#Tumblr killed it. I know nothing but suffering in my life

[kyouka-supremacy]

I am totally pushing the aku top of the school agenda HOWEVER this mf would pop a vein before tutoring anyone (teaching math would end up in murder)

I swear I am extremely fascinated by and genuinely interested to understand what prompts this fairly spread perception of smart Akutagawa because I really can't see it.

Akutagawa is THE flawed character of the franchise. He has barely any redeemeing qualities. His being a ruthless, mindless dog, a beast, an animal is a central theme of his character: he's one of the most inhuman characters, no rationality, no emotions. It only makes sense he'd also be lacking in intellect, one of the most intrinsically human qualities, right? Let's also keep in mind that when it comes to intelligence, he was specifically trained since a very early age so that he wouldn't develop any critical thinking skill or wisdom. He was appositely built to be an executor, never a thinker. A killing machine, a mindless beast. He was made to be a tool, not a person. He is the very epitome of irrationality- and that much shows in everything he does! There's plenty canon evidence to support it. His actions are never guided by preliminary thoughts, he just acts on instinct, akin to an animal. He will kill his target in chapter 4 although his mission is specifically not to, he will barge into a building full of security guards right through the front door without even ordering his subordinates to offer support, he will go rogue and storm into the Moby Dick destroying everything in his path no matter the consequences, he will naïvely jump off a balcony to catch a repetitor just because his worst enemy said it had Dazai-san on the line- do I have to continue? His whole character is exclusively driven either by orders, or by instinct and irrationality. Guys, it would have been SO MUCH EASIER if upon seeing Ranpo's message Akutagawa had just took out his phone and gone “hey Chuuya-san, it's likely we've found the mastermind and the whole thing will be solved here at this place, can you come over one second?”. But he didn't, and it's not simply a matter of suspension of disbelief (in the way that the events are more satisfying this way). Was it for his pride then? Indeed, but Akutagawa's pride and irrationality are in a perpetual concomitant relationship of cause and effect, where one is constantly born from the other. I do think his very simple and straight-forward objectives (1. kill the Jinko 2. be acknowledge by Dazai-san 3. die) are themselves expression of his simple mindset, and so is a certain naïvety he has, that I honestly wish more people took into account when characterizing him.

It's funny because, the thematic relevance of it is the whole point- in reality, I don't think there's such a thing as a stupid person, I firmly believe everyone has their own kind of intelligence, a field each of us excells in. But it's exactly because Akutagawa isn't a person (well. in this context at least), but a character, that one can push a characteristic to its extremes in order to make it symbolic of something, in order to make an archetype out of his character. And Akutagawa at his core is irrationality, he is Dazai's failed trainee and ugliest foil, he is the ultimate pawn, he is the beast. The fact that Akutagawa is a character– it's relevant. He's not a person, he's a vassel for themes. I can dare to rudely talk about him like he was an animal because it's the narrative itself that before anyone else pushes the reader to see him in a dehumanizing way. Akutagawa once literally tore the skin off a man's neck with his teeth effectively killing them. It's quite not simple dog coding anymore lol. But he's just a dude from a book really, he's just symbolism: and that's why he can become a dog, or a pawn, or the stupidest person of Yokohama, as the author or reader pleases. It's really not that deep ahah

I can guess a possible counterpoint would be that perhaps, in a universe where he wasn't subject to the slums and Dazai's abuse such as high schools aus, Akutagawa would get his chance to be witty? But then I can't help but think, if you don't make Akutagawa stupid... Aren't you taking a fundamental trait of his character away from him? What's left of Akutagawa then? What would be the point of reading, let's say, a sskk high school fic if you can't recognize Akutagawa in it? But then again I guess this is exactly the reason why I can't bring myself to like most of alternative universe bsd fics (╥﹏╥)

Also, ultimately, there *are* personal preference components to it. In my headcanon Akutagawa has autism / adhd, and although those don't always have a negative impact on one's academic results, there is a chance they do. And I'd honestly lean towards that chance more when it comes with Akutagawa, because he is the pathetic man that has everything going wrong for him. There's symptoms in his impulsivity and scarce self-control, and I believe they'd make school life very hard for him, especially when it comes to focusing in classes and for studying- which is fitting tbh, can you imagine Akutagawa ever having a happy life? (I'm jk I swear I love him)

Besides, I must have mentioned how one of the main appeals of sskk for me is how despite being thoroughly flawed people they can still be loved. It's surprisingly comforting to think that even the most evil of people can be loved, and it's the same when it comes for stupidity. Stretching Akutagawa's flaws just makes him more symphatetic and enjoyable to read about.

[theheirofthesharingan]

If you care, do you have any thoughts on Obito? Like him? Dislike him? Neutral? Any character analysis?

I don't really feel anything strongly about Obito. I like to write him in my fics, but only his Madara personality because it's so badass. The rest, I wish I cared about him enough. It's also because his whole story unravels in the war arc which happens after Itachi's second death. And at that time, I'd lost interest in the anime (and then manga altogether). I genuinely can't remember most of the things that aren't about Sasuke or Itachi. I would have cared about him more if the story focused a bit on him and Sasuke. That doesn't happen at all.

My opinions (ranging from indifference to criticism) come from the fandom's perception of him, where people en masse tend to either overlook or justify the horrible, unforgivable things he did, while also piling hate on Itachi. I've seen plenty of people here on Tumblr with the opinions "I love all Uchiha except for Itachi." or "All the Uchiha are hot, except for that Konoha bootlicker."

So this response will be a rant for all that I've seen.

I'm very much aware of his trauma which founded the base of all the things he would go on to do in the future. He was a good kid, who had a lot of kindness in his heart. But he didn't want to be the Hokage because he was good and wanted to change the world. But to prove himself to Rin. Not a bad motivation, considering he was just a kid, but nothing heroic about it too. Although, Madara took advantage of his love, innocence, and goodness to turn him into the bad guy whom we met in the story.

The problem with Obito is that he thinks he's the first person to acknowledge the world is a messed up place, and he needs to change it. In the process, he ends up making it much, much worse than it was before he pulled the things he does in canon.

This moment reeks of something more than the acquaintance both the men shared. Were they working together? Were they co-conspirators? There was something more going on with Danzo and Obito, and I have a theory that kind of works. Kushina's pregnancy was supposed to be a secret. It's likely Obito learned it from Danzo. But it is also likely Zetsu helped him.

Either way, there's more to his and Danzo's relationship than what we think.

The Akatsuki were founded to establish peace and end the conflict. But Obito, who wants to actually change the world, had Akatsuki's founding members manipulated too.

He also controlled the Mizukage, becoming the de facto leader of Kirigakure.

So, the man had the authority, the powers, the strategy, and all the resources, but he still uses his pain to make the things worst, just because he went through it.

He also knew the reason that Kakashi was not responsible for Rin's death. His anger is understandable, because the person he loved the most died at the hands of the other person he cared about the most. But he rationalises his actions and thinks he's doing the things for the betterment of the world where he and everyone can live happily.

Meanwhile the things he does are:

He's the reason Minato and Kushina died. Naruto becomes orphan and Jinchuriki because of him.

He was planning a war on Konoha, unprovoked. Conspiracy with Danzo is very much a possibility.

Itachi's entire life was destroyed because of him. Sasuke's entire life was destroyed because of him. Naruto's entire childhood was made miserable because of him.

Nine tails attack was totally unnecessary and killed a lot of people.

Fourth World War which killed thousands of people.

Akatsuki is said to have destroyed a lot of villages. All at his orders?

He also slaughtered the Uchiha clan along with Itachi.

Have I missed something? Let me know, please.

He was basically, I suffered so much. Why not make everyone else go through the same pain as I did?

I give Naruto characters a lot of benefit of doubt. A lot. But it doesn't work for Obito in my head. Madara and Pain becoming villains had a strong reason, but Obito, nope. You can't always let your childhood trauma drive you and make decisions for you, especially when you're an adult, but Obito did. He continued to justify himself until the very, very end.

Nearly all the evil things Danzo does have an unequivocal involvement of Obito too. In fact, while their goals might differ, their reasonings are the same. Danzo spent all his life manipulating and using vulnerable kids. Obito does the exact same thing. I'm going to sound like I'm high, but the evil things we see Danzo do were, in fact, a response to Obito's evil.

It's just Danzo had no reason to do the things he did and Obito was manipulated. But, like I said, you have to grow up at one point in your life, which he never does.

Many people consider him a good villain, but I find Pain better. That's just my preference to him as a character though.

I'm mostly indifferent towards him, until some Uchiha fanboy/fangirl on Tumblr (I'm active on Tumblr only) sprouts the "Obito wanted to change the system" and "Itachi was a Konoha bootlicker" bullshit. Then, I am going to come up with these opinions, because no, Obito was THE man responsible for Itachi becoming who he was.

Obito was a villain for a reason. His sob story personally does nothing to me because of the reasons I mentioned earlier, and also because it's "my crush died and it's the end of the world for me", when we also had Sasuke (who had stronger reasons to be worse than Obito) or Itachi, whose pain could have turned him into someone entirely a different person, but he not only had a self-awareness, but also lacked the tendency to prioritize his pain.

And then, this, this is the way his story concludes?

Well, imagine all of the lives he willingly took, all of the lives he deliberately destroyed, all of the pain he caused, only to have been forgiven for all the horrible things and have this kind of ending? And then also be a beloved character most of the fandom views as a "broken hero."

Not everyone is as lucky as him, you know?

Anyway. Like I said, I don't hate or like him. This is just the critique based on what Manga says. I haven't included anything from the novels, in which he's much more sinister. If one has anything to say, I'd like to hear it, but insults won't be tolerated.

[fuck-your-proana-blog]

Fellow disabled people/in recovery people/suicidal people, please avoid interaction with @skylarthethompson .

I tried to kill myself last year because of my ED and chronic pain. I was in a coma for 2 days, in the hospital for 2 weeks, and am still suffering the after affects of the damage the 3 months worth of pills I swallowed did to my brain and body, and I'm still struggling with suicidal thoughts due to my many physical and mental illnesses. I just hope me exposing this cruel human will keep them from hurting anyone else who is also struggling.

Telling someone they have nothing to live for is so fucking beyond ok and I just want to warn anyone else who is suffering from chronic pain/illnesses/disabilities and mental illnesses/suicidal ideation that this person is a cruel and insensitive troll and to not let them rent space in your mind.

I reported them; anyone else who sees this please report this despicable behavior so they don't do any further damage to the mentally ill/chronically ill community here on Tumblr.

The first comment is clearly suicide baiting, and I guess they realized that and tried to seem a little less depraved; but you can't undo saying shit like this:

Also, take a look at the victim mentality at work here: "you're a smart smart nice person and I'm a dumb dumb mean person." 🙄.

And then there's the fake "do-gooder" story. So telling a very disabled person that their life isn't worth living is helping, and "a good coping mechanism"?? Anyone with half a braincell can tell you're just trying to seem less like an asshole when you've been exposed as one. Nice try to not seem like an absolute garbage person; but it didn't work.

And this selfishness: "I don't feel safe now! I don't want my virtual life ruined! I don't want gross people telling me horrible insults when my mental health can't take it!" Funny, because I didn't want your gross opinion on why I should just kill myself because my life is too miserable to be worth living with all my mental and physical illnesses. Nice ableism you got there. Also I didn't ask anyone to send you "horrible insults." I just asked my followers to avoid and report you for suicide baiting; which is a very severe problem on the internet that no one deserves; least of all mentally and physically disabled people like me and many of my followers.

"Please don't ruin my life over this!" If you say things online that you don't want everyone to see, that you can come to acknowledge are the actions of an asshole, that's your problem. Don't tell people they should just give up and kill themselves if you don't want people to see how heartless you are. If your life is "ruined" by something you said you have no one to blame but yourself.🤷

And of course the classic "I reported your post; I won't let you ruin my Tumblr life." ...are you even serious? You wrote those words; all I did was take screenshots and show them to my followers so they don't become victims of your harassment themselves- not everyone has the great support system I do, so they deserve a warning about people like you. Plus I said nothing wrong, I just told you that telling people to kill themselves is fucked up and made a post exposing your cruelty so you couldn't harm others who struggle like I do. If your "Tumblr life" gets "ruined" from this, your have no one to blame but yourself because all I did was post the words you put on my posts. I don't give a shit that you're "only 18;" you're still an adult and should know better than to tell strangers on the internet that their lives are so horrible they should just kill themselves.. also if you were actually "sorry" you wouldn't have said more cruel things after your oh-so-sincere apology.

There were even more responses they made saying they were going to kill themselves and it was my fault because I posted things they publicly said on a public platform, telling me they were going to Livestream their suicide and publicly blame me for their death, etc. (I reported those comments to Tumblr for a suicide threat but didn't get screenshots before they were deleted.) You can look at the amount of notes on said posts; this one has 27 replies with only 2 from me so they were harassing me all day with 25 comments while I went to some of my many appointments, so obviously I didn't get screenshots of them all, but the ones I did screenshot are more than enough proof that this person who told me I should just die and was trying to blame me for their mental state; saying I was guilty of something THEY actually did to ME, and that if they killed themselves it would be my fault... For simply making a post telling vulnerable people to be aware of them and their disgusting behavior because no one deserves to be told their life isn't worth living; especially when they've been fighting with those thoughts in their own mind for years and don't need some asshole online trying to push them over the edge towards suicide.

When I was a fucking child I knew that telling people to kill themselves is wrong. Not my problem that you're so cruel you can't see it that way and harassed me all day as I went to my disability appointments finding out if I need more surgery while my notifications were going off at a ridiculous rate as you were trying to convince me I'm the bad guy for warning vulnerable people about you; a person that told someone they don't even know who is a suicidal, ED recovering, physically and psychologically disabled person, that their life isn't worth living and they should just kill themselves.

This person is a threat to the mentally and physically disabled and they need their blog to be terminated so they can't trigger people on the edge like me and so many of my followers and others in the disabled/ED communities on Tumblr.

[blindmagdalena]

First of all, I really enjoy your content, as a HL fan it's really nice to enjoy the Fandom with others.

Secondly, you should check out cxd edits on YouTube because there are so many good Homelander edits.

Now for my question, what is the most fitting demise for Homelander in season 5? Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and Homelander will most likely be killed off in season 5. It is cliché for the villain to meet their end after all.

There are two endings that I'd like to see as a HL fan.

Quite a lot of people seem to think that Ryan will play a part in his dad's death. If this does end up happening, I'd like to see it in a way where HL sacrifices his own life for Ryan, or he accepts his fate if Ryan chooses to retaliate and fight his dad. It would be a redeeming end for HL because as we see throughout the show, HL experienced a genuine loving bond towards his son. The shining light in his world of darkness so to speak. I think this would be a nice ending for him.

Soldier Boy nukes the compound V out of his blood and he no longer has his powers. He becomes a boring, weak, useless human. He's no longer the most powerful man in the world. He goes into hiding (I think he looks very handsome in his blue coat, red t-shirt and hat) Ryan is the only person that knows he's still alive and they keep in contact. He then eventually meets a fan off Tumblr, which is great for him because he still has someone to stroke his ego, they have two children together and live happily ever after. The end.

Okay the second one won't happen but it'd be pretty cool imo 😂

What do you think will happen to Homelander in Season 5?

thank you so much! and yes i will absolutely check out those edits. now, onto the meat of your ask...

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGH. 😩

Kripke has stated very plainly that he can't see a world in which the series ends without Homelander dying, so it's fair to assume that yes, we will see HL meet his end in s5. i say, shaking with barely contained agony.

we've already had a lot of foreshadowing that Ryan will ultimately put Homelander down. season 4 especially bashed us over the head with it. i do think it's going to be a choice that he'll have to make, and god i just... i hope it's handled well. i hope beyond measure that there will be at least a little respect and empathy in his death, however "deserved" people think it is.

making Homelander synonymous with Vought when he started purely as their victim is a really good allegory for the cycle of abuse, and how people can often become their abusers. however, i really don't wanna see that used as a cop-out to completely erase his victimhood. killing Homelander isn't the solution! Vought needs to fall, and THAT is the choice that i hope Ryan will make. destroying Vought once and for all and breaking the cycle.

because without Vought, what does Homelander really have? it's currently representative of all of his power and influence. i don't really believe Homelander will ever go nuclear the way he teased in s3. if he wanted to destroy or rule the world, he would have done it by now. but he doesn't enjoy running Vought. he would hate running the world. he's just clinging to what he knows.

in turning on his father and destroying Vought, Ryan will effectively kill him. the grief may be so intense that Homelander lashes out, forcing Ryan's hand in ending him.

i mean. i would love it if what we see is the death of Homelander as a symbol. completely exposed and left in public ruin. leave him sobbing in the ashes of all he failed to accomplish, just like we saw him weeping in front of that TV. he would feel like the torment of his childhood, all the abuse he suffered... all of it was for nothing because in the end he still lost. he's not the hero he was promised he would be... but his son is, and maybe that's something worth living for? maybe that could be enough.

i know that won't be the case, but a girl can dream. 😭 imo there's no "fitting" demise because his death doesn't actually solve anything by itself. death isn't justice. it doesn't put a stop to the system that made him. i can be okay with Homelander dying if that isn't the sole win condition of the series. i need closure!!!

anyways i love your second option and i would like to volunteer as tribute to write it for them!!!! 😂

[aurora-daily]

AURORA: "People Deserve Complicated Music"

AURORA's interview for Junkee by Ky Stewart (September 11th, 2024)

AURORA is a once-in-a-generation artist. Unrestrained by genre, her music always feels just outside our grasp. So, as might expect, our conversation was insightful, inquisitive, and filled with childlike wonder and joy.

