#almost like you’re a part of the convention itself

[thenameisgul]

I love Misha’s solo panels so much.

He’s so fucking funny that it could easily be a standup comedy show but then he’d take a question and go into a deep philosophical discussion about the world and then seamlessly shift into talking about Castiel’s character analysis, throw in a bunch of f-bombs and end with a hilarious story from his past or about his children.

Especially when he has full conversations with the fans with 100% attention. It’s wonderful to watch.

[cinnamonest]

how do you think goro would feel about a childhood friend!darling?

Goro Akechi has a lot of hate in that heart of his, but other than the man he hates more than anything, there are two other things he hates the most: lack of control, and vulnerability.

He needs control over situations, over people, and when he can manage it, over the course of fate itself. The Metaverse and years of hard effort into a public persona he wears so flawlessly have granted him the sort of control he desires, for the most part.

He hates to be vulnerable, hates his own weaknesses, hates them being perceived by others.

You present both.

It’s been a long time since you’ve seen him. Really, up until the point you saw his name on screen one day, you admittedly remembered him as ‘that sad boy at school I was nice to when we were little,’ and your memories of him had all but faded into the background of your life, never thinking of him much after that until he pops back into your life.

At first, you think it can’t be the same person, surely. At least until the familiar — albeit aged a bit older than in your memories — face comes on the screen. It feels quite surreal. A drastic shift from the little boy you remember angrily sulking on the playground all by himself away from the other kids, whom you admittedly talked to mostly out of pity. Still, you felt like you bonded in the end, before he got whisked away when the relatives fostering him decided to dump him off onto someone else, thus forcing him to transfer schools.

You’re happy for him. He looks very happy now, you think, his situation must have improved. He’s even living in the city now apparently, just like you.

The positive coincidences stack atop each other when you actually get to see him.

Completely by chance, not seeking him out or anything, you just so happen to be walking home on an uncrowded street, and he just so happened to be coming back from a hit, now as normalized and mundane to him as any other work-related task — and you just so happen to meet right as you each turn a corner, perfectly scenic, as if ordained by fate.

And while Goro Akechi has spent a very long time by now perfecting the art of composure, what he sees takes him so far aback that even he lets the mask momentarily slip — completely freezing up, slack-jawed and stiff with shock and disbelief. There’s a moment where only silence passes, he looks at you like he’s seeing a ghost, an expression almost like horror managing to escape his automatic efforts to keep a straight face.

You don’t notice that part. You’re too caught up in the surprise and elation, gasping and smiling and rambling on about what a coincidence it is, and—

Do you remember me…?

The shock only lasts a split second. The composure is back, the mask pushed back into place, and with practiced mastery of charm, he bounces back near instantly.

Even in spite of the sudden onslaught of emotions and memories that feels like his very soul is being stabbed at, he manages to keep up the usual Prince-Charming act of his. Says the lines expected of him, so standard you could probably guess them before they come out of his mouth — wow, long time no see, what a coincidence, it’s good to see you, how have you been, all the generic phrases and lines one should say, just like the ones you provide in return. A back-and-forth dialogue predetermined by conventions and standards of normalcy and expectation as composed by a given social framework in which all humans live. You do mention that you’ve seen him on TV — for some reason, it makes his stomach feel like its twisting, but he gives you a humble-sounding reply all the same.

All as his heart pounds so heavily it feels like it’s going to burst though is chest. Adrenaline surges thought his veins and every nerve on his body feels like it’s frozen over, an ice-cold chill that runs through his blood, a ringing in his ears, even a lightheadedness that begins to take hold, his entire body reacting in shock and panic.

You fetch a piece of paper from your bag, scribble something down, hand it over to him — his own hand moves reflexively, as if out of his control, to take it. A series of numbers — oh. Your contact. You’re smiling now, saying something about how you would love to catch up sometime. Your voice sounds far away, his head feels like it’s spinning, but he still manages his signature soft smile and voice as he gives you yet another generic reply.

Sure, that would be wonderful.

A few more lines back-and-forth that he doesn’t even remember by the end of the day, his brain essentially giving replies on an auto-pilot means of conversation. He manages to make some excuse about work, churns out a farewell, briskly walks off with a noticeably deliberate fast pace.

You feel a little embarrassed, as you walk home. He seemed in a hurry to end the conversation. Perhaps it was presumptuous to give him a contact. He probably couldn’t care less. He’s a big, important person now, someone like that has no time for someone like yourself.

…

Your suspicions are more or less validated. He doesn’t contact you.

In fact, from the moment he gets home that day, he tries to forget the interaction entirely.

There’s multiple reasons why. For one, you present a potential obstacle, a burden, a risk. He can’t afford to have you complicating things, getting in his way. It takes some time for his heart to stop racing, and that alone irritates him — why do you get to have such a reaction from him, beyond his control?

Moreover, the emotions that hit him when he saw you were too much. Dangerously intense, something he can’t allow to weigh on him, doesn’t have the time to focus on.

To be frank, those emotions were largely negative anyway. The mere sight of your face stirs up all sorts of memories from that era of his life, most of which were deeply unpleasant. There’s a deep-rooted bitterness that rises up in his stomach, old emotions he’s worked so long to suppress, and you came and dug them up in just a few brief minutes. In truth, he thought about you very often back then — he never really got to say goodbye to you (even if, he often bitterly thought, you never cared that much about him anyway), and he had to force himself to forget you over time, and yet you’ve come and undone his efforts.

And finally — the thought of you makes him feel a new emotion, one he does not like. Something like anxiousness, fear, and in turn, anger at himself and you alike for inducing such a feeling. You stand as a sort of weakness, a single unstable factor in a world where he feels like he has some degree of a grasp of control on nearly everything — you feel uncertain, unsteady, out of his reach… no, it’s not just that. You feel unsafe. You have knowledge and memories of him that no one else does, you have seen him at his weakest, and that makes him feel far more vulnerable then he can stand.

And yet, he saves your number to his phone all the same. Lets it sit there.

Most of the time, it’s easy to ignore. He is a busy person, he can keep himself distracted. Sometimes, though, in the odd hours of the night when his emotions are at their peak, he types a message, two, a dozen, he loses count — only to shake his head and come to his senses, huffing in frustration and holding the backspace down until it’s all deleted, cursing himself internally for even coming close to doing something so foolish.

You keep coming up in his thoughts, an emotion he can’t pretend is anything but yearning feels like a knot in his chest, yet the very thought of you makes him feel sick to his stomach. The conflict between the emotions is unbearable, makes him lose sleep, makes him lose focus.

You who knew him when he was this quiet, sullen, embittered child — you were nice to him, one of the only people who showed him genuine kindness back then — you who certainly knows that the charming act in front of the cameras is merely that, an act, a mask, a lie. It feels as if playing a game with one’s own cards facing outwards towards the opponent, completely exposed, laid bare. The act can’t work on you when you know what he’s really like, know his pains and vulnerabilities, have the potential to strike at the weakest parts of him.

Nor do you fall under his realm of control. The means he has for control relies on his ability to enforce it — means to kill and ruin lives. What he wants from you, though — at least, what he wanted from you back then, he won’t let himself even consider the matter now — falls entirely out of the realm of how he likes to control people, the usual purpose for which he desires the manipulation of others — power, advancement in his goals, to snake his way inside to strike.

It's all confusing. Irritating. It's outside the realm of what he has an easy way to manipulate, and that means he's at a disadvantage, that you have an upper hand, and he can't stand for that.

Still, he wonders about you. Every time a camera faces his way, he wonders if you’ll see the filming. When he makes posts to the little page he runs that the fans eat up, he wonders if you visit it too, if you’re one of those thousands of faceless followers. He wonders how often you think about him. He wonders about the day the two of you ran into each other for the first time in so long — did you go home, and look him up online? How long did you spend doing so? What did you read? Did your view of him change, positively, negatively?

And of course, he thinks about you and your life. What have you been up to, since then? Where has your path in life taken you? You probably have friends. You probably have a partner too. You’re someone who always seemed to be loved by others — he still recalls perfectly the burning bitterness in his stomach when he saw your happiness, your family, your friends, the things you had that he did not. How he resented you for it — he still does, even if he tries to tell himself such emotions are childish. Sometimes he almost thinks he hates you, even if in the end he always finds that he can’t.

And worst of all, he finds that the mere thought of you changes how he behaves.

When he’s at a lower-end news outlet interview, he doesn’t put quite as much energy in… until it occurs to him that there’s always a chance you’ll see it, and he finds himself sitting up straighter, putting in more effort into being charming and witty for the camera.

He almost says something in another interview, but it occurs to him that he doesn’t know how you feel on the matter, and he finds himself taking what was originally a strongly-worded response in his head and neutralizing it as much as possible, to avoid upsetting you should you see it and disagree with him. He doesn't even realize it until the words are out of his mouth.

You do that to him. He who has come to think of himself as so far above others, and yet you — some child from long ago who just so happened to find him again and speak to him for no more than a few minutes — influence his actions, you consume his thoughts. You control him, and you don’t even know it, nor did you have any intention to. And even though he recognizes it, even though he tries to put it to rest and forget you entirely, he can’t bring himself to do it, can’t tap the screen to delete the contact.

It’s infuriating. He can’t stand it. The fact that you do what you do to him so effortlessly leaves him seething and stewing in a rage you probably don’t even realize he’s capable of. And that much he’s acutely aware of as well. You know more of the “real” him than anyone else, you saw him in a phase when he was always pouty and melancholic — yet even then, you don’t know the half of it, don’t realize just how much malice and fury rests beneath the calm outward surface, nor how deep it runs.

He’s not a delusional sort, he’s very self-aware, and he knows how ridiculous the thoughts he’s having are — yet he has them anyway. It’s what, three in the morning, and here he is sitting on the edge of is bed, hunched over in the dark with his face in his hands, stewing in bitterness because he just can’t stop thinking about you. Yes, he knows the thought is absurd, yet he allows it anyway — allows himself to blame you, to resent you for it as if it were an intentional act on your end, to think of you as audacious, having committed some grand transgression against him.

He’s a celebrity, a genius, he has powers unfathomable to the average person — and here you are, you’re nobody, making him think about you. The more he gives in and allows himself to slip into that way of thinking, regardless of how nonsensical he knows it is, the angrier and angrier he gets, the greater the malice that swells in his chest—

—and the darker his thoughts become on what to do with you.

If he forces himself to think it through reasonably, of course, he realizes that you’ve done nothing wrong, that you’ve been nothing but kind to him, and maybe, just maybe, a part of him even feels guilty for any unwholesome, sinister thoughts run through his head — you don’t deserve anything bad to happen to you, and he’s being embarrassingly childish for such boorish, overly-simplistic thoughts like keeping you and taking you away and hurting you and making you pay. Particularly the last — you’ve done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve any harm, and in the rational part of his mind, he knows this.

But if he were to allow those petulant feelings to take over…

If he let the irrational resentment and yearning and attachment and bitterness take over, if he stopped being rational about it, if he just acted on impulses and feelings alone, then he would have something to make you pay for. To make you the object of all the negative emotions that plague him, make you an outlet for his crippling desperation and rage and affection and covet and pain and misery and yearning — yes, he could put all those emotions into you, unload that burden and force you to take it off his shoulders, force you to be something for him to have to himself and use for his own desires and ease of his pain like he always wanted back then.

Maybe he never stopped wanting that, even if he forced every thought of you to the back of his mind for so many years. It was easier to deny the yearning when he could tell himself he would never see you again. He doesn't have that to hold him back anymore — he stares at the screen of his phone that burns his eyes in the darkness, knowing contact with you is a few mere taps away.

But even back then, he wasn’t so stupid as to not realize you interacted with him because he was pitiful and pathetic and obviously troubled and you were the sort of sweet person that went out of your way to be nice to such other children. He was acutely aware of that fact, it irritated him then, it irritates him now. Yet he latched on like a leech anyway, a fact that makes his face feel hot with embarrassment when he recalls how his child self clung to you so strongly, so pathetically. He couldn’t help it. He was so weak, back then.

But here he is, spending hours of his time thinking about you — can he really say he’s less weak to you now?

It’s not as if it’s the first time he had dark thoughts regarding you. Of course, he envied your life back then, but far more than that, he envied you. To have you to himself, as if an object from which he derived happiness that should be just for him. How upset he was when you were kind to people who weren’t him, spent time with others. Even back then, as a child, you have no idea the sort of things he crafted in his head, elaborate fantasies where everyone important to you died off somehow so he could have you all to himself. Fantasies that soothed both his bitterness for you and his desire for you — let you feel pain like he had felt, make sure you couldn’t think yourself better than him, while still ending up something all for him alone to have and enjoy for himself, ensure your kindness was just for him.

Only back then, he had no power to act on such fantasies.

Now…

…

…

...And one night, his resistance finally breaks.

You know what? Maybe he does deserve that. After all the effort he’s put in, after all the things he’s endured, maybe he does deserve to have something all for himself, something he truly wants, something he can secure and know with certainty won’t ever leave his side — you can’t if you don’t have the option.

Maybe you’ll hate him for it. Maybe he’d deserve it if so. But if you do, well, he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

His fingers move without having to really think much about it. Generic, typical lines, just like when he spoke with you. Apologizing for the delay, but surely you understand he’s busy and all, so on and so on. He only pays attention to the very last line, as his fingers slow down in their typing with nerves and anticipation.

>Would you still be up for getting together sometime?

[cowboykento]

Come on Barbie, Let's Go Party!

characters: nanami kento x fem!reader x gojo satoru (nanami x reader is the main pair/relationship.)

warnings: slight dub-con (everyone is a little drunk), alcohol consumption, threesome, face fucking, hair pulling, degradation (they call reader a slut (usually affectionately) a lot), dialogue heavy, other nicknames used (princess, angel, sweetheart, sweet thing, little girl, etc.), no protection used bc i didn’t even think about it (be safer than this irl!!!). let me know if i missed anything big here.

word count: 2.5k

minors and blank blogs dni or i'll block you :3

You were shocked Kento had agreed to go to Gojo’s halloween party, although it hadn’t been without effort on your part. You’d first mentioned the idea almost as soon as Gojo had asked you—an intentional move on his part, he knew the only way to get Nanami there was through you—but Kento had said no. 

That didn’t dissuade you, however, and after showing him countless pictures of cute couple’s costumes that you knew the two of you could pull off incredibly well. It had been the Barbie and Ken costumes that had finally won him over in the end. Well, more truthfully it was the outfit you’d shown him for your Barbie costume that sealed the deal. 

It wasn’t a conventional costume, or really even a costume at all by itself. You’d picked out a cute, two-piece pink dress, a white headband to match, and some frilly pink and white stockings. You knew exactly what you were doing, and Kento knew that you knew how to win him over, but that didn’t convince him enough not to finally agree.

Now that you guys were at the party, you could tell Nanami is restless to go home, and has been since you’d arrived. Nobody could deny that the two of you were the most attractive couple there, but Kento knows all eyes are really on you and your short skirt and pretty top that showed off the perfect amount of skin. 

The more depraved part of Kento thinks he should have left marks along your throat and collarbone for everyone to see, and you probably would have let him, too. Instead, he’s forced to stand dormantly and do everything in his power not to pull you away from Satoru’s wolfish smile and charming words. 

Truthfully, Kento isn’t having a bad time at all. In fact, he’s enjoying himself much more than he thought he would—only because he can shamelessly ogle you as you talk to everyone and could drink free booze, but he’s still having a good time nonetheless.

You’re plenty drunk yourself, anyone with a set of eyes could tell, but Nanami knows better than anyone. You’re being careless—more than you can afford to be with the skimpy little outfit you’d chosen. Part of him, the more jealous and unreasonable part of him thinks maybe you were doing it on purpose, just to rile him up, but he tries to quell those thoughts and blame it on the liquor. 

What he refuses to blame on the alcohol, however, is the way Satoru looks at you. Sure, he’s guilty of exactly the same thing, but you’re his. You’re not Satoru’s, and Kento can feel his blood boiling with the way Gojo eyes you up like he doesn’t know fully well that you’re taken. 

Eventually, Kento makes his way over to you, wrapping an arm around your waist as you smile brightly at him, thrilled to see him like you’d forgotten he had come with you. 

“Ken!” you shout, smile nearly reaching your ears as you stand shakily on your tiptoes to press a sloppy kiss to his cheek. 

“Hey, angel,” he replies, voice much softer than yours but just as full of affection. “Are you having fun?”

You nod quickly, “Mhm! We were just about to play a game! You should play with us!”

Kento frowns—he’d been hoping you’d be just about ready to leave by now, but alas it seems like you’re having the time of your life. 

“I don’t know, princess,” he starts hesitantly before suddenly a new weight has landed on his shoulders.

“C’mon Nanamin!” Gojo shouts, “It’ll be fun!”

Kento shrugs Gojo off, “Yeah, I’m not sure I want to be involved in anything you consider fun, Gojo.”

Before Gojo has a chance to be offended, you’re batting your eyelashes up at your boyfriend, “Aww, but Ken, what if I say it’ll be fun? Please?”

Nanami’s jaw clenches. You know as well as he does that he’ll never be able to deny you when you look up at him all pretty. He scrubs a hand over his face and sighs, trying to ignore your and Satoru’s anticipation as you wait for his reply.

“Fine, I’ll play.”

****

About four rounds of shots and a game that’s devolved into something unrecognizable and Kento’s never wished he had more willpower to tell you no than he does now. 

You’re sitting pretty on Kento’s lap, have been since he agreed to play, and he’d be lying if he said he isn’t turned on right now. Your skirt, which was already so short you had to be careful how you moved, had ridden up just enough that the only thing keeping everyone else at the party from seeing your panties was Kento’s hand placed on your thighs. Unfortunately for him, that also means he can feel every time you rub your thighs together when he would whisper something into your ear. He isn’t even trying to get you worked up, but it was working nonetheless, and he knows it.

“You wanna feel good, sweetheart?” Kento whispers, fingers dancing along the hem of your skirt.

You turn in towards Nanami more, trying to hide yourself from everyone else as you clench your thighs together in a desperate attempt to feel any relief between your legs. At this point, the only people left at the party are Satoru, Suguru, Shoku, and Haibara, and they’ve all turned into their own conversations, ignoring you and Nanami. 

You look up at him, your eyes wide and a bit watery—Kento isn’t sure how he let you get this drunk, but he’s far from sober himself at this point and doesn’t have the mind to think about anything other than making you feel good. You nod desperately, hanging on to the front of his shirt like he’s the only thing keeping you tethered to Earth.

