#a normal *human* reaction to some things is grief and despair | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 2 years ago

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You’ll Never Be Alone.

???: UUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!

!!??

*Monodam lurches awake by the sound of screaming inside the closet. He opens the door and rushes inside.

WHAT-IS-GOING-ON!?

Kaede!? KAEDE!?

RRUUUUHAAAAHAHAAGH!

*Kaede starts to spazz out on the floor, jittering uncontrollably and her eyes rolling back in her head. She rolls around as if something is crawling inside her skin!

What’s going on!? What did you do!?

I-DO-NOT-KNOW! SHE-APPEARS-TO-BE-OVERHEATING! WAIT! I-WILL-GATHER-SOME-ICE-PACKS!

I-HAVE-RETURNED. IS-SHE-OK?

The screaming stopped, and so did the jittering. Not she’s just lying there breathing heavily.

She looks like she’s been sucked dry of energy as well...

Uuuuugh...

*Sure enough, Kaede’s face looks exhausted and skeletal, like her life force has been drained somehow. Monodam slaps the ice pack on her head.

I-ALSO-BROUGHT-YOU-SOME-FOOD. I-DOUBT-IT’S-CLASSIFIED-AS-BREAKFAST-BUT-IT’S-HEALTHY!

*Monodam hands Kaede an apple. She takes it and bites into it, her face looking calmer and relaxed when tasting the juice.

Phew...Thanks, that really helped.

What the hell was THAT all about. I don’t think that’s a normal reaction for humans to wake up to.

INDEED. YOU-LOOK-LIKE-YOUR-METABOLISM-WENT-TOO-FAST-FOR-YOUR-BODY-TO-KEEP-UP.

Ah, right, I get it now...I’m not quite sure what it was, but before I went to bed last night, I took one of these.

*She holds up a small pill.

What’s that?

Kuripa gave two of them to me after the incident in America was over, and I forgot I had them in my backpack until now. He calls them Suproteins.

Suproteins?

I-HAVE-NEVER-HEARD-OF-SUCH-A-THING?

I doubt you would have. According to him, they’re one of Seiko Kimura’s latest inventions. A pill that accelerates the body’s healing process.

But they’re still in the testing phase, and Kuripa did warn me that they might heal more than they’re meant to.

And you took it anyway!?

Well, I just thought...since I had it!

I thought you were DYING! Don’t do that again!

...I’m sorry...really...

I just...thought it was worth a go. Yesterday, I was in so much pain I could barely sleep, so I thought I’d feel better if I gave it a try.

AND-HOW-DO-YOU-FEEL-RIGHT-NOW?

Like all my energy got sucked out of me with a vacuum. I think it’s gonna be a while before I can stand.

Fine...We’ll just...rest for now.

...

*Monodam plumps himself down next to her.

I-AM-SORRY.

Huh?

MOST-OF-THE-INJURIES-YOU-STRUGGLED-WITH-CAME-FROM-ME. I-AM-APOLOGISING-FOR-IT.

Oh...It’s ok.

IT-IS?

Huh?

I-COULD-HAVE-KILLED-YOU. AND-YET-YOU-ARE-CHOOSING-TO-FORGIVE-ME. I-DO-NOT-UNDERSTAND.

Hey...I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any reservations about you.

But you made it right. And that’s what matters. You’ve done well to earn my trust.

You’ll have to work harder to earn mine, but...I get what she’s saying.

Thanks for the help, whatever it’s worth.

...

*Monodam hangs his head.

...

I guess it doesn’t feel good, huh?

HM?

Fighting your own family like this...Having to help me kill them.

...IT-WOULD-NOT-BE-THE-FIRST-TIME.

Why DID you kill your siblings back in the Killing Game?

I-HAD-MY-REASONS. THOUGH-ARGUABLY-NOT-VERY-GOOD-ONES.

I-HAD-SUSPECTED-PAPA-KUMA’S-WORDS-ABOUT-OUR-DEATH’S-BEING-PERMANENT-WERE-NOT-THE-TRUTH. SIMPLY-BECAUSE-I-KNEW-IT-WOULD-BRING-A-LOT-OF-DESPAIR-SHOULD-WE-SHOW-UP-AGAIN.

SO-I-WASN’T-AFRAID-OF-DEATH. AND-DURING-EACH-TRIAL-MY-SIBLINGS-ALL-DID-SOMETHING-THAT-UPSET-THE-BALANCE-OF-LOYALTY-WE-HAD-AS-A-FAMILY.

SO-I-TOOK-THEM-OUT-BEFORE-ANYONE-ELSE-HAD-A-CHANCE-TO. INCLUDING-MYSELF.

“Upset the balance?”

I guess you do say a lot about everyone wanting to get along, huh?

WE-SHOULD-GET-ALONG. WE-CAN-SHARE-IN-GRIEF.

THOUGH-I-DOUBT-YOU-WOULD-FEEL-THE-SAME-WAY. YOU-WOULD-NOT-KILL-YOUR-OWN-SIBLING-TO-RESTORE-BALANCE, WOULD-YOU?

At least you understand that much.

PERHAPS-I-AM-JUST-GRASPING-DESPERATELY-AT-STRAW...

Huh? Wh-What’s wrong?

...

YOU-TOLD-ME-YOU-WOULD-AID-ME-IN-MAKING-MY-OWN-WAY-IF-WE-EVER-GOT-OUTSIDE-RIGHT?

I did say that, yes. Why, are you having second thoughts?

IN-A-WAY. I-DO-NOT-PLAN-ON-BETRAYING-YOUR-KINDNESS, AFTER-YOU-SAVED-ME, BUT...

But what?

I-REALIZE, EVEN-IF-YOU-WERE-TO-PUT-IN-A-GOOD-WORD-FOR-ME, I-DOUBT-I-WILL-EVER-FEEL-COMFORTABLE-LIVING-AMONGST-HUMANS, EVEN-IN-FUTURE-FOUNDATION.

AND-THERE’S-NO-CHANCE-OF-ZETSUBOU-TAKING-ME-BACK, EVEN-IF-I-KILL-YOU.

Ah...I get it...

You’re saying that your crisis is...you don’t have anywhere to go anymore, right?

NOWHERE-THAT-I-FIT-IN, IN-THE-VERY-LEAST.

I-CANNOT-TRULY-FIT-IN-WITH-THE-KUBS-BECAUSE-I-AM-A-ROBOT. I-CANNOT-FIT-IN-WITH-OTHER-ROBOTS-BECAUSE-I-AM-A-BEAR. I-CANNOT-FIT-IN-WITH-HUMANS-BECAUSE-I-AM-A-ROBOT-AND-A-BEAR.

THERE’S-NO-PLACE-IN-THE-WORLD-FOR-THE-LIKES-OF-ME.

...

Yeah I mean...That sucks...

Sora! Can you not be rude for 5 freaking seconds!?

Hold on, there was about to be a “but!”

...?

I was just gonna say I get how it feels, but that’s not something you need to worry about.

Yes, it’s true that lots of humans don’t accept things for what they are, but a lot of people in the Future Foundation are welcoming, and are willing to make peace for anyone. Even people who they may have once considered worst enemies.

That’s just how things are under Ms Naegi. She might seem cool and distant, but there’s hardly anyone sweeter.

If Kaede and I both put a good word in...She and the Future Foundation will help you find your place. If you don’t believe in them, believe in US.

ARE-YOU-SURE? HOW-DO-I-KNOW-THEY-WON’T-TRY-TO-KILL-ME-ON-SIGHT?

Well, the honest answer is we don’t.

But I think they’ll be willing to listen if Kaede and I explain that you helped to save our lives so...

Yeah, maybe keep doing that.

I...

It doesn’t feel good, does it...Getting into disagreements with your siblings? And not having the chance to make things right.

HOW-DO-YOU-KNOW?

You and I are the same...At least in that regard.

Kaori was the one person in my life who I thought understood me...But then we started to drift apart as we got older...And then she died before I ever had a chance to make things right with her...

That might have been what made me sign up for Danganronpa. Nobody came to my aid when I was in mourning, and I lost all faith in humanity. Just like you Kubs.

YOU-DID-MENTION-YOUR-SISTER...BUT...YOU-SEEM-SO-HOPEFUL, FREE-AND-HAPPY, COMPARED-TO-ME-AND-EVERYONE-ELSE.

NOTHING-IN-LIFE-IS-GOING-YOUR-WAY-RIGHT-NOW. YOU’RE-TRAPPED-IN-HERE-WITH-NO-ONE-TO-HELP-ASIDE-FROM-ME-AND-KABUYA-SAMA. YOUR-LIFE-IS-IN-DANGER-EVERY-SECOND, AND-YOU’VE-ALMOST-DIED-SEVERAL-TIMES.

Uh...Thanks for the reminder.

SO-HOW? HOW-CAN-YOU-REMAIN-SO-HOPEFUL-IN-SPITE-OF-EVERYTHING? THE-NUMBER-OF-TIMES-ZETSUBOU-HAVE-TRIUMPHED-OVER-YOU-IS-SEVERELY-HIGH-COMPARED-TO-HOW-MANY-TIMES-YOU-HAVE-TRIUMPHED-OVER-THEM.

Alright, that’s a BIT of an exaggeration but...to answer your question...

It’s because I wasn’t alone. And I know that I never will be. And I’ve learned from the mistakes I’ve made in the past, trying to take matters into my own hands, even though it comes with consequences.

I stand that there’s nothing wrong with taking the problems of the people I love and making them my own, but I know now that we can’t solve these sorts of issues unless we do it as a team.

Like I told you, I lost the only person I ever truly considered family, and that’s what made me join Danganronpa. But after all that was done and we had a chance to live new lives here, I found a NEW family. Not just my Killing Game friends, but all the great people who I met along the way.

Like Sora!

Aww...Kaede...My heart would be melting if I had one.

Do you see what I mean?

...!?

*Monodam is caught by surprise as Kaede suddenly reaches over and hugs him.

You don’t have to be alone. Regardless of who or what you are, there’s always going to be someone who truly cares about you.

So...don’t feel so down and out so soon, alright?

...AKAMATSU...

You can call me Kaede. Since we’re going to be friends in here, we can drop the formalities.

...ALRIGHT. THANK-YOU-FOR-YOUR-KIND-WORDS, KAEDE.

I-ADMIT, I DO-NOT-UNDERSTAND-THEM-FULLY, BUT-I-WILL-ENDEAVOUR-TO-TRY-TO.

Just don’t give us any reason to regret putting faith in you. If you’ve got any remaining secrets, you might as well spill them now.

AH...!

Wh-What?

KABUYA-SAMA. YOUR-WORDS-JUST-NOW-REMINDED-ME-OF-SOMETHING.

Huh? What do you mean?

YOU-SAID-TO-SPILL-ANY-REMAINING-SECRETS. THERE-IS-ONE-SECRET-IN-THIS-LAB-THAT-I-NEGLECTED-TO-TELL-YOU-UP-UNTIL-NOW.

IN-TRUTH...DOCTOR-ANDO-WAS-NOT-THE-ONLY-PERSON-IN-THE-LAB-WE-WERE-DESIGNATED-TO-LOOK-AFTER.

Wait...What!?

Hold on...You mean...Someone else is in here with us!?

YES...HOWEVER-THEIR-CIRCUMSTANCES-ARE-VERY-DIFFERENT-FROM-YOURS.

What are you talking about?

CAN-YOU-STAND?

BECAUSE-I-BELIEVE-IT’S-BETTER-IF-I-SHOW-YOU.

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #danganronpa another 2 #sdra2 #kaede akamatsu #sora #monodam #rise and shine arc

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codenamesazanka · 4 years ago

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I feel like I can’t stress enough how important Spinner is to the ‘My Villain Academia’ arc, and how badly I need BONES to give him the attention and care in portraying him that he deserves. BONES have been pretty faithful to the manga, they’ve followed the story and brought each scene on the page to the screen... Except for some reason not when it comes to the Villains. Maybe it’s because arguably the Villains wasn’t the focal point of the show and they weren’t what most viewers watched the show to see; fine, but that was the case in the beginning and no longer.

Shigaraki Tomura, his exploits, his character, his story *is* the manga: the Heroes and protag react mainly to him and his actions, his past and motivations is one of the main factors that caused the current central conflict, and resolving his character arc is what will probably bring the whole series - to its end or near end. Yeah, imo I argue that everything about him moves the plot along.

Unfortunately(?), I think Horikoshi-sensei realized/decided/planned this a bit too late in his pacing. He said himself during the Stain arc or so that at first, he wasn’t planning on doing villain profiles - he wanted the villains to be scary.

But for the time being, I have no intention of writing about [the villains]. I do the introductions because l personally like those sorts of behind-the-scenes things, and also because I want my readers to feel a connection to the characters. But with villains, I decided I can't have them too likable. They're supposed to be terrifying.

Often it’s what we don’t know/understand/predict/expect (and therefore can’t get a grasp on) that makes things scary/uncomfortable/dislikable. The Villains were strange, seemingly erratic and incomprehensible in their behavior and motivations, malicious without rhyme or reason. Even now, I think a lot of people still think they’re just ‘completely evil crazy psychopaths’.

Anyways, the quote from him is from Volume 7. A whole bunch of volumes later in Vol. 23, he decided nvm: “The story has evolved beyond that point, so I'm ready to start doing villain profiles.” As he said himself, the profiles are to help the readers connect with the characters, make them relatable and likable. That’s what My Villain Academia is all about in the meta sense - to demystify Shigaraki Tomura and his ragtag chaos friends, to give them depth, and to induce interest in their stories, if not sympathy. Hype them up for the rather major roles they play in this ‘final arc’ of the series.

Enter Spinner, the lizard ninja guy.

Besides his unusual looks, Spinner is really, truly nothing special. He’s got a weak quirk, he holds no title of being the strongest or smartest or whatever member of the League, he’s not related by blood or thematically to any major players in the main conflicts, and his ‘tragic’ backstory is completely mundane compared to his allies - he was bullied as a child, and so is fueled by resentment. In the events leading up to the start of the arc, Spinner is the most moral and understandable of the Villains - has a ‘good’ reason for his crimes (eradicate corrupted Heroes), has standards on who he’s willing to fight (questions attacking the police and anyone with a ‘true heroic spirit’), and wants a concrete game plan instead of aimless discord the rest of the League seems alright with.

Once the arc starts, we immediately learn the basics of his character - he’s got a heteromorph quirk that makes his appearance a humanoid gecko and it’s something he was born with that he can’t control, and yet he faces discrimination from literal KKK-type cultists who refuse to see him as human. This was more or less his life in his small, rural hometown, harsh enough that his heart had become ‘completely empty’. It’s simple, it’s relatable and an realistic analogy anyone who has faced prejudice and harassment and been hurt by it can understand.

All this is so Spinner ends up being the most normal and typical sympathetic of the League of Villains, which sets him up to be a sort of ‘gateway Villain’. It’s why he’s narrator. He doesn’t understand at all the crazy All For One shenanigans, he’s thinks Shigaraki is an incompetent weirdo, and he asks what we were all thinking: “Shigaraki Tomura, what the fuck are you doing.” Quite obviously, Spinner’s meant the audience surrogate and so he is. That being a core of the way the story of My Villain Academia is told means it needs be followed by the anime adaption.

This core sets up the rest of the arc - sets up how we will come to view Shigaraki Tomura and his backstory, alongside the rest of the League Villains, their relationships and dynamics with each other, and who they are at heart. Shigaraki’s telling of his distorted origins in Chapter 222 is horrifying as it is already; but it’s Spinner’s worried-facial-expressions reactions littered throughout the chapter that adds to it by telling us one major thing: Spinner’s an empathetic guy, because he immediately feels a kindred spirit with Shigaraki when the latter talks about the hollowness he feels. So begins the audience surrogate’s change of opinion and us readers going along with it, and also: that Shigaraki Tomura now has Spinner’s concern and attention - and is deserving of it.

Pardon the sudden heavily edited quote, but CS Lewis says,

Friendship arises...when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common...which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique [burden]. The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one." ...And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.

That’s almost word for word Spinner in that moment, suddenly realizing he’s no longer as alone as he thought. He’s no longer as alone, and this means perhaps neither should Shigaraki. Because established in that very chapter, too, is the hate in Shigaraki’s heart fueled by his grief and despair, the loss of his family, past, and faith in others, his misery of thinking he’ll never feel good again. Yet - there’s Spinner, willing to extend some empathy and care, the very antidote to all that Shigaraki had revealed. Because the desire for companionship (or at least the lessening of the pain of loneliness) is universal, even among villains - maybe especially among these villains - we probably love to see it. Want to see it.

On that basis - friendship borne out of empathy - Spinner puts his faith his leader, puts his trust and support, and the rest of the arc is us following the tension of whether he was right to do so. Whether Shigaraki would live up to what Spinner expects of him, whether Spinner will side with Shigaraki despite their earlier conflict. Whether they could become friends, or something like that. And once they do, the consequences of this as things spiral more and more out of control, beyond this arc - that Spinner would know Shigaraki well enough to do something crucial at the turn of a battle later, that Spinner would stick by Shigaraki’s side when he’s in danger, that Spinner is loyal enough to Shigaraki to help him as a friend should.