I was scrolling through Tumblr the first time I heard an AURORA song. It was 2015, a year after she’d released her first album All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend. The post was a clip from her music video for ‘Murder Song (5,4,3,2,1)’. It was dark and tender. I was captivated by how expressive she was. Just 18 years old, she already knew just the right spot to jab you and reach your soul.

So I jumped down the AURORA rabbit hole. I quickly fell in love with that album, discovering fan favourites like ‘Running With The Wolves’ and ‘Runaway’. She was truly a Tumblr darling and, as it turns out, had absolutely no idea that so many of us were posting her lyrics on random edgy backgrounds. “Oh my god, that's so sweet,” AURORA tells me. “I didn't know that. That's insane. I had no idea. That's really sweet, because I feel like the Tumblr community were always my kind of people. That's really nice. I'm gonna try to find some of those posts now.” (Unfortunately, most of Tumblr has been killed off but there’s still some dedicated AURORA fan pages kicking around on there. I hope she found them.)

A lot of us from Tumblr grew up with AURORA’s music. Her albums have been part of how I made sense of the world around me at various stages of my life. Her newest album What Happened To The Heart? is no different. At a time of incredible turbulence, I often find myself asking where our collective empathy has gone. Or if we ever had it in the first place. How can we watch other people suffering and do nothing about it? These questions are AURORA’s inspiration. “There's always quite a lot behind my albums and I think a lot about the world when I write,” AURORA says. “I try to think about what I feel is the purpose of my music, and what I feel the world deserves to hear. I felt it was time for a question, especially the question, what happened to the heart? I was thinking about it a lot, and I realised that I found this question to be very interesting and very important. I think I found the answer.” 

For AURORA, the answer lies in how society has been stripped of compassion. “I'm nervous about a lot of the problems in the world today [and] the general unfairness in how our resources are divided upon the people,” she says. “The general unfairness that some people are given a chance in this life and some people aren't, and how the world just lets that happen. We haven't figured out a way to lift each other up more because people like to be comfortable, which I understand. It's hard to give away our comfort. To try to lift up someone we haven't even met yet is a hard thing for humans to do.” 

She adds, “I think we can actually feel that something is a bit off with life on Earth. Because we are very disconnected and we have closed up on that spiritual side of being human. And it kind of worries me that I feel something is a bit hollow inside of us, and that's why I answer the question, what happened to the heart? Because something is a bit messed up with how we live now.”

What I’ve always appreciated about AURORA, beyond her ability to make ethereal music, is how politically vocal she is. AURORA’s music has always been rooted in people, in their stories, and in how they feel. She cares deeply about people’s pain and uses her music to fight back — or at the very least, help people feel heard. Recently, she dedicated her protest song ‘The Seed’ from her 2019 album A Different Kind Of Human (Step II) to “all the children of Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Yemen, and Syria”.

“There are so many people in the world now that listen more to people they look up to, rather than experts on the matters of the world,” AURORA says. “A lot of [these] people are idiots and they say so many strange things and lead people the wrong way, like Trump… It’s chaotic when famous people have opinions that people follow so blindly without taking the time to actually measure your words or find out where they come from. It really scares me. [But] if people look up to me, I'm going to do as much as I can to say things they deserve. I think music really helps me do that, because I don't have to be too blunt, I don't have to be too harsh, I don't have to speak about things in the world in the same way most people do. We like to gather people around a common enemy, or to divide people with fear and then rile them up. I think it's so cool to rile people up with something that is, in its roots, fuelled by love.”

In preparation for the interview, I watched AURORA’s old music videos — the ones she made before the world fell in love with her. The bio said “Aurora Aksnes is a 18-year-old girl from Bergen, Norway. She strives to write music that can inspire people, through idiosyncratic tales of struggle, love, and all that lies in between.” Ten years later and she’s still doing exactly that. To AURORA, music is a language we all speak so why wouldn’t you use it to try to help others? “I wanted [the album] to be a mirror,” she says. “To do a soft beginning, because the first song is very spiritual, and numb [where] you ignore the thing screaming inside of you to be seen. Then the album goes quite dark because we ignore our roots. It's in our nature to be caring and kind. We do so much for the people we love and it's so pure. So we know that we're capable of it. But when we ignore this nature, we grow bitter and sour and broken.”

What Happened To The Heart? is as enigmatic as AURORA is. The album opens with the delicate ‘Echo Of My Shadow’, then we slam into dance-pop songs like ‘Your Blood’ and ‘Do You Feel’ or the techno club offering ‘Starvation’. Songs to get your body moving and your heart pumping. But there’s also folk and soft-rock. No matter the genre, her voice pierces through you. This concoction of sounds makes perfect sense to AURORA. For her, the sound of a song is less important than its essence. “I don't really think much when I produce,” she says. “I just feel and I just do, because I don't really have any rules when I make the skin around the soul of my songs, as long as the soul of the song feels right, it can wear whatever clothes it wants. It will still be okay, which is a comforting thing, because it helps you to not be a perfectionist. That steals the joy of creating from yourself, which is easy to do in this world.”

AURORA’s eclectic sound makes sense when you consider her influences. “I grew up with a lot of Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan,” she says. “Also grew up with Enya. She was my biggest inspiration when I started making music. I just realised the healing power of voices and how much I can do. ‘Runaway’, which is one of my biggest songs now, is just the voice. The whole song is just accompanied by my own voice, trying to become choirs around my leading vocals, so that's been a very important part of my production journey. I'm very into Cohen, his way of telling stories in music, which I've obviously been very inspired by, especially in the beginning with songs like ‘Little Boy In The Grass’ and ‘Murder Song’, which are very [big] storytelling songs. And Bob Dylan taught me that I could be political and say things about the world in a nice way or in a funny way or in a hard way, depending on what you want. So these people all taught me very important messages. [When] I grew up, I learned about heavy metal and the Chemical Brothers. I think my idea of a perfect song is a mix with the Chemical Brothers, weird sounds like Enya and a bit of metal and folk. That's kind of the essence of what I find beautiful.”

AURORA is deeply connected to the environment. She’s been a strong advocate for environmental rights in Norway and trying to help the global fight to stop the ever increasing impacts of climate change. All of this is evident when I ask if she’s excited to return to Australia for an upcoming tour. “Oh, honestly, I'm so excited,” she says. “I think Australia is one of my favourite places to tour. It's so beautiful. It has the adventurous, grandness, and largeness that I feel when I'm in America, but you're not like America at all. So it's large and adventurous, which is exciting when you're from Norway. But it's still so friendly, and I'm so in tune with a lot of the politics. I'm not so familiar with the current situation, but I like what you did with the gun laws and to prevent massive shootings. And the Indigenous peoples, I feel a lot of admiration for, and there’s a certain charge in the land in Australia that I cannot explain. It feels very spiritual there, and the nature feels like home. I know it's so different from home, that I feel so curious and excited, but it's still so like home that I feel safe and I understand what's going on. I don't know, I love Australia. I love being there. [The] people are so pretty as well. And the bugs. I love bugs. You have all the scary ones there, and it's so fun. I really am excited to be back. I hate that it's only like every second year. I wish I could come every year.”

It’s such a joy to experience an artist like AURORA. Her music is charged with so much life and energy. You find something new every time you listen to her songs. Something she’s tucked away in the corner for you to find. She makes music that forces you to stop and think about what’s being offered to you. And that’s exactly how she wants it. 

“I like making complicated albums because I have listeners who deserve complicated music,” AURORA says. “We're being served a lot of uncomplicated stuff, which can also be good, but if that's the only thing we get, I don't think it's good for our brains. People are very clever, and I think it's important to not underestimate them.” 

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 1

Propaganda why Dr. Heinrich Faust is insufferable:

"Dude is an old disgruntled man that does nothing but complain. He gets the coolest sidekick (Mephisto) who grants him the power of looking hot and young again and what does Faust do with that power ?

-- no suspense here we all read the play. He seduces an underage girl (Gretchen), impregnates her then fucks off to party with a bunch of witches for 9 months, after wich Gretchen is sentenced to death for killing the resulting infant after you know....BEING A SHELTERED YOUNG WOMAN NOT REALLY KNOWING WTF TO DO WITH A NEWBORN.

And then Faust cries to her about it in prison.

Faust sucks. "

"INSANE over him being submitted and SURE i'll go along with it. He is supposed to be insufferable, clearly. Which REALLY starts in the Gretchentragödie. Where he (middle aged scholar) tries to get with a 14yr old girl (and manages to) and kills like her whole family. The reason this is extra infuriating is because in the first part of the drama he's actually quite relatable. Whining about how he has nothing to live for and how he studied everything there was at the time and he STILL doesn't get what the world's really about. He also recognizes that nature and culture have a lot to offer instead. So what does he do when a demon promises him a fulfilled life in a deal? Of course he decides to groom a 14yr old. Cool writing, there's a reason it's a classic. But yeah, he's Supposed to suck and be infuriating. He acts like a little BITCH towards mephisto, the demon, asks him for shit all the time, like a toddler. In my opinion, gay sex would have fixed him. If a demon told me he'd give me anything to make life worth my time i know who I would bang instead of the 14yr old. Not only does he wanna be with her but he's so BAD at it too. Failure of a man. You WILL want to punch him"

"Rarely have I ever loathed a character as much as Faust.

He starts relatable enough, wanting to know more than possible and stuff, but he is incapable of accepting a no. Desperation and hubris are fun, don't get me wrong, but he is so incredibly annoying about it.

My main issue is his obsession with Gretchen though. Like. My guy gets deaged into youth and needs to fuck the first girl he sees. Buddy, she's, like, 16 At Most (probably 14 actually but I don't remember). You're literally an old fuck of a professor. And like, you literally keep calling her a child and ignoring all her concerns and her values! The only times you agree with her are to placate her so you can still get in her pants!!

And like. He literally admits this outright. He literally says he doesn't care what happens to her as long as he gets what he wants. He manipulated a teenage girl into accidentally murdering her mother during their first time. Then he leaves her alone! She's pregnant, that's a death sentence!

And AFTER the fever dream of Walpurgis Night or whatever he's like "ohhhh I love you so much please run away with me and abandon all your values again" LITERALLY SHUT THE FUCK UP THIS IS YOUR FAULT.

YOU LITERALLY HAVE A LIFE TIME OF EXPERIENCE YOU KNEW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE DOING AT ALL TIMES YOU'RE A MISERABLE ARSEHOLE WHO KILLED HER AND SOMEHOW YOU STILL DON'T RESPECT HER AS LIKE A HUMAN????

Like even for the time! That's fucked up! Even in the fucking context of Goethe's time that is messed up!!

Anyway I haven't yet gotten to read the second book but I'll do it literally just to watch Faust die. I need him to die so badly. He's such a horny, selfish, holier-than-thou bastard who thinks he's better than everyone because he's do "big picture" and "studied all fields of science" and then acts Like That. I'm chewing on his remains. I hope he suffers forever.

Like. You could have done anything. But instead you manipulated a teenage girl (and like, literally, not the tumblr usage) just to sleep with her, doomed her for your own pleasure and then had the gall to throw a fit and make her death all about yourself, and still didn't acknowledge her as a person even once. I hope you choke on your ego, Dr. Heinrich Faust."

Propaganda why Victor Frankenstein is insufferable:

"Victor Frankenstein is so pathetic not even tumblr could love him. The best parts of Frankenstein are the ones where your blessedly saved from being in his whiny, self deprecating, self centered pov. He’s so conceited that when his creation tells him directly “In revenge for killing the wife you were making for me I’m going to kill YOUR wife to see how YOU like it!”, Victor Frankenstein thinks that the creation is going to kill him and *only* him. (A decision And on top of it, he’s a shitty dad. Truly the worst.c

"this fucker has zero self awareness, which could maybe be fun to read about! except that 3/4 of the book consists of him constantly woe-is-me-ing about his own mistakes and how he shouldn't be responsible for any of his own actions."

"He's not irredeemable, but his refusal to take accountability til it's too late is irritating"

"The man has never one in his life taken responsibility for his own actions. He's always surprised when the things he does have consequences for him and the people around him.

"It's not my fault I spent months grave robbing for spare body parts, sewing them together, and giving life to the results. How could I have ever predicted that that creature wouldn't look quite right? How could I have known that it was wildly irresponsible to abandon the grown man sized newborn that I created?"

Man acts like he is a completely innocent victim when, in reality he's the cause of every one of the problems in the book."

[aniimamundi]

Pride & Prejudice - a Drarry tale

(I've been wanting to write a Pride and Prejudice inspired Drarry story for a while. I'm writing it as a full-length fic that I won't start posting on Ao3 till I have a few chapters written in full. Meanwhile, I'm posting it as ficlets here on Tumblr.

Warning: This is going to be very silly and campy. Also, I know it makes more sense to have Draco as Mr. Darcy but my heart really really wanted him as Lizzy, and so there's tremendous amount of twisting to fit that narrative 😅)

Chapt 1: Cissy & Portia

Narcissa Black was a changed woman. The tides of war had swept over her life and when they retreated, they took her husband, his significant fortune, and her desire to perch atop the social pyramid. In retrospect, those things had brought her nothing but anxiety and it was just as well that they were gone. 

These days, Narcissa lived for simple joys and her children. The actual one and all the other strays that she had taken under her wing. Oh. And for Portia as well she supposed, blushing a bit at the thought.

As if on cue, the beautiful Portia Zabini bustled into the library where Narcissa sat behind the desk with a book.

“Narcissa! Darling! You would not believe what has happened,” exclaimed the excitable woman.

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t tell me and save yourself the wasted effort.”

“Oh! Cissy!,” Portia cried, flicking her handkerchief at her, “you wicked woman! If you weren’t so pretty, I would be so mad at you.”

Narcissa couldn’t help but smile. “All right. Tell me.”

“Netherfield Park is let, at last! And you would not believe who has taken it! Ronald Weasley!"

Narcissa frowned at that information. Ronald Weasley was a child. Well, not a child technically, but a child to the likes of them. Why was Portia excited at the notion of … Her blood ran cold at the thought. Portia with her propensity to marry powerful men …

Portia flopped down on her lap and put her arms around her neck. “Silly goose, I’m talking about our children.” 

Narcissa couldn’t help but let out a bark of laughter. “Our children!”

“The Weasleys are rich now. With monetary rewards from the war and their very successful family business. The gossip through the grapevine is that Ronald Weasley has not been promised to anyone. Imagine! Pureblood. Rich. Single. What a fine thing for our boys!”

“Darling, the Weasleys hate our children! Need I remind you that Draco took the dark mark? He almost killed Ronald Weasley.”

Portia waved her concerns away. “That was ages ago –”

“Three years.”

“Bygones are bygones.”

“Are they?”

“The children are serving their sentences. The Wizengamot thinks community service is enough penance to wipe off their crimes, why should anyone else think differently?”

“Oh, Portia.”

“And even if he doesn’t want Draco or Greg or Vince, perhaps he will fancy Blaise or Theo. There might be a wedding sooner than you expect. As soon as they move in darling, we must visit them. The Parkinsons have already made plans to do so.”

Narcissa couldn’t help but laugh at her partner’s detachment from reality. “Count me out. You can visit alone if you like and convey our approval for Ronald Weasley marrying whichever of our delinquent children he likes. He can even have them all.”

Portia got up from her lap in a huff. “Must you vex me so? Oh to have suffered seven husbands only to find a beautiful woman and discover that she is no better! I will get all the children married. You just wait and see!”

Narcissa watched her lover flounce out of the room with an attitude. Her arse looked delectable in the tight skirt she was wearing. Portia Zabini was a force of nature. Perhaps the children really would all be married by the end of the year. She shuddered at the thought, before remembering her resolution to take life easy and not worry about such bothersome matters.

(read next part here)

[demodraws0606]

Why I am a die-hard believer that Whit is the mastermind

You know I was going to make an entire structured theory thread about it but Tumblr decided to be a little bitch and remove all my writing so I'll just kinda throw a messy list of evidence here.

Notice how Veronika's summary of Forever Dead is suspiciously similar to the secret dialogue

Notice how the main character's gender is pointed out

It's also interesting how the mysterious dialogue in the beginning who seems to be related to the hidden text (the idea of not being able to remember anymore link those two) seem to often mention the fact that they're grieving the loss of someone.

