting arrested is an irritant above everything else. They’re still working the case from the inside. They’re professionals; excellent liars, and totally in sync with each other. The handwritten notes they pass, like delinquent school kids! A delight! The thrill lies in watching Blair slowly unwrap their strange logic, and unravel the mystery of both the brothers and the ghost. Ugh, what a great perspective shift. I’m 100% here for it. 10/10

3.) 2x09: CROATOAN. Ugh, this setting. Small Town Gothic, complete with eerie mist, hostile locals and creepy Stepford vibes. Sam really shone in this episode. He’s so soothing and giant, and it made his suffering at the end all the more devastaing. The real reason this episode ranks so highly is their conversation in the surgery. It just killed me. Dean’s sheer, bone-deep exhaustion, his admission that he’s tired of the life. Sam’s despair, because he knows Dean won’t leave. The performances were so steller. I can’t even really think too deeply about it because it makes me too crazy. 10/10

4.) 2x21: ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE: PART ONE. I loved this finale so much more than the finale in Season 1, LOL. It might just be because I’m more invested now, who knows. The opening of this episode is a piece of art: Boston playing on the car stereo, the rain, the small cafe, the lighting. Gorgeous. I love when they have to interact with ordinary people! It adds so much: texture, humour, personality! It draws things out of Sam and Dean that we just don’t see when they have each other to bounce off of. It was so good to see Ava and Andy again. “I just woke up in freakin’ Frontierland!” The gang’s all here, folks! This episode would rank higher, but recieves minus points for the long boring speech the demon gives Sam, and killing off the first gay in the show 0.2 seconds after her introduction. Anyway. The ending of course unzipped me; Dean cradling Sam’s dead body, muttering “It’s okay, it’s not even that bad.” The elation of their reunion, so devastaingly cut short! Sam, twenty two years old, bleeding out in the mud. The sheer, hopelessness of it all. The horror. My notes for the end of the episode simply read: “Dean oh Christ. Oh my God. Oh no.” It’s just one of those scenes that stay with you long after the credits start rolling. 9/10

5.) 2x20: WHAT IS AND WHAT SHOULD NEVER BE. I never thought I could be so profoundly upset by watching a man happily mowing a lawn. Dean’s trauma over the loss of his mother has undercut the whole show up until this point, and here it bursts to the fore. What really got me was the simplicity of it all. Just a sit-down dinner, an engagement. A beer on the porch. Fuck, he deserves it. He deserves everything. All the performances were great, they really served to show there’s a whole life in these AU characters. The fact it wasn’t all perfect was bizarrely more devastating. AU Sam’s weird straight hair and dorky jacket sealed the deal for me, as did his baffled terror in the warehouse. But even here, with no training and no idea what’s happening, he gets into the Impala! Because that’s his brother! Because I’m a huge baby I had to remove points because of how upsetting I found Sam’s quiet hostility towards Dean, HA. But that’s really just a testament to how well-realised their dynamic has become by the second season. 9/10

6.) 2x15: TALL TALES. Every single thing Sam does in any of Dean’s memories. Also alien slowdance set to “Lady in Red.” Also Bobby breaking them up like they’re petulant children. Gold, all of it gold. 9/10

7.) 2x11: PLAYTHINGS. So I’m a slut for a cool setting, obviously. Turns out, Supernatural did The Haunting of Bly Manor fifteen years ago. The swimming pool! The attic! Creepy dolls! The weird little playground! This episode has it all! I loved the saga between the ghost sister and the old lady, which would honestly make a killer movie in its own right. But I’m digressing. The main star of this episode was, of course, Dean’s profound and escalating sexual insecurities. “Well, you are kinda butch. People probably think you’re overcompensating.” FATALITY. I would’ve placed this one higher but the weird incestuous undertones kinda squicked me out... however, I did think we were meant to be creeped out by it, which is more than I can say for some other uh. Instances. It was, after all, beautifully paralelled at the end with the two sisters reuniting in death. “I can’t leave here, and you can’t leave me.” SHUDDER. Also, honestly, can Sam have one (1) breakdown on his own without Dean’s own emotional baggage taking over? Older siblings, smh. 9/10

8.) 2x22: ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE: PART TWO. This one ranks lower than part one purely because I thought the yellow-eyed demon’s overall plot was kinda nonsensical, and I cared not for John’s weird deux ex machina moment. Like do you expect me to feel sorry for that bitch? I don’t! Anyway, that being said, let’s move on to Dean’s eyes in the junkyard when Bobby asks him, “do you have that low an opinion of yourself?” They’re so flat. So dead, like a shark’s. He doesn’t need to say anything back, because it’s all over his face. That non-expression says it all. This is the culmination of the emotional arc that began with his savage beatdown of the Impala in episode 2x02. To call it survivor’s guilt wouldn’t even begin to cover what Dean goes through this episode. It’s all in Ackles’ performance; in the the way he yells, “What am I supposed to do now, Sammy?” The complete claustrophobia of it all. There’s nothing for it but to make the deal. Dean’s been moving inexorably towards this moment for the entire season. 9/10

9.) 2x13: HOUSES OF THE HOLY. What a kooky little episode! Magic fingers! Sam’s costcutter seance purchases! The scooby-doo placemat he uses as a makeshift altar! I love him, your honour. Obviously this episode has a lot of *~dramatic irony~* in it because of the later seasons, but it stands alone as a total banger. I was so gutted for Sam when the "angel” was revealed. So many good little Sam moments to be found in this episode. His soft, quiet little revelation that he prays every day. His awkward, earnest explanation to the horrified priest! Dean gets some great moments chasing down the would-be rapist down those dark, snow-covered streets. His speech to Sam where he explains his lack of belief is brief, but it’s a total gut punch. Rounding it off with Knockin on Heaven’s Door was just the cherry on top. 9/10

10.) 2x14: BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN. Ahaha I love the way Dean acts whenever Sam’s psychic powers come up. He treats him like a rebellious teen, it’s so funny. “What’s going on with you, Sam? Smokin’, drinkin’?” As if Sam’s behaviour was a) at all under his control or b) anything Dean wouldn’t HIMSELF do. Dean’s just like, this isn’t how I raised you! Truly hysterical. The whole sequence between Meg!Sam and Jo was fantastic and horrible. Sam’s huge physique is never threatening, but it really was in that moment. The interplay between them was totally spine-tingling. Meg’s impression Sam slowly crumbling away over the course of the episode was so compelling and I’m sure it will be a really fun rewatch now I know the *twist*. 9/10

Favourite lines this season:

The way Sam says “black cat’s bone” in 2x08

“You’re not gonna go kill somebody because a ghost told you to, are you insane?!” - Dean, 2x13

“Dean, this is a very serious investigation, we don’t have time for your blah blah blah blah.” - Sam (according to Dean), 2x15

“I’m fine, except for every single thing that’s happening.” - Ava, 2x21

#I feel like I'm exposing myself as a sam girl here #I love them equally I swear #supernatural #there's so much i left out like my comprehensive love for JO #what does she have? A KNIFE #I just didn't really dig NO EXIT as an episode sadly #spnwatch

10 notes · View notes

dailyaudiobible · 4 years ago

Text

09/23/2020 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 41:17-43:13, Ephesians 2:1-22, Psalms 67:1-7, Proverbs 23:29-35

Today is the 23rd day of September welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I'm Brian it is a joy to be here with you today as we come around the Global Campfire together and just…well…like we say…let it go, release. Whatever the cares of this world are we can pick them up at the door when we leave if that's what we want to do. But it's possible, it's just possible that as we orient ourselves to God through the Scriptures, we…we may leave this space looking at things a little bit differently and that may give us what we need to navigate. So, let’s just kind of leave it. Let’s exhale. Let’s just take a deep breath and let it go as we enter into our time in the Scriptures today. So, we’re reading from the Contemporary English Version working our way through the book of Isaiah. Today, Isaiah chapter 41 verse 17 through 43 verse 13.

Commentary:

Okay. So, I have been on top of many mountains in my life. I have…you may have too. Some of you live on top of mountains or live in mountains somewhere in the world. But if you’ve ever been to the top of a mountain, like you are actually at the summit of the mountain well then you can kind of look…like you can do a 360. Like there's nothing above you anymore and you may be able to look 100 miles or you may be able to look way down into that city you are in, you know, so long ago before you drove up or hiked up or whatever. You…you may be able to look far off into the mountain wilderness and see peak after peak after peak just cascading off into the distance. And to me, Ephesians is kind of like that mountain top experience in the Bible or even the journey. Like if you drive up to the top of a mountain there’s gonna be a lot of turnoffs along the way where you can kinda get a vantage point on your way to the summit and everywhere you look you’re just like, “this can't be real, this is so beautiful. Like, this is a postcard. This is unbelievable.” And that's kinda how Ephesians reads to me. So, like just reading from what we…what we read from the letter today, “you were saved by faith in God who treats us much better than we deserve. This is God's gift to you not anything you have done on your own. It isn't something you have earned. So, there is nothing you can brag about. God planned for us to do good things and to live as He has always wanted us to live. That's why He sent Christ to make us what we are.” Okay. We could be like, “okay. Yup. Theologically I understand that. That's…that is kind of laying out the good news in a nice bite-size morsel” or we could slow down and understand we are on a journey and this is a vista and what's being said here is that God wants us. Like we’re not earning our way into anything. He wants us and there's nothing we can do to puff ourselves up like we’re super spiritual. He can see right through that obviously but so can everybody else. We haven't earned anything. We can’t earn this. It was bestowed upon us. It's a gift because He wants us. He planned for our lives and sent Jesus to make it possible. Okay. So, there…there’s no…there’s like little chart with stars on it for good behavior that we can earn, and if we get enough stars then we get to the next level of heaven or something or even get there at all. This is a gift. It's something that we receive by faith, which…which basically at its essential core simply means that we believe that it's true. We didn't God. God found us. Like, we didn't choose God He chose us personally. He came near and we reached out and He reached back, and we embraced, and this fantastic gift of salvation was given. We didn't earn it and He's not gonna take it back and nobody can take it from us. We can reject it, but it can't be taken from us. No one can steal it from us. And since we can't earn then we have…like there's nothing to be puffed up about. The only thing we can rightfully be is humbled, humbled with such unbelievable undeserved kindness. So, I know that you know because we sing songs about it and you might hear it in church and might recite it, that God knows who you are, that you are His child, that He knows your name. But have you ever just like slowed down enough to think about what we are talking about. The most-high God, the Creator of all things…I mean just look around you…just look at the trees…just look around and understand that all of this was set in motion by God, the most-high God. This isn't our planet or our nation. This is God's creation. He owns all of it and we fight over which part of it we get to steward. This is His, He made it and we are here because He loves us. That is a lot to take in when you slow down enough to see how good the Good News is. And, so, may we…well…may we relax. Remember those cares of the world we were talking about at the beginning, like we can pick all that stuff up when we leave the Global Campfire here but what good is that gonna do? The most-high God has come for us and chosen us. Certainly, whatever we’re carrying around that’s bringing us stress and anxiety right now pales in comparison to that. The most-high God, who created the world that we live on and this place is His, He can handle whatever is we’re draggin’ around. And maybe we’re draggin’ around a bunch of stuff because we think it gives us some sort of value or some sort of identity when there is no greater identity than to be the child of the most-high God. Like that’s winning the lottery. That’s the cosmic lottery. There is nothing ever that's going to be better than that. So, whatever's leaning by the door that we can pick up when we leave, we need to look at it with a whole new set of eyes, eyes to see and ears to hear.