Through Spinner, we come to see Shigaraki, originally incomprehensible and terrifying, as someone beyond a Villain or a leader, but rather someone valued as a person, a friend, a fellow silly gamer nerd. He’s still scary, of course - just less so, with a seed of doubt of his doom that Spinner - and only Spinner, by virtue of his specific narrative and emotional role in this arc - planted in their characters and the story.

It’s because of Spinner that MVA works, by itself, and as a stepping stone towards the rest of the series. So he really needs to be everything he is, was, and more in the anime adaption please BONES oh my god please

#long post #nalslastworkingbraincell #shigaraki tomura #bnha #mha #heroaca #Spinner #Iguchi Shuuichi #my interpretation of course #but like #everything I said is right there in the text and can be convincingly argued for #so I’m right and it’s mandatory that BONES listens to me

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obeiii-mee · 4 years ago

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So, I finally finished part 2 for the original ask. I’ve had a bit of trouble with writing the twins because I think this would affect them particularly bad. I hope you enjoy all this angst, cuz I sure as hell didn’t im fucking sobbing alright?

Pt. 1

Enjoy!

————————————-

The Brothers Reacting to MC sacrificing themselves to bring Lilith back, Part 2:

Satan:

-Satan felt like the stupidest demon in DevilDom. He was supposed to be the intellectual, the logical one, the one with more than a few spare brain cells to work with. And yet he never twigged there was anything going on with you. The signs were all there. You had asked him for very specific book recommendations for the past few weeks, about the Celestial Realm and the full power of souls. He even let you borrow some from his own collection without giving it a second thought!

-In hindsight, your goal was very obvious but at the time, he hadn’t even stopped for a second to consider it. It just didn’t seem like something you would be capable of doing. But you did. Of course you did. You were the most driven human he had even met. You managed to live for a full year with seven of the most dangerous demons in hell and make pacts with them no less, so anything is fair game when it comes to you.

-Lucifer and Lilith found him in the library, like usual, reading what seemed to be a very graphic book on different wars that took place in the human realm over the centuries. What can I say, the man wanted to know more human history for your sake. He was one of the few brothers who hadn’t even noticed you were missing and never thought anything was amiss. Sure, he missed your presence but the cynical fourth born isn’t exactly paranoid.

-Now, if it was Lucifer alone that had come to check up on him, Satan would have been very tempted to just ignore him. But obviously he noticed a slightly smaller, less threatening figure next to him and he forced himself to look up from his book. Lowkey hoping it was you because he often complained his brothers got to spend way too much time with you. Satan and Lilith technically never met, face to face. However, I like to think that since Satan was born out of Lucifer’s wrath, he has a small connection with his memories and therefore Lilith. After all, Satan was the only one that never participated in the war or actually fell down as angel.

-He never met her before. Yet he immediately recognised her as she came in. She had every trait you would expect an angel to have. Except she wasn’t an angel anymore of course. She was dead. Or at least supposed to be. Lucifer just stood in the doorway as she approached him. Lilith fidgeted in front of him as she tried to come up with the right words to introduce herself.

-“I’m really happy to actually-“

-She didn’t get to finish because Satan had embraced her almost immediately, almost like he was on auto mode and couldn’t help himself otherwise. She welcome the gesture, glad their first meeting wasn’t as awkward as she had predicted it would be. The eldest brother was watching, slightly in awe because, as far as he knew, the only person he had ever hugged before this was you.

-Of course, the spell had to be broken. Lucifer knew better than to step in and allowed his sister to explain. Satan was going to have a bad reaction nonetheless, but he might become even more aggressive if it was him delivering the news. Lilith never had to deal with this particular brother of hers or any of his fits but somehow, it was like she knew what to do.

- Their sister did her best to explain it to Satan as calmly as possible, as if that would make much of a difference. Satan remained oddly quiet throughout all of it, showing no reaction besides a neutral one. Lucifer found this strange. Yeah, his brother/son was usually the silent type, the sort of demon to think, not speak. But he expected some sort of emotion in there. Anything, really. Anger definitely. Maybe sorrow and misery. But not this.

-Lilith noticed the shaking before even Satan did. His body had just started convulsing on its own as he processed the idea of you laying there, unmoving and cold; dead. He involuntarily clenched his fists and he had to sit down before his legs gave over. Lucifer was still outright confused while Lilith struggled to soothe her brother. He hated feeling like this. All vulnerable and weak, like the skies of hell will fall on him and crush him. He was Satan for fuck’s sake. He was probably considered the most fearful creature in all of existence. He shouldn’t be feeling like this.

-But of course he did. You were always able to do that to him, bringing out that soft side of him he never knew he had. Or at least refused to acknowledge he had. The funny thing was, since you were the one being subjected to that side of his, he didn’t mind. Because you are MC, a literal ball of sunshine. Nothing him and his brothers deserved but you were still willing to spend time with them. The least they could have done was to protect you.

-They couldn’t even do that

-He couldn’t even do that

-Satan is even more retreated now than before, more hostile toward his own brothers and basically everyone else. He will snap at anyone for very minor reasons and lock himself up in the library even more than usual. Anything to get his mind off how much he must have disappointed you. It hurts too much to even hear your name being spoken. God forbid they choose another human to come down there as an exchange student because he will unleash all of his wrath on them on your behalf. How dare some lowly human try to replace you? He’s more prone to fits of anger now too. Long gone is his self control and calmness.

-The one person that understood him was dead. The one person he allowed himself to be close to and genuinely kind to was gone forever. Satan will never get over this. Or the fact that you were smiling so brightly before you died.

Asmo:

-He’s just so sick of it. So so so sick of it. So sick of watching everyone he cares about either die or get taken away from him. If he was a mortal he would have probably gone crazy. Maybe he already reached insanity and just didn’t realise it. After all, everyone has a breaking point, even demons. And once you go beyond that point, your whole world will shatter.

-To him, it seems almost impossible that just that morning he had seen you at breakfast, laughing along with his brothers and overall just being the intriguing, silly human you were. You were right there! Right in front of him, talking to him like it was any other day. And now he has to deal with the unbearable fact that he will never hear your voice again.

-Asmo was out, hanging out at the Fall as usual, when he realised he had missed several, frantic calls from Mammon, who at that point wasn’t aware that you were long dead.

-He brushed him off, initially, thinking his brother was just having another one of his melodramatic moments. So the fifth born went around Majolish, basically buying everything he could get his hands on to ignore the uneasiness creeping up on him. He could feel something bad was happening. He just didn’t know what.

-At this point, he was a bit unsettled which is very unlike him. He is pretty optimistic as a whole so seeing him so startled and on alert was a sort of disturbing sight to see. Lucifer called him after lunch and told him to come home. Normally, Asmo wouldn’t have taken his older brother’s words too seriously but hearing his strained voice on the other side of the phone forced him into action.

-He rushed home, faster then he had ever done before., because let’s be honest, he prefers being outside of the house more often than not. He searched for you everywhere, but you were nowhere to be found. However, he bumped into Lucifer and Lilith in the middle of the upstair’s corridor in his frantic search for you.

-Unlike his brothers, Asmo noticed Lilith immediately, way before he even acknowledged his brother. It was such a shock to him that he thought for sure that he was hallucinating, though things like that never happened to him beforehand. Asmo stopped breathing for what felt like centuries because he didn’t want to raise his expectations, he didn’t to be disappointed if Lilith truly wasn’t there and he was just making her up. He didn’t want to deal with the grief once again.

-However, Lilith remained exactly where she was and flashed him one of her brilliant, warm smiles that he had loved so much back in the Celestial Realm. That he, on more than one occasion, tried to copy because he wanted to have as much in common with Lilith as possible. He wasn’t imagining her and the moment he realised this, he threw himself at her, the worry of his hair being ruined long forgotten and now his only concern was that she would dissipate in thin air.

-Lilith did not yield and embraced her brother, she gave enough hugs today to last her a lifetime but she couldn’t be happier to see her beloved brothers again. It took every ounce of strength on Lilith’a part not to burst into tears from both joy and sorrow.

-Lucifer hated this. He hated having to cut in the happy moment and lay down the bad news. But he had do it. Because no one else would. He was the eldest. He was responsible for everyone. A sadist he may very well be, but it absolutely destroys him to see his brothers suffering from such extreme distress. He told Asmo everything as bluntly as he could, thinking that ripping the bandaid straight off would result in a better outcome.

-It did not.

-Mammon’s reaction to your death was expected, but Asmo’s took both Lilith and Lucifer by surprise. They didn’t expect him to be as emotional as he ended up being and both of them handled it awkwardly because the Avatar of Lust was usually such a confident and admirable creature, it felt weird to see him act in such a way. He fell to his knees in a moment of pure despair and cried enough tears to drown himself in them later. He sobbed for a long time and did not stop immediately, instead going through several stages of weeping, from hiccuping to panting and then back to crying. It was an endless cycle of sadness.

-Lilith half carried half dragged him to his bedroom, while her other brother watched, a bit mesmerised. Asmo usually loved having company and now that his sister was back, he 100% needed it but at the same time, he wished to remain alone for a while. It would be painful but he needed to gather his feelings in one place before he could even put together a conclusion on how he was feeling. So they both left and with the door closed, all the air seemed to suffocate him and drag him into endless despair.

-Asmo received a lot of damage from your death, changing his personality very abruptly. Compared to his brothers, his change in attitude is not so subtle and now he basically hates anything that reminds him of you. He no longer enjoys hanging out or clubbing at the Fall or even go shopping anymore unless it’s necessary because those were things he used to do with you! And now, they seemed so pointless he often wondered what was the point of actually doing it. The only sort of satisfaction he gets is being in your room because if he closes his eyes, just for a moment, he can pretend you’re still there with him, whispering words of comfort to him.

-Yes, he still has one night stands and tries to seduce people left and right but it’s a sort of distraction more than anything else. He doesn’t do it out of need anymore, but out of desperation to get you out of his head. He’s also been sneaking to the Human Realm a lot as of late, as if hoping to randomly bump into you up even though it’s not possible and he knows it. He’s just torturing himself further. Hopeless. Just hopeless.

-You made him feel so much more than just Lust. And now that he had you, even if it was for just a short amount of time, Asmo knew he would never feel that way to anyone ever again. He would never fall in love with anyone ever again.

-He knew the risks of getting attached to a human. He knew how much he would suffer in the end. After all, humans are mortals, they are not destined to live for long. And yet he went and did it anyway because you were too amazing to ignore. You gave him something he never realised he yearned for and you left before he could reciprocate.

The Twins:

-Neither Lilith nor Lucifer was surprised to find the two of them together, relaxing in the attic. It’s common knowledge at this point that the twins have a hard time being separated. And especially more so than before after the whole attic incident, which concluded with them refusing to leave each other’s side. Usually, you were with them too, of course, for good measure. Obviously, they weren’t able to find you anywhere like everyone else. Belphie got tired of searching and just suggested that they go upstairs and that eventually you’ll joking them.

-Lucifer was, understandably, extremely worried at how the twins would react to all of this. Just seeing their adored sister in the same room as them would be more than enough to cause them to malfunction. But if he let them know that you died mere hours ago? And for smuggling Lilith’s soul back into existence no less? It would be chaos. At least with his other brothers, their reactions he could more or less predict. But the twins were slightly different. Especially Belphie. You can never really tell what goes on inside his head.

-Beel noticed his sister before Belphie did. He was so taken aback, he tumbled backwards and off the bed, accidentally dragging his twin with him. It was quite a comical fall actually. Lilith would’ve laughed if it wasn’t for the circumstances. She missed them, of course. Truth is, she missed all of her brothers and their memories back in the Celestial Realm. It always hurt so much to think that she could see them but never really interact with any of them. Except through you since you were heir in a way.

-Beel was a mess, first of all. You can easily imagine the distress he was in at the sight of his little sister. His dead little sister. Dead because of him. It might’ve been centuries since Lilith fell from the heavens and got transformed into a human but he continued to carry that burden with him because how could he not? He should’ve been able to save both Lilith and Belphie even though, logistically speaking, it would’ve been impossible. He saw the despair in her eyes right before she disappeared below the clouds. That image had and will haunt him for the rest of his eternal days.

-He was on his knees before her in a split second, grabbing the hems of her sleeves and sobbing into them as if the whole of DevilDom was about to crash down on all of them. Beel was yelling incoherently, switching between begging for forgiveness and stuttering mid sentence, unable to get the rights words out. The whole mansion was filled with his distraught weeping and he just couldn’t stop.

-His sister knelt down and embraced him, almost awkwardly because of the position they were in, as she began crying as well. Out of exhaustion more than anything. She’s dealt with so many breakdowns in one day that she couldn’t handle holding her emotions in anymore. With the death of her descendant and the sorrow of her brothers, she wished from the bottom of her heart she had just stayed dead because everything would have turned out alright that way.

-Belphie was more cautious. He stood at the back of the room, watching as his sister hugged Beel and sort of held him in a way that would quieten him down. Careful. He casted Lucifer a glance, as if to ask “what the hell is going on?” before once again staring at the ridiculous sight before him. Usually, he wasn’t one to look to his eldest brother for help. There was some dangerous hatred he harboured for him deep in his heart after all. But he was so confused and conflicted, he couldn’t fight the urge to seek guidance from him.

-Lucifer didn’t know how long it had been since he last saw his youngest brother be that openly vulnerable. It felt like an eternity now, to be honest. He was like a rock hard, clamped sea shell since their fall as angels. He walked over to him and placed his hand on Belphie’s shoulder. For the first time in millenniums, his brother didn’t try to swat it away.

-“Lilith is back.”

-That was all he needed. Those three words. As soon as Lucifer finished his sentence, he ran straight into his siblings who were still crying on the floor. He almost bulldozed them over if it wasn’t for Beel’s strength. The youngest landed on top of them, almost starting to cry as well. Beel, seemingly tired himself out so much that he went a bit limp in Lilith’s arms, still gripping onto her for dear life as if she were on the verge of disappearing again.

-“MC is dead.”

-It was a horribly timed moment to drop that bomb in, to be fair. Lucifer tried saying it as casually as he could but he could hear his own voice crack and see his own hands tremble. His mind was focused but his body had betrayed him. The twins were so into the moment, so glad to see their sister after all this time, it was almost like they didn’t hear him. So he repeated the statement, this time in a more composed manner. Belphie immediately reacted. He got off his siblings and straightened his back, glaring at Lucifer in shock from the other side of the room. Beel stayed where he was, but craned his neck to gawk at Lucifer, who was standing solemnly, waiting for the predicted chaos. Lilith closed her eyes and winced.

-Beel was in outright denial which was surprising. He wouldn’t, or rather refused, to accept that you could be dead. I mean, the idea itself was propestrous, right? You’ve almost died once and you managed to outdo death. Or more accurately, your future self did. You could do it again, couldn’t you? Just the image of you laying dead somewhere was enough to send him in panic and another, this time almost silent, meltdown. He seized fistfuls of his hair and pulled, as a method of escaping the pain that came with the thoughts of you and death being correlated in any way. If Lilith’s death wasn’t enough to push him over the edge, this sure as hell was. Could demons go insane? Probably. Beel certainly felt like he was. Even with Lilith there comforting him, he had the impression he couldn’t stand or even look up from the floor.

-Belphie didn’t make a move to aid his brother or help his sister. He stood, teeth gritted and jaw clenched, staring at his oldest brother with an odd gleam in his eyes. For a few moments, he was motionless. Then, he turned on his heel and marched out of the attic, slamming the door behind him so hard that the whole room shook. Lucifer didn’t try to stop him. It would be meaningless anyway. He wouldn’t listen to him. And his sister was still occupied with Beel, who kept mumbling with tears trailing down his cheeks about everything being his fault and not being there when he should have.

-The twins did not even go through the same stages of mourning their brothers did. Beel was dealing with the grief of someone incredibly close to him by eating even more than he normally would, causing his siblings quite a bit of concern. But they couldn’t argue much. He was the epitome of gluttony in the end. Belphie didn’t change much in terms of his daily activities. He slept as much as he could during the day. And at night, he stargazed as he always did. But more bitterly than usual, despising the fact that he wasn’t going to enjoy another starry night with you ever again. He didn’t blame you for dying. He was angry you left and to do something so stupid as bringing Lilith back in return for your lost soul. He was angry you couldn’t be selfish for once and let yourself be happy with them.

-He was angry at Mammon too. He learned he was supposed to be with you earlier that day. He wasn’t. And now the two aren’t speaking. For some reason, he is slightly upset with Lucifer too but that is only because he was the one who delivered the sad news. But most of all, he was very furious with himself. Because he promised that he would never let anything happen to you again after the whole choking incident. He swore on his honour as a demon to protect you and he couldn’t.