That someone most likely being Mai who seems to have suffered a tragic fate due to Teruko, which can explain the mastermind's hatred of her.

Guess who's character is linked with grief ?

(I know this is most likely about his mother but there is nothing contradicting the fact that he could be idolizing multiple dead people)

Wow it's interesting how these secret texts about Mai seem to be really idolizing her.

We can also add how the person who wrote the note to Xavier is very clearly the mastermind and how Whit's tool is a Stationery (it's spelled Stationary but i believe its a typo) which is commonly known as writing and other office materials.

Which includes paper, pens, ink, highlighters and other tools for writing

It's even made worse by the fact that the note seems to be written by a specific type of blue pen that we haven't seen anywhere in the series.

And even worse is that Charles, who knows Whit's handwriting, couldn't point out the writing is his as he couldn't access the scene of the crime due to his trauma therefore he couldn't see the note's handwriting.

It's really really interesting how the hidden text points out how they can predict everyone's behavior in a killing game and Whit's intuition is highlighted three times in this game.

Another suspicious thing is how the mastermind of the game talks about how they basically can predict anything that can happen. It's almost like how Whit jokingly predicted Arei's death.

Along with how Whit is the only one who has directly talked to the audience (him showing the papers) or how he's nudged the killing game into more interesting directions/avoided it from going off the rails.

Other exemples would be him defending Teruko/Charles in the first trial, him not revealing David's secret until the last minute (as well as the note that suspiciously pointed to Eden), him not trying to help with the fight in episode 4, him insisting that Charles and Teruko talk about their family life (aka nudging them to talk about their backstory which would entertain the audience) and other stuff i don't feel like adding.

It's also important add that Mono-TV and Whit also have similar personalities. They both don't take anything seriously and make constant jokes about the killing games, Mono-TV and Whit also act constantly incompetent and like they're a lot dumber than they actually are.

Another thing is that it's interesting how Whit opens up about his secret so easily, even though almost everyone's secrets are something they're at least flustered about and at worst completely ashamed by. If he was the mastermind, it would make sense that his secret wouldn't be anything that could ruin his character and that he could just admit easily.

Also another point, the mastermind character talks about a time when they cared so much about people and how it hurt them so much when they died. Which you can see that caring nature shine through a lot with Whit as it's possible that Whit's personnality is not actually a lie but more so a reflection of how he used to be before he went through all this alledged horrible stuff.

We can also note how the mastermind has to be one of the students and how there is an extreme likelyhood that Mono-TV saying it isn't bait because it's not actually told to the students but to us. Why would Mono-TV tell it to us and not to the students if it was a lie meant to make the game more interesting, wouldn't it be more entertaining to reveal to the students of a fake mastermind among them to get them to kill one another more easily. It's why I have no doubt someone in this class has to be the mastermind behind it.

Mono-TV also seems to not have any contact with the person controlling him which would make sense if it was someone in the killing game as they would have a hard time communicating without being caught.

(It's a stretch but it would make more sense if Mono-TV didn't know if the mastermind was one of them as if the mastermind was behind the scenes there would be no reason why it wouldn't interact with Mono-TV, although take this with a grain of salt as he could be lying)

And just really there aren't a lot of other options for the mastermind that would be compelling unless they introduce a mysterious new character.

It could be the mysterious red haired girl but everything hints towards her being dead or hurt and it being the cause for the killing game rather than her being the one behind it. There is some decent evidence that it could be her but I genuinely don't think so considering it again feels a little too obvious and doesn't work with how the story/secrets present her.

(It's just not very compelling to make your ONE mystery character the mastermind and again it would be weird considering Mono-TV telling the audience the mastermind is in cast doesn't make sense logically as he would have no reason to try and trick the audience)

Not a lot of characters in this cast can be really put into the mastermind category as they are either too obvious (teruko, veronika) or too farfetched (eden, hu etc...).

I honestly am a die hard believer that Whit is the mastermind however what's interesting to me is not If Whit is the mastermind but more so the Why ?

Which honestly might be a question for another time...

But yeah this is why I 95 pourcent believe Whit is the mastermind

If anyone has anything more to add I would be really interesting in seeing what other people have in terms of evidence.

[astolfofo]

deja vu, Jamis vu

BSD beast au x reader. Based on the end of the beast movie.  AUTHORS NOTE: SO. ITS FINALLY DONE. ITS 4AM I AM ON IPAD TUMBLR AND UHHHH… I tried to edit this. but. TUMBLR WAS BEING AN ASS. and the two hours I spent editing this went down the drain. Mere words could not describe the grief I felt at 3:37 in the morning. I would have screamed if I weren’t so zombieified. Then, I tried to be paitent and edit it another time, but tumblr was like: haha no. so it didn’t save. I swear it’s not my fault if you have a stroke while reading this. I sacrificed my sleep for an entire week to do write this. Please give me some credit for my suffering. /lh

Also keep in mind. I have watched the DA movie and the beast movie a whopping total of 1 time. It’s probably very off from what I was trying to communicate, cause I legit have no clue what goes on in the light novels... spare me the slander. 

Last thing, I tried something new with this one, so there’s weird ahh switches between first person and 2nd person in this. Idk how good it is, lmk if i should never do it again.

Tw: head injury, murder, blood, suicide, yeah I think that’s about it.

word count: 6.8k  

To all the Chuuya enjoyers out there, I’m sorry for being a disappointment.

Tags: @redeemingmygloryintopurgatory

I’m wet.

Im standing outside his door, knocking as it rains outside, without an umbrella, cold, and of course, drenched.

Helplessly, I knock on his door, hoping for a response from him. I know it’s pointless, by now. I should cut him out of my life by now, I should… leave him. He’s not a good person, he’s part of the Port Mafia, for the love of god… I’m scared of him. He could crush me at any moment. Hell, he breaks into my house so frequently, and even though he’s done no harm… he could kill me at any moment. So why am I here? Shouldn’t I be relieved that he hasn’t shown up at my apartment for over a month now? I… just can’t…

Lightening splits the sky in half and the sound of thunder cracks in the air.

Your fist slides down the window pane of the door. It makes a terrible sound, and you wince in pain from the sting of the friction. You should just go home. It was obvious Chuuya wasn’t even home, he never was. And if he wasn’t even home, how would he even answer the door? You regret coming here in the first place, you didn’t even know why you chose to. Was it out of worry? Was it because you had to say something to him? You couldn’t remember by now, it was all on impulse. 

Chuuya had broken into your apartment countless times. Still, no matter how many times you’d snap at him, how many times you’d emptily threaten him, or try to push him off the balcony, he still came back the next day, unphased. You couldn’t get rid of him, no matter how hard you tried. And after many days, you had learned to accept that someone could break into your home at any given moment.

And you had no knowledge of how he knew you, let alone knowledge of how he even got your house key. Or maybe he picked your lock. You couldn’t be sure and you really did not want to know. 

Every day, you’d come back home from work, and Chuuya would be sitting on your couch, drinking your wine (much to your own distaste). You’d usually give him a dirty look, and he’d glare in return but you’d say nothing. You preferred not to talk to him, and Chuuya wouldn’t raise conversations by himself. He always sat in the corner of the room, observing… scrutinizing every move you made. On the rare occasions when you had managed to start a conversation with him, it was always painfully awkward.

You once remember asking him why he was here, what he wanted from you, and his true intentions. Chuuya looked at you in an amused manner and stared out the window. 

“Why I’m doing this? You’ll find out yourself when the time is right.”

By the time you had woken up, he was always gone. As if he was never there in the first place. The only thing he’d leave was the wine glass he’d drink out of, and your clothes you had hauled back from the laundromat messily folded, in your drawer. Occasionally, when it warm out, he’d leave the window open. They were small actions. Meant to be noticed, but not returned.

The splashing of rain intensifies, as you stand on Chuuya’s porch. He’s not home. You can’t stand here forever. You have to get back home before it’s too late.

What a great way to spend my time off work.

But you wanted to try one last thing before you left. Maybe his door was unlocked the entire time. Although you would doubt it, it was worth a try. It was so stupid to do this, all of it was. But your curiosity is getting the best of you, and you desperately wanted answers. Answers only Chuuya could give.

So, you grip the door handle and twist the doorknob. Much to your shock, the mechanics of the door click, and the door opens.

Chuuya had left the door unlocked. He forgot to lock his own door. You take a step up, and stand in the doorway. The rain is still hitting your back, and you groan realizing that you’re dripping water onto the floor. Quickly, you step in and shut the door. You twist the lock, ensuring that no one else would come in.

You sure hope Chuuya wasn’t going to come home tonight. The thought of it made the hair on your neck stand slightly. 

You take off your shoes which are drenched in water and stare in the mirror. You’re soaked to the bone. Your clothes are completely see-through. You’d need to change them. That could wait, though. If the rain stopped, you’d go home as soon as possible.

Okay. Quick in and out it is. I need to find my spare key, and I need to find what happened to him after the explosion in the sky that day. The one that happened on the top of the… port mafia building. You shudder. I wonder what happened. It was so bright that it looked as if the sky exploded for a second. The next thing you know, everything is back to normal… except it isn’t. A dead body is found at the bottom of the building.

Followed by that, I never saw Chuuya again, but many people that were close to me have been avoiding me. When asked why, they avoided my question. There isn’t a strong connection there, but I think… that all of these events are connected somehow. Chuuya never appears again, and the fact he works for the Port Mafia, definetly does not help. 

Additionally, the Armed Dective Agency sent me a letter to be wary of Chuuya. With no additional information. There’s something going on here. Something is wrong. Something terribily wrong.

And I’m scared.

Apprehensively, you take several steps inside the house. You keep getting the feeling that you may get caught. But you don’t hear anything at the door. It’s a painful paranoia.

You inhale and exhale.

I’ll start looking for hints first. I don’t need an answer right away. One hint will be able to give me lots. I’ll start from his room, that’s where people are most likely to hide things.

You walk as quickly as possible across the empty corridor in the house. His house is eerily empty. There isn’t much in it, just a lot of furniture, a shelf of wine, messy papers and a few books placed sparsely across the rooms.

You walk up the stairs, which slightly creaks under your weight. You try your best to ignore any noises and try to stay focused. As you reach the top of the stairs, you see his bedroom, which is the first room at the end of the staircase.

You walk towards the room, you open the door and look around. Chuuya’s room is surprisingly fuller than the rest of the house. There is a dresser, with several items stacked on top of it. It has drawers, which you assume were full. His closet was also filled with clothes, with various hats on the shelf above in his closet.

Chuuya’s bed was neatly made, giving the impression that he had not been home in weeks. Unoccupied, cold, and abandoned. Yet you felt a temptation to lie in it either way. Your eyes dart to the dresser again, and you look at the various items spread out on it. None of these are of much use to you. Besides the gun that seemed unused.

Your hands move to the drawers and you begin to search them. In the first one, there was nothing. Just a bunch of stationery, and papers, some of which had blood on them. You shudder in disgust and move on.

You struggled to pull the second drawer. After a moment, it slides open and you look at the inside contents. You stare at it, wondering if you open it. There is no address on it, and it isn’t sealed. 

You have a bad feeling about this, but your hands move faster than your brain. You pull out the piece of paper and read its contents.

The letter is addressed to you. It doesn’t include much. Just A single sentence that holds an address. 

And then it hits you.

Chuuya had been planning this for a long time. He had purposely left the door unlocked, left his house empty, and left you because he knew you would try to find him one day.

It infuriates you more than you expect. But you can’t stop here. You’ll go to a specific location. 

Just to be sure, you look in the third drawer, you see your spare key, as well as a lock cutter. 

Its dark now. It’s still pouring. You have no choice to stay here for tonight. Begrudgingly, you curse yourself for dragging yourself into this. Still, you were in too deep to back out now. Whatever happens, will happen.

-

You wake up. 

You're lying on Chuuya's bed, in his clothes, begrudgingly. Your own clothes are discarded onto the floor, dried during the time you had been asleep. Still, you don't exactly feel like changing into them. It felt too gross to wear them. 

You shake your head. Now's not the time to be thinking about that. You sit up, and stretch your arms. Then, you walk towards the desk again, and look at the address. You take note of the address, and take your spare key. Before you go, you flip over the paper, ensuring that you didn't miss anything. There's another sentence scribbled on the top of the paper.

I know you're reading this. You want to know why I'm gone, and why I did this. The address that is provided will help you, but it will not give you the answer, nor will I be there. 

…What? 

You read the sentence over and over again. The words sink in, making you feel conflicted. You knew you were getting yourself into a certain kind of danger by doing this, but you didn't expect it to be this risky. Hell, you didn't even know where the man was now, and not to mention… the location…

You look at the location again.

It's on the street where the explosion happened. And you're no fool. If it was on that street, it meant it was that building. There were no other possibilities. You doubt it would be any other one of those tall skyscrapers, anyways. The one where the explosion happened was the only building Chuuya had any affiliations with.

Which was going to be incredibly difficult to get into. Let alone, to the top floor. You'd be dead even trying to set foot into the door. It wasn't worth your life for this. You should forget about it and go back home.

You look through the paper again, hoping there might be something more to help you. Sighing, you came back with nothing. I suppose I really have to go through with this, don't I? There's no turning back. 

-

The walk to the Port Mafia's building was rather short, if you were being completely honest. It was located in the heart of Yokohama, and was one of the tallest buildings there, if that told you anything. 

You stand outside the building, as the apprehension and fear build up inside you. You had never felt as much of a need to run from anything, as much as you did now. The doors, despite their grandeur size, and large glass design, looked uninviting. Almost like doors to a bank vault; the kind of doors that told you, you wouldn't be able to get out, as soon as you stepped in. And from various things people has told you throughout the years, the Port Mafia keeps people it's had come into contact with. It's more powerful beyond belief. 

It doesn't need to control you. You'll be forced into being pliant for them, simply by fear. No one can betray them. Death is almost a guarantee if you do.

And recently, they had also become violent as well. You might as well be walking yourself into a death wish.

But your feet remained rooted into the ground, and part of you remains determined to see this through. So you take a deep breath and walk into the building. 

You try to remain calm as you push through the doors, into the lobby. You pray Hou won't be swatted with bullets as soon as you enter, but much to your own surprise, there's no one in the lobby. It's completely empty.

It doesn't feel right. You wonder if what happened. Well, it's not your business anyways. You couldn't care less. You just needed to find whoever Chuuya's office is and-

"Who are you?"

shit. you curse under your breath. "I-I'm," you turn around to face the person talking g to you. As soon as you do this, the man's eyes widen, and you acknowledge away slightly. "Sorry… um… do you know where Chuuya is?"

You had never felt so idiotic and out of place in your life. You can physically feel your heart pounding inside your chest, as you pray you don't look too suspicious. You can't mess up here. Though the man you are currently talking to isn't holding any firearm. That may just as well mean he has even worse methods to kill you off.

"He's not here."

of course, he isn't. You think to yourself. He wrote that in his own letter, or whatever you call it. 

"He's been arrested." The man looks you directly into your eyes, and as on instinct, you look down, too scared to actually look at him. A few moments pass in silence.

"Can you… perhaps tell me why?"

"After the previous Port Mafia executive committed suicide, Chuuya was forced to lead the Port Mafia. He hated the job greatly, and he eventually…" He stops himself.

"Go on." You mutter.

The man tilts his head and looks at you again. "Are you sure? If you want to see him… it's better just to see for yourself." He stops for a second. 

"No… please tell me. Tell me everything that you possibly can."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Fine then. If you insist."

"Chuuya lost his control over himself. He slowly became more, deranged, if you will, as time went on. After the old executive killed himself, Chuuya had no one left. Or at least, that's what we saw. His orders became more and more irrational, often just resorting to killing everything, and slowly, he eventually broke. He went on a rampage, as you've probably seen, Yokohama is not safe with him around. He almost destroyed Yokohama in its entirety, and it took serveral organizations to stop him. I don't know the exact details after that. He remains locked up underground."

You feel as if you had been doused under cold water. You didn't only have your question answered, but that also explained several other things as well. You try to recollect your thoughts while figuring out what to do next.

"By the way, you look familiar."

"How so?"

"I don't know, to he honest. You look like someone who used to work here. Maybe my mind js tricking me, though. You look too weak to be here."

"Yeah," you force out an awkward laugh, "I could never work here for the life of me."

"Figures."

another awkward pause, as you stare at the man.

"I assume you need Chuuya's location, don't you?"

You nod.

"Here." He hands you a piece of paper, with an address messily scrawled onto it. "Although, I don't recommend going to see him, tell the guards you are a relative of his. Hopefully, it will convince them enough to let you in. Though, if you want, I'm sure you can attempt to knock the guards out. Chuuya's well… very restrained so he won't hurt you."

"Ah… thank you."

"Don't mention it."

You bow and leave.