Prayer:

Father we thank You that You have chosen us, that You came to find us. We keep thinking we found God, we found Jesus…we…You came for us. You were always there. Just one day we had eyes to see and things have never been the same because we can't unsee Your goodness. We can be blinded to it and be distracted away from it. That is the work of the world. You have called us to rise above it all and see hundreds of miles to see the grand vista peak after peak after peak of Your glory. And we will move from glory to glory because we are Your children. Come Holy Spirit and lead us into all truth. Come Holy Spirit and give us eyes to see and ears to hear. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it's been home base for 15 years now, it’s home base, it’s where you find out what's going on around here, it’s where the Global Campfire is, it's where the community that we share virtually finds connection points of. So, check that out.

Check out the Community section. That is a good place to find all the different links to where we are on social media. The Prayer Wall also lives there. And the Prayer Wall is a constant, always on, never off resource, a way to reach out in prayer or a way to reach out for prayer. And, so, check that out.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com. There is a link on the homepage, and I thank you. It’s with all my heart I thank you that we continue to do this together day by day step-by-step. So, thank you for your partnership. If you’re using the app, the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address, if that’s your preference, is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the red button up at the top and you can begin to share from there or there are number of numbers that you can use depending on where you are. If you're in the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number to call. If you are in the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078 is the number to dial. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hello this is Smiley Gail from Canada I’m calling today to…for the first time and I’d like to lift up Terry the Trucker to You Lord. He’s lonely and he’s hurting, and he’s worried about his family, but I just pray that You would heal his granddaughter and make his home safe for him to return to. And Lord while he’s in his truck isolating, I just pray that You would meet his every need. I pray also for all the people who are in AA and Al-Anon and groups like that who are suffering during this pandemic because they can’t get together like they usually do. And I pray those who aren’t in those groups but should be, that You would lead them in. And Lord I pray for my own family members who are struggling with addictions to alcohol and other substances, that You would help them to find freedom and put them in touch with other people who would support them. And I just ask Your blessing on the woman who called in who was a special needs children worker and that you would restore her to her job in Jesus’ name I pray this. Amen.

O Lord God who thou has made the heavens and the earth by thy great power. Father Your ruling over all things and it’s Sunday and it’s Your day it’s a day of worship but Lord there’s so many…so many people suffering, so many people in fear and hurt who need You and need Your help. Thank You for the woman who reached out for the first time after listening for seven years to ask for prayer. I pray that her husband will be completely exonerated and that the relationship between him and his family and their extended family will be healed. I pray for the woman who feels like she’s being attacked from all sides that You will give her strength and that You will give her somebody to lean on. I pray for Terry the Trucker who is, I guess You could say, a full-time trucker now. I pray that You will give him courage and give him strength to bear through and bear up and to not be afraid. And I pray that the COVID symptoms and everything will pass, and his family will be clean soon so that he can be with them again. Father I pray that You will renew a right spirit in us all and a spirit of joy and trust in You. Thank You that You’re here. Thank You for this family. And it’s in Jesus’ name that I pray. Amen. This is Mark Turner from New Jersey. I love you all.

Hello from beautiful Cincinnati Ohio this is Daniel Johnson Junior how y’all doing? Thank you to everybody that prayed for me when…after I called in earlier this month…last month. The situation is still very dire for us financially…don’t know exactly how we are going to make ends meet but working out some things to get that happening. Wanted to share something that I kind of…that I was thinking about from Brian’s reading on Friday, September 18th from Galatians chapter…chapter 3 verse 23 through 29. And just to echo what Brian had said…shared the Bible is just a boo. What we do because of it, how we live because of it, that’s what matters. It reveals the extent of God’s love for us and urges us to respond to that love by committing our own styles to His ways. It got me thinking, well, you know, a marriage certificate is just a piece of paper. What we do as married couples because we’re married, how we live in marriage, that’s what matters. Yes, the wedding and may have been awesome and we got that piece of paper to show that were married but unless we live it out in our daily commitment to our spouses it means nothing. The same way, a birth certificate, yes, even a birth certificate is just a piece of paper showing that you were born. By itself it’s only that but what you do because you were born, that’s what matters. And I was reminded about what Paul writes in first Corinthians 15. He says, “by the grace” and this is NIV, “by the grace of God I am what I am and His grace to me is not without effect.” So, brothers and sisters let’s live out what we read in the Bible and what we have understood in the Bible so that God’s grace will not be without effect, that the Bible will be more than just this book that we rely on. God bless you all from beautiful Cincinnati Ohio. Make it a great day.

Hey, my precious DAB family this is Kingdom Seeker Daniel from Chicago. I want to speak to Melissa. Your husband is being wrongfully accused for molesting a family member many years ago. I want to pray for you sis, but I just want you to know I…I know this story all too well. And, so, my heart is right there with you. And, so, family let’s pray for our sister and our brother. Dear God, our Father we thank You that You all the Lord of hosts. You are the God of armies and You are in control of everything. You know our down sitting from our uprising. You know exactly what is taking place with this accusation that’s being formed against Melissa’s husband. God, will You be the judge and the jury O God on this matter and will You expose the works of Satan as he is attempting to bring down a family and a man’s life in particular. God, I pray that You would be the one to rescue our brother from this wrongful accusation. Will You allow truth to prevail. Will You allow justice to prevail. And would You allow mercy to prevail in the name of Jesus. We thank You God that You are the one that vindicates us, and we are believing that You will vindicate Melissa’s husband according to Your divine will. Will You strengthen my sister, encourage her and comfort her to know that all is well because You see all. In Jesus’ name. Be encouraged sis.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible family this is Laura in West Palm Beach Florida. I’m calling to pray for Terry the trucker. Terry, I heard your message this morning on this 20th of September that your granddaughter has COVID. And I want to tell you Terry that I’m praying for your granddaughter for healing, for quick recovery, for no one else in the family to have any…any symptoms of this COVID as a result of her sickness and I pray that she would soon be well. I pray that you would be well while you’re waiting and quarantining yourself in your truck and Terry that you would stay well and not get this disease. I pray that your fear would be replaced with faith and I pray Father…heavenly Father that You would just protect his family. Lord I pray they would see Terry’s faith and they would be encouraged, that they would recover from the sickness as a family Father because when one person in the family hurts they all hurt and that’s how we feel about you Terry. This family is praying with you. This family is lifting you up to the Father because He didn’t bring you this far to leave you Terry. We love you.

Hi, DABbers. Hi Brian and thank you for your ministry and thank you DABbers for all your prayers. I’m sorry for my English. It is not my first language. I want to reach out for a prayer for someone I know. He needs very much help because he’s very young in faith and he has to grow a lot as a man to be able to care for the people around him and for himself and to grow towards what God has purposed for him, towards the image of the son of God. Please pray for him because my time and abilities haven’t been as good as I had hoped. Thank you all. Bye.

1 note · View note

frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 4 years ago

Photo

20th September >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 20:1-16 for the Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A : ‘Why be envious because I am generous?’.

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Matthew 20:1-16

Why be envious because I am generous?

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner going out at daybreak to hire workers for his vineyard. He made an agreement with the workers for one denarius a day, and sent them to his vineyard. Going out at about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place and said to them, “You go to my vineyard too and I will give you a fair wage.” So they went. At about the sixth hour and again at about the ninth hour, he went out and did the same. Then at about the eleventh hour he went out and found more men standing round, and he said to them, “Why have you been standing here idle all day?” “Because no one has hired us” they answered. He said to them, “You go into my vineyard too.” In the evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his bailiff, “Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last arrivals and ending with the first.” So those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came forward and received one denarius each. When the first came, they expected to get more, but they too received one denarius each. They took it, but grumbled at the landowner. “The men who came last” they said “have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat.” He answered one of them and said, “My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius? Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last comer as much as I pay you. Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why be envious because I am generous?” Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 20:1–16a

Are you envious because I am generous?

Jesus told his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out at dawn to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with them for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. Going out about nine o’clock, the landowner saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard, and I will give you what is just.’ So they went off. And he went out again around noon, and around three o’clock, and did likewise. Going out about five o’clock, the landowner found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into my vineyard.’ When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage. So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage. And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’ He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Reflections (3)

(i) Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Over the decades, trade unions have engaged in struggles to ensure that there is a minimum hourly wage for workers. It follows that those who work longer hours should get more pay. Any deviation from that would rightly result in industrial action in most democratic societies. A great deal of negotiation in relation to work conditions has to do with ensuring that people get a just wage that relates to their skills, and their hours of work. The parable of Jesus that we have just heard does not make a great deal of sense by the standards of today’s labour market. It is because the parable is so much at odds with today’s way of proceeding that people often have a very negative reaction to it. Understandably they consider the employer to have acted very unfairly in giving the same wage to the men who worked just for the last hour as to the men who began work in the early morning and worked all day. People often have a similar reaction to the parable of the prodigal son. The elder son who had worked away faithfully on his father’s estate complains of being treated less favourably than the rebel who headed off and wasted his resources. People tend to sympathize with the elder son.

Today’s parable reflects the conditions of rural Galilee in the time of Jesus. We have to envisage men waiting in the village market square hoping that some large landowner will come along and give them a day’s wage so that they can feed their family. The landowner in the story was just to those he hired at the beginning of the day. He agreed to pay them a denarius for their day’s work on his farm, which was considered at the time a fair day’s wages. When the landowner went out to the village square every three hours in the course of the day he found there were more men waiting around hoping to be given some work. Each time the landowner saw men waiting hopefully for work, he took them on for the time of the day that was left. At the end of the day, he gave everyone a day’s wages, even those who had worked only an hour. Perhaps he realized that anything less than that might not enable them to feed their family for the day. The landlord was just to those who worked all day. He was simply extremely generous to those who had only worked a few hours and in some cases just one hour. A normal landowner would have just given an hour’s wages for an hour’s work, three hours wages for three hours work and so on. However, here was a landowner who broke the mould.

In his parables, Jesus draws from the world that he and his contemporaries are familiar with, but so often his parables go beyond what is normal in that world. We somehow sense that this is not business as usual. There is often something else going on in Jesus’ parables that we find disconcerting because it is at odds with what we are used to. The key is to be found in the words with which Jesus begins the parable, ‘the kingdom of heaven is like…’. Jesus is drawing from the reality that everyone was familiar with, but he is really talking about another reality, ‘the kingdom of heaven’. When we hear the term, ‘kingdom of heaven’, we tend to think of life beyond this earthly life. Jesus is actually talking about the reign of God, the way things work in God’s realm, when God’s purposes are coming to pass. That has as much to do with this life as with the next. In this parable, Jesus was trying to give us a little glimpse of the ways of God. In our first reading, God declares, ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways’. By means of the parable, Jesus shows that the ways of God are often strange when placed alongside our way of doing things.

If God’s ways, as reflected in the behaviour of the landowner, seem disconcerting to us at first, they are ultimately very reassuring for us. The parable suggests that God does not relate to us according to strict justice. God’s favour is not parcelled out on the basis of what we have earned. God is constantly gracing us through his Son in ways that bear no relationship to what we have done, or failed to do. How we hear this parable will to some extent depend on those with whom we identify in the story. If we identify with the men who worked all day we will be tempted to feel resentful at God’s generosity towards those we consider less deserving. However, if we identify with the undeserving ones, those who were called into the field at the end of the day and, yet, get a day’s wages, we can allow ourselves to experience the thrill of divine generosity. Maybe, that is where the parable invites us to place ourselves. We are all undeserving, and, yet, God continues to grace us in and through his Son every day, if we have eyes to see. The parable also invites to allow something of God’s ways to shape our ways, so that we too begin to relate to others not on the basis of strict justice but out of the generosity of our heart.