-Don’t tell him they’re bringing another exchange student in. He will kill them. He 100% will kill them. He doesn’t want to replace you. And neither does Beel. He would probably eat the new student within a few minutes. But it would take a while until all of that is sorted out. After all, even Diavolo himself is bound to be mourning in his own way. Not like you were meant to know, but you were definitely the favourite child exchange student.

-It wasn’t fair you had to leave. It wasn’t fair that you didn’t even get to say goodbye. It wasn’t fair that the three of you couldn’t spend more time together. Beel won’t be able to ever taste your cooking again and Belphie won’t have anyone to cuddle with in the morning and be generally lazy with. And again, they had even more of a reason to curse their father for ruining the one good thing that’s happened to them since their glory days as angels.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-The 7 brothers will continue to grieve your death for the rest of eternity, be assured. Their sister just as much of course. And at some point, the whole of DevilDom had to in a way as the prince himself wasn’t his usual, peppy self. At least Lilith’s presence had a calming effect on them but not one that could compare to the trauma of knowing you were truly gone. They would wait and with time, there will be healing.

-Except time doesn’t heal anyone’s wounds. It just teaches them how to deal with the pain.

——————————————————————-

This took so much longer than planned, Jesus Christ! I guess I was really unhappy with it at some point and gave up, then sort of rewrote it which took a while. And now it’s done! I’m sort of proud on how it turned out. A bit cliche but I feel like it created the right atmosphere. Also, the last quote above is a favourite of mine that I thought would be a good idea to add in.

The twins are joined because I thought it would not only save time but also make more sense since the two are together almost all the time. Hope no one is upset I didn’t do the twins separately, it would’ve taken even longer then!

To add, 1,080 followers???? Wtf, I haven’t even posted anything in a while, thank you so much! You’re all too nice istg.

@doggonudez asked me to tag them in this post, so I hope this actually works lmao.

Al~

#obey me #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me imagines #angst #death #🔥 own posts #🌪 angst #📚 Satan supremacy #🪞Asmo supremacy #🍔 Beel supremacy #💫 Belphie supremacy

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confused-stars · 2 years ago

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Nagito Komaeda, huh? Yeah… he’s quite the character, isn’t he?

i'm being completely normal about him

jokes aside though, he's one of the most unique characters i've ever come across. it's so easy to miss all his complexities (especially if you don't do his free time events), and it's so easy to hate him because the first trial feels like such a betrayal if you're already attached.

plus the way he acts after he finds out the truth is just so rude, but it makes so much sense, he's lost all his hope and finds himself in a position where he thinks he's the only one who can fix anything anymore. i love how hard the ending twist hits when you realize that oh, he wasn't being malicious at all. he was legit trying to be a hero. it's so tragic.

like, sure, he's a person who'd be incredibly exhausting to be around irl, especially with all the self-deprecating bullshit, but that makes sense for his character, too! he says he's "a worthless human being who can't do anything right" and that's. he literally can't do anything. because he's a puppet for his luck. he walks into a room and chaos follows. he can somewhat predict it and try to use it for what he wants to happen, but that doesn't always work.

and when he was a kid, he definitely wasn't able to steer it like that. so all those terrible things happened to him and people around him, and he internalized that. he grew up in the role of a bystander to the despair that his talent caused. of course he feels alienated from the other ultimates, who can actively use their talents to change the world. the most Nagito can do is create an intricate plan and hope that his luck helps him out.

and when you're living with that, cheerful apathy as a coping mechanism suddenly makes sense. and since it's a cycle, he has to believe that all despair will be worth it for the luck that comes after. if he doesn't believe that, then what's the point? one good thing that happens doesn't cancel out the bad thing that happened before, but he can't let himself face that fact, because it's the only way he can make any sense of his miserable life at all.

so whenever something terrible happens, his reaction is to get excited because he's messed up enough that he's unable to feel the appropriate grief or hurt - he just automatically focuses on "this is great! something really good is going to happen to even it out!" and that's the whole hope aspect of him. his hope is unshakeable. (i've barely started Ultra Despair Girls, but i'm pretty sure even as Servant, he's still thinking about how creating the greatest possible despair will lead to the greatest possible hope)

and then there's the fact that he's queer-coded af (apparently the developers said they wanted him to challenge Hajime in regards to his sexuality, but they dropped it because it didn't fit into the plot and his characterization). this boy has a crush and doesn't know how to deal with it (and him being written opposite of Hajime who is always fed up and takes no shit is such a god writing choice)

so there's all of that, and then you learn that this guy was also told he had a year left to live at most, and his brain is deteriorating at the same time, so you could easily attribute some of his mannerisms to that (he reads as autistic very easily, but the lack of social awareness, the bluntness, the mood swings and so on could very much be because his brain is slowly losing its functions)

he's probably in pain. and his whole "i'll help someone kill me if it furthers hope" is heartbreaking because really, if he's going to die anyway, he just wants his death to mean something.

that said, he's also so damn annoying. you can know all of this and love him deeply and still, when he opens his mouth, you immediately get the thought "god shut the fuck up for two seconds". he's such an experience.

#whoops here's the essay #well not really but i could use this as the bare bones of one and write the whole thing #how is the writing for these games simultaneously amazing and terrible?#anyway i preordered a figurine of the boy :)

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calliecat93 · 3 years ago

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ST: The Next Generation Watchthrough Season 3 Episodes 1-3

Evolution: We’re at Season 3 folks, yippee~! We also have Dr. Crusher back! I’m kind of annoyed that they don’t os much as mention what happened with Pulaski, but considering everything,t hat may have been best. I’m just gonna assume that she took Crusher’s job at Starfeet Medical and Crusher decided to go back to the Enterprise to be with her son. Which I’m glad that the episode touches on the fact that Crusher doesn’t really connect with Wesley anymore and how she’s concerned that he’s more wrapped up in his studies and Ensign duties than… you know, being an actual kid. Whatever one feels about them axing Crusher last season, they at least acknowledged and worked with it now that she’s back. The issues with Wesley in the first two seasons is how he was an intelligent kid who felt like he got things handed to him and bolstered up despite having done nothing to earn it. S2 was a bit better, but the issue still lingered, just less in our face. But here? Wesley accidentally causes the problem with a nanite project he was working on getting loose and he tries to fix it without anyone finding out while also dealing with his mom being back and hovering over him after being without her for a year. I would like to point out that he made the choice to be without his mom so him going ‘how wold you know? You haven’t even been here.” is kind of his own fault, but I DO understand that he’s frustrated and it’s an understandable reaction from a tired, guilt-ridden teenager. That’s probably what I liked best, Wesley feels more like an actual kid who screws up and makes bad decisions but is good-intentioned and trying to both be responsible and make it right, which I think the other two seasons didn’t fully have. He doesn’t get punished or even scolded for almost causing the destruction of the ship and everyone on it, but he doesn’t get praised for admitting the mistake that he caused or directly save the day either like in The Naked Now and he did ultimately admit responsibility after talking to his mom so fair enough. The episode is overall a good one. There’s good tension and pacing with the nanite threat, Crusher comes back and gets right back to where she left off, Wesley has probably his best focus episode thus far, there’s the gap between mother and son showing them not ignoring the ramifications, the crew maintain their competence and managed to resolve the issue peacefully, and overall it’s a decent way to start off the season. A standard episode, but still promising for what’s to come. 3.5/5

The Ensigns of Command: We have Data on a planet to evacuate an upcoming invasion who do have the right to the planet due to a treaty… but the citizens won’t budge. We have a tense situation here. We have a bunch of stubbornness on both sides. The Sheliak’s DO have right tot he planet, but that doesn’t make it right to slaughter a bunch of innocent lives for no reason. But the colony leader won’t listen and refuses to go without a fight despite the land not being their’s and having the Federation ready to get them to safety. We have Data having t try and convince the colony… but he’s not really trained as a negotiator so… yeah. It’s nice to have Data in a role that he isn’t used to and him having to figure out how to navigate the issue especially with how he still struggles to understand human nature in a case where he very much needs it. The method he uses to finally convince them was not one I expected from Data, but damn it was an effective one and I loved how he got to get creative! I love it! Even his reverse psychology gambit was a good one even if it didn’t fully work cause the idiot leader is too good of a speaker, but the final attempt sure as Hell did the job. Picard’s attempts to negotiate with the Sheliak to buy time for evacuation were also freakin’ great especially at the end and I’m already liking him so much more than the first two seasons. The girl though who’’s really into androids? Yeah, while I give her kudos for trying to help Data and re-activating him after the leader took him out, I didn’t like her. She may like androids but it really seems that’s all she sees him as. And that just rubs me the wrong way. Also Dat saying he has no feelings of any kind… I really don’t get why the show is insisting on that cause that’s not true jut because it’s not the ‘normal’ way, thought he ending has Picard more or less point out that Data’s statement isn’t really accurate who who knows? Ultimately it’s an episode about how, as Data puts it, things can be replaced but lives cannot. Some fights aren’t worth the loss of life, and this was one of those cases. Also diplomatic negotiations and treaties aren’t a fun process haha. 3.5/5.

The Survivors: Well�� that went nothing like I expected. Things start out kind of same old, same old. We have a couple being too stubborn to leave their home despite hostilities and the crew can’t convince them otherwise… then Troi gets some strange repeating melody stuck in her head. You know how addictive Earworms can be? Well imagine it never being able to stop and going over and over and over… and Dear Lord poor Troi didn’t deserve any of this. Marina Sirtis conveyed Troi’s growing desperation and pain because it just won’t stop extremely well. This and a hostile vessel raise a lot of questions. Why is all of this happening? It’s all connected to the elderly couple… and the reveal is utterly shocking and horrifying. I’m reluctant to even go into detail because I don’t want to ruin the surprise for anyone who may have not seen it. But lets just say that it’s not simple pride keeping that couple from leaving even when the danger returns. Oh not even close. This episode was freakin’ great. It’s pretty good but when we get the big plot twist? It flips everything on it’s head and the actor delivering the big revelation… the performance is utterly gut-wrenching. Their actions are sympathetic and the guilt and grief is so evident and heartbreaking, a being driven to despair that caused them to commit probably one of, if not the, most unforgivable act that one can commit. It’s an utter tragedy, plain and simple. IDT an episode of TNG has hit me this hard, I legit teared up. Just… damn. 5/5.

While I didn’t really watch the show as a kid, I did see scattered episodes her and there because my mom watched it 24/7. Seasons 1 and 2 of TNG just… din’t feel right. They weren’t bad, they just didn’t have that feel that I remembered from what I had seen. Now though? I’m starting to get that feeling again. The episodes, while not ground-breaking or anything, maintain quality and it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to replicate TNG or struggling to escape it’s shadow anymore. If this is indeed the season where the show truly found it’s groove, then I am excited for the other 23 episodes~!

#st watchthrough

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trainer-stealthclaw · 4 years ago

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Drowning Through Time

Summary: With every timeloop that passes, Ayano, the Snake of Retaining Eyes, is pulled deeper into an abyss that feels all too much like one of her own making. Genre: Fantasy/Angst Pairing: Ayano Tateyama/Shintaro Kisaragi (mentioned) Word count: 1911 A/N: This is a counterpart to a previous fic of mine, Never-Ending, which can be read here. TW: Suicide mention

Read on FF.Net

She watches through his eyes. She recorded everything into his memories. Every time, he fails. Every time, the loop repeats.

Sometimes, he dies on his way home from the amusement park along with the rest of the Mekakushi Dan. Others, he's killed during the hostage takeover at the mall. Rarely, it’s in the sinister laboratory under the school…if he manages to get that far.

And then there are the times when he doesn't even make it to eighteen years, where he throws his own life away. Where she's forced to watch as he gives up on the world and everything in it, unable to turn her eyes away from the horrifying sight. And usually, it's all her fault. Those are the times she hates the most.

Ayano isn't sure how much more she can bear. The timeloops have been going on for so long, she'd lost count centuries ago. She isn't even sure if she really is herself, anymore. She had long ago given up her physical humanity, back when she had taken on the role of the Snake of Retaining Eyes, and whenever she speaks to Shintaro, in the few loops where he managed to awaken to her presence, she grows even more sure that she had given up her humanity in spirit as well.

Not that it mattered, she supposes. Nothing much does, anymore.

She watches as he speaks awkwardly to the version of her from this timeloop. Both of them fifteen, without so much of a guess as to what was waiting for them in that grim future.

The Ayano of this timeline smiles shyly, fiddling with her bright red scarf as she chats with Shintaro.

So innocent, Ayano thinks. She wonders what this other version of herself would think, if she knew just how many times her actions had led to countless timelines' downfalls, how many loops she had sabotaged by inadvertently breaking Shintaro's spirit with her eventual death.

Such an irony, really. Everything she has worked towards, everything that she had to sacrifice her own humanity for, was destroyed by none other than, well, herself.

She used to wonder what drove her counterpart to her death. One would think that technically being the same person would mean that she understood. But she doesn’t. The timeline that she had originated from is completely different from the ones she has seen, since becoming the Snake of Retaining Eyes.

She, herself, had never been Shintaro's classmate, unlike this one. In fact, she hadn’t even made it to middle school. She had dropped out when she was barely out of elementary school, the sight of her parents’ deaths fresh in her mind and vengeful resentment towards innocent Mary festering in her heart.

As far as she knew, this Ayano doesn’t know Mary. Has never even met the girl. Instead, she is friends with schoolmates Haruka and Takane, the two whom she herself had never gotten the chance to know in her own life. And from what she has gathered, her younger siblings still love this Ayano.

That…is something that she cannot really say for herself. Not since the accident.

This Ayano, that Shintaro encounters in each timeloop, is completely different from her. They might as well be entirely different people.

To be honest, she resents her. Not only is she throwing a wrench in her goal, to end this eternal cycle, but as far as she could tell, this Ayano has everything. Her family loves her. Her friends love her. She gets to go to school and be normal. She gets to spend time with her beloved (in her own timeline, Ayano barely got more than a day).

So…why? Why does this Ayano give it all up?

Her questions are answered in one timeline, when Kano, her foster brother, gives a rough explanation that leaves her furious and hungering for more answers that no one would give.

The fact that this version of Ayano is staking her very existence on the chance to stop the Snake of Clearing Eyes from achieving his goal is, perhaps, far too expected to be surprising (it is exactly what she herself is doing, is it not?). But to think that she is purposefully driving him into a corner, unwittingly giving him the excuse to force Mary to restart each timeloop and keep them trapped in this cycle? There is irony, and then there is cruelty. Never did Ayano think for one moment that her biggest obstacle would be herself.

It is surely her punishment, Ayano thinks to herself, for everything that she had done in her own life. As if giving up her humanity could ever make up for her sins, the grief she had caused.

As much as Ayano hates the Snake of Clearing Eyes, sometimes she supposes that maybe, she hates herself all the more.

—

She's died again. Ayano watches through Shintaro's tear-filled eyes. She herself feels nothing. This timeloop is likely doomed to fail, anyway. She knows the chain of events like the back of her hand now.

Before the week is out, Shintaro will officially be pulled out of school. By this evening, he'll already be shutting himself in his room.

Within the year, he'll meet Ene, the supposed artificial intelligence who is far more than meets the eye.

Whether he dies soon after that, or later down the line, the chain of events has already begun. This chain of time, that is like a noose constricting her neck. It doesn’t matter how much she screams and fights against it.

This is the fate she has sentenced herself to. This is her punishment for having the audacity to believe that they could make things right, that they could end this eternal cycle of tragedy. It is her hubris, hers and her counterpart’s, that led them to this damnation.

She, trapped in the mind of the one she loved but couldn’t reach, and her, condemned to an infinite world of loneliness in the Heat Haze realm. The two of them burying their feelings and humanity for the sake of a cause that would never come to fruition. Two sides of the same coin, both as foolish and reckless as the other.

She listens to Shintaro crying in the darkness of his room.

Shintaro…I definitely don’t deserve your tears, you know?

—

The clockwork whirs and clicks underneath them, a familiar metallic melody that she had grown used to. The musical rhythm of time itself, playing for them in this space that is only theirs. Not a space for comfort or heartfelt emotions. Those aren’t things she is allowed to have. Emotions are something to be stifled and choked.

No, this is a space for cold facts and uncomfortable truths. Where reality would come crashing down on him as he learns the horrifying truth, and she’d play the part of the callous snake that only appears to resemble the girl he loves.

(In fairness, he isn’t wrong, when he accuses her of being a fake. The Ayano he knows would never look at him with a frigid smile or such empty eyes. His Ayano is bright and full of life, her smile echoing memories of summer days. She, on the other hand, had long forgotten how to curl her lips in such a gentle expression or believe in things like heroism or friendship. It is for that same reason that she never wears that silly scarf. The red scarf is the symbol of a hero, something she could never be. Sometimes, she wonders when she had forgotten the ideals that she had once sworn by. Maybe she is nothing but the snake he sees in her).

Shintaro stands in front of her. His eyes are wide, watching her. His fingers tremble as he clutches at the hem of his jacket. He seems terrified beyond belief, now that he knows the truth of this tragedy that they are bound to.

Well, it isn’t as if she hadn’t expected this reaction from him. Anyone would be overwhelmed by centuries worth of memories. And it wasn’t like she was much better, being the keeper of those recollections.