"Hey wait-" the man calls out, his voice echoing through the empty lobby. He seems hesitant to ask something. You stop and turn around. "Yeah?"

He looks down, and awkwardly avoids eye contact for a second. It's at this moment you realize he's a man with short, white, hair, as well thick bangs that were cut into a slant. He’s rather short, and he’s wearing a long jacket.

He looks… familiar. I wonder why.

“What’s your name?” 

You stare at him for another moment before answering. “It’s Y/N.”

You could have sworn you had seen a face of surprise from him for a second, but it could have been your imagination because the next instant you blink, it’s gone. “I see,” he says slowly. “Be careful then. He’s not the same as what you may remember.”

As… I remember? What….

“Nevermind. Forget I said anything. Just go to the address, and everything will make sense.”

“Hey wait-”

He’s already turned his back and left on you. You’re left with so many more questions than you started off with, and dread creeps up you again. There was a warning tone in his voice, almost as if telling you to do this was a terrible idea. That you were going to be landing yourself in scalding hot water, and you wouldn’t be able to get out. You knew the risks from the start, but…

You quickly unfold the paper, and look for the address. Once again, the address is written in the center of the paper. You carefully look around for any other writing on the paper.

It’s completely white. Blank. Except for one sentence on the bottom: It’s never too late to back out. 

And you stare at it, and think about the several cryptic warnings you received from this man. So… you’re telling me, that after that explosion happened in the sky… a dead body, the previous executive was found. Then shortly after that, Chuuya became the executive of the Mafia. He hated it. But he had no choice and was left alone to do it. Eventually, he lost his sanity and mind and the Mafia… I guess? Because very corrupt, violent, and unsafe. It took many people to stop him, and how he was arrested in an underground cell. At this address.

It’s clear he’s cutting something out. He said to be careful. Of course, if Chuuya has lost his mind, I need to do that. But he empathized that I should be wary of him. Also, he said I looked familiar, and he also looks familiar to me. He mentioned something about… me remembering? Have I known Chuuya for longer? 

But he also said that only Chuuya has the answers to all my questions. So that means in other words, he knows what happened during the explosion, he knows that Chuuya has been breaking into my apartment and he knows more about my entire predicament now, than I do.

Just… who exactly is he? How and why?

You cut yourself off from those thoughts. 

Ugh. this is ending up being so much more complicated than it was supposed to be. You thought in bitterness. So basically, I’ll go to the address, and get the answers to my questions. Sounds simple enough. There’s no need to overthink this. Maybe i’m just being paranoid. What’s the worst that could happen?

Well, a lot. But I’ll just ignore that for now.

You turn around and walk towards the door again. To be honest, you don’t want to know what might happen once you see him. You were already nervous from the implications the man had told you moments ago, and you were coming to realize there were some things that you noticed when you were in Chuuya’s house. Things that you maybe weren’t supposed to know about or see.

In the bottom of the drawer… there were documents. Documentation of everything that happened on the day of the explosion. A bright light illumined the sky, followed by the dead body found; the previous port mafia’s executive; Dazai Osamu. The two closest people to the explosion were a member of the port mafia, Atsushi Nakajima, and a member in the training of the Armed Detective Agency, Ryounouske Akuwatagawa. They are believed to be the cause of the explosion.

No one knows the exact events inside the Port Mafia on that day, except for the individuals involved in the actions that happened. According to the Armed Detective Agency, Akuwtagawa had barged into the Port Mafia to challenge the Port Mafia Executive. He accordingly, fought many individuals in the Port Mafia, a body count is yet to be determined. Data from thereon forth is unknown until the individuals reach the top of the building, where the most notorious event stated above occurred.

Additionally, after thorough examination of the body of the previous Port Mafia Excuetive, it can be concluded that he had committed suicide by jumping off the building. 

The document ends there, and the paper is ripped in half.

-

It felt like every meter you travelled towards that location was walking towards a terrible, yet inevitable fate. The drive there, dragged on and on as if mocking you for your choices. You find yourself counting down the seconds until you can arrive at the location given.

Oh, how you wished you had stayed at home instead of seeking him out. If only your morbid curiosity hadn’t gotten the best of you.

You’ve lost track of the time you’ve spent on the train, only waiting for the loudspeaker to announce your stop. The location you figure you were given led you to a rather remote area, likely in the outskirts of Yokohama. If not further. The man had told you he was locked underground, completely isolated from everything.

You found that part the most unsettling. If they needed that many security measures to keep him in place, it was likely he was completely gone. Gone beyond saving. If he had succumbed that much to his own grief and madness, it would be a question of whether he would still remember you or not. 

You look out the window again, enjoying your last moments of peace.

This is the eerie calm before the storm, isn’t it?

Moments after you think that, the train halts to a stop at the last station in Yokohama, and you get off. Your heart is pounding wildly in your chest, and you’re not sure if you can stop it.

You try your best to remain calm. Force yourself to keep going. He’s special to you. You can’t lose him, even if you hate him. You need him. He’s the only one who still cares. 

And above all, he’s the only one who remembers you at all.

And so, you go. You take all the correct turns. You try to walk as quickly as you could, to arrive at the destination. You keep going, and going and going until…

You’re here.

It’s one of the better buildings on the outskirts of the city, yet… it looks incredibly unsettling. It’s a mundane building, one made from standard concrete, and glass. Yet. As you stand so close, you see cracks in the building. The door is partially cracked as well. 

Well, I’m here already. Whatever happens, happens. I may die in there, still, before I die, I have to know the answer. The answer… why can’t I remember? Chuuya. I want him to tell me, what he did to me. Why he came to my apartment every day. Why he’s… he’s…..

Oh. My hands are shaking. Surely I cannot be this terrified can I? I will do this even if it kills me.

You pull the door open and enter the building. The piece of paper told you that it was on the lowest floor. Your footsteps echo in the empty building, and it feels creepy no one is here.

Huh. Gives some Deja Vu, doesn’t it?

You proceed towards the elevator at the end of the hall, and press the down button. Almost instantly, the elevator makes a “ding” noise, and the doors open. You quickly step in and look for the lowest button. With a deep breath, you push the button, and the door closes.

You stare at your face in the mirror. You look terrible. Pale and your hair is completely dishevelled and a mess. If you didn’t know any better, you’d look like you were sick. You had been extremely anxious about this for an entire day, after all.

The elevator doors once again slide open. 

Here goes nothing. You sigh. I’d better hear you talking today, Chuuya. You have a lot to tell me. And you’d better tell me it all.

You step outside the elevator. There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing, and no one here. The halls are empty, and the strong scent of stale air, combined with dust fills your nostrils. You feel like coughing for a second, but you hold yourself back. You didn’t want to make any noise to give away your presence. You take another step.

Despite what the man said, it was clear that there was no one else there. No prison guards, no other cells inside. It was clearly a floor made, simply to detain one individual in particular. Isolated, and secure enough that they’d never be able to escape. Deep enough underground that they’d never even know where they were.

Your footsteps tap loudly against the concrete and echo everywhere around. As you walk down the hall, the lightbulbs behind you light up. The man had told you it was in the deepest part of the prison. However, what he didn’t account for, was that you had no idea how this floor was organized. 

Not to mention it was starting to get creepy really quickly. Although there should be nothing else in here, you were starting to get the sense that there was something dangerous that might lurk in the air. You tell yourself it’s probably just the dark and your own fatigue and you were imagining things.

The emptiness of the entire building creeps you out. It’s eerie. It feels like you were lead into the wrong location, and you were walking into a dead end. It almost felt almost like a trap that you had been lured into. And every second, the floor grew significantly more eerie. The lack of any presence and the darkness despite the very few lightbulbs attached to the ceiling enhanced that. 

I should be getting close now… right?

You were. You could see a light at the end of this hallway, which was illuminated with an orange light. It must have been where Chuuya’s cell was. There was no other place as illuminated as this, and there was no reason for it to be.

You had gotten this far. There was no reason you should be stopping now. Should you? The answer… you had always looked for, you could get it now.

Chuuya always hid something from me. He has never answered once, one of my questions. He’s never told me why he comes to my house every day, he never told me once why he was gone. For as long as I remember, I’ve been coming back from my job, and seeing him there. But one day, he disappeared. No reason why, no reason of how. He just did.

But apart from my job, there’s another piece missing to this puzzle. There’s something else that I’ve always wanted to ask him besides why he’s gone missing, and the explosion which I already had the answer to. He knows me, better than I know myself.

What was I before all of this happened?

I know there’s something before all of this. It just doesn’t add up. The man I saw in the mafia looked familiar. The building itself was in a place that I had felt I had been in at some time before. There’s deja vu there.

But when I first walked into the apartment, the first day before I saw Chuuya, I had jamais vu. A familiar place, that I didn’t know. And consequently, I couldn’t remember much before that. So what-

“I know you’re there, (Y/N). You’ve been standing there for quite some time.”

Shit.

Your thoughts are cut off by that voice you instantly knew. Chuuya was indeed, there. But his voice didn’t sound the same as you remember. There wasn’t any of the snarkiness, or egotistical attitude in his voice anymore. Instead, his voice was laced with aggression, and a malice that made you hesitant to even come forward.

You open your jaw to speak, but almost if Chuuya knew, he spoke before you. “I know what you’re thinking. You want to know why I left you, don’t you? I assume that someone has already told you about what happened on the day I stopped seeing you, and I’m sure you know all about the aftermath of that.”

You feel like you are doused in cold water. How did he know? Did he plan all of this. You want to open your mouth and tell him to slow down, but he continues, anyways.

“And you’ve been having deja vu for several days, too. You feel like you know the Port Mafia building, you feel like you recognize everything you saw, including my home.” Silence, as he pauses for a second. “So why don’t you… come and face me, and I’ll tell you what actually happened?”

“Chuuya-”

You hear no response. You sigh and walk towards his cell. You’re not ready to hear this, and you’re not sure you can face him.

He’s different. He’s not the same anymore. He sounds more violent, his composture is much less controlled than it was before. What…what happened to him?

And then you approach his cell. He’s got cuts everywhere, specifically the gash on his face. You instantly feel the need to run away, to get this image out of your mind. He was thin, his face was significantly more gaunt than it had been the last time you had seen him. And the most unsettling thing was how he was kept. Both arms were harshly chained to the ceiling and the wall. The chains were wrapped around his arms several times (you would assume most likely to stop him from breaking free), and they cut deeply into his arm. Then his body was also tightly bound to a chair, and his legs were bound to the chair’s legs. His body you noticed, was bound so tightly to the chair, you wonder how he still managed to breathe. Still, nothing would be as unnerving as to look at as his eyes. They were not dull per say, but they were empty. Not in the hopeless kind of way, but in the tormented sense that he had been tortured so badly that it would be unlikely he ever saw the light of day again.

Truly, he was a lost cause. You could only describe him as tortured and traumatized, as you couldn’t glance at him a second time.

“Hey. You done oogling yet?” His voice came out as almost an aggressive snarl, and you instantly look away. “Look at me.” You do your best to look at him, while trying to avoid looking at any part of his face in particular. You didn’t want to see it. Truly, you don’t want to look at him in any way whatsoever. So you settle on looking at a corner of his hair. The only thing that was still familiar to you.

“I said look at me. In the eyes.”

You don’t want to.

Chuuya sighs. “I know I probably look terrible right now, but please. Just do it. For the sake of me. Just look me in the eyes. It’ll probably be the last time I see someone for a long time.” He draws that last sentence out for longer than you expect, and you start to feel uneasy again, but you try to ignore that and ask him the question. The question you had been dying to ask for an undefined amount of time.

It’s a second before you can really bring yourself to ask it. “Chuuya. Where are my memories?” your mouth tightens… “Who am I? Why did you… do this?” You take a deep breath, to stop yourself. “Just tell me. Please.”

There’s another stretched-out pause before Chuuya responds again. “I knocked you out.”

“You… you what? N-no… you’re kidding right?” Your voice wavers slightly, before seeing Chuuya’s face again. He’s dead serious. “Why would you do this?”

“You were in danger. I couldn’t help it, alright?” He yelled, and you flinch. He takes a deep breath in again, slightly more calm, and continues. “Let me explain.”

“You were part of the Port Mafia, (Y/N). In fact, you, me, and Dazai used to be assigned to the same team all the time. Of course, it was always despicable working with Dazai. He never told us about anything, instead only telling us what to do, while he schemed about whatever he damn chose.”

“You can’t be serious…”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Do you think I’m joking right now? That I’m making a story and pulling it out of thin air for fun? You wanted answers. I’m giving them to you right now.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Chuuya ignores you and goes on. “Out of the three of us, you were always the weakest one, without a strong ability, nor any supportive abilities, however, we always had to drag you along anyways. To every mission gaven to us. Dazai would always make a plan, and we’d have to follow through. And if any of us ever messed up, we’d always get into trouble.”

“I bet you wanted to know how you got that bruise on your arm, that’s never healed, huh? Well, it’s cause you messed up one of the missions, and one of the higher-ups broke your arm. It never completely healed, and it was a warning that you should never mess up again.”

You look at your arm, where the ugly purple bruise marred your skin. It had never healed, and you couldn’t do anything heavy with it. Although it made a lot more sense than the reasoning you were told, you found this all too unreal. There was no way you were a mafia member. You were always weak. There would have been no reason for you to join. But even past the static buzzing in your brain, you could make out everything he said feeling familiar. As if your memories were just behind a wall you couldn’t break through.

“Still, I wasn’t able to do anything at the time, and Dazai didn’t care too much for you. The damned bastard treated everything and everyone like a chess piece, and played them as he wished. You were constantly treated as the runt of the three of us, and often used as the punching bag when missions weren’t successful. But, over time, you managed to become more ‘competent’ and not ‘drag us back’.”

“Of course, that all was, until the Dragon Head incident. All you need to know was that it was a bloody fight, and most of us were sent to deal with it.”

“As always, we were sent to deal with the mess. Dazai and I were obviously vanguards during the entire ordeal, and you were backup. When we had found the person behind it all, I used my own ability to kill him. We had won, but just barely.”

“You had managed to find the location of the man first, but you didn’t notify us. This person later told us that you actually refused to tell us. Ultimately, you botched Dazai’s plan, and almost destroyed an entire city, because you didn’t follow his instructions. Of course, Dazai was disappointed, even if he didn’t say anything. He essentially dismissed you, and planned to go back, and remove you from the Port Mafia. But, I didn’t want that.”

“So after a very long fight with Dazai, I managed to make a compromise with him. You would not be killed for betraying the Port Mafia, however, you wouldn’t be allowed to go back. But if I told you this, you would have rather accepted death, since the Port Mafia is the only thing you have ever known. You couldn’t go into the real world since you have no identity there.”

“So later that night, while you had looked like you were at least, partially asleep. I had no choice… but to give you severe head trauma, which would make you lose all your memories.”

There’s an unspoken silence between the two of you. You had always been told that your head was fragile. When you tried to think about your childhood or teenage years, your head would fill with static and it would hurt. Never had you ever expected it to be… this…

“You must be shocked. You probably think I’m not being serious, or that I’m joking. Well, I’m not done yet.”

“You were in a coma for years after that. For about two or three years, if I remember correctly. I had to make sure that you wouldn’t remember anything, so I bashed your head, pretty hard against the concrete. I brought you to the hospital after that, and told them that you had been injured badly, because you had attempted suicide. A balatant lie, but I couldn’t tell the doctors any more than that, otherwise I would have been detained.”

“For several years, you stayed in the hospital, completely unconscious. I’d visit you everyday, and see if you would wake up. At one point I had considered just giving up. But eventually, you did wake up. But, you didn’t have an identity in the real world, let alone education, or anything that would let you survive. When you were discharged, I paid a company to forge you a fake identity, which is what you live by now.”

“I’ve watched over you for so long, (Y/N). You once asked me what you needed to be protected from. I didn’t answer that question because I didn’t think it was the right time to let you know the truth. Alas, you’ve come searching for the truth yourself. The Port Mafia was after you for a long time. I had to constantly monitor you, you were constantly on my mind every day. And even when you were discharged from the hospital, I still had to watch over you while you slept. They wanted to kill you. I didn’t want you dead, in fact how could I?” Chuuya laughs in bitterness. “I loved you for a long time. I did all of this to make sure I’d be able to see you happy, for once. And you were. You moved into society rather nicely. You were simply not meant to be part of the Mafia, despite the potential in your ability.”

“You have the gun I left on my desk, didn’t you? You knew you had to take it because you might have been in danger.”

“Chuuya… stop.” You’re still in shock, but you know you’ll never properly remember any of your memories now. You can only trust him. Whatever he says, you have to believe. He’s not lying. He never was lying.

“That was Dazai’s gun. The gun he left before he killed himself.”

“No… please. Stop. Chuuya. Don’t do this please…”

He chuckles. “I have no merit in my future, I am simply left to rot and die here. You wouldn’t understand, (Y/N). I spent so much time in my life for you, that it would have been simpler to just kill you. But I can’t do that.”