His fingers reach farther up your thighs as he kisses along your neck. It takes the little shreds of dignity and control you have left in you not to moan out. His thick, demanding fingers reach your panties, his thumb ghosting over your throbbing clit. 

“Kento,” you groan into his ear, “need you so bad, need to feel good, please.”

“I know princess, I know. But you gotta keep quiet for me, yeah? Don’t want all of our friends to hear you being a little slut at Satoru’s party, do you?”

You shake your head as Kento continues thumbing at your soaked-through panties, making your head spin with pleasure. 

“You’re so wet for me, sweet thing. You’ve got no shame, do you, princess? That’s okay, I’ll take care of you even if you’re a slut.”

You can’t help the whimper that escapes your lips, and instantly Kento’s actions halt.

“Be good,” he pinches your thigh, warning you. “If you make another sound, I’ll have to stop. Understand?”

“Mhm, I’ll be good, promise.”

Kento kisses your temple, as he continues circling your clit, “That’s my girl.”

You can’t help but grind down into the little bit of pressure Kento’s providing, so desperate for your release and mind so foggy from lust and alcohol.

“So close, Ken, ‘m so close,” you whimper as quietly as possible.

“I know, sweetheart, I know,” he replies huskily, slipping a thick finger into your wet heat. “Cum for me, baby.”

Your orgasm shakes your body, jolts of electricity pulsing throughout you as you bite down on your lip to hold back the moan that tries to rip through you. 

You’re panting as Kento puts your panties back into place and presses a kiss to your shaking lips. 

“You finally ready to leave, princess?”

“You better be,” Satoru’s voice interrupts. “Been waiting for the two of you to be done so I can start cleaning up. Thought Nanamin would have a little more decency, but I guess even he can’t help himself around a pretty thing like you.”

Neither you nor Kento had noticed that everyone else had filtered out of Satoru’s apartment, but now instead of pleasure you feel a hot flash of embarrassment rush through your body. 

“Are you jealous, Satoru?” Nanami’s voice cuts through the awkwardness shockingly. You turn to him, eyes wide and misunderstanding his boldness. 

Satoru takes a step toward the two of you, gently grabbing your chin to force your gaze to fall on him, rather than Kento. 

“Mmm, I just might be. She’s real pretty like this, isn’t she?” Satoru teases, looking over your head and  at Nanami like you’re not even there. 

“Of course,” Nanami replies, something in his voice challenging Satoru. He grabs a fistful of your hair, not too roughly but enough to force tears to prick at the corners of your eyes as he turns you back towards him. “What do you think, princess? I think Satoru wants me to share you. My sweet little girl. Don’t know if he’s worth sharing you with.”

Nanami’s expression is hard to read, especially with the traces of alcohol still in your body, but it’s not hard to feel the swell of his dick underneath you, stretching against the fabric of his pants. 

“Do you wanna give Satoru a turn with you, baby?”

Your eyes are wide and wet, and Nanami’s grip pulling at your roots is only making thinking straight that much more difficult. Still, you whisper out a shy, “Y- yeah.”

He pulls your head back to kiss your neck harshly, sucking a dark bruise into the skin. 

“Knew you were a little slut. Good thing you’re so pretty and perfect,” he speaks into your neck. “I’ll let Satoru have a turn with you, but remember who you belong to, princess.”

He presses another kiss to your lips before releasing his hold on you and letting Satoru pull you back towards him. 

“He’s right, you really are a slutty little girl, letting him finger fuck you right here on my couch at my party,” Gojo teases, pulling you off Nanami’s lap and onto his. “How sweet of Nanami to warm up your little pussy for me.”

You moan loudly at his words as he flips your skirt up, fully revealing the pretty pink panties you’d picked out just to match your costume. 

“Oh, you’re such a doll. All dressed up just for my party? Almost like you knew we’d slut you out right here. Or maybe that’s what you wanted this whole time? What do you think, Nanamin?” 

Nanami has since pulled his dick out of the confines of his costume pants, fisting it slowly to the sight of you hovering over Gojo, “Seems just about right to me. Is that what you wanted, princess? For me to share you? To get your slutty little pussy fucked right in front of everyone? Could’ve just asked, sweetheart, didn’t have to be a tease.”

“Please,” you whimper to Gojo as he unzips his own pants, pulling your panties to the side and lining himself up with your quivering cunt. “Please, want it so bad.” 

Gojo clicks his tongue, “You’ve taught her well, Nanami. She begs so pretty for me.” He turns his attention back toward you, hitting his dick against your sensitive clit a few times before pushing into your tight heat. 

Both you and Satoru moan loudly as he enters you. He doesn’t take any time at all before bucking his hips up into you fiercely, and you hold onto his shoulders for dear life. 

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” you moan, throwing your head back as Satoru pounds into your cunt. 

“Shit,” he moans, “Fuck, this pussy is so fucking good.” 

You hear Kento moan from where he sits, and the thought of him watching you get fucked by Satoru is only turning you on more. You want to put on a show for him, to make him so jealous he comes and steals you away from Satoru and takes his turn fucking you. 

Instead, Kento stands and grabs a fistful of your hair once again, pulling your head back to look up at him. Your body is alight as Nanami tells you to open your mouth before he spits directly onto your tongue, staking his claim to you as you swallow. 

“Turn her around, Satoru,” he commands, “I’m gonna fuck her slutty little throat.” 

Satoru is quick to oblige, the thought of you taking both of their dicks turning everyone on even more. He takes no time in returning to his brutal pace, fucking up into your pussy and chasing his own orgasm desperately. 

“Open wide for me, sweetheart,” Nanami tells you, pressing the tip of his dick against your lips before you comply, taking as much of his length in as you can manage. You hold onto Nanami for balance, Satoru’s thrusts pushing you to take even more of Kento’s dick in your mouth, forcing tears to fall down your cheeks. 

Kento groans loudly, his grip on your hair firm as he fucks himself into your tight throat. His pace isn’t quite as fierce as Satoru’s but it’s overwhelming nonetheless. 

“Fuck, princess, tight little pussy’s sucking me right in. I’m so close, want me to fill you up nice and good?” Satoru pants. 

“You better fucking not,” Nanami replies sharply, his hand squeezes your hair even tighter and you yelp. “That pussy doesn’t take anyone’s cum except mine.” 

Satoru moans even louder at that, his thrusts becoming erratic as he nears his orgasm. You’re close too, the coil in your tummy tightening so much that you think a wayward gust of air on your clit would send you hurtling into bliss. 

You look up at Kento with tears in your eyes, his big thumb brushing them away as they fall down your cheeks. 

“Are you close, angel?” He coos sweetly. “Look so gorgeous like this, letting both of us stuff you full. Cum for me, sweetheart, go ahead.” 

It only takes two more thrusts from Satoru to finally send you over the edge, your vision whiting out as you cream around Satoru’s dick. You gargle around Nanami’s cock as you cum, the vibrations only getting him that much closer. 

Satoru pulls out shortly after you finish, and you only have a second to be confused before you feel his hot seed shoot all over your back, his voice pitching as he lets out a loud, whiny moan. 

Kento continues fucking your throat, his pace picking up as he chases his climax, “So perfect for me, sweetheart. Fuck, gonna swallow everything I have to give you, won’t you?”

You do your best to nod, and that’s all it takes for Nanami to shoot hot ropes of cum down your throat, groaning loudly and pulling your hair, forcing you to take him all the way to the base. 

When the last of him is spent, Nanami pulls out of your throat tiredly and flops onto the couch next to you and Satoru. None of you can remember a time in your life you’d cum that hard before, the overwhelming pleasure enough to wake you mostly out of your drunkenness. 

You curl into Nanami, your breath still ragged and your bones reduced to nothingness. Nanami rubs a hand along your back as he catches his own breath, and Satoru gets up to fetch water and a washcloth. 

You tilt your head up to look at Kento with glassy, worn out eyes and a tired smile, “And you said you didn’t even wanna come to this ‘stupid party.’” 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t. You’re lucky you’re irresistible, you little minx. Made this night interesting for all of us.”

i literally wrote this at work i don't even know what came over me. did not plan this or even think about it before words started pouring out of me. didn't even plan on including nanami hair pulling but what is a girl to do after the new episode ??? n e ways hope you all enjoyed as much as i do :3

commissions open!

[jetra4ivor]

The many different ways you can animate a Minecraft movie.

Vanilla Minecraft doesn’t really allow expressive features for characters, so over the years animators have gotten creative with how they use the blocky bodies to convey emotion and movement. Here’s a list of different ways this has been achieved in the past 15 years.

The Captain Sparklez way:

In “Revenge” we see an early attempt at lip synching with these strange mouth shapes that cycle through the animation. This style of animating lip synch would become the basis for how Minecraft Story Mode operated, where there are base shapes for mouth expressions that sometimes defy the boundaries of their blocky faces in weird ways.

What I like about Captain Sparklez is that he’s been around long enough that his animations have evolved with him, and he’s got a whole new way of animating.

The feature I dislike the most about his newer style of animation is that they treat the face as soft and stretchable. This allows greater expression, but at the cost of bending the pixelated shapes in ways that pixels do not bend.

On the other hand (literally) one of the things I like about this style is the slightly rounded edges of the bodies that give everything a real sense of volume. I also like how hands are treated. Normally they are blocky fists, but they can open up into individual fingers when needed. A subtle trick that allows for greater animation movement without betraying the blocky aesthetic of Minecraft.

The Minecraft Story Mode way:

This method was inspired by Captain Sparklez but they take it in a different more defined direction.

As mentioned before, mouth shapes are pre-defined and are cycled through. For a video game, this has the advantage of needing only a few shapes that can be swapped in and out whenever needed to save on space and resources.

It does have the disadvantage however of occasionally looking stiff and sometimes the mouth shapes can’t quite convey the exact emotion needed. “Oh” shapes are are also weird as they extend beyond the boundaries of the blocky face and use smaller pixels to generate the shape. This can sometimes look off-putting or feel odd.

MCSM also treats the bodies more stiffly. The arms and legs have bends at the elbows and knees, but that’s about it. The toros can bend slightly but for the most part everything is kept pretty stiff. Again this has advantages and disadvantages. Broader movement is easy to do, but more subtle movement is tricky. There are no fingers either so when a character needs to hold something it just clips through the fingerless stump.

The Villager News way:

This method is even more limiting. One of the fun aspects about it is that they use their limitation to their advantage for comedic effects. The legs and arms for example are perfectly stiff and do not bend. This is hilarious with the villagers who have to gesture with their arms stuck in this folded pose, and when they dance their large stumpy legs clop around almost like a horse.

There’s still a tiny bit of flexibility though. The eyebrow bend and the mouth can push the bottom jaw down for big mouth shapes.

The Official Way:

In the official Minecraft update videos we have the last interesting way to animate characters… and that is to be completely stiff. Arms and legs do not bend. Faces are pixel art painted on the front. There is no dimensionality at all to their features.

Like the Villager News method, this has fun restrictions. Arms and legs sway in one motion just like in the game itself, and getting certain gestures can be extremely tricky. It also doesn’t allow a great range of expressions as most of the acting now needs to be done entirely through the eyes.

Conclusion:

Each method described above have advantages and disadvantages. If you’re looking for a smooth Pixar look, the Captain Sparklez way is probably the best, but it comes at the cost of abandoning Minecraft’s blocky norms. The stiff nature of the official style fits better with the conventions of Minecraft, but can come at the cost of being able to express the characters movements more fluidly.

I just find these various methods fascinating. How many different animators have tackled the challenger of animating blocky characters in such vastly different ways is neat in my opinion!

Which way is your favorite?

[ruinofchimera]

Finally, someone had the guts to address this absurd circus around so-called ‘ugly’ characters in books. And look—I’m only human, so of course, I’m going to toss in a few logs of my own into this dumpster fire.

What I can’t—will not—ever stomach is the sheer audacity of some people to dictate how others should imagine characters. The nerve. It’s as if they’re so puffed up with their own sense of importance, so absolutely convinced that their view of the world is the gospel truth, that they feel entitled to impose it on everyone else. Well, let me save you some time—you’ll get nothing from me but a resounding ‘bloody sod off.’ Maybe try therapy if you’ve got that much pent-up energy.

The fandom debates on the matter of attractiveness—dear God, they’re relentless. The second a character’s ‘ugliness’ is even hinted at, the discourse spirals into some surreal parody of itself. And when it comes to Severus Snape, well, that’s where people have really outdone themselves. That’s where the madness truly reaches its peak. You’ve got one half of the fandom—rabid ATYD fanboys and fangirls, mostly—ready to pounce on any art or fancast that doesn’t fit their atrocious vision of Snape with the chant, ‘THIS IS TOO PRETTY TO BE SNAPE!’ And then you’ve got the other half of the fandom who take it upon themselves to issue a rallying cry for ugliness, as if they’re campaigning for some higher cause. ‘Don’t be afraid to picture Severus as ugly as he truly is. I prefer him that way,’ they say, as if they’re handing out some kind of badge of moral superiority for embracing ugliness.

Well, hold on a second—define ‘ugly’ for me, would you? While you’re at it, define ‘pretty.’ I’d love to see you try to box up something as subjective as human attraction into neat little labels. What do you mean he isn’t beautiful? Do you think there’s some universal truth about what constitutes beauty? Have you ever heard of this tiny thing called tastes?

Because here’s the reality: tastes vary. What’s pretty to one person is ugly to the next. Yet, somehow, these people have convinced themselves that conventional beauty is the only standard worth recognizing. It’s almost as if they’ve been so brainwashed by mainstream standards that they can’t comprehend any other version of reality.

And even when you do talk about conventional beauty, do you really think everyone’s swooning over the same faces? Take Ben Barnes, for example—an actor practically deified by parts of the internet. Do you think he’s universally adored? Brace yourself—because he’s not. There are people out there who think Barnes, despite all his fanfare, has a nose far too ugly for anyone’s liking. And guess what? That’s fine. Because beauty is subjective. It always has been; it always will be.

Yet, in fandoms, you’d think some people were personally appointed to enforce these ridiculous beauty standards, insisting that everyone must imagine the characters the only right way. Let me let you in on a secret: just because a narrator calls a character ‘ugly’ doesn’t mean jack. Writers, same as anyone else, have their own bloody preferences. Sure, they can project those tastes onto the page, but at the end of the day, it’s just that—tastes. Nothing more.

Now, take Snape. What do we actually know about his so-called ugliness? A large, hooked nose. That’s it. And from that, you want people to conjure up some grotesque, monstrous image? Give me a bloody break. Who even gets to decide what’s ‘large’ and what’s not when it comes to appearance? It’s subjective, like everything else in beauty. You like a nose that’s straight and button-sized, or maybe you prefer someone who’s practically noseless, like Voldemort? Well, good for you. I’m not here to judge. But do me a favor—keep your pristine, perfectly upturned little nose and your narrow standards of beauty out of my business.

And here’s the funny thing—the absolute hysteria over Snape’s greasy hair. You’d think the guy walked out of a swamp the way people go on about it. But guess what? There are plenty of characters with greasy hair that fans are practically wetting themselves over. Need an example? Loki Laufeyson. That’s right—the Loki. The man’s got exactly the kind of lanky, greasy hair that should, by your standards, render him disgusting. Yet, somehow, there’s a whole legion of fans swooning over him like he’s some fallen god of beauty. Suddenly, greasy hair is mysterious and sexy.

Let’s not forget—Loki is played by none other than Tom Hiddleston, whose appearance is hardly what you’d call ‘conventional.’ He’s not some pretty boy with chiseled features, and yet, there’s no shortage of people who are ready to kneel at the sight of him. So, what happened there? Where’s all the hand-wringing over his greasy locks? Oh, that’s right—there isn’t any. How inconvenient for you and your narrow-minded standards of beauty. It’s almost as if your little squeaks about ugliness are soaked in nothing but shallow, prejudiced nonsense.

Beauty isn’t about ticking off boxes on some checklist of features society has deemed acceptable. It’s personal, subjective, and as varied as human taste. If all you can get behind is some cookie-cutter version of aesthetics, then by all means, live your bland little life. But don’t you dare try to impose that on the rest of us. You don’t get to dictate how others picture characters, just like you don’t get to decide what’s ugly. Beauty’s a wild, unpredictable thing—and it’s about time people stopped trying to cage it with their narrow ideas of what it should be.

[radfemsiren]

I agree with your post about being wary of any religion and that Christianity was also violently misogynistic. I am an atheist myself and especially against all Abrahamic religions.

But just wanna point out that there is something uniquely misogynistic abt one of them in particular that can’t be reduced to poverty/war/violence.

At its worst medieval Christianity still did not have constant honor killings (in fact it was more common to kill/mutilate the adulterous man nor ask regular laywomen to cover themselves in public (which if doen in the most extreme eyes-only way literally dehumanizes you

cf. Tour de Nesle affair (women imprisoned but men tortured and executed. Heloise’s relatives targeted her teacher/abuser Abelard but allowed her to live out her life in a convent as she more or less wished.

But still that is such a low bar.

Hm the first thing that comes to my mind with medieval Europe for me is witch burnings. I would consider that a mass femicide unique to Christianity. Muslims also believe in witches but I’ve never heard of a systemic murder of them like how the Christians did.

It’s funny with the medieval time period, I was really only taught what was happening in the Middle East at that time, going to an Islamic school. It was almost reversed, with the west seen as poor and backwards and bloody, and hotspots of affluence and academia being only in the east. Libraries, universities, hospitals, plumbing, bathing, were all far more advanced … scientists travelled from around the world to share their discoveries, like Indian mathematians going to the library of Baghdad with their concept of “zero”, Al Zahrawi inventing the scalpel, Ibn Sina (or Avicenna) performing successful eye surgieries, Muhammad ibn musa writing kitab al jabr, or the book of algebra, Al haythem creating al-qumra, or the pinhole camera. Ancient Greek texts were translated and passed to the west paving the way for their own enlightenment periods… ironically the Islamic Golden Age time period was so good because the religion itself took a backseat, and society was more focused on science, poetry, literature, etc.