She regards him with a curious tilt of the head as she looms over him. She never quite got used to the serpentine form that she takes when speaking to him like this, even if it has been centuries since she had been a real human being.

In the distance, she hears the faint chiming of bells. Their time is almost up.

Ayano takes a deep breath. This is the part you must play. Now, do it well.

She pushes herself to sound urgent. Pretend she has any semblance of hope. At the very least, she should give him some incentive to fight. If not for herself, then for their friends, those kids who don’t deserve to be a part of this tragic tale. She owes them that much, at least, she thinks.

“A new timeloop approaches,” she tells him. “Now that you remember the secrets of this never-ending tragedy, what will you do?”

It isn’t any use asking him, to be honest. She knows him too well. Has been with him far too long not to. This is where he gives up, the knowledge overwhelming him with despair. This would be another failure. Another regret to drown in.

She braces herself for the crushing sense of defeat to overwhelm them both.

But instead he stares at her, determination in his crimson eyes. They seem to burn, blazing with something that she hasn’t seen from him in a long time. Her breath catches in her throat.

“I was given this power for a reason. This time, that Clearing Eyes bastard will be the one to pay. I’ll make sure that this never-ending summer finishes for good.”

As if in response to his words, the bells toll around them, singing their songs of promise. Light fills the room. It’s blinding, like the dawn of a new morning. Relief bubbles up in her chest. The crushing weight in her lungs lifts.

For the first time in forever, Ayano breathes. And she smiles.

#kagerou project #kagepro #mekakucity actors #ayano tateyama #shintaro kisaragi #ayaki #shinaya #fanfiction #kagerou day #yakitsukeru #my writings #fanfic #writers on tumblr #havent posted a fanfic on tumblr in forever

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yaboylevi · 5 years ago

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Am I the only one who thinks this whole Connie-Falco stuff came out of no where? We haven't heard from his mother in so long and now all of the sudden we're hit with him wanting to sacrifice a child... felt very out of no where.

I don't know if you're the only one, but I have to disagree with you.

The plot thread about his anguish towards his mother and his family and what happened in Rakago has always been there in the background. There was never focus on it after it happened because more pressing things ended up taking up all the space, but it's always been something I have wondered about. What happened to Connie's mom? Was she mercy killed? Was she kept alive in the hopes to find a cure? What about Connie? How does he feel about this? What's gonna happen with them? I have never forgotten about this topic, and I was positive Connie wasn't gonna die in Liberio because of this unresolved thread.

Besides, his descent to the "dark side" (more like, Connie losing himself in anger and despair) is something that's been hinted at and even spelled out multiple times since the timeskip. In order:

Connie is the one to be explicitly shown to have a family-oriented mindset here.

Connie has lost someone he considered his found family, his twin. He is overcome by desperation and grief and, after this, even anger.

Connie is absolutely distraught at being betrayed by Eren, as well. Eren is someone who was pretty close to him, he surely considered Eren part of his found family.

So Eren is partially responsible for Connie losing one of the people closest to him, after he had lost in a very horrifying way his parents and his little brother and sister. And he's aching so bad because it's Eren. It's obvious Connie is both angry and hurt. Because he still loves Eren but at the same time he has lost someone else that he loved because of Eren.

This leads to him acting irrational and violent, something that we have never seen him do prior to what happened to Sasha. It was very clearly his trigger, alongside Eren's betrayal (besides, Eren was also apparently cooperating with the person responsible for his family's transformation into titans, which is basically a double betrayal).

This anger has been boiling for a while now, in canon at least a month, and for us, clear displays of it were shown multiple times (a 1 year and a half worth of chapters ).

His outburst this chapter was...sad, more than anything. He can't make sense of the situation (see how he avoids even commenting on it), the only thing that can make the world stop spinning is a little fragment of hope and comfort: getting at least his mom back.

And we finally find out what exactly happened with her - she's still there, in Rakago, and Connie has been visiting her for 4 years. It reminds me of someone who has been paying visits to an unconscious family member in a hospital. It is exhausting and draining but you can't stop hoping for them to wake up someday.

It's really tragic that such a kind boy as Connie has been pushed to this - sacrificing a kid. It is obviously morally wrong, but can you blame him? He's been hanging on a thread trying not to lose it.

There was a very obvious moral parallel to the serumbowl there (saving someone trusted for the future of humanity because the responsibility for that role would be too much for you, vs saving someone from your family, completely disregarding the life of the enemy shifter that will be sacrificed), so just like back then Eren and Mikasa's reactions were completely normal and justified considering the terrible and stressful and exhausting situation imo, I felt the same now with Connie.

So it's not out of place: there is no way he could've acted rationally in such a situation when a family member of his could be saved - at the price of sacrificing a child, yes, but an enemy nonetheless. Bertolt was just 17 when he was killed (clearly Falco's sins are nothing comparable to Bert's, but Connie has no way of knowing or no reason to think a person from Reiner's group wouldn't try to kill them, considering their records, and how a kid the same age as Falco's killed Sasha in cold blood).

On the contrary, I would've found it really disappointing if Connie's mom was never brought up again! And I would've found it completely OOC if Connie hadn't reacted in such a strong, desperate way, considering how he's been feeling lately (though him deserting with Falco honestly left a bad taste in my mouth, but I guess there's some reason linked to future events). Compared to other characters' characterization, going back and forth between one behavior and another, Connie has felt the most consistent and enjoyable to read. At least for me. :)

#connie springer #connie asks #shingeki asks #snk spoilers #snk 124 #Anonymous

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moodboardinthecloud · 4 years ago

Text

Your ‘Surge Capacity’ Is Depleted — It’s Why You Feel Awful

Here’s how to pull yourself out of despair and live your life

Tara Haelle

Aug 16·13 min read

https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it-s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c

Itwas the end of the world as we knew it, and I felt fine. That’s almost exactly what I told my psychiatrist at my March 16 appointment, a few days after our children’s school district extended spring break because of the coronavirus. I said the same at my April 27 appointment, several weeks after our state’s stay-at-home order.

Yes, it was exhausting having a kindergartener and fourth grader doing impromptu distance learning while I was barely keeping up with work. And it was frustrating to be stuck home nonstop, scrambling to get in grocery delivery orders before slots filled up, and tracking down toilet paper. But I was still doing well because I thrive in high-stress emergency situations. It’s exhilarating for my ADHD brain. As just one example, when my husband and I were stranded in Peru during an 8.0-magnitude earthquake that killed thousands, we walked around with a first aid kit helping who we could and tracking down water and food. Then I went out with my camera to document the devastation as a photojournalist and interview Peruvians in my broken Spanish for my hometown paper.

Now we were in a pandemic, and I’m a science journalist who has written about infectious disease and medical research for nearly a decade. I was on fire, cranking out stories, explaining epidemiological concepts in my social networks, trying to help everyone around me make sense of the frightening circumstances of a pandemic and the anxiety surrounding the virus.

I knew it wouldn’t last. It never does. But even knowing I would eventually crash, I didn’t appreciate how hard the crash would be, or how long it would last, or how hard it would be to try to get back up over and over again, or what getting up even looked like.

Psychiatrist and habit change specialist Dr. Jud Brewer explains how anxiety masquerades as helpfulelemental.medium.com

How to Live When Your Mind Is Governed by Fear

In those early months, I, along with most of the rest of the country, was using “surge capacity” to operate, as Ann Masten, PhD, a psychologist and professor of child development at the University of Minnesota, calls it. Surge capacity is a collection of adaptive systems — mental and physical — that humans draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, such as natural disasters. But natural disasters occur over a short period, even if recovery is long. Pandemics are different — the disaster itself stretches out indefinitely.

“The pandemic has demonstrated both what we can do with surge capacity and the limits of surge capacity,” says Masten. When it’s depleted, it has to be renewed. But what happens when you struggle to renew it because the emergency phase has now become chronic?

By my May 26 psychiatrist appointment, I wasn’t doing so hot. I couldn’t get any work done. I’d grown sick of Zoom meetups. It was exhausting and impossible to think with the kids around all day. I felt trapped in a home that felt as much a prison as a haven. I tried to conjure the motivation to check email, outline a story, or review interview notes, but I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t make myself do anything — work, housework, exercise, play with the kids — for that whole week.

Or the next.

I know depression, but this wasn’t quite that. It was, as I’d soon describe in an emotional post in a social media group of professional colleagues, an “anxiety-tainted depression mixed with ennui that I can’t kick,” along with a complete inability to concentrate. I spoke with my therapist, tweaked medication dosages, went outside daily for fresh air and sunlight, tried to force myself to do some physical activity, and even gave myself permission to mope for a few weeks. We were in a pandemic, after all, and I had already accepted in March that life would not be “normal” for at least a year or two. But I still couldn’t work, couldn’t focus, hadn’t adjusted. Shouldn’t I be used to this by now?

“Why do you think you should be used to this by now? We’re all beginners at this,” Masten told me. “This is a once in a lifetime experience. It’s expecting a lot to think we’d be managing this really well.”

It wasn’t until my social media post elicited similar responses from dozens of high-achieving, competent, impressive women I professionally admire that I realized I wasn’t in the minority. My experience was a universal and deeply human one.

An unprecedented disaster

While the phrase “adjusting to the new normal” has been repeated endlessly since March, it’s easier said than done. How do you adjust to an ever-changing situation where the “new normal” is indefinite uncertainty?

“This is an unprecedented disaster for most of us that is profound in its impact on our daily lives,” says Masten. But it’s different from a hurricane or tornado where you can look outside and see the damage. The destruction is, for most people, invisible and ongoing. So many systems aren’t working as they normally do right now, which means radical shifts in work, school, and home life that almost none of us have experience with. Even those who have worked in disaster recovery or served in the military are facing a different kind of uncertainty right now.

Americans are faced with more risk than ever. Understanding how the brain navigates this new reality can build…elemental.medium.com

Life Is Now a Game of Risk. Here’s How Your Brain Is Processing It.

“I think we maybe underestimate how severe the adversity is and that people may be experiencing a normal reaction to a pretty severe and ongoing, unfolding, cascading disaster,” Masten says. “It’s important to recognize that it’s normal in a situation of great uncertainty and chronic stress to get exhausted and to feel ups and downs, to feel like you’re depleted or experience periods of burnout.”

Research on disaster and trauma focuses primarily on what’s helpful for people during the recovery period, but we’re not close to recovery yet. People can use their surge capacity for acute periods, but when dire circumstances drag on, Masten says, “you have to adopt a different style of coping.”

“How do you adjust to an ever-changing situation where the ‘new normal’ is indefinite uncertainty?”

Understanding ambiguous loss

It’s not surprising that, as a lifelong overachiever, I’ve felt particularly despondent and adrift as the months have dragged on, says Pauline Boss, PhD, a family therapist and professor emeritus of social sciences at the University of Minnesota who specializes in “ambiguous loss.”

“It’s harder for high achievers,” she says. “The more accustomed you are to solving problems, to getting things done, to having a routine, the harder it will be on you because none of that is possible right now. You get feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, and those aren’t good.”

That’s similar to how Michael Maddaus, MD, a professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota, felt when he became addicted to prescription narcotics after undergoing several surgeries. Now recovered and a motivational speaker who promotes the idea of a “resilience bank account,” Maddaus had always been a fast-moving high achiever — until he couldn’t be.

“I realized that my personal operating system, though it had led to tremendous success, had failed me on a more personal level,” he says. “I had to figure out a different way of contending with life.”

That mindset is an especially American one, Boss says.

“Our culture is very solution-oriented, which is a good way of thinking for many things,” she says. “It’s partly responsible for getting a man on the moon and a rover on Mars and all the things we’ve done in this country that are wonderful. But it’s a very destructive way of thinking when you’re faced with a problem that has no solution, at least for a while.”

That means reckoning with what’s called ambiguous loss: any loss that’s unclear and lacks a resolution. It can be physical, such as a missing person or the loss of a limb or organ, or psychological, such as a family member with dementia or a serious addiction.

“In this case, it is a loss of a way of life, of the ability to meet up with your friends and extended family,” Boss says. “It is perhaps a loss of trust in our government. It’s the loss of our freedom to move about in our daily life as we used to.” It’s also the loss of high-quality education, or the overall educational experience we’re used to, given school closures, modified openings and virtual schooling. It’s the loss of rituals, such weddings, graduations, and funerals, and even lesser “rituals,” such as going to gym. One of the toughest losses for me to adapt to is no longer doing my research and writing in coffee shops as I’ve done for most of my life, dating back to junior high.

“These were all things we were attached to and fond of, and they’re gone right now, so the loss is ambiguous. It’s not a death, but it’s a major, major loss,” says Boss. “What we used to have has been taken away from us.”

Just as painful are losses that may result from the intersection of the pandemic and the already tense political division in the country. For many people, issues related to Covid-19 have become the last straw in ending relationships, whether it’s a family member refusing to wear a mask, a friend promoting the latest conspiracy theory, or a co-worker insisting Covid-19 deaths are exaggerated.

Ambiguous loss elicits the same experiences of grief as a more tangible loss — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — but managing it often requires a bit of creativity.

A winding, uncharted path to coping in a pandemic

While there isn’t a handbook for functioning during a pandemic, Masten, Boss, and Maddaus offered some wisdom for meandering our way through this.

Accept that life is different right now

Maddaus’ approach involves radical acceptance. “It’s a shitty time, it’s hard,” he says. “You have to accept that in your bones and be okay with this as a tough day, with ‘that’s the way it is,’ and accept that as a baseline.”

But that acceptance doesn’t mean giving up, he says. It means not resisting or fighting reality so that you can apply your energy elsewhere. “It allows you to step into a more spacious mental space that allows you to do things that are constructive instead of being mired in a state of psychological self torment.”

Expect less from yourself

Most of us have heard for most of our lives to expect more from ourselves in some way or another. Now we must give ourselves permission to do the opposite. “We have to expect less of ourselves, and we have to replenish more,” Masten says. “I think we’re in a period of a lot of self discovery: Where do I get my energy? What kind of down time do I need? That’s all shifted right now, and it may take some reflection and self discovery to find out what rhythms of life do I need right now?”

She says people are having to live their lives without the support of so many systems that have partly or fully broken down, whether it’s schools, hospitals, churches, family support, or other systems that we relied on. We need to recognize that we’re grieving multiple losses while managing the ongoing impact of trauma and uncertainty. The malaise so many of us feel, a sort of disinterested boredom, is common in research on burnout, Masten says. But other emotions accompany it: disappointment, anger, grief, sadness, exhaustion, stress, fear, anxiety — and no one can function at full capacity with all that going on.

Recognize the different aspects of grief

The familiar “stages” of grief don’t actually occur in linear stages, Boss says, but denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are all major concepts in facing loss. Plenty of people are in denial: denying the virus is real, or that the numbers of cases or deaths are as high as reported, or that masks really help reduce disease transmission.

Anger is evident everywhere: anger at those in denial, anger in the race demonstrations, anger at those not physically distancing or wearing masks, and even anger at those who wear masks or require them. The bargaining, Boss says, is mostly with scientists we hope will develop a vaccine quickly. The depression is obvious, but acceptance�� “I haven’t accepted any of this,” Boss says. “I don’t know about you.”

Sometimes acceptance means “saying we’re going to have a good time in spite of this,” Boss says, such as when my family drove an hour outside the city to get far enough from light pollution to look for the comet NEOWISE. But it can also mean accepting that we cannot change the situation right now.

“We can kick and scream and be angry, or we can feel the other side of it, with no motivation, difficulty focusing, lethargy,” Boss says, “or we can take the middle way and just have a couple days where you feel like doing nothing and you embrace the losses and sadness you’re feeling right now, and then the next day, do something that has an element of achievement to it.”

“Our new normal is always feeling a little off balance, like trying to stand in a dinghy on rough seas, and not knowing when the storm will pass.”

Experiment with “both-and” thinking

This approach may not work for everyone, but Boss says there’s an alternative to binary thinking that many people find helpful in dealing with ambiguous loss. She calls it “both-and” thinking, and sometimes it means embracing a bit of the irrational.

For the families of soldiers missing in action in Vietnam that Boss studied early in her career, or the family members of victims of plane crashes where the bodies aren’t recovered, this type of thinking means thinking: “He is both living and maybe not. She is probably dead but maybe not.”

“If you stay in the rational when nothing else is rational, like right now, then you’ll just stress yourself more,” she says. “What I say with ambiguous loss is the situation is crazy, not the person. The situation is pathological, not the person.”

An analogous approach during the pandemic might be, “This is terrible and many people are dying, and this is also a time for our families to come closer together,” Boss says. On a more personal level, “I’m highly competent, and right now I’m flowing with the tide day-to-day.”

It’s a bit of a Schrödinger’s existence, but when you can’t change the situation, “the only thing you can change is your perception of it,” she says.

Of course, that doesn’t mean denying the existence of the pandemic or the coronavirus. As Maddaus says, “You have to face reality.” But how we frame that reality mentally can help us cope with it.