“But in a life where you don’t return any of that to me isn’t worth living either…”

“CHUUYA,” you scream. “Stop this. Don’t…”

“So shoot me please. I know you’re dying to do it. You brought the gun with you, you wanted to kill me. I know you do. Why? You’ve reached into your pockets serveral times while I was telling your past. My life is hopeless, completely doomed. I’ve lost everything I once had, except for you. And I can’t even see you now.”

“So kill me. Put me out of my own misery.”

He smiles, in a twisted sort of way, expecting you to shoot.

“You won’t regret it.”

And it’s true. You were planning on killing him, but you don’t want to now. But if what he said was true, you were also ruthless as he was. You had to make a choice, quickly.

Your hands move faster than your mind, and you can’t stop yourself.

You shoot once. Once at his chest.

You can’t bear to see what you did.

But you also can’t see control what you were going to do next. You hear another gunshot being fired, and you weren’t if it was from yourself, or maybe someone else in the floor.

Your vision stops and you feel yourself falling to the ground.

[theraggedygirl11]

Baš ja, koji nisam verovao da za nekim biću lud

Bojan's POV

Kris' POV: AO3 - Tumblr

SUMMARY: In a world where Heaven and Hell exist, angels and demons are constantly fighting and killing one another. What if a demon easily dominated by his emotions falls in love with a stoic and cold angel trained to kill demons?

PAIRING: Bojan Cvjetićanin/Kris Guštin

WARNINGS: swearing, blood, implied violence, hurt/comfort, implied suicide, emotional rollercoaster, enemies to lovers, hint of jance in the background

WORDS COUNT: 5.094

LINK: AO3

NOTES: Hello! Welcome to my first ever BoKris fic. It all started from this post by @arctixout and that damn tag (for reference: #stoic angel!kris and demon!bojan who's slave to his emotions and then they somehow fall in love wait who said that). And what could I do? It was too juicy to not write something out of it! So here we are.

Besides, as you can see from the title, I used Bluza (Youtube video and lyrics+translation) as my inspiration (and background music while writing), and this songs plays a role in the plot too 👀 yeah, I know we all think this is a BoJere song, but in this fic it's a BoKris fic, you'll understand why

Also, thanks to my beta @anxious-witch!

Last but not the least, I did this aestethic/moodboard trying to match @arctixout gifs

“You should talk to him.”

“Why? He's a demon. He's impure, a damned soul.”

“And you love him.”

“Angels can't love. He started corrupting me.”

“Angels can love and they must love. It's not corruption.”

“How can you tell it's not his corruption, Jan?!”

“Because I fell in love with a demon too. And I accepted it. Go to him, speak to him. He’s singing for you.”

When humans think about demons, the mental image they have is that of a terrifying creature, maybe with huge bat wings, a tail with an arrowhead at the end, claws, horns, red skin, maybe even hooves instead of feet.

Well, we do have a tail, and wings, and claws, but nothing alike of what you see in those pictures, and not every demon has them. We own a human form, just like everyone on this planet, that we use to roam among mortals. We have feelings, desires, hobbies, friends and families. Our only drawback is being born a demon from demon parents. We are guardians in Hell, we just watch over the damned souls who doomed themselves to suffering.

Heaven knows this, angels too, but they deliberately chose to not see this, to hate us, and they kill us with no hesitation when they find us on Earth. They think we are impure beings that don’t deserve to live.

And this is what led me, a demon, to meet the most beautiful creature ever seen on every plane of existence. I fell in love with an angel, I don’t even know his name, but I will discover it.

He almost killed me, I was terrified for my life, but he stopped when our eyes met, the sharp point of his dagger barely touched my throat. Something exploded in my chest, my heart was beating so fast. I've never felt something similar to what I felt at that moment.

And since that night I find myself staring at the sky so often, during both daytime and nighttime. Am I a hopeless romantic that waits for his angel to come and get him? Oh yeah, you can bet on it. And I'll wait for him to appear for eternity, if necessary.

* * *

“Bojan, come on!” Shouts Nace, one of my dearest demon friends. “We are late!”

I turn my eyes in his direction. I was staring at the sky, again. As always, no signs of my angel. He will appear, I’m sure of it, but this is not that day. I sigh, then reach Nace and Jure.

“Still looking for that feathered ass?” Jure asks.

“I…yes. I’d like to meet him again.”

“It’s better if you forget him, he will try to kill you again the next time he sees you,” says Jure while looking me in the eyes.

“He’s different. I’m sure of it. He didn’t kill me.”

“No, but he was about to,” replies Nace. “You know better than us that those winged assholes can’t be reasoned with.”

I lower my eyes, aware of the truth behind Nace’s words. We lost so many of our demon friends because of angels. But maybe…maybe he’s not like the other angels. I saw something in his eyes, something different, this sparkle.

With this thought in mind, I followed Nace and Jure to our destination: there’s a concert of a human band we all like, so we decided to go. We enjoy music so much, we also joke about forming a band together and tour together on Earth, among mortals, but that would put too much attention on us. It’s too dangerous. But at least we can enjoy concerts and gigs!

I’m dancing, taken away by the rhythm of the songs, when my gaze meets familiar eyes in the crowd, two amazing blue-green seas. I completely stop, and so does he. The music and every other sound disappears along with the people around me.

We stare at each other for moments that seem to last decades, blue into brown, light into darkness, Heaven into Hell, a perfect but forbidden combination, something that should never exist.

This magic spell breaks when I feel a hand on my shoulder and immediately after a tight grip. I turn and see Nace on my side, who is harshly staring at my angel. Jure appears on my other side.

I turn again towards my angel and I see two other people near him, one of them with dark and long messy hair and a beard, the other one with shorter hair but well combed and a trimmed beard. They are definitely angels. And they know we are demons.

The guy with messy hair steps in our direction, but my angel stops him, raising his hand and using it as a barrier. The dark-haired angel steps back and quickly glances at his friend. No one says a word.

“Bojči, let’s go,” Jure whispers into my ear, then grabs my arm and pulls me away.

I keep looking at my angel until I can no longer see him in the crowd.

In the next weeks Nace and Jure forbid me to go to the surface, but I sneak out. Every other demon could tell that my self-preservation instinct got fried because I want to talk to that angel, at all costs.

I keep looking at the sky, searching for him. Waiting for him to show up. And every single time nothing happens. But I’m stubborn, I won’t give up.

Tonight the sky is clear, stars are shining bright, and there's a small crescent moon. I'm lying on a patch of grass in the middle of nowhere, around me only trees and mountains. 

Suddenly a shadow partially covers the sky above me.

“What are you doing here all alone?”

I startle and stand up immediately, recoiling scared. When I recognise the person in front of me, I wide my eyes and open my mouth in surprise.

“Angel,” I whisper.

It’s dark, but I can sense his piercing blue eyes on me. He’s tall, taller than Jure and Nace too. His cheekbones are prominent, I can for sure cut myself while stroking them. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I want to touch them and feel them under my hands and bleed for him. He’s standing straight, rigid like a soldier, or maybe a general, I can’t tell his celestial rank.

“I repeat, since you seem to not understand my words, what are you doing here all alone?”

Shivers run down my whole body, his voice is…ok, this might sound cheeky, but yes, his voice sounds angelic, a slow caress of a lover on my back down to my waist. 

“I was looking for you.”

“For me?” He’s surprised.

“Yes, for you. I wanted to talk to you, angel.”

Now he’s confused. Well, not every day a demon comes looking for an angel. I go closer to him, moving slowly.

“I’m not armed,” I show him my hands. “You can check on me. This is not a trap.”

His eyes follow every single movement I do, even more carefully when I’m in front of him. I stare at his face, stunned by his beauty. I lift a hand to touch it, but I stop mid-air. No, I can’t touch him, my dirty hands can only ruin his perfection.

“Why do you want to talk to me, exactly?”

“I…I want to know you, angel.”

“I beg your pardon, you want to know…me?”

“Yes,” I nod. “You are amazingly beautiful, angel,” I let slip this comment, without realising. 

I notice a weird red-ish colour on his face. Did I just make him blush? I chuckle, he replies with a shy smile. Oh, he’s so wonderful! That smile almost made me melt on the spot. 

“Would you like to…I don’t know, come grab a coffee or anything else to drink?”

Who said that angels and demons can’t get along well? They must have never met an angel, then.

My angel, whose name is Kris, is a pleasant company. Well, he’s still a little bit rigid, but since that night when we had a couple of drinks together in a bar he became much more open and relaxed and he smiles so much now! Oh, I adore his smile. And his laugh too! 

We started going out together here and there, but every time it happens, my heart almost explodes out of joy. I can’t wait to see him again and again and again. Jure and Nace are worried for me, but I feel safe around Kris. He’s not like the other angels.

Our “dates” are pretty diverse. Sometimes we just hang out in some park or in the middle of wild places; once we sat on a cliff for hours, we talked and we observed the environment, at least Kris, I was too busy looking at him with heart eyes. Some other time we choose a city and we explore it, we can just appear anywhere in the world, a perk of being supernatural creatures!

This night though is special. Tonight I will confess my feelings to Kris. By now we have been seeing each other for some months and I’m completely sure about my love for him. Yes, I, a demon, fell in love with an angel, I’m not afraid of saying it, I want to shout it from the top of a building.

I’m putting on some makeup. I’m in front of the mirror in the bathroom of a small apartment I rented for when I’m roaming around on Earth. Jure and Nace are with me in the room, they are still worried for me.

“Are you sure of what you are about to do?” Nace asks.

“Yes, never been so sure in my long demonic life,” I reply.

“But he’s an angel, Bojči,” Jure whispers. “He’s dangerous. What if he’s playing with you?”

“He’s not, Jurček. I see how he looks at me, he…I think he’s in love with me too,” I glance at him through the mirror. 

“Angels are sly creatures, you can’t trust them,” Jure adds.

“They say the same stuff about us, you know?” 

I smile at my reflection. That black eyeshadow with glitter is perfect for me, my eyes are shining. “I love him, I’m going to tell him this. Tonight will be a special night, nothing can change this.”

We hear the sound of wings in the living room. He’s here.

I almost run in the room, a huge smile appears on my lips when I see him. He’s wearing beige trousers, a shirt with light colours and floral designs and a silver jacket. He’s from Heaven, no one can be mistaken. And his clothes collide with mine: I’m wearing black trousers and a black t-shirt, when we’ll go out I planned to wear a bright red leather jacket. He’s the good boy, I’m the bully, the bad boy.

“You are stunning, ljubavi .”

“You…too, Bojan.”

I notice his eyes passing over me. I turn and I see Jure and Nace.

“Oh, yeah, these are my dearest friends. This is Jure,” and I point to the blonde demon. “And this is Nace,” I move my hand towards the tattooed demon. “They are safe, they won’t hurt you. I ask you to do the same.”

“...fine,” he grants. His eyes turn back to me. I notice hesitation in him.“You put on makeup.” 

“Yes, just for you. Do you like it?”

“You…look good.”

I grab his hand. “I have a surprise for you. Close your eyes and follow me.”

I practically pull Kris to the bathroom, where I make him sit on the edge of the bathtub.

“What are you trying to do, little demon?”

“I told you, it’s a surprise,” I reply while I take the palette I bought the other day. I start putting makeup on his face, I chose a wonderful golden eyeshadow for him. I admire my work.

“You are otherworldly, ljubavi . Open your eyes.”

Kris opens his eyes and looks in the mirror. I observe his reaction: I can read astonishment in his face.

“Gold is your colour. It suits you perfectly.”

“I-It does,” he whispers.

I smile and kiss him on the cheek. “We can go, then. I have other surprises for you, my angel.”

Our first stop is at a wonderful restaurant where we had already eaten so many times because it’s Kris’ favourite. I let him order whatever he wants and then pay for the whole dinner. We talk about many topics, but Kris is weirdly more silent than usual.

“Is everything ok, ljubavi ?” 

“Yeah, sure, don't worry. I…had a rough day in Heaven, that's all.”

I smile fondly at him, then gently grab his hand and slowly stroke its back.

“Now it's time for you to relax, then. Enjoy this night out.”

Our eyes lock. I see him relaxing a bit, the shadow of whatever happened retreating.

Once dinner is finished, we take a long walk into the city centre. It's almost summer, the temperatures are pleasant, so many other humans are around. We blend in, looking like a proper couple, even because we are holding hands.

When we arrive at our final destination of the night, I bring Kris to the top of a building, so we can be alone and closer to the sky, his home.

“Why did you bring me here?” Kris asks.

I shake one hand in the air, around us many candles appear and some slow music starts spreading, embracing us. I turn towards my angel and offer him my hand.

“Would you like to dance with me, Kris?”

He looks at me, confused, but then takes it. I lay my other hand on his waist and smile at him. We start dancing, slowly. My angel is a bit embarrassed, but he tries to follow my lead.

“Just let the music flow over you. Hear it inside of you and allow it to take control over your body,” I whisper to him with a tender voice.

A few seconds later Kris is more relaxed and we are dancing more fluidly, following the rhythm and the melody. I can’t stop smiling while I look at my angel. He’s so beautiful, so ethereal, so perfect. I can see stars reflecting into his eyes, an entire galaxy in which I could lose myself, bewitched by its beauty.

We keep dancing along with the music, but the more we dance, the more I see a shadow coming back in Kris’ eyes, until he leaves my hands and takes two steps back.

“We can’t go on doing this, Bojan.”

“Why not? I don’t understand.”

“Because we can’t! You are a demon, and I’m an angel. We are not supposed to…mingle.”

“We are not mingling, ljubavi . This is a romantic date between two creatures who have feelings for each other.”

I grab the angel's hands and look him in the eyes.

“Kris, I'm not the monster Heaven teaches you to despise. You saw me, you got to know me.”

“You are still a demon, Bojan, no matter how you behave or what you do.”

“And so? What does it change between us?”

“I'm a freaking angel! We are supposed to fight each other, not…doing this, dancing alone like two teenagers in love!”

“Only because we are not human teenagers? Because we come from two different places? Because others tell us that we should hate each other?” I clutch his hands between mine. “You know me,” I repeat. It’s the truth, we have been seeing each other for some months now. I bring one of his hands on my chest, right over my heart. “This heart is yours, ljubavi , and no one else’s.”

“Bojan, this is wrong .”

“Kris, I love you. What's wrong with that?” I feel my heart sink into my chest. “You…don't love me?”

“No, Bojan. I don’t love you. Let’s stop pretending.”

My heart stops beating in that exact moment and I feel my head spin. The ground under my feet is crumbling. I’m falling even if I’m right in front of Kris, my angel. I struggle breathing.

“I-I’m not pretending.”

“Don’t lie, Bojan. You are a demon, all demons do is lie. You know who and what I am, you saw weakness in me because I didn’t kill you that day. You are corrupting me because you want me to lose my wings!”

“I know you are an angel and nothing else! I-I don't want you to lose your wings!” There’s panic in my voice, and maybe it’s showing on my face too. “I’m not lying!”

“You want to bring me to the path of perdition! You want me to fall, just like Lucifer.”

I let Kris' hands go and recoil, stuttering. My heart is clenched, it can’t beat.

“I-I’m not, Kris. I-I don’t want to-”

“Stop lying!” He shouts and his eyes begin shining out of celestial power. “You are a filthy demon. You don’t change, you just want to destroy us.”

I recoil again, scared, I even fall on the ground. I stand up then turn and run away as fast as I can. Tears sting my eyes violently, they want to come out and a few seconds later they manage to do so. My makeup is for sure ruined and dripping down my face. 

I feel like an idiot. I hoped that Kris would be different, but what was I thinking? He's an angel, those creatures are heartless killers when it comes to demons like me. Their hatred for us is blind, almost innate. I just got another proof.

Nace and Jure were right. Angels and demons are not meant to be together. Then why did I, a demon, fall in love with an angel? If we are supposed to be mortal enemies, then why was I destined to lose my reason for a celestial creature that would slaughter me just because I am what I am? Just why? Will I ever get an answer? 

I’ve been locked in my room in a building in Hell for…who knows how much time. I don’t want to see anyone, neither Nace nor Jure. I keep crying, stopping the tears coming out of my eyes is difficult, or dare I say even impossible. My heart is shattered.

Why are demons born with such intense feelings? Why can’t we control them like angels do? Or are we cursed to be dominated by our emotions exactly because angels don’t have them?They teach us that the universe needs balance, so if angels can’t feel, someone else must feel double the time. 

I wrap my body with my arms, trying to look smaller. My tail is out, wrapped around my leg. It’s a pathetic endeavour to not feel so alone and abandoned. 

I wince when I feel a hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes and see Nace sitting by my side. He’s visibly worried.

“Bojči, what happened?”

I sob. “Y-you were right about him. He-he’s a heartless angel, just like anyone else of them,” I stutter, my voice is trembling.

Nace lays on my bed, facing me, then pulls me over to hug me. I plant my face against his chest. I feel his hand running up and down my back.

“Not every angel is heartless.”

“He is, Nace!” I shout, utter despair in my voice. “He is! I showed him my love and he accused me of trying to corrupt him! I-I gave him my whole heart and he laughed at me, he stabbed it with his ice dagger and killed me-” I stop. I can still hear his words in my mind. “H-He called me a filthy demon, Nace. After all I did for him and showed him, I-I’m still a filthy demon to him.”

My friend says nothing, he just stays there and cuddles me, attempting to make me feel a little bit better. 

And since that day I kind of started feeling better. Well, it’s more of a euphemism. Let’s say that I was barely surviving. I came back to my chores as a demon, but now I don’t smile anymore, or very little. I’m quiet. I prefer to stay alone than in the middle of a crowd. With me I have a small notebook in which I write my thoughts, ideas, feelings, and also lyrics. I can’t be a singer in the human world, but no one can stop me from writing what I feel, what I experience. 

This is how I wrote a song about my angel and how I fell in love with him. It has a stupid name too. I can write good songs, but I’m not able to name them. I will find a better one, one day. Hopefully.

“What are you writing in that notebook?” Asks Jure while sitting next to me.

We are in the human world, more precisely in a park. We needed some fresh air and some sunlight. 

“It’s nothing…” I answer.

Jure leans forward to read. “Is this about him?”

I nod. There’s no one else in my mind. I don’t like his presence, he’s haunting me, my mind is working against me. 

“It’s really intense,” Jure whispers. “Do you really love him?”

I nod again. “I know I’m a stupid demon. I should move on, forget him, but I can’t. He doesn’t love me back, he said it,” I sigh. “I’m just hoping to forget him as soon as possible. Maybe writing this stuff will help me process this stupid feeling.”

“Love isn’t stupid!”

“My love is absolutely stupid. An angel, Jurček! I’m a freaking demon and I fell in love with an angel.”

“You are not the first one.”

“Yeah, and how many of them survived? Are they here to tell their love story? No, Jurček, because angels killed them. I’m lucky I’m still alive.”

Jure pushes me with his shoulder. “Don’t lose hope, Bojči. There’s always time to change.”

I look at him. I don’t believe his words. Months have passed since my last moment with my angel, his shiny eyes are still impressed in my mind. He was about to kill me that night. 

No, he won’t change. Kris is an angel, full stop. He’s born to despise demons like me. I just need to accept that, but it will take time.

Is this despair that is guiding my actions? Possibly. Will I regret my decisions? Almost certainly. But if I can’t be with my angel, then I’d rather be dead, maybe slaughtered by him directly. That would be pretty ironic, wouldn’t it? A demon executed by the angel he’s fallen in love with. There’s poetry behind all of this. Maybe demons will use me as an example to the younglings to warn them to not fall in love with angels if they want to live.

I tried to forget him, move on, but every time I close my eyes, I see him. He's haunting me. And with him also the lyrics of the song I wrote for him. 

I’m in the middle of an abandoned industrial area. I prepared an amplifier with a microphone and a computer. I recorded some music for my song and I will perform it for the first (and last) time here, hoping that my angel is listening to me and will come to…I don’t know, to do anything. I’m ready for whatever he will decide to do to me. Included death.

I test the volume and the music. Everything sounds good, so I play the music and I start singing, looking directly at the sky.

“ Stolicu primakni, ruku mi dotakni, noćas ti si moja muza, ja u ritmu tvoga bluza ću da plešem bez prestanka .”

Nothing. The sky is blue, there’s not a single cloud, not a single sign of feathered wings. I continue singing.

“ Soba nam je mala. Ja ko pijana budala, a ni čaše nisam popio. Ja mislim da sam se zaljubio u tebe. Baš ja, koji nisam verovao da za nekim biću lud. Za tebe, kao u pesmama i filmovima ljubavnim, staviću zvuk .”

Still nothing. But I won’t lose hope, I will keep singing for him. He will show up, eventually. I just need a sign, Kris, please, I’m begging you.

“ Samo se okreni, baci pogled prema meni. Preći će tišina sama kilometre među nama dok jednom srce otkuca .”

Now it’s again time for the refrain. Some tears started running down my face, but I continue singing, I must, even if he won’t appear. I need to take these feelings out of my heart or it will explode. Maybe it will be my heart to kill me and not my angel.

“ Soba nam je mala. Ja ko pijana budala, a ni čaše nisam popio. Ja mislim da sam se zaljubio u tebe. Baš ja, koji nisam verovao da za nekim biću lud. Za tebe, kao u pesmama i filmovima ljubavnim, staviću zvuk .”

I see something in the sky, then the clear sound of wings hits me. I lower my eyes and I find Kris right in front of me. I see his three pairs of wings. A seraph, I should have guessed. Of course, I fell in love with one of the most powerful angels in the sky. When I do something, it’s always something big or I’m not happy with the result.

I kneel in front of him. Now I’ll sing the last part of my song.

“ Ne palite još svetla, još samo jedan tren da se nagledam lepote te. Ne palite još svetla. Ne prizivajte dan. Spasite me, smislite neki plan. Ako svane sunce, ostaću sam .”

The music stops. I’m looking at my angel, finally here for me. I’m breathing deeply, my heart is racing in my chest. My hand that’s holding the microphone is shaking. I’m afraid of what might happen, but at the same time I’m relieved. 

“You came,” I whisper.

“You called.”

Silence falls again between us. Kris slowly approaches, his facial expression is cold, hiding every emotion. I have pure angelic power in front of me, a deadly machine trained to kill my kind, and I’m looking at him in adoration.

“You know I should kill you right now because you are on Earth and not in Hell, right?”

“Then do it. I won’t fight, I won’t run away. If I can’t be with you, I’d rather be dead.”

Kris averts his eyes and presses his lips together, then talks. 

“You are an idiot, Bojan.”

“Yeah, I know, ljubavi . Love made me lose my mind in a way I didn’t think possible.”

“You said that in the song.”

I chuckle. “Maybe it’s just one of the many flaws that make us demons so imperfect in front of you angels. I was so unlucky to fall in love with you, but I don’t consider myself unlucky. I had the best moments of my life with you, I don’t want to change this for anything else in this world, not even a place in Heaven, if this means that I will lose my ability to love so strongly.”

I let the microphone fall on the ground and grab Kris’ sword, he has it in his hand, then I lay his sharp point right on my heart.

“You are here for this, no? Killing another impure soul that doesn’t follow the rules.”

Kris looks at me, finally. I smile, those eyes are so cold and so beautiful at the same time.

“Don’t make me do this, Bojan.”

“It’s ok, ljubavi . It’s ok. It’s…it’s your nature, you have been trained to do this your whole life.”

My voice trembles with emotions. Tears keep running down my face. No, I realise I’m not ready to die. I want to live, to be with him, but I know I can’t. It’s not allowed.

I feel the point of his sword pressed against my chest. In a few seconds it will reach my heart, and it will stop beating. I close my eyes.

But nothing happens. I’m still here, alive, breathing. I hear a metal sound against the ground, then two hands cup my face and I feel warm and soft lips pressed on mine.I open wide my eyes. Kris is kneeling on the ground in front of me and he’s kissing me.

I close my eyes again. I kiss him back, desperate to feel him, to make him feel my love through that act. I gently grab his wrists. 

When we interrupt the kiss, I touch Kris’ forehead with mine. I keep my eyes closed, trying to process what just happened.  

“Please, let it be real,” I whisper, without even realising it. “Please, please, let it be real.”

Kris chuckles. “It’s real, Bojan.”

I open my eyes and part a bit from him, just to look him in the eyes. “Real-real kind of way or…real-I’m-in-some-sort-of-Heaven-for-demons-because-I’m-dead kind of way?” I ask.

My angel gently strokes my cheeks, then leans forward to kiss me again. 

“This kind of way, my little demon,” he whispers against my lips. I shiver thanks to that lovely nickname. I hate being called little because it reminds me of my lack of height, but I’d let Kris call me whatever he wants, just to hear his voice again and again.

“I’m your little demon, then?”

Kris nods while looking me in the eyes. He caresses my lower lip with his thumb. His touch is so gentle, shivers run down my spine again.

“What made you change your mind?”

“Your song. I had feelings for you, they developed pretty early, but I…wasn’t acknowledging their existence because I never had the chance to fall in love with someone.”

I jump on Kris to hug him, sending us both falling to the ground, so I end up on top of him. I burst out laughing.

“Well, now you have someone right here.”

My tail appears behind me and shakes in the air, showing my happiness. I kiss him on the cheek, then giggle when I see him blushing. A couple of tears run down my face, but this time they are out of pure and simple joy.

* * *

I've been a demon my whole life. I grew up fearing angels, but nothing could have prepared me for what fate had planned for me. I fell in love with Kris, an angel, a seraph. Our relationship began with the worst scenario possible, with him trying to kill me. And yeah, I might be dumb, because I fell in love with him in that moment, but now we are happy together. And I wouldn’t change a thing about us.

Heaven and Hell finally united thanks to the love between an angel and a demon.

[2023himbotournament]

CONTACT YOUR GOVERNMENT AND DEMAND A CEASEFIRE FOR PALESTINE

For Eu look up:

Voices in Europe for peace

For Usa look up:

US campaign for Palestinian rights

BOYCOTT FOR PALESTINE

FOA (Friends of Al-Aqsa) have organized a boycott in support of palestine. Here are the key companies to boycott:

HP (Hewlett Packard)

Coca-Cola

Israeli produce

We will be ending our call to boycott

PUMA once the contract with IFA officially dissolves in 2024. Until then, we encourage you to continue boycotting PUMA products.

Please help to spread the word by sending this copypasta to as many blogs as you can and/or going to FOAs website where you can find posters to download and print out

Ok I'm not a copypasta person unless it's memes but like. Look I'm not Palestinian but I'm also a Southwest Asian and my mental health has definitely deteriorated seeing just. Everything. Especially the increase in racism and islamophobia (I'm also muslim) and seeing all the hate crimes and knowing that someone could probably shoot me in the head while I'm writing gay fanfiction in public and justify it by saying that I could've been a dangerous terrorist and therefore my entire family tree must be eradicated-

basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm hoping that making this post on the himbo tourney blog will get some eyes on this. Like. I've been feeling really powerless about this and kinda just like shriveling up and dying lately. Tbh. The world is fxcked right now. In the year of our lord 2024 /ref, here we are post undertale we are being pro-genocide how funny is that haha. It's not funny. It's. It's not. It's not funny . I can't. I've seen too many videos of children dying and crying and I just. I saw the one thing about the kid with cerebral palsy whose parents got shot right in front of them for literally no reason and then they got yelled at by soldiers and like. People literally will look at this and call these people animals?? I saw that term get thrown around a lot. It's just disgusting and like.

have people seen the bingo the literal genocide bingo. People are treating this like a joke like. Do people not realize that Southwest Asian people are like... people??? We're people you know. Like this is mainly targeting Arabs but I've seen stuff about people discriminating against the rest of us too (mainly because they can't tell the difference. Because the idea of not treating Asian cultures as interchangeable applies until you get to Southwest Asia I guess even in progressive circles everyone just says Arab for everything even here I've seen people like-). I'm Persian and I'm still scared someone will cut my life off. I'm 16. Nowruz is next week and I just want to live to it with my family. My mind is inundated wit the tears of the families that had never gotten to have their celebrations. Because of one group on one day.

one group on one day. One group on one day. it's always that. it's always that for people like us.I feel like I'm going insane. It's just 9/11 in America all over again. I wasn't even born for that. But you can just feel it all around you. And now we have the sequel, across the world. But it's used the same way. 7/23. Can't wait for the memes /s. This one thing happens therefore we can dedicate multiple months to killing all of you just making you suffer stripping your dignity you don't deserve anything and we'll make the world hate you because fxck you and then the world goes along with it because nothing good ever happens and I just want to escape from this but every time I go on tumblr it's just this and I know if I ever stop seeing this it means that the worst has happened anyway

and then people try to act like YOU'RE the bigot because you're trying to hold a country's government and military force responsible for war crimes just because the country has its branding in minority groups. How about I make this crystal clear: I don't give a flying fxck about what Israel is, it's what it's doing that matters. I'd be saying nearly the same shzt if they were PERSIAN, and that is MY ETHNICITY. I literally do not care. It doesn't matter. Because killing people is wrong and that should not be a controversial statement but I guess some people like the sound of screams in the morning. The Palestinian death toll has surpassed the 7/23 death toll. And it's still going. And not all the deaths have even been accounted for because bodies are still buried under rubble. Because they're still bombing people and they won't stop. And no one will make them stop.

like I don't give a fxck about Hamas either, I heard some of the members did genuinely say some like directly quoted antisemitic shzt and also they like condoned a racist caricature of a black woman in a magazine I think but I'm not sure about the second one (I know the magazine thing definitely happened but I'm not sure of their like involvement at all-) like. I don't need to suck there dzcks like some people do it's one group of fxcks like I don't. They're just the excuse being used for this. You're bombing the entire population of a country where the majority population is fzcking tater tots. You're attacking children. You are killing children. Paint yourself purple. Dammit. Just. Again it's 9/11 all over again but in another country.

even then like it's like. You know that trope in cartoons that shows up more often than you'd think that was in like Avatar and Korra and RWBY I think where there's like a fictional minority that is oppressed and wants rights and then active protest is represented by an evil terrorist group who attacks people and is the villains of the media and passive protest is always portrayed as good and active protest is evil and there's no nuance and also they just frame the group as just like evil spawned out of nowhere not addressing that they literally would not exist if not for the truly evil system of oppression that basically created them. Like.

You know Hamas only exists because Palestinians were already treated like shzt right? Like they were already displaced and didn't consent to the whole Israel thing and like look up Nakba it's fzcking awful like. Hamas is just a symptom of the disease and there will just be another Hamas if you try to knock it down without actually like. Doing anything about. the fact that Palestinians are oppressed. but people will just act like you can keep punching at Hamas like that'll result in anything like they're the flowers not the roots y'know-

also I'm calling it here, this entire thing is gonna definitely be used down the line by Neo-nazis I mean it kinda already is being used to justify antisemitism but like I saw the stuff of people trying to redefine antisemitism to be synonymous with antizionism and make isrseli and jewish synonymous and to basically gatekeep jewishness from anti-zionist jews (I'm not kidding I actually saw shzt like that) and it's like. Y'all they're gonna turn around in a year or two like "ohhh look at the big bad scary jews- I mean Israelis their identity is literally tied to the genocide of Palestinians they are inherently evil there is no denying it!" (Ignoring the fact that the USA and other bastards of colonization did the same shzt as Israel literally the same story history is repeating itself but we have social media brands this time-). And then like what the fxck do you do about it when the word antisemitic now means anticolonialist so no one takes it seriously anymore. What the fxck are you supposed to do about that. And when they probably made themselves right because they probably contributed to Palestinian Genocide themselves they don't care they're just using them as props in their fxcking jew hatred. But like. Yeah you are now tied to this nationality that is tied to fxcking genocide what do you do? It's like perfect to use for fearmongering around Jewish people since the shzt they used before somehow worked despite literally being pulled out of their xss istg like where the fxck did any of the bank stuff come from like. The fzck?-

im tired. I'm so tired. Both in the literal "It's past 1am" sense and the less literal "make the stop" sense.

I just don't want people to die. I just want people to be happy. I just want people to not suffer but every day it feels like it's getting worse and I just want something to change for the better and I'm scared. Why do people act like it's a bad thing to not want people to suffer? I don't understand. I just. I just don't understand. I. am I naive? For this?

does this wish make me naive?

[rosethornewrites]

NR, E , & M reading since 11/10

Tumblr has issues with imbedding links, so sometimes the URL is included.

Finished

Not Rated:

Before the Thirteen Years Without You, by Bblottiefottie (2 chapters) (https://archiveofourown.org/works/39293991/chapters/98327496)

-Novel Spoilers-

In which Lan Wangji hides an emotionally unstable Wei Wuxian in a cave after the massacre at Nightless City

becoming a ghost, by duravis (https://archiveofourown.org/works/35823868)

Perhaps it’d be easier to turn them away if she were a little more cruel. If her years being brought up by Wen Ruohan had hardened her heart a little more definitively. But—

Here is a wound. Here’s how you fix it.

Explicit:

Coming Back to Yourself, by acernor (7 chapters)

Lan Wangji gets cursed with a ~woman's body~ and has to orgasm to go back. Since he's 1) a virgin 2) super repressed and 3) SUPER gay, he has no idea what to do.

If only he had a super nosy friend who's read lots of erotic novels who could help him figure out what to do... hm...

follow the sound of my song, by sassybluee (🔒, 2 chapters, 2nd in a series)

He reaches up to touch his forehead, to remove the ribbon that has been his constant companion, his constant reminder of who he must be. The one piece of himself that has been with him through everything, from his earliest memories, to his deepest regrets. His entire history is in its very fibres.

His brother lets out a small gasp as his fingers pinch the material, raising his hand as though to reach out and stop him.

Lan Wangji lowers his hand.

___

Lan Wangji begins his new life with Wei Wuxian

call me home and I'll build you a throne, by anaphoricae (8 chapters)

“I’ll help,” Lan Wangji says.

“Hey, Lan Zhan...” Wei Wuxian unfolds his leg and gives his foot a playful kick. “I told you to think about it! This means I’d be here for a long time, taking up your time, your space, your peace. And I can’t pay you! I have nothing of worth to give. It isn’t as simple as-”

“I’ll do it,” he says again, more forcefully this time. “You don’t have to give me anything.”

Wei Wuxian looks away, hiding a small smile. Doesn’t he know Lan Wangji would do anything for him, by now? Doesn’t he understand that he holds Lan Wangji’s life in his hands?

-

POST-CQL Wei Wuxian comes back to the Cloud Recesses to ask for Lan Wangji's help with his new golden core.

Together, they learn how to communicate, how to ask for things, and how to touch each other.

Their relationship develops in between quiet dinners in the Jingshi, meditation sessions, core training and a lot of Lan Juniors speculation on whether or not they're actually together yet.

Mature:

the flutter of a butterfly, by Krissy (https://archiveofourown.org/works/38751807)

The writing described a ritual of some sorts and the more he read, the more he crumpled the paper under his fingers, the more his head started to spin.

His sister. If this worked, he could see his sister again.

☾

One year after Wei Wuxian’s death, Jiang Cheng finds an old ritual that allows one to travel back to the past. He didn’t expect the consequences to be that disastrous.

Jin Ling vs. The 8 Uncles of Sex Education, by Wildcard (https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960575)

(When Jin Ling turns 13, his uncle tries to kill him.

If Jin Ling ever expected a family member to try to murder him, he would’ve thought it would be Jin Chan, that bully, or at least another Jin. He did not expect to be accosted in Lotus Pier, of all places, by his beloved jiujiu.

He definitely did not expect his death to involve a comb.)

Jin Ling would really appreciate it if his uncles would stop trying to give him the talk. Please. Bad enough to receive it once but to have to listen to it EIGHT TIMES from uncles who are convinced the other uncles didn’t do a good enough job?

(And just when he thinks his suffering is over, an uncle COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD to educate him. Jin Ling is cursed.)

the shapes a bright container can contain, by litbynosun (3 chapters) (https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598735/chapters/59419996)

"Lan Zhan, look at this," Wei Wuxian calls. "They don't have organs, but they're all… fuzzy."

He gently strokes the corpse's arm -- it's covered in soft, pigmentless downy hair, like a rabbit.

Lan Wangji crouches next to him and nods.

"Lanugo," he says.

Wei Wuxian raises one eyebrow.

"They were malnourished for quite a while before death," Lan Wangji elaborates.

Wei Wuxian scans the bodies again. Indeed, they both have sunken cheeks, and their abdomens are empty of both organs and fat padding.

“That’s a question,” he says. “Did they starve to death, and have their bodies desecrated after they were already deceased? Or were they murdered, and simply starving at the same time?”

"We should stay," Lan Wangji tells him.

This is not an answer to his question. It is an offer to search for answers.

Or: Wei Wuxian and his family solve a ghost haunting. Wei Wuxain's old enemy, societal injustice, rears its head again.

Unfinished

Not Rated:

The Cultivation World Needs a Reset, by FangirlingIsLife (https://archiveofourown.org/works/55413919/chapters/140600317)

Do not succumb to anger.

It was one of the founding rules of the Lan Clan and yet Lan Zhan could feel nothing other than a cold fury filling his veins.

He watched as his husband in all but ceremony let himself fall to Jiang Cheng’s blade.

Even at his death, his soul mate would never raise a hand to defend himself against their tyranny.

Well fuck that.

Beiming: To Lament- 33 Reasons to Change the Past, by ravenhg (🔒)

It had been one week since Wei Wuxian’s life ended.

One week since his love, his life, his everything, had been ambushed by remnants of Jin Guangyao and Su She’s followers.

Wei Wuxian really should have known better.

“What will you do, gongzi?” Wen Ning asked quietly.

Wei Wuxian smiled, his eyes burning like coals.

_____________________

Or:

After the death of the most important person in their lives, Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren choose to return to the past to prevent everything. This changes things.

Explicit:

The Threads of Fate, by WaitForTheSnitch

“What would you do if you could have him back?” Nie Huaisang asked him, a bit too seriously as he leaned forward.

“There is no way for a dead cultivator to return,” Jiang Cheng scoffed, not even willing to entertain the thought.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Nie Huaisang shrugged, “Even if he came back, that wouldn’t do much to help, would it? Your sister is still gone. His reputation still damaged.”

“Stop speaking in riddles,” Jiang Wanyin growled, “What did you come here for, Nie Huaisang?”

“I asked you what you would do for your brother back,” Nie Huaisang started, “I would do anything to have mine back, Jiang Wanyin. And I’m here to offer you that same choice. Because our brothers’ deaths never should have happened. They happened because of schemes and plots. They happened because of lies and deception. Your brother was made to be a villain and was led to his death because he was too powerful. Mine was murdered because he stood in the way of Jin Guangshan.”

There's nothing Jiang Cheng wouldn't do to have his siblings back. And when Nie Huaisang comes to him with a proposal to save them by changing everything, he doesn't even hesitate to agree.

Little One, by LovelyTurtleBeans

During the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, Lan Wangji confesses that he was the one who kissed Wei Wuxian. The talk escalates into something more and, before they know it, they're entangled in bed in one of the guest rooms in Jinlintai. Time passes and the freeing of the Wen Remnants and Wei Wuxian's defection come to pass. The future is uncertain, and both Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are on unclear waters until...

Mature:

Mine and mine alone, by Lanwangjisnights

He likes to live out his kinks, but hadn’t found anyone matching his preferences yet, has given up the hope to find someone capable to satisfy his itches.

But today, today he needs to go under. Needs someone to make sure he is pleasured, instead of going through tremendous efforts himself to find a semblance of satisfaction.

Lan Zhan opens the filters, adds a tick on everything he searches for today. Or tomorrow. Or in the very near future - It doesn’t matter as long as it’s soon. Dominance. Bondage. Subspace. Rough Sex.

Or:

Lan Zhan finds Dominant Yiling Laozu on a Kink Website, meets up with him and falls incurably in love.

A lotus instead of a orchid, by Sammie224466 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/18552892/chapters/43975183)

What if, that night on the Burial Mounds, Jiang WanYin had been the one to find Wen Yuan instead of Lan WangJi and he wound up raising the child?

To Ride A Stygian Tiger, by Madyamisam (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23143639/chapters/55386229)

Wei Wuxian changes fate and is wounded while saving Jin Zixuan at the Qiongqi bridge and a great mystery starts to unravel many hidden secrets never known before. While trying to deal with his own increasing madness, seeing threats everywhere in past, present and future, he sets an impossible task to save everyone he ever cared about with his very life and soul.

Alternate, by Hanashi_o_suru

No one is actually sure what happened, or why it happened. No one died. No one made any whacked up array that backfired --to their knowledge--and no one wasn't necessarily in discontent for where they were in life...

So, why is it they're suddenly in the past to the day they had just got to the Cloud Recesses?

[orangewsunglasses]

ok listen

i've always liked chuuya as a character, his design is awesome, i love his personality, the dynamics he has with ither characters, all that good stuff right??? In general i just really love chuuya, but only having the main series to go off of, i didn't know much about his character nor did i really understand him very well

BUT, halfway now through storm bringer, i can safely say he is genuinely my favorite character in bsd. Reading it has exposed so much more of his character, and ive been able to marinate in my thoughts about him for a while now.

Now, again, im only a bit more than halfway through, so my thoughts and opinions are probably going to change. But i can't see how chuuya ISNT human. Like, okay, fine, he was born from a lab, from a singularity, he's the splitting image of an actual boy that "was chuuya" before chuuya was born. But I can't see how any of that matters when the life he is currently living is so painfully human.

That anger isn't just arahabaki, that's his own fucking emotion. That loneliness and betrayal and all of that shit is not just some sort of product of code. He is feeling all of those human emotions viscerally, and if you ask me, that makes him human.

He is so stuck between blaming himself for everything and seeing how many things were just simply out of his control, and I think that divide is showed with his friends in the mafia and The Sheep. One side doesn't blame him for anything, they never did. Their deaths were not chuuya's fault, no matter the reason verlaine was after them. How could chuuya know? The Sheep on the other hand, more specifically shirase, blame him for a lot. The fact that chuuya was taken in by them is lorded over him, and the whole "chuuya betrayed the sheep" is well, idk man, bullshit??? it was never chuuya's intent to destroy and leave behind the sheep, he always meant to protect them. Then there's Dazai, who seems to be the only one to see and understand him. I've barely reached the part of storm bringer where he comes back to "see Chuuya suffer as a human", (that line fucking KILLED me) so i dont have much comment on him rn.

I just srsly had to say how much i really truly love chuuya's character now. He will always be human, fuck being born in a lab. I know im saying nothing new, but I can yap all I want, ranting to myself about this was not enough and i needed to go to tumblr lol

tldr; chuuya is human and i bleed for him what the actual hell

[sqeeebus]

Saw a post about this and would like to share my take on it, no use clogging up this person’s tumblr and all that when I could just make my own point.

Big tw for non-con/rape, sexual abuse, etc

Besides, it doesn’t matter that much because this is a fictional character and not an actual person, so it’s nothing to really fight over— unless people who believe this actually support/enjoy/do non-con and other such gross things in real life, in which case— kindly omit yourself from this planet because you are sick and we don’t need people who actually find shit like this “hot” or would even do it themselves. Fuck you, I am a victim. If you like to believe this aspect is canon because it adds something for you (that is hopefully not erotic or romantic…) then do what you want, I guess. Not my thing, but I can just stay away from it so it’s not a big deal. Again, it is a fictional character but your opinions on what they do is REAL and can affect you and your actions.

Also when you post about that shit and justify it or whatever, you’re making multiple people feel unsafe and you’re making multiple rapists feel VERY safe, just so you know. So maybe make it clearer that you’re not about that in reality.

Anyway, all that done, let’s talk about the more specific and less important argument;

I see people so often characterize Hannibal as someone who is okay with or practices non-con and other such sexually heinous things, based on his attitude and actions in the show.

In my opinion, while we see Hannibal commit obviously horrible things— like murder and cannibalism, creating awful power imbalances and malpractices, as well as performing non-consensual and non-sexual actions on others— we don’t see him doing anything sexually heinous, and in my opinion I don’t believe he would do so.

For one, he encourages Margot to kill her abuser, Mason. Not that this isn’t a thing he would do regardless, but he also drugs and has Mason self-torture, paralyzes Mason to elongate his suffering and to also leave the revenge up to Margot herself, and even aids in the killing of Mason. We do know that he sexually violates Mason, but it isn’t for sexual motivation, as it is a clinical violation in order to harvest his sperm. I will admit, this is rather gross and sexually heinous, but not done for sexual pleasure or in support of sexual assault (rather the opposite I’d think).

This post I saw pointed out that Hannibal also said that he “liked this dragon” in regard to Francis Dolarhyde, who sexually assaulted his victims. This is a good point, and the only real opposition I have for this is that he only said so to get on Will’s nerves, or that he meant it in an entirely different way— that he’d like to kill the dragon/have Will kill the dragon, as that’s why he’d sent the man to his house in the first place (not knowing Will wouldn’t necessarily be there), because Francis already had a vendetta against Will and Hannibal would like to have Will get back into killing. I do know that Hannibal is well-aware of Francis’s crimes, as he reads about them through the paper and so I can’t say that he didn’t know about the necrophilic part of his killings, and that any of them very well could’ve been subject to it. I can only refute by saying he expected Will to kill Dolarhyde and “become the dragon” before any of that could happen.

Hannibal’s whole motto is “eat the rude” and I’d say people who commit sexually heinous crimes would be considered very rude, and he even seems to dislike them when they’re not even targeting himself.

This is not about projecting morality onto dark characters as much as it is my personal take and also to those who need to hear it: stop projecting your creepiness onto dark characters. They can be dark characters without being sexually disturbing.

I guess, personally, I’d just like to have a favorite character/favorite ship that does not perform/support sexual violations. Don’t know how you can fault me for that.

[h0tch0c0lat]

Cold hearted (CoD x Y/N)

Preview

A story in which Y/N is Makarov's daughter.

Y/N's journal

December 16th, 2023

A new journal. That marks the start of a new beginning for me. Must be something good, right? Nah. These past few months have been the most chaotic ever since my mother's death 10 years ago.

First, I found out my dog died of old age. Sure, he may have been as old as me, but he had at least a couple more years left. He was a good dog and had the fluffiest gray fur. I don't know what breed he was. For all I know, he could've been just a mongrel. A good dog  nonetheless. A good comrade who I hope can rest peacefully now.

A few weeks later, I was told my father died as well. Can't say I didn't expect that considering what he did in his life, but no one is ever prepared to hear these kinds of things. He was the only relative I had left. Well... the only one I knew of, at least. Surely, if I had anyone else, they would've been there after my mother's funeral or at my dad's funeral.

Now, I have nothing. I'll have no money to my name or a house until I'll turn 18 and inherit everything my father owned.

I feel like I should be sad about this, but more than anything, I'm scared. I don't know what's gonna happen now. There's so much going on, and I've got no one to talk to.

I used the last of my money to fly back to Russia and attend my father's funeral. After all, what else could I have done? He's the only family I've had for the past 10 years. I heard he died while in a fight with the British army. What kind of actions lead to that? Ah, right. Being a terrorist trying to start a war.

I'm scared of what's gonna happen now. The only one I know is still alive is my step-dad, who should be released from prison around this time. Why was he in prison? Because he killed mom.

I'm surprised he didn't serve more time. That rotten jerk deserves to suffer as much as mom and I did.

Mom left me a letter, but I never got around to reading it. I was too scared after what I saw my step-dad do to her. Sometimes, I sit and wonder why my father never did anything about it. Maybe the letter could explain it...

Would you look at that... the first few pages in this journal are already a mess. What a good start, am I right?

The plane is about to land. I'm gonna write more after the funeral and see how I feel then.

By Official_QueenMagma on Wattpad or ThatGirlMag1000 on tumblr

[demonic0angel]

Chapter 8 of Ghost Games is out!

(Please start subscribing, I'll stop posting chapters on tumblr after this chapter)

Sparrow's eyes widened. "You're the guy that Brittany likes!"

Oleander glared at him viciously. Marina, however, flinched and ducked her head. Sparrow closed his mouth silently, already feeling the judgement through Oleander's dagger-like gaze.

Nightingale and Robin were silent for a moment, obviously contemplating the new information.

Then Robin asked, "Why did you start killing students? What happened?"

Oleander turned to look at Marina, who stared at him with wet eyes. She clutched at his sleeve and he sighed and relented.

He turned to them and began to explain the sequence of events at East High School.

It had all started when a scholarship student had entered the school. The student was Marina, and she had been a target for bullying since Brittany knew about her. No one defended Marina because she had no friends and couldn't speak well, so even teachers didn't like her.

Marina said in a croaky voice, "I-It's because I s-s-stutter."

"It's because I stutter," Oleander repeated gently.

Marina nodded, and said in a softer tone, "It's... it's because I stutter."

Oleander smiled at her gently but when he turned back to them, his eyes seemed like he wanted to eat them alive. Sparrow was low key impressed by his two-facedness.

Oleander continued his tale. He talked about how he met Marina, found her being bullied and then protected her on instinct. To him, it had been love at first sight.

At that, Marina rolled her eyes lightly but a flush still crept over her face, bringing attention to the mangled scar on her cheek. Nightingale cooed audibly and she flushed further, ducking her head. Oleander smiled at the sight and pulled her closer to him, where she nuzzled him.

Even Sparrow, oblivious as he usually was, felt like the two were deeply in love.

Oleander continued and spoke about how the bullying escalated, even when he tried to stop Brittany by getting her in trouble, scolding her, or bringing it to the authorities. However, nothing happened, even when Marina had her face mutilated by Brittany.

"Nothing I could do was enough. I even threatened her and she laughed in my face. I couldn't stay with Marina all the time, and even when I replaced all of the locks in Marina's room, Brittany would still find ways to make her life hell. The teachers and principal defended her whenever I brought it up."

Sparrow frowned again.

"Nothing happened?"

Oleander snarled, "They're all greedy for money. Of course they wouldn't care about a poor student. I'm rich, so I took care of Marina when I could, but my family's money and power wasn't enough to handle Brittany."

It all came to a head when Brittany finally had enough of Marina and turned crazy. She took Marina from her dorm room and she and her cronies tied her up and beat her. Then as a final act of revenge, they hung her in the supply closet.

Oleander's expression was blank as he explained the events. Marina hugged his arm silently, the bruises even more obvious on her skin now that Sparrow knew what had happened. His heart hurt for her and he wished that she wouldn't have had to suffer.

Nightingale clutched him even tighter and Sparrow let her. Robin silently pressed up against Nightingale's other side and Sparrow noticed his clenched fists that were placed on his lap.

"I found her in the supply closet. It was 3 in the morning when I did. I just woke up, I don't know, it was a feeling. When I found her..." Oleander was silent.

Marina, for the first time in a long time, spoke up. "H-He killed himself. For me. Aft-After that, he s-started killing people."

"After that." Oleander said gently.

"After that, he started killing people." Marina repeated clearly. "We... we couldn't speak to each other as ghosts b-but... but because you freed me, I can now speak to him."

She smiled at Oleander shyly.

Oleander kissed her hair and turned to them with a hard look. "You're players, aren't you?"

"You know you're NPCs?" Robin blurted, surprised.

Oleander gave a snort. "All of the ones who can think for themselves do."

Robin's eyes lit up. "What caused you to stay here? Can you tell me anything about the scenarios?"

Oleander glanced at Marina, who was staring at him in confusion. Then he said, "I'm the only one that has a deal with the Lord God. Don't... don't be eager to earn a wish." Then he looked pained and he stood up, moving away from Marina's hold. "I have to go. You completed the scenario, so the bus should be available to you now. Go find it."

With elation, Sparrow realized that they were now free. By helping Marina down, Oleander would reveal himself and then tell them the urban legend. Without finding the corpse here, there would be no way of completing the scenario without any more difficulty.

Coincidences and planning brought them here. The satisfaction of solving this mystery filled Sparrow with satisfaction.

"Ollie!" Marina blurted. "W-W-Where—!" She stuttered, unable to speak in her nervousness as her eyes began to water.

Oleander stroked her hair and said in a sweet tone, "I'm sorry, I have to go. I'll come find you, okay? These people will get you out." He gestured to the three of them and although Sparrow was a little annoyed that a guy who punched him was ordering him around, seeing how he was trying to comfort Marina, Sparrow just sighed and nodded.

"What's going on?" Nightingale asked and Oleander glanced at her.

"When the bus comes, there'll be one last final attack from the scenario. I'm part of it. Take Marina with you and bring her to safety. I'll come get her once I burn down this hellhole." He clenched his fists but then relaxed and smiled at Marina again, who was beginning to cry.

"I'm sorry. I'll come get you though, I promise. Be good. Go with them."

"No! No, no, I'll s-stay with you!" Marina sobbed.

"Be good," he said again and then he turned into a shadow and flew off.

Marina cried with heart wrenching sobs. Nightingale let go of Sparrow to hold her, consoling her gently. "Come on, Marina. Oleander doesn't want you to be sad. You have to listen to him, okay? Don't be sad, he made a promise to you."

"We have to find the bus." Robin paused and then turned to Sparrow, "Sparrow, you go with Nightingale and find the bus. Nightingale, you take care of Marina."

"What about you?" She asked anxiously. Sparrow was also wide eyed, feeling extremely worried that Robin would suddenly sacrifice himself by doing something stupid.

Robin smiled reassuringly at them. "I'm going to go to the library to broadcast an announcement. I'll try to evacuate everyone, you just get to safety."

"But what about you?!" Nightingale cried out. "What'll happen if you get hurt?"

Robin smiled. "I'm Robin. I'll be fine."

Once again, he mentioned 'robin'. Did that mean something?

Sparrow still didn't know, but he sounded so confident that Sparrow couldn't get angry. He held onto Nightingale's arm and nodded once to Robin. "I'll take care of them. Go!"

Robin saluted him and turned to run out the door.

Knowing that she couldn't stop him, Nightingale looked resigned and she called out, "Stay safe! Come back quickly!"

Sparrow pulled on her arm. Marina had finally stopped crying and was silent, just pressed against Nightingale. "C'mon. We have to get Marina out before Oleander does whatever he has to do."

He lead the two girls through the school.

When Oleander said that the scenario would prepare one final attack on them, he wasn't wrong or exaggerating at all.

Ghosts and ghastly looking students came crawling out of the shadows. Teachers and faculty staff weren't far behind, holding weapons and smiling maliciously. Some of them jerked around like zombies while others darted forward like arrows, determined to kill the three. They were especially agitated when they noticed Marina, frothing at the mouth and turning red eyed.

Crowds of ghosts and monsters converged together to grab and maul Marina to death. Sparrow could even see the male hallway monitor approaching, carelessly killing his comrades in an effort to kill the three of them.

Sparrow fought them back and began to clear a path for both Nightingale and Marina.

Suddenly, there was a loud, shrill beeping from the speakers. Sparrow hissed through his teeth, covering his ears. Nightingale grimaced, using her hands to cover Marina's ears.

Then, there was Robin's voice from overhead, "All students, please evacuate. The scenario is finally ending. Please evacuate the building. The scenario is finally ending."

He repeated this several times.

Sparrow breathed a sigh of relief after hearing his voice and then he took Nightingale and Marina's hand to pull them out of the school.

Marina whimpered. "Ollie," she whispered the moment they left through the doors.

"He'll come get you," Nightingale soothed her.

Sparrow looked around and observed their surroundings.

He had intentionally brought them to the back of the school, knowing that schoolbuses usually picked up students at the back.

True to his memory, he saw a line of neatly packed schoolbuses, each dyed a rusty yellow and covered with mold and cobwebs. He continued to lead the girls as they all peeked inside of the windows, trying to identify which bus would take them away.

That was when he heard a distant explosion and then heat flared behind him. He turned and his eyes widened.

The school had lit on fire, flames blazing proudly to the sky, dying the night clouds a deep and ominous red. Shrieks immediately filled the air. Sparrow shuddered hard, barely able to resist panicking as the sounds of ghosts and spirits dying filled his ears.

"Robin!" Nightingale called out in horror but Marina was even louder than her.

"Ollie!!" She screamed, sobbing.

Sparrow began to panic now.

He had to find the bus. If Robin wouldn't come back to them, he still had to protect Nightingale and bring her to safety.

He couldn't fail.

It was his duty.

Sparrow kept searching and just as he was inspecting a random bus, trying to figure out what identified it as their transport of escape, there was a snarl behind them.

Sparrow turned and a player, the very same wolf dude that had tried to pick a fight with him on the first day, smiled at him ruefully.

"Hahahah!! A runt like you actually survived? I'm shocked," the wolf dude laughed mockingly.

"I can say the same for you, dog breath." Sparrow sneered. "Someone like you could actually survive? Did you find a master to help you?"

He was agitated and time was running out. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Nightingale guiding Marina away.

Thank goodness, because the wolf dude's friends began to crowd around him.

The wolf dude sneered. "Not so tough now, are you, runt?"

"Screw off!" Sparrow spat.

One of the wolf's companions eyed the bus that was behind Sparrow's back.

"Is this the bus?"

There were murmurs around.

When Sparrow turned his head to glance at the ordinary looking bus, his breath came out in a puff of white. A lightbulb lit up in Sparrow's mind.

His eyebrows furrowed and then he moved his body into a fighting stance. The motion felt natural and he began to grin as he eyed the wolves challengingly. "Yeah, what about it? I found it, so it's mine. I'm gonna be leaving."

"Not on your life," another wolf snarled.

Sparrow narrowed his eyes and then he straightened and shrugged his shoulders. "Fine then. Go ahead."

They all paused. Then the wolf dude said, "You must be tricking us."

"A trick? No!" Sparrow banged on the bus' door and it opened smoothly. "Go ahead."

The wolf growled. "You lie. We won't fall for your tricks!"

Sparrow confidently turned and just as he was about to go inside, he was wretched back by the back of his tracksuit and then thrown onto the ground. The air in his lungs was forced out from the force of his fall and Sparrow groaned in pain, curling onto the grass.

"Stupid brat!" The wolf snarled. "I won't let you get a card!" Then he went inside, his companions following them with mocking jeers.

Sparrow gave a cold snort, just as the doors closed and screams erupted from within. Scratches and paw prints immediately slammed into the glass windows and Sparrow looked away as the blood began to splatter. The pained howls didn't cease for a long time.

Although he had tricked them into dying, he didn't really want to actually see it. Nightingale and Marina peeked out from behind the bus and Nightingale frowned at him.

"Are you alright?" She asked. "You shouldn't have tried to provoke them."

"It's fine," Sparrow said, getting up and dusting the grass stains off of his clothes. "They're gone."

She looked mournfully at the bus. "I know," she said softly. She turned back and said, "Do we know which one is the real bus though?"

"I'm starting to suspect that this spot was a distraction to keep us away from the actual bus," Sparrow grumbled.

Nightingale looked at the burning school and said, "We have to hurry. I'm pretty sure the principal is dead now, and so are the other students. I noticed that the ghosts and monsters couldn't really leave."

"They're all ghosts," Sparrow said absentmindedly to himself.

What did it mean that all of them were already dead?

Marina tugged at Nightingale's sleeve and when she turned, Sparrow paid attention.

"There's another p-place for you to find buses. There-There's a p-parking lot within the forest." Marina said softly. “I-I’ll lead you there.”

"A parking lot in a forest? Who built this place??" Sparrow tried to lighten the mood. A shudder ran through his core.

Nightingale eyed Sparrow with exasperated amusement but smiled at Marina. "Thank you. Oleander will definitely come back."

Marina didn't reply, just nodding. Sparrow didn't say anything and the two of them followed Marina this time as she lead them to the bus. The further they got away from the school, the colder and darker their surroundings became. The forest they entered was quiet and Sparrow couldn't help but turn around every once in a while, just staring at the burning building.

Oleander was definitely the one who did that.

To get revenge for Marina, he had willingly killed himself and turned into a vengeful spirit.

Now the source of his sorrows were gone, burnt with the flames of justice.

It was almost poetic.

When they arrived, two people were already there. Robin and Oleander were chatting, but the word 'chatting' was kind of stretching it, because Robin was asking questions while Oleander was silent most of the time. Occasionally, he would nod and look back at him, but for the most part, he was stoically silent and still.

The moment Marina saw Oleander, she perked up like a wilted flower who finally saw rain.

"Ollie!!" She cried and immediately ran towards him.

Oleander, just like her, opened up like a sunflower who saw daylight.

"Marina!" He called and they ran towards each other in a touching display of love, as they clutched at each other and then hugged desperately. Oleander even picked her up and swung her in a circle as she squealed happily.

Sparrow glanced at Robin and Nightingale, wondering if he was about to become the awkward fifth wheel.

Thankfully, Robin and Nightingale did not decide to imitate the sickeningly sweet couple next to them. Instead, Nightingale approached Robin and put her hands on his shoulders, turning him this way and that. Robin let her inspect him like merchandise, and he was remarkably untouched and unharmed.

Nightingale breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm glad you're okay."

Robin smiled. "Told you I'd be fine."

She glared at him. "Shut up."

Then they gave each other a long hug before letting go. When they spotted Sparrow, they took a few steps away from each other like guilty people.

Sparrow wanted them to feel very, very guilty.

Sulkily, he said, "Now you notice me?"

"Sorry, Sparrow," Robin smiled. He reached over to pat his hair. "You're alright, right?"

"We're fine," Sparrow let go of his annoyance. "I protected us."

"Good job!" Robin praised and Sparrow felt warm, letting a smile cross his face. He finally relaxed and leaned into the touch. Nightingale also moved and then another pair of hands joined into petting him.

He felt like a dog but it was nice and he was tired and their hands felt comforting so he just let it be.

Finally, they pulled away and moved to the bus.

Like the other buses, this one was still rusty yellow and looked aged and worn out. However, when approaching it, Sparrow noticed that the wheels were fresh with mud and the inside of the bus had faintly glowing green seats.

The door opened naturally when they came near. Robin was about to enter first when he paused and turned.

"Are you two coming with us?"

Oleander held Marina's hand and shook his head. "No. I'm staying with her."

Nightingale frowned. "Are you sure? You could come with us."

Oleander shook his head firmly. "No. I appreciate your help in helping Marina. But I cannot leave."

"What are you going to do now?" Robin asked.

"See what this world holds." Oleander looked down at Marina, and the two of them looked at each other and smiled.

Sparrow smiled. "Goodbye, you two. Safe travels!"

Marina beamed, hugging Oleander's arm. She waved, looking more excitable than ever. Even the bruises on her face began to disappear as she smiled widely. "Y-You too!" She called, and Oleander also waved goodbye with her.

Robin entered the bus first while Nightingale continued her goodbyes. Sparrow followed after him. The moment he stepped onto the stairs, a notification from the system took his attention.

[Congratulations for being the second person to find the bus and escape the scenario!

+150 points for completing the objective: Survive for a week within the school while uncovering the urban legend.

+50 points for being the second person to escape the scenario.

+20 points for finding clues and discovering the true ending of the scenario.

+10 points for surviving the scenario.]

He paused and Robin noticed. "You saw the point thing too?"

"Yeah. I got 230. You?"

"280."

Sparrow suddenly felt exhausted and he found his original seat. Sparrow sat in front of Robin and he laid back into his seat, closing his eyes.

All was quiet until Nightingale came back and said softly, "They disappeared. I think they're fine, they look happy. Also, other bus passengers have found us."

Sparrow's eyes snapped open and he stood up to look through the window, where he could spot several people coming out of the forest. Robin stared at the scene of greedily swarming people in silence before he said, "Before they come in, I have to tell you, I got a card."

Nightingale perked up. "What is it?"

"I think it's from my old life, because it feels familiar to me. The system says it's a utility belt and it has a limited amount of things. It gave me a choice between a limited number of tools I could use in each scenario or a large number of tools I could use before it's complete run out."

"You chose the first option?" Nightingale asked and Robin nodded to confirm just before the the doors opened again and a player came inside. He looked inside but when he saw the three of them, he snarled.

"Fuck!" He cursed and glared at them, but didn't say anything, only moving to another seat.

Nightingale moved to sit by Robin's side and then the two of them leaned closer to Sparrow's seat and began to whisper.

"I got 255 points." Nightingale told them perfunctorily. "What did you talk about with Oleander?"

Sparrow frowned, feeling like the number wasn’t quite right, but he was too exhausted to think deeper into it.

"He's not like the other NPCs. He said that NPCs can't think for themselves, but the ones that do are aware of the players' identities and can talk with this "Lord God". I don't know who they are, but from what I've gathered, they seem to be in control of the scenarios. They aren't actively looking for our deaths, but they're the reason why we're here and we shouldn't trust the promise of a wish because of them."

Nightingale sighed softly. "It feels terrible not knowing your identity or purpose but knowing that everywhere around you isn't safe."

There was the sound of a throat being cleared and all three of them looked up. The vampire dude from before looked down at them. He glanced at Robin and said, "Thank you for your warning. My companions and I were able to leave on time before the fire started because of it."

Robin nodded. "It was what should've been done."

The vampire bowed his head and then he said, "Have you three created a party yet?"

They shook their heads and Nightingale leaned over Robin to eagerly ask, "Can you teach us?"

He did so, and they all quickly made a party with one another. The vampire also explained some of the buttons that they could use. The party system allowed them to stay together when they got off the terminal because people were transported to different parts of the station to avoid fights from grudges grown within the scenarios. The party system also let them text each other, but only out of the scenario. Over all, it was just a simple thing to keep them together and in touch.

When Nightingale thanked him profusely, the vampire just humbly replied, "It is my honor."

He was clearly very grateful for Robin's warning.

Sparrow was too tired for anything else and he told both Nightingale and Robin to wake him up when they landed at the station.

However, that proved unnecessary because all three of them fell asleep.

Sparrow snapped awake with a jolt when a mechanical voice spoke from overhead, [Welcome to the Day Station. Please exit the bus.]

The doors opened. Sparrow caught a glimpse of outside, which showed a slightly debilitated airport. Then Robin held him back with a hand before he could move forward.

"Wait." He urged quietly, a glare on his face.

But before they could do anything, they were all directly tossed out of the bus and onto the floor. Robin had quickly grabbed him and Nightingale and protected their heads when they fell but Sparrow was still disoriented.

That was when the system spoke.

[Welcome to the Day Bus Station! Here, you can rest for a maximum of five days. In those five days, you can choose to do whatever you want as long as you are not found killing other players. You may choose a bus anytime and travel to as many scenarios as you want. Have fun!]

Multiple eyes landed on the three of them. Although the setting was that of an old and worn out airport, there were crowds of monsters and strange beings of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. They all surrounded the newcomers with intense gazes.

Robin cursed.

Sparrow wanted desperately to do the same.

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The first arc is finished! Did you guys enjoy it?? Please give me your thoughts!

I kind of want to edit this arc bc I’m not very happy with the characterization of Danny, Jazz, and Jason. However, I’ll probably do that in the future :3 arc 2 is still in progress!