The Europeans were seen as so backwards that we were shown the personal diary of a middle eastern doctor sent to aid them during their black plague. The Middle East did not discover germs yet, but quarantining was already a popular method of treatment, as well as prescribing the sick fresh fruit, vegetables, and rest, so they weren’t as affected as the west was. This doctor traveled to meet with European doctors and was was shocked when he heard their treatment plan: to cut into the patients head and remove their skull, and rub salt on it! Then to put it right back! He watched extreme sects of these people flay themselves in the street to “beat the devil out,” he watched doctors engage in filthy and deranged practices, not understanding sterilizing their hands or instruments, or pain management. He left back home in less than a month! I’ll have to find his name, it was darkly amusing.

This is all just things I remember from school (I love history but have been studying tech more for school) so if there’s any inaccuracies or mistakes, forgive me.

The reason I bring it all up though is I think most people are heavily influenced by what they are taught, and this image of Islam definitely being the worst is because you’re only interaction with modern Muslims/ middle eastern people is probably just from the news, and your interaction with ancient Muslims is tiny paragraph in a western leaning textbook. (If not, sorry for the assumption, but I’m assuming ask is coming from someone with a Christian background)

You have fond memories and good relationships with Christian friends and family, so you have a softer view of the faith, because you see it practiced by humans that you care about, so your interpretation is more generous. You will oversee parts of the faith that command women to be silent in church, obey their husbands, etc and assume Islam is more extreme. Islam is seen as more extreme than Christianity because Muslims refuse to practice their faith any differently than their ancestors 1400 years ago, and also because many of our geopolitical regions are unstable.

The core of the 2 faiths themselves are equally wretched for women… bias only makes us see differently. Now if you want to make the argument Christianity is less terrible because its followers change their practice the second some King feels like it, or currently because the all mighty American dollar is the true god now, so pigskin on a football and beer is now allowed, than I might consider that a fair point lol! The fluidity of Christianity to change with the times can be its saving grace, but also what makes it so hypocritical as a dogma.

Sorry this was a long rambling response, these are some thoughts I’ve been having about all the Christians in my inbox haha. I wish yall would just hang out with Muslims more and see how almost exactly the same masjid functions are to church functions, same judgy aunties, boring grandpas, little kids running around being annoying, youth leaders being corny and trying to make a lesson out of everything. The skin tones are just darker, and the rituals slightly different, but everything else: the boring sermons, the passive aggressive misogyny, the mob mentality, the political infighting, the human faults of judgment and emotional thinking, the rush to hide any faults of abusive husbands or sons, the patriarchal hierarchy of first father, then wife, then child … all are the same and the core of what makes religion an outdated and faulty way to guide your life. It’s hard for me to say one is worse than the other when so many terrible practices or Quranic verses I see from Islam, there are bible verses to match.

[esta-elavaris]

Post one of two where I dig into all of the tools I use to write and keep track of different projects, as well as my overall word count, and the pros and cons of those tools. This one is just tech-y. That wording alone should summarise how much of the technical aspects I really know a whole lot about ✨

Masterlist for this challenge.

Laptop

This one is laughably self explanatory. Mine’s a fairly cheap Lenovo one that I got purely to write on and browse the web – my old previous one, an absolute dinosaur, just about holds it together enough to run The Sims 4 but I keep it purely for that, and the lag is insane. The newer Lenovo one is the one I do my writing on, though.

Pros --

It’s easy to use, because being able to write in documents is pretty much a priority for a laptop to be usable. I have Microsoft Office on there, it doesn’t lag, and it can do anything I need it to – including posting and uploading in a manner that is seamless and non-clunky. My laptop is just about the only thing I’ll post from, because trying to format a post on a tablet or a phone can be an absolute pain in the backside, so everything I write for others to read has to go through my laptop before it’s seen. Same goes for things like quickly researching something, or finding background music without the process being a bit annoying and filled with having to close apps and find other ones.

Cons --

It’s not much good for writing in the wild, the one I have is juuuust too wide to fit conventional bag or laptop cases, and I’m not particularly fond of the idea of hauling it into the city centre or whatever – on public transport no less – just to write in a cafe or a library.

Also, because of the ‘pro’ listed above in terms of being able to quickly and easily switch between doing different things, it is way easier to get distracted on there than it is elsewhere. One quick question for Google turns into scrolling tumblr way too easily when I’m on a laptop – and because mine is few years old now, the battery life isn’t particularly stellar. Also hate the amount of times I turn it on to quickly get some words down only to find it’s updating itself.

AlphaSmart 3000

This has been one of my newer pieces of tech – but only in the sense of how long I’ve owned it, rather than how long it’s been available. There’s a bit of a backstory to this so you’ll need to fact check me, but basically these were available for a long time at a very fair price, up until a company realised how much of a cult classic they were among writers in all senses of the word, bought the rights to the tech, and ramped up the price to something that was quite frankly ridiculous. So now if you want one new, you’re talking a few hundred quid.

It’s essentially solely a word processor, as distraction free as you can possibly get. It has a non backlit screen where you can only see around three or four lines of what you’re working on, and a keyboard. Mine takes three AA batteries, and other than that there’s a cable slot plugging a printer wire into it, to then either attach to a printer or to a laptop. I’ve never tried it with a printer, but with a laptop you open a word document when it’s connected, press ‘send’, and it begins transferring everything you’ve written to that document. Incredibly simple.

I got mine for £80 used on eBay, and it turned into an almost disaster. It arrived in an absolute state, with an instruction manual that was riddled with mould, and a cable that was incorrect. And the batteries it’s supposed to take did not fit. Actually almost cried because I thought I’d been scammed out of a significant chunk of cash. Luckily for me, my brother is a legend and flew into fix-it mode and began researching the shit out of them – despite the fact that it’s far beyond his realm of interest – to try and see what he could do. All he could find, for the most part, were YouTube videos showing how to rig a rechargeable battery into it, which would fix the fact that the batteries mine were supposed to take just did not fit at all, but it was a bit beyond the realms of trying. And if you want to buy a rechargeable one for it that’s specifically designed for it, you’re talking a grand – and it has to come from the USA, so shipping and customs would be delightful.

In the end, he broke one battery trying to wedge all three in there, then successfully managed it on a second try – with the third one being at a very precarious angle that has me dreading the day those batteries need changed, because I can’t see it being easy. But that’s where we get to the pros and cons.

This is the state of the kinda-sorta held together battery compartment on mine:

Pros –

The battery life, because it’s so fantastically limited in what it can do – is great. We’re talking years, depending on use. There’s a lithium battery inside that can be changed by pulling it apart, but I haven’t had to do that, and it should last way longer than the AA ones, which already should last at least a year. Maybe less for me given my situation, but we’ll see.

I also really, really like the fact that it only shows three lines of what I’ve written on the screen. It stops me from self-editing as I go and keeps me in a constant flow, and the fact that literally all I can do is write means it’s so easy to get in the zone and not end up fancying about on Spotify or YouTube instead. I’ve been really pleasantly surprised by how much I can get done on it thanks to that simplicity.

What’s great for me personally, but might not be as good for others, is that it also doesn’t have word count capabilities. It’s not on the screen as I type, and there’s no button I can push to tell me what it is, either. So not knowing what the numbers are looking like up until I’m finished and sending it to my laptop really helps me focus on the story itself, rather than an arbitrary number. I’ve also found that because of how much I get in the zone with it, and how little I can see of what I’ve written, I consistently find that I’ve written more than I expected when I finally send the document to my laptop and get it ready for posting – usually by over a thousand words, sometimes even underestimating the count by half.

Another thing I like is that it can store up to eight files – the buttons lining the top reading files one through eight – so I can switch to working on different things seamlessly, without being stuck only working on one thing ‘til it’s finished as I use it. It also saves and stores things automatically, there’s no save button, and I even found that once my brother got the batteries wedged into it, there were files on there from the previous owner (nothing salacious, sadly), so I can be fairly confident that if my tenuous battery set-up does fail me, the stuff written on there will be safe until I can get ‘em back in there.

Cons –

Thanks to the situation I mentioned with the price, unless you’re willing to splash the cash on a brand new one (and, despite how happy I am with mine, I really can’t say that would be worth it) you are taking a risk if you choose to buy one used, and you’ll be very limited in what you can do to fix it because so much of the tech is either discontinued, extortionate, both, or requires a willingness and the knowledge required to improvise. I really am dreading the day when I have to try and get the wedged-in batteries out of mine without breaking the damn thing, and then replacing them. Because of the fucking mould that was in the instruction manual I got with mine, too, I had to scrub it before use, and I also had to go on Amazon and buy a new wire because the one I was sent was incorrect. That only cost a fiver, but still, for £80 you should be able to reasonably expect more.

The battery issue, for me, doesn’t end there, either. I got it for distraction free writing in the wild, and because the batteries are in mine so precariously, the battery compartment cover doesn’t even close – I had to tape it shut – so I’m just not confident enough that nothing will go wrong to shove it in my bag and haul it across the city to write with.

It is older tech, so the documents also don’t transfer instantly. When I send mind to a document, it writes it out line by line on the open document on my laptop – so when I have a long chapter, that can take a while, and I’ve found I can’t do other things on my laptop while that transfer is happening. Not the end of the world, I usually spend that time crocheting or reading, and the AlphaSmart screen does tell you what percentage of the document has yet to be transferred, so you can keep an eye on that and guess how much time you’ve got left to wait. Because the screen isn’t backlit, it also means no writing in the dark, which I don’t mind when I have other options for that, but if I had to choose something to be the only thing I could ever write on, that fact would put it out of the running.

Like I said, too, the lack of word count capabilities might be a turn off for some. It has spell check capabilities that I’ve never used, so I’m not sure how good that is (or if you can switch between languages/forms of English). And this does lead me into a somewhat related point next, that’s a mixed blessing in my case.

Because of the three-line format of the screen, formatting can be an issue – nor can you italicise or bold out certain lines or words. Now, I’m very open about the fact that I don’t edit my fanfics (or anything that isn’t the novel) as much as I necessarily should. I scan for typos, I make sure it’s good, I make sure it’s coherent (things still slip through the net every now and then) but I just cannot write the amount I do, and really prioritise my original novel, if I’m going to spend hours and hours on editing when it comes to fanfic. It’s not ideal and I suspect people won’t like to hear it, but I just cannot afford to make it a top priority, it is what it is.

That being said, anything I write on the AlphaSmart does have to end up going through more of a meticulous editing process. The way the screen works means there have been plenty of times where I send a document to my laptop, and see that what I thought was one paragraph ended up being a wall of text that took up a whole page. Typos also slip through more easily because the keyboard is older and sometimes a little clunky, and I have to go back and edit in italicised words bit by bit, because I just write them *like this* on it, and then change it to being like this once I can format. So that’s a mixed blessing, for sure.

All in all, I’m not sorry I bought it. I do wish I’d had less issues with it, but considering when it first arrived I thought I’d paid £80 for a paperweight, it worked out all right in the end, and I am getting a lot of good use out of it. I’m a little disappointed because I did buy it for the purpose of writing out in public to tide me over while I saved for a new iPad (my current one’s battery life is so shot it seldom works unless actively plugged in), and it’s no good for that thanks to my own specific issues, so I think if I’d known how it was going to go before I got it, I wouldn’t have bought it at all...but given how it’s helping my output, I’m still glad that I did.  

Tablet, tablet pen & keyboard –

When my AlphaSmart disaster happened, I ended up having to do what it was supposed to replace and bought a new tablet. But after hearing recommendations for others, I decided not to swing for a new iPad (couldn’t afford that anyway – Ghost had just announced a new tour with UK dates, and I subsequently had to penny pinch because there was no way I was missing that), but go for a new tablet. Like I said, the AlphaSmart was meant to help me get back to writing sessions in public, it ended up being no good for that, so even when I got it working, it didn’t fix that problem.

In the end, I got the Lenovo Tab M11, which had the Lenovo Tab Pen included. It was like a quarter of the price of a new iPad, and I’m so incredibly happy with it! It was a bit of a learning process because I’ve only ever used iOS, but that’s pretty much my only complaint. I do intend to only use it for writing, music, and maybe a YouTube video here and there in a pinch, because I really want to save the battery capabilities on it as much as possible and streaming over years and years is what I think fucked up my iPad, so I can still use that for Netflix, and the tablet (which I’m using to write this) for more creative pursuits.

Pros –

The battery life is amazing – I use a Bluetooth keyboard to write on it so that was a concern, but I’ve had it for a couple of months now, and I can count the amount of times I’ve charged it on one hand. I had to get OpenOffice to use on it so that I wouldn’t be constantly emailing drafts between devices, which I don’t completely trust because of all of the AI bullshit going on these days (I did disable AI mining on Word on my laptop), but that’s a risk with most word processors these days, which is a rant for another day. And at least now I’m not losing drafts due to forgetting to save.

Because, like with any tablet, it’s more of a switch up to stop typing and scroll through different apps and then go back to typing – compared to a laptop – it’s way more difficult to get distracted on a tablet. In comparison to the AlphaSmart, too, formatting is a breeze. I can see the paragraphs I’m writing, I can italicise or bold words with keyboard shortcuts just like on a laptop, it’s all very easy and hassle free. I also have spell check more easily available – although the autocorrect feature (which I haven’t yet figured how to disable) can be an absolute pain in the arse when I have to retype the same thing three times before it accepts that I know what I’m talking about. Usually. But the flip side of that is that it corrects the things I do genuinely fuck up with 0 effort from me, eight times out of ten.

It’s also very easy to have music playing on the tablet as I write, especially with the keyboard I favour which has a volume/mute dial, so unlike the AlphaSmart I don’t have much need to pick up other devices if I want background noise. I can even post from my tablet if I really want to, in a pinch, so I could keep posting updates if I’m off in another city without having to haul my laptop with me. It’s just a little clunkier, but given the convenience it adds, I’m not mad at that. Plus, OpenOffice can do everything Word can do, so I have way more control over font and all that, compared to the AlphaSmart.

What I was really surprised to be so pleased with was the pen! I mostly got it because it came with it, and buying the option without it wasn’t that much cheaper, and I was curious. I ended up being so glad I did!

It does take a bit of getting used how to use it without the screen detecting your hand rather than the pen, and therefore closing the page you’re trying to write on, but 90% of the time that’s more on me than it. I love making lists when it comes to organising my writing, it also helps me draft my vague ideas/flowcharts for how I want a chapter to go without wasting paper, it’s how I’m currently keeping track of everything I want to get written before the end of the year, and it’s nice having all of those notes on one app so I’m not struggling to find misplaced notebooks, which is a constant habit of mine.

I also really like the word count aspect of this one, too, because like the AlphaSmart, the word count isn’t readily available on the screen until I scroll through a document – so it’s kind of the best of both worlds, I can check if I really want to, but I can also ignore it and it’s not always drawing my eye as I type. I know I could probably make it so that the count isn’t permanently visible on documents on my laptop, too, but I’m not ready to make that leap just yet – especially nowadays where my laptop has been more and more relegated to editing rather than drafting. I’m developing a good little system here!  

For the price, I really can’t argue with how good I’ve found it to be. Honestly, it could’ve been £100 more expensive and I wouldn’t have been mad about it. I now no longer need to drop a few hundred quid on a new iPad in 2025, and I think I actually prefer this for writing compared to my old iPad, even when that iPad was new. But I never had one of the pens for the iPad, and mine is a few years old now so I don’t know how a newer one would hold up. Still, I’m thrilled with it. I’ll be really scraping to find cons for this one.

Cons –

As I’ve said, if I don’t want to be emailing drafts between devices, I do have to have online storage capabilities turned on for drafts, which I don’t entirely trust for AI mining...but honestly, I don’t trust anything with that these days – not emails, not anything that isn’t a USB stick, and even then, word processors are proving to be assholes about it now, too. But that’s less a drawback of the tech than it is just the way AI is at the moment.

The pen does take a bit of getting used to, and I do have to stop myself from getting annoyed when I go to write something on the note app only to find it’s zoomed the page out dramatically or closed the app entirely because it’s detected my hand rather than the pen, but I’m finding the more I use it, the less that happens, so that’s more on me than the tech.

Switching between typing to scrolling through apps is clunkier than on a laptop, but like I’ve said, that’s a good thing for me.

With all of this explained, I am getting to a system that I’m really enjoying, and is making writing so much easier and more fun for me. As things stand, I usually map out chapter notes etc. on my tablet in the drawing/notes app with then pen, then I do my drafting on either the AlphaSmart or tablet, depending, then I go to the laptop for the edits and the posting. I have found that this makes writing and general way easier, too, because the process of picking up the AlphaSmart or tablet and writing is way quicker and more streamlined in terms of time compared to a laptop. Always with the AlphaSmart, and usually with the tablet, the draft I’ve been working on is literally a button away and then I’m going. The laptop takes a bit more fiddling around, since I use it for so many other things.

I did intend to get into more here – Bluetooth keyboard, notebooks, and the system I use to track my word counts across my ridiculous number of projects, but this is already getting ridiculously long, so I guess you’re all getting a part two. I do hope some of this was helpful in some way or another, though!

Dividers by cafekitsune.

[seat-safety-switch]

When you’re looking at a house to purchase, don’t just look at the house itself. Check out the neighbourhood. You’ll want to know where the primo parking spots are for shitbox cars, especially if you expect that you might be returning home one day only to find the cops have surrounded your place. In that case, you’ll have to beat a hasty retreat, after changing your wheels, which are ideally registered under a false name or to a proxy corporation that will hold up long enough for you to get out of the city. It’s also important to make sure that any home improvement jobs have taken out the correct permits.

When I became a realtor, it wasn’t easy. A lot of work was involved. It took almost six classes of night school, and being able to legibly sign my own name on the exam. If you’re wondering why I said “almost” six, it’s because I showed up late to lessons 3 and 5 because of car trouble. Now I’m allowed access to the secret realtor database, which I’d be able to use more often if I had a computer more advanced than a TRS-80 Model III that is at least ten percent made out of Fiat parts.

Even so, I’ve been accepted into a local realty office. This is sort of like a street gang, for those of you who grew up in more aspirational neighbourhoods, and confers upon me a functioning computer. From there, I can look up all the homes in the neighbourhood that have things like: garages, back yards, RV pads, running water, and the all-too-often overlooked front yards for storing more shit-box cars. And, more importantly, I know which ones are vacant.

Really, I’m doing these people a public service. Without a constantly-rotating pile of leaky crapcans sitting in the driveway, burglars might break in and rip all the copper out of the walls. I get to store my Geo Metros and Pontiac Tempests, and they get to sleep tight in whatever home in their massive property empire that they actually own. It’s service like this, and my willingness to overlook difficulties like “forged identification” and “imaginary sources of income,” which is why I collect a generous nineteen-percent fee on any house or commercial property that I do sell.