Look for activities, new and old, that continue to fulfill you

Lots of coping advice has focused on “self-care,” but one of the frustrating ironies of the pandemic is that so many of our self-care activities have also been taken away: pedicures, massages, coffee with friends, a visit to the amusement park, a kickboxing class, swimming in the local pool — these activities remain unsafe in much of the country. So we have to get creative with self-care when we’re least motivated to get creative.

“When we’re forced to rethink our options and broaden out what we think of as self-care, sometimes that constraint opens new ways of living and thinking,” Masten says. “We don’t have a lot of control over the global pandemic but we do over our daily lives. You can focus on plans for the future and what’s meaningful in life.”

For me, since I missed eating in restaurants and was tired of our same old dinners, I began subscribing to a meal-kit service. I hate cooking, but the meal kits were easy, and I was motivated by the chance to eat something that tasted more like what I’d order in a restaurant without having to invest energy in looking through recipes or ordering the right ingredients.

Okay, I’ve also been playing a lot of Animal Crossing, but Maddaus explains why it makes sense that creative activities like cooking, gardening, painting, house projects — or even building your own imaginary island out of pixels — can be fulfilling right now. He references the book The Molecule of More, which explores how dopamine influences our experiences and happiness, in describing the types of activities most likely to bring us joy.

“There are two ways the brain deals with the world: the future and things we need to go after, and the here and now, seeing things and touching things,” Maddaus says. “Rather than being at the mercy of what’s going on, we can use the elements of our natural reward system and construct things to do that are good no matter what.”

Those kinds of activities have a planning element and a here-and-now experience element. For Maddaus, for example, it was simply replacing all the showerheads and lightbulbs in the house. “It’s a silly thing, but it made me feel good,” he says.

Focus on maintaining and strengthening important relationships

The biggest protective factors for facing adversity and building resilience are social support and remaining connected to people, Masten says. That includes helping others, even when we’re feeling depleted ourselves.

“Helping others is one of those win-win strategies of taking action because we’re all feeling a sense of helplessness and loss of control about what’s going on with this pandemic, but when you take action with other people, you can control what you’re doing,” she says. Helping others could include checking in on family friends or buying groceries for an elderly neighbor.

Begin slowly building your resilience bank account

Maddaus’ idea of a resilience bank account is gradually building into your life regular practices that promote resilience and provide a fallback when life gets tough. Though it would obviously be nice to have a fat account already, he says it’s never too late to start. The areas he specifically advocates focusing on are sleep, nutrition, exercise, meditation, self-compassion, gratitude, connection, and saying no.

“Start really small and work your way up,” he says. “If you do a little bit every day, it starts to add up and you get momentum, and even if you miss a day, then start again. We have to be gentle with ourselves and keep on, begin again.”

After spending an hour on the phone with each of these experts, I felt refreshed and inspired. I can do this! I was excited about writing this article and sharing what I’d learned.

And then it took me two weeks to start the article and another week to finish it — even though I wanted to write it. But now, I could cut myself a little more slack for taking so much longer than I might have a few months ago. I might have intellectually accepted back in March that the next two years (or more?) are going to be nothing like normal, and not even predictable in how they won’t be normal. But cognitively recognizing and accepting that fact and emotionally incorporating that reality into everyday life aren’t the same. Our new normal is always feeling a little off balance, like trying to stand in a dinghy on rough seas, and not knowing when the storm will pass. But humans can get better at anything with practice, so at least I now have some ideas for working on my sea legs.

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michael-langdon-appreciation · 5 years ago

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Sis where is part 9 for the runaway saga??! It’s so good!!! I can’t wait to read what Michael and Jim’s reaction will be and what exactly Y/N did with the babies. Keep up the great work!!! Also pls let Dunc be happy ):

I’m back back back again with Part 9 after the LONGEST BREAK! I beg for your forgiveness as I humbly offer you all the next instalment. I’m going to drop this and go hide behind Jerome 🙈😭

So without further ado….

——————————————————————————————-

MICHAEL

His hands shake, those signature rings flash taunts at him. They ridicule and mock him for making one more idiotic choice in the long list that have made up his life.

He’s toxic to everyone he touches.

Why Michael ever thought it was a clever idea to breed….to make another nightmare come to life.

The Jerome man sits beside him on the sofa. He moved over when Jim stormed over to the balcony, Duncan hot on his heels. Y/N has taken the armchair, her arms wrapped around herself.

She watches Michael carefully, as if he’s a bomb ready to explode. ‘Say something, Michael…please.’

But he can’t. There are no words that will come to him, because if Michael speaks he’ll overflow and all the rage, hurt and grief will ebb like a tidal wave and he must be strong.

Despite his world collapsing he must be strong.

‘What are the implications for you?’ Jerome asks Y/N. ‘There’s no direct consequence here for you, is there?’

‘It doesn’t seem so.’ Y/N answers, ‘But…we’re not exactly dealing with a normal baby here.’

Jerome’s lips quirk up into a grin, ‘You could never do anything normal, could you?’

Y/N smiles back, ‘Getting involved in a foursome. No, I don’t think that’s norm for most people.’

‘Get rid of it.’

Both Y/N and Jerome’s head snap to the balcony. Jim stands there with eyes of fire. His hands flex into fists and then release as he stalks over to Michael. The Antichrist stands, knowing the fight was about to come sooner or later when Jim’s fist slams into his jaw. The crack resounds around the room from a blow that would have anyone fully human unconscious.

Slowly, ever so slowly Michael turns his head back to face Jim. But the boy isn’t done. He lands the second punch to Michael’s jaw, an uppercut and Michael feels something crunch from the impact. Duncan’s arms fling themselves around Jim right as the boy is about the launch himself at Michael. ‘LET ME KILL HIM!’

Y/N has sprung to her feet. She puts her hands on Jim’s shoulders, looking directly into his eyes. ‘You lay another finger on him Jim and you’ll be out!’

The beach boy’s eyes are crazed by now, ‘You’re defending him. HIM!’ He manages to shove Duncan off him, a finger jabbing in Michael’s direction. ‘HE’S GOING TO KILL MY CHILD!’

‘We’ll find a way.’ Y/N is adamant, her hands still holding onto Jim. ‘I’m not letting anything happen to these babies.’ She glances to Michael, ‘Either of them.’

‘Cool it, Jim.’ Duncan hisses in his ear, ‘This is not the place.’

‘Easy for you to say.’ Jim bites back, ‘What have you got in this? Nothing?’

The weight of Jim’s words hits Duncan. He lets the boy go and he charges for Michael. The Antichrist does nothing. He knows he deserves it, every single atom of Jim’s rage he deserves. Jim raises his fist again, his eyes focused on where he can do the most damage. Michael just watches him, waiting for the blow.

‘Jim.’ Y/N speaks again, ‘Don’t.’

He wavers and then Jim’s fist falls by his side. He glowers at Michael and then keels down into a crouch, ‘FUCK!’

‘You’re right.’ Michael whispers, ‘I…I don’t know what I was thinking.’ His eyes flick to Duncan, ‘I was jealous. You had Y/N and Duncan had just taken her. I was enraged and I did what I always do. I make a mess. I ruin everything.’ Michael knows his eyes are glassy, but he can’t stop himself. ‘But things will be different. I won’t let it go the way my birth did, Jim. I swear it to you. I swear it on Y/N’s life.’

‘That doesn’t mean shit to me.’ Jim hisses, ‘You and your genes are cancer.’

It’s like bearing the weight of a hundred gunshots. Michael staggers back, Jim’s words far more painful than any physical blow.

‘You take that back.’ Y/N says, ‘Right now.’

‘And still you defend him.’ Jim rounds on her, throwing his arms out to the side.

‘Back off, man.’ Jerome puts himself in front of Y/N. ‘Think of the babies, sport. Stress isn’t good for a pregnant mother.’

‘His baby monster is killing mine and you stand there and defend him till the end of your days.’

‘I believe in Michael.’ Y/N shoots back, ‘I know he would never let anything happen to your child, Jim.’

Jim looks to Duncan for back-up. The Media Mogul hesitates, his eyes flashing round the room. Michael can feel the turmoil radiating off him, but Michael cannot suppress the one thought rocking round Duncan Shepherd’s mind.

They aren’t his. He’s lost.

‘We monitor the pregnancy.’ Duncan decides, ‘Right now Jim’s baby is the smallest because he’s the runt. But if this….this alpha baby starts depriving him.’ His eyes fix on Michael, ‘We’ll have to take action.’

There’s a horrible silence and then Y/N’s hand slips over her stomach. ‘No matter what any of you say. I’m not losing my babies. Not for anything.’

‘But you’ll let mine die.’

’That isn’t going to happen, Jim!’ Y/N repeats, her voice rising again. ‘You are so cynical about everything-’

Jim’s lip cocks up into a sneer, ‘I never had a shot with you.’ He says, ‘It’s always gonna be him. It’s always gonna be Michael Langdon, the spawn of the literal devil. You know I risked everything for you. I moved from PV, I don’t speak to my sister much anymore, I’m penniless and living in this fucking apartment under Duncan’s nose because I stand not being near you. And what is it all for? You’ll always choose him.’ Jim’s eyes flick back to Duncan, ‘We were never a long-standing option.’

‘That’s not true.’ Michael has to pipe up, ‘You weren’t with her when things fell apart. Y/N…she was miserable. We both were.’

‘The fact remains Michael,’ Duncan interjects, ‘That your child has the potential to end Jim’s. Just like what happened with you and Jeffrey.’

‘Don’t.’ Michael pleads, his voice catching. ‘I didn’t mean to. I had no idea! And neither does the baby. I’ll….I’ll talk to them.’

Jim heads back out onto the balcony. He swipes a cigarette from his pocket and lights it, inhaling a large puff of smoke. Y/N watches him, her mouth hanging slightly open. The despair is clear in her eyes as she walks over to Duncan. He slides his arms around her at once, pulling her into his chest. ‘It isn’t true.’ She says, ‘I love all of you so much. I just want things how they used to be.’

Duncan simply nods, holding her against him.

——————————————————————————————-

DUNCAN

The moment passes in silence as Y/N calms down, getting ahold of her breathing. She feels so good against him, warm and soft. Duncan can only imagine the bump that will soon be between them, those little babies sheltered in Y/N’s stomach.

Babies that aren’t his.

Duncan has been trying to shield his thoughts from Michael, but he knows it’s impossible. It’s selfish, he knows that too. But Duncan would be lying if he said that a part of him did not die on hearing that irrevocable news.

So he’ll take whatever he can get before he’s pushed out. Before the twins become the most important thing in his loved one’s lives.

Y/N clings to him like a child, her nose pressed into him. She inhales his aftershave, before looking up at him. ‘I’m so sorry, Duncan.’

He forces a smile, ‘Don’t be. You’re giving birth to two beautiful babies. You’ll be an excellent mother.’

Y/N looks as if she’s going to say something, but she holds her tongue. She nods against him as Jerome steps over to Michael. The Salesman pulls a face, ‘You’re uh…bleeding there.’

He’s not wrong. Michael looks like shit. Jim got him good, a shiner forming round his right eye while his nose has swollen like a clown’s. Michael’s fingers prod at his nose and winces. It must feel tender, swollen. There’s blood gushing from his nostrils.

Duncan shoves down the pang of sympathy forming in his gut.

He knew what he was doing. He know how this would turn out.

Y/N breaks away from Duncan to take hold of Michael by the jaw, inspecting him. ‘This is too far.’ She murmurs, taking some tissue and holding it under Michael’s nose.

‘No.’ He says, ‘Jim’s within his right to be angry.’

‘You should….get that seen to.’ Duncan offers, lamely. He’s laced his fingers together for something to do. He looks to Jerome who just twists his mouth into a crease before sinking onto the couch. ‘Fuck me.’ He mutters, ‘Twins.’

‘This doesn’t mean you aren’t as important.’ It seems Michael couldn’t hold back from voicing his thoughts. ‘Just cause-’

‘Thank you.’ Duncan says, cutting him off quickly. He looks between Michael and Y/N. They always looks so perfect next to each other, ready to conquer the world and annihilate it. ‘Well….my apartment is always available. A kind of…safe space between you both.’

‘You’d do that?’ The wonder is clear in Michael’s voice.

‘Yeah.’ Duncan says, ‘No offence but…I don’t trust either of you right now and…Jerome’s right…we shouldn’t stress the kids.’

Michael nods to himself, lost in his own thoughts. ‘I’ll…..leave for now then.’

‘You don’t have to go anywhere.’ Y/N insists, ‘Not right now. I don’t think you should be alone.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Michael chokes out the lie, ‘I promise.’ He places a kiss on her cheeks, whispering something Duncan can’t hear. Y/N breaks out into a smile though, her hand rubbing his shoulder.

Michael approaches the balcony, leaning against it. ‘Jim,’ He calls. ‘I’m leaving now.’

‘Good.’ Jim doesn’t look at Michael. He just continues rolling his cigarette between his fingers.

‘Jim I know you’re hurting right now.’ Michael keeps trying, ‘I know you don’t want to listen to me and that you despise me right now. But I love you and your baby. I would never do anything to hurt either of you, or Y/N.’ Y/N joins Duncan, leaning against him slightly. She laces the fingers of her left hand in his, Duncan’s thumb running over them. He watches Michael toss his hair over his shoulder and finally square his shoulders. ‘But I love my child too.’ The Antichrist says, ‘And I am going to do everything and anything to make sure they come into this world. Nothing will get in the way of that.’

Jim tenses, clearly listening to every single word. Michael takes his leave, sweeping from the apartment with a kiss to Y/N’s cheek. ‘I’ll be in touch.’ He says, ‘Look after them, please.’

‘We will.’ Jerome chirps, waving Michael off.

A muscle in Michael’s jaw twitches, but he says nothing to the Travelling Salesman. The moment the front door is closed, Duncan turns to Jerome. ‘Let’s get one thing crystal clear.’ He says, ‘I appreciate all you’ve done, I really do. But this is my house and you’re with people I love. That doesn’t mean you’re on an equal plateau.’

‘I’m just pointing out that you’re at work 24/7.’ Jerome’s says, ‘And if this is a safe spot that means fisticuffs can’t stay here either.’

Jim re-enters at that moments, ‘The fuck? I’m staying with my kid.’

‘Actually he has a point.’ Y/N moves over to take Jim’s hands in hers. ’Till this is sorted out, I think it’s best we get you a hotel room.’

Duncan nods, ‘Just because that way there’s no claiming, or any of that shit.’ He explains quickly, ‘You both can visit Y/N whenever you like and there’s no…underhand stuff.’

‘Meanwhile you get to play happy families.’ Jim eyes Duncan, ‘I know what you’re doing, I’m not dumb.’

‘Our…associate makes a point.’ Duncan sighs, ‘I do have work. Which means that I can’t support Y/N as much as I would like to. Even by working remotely.’

‘Sounds like more reason for me to stay-’

‘Or, I have Jerome stick around.’ Y/N cuts Jim off.

The Salesman breaks out into a grin, ‘You know I do need a place to stay for a couple’a months.’

Duncan blinks, ‘Absolutely not.’

‘You just said you don’t have the time to take care of me.’ Y/N says, ‘Who better to help than a friend?’

‘No.’ Jim and Duncan say it at the same time.

‘Too bad you don’t get the final say.’ Y/N heads into the kitchen. She rummages in the fridge and produces a can of coke and the sandwich Duncan was saving for lunch tomorrow. ‘Jerome stays. Jim goes to a hotel but can visit whenever he likes, as can Michael.’

‘And if this killer baby turns deadly?’ Jim asks, arcing an eyebrow at her.

‘We cross that if it happens.’ Y/N takes a huge bite of Duncan’s sandwich, cracking the can open.

Jerome smirks, patting Duncan on the shoulder as he floats towards the bedrooms, ‘Guess I’m you’re new nanny. I’ll go unpack my briefcase.’