And/Or

(ii) Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

For most of us, our day to day life can be reasonable predictable. One day is much the same as the day before. We have a certain routine that we tend to keep to. Many of us do not like our routine to be disturbed. However, we also know from experience that the unexpected can suddenly come along and throw our routine up into the air. Some misfortune can strike us or those we love and nothing is ever quite the same again. Or, alternatively, some wonderful news can come to us out of the blue and everything we subsequently do is bathed in a new light.

That element of the unexpected is very present in today’s gospel reading. There is something very surprising, even shocking, about the way that the landowner in that story operates. Most employers do not give the equivalent of a day’s wage to somebody who only does an hour’s work. If they did, their business would not last very long. Why would anyone want to work for a day if they were sure of getting a day’s wages for an hour’s work? The story that Jesus tells is decidedly not about the human way of doing things. Rather, in story form, Jesus is giving us a picture of God’s way of doing things, and he is showing us that God’s way of doing things is very different from our way. As the Lord says in today’s first reading, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts; my ways are not your ways’. Because God’s ways are not our ways, we will often find God surprising and even disconcerting, just as listeners to the parable today continue to find the behaviour of the landowner disconcerting. This is the one parable of Jesus that is most likely to get people’s backs up. We feel that an injustice is being done to those who worked all day. Yet, the vineyard owner gave those who worked all day a just wage; he gave them a denarius, which was considered a day’s wages. He was just surprisingly generous to those who, through no fault of their own, could only find an hour’s work in the course of the day.

We know from experience that people can surprise us. Some people might surprise us in a negative sense. They do not measure up to our legitimate expectations of them; they disappoint us. Others can surprise us in a positive sense. They far exceed our expectations; they show us that there is more to them than we ever realized. Today’s parable suggests that God will surprise us in that positive sense. God’s goodness is always greater than we realize; God’s generosity will always exceed our expectations. God does not give to us in accordance with what we have earned. God does not put our efforts on one side of the scale and then put an equal amount of favour on the other side of the scale to balance our efforts. God graces us in unexpected and undeserving ways. God gives us the equivalent of a day’s wages for an hour’s work. In the words of the title of a book written by the great spiritual writer, C.S. Lewis, when it comes to God, we can expect to be ‘surprised by joy’. The grace and love of God transcends our human assessments of what is fair and we cannot understand God solely in terms of the principle of fairness. If we stop to think about it, the same is true of our own relationship with others. The love and graciousness that we show to family and friends cannot be understood or evaluated merely in terms of fairness.

When we reflect on it, most of the best things in life are unearned; they are simply given. Nature in all its beauty and grandeur is given to us; we have not put it together; it is there to be received. The human experience of being looked upon in love by another is not something we earn. We find ourselves graced by the unexpected gift of someone’s friendship and love. In a similar way, God’s favour, God’s love is given, not earned. We are loved by God, before we do anything, because God is Love, and God does not take back that love, regardless of what we do or fail to do. As it has been said by one writer, ‘God does not work from the arithmetic of the calculator, but from the fullness of God’s own heart’. The gospels, and especially today’s parable, even suggest that God has a slight prejudice in favour of life’s latecomers, those who take a while to get going. We probably all fall into that category in one way or another. In telling that story Jesus may have wanted us all to identify with the workers who started work at the eleventh hour.

The parable speaks to us of God’s generosity; it is a story of grace. We are each challenged to reflect something of that indiscriminate goodness and generosity of God in our dealings with one another. The God of surprising generosity can become palpable for others in and through our own way of relating. God’s ways are indeed not our ways, but our ways can become a little more like God’s ways, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

And/Or

(iii) Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The parable of Jesus that we have just heard does not seem to make a great deal of sense by the standards of how today’s labour market works. Battles have been fought to ensure that there is a minimum hourly wage. It follows that those who work longer hours should get more pay. Any deviation from that would rightly result in industrial action, at least in most democratic societies. A great deal of negotiation in relation to work conditions has to do with ensuring that people get a just wage that relates to their skills, their hours and their responsibilities. It is because the parable is so much at odds with today’s way of proceeding that people often have a very negative reaction to it. Understandably they consider the employer to have acted very unfairly in giving the same wage to the men who worked for the last hour as to the men who worked from early morning in the heat of the day. People often have a similar reaction to the parable of the prodigal son. The elder son who worked away on the estate complains of being treated less favourably than the rebel who headed off and wasted his resources and came back with his tail between his legs. People tend to sympathize with the elder son, just as they do with those who worked all day in this morning’s parable.

The story reflects the conditions of rural Galilee in the time of Jesus. We have men waiting in the village market square hoping that some large landowner will come along and give them a day’s wage so that they can feed their family. The landowner was just to those he hired at the beginning of the day. He agreed to pay them a denarius for their day’s work on his farm, which was the equivalent at the time of a fair day’s wages. When the landowner went out to the village square every three hours in the course of the day he found there were more men waiting around hoping to be given some work, even if it was only a few hours work. Each time the landowner saw men waiting hopefully for work, he took them for the time of the day that was left. At the end of the day, he gave everyone a day’s wages, even those who had worked only a few hours. Perhaps he realized that anything less might not enable them to feed their family for the day. The landlord was just to those who worked all day. He was simply extremely generous to those who had only worked a few hours and in some cases just one hour. A normal landowner would have just given a hour’s wages for an hour’s work, three hours wages for three hours work and so on. However, this was a landowner who broke the mould. In a similar way, the father in the story of the prodigal son broke the mould of the normal father in that culture.

In his parables, Jesus draws from the world that he and his contemporaries are familiar with, but so often his parables go beyond what is normal in that world. We somehow sense that this is not business as usual. There is something else going on here, which we find disconcerting because it is out of kilter with what we are used to. The key is to be found in the words with which Jesus begins the parable, ‘the kingdom of heaven is like...’. Jesus is drawing from the reality that everyone was familiar with, but he is really talking about another reality, ‘the kingdom of heaven’. When we hear the term, ‘kingdom of heaven’, we tend to think of heaven, life beyond this earthly life. That is not what is meant here. Jesus is really talking about the reign of God, the way things work in God’s realm, when God’s purposes are coming to pass. That has as much to do with this life as with the next. In this parable, Jesus was trying to give us a little glimpse of the ways of God. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah in our first reading, God declares, ‘my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways’. Jesus is suggesting that there is something to the ways of God that seems strange when placed alongside our way of doing things.

If the strangeness of God’s ways, as reflected in the behaviour of the landowner, seem disconcerting to us at first, God’s strange ways are ultimately very reassuring for us. The parable suggests that God does not relate to us on the basis of strict justice. God’s favour is not parcelled out on the basis of what we have earned. God is constantly gracing us through his Son in ways that bear no relationship to what we have done, or failed to do. How we hear this parable will to some extent depend on thosewith whom we identify in the story. If we identify with the men who worked all day we will be tempted to feel resentful at God’s generosity towards those we consider less deserving. However, if we identify with the undeserving ones, those who were called into the field at the end of the day, we can allow ourselves to experience the thrill of divine generosity. Maybe, that is where the parable invites us to place ourselves. We are all undeserving, and, yet, God continues to grace us in and through his Son every day, if we have eyes to see. The parable also invites to allow something of God’s ways to shape our ways, so that we too begin to relate to others not on the basis of what they deserve but out of the generosity of our heart.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

1 note · View note

surveys-at-your-service · 5 years ago

Text

Survey #267

“you can take my heart, you can take my breath - when you pry it from my cold, dead chest.”

When did you last talk to the last person you kissed? Last night. Do you think people have any misconceptions about you? Oh, I'm positively certain. What’s something you wish you could understand better? There are a great many things, but the first that came to mind are certain political/moral beliefs that I REALLY do want to understand, but I just don't. When was the last time you cried really, really hard? About a week back when I woke up shrieking and sobbing from a nightmare about Dad. Have you ever injected a drug? No. How many people have you liked in the past 5 months? I've been COnfuFSSeD!!!!!! Are you currently in a relationship? Nope. Probably for the better. Have you ever touched a dead body? Animals, yes. I may have at an open-casket wake, but idr. I was young. Ever played Grand Theft Auto? Nope, but oh man, good memories of those stupid games with my neighbor back when I was younger... He loved that game just to fuck around, and I liked watching. Then Jacob and Jason played it together at the apartment a lot, and those are warm memories, too. The last male you spoke to … is he attractive? That would be my 3-year-old nephew, so it'd be fucking weird to call him that. He's one handsome little boy, though. We all know he's gonna be a lady killer one day. If your ex called right now, would you answer? Yeah. Is there a dictionary on your bookshelf? I don't even have a bookshelf. Do you have any pet names for the person you love/like? Not anymore. Who was the last person you had a serious conversation with? What is your honest opinion of that person? Mom. I love her to death. Who was the first person you dated? What is your honest opinion of that person? Aaron was my puppy-dog love, and I have not the slightest clue what he's up to now, but I have faith he's kept that good head of his. Ever fallen in the shower? I've passed out while getting *out* of it. I've slipped a number of times too, but not truly fallen. Do you think that things will get better? For me, I genuinely don't know. Ever been to a bonfire party? Yes, by my cousins' friend's pool for a b-day party. It was cool. Their house was fuckin' wild. Movie theater inside and all. Is your dad bald? Just about. His head is just mostly shaved. Have you ever slept at a member of the opposite sex’s house? I mean yeah, all the time when we were together. Have you ever hooked up with someone to hurt someone else? Wow, no. I don't do "hook-ups" anyway. Do any of your relatives actually pinch your cheeks when they see you? No. Have you ever made a member of the opposite sex cry? Ugh, yeah. Do you know the last person you kissed's parents? Yes, I adore them. Do they like you? I think so. Name a couple things you can cook. ... Literally just scrambled eggs, if you mean something pretty much from scratch. Well, I could probably still do pasta if I read the box. Who was there to help you last time you were puking? My mom. I am absolutely terrified of vomiting, so she's kind enough to somehow manage to stand in there with me and talk to me. Are there any boxes of tissues in your room? What’s the design on it? No. Are you in high school? When are you done? No. I graduated in 2014. Are you embarrassed to say if you’re a virgin or not? More like confused and awkward, because I genuinely DON'T know for sure. Have you ever met someone you thought you’d be with forever? It was "certainty" to me. That's partially why the breakup was so traumatizing. I MEAN IT when I say my brain couldn't even fathom the idea. It was "impossible." It simply couldn't happen. Then it did. ^Where are you two now? We haven't spoken in three years. Has your best friend ever been in love? Yes. What was the last magazine you bought? I've never been a magazine person. Will the last person you kissed get you anything for your next birthday? *shrugs* Do you think Family Guy is funny or just stupid? It can be both. Have you ever stayed with someone who treated you like shit just because you liked them so much? NO SIR-EE. You'd never see me stay with someone who treated me badly. Would you date someone all your friends and family hate? If I REALLY liked them, but if everyone hated that person, I would seriously consider why that is. Are you already looking forward to your wedding? Ha ha, not really, in most ways. Like, I hate getting all fancy and such. Have you ever spit on someone? No. Would you rather cuddle or make out? I MEAN, that depends on the mood??? Has your best friend ever been cheated on? No. Do you text with one hand or with both? Both. Are your parents left or right-handed? Right, to my knowledge? What was the last photo you took of? Something on FB I wanted to show to Sara. What topic always interests you and you will never tire of? C R Y P T I D Z Are you more or less tolerant than the average person? If you mean of varying beliefs, stuff like that, definitely more. If someone were to rate your life, what film certificate would it receive? PG-13 or R, idk. Actually, probably R for all they profanity lmaooo. Do you mind eating cold fries or are they disgusting? Ewww. What song makes you cry? What about it makes you cry? I physically cannot listen to "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin because of Jason joking at prom that the music sucked and we could dance to something like that, then once he took me home, I played it from my iPod over his car speakers and we danced in the headlights of his truck and it all felt like a fairy-tale. I'm emotional just typing it and it makes my stomach hurt, so moving on. If you could remake a movie, which movie would it be? Silent Hill: Revelation. As a fanatic over the series, I enjoyed it decently, but, objectively, it sucked and was ALL over the place. How about if you could rewrite a book's ending, which one? Why? I don't think I'd change any. Maybe a clearer answer to The Handmaid's Tale, but it's still g. What colour hair does your sibling(s) have? Brown, except Misty and Katie. Theirs is black. What gemstone would you like on your wedding ring? A dragon's breath opal or rose gold would be gorgeous. What are you looking forward to in the near future? We're throwing my little sister a surprise graduation party at our older sis's house. Thanks to the quarantine, her senior graduation isn't *actually* happening, so. How is life going for you, anyway? Be honest. IT KINDA S U CKS!!!!!! What time did you get changed this morning? I haven't changed out of my pj's. I almost never do (besides obviously after a shower) because I have nowhere to go, like ever. Have you met somebody that you want to spend the rest of your life with? Yeah. Have you ever dressed up as a Disney character? Which one? Maybe as a kid? Have you ever played chess? If so, are you good at it? I’ve never played it. If I wanted to buy you a chocolate bar, what kind should I NOT get? Ew, Snickers. Of all your close friends, who have you known the longest? Sara. What was the last song you heard, that made you feel emotional? Hm. Maybe "Disguise" by Motionless In White. I wonder all the time if that's how Jason felt. Plus it's his favorite band, so that's a double whammy. When was the last time you took a selfie? Maybe about a month ago. As a child, did you ever have any scented gel pens or markers? Oh, I remember those! Yes. Name an alcoholic beverage that you dislike. Hell, most that I've tried. I hate strong stuff. Can you recall the last time you were on a dancefloor? When I was shooting someone's wedding last year. Do you own any color-changing mood jewellery? No, I have zero faith in those. What was the last thing you heated up in your microwave? Ummm pizza rolls, I think. What was the last flavor of ice cream you had? Moose tracks. Do you have an online game that you play often? I play World of Warcraft daily, and I enjoy the Dragons of Atlantis app a few times a day. I was into it when it was still a game on an actual website, and I more recently downloaded it on my phone. What’s your favorite cookie? Soft chocolate chip... yum. How long would you have to date someone for before moving in together? I think this depends very much on the relationship, BUT LIKE, definitely not TOO quickly because you need to test the endurance of the relationship. I'd at the very least give it a year and seriously consider how healthy the relationship is. Moving in with each other shouldn't be an impulsive "this is working great omg I love him/her let's do this!!!!". What's your favorite kind of sushi? N/A How much was the last bill that you paid? I've never paid a bill... wow, that's sad. What was the cause of the worst low point you've had in your life? A very abrupt, traumatic breakup. What are some of your favorite types of cheeses? Really just American. When did you last feel like your privacy was invaded? I'm not sure. Do your parents volunteer anywhere? No. Do you own more than 50 books? I have my Warriors books stocked somewhere. Probably in the attic. Do you have a bachelor's degree? Bitch I wish. How old were you when you became financially independent from your parents? I'm 24 and still aren't independent. Does your kitchen have an island? No. Have you ever bought or sold something on Facebook Marketplace? No. Do you know anyone famous enough to have their own Wikipedia page? No. What was the last appointment you had? With my psychiatrist over the phone because yeah quarantine. Why did you last feel like crying? I woke up from yet another nightmare. I'm so, so tired of them. They make me dread sleep. Do you keep your friends secrets/private information to yourself? If it truly is private, yes, and secrets, absolutely. What negative quality do your friends bring up the most? "I... don’t think I’d like to be friends with people who have a habit of bringing up 'negative' things about me." <<<< This. Do you often "jump" to conclusions? ONLY ALWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What about the world do you wish you never found out? Christ, there's a lot. For some reason, the first thing that came to mind is the dogmeat trade in Korea. A girl in my first semester did a presentation on it, and just... wow. I never had the slightest clue it was a thing. Does the sight of blood make you feel sick? No. Does someone's background affect whether you'll be friends with them or not? Well, yeah. I'm not gonna be friends with a rapist or something. How about their religious background? Depends on if they push that shit on me or not, as well as things they believe. If someone admitted cheating in a past relationship of theirs, would you trust them? NNNNNNNNNOPE. Do you drink tea and/or coffee every day? There are so many tea/coffee questions in surveys... and no. I don't like either. Did you ever want to be a cook as a kid? No. Do you wish that magic was real? Well, it depends on what the magic is. Do you prefer fire or ice? Fire is cooler. Do you rap along with rap songs? No. When happy, do you become more talkative? WAY MORE. Bowling or sailing? Why? Never sailed before, but bowling is fun. Especially with the lights off but all the neon and signs lit up. Do you prefer sitting in the front or back of a car? THE FRONT!!!!!!!!! Sitting shotgun and being able to control the music is everyTHIIIIIIIIIIIING. How about in a train? On the bus? I don't really have a preference here. Do you care about politics? I should... Are you offended easily by non-politically correct language? No, honestly. Do you think the censors/fcc go a bit too far or are just right? Definitel too far. Have you ever taken a martial art? Which one(s)? No. Do you know anyone who is scared of you? No. I am so unintimidating. Do you like watermelon? Not really, no. Can you remember the month of your first kiss? April or May, p sure. What do you think is the most interesting thing about you? Uh. I dunno, man. Do you have a photo album? Mom has tons. What was your biggest fear as a child? Thunderstorms. I was fucking terrified. Can you remember all your past teachers' names? The majority. Do you find people taller than you intimidating? Generally tall men do, but not always. What's your favorite thing about your country? We have a lot of freedom. What's your least favourite thing about your country? We're greedy as fuck. What websites do you have bookmarked? I have a few on my personal laptop, which I don't have access to now so can't recall well. What TV show scared you as a kid? Courage the Cowardly Dog... though I watched it anyway lmao. What is one thing you regret having done or not done in your life? There's a lot. Let's not focus on it. Which parent do you identify with the most? I guess Mom. What embarrasses you the most in front of other people? laskdjflawe admitting I RP is almost ENTIRELY IMPOSSIBLE to others, especially in-person. If you had to choose one thing you were most passionate about, what would it be and why? Politics, 'cuz that's shit that seriously matters and affects the world. Who are you most envious of—real or fictional—and why? Probably an old friend who's an award-winning, quite successful photographer here in the state. She's shot fashion and model stuff professionally. She's absolutely gorgeous, does the coolest stuff... What’s the saddest song you’ve ever heard? Good Lord, I know so many. "UR A WOMAN NOW" by Otep is one, then there's "Terrible Things" by Mayday Parade, "Cancer" by My Chemical Romance... wow, I'm so surprised they're not just rushing to me. How about the sweetest song? Biiiiiih "Here For You" by Ozzy Osbourne laskdjfk;awe Do you know how to play dominoes? No. What food will you absolutely not, under any circumstances, eat? Exotic/endangered animal meat. What is one thing you’re embarrassed to admit you want to try? Uhhh I'm really not sure. Which famous person would you like to be BFFs with? Shane Dawson is MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Is there something you wish you had said sorry for but never did? Many things.

#survey #surveys #random questions

3 notes · View notes

this-is-our-fandom · 6 years ago

Text

Bucky Barnes: Because I Don’t Have One

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female!Reader

Rating: PG (Mature audiences)

Warning: Mature themes

"Hey Bucky!" You wave at your boyfriend who jogs his way to you - him just finishing his daily sparring with Steve and Sam.

He grabs your left hand and kisses and back of it before holding it in his right one and hugging you. "Cute." Wanda smirks walking by.

You blush and lean into Bucky's side, instantly regretting it, "sweaty!" You whine and move away, only for Bucky to smirk. "Hope you're having a shower." You simply state.

"Have one with me?" He asks, flirtation lacing through his voice thick.

"In your dreams pretty boy." You say and wave him off before walking towards where Wanda went.

Wanda was sitting on a stool with Natasha and Sharon, "hey guys." You smile and out a glass and some orange juice. Wanda and Sharon don't say anything so you turn around and see them both smiling at you. "What? You both scare me when you do that." You take a seat next to Sharon and she starts to laugh, "what?! Do I have something on my face?"

"Oh honey, you are so oblivious to this whole situation, aren't you?" Wanda pats my back, I frown at her, what?

"Um-"

Sharon laughs, "it's Bucky!" I turn to her, "He favourites your left arm."

I take a sip of my orange juice, "he does?"

"Yes! Oh my gosh y/n, he does. He does it because he don't have a left arm for himself and because you do, he treats it like it's made out of the finest glass." Sharon explains.

Now that I come to think of it, he does. Always when we're together he would grab my left hand and kiss it or if we were sleeping together, he'd sleep on my left side and lay his head on my shoulder.

I thought nothing of it until now.

"Wow," is the only thing that escaped my mouth.

Wanda laughs at me lightly, "it's cute though and you should feel lucky that you have an amazing, caring and loving boyfriend like that who can always be a deadly ass assassin when need be."

I blush at them, "so you should do something," Sharon suggests with a smile.

"And what is that?" I say, sipping at my orange juice again.

Sharon and Wanda exchange looks before looking at me, "you treat his metal arm the same."

"I do that already." I say.

Wanda sighs, "no, we don't mean kiss his hand when he's feeling down, do what he does and hold it all the time, make him feel good that he has a metal arm... maybe if add in some sexual stuff he did to you with it."

I gasp and cover my mouth, "h- how do you know about that?"

"Please honey, I read everybody's mind."

I cringe and turn away, "gross."

"That's not what you thought last night about it." Both Wanda and Sharon laugh and I blush even harder.

"That's not what I meant." I whisper in embarrassment.

That night rolled around and I padded quietly to my bedroom, Bucky and I didn't share a room just yet because Bucky believed that if he woke up from a nightmare and wasn't himself, he would hurt me - I've told him many times before he wouldn't do that but he just couldn't bring himself to the thought of hurting me like that. Instead, he slept in the room across from me and if he ever needed me, he would just have to come over and not a long distance.

I shared a floor with Bucky, Natasha, Sam and Clint - that may sound like a lot of people but when you have a massive floor with a large kitchen, dining area, lounge, game room, 5 large master bedrooms with ensuite and walk in robe with 2 sun rooms that had one for the boys and one for the girls (but in this case, Natasha and I shared the sun room and made it our little escape place with the thing of a jungle with fake vines hanging from the ceiling before it branches off and out to the balcony where there was a mini spa. It had seats if you wanted to seat and enjoy the "jungle" and a whole wall was dedicated to books). The boys never used to sun room and instead the game room so that place is to put storage - even though we have a huge room dedicated for storage, it's more like their rubbish.

As I open my door, I'm shocked to see Bucky standing in the middle of my room. "God Bucky! You scared me!" I put my hand over my heart to calm my racing heartbeat.

"S- Sorry, I uh..." He trails off, scratching the back of his head, I frown slightly.

I walk to him and wrap my arms around his neck, "you okay?" I whisper against his neck.

"I- yeah, I'm fine. Um, just- yeah, I don't know." He nervously laughs.

~Flashback - In Bucky's POV~

After y/n left, I walk to the room to have my shower, "Buck, wait!" I hear Steve call as I was about to enter my room.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" I turn with a plain expression - all I wanted was just a shower and a hot cup of coffee and to have my best girl beside me, curled in my side as we read a book together or something.

"I've just noticed you a little anxious towards y/n before you go and meet her, are you and her all good?" Steve asks.

He simply didn't know that I wanted to ask her to marry me, she was the light of my life, made me happy when I was sad. She made me believe there was more for me to live for. I could go on but that would take beyond a million years to explain.

"I want to marry her Steve, I've been meaning to tell her since a while ago but I always chickened out." I mumble, running a hand through my sweaty hair.

Steve smiles, "you jerk, why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Shut up, I'm nervous."

Steve looks at me dumbfounded, "oh my God, just tell her, she'll say yes. Whenever you aren't around I see her playing with her ring finger."

Maybe it was time to finally tell her what I've been meaning to tell her for the past 2 months.

~Flashback ended - back to first POV~

I look at Bucky weirdly, he was acting strange. "Bucky, if something was wrong you'd tell me, right?" I was worried that I did something wrong.

"Yeah, of course I would. Nothing is wrong, it's just that- shit," he curses and start to pace the room, I saw is real hand shaking with fright or nervousness.

"Hey, hey, calm down," I say and place my hand on his chest and his heart was beating rapidly under my touch, "sit down," I say lightly and take him to sit on my swing chair on the balcony. "What's wrong, did someone do something? Did... I do something?" I whisper quietly.

He laughs almost like I was oblivious to this whole thing, "no baby, of course it's not you. It's not anybody. I- I-"

I can tell he was hesitating, "you can tell me Buck, I don't bite."

"Okay," He takes a deep breath, "I love you with all my heart and nothing will change that, you have made me a better person and I can't thank you enough for everything you have done for me in these past 3 years. You came into my life when thought that everything was just crumbling around me, I didn't know who I was, I didn't know anybody or anything and all adding to this, I was trying to adapt to the new century I was living in, where shower were actually a thing but you, you helped me and I never asked you too. You were like an angel sent from heaven to rescue me from this hell of a life I was living and raised me up past the destruction until what I only ever saw was peaceful clouds. Even after I hurt you that time when I wasn't myself, you still continued to help me and try and make me better. I told myself I wasn't good enough to deserve somebody as perfect as you and pushed you away but the more I pushed you away, the more realized that you were exactly what I needed because everything turned black again. You were always there for me when I needed somebody, and when I didn't. And that time that we were both just randomly tackling and tickling each other on the bed but then we just kind of stopped and looked into each other's eyes before kissing for the first time, that felt like sparks I've never felt before, and I wasn't used to it because after 70 years of pain and torture I had no idea what love was anymore. I remember the first night we shared our love together, it was sweet and I loved how you didn't rush anything and you actually let me create bruises on your shoulders where I tried to contain my strength and not hurt you. I knew you were the one for me as soon as you said that you wanted a real relationship with me before I needed that in my life. I love the way you laugh and the how you would just stop everything to come and see if I was alright when you heard my screams late at night from nightmares, I loved the way you would hold me until I fell asleep again and how you would leave little notes stuck with magnets on my arm the next morning. I just love you and I can never get enough of you. So, y/n y/l/n, will you do the honor and became my y/n Barnes?"

Tears were streaming down my cheeks and Bucky's to, his voice wavering twards the end. "Yes Bucky, yes, oh my God, I love you so fucking much!" I cry, Bucky pulls a diamond ring from his pocket and places it on my finger. I dive forwards and attack him in a hug repeating that I loved him over and over again.

"I love you too baby, I always will."

#james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagines #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #sebastian stan smut #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #the martian #marvel #marvel imagines #marvel smut #marvel x reader #fluff

48 notes · View notes

rpdwong · 6 years ago

Text

[LET’S TALK RE2MAKE] Claire, Sherry (+ Leon) and Found Families

The Found Family trope is probably one of my favourite fictional tropes. Give me those relationships where a group of characters with nothing in common find each other and they become “home” and support each other, no matter what. It’s a powerful message: you choose your family. If you’re lucky, you might have a nice biological family that loves you. But that’s not always the case, and people should bond over something more than their blood ties. I think Claire and Sherry’s (and Leon to some extent) story in RE2 rings very true to this trope, and I was looking forward to watching how it developed in the RE2make.

Once again, I was happily surprised—to the point where I was almost teary eyed at certain scenes. I love Resident Evil with all my heart, and I cry at literally everything, but RE doesn’t usually have dramatic tension or sadness that hits that hard. But Claire’s scenario in RE2make did manage to get me and man, Claire and Sherry deserve a hug, a shower, all the puppies and parrots.

Sherry’s strangled relationship with her parents was explored in the original game. But, as I mentioned in my previous Let’s Talk RE2make about Ada and Leon, the game had its shortcomings when it comes to storytelling, simply because it’s a product of its time. I know RE2make is probably not most narrative driven game (we have BioWare games and, even though I haven’t played all of their games, I know Naughty Dog is praised for this) and it could do better, but when it comes to Resident Evil it IS a huge improvement—and this shows with Sherry’s character as well as Annette.

You see the strained relationship between mother and daughter in their brief encounters, you can also see that the Birkins were REALLY shitty parents, but Annette did care about her daughter—though that doesn’t really excuse her behaviour, but people are complicated and this is how it is.

So we have this poor little girl with huge abandonment issues, running around a police station looking for her mom, though she knows Annette doesn’t always have time for her (you might think NOW she should). But she is scared, she’s been chased by a monster (and as far as I remember, I think she’s aware the monster is William, right?? I really need to replay all scenarios, just writing all this from memory), alone and defenseless…

And then she meets Claire.

I think it’s important to highlight that Claire is also very young here, just 19 years old. A BABY AS WELL. We know she’s capable of looking out for herself, but it’s still a terrible situation, she might even be still worrying about Chris’ whereabouts here (depending on which scenario you play). But Claire, despite having no obligation to take care of Sherry, looks after her and decides to help her find her mom/escape.

Claire even takes it upon herself to save her from Irons. Again, Claire could just have walked out once she makes it out of the station—but she doesn’t. So, for once, there is somebody there for Sherry. Someone she can rely upon and trust, who makes her feel protected, as any child should (especially in a situation like this).

When Claire rescues Sherry from the dumpster, after she’s been infected, Sherry asks her why Claire is doing all this. Claire answers: “Because I care.” Then I start crying, because this is so beautiful. It’s not that Annette doesn’t care, we know she does in some way—but she’s still terrible with Sherry (that conversation they have over the CCTV makes me want to punch Annette so, so badly) when the girl needs her the most, needs that reassurance that “hey, everything’s going to be fine”.

Claire is the one who gives her that, who genuinely cares about her and shows it. It’s great that Claire also calls out Annette on her shitty behavior a few times (when she finds Sherry and later on before fighting G 3). When they’re on the cable car, Claire wants to give her the pendant back. Sherry rejects it, because it was a gift given by her mother, when all she wanted was for her to be home and spend time with her. It’s a sort of memento of everything that’s wrong between mother and daughter, in some way. Doesn’t help that, later on, we find out the pendant is the key to get the vaccine. We could say this is Annette’s saving her daughter in some way, but I also think it’s just another link to Annette and William’s job, which was the problem in the first place.

In the end, the bond Sherry and Claire develop is that of a newfound family. Thankfully, for the first time, Capcom has given us confirmation on what the hell happened to Chris and Claire’s parents, and we know they died in a car accident. So she only had her brother as family, which is why Chris is so important to her. The reason she travelled to Raccoon City because she hadn’t heard about him in a whole month. Maybe she even knew about the mansion incident, so she was getting worried something might’ve happened (though I don’t think Chris would tell her much, just to protect her).

But the thing here is that Sherry doesn’t even have a Chris. She has nobody, she’s alone. Claire can relate to being parentless, that’s why she bonds with Sherry (as she tells her to comfort her at the beginning). But, just as she had Chris, Sherry deserves that one person she can trust and rely upon—and that’s her now. They become family during this terrible experience, because Claire moved heaven and hell to save Sherry when no one else did. She was there for her when it mattered, unlike her parents (disclaimer: even though I really like Annette’s evolution in this game and she’s a good character, you can see I hold a grudge against her— it made me so angry how she treated Sherry!).

Now, I mentioned Leon in regards to the Found Family trope, because I think he more or less is a part of it. Leon, Claire, Sherry and Ada are all the “original” Raccoon City survivors (we have Jill afterwards, but since her story is completely isolated from RE2 and in a different game, I don’t think it counts for this). Ada’s a complicated case because of her role in the story and she only makes contact with Leon (except for that tiny moment in the original, where she retrieves Sherry’s pendant) and she doesn’t actually escape with them.

But Leon and Claire are our heroes, they make it out alive of Raccoon City and they help Sherry in the process. Even though in the RE2make Leon and Claire interact way less than in the original, and Leon doesn’t even meet Sherry until the very end, I think that last scene still resonates in the audience as a family moment, in which Leon is included.

In the original it’s all fun and games, until Leon says the “It’s up to us to take out Umbrella” or Claire says “I have to find my brother”. They have made it all more light hearted and fun in the RE2make, which I also think is much more realistic than just HEY WE HAVE TO BRING UMBRELLA DOWN or Claire immediately leaving, as RE3’s epilogue implied. After all she’s done for Sherry, she wouldn’t just leave her like that.

I have heard of two main criticism regarding the ending I’d like to address before finishing up this thing:

a) Sherry is way too cheerful after having just lost both her parents (and especially her mom, whose death affects her more). I can understand this and it is a valid complain, but I also think it could be a coping mechanism. That’s why she even jokes with the “You guys could adopt me!” because now she’s lost her real family, but has found a new one in Claire, and hey, this new guy seems to be on Claire’s good side and he’s helping and taking her to safety. I mean, I’d LOVE to be adopted by Leon and Claire, who wouldn’t??? I also think this is a case of Resident Evil not being ever really 100% down to Earth. RE endings always end up in a hopeful note, sometimes even cheesy. It’s a way to comfort the player as well, after all the terrible things we’ve been through with our characters. I think this is just another version of that, and it’s so beautiful to watch Leon and Claire holding Sherry’s hands and walking into the sunset. There might be problems ahead, but hey, they made it out! They are alive! It’s less cut and dry than the original, and it gives you a feeling that they’ve all bonded over this experience. And this is so fitting with what we know from RE6 Sherry. She talks about Leon and Claire with the utmost admiration, tells Jake they’re the reason she’s alive and she just wants to live up to their example. I think this ending resonates with that feeling she shares in RE6 and it’s beautiful.

b) Capcom is pushing Leon/Claire as a pairing. Ok, let’s open this can of worms. First of all: I hate shipwars, they are pointless and a waste of precious fandom time, and I don’t ship Leon and Claire, never have in my whole life, but I do see the appeal and it’s clear some of their interactions in the remake are kinda flirty. And this is all fine. Now, I don’t think their interactions at the end are the flirty ones.

When Claire jokes about the “one helluva first date”, she’s answering Leon’s comment when Sherry asks them about the girlfriend/boyfriend thing (where he points out they’ve just met, literally). Then Leon’s answer to Claire is clearly a reference to what has actually happened to him with Ada. That being said, Capcom was probably teasing the idea in a fan servicy way, but it’s still all in-character. Sherry’s the one pushing all those things here, and it can be explained because she’s just a 12 years old girl and is wondering who Leon is and why Claire knows him, since they’re happy to see each other alive. Hence the adoption comment later on. Sherry craves a family and, right now, these two people are practically her world after having suffered terrible things.

I do see Leon and Claire as sort of parental figures to Sherry, or at least the big sister/brother vibe, but that doesn’t mean Capcom is pushing anything here, IMO. My only gripe with all this is that I liked the idea of Claire being one of the few female characters that had 0 romantic tension with Leon, but still I don’t think we can call it that since they barely interact and it was just flirty banter. (I do enjoy, though, that their interactions are friendlier than in the original and they keep cheering each other up with those “We’re gonna make it!!). And hey, they’re both VERY PRETTY. If I were Leon, I’d get all flustered around Claire and viceversa. As some people have pointed out, both characters have a record of being flirty in general with other people, so this isn’t out of character for them either. In any case, I don’t think this is what’s happening in the ending scene and, even though it’s a nice fan service moment for people who do ship Leon and Claire, it can be seen just as a easily as a Found Family moment without any romantic connotations. Both work perfectly and leave every fan happy, no need for ship dramas. They ruin everything and it’s not worth it.

Seriously, that image of the three of them walking together into the sunset, holding hands fills my heart with happiness <3 Whether you ship one thing or another, don’t let anyone or anything rob you of the beauty this moment holds for Resident Evil history.

#claire redfield #sherry birkin #leon scott kennedy #resident evil 2 remake #resident evil 2 #meta #mine: meta

62 notes · View notes

noelclover · 6 years ago

Text

Off the Cuff 10/03/2019

2c on an article.

Based off of link here:

“Here’s the actual reality. Here’s where we actually are in the industry if you want to talk about quote access media. Every single person that wants to have access to things early, that wants to get access to things so that traffic is drawn to their site will on occasion. Everybody at this podcast, everybody in our industry occasionally has to play softball, occasionally has to look the other way a little bit. Everybody has to do it. In the sense that I hated a movie, but I won’t say that I hated a movie. Or an actor behaved a sort of way, and you don’t want to put it out there that that happened.” Horne chimes in, “Right, because you might not get the next review.” Roth continues, “To some degree everybody in our industry that is part of this quote on quote access media has to decide which battles they want to pick. Which of the ones where my voice is the one that has to get said.”

I’m not going to throw anyone under the bus for wanting to keep their job and make money. That’s absolutely fine. But this does prove that sometimes, critics could be rather disingenuous with their criticism, which of course, is also part of the reason why gaming journalists are generally treated with some degree of skepticism.

Well, that and the virtue signalling and sometimes rather obvious shilling. Saying that everyone does it does not justify doing it, it’d be like saying a member of the police is justified in taking bribes from their local drug gang because everyone does it. Sure, this isn’t necessarily a fair comparison, but it’s to highlight the idea that everyone does isn’t a justification.

“I think they should get rid of fans review entirely.”

When asked to elaborate he did, “It’s not a right. They run a website. They run a business. Critic reviews are critic reviews and that’s fine. And listen this isn’t me saying fans can’t have an opinion. But this is a tool. It’s obviously being abused more than it is being used constructively especially around particular films that politically rub some people the wrong way for certain reasons. It’s why we can’t have a nice thing. It would be nice if people used it the way it’s supposed to be used, but no one is. So screw it, goodbye.”

And he’s absolutely right, but it works two ways. If a critic critiques a work, they too can abuse said tool and simply give scores based off of their own political beliefs. Critics are human too and if critics are just as fallible, then perhaps they shouldn’t be given a platform to criticize.

The real reason why we can’t have “a nice thing” is because a platform to look at something critically isn’t nice. Also, the implication here seems to be 1/10s are bad, but 10/10s are totally not politically motivated and the critique people have while claiming a movie is absolutely perfect is completely, utterly legitimate. Which is not true, most movies, when viewed objectively, fall under the 6ish score sadly. Note: I said most, not all.

Swiderski’s comments echo Samuel L. Jackson’s who also responded to the Captain Marvel Rotten Tomatoes controversy saying:

“The mere fact that you give a voice or a platform to people who normally don’t have a platform is part of the problem. You can have an opinion that you don’t really have to be responsible for because nobody’s going to see you, nobody’s going to challenge you on it and if you want to bring somebody down or just ruin somebody’s day, you can say anything. Everybody doesn’t want to be uplifting and that’s pretty much what that problem is.”

Except critics who pander to a product don’t necessarily have to “be responsible for it”. Dean Takahashi was a great example. Adam Sessler called for people who were on the opposite political spectrum to be doxxed. Brianna Wu claimed Samus was transgender before throwing her co-author for the article under the bus when realizing how big a fuck up that was. I’ve not seen them so much as apologize over these things, where’s the accountability? They were challenged, yet nothing happened. Youtube comments have a lot of verbal spars going on, opinions get challenged all the time.

Sure, they don’t take personal accountability for it in that their names as such aren’t there, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t challenged. It was. And for the record, viewers aren’t getting anything out of this. They don’t get paid at all to leave critique, and a blanket statement like that does people who offer detailed critique (which you can agree or disagree with, given that critiques are, at the end of the day, opinions) injustice.

Critique does not have to be uplifting. Critique should look to a product and point out what is good or bad about something. The delivery of said critique on the other hand, matters quite a bit and while I do think that the people who said they weren’t going to watch Captain Marvel because Brie Larson said something in a rather asinine way a while ago have the right to do so, I do think that the critics and Rotten Tomatoes jumped the gun on this one.

Personally, I think that many people can’t critique movies. There’s this weird idea that a movie has to be “THE BEST THING EVARRRR” or absolute garbage, an unholy fusion of the Resident Evil movies and whatever Uwe Boll’s made that hurt my movie buff friends and acquaintances. Most movies aren’t absolute 10/10s, and they sure as hell aren’t 1/10s, they’re usually decent bits of entertainment.

Note: This is not a personal attack on critics. It is a point on why people are skeptical towards critics and what I perceive to be a rather hypocritical stance given the fallible nature of people, critics included, and an opinion on what critique is and should do. This piece is a critique, if you will.

I personally think that one should sift through an arbitrary number of comments from both sides of scores and take a strong look at the middling ones. That’s where the glimpse of the real story can usually be found.

🍀 🍀 🍀

And for that one person on Twitter who went, I paraphrase, “movies that feature a minorities shouldn’t have be good” and people who think like them I’d like to say, no. They absolutely should, and we should judge them as we would other movies.

One shouldn’t ignore them if they’re not absolutely amazing or praise them to the High Heavens because they’re not Diablo 3 crimes against humanity. Hope that they’re entertaining, wish that they’ll be good and pray that they’ll make enough money that a sequel, a better, stronger movie that will shine brighter than this one, will be made. Don’t make an excuse for a product before it’s out, don’t cut them slack. That would be dishonouring the efforts of the people who made the product. Take them as seriously as they took their work, they’ve earned your honest opinion.

#don't mind me #Off the Cuff

3 notes · View notes

viirales · 6 years ago

Note

You know the drill ~ Rainbow!

Headcanon Prompt: You and your rainbows….

Red: sex headcanons

Much like the whole ‘romance’ thing mentioned previously, sex is simply not a priority. To an extent, he is still interested, just without the desire to actively chase it anymore, as once he did. But, once again, for the sake of the ask, let’s say someone reels him in: He would most likely have to be on the bottom of any, uh…encounter, for a reason that essentially boils down to ‘Man of steel, partner of Kleenex’. Despite the control he has over his strength, all it would take it one mistake or the slightest slip-up to crush his partner. Or, at the very least, badly injure them. If they’re on top, they’ve got at least some kind of control over the situation; if he starts getting too rough with them, for example, they can slow things down or stop completely to get his head back in the game, where as if he’s got them pinned under him, that might be a little more difficult to do. It’s not a foolproof method by any means, but it’s better than nothing, right?

If a potential partner isn’t willing to get a little rough, don’t bother him. Not talking like, break out the whips and chains kind of rough, but if they treat him like glass (or like they’re walking on eggshells with him) the whole way through, it’s not a turn-on by any means. And for God’s sake, he ain’t gonna cuddle immediately afterwards. At best, he’ll tolerate it for a little while if a partner insists upon it, but even that will generally end with something along the lines of, “Alright, get off me already.”

Orange: emotional headcanons

For one to have fear, one needs a reason to be afraid. Alex no longer has that, as he knows he’s capable of withstanding (or recovering from) damn near anything that’s thrown at him. However, there is one thing that does get under his skin in the worst of ways, and that’s simply being controlled in any manner. Whether he’s got something in his brain that counteracts his own thoughts and forces its will, or he’s just strapped to an examination table and unable to move or free/defend himself–-doesn’t matter, it freaks him the hell out. He’ll say it just pisses him off, and it does…but it goes a little deeper than that.

Yellow: mental headcanons -everything about their mind (are they intelligent/attentive/perceptive/intuitive/pragmatic/idealist/pessimist; do they have good memory; are they good a problem-solving/learning; etc..)

Alex is an intelligent man, as he’s always been. He picks things up quickly and retains what he learns, regardless of whether or not he uses the information. With this also comes a vivid memory. For the most part, this serves him well; things like remembering safe paths out of danger, base and blockade locations, or even recalling a seemingly-minuscule piece of information at a vital point. Stuff like that is a-okay. However, the issue arises with the other memories floating around in his head, courtesy of those he has consumed. He sees what they’ve seen, heard what they’ve heard, even felt a twinge of the things they’ve felt, and when some of that stuff hits his vivid memory, it ain’t leaving any time soon....

Green: spiritual headcanons

First of all, that would be a great big no in general, as he is still the logical, realistic kind of man that he was in his prior life. Where he is concerned, if he cannot see or touch something, it isn’t real. The possibility is, but he needs some hard evidence staring him right in the face before he’ll break down and believe it’s a real thing. Thus far, no deity has descended from the heavens to speak with him, and it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon, so he doesn’t believe in any of that. If you do, good on you; he’s got nothing against people who believe. It just isn’t his thing, nor has it ever been.

Cyan: romantic headcanons -

Despite his dislike of all that ‘cuddling’ nonsense, physical intimacy between a romantic partner and himself will be an important part in any relationship he does form. It all ties back to that whole ‘treating him like a monster’ business. Someone who is supposed to trust and care about him should be willing to touch him on occasion, or be in close proximity while they’re doing…whatever they’re doing, together. If they’re not, his mind is going to be concocting reasons why, and it very well may end on the one mentioned. ’Off nights’ aren’t counted, ‘cause everybody’s got those days/nights where they’re just like ‘you know what, shoo, go away, leave me alone for a while, okay’, and he understands that. Hell, he’s got them, too. But, if it’s a continuous occurrence—well…

Blue: relationships headcanons

Alex isn’t exactly the “life of the party”. He isn’t one that will just walk up to a random person and strike up a conversation just for the hell of it, and he’s never been one of those folks, so making friends has been a bit more difficult for him than some. Make no mistake, he had a group of frequent companions in his prior life, but it was fairly small, exactly the way he’d prefer it. He’ll take a tiny circle of trusted friends over a massive web of contacts any day; that’s as true now, as the virus, as it was as Dr. Mercer. Now, as it is with any exclusive group, finding a way into that circle is not an easy task, but for the dedicated few who make it in, they’re there for life (or until they fuck it up, but…well, y’know…).

Indigo: daily life headcanons -everything about their everyday life (self-care; hobbies; daily routines; etc..)

As much as he hates the city (and he does, make no mistake about that), there is something enjoyable in just wandering the streets. Fresh air is good for everybody, right? And besides, there are usually countless throngs of people doing the same bloody thing, meaning he has crowds to blend in with, which also means he can just kind of be for a little while. No running around, no bashing people out of the way, no being shot or pursued through the goddamn city--at a glance, he’s just another guy.

Wandering isn’t a daily routine or anything, but it happens enough that it must count for something.

Violet: habits headcanons -everything about their routine behavior (good habits; bad habits; posture; mannerism; etc..)

So, there was another ask about habits of his. New habits, ones retained from his life, etc. I saved it to my drafts to answer, and it disappeared, so this one also goes @ the anon who sent that:

To an extent, yes–but even with that limitation, it is still conditional and not all of those habits or pleasures are there. The virus has rewritten the pieces within him, and because of that, things were likely lost in transition or perhaps were replaced by something different entirely. However, the few bits he has retained will not just come to him, in most cases. They’ll take some kind of rediscovery before he’ll be like ‘oh yeah, this was a thing’. Since food was mentioned in the ask, I’m going to keep with that. So, say, in his prior life, he was a big fan of hot dogs. Y’know, those big ol’ New Yorker hot dogs with all the fixings and everything? He wouldn’t be just wandering around one day and have this sudden epiphany that that was a favorite of his–not until he took a bite of one and was flooded with that sense of familiarity that it would sink in that yeah, he fucking loves those things. Or, where occasions and holidays are concerned (another thing from the ask), he remembers the big ones throughout the year (Christmas, Halloween, New Years, etc), but as for which ones were his favorites? Pfft, nope. He doesn’t recall that any more than he does the small-scale stuff; personal occasions, I mean. Let him deal with all the crap that comes along with those days–especially his birthday, if somebody else remembers it, because he’ll remember just how much he despises being the center of attention while everyone around him sings that dumbass song–and then he’ll tell you which one(s) he enjoys.

Kind of a deja vu sort of deal.

As for habits, it’s difficult to tell if one is left over, so to speak, or brand new. There are a few that have broken with the change, but a few have remained. Like, once it was routine that he’d wake up early-ish, and the first thing he’d do was grab a cup of coffee, park his ass at the desk he had in the apartment, and get a little work done. So ingrained did that become that, on the sparse few days he didn’t do it, it left him with a feeling close to confusion because…well, damn, what else was he supposed to do in that time slot? There’s something he should be doing but he’s not so ???

Obviously, that habit is one that’s broken because 1) his apartment was blown to pieces, so he doesn’t have a desk, and 2) he doesn’t need to sit around and work anymore. More of the smaller ones have persisted through everything. Little tics, like scratching at the left side of his jaw when he’s deep in thought, or fidgeting if he’s standing/sitting too long–things like that have been retained, not that he’s aware of that they were retained. As far as he’s concerned, they’re just…things he does now. Whether or not he did them before is irrelevant.

#cyansovereign #( 🇷🇮🇫🇱🇪 🇹🇭🇪 🇸🇨🇷🇪🇦🇲🇸 ; hcs )#[yoo only a million years late but here you go my friend~]#[i do love me some rainbows]

1 note · View note

my-honourable-barbarian · 7 years ago

Text

I doubt nicknames will be necessary - Part 3/?

Part 1 / Part 2

AO3 Link

Damen was clean, dressed, and an exciting mixture of hopeful and mortified. He was holding pie.

Showers – even utilitarian ones – had the unfortunate tendency to make him think, and as much as he’d like to believe he was about to be greeted with a wry smile that barely lifted the corner of a gorgeous mouth, chances were, he was going to be verbally eviscerated instead.

It was… unclear what Laurent thought of this thing, or why he’d even gone along with it. And he had the unique quality of keeping Damen ever so slightly off-balance, so it might well have been nothing more than material gathered to bring Damen to his knees, in an entirely unsexy way.

But Damen was, at his heart of hearts, a hopeless optimist. And whatever was broken already would not be fixed by cowering. At the very least, he was going to give Laurent the apology he deserved.

Gathering all his long-learned and oft-earned self-confidence into the Dimpled Smile of Charm as Nikandros called it, Damen finally raised his hand to knock.

Only to have the door swing open.

“You do realize this door contains a viewer.”

Laurent casually leaned against the doorframe and watched as Damen slowly and awkwardly let his hand sink.

“Uhm,” said Damen at the height of eloquence, the Dimpled Smile of Charm faltering.

Laurent eventually took pity on him. “I’m assuming this pie is for me.”

“Less cardamom,” Damen finally managed.

How Laurent could possibly contain an eye-roll was astounding, seeing as with this, Damen could now congratulate himself on surpassing any levels of idiocy previously known to man.

But Laurent didn't react at all. He just looked at Damen for so long that it became hard not to squirm.

“Well," he said finally, "bring it inside.”

He stepped aside. The gesture, small and precise as it was, was dizzying. He was being invited in.

In a heroic effort that included reminding himself of why he had baked this pie, Damen stayed where he was. “Can I apologize first?”

“I don’t know, can you?” It was an automatic reply, one that was then followed by a much more perplexed, “What for?” And then, as if tailored, “A very high-pitched bedpartner or calling a phone sex line? Neither of which seems like an offense specifically towards my person.”

Damen tried not to flush even as he straightened his back and forced himself to look Laurent in his eyes.

“For trying to kiss you in my kitchen.”

Silence.

“Why,” said Laurent, evidently baffled, “would you apologize for that?”

“It was clearly unwanted. I shouldn’t have presumed. I’m sorry.”

Laurent stared at him for a long moment. Damen had the distinct feeling he may have just regained some of his footing.

“Come inside,” Laurent repeated, quieter.

This time, Damen did. Turning his back on Laurent still felt like exposing a weak spot to a particularly venomous snake, but he walked past him anyway.

Considering how much the furniture was probably worth, it was a rather subdued place. There was more focus on open spaces than personalized decoration or lived-in clutter. Even the fin-de-siècle desk seemed like little more than an expensive afterthought. On it, at least, there was evidence of use. Stacks of paper, neatly ordered, a pen that seemed made for calligraphy and a whole set of disposable ballpoints, as well as a row of books.

Actually, now that Damen had noticed them, there seemed to be a lot of books throughout the room. Most of the titles revealed a sort of snobbery not unusual to people who prided themselves in being well-read, but they did look like they’d been read far more often than a cursory first time.

“You like to read.”

Laurent had closed the door to the hallway, and was now leaning against that, arms crossed. Damen wondered if he’d thrown the suit on because he was expecting a guest. He didn’t react to Damen’s statement, but instead minimally indicated the space to the left.

“As you might be able to discern, this is the kitchen. Do place the pie on the table.”

Damen did as he was told. It was a very clean kitchen. Cooking books were nowhere to be found. Instead, on the windowsill, a whole collection of Dostoyevsky.

“There is a cake knife in the second drawer from the left.”

Damen shook his head to clear it, suddenly acutely aware of how rude it was to intrude on someone’s personal space and examine every detail.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

The utensils, despite maybe never getting used, were well maintained, the drawer meticulously organized. Damen realized Laurent had very likely only hired the movers out of necessity and would have preferred doing everything himself.

He closed the drawer and cut the pie into even pieces. To his surprise, Laurent brought two plates and forks and set them down so that they’d be sitting on neighboring sides of the table. Then, he sat down, casual as could be, and watched coolly as Damen loaded both plates with pie.

And Damen, against his previous instincts, relaxed. Trusting Laurent in the setting of his own arena was foolish, maybe. But if after all of this, this man, his neighbor who valued distance more than friendly conduct, invited him inside his home, the least Damen could do is understand it as an offering.

He sat down.

* * *

Laurent made no move to pick up his fork. The pie would undoubtedly be a slice of heaven on a desert plate, but the mere fact that he had even tried the first one still made him feel on edge. Let alone eaten every last crumb and then allowed this man to feed him filling.

And now Damianos was here, with another pie specifically baked for Laurent. Because that’s the kind of person he apparently was. Underneath the table, their knees almost brushed, yet it wasn’t Laurent who arranged himself in a non-intrusive way.

“So, what did you invite me in for?” Damen said easily. “Need to make sure I didn’t poison the pie?” As if to demonstrate, he shoveled a few mouthfuls in, swallowed, then grinned. “I can assure you, I’d never waste food like that.”

It once more occurred to Laurent that he was quite attractive. Even if he was wearing a loose red hoodie to hide those massive bulging muscles. Concealing his bulk to appear less of a threat.

“Actually, I was attempting to be…” He felt distinctly out of his depth. “… neighborly. Consider it an apology of my own.”

Damen seemed to mull it over. Where Laurent would school his own face into careful blankness, his neighbor was an open book. One who clearly did not see where Laurent was coming from any more than Laurent had earlier.

“For what?”

“Being unneighborly.” Laurent took a bite now, a bit too aware of Damen’s eyes flicking to his mouth.

As expected, it was delicious. Truthfully, Laurent hadn’t minded the seasoning last time either, but this pie was perfection baked in a custom-made tin.

He deliberated for another forkful, then decided he might as well approach the topic at hand. “And for recognizing your voice right away and still allowing you to humiliate yourself.”

The entire time Damen had been sitting in Laurent’s kitchen, he had been trying to take up as little space as possible. It didn’t seem to stem from lack of self-confidence either, it would appear he simply latched on to the fact that Laurent needed him unimposing. An impressive feat, considering the sheer size of him.

This was different. True to form, all it took was one word from Laurent to make this giant animal of a man look small.

“Humiliate myself. Is that what I did.”

And Laurent was not used to this. The people he dealt with every day were not the kind to deserve any particular sensitivity. If they could not handle the way Laurent spoke to them, they most certainly deserved showed no mercy in turn. Most of them could handle it. Most of them were as ruthless as he was.

Damen, evidently, was not.

“No, I-…” Laurent began, then didn’t find the right sentiment to convey that he shouldn’t have belittled him, that he hadn’t even meant it as harshly as it had come out.

Ever since he had first realized Damianos was determined to become a fixture in his life, Laurent had treated the entire thing like an experiment. Even his attire when disturbing Damen and his rather telling bedpartner – an expertly mussed too large dress shirt that had been misdelivered - had been carefully chosen. The interruption itself, as much as it partly stemmed from genuine annoyance, had been nothing less than calculated.

Now Laurent was startled to understand this man likely deserved far better than to be treated like an experiment.

“You were-…” he tried again, but in the epitome of cliché got lost in Damen’s eyes, all brown and earnest and unbearably warm now that Laurent was the one floundering for once.

Laurent could feel his cheeks heat.

“I was what?” Damen beckoned, a hint of a smile revealing that frankly devastating dimple.

“Napkins!” Laurent sprang up, the humiliation all his own now. “I forgot them. Please wait here.”

He couldn’t go far to flee, as the cabinet in which he kept them was just outside the kitchen space, but at least it bought him time to turn his back on Damen for a few short moments and gather himself enough to stop blushing.

Still, he had never felt less prepared to face another human being. Even the kid he was currently helping represent in court was easier to talk to. At least there, Laurent could draw from experience.

He had no template for actually liking somebody.

But when he had returned to the kitchen and set out the napkins – cloth, of course, the same deep blue he favored in clothing – Damen didn’t recommence his teasing.

“Why do you do it?” he asked instead, face serious and open. “Not with me. In general. You don’t seem to need the money.”

Because it was the only way Laurent could stay in control of a sexual interaction.

“I’m a law student who doesn’t qualify for scholarships due to my familial background while at the same time being too young to inherit,” he finally answered, words carefully chosen. “I do come from money, but I-… I don’t necessarily want to rely on the relatives I have left.”

It was more than he could remember revealing of himself in years.

“Oh.” Damen had sat up straighter, obviously startled. “You’re-… how old are you?”

“Worried you’ve paid for getting off with someone underage?”

This time, he more than allowed the ice to coat every last word.

But Damen only shook his head. “Worried I’ve considered having sex with someone not old enough to consent.”

Laurent’s fork stilled, abandoned in the pie he’d started mindlessly stabbing. It was difficult to breathe, suddenly.

“My twenty-first birthday is this spring,” he said, after a long pause. It was an offering as much as it was a concession, even as his back threatened to snap under the tension. “And I did,” he tested the word out, “consent.”

It was a terminus he had been using a lot, during this case. It would accompany him throughout his entire career, as it was the predominant reason for his choice of profession.

It still felt foreign, in correlation to himself.

“That’s-…” Damen sunk back down on himself and gave Laurent a heart-wrenchingly relieved smile. “I’m twenty-six.”

Laurent knew this already. He knew rather a lot about Damianos. He was not the sort of man who had scruples about looking someone up on every available resource. To form a more coherent picture than clumsy helpfulness, expanses of brown muscles, and dimples.

And while Laurent himself was more than careful not to leave a single trace of himself on the internet, Damen was unsurprisingly the opposite. It was actually quite boring, how open he was about himself. He never even questioned the acceptance of a friend request made on several platforms, under a fake account and with a generic name: ‘Charls’, a social media abbreviation approved version of ‘Charles’. There was an entire backstory Laurent had come up with, for who this ‘Charls Merchant’ was in relation to Damen, but disappointingly, he was simply added to the list of several hundred acquaintances.

The posts themselves were a mixture of pictures with friends – how one single person could be so popular was unthinkable to someone as reclusive as Laurent – and a wide array of sports, and comments on his friends’ anecdotes, ranging from ‘haha lol’ to surprisingly eloquent feats of compassion.

He was also on more professional platforms, and his company – co-run with his slightly less pleasant looking half-brother – published its fair share of generic novels (historical romance among the more popular genres), but also more than its fair share of gems, some of which Laurent had had in one of the bookshelves in his bedroom long before moving here.

“I would be rather a prodigy,” Laurent idly commented, “if I were attending law school underage.”

The dimple grew and Laurent wanted desperately to stop blushing like a teenager with a crush. Well, like a normal teenager might have.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were,” Damen said, “a prodigy,” and then, as if it were related, “Are you enjoying the pie?”

Laurent, as it were, was very unopposed to a change in subject and something else to focus on than the way one of Damen’s dark curls had fallen over one beautifully shaped eyebrow.

“Yes, it’s,” he tapped his fork against the outer crust as if to test its consistency, “quite good. I like,” Damen was listening intently and suddenly he wished he didn’t have to finish the sentence because it would be far too revealing, “sweet things.”

To distract them both, Laurent took another few bites, his piece slowly dwindling. He wondered if Damen would leave by the end of it. He wondered if he’d have the nerve to take back control over this by that time.

But Damen only ate his own piece of pie – with astoundingly good manners, Laurent noted. He seemed lost in thought.

“Why did you go along with it?” he asked finally, not quite meeting Laurent’s eyes. “If you knew it was me? From what I hear the Prince is known to be discerning.”

And Laurent had absolutely never wanted any insight to what people thought of him on the other side of the line, but he felt compelled to focus on it now. It even drew a bit of a smile on his lips. “The Prince? Is that what they call me?”

Damen huffed another one of these pleasant low laughs.

“You may also have the epithet ‘Untouchable’.”

Which, of course, was very much the point.

Laurent decided he did not need to hear more.

“I have an ear for voices and experience has made me a good judge of character. You may have been crass, and you’re undoubtedly a barbarian brute, but you’ve never been disrespectful.” He should leave it at that.

He did not.

“I was intrigued what your fantasy would be.”

And there, finally, it was. The metaphorical nail in Laurent’s coffin.

Because Damen, suddenly, grew confident.

“Oh.” He sounded pleased. “Did I disappoint?”

And Laurent was helpless against it.

“No. No, you were-… sweet.” He really very much wished he could have kept his mouth shut before. Instead, he couldn’t even seem to do so now. “A very generous lover.”

The fact that they were having this discussion without ever even have touched made his head spin a little.

Well, they had touched. Once. And Damen had apologized for it.

Damen used words like ‘consent’ like they meant something. Damen’s fantasy had been to make Laurent want to be kissed. Damen would back off immediately if Laurent told him to stop bothering him. Or just to stop. Damen was kind. Damen had arms that could probably carry Laurent’s entire weight while he fucked him against a wall. Damen had very nice lips and a very pleasant dimple. Damen had hands made for worship. Damen baked pie and looked at Laurent like they had something to give to each other.

The decision, truly, had been made a phone call ago.

“I would like to try something,” said Laurent, “if you’re amenable.”

Damen looked at him openly, his posture relaxed.

“What?”

Laurent’s body, however, had been brought back under his own sharp control. Muscles tense, ready for battle. He wondered if Damen pictured him soft, underneath his armor. He was not.

“I would like to kiss you.”

It was as much a request as it was a challenge.

Damen blinked twice to accommodate this turn of events.

“You did like my fantasy, then.”

On any other man, this kind of response would have meant Laurent not being very kind about showing him the door. But he sounded… like it was entirely unexpected praise. Not because he didn’t think he deserved it, but because he never expected Laurent to give it.

“You misunderstand,” Laurent said, keeping his eyes coolly on Damianos’. Not one flick to his lips. “I would like to kiss you. You, in this scenario, will sit there and let me.”

“Can I kiss you back?”

Laurent thought about it as seriously as Damen had. His jaw felt tense. He was in a very uncomfortable state between anticipation and dread. Maybe he shouldn’t do this.

“Don’t get sloppy. And don’t touch me.”

Damen nodded. Unlike Laurent, he had no qualms about where his eyes fell.

Laurent, of course, had been subject to lewd glances all his life. They no longer unnerved him.

But this was-… softer than that.

“The woman you were sleeping with the other night,” he asked to buy himself a moment, “was not, in fact, a girlfriend of yours?”

“Jokaste?” Damen looked back up. “Uhm, ex-girlfriend. We’re not sleeping together anymore either. As of-… today. This morning. I ended it. Whatever was left of it.”

“Presumptuous.”

Damen shrugged. He looked embarrassed. It was yet another good look on him.

“Honestly, I did not expect you to ever want to talk to me again.”

“I did. I find myself-…” Laurent cut himself off by biting his own lip. Felt the blood welling up underneath tender skin and wondered what it would be like if he allowed Damen to do this to him.

“Stand up,” he ordered. Damen, slowly, complied. It was not submissive, exactly. But he was taking Laurent’s wishes very seriously. He offered a hand.

Laurent remembered, suddenly, the first time he’d seen Damen. Lugging around priceless antiques like their weight was nothing and then dropping them only when he spotted Laurent. He’d been sweaty and enormous and he dealt with Laurent’s unrelenting rudeness far better than he’d dealt with Laurent’s looks. He’d offered his hand then, too. His name as well. And a smile.

And Laurent had known he was danger in a way he was unequipped to deal with and had rejected every friendly advance.

When he gave the movers their well-earned tip, he learned Damen had already given them near the same amount to make up for any potential loss of income due to his clumsiness. It was a generous number. And Laurent’s eyes had strayed to that door opposite his. He’d been doubly glad to have pushed Damen away.

Except he hadn’t stayed away. Unobtrusively, sweetly, he hadn’t stayed away.

Laurent took his hand. It was very warm. Far rougher skin than Laurent’s own. His grip was pleasant and strong and his hand folded around Laurent’s like he was touching something precious.

He let go when Laurent stood opposite him.

Closely.

He smelled good, too. Fresh from the shower he’d taken. Because it was what Laurent had asked him to do.

Laurent had to look up a little, but he knew Damen would bend down to meet him. Making his height an offering, not a threat.

“I want you to know, however this pans out, you will have a considerate neighbor across the hall.”

“Neighbors,” said Laurent, tonelessly. “Is that what we are.”

Then he kissed him.

Against his lips, Damen drew in a sharp, shocked breath. As if, despite everything, he hadn’t expected Laurent to follow through. Then he held himself very still and let Laurent improve the angle.

And it was not fireworks or the world falling away or any such cliché, but it was nice. Damen’s lips were pleasing in shape and feel. They gave easily under Laurent’s slow exploration, parted a little as Laurent tried a single swipe of his tongue.

Kissing back, to Laurent’s astonishment, still meant letting Laurent set the pace entirely. Gentle presses of lips were met with equal care. Slight changes of angle had him adjust to make it better, which it always, unerringly, was. He only reciprocated with tongue when Laurent’s inexperience fell shy of hesitancy. It was nice, too.

He was trembling, Laurent suddenly realized. Damen was trembling and clutching the back of his chair so hard the possibility of it breaking underneath those giant hands was a real one.

He was not sloppy. He did not touch Laurent.

Laurent pulled back and found himself breathing as hard as Damen was.

“If I were to tell you I might never be ready to have sex with you, could you still imagine wanting to spend time with me?”

Would you take me for who I am?

“I would like to court you,” Damen said. “With all the grace and courtesy you deserve. And if you’ll ever kiss me again, I’ll be the luckiest man on earth.”

Laurent kissed him again. He took Damen’s hands from the back of the chair and put them on his own hips. They folded around him easily. Became warmth through layers of clothing.

There was a molten thing inside him, golden and glowing and almost crying in relief.

He could want. He could want.

And he could let himself be wanted.

Damen did not see any of the rot that bit of molten light was fighting against. Damen did not even know Laurent had never kissed anyone before.

His kiss was worship anyway. His hands held gently. They did not trap.

“I might,” Laurent breathed, finally, a long time later, “be able to do more than kiss.” With you. “At some point.”

Then he stepped back and Damen dropped his hands. They left broad, warm spots on Laurent’s waist. On the nape of his neck, where Damen had cradled his head. Had laid his palm over Laurent’s hair.

He probably looked a young man who had just been kissed. Damen very much looked like a man who had just given a kiss.

“Thank you for the pie.”

It was a dismissal, and with a slow nod, Damen accepted it as such. His eyes were very dark. It-… affected Laurent.

When he opened the door, the scene became a mirror of previous encounters. Except this was different, because Damen was far quieter.

Laurent should close the door. He needed space. He needed to think and to reassess and to wonder if everyone felt like everything about them had changed after their first kiss.

“I would like,” Damen finally said, “to take you out. On a lunch break, maybe, if that works with your schedule.”

His voice was soft and reverent, and Laurent was helpless against it.

“Tuesday,” Laurent said. “At noon.”

“We’ll go out for milkshakes. There’s a place near my company. I could show you around there first, if you’d like.”

Laurent might break himself open on this man. There were too many cracks already.

He might break himself or he might break Damianos. It was not a responsibility he had asked for.

“You do like to read.”

Enamored, that was the correct word for that tone. For that look.

“I would like that,” Laurent said, “very much.”

He had never closed a door this gently.

#lamen #captive prince #phone sex operator au #and they were neighbors

14 notes · View notes