You might think that this is unethical, or at the very least a breach of the guidelines of my profession. That’s a very funny joke, and I will tell that to the other realtors at our national convention. One of the other guys in the group likes to set up hidden cameras in the bathrooms when he does an open house, so he can catch people flossing their teeth. Really enjoys that kind of thing, probably way too much. Has he been caught? You bet. Has he gotten in trouble for it? Nope. You better believe I came home and inspected every inch of my poop palace, though.

[th3sp4rr0w]

Day Nineteen

A03 Link <- Starts at Chapter/Day One for those just joining us :))

Prompts For Day Nineteen Taken For Granted/Left Behind/”Why Wasn’t I Enough?”

Alt. Prompt For Day Nineteen Hypnosis 

Prompts Used for Day Nineteen "Why Wasn't I Enough?"

Tw's; Vomit, Guns, Injury Mention

Chapter Nineteen under the cut :)

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

Summertime was always fun. Getting ice cream, hanging out with friends, having no responsibilities for three months; it was a break from the monotonous routine of going to school, dealing with people that hated him for seven straight hours, coming home to do work and doing it all over again.

The best part about summer was having time to spend with his mom. Going to different places just to stargaze, getting to see different parts of the world while hunting for ghosts? Even if his parents could be annoying sometimes, it was fine. All he really had to do was get past Jazz and everything would be alright.

Like right now! After the Fenton-Portal didn’t work, they were preparing for a trip out of state to go to different conventions and see if they can figure out what was going on with it so they could fix it. They might even be back in time for his birthday.

He heard his phone ring from the stand. He turned and answered it; it was glitching slightly, he’d have to have Tucker look at it if it didn’t fix itself.

“Hey, Danny speaking. Talk to me,” he greeted.

There was horrible, wet coughing on the other end of the line. “Danny,” Tucker said and sniffed, “We hanging out today?”

He winced. “Dude, even if I weren’t packing for a trip right now, I wouldn’t hang with you. You sound awful, what’s up?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just so cold right now.”

His voice sounded off, but not sick-off. He wondered if he did something to his throat; his voice sounded a lot deeper. The words caught up to him and he frowned. “Dude, what are you talking about? I’m melting over here,” he replied as he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

Tucker groaned. “No, I’m like, so cold right now dude,” he said. Danny laughed a bit.

“You’re sick, man. Go get some sleep, I’ll call Sam and let her know. I’m sure she’ll bring you something.”

“Ugh, veggie crap,” he sniffed. “I want Nasty Burger.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Goodbye, Tucker,” he said into the receiver and hung up.

He went to put his phone in his pocket when he saw something in the reflection. Giving a little “huh?”, he went to check again. There was a soft knock on the door.

He turned around. “Yeah?”

Jazz walked in with some pancakes. “I figured you’d want something before we have to live off protein bars and stuff that really shouldn’t count as fruit,” she joked.

Her voice was slightly off, too. It was almost like she had an... echo?

“Thanks, Jazz,” he said, grabbing the plate from her. He swore he could still hear someone talking. “Are mom and dad down stairs?”

“Yeah, they’re finishing putting up the last of the defenses against ghosts. You know how they are.”

He nodded and shrugged. “Yeah, they’re a bit... eccentric,” he said.

She snorted. “Did you hear that they determined that ghosts don’t have digestive systems because any food they give them disappears?”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s dumb, maybe they just process it a different way? Also, since when are you interested in this crap?”

She frowned. “I...”

“Jazzerincess! Danno! It’s time to go, are you kids done packing-” Jack called from downstairs, devolving into a coughing fit. They heard Maddie offer him a tissue.

Something about it made his insides go cold for just a few moments before he shook it off. The oppressive heat immediately took its place again. Today was shaping up to be weirder than usual. “Almost done dad!” he shouted back.

He looked at Jazz, stuffing his phone in his pocket so he could grab a still-warm pancake. “Thanks, Jazz,” he said. “I’ve gotta finish up packing before dad chokes on his own saliva again and we never get out of here.”

She giggled and left.

Assuming the voices he could hardly hear were his parents', he finished packing. Occasionally, he thought he could see something out of the corner of his eye. He assumed it was nothing. He ate bits of pancake as he went.

He carried his bags downstairs. He‘d sensibly packed a backpack of the essentials and a smaller backpack of consoles, chargers, and books to keep himself occupied in the car and whatever hotels or campsites they stopped at. He had headphones with him. He thought of everything.

He cursed. He’d almost forgotten to grab his toothbrush.

He set the bags on the couch and ran back upstairs, waving to Jazz as he went. There was a weird show on TV showing a boy eating soup in some sort of room with a hospital bed. There was another boy next to him laying down.

He slid into the bathroom, almost crashing into the bathtub as he did. He wrenched open the cabinet before he could think about it too hard, grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste to go back down the stairs so they could leave.

He shook his head. He thought he saw something weird.

He grabbed his small bag, putting the toothbrush and toothpaste in the side pocket and started to head for the car. The sun beat down on them from above, causing more beads of sweat to drip down his face uncomfortably and make him regret his choice of not going to go stay with Tucker while they did this. Tucker and Sam both had air conditioning.

He thought of the thick cough his friend had this morning. On second thought, he was glad he didn’t stay with him; he didn’t want whatever disease Tucker had contracted.

They piled into the car and started driving down the road. He picked up the copy of Pride and Prejudice Jazz lent him for the trip and started reading.

“Danny, sweetie, why don’t you put some sunscreen on?”

He frowned. “Not right now, mom,” he said.

She huffed. “Why don’t you at least have some soup?”

He frowned. “Soup?”

She tried to shove a thermos in his face. “Come on, sweetie, for me?”

He curled up on himself. “Mom, I don’t want to get souped again,” he said. “Remember the last time I ate soup in the car?”

“Danny, just take the soup so she’ll leave you alone,” Jazz said, grabbing the thermos and shoving it in his hands.

He took a drink. It tasted like piss; he gagged slightly. He noticed his mom and Jazz staring at him expectantly. 

“It’s hot,” he said. It was; it burned as he drank.

“Good. Drink it,” his mom said.

He rolled his eyes. He drank as much of the soup as he could, just so she’s stop.

The lingering taste twisted his stomach. As the car moved forward it got worse.

He tried to focus on the book. He hummed under his breath. They’d probably get mad at him if another soup incident began.

He watched as Jazz downed some soup of her own. He didn’t know how she could stand it; the heat was building up in the GAV. He knew better than to ask to turn on the air conditioning; his parents were strict about where and when they turned it on. It was one of the few things that was non-negotiable.

He was beginning to think he was right to put the tank-top on but was sorely regretting wearing sweatpants.

His gut twisted. He jerked in his seat. “Pull over."

“What-”

“Pull over!”

His dad pulled over as he allowed Jazz to take the book. He pulled off his seat belt, opening his door and leaning out.

He could feel Jazz rubbing his back and whispering something to him. It was weird; her voice almost sounded like Tucker’s had earlier.

His mom forced some water into his mouth. He obediently swallowed.

They sat there for a moment, Danny collapsing into the seat. He thought he could vaguely hear a Tick, Tick, Tick, somewhere in the car. Another roll of nausea waved through him.

His gut cramped painfully as he retched, Jazz once again rubbing his back. He thought he could feel someone’s hand in his hair, but he couldn’t decipher who’s.

His mom handed him a tissue to wipe his mouth with when he was done.

They got back on the road, Jazz helping to prop him up using some of the pillows she’d brought. She leaned him over to rest his head on her shoulder.

He almost let the lull of the road put him to sleep. He closed his eyes and let the motion soothe him; he warned them not to give him soup on the road. This was exactly what happened last time he was given soup in the car.

He rubbed his eyes, cleaning out the crusty bits trying to glue them together. Jazz absently kept petting his head. He stared at his dad’s seat.

The driving was too smooth. It was almost like his dad actually knew how to drive; it was nice, and not that he wanted to question it, but it worried him. Jack had never been able to drive this well.

It was like he’d been replaced. He looked around.

He thought he saw something white at the edge of his vision. What was-

They pulled into a truck stop as he started questioning himself. He shook his head; he always got way too car sick on these long trips, especially when he was hot. The soup hadn’t helped. The taste in the back of his throat didn’t help the nausea that still lingered in his stomach.

“What happened to him?” He heard someone ask as they got out of the car.

“He got carsick,” Maddie replied, looking at the person with a protective glare.

Their face scrunched up. “How’d you deal with that in the car?”

“We pulled over,” she stated flatly.

They scoffed. “Figures. Parents these days are much too soft on their misbehaving children.”

“You listen here-”

“Mads! You and Danno comin’?” Jack called. When they turned back, the person was gone.

They shook it off, Maddie helping Danny into the truck stop. When they got inside, she encouraged him to go to his dad.

He almost tripped, Jack catching him and smiling down. “You okay, champ?” he asked.

Danny nodded. He opened his mouth and frowned. He could swear he heard something.

“... Ghosts parading around as teenagers. Don’t be fooled-"

He looked around. “What was-”

Jack started tugging him to the bathroom. “Come on, Danno, let’s get you cleaned up.”

He followed his father on unsteady feet. The more he looked around, the weirder it was getting. Most of the people around them were wearing white; White hoodies and sweats, white blouses with white jeans, white dresses. It was starting to freak him out.

They went into the bathroom. He went into a stall, trying to calm down. What was going on? What was happening here?

He took several deep breaths, trying to gather his thoughts. Sweat dripped down his neck, soaking his tank. He felt wet in places that he didn’t know he could sweat; it felt like he’s had an accident on his way here.

He really wished he’d had the forethought to wear shorts. He wasn’t even sure where they were going, but wherever it was, it was just getting warmer.

He heard someone knock on the stall door. He figured that was as good of a sign as anything that he’d been in here too long and to get out.

He opened the door and got out, going towards a sink. He turned on the cold water and thought about it for a second as it ran.

He stuck his hand under the cold stream. He was going to splash his face, but couldn’t quite get the motions down. Desperate for any sort of relief from the heat, he stuck his head under the faucet.

“Danny?” He heard his dad ask. “You okay there, buddy?”

He didn’t respond. The cold was a blessing on his flushed skin. He already felt like his head was clearing.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Someone had an annoyingly loud watch. He decided he didn’t want to know who, staying under the stream for what was probably longer than necessary.

He went up for air for just a moment before going back to the stream. He wanted to stick his whole body in the sink but didn’t think that would be a very pleasant thing to do to the rest of the people in the small space.

He felt his dad’s hand on his shoulder. “Okay, champ, that’s enough,” he said. He held the whine that tried to escape his chest back by the skin of his teeth; it was like finally getting a glass of water after years without it, and somebody coming along and saying you’d had too much. He almost wrenched himself from his father’s grasp to go back underneath the cool stream.

Jack helped him dry off with paper towels. He felt more balanced as they walked back to the car, even as he mourned the cold stream of the sink.

The walk felt longer than it had when they were going to the bathroom. He figured he’d been more out of it before, and now he could appreciate it.

… Assuming you could appreciate a sea of white like this. He didn’t know what was up with that. Oh well; it’s not like his own tank top wasn’t white. It was a hot day, after all. That must be it.

As they walked, he got the distinct feeling of something just being... wrong.

Tick, Tick, Tick

He turned. Nothing. He took a deep breath. He was fine; it was just hot. The heat was getting to him, consuming him whole. That’s all. A cold drink and getting his parents to turn on the AC would fix everything.

His mom and Jazz were already waiting by the car, holding drinks when they got there. His dad opened his door for him, making sure he was in the car completely before closing with a distinct slam. It almost sounded like someone closing the lab door a bit too hard. Everybody got settled before putting on seatbelts and starting the GAV.

He looked around at Maddie and Jazz, waiting patiently for them to begin to pass out drinks. He hoped they got him ice-cold water.

He could see it in his mom’s hand. He waited patiently, not willing to risk his chance of getting them to put on the ac. He could feel sweat still dripping down his back as he waited.

He picked up the book, feeling good enough to go back to reading. He was getting to the good part where Elizabeth finally talked to Mr. Darcy about George Wickham. He was never one to reread a book to hunt for the finer details, but something about this book-

Hang on... when did he first read Pride and Prejudice ? He tried to think back, combing over his education. He normally wasn’t one to read for fun. He opened his mouth to ask Jazz when she read it in school, only for his mom to make a noise.

“Oh! I’m sorry, guys, I forgot to pass out drinks,” she said, turning around and handing Danny and Jazz their waters.

He tore into his easily, making sure not to lose his place in the book. Jazz grabbed it from his lap. He thanked her before tilting his head back, drinking the cold water greedily. It soothed something in his chest, cooling him down and making him feel more human.

When he was done, he asked if they could turn on the ac. His mom twisted to look at him, Jazz giving him the same look.

“Sweetheart, are you okay?” She asked, pressing her hand to his forehead. She frowned. “You’re really warm. Baby, it’s not that hot in here.”

“What are you talking about?” He asked. “It’s boiling; I feel like I’m melting,” he complained.

Jazz grabbed his shoulder. “Danny, it’s really not that hot in here. Do you need us to stop the car? You drank your water pretty fast-”

“No, I’m not nauseous,” he said instead. “I’m fine. It’s just hot, can we turn on the ac?”

His dad looked at him through the rear-view mirror, “We’ll stop to get you something else cold to drink soon, champ. This ac isn’t going on; you might be hot, but the rest of us are fine,” he said, not unkindly.

He didn’t protest any more. He knew better than that; if he pushed, it’d just get his dad mad and, although the man wouldn’t mean to, his driving would become more erratic than it normally was and he’d nearly crash the car again. Considering they were in the GAV, a lot more damage could be done, and he really didn’t want to know how that would play out.

His nose ran a bit. He wiped it, taking a tissue from his mom and putting it in the bag she’d brought for their trash. He cracked his wrists, which had become stiff for... whatever reason. Especially his left. He moved his fingers; they felt stiff and borderline unusable. Cracking the knuckles didn’t help.

He took the book back from Jazz. Where was he again?

Ah, yes, the absolute drama fest Elizabeth had created for herself by not taking warnings as they came.

He smiled a bit. At least she wasn’t Jane; oh, that girl would drive him crazy. He wondered what her father would do in real life to that man. He knew his dad would NOT have stood for that sort of behavior from any suitor of Jazz’s.

He shook his head. Maybe he was getting too into this. Ah, well. What else was he going to do? His wrist felt too stiff for videogames right now.

Tick, Tick, Tick

The car slowed down. He hadn’t realized just how much time had passed; they were in some sort of desert. “Okay, everybody out,” Jack said.

They began getting out of the GAV. His mom grabbed the tents, beginning to set them up. He watched her; she was completely dry as he sweat through his clothes. He felt absolutely soaked.

He thought about putting one of Jazz’s blankets up on the open doors to create a privacy barrier to change behind, but he decided against it. He’d just sweat through those too.

He spotted a door.

Tick, Tick, Tick

He went towards it. He didn’t hear anyone call him back as he went to the door in the middle of nowhere. He wondered what it was doing out there.

He opened it easily. He looked back. He normally didn’t act on these sorts of impulses, but something was wrong. He could feel it. He needed to do this.

He walked through the door, coming to a winding path of halls. He began to walk. Occasionally, he’d see little glowing markers. He went down those hallways; he had a feeling they were important. He couldn’t explain it; it was like something was leading him to something big.

He looked around at the emerald-colored floors. The trim was intricate; it looked like someone had hand-carved it, taking hours of work just to hang here. He had the feeling it would’ve been an honor to have completed a project like that. The tapestries that hung on the walls had the same vibe; it was like they were made specifically for these granite walls.

He had the distinct feeling he’d been here before but couldn’t place when. It was like thinking back to a dream you’d had years before. He looked around.

Occasionally he’d see beautiful statues made from expensive-looking material. He had no idea where he was, but it felt like he’d seen them before. He frowned, trying to think. His breathing was harsh, even though he hadn’t done much actual exercise. He tried to wrack his brain.

He heard voices. He checked the glowing markers; they went straight to the voices. He understood the language, though he didn’t think he’d ever heard it before.

“Mother, why must I learn about this?”

“Because you will need to know soon, darling,” a woman answered.

He peaked his head around the threshold. He saw a woman and a child sitting on an expensive-looking bed with silky sheets.

“Mother, I promise I am ready-”

“Darling, I know you are ready for combat. I want your life to have more than that.”

Danny stepped further into view. Both of their heads snapped towards him. The woman furrowed her brow as the child grabbed a knife from under the pillow.

“INTRUDER!” He shouted, starting to lunge at him.

“Darling, stop,” the woman murmured.

She walked up to him. She was beautiful. She was vaguely familiar; why was everything so familiar-

“Habibi,” she said. Darling, his mind supplied. “What are you doing in this place? How did you get here?”

He opened his mouth to tell her of his parents and their road trip. He couldn’t get the words out. Instead, he stammered out, “I- I’m not sure.”

She placed a hand on his cheek. “You are very flushed,” she said. She turned over her shoulder.

“Darling, go get a servant. Ask them, nicely, to bring me some cold water.”

He nodded seriously. “Yes, mother.”

He started running as fast as his small feet would carry him.

The woman turned back to him. “Jason, your father is incredibly worried for you. Where did you come from?”

He was more confused than he was before. “My name is Danny,” he said.

The woman looked more concerned. “Habibi, what do you speak of?”

The feeling that had been building made his stomach roll. “I think we’re in trouble,” he muttered, almost collapsing.

She caught him easily. “Who is ‘we’, habibi?”

He licked his lips. “Me and Jason.”

She sat him down. “Explain.”

He tried to think. “I-I think, we’re being held... captive?”

She nodded. “I heard the same rumor. Where are you?”

He closed his eyes. He tried to think. “It hurts,” he whimpered. He felt her cup his cheek, stroking his hair.

“I know. Describe where you are, habibi, so we can help you and Jason.”

“... White. White room.”

“Good, good, what about the people?”

His breath hitched. “White suit.”

He opened his eyes. His gaze caught a mirror. If he turned his head right...

“She’s giving him soup.”

The woman looked at him. “What?”

“The- the lady. She’s giving him soup,” he repeated.

He vaguely registered her looking to follow his gaze. “You see him? In the mirror?”

“Yes,” he said. “She had two bowls... I don’t know why- I think she’s getting me something cold.”