——————————————————————————————-

TAGGING: @michael-langdon-owns-my-soul @langdonsinferno @pastel-cloudz @misslanabananaa @lovelykhaleesiii napping-is-my-favorite@tickled–pinkmoodpoisoning @lvngdvns @ccodyfernn @asstichrist@yourkingcodyfern @langdonsdemon @satcnas @russianspacegeckosexparty @rosy-pugs@luxuryglitterhoe@langdonsoceaneyes @sodanova @petersfern-fics@avesatanormalpeoplescareme @sassylangdon@confettucini@sammythankyou @wroteclassicaly@Sloppy-Wrist@Langdonalien@alexcornerblog @sevenwondr @queencocoakimmie@sojournmichael@langdonsdemon @satcnaskinlovecody@kylosbabe@americanhorrorstudies@xxpixiefromdixiexx@elenareginaauditore@dadddysprincessss@gremlinkween @readsalot73@astir-bread @i-will-die-for-jim-mason@ms-mead @mega-combusken@hanhanxx @kahhlo@thelangdoncooperative @dark-duncan @sojournmichael@langdonsrapture@ritualmichael@cryptid-coalition @sloppy-little-witch-bitch26@infernal-langdon @jim-mason2 @duncandimension @dark-jim @jimmlangdon @xtheinevitableprophecyx @moontheweirdpan @moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown @bbyduncan @divinelangdon @venusxxlangdon @theladynymph@xlangdons-evilbabygirlx

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/waking-up-to-our-new-reality/

Waking Up To Our New Reality

By Sarah Varcas

All dates are UT

When embroiled in the midst of a crisis, the longer view can sometimes help. Reflecting on how we got here, where we want to get to and how we can do so gives both context and meaning to our current trials. It transforms us from the victim of fate to the creator of our reality, and to some extent or other we all created where we find ourselves today. It’s been difficult not to. Modern life has become increasingly unbalanced over time. Estranged from our inherent wisdom we’ve handed responsibility for our health to the ‘experts’; for our security to self-interested politicians; for our meaning to the cult of celebrity and the narrative of hatred and fear peddled by mainstream media. We’ve allowed ourselves, to some degree or other, to be numbed to the consequences of our choices by the drip-fed mindless distraction of social media. And no, we haven’t all done all these things. But everyone’s done something. Just as many have also acted to counter this descent into ever deepening unconsciousness. But as consciousness is raised, so too are the stakes for those who fear exposure of what lies in the shadows. The equal and opposite reaction continues unabated.

At one level, where we find ourselves now shouldn’t surprise anyone. In a world where our immune systems are under attack from suppressive rather than curative health regimes to air pollution to toxins in the food chain and all around us in our throw-away culture, of course disease would eventually have its way! Why wouldn’t it? But on another level there are questions to be asked about why this one and why now? On a planet where over four million people die every year as a result of exposure to outdoor pollution, why weren’t those lives important enough for us to stop what we were doing before? Why haven’t governments the world over mobilised to eradicate that pollution, as they have to stop the spread of Covid-19? Why did humankind largely numb-out to the consequences of its modern lifestyle and carry on as normal until now? What’s so special about this moment in time? What’s changed?

Confronting our fear

The Saturn / Pluto conjunction in January 2020 pulled back the veil to reveal the consequences of humanity’s arrogance. The assumption that we could simply continue forever raping and exploiting this planet with impunity has been thrown into stark relief by the narrative of a virus that threatens the continuation of life as we know it. Many see this as Mother Nature’s revenge. Others believe it to be manmade. Still others see an act of obfuscation to test just how far humanity’s behaviour can be shaped by a narrative of fear. We may never know definitively how we got to where we are now, but all these perspectives contribute important angles to the debate about where we go from here. Whilst a virus is the core narrative, the many attendant issues are just as much a part of the picture being painted in the months to come.

The scientific rationalism of the modern age has fostered a monumental fear of death such that aging has become our nemesis and youth idealised beyond all reason. We must stamp out disease and battle it into submission rather than listen to its message and change accordingly. When disease and death are perceived as the enemy we wage a constant war upon them in our own bodies and minds. Our very life becomes a battleground, against an enemy that will always win eventually. A time such as this forces us to consider our attitude towards death. Is it a demonic presence forever waiting in the wings to snatch away all that we love with a sweep of its mighty hand? Or is it the wisest teacher worthy of respect, who frames a life and gives it meaning? Pluto’s conjunction with Jupiter throughout the rest of this year provides us an opportunity to reflect deeply on our mortality. Not because we’re all doomed, but because if we don’t we may well be not so far down the line! If the mass sublimation of our death-fear continues to manifest as an on-going subjugation of nature to prove our immortal superiority, our morbid dread of death will ironically hasten our collective demise.

The beginning of the end or a fresh start?

Which brings me back to that longer-term overview I mentioned. Where are we going from here? Is this the beginning of the end or an opportunity to forge a fresh start? Have we arrived so rapidly in our new reality that shaping how it develops is beyond our capabilities? What can we do when confined to our homes?! Must we simply hunker down and hope for the best, trying to resist the growing despair that’s settling upon many as the reality of our brave new world begins to sink in? Or do we use this time to wake up? To plan a path forward that looks nothing like the one that led us here in the first place…

It’s fair to say the next few months will test us. Lockdown and other manifestations of virus-related anxiety will be with us for some time to come. An ease in June/July 2020 as Jupiter and Pluto conjunct for the second time whilst retrograde may well coincide with a lessening of the panic, followed by an increase once more from the end of September / beginning of October as they both turn direct. When they conjunct for the last time inmid-November their final say on the matter may not be particularly edifying. However, Saturn’s one-time conjunction with Jupiter in the first degree of Aquarius on 21stDecember presages yet another layer of this global conundrum. Aquarius is the sign of humanity and sister/brotherhood. Saturn – Lord of Karma – and Jupiter – the Great Benefic – joining hands here may well deliver some hope and greater context for what’s been going on. But not without affording us all the weighty responsibility of shifting our own sense of self, reality and perspective to accommodate newly revealed truths around this time.

Onward into 2021

A square between Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus throughout 2021 will test our mettle in this regard. Do we resolve to do things differently on a global scale? Or do we resist the necessary changes and allow frustration over losing the past to rob us of a positive future? Do we embrace innovative ways to live in the wake of this crisis or turn to the ‘tried and tested’ methods that got us into this mess in the first place? This is the key challenge next year. Life (and business) cannot continue as before. And to the extent that it does, we will face far greater threats to our health and liberty before too long.

When Uranus and Saturn form a square we must act. There’s no avoiding it. This is us taking stock of our life after the hurricane has passed. The terrain may be changed beyond recognition and many of the landmarks we knew so well, gone forever. But this square provides the impetus and inspiration to begin afresh and move forward in a productive way. If we choose to.

This will apply as much in our private world as our public one. If you’re spending your lockdown dreaming of when things ‘get back to normal’, you may well be disappointed. A new normal is taking root and we must prepare to run with it when the time’s right. We’ll eventually return to a world unburdened of our pollution, released from the unrelenting impact of humanity for a considerable period of time. That world is already starting to flourish. We are part of it and can choose to flourish too or pollute it once more with our resentment and frustration over things lost. There will be grief of course, and for some people much of it. But grief allowed to flow doesn’t pollute. Only when it’s denied or blocked does it become stagnant resentment or entropic despair.

In essence, we are currently suspended in a state of global shock. When faced with a crisis, old trauma reawakens, building layer upon layer of emotion and pain. As such, we’re not simply processing the present, but all its ripples into our personal and collective past. All those unresolved times when the rug was ripped from beneath us and we were faced with situations we struggled to bear. This shock will need to dissipate through the collective energy field in the coming months. The more we can generate a calm and loving space to receive it the better, for we all have wounds to nurse and care to give in equal measure. This is how we gain the clarity to perceive what’s really going on and discern with wisdom and unflinching presence what truly needs to be done about it.

Waking up to our new reality

The North Node’s arrival in Gemini on 5th May 2020 reminds us to lighten up and allow in some fresh air. The sensitive emotionality of the North Node in Cancer since November 2018 gives way to thinking, not feeling, connecting with others not protecting our own. This nodal shift exhorts us to wake up to our new reality and live it, not avoid, detach from or fear it. It encourages us to look outside as much as within; to join together in a spirit of collaboration. New ideas will form that could not have been conceived before. As the impact of prolonged restriction begins to bite, this nodal shift gives us a positive boost and lifts us out of frustration and fear into fresh perspectives and an inquisitive attitude toward the potential of this strange new world.

Mars enters its own sign of Aries on 28th June, remaining there until the beginning of January 2021. This is a long time for Mars to remain in a sign, extended by virtue of its retrograde passage between 9th September and 14th November. Here Mars is a true warrior. But, focused intensely on its own needs, it struggles to consider those of others if it even bothers to try. Mars is our core life force which gets us out of bed each morning, puts food on our table, enforces our boundaries and protects our personal interests. Its journey through Aries may reveal a dark underbelly of selfishness if supply chains begin to struggle and anxiety about personal stability increases in the wake of loss of income and liberty. Anger and frustration may spill over. The most vulnerable will need a louder, more insistent voice. No one must be left behind nor deemed more important than another. Which is why the lighter touch of the Gemini North Node is important, with its focus on community well-being balancing the more self-centred drives of this time.

In a conjunction of Mars and Eris between August and December 2020 we face a significant challenge to stay the course in a balanced way. Refuse to allow a narrative of fear or frustration to demonise others. Use this energy to speak up for people and protect their rights alongside your own. Take a stand in the interests of community cohesion not individual protection. Beware narratives that divide at this time. Never forget we’re all in this together. Mars and Eris can be our most noble selves rising up to fight the good fight or our most base selves rising up to grab what we can from those who can’t fight back. Greed may be exposed and selfishness rife. But both are a choice that we don’t have to make. Mars, God of War, and his sister Eris, Goddess of Discord, are capable of much mischief, but when aligned with the greater good they become a formidable force of courageous protection and fearless naming of truths denied.

Sovereignty and control

Fear has been a great leveller in this process. From royalty to the street homeless, we are told, all are at risk and none immune. Motivated by it, previously unimaginable curtailments of civil liberties have been imposed and accepted, largely without question. As Jupiter conjuncts Saturn in December 2020 that may begin to change, for Jupiter affords us a bigger perspective, a broader view and instils within us a lust for the future. If the future looks too constrained at this point people may begin getting very itchy feet! And if authorities seek to over-extend virus-related powers into 2021 under the gaze of the aforementioned Saturn/Uranus square, they may be surprised at the strength of feeling amongst the people. In its shadow face, Saturn in Aquarius seeks to control (Saturn) the masses (Aquarius). It fears individuality and self-determination, moving to curtail it. Uranus, on the other hand, insists upon freedom at any cost and in Taurus is unrelenting in that demand!

As such, the issue of control – Who has it? How do they use it? How do we behave when we lose it? Who do we give it up to and why?– is as fundamental to this time as any other. It’s easy to lose connection with your sovereign self when confined to barracks and fearful of what lurks ‘out there’. But our innate sovereignty isn’t diminished by circumstances, whatever they may be. And the core task of living doesn’t change. We are here to awaken. Pure and simple. To reclaim the Self and offer it up in service of Life. We can do that wherever we are, whoever we are and whatever’s happening around us.

Nothing and no one can steal our wisdom or curtail our growing awareness. If increasing numbers dedicate this unprecedented time to knowing the true Self more deeply, just think how different our future can be! How bold and bright and beautiful. Like an embodied evolutionary leap we could emerge anew, understanding profoundly how we arrived here and how to ensure we never return again, before embarking upon our next adventure. Together.

Sarah Varcas

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dokidoki-tae · 6 years ago

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If you don’t mind, could you do the solo mission but with alternative ending with their s/o died during the mission because I want to see la squardra’s reaction toward their s/o death especially Risotto and Ghiaccio. if you don’t feel comfortable to write this then I understand. I am just suddenly want to read something angsty and the solo mission seems to be perfect fit to me at least.

Yeah! No problem! I hope it’s to your liking. I’m sorry if it’s too much or not what you’re looking for.

TW: Death, violence, blood

Risotto: When he discovered your broken and beaten body, his last bit of humanity left this world. He felt like he’d fail as a Leader, as a lover, and as an assassin. As your lover, he felt like he had a duty to protect you from harm, yet he sent you on a mission alone. As a Leader, he was supposed to protect his subordinates, and as an assassin, he wasn’t supposed to allow himself to fall in love and feel happiness. He was supposed to leave all that behind. He allowed himself to become weak, and he wouldn’t allow that to happen ever again. And he knew there was no one else in the world to ever replace you. Everything you made him feel would no longer exist. All that was left was a cold, hollow shell of a man. He contacted the others, to inform them and ordered for them to retrieve your body to prepare a proper burial. Risotto examined your body; he tried to look past your wounds and bruises and just see YOU, but he couldn’t get the image of what happened for this outcome to occur. A burning raging fire was engulfing his senses. Whoever did this to you will regret they ever born. By the time Risotto got his hand on them, they will grovel at his feet and BEG for Risotto to end their life. And he wouldn’t give it to them and would make sure they experience the pain you felt and the pain he felt but refused to admit. When the others arrived, Risotto ordered them to look after your body. He couldn’t allow himself to leave you alone anymore. He watched as Illuso and Ghiaccio carefully carried your body to the car. Prosciutto asked him what he indeed to do, concerned for Risotto. “This mission is still not complete. I will personally handle it,” his voice grave and venomous. Prosciutto watched in silence as his leader used Metallica to disappear. The blond couldn’t fault the man for handling grief in his own way.

Prosciutto: When Risotto called to tell him they found you, his stomach dropped because he knew what it meant. Risotto’s tone was enough for him to put it all together. They had your body, but your life was gone. Everything Risotto was saying was white noise; he wasn’t registering it at all. Mindlessly, he hung up on him and walked with listless movements back to HQ, to be with you. His trembling hands dug through his pocket cigarette pack. He struggled to turn on his lighter, growing more and more irate and ended up burning himself. He cursed and screamed, smashing the lighter on the ground. He began to walk away but quickly turned back to pick up the lighter. It had been a gift from you. He traced his thumb over his name engraved on the metal. He swallowed the lump in his throat and hurried home. Pesci was waiting, eyes red from tears. Under normal circumstances, Prosciutto would have lectured him for his open display, but right now Prosciutto envied him. Prosciutto shot him a look and walked past him to where your body was located. When he entered the room, Risotto and Ghiaccio were the only ones there, pensive. Ghiaccio walked towards him, placed a hand on his shoulder and exited. His eyes fell on you. Risotto took on the responsibility of informing Prosciutto as to what occurred. You had managed to exterminate most of the enemies but there wasn’t sufficient enough information on the gang you were tailing and this happened. “We’ve captured the leader of the gang. Formaggio and Illuso have him tied up in the basement.” Prosciutto eyes never left your body, memories of your time together flooded his mind. Risotto analyzed his subordinate, making sure it was okay to leave him alone. As he walked past Prosciutto, he was stopped by the blond’s sudden question. “Risotto, do you think they suffered?” Risotto turned to see Prosciutto looking at him, his blue eyes now filled with anguish. “I don’t know,” Risotto answered honestly followed by silence. “Risotto, I’ll be here for a while. But promise me something…that son of a bitch you have in the basement. He’s mine. I will personally end him.” Risotto nodded and left him alone. Prosciutto pulled up a chair and sat next to you, laying his head on your cold palm and finally letting tears fall.

Pesci: Prosciutto volunteered to be the one to tell Pesci and when he did, he saw what he expected. At first, Pesci looked confused, as if Prosciutto suddenly started speaking in a foreign language. Prosciutto repeated it to him. “They died.” Next, he had a look of despair which quickly turned to desperation. Asking Prosciutto if he was sure. That you told him that you’d come back successful, you never lied to him before so why would you start now. Aniki must have been confused or telling him some cruel joke or to toughen him up and make sure he didn’t break. That’s it! It was all a test to see if Pesci broke. Again Prosciutto said, “They died, Pesci,” firmer than before. Pesci fought as much as he could but couldn’t hold back his screams and tears. “Aniki, please tell me you’re lying. This is a test, right?” Pesci knew he was lying to himself now and wanted Prosciutto to lie too. Prosciutto grew angry at Pesci’s behavior and punched him. “Be a man and accept it, Pesci! They’re dead! This is the life of an assassin!” Pesci massaged his cheek and openly wept. He hunched into a ball and moaned and whimpered, Prosciutto anger quickly turning into sympathy. Even if this was the life of an assassin, you were still part of the team, and it hurt them all that you were gone. And it hurt Pesci the most, his kind heart and love for you making it all the harder to move on from. “Aniki,” Pesci whimpered, “C-can I see them?” wiping his tears away only for them to run down his face. Prosciutto nodded, placed his hand on his head, ruffled his hair, and wrapped his arms around his shoulder, leading him back to where you were located. They walked in pensive silence. “W-where they successful at least?” Pesci asked. Prosciutto smirked with pride. “Of course they were. They wouldn’t leave this world unless they did.” Pesci smiled as more tears fell. “I-I’m glad,” Pesci sobbed.

Formaggio: He got a call from Illuso who broke the news to him Formaggio couldn’t stop laughing. It was full of good humor, he laughed and laughed until he turned maniacal. Like hell you were dead. Illuso better stop fucking again. He can make fun of his stand all he wanted, but he better not fuck around about something involving you. When he gets a hold of Illuso, he’s going to kick his ass. “Formaggio, I know this is hard to take in, but-” Formaggio laughed again until he lost it. “AhahahaHAHA. SHUT THE FUCK, ILLUSO! IF YOU KEEP THIS SHIT UP, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU. I’LL BREAK YOUR NECK!” Formaggio yelled into his phone, panting. He felt like his stomach as knotting. This is some fucked up joke. He was a fan of telling fucked up jokes, but this is one he couldn’t handle. Illuso was quiet on his end, waiting for Formaggio to compose himself even just slightly. “Formaggio, this isn’t something I’d joke about. Not to you.” Illuso voice was somber even sympathetic. “They…they were successful but it cost them their life…”Illuso continued. “I’m bringing them back to the base. I wanted to tell you so you’d be prepared…” Well wasn’t he fucking kind, Formaggio thought bitterly before he hung up without a word. Formaggio didn’t return right away; he needed a drink or 2 or 6 or 10. He wanted to forget and hopefully wake up and have it all be a stupid nightmare. Formaggio absence prompted Risotto to bring him back personally. He needed him to begin the grieving process in order to have him move forward. When he found Formaggio, he was in an alley, marinating in his own vomit. Risotto didn’t hesitate to throw the incapacitated man over his shoulder and take him home. Pesci was kind enough to change him out of his vomit soaked shirt to help him to be somewhat comfortable. When he came to, he refused to see you. Lashing out at anyone who suggested it. “That’s not them! It’s someone else!” He couldn’t accept that you were gone. He couldn’t accept the person that he loved so strongly and who loved him and his goofiness was gone. “Formaggio,” Prosciutto walked towards him to attempt to offer support as he always did. “You must accept it to truly heal. Formaggio threw a punch, missed, and fell to his knees. “Formaggio,” Risotto knelt next to him, placing a supportive hand on his hunched back. “We must continue to move forward even if we lose the ones we love,” Risotto said earnestly. It finally settled and Formaggio let it out, slamming his fists on the floor. He punched and punched and continued to punch until he was sure he broke his hand, screaming and cursing. You had finished off your target even if you lost your life, but now there was no one left for him to take his anger out on. How can he move forward without anything to hate other than himself for not protecting you?

Illuso: Your death served as a reminder to everyone outside of La Squadra as to why you were feared. Illuso search all of Italy for you and found valuable information as to where you may be. He knew once he was there and saw you were inside the mirror world. After all, no living thing can enter Mirror World unless he permitted it. You being there meant one thing, but he refused to say it or think it. You were dumped in some corner in some dirty, rat-infested room. Almost robotically, he took you into his arms and carried you home. He stared at your beaten face, his eyes losing every bit of life and warmth he had always reserved for you. He walked out into his room and walked directly into the bathroom. He gently removed you bloody, dirty, torn clothing, turned on the water and gently washed your lifeless body with stiff movements. He dried you off and dressed you in your favorite clothing. Once done, he took a long look at you before heading into the living room where Melone was looking at something on his laptop. “Melone, I have a favor. Watch [Name] for me.” Melone perked up. “So you found them? Molto be-” Melone stopped when he looked into Illuso’s cold eyes. “I have some unfinished business to take care of, so I’m leaving them in your care.” Before Melone could ask him anything, he disappeared. Melone gulped and walked to Illuso’s room, hesitating to look inside. When he turned the nob and saw you, he felt like his heart was being squeezed. That explains it…Melone thought, looking at you as sadness and sympathy surfaced in his heart. It ached for his dear friend and the lost love between you that could blossom no more. “Do not worry, [Name]. Illuso will make sure you can pass on in peace.”

Melone: He prided himself in always keeping his composure even when surrounded by death. He wanted to maintain this image even when it came to finding out your fate. His face never fell, but the twitch of his lip couldn’t escape Risotto’s trained eyes. He continued to inform Melone about the failure of the solo mission. A twitch again, this time his hand. They recovered your body, and Prosciutto had already begun the funeral arrangements. “Molto bene. It seems you all have taken care of things,” Melone praised though there was a hint of venom behind his words. Risotto’s eyes narrowed but didn’t want to press it. Melone had his own way of grieving and must leave him to that. “They will not be with us for long before the undertaker arrives. You may do what you like with that information.” Melone left without a word, closing the door roughly. He let himself into your room, where your body laid. It was like you were sleeping despite the cuts on your face that weren’t there when you left. Melone crawled into bed with you and curled up as closely as he could without disturbing you. His eyes softened the more he stared. “You truly are a heartbreaker, Amore. I knew you were the moment I set eyes on you and fell in love.” His eyes grew moist and fought back tears. “How could you leave me alone in this world? But I could never remain mad, Amore. Not at you.” His voice trembled. He laid there until he fell asleep. The next morning, the undertaker had arrived to take you away. Melone had the thought of killing him as he watched him, but he knew he had to let it happen. Melone tried to act with cool indifference, but the others chastised him for his behavior. You were lovers, so why is he acting like this doesn’t affect him? As Melone witnessed as the undertaker disappeared around the corner with your body in tow. Melone followed Risotto back into his office. “The mission they were assigned, it’s still active, no? May I request it?” Melone asked, eyes burning with determination. Risotto pondered, your fate prompting him to reconsider the number of individuals involved. Risotto agreed on the condition Melone worked alongside Ghiaccio at least, Melone accepted without hesitation. Now all he had to do was convince Ghiaccio to let him be the one to end the lives of the scum who took you.

Ghiaccio: He managed to extract the information he needed to find you, but by the time he reached you, it was too late. You laid in a pool of your own blood, surrounded by armed men who were ready to take him on once they did you in. He was only a couple of minutes too late and this happened? The moment Ghiaccio’s eye landed on you, he lost control, freezing everything besides your lifeless body. He turned a small warehouse in the middle of Italy into a frozen tundra. There as no life there, not yours, not the armed men, and he was sure he had died too. Ghiaccio didn’t know how to process everything. When he walked to your body, he pushed the frozen men to the ground, smashing them to pieces. It didn’t satisfy him though. He felt numb, his face contorting in pain. As he walked closer, it was getting harder to breathe. His breathing was becoming ragged and he was wheezing. What the hell? Why was his chest hurting and he was sweating bullets. The room was spinning and he was getting dizzy. He crashed to the ground and looked at you through foggy glasses and hot tears. He dry heaved and held his stomach. Fuck…He was having a panic attack. He was having a panic attack? How? He was a cold-blooded assassin. Sure he loved you, but enough to feel this way? He tried to suppress the rage, pain, and agony that was threatening to erupt. “Oddio…” Melone managed to pry the frozen door open only to find Ghiaccio clenching his chest as tears ran down his face. He had never seen Ghiaccio like this and didn’t have a clue as to what to say, fearing that he may lose control. Ghiaccio looked away and fought to control himself. He muttered curses under his breath and got up on shaky legs. He tried to play it cool as he wiped his tears away. “I-if you can’t tell, there’s no one left alive.” Ghiaccio sniffed. “All that’s left arranging a funeral for [Name].” Ghiaccio picked them up, bridal style. Your blood was soaking his white shirt but he didn’t care. As he put you in his car, he couldn’t let you go. Melone watched in silence before offering to drive even if it meant leaving his motorbike. Ghiaccio nodded and sat in the passenger, placing you on his lap. He cradled and held you close. You were still warm and he shut his eyes tightly as more hot tears escaped.

Sorbet and Gelato: Through their investigative skills they managed to find out information about what happened to you, but it wasn’t the information they wanted. “This has to some fucking joke, right Sorbet?” Gelato looked at his partner to agree with him but his look said it all. You were killed and there was nothing else that could be done. Gelato lost his cool and began throwing things against the wall and kicking chairs and desks, the furniture standing no chance against Gelato’s inhuman strength. Gelato breathed, “Can’t we catch a break? Gelato’s voice shook and Sorbet went to him and held him. They needed each other more than ever. They had to support each other as they both let the pain and sadness consume them. Sorbet rubbed his back, holding each other in silence, allowing them to think about their next move. The ones responsible for your death are still out there and there was no way they were going to let them get away with it. They pulled away and looked into each other eyes, leaning in and press a kiss on each other’s lips. “We’ll keep investigating and make sure those bastards know exactly how we feel, Gelato.”

#anonymous #risotto nero #prosciutto #pesci #formaggio #illuso #melone #ghiaccio #sorbet #gelato #jojo hcs #my writing #tw death #tw violence

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icharchivist · 5 years ago

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DGM: It's pretty fascinating how the main 4 relate to Death. For all of them it's both simple yet very complex (honestly I wouldn't have room for maybe even one of them). Kanda protects people as best as he can but when they die he moves on very fast accepting that's part of the world he lives in. The only exception is his 'that person' who he refuses to believe is dead despite the possibility of it being so likely. And then it becomes Alma. Ouch. But again Alma dies and Kanda accepts that-

2 being happy things are made right between them before Alma goes and not letting Alma's burden him. In fact he's pushed forward by the restored bond and honest. Out of gratitude, his way of freeing Allen fro m the 14th is death if it comes to that. Kanda making it his priority in fact to be the one to kill Nea for Allen's sake. Alma got to die as himself. So will Allen. Lenalee is the strangest in some ways. She cares so much about her people she feels a part of her world gets destroyed if one-

3 person dies. She's kind of like Kanda though in that she can also move on really fast. She'll feel sad but not broken. Ex, Everyone thought all of the trapped Order members died during the Invasion when the L4 woke up. After Allen and Lenalee found out they survived, Allen broke down sobbing. Lenalee clapped her hands and smiled. 1 reaction seems bigger then the other. Not to say Lenalee can't be broken. Losing Allen nearly sent her comatose. She'd lose her mind if anything happened to Komui-

4 I think like Kanda, Lenalee has just seen so much death she just has to keep moving on fast like that. She's way more openly emotional about it but that sense of acceptance vs unacceptance is always inside her. I feel like Allen and Komui are the 2 people she cannonly can't accept death from because she relies on them too much (contrast to,her thinking Allen died to thinking Kanda died. Its not that she cares less at all but they both have different roles in her life). Lenalee can accept -

5 death and properly mourn a person she loved. But she is terrified of people she loves dying. Dying is more of a trigger death itself. Also let it be known she's ruthless. The only other Exorcist besides her to kill a Third was Sokaro (who implied he had to jump in and do it because Krory couldn't bare to). She hated to do it. But she did it (I don't think I did her justice but lets move on). Lavi. Wow Lavi he's someone who hates death. Like more then anyone. At least he's among the worst -

6 at coping with it. He spent most of his life watching humans massacre each other causing his hatred of humanity to blossom. Then his first real friend (Dug) died and his body became a akuma, forcing Lavi to kill it. But that only enforced Lavi's detached outlook on life. Ink was Ink. For whatever reason, Allen became the first real death he couldn't walk away from. There was actually a lot of things about it that have impacted Lavi's security. 1) Allen showed good humans like him existed -

7 and died unfairly. Things got darker. 2) for the first time Lavi suffered guilt and helplessness. He could have killed the akuma that made off w/Allen but failed. This was probably a 1st for him that a person he liked died (in his view) because he wasn't good enough. 3) it's pretty much canon every time someone he cares for dies Lavi gets triggered remembering the night Allen died. That night symbolized Lavi's humanity and he hates how much it hurts. Death is such a deep issue for Lavi. -

7 Death of himself is scary. But was prepared to kill 'Lavi' the mask if it interfered w/his goals. He was prepared to die to save Allen and Lenalee and beat Road. Death is natural. But humans killing humans is unsettling. Despite being so logical, being helpless to save his friends can make him illogical. All the pent up rage, hatred, despair and loneliness (and I believe a part of Lavi is very lonely) rush forward to the surface. He can become the most revenge driven and will settle things-

8 with death as the answer for the target if he lost something precious enough. Death is Lavi's worst trigger. It reminds him of how powerless and insignificant his own humanity is, no matter how above it he tries to be. In that way he can contrast Kanda who can find strength from death while Lavi finds only weakness. I thought I was going to yak about Allen. But Allen is Waaaay too much. I couldn't even death the surface w/o running out if room. But yeah their dynamic w/death is interesting.

This is fascinating and thank you so much for putting it into words and into my inbox!

I think you’re spot on on everyone and i don’t really know what to add, and going onto Allen would be... boy where to even start, the guy’s story had been kickstarted by the death of his father and the guilt he felt toward it and the whole “i cannot mourn or the Earl will find me”.

In a way, I think all of this adding up makes a really neat tie in with the fact the enemy, the Earl, is weaponizing Death to start with. As in, the Noah don’t just spread death, they use people who died and the grief that comes from it in order to further harm people. Perhaps that’s why the two who were raised inside the Order have a better ability to at least handle it and move on? Because they really have been sent on battlefields when they were children with that very specific mindset and threat of the Earl anytime.

which makes me think, Lenalee especially reacted badly for Allen’s death for the same reason Lavi did: she felt guilty about it. she told him they needed to save Suman, she left him alone to save the little girl, and when Lavi yells at her about “there’s nothing we could have done” we see both the Lavi scene you mention showing he feels guitly the Akuma took Allen away leading him to his death, and Lenalee’s flashback of her moments with Allen. So it’s possible that the guilt that settled after Suman might haunt her for ever about Allen, especially with how much he gives her strength, while for Kanda for exemple, she grew up with him and they probably had a whole “we can die in battle anytime” mentality growing up that she might not have projected on Allen yet. Basically what i’m saying is that she had her whole life to come to term with the fact Kanda might not come back from a battlefield. But for Allen it was barely a couple of months and the guilt that sank in making it all the more difficult.

Anyway back to my point, Lenalee and Kanda specifically having grown up in a war where grief was your greatest enemy’s strength, and who have both been child soldiers with a lot of loss to witness everytime (Lavi meets Lenalee while she’s crying over losses of a newest battle for exemple), so they have to find a way to move on and get used to it somehow. Both however refused to give up on their humanity while doing so: I suspect because both were holding onto the war for very personal feelings reason: Kanda to find That Person, and Lenalee so Komui’s sacrifice of joining the Order for her wouldn’t be in vain.

Thus they have the distachement necessary from growing up in this state, but the emotional attachement needed to not lose completely their sense of humanity- in a way they find a way to ground themselves in the life they have to keep moving on into. It was their way to not let grief find them.

In opposition, even if Allen grew up always knowing of the Earl and after the Mana incident, of Akuma and such, Allen hadn’t grown up in the war. We know Cross rejected the Order’s orders and Allen was more concerned most of the time with the casual nightmare Cross’s life brought up. So Allen’s relationship with grief is one he had to deal with on a personal level (a bit like Kanda regarding Alma, while Kanda did manage to move on more than Allen, there are a lot of things that ties him back to the memories of Alma - it’s just that Kanda could move on by thinking of another alive person while Allen lives on for a memory. The irony is that Kanda’s “alive person” was Alma and now he’s dead, and that Allen lives for a memory of a dead person who is alive and is actually his enemy now. Oops.)

In a way Allen didn’t have to go back into thinking about the casulties of war to such a degree, he didn’t grow up on the battlefield, in a way he was more sheltered than litteral child soldiers who could be sent anywhere anytime. I think it’s interesting too that we’ve seen how Allen’s direct grief after Mana’s death affected him when you can compare to Kanda’s direct grief after Alma’s death for exemple. Allen had the time to freak out, to be a mess, the few flashbacks we have of directly after Mana’s death show that for all the terrible parenting Cross had done he actually gave all the time Allen needed to recover with his freak outs. But with Kanda after having to kill Alma, we don’t have much except that he had to immediatly be on the run with Marie until they could find Tiedoll.And I seriously doubt Kanda would have ever shown the amount of distress Allen had shown afterward - because Kanda was already daily tortured and a product of the war by that point while Allen barely knew about the war at all.

When Allen the dog dies Allen is frustrated that Mana doesn’t show grief. He considers it abnormal. Which now that I think about it can mirror a lot how Kanda thought it wasn’t normal Alma kept on smiling after all the tortures they endured together and that’s why they fought a lot before realizing how much they just coped differently with the same event.

... I lost my point wait.

Anyway yeah so, the thing is, Mana did mention the Earl multiple times before but Allen always thought it was just something weird, and the “I can’t grief or the Earl will find me” thing was something Mana kept repeating but Allen didn’t get until the Earl actually found him. Allen paid the high price from not handling his grief and had since then forced himself to move on as quickly as possible without processing the grief because he’s traumatized by the event. In a way, both Kanda and Lenalee knew enough about the Earl to find another way to process death, and they have seen much more deaths than Allen has during his training with Cross one would assume, so they developped others coping mechanisms where Allen could just focus on the one he inherited from Mana. (and there is also a lot to say about how he is just repeating the same thing Mana used to say - Allen coped by copying Mana in every way after all. Kanda and Lenalee’s rolemodels are unlikely to be the dead person they would have had to kill and grief. Lenalee doesn’t have such a person in her life that we know of and Kanda didn’t take Alma as a rolemodel. So it’s already another aspect of how to relate to death).

Which brings us to Lavi and you’re entierely right about everything, i’m just adding: since Lavi have grown up wars after wars, it was indeed easier for him to deshumanize everyone around him in order to not feel attached. There’s no grief to process when you don’t have the attachement to the people who are dying. Which is already something that opposes the others three who all have clear people they care about so they risk grief, so they have to find a way around it. Lavi tried to protect himself from grief by not caring enough to have any reasons to, which was doomed to fall back against him because he couldn’t just not care for people.

Which now make me think specifically since when did Lavi know about the Earl and the Holy War? After all considering Bookman was on the Noah’s side 40 years ago there’s no way he wouldn’t know that grieving is a major risk in general. Which could add to why the non emotion rule even exist within the Bookmen. I doubt something that huge, that dangerous, wouldn’t be mentioned to a child who is doomed to see grief after grief. But it feels like they took it by the wrong end.

I think it’s that, with Lavi being an observer rather than a soldier, it was far easier to distach himself than for Kanda or Lenalee. Kanda and Lenalee by being on the field are always aware of how the rest of the people may be hurt in a mission. It’s more than likely that at some point, when they were young, some finders may have died because they weren’t quick enough, or died protecting them specifically because they can’t afford losing exorcists. It seems a given. So Kanda and Lenalee specifically has to deal with the fact people can die because of/for them. Lavi (and Allen on that regard) doesn’t. Because he’s not supposed to be on the battlefield enough to develop this sort of thing. So Kanda and Lenalee were in situation where the loss of people they couldn’t save were directly on their conscience and they had to find ways to deal with it. Lavi doesn’t have any reasons to have had this sort of dynamic with anyone on the battlefields he had been into.

and it’s not even mentioning that for Kanda and Lenalee, they grew up in the Order so they know the others soldiers to some degree and know why the soldiers sign up/are forced to join. They know the ultimate goal and had grown used to it.

Lavi meanwhile had seen 49 wars, before the Holy War, he seems he stayed 4 months on each wars’s battlefield. No time to get used to people and to their motivations. so the easier to make it (”humans just like to destroy each other”) the less likely you torture yourself over what those conflicts bring. Which is signifiant that it’s the war he’s been into now for 4 years in canon that is now weighing on him and makes him unable to not face his grief. Except that it’s the very war where giving in to grief isn’t an option.

And I would be really curious about if Lavi grew up with the back on his mind that grief and the Earl was an issue, because therefore just like Allen there would be a deliberate choice tonot let grief get to you, without Lenalee and Kanda’s being forced to see too much grief in order to process it.

... okay for someone who doesnt know what to add i added a lot kjdhfdkjf

But my point, the reason why i ended up developping that while you’ve been perfectly spot on and i feel like i’m just repeating your points, is specifically how relevent it is that the 4 main characters have very specific ways to deal with Grief and Death, while the main villain is constantly weaponizing both Grief and Death. So there is this whole thing too about the degree of awareness about the Earl, and how much the characters had been subjected to grief in order to find their way to cope with it to keep the Earl at bay.

And I think it’s really, really fascinating that they all have their very distinct way to deal with it with different reasons each, and it’s arguably very ironic that Lavi, who’s the one who’s the most distached from the war where grieving is your enemy, that is the one who has never learned to grief properly. Evenmore so when you can argue that all the people who almost died near Lavi enough to push him to complete panic were all people who had been specifically aware of all of that, who all dealt with grief to some extend (Lenalee specifically pushed herself to her limits against Eshii because she still grieved Allen for exemple - Allen’s actions are still shadowed by his grief toward Mana - Even Chomesuke dying add to that considering an Akuma is made of said grief.)

The way Lenalee, Kanda and Allen all deal with grief is super interesting as for what it means to the way they have grown up in the war, and ultimately, the Holy War had been the center of their lives. It never was Lavi’s however, so it is incredible to see how much grief had taken him by surprise and keeps challenging him over and over again, leaving him in complete distress.

The rapport they all have with death is fascinating to me. And it works so so so well with the fact the enemy is specifically using grief as a weapon. It makes such for a strong theme to run through the main characters it’s just. Gahh i’m just repeating myself but i love it.

thank you so much again for the initial ask! this is very spot on on all the characters and it sooo good to read!

#long post for ts #weeee it's just. so much to talk about #ichafantalks dgm #ichameta dgm #Anonymous #ichareply

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padawanlost · 6 years ago

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Anakin Skywalker, grief and masculity

Source: Dark Side of the Mind: Star Wars Psychology. Grief and Masculinity: Anakin the Man by Billy San Juan

Grief Trajectories

“Other grief research has indicated four “trajectories” that people who experience a death or other intense situation might follow. The basis for these trajectories is the concept of psychological resilience, the ordinary process by which human beings adapt to adversity.

Resilience: People who follow this pattern of grief are resilient, meaning they are able to cope well and remain emotionally stable through the process.

Recovery: Some people who experience psycho-pathological conditions, such as depressive symptoms, will return to their normal level of functioning after a period of healing.

Chronic Dysfunction: Others with psychological symptoms, however, may not heal as quickly as those following the recovery trajectory. Chronic dysfunction in their everyday life can be traced to the grief and troubles with resiliency.

Delayed Grief or Trauma: In people who do not initially show signs of distress, symptoms may appear months later. Regarding trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder may not manifest full diagnostic criteria until six months or more after the traumatic event.12

Anakin Skywalker’s trajectory is that of chronic dysfunction. His losses affect him throughout his lifespan and guide his choices. His lack of resilience prompts him to act out his anger and hurt. The pain he experiences eventually leads him to embrace the dark side and become Darth Vader.

Although research has been conducted on the emotional mechanisms of loss, ongoing research is proceeding apace. A disorder currently being researched for inclusion in the diagnostic manual used by psychologists is called persistent complex bereavement disorder (PCBD). In PCBD, the feelings associated with grief last longer than expected for the bereavement process. Though the time frame is longer, PCBD involves the same symptoms as bereavement. PCBD may also be diagnosed when the loss is traumatic in nature. If the trauma leads to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a person might exhibit symptoms of both PTSD and PCBD. In that case, PTSD is a reaction to avoid reminders of the trauma and PCBD is a preoccupation with the loss.

Masculinity

Grief, for men, can be complicated by a phenomenon known as normative male alexithymia, a mild condition wherein men are unable to put feelings into words. This stems from the socialization of men to eschew emotions for fear of appearing weak or vulnerable Instead, vulnerable feelings are channeled into “acceptable” male emotions, such as anger. Normative male alexithymia is simply a small facet of the larger construct of masculinity. There are four main parts of the traditional masculine construct. This list of gender role norms refers to traditional, culturally determined expectations, and it is not an assessment of how men necessarily are or ought to be. Men are commonly perceived as more masculine if they do the following:

Avoid all things considered feminine. The traditional masculine construct suggests that a strict dichotomy exists between men and women, and that anything feminine is inherently unmasculine.

Appear as pillars of strength and power, and thrive on competition.

Show no emotion. Emotion is a sign of weakness, and weakness stands in direct contradiction to strength and power.

Take risks. The more dangerous the risk, the more masculine the individual.

Men’s inability to voice their feelings and societal pressure to act in a masculine fashion directly interfere with the processing of grief. During grief, a time of intense sadness and loss, men who have learned to avoid these very feelings may suffer difficulty coping or recovering. Out of fear of these feelings, some men seek to avoid experiencing them at all by engaging in behaviors such as substance use or by channeling those feelings into the more “appropriate” emotion of anger, which may lead to hate, suffering, and the dark side.

Through the Darkness

Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the dark side is the result of many factors. Two of the major influences are the intense amount of loss he experiences and his inability to cope with the grief that stems from these events. Anakin leaves his mother as a young child. He loses a potential father figure when Qui-Gon Jinn dies. He loses his mother a second and final time when she dies in his arms. He loses a brother in Obi-Wan. And he loses both a wife and two children. Pain suffuses Anakin Skywalker’s life.

By applying the concepts of normative male alexithymia and traditional construct of masculinity to Anakin’s life, we can see how his grief intensifies over time. Anakin attempts to be strong, but only to his detriment. His sorrow and grief morph into anger and rage. But he doesn’t know how to express his feelings. He only knows action. A prime example occurs when Amidala Padmé attempts to speak to him after he slaughtered everyone in the Tusken Raider camp.He cannot speak about his despair, but only about “fixing things” and saving his mother. His grief is transformed into anger and he blames Obi-Wan while simultaneously throwing something at a wall. He cries and collapses and yells, “I hate them!”

The traditional construct of masculinity does not serve men well when it comes to grief. The core values with which men are inculcated do not neatly mesh with the natural emotional process of grieving. Men are instructed, from a young age, that seeking help is a sign of weakness. Instead, men will attempt to handle their emotions through a variety of methods that dovetail with stereotypical male values, such as changing careers, changing partners, drinking, drugs, sex, or even attempting to surpass their emotions through willpower. Anakin’s method involves acquiring power. He is unable to cope with the idea that death, especially the death of those he loves, is beyond his control. In seeking to control life and death, he paradoxically loses more of his loved ones. Anakin’s maladaptive behaviors for coping with grief do not involve alcohol, drugs, or promiscuity. Rather, he seeks to exert control over his world and his fate and those of his loved ones.”

#anakin skywalker #sw meta #sw books #darth vader #sw quotes #not my meta #meta: anakin

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takaraphoenix · 6 years ago

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Let’s talk about character death for a moment.

Because I’ve been thinking about One Piece all day long. And for me, personally, One Piece will always be king of character death.

But before we go into that, let me clarify some things about character death.

I’m not a fan of character death. I don’t want to see characters I love die. That being said, The Thing (show/movie/book/whatever) does not exist to please and make every viewer happy and feel fuzzy. Especially when it features heavy action elements, character death is kind of a very important element and tool.

Nowadays, character death is kind of... a joke.

No one stays dead anymore. When a character dies, the viewer very often isn’t even under the illusion that this character might be dead in the sense of “gone forever”, which death kind of should imply. Instead it’s more of a “Well, how/when are they going to bring them back?”.

In Shadowhunters, for example, Jace dies for a full three minutes of screen-time before being brought back from death. They could have milked this for some suspense and feelings by killing him off in a cliffhanger for the season - not EVERYBODY has read the books before watching the show, you know. You could have pretended that he stays dead by killing him off in the season finale and waiting with the “Oh, I’d like to have him back, please” for episode one of the next season, to keep the viewers on their toes as to how and when the character will be brought back.

Sebastian. Killed off, immediately summons his mom who promises to bring him back.

And even on the slim off-chance that a character is killed and actually stays dead - Jocelyn Fray - it is not really... handled.

She’s been dead for a little more than a month now. That is no time at all. Yet when Clary had the angel summoned, bringing back her mother and only good relative doesn’t even cross her mind. It’s not like Jocelyn’s death has been years ago and she is well-settled with never seeing her again. It’s only been a handful of weeks now. I find it highly unrealistic that she got over losing her mother that quickly.

Luke too. The supposed love of his life died a bit over a month ago but he’s already flirting up the next woman. Like. Where’s the grief-period...? I’m not saying he ought to wear black and mourn for the rest of his life, but... more than two months, maybe?? You spent twenty years loving this woman. Somehow, I feel like that should have a longer grief-period and a harder impact than chatting up a woman after not even two months.

Not to mention the part where the show just opted to completely ellipse the grief-sharing between father and daughter. Luke and Clary addressed Jocelyn’s death in passing.

And it was mainly just used to fuel a tiny bit of Alec angst - but really only a tiny bit because he literally completely stopped being guilty about it right after he tried to kill himself over it. And while the suicide attempt was mainly the demon, it still rooted from his deeply seated guilt for having killed Jocelyn. But after that, it was kind of just... done.

Jocelyn’s death was all in all completely horrendously handled.

And horrendously handled death is kind of what brought me to this topic, as I had just recently ranted about Kevin Can Wait and how they just fridged the female lead because they didn’t know how to further the plotline but also added a time-skip of a year to assure no grieving will happen and we can move on to the “fun part” again.

That’s the two big bad Hollywood ways of handling character death.

Either you avoid handling it by just... bringing the character back to life.

Or you avoid handling it by simply not having the characters grief and deal with the death.

Both of those are awful options.

Look at Marvel. Avengers was kind of a movie you walked into expecting no real major stakes - there was just NO WAY they would actually kill off an Avenger during the very first team-up movie.

But they killed off a secondary character very effectively.

And by Coulson not actually being a character anyone was close to, you got to avoid the grieving process. Yet still the movie made that death impactful, gave it meaning and an appropriate reaction.

...I am still intensely salty that they fucking retconned it out of existence by whatever the fuck they did to justify that TV show. Like. I genuinely don’t care for it and it absolutely ruins the rewatchability of the movie for me because now when Fury goes drama queen over Coulson’s death, I just shrug and go “Meh”, knowing full-well he is still alive.

Prior to the retconning bullshit, it was a really good and effective way of adding stakes and feelings.

And that is what character death should be.

It adds stakes to a situation. Knowing that your protagonists are not invincible. That something can actually happen to them. The “no one is safe”-principle.

It’s why I absolutely adore the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

It had stakes. I spent hours crying over the final book, because Rick Riordan put the effort into making you grow attached to characters like Ethan, Charles, Silena and Luke. You cared about them, their deaths were not throwaway lines, they were impactful on the reader, the story and the characters in the universe.

He gained a shit-ton of respect from me for that book. Genuinely.

Granted, he lost all that respect with the sequel-series where he did the literal opposite and just did not kill anyone. Oh, yeah, nameless, never-before-appeared characters in throwaway line-mentions, a failed comic-relief death for Octavian and the “No worries, we spent the whole entire fucking book setting up the Death Cure”-death of Leo. It was pathetic and insanely boring.

There was absolute emotional detachment toward the final battle, while in the original series, I could not put that book down reaching with bated breath as some of my favorite characters died or risked their lives respectively.

After Beckendorf blew up, when Silena sacrificed her life, all bets were off. I could not stop reading. I had to know. Had to know if Nico and Clarisse and Thalia and Percy would make it out alive of this series. What other twists would come. It was incredibly engaging, both plot-wise and emotional.

That is what character death should do. Make a situation feel real. Make it feel emotional.

It’s one of the many, many reasons why I love and always will love Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh yeah, sure, this show is like the OG sinner of “Oopsie daisy, brought back from the death”-protagonist and it was ridiculous on that behalf.

But even Buffy’s death had impact.

Dawn, who started stealing and acting up because she did not know how to deal with her feelings and her frustrations. The utter... loss.

Spike fucking a robot, because the woman he loved was gone. But also Spike working with the Scoobies, Spike being an anchor for Dawn and being there for Buffy’s orphaned sister.

The utter despair of Willow trying to bring Buffy back.

Literally the only plotline of an entire season is them dealing with Buffy’s death. Buffy included. It’s not just “Oops, dead - aaand we’re back online!”. There is grief, heartbreak, confusion, the... “What now?”.

Even as real consequences as how to pay the fucking rent with the “woman of the house” dead.

And it’s not even just this “We will literally dedicate a whole entire season to this character death and it will ACTUALLY work and be brilliant”.

The Body remains one of the best episodes in TV history to me, as it deals with the death of Buffy’s mother, because it is... mundane. It’s a normal, human death and it’s... normal, human griefing.

Or... even smaller things. Kendra. She was only in literally three episodes. She wasn’t a big character. Yet even seasons later, Buffy still had Kendra’s stake, the stake that meant so much to Kendra and you were reminded that Buffy is still thinking of this dead friend. It wasn’t just a one-off character who was shrugged off and discarded.

That’s how you should handle character death. That’s how you make it work.

And now back to where all of this started.

One Piece.

Because there is actually a third option available on the “Death doesn’t matter” scale, aside from bringing them back from the dead and just not having characters deal with the death.

Simply not killing anyone off to begin with.

It’s usually the anime go-to thing, but also typical for cartoons. Generally, the animated medium where violence is hilarious and did you see how this Normal Human just walked straight through a wall and should technically now be dead? Hahaha.

Yeah. That.

One Piece used to be one of those.

In fact, One Piece went out of its way to show you just how ridiculously many characters survive ridiculously deadly situations in the Impel Down arc. We were reunited with so many characters that I genuinely had thought had just died an off-screen death in conclusion to the prior battles.

And then my favorite character died.

Died and stayed dead.

In conclusion to a story-arc that literally reintroduced a handful of characters I thought had died, making me feel even surer that this all would be fine. That Luffy would be on time to save his brother’s life, that they would leave, together, reunited.

And then they killed Ace off. Actually, on-screen, fully. Dead.

I cried for months over this death. It was intensely impactful.

For one, due to the world-building so far that has set it up that no one really dies. All actual character deaths laid in the past - being shown in flashbacks. But no one ever actually died from a battle-wound. Crushed by an entire fucking building? Shrug it off, dude.

This... inversion of an “avoiding death”-trope can make a character death intensely effective, because it really does hit you out of left field then.

But it wasn’t just that.

Luffy’s reaction to it was so intense and real and deep and argh, I cried so much. So, so much. And I was so angry about this. Stopped watching/reading for a solid two years of grieving period for myself.

I’m not good when you kill off my favorite character.

And I gotta admit, I have never really managed to get back into it since Ace’s death. I think that’s less due to the death and more due to the time-skip. I didn’t like that at all.

But yeah, it was hella effective and well-written.

So, in overall conclusion, what I want is for them to stop with the cop-out deaths.

If you don’t have the balls to actually kill your characters off, then don’t fake it either, because it’s uncreative, uneffective, boring and annoying.

Kill them off or don’t, there can’t be an in-between, the in-between has become an overused trope at this point.

And when you kill them off, fucking deal with it and have your characters deal with it too.

#Character Death #Phoe's Random Show Rants #Writing

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