#Possible Future versions of Characters | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mandalhoerian · 9 days ago

Text

Repost because tumblr's tags were broken yesterday and it ate my post up 😞 Spoilers and translation notes for Rafayel's intertidal zone & analysis because it kinda floored me, I was just as a blank page as he was throughout this. I had to watch it like 5 times to understand what the story was saying and dig into chinese and japanese versions of this to piece together what was really happening. It may be my idiot brain not getting it and maybe it was like the easiest thing to understand for you but. Yeah. I may be just dumb LMFAO AND!!!! There's also a theory of mine into how Rafayel is actually able to read mc's mind/wishes through their lemurian bond, so stay tuned for that I guess

EDIT: correcting some transcriptions of chinese characters and the translations. sorry about that! google couldn't transcribe it correctly. for clarity's sake i will also include original screenshots. please tell me if anything is wrong!

EDIT 2: Check out part 2 to this as well for stuff I missed!

EDIT 3: An Abysswalker connection I found

EDIT 4: Debunking the myths of non-consent & Rafayel hurting MC in the spicy scene

So Rafayel’s whole deal in this memory, I believe, is dependency. Like, too much intensity, too much need, too much fear -- about scaring her off, about what he sees himself possibly becoming in the future, overall just being too reliant on mc and getting scared by it.

Let's begin with this massive fear of being a taker, not just in the “I’m stealing someone’s fries” way, but in this existential, soul-deep kind of way where he’s terrified of turning everything he loves into something he exploits out of demand for his art. And yeah, it’s sad when you first hear him say it, but it’s also really interesting when you look at how this all ties into his relationship with MC and his inspiration source drying up because of her.

Before Rafayel became an artist, he looked at the world in this super pure, wholesome way. Sceneries and nature were just there, things to admire and feel awe over without needing to do anything about it. Like, imagine standing at the edge of a desert, looking at a sea that’s drying up. Sure, it’s tragic, but it’s also kind of beautiful in a raw, heartbreaking way. That’s how Rafayel saw things, he could appreciate them without feeling like he had to do anything.

But then Rafayel started creating, and suddenly, sceneries weren’t just sceneries anymore. They became inspiration. He wasn’t just admiring beauty, he was extracting something from it, its meaning, its pain, its soul, to turn into art for other people. And that made him feel all kinds of icky, because now he wasn’t just looking at the drying sea. He was taking from it. Just as he's using his people's pain in his art as well, that's also a thing.

Now let’s talk about MC. Rafayel loves her like he used to love those sceneries,,, in this pure, untainted way. There's a parallel here. But here’s the kicker, he’s not the same guy who can just admire something and leave it untouched anymore.

And suddenly, this is no longer only about losing inspiration for him.

This happens after he and MC get together, and it’s like all the pain and anguish that used to fuel his creativity just.. ... dries up. He can’t find that spark anymore because now his life is surrounded by love instead of suffering. In fact, his inspiration starts coming from her and it's starting to clash with how he makes art. In the phone call, he seeks her out and says he needs her so bad and she only needs to talk to help him out. This is the first wink wink nod nod of the story.

So what does Rafayel do? He goes on this big, dramatic trip to "find inspiration" (or at least his muse), but it’s not just about his art. He’s not just looking for inspiration, he’s trying to figure out how to be less dependent on her and becoming increasingly more restless over this. The temparature and physical discomfort is making things worse, he's anxiously overthinking, and imagine trying to fight this and the longest art block as of late off when all you want to do is indulge in this special person and be comforted like a lap cat all day every day.

He understands that if he lets himself indulge without restraint, one day his love for mc will turn into pure need. He’ll become more and more greedy, and he doesn’t want that and is afraid of being abandoned because of that growing neediness and dependency.

This is in relation to his art, because as @/dat-silvers-girl put in the comments, he's struggling with "the genuine fear of not being able to enjoy anything in life because all you're thinking about how to use it (as an artist)" . what if he starts doing this to her? to their love and relationship? take from her, and become someone who only takes in every area of life -- like someone who only exploits things by extracting what he feels about them to use it for his art. he's afraid of that, he doesn't like that and possibly doesn't like himself who does it. so why should she? she would leave him for sure, in his head, that's a solid reason to.

The first time around he brings up his anxiety about MC leaving him out of the inner realization of his dependency, the possibility of just what he can become, and fear of abandonment. she effortlessly soothes his worries. It's heavily implied they did it afterwards and after hearing "her life has already been consumed by him" he tweaked out a little bit and his "obsession" seeped through.

After it fades to black, he says ほら……僕もとっくに……君に侵食されてしまっているんだ…… which means "See... I've already been completely consumed by you too" in Japanese instead of the life being made a chaotic mess localization. While I think MC's line was jokey and lighthearted, I don't think this man is joking at all. Rafayel didn't say his life was consumed by her as well, he said HE was consumed. Ouh.

This took the edge off from him for a while but they hadn't gotten to the root of the problem yet, so he was back to square one after the memorial hall, because remember, he's trying to find inspiration as an act of making this dependency of his better. Pain and suffering are all around him here, which his inspiration feeds off of. The dried up ocean he could hear weakening, the skeleton of the whale, the burden of his people and homeland more prominent than before. And what does MC do? Tear through the perspective of pain and introduce a hopeful alternative, "Isn't it a surprise to see an ocean in the middle of the desert?"

This is a place that gave Rafayel the height of helplessness and suffering when he visited by himself before despite momentarily being hopeful after the locals told him such a place existed. But now, she was there to comfort him through his loneliness and pain, hug him, and give him hope yet again. He brings up how he wanted to come here with the most important person to him when he was still hopeful about it before consumed by the pain of it all, and that wish has been granted. That moment has to be so powerful for Rafayel. Literally light at the end of the tunnel.

It had me reeling that he just sat in the car after all that, staring at her for god knows how long until she woke up. He was probably overthinking again, but my interpretation that it was heavily emotional for him (it could have meant so little for MC but the world for him, she doesn't even know) and he wanted to be in that moment with her, just feel and look without restraint. Indulge a little. (I can just imagine him going just a little bit more, I'll go after she wakes up.) And like. His eyes are shining in the darkness is the description here. Perhaps he was feeling so much here. So much love. So much happiness. And he's about to go in for a kiss (heavy breathing and everything) after that, but holds himself back and actively has to pry himself away. He's feeling the neediness again.

That’s why he makes an effort to actively wean himself off and says he'll be okay on his own. What he says to her after MC is like "spoiling him" being all "hey you're sick maybe don't go? or let's go together?" (which is NOT helping Rafayel at all) is even more meaningful in Japanese and I didn't know why they left out this context, but the rearranged line would be "Do you want me to become a sea creature beached on the sand after the sea recedes, unable to breathe on my own ever again?"

Yeah. YEAH. This is about dependency. (He's saying don't coddle me I'll literally become that wolf tearing his shirt meme 😭)

So of course his stubbornness and anxiety force him to do things without MC and distance himself, he can do it. He’s determined to prove to himself that he can endure it on his own.

I also feel like part of the reason he insisted on going to the salon alone is that he’s still worried mc might come to dislike the version of him who's someone he's so sure she will leave, who isn't perfect and he hides behind the persona he's put up just for her. If he truly becomes addicted to her and shows her everything/his true self, and she ends up leaving him, it would completely break him. He's trying to be like "im so normal about her haha" but he's so not normal about her at all. He's literally obsessed I feel like, and perhaps this is him fighting it knowing it's not healthy.

and OOOH about why he ends up coming back from the salon all hot and bothered.

I have strong context that she flicked the bean in there after he left her high and dry in the car ("hot water washes away the stickiness from my body and his stifled breaths still echo in my ears, enveloping me along with the steam in the bathroom. The warmth from his fingertips lingers in the places where he touched me..." is the english. however, in chinese, it goes "熱水洗去身上的黏膩，壓抑的喘息迴盪在我耳畔，和浴室裡氤氳的水氣一起包裹著我." stating "the suppressed breathing" -- which doesn't have any possessive adjectives when I translated it on google and later explicitly asked chatgpt if it had any his/my adjectives involved, just to be sure. it said no but i'd like it if a real chinese speaking person could give their input on this !!! PLEASE DONT LEAVE ME WITH CHATGPT

so um. if the context is in fact the case that he heard her masturbating to him, the intensity with which he attacked her would be normal, I think 😭

I have belief that MC unconsciously shatters his "training himself to be without her" determination through their bond. She just keeps thinking about him the entire time. about him reading her thoughts, though. we still don't know all about the lemurian bond they share. I’d say it grants him some sort of mind/heart reading ability or connects their minds together (when she was thinking about whether she should hug him, he answered “yes”).

At the salon, I imagine Rafayel was already thinking about her like crazy. Then he realized, or perhaps, "heard" she was still worrying about him and thinking of him (as much he thought about her) and decided to go back. Rafayel probably felt that suppressing himself was only making her more anxious and unsettled. She's thinking all about him, unconsciously calling to him to come to her, she didn't want to let him go at all, wanted to go with him, etc...

but even if it was his own decision and no mind reading was involved... uh. If you ask me. He did quite literally hear her after coming back. That's also something that might make him think she wants him as much as he wants her, which made his self-restraint utterly meaningless from the start.

Disregarding this theory of mine proven wrong until a Chinese speaker helps me out here, MC returned to Rafayel's room. A translation omission happened here from what I saw. There are no possessive adjectives in the Chinese text about the room she returns to, and the Japanese one states she returned to the guest room (doesn't specify which one. She was also able to enter Rafayel's room without needing to knock before.)

so uh. she went into rafayel's room y'all. the line "this is my room, you're the one who walked in here" MAKES SO MUCH MORE SENSE. (SO LIKE. NOT ONLY DID SHE GO INTO HIS ROOM, SHE FLICKED THE BEAN THERE AND HE POSSIBLY HEARD IT. SHE'S MORE OF A FREAK THAN HE IS, I UNDERSTAND WHY HE LET GO AFTER THAT LMFAO)

I don't put it past him to get worked up after he finds her in his room post-bath even without my theory lmfao (idk why they put her in a dress when she should be in a bathrobe or something 😭)

His conclusion at the end of this memory that "he finds inspiration in pain and the art of creation is a part of his life. mc made him realize love and art are so alike. even if they don't complete him but burn him instead he wants them (love and art) with every fiber of his being" and MC says she doesn't like that, rightfully so.

So like. There's SO MUCH to unpack in here.

When Rafayel says he finds inspiration in pain and that creation is a part of his life, he’s admitting something raw and essential about himself: pain isn’t just a byproduct of his art, it’s intrinsic to it. For Rafayel, pain and art are intertwined in a way that’s almost inseparable. It’s like his muse isn’t just beauty, but beauty that hurts.

But then he takes this further by connecting art to love. He’s realized that both art and love demand the same from him: vulnerability, passion, and sometimes suffering. They don’t necessarily complete him (he’s not romanticizing them as salvation), but they burn him, wear him down, consume him (coincidentally, this is something he said to MC in the JP dub of this memory, that she consumes him), but also give him life. And for Rafayel, that’s the crux, even if they burn him, he wants them with every fiber of his being.

This is such a Rafayel thing to say. It’s dramatic, it’s tortured, but it’s also deeply SUBTLE. He doesn't spell all of these out, mind you, I got a headache trying to understand him. Or I'm just slow, I don't know. It shows how much he values creation and connection, even if they come at a cost.

MC, on the other hand, challenges this perspective. When she says she doesn’t like that he views love and art as things that burn him, she’s pushing back against the idea that suffering is a necessary part of creation, or love. MC doesn’t want Rafayel to see their relationship as something that requires him to hurt. She’s telling him, “You don’t have to destroy yourself to love me.”

When MC says, “You’ll never have to burn for me,” she’s giving Rafayel an alternative to his destructive mindset. She’s saying that love doesn’t have to hurt, that their relationship can exist without him sacrificing himself on the altar of passion. It’s a refusal to let Rafayel romanticize pain as the price of love.

And I love that Rafayel goes, "Will you help me look for other parts in life outside of pain?" in response. This is NOT about art or inspiration anymore, and the way the dialogue is written is just AUGH. Again I had to rewatch this over and over again for the nuances and subtext.

I love MC's response, she knew exactly what to say. “I’ll always be the one who walks along the shore with you. Of course, diving into the sea bed is fine too. If it can snow in the desert, there will be a day when the ocean returns.”

MC’s response is layered with metaphors, but at its core, it’s about unwavering support and hope::

Walking along the shore: This represents safety and companionship. MC is saying she’ll be with Rafayel in the calm, in the moments where they’re just observing life without diving into its depths. She’ll be his steady presence, his grounding force.

Diving into the sea bed: This is an acknowledgment that life and love sometimes require going deeper and they may go through hardships, into the unknown, the murky, the challenging. MC isn’t afraid of this, she’s willing to go there with him too.

Snow in the desert and the ocean’s return: This is a symbol of hope and transformation beyond being a nod to The Sea of Golden Sand. Snow in the desert seems impossible, just like the idea of Rafayel finding inspiration outside of pain might feel impossible to him. But MC believes in the extraordinary, in change, and in the possibility that beauty and creation can exist outside of suffering.

Her words are a promise: she’s willing to stand by him, to face the unknown together, and to hold onto the belief that a new way of seeing the world is possible.

And Rafayel LOWKEY PROPOSES IN RETURN.

By saying “let’s watch the sea together,” he’s accepting MC’s offer of companionship and hope in the long run. He’s recognizing that life doesn’t have to be about diving into the depths alone, it can be about sharing the experience with someone else, even if it’s just standing on the shore and watching.

“Every sea”: This phrase is key. Rafayel isn’t just committing to one kind of life or one kind of inspiration, he’s opening himself up to all possibilities. Watching every sea means embracing all facets of life, whether they’re calm or turbulent, painful or beautiful. It’s a marriage proposal declaration that he’s ready to explore the world beyond pain, with MC by his side.

So. I love that his inspiration returns after his freak is accepted by MC because he literally feels the acceptance through the bond.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. This memory DRAINED me. They were just supposed to bang what the fuck happened. Why did I have to go treasure hunting to find what was going on in this card. anyway...

#love and deepspace #rafayel #lads #lads rafayel #rafayel lads #l&ds #l&ds rafayel #qi yu #rafayel qi #fandom: lads

677 notes · View notes

anika-ann · 8 months ago

Text

The (Un)Expected - S.R.

Type: one-shot, soulmate AU, good ol' meet-cute (soulmates meeting for the first time prompt)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word Count: 8k

Summary:

A soulmark shows the first words your soulmate will speak to you. A soulmark tells you there is the person for you out there. A soulmark tells you what to expect.

For that, Steve’s is a source of comfort and anxiety to him. You always had a complicated relationship with yours.

But maybe they will teach you a lesson in the end – that the only thing one should really expect, is the unexpected.

Warnings: brief angst, mention of cancer (not reader), canon-typical violence, mention of death (no major character), blood and injuries, language, FLUFF so take it easy on sugar before reading

A/N: written for the Community Revival Extravaganza hosted by the wonderful @stargazingfangirl18 and @labella420 . Thank you both so much for hosting and stirring life in the fandom! I loved seeing the traffic and positivity on my dash - you're doing god's work 💕

A/N 2: DIVIDER by @firefly-graphics; enjoy y'all 🥰

Steve Rogers was a sickly child.

He spent too much time to his liking in his bed – and even more time outside of it despite feeling sick for he couldn’t bear resting anymore, craving to explore the world instead – and was sneaked into a doctor’s office by his mother quite often as well. She only got him in as a favour, courtesy of her own good name – a nurse working double shifts and lending a helping hand wherever she could, a single mother working herself to a bone to take care of and set example to her only son.

A single mother, a nurse, a good person – a beautiful soul. She left this world too soon, but she left an imprint on Steve’s heart larger than any other person, perhaps besides Bucky, ever could.

All that told him, even as indirectly, that his soulmate would be one special dame. She would be kind, she would be brilliant and for that alone, he knew she would be beautiful.

Steve knew that as soon as he could read, as soon as he could decipher the words on his skinny forearm.

In a world where first words your soulmate would tell you were laced into your skin for you and your soulmate’s eyes to see only, his words told him his soulmate was a little miracle.

'I’m not a doctor yet.'

Steve had spent a fair amount of time around nurses and doctors to know that all nurses were women and the overwhelming majority of doctors were men – by the time he was ten, barely a few women were allowed to attend medical schools, let alone graduate. But you, you would be on your way to reach that. Brilliant. Driven. Desiring to help people, to heal.

It was only when other children, other guys and girls alike, began laughing at him for being too little, too weak, too bony, when his heart began to ache for a different reason than illness. If you were to be all these amazing things he had dreamed of, what were you to do with a sickly fella like him? With your words to him being these, it was a fair assumption to make that you would meet due to his health issues, perhaps a smart dame taken under a more experienced doctor’s wing during your studies. How disappointed you would be when your soulmate, the one person meant for you and chosen by destiny itself, would be… that?

That upsetting idea haunted him, hurting more than the bruises that had formed under fists of bullies Steve kept trying to save those even weaker than him from, more than stick and stones and words alike.

Then again… there was a little silver of hope in his heart, a little shy voice in his head. If you were to be his true love, then certainly you’d accept him, yes? If he tried, if he tried hard enough to be a good man, the best possible version of himself, if he worked hard to protect and feed his future family, set a good example for your future children as his mother had, worked towards making a better world, you’d accept him? If he could live with not being as great as others but never stopped trying, you would respect him and perhaps even loved him for what he was?

Then, of course, war came and those thoughts were pushed aside.

Then, he grabbed at his chance to fight that war, to do his part, to help – and incidentally, he also earned his chance to literally grow. Healthy. Strong. More worthy; but remaining good, because that was the one part of him he wanted to hold on to no matter what, that one part he would wish his love, wherever she was, would love him for, even if he suddenly shrank back into the back of skin and bones he used to be.

Then, he lost his best friend Turned into a failure.

And then… then he died.

One of his last thoughts were of you, a beautiful woman with vague appearance but strikingly kind heart and sharp mind. He prayed you’d get a new soulmate somehow, even as those cases weren’t heard of. He prayed you’d live a happy healthy life without him, at least as good as he would have tried his best to give you, to build with you, even as his own heart was breaking to pieces, regret veiling his body as water and snow and icy wind would, regret for missing his chance to meet the most special person in his world.

When he closed his eyes and still saw the white of ice and the blue of the deep sea, he’d swear he saw your face, crystal clear, for the first time – and the last time – in his life.

Seeing you, a stunning mirage, his last thought was that you were an angel gently leading him into afterlife.

When he woke up to a new millennium, one of the first things he did was checking his forearm; he words still sat there, taunting, mocking and heartbreaking, another screaming reminder of him not belonging here.

As years passed by, the sense of alienation subdued. Steve Rogers learned to belong, even as a piece of his heart was missing, longing for the past life – and the life he had never got to have – always humming in his chest quietly.

The mark on his forearm remained, a sad memento to a soulmate he had never met, turning him into a martyr.

But many people had rejected the idea of soulmates in this time, rebelling against their so-called fate, taking off on a path of searching love on their own. Steve learned they did so for various reasons – a sense of adventure before they’d truly find their one true love, a quest to choose the fortune and love on their own terms, a fuck-you to the universe when their soulmate turned out to be less than they imagined and hoped.

His own reasons, as he reluctantly started to look for a person to share his life with, were rather unique, but no one looked at him through their fingers for that. If anything, those who cared about him encouraged him, wishing for his happiness.

It was only when he got Bucky back – one of his greatest regrets not erased, not lessened since Bucky had endured unimaginable pain, but transformed, a piece of Steve’s past brought back to life – that he began to wonder about the almost blasphemous thought he had forbid himself from entertaining when he had been first brought back to life from ice.

Were you still there somewhere?

And then, a shier thought:

Is there still a chance for me to find my true soulmate?

And then, the shiest one of them all:

Is there a chance for me to find happiness with you?

When he had thought of that before, he was certain that since you were still alive – he had read reports of people claiming their soulmark changed colours if their loved one died – he had thought of you as an old lady who had hopefully lived her life as he had genuinely wished for her.

But what if fate, that little minx who had taken his best friend for life from him only to give him back, had somehow blessed Steve with a soulmark decades before you were even born? What he hadn’t lost his chance, what if you were still young enough to build a life with him? Was that even possible? There were aliens, flying suits of armour, other realms, downright magical weapons… he had been given a second chance at life. There were things happening Steve would have never thought possible before. So was there a chance…?

The idea of you being a doctor became much more plausible too – in this century, female doctors were a much more common occurrence. That, naturally, did not diminish your brilliance whatsoever, the fundamental idea of who you’d be never changing in Steve’s mind. The image only became less surreal in one way and a whole lot more surreal in another.

For his own sake, he didn’t give in into that hope fully; at least he told himself that despite lying awake at night, a ghost of a woman he had never met lying next to him, radiating non-existent warmth he wished with his whole being he could touch.

He wasn’t chasing after the ghost, didn’t allow himself that – there was no way to do so to his knowledge anyway – for the chances of success were rather slim.

But there was always hope, wasn’t there?

And the longing for love, whether it was in the hands of fate or in his own to find it, remained, built into his very body; etched into his bones, flowing through his veins, laced into his skin beyond the words on his forearm, always humming quietly in his heart.

In the age of information and science, the concept of having your ideal partner for life chosen by some mysterious abstract entity called Fate was literally otherworldly. Alien. Absurd even.

And yet, it still ruled the lives of many.

Which, in all honesty, was almost even more fascinating than the existence of soulmarks itself – the belief people had for them despite being no logic to them at all.

Perhaps it was the little piece of human soul, an inner child people so desperately wanted to cling to for its own beauty and purity, a child who never wanted to stop believing in magic, fate, dragons, mighty knights and kind-hearted ladies, in all things of fairytales and happy-endings the most. Because to a point, that was what soulmarks were – and little fairytale-like book of destiny.

One that not even science seemed capable of beating.

And you should know; you were somewhat of a scientist yourself. And despite how unfathomable the nature of soulmates was, you could not say that you rejected the idea of them, of someone who was born to belong with you, someone you could share your life with, the right partner in the crime of life. Basic bodily needs aside, wasn’t that the most fundamental need of all? To love and be loved; to belong?

Who wouldn’t wish for that reassurance that they could have that, that some strange force of universe itself created a person like that for them? They were the god’s strongest soldiers you supposed; because you were certainly not immune to that tempting comfort.

But you weren’t obsessed – and you prided yourself in the fact. Mostly because the sheer fanaticism of the world over soulmarks, the one thing that kept defying science – besides alien portals, magical blue cubes, demigods walking the Earth and things alike – was dialled up ad absurdum.

There could be billions of dollars poured into research of curing cancer. Cure autoimmune diseases. Helping the homeless. Slowing down global warming. Erasing poverty and famine. Protecting nature, endangered species. Discovering new worlds, exploring space.

But no. Governments poured billions of dollars into researching soulmarks. How was it they existed? How was it you could cut through skin, you could cut off skin and the mark would reappear somewhere else? What was the grand scheme of them? Why was it that only two people who belonged together could see them and the person speaking the words could only see it on their soulmate’s skin after they spoke the words, almost like a fail-safe that couldn’t seem to be broken with any tricks?

It wasn’t a question of physics as far as people knew; they had tried to build sets-up of various optics, thermovision cameras and complex sets of lenses and mirrors, and none of the reports you had ever heard of claimed success. It wasn’t genetic markers either; no one had discovered a sequence of DNA responsible for soulmarks, let alone turned whatever discovery they would have made into a tool of reading anyone’s but their own and their soulmate’s mark. It didn’t seem to be chemistry either; no one had made a groundbreaking discovery or at least they hadn’t informed the scientific or any other community so far.

But by gods, forget the space race. Attempting to be the first one to somehow read everyone’s soulmark and then create an algorithm to monetize it as the one and only soulmate dating app, now that was a competition overflowing with cutthroat madmen. Not to mention the crowds looking to temper with soulmarks, to make another one appear on someone’s body; or worse, to erase the original soulmark and instead design one capable of manipulating the outcome of a soulmate match.

You found the force of that obsession insane – and frankly, all the attempts morally wrong. While dedicated to science and loyal to discovery, you found soulmarks to be something sacred, one of the things that should not be touched by filthy human hands; god knew humanity, while doing a lot of good, had mucked up about just as much.

You were not alone in that belief. There were, in fact, numerous demonstrations against scientists experimenting with soulmarks, people protesting against anyone creating such tool and using it to temper with natural course of things no one fully understood, not for the lack of trying. However – as expected everywhere where politics and money were involved – these protests were in vain.

They were as vain and futile as the research of the marks itself.

As for your own soulmark, you had a rather complicated relationship with it.

On one hand, it gave you a sense of peace – there was someone for you, even as sometimes it did not feel plausible at all. You had time too – because based on those words, you would not meet your soulmate until in your twenties at least. You had plenty of time to become who you were meant to be before a man could turn your life upside down, even as that was not supposed to be what soulmates did, at least not in a bad sense of the word.

On the other hand, it was a ball and chain. You would not find you soulmate sooner than in your twenties and sometimes, you missed them despite not having met yet. When imagining what your meeting could be like based on their first words etched into your skin, you feared they might be a little disappointed – even as you did not let that stop you from pursuing the life you wanted. And despite you wanting to choose the career either way, it felt like someone – be it god, fate or another cosmic entity humanity was yet to discover – had chosen the path for you the moment you had been born if not before.

'Doctor, are you alright?'

Four simple words that couldn’t be more ordinary and yet extraordinary for they represented one of the most meaningful encounters of your life. The source of as much comfort as anxiety.

You couldn’t stand hospitals ever since you were a child. The cold environment reminded you of the strange icy feeling that had settled in your chest over the months you had been visiting your dying father, your naïve eyes watching cancer bite off his energy and smiles first, before it swallowed his whole body and soul. He had been a ghost long before he passed; and in your mind, despite all rationality even years after, that ghost haunted any hospital you visited.

Learning what your soulmark was as a child, you had spent countless nights crying, soul torn into pieces, pushed and pulled between the visceral desire to live up to your soulmark and the crippling nausea at the mere thought of dealing with people drowned in misery caused by any illness in the cold institution they called a hospital.

However, the curious kid you had been, you had fallen in love with science itself.

And that one day at school, when a classmate of yours had brought their father to the class to talk about his job as a doctor, you had burst into tears. You began to sob in the middle of him explaining to third-graders that he was not a medical doctor, but a physicist with a doctorate earning him the degree of a doctor as well. You remembered your teacher leading you outside of class, concerned and absolutely baffled, trying to sooth you helplessly even as you were completely inconsolable – because you did not need consolation.

You were crying the happiest, most relieved tears of your life.

You could still be a ‘doctor’. And you genuinely wanted to be one, not just because of what your soulmark read. You had always wished to help people indirectly, even as you looked back at your life now. Sure, your soulmark could have been adding fuel to your drive when your motivation had been running low, but this was who you desired and was meant to become.

A molecular biologist. A doctor in making. Researching the effects of medicinal drugs with hopes to improve them.

A scientist not researching soulmarks, thank you very much.

And yes, there was the lingering feeling of missing a person you hadn’t even met yet – especially when Doctor Simmons’ face lit up like fluorodeoxyglucose in PET scans whenever she saw Doctor Fitz – but you had other things to focus on. And you had time. There was no pressure.

You were not a doctor yet, after all.

Naturally, just because you dodged the joys and sorrows of being a medical student and later on, a medical doctor, it did not mean that you had it easy. No one working on their doctorate did. But when you decided to pursue your degree and work in research, you signed up for that.

You signed up for a lot of things.

It was a little peculiar for you to be on the SHIELD campus in the science division without a doctorate. It was a known fact that SHIELD only recruited best of the best, this Science ad Technology in particular: you needed at least one doctorate to even walk through the door, which was something you were reminded a lot because you did not meet that requirement and here you were.

But SHELD owned the best equipment and you were fortunate enough to get in by the lovely game of fate, being good and driven enough and having met the right people at the right time. SHIELD Academy’s Science & Tech division had the unique equipment you often needed for your research. Your research was interesting enough for people who had perhaps more power over your little life than fate itself. Stars aligned.

It was no walk in a parc, but you were no fool; jumping after that opportunity after having one too many doors shut into your face was a no-brainer. Even though it meant signing up for a whole extra load of shit.

You signed up to be the weird girl. The privileged girl. Hell, even the stupider than local average girl, because you were only an engineer at this point.

You signed up for being the young girl, even as you had met a few people there who had started younger, having actually earned their first PhD at age 17 or less.

You signed up for mockery and misogyny, for as you were aware the level was blissfully low here compared to other workplaces, especially where science was concerned; in exact science, you observed, more than anywhere you ever heard of, it was customary to keep that one insufferable employee, because they were simply that good at their job, no matter that they had cost the department a few other employees.

You signed up for living on campus with other SHIELD recruits, which meant living in close quarters with other divisions; as a result, some days the whole area seemed to swim in testosterone emitted by the hulking special agents in making from Operations.

But that was okay. You could do it.

There were bright sides too, many of them. Like pursuing your dream career. Being among like-minded people whose brain, to a large point, ran on the same wavelength. Hooking up with a handsome but notbrainless recruit from Operations or Communication here and there, some flings, some relationships, because if you were to wait for the love of your life, you might as well not wither completely. You were only human and you had needs along with your lifegoals.

You more than willingly signed up for working with Agent slash Doctor Jemma Simmons. With her two PhDs and rich experience from the field, she had left the action behind in order to work on her third PhD and help humanity without having her life on the line every day. She was hard-working, with no-nonsense approach and lovely sense of humour with plenty of stories to back it up; she was overall pleasant person to work and be friends with and despite having been through amazing and terrifying experiences other people couldn’t even imagine, she remained surprisingly down-to-Earth.

Sure, she had her quirks like insisting on having a gun at hand at all times and stashing a few small vials of altered Molotov cocktail, a mixture of chemicals which would ignite upon the vial breaking, in one of the nearby cabinets – but you supposed there were worst things to get used to than that in a coworker or a friend. She used to be an active agent after all; in fact, unofficially, she remained one. Much like anyone, you knew that certain habits died hard and being through what she had been – she confessed to you that she once spent months on a nearly deserted ancient planet, among other things – left a mark. If this made her feel safer, you’d take it.

Another great thing about Jemma, Doctor Simmons, was that she was adorably English and was in dedicated relationship with Doctor Fitz who was a Scotsman, so that was the spice of long workdays at times; especially if you agreed to play Scrabble with them and a few friends in the evening.

But there were things you had not signed up for when following the alluring promise of a prestigious spot and unique equipment.

And one of them was a damn Nazi revival group in the form of fucking HYDRA attacking the lab while you were in the peaceful process of waiting for your PCR to finally be finished.

Influx of men in full tactical gear interrupting Jemma updating you the vacation plans, Fiji and all the rare species of fishes that could be observed there when scuba diving.

When you heard the first shouts, breaking of glass and dull echoes of gunshots from afar, your immediate thought was that you had been having a good day and that the experiment had been coming along nicely – and that whatever mess was happening was for sure about to ruin all your progress.

By the time panic settled in, Jemma was practically tackling you down, hand over your mouth to muffle your startled squeak at the sudden movement, her eyes alert and serious, screaming at you to keep quiet.

The sickening shouts of HAIL HYDRA, COOPERATE AND YOU’LL GET HURT LESS was what sent your brain crashing into reality; that and the distant agonized cries of people, coworkers and recruits you knew and met in the hallways every day, following the sounds of gunshots growing in volume and frequency.

You could hear Jemma shuffling next to you further.

You yourself were unable to move beyond stifling a cry behind your suddenly sweaty palm as another female voice wailed in pain.

Blood seemed to freeze in your veins despite your heart thundering in your ribcage and your temples and it helped you shit at all that you were aware that was such thing was literally impossible. By the time Jemma’s hand grabbed yours again and squeezed hard, you realized you were shaking – half in anger, half in paralyzing fear, half in utter shock. It didn’t matter it didn’t add up.

What mattered was the gun in Jemma’s hand. She was holding a gun, ready to shoot, because there were enemy agents, fucking HYDRA burst through the door, guns blazing. And killing people.

You were whispering with exasperation worth of a shout before you knew what you were doing.

“Why?! Why the fuck-“

“Probably the samples they brought in today, precious cargo,” Jemma whispered back frantically, loading the gun and reaching into another cabinet behind her. You only stared at her in utter confusion and mute horror, rapid heavy footsteps approaching and sending your already racing heart into a madness. “Gun or cocktails?”

“I can’t shoot a-!”

Before you could finish, the familiar sound of the sliding door opening and a horrifying echo of tactical boots reached your ears, a set of vials pressed into your palm.

You gulped, pulse thundering in your temples.

Those goddamn Simmons’ cocktails as you named them since she had insisted on keeping around.

You couldn’t believe the moment was here that you were actually grateful for them, even as they seemed to burn in your hand even with the vials themselves intact.

Your eyes snapped to Jemma’s face to question it wordlessly at least, but she wasn’t looking at you; she was listening intently, lying in wake as if she was the predator and not the prey you felt like.

Your own breathing seemed too loud as you allowed yourself to squeeze your eyes shut for but a moment, a desperate attempt to wake up from the nightmare; but the morning didn’t come.

Instead, a gunshot rang in the room, glass shattering somewhere above your head to your right, sending a waterfall of shards flying next to you.

And causing you to cry out in fright.

Which revealed your position to the agents flowing into the lab.

Without a thought you snapped your eyes opened, jumped to your feet and threw two vials in the direction of a black blur with a shockingly clear red patch of the mythical Hydra monster in the middle; peripherally, you saw Jemma attacking as well, deafening noise of gunshot nearly blowing your eardrum.

You crouched back behind the counter so fast you felt vertigo swing you to the left, sharp pain erupting from your palm. It was pure miracle your right hand didn’t clench in instinct and shatter the two remaining vials, setting yourself on fire as well.

As well.

Someone was screaming – a man, you realized – the acid smell of burned flesh and plastic and various chemicals punching your nose and your stomach hard. You had hit someone with the vial. They screamed because of what you had done. You had-

You had no time to feel sorry. You had no time to properly think fucking serves them right.

More steps, more gunshots, movements you weren’t sure how happened or came to you in the first place, flashes of light and crimson and noise and godawful smell--- and pain erupting in the back of your head and suddenly you were barely catching yourself on the counter with your slippery palm--- your fingers brushed metal, knees weak but hands grabbing with all your might, lifting and swinging, a sickening crack on your right before you were falling, landing on your wrist, back hitting the cabinet door and making even more noise as you sent equipment clattering around.

However, the loudest sound was another gunshot; but the strangest sound was unfamiliar whizzing and metal hitting metal and someone most definitely shouting “clear!” that sounded as distant as a whisper over the ringing in your ears.

Instinctively, your head snapped to the voice as you tried to prop up on your hands to see; the world swam in front of your eyes, dizziness forcing you to fall back on your ass and squeeze your eyes shut in hopes to stop the world from spinning, a sting in your palm drawing a hiss from your lips.

You could hear Jemma’s talking to someone, her words blurred into a mumble despite her voice sounding firm and methodical; footsteps, quick and heavy but somewhat soft, accompanied by a brush of air against your skin, making you open your eyes again just as navy blue with speckles of silvery grey glinting in a flickering light filled your vision.

Then, a face; an extremely handsome face even as a helmet made of blue similar to the rest of his suit covered the upper half of it, framing a pair of the dreamiest blue eyes you had ever seen, as beautiful as blurry as a dream indeed.

Somewhere in the back of your brain it started clicking into place – that the man in front of you looked a whole lot like Captain America and he was there to kick HYDRA’s ass; he was hunk and looked righteous and unfairly pretty, the cut of his jaw sharp enough to appear as if sculpted by ancient masters of art and it might be softened by the leather strap holding his helmet in place but that only brought out the sheer beauty of his lips even with a small bloody split on them.

And he was talking to you, his leather-clad hand gently grasping your arm as you involuntarily swayed to side when moving your head to take in the entirety of his large figure.

“Doctor, are you alright?” he asked slowly, velvety voice sweet and heavy with concern at once, the gentle but firm hold on your arm growing stronger when you blinked owlishly, the connection between the meaning of his words and his apparent intention to talk to you slow and fragile.

Your tongue felt as if made of lead even as it tasted of bitterness of adrenalin, but you willed yourself to answer, a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else.

“’mm… not a doctor yet.”

As you responded, you brain began to clear; and it occurred to you that it was a fair assumption for him to make.

You had grown used to clarifying, but hadn’t done so in months, because everyone already knew. However, he was an outsider to this lab and he couldn’t know you were the exception to the local rule. And you were wearing a lab coat, one that now had to be covered in mixture of chemicals you did not wish to identify, but perhaps you should try, because your forearm was beginning to burn.

The beautiful man kneeling in front of you silently observed you for what seemed like an eternity and half, surprise written all over his face. You couldn’t blame him; you were the weirdo of the lab. The fact the person who had purposely stacked explosives at hand was less of an anomaly than that was a thing to consider, but your head hurt too much to think about that and your heart was still beating unhealthily fast and his error seemed so insignificant in the grand scheme of things of HYDRA having attacked your lab and Captain America being right in front of you, holding onto your arm.

His soft baffled smile as he hung his head and shook it a bit with a breathless chuckle, and then lifted his downright shining gaze back to you, well that certainly made for a spectacular distraction from such unimportant thoughts.

Did his thumb just brush your arm as he still held you up a bit?

And had anyone ever told him he had a stunning smile that could melt hearts even if it was barely there and it was certainly melting yours?

“Apologies, miss. I’m going to help you get to medical, alright?” he suggested, those damn gorgeous eyes roaming your face with what almost seemed like wonder, even as his voice sounded all kinds of reassuring. “You’re safe now, I promise.”

Safe. You were safe. Because there had been HYDRA agents, but Captain America and actual SHIELD operatives had come to the rescue. And because Jemma was-

Jemma. Your straightened, dull ache pounding in your back as you did so, vision clearing a fraction with the sudden realization that you couldn’t hear your friend anymore. Your friend whom you owed your life very likely, but even if you didn’t, you would have-

You craned your neck over Captain America’s impressive frame, head snapping from left to right, nausea rising with the movement, but that didn’t matter, you had to-

You turned your alarmed gaze back to the man who was still holding you, an urgent question on your lips.

“Jemma? Is she--- Doctor Simmons, brunet, lab coat-“ you paused, realizing bitterly that you had just described half of the Science and Technology. “Female. She’s a doctor and an agent too, she was with me had a gu-“

A warm squeeze on your arm, the concern which had grown even more evident on Captain’s face melting away and giving way to a soothing smile.

“She’s alright. She’s already left to be checked up and to give her statement.”

Your shoulders sagged, your head dropping a bit; the violent vertigo that seized your body at that was not pleasant and you tried to blink it away, gaze catching the reflection of the still-blinking fluorescent lamp on the Captain’s shield.

Oh. That was probably what had made the whizzing sound before. As your brain conjured an image of that, a spinning shield flying through the air, you cursed yourself mentally for letting your mind even go there since you had already felt like you were the flying piece of metal and the thing you’d hit eventually would be the floor.

“My head is spinning,” you muttered absently as you attempted to refocus your gaze, praying to gods of religion and science alike you wouldn’t throw up on the poor caring man.

Why was he still sitting here with you? Surely there were much more important things to tend to than one little post-grad? How was he so kind and gentle? Wasn’t he known for inspiring speeches in a deep serious voice and for beating up villains with both his physical strength and brains?

So many questions and no answer in those pretty blue eyes.

In fact, the number of your questions grew exponentially when the hand on your arm released the pressure and gently rubbed your elbow instead; his free hand carefully cradled the back of your other hand, the contrast of leather and his warm skin surprisingly sensual, suddenly making you understand why so many regency era literature spoke of hand-holding as indecent even as it was barely Fifty Shades of Grey level of filth.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Captain Rogers said, snapping you from your thoughts. “Let me help you up and they’ll check you up too, including this nasty cut, okay?”

Huh?

Purposely slowly as not to make the vertigo worse, you glanced at your hand in his, feeling a fresh sting just by looking at your palm, your gaze instantly snapping away.

And falling straight onto two intact vials full of liquid of a distinct colour, lying carelessly about two feet away from Steve Rogers’ tactical boots. Your heart jumped in your chest, your hazy mind finally growing aware of your surroundings.

“Shoot! Careful around those, they’re highly flammable!” you warned him swiftly, his gaze snapping to the vials in question, while ours slowly trailed over the utter, utter messthe lab had become.

The sheer amount of broken glass, spilled chemicals, broken pipettes, torn papers and unidentifiable piles of junk was staggering and it was actually a miracle nothing had exploded yet – and as a cherry on top, a few feet away, a relatively small portable PCR machine, the very equipment you had been using, downright murdered along with your experiment and a smudge of blood around it. Jesus.

“Okay, that’s good to know. More the reason to get out,” Captain Rogers remarked, slight amusement lacing his voice, only growing stronger as he continued. “Keep a lot of these around?”

You could have scoffed, but you didn’t. You have no idea, pal.

“My friend is paranoid…” you explained, still staring at them, even as you mentally added ‘or not’, since those little things might have very well saved your life. As your gaze returned to Captain Rogers, your eyes caught on something else, having you sit up straighter in sheer horror. “Is that a stab wound?!”

You gulped at the sight, even as your uninjured hand instinctively reached out towards it – as if you could fix it. The already dark suit, a lovely navy blue, appeared downright black at left his side, right where it seemed to be singed by a flame.

Had that injury been there the whole damn time he had been sitting here with you, eternally patient with your slowed brain, Simmons’ cocktails lying around in one huge chemical dump in risk of exploding any damn minute?

You logically knew the answer had to be yes, but it made zero sense – and his answer made even less sense.

“Bullet, actually. Some sort of chemical damaged the Kevlar lining and they got a lucky hit. It’s just a graze.”

“A gra-“ you choked on the word, spit stuck in your throat causing you to cough and a groan escape past your lips as the sudden rapid movement sent your head pounding again.

“Hey, you-“

“You’ve been shot and you called my cut nasty?” you questioned through the tears, earning a smile worth giving up a career for – painfully warm, kind and… almost fond.

You truly must have hit your head hard.

…as if it hadn’t been evident before.

“I heal fast. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be alright, doc.”

A knee-jerk reaction – again. What was it with him? Had he hit his head, forgetting you had already explained – you had, you hadn’t imagined that, right? – and now he called you a doctor again, turned into a familiar nickname, no less.

“I’m not a doct---- holy shit.”

It slammed into you like a train, struck you like a lightning, even as neither of those things had ever happened to you – yet, you imagined it had to feel like this.

A massive force, a force of nature, realization as bright and as unexpected as a lightning from a clear sky.

Doctor, are you alright?

He had asked that. He had asked that. He had said your words. He had said your goddamn soulmate’s first words to you, what must have been minutes ago, and only now it hit you.

You were left staring at him with wide eyes, myriad of emotions written all over his face, including slight amusement and what you had earlier inexplicably identified as fondness, because the reason why he was still sitting here with you – though perhaps that was what he always did when rescuing, what did you know, you didn’t, this was your first meeting, that was why he had said the words – was that unlike you, he had realized you were his soulmate right away.

He kept watching you, silently letting you process the crucial revelation, a tight but no less kind smile on his lips.

“You said my words,” you said oh so intelligently. “You--- what… what did I—say?”

It was perhaps the stupidest question of all you could have come up on the spot, but you genuinely couldn’t remember – and wanted to know what words he had been looking at his whole life.

…this part of life? Or before the ice too? How did he feel about that? How did he feel about you? Was he disappointed? He didn’t look like he was, but didn’t even know what you had said—

What you did know and remember was that you were supposed to be smart and yet it had taken you an eternity to even notice you were facing your soulmate you had been probably spewing complete nonsense, you were now stammering like an idiot and for someone who had been worried, always, even if in the back of their mind, if their soulmate would find them good enough, you were generally making a bloody awful first impression.

But seriously, what had been your first words-

“You said you weren’t a doctor yet,” Captain Rogers reminded you, voice soft with affection of someone who had imagined hearing those words at least as many times as you had wondered about yours, hoping they would be pronounced by someone who’d respect you and cared about what kind of person you were, and would hopefully, eventually care for you. Loved you even. The tender way the syllables rolled of his tongue, spoken as if they tasted of honey, nearly chased fresh tears to your eyes. Alright, perhaps your first impression hadn’t been as bad as it appeared in your – albeit injured – head. “But if you really don’t remember saying that, that’s not a good sign. We need to get you medical attention. Come on. Hold on.”

Blinking slowly, still processing the light and yet suffocating feeling that found residence in your chest as it was starting to truly settle that this man, this painfully beautiful and criminally gentle man, was your soulmate, he was leaning closer to you, his hands guiding yours to wrap around his neck, a wordless order you had obediently followed, and then one of his arms was sliding under your knees and his other wrapping around the middle of your back.

And then your vertigo hit you anew because you were suddenly up in the air, hands gripping hard at anything you could reach – conveniently, the only thing was him, because he had lifted you upin his arms, some of your weight resting against his chest – despite the pain that shot up your left hand.

“Whoa-“ And then, because your memory did serve you at least a little: “You--- have been stabbed.”

“Shot,” he repeated patiently, fondly almost, and you did recall he had said that.

You recalled despite the scent of pleasant aftershave and peak man suddenly enveloping you as much as his arms and the firm armour – or perhaps that was the muscles underneath? And those pretty blue eyes were watching you with a glint of amusement and a surprising amount of affection for a guy saying he had been hit by a bullet, while effortlessly carrying the girl he had just met in his-- very, very strong, muscly arms and perhaps your head was not only spinning because of the sudden height you found yourself at.

…amusement? How was he amused? Was that-- was that a joke? Was he making fun of his bullet wound, playing it down?

“That’s… really not better.”

He grinned down at you as he made his way to the exit.

Walking. Watching you. Grinning and not even really looking where he was stepping.

Oh no.

Oh no, he was one of those people. You had met men like him at Operations, except for some reason – perhaps some sort of a soulmate telepathy – you had a feeling in him, that the peculiar recklessness many people from suffered, the disregard for their safety, because they could handle it, was dialled up to eleven in him. On a one to five scale. Because scaling mattered; you were a scientist. You’d know.

However, he did make it out of the laboratory without blowing anything up – perhaps at least that recklessness was balanced up by enhanced senses of a supersoldier and indeed, healing fast. And you hoped with your whole heart that walking out unscathed was a conscious effort, be it for him (somehow you doubted that) or for the cargo he was carrying (you had no doubt about that, not when he was looking at you like that). At least he had kept the helmet on; you were thankful for that, even as you’d love to see him without it.

See your soulmate.

You knew what he looked like everyone knew what he looked like. If they had missed the WW II. ed, they could barely miss the news about an alien invasion he had had a hand in stopping, the fall of majority of SHIELD, and other exciting horrifying news.

“I’ll be fine, doc. Now let’s get you away from exploding vials and lab equipment you could knock me out with. I’d rather be safe when I ask you out for dinner.”

You gulped, gripping him a bit tighter as a memory hit you – literally.

The PCR machine. You had done that. You had grabbed it and used it to smash into a HYDRA agent’s face, using the nearest improvised tool of defence. Jesus.

I really did that?

“You… saw that?” was what you asked instead, a few second ticking by as the rest of his words registered in your brain – and god, you really hoped your cognitive abilities would restore soon and the head injury had not caused permanent damage. “Oh.”

As much as your heart started pounding at that, a pleasant somersault in your stomach for a change, it was a little unfair to sort-of ask you when you were in your current predicament. Being carried like that, so close to him, so gentlemanly and tenderly handled despite your weight no doubt straining him, especially since he had been shot – grazed –, yoursenses wrapped in everything that was him and pulling you in, you were fairly certain you might say yes to just about anything he’d ask.

And not just because he was your soulmate.

Your soulmate carrying you in his arms, while wearing a very flattering suit of armour.

“If you’d like, of course,” he added with slight hesitance that only made your heart race further, because he was laying out his own heart for you already, expressive, genuine, and maybe sweetly handsy but not pushy despite his title and rank technically giving him every right to do whatever the hell he wanted. “But either way, I’ll save the real question for when I know you’re not suffering from a concussion. That sounds good?”

“Yes, Captain,” you replied dutifully. It did sound good, his consideration warming you from inside out. His voice sounded good too. “Sounds good to me.”

His smile was bright as the sun itself and basking in its light and warmth felt just as precious. Except he was to be your private sun forever shared with other to a point, but yours. Chosen by fate itself, defying all you had ever believed, beating time by decades, only so you could find each other.

“Looking forward to it, doc. Maybe I’ll get to know your name too while we’ll be at it,” he teased lightly, but without malice. “My name is Steve.”

Steve.

You knew that. You liked that.

Hand trembling a little, but not because you worried he’d drop you as you partly let go of his shoulders, you reached for the clasp on his helmet, a fluttery feeling in your chest eager to indeed see Steve rather than the Captain.

You felt your lips curl up and mirror his when he gave a tiny nod at your brief hesitation, your fingers finally undoing the strap and revealing his face with his help.

His hair was adorably ruffled, a slight shade of dust on his cheeks whispering of where the protective gear had been; but scientifically speaking, as well as speaking directly from heart, he was absolutely beautiful, his tender smile telling you he thought the very same about you.

He was meant to be yours; as you were meant to be his.

And you couldn’t wait to get to know him.

You could tell there were people around you and they were probably staring; but for the moment, you didn’t care at all. You had just met your soulmate.

And you weren’t even a doctor yet.

“It’s really nice to meet you, Steve. But I have to admit…” you said, teasing him with a pause, rewarded by his eyes earning a curious glint, “that the Doc nickname is kinda growing on me.”

Complete masterlist

Steve Rogers masterlist

Oh this feels like coming back to my roots 🤭 but hey, this challenge is a revival of all thigs good of the past, so why not go with the good old-fashioned soulmate meet-cute with a little angst beforehand, right?

AND BEHOLD I WROTE SOMETHING SHORTER THAN 10K. SHORTER THAN 8K ACTUALLY! It’s an extravaganza miracle 😂

Also. There might be some unrelated smut in the works, but I will not finish that today so... won't be part of the cum together extravaganza... ah well 🤭

Thank you for reading and potential feedback 💕

May the Fourth be with you and the rest of May be kind ✨

#CT 2024 raffle entry #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x you #steve rogers #captain america #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america imagine #steve rogers fanfic #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fluff #soulmate au #soulmate steve rogers #the unexpected #anika ann

1K notes · View notes

cheapshrimpysheep · 2 months ago

Text

My Heaven's Light

SUMMARY: Rollo managed to kidnap you before sending the NRC students to Fleur City's Waterways, believing he was saving you. Malleus and the others reach the tower, ring the Bell of Solace and rescue you. Malleus expresses his protective side and Rollo apologizes for kidnapping you.

CHARACTERS: Rollo Flamme VS Malleus Draconia (x Reader)

TAGS: GN Reader; Angst to Comfort; Jealousy

WARNING: Spoilers from Glorious Masquerade; Kidnapping

WORD COUNT: 4.220 Words

COMMENTS: Thinking about the fact that Rollo is the twisted version of Frollo and thinking of MC as Esmeralda, it is inevitable to imagine Rollo kidnapping MC. But not for the same reasons!

Rollo is a really complex character, but one I've wanted to write about for some time now. I plan to try writing more with him in the future.

Until then, I hope you enjoy this one. 🐲🦐🔔

By the way, do you have ANY idea how many times I've looked up synonyms for common words just to get as close as possible to Rollo's way of speaking? One thing is for sure: I am greatly expanding my English vocabulary with this.

Amidst the panic that the firelotuses were causing, both your colleagues and Professor Trein end up paying more attention to the flowers than to you.

As you move away from the flowers, you end up approaching one of the pillars. That's when you feel a hand covering your mouth and another holding your arm behind your back.

You are carried away through the shadows as you try to free yourself, but these attempts only make the hands hold you even tighter and run the risk of injuring your arm.

The person who is taking you leans over and whispers in your ear. “I beg you not do make this more complicated that it needs to be.” It's Rollo!

He takes you to a room adjacent to the hall and pushes you inside, making you fall into an armchair. Just before he closes the door to lock you inside you hear Grim's voice.

“[Y/N]? [Y/N]?! MY HENCH-HUMAN DISAPPEARED!”

No matter how loud you scream, or how much you bang on the door, the chaos outside is too loud for anyone to hear you. Eventually you realize something is going on, so you stop to listen to the conversation. Rollo had revealed himself and was talking to your NRC colleagues.

“My, my.” You hear Azul say. “That was quite a predictable villain line, you know.”

“Silence!” Rollo's voice echoed. “YOU'RE the villains here! And what's more, you flaunted your magic and mesmerized our good citizens with it... Just like you did with your prefect. You imprisoned them with you and poisoned their mind. The poor thing became numb to the absurdity after spending every day swimming in it. Mages use their magic to lead people astray and cloud the eyes of the virtuous public. It's sad state of affairs, but it's devastating when the victim is someone like [Y/N].”

“What have you done with [Y/N]?!” Malleus's powerful voice demands to know.

“For now, I am keeping them safe. But once I engulf the world in the fiery crimson of these flowers and strip every mage in Twisted Wonderland of their magic, then I will have saved them, and all those like them who suffer at your hands!”

“You have no idea of the atrocity you are insinuating, Flamme!” Not only does Malleus’s voice thunder, but the sky outside does too.

“And there he is, folks! The secret mastermind who was controlling the ‘final boss’ all along!” Idia says. “But what kind of mastermind jumps the gun and shows up this early? Dude has like, zero patience.”

“Could you not right now? You're ruining the moment.” Azul complains.

The discussion continues with Rollo revealing that his plan is already well underway. When the Bell of Solace rang for an unprecedented fourth time that night, it suffused the city with magic. The firelotuses aren't only in the school. They've spread throughout the city, and are sapping the energy from every mage living there. And after that, he opens the floor for everyone to fall into a pit.

“And those accursed mages, with Malleus Draconia foremost among them... They'll all be finished! Enjoy your time down below. Though I think you'll find it quite...draining. At long last... I shall finally mete out my justice.”

Some time later, the door opens and Rollo enters, extending his hand to you.

“Come. We must go to the Bell Tower. It is safer-”

What he didn't expect was for you to attack him with a tall candlestick. And you discover that in addition to being a promising mage, he also has excellent reflexes. He manages to dodge your attack and grab your wrists so you let go of the candlestick.

“I do not aim to harm you!” He says very seriously. “Please don't turn it into something I have to do.”

“Then what are you doing locking me here?”

“Preventing you from falling for the tricks of those magic-addled fools once again.” He comes closer, still grabbing you by the wrists. “You poor thing. Blinded by villains who wear an elusive mask of companions. But worry not, that tragic state of affairs shan't last much longer.” He brings his face even closer to yours. “Now, I will provide you with a choice. You will accompany me peacefully to the Bell Tower, where you will be safe by my side. Or you will make me forcefully assure your safety. Which one will be?”

If you choose to resist, Rollo will pin your arm behind your back again and place a handkerchief over your mouth and nose. Whatever is in that handkerchief, will render you unconscious. And you will wake up on the top floor of the Bell Tower, lying on a blanket.

You see Rollo with his back to you, looking down at the bright scarlet below. You stand up.

“For the Righteous Judge's sake, don't try to go against me again.” Rollo says, without turning to you. “Even without the use of my magic you will not be able to overpower me.” Still without taking his eyes off the outside he calms down to invite you. “Would you be so kind as to join me in gazing out over the city?”

If you choose to accompany him peacefully to the Bell Tower, Rollo will release your wrists with a smile and give you his arm for you to intertwine with yours.

“I'm glad my judgment of you is aligning with the truth.” He says calmly as he guides. “To remain so virtuous amidst the chaos of magic, you must surely be one of heaven's lights.” You see now a new smile, a peaceful one.

The climb up the tower was silent, as you needed to breathe to climb all those stairs. When you finally reach the top, Rollo extends his hand to you. If you give him yours, he will guide you like a gentleman to a point where you can both see the ominously lit city below.

After your choice:

“Ahh, the city's turned a marvelous shade of crimson... How cleansing it is. I've never felt so at peace before.”

“Why are you doing this, Rollo?”

“Once magic vanish from the world forever, no one will have to suffer with its consequences. Magic is not something to be lionized. It is an evil temptation that, behind its illusory wonders, only causes pain and suffering. If it wasn't dangerous, it wouldn't be like a toxin in your body... However... I wonder how much you actually know about it.”

You look at him as if to ask what he means by that.

“Are you even from this world [Y/N]?” He finally looks at you. “I don't know what it is, but there's something about you that's different from every non-magic user I've ever met. And the circumstances surrounding you are quite... abnormal.”

You choose not to respond.

“I see you have your secrets. I have mine owns as well." He takes his handkerchief to his face. "If you don't feel comfortable talking about your past, then allow me the right not to talk about mine either.”

He puts the handkerchief back in his pocket, and you observe the city in silence for a moment, until he speaks again.

“They will come here. I don't know which students will be strong enough to reach the tower, but Malleus Draconia will certainly be one of those who will be able to reach me. And when that happens, I will guarantee that he will be the first to fall.”

“Why all this obsession with Tsunotarou?”

“Obsession is a very strong word, I simply...” He stops to process what you just said. “I beg your pardon, but am I correct in assuming you were referring to Malleus Draconia just now?”

“Of course, he was who you were talking about just... Oh, I called him Tsunotarou didn't I? Sorry. But yes, I was talking about Malleus.”

“T-Tsunotarou?” He takes the handkerchief back to his face. “Is it some kind of mocking nickname?”

“No! I mean yes, it's a nickname, but no, it's not to mock him. It's a long story but that's what Grim and I call him.”

“Does he know about this... name?”

“Oh, yes. He even likes me calling him by that, he thinks it's funny. Or at least that's what it seams. He smiles every time he hears me say that name.” Just like you were smiling talking about him. “He calls me Child of Man.”

“You have a playful nickname for each other.” Rollo whispers with the handkerchief covering his angry (jealous) expression. “Soon enough you'll feel disgusted by it.”

“Sorry, I didn't understand.”

“No, nothing. Pay me no mind.” He takes the handkerchief away from his mouth. “Ah... I hear the firelotuses rustling... Those wretched Night Raven College mages are making their way up the tower, aren't they? Villains are always so stubborn.” Before you could complain about his words, he puts his hand on your arm and continues. “I must get you in a safer place. Those monsters won't give up without a fight.”

“Who do you think we’re calling-”

He ignores your reprimand and takes you by the arm to a small room that they will not have access to without first going through Rollo.

“I am deeply sorry for what I'm about to do, but I need to make sure you do not alert them to your location.” With his magic, he makes ropes appear to tie you up and a piece of cloth to silence you. “See how despicable magic is? An atrocity like trapping you is completed in seconds. But I will release you as soon as the danger has passed.” And he closes the door.

“Here we are.” You hear Malleus’s voice. “The very top floor of the bell tower.”

“The Bell of Solace stands out even at night.” Azul comments. “Look how it glints in the moonlight.”

“Now to ring it, wipe out the flowers, rescue [Y/N] and finish this stupid pop-up quest for good.” Idia points out.

“But to do that...” Malleus returns. “We must first pay our respects to the host of the party.”

This was Rollo's cue to reveal himself. Which he does.

“At long last, you've arrived. The greater the villains, the more they insist on stopping around. Deplorable.”

“Where are they Flamme?” Malleus demands to know.

“Safe, of course, away from you and your wicked lies.”

“Okay, I really need to ask.” Idia says. “What does our magic-less Prefect have to do with this flower plan and ending magic thing? Why kidnap them? They have no power to stop you. Unless you kidnapped them to keep them for yourself. Good taste tho. But you only met them literally today! That’s like the ultimate desperate creep move.”

“My actions involving your Prefect have nothing to do with personal motives. Innocent victims must be rescued from your evil hands! And that is exactly what I did.”

“I don't know if you would use the word ‘Innocent’ like that if you actually knew them.” Azul comments with a smirk.

“If this is true, it will be proof of your corruption!”

The flowers reach the bell and the exchange of words follows a course that ends with the three fighting Rollo after Malleus said:

“Regardless of your reasons, you will not have your way. I shall stop you for all the fallen in this city... For the wonderful person you kidnapped... For the people awaiting us at school... For Briar Valley... And for myself. You see, I harbor a particularly potent animus toward you. A feeling aggravated by the disrespectful actions you had towards who is dearest to me. I shall eradicate the firelotuses and put all to rights. With the Bell of Solace itself!”

They lose the first fight against Rollo. And it's after that that Idia reveals what they read in Rollo's diary that they found in the fireplace. About his brother. About him not being able to do anything to save him... And you hear Idia going down a not so empathetic path, to which you would react with a facepalm if your hands weren't tied.

You hear Rollo getting angry and starting to lose his composure, Azul attacking him with Deuce's signature spell, with whom he had made a deal, the astonished reaction when seeing that Rollo is still standing, and finally, you hear Rollo use his signature spell and the sound of flames bursting forth.

A new fight, even more violent, until the sound of the flames died away and...

“Rollo collapsed, and his flames went out...” Azul says. “That means Malleus won, right?”

“Dude, Malleus is out of breath.” Idia says “I can see why he wanted us clear. We could've easily been collateral damage.”

Rollo says he accepted his defeat, but only to try to attack Malleus one last time when he turned his back on him. He failed, and Malleus rang the Bell of Solace, making all the flowers wither.

“The firelotuses...” Rollo was sobbing. “My flowers, my salvation, they're all withering away... You VILLAINS. What have you done?!”

“More important than that.” Malleus approached, his figure towering over Rollo's on the ground. “What have YOU done to [Y/N]?”

“Why do you show yourself so worried? A being like you would never truly care for someone like them. Admit your true intentions! You want to see them suffer on the long term.”

You finally manage to get your feet close to the door. You hear the worried voices of Azul and Idia telling Malleus not to succumb to Rollo's provocations. And you knock on the door with your feet so they can hear you.

You hear hurried footsteps coming your way, see Malleus opening the door, and look down in horror.

“[Y/N]!” He quickly reaches down to free you, breaking the ropes with his own hands and untying the piece of cloth around your mouth. He would have preferred to use magic to ensure he didn't hurt you, but he was relatively weak in that regard. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

You say you're fine, but that doesn't stop Malleus from picking you up in his arms.

“Is [Y/N] hurt?!” Azul asked, worried.

“They say they're fine. But just in case.”

“Something tells me that Malleus just really wanted to live the scene of the hero who picks up the princess in their arms after saving her from the clutches of the villain who kidnapped her.” Idia comments, just between him and Azul. “Hey, no judgments. This is what I call sense of opportunity.”

Rollo was furious, but he would never admit how jealous he was. Not even to himself.

You watched the shows that your NRC colleagues prepared. The music was beautiful and they sang so well! Especially Malleus. After that, you all talked for a bit in a group before Malleus disappeared. Only for you to see him dance with Rollo. Seriously? All that and he's still going to dance with Rollo before he dances with you?!

You dance with the others, until Malleus appears to bow to you and invite you to dance with him. However, to his surprise, you look sullen.

“Is there something wrong?” He asks you. “Did I do something that displeased you?”

You answer yes, that after everything, the first person he danced with was Rollo. He chuckles, and you get even more sulky.

“Forgive me, but I could not resist provoking Flamme one last time. That, and warn him never to even come near you again.” He says with a smile, which makes it a little scary. “I jest. Well, partially. I did threaten him if he did anything to you again.” He pauses to see if you would cheer up a bit, but you still didn't seem completely satisfied. He smirks. “I must admit, a little jealousy can actually be charming and cute.”

Other people wanted to dance with Malleus, but he asked them all to, please, wait a little longer.

“You are creating a quite long waiting line you know? I will not dance with anyone else until I have my desired dance with my beloved.” He smiles smugly when he sees your reaction.

You give him your hand, he kisses the back of it and brings your body closer to his, placing his other hand on your waist. And you dance together.

“Please be careful.” He says as you dance. You look down at your feet, confused. “Fufu. No my dear, I wasn't referring to your dancing.” The sweet smile becomes more serious. “I was referring to Rollo Flamme. I have reason to believe that, after just one day, he has already recognized your charm. He does not convince me that he did that to you just because he believed he was saving you. But worse than that...”

His expression turns sad and you feel his hand pull you closer.

“He still have hatred towards me and wants to get read of all the mages. Under different circumstances, I would not fear his attacks. I would even invite him to try. But with you... If he realizes how much you mean to me... Despite what happened, I don't believe he has that kind of character, but if he reaches a state of despair where his hatred for me is stronger than the attachment he might feel for you...”

There’s a pause. His expression becomes more peaceful.

“I learned an expression that the citizens here have. Heaven's Light. We don't know what this place called heaven is for sure, but according to some records from the past, it would have been such a wonderful place that it was not even located on land. It was somewhere above the clouds. I believe even the stories of the Lord of the Underworld spoke of a similar place. They say that the name ‘Heaven's Light’ was given by the Kindly Bell Ringer to the woman he fell in love with, for being such a caring and kind person to him.”

He caresses your cheek with one of his hands.

“I understand him perfectly. From the story I was told, I can only believe that I too was blessed with my own Heaven's Light. And just like the Kindly Bell Ringer, I will do whatever it takes to protect it.”

You didn't even realize that Malleus has led you to a more secluded place. Only when you saw that the two were hidden by the shadows and a pillar and he began to bring his face closer to yours. “My Heaven's Light.” He whispers before kissing you.

After your dance with Malleus, he went to dance with the other people who also wanted such an honor and you went to dance with some of your other colleagues.

You were finishing dancing with Sebek when Rollo approached you. Both you and he startled when Sebek quickly placed himself between the two of you.

“What are your intentions?” Sebek inquired with hostility.

“My intentions are not vile.” Rollo replies, hiding his displeasure at the way Sebek is talking to him with his composure. “I would only like to be able to invite [Y/N] to dance.”

“I cannot allow it! My orders are to keep this human safe and away from you.”

Rollo takes his handkerchief to his face, holding back the urge to respond to his audacity and insulting words. However, you tell Sebek that it's okay and that you would like to accept Rollo's invitation. Both he and Sebek are surprised.

“B-but...” He had those sad puppy eyes, eager to fulfil his duty. “My liege told me... he entrusted me to protect you.”

And you say he can still do it. He can watch you while you dance with Rollo. And if something really happens, he can intervene.

“But what if it's too late?”

You say that Rollo wouldn't do anything like that in front of all those people. And that Sebek could tell Malleus that it was your fault for telling him not to stop you.

“But... *sigh* Why are you humans so stubborn? Fine. But I won't take my eyes off you. Even if I have to stop myself from blinking!... Be careful.”

Rollo extends his hand to you and you place yours in his to accept his invitation to dance. He guides you very gently.

“I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you.” He tells you while dancing with you. “I never meant to be rude to you. And regardless of what the students of Night Raven College tell you, at no point did I intend to harm you.” Your expression shows your suspicion. “I don't intend to apologize for doing what I concluded was the best way to save you at the time. I only apologize for the... atrocious way in which I did it. I shouldn't have forced you to come with me. But I feared what those spiteful mages might do to you in a moment of desperation.”

“They wouldn't hurt me!” You say, with certainty in your voice.

“How could you be so sure of that?”

“Because, unlike you, I know them.”

He looks you intently in the eyes, and sighs. The music comes to an end, as does your dance. You bow to each other.

“I find it pitiful seeing someone magic-devoid like you stuck in that villains' lair.” He tells you when you both straighten up. “I am inclined to make my utmost efforts to have you reside in Nobel Bell College instead, however I've already come to the sorrowful realization that it is your heart that keeps you hostage in that island. But before we part, I insist that you know that if you ever find yourself overwhelmed by those circumstances that involve magic, do let me know.” He gives you that subtle smile of his. “I will be glad to provide you with my support and assistance at any moment.”

You give him a smile back, accepting his offer.

“But, just to guarantee that you don't forget my heartfelt offering...” He reaches into his pocket, takes out his handkerchief and extends it to you. “Here it is said that handkerchiefs are powerful guardians of the memories of a loved one. It is common to offer them when we don't want to be forgotten by someone. Despite my mistakes, I would still like you to have the most pleasant memory of me possible." You accept his gift. "I confess that my biggest wish at the moment was to have one of yours too.” Without his handkerchief, he covers his mouth with his hand. “But that is just a mere whim of mine.” He takes his hand away from his face and smiles again “Not even in my wildest dreams did I think I would have so much pleasure in meeting someone from Night Raven College.” He gives you one last bow. “May the Bell of Solace allow our paths to cross again.”

He turned to walk away, but you wanted to do one last thing. You had also bought a handkerchief just like his when you were doing your tour of the city, and you wouldn't need two. You ask him to wait and he turns back to you.

“It doesn't have to be a mere whim.” You say, handing him the handkerchief you had kept with you. Perhaps the sign of a second chance.

He receives your handkerchief and looked at it with his natural smile, but his eyes were different, they had a small, almost imperceptible sparkle.

“I will keep it as one of my most cherished possessions. Thank you, [Y/N].”

“Should I assume this was some sort of revenge?” You hear Malleus's voice say suddenly as you step away from the dancing crowd.

You didn't know he was there, and so close. You look at him and he's smiling wryly.

“I didn't give him any gifts, though. Should I have bought a souvenir too? Perhaps make a bouquet of those crimson flowers he is so fond of.”

“It seems you were right, Tsunotarou.” You say with a sly smile. “A little jealousy can actually be charming and cute.”

Malleus makes that cute pout.

“I told you to be careful.” He says, not as a scolding, but as a concerned request.

You tell him that nothing bad happened, that Rollo wanted to apologize for what he did to you and for him not to blame Sebek because you were the one who accepted Rollo's invitation.

“Don't worry, I know Sebek is a loyal guard. And that you are the one with a kind heart. I told Sebek that I believed him when he told me that it was of your own free will that you were dancing with Flamme. It is in your character to give others the opportunity to explain and apologize. I know this well because it's one of the things I love most about you.” His pout comes back. “However...” He smiles smugly. “I would be more reassured if you spend the rest of the ball close to me. Just in case.”

“Just in case of what, exactly?” You ask.

“Just in case someone else becomes so captivated by you that they want to lock you up in a tower. Which reminds me that in some tales the kidnapper arrange a dragoon to guard the kidnapped.” His smile becomes even more smug and slightly threatening. “Fu fu fu. I would like to see them trying.”

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

#Twisted Wonderland #Twst #Twisted Wonderland x Reader #Twst x Reader #Twst Imagines #Malleus Draconia #Malleus Draconia x Reader #Rollo Flamme #Rollo Flamme x Reader #Glorious Masquerade #Twst Glorious Masquerade #Twisted Wonderland Glorious Masquerade #Twst Halloween

898 notes · View notes

galene-gothic · 29 days ago

Text

𝖸𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖼𝗎𝗋𝗋𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗌𝖾𝗅𝖿, 𝖿𝗎𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖾 𝗌𝖾𝗅𝖿 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗀𝗎𝗂𝖽𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗆

୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ I hope this reading found you in good health, every reblog is appreciated and thank you for everything :) ˖♡ ˎˊ˗ ꒰ 🐇 ꒱

ˏˋ༻ʚ♡︎ɞ༺ˎˊ˗ PAID SERVICES TIP JAR

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 1 ꒱

꒰ Your current self ꒱

Currently, you’re in a state of ‘pause’ is what I’m getting. Your perspective is different from what it once used to be but you’ve not fully developed it yet. You think that you’re starting a new, like you’re still building foundations for your character and life. You could be confused about what to choose and how to move forward because there are just so many things that you want to do but there’s also a sense of curiosity and hope about where you’re being led to. You seem to be hurting emotionally and pretty low physically too. The pain that you experienced seems to have affected your mindset, hormones and hence, your focus, and body in general. You could be feeling more tired these days and I’m picking up on a sense of burn out. Some of you are carrying on working despite this sense of burn out and lack of focus that you feel while the rest of you have sort of broken down. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you cry a lot or are just genuinely really hurting. There were bitter endings, possibly one after another for some of you, it’s just hard to process it all. You could find your heart hurting, chest hurting or your posture being very bad with your shoulders and back slouching down. Emotionally, you seem to have dealt with major fights or drama. There is a competitive energy that I am picking up on from other people and even you. Due to how competitive they were being, you could have acted accordingly too but it led to connections ending. Much of it was not even competitive, it was outright aggression and power that they were trying to place, and have over you. You seem to be in a state of mourning. Somehow these moments of feeling emotionally unfulfilled, left out and no connection with others is what’s caused you to come out to be more in your power. You desire status, morality and power, every time that you’ll get distracted, you’ll get hurt and that hurt will redirect you into this mode of desiring respect, status, morality and power. Some situation where you put a lot of effort and tried to see through end up breaking you down and it could have caused you to be aware of your childhood issues. You’re growing into a more empowered version of yourself but for right now, you are in a state of pause. You desire power, status, control, etc. but due to this pause state, you aren’t being able to cultivate it or go after it. You have a desire for selfless service or you just enjoy giving, you’ve fallen victim to receiving the shorter end of the stick in the past and have started really valuing mutuality, reciprocation and equal give, and take. You pretend to have it all in front of others even if you may not. You tend to feel lonely too but decide to maintain inner abundance and gratitude while moving forward. It is definitely difficult for you to feel abundant though, you’re not feeling emotionally fulfilled. You are choosing to live with your passionate and fiery nature or you just naturally are doing so, and have a silent power due to all that you’ve learned from past experiences. You also keep your emotions and what you’ve gone through close to your chest, and mind so that your mind can process it and learn from it. Your heart has turned sort of iron-like and it would be difficult to melt it. You feel pretty lonely though. You seem to love to enjoy spending money. Like, it could be a way to cope honestly but yes, you’re trying your best.

꒰ Your future self ꒱

Your future self is someone mature who takes life seriously. Mentally, they’re going to be thinking about wanting happiness within the house and love. They’re going to be thinking about sex a lot as well. I’m picking up that you either already think about sex a lot or used to but have a low libido ever since the realisation of whatever tragedy occurred in your life hit you 💀. Either way, your sex drive is going to be high. You’re going to be carrying the realisations of past heartaches and will have learned your lessons. You’ll be craving love pretty deeply though. For some of you, this could be a future self who’s already in a relationship. They’re going to be nurturing, loving and almost mother-like in nature. You’re going to have stepped into your power and will have grown a lot. You’re going to be aware of your darker sides and weaker sides, and will be working with both of them. You’re going to be a bit “me, me, me” because you’ve always been “others, others, others” in the past and they kicked you, and left 😍. You’ll still be craving deep, devotional love though. You will just want the quality of love to be high or you won’t want it. Also, emotionally you’re still not gonna be over things yet but you’ll be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and will be recovering since things will not be as fresh any longer. You’re going to be craving old school and traditional connections romantically, and in terms of friendships, you’ll want ethical friends who would stick by you and remain ever loyal. You’re going to be very soft hearted, sensitive and loving. I’m also picking up on you being competitive and drama not scaring you as much anymore. You will look at others trying to fight with you or intimidate you as something flattering because why do they give a damn about you? You’ll be focused on your goals most definitely, almost aggressively focused. “You either assist me, move out of the way or let me walk from on top of you” is the energy that I’m getting from your future self. You’re going to have a lot of empathy for other people’s pain but not at your expense. You’re going to be very loving, there’s no doubt of that. Your future self is going to be very careful regarding extremes of any situation. If they’re trusting someone too much, they’re going to pull themselves together, if they’re getting angry and yelling, at the moment they may not realise it but later they’re going to be like “I shouldn’t have behaved that way” and will try to control their anger better going forward. You are possibly going to be someone who’s rejecting people left and right until you find someone who truly does appeal to you.

You are going to be quite an over thinker and could have other’s words, and actions weigh on you. I’m getting that you might have to deal with other people trying to drag you down by humbling you, humiliating you or just talking shit about you (to your face or behind your back). You’re going to be guarded and unwilling to do too much for free, and will prefer loneliness over disrespect. You’ll have a lot of inner strength and will be persevering forward, trying to do your best. You’re going to be someone who’s difficult to break externally but yes, you’ll either be dealing with sleep issues, overthinking and breaking down by yourself, etc. but will not allow others to see you break or even if you do, you’re going to make sure to continue pushing forward. I would say that you’re very admirable indeed. You’re going to be a bit cold hearted and demanding, desiring bonds that are well matched on all levels especially value wise. You’re going to want to work together with people who are willing to put in equal effort and are capable of learning, and teaching in connections and any other setting. “You either meet me at my level or you die.” Also, you’ll have many qualities that you’re going to want within them. Others could consider your hopes and standards to be unrealistic but yes, as long as you’re capable of giving what you want, you shouldn’t have to lower them. You’re still going to be healing and the pain that you’ve experienced so far is going to be something that will have stuck with you, making you fear instability and crave deep connections that are ride or die in nature. “You’ll meet thousands who like you, there will be one who you’ll spend your life with.” “You’ll find thousands of friends when you’re happy, there will only be one who you share your sorrows with.” You’re going to be very stable and grounded within yourself, and will be building a strong character, you’ll have already built a pretty strong one by then. You are going to have a mature, wise and provider kind of mentality, so you’re going to want a partner and people in your life who matches accordingly. You could very well feel like you’re out of place from rest of the people your age because they may say things like “you’re still young, have fun. Don’t take relationships too seriously” but it’s going to be in your nature to do so. You’re going to feel so grown and traditional, you’re going to have many old school values and will value the ethical way of living, wanting people who are similar to you to be friends with and get into relationships with.

꒰ What do you need to spend more and less time doing ? ꒱

You need to spend more time letting go of the idea and obsession with romantic love. Instead of wondering why you and your love has been rejected or neglected time and time again, you need to think about and understand how and where you’ve been crushing the personal progress that you’ve made as a person in order to please other people or by falling victim to peer pressure. You need to understand that certain people, things and situations are just a wastage of time, and effort. You also need to understand that you didn’t have a long term vision when it came to romance in the past because if you did, you wouldn’t have put yourself in situations that seemed to be leading to nowhere. You used to have an inferiority complex and used to doubt your ability to be loved by anyone. It was very deep rooted and so you acted out in ways that weren’t authentic to you. While, you may think that certain outcomes were unexpected and yes, certain outcomes were in fact unexpected because you seem to have been betrayed by those you invested a lot into, not all of them seem to be romance related, you’ve been let down even in platonic relationships. You’re being told to learn how to discern and instead of putting effort into situations, and people that are likely going to fail and disappoint you, focus on yourself. “Make the most of your life, while it is light, while it is rife.” You really need to redirect your focus onto yourself. Set aside the desire for love of any sort. Even if you feel the desire, which is okay, learn how to set it aside and have your focus on your own growth instead. You’re being told to learn how to present yourself in a way that’s beautiful to you. Set any and all desires for external validation aside, and figure out what it is that you truly like, what it is that you find to be beautiful, how do you personally like to adorn yourself? “You don’t need a boyfriend, you need hobbies, skills, a strong identity and a life.” You may have always gravitated towards some sort of art but may not have been able to develop it to the fullest extent that it could reach which leads to lack of confidence within you. You’re being told that it’s your calling to some extent, even if you’re not supposed to monetise it, you’re supposed to learn it so you’re always going to be called to it, so you should invest into these skills. You’re being told that isolation is a blessing. You’re being told not to be dramatic and impatient about love, if it is meant to find you, it will, and if it’s not, worrying about it will do nothing. You’re being told to mature and let go of the past completely. As in, you’re being told not to keep any space in your heart for ‘a first love’ or ‘the one that got away’, etc. Understand that it’s in the past and the past doesn’t exist, and the way they hurt and betrayed you or at least left you behind. You’re being told not to ruminate over issues from your past and instead heal them without letting yourself be emotionally shaken by them. Including issues from your childhood and school years, or whatever past you may have had during what I consider to be your formative years. You’re being told to be completely honest with yourself and accept that you’ve had negative and possibly manipulative behaviours in the past too.

I’m getting that you’re a very funny person. Some of you could have decided to manipulate someone in order to gain their affection but you got attached to them instead and forgot about your plan just because you’re that much of a loving bitch 💀. For the most part though, you have always been pretty loving and genuineness comes so naturally to you, that’s why you failed in whatever this plan or these plans were. You need to accept that your connections have been ingenuine so far, not because of you but because of your inability to be your authentic self and also other’s personal issues. You do not need to feel guilty about having ingenuine intentions initially because you didn’t even follow through. Everything you did, was in fact for affection too. As long as you received love and connection, you were not interested in manipulating anyone and acting all strategic. You seem to have always been unlucky and lonely in love, and I’m not just talking about romantic love but despite this, there’s also been some luck that you’ve had. Anyone you’ve connected with, no matter where it led, if it even led to anything, has taught you a lot and connected to you in an almost soul level. While, you seem to have struggled to present yourself authentically, those who had to see you, did see you, maybe not to the fullest extent but you received their understanding and space within their thoughts, and emotions, and that’s your blessing. If you recall properly, you’ve had at least one person adore you at almost any point of life. You’ll also never be forgotten by them because the connection seems to be kind of irreplaceable honestly. You’re yearned for and adored, and loved so deeply, and so dearly, you may not even be aware of it because these people may not feel comfortable enough expressing their affection for you due to you being inauthentic in your actions and living because they are still human, and they still don’t know if they’re just imagining certain things about you. You need to see the truth of situations and heal, and grow from situations. Forgive yourself, others and release any pain, forget past people and experiences completely. Be optimistic and remember that it gets better, only if you let it. Spend more time being honest with yourself and learning how to be present, learn how to deal with homesickness by becoming your own home instead of finding temporary solace in the nostalgia of past experiences. Learn how to create yourself and present yourself in the way you’d like, and how to create in general. Learn how to create and craft your life as you’d like, and spend more time living and doing rather than thinking, and weeping. Always remember “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” You need to spend less time being indecisive about investing into connections or investing into them further. You need to be honest with yourself about what’s going on i.e. if someone treated you well in the past but has switched up recently, you need to accept the current version of them and not let them consume you or have a hold on you emotionally. “The moment you feel like you’re competing with someone else for affection, connection and to be chosen, you’ve lost.” You don’t need to know and understand everything but you need to make difficult choices in regard to seeing the reality of things.

Some of your connections weren’t or aren’t as deep as you might think, you may be deeply incompatible and it is okay to accept it, and give up. “You’re allowed to choose too.” You need to understand that you’re not helpless, you’re allowed to unchoose people, you’re allowed to unlove people. If people leave you behind or start acting distant or like they do not want you, it’s not your responsibility to make things right or even think about them. You’re allowed to continue your life the best that you can with gratitude and being present instead of thinking about what occurred. “You’ll be much happier if you do not think about the past, do not romanticise connections but instead find beauty in your present moment and practice gratitude.” You also need to stop being so generous and giving. Learn how to not give too much of yourself to anyone and not give to anyone who doesn’t reciprocate. “There are other people pleasers in the world too, let them please you. You do not have to be the one to extend an invitation for connection every single time.” You need to stop having hope and daydreams about connections that are not grounded in reality, and stop being loving to everyone. “Your love is sacred, learn how to gate-keep it.” You’re being told that doing things for people, being nice to people, reaching out first, etc. being all loving does not mean people are going to choose you. Also, just because people chose someone else over you doesn’t mean they made a good choice. Stop seeing hope and potential in hopeless people, and don’t act out of emotions for them, understand that everything in life is an investment and negotiation, and on the long term, emotions may not always be fruitful but common sense definitely is. Sometimes making premature decisions is the best that you will do for yourself. The spirit is telling you that you do not need to give chances or get to know people and situations deep enough to decide what you want to do with them. “You do not have to drink the entire ocean in order to know that the water is salty.” Give up on thinking about the ‘what if’ way of thinking because if they cared enough, there would be no space for the ‘what if’ way of thinking. “Your affection won’t be valued unless it’s earned.” You just need to give up on trying to get people to like and love you. You need to stop giving yourself away to others and giving them chances to show themselves if they’ve already disappointed you in any way. You need to stop giving your affection away for free just because no one seems to want to claim it for themselves :(. Choose yourself, even if it leads to loneliness. You tend to feel like you don’t belong anywhere, like no one has loved, understood, prioritised and chosen you. You also probably know that you’ve given a lot to others in hopes of receiving just something, just anything but you need to stop placing yourself at such low value, that’s when you’ll be loved and people will try to understand, and choose you. Your desire for giving and receiving love, and attention should not take away your reasoning skills and value. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 2 ꒱

꒰ Your current self ꒱

Right off the bat, you’re taking the landslides that you survived and turning them into mountains for you to climb. You’re a loving person who thinks about romance and sex a lot. Also, beauty and being attractive. You desire being someone’s crush and the kind of romance that you seem to want to experience is romance where it feels like you’re soulmates, are deeply and primally attracted to each other, not just physically or character wise but as a whole, as if it’s just the other person that you were looking for and vice versa. “No one else compares” is what I heard. You also want them to have a crush on you for the rest of your lives and you want to feel the same kind of attraction towards them. You want to feel your heartbeat quicken, face heating and feet happily start swinging at the mere sight of them. This is so cute. However, at the same time, right now you are more self sufficient and want to be by yourself for a bit. I just heard the saying “if you try to catch butterflies, they will fly away but if you spend that time building a beautiful garden for yourself, the butterflies themselves will come flying to you.” I think you know that right now, you will probably not meet the kind of person you desire and even if you do, you want to be focusing on yourself so that you can connect with them authentically. Your beauty and attractiveness seems to be your focus too. You make an effort to look good on a daily basis. You’re also someone who doesn’t express yourself too deeply right away. You have accepted the cycles of life and count your blessings, and things to be grateful for rather than the shortcomings that everyone has in life, in one form or another. You have accepted that life has ups and downs but are in a much more stable place now, you’ve also attained a lot of wisdom and are flowing according to your destiny, even if you feel like it’s not like that, you are. Some of you here feel assured about your future despite not knowing everything about it because there’s just this awareness that things will turn out alright. Someone here has been seeing 222 a lot recently. You’re a very charitable person who gives to others without asking for anything in return. You desire to be more giving and service oriented but just know that you’re already giving what you can, and have always done so. You’re a very abundant person and I think you lean more towards the glamorous side in regards to style, appearance and charm.

Despite your independence and glamorous way of presenting yourself or wanting to do so, your kindness, giving and down to earth charm kind of just shine through. No matter what you may wear and how independent you may be, when in public, you look out for people, try to help them if asked, offer them something that you may be eating, etc. Also, maybe because you present yourself so well, others offer you help and free things. You’re also someone who just because you do things for people or they do things for you, you do not just let them into your life, you still try to vet them properly or just decide that you won’t let them enter your life right at the start. Emotionally, you’re very strategic and also keep things close to your chest. You understand that people could be lying to you, fooling you or may just not have the best intentions towards you so you maintain secrecy too. You’re self protective and private with your emotions, not wanting to talk about certain things to certain people. You deeply value intimacy, honesty and peace, and you know that even if no one else in the world gives that to you, you can give it to yourself. You value self care and know that when you’re emotionally vulnerable, it’s best to take your space. You probably love your bed a lot these days especially if it’s winter wherever you live 💀. You do not try to force things and instead patiently wait for emotional connections that are meant for you to find you. You can also acknowledge how far you’ve come and feel proud of it but yes, you do desire more. You desire recognition and want to be valued, and praised. You probably have some dream that you want to fulfil and you’re being told that you are capable of achieving it. You’re also a naturally abundant and content person. You’re letting go of many insecurities or issues but every-time you feel like you’ve let them go, you end up realising that you still kind of hold onto them. You are especially a very possessive person who wants people for yourself. You’re not toxic but you like to experience life and especially love, and romance wholeheartedly, you want it to consume you, you want to heavily indulge into it. You want to have the space to give to the other person, to almost devote and sacrifice yourself to them, and you won’t feel safe enough to do that unless someone is yours to keep.

꒰ Your future self ꒱

Your future self is someone who is emotionally fulfilled and puts emotional abundance as something very important to them. They think that the reason emotions are being used against each other in this world is because humans are deeply emotional beings and as long as one can control their emotional state, nothing will overpower them or have control over them. They have a fiery personality and goals, and are just unabashedly charming, full of life and going after what they want. They’re also very witty and curious about things. They’re someone who is unwelcome at a community because of competition. Others tend to compete with them and just treat them aggressively or passive aggressively, trying to humble them. “You’re not all that” is what I heard. They are principled and ethical. They are also down to earth and genuine intentioned so when all of this happens. They’re going to accept that connections didn’t progress as they had wished and will be bringing out a more firm and stern side of them compared to the friendly, fiery and warm side that they had previously greeted others with. They’re a reasonable person who won’t pick beef with people without being picked on first and in fact, even on being picked on, they won’t say anything back but will not let themself break down in front of the people who are trying to bring them down. Despite, the external tensions, their inner abundance will not be depleted, in fact, they’ll only find it flattering that others are so affected by them. Also, at that time, you’re going to be feeling like whoever is hating on you, trying to bring you down or is creating fights and chaos with you isn’t even all that. I have a feeling that you’ve already dealt with something similar to this because you seem to know exactly how to go about it. It is going to make you feel unstable most definitely but you’re going to keep in mind to tap into your inner strength and continue pushing forward with self control, and a compassionate, soft and therefore fierce energy. Despite everything that they’ll be putting you through and it inevitably interrupting your peace in some way and you feeling pretty left out from community.

Also being more reserved and cold in contrast to yourself in the past, you’re going to continue pushing forward as a controlled and compassionate person, you’ll also be waiting for better days to come but will already be fairly content with where you are at. ‘IT girl’ by Aliyah’s interlude is energy that I’m getting from your future self. Whatever they’ll be doing and however they will be treating you is only going to motivate you to do more, be more and win more in the future. You’re going to be feeling determined to work hard and succeed. You’ll have developed really strong willpower by then. You already seem to possess it but in the future, you’ll be more fearless? You’re going to have let go of many of your insecurities and will not be willing to let anyone strip you off your power. You’re going to be very powerful, choosing to take it back again and again if necessary. You’re going to have many options at that time and will have a slight coldness, knowing your boundaries and maintaining them even if it’s considered cruel or excessive. You’re going to be fiercely protecting yourself without even saying anything, you will just be holding up well and with self control, choosing to not let their words and actions get to you. You’ll want to be yourself at all costs that’s for sure and you’ll be doing a very good job at that. Actually, at some point, you may say something, not early on. You’re someone who can take a lot until you eventually burst. You’re also someone who doesn’t express frustrations to others but instead just grows from whatever they made you go through. That’s going to be a place and environment where you’ll either learn how to stand up for yourself verbally, will already be doing so or will simply just win by actions, and decide that that’s what works best for you. ‘Wannabe’ by ITZY and ‘obsessed’ by Mariah Carrey (alongside the song I mentioned earlier) is the energy that I’m getting here. Your future self has a lot of haters, stay prepared and brace yourself for what’s to come.

꒰ What do you need to spend more and less time doing ? ꒱

You seem to have experienced moments that pretty much pulled the earth from right beneath your feet. It was very difficult to make sense of everything and you had to deal with the fear that came with unavoidable changes and hence, unavoidable circumstances. These sudden changes happened related to some commitments, it could have simply been committed and stable friendships or relationship that you had worked hard to build that turned out to not be as much as you thought it was. You seem to have invested heavily though. If not, there was some sort of an institution or community that you left behind, by choice or force. “A major sacrifice but clueless at the time” is the energy that I’m getting here. For example, if you left your previous school, you could have terribly missed it, if you left your home town, you could have missed that instead, etc. Many emotions were connected, you had tried to be ever loving and empathetic, trying to give the best of you to certain people, connections and situations but it led to you not being able to fix anything because these people were twisting your words and actions based on their own personal insecurities, maturity and values at that time. I’m getting that you were trying to lovingly make them understand you and your emotions, and also listen to their own thoughts and emotions so that you can correct anything that may have hurt them but their main focus was on misunderstanding you even if at that time, they tried to make it seem like they were interested in fixing things or like they were dealing with the situation with maturity when that wasn’t the case. Some sort of self forgiveness had to take place and it did. It seems like before all of this chaos occurred, you had made significant progress as a person, character wise or so it seemed so when you ended up straying away from it and the realisation of it hit you, it just led to some mourning and questioning, also regrets. However, you are a fair person and you’re able to accept if you may have done somethings wrong, if you made mistakes too but mostly, you did realise that there was a sense of unfairness and were desiring fairness. Since, you had that understanding that the world isn’t fair, you could have started believing in karma or you literally experienced karma. For example, you did something that affected someone else but you experienced a similar or possibly even the exact same situation or well, this is just confirmation that you and others are going to have to reap what you sow, that it can’t be avoided so if others have done you wrong, just let it go and if you have done others wrong.

Just accept what’s to come and try to perform good karma to balance it out. It was something that required you to have to restart, to rebuild from within and also the outside. You were trying your best to stay controlled. At that time you were trying to practice self compassion so that you’d feel better and also so that you’d be able to extend your compassion outwards. There was acknowledgment that the grass is in fact greener on the other side. You diligently worked on yourself and life itself which led to you meeting parts of you that most people would much rather not see about themselves but though fears and confusion could have popped up and most likely did, you only used it to grow further. You grew to become more mature, wise and emotionally intelligent through what you experienced within your psyche. You also got more in touch with your personal charms and are warm, also competitive as in, you want the best for yourself and will strive to get it. You’re a loving person who’s come to realise after many conflicts and illusions that true love is healthy and empowering, and in romance, two people hold each other to the highest regard, loving each other the most, without feeling the need to let their eyes and attention wander elsewhere. You also got really in touch with your own authentic love energy, pouring your love into yourself causing you to retake your power. You’ve grown to have even judgement and are being called to be your authentic self, you’re already being so to the best of your abilities. There’s a desire to be seen being your authentic self just because you’re shining brightly. You also want to be secretive and private despite shining. You want to have a persistent and strong personality where you don’t break but instead keep on going. You’re being told to join the world. You should spend more time becoming one with the world. You experienced others unnecessarily competing with you in the past and are abundant so aren’t connecting with people as much as you could be but you’re being told that it’s time now. You need to trust yourself enough to not let others take you for granted and need to let your guard lower just enough to connect with others because you’re going to learn a lot from them that will prove to be valuable to you going forward. If you’re delaying joining university or getting back to education or skill training of some sort, you’re being reminded that no matter what you may do, time is going to pass anyway. You’re being told that no matter how much strategy you may approach life and other people with, it’s not worth it. You deserve those who are interested in you and love you for who you are, and not the games you play or challenges you provide.

Feel hot, dress up, do your hair and makeup, try heels, go out, just spend more time taking care of your body and presenting it the way you like, also think about it positively while trying to maintain healthy habits in order to honour your own body. Make sure to stay true to yourself and if that’s not possible, remind yourself of the truths that you hold close, that you hold sacred and simply just ‘true’ whenever you stray away from them. Have fun, live life and explore the unlimited potential that you have. Free yourself from the trauma, limiting and negative beliefs, and mindsets placed upon you by the actions of other people. For some of you here, probably because it’s winter, you have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning, if you live in the southern hemisphere and it’s not cold for you, for some reason you could still have a bad sleep schedule. You’re being told that you need to get out of your bed first, the rest will follow. As soon as you wake up, after a while of lying, decide that you’re going to get up within three seconds and go for it. The three second rule is going to be a golden rule for you, you’re being asked to master it. There is also another rule that I’m picking up on. 555 rule where you should ask yourself “will this affect me in 5 minutes?” and if it does, ask yourself if it will affect you in 5 hours, days, weeks, months and years. If it doesn’t affect you for five years going forward, don’t spend more than five seconds stressing about it xD. Spend more time rebuilding and truly determining the value of things, and people. Build a mindset of growth where you’re focused on growing and also remember the lowest moments you’ve gone through which has left you in a place you’re currently at. You might have dealt with a low reputation and social/financial status where you were barely treated like a human at some point? Use it as a motivational drive for you to build more and more for yourself. You need to make sure to heal yourself and keep your mind as clean as possible. Don’t waste your energy, love and connection on those who aren’t ride or die, there will never be a way to determine if someone is loyal and ride or die because humans lie and always try to present themselves as being better than they truly are, all you can do is let people give up on you if they want to. Don’t hold onto connections too tightly, it isn’t always that you’ve done something wrong. You seem to know logically that it’s not up to you to make everything right but you like to try until the end so that you don’t have any regrets which is a good trait but you need to train yourself to let others go, to let them be, to let them think, feel and experience life the way they want to, if they think that it’s better off without you.

Find solace in solitude but be open to connecting. You’re allowed to be mad at people even after all this time because you seem to have been done pretty dirty at some point but crying over spilt cups doesn’t do anything. You’re being told to never forget your sorrowful and low moments, and how you managed to rise above it but also always focus on moving forward with love. Have love for yourself, for the world and everyone within it. Your genuine and thoughtful nature which causes you to notice little details such as how someone is looking for a pencil in their pencil bag just to not find it when the test has already started, etc. is what makes you so special. Your essence is entwined with love. No matter how happy you are, don’t forget the sorrow that still exists in the world. Use the knowledge and resources you’ve managed to gain so far to try, and help others. You do not have to do anything beyond your means but just do as much as you can. Always lead with love because the bravest leaders are able to hold love. Anyone can push their will without compassion for the rest of the people involved if put in a position of power. That’s dictatorship, not love. They’re usually resented or/and feared, not respected. Kind people who do not bend over backwards to please others but still lead with love and understand the reality of the world, the suffering of others and seek to love, to give, to serve are respected and become natural leaders, and role models. Aspire to be more loving and kind but don’t forget your negative experiences of the past, don’t let them have a hold on you but understand that some people, their minds, actions and intentions are so dirty, and disgusting that it is better if we do not even understand how they think because just five minutes into their psyche could leave people like us in a state of disbelief and lack of comprehension, pretty much traumatised. It would be difficult for us to even accept that someone can and does think that way, and that they exist in the same world as us. With that being said, spend more time compassionately extending yourself and your love to the world but don’t trust just anyone, don’t let just anyone in and understand that it’s sometimes better not to understand why people do what they do, and how they think, and how they truly are. Be discerning and understand that you don’t owe anything to anyone, you do owe certain things, qualities, actions and responsibilities to those you have personal connections with but don’t bend over backwards for the rest. Feel free to reject romantic connections without feeling bad, in fact, you need to do it more.

Understand that you’re not at a lack, I personally do not like to believe in the concept of ‘options’ but understand that there are a lot of possibilities and that you deserve the best, you deserve what you give out, don’t be thirsty enough to settle. Fiercely be yourself, defend yourself from the inside by not letting anything affect you even if you do not externally do it. Have faith that you’ll find the kind of people and connections you deserve, and desire, and don’t settle for anything less. Move on to bigger and better things, and leave anything, and everything behind if it doesn’t serve you well. Don’t regret anything, don’t forgive people in order to reconcile with them, don’t hold grudges but don’t forget the disrespect so that you’re not naive enough to let them or anyone put you in a similar position again. Don’t settle for being anything less than a priority. You need to get rid of the mindset that there’s always someone else. Understand that even if there is someone else, it doesn’t lessen your value. When the presence of a third party is made known to you, take it as a blessing, a sign that you deserve better than that and that it’s time for you to walk away. Real life of example of this is that you could be gold by there are people who still prefer silver despite gold being more valuable. Understand that you’ve done the best that you could and don’t be scared of changes, reflect on the changes you’ve already undergone and how they have affected you positively instead, and readily welcome changes. Do not act moody with others and don’t overextend empathy either. Carry yourself as though you’ve literally won a lottery worth a million dollars or even better, as if you’ve earned it. You’re being told that it’s time to let go of your childhood trauma or trauma related to beauty, attractiveness, etc. during your younger days. If you felt like you were romantically unlikeable back then, it’s okay. Think what you want but know that it’s not your reality anymore. There’s no need to feel hopeless and unattractive remembering past days, and events when you’ve so obviously changed. Stop thinking that you need to change anything about your standards, that they’re too high, etc. when that’s not the reality. Don’t change yourself for love and connections, and only engage when there’s mutuality and ethics involved. Don’t wake up all night overthinking. I’m getting really high cortisol levels for some of you. It’s like, when you get in bed, for a while you’re unable to sleep because when you try, you feel uncomfortable, you feel a tingly sensation that makes you want to fidget, you just feel irritable at that time honestly.

You’re being told not to overthink during the day and at night, and to try and go to bed early if possible. If you cry before bed after replaying the default negative thoughts or possibly even adding onto them, you need to minimise it until you stop completely. You’re being told to meditate at night, especially before bed. Don’t give up, you can’t afford to do so right now because I’m getting that some of you do not come from fortunate families where you’re naturally well respected, it’s something that you’ll have to earn. Others of you, even though you’ve grown a lot, there’s a certain standard that you hold yourself to and have a vision for. You’re bound to get there if you keep pushing forward but you do not need to be hard on yourself or disregard your value as you are. You are already who you want to be, you’ve just not received the peak that you desire yet but the core is still the same, when you become successful, you’re not going to ‘become’ someone because you’re already that someone, you’re just going to have more achievements to show for it at that time. You’re an overachiever in every aspect, you feel like you need to be witty, smart and intelligent person, who has a life and multiple things going for them but also someone who is well balanced in their work and home life, you think that you need to be emotionally available and understanding as well, and ethical, principled and respectable if you want to be loved, and that’s great. You should strive to maintain these skills and grow them accordingly but know that you are not unworthy of love just because you might fall short in certain ways and situations. Be nice to yourself, you’re just human and trying your best. You are doing well but this deep rooted belief of your unworthiness brought about by past experiences when you were younger and your mind was more impressionable still affects you, you seem to logically know that every thought that your mind comes up is not true but this belief is deep rooted, and is going to have to be pulled from the very root itself for it to stop bothering you. The most effective way of doing so is going to require self control and mental strength, when such thoughts come into your mind, affirm to yourself that they’re not true, remind yourself and just let those thoughts go, do it every time until you eventually start believing that it’s not true because as soon as something like that comes up, you already know that it’s not true. You’re doing very well already though, you’re just being told to continue going. “Stay optimistic” is what I just heard. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 3 ꒱

꒰ Your current self ꒱

You are letting external stuff affect you internally and question, and change your beliefs, and mindset. You are questioning yourself, the purpose of life and seem really shaken internally. You are trying to have an even judgement but are struggling to focus on work, are ungrounded, burnt out, overworked and heavily burdened. You have an interesting personality, you feel like everything is your responsibility. Some of you had gotten rid of such traits in the past for a while but they just came right back and that’s because they weren’t plucked from the roots so the roots sprouted until it grew into something like this. You need to be nicer to yourself. So well, your judgement is slightly more even than before, you’re able to see things more clearly and now that that’s the case, you’re thinking about the cold, harsh and unrealistically high standards that you were demanded to meet while not even receiving something as basic as loyalty and respect. “Now and then I think of all the times that you screwed me over, making me believe it was always something that I had done” is the energy that I’m getting here. For some of you, you think that the grass is green right where you are, that you are stuck? I think there are multiple groups of people here. I’ll just characterise you all, one by one, the first one are hung up on someone from their past but are also angry at them so if the other person tries to talk to them or were to do so, they’d blow off. They seem to be feeling the connection deeply, having fears and have found different sides of themself due to the connection. They’re feeling things very intensely, they’re likely wanting to make up with the other person but feel out of control emotionally, they love their person a lot but there’s a lot of anger involved too. They are feeling pretty desperate, they do not even care if the other person wronged them because they feel like there was a reason, like the understanding that you have for the other person is not fair to you. The second group is desperately trying to make up with the other person and mad at themself even though it’s the other party that did them wrong? The third group is probably still with the person and is scared of leaving. The final group is farther off in their journey from the previous three. This group has an even judgement of the mistreatment she faced. I just heard ‘unpaid labour’ could be of any kind - mental, emotional or/and physical. All the groups are fearing the unknown but this group in particular is more disappointed than anything. This group is holding back from people and situations that could be similar in nature and tends to overthink but is focused on diligently working, this group is likely prioritising self, money, stability, education, skills, etc. above connections right now. They prioritise connections but only want them with people who are diligent, hard working, ethical and long term focused. A deep level of incompatibility is present with whoever you’re dealing with or dealt with in all the groups. The final group has a love for children, understanding just how innocent they are or they could hold a particular child dear to them, or a place with children around could have affected them significantly and they hold it dear. If not, they dream about their childhood, they reminisce about the past, they think about their hometown, they might in fact be in their home town, etc. If you belong to this group, I’m just going to talk to you in first person now. If you belong to the other groups, you’re free to read it because this is who you’ll grow into if you simply just find a little more courage and if you’re not planning on doing better, this reading is useless.

I’m saying it with peace and love but there’s no future self, you’re going to be stuck in this energy or even worse if you do not free yourself from it. You’re being warned, if someone has started acting up and disrespecting you, if you’re starting to hurt “don’t worry, this is just the beginning” is what you’re being told. However getting back to the final group of people, this group is mad that they ever thought they were meant for something so less, that they were acting so desperate for something or someone with little to no value. All of the groups are likely to have quite a temper. You sometimes end up comparing yourself and your achievements to other’s. However, you try to ground yourself by doing routine activities, to get you back in touch with reality. You have become intolerant after everything that you had to tolerate in the past. You still don’t understand certain things, you have fears, confusion and overthink just like others but this seems to be a channel for you to get to know yourself deeper, to form a deeper relationship and understanding of yourself so that you can be more at peace with yourself, and your life experience is richer. Not everyone has such an access to their own psyche, you do, you should make use of it. You tend to feel things very intensely and that has doomed you at times but you’re starting to heal, you have a chance to move on without any regrets. You could be realising that anything and anyone you lost in the past was not even all that after all, that they weren’t as valuable as you acted like they were 💀. “Was it just my emotions that made them seem so interesting and worth fighting for?” You desire connections to be so deep that it is almost codependent in nature, you might not accept it outwardly but think about it, what I’m saying is true. You want to blend and become one with the one you’re sharing your heart with. You’re struggling with feeling worthy and beautiful. While you’re not as down bad as the rest of the groups anymore, you’ve developed certain emotions and beliefs that aren’t accurate. The problem here is that your self worth is reliant on how others have treated you, how they treat you, etc. instead of who you truly are. Many of you here are doing well enough to know that it’s all in your head but you just become very vulnerable when the past issues come up, you’re unable to think straight because you just felt so unloved and unnurtured at some point that it was difficult to not relate your worth with it. You are very excessive as a lover or possibly even when you simply just love people, you might like to touch them, talk to them, write for them, just show your love to them in any and every way possible. Sometimes, you might not even want to separate from them at all. Right now, you seem to be a bit more distant though. You’re scared of connection and choosing to put yourself first even if it feels selfish sometimes. You have trust issues and doubt loyalty of others. You also feel like others have a misalignment of values causing you to not be able to connect with them even if you’d like. You’ve finally become biased towards yourself. You don’t mind not fitting in. In fact, you’re embracing being the misunderstood but innovative black sheep. You are supposed to use the rage, insecurities, doubts, everything as motivation to create yourself and life as you want it, and also to build more power and intellect. You’re on your way to grow to be so resourceful and action oriented that you won’t ask questions, you won’t chase anything, you’ll just know that what you want you’ll get it and if you don’t, it’s because there’s something else that’s better. You know that you have unlimited potential, it’s time to try and harness it, bring that potential to life and make something out of it because otherwise, it’s just that ‘potential’, nothing tangible will come out of it.

꒰ Your future self ꒱

Your future self is a powerful person who knows how to carry themself and is controlled. You’re also going to be someone who is reliable and understanding. Someone who is more action oriented. You’re going to be wise and have many decisions, you’re either already indecisive or are going to be like that at that time. You could just be torn between something at that time. Life will not be working in your favour, in fact, things that you didn’t even expect will have happened. For some of you, certain events that were out of your control but turned your world upside down have already happened, for the rest, it has not. However, you’ll have dealt with even more significant life changes by then. You’ll have a lot of responsibilities and burdens that you’ll be carrying mentally. You’re going to have an inner contentment but also an acknowledgment of your previous dreams having been broken. we You’ll still be recovering from the extreme changes that you’ll have experienced. You could possibly have a crush on someone at that time or might be in an innocent kind of a love relationship, could simply be a deep and mutual platonic connection too. I’m leaning more so towards a crush or a friendship because I’m getting that you’ll have too much going on in your life to be in a relationship though some of you could be trying. You’re going to be an emotionally intelligent person who wants a deep soulmate like connection otherwise. Even if you do not necessarily use that word, you’re going to want a deep, devoted and respectful connection where you see and choose each other, and each other only. You’re going to be desiring one on one connections definitely but I’m not getting any sort of desperation from your future self. They’re going to have healed a lot and will still be doing so, they’ll have forgiven and learned a lot as well, and will not be willing to settle anything less than what they desire. You’re going to have some confusions, overthinking and fears but mostly, you’re going to know yourself and have the ability to meet others at a very deep level. You’re going to have the ability to almost telepathically understand others. You’re going to have found out many truths about people and will have gotten a very deep dive into not your subconscious but the unconscious like random realisations of self, others and life will be coming to you out of nowhere. You’ll realise really deep side of yourself, others and life i.e. the dirtier sides too so you could be feeling humiliated. I’m not sure how to put it for you. It’s just going to be uncomfortable. Let me give an example, there was once a point when I deeply connected to someone. That person touched a very sensitive part of me that I was not even aware existed.

When we separated for some reason I thought it was all my fault and was being humiliated publicly too but the inner humiliation was much worst, now I’ve grown more aware of the other person’s motivations and dirtier sides, and have learned the deeper aspects of myself beyond just the sides that caused me to feel ashamed and humiliated. I feel like the feeling that I’m trying to describe is not being channeled out properly through words due to how is more of something that one experiences first hand than something that can be expressed through words. The way I remember back then is that it was a very confusing and overwhelming time but also otherworldly like I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel anything like it again due to how much self awareness I’ve cultivated and how one of a kind it was, plus I’m not as naive as I was back then. Back then, I was suddenly pushed into a place that felt unfamiliar and realising things about myself, others, and life. It felt scary, confusing and overwhelming. Especially because I was getting to know myself on a very deep level and my focus was on the negative, dirtier parts of myself but little did I know that overtime I’d understand myself deep enough to understand why these sides of me exist and also to see parts of myself that was once unknown to me. Also that the unnecessary shame and humiliation that I once felt would turn disappointment with others as I’d see their true colours and understand their intents. You’ll be regretting giving these energies so much power in the past. You’ll feel like you unnecessarily sacrificed so much and dealt with so much humiliation, and scrutiny. I wonder if you’ve already undergone whatever situation or event this is. You are going to be contemplating how stupid it was of you to let things get to your head or think that you were the problem in any way when you weren’t. You may have dealt with external humiliation too, you’re going to feel like you should have stood up for yourself and fought back. You’re going to be in a more stable position in life but will be dealing with issues with beauty, women, mother, females in general or possibly your own, or someone else’s lack of femininity and nurturing. You’re going to be healing and will be putting your personal matters, and self to be sacred. You’re going to want to or will have to spend a lot of time by yourself either by will or unavoidable circumstances. One thing that’s standing out strongly is that the door for the past is going to be almost completely closed. Your sex drive is going to be excessive but it will manifest more so as you having to masturbate every morning or/and night. Your libido is going to have grown with you 😭.

꒰ What do you need to spend more and less time doing ? ꒱

The issues that you’re dealing with are related to money, being a person of character, accepting life’s lows, accepting life’s endings and changes. Don’t get me wrong, you’re doing your best but there are better ways to deal with things. There’s this saying that goes “follow your dreams or desires” and well, life is short so you should follow your desires but I personally believe that the saying should go “follow your dharma (faith, good deeds, path of righteousness and virtue) alongside your kama (desires and pleasure)”, following your path is so much more important than following your desires because your path is right here, in the present, your desires can be grounded into reality overtime but you need to maintain a steady path first. Be a good and reliable figure to your community, and family even if they’re being difficult. Don’t do so to people please, do so because that’s right. Of course, if you’re being beaten and abused, that’s different. Also, understand that life is a cycle of good and bad. Some people have really simple and easygoing lives with their problems being very sophisticated. Such as, issues with visa, their love life going poorly or them not being invited somewhere. Some of us don’t have the privilege to have our love life or documents be our biggest problems. No matter where you belong on the ladder of wealth and no matter how low of a point you’re in, accept it and try to work with it by accepting things as they are. Don’t try to reminisce when things hadn’t changed yet unless you’re going to learn from it and instead accept changes, accept the negative circumstances and work to even them out. Treat people well even when you’re at your lowest and learn how to be the bigger person because trust me, you’re going to be very hard on yourself and hence, unhappy if you are unable to maintain a certain level of good character. Keep service in mind and instead of desiring for others to be kind to you, to receive favours from others, be the one who’s kind to others and gives them favours. Don’t give favours to those who don’t need or appreciate it like peers who are rich enough or have other people to help them but give it to poor children who might not have money to buy study material for school for example. You’re also being told that you’ll never be empty handed, don’t be scared of giving to those who can’t give back to you. Learn how to perceive people as ‘limited’, some people just don’t have it in them to match and meet you at the level that you need them to match, and meet you because that’s just their limit. You’re being told to give to those who truly need it but in the past, you’ve likely given to those who didn’t appreciate what you gave them and it felt unfair, it still does but you need to stop letting it weigh on your mind. You are not at a lack because the more you give, the more you receive, from elsewhere but you’re receiving. You are being told to stop giving to ungrateful people but to not feel bad about having done so in the past. You need to firstly make the decision to become a controlled individual who is the bigger person in situations, compassionate, loving and strong towards self and all and then to spend more time making sure you make this a reality.

Become more empathetic and develop more emotional intelligence, and wisdom i.e. also learning how to self regulate emotions better, controlling your attention to not let things get to you and learning how to not take things personally. You need to understand that people do what they do and that it often won’t have much to do with you and if it does, learn from it instead of letting it burden you. Make peace with yourself and forgive yourself, and others. Don’t let emotional issues weigh on you and don’t try to be responsible for other’s emotional well being, listen to them and be there for them if you want to but don’t carry it within yourself because it’s still their issue to deal with. Even if you try to help them, understand that it’s their karma to work through it and the only thing you can do is guide them, and the best way to guide them is by learning how to become the bigger person and by leading by example. You need to ground yourself better and passionately go after your goals, try not to hold any negative feelings or intentions towards anyone because one who holds a hot coal to throw it at someone else will only end up getting himself burnt. Keep your vision of a family in tact and strive to be the kind of person you’d want to share a family with, you are being told to keep your ego, pain and past resentments aside in order to look after your family and community. Treat people well while they’re around you even if you do not share a long term connection of any sort with them. The thing is that people won’t remember what your hair looked like, what you were wearing, etc. until you’re striking enough to have them remember how you made them feel. Besides, if your visual appeal is the most memorable thing about you, you need to start doing better in life. Spend time loving yourself and try to improve your focus, get rid of habits such as procrastination and spend more time by yourself, trying to build the life you desire. Also, learn how to be grateful and feel content with the abundance you already possess. For example, you don’t have good parents, friends or money but share a lovely bond with your siblings, understand that that in itself is a blessing. Just train yourself to see life as being half full instead of half empty. Spend less time in your mind. You feel passionately about your past, you’ve spent so much time in it after all but what you’re not realising or may have realised but aren’t being able to get rid of is how the issues of the past make you become that version of you temporarily or within your mind even though that’s not who you are anymore because there’s just a thin line between what was and what is. The energy that I’m getting is someone who was on the chubbier side and bullied for it being unable to get rid of the trauma despite being skinny. It doesn’t have to be the same thing but that’s the kind of mindset that you sometimes end up operating under. You know in your logical mind that you’re not who you used to be but it’s difficult for you to fully grasp it and get rid of what you identified with for such a long time. Whatever it is, the past you and the experiences you’ve had have caused you to have wounds concerning your self worth.

There’s this feeling of staying put mentally despite having had breakthroughs physically. For example, I was humiliated pretty badly for being ugly in middle school and it honestly feels like severe bullying to me despite nothing physical having happened so even though I’ve grown into my features, become prettier, understand that I didn’t deserve such cruel treatment simply because of the way I looked, the effects of that time have stuck to me. I do not like talking about myself because for the most part, I’m doing well and I know that I’m worthy but on certain days, the past just haunts me. Thankfully, I do not let it have a hold on me anymore though, you might be in a similar energy, you could be either in the same energy or the energy that I experienced earlier when I had just recently started changing and was not acting like the changes yet because my mind hadn’t even registered it properly yet. You’re a passionate person who has a strong character with good discernment, reasoning and virtues, and have become a go getter, and are grateful, happy and content but the self worth issues haven’t been gutted out of your system yet. Emotionally, you’ve been at terrible lows and have pulled yourself out of them in order to get better, and more stable. You also know yourself on a very deep level because you were exposed to and either are still exploring or have explored really deep into your psyche, the subconscious as well as the unconscious. You are aware of your dirty sides and your pure ones, one more thing that you’re aware of is how deep your emotions and self runs. You understand that humans are complex and have a lot of unconscious things that affect them, and that most of them never get a peek into their subconscious and unconscious but you did, it was scary, confusing and very overwhelming but you’ve still managed to come out as an empathetic and emotionally intelligent person. You need to stop thinking about the abandonments you’ve faced, many of the self worth and other issues that you’re dealing with seem to be a result of others abandoning you or hurting your emotions in such ways that you had no choice but to leave them. You haven’t moved on yet, you’re being told to move on. It’s funny because you seem to know that whatever and whoever you lost was not even that great to begin with but you so can’t help but have regrets and guilt over not having walked away sooner, not having seen the true colours early on, having ignored them and having gotten emotionally involved at all but you are also being unable to move on, you’re done with these situations though like you’re completely fed up and are grateful to be in a better place now. You’re being told to look at things as they were, that situations lacked fairness, you were probably even disrespected, these people weren’t reliable or high value, and misused your affections for them. Understand that you never truly belonged in their world because if you did, you’d still be with them. Some of these people weren’t even honest with you either in the beginning, towards the end or throughout the connection. Spend less time thinking about the betrayal and their sneaky, and messed up ways, and more time accepting them, and understanding that there’s nothing you can do except move on. By this point, you’ve gotten well enough to not hurt or cry anymore, so stop reminiscing and replaying the pain. You need to heal enough to start finding these situations boring because trust me, there’s more to life than this. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

#pac #pac reading #pick a card #tarot pac #tarot pick a card #pick a card reading #intuitive readings #pick a deck #pick a photo

636 notes · View notes

canine-economy · 2 months ago

Text

Daisuke’s Death and the Invisible Abuse of “Privileged” Children

tw: extensive discussions of child emotional abuse

Another mouthwashing text analysis before I post any polished art? Shocker. But I really really appreciate the reception on my Swansea post, especially as a new account! This Daisuke-centric analysis is gonna be a quick one (< this was a lie. long read ahead!) but he is a character who resonates deeply personally with me as a victim of abuse that looked very much like his own. I do plan on doing a larger analysis of his character, but the abridged version necessary for this piece goes as follows:

Daisuke’s treatment in the narrative—both his implied home life and Jimmy’s taking advantage of him to go into the vent—is another one of this game’s excellent portrayals of normalized (and thus invisibilized) abuse. Children are often cited as one of the most vulnerable classes of people, if not the most vulnerable (I acknowledge that Daisuke is not a child, but Mouthwashing implies that this narrative of his inadequacy has persisted throughout his upbringing and, to this day, he is dictated tasks and lacks independence, treated like a dependent. His youth is also an undisputed feature of his character and, most importantly, the cast treats him like a kid). Children’s dependency on adults and our willingness as a society to accept that the adults in their lives provide the most objective perspective on these young people renders them particularly prone to abuse easily swept under the rug or “justified” by wardens who possess the power to dictate the narrative. Jimmy’s engagement with Daisuke is an extension of the latter’s vulnerability. The co-pilot’s assertion that “he’ll be fine (…) mommy and daddy have him covered” at the birthday party represents a deference to Daisuke’s parents as adequate caretakers who will ensure his longevity and comfort on the basis of their wealth. And we know that Daisuke’s parents think the same—the Q&As reveal that they believe they are doing the best to secure their son a good future. However, the same Q&As indicate that they don’t actually engage with or understand Daisuke’s interests and that their approach to parenting him is entirely understood through their personal beliefs, not those of their son. And Daisuke clearly carries that quite close to his heart. He seems to struggle with identity and acceptance, seeking validation in the form of praise. Daisuke is defined through what he can do for others and not what he independently brings to the table, because that has never mattered where he grew up. The consequences of his parents’ failure to meet his emotional needs ultimately conditioned Daisuke to be perfectly available to be taken advantage of in a corporate setting defined by capitalist attitudes and hierarchies.

While it’s not concrete to say that Daisuke grew up in an emotionally abusive household, it is most important that we cannot dismiss the possibility and that his behavior as the outcome of some obvious degree of neglect is well-aligned with this theory. Moreover, the young man who comes out of that household is easily targeted by Jimmy’s abusive tendencies as a direct result of what he internalizes growing up. Daisuke is apparently financially well-off (contextually we can’t be sure if Daisuke’s family is upper class, middle class, or somewhere in between), and with that comes privilege. Even the way he packs—multiple personalized outfits, entertainment devices, etc—reveal that he’s used to certain comforts and hasn’t yet acclimated to the harsh expectations of companies like the Pony Express. But, especially where young people are concerned, it is all too easy to allow this privilege to act as a curtain between abuse and the outside world. We can acknowledge the privilege and also recognize that it benefits his parents much more than it benefits him as a young person.

Emotional abuse is complex and extremely damaging and Daisuke *does* show symptoms of at least being constantly verbally accosted and emotionally neglected by his parents to the point of permanently warping his sense of self. It also generated his overreliance on authority figures to tell him how to keep himself safe in their world. His mother apparently insulted him to his face (“such a slacker, she said”, and being reprimanded for being too talkative [from the Daisuke teaser]), and a lot of his negative self talk (“total screw-up”, “fuck up”, etc) is reminiscent of how people define themselves by parroting what they are called after internalizing consistent externally-imposed definitions of their identity. While these are not surefire indicators of abuse and I am not willing to diagnose a situation as abusive purely predicated on these factors, the behaviors Daisuke exhibits as a result share many commonalities with those of victims of childhood abuse. In fact, just about every time Daisuke speaks about himself in Mouthwashing, he mentions his failures and his work. It’s not lost on me that the teaser for the whole character is him pondering his mother and how she might not recognize him if he isn’t noisy and obnoxious. He personally puts a lot of stock in their assessment of him as lazy and annoying, but nevertheless tries to accomplish learning through the internship. Furthermore, Daisuke takes on a lot of his mother’s pain, hoping she doesn’t blame herself for the negative things that happen to him (even though in the same scene he reveals that she’s the reason he’s on the stranded Tulpar at all), indicating that he has taken responsibility for the feelings of people in his life even when those people are not his to care for and even bear responsibility for his pain.

Now in young adulthood, Daisuke rarely seems to have any sense of self beyond his parents and his work aside from one-off quips about baseball and babes. It suggests that he has always had to prioritize his parents’ desires growing up to avoid being treated unfairly and even cruelly, stunting his self-discovery. In abusive situations, your understanding of safety and your pursuit thereof are radically impacted and we see this manifest in Daisuke’s continuing willingness to accept those in command as the pinnacle of safety over what one might consider logical, personal acts of self-preservation. He equates safety with obedience, and I contend that that equivalence suggests a lot about how his parents reprimanded deviance from their plans. And not to be that guy, but it is kind of outright cruel to dump your utterly inexperienced teenager-to-early-20-something on a 1 year, no contact, unsafe space voyage in a failing industry knowing that he doesn’t have the necessary skillset yet. That’s what his parents do when they aren’t satisfied with his progress, and it’s intense and disproportionate and alarming! Especially for the dependent! They toss him into the deep end of the corporate machine and insist he learns to swim in such an oppressive, stifling atmosphere. It’s no surprise that he drowns, especially when he himself can’t recognize this as an unrealistic expectation and tackles it with everything he’s got because his parents are theoretically always right about what he needs. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that normalized emotional abuse from the home and how it maps onto a victim’s adult life is a topic Mouthwashing would endeavor to touch on, because visibilizing invisible abuses of power in heteropatriarchal capitalist schemes is arguably the central undertaking of the game.

I don’t think Daisuke has evil parents or anything, rather that what we accept as “good parenting” and “good mentorship” is often negligent with regard to emotional needs and can easily become a source of heavy trauma for the children and mentees if that emotional aspect is stretched too thin in the pursuit of success. Not all abuse is intentional, and the dev Q&As imply that Daisuke’s parents thought they were sincerely investing in his future. They cared, just not in the best way for his wellbeing. Because capitalism emphasizes the individualistic pursuit of success above all else, it’s no wonder that a parent would think that the best thing they can give their kid is an avenue to prosper financially. But in doing so, Daisuke’s parents deny him the opportunity to define himself, to experience agency, and to build up confidence. Effectively, they create a young man so vulnerable to abuse by higher-ups (a manifestation of abuse that is often intentional at the systemic level) that he decides to climb into that vent at Jimmy’s discretion under the pretense that he will make somebody proud. Because that’s how Daisuke has been raised to understand himself and his place—the presumed screw-up boy as a default, making you proud by doing the right thing, who has learned to pursue that achievement to avoid the condescension and disproportionate backlash (e.g. the internship itself) that comes with failure. Everything circles back to his parents’ expectations that he makes for a good worker. When the cocktail knocks Swansea out, Daisuke makes an offhand comment about getting a bad reference—even in the most dire of circumstances, he can’t stop thinking about their capitalistic expectations for his “good” future.

I find that Daisuke really is such a good subtle portrayal of how parents with resources can get away with emotionally stunting their children because we perceive their ability to put a roof over their heads, food on their plate, etc as adequate parenting and even a privilege for the child when it should be the bare minimum. Jimmy certainly buys into it, and even some of the fandom parrots that, really and truly believing Daisuke is some good-for-nothing kid who doesn’t try hard when all we see is him working, including climbing into the vents to try and help despite not being assigned the work (foam scene, not his death). I find this reception shows how inclined we are to accept those narratives of the privileged child’s inadequacy before we address the parent for not fulfilling a child’s emotional needs, which are just as important if not more than the material.

To wrap this up with a quick discussion of the symbolism of his death in the context of the emotional abuse of children (which is the reason I made this whole post but I can’t talk about this guy without going off): Daisuke getting so badly injured trying to do what’s right is a very physical manifestation of the suffering he was already going through. It is the pain of constantly people-pleasing and of holding it all in when he’s lashed out at. He gets injured at all in the pursuit of appeasing Jimmy and (theoretically) Swansea, both of whom he blindly trusts despite how they treat him because he has always been expected to just adhere to the adults with authority in his life. Being talked down to by them is not new and has never been a reason to question their judgement. Daisuke sees this as a product of his own inadequacy as implied by other people, and not of external cruelty. He was raised not to question the system for fear of repercussions.

Jimmy is perfectly situated to coerce him into a dangerous situation because Daisuke has never been taught to say no. The safest option for a scared child is to trust their mentors, and an adult Daisuke does just that. Even Swansea’s teachings of safety are dismantled by Jimmy’s tactical use of captainhood to break the camel’s back. Authority. Daisuke must always listen to authority. Jimmy knows the vent isn’t safe. Swansea tells him directly and he observes the foam incident (if from a distance). For as much as he acts like he cares about taking responsibility for Daisuke’s safety, his individualistic pursuit of “fixing” things manifests in Jimmy again taking advantage of a vulnerable person on the ship. Jimmy doesn’t reconcile Daisuke’s eagerness to help with lessons on safety like Swansea does, but rather uses it only when it benefits him. Daisuke is taught by his upbringing to accept this kind of treatment—for safety, defer to the leader in the room even if it hurts and you don’t want to do it (just like he didn’t want to be on the Tulpar in the first place).

Then, once the intern is out of the vent and mortally wounded, Jimmy applies the mouthwash (a product to be sold, hauled in the interest of the corporation) to “help” sanitize the wounds. But the sugar content negates medical utility and only worsens the pain. We can interpret this as the application of material privilege, “sweetness”, that wasn’t actually any help at all to solve the deep wounds left by emotional pains. Mouthwash rids you of the bad taste but doesn’t kill all the underlying germs. One could argue further that in this scene, the mouthwash is specifically representative of the Pony Express internship: a rare stepping stone in the corporate hustle gained through privilege and presented as a boon. Like the mouthwash, the internship is imposed on Daisuke to try and “help” him succeed and be better, but it only elevates the pain by irritating the wounds and ends in his agonizing demise. However, this fine-tuned comparison isn’t necessary to my point. I find the broad implications of the mouthwash as an antiseptic immensely representative of parents and caretakers who don’t seem abusive to the outside world but who are actually subversively hurting their children and ultimately conditioning them to be victimized by capitalist attitudes. Our deference to material comforts and corporate opportunities as indicators of wellness renders us blind to where caretakers fail to address the emotional needs of young people. At the end of the day, Daisuke is still killed by the values his parents have instilled in him. It’s always the “captain’s” (literal or figurative) orders that seal the deal and cut off any of his autonomous doubt or dictation (for example, his desire to listen to Swansea and not go in the vent). His parents’ symbolic and saccharine gestures mean very little in the scheme of creating a person who can survive the pressures of the “real world” when malicious actors (JIMMY.) and the capitalist enterprise as a whole bear down on the cracks of an emotionally taxing youth.

A/N: Maybe I’m thinking about all of this too hard, but the beauty of Mouthwashing is that I’m never quite sure that’s the case as this game feels so deliberate. Anyway, as somebody who has clinically diagnosed PTSD stemming from childhood, this has always been a really important analysis to posit and I finally found the time to put it into words. I feel like Daisuke as a symbol is often overlooked by the fandom. He’s enjoyed, yes, but not really broken down like the others are. That diminishing of his importance and his feelings about the situation also feels like a symptom of his age. But that’s neither here nor there—like I said, I believe I could do a much more in-depth analysis of Daisuke as a victim of subtle abuse but this will have to do for now. A lot of my major points have been made, anyway! Perhaps video format would be best for something longer-form. 🌺

#.txt 🌊#mouthwashing #mouthwashing analysis #daisuke mouthwashing #not tagging Jimmy but he’s mentioned here #mouthwashing game #oh my god this is so long I’m so sorry #I have an actual class essay to write but here’s daisuke mouthwashing I guess

503 notes · View notes