“Can you hear them?”

He shook his head slightly. “I think I could before. I couldn’t hear them this time.”

She hummed. “Why did they take you?”

He made a pained noise. “I... I can’t remember. Everything’s wrong. I can’t think-”

“Shh,” she soothed. “It’s alright, habibi. Just relax,” she rubbed his shoulder. “Try to think. What happened when they took you?”

He tried to think. It was like trying to remember a past life.

“They don’t like us.”

He heard her hum again. “You’re doing well,” she said. She rubbed his cheek. “Habibi, why don’t they like you and Jason?”

He felt something painful in his wrist. “They don’t think we’re human.”

She blinked. “What does that mean, habibi?”

He tried to remember. Why didn’t they think he was human again? He felt pretty human right now.

“I...” he trailed off. “She’s back.”

The small child the woman had sent out earlier came back, a cup of cold water in his hand. “Mother, I could not find a servant, so I did the task myself.”

She gently took the water from him. “Thank you, darling. Can you leave us for a few moments?”

He looked like he wanted to pout. “Yes, mother,” he said instead, leaving the room once more.

She held the glass to Danny’s lips at the same time the boy, Jason, held a spoon to his. The cold was soothing, filling his body with relief. The water only soothed for a few seconds.

The woman holding him in her arms tried to ask a question, but he couldn’t hear her. He realized it was the cold broth that soothed his insides. He shook with effort, trying to get his body to hold the spoon.

He got it. He began to watch himself spoon it into his mouth and swallow. With each mouth full, he felt better. He looked at the woman.

“She came back. She gave me cold broth,” he whispered. His face scrunched in concentration. “I don’t think she’s nice. She’s better than the rest, but she feels... weird.”

The woman smoothed over his hair. “Habibi, I know it’s hard, but can you remember anything else?”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t remember why they wanted him, or why his body felt like it was on fire. He couldn’t identify the feeling in his chest.

“I don’t,” he said, “I’m sorry. I-”

He got an idea. He grabbed her wrist. “My name is Daniel James Fenton,” he said. “Please. Please, look into them. Jack and Maddie, my parents. I- I think-”

He thought of the portal that didn’t work. Was it always like that? Hadn’t it been active? He couldn’t remember very much.

“You think what, habibi?” she asked, not unkindly.

“I think they have something to do with this.”

His eyes stared at nothing. Memories slammed into him, one after another. His eyes welled up.

“I wasn’t good enough for them,” he said. Tears began streaming down his face.

“For whom, habibi?”

“For them,” he emphasized. “They don’t love me anymore. They think I killed him,” he cried.

“Killed who?” She asked franticly.

“Danny,” he said. “They think I killed Danny-”

Memories flooded him. They came too fast for him to explain.

“I hurt him,” he cried. “I hurt Dash, they yelled, they found out-”

“Found what out, habibi? You need to slow down; I do not understand.”

He couldn’t. Slow down, that is. The memory of the worst day of his life snatched his breath. He screamed.

His body began glowing in a familiar pattern, going from the center of his palm to just above his heart on his chest. It tore into him, consumed everything; any rational thought he’d had before.

Tick, Tick, Tick

The woman tried to help him; he could vaguely hear her yelling something above his head.

He knew it was too late. Something inside of him told him so.

When the pain subsided just a bit, he looked at her. “It’s the GIW!” he yelled.

She snapped her head at him. “What?!”

“It’s the-”

He disappeared from her grasp. He tried to hang onto her clothing as he was snatched from her grasp; it did not work.

He was slammed back into his body besides Jason, his arm aching from the center of his-

That’s right. He looked at his half-formed hand, shaking. The pain wrapped around his wrist like a cuff, feeling like it was cutting off the circulation. He half expected to look down and find it purple.

He nearly fell off the bed. Jason caught him, trying to calm him down. “Dude,” he said, “Phantom! Phantom, what’s-”

Tears flowed down his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he said pathetically.

The other boy laughed slightly. “For what?”

“I couldn’t- I tried-”

Jason took him in his arms, rubbing his back. “Hey, breathe,” he said softly, “You’re not making much sense. You need to calm down, Phantom,” he said.

His body convulsed. He sobbed into the other boy’s shoulder.

“I wasn’t good enough,” he cried. “I’m sorry, I tried- I tried to tell her,”

“Shhh,” he replied, rocking him softly. “You need to calm down,” he said.

Danny looked up at him pathetically, another round of violent sobs overtaking him.

Jason, the saint he was, rolled with it. He soothed him as best as he could, rubbing down his back and shoulders. Eventually, he calmed down enough to have some semblance of having his life together. The tears stopped. He opened his mouth to tell him what he’d just seen.

The jingle of keys caught their attention. They looked towards the door, seeing an agent they’d interacted with before.

“Come on, maggots,” he said severely. “I’ve been told to take you to the bathroom.”

They followed him. Jason took his good hand in his. They followed the agent to the bathroom, trailing slightly behind as much as they could. Jason rubbed circles into his flesh as they walked.

When they got there, he went for the sink. He turned on the cold water, splashing it over himself. Once he felt like he cooled down as much as he could, he went to the stall to use the bathroom.

He had no idea if that was a real thing he’d seen or if he was just hallucinating. He thought it might not matter; whatever just happened, it’s not like he’d actually given the woman anything useful. Even if he had, what would she have done?

It was probably just his subconscious trying to soothe itself. His parents loving him, taking care of him like they used to; it was probably just a fever-induced dream. He shouldn’t read too much into it.

False hope was going to hurt more if he allowed it to. He knew there was nobody coming; his friends could easily track his ecto-signature, and he still hadn’t heard anything from Ellie. They probably cut their losses.  

That was fine. He’d been the placeholder all his life; he should’ve known that, eventually, Sam and Tucker would also move on. He’d always been someone that filled the space until someone better came along. It was his fault if he was hurt that they’d finally gone and done that very thing.

Jason looked at him, concerned. He washed his hands and bent down, drinking straight from the tap. He allowed the cold to run through his veins and cool him down; his head felt clear. He felt like he could think. He’d probably still tell Jason about it; it was just a dream he’d had when he wasn’t in his right mind.

Jason handed him a bottle. He smiled at him and filled it with cold water. He could see Jason filling his with warm. He vaguely remembered that Jason was sensitive to the cold.

He wondered why they had different temperature needs. He wondered what Jason’s core was like. He might check that out when they got to the room; he wouldn’t want to try anything in the bathroom in case someone walked in on them.

When they were about to leave, he got an idea. He took his tank top off, running it under the cold tap. Jason watched him as he wrung it out and put it back on.

“Smart,” he muttered.

Thanks,” he replied.

They made sure the bottles were in Jason’s hoodie pocket before they left. They walked back down the halls, the twists and turns melting together and giving him a low-grade headache.

When they got into the room, the agent shut the door and locked it. Jason looked at him before giving him his water.

He thanked him quietly. They looked at each other for a few minutes.

“All right,” he said eventually, “I’ll bite. Phantom, what was that earlier?”

He took a deep breath before explaining. “I don’t know, man,” he said finally, “I think my brain just likes fucking with me. ‘Why couldn’t you be good enough for your parents, you piece of shit? Huh? You a little bitch boy?’” he mocked.

Jason snorted at him. “I don’t think it’s stupid, if it makes you feel better. That is weird, though. I wonder what was up with the rich people shit.”

He shrugged. “Maybe it was me associating one of my friends with safety? Her parents are rich as shit.”

Jason shrugged again. “Who knows? Brains are weird,” he said. “And if it makes you feel better,” he said getting close and booping him on the nose, “You’re more than good enough for me. You’re my brother, you hear? If anything, they’re not good enough for you.”

He smiled a bit. “Thanks, Ja-”

“Cardinal. Code names, remember?”

“Shoot, that dream has me more fucked up than I realized,” he said. “Sorry, Cardinal. Thank you.”

He waved him off. “You’re okay, man.”

He linked their pinkies together. They sat in silence for a few minute before he suddenly perked up. “By the way,” he said.

Danny looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

He saw the other boy take a deep breath. He looked over to the door before going under his hoodie and into his belt. He could hear two ‘Snap! Snap!’s before he pulled out his hand.

He blinked. “Cardinal. What am I looking at?”

When he looked back up, the other boy was smiling guiltily at him. “I stole this earlier,” he said lowly and held out the watch. “And I may have took this from the van?”

He held out a gun. It was smaller than any of the ones he’d seen before. He sighed. “Cardinal-”

“I know, I should’ve mentioned this way earlier, but I didn’t know how to bring it up,” he said.

He took it gently. He inspected it. “Okay, I haven’t seen this model before,” he said, “But I think I can figure it out. This-” he pointed to the cartridge, “Is where they put vials of ectoplasm.”

He watched Jason nod.

“This one’s empty,” he said, It looks like they discarded it for some reason. I don’t think it’s broken, but I can take a look when my hand regrows.”

He watched Jason take a deep breath. “Do you think we could rig it up to take ectoplasm from our bodies to fuel it?”

He blinked. He brought his left hand up, stroking his chin with what was formed. “Maybe. I’ve never thought of doing it like that before.”

Jason nodded. “It doesn’t need to be perfect,” he said. “It just needs to vaguely work.”

He nodded. “I can probably do that. We might need to steal some material, though,” he contemplated.

“Done. Just let me know and we’ll keep an eye out.”

He grinned. He loved having someone so on board with his plans.

“I think we can get away with using some scalpels as tools,” he said.

“I have a lock picking kit on me, do you think those’ll work?”

He shrugged. “What do they look like?”

Jason took the kit out of his belt. Danny took it from him gently, looking it over. “Yeah, these might be able to unscrew something,” he said.

He helped the boy pack it all up and away in his belt. “I think we’ll need... man, I wonder if they have some sort of specter deflector?”

“What?”

“Something that deflects ghosts,” he explained.

Jason shrugged. “I’d assume so?”

They talked lowly for a few more minutes, going over ideas. Eventually, Jason took the blue journal from the ceiling, tossing it down to Danny.

Sketching ideas was fun. There was still an undercurrent of hurt in his chest.

He didn’t think he’d ever understand why he wasn’t good enough for his mom. Why they disowned him so quick; the hatred in his father’s eyes.

It was a look he hadn’t seen even on the agent’s faces. He looked over to Jason.

He couldn’t imagine doing something like that to him. Or to Ellie, or Jazz, or Tucker and Sam. He didn’t think he’d ever understand why, or how, his parents could do it to him. It was like they didn’t even have to think about it; they’d done it as easily as breathing.

At least he had Jason. He’d had the dream woman. From what Jason said, he’d probably have the Bat too, when they met; apparently, he was in the early stages of an adoption addiction, and Jason was already planning on making it worse by getting him to adopt the neighbor.

They put the journal away before they lay on the cot. They could think about this more tomorrow.

He was still unnaturally warm, but he’d been getting steadily better. He hoped that was a good sign.

He cuddled up to Jason. He hoped the dream was some sort of sign they were going to survive. That there were still people out there looking for them.

He suddenly felt silly for feeling like his friends and sisters forgot about him. Of course, they hadn’t.

After all, he didn’t forget about them just because he had Jason. He just had to be patient.

He just had to survive a little longer.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 16 - Empire In Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Okay, now onto the May reviews! Backlog vanishing before my eyes (or at least is now only 6 books long).

So I went into this book almost entirely blind – my roommate had gotten it as a secret santa gift from someone without much understanding of their taste in fiction, and it had just been laying unopened on the book shelf for four months until I grabbed it entirely based on the author.

I have actually read a decent amount of Tchaikovsky before – Children of Time and Ruin, and then Elder Race – but Empire was honestly entirely different than any of them (beyond a clear aesthetic fascination with anthropods, anyways). Which really only makes sense, considering it’s the first volume of a ten-book map fantasy series instead of hard sci fi or a fairly literary genre-blending novella, and also that it was published the better part of a decade before any of them. But these are things I did not know!

Anyway, there was some fast expectation adjustment going on as I read; the book is map fantasy, of the ‘could basically be someone’s D&D campaign except for how often they split the party’ variety. The central conceits (or gimmicks, depending on how uncharitable you’re feeling) are first of all that instead of having a world populated by humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, and so forth, everyone in the setting is one type of another of insect/arachnid-kinden, humans offshoots whose ancestors infused themselves with the essences of some of the gigantic anthropods who are what the world has instead of chimera and dragons. They physically vary about as much as people in fantasy worlds usually do, and also they each have their own kind of magic. Importantly, the ability to understand, use and maintain complex machinery – to be ‘apt’ – is one of those inherited types of magic, and the Lowlands (the books setting) went through some real upheavel a couple centuries back when the Apt ants and beetles got good enough at technology to overthrow their wasp and mantis overlords.

The story itself is about the looming threat of conquest by the expandsionist Wasp Empire on the border of the Lowlands, and the refusal of the city states’ robber barons and magnates to see it as a threat instead of a profitable trading partner. The protagonists are barely-grown students who are wards or clients of an aging self-appointed spymaster whose been trying to rouse the alarm who are thrown into the spy games after a botched assassination attempt and from there there are duels, slavers, airships, prison breaks, heroic resistance fighters, love triangles, fraught long-lost parental relationships, etc, etc.

That probably sounds pretty dismissive, but I do want to emphasize that it’s not at all bad – it’s just all much more conventional than I’m used to from Tchaikovsky, which is was a bit disappointing. Tropey as it all was, it was still fun, and well-executed and -written enough to be the most enjoyable book I’d read in a decent bit.

Anyway, if a book must have fantasy race science with civilizations of entirely-human-but-also-meaningfully-biologically-distinct demographics, I thought this was pretty well done? Mainly in that it always seemed pretty clear that the ostensible immutable differences in character and intelligence between them are just our main POV being sheltered and unthinkingly racist, and it just barely manages to avoid having one of the kinden be ‘the evil one’, or be a bunch of stupid savages (barely).

I also did appreciate that Tchaikovsky managed to avoid making the Lowlands seem like any sort of utopia (or even, like, a good place – slavery and amoral robber barons and violent chauvinism everywhere), without it ever really being in question whether the whole place getting conquered by the vaguely Roman slaver empire would be any sort of good thing. Likewise also kind of amusing how the main villain’s whole subplot involves having his nose repeatedly rubbed in the fact that, even if he is personally incorruptible and devoted only to the good of the empire, absolutely none of his superiors, peers or subordinates are.)

Anyway, overall a fun read, most of the main cast was pretty endearing, fun pulpy adventure plot with not-entirely-awful pacing, love triangle plot that didn’t entirely make me was to light the book on fire. Still, can’t say it got anywhere close to inspiring me to read the other 9 volumes of the series.

[theshippirate22]

OD part 2 lol love you fam

Hunter actually felt okay.

His time on the floor had done him some good and whatever blood pressure issue had presented itself had also clearly resolved itself with the nap.

He blinked away some of the cloudiness, and when most but not all of it disappeared, he reached instinctively for his glasses and groped around until he found the frames.

He shoved them up his face and propped himself up on his elbows and suddenly did not feel okay again.

He wasn’t in Willablues anymore, like he expected. He’s been out longer than he thought apparently, because he was in a blindingly white room in some sort of hospital-adjacent bed with rough white sheets, wearing white scrubs. There was no window, no concept of time, just white.

He threw the blanket off and swung his legs to the side.

“Don’t try to stand.”

Hunter froze, back to the voice in poorly concealed shock.

“Learned that the hard way,” she continued.

He blinked. He was afraid to look, actually, because he would know her voice in death and due to her own circumstances, he was starting to wonder if that was the situation.

“Am I dead?” He blurted suddenly, braving to face her.

Amber smiled when she saw him, looking over his face like it had been too long since she’d seen him. Like she needed to remember exactly what he looked like, like she would need to draw him from memory.

“No, you’re not. Not yet anyway.”

He bit his lip. Thought about what information he had to try and gather some sort of sense.

“Is it really you, or is it just my head?”

Amber climbed onto the bed and threw herself back against his pillows the way she used to. “Does it matter?”

He laid back next to her, on his side, and it was so familiar it almost felt foreign. He couldn’t count how many times they’d laid exactly like this in his bed, usually whispering because Eliza was asleep in the other room, discussing girls and work and sometimes unpacking their deeply unsettling psychological issues.

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Well, that’s usually how it works, but you’ve always been stupid enough to work around conventions.”

He chuckled. She thumbed his cheekbone adoringly.

"We need naloxone!" Lyn was screaming. Hunter had gone from barely alive to hardly alive in the minutes that they stood there arguing.

"We need to wait for the paramedics!" Missy was screaming right back.

"We have to give him something!"

"We don't know it's an overdose!"

"I do! I was researching it just the other day for a fic I was writing!"

"It won't hurt him if we give him naloxone and it's not an overdose!" Caleb offered. "It will hurt him if we don't do anything and it is an overdose!"

"Are you saying he's an addict? Why in the world would he be ODing? Give me one good reason!"

The voices and the arguments fluctuated between all of them, Rich and Elijah included, until it was hard to figure out who was saying what.

"We can't just go stabbing people when they faint!"

"His symptoms match!"

"He didn't take anything!"

"You don't know that!"

"Get a naloxone! NOW!"

"DON'T do that! I'm in charge!"

"Why won't you just trust me?"

"Corporate will be pissed if-"

"Oh FUCK corporate! His fucking heart is SHUTTING DOWN!"

"THE PARAMEDICS ARE COMING!"

"HE PROBABLY DOESN'T HAVE THAT KIND OF TIME!"

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!"

"GET HIM SOME GODDAMN NARCAN!"

A hand slammed down on Hunter's leg with a loud click and the naloxone injection pierced straight through his scrubs, through his skin, his muscle. Missy screamed at the sound of plastic on flesh and Lyn flinched so hard she fell backward.

The back end of the needle stuck out painfully in the space between them, jammed into the soft part of Hunter's thigh.

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"

Caleb's chest heaved. He pulled his shaking hand back and knocked his glasses up higher on his nose. "Decision made. Take it out of my wages and tell corporate to suck my dick."

Lyn stared up at him in some indescribable admiration.

Rich leaned back on his haunches, dragging his hands down his face. "Give it a couple minutes."

"Should I be worried?" Hunter mumbled against where Amber's fingertips had danced down to the corner of his mouth.

She smiled peculiarly and he knew that meant she didn't know, but it still drained his anxiety regardless.

It was either a lifetime or an instant as she silently traced the contours of his face, again with some serene desperation to have it committed to memory. There was finality in the whole thing, like this was most definitely the last time they'd see each other. It was slow and soft, the way it ought to be, not angry and dark and frightening the way it had been for him, and god, how it must've been for her.

Her touch grew firmer, as if she could absorb his thoughts and didn't like the direction of them, the release of that dark spot in his mind that poisoned everything else it could touch.

Eventually, she whispered, "It wasn't your fault."

There was urgency in that, suddenly, as if time was fading quickly and both of them had suddenly become aware of it. He saved them the rigamarole of the what was? because he knew what she meant. There was only one thing.

"It was," he murmured miserably.

"No, I'm telling you it wasn't."

"But-"

"You did good, Hunter. God, you did so good. Promise. You were perfect to me."

"I should've-"

Her fingers moved back down to his mouth to cut him off. "No, you couldn't. You did everything right. It wasn't your fault."

"You're gone..." Hunter choked, the feeling that she was already slipping away growing in him like some parasite. He grabbed at her shoulder to keep her there, to preserve her just another moment...

"You can try to save everyone, Hunter, and you will, I know you. Admirable as it is, you can't carry it when they refuse. It wasn't your fault. Couldn't have been. You need to let it go."

The tears came flooding from his face before he could stop them. "No, no, no! It's not... I could've... You... God, Amber!"

"Let it go," she consolingly pulled down his glasses. "Let me go..."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Amber!" He stared up at the fluorescent lights in this horrid apathetic dreamscape and tried to blink it away, blink away everything, even the sickness in his stomach that was turning to bile racing up his throat.

The lights went yellow and then white and then a sort of light blue with each blink before leveling out again until they weren't the dream lights at all and the nauseous feeling was inescapable.

Hunter lurched from Lyn's arms and vomited everywhere.

Missy sobbed and Lyn cried in relief, pulling him back against her almost instantly, arms locked under his and across his chest, and buried her face in his neck to bawl. Caleb kicked away the re-capped naloxone and rested his forehead somewhere near Hunter's stomach.

Hunter stared at the ceiling, at those goddamn fucking lights, and blinked again and again like it might take him back, for just a moment, to the place with Amber, and when he decided it wasn't going to happen, he was instead hyper-aware of Lyn's hands on his chest, her breath against his neck and the sound of Elijah on the phone with his sister.

The dark spot- that evil, Amber-cursed place in his mind- didn't get locked back up. It raced through his bloodstream, and he imagined it trailing up like smoking from the throbbing injection point in his thigh and getting devoured by the lights.

And he felt okay about that.

Let her go.

He reached up to hold the back of Lyn's head and Caleb's shoulder and Lyn grabbed onto him even tighter and babbled incoherently about what a fucking asshole he was.

"Hey," he rasped, forcing down the acidic taste of his own vomit and forcing out the stale air from his appropriately-functioning lungs. "I told you that protein shake tasted weird."

[michelleelizabethtanner]

💞 and 🎉 for the asks!

Ty so much for the ask!! ❤️❤️

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

When I read (anything, not just fic), I read to get to know a person. I really enjoy people and like understanding what makes them tick. So in fic, for me the most important part is accurate characterization. There doesn’t even need to be a world, although I admire it when authors manage to build a beautiful and believable one. I rarely even notice the technical aspects of a story, like grammar or vocabulary, although I do like to collect interesting words people use, especially verbs. (I do notice tone and telling instead of showing, but that’s just all part of amateur writing. Don’t read amateur writing if you’re expecting edited perfection or full mastery of writing conventions. 🤷‍♀️) But accurate characterization is where it’s at for me. This includes dialogue, pace, mannerisms, motivations. If it’s Brio, they can’t just proclaim their love for each other or start interfering in each other’s lives in ways we never saw in canon. Their dialogue has to be believably them. I need to be able to see and hear the characters, not the author who wrote them. It takes me right out of the story when these pieces seem inaccurate and I can’t visualize that reality for them. This is also what I work hardest on in my own writing and what I’m most critical of myself about. (This, and telling instead of showing. I sometimes go back and re-read and just cringe with all the added qualifiers I’ve added to certain scenes or conversations. Beating the reader over the head with my point. I need to take a class lol.)

🎉how often do you celebrate completing & posting a work? how often do you give yourself the credit/validation that you seek from others when you post? (if you don't, you should!)

Is it wrong to say that sometimes I celebrate with every completed sentence? It makes it sound like writing fanfics is work and not fun, and I don’t want to make it sound that way. It’s definitely a hobby and I like the puzzle of making something tangible out of vague ideas. Sometimes, though, it’s difficult to see how the pieces should fit together, so very frequently managing to find 10-15 free mins and to write even a sentence or two is an accomplishment. I’ve found that very often it isn’t massive rewrite that pops everything into place. It’s almost always a word or two, placed just so, that changes the whole trajectory of the written scene and better represents my intended ideas. So it always gives me that feeling of accomplishment when I feel like I’m satisfied with the message, cadence, character depiction, etc of any given section. If I could quantify how much time I spend just adding and subtracting words from my sentences to make the correct number of syllables to maintain “the beat…” That time spent ultimately produces very little finished product, but it serves my internal metronome when re-reading so I’m at least able to stomach my own work. I don’t think anyone else would even notice those changes, but I celebrate all that.

And I of course absolutely adore AO3 Fridays when I have something to share. Just the act of posting something new makes me feel so accomplished! I like how AO3 for me is kind of synonymous now with the weekend and wrapping up of my “have to” responsibilities and getting to do some of my “want to”s. It feels like a celebration in itself.

[ariannadi]

Come Home to my Heart (3/6)

- Part 4/? of A Girl out of Time (Adaman x OC)

Read the series here/background context on Ao3

All works (including art) will be/are crossposted to Tumblr!

------------------------------

By the end of the day, Hikari would officially belong to the Diamond Clan as Adaman’s wife.

Although she’d been engaged to him for a couple of months now, everything became real the moment she sat on the floor of Arezu’s hut so her friend could gussy her up a little before she donned her ceremonial robes.

“You’re very quiet,” Arezu commented as she thoroughly combed through Hikari’s long, flaxen hair—previously lathered and rinsed with various oils to bring out its shine. “Pre-wedding jitters?”

“I guess you could say that,” the bride-to-be answered with a small smile, and stared towards her knees. “…If I tell you something, do you promise to keep it between us?”

“Only if I’m to be in on it, as well,” came the voice of Mai, who entered the vicinity without warning. “Hopefully you’re not having second thoughts about marrying my brother?”

“No, nothing like that,” Hikari was quick to intercept, shaking her head. “I… I overheard some gossip when I was headed this way. Seems not everyone is pleased with the idea of me marrying Adaman and they made sure I was aware of it.”

“Ah, that lot,” Arezu sighed, scooting around to start applying a light charcoal to her eyes. “Our leader is considered quite the catch amongst the clan members of his age; always has been. Some actually care for his well-being, but others just want to be on his arm as co-leader. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them never let you live this down, given you’re an outlander.”

“Great…” Hikari groaned, pulling her knees into her chest despite Arezu’s huff of protest. “I don’t… I don’t want to cause any problems for Adaman. I love him more than life itself, but…”

“Then that’s all that matters,” Mai cut in, her words holding a finality to them. When she approached Hikari and Arezu, the former noticed the bundle of material she was carrying—her wedding attire. “What Arezu failed to mention-“ Mai continued, shooting the redhead a look, “-is the fact that you can count on your fingers the number of people who oppose this union; and surprisingly Melli isn’t among them. Which means: you have the support of everyone that actually matters.”

“Wait. Melli supports us?” Hikari questioned, genuinely shocked. Both Mai and Arezu smiled at her dumbfounded expression.

“You make Adaman happy, and at the end of the day that’s all Melli wants for him, despite how much of a pain he can be about it,” Mai explained. Hikari was humbled by that, weirdly enough, and a small, relieved smile rose on her cheeks.

“Alright, enough of the somber talk—I need to finish your makeup,” Arezu cheerily piped in, immediately setting to work again.

“And I’ll assist with your robes as soon as she’s satisfied,” followed Mai with a wink. “You’re going to look so gorgeous, Hikari. Adaman is practically vibrating out of his skin in anticipation. The pre-ceremony rites and what have you are only doing so much in distracting him.”

“Sounds like Adaman,” Hikari laughed. “Though… I actually almost fell asleep during my purification cleanse this morning. So I’m not much better.”

“I suppose it’s not a common practice in the future, then?” Mai asked with a humored expression.

“In some places it still is, but overall, no,” Hikari answered, and shrugged. “But, I really don’t mind it. I’m marrying into your clan, after all. I want to be respectful of your traditions.”

“Well, you and Adaman haven’t exactly been conventional, so it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal if you’d skipped a few steps,” Arezu said flippantly, and tapped a bit of coral rouge on her lips. “For both the Diamond and Pearl clans, usually a pair of fathers would’ve arranged the union after a period of camaraderie and the formal exchanging of gifts. However, Adaman’s father passed when he was just a babe; and yours…”

“My father was never in the picture,” Hikari quietly supplied, and began playing with her hair (to her friend’s chagrin). “That being said, there obviously isn’t a means of him being here; so ultimately it wouldn’t have mattered.“

Knowing they’d be curious about the inevitable, she added, “I do wish my mother were here. As well as my friends from that era. But… I had already made my peace with all of that when I decided to stay. I have all of you, and I have Adaman. I’m ready for my life here in Hisui to truly begin.”

----------------------------------------

Adaman was already kneeling at the relic to Dialga in the center of the settlement when Hikari, now donning her wedding attire, exited Arezu’s hut. The remainder of the clan, as well as everyone she and Adaman had invited from Jubilife Village and the Pearl Clan, were dispersed in various spots around him. Despite having his back to her, she noted that he too had been clothed in robes similar to her own, and that he wore a headdress resembling Dialga’s horns.

As she studied her betrothed, the crowd beyond her became aware of her presence and shifted their attention to her—a vast majority wearing joyful smiles. Being his impatient self, Adaman also whipped his head around to get a glance at her, and his jaw nearly hit the floor. It gave her the boost of confidence she hadn’t realized she needed in that moment, and she beamed at him.

That’s when Mai placed a hand on her back, and gently pushed her towards her destination, while Arezu took her place amongst the others. It wasn’t long before Hikari was at Adaman’s side, and she somehow managed to kneel next to him without tripping over her robes.

“You know, normally I’d be the one to officiate the ceremony, but it seems I’m a little preoccupied at the moment,” he quietly told her as though they weren’t about to be wed. Hikari appreciated the casual banter though, and she snorted under her breath.

“I suppose it’s a good thing you have Mai as backup, hm?” she asked, playing along.

“Indeed,” he agreed, finally turning to look at her properly. “Just look at you. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a more beautiful sight in my life.”

“Adaman…” she shyly uttered, and couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on her rosy cheeks. When he offered her his hand, she took it, and he laced their fingers together.

“Forgive me if I seem a little nervous—if someone told me two years ago that an outlander from the sky would not only save my homeland, but also eventually become my wife, I likely would’ve thought them mad. It’s all just a bit… surreal,” Adaman confessed, looking sheepish.

“It’s bewildering for me as well, Adaman,” Hikari soothed, squeezing his hand. “But… all weddings are, right? It’s quite the life-changing event, after all. Even if our circumstances are a bit out of the ordinary.”

Her fiancé chuckled, and brought her hand to his lips. “Always the voice of reason. Thank Mighty Dialga you agreed to be mine.”

“Ahem,” Mai interrupted from where she stood in front of them, having had to witness their not-so-private conversation. “I know you two are in your own little world right now, but we do have onlookers present. Shall we begin?”

“Of course,” Adaman answered, and sent a wink Hikari’s way, who just giggled.

Mai began the ceremony then; recounting from various scrolls the Diamond Clan’s teachings about marriage, it’s sanctity, and how it correlated to Mighty Dialga (and ultimately Almighty Sinnoh). She had Adaman recite a series of vows as old as the existence of their people, and then Hikari recited her own to the best of her abilities. When that was finished, the couple partook in the pouring and drinking of sake, officiating their union to all who were present.

And just like that, they were husband and wife. Mai happily announced them as such as they turned to face the crowd, and almost everyone broke into cheers. Some even began bawling outright. Hikari felt her own eyes starting to blur with tears as reality set in, but Adaman was quick to reach over and dab them away with his sleeve.

“Hey… you okay?” he cooed for her ears alone, and then Hikari actually did cry.

“I-I’m fine. I am,” she hiccuped, and smiled as Adaman tenderly cupped her face between his palms. “I-I’m just… happy.”

“As am I, my light from the sky. The happiest I’ve ever been,” he softly uttered, his expression one of pure adoration. And then he kissed her; not minding one bit that all of their guests were still present.

 The feast that followed was one for the books. Not only were platters of meats, potato mochi, and various other dishes abundant, but the wine also flowed freely amongst a majority who attended, and it showed as the celebration continued into the early hours of the morning.

Once Hikari had had her fill of being yanked around for gifts, sips of liquor, and the occasional group dance, she wandered off towards the edge of the Diamond Settlement for a breather. Adaman, noticing her absence almost immediately, wasn’t far behind.

“Needed a moment?” he asked, attempting to adjust his lopsided headdress but quickly giving up. Hikari laughed, and reached up to help him.

“Our loved ones sure know how to have a good time—unfortunately I wasn’t much of a party-goer in my original era. Do you think everyone’s drunk enough at this point to not notice me slip away for a few hours of sleep?”

“Possibly,” Adaman chuckled. “Might I join you in our home, if you’re not tired of me yet?”

Hikari felt a little thrill at the way he uttered our home,  and slid her arms over his shoulders. “I’ll never tire of you, husband,” she whispered, then leaned up on her toes and kissed his smiling lips with her own.

“Ah, I do hope I’m not interrupting anything—seems I’ve arrived at the peak of the celebration,” came a gentle voice from behind the couple, who parted only to acknowledge whoever had stumbled upon them.

“Mistress Cogita?” Hikari squeaked in surprise, staring at the mysterious older woman (who still wore black tulle despite being at a wedding) as she floated gracefully towards them. Tucked under her arm was a box with frilly ribbon tied around it.

“Hello, dears,” Cogita greeted properly, and did a little bow. “My most heartfelt congratulations to you both on your marriage; I suppose it won’t be long now before we see little blue-and-blonde haired babies toddling about the Crimson Mirelands, hm?”

“I-well, I… uh-“ Adaman sputtered, turning a deep shade of red, and looked to Hikari for help despite his wife’s abrupt coughing fit. Cogita just broke down into laughter at their reactions.

“Oh, you two are just adorable! I couldn’t help teasing you, my apologies,” she chortled, dabbing at her tears of mirth with a handkerchief. “Despite my antics, I promise I am here for a reason,” she insisted, and held out the box she carried towards Hikari.

“Oh! Uh…” the other woman floundered, then reached out and carefully took the gift into her arms, which wasn’t very heavy despite its longer size.

“I’ll have you open it now, if you don’t mind. I’d love to stay for the remainder of the party, but I’m afraid I’m not much for socialization these days,” Cogita told her, eyes expectant. As per the elder’s wishes, Hikari began undoing the ribbon covering the box, only to remove the lid situated on top. Her eyes widened at what she saw sitting within—for staring her straight in the face was the symbol representing Arceus.

“Allow me,” Cogita offered, and pulled out the object, which turned out to be a white, long-sleeved gown reminiscent of the garb Volo had worn while wielding Giratina. The symbol of Arceus Hikari had previously observed was embroidered into the front of the garment, towards the hem.

It was rather lovely; but even still, Hikari looked at Cogita in confusion. Her husband, still studying the gown, was faring no better.

“You belong to the people of Dialga now, but the true Almighty Sinnoh has yet to be properly disclosed to all within the region. I had hoped that you, as its chosen, would continue what the people of Celestica could not, and be that source of knowledge as it is needed,” the older woman explained, then sighed. “I’ve tried many a time over these long years. I have. But with you—you who are actively leading Hisui towards a brighter future—I do believe they’ll listen.”

“Cogita…” Hikari muttered, speechless, and the older woman came forward, placing the gown in her arms.

“You are as much of Celestica as I, found one. And for that, I give you my blessing,” she spoke warmly into Hikari’s ear, then patted at the girl’s hand as she pulled away. “Well, I best be off now; I’ll let you two get back to your canoodling.”

“Madam!” Adaman practically screeched, once again red in the face, and Cogita let out a loud cackle.

“Honestly, my boy, you’re so easy to fluster!” she managed between puffs of laughter. Waving at them both as she walked away, she called out, “Take care, my dears! Until our paths cross again!” before seemingly disappearing through the trees.

[divinewill]

Capítulo Veinte: I’d Come Back for You

I woke up in the middle of the night, on the floor.

Madison didn’t seem to hear me.

I suddenly remembered struggling to convince her to use the bed, and that I’d be willing to sleep on a mat on the floor. I sighed and went back to sleep, had another nightmare, and we woke up early. Madison watched me perform my morning exercise routine, which I think interested her as an animator, and we both got dressed.

I had Madison take a shower first, and we made our way downstairs where father, who never slept for over two hours at a time, had already made breakfast. By smell alone, I knew what he was making: carne guisada tacos, refried beans, and waffles. His Tex-Mex cuisine’s quality was enough to sustain a successful restaurant.

Madison’s presence was enjoyable. I always wanted siblings, but as the only survivor of my nuclear bio-family, and adopted by parents who themselves couldn’t conceive, this wasn’t a plausible possibility. So, this was a welcomed change of pace, and I could tell that my father was enjoying our company as well.

The news confirmed that some within the GSSDO’s membership were at once human and yet starmen. With the appearance of magical girls, superheroes, kaijū, pet monsters, secret societies with ties to the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, and now human-aliens, it seemed as if fiction itself was becoming real. I pondered if the fantasies of men were precognitive, and if the lore stored in my eidetic memory from years of avid readership might have information useful in the trials and tribulations to come.

Madison asked my father, “So, you run a vtuber corporation?”

He admitted, “Primarily? Yes, but I deal with plenty of media. The real money lies in merchandizing, such as toys, figures, comics, video games, etc.”

Madison noted, “I think I saw some of your products advertised in the Winter Comic Market last year. I bought a copy of the ‘Weltuntergangsuhr’ dōjin compendium there, which I think centers on one of your talents.”

Dad confirmed, “Oh yeah, that was a remarkably enjoyable fanwork, which is why we ended up licensing it and contracting with the author to adapt it into an animated series.”

I asked, “How familiar are you with my father’s work?”

Madison admitted, “My knowledge of your father’s work is minimal. I mostly watch clippers and not the livestreams. From what I could find in guidebooks and video essays, his vtuber lore is … different from that of most other Vtuber companies.”

He explained, “Yeah, if you’re talking about the Mythopoeic style, I grew up enamored with the classic worldbuilders, like Dunsany, MacDonald, Tolkien, Lewis, Chambers, Lovecraft, Kirby, Morrison, so on and so forth. So, I intentionally sought to create my own mythic style.”

As the conversation gradually progressed, Madison asked, “So, do you go to conventions?”

I told her, “Yes. Conventions are an important part of my father’s business, but it’s not indispensable. Though conventions are also a time for me to cosplay.”

A thought crossed Madison’s mind before she asked, “Could you show me?”

I told her, “Sure, I can cosplay for you, but I can’t guarantee that you’ll recognize who I’m cosplaying as.”

After dinner, Madison and I went back to my room. I stripped down to my underwear and Madison noticed the scar on my back.

She asked me, “What’s that on your back?”

I told her, “It’s a puncture wound I got when I was seven.”

I turned and showed her the entry wound. “Here’s the other side of the scar.”

She looked dumbstruck and asked me, “What happened?”

I explained, “Oh, on my seventh birthday, I was impaled in a freak vehicular accident and almost died.”

Madison simply responded, “Oh my God. I am glad you’re alright.”

I promised, “I’ll give you the full story later, but let’s focus on why we came up here first.”

I got changed into the last costume I used. A Chinese girl, from the adaptation of a CLAMP manga which aired from 1998 to 2000 AD.

She asked me, “Who is this supposed to be?”

I confessed, “Lǐ Méilíng, if you don’t know who that is, that’s fine. Hers was a story way before our time.”

Madison asked me, “Ah, who would you like to cosplay as, then?”

I thought about it, and said, “I’ve been reading an old comic from my great-great-grandfather’s childhood. It was a magical girl story from the now defunct Disney corporation…”

I asked her, “Have you ever used cosmetics in your cosplay?”

I confessed, “No. I know nothing of the subject.”

Madison suggested. “Let’s try some makeup to prepare for your future cosplay.”

I knew nothing of makeup for two reasons. First, I had no interest in it. Second, I didn’t have a mother to teach me. So, when Madison directed me to sit in a chair and be still, I did as she directed. That’s when the girl pulled out a whole makeup kit from her bag.

Madison asked me, “Can you please close your eyes?”

I said, “Okay.” And complied with her strange request.

When she began, she asked me, “Have you tried to reconnect with your mother’s family?”

I explained to her, “So long as I keep my Christology, I will never be accepted by my mother’s family.”

She asked me, “So you must choose between blood inherited or blood shed? What an awful choice, but I take it you’ve made your decision.”

I told her, “Without a second’s pause, I choose my God over my family. I choose the principle of my principle.”

Madison asked me, “Principle of my principle, that sounds remarkably scholastic.”

I asked her, “Are you familiar with Scholasticism?”

She told me, “I’m familiar with the language, but not the actual wereldbeeld.”

Once more, the use of Dutch vocabulary where context was enough to translate the idea.

In total, preparation took 15 minutes. Foundation matching took 20 minutes. Application took 40 minutes, highlighting and contouring took 20 minutes. Setting took 10 minutes. Blush, eyeshadow, and lips took 20 minutes. Final touches (hair and accessories) took 10 minutes. During which time we discussed many things.

Madison told me, “You can open your eyes now.”

I complied, and saw that Madison was holding up a hand-held mirror for me, but in the mirror was a face unknown to me. My skin was a very light brown complexion consistent with that of Chinamen from the Hénán province. I touched my face in stunned disbelief at the image in the mirror. I simply did not recognize the face in the mirror, but the hand was clearly mine.

She told me, “I have a friend whose hobby is magic. He manipulates sense perception and heuristics to create illusions. This got me thinking, is there a way to manipulate your paternal family’s sense perception and heuristics to get them to see you as their own kin? Then, when you mentioned cosplay, it hit me.”

I turned my head and looked her in the eyes.

Madison noted, “It’s remarkable just how much you inherited from your father. Almost everything about your face, frame, and hair all come from your paternal inheritance, but your skin tone and female nature came from your maternal lineage.”

Madison told me something I have never thought of, “I noticed how much more you look like a Shi than you do… I don’t think you told me what your maternal family’s name was…”

I told her, “My mother’s maiden name was ‘Munashe’. It means ‘God is with us’, like Immanuel, but in Shona, not Hebrew.”

She thought aloud, “Munashe? What a lovely name.”

She continued, “I don’t know much about Jewish or Chinese aesthetics, but I can tell you right now that any family in Japan would be proud to have such a cutie as seen in the mirror as their daughter.”

I asked her, “What are you getting at?”

This is when she revealed an ability to access and exploit the more manipulative aspect of the female psyche to her advantage.

“I think that we might be able to use this trick to soften the hard hearts of your patrilineal family. When they see you like this: as their selfsame granddaughter rendered in their own image reflected to themselves… I think they might, even if for a moment, peer behind the superficial and see with their eyes what they have closed their heart and mind’s eye to.” She plotted.

“By changing your accidents and appearances, we will life the veil and make them to see your essence.”

For a moment, I allowed myself to entertain the idea. “This might work…”

I permitted Madison to work her cosmetic accidental transformation on my neck, arms, and legs, and I dressed in my last cosplay. A Japanese school uniform comprising a black turtleneck under a charcoal-black, long-sleeved sweater with white and red striped cuffs, and a top curved shield with wings divided by a cross atop the brachium. A sailor cape split posteriorly, like coattails, with a single red stripe. A white necktie with a diagonal red stripe across its bottom. A white, pleated skirt reaching half-way down the thighs, white ankle socks, and black Mary Janes.

It was an odd experience to see myself in the mirror. I looked no different from any other Chinese girl.

It was then that my adoptive father knocked on the door, “Bee”, my nickname, “I’m coming in.”

I responded, “Okay.”

When my adoptive father opened the door, he said, “Honey, the Queen of CANZUK is…”

He stopped mid-sentence and just stared in disbelief, but he quickly regained his composure and asked, “Is this a ploy to reconnect with your father’s family, Will?”

I was taken aback by both my father’s momentary shock, with a face almost as if he had seen a ghost, but also by how quickly he figured what was going on. Madison was elated.

My father cautioned us, “Look, I understand the desire to mend those broken relationships, but girls… Please don’t get your hopes up too high about this.”

With that, my father departed.

This took the wind out of Madison’s sails a bit, but I reassured her, “Don’t be sad. He’s just telling us to temper our expectations. He never said we couldn’t try, and he didn’t say it wouldn’t work.”

That seemed to help a bit, but she was still concerned about her plan, so I changed the subject. “What’s your religion?”

Madison asked me, “What brought this on?”

I explained, “Well, Japan and the Netherlands are both confessional states, so I was just curious.”

Madison explained, “The official religion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is the Dutch Reformed Church, and the official religions of the Empire of Japan are Shintō, Buddhism, and Confucianism, but it is a bit more complicated than that. You see, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, under the zilveren koorde, provides monetary support for the not just Calvinist clergy, but also for other Protestant clergy, as well as the Roman Catholic clergy and the Jewish rabbinate, a portion of which themselves have their own Noahide projects.”

As a Catholic Jewess, the Noahide movement always struck me as disturbing, but it was something I left for another time.

Madison continued, “Japan, similarly, provides monetary support to the historical religions. Japanese law has a rather over-encompassing definition of Shintō. Any religion which once had membership within the Shintō Dōshikai or Kyōha Shintō Rengōkai, is legally a form of Shintō… So, for legal purposes, Tenrikyō, Ōmotokyō, and Konkōkyō are considered forms of Shintō. The emperor himself has directed funds to the reconstruction of Shintō shrines in foreign nations: such as funding the restoration of the formerly abandoned Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America, negotiating the reconstruction of the Chōsen Shrine in Seoul, and negotiation the reconsecration of the Gaoshi Shrine in Taiwan.”

I asked her, “How on earth did he manage the last two?”

Madison explained, “He proposed the Chōsen Shrine to serve the function of museum, war memorial, tourist attraction, and temple, all under the jurisdiction of Korea. He also made good on his promise that the temple would be consecrated to Dangun, the legendary founder of Korea, as the temple’s primary deity, and to Douglas MacArthur, a Korean War hero. As for the temple in Taiwan, it was consecrated to Sun Yat-sen, the father of the nation.”

I asked her, “Didn’t India do something similar?”

Madison admitted, “I know little about Indian law.”

I asked, “Hey, Sheska! What’s the definition of ‘Hindu’ according to the Indian Constitution?”

The hither to inactive AI answered, “Hinduism, as defined by the Constitution of the Dharmic Republic of India, includes not only all Vedic and Agamic religions but also includes all forms of Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. Prior to the reformation following the Indo-Pakistan War of 2035, which abrogated the Socialist constitution of the Republic of India in favor of a Dharmic republican constitution, the constitutional definition did not include Zoroastrianism under the legal definition of Hinduism.”

Madison asked, “So, as far as Indian law is concerned, Japanese Buddhists are Hindus?”

The AI answered, “Correct.”

I told her, “The Indian government also funds ISKCON missions to promote Hinduism abroad.”

Madison seemed surprised that I knew this, so I explained, “I found this out when a Hare Kṛṣṇa temple opened up at the end of the neighborhood.”

After a moment, Madison opened up, “My mother got pregnant out of wedlock, and in order for my father to marry her, he had to convert to the Dutch Reformed Church.”

I asked her, “So you’re a Calvinist?”

Madison pondered, “Officially, I am a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, but I have difficulties with some doctrines.”

I asked her, “Could you elaborate?”

Madison confessed, “I do not understand how God could create something that he hates. It seems to me that God must love all that he has created, otherwise why create it at all? Why put salt into your own eye?”

I asked her, “So, it’s the doctrine of double predestination you have an issue with?”

She confessed, “That, and… the lack of assurance that anyone has that they are among the elect. As the good book says, ‘Niet een iegelijk, die tot Mij zegt: Heere, Heere! zal ingaan in het Koninkrijk der hemelen, maar die daar doet den wil Mijns Vaders, Die in de hemelen is. Velen zullen te dien dage tot Mij zeggen: Heere, Heere! hebben wij niet in Uw Naam geprofeteerd, en in Uw Naam duivelen uitgeworpen, en in Uw Naam vele krachten gedaan? En dan zal Ik hun openlijk aanzeggen: Ik heb u nooit gekend; gaat weg van Mij, gij, die de ongerechtigheid werkt!’”

I asked, “I think I heard, ‘have we not in your name…’, so are you referring to Matthew chapter seven verses twenty-one through twenty-three?”

She confessed, “Yes. So that is where I am. I believe in God, but I am skeptical of the Calvinist doctrine because it simply does not make sense to me.”

She pondered, “Maybe the Calvinists are right, and it’s a problem with me, or maybe I was not sovereignly elected, and so I was never meant to understand. Or maybe it is not my place to understand yet, but I will. It is a source of many nightmares for me, honestly.”

After the age of secularization and the esoteric subversion of religion, science, and philosophy came a revival of traditional religions across the world. CANZUK formed as an Anglican state, with constituent countries of Calvinist and Catholic creeds. The Russian Federation reestablished the Russian Orthodox Church as the state religion. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church played a crucial role in reestablishing the Ethiopian monarchy and creating the Tewahedo Kingdom of Ethiopia. Then there was the establishment of the Republic of Assyria as a confessional state under the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East. A new successor to the Papal States emerged, with the Roman Confederation of the Church, lead by the Bishop of Rome, which comprised: the Italian Republic, Republic of Friuli, Republic of Lombardy, Republic of San Marino, Republic of Sardinia, Republic of Sicily, Republic of Tuscany, Vatican City State, Republic of Venice, and Republic of Corsica as its constituent countries. The Tengrist Republic of Türkiye replaced the Republic of Türkiye, when Tengrism replaced Islam after the apostasy of the Turkish people. Though not all these confessional states were theological, with some instead being theosophical, such as the Cao Dai Republic of Viet Nam which replaced the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

We talked a bit about theology, but then defaulted to watching the news to keep up with what I need to do, as a superhero and magical girl. Madison logged into one of her family’s accounts on my laptop and found a national alert for the citizens of Japan and the Netherlands. The Emperor and the King have spoken. Given the situation, we clicked on the video for the Japanese.

The Emperor of Japan said, “日本の皆様、この度の未曾有の災害により、多くの尊い命が失われ、さらに多くの人々が負傷しました。私たちの心は、被害に遭われたすべての方々と共にあります。この大変な時期に、多くの勇敢な人々が救援に駆けつけてくださったことに深い感謝の意を表します。”

As he spoke, he himself translated his own speech into Japanese Sign Language.

Knowing that I was fluent in both English and American Sign Language, but not Japanese nor JSL, Madison set the video to English and ASL subtitles, with the latter accomplished through the orthographic methodology of ASLwrite. A system added to Unicode in the 2030s. Even in 2075 AD, the Japanese traditionalism was strong, as evidenced by JSL still using Sutton SignWriting as its official orthography.

“To all the people of Japan, in this time of unprecedented disaster, we mourn the loss of many precious lives and stand with all those who have been injured. Our hearts are with everyone affected by this tragedy. We express our deepest gratitude to the many brave individuals who have come forward to assist in this time of need.”

“特に、名も知らぬ���ーローが危険を顧みず、多くの命を救うために尽力してくださったことに心から感謝しています。彼女の勇敢な行動は、まさに天照大神様と天之御中主神様のご加護を受けたものであり、その献身と勇気は日本全国に希望をもたらしました。”

“We are especially grateful to the unknown heroine who, without regard for her own safety, dedicated herself to saving many lives. Her courageous actions are truly under the protection of Amaterasu Omikami-sama and Amenominakanushi-no-kami-sama. Her dedication and bravery have brought hope to the entire nation of Japan.”

“さらに、国際社会からの支援と協力にも感謝申し上げます。日本自衛隊やアメリカ軍を含む多くの救助隊員が、放射線やその他の危険にもかかわらず、被災地での救援活動に尽力してくださいました。これらの方々の努力により、多くの命が救われ、私たちの国は再び立ち上がる力を得ました。”

“We also extend our heartfelt thanks to the international community for their support and cooperation. Members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, the American military, and many other rescue teams have risked their lives in hazardous conditions, including radiation exposure, to provide aid in the affected areas. Through their efforts, many lives have been saved, and our country has found the strength to rise again.”

“私たちは、この災害を乗り越えるために、互いに助け合い、強く、そして希望を持ち続ける必要があります。天照大神様と天之御中主神様のご加護のもと、私たちは必ずや再生し、より強い日本を築いていくことでしょう。”

“As we work to overcome this disaster, it is crucial that we continue to support one another, remain strong, and hold on to hope. Under the divine protection of Amaterasu Omikami-sama and Amenominakanushi-no-kami-sama, we will surely rebuild and create an even stronger Japan.”

“この素晴らしいヒーローおよびすべての救援隊に対し、日本国民を代表して感謝の意を表します。特に、このヒーローが日本を訪れる際には、ぜひお会いし、直接お礼を伝えたいと願っております。”

“On behalf of the people of Japan, I extend our deepest gratitude to this remarkable heroine and all the rescue teams. We earnestly hope to meet this heroine in person when she visits Japan and express our thanks directly.”

“天照大神様の光がすべての人々を照らし、天之御中主神様のご加護が皆様の上にありますように。”

“May the light of Amaterasu Omikami-sama shine upon all people and may the protection of Amenominakanushi-no-kami-sama be with everyone.”

“日本国民一同を代表し、心から感謝を込めて。”

“On behalf of all the people of Japan, with heartfelt gratitude.”

With that, the speech ended, and the emperor departed.

Flabbergasted, I asked, “The emperor wants to meet me?”

Madison told me, “That is what he said.”

I refused to entertain the idea. “As flattered as I am, I’m not interested…”

Madison asked, “Why not?”

I confessed, “There are more pressing concerns for him to deal with, such as meeting with the Supreme Commander of the GSSDO.”

Madison suggested, “That may be true, but I think you should meet with the emperor.”

I asked her, “Why is that?”

She explained, “First, I’m sure he’s as stressed as anyone else in this situation, and meeting one of the great heroes who served the nation, seemingly with no possible political motivations, might help put not only his own mind to a relative ease, and thus make more levelheaded decisions, but it might also help the people of Japan.”

I confessed, “That didn’t cross my mind.”

She continued, “I remember my father commenting that Mr. Trueman’s adoptive daughter has a photographic memory. Am I correct?”

I noted, “Your powers of observation and recollection complement you. Yes, ever since I had my near-death experience three years ago, I’ve had a photographic memory.”

Madison asked me, “You had a near-death experience before?”

I promised her, “We’ll talk about it later. It’s a bittersweet memory, but one I’m more than glad to share.”

I wanted to cover my bases, and therefore I asked, “So, do you have any more reasons for me to meet with the emperor of Japan?”

Madison pointed out, “Sakura is worried about her family. Is it possible for you to identify their faces if you saw them in the field?”

Madison explained, “As distressing as managing the dead and the dying certainly was, you might be the best shot at helping families find closure.”

I reluctantly agreed, “Alright, I’ll meet with the emperor, but I must meet Sakura first. If I can help her find her parents, alive or dead, then it would help me make up for my failure to help her when she needed it.”

I asked her, “Anything I need to know before I go to meet the emperor?”

Madison informed me, “Emperor Shinhito is a devout Shintōka. Not only has he funded apologetical work for Shintō within Japan, but he has also personally funded the restoration of abandoned overseas shrines, such as the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America and the reconsecration of the Luye Shrine in Taiwan. He also established the kikanhō, or Law of Return, which fast-tracks citizenship for Japanese descended diaspora.”

The similarity to the Isreali law of return (חוק השבות), did not escape my notice.

I asked her, “Anything I need to know about the religion?”

Madison explained, “Well, I guess you might want to know about the emperor’s two favorite deities, but that requires a little background context. The scriptures of Shintō are the Shinten, which includes the Kojiki (古事記), Nihon Shoki (日本書紀), Rikkokushi (六国史), Fudoki (風土記), Jinnō Shōtōki (神皇正統記), Kogo Shūi (古語拾遺), Kujiki (旧事紀), and Engishiki (延喜式). Amenominakanushi-no-kami is the first kami mentioned in the Kojiki as the first of the three self-generated gods of creation, or Kotoamatsukami (別天神), alongside Takamimusubi-no-kami (高御産巣日神) and Kamimusubi-no-kami (神産巣日神). According to the Kojiki, when Amenominakanushi-no-kami appears, he unfolds the Heavens and the Earth. One variant of the Nihon Shoki also mentions them, but only in that one variant.”

I confessed, “I have read the Kojiki. The parts written in Classical Chinese were easy enough to read, but I was stuck with English translations for the parts written in Old Japanese. In Basil Hall Chamberlain’s 1919 translation he relayed the name of the first kami as Deity Master-of-the-August-Center-of-Heaven, the second as Pleasant-Reed-Shoot-Prince-Elder Deity, and the third as Heavenly-Eternally-Standing-Deity.”

Madison looked a bit dumbfounded before I reminded her, “Photographic memory, remember?”

That’s when Madison dropped a bombshell on me. “Emperor Shinhito identifies the God of Abraham with the Deity Master-of-the-August-Centre-of-Heaven.”

I asked her, “Excuse me?”

Madison explained, “I do not know the specifics, but you might need to ask him yourself when you meet him. He has always loved comparative religion and mythology.”

I confessed, “I mean, it kind of makes some sense. The Rig Veda records a mythologized memory of an urmonotheistic precursor to the polytheistic religion in book 10, hymn 121. I don’t have a difficult time thinking that the Japanese scriptures might do the same…”

I asked her, “Anything else?”

Madison reminded me, “When visiting Japan, remember that the Japanese state and laws regard the emperor as an arahitogami (現人神), or a deity in human form, and an akitsumikami (現御神), or a manifestation of a deity. In the former capacity, he is legally both human and a god. In his latter capacity, as part of the divine lineage, he functions as a temporal manifestation of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, and therefore his rule is by divine right. Because he is both a god and a man, he exists in both worlds, making him a bridge between the human world and the Plane of High Heaven, Takamagahara (高天原). It is for this reason that not only do his devotees create seishi (生祠), or monuments enshrining living gods, in a practice also called seishi (生祀), or the worship of a living being as a god, but his devotees are encouraged to ‘gratefully receive the emperor’s mind and will.’ That is why the Nipponophile community refers to him as the God Emperor, harkening back to how American newspapers referred to him prior to Japan’s defeat in the second world war.”

I admitted, “Unnerve me, why don’t you?”

Madison then explained, “But this is what the imperial cultists and state believe. Most Japanese do not actually believe this, and the emperor himself does not act as if he himself does either. Though he has never seen fit to speak one way or another on the matter.”

The purpose of her warning was clear.

I contemplated what my next move would be, and since nothing of note happened in the news, I asked Madison to write something for me. Madison played a game of Skud Paisho (牌數) with my father, which she roundly lost, as well as a game of Tak with me. It turned out that while her luck was better than mine; I have a better grasp of strategy. To thread the needle of luck and strategy, I offered to teach her how to play the Royal Game of Ur tomorrow.

During dinner, we watched an independent reporter in the State of Palestine covering the story of a Palestinian Christian Metahuman uprising, emboldened by the events in Hong Kong, called the Outremer Crusader Party, promising to use telepathy to root out and irrevocably destroy the Islamic Resistance Movement and establish a Christian homeland in the Holy Land. The video being analyzed showcased a collection of young Palestinian men, with their faces covered, flanked their leader, a middle-aged man, in support. Only the speaker’s strong, bearded face was visible.

As he spoke, I translated.

“أيها الإخوة والأخوات، أبناء الأرض الفلسطينية الحبيبة،”

“Brothers and sisters, beloved people of Palestine,”

“نجتمع اليوم لنواجه الحقيقة، الحقيقة التي حاولت حماس، لعقود طويلة، إخفاءها عنكم. منذ تأسيسها في أواخر الثمانينيات، لم تكن حماس سوى مصدر دائم للمشاكل والمعاناة لشعبنا الفلسطيني. لقد وعدت بتحريركم وبناء مستقبل مشرق، لكنها بدلاً من ذلك قادتكم إلى حروب لا تنتهي وصراعات مستمرة.”

“We gather today to confront the truth—the truth that Hamas has tried for decades to hide from you. Since its founding in the late 1980s, Hamas has been nothing but a constant source of problems and suffering for our Palestinian people. It promised to liberate you and build a bright future, but instead, it has led you into endless wars and continuous conflicts.”

“نحن هنا اليوم لنلقي الضوء على الفظائع التي ارتكبتها حماس بحق الشعب الفلسطيني. حماس لم تكن يوماً حاميةً للشعب، بل كانت جلاده. استخدمتكم كدروع بشرية، وكأدوات لتحقيق أهدافها الخاصة، دون أن تولي أي اعتبار لحياتكم أو كرامتكم. حماس لا تهتم بالسلام أو الازدهار، بل تسعى فقط لتعزيز قوتها على حسابكم.”

“We are here today to shed light on the atrocities committed by Hamas against the Palestinian people. Hamas has never been a protector of the people; it has been their oppressor. It has used you as human shields, as tools to achieve its own goals, without any regard for your lives or your dignity. Hamas does not care about peace or prosperity; it only seeks to strengthen its power at your expense.”

“على مدى عقود، استغلت حماس معاناتكم، وزرعت في قلوبكم الخوف والكراهية تجاه الآخرين، محولةً الشعب الفلسطيني إلى رهائن في يدها. بدلاً من البحث عن حلول سلمية وبناء دولة مزدهرة، اختارت حماس طريق العنف والتدمير. لقد كانت الحروب التي خاضتها حماس بلا جدوى، لم تحقق سوى المزيد من الدمار والخسائر لشعبنا.”

“For decades, Hamas has exploited your suffering, planting seeds of fear and hatred in your hearts, turning the Palestinian people into hostages in its grip. Instead of seeking peaceful solutions and building a prosperous state, Hamas chose the path of violence and destruction. The wars it has waged have been futile, achieving nothing but more destruction and loss for our people.”

“كل مرة تبدأ فيها صراعًا جديدًا، كانت حماس تستخدم أطفالنا ونساءنا وشيوخنا كأدوات دعاية، لتظهر نفسها على أنها الضحية أمام العالم. ولكن الحقيقة هي أن حماس هي من تقف وراء هذه الكوارث، متجاهلة صرخات الأمهات وآلام الأطفال.”

“Every time a new conflict starts, Hamas uses our children, women, and elders as propaganda tools to portray itself as the victim to the world. But the truth is, Hamas is the one behind these disasters, ignoring the cries of mothers and the pain of children.”

“لقد آن الأوان لنكشف الغطاء عن الأكاذيب التي روجتها حماس. لقد حان الوقت لشعب فلسطين أن يعرف الحقيقة – الحقيقة التي حاولت حماس طمسها منذ تأسيسها. أنتم لم تكونوا يوماً محور اهتمامهم، بل كانوا يهتمون فقط ببقاء سيطرتهم وسيادتهم على حسابكم.”

“The time has come to uncover the lies that Hamas has propagated. It is time for the Palestinian people to know the truth—the truth that Hamas has tried to erase since its inception. You were never their priority; they have only cared about maintaining their control and dominance at your expense.”

“نحن هنا، كحزب صليبي، لنعدكم بشيء واحد: سنستخدم كل الوسائل المتاحة لنا، بما في ذلك قدرات أصحاب القوى الفائقة، لتحرير الشعب الفلسطيني من قبضة حماس. سنعمل على إزالة التأثير الضار الذي غرسته حماس في قلوبكم وعقولكم، وسنكسر جميع نظم الدعاية التي سعت لتضليلكم واستغلالكم.”

“We are here, as the Outremer Crusader Party, to promise you one thing: we will use all the means at our disposal, including the abilities of those with superpowers, to free the Palestinian people from Hamas’s grip. We will work to remove the harmful influence Hamas has planted in your hearts and minds, and we will break all the propaganda systems that have sought to mislead and exploit you.”

“نحن نؤمن بأن فلسطين تستحق أفضل من هذا. تستحقون حكومة تحمي حقوقكم وكرامتكم، حكومة تسعى لتحقيق السلام والازدهار، وليس لإشعال الحروب والنزاعات. نحن نؤمن بدولة تعزز حقوق جميع أبنائها، بغض النظر عن دينهم أو عرقهم.”

“We believe that Palestine deserves better than this. You deserve a government that protects your rights and dignity, a government that seeks peace and prosperity, not one that ignites wars and conflicts. We believe in a state that upholds the rights of all its people, regardless of their religion or ethnicity.”

“أيها الإخوة المسيحيون في كل مكان، سواء كنتم كاثوليك أو بروتستانت أو أنجليكان أو أرثوذكس شرقيين أو أرثوذكس مشرقيين، ندعوكم اليوم للوقوف معنا في هذا المسعى النبيل. إننا نحتاج إلى دعمكم وصلواتكم وتضامنكم في مواجهة هذه المعركة ضد الظلم والاضطهاد. فلسطين الأرض المقدسة، هي جزء من تراثنا الروحي والمكان الذي مشى فيه مخلصنا يسوع المسيح. دعونا نوحد جهودنا لننشر رسالة المحبة والسلام التي جاء بها المسيح، ولنعمل معاً من أجل مستقبل أفضل لشعب فلسطين.”

“To all faithful Christians around the world, whether you are Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Oriental Orthodox, we call upon you today to stand with us in this noble endeavor. We need your support, your prayers, and your solidarity in this fight against injustice and oppression. Palestine, the Holy Land, is part of our spiritual heritage, the place where our Savior Jesus Christ walked. Let us unite our efforts to spread the message of love and peace that Christ brought and work together for a better future for the people of Palestine.”

He concluded his speech with a prayer.

“يا ربنا يسوع المسيح، نلتجئ إليك اليوم لنكرس فلسطين لك، لتكن هذه الأرض التي مشيت عليها مباركة بسلامك ومملوءة بحبك. نطلب منك أن تحرر شعبها من الظلم والاضطهاد، وأن تملأ قلوبهم بالحب والرحمة. أرشدنا يا رب في كل ما نقوم به، واجعلنا أدوات لسلامك في هذا العالم. آمين. شكراً لكم.”

“Lord Jesus Christ, we come before you today to consecrate Palestine to you. Let this land, which you once walked upon, be blessed with your peace and filled with your love. We ask you to liberate its people from injustice and oppression and to fill their hearts with love and mercy. Guide us, Lord, in all that we do, and make us instruments of your peace in this world. Amen.”

This troubled me. Having been born with dual Isreali and American citizenship, I always wanted my Isreali countrymen to prosper peacefully, and while I support the evangelization and conversion of both Israel and Palestine to Christian nations, I worried that this new turn of events would cause another, potentially more severe, period of destabilization for Palestine.

After dinner, I summoned the Lolita Princess at 1 km and 500 m in the air. As my alter ego fell to the Earth, I oriented myself to the boarding school in which she remained. I leaped and bounded over buildings to reach my boarding school, which was still attended by loyal staffers keeping compassionate care of the few students stranded there.

I found the window of Sakura’s room and knocked on the window. I heard her get up from her bed and walk to the window. Her cadence showed confusion, as she couldn’t see me through the closed curtains.

When she peered through the window, Sakura was in disbelief at my presence, and I told her, “I’m sorry for being late, but may I talk with you?”

Sakura, still in shock, asked me, “What do you need my help for?”

I confessed, “I’d like to help you find your parents. May I come in?”

Sakura, still dumbfounded, said, “Of course.”

I awkwardly squeezed through the window and entered the room.

Sakura asked, “I have to be dreaming.”

I assured her, “No. This isn’t a dream. I came here to ask for your help.”

Sakura asked, “With what?”

I told her, “I understand your parents are missing? I’d like to help to find them.”

Sakura asked me, “How do you plan to do that?”

I confessed, “I have a photographic memory, so I remember the face of everyone I encountered during my escapade in Japan, so I can tell you if I saw them at any point. I also plan to journey back to Japan to petition the government to let me help with reuniting the victims with their families.”

Upon this revelation, she ran to her desk, grabbed a framed photo, and handed it to me. I immediately recognized the mother as a decedent I pulled from the wreckage. I did not recognize the father. So, he was neither a person salvaged from the wreckage, nor a rescuer I encountered.

I asked her, “Do you have anything from your parents that I can smell?”

She, dumbfounded, said, “Excuse me?”

I told her, “I do not recognize the man in the photo, but I have a sense of smell more powerful than an elephant. I might track him down by scent.”

Sakura snapped out of her dissociation and immediately began searching for a piece of paper, then a pen and scribbled down an address, which she handed to me.

“This is my parent’s home address. You might find something in there!”

I thanked her, “Dōmo arigatō gozaimasu.”

Before I could tell her, she pieced together the news about her mother.

“You said you didn’t recognize my father … does that mean you recognized my mother?” She asked trembling, holding back tears in her flushed face.

I broke the news, “Yes. I’m sorry.”

She understandably broke down into a hysterical fit of tears.

I kneeled to comfort her with a hug, and she clung onto my dress, incoherently lamenting in a language I could not understand.

My heart broke for her, and I wept with her as I confessed, “I’m sorry, I should have been faster.”

I prayed over and for her mother, “O Merciful and Eternal God, Who desires that all souls be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, we humbly implore Thy infinite mercy for the soul of Sakura’s mother, who has departed from this life. Though they were not united to the visible fold of thy Holy Catholic Church, in thy boundless love and compassion, look not upon their shortcomings, but upon the sincerity of their heart, and the good they strove to do in this life.”

“O Sacred Heart of Jesus, who died for all mankind, grant that in their final moments, they may have turned to Thee, even if only in their heart, and may have received the grace of perfect contrition, so that they may be purified by Thy most precious blood.”

“Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy, intercede for this soul before the throne of thy Son, that they may find refuge in His Sacred Heart, and be granted the grace of eternal salvation.”

“We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their soul, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.”

I then prayed for her father, “St. Anthony, when you prayed, your stolen book of prayers was given back to you. We ask you now to please pray for all the missing children and adults of the world. Pray for their friends, family, and loved ones in their time of suffering and sorrow. Pray that all missing people may be returned to our keeping. Or, if we must continue in our loss, pray that we may be given Christ’s comfort and peace.”

Finally I prayed for Sakura herself, “Dearest Jesus, who wept at the death of your friend and taught that they who mourn shall be comforted, grant us the comfort of your presence in our loss. Send Your Holy Spirit to direct us, lest we make hasty or foolish decisions. Send Your Spirit to give us courage, lest through fear we recoil from living. Send Your Spirit to bring us your peace.”

I promised her, “You’re stronger than you think, Sakura. Trust me. I’m going to do what I can to find your father.”

I let her cry as needed, and she let me go on her own time. At which point, after making sure she was safe to be alone, I left. It was now time for me to test my hypothesis. Since I could retract my alter ego from as far away as Australia, could I summon her as far away as Japan?

My alter ego vanished itself, and my civilian identity experienced a flood of memories instantaneously integrated into my body and soul, but not letting myself be overwhelmed, I willed my alter ego to appear again. This time, at 35.7101°N 139.8107°E. My gambit worked, and at 12:00 JST, I found myself in free fall 500 m above the rebuilt Tokyo Sky Tree, upon which I landed.

Using the Earth’s magnetic field, which I could see and feel, I navigated with leaps and bounds to the Imperial Palace. I knew the coordinates because I had looked it up prior to my mission.

During my meeting with Sakura, my civilian identity discussed how to go about this meeting with Madison. She taught me about fifty lines and what they meant, then showed me a few basic phrases in JSL, and a few things to write on paper, detailing the proper way by which kana and kanji were to be written and signs were to be articulated, just in case they were necessary.

I landed in front of a startled a pair of security guards and recited; verbatim, what Madison told me to: an apology, and a plea to meet with the emperor, then I handed them what Madison wrote. Two men recognized me from the news and called their supervisor. After their brief conversation over the radio, I heard a voice in broken English direct me to follow the guard. Their English was adorably inept, but I knew that my attempt at Japanese would be cartoonishly worse. They at least knew more about the vocabulary and structure of my native tongue than I did theirs. They lead me into the Imperial Palace and to the waiting room, though I didn’t have to wait for long before security led me to the office of the Emperor himself.

The God Emperor of Japan looked up from his book, stood up and simply said, with stellar US English pronunciation, “Hello, Princess. I am thankful that you accepted my invitation to talk.”

[togglessymposium]

I’ve been ruminating on this a fair bit lately, because apparently I have a talent for horror! Or at least, I’ve been succeeding at it unusually well lately, and my boyfriend has been trying to convince me that I should develop the skill. So far it’s all been a matter of intuition, however.

I’m still muddling through myself, but I do have one thought on this, not so much adding to this post as rotating it to a different angle to clarify something I think is *present* here but not as illuminated as it could be. Basically, if you really made me try to summarize horror-craft in one sentence, I would say the essence of horror is something like “violating audience assumptions under conditions of threat.” Or maybe “violating the assumptions on which the audience depends.”

Consider: you and I have periodic experience with interruptions in our basic infrastructure. Wherever you live, stuff like power outages or loss of internet is an occasional fact of life. But if you’d lived your whole life without ever experiencing such an interruption, taking services fully for granted, then what would the experience be like the first time you turned the tap in the kitchen sink and nothing came out? If you went from spigot to spigot everywhere in your living space, gradually realizing that the water wasn’t coming, not anywhere? It would be a horror story!

Now, finding assumptions common to your entire audience can be tricky at times, which is why lots of horror depends on violations of universal natural laws, of things like the boundary between fiction and reality, of the nature of conciousness. Slasher films often trade in assumptions about the sanctity of the home, Lovecraft used assumptions about anthropocentrism in the cosmos, meta-horror like Cabin in the Woods trades in violations of assumptions about the genre conventions of horror fiction itself! But you certainly don’t have to be grandiose, and the more world building you’re willing to do (or have space and time to do), the more you can simply establish and then violate assumptions of your own design.

But of course it’s not enough to simply violate assumptions; in isolation, breaking free of what is taken for granted will be liberating as often as terrifying. The “under threat” part is what makes horror, horror; it has to be assumptions about ourselves, what makes us us or what makes us safe, what allows us to continue. One of the most primal horror experiences we encounter outside of fiction is a health crisis- gross physical injuries, diseases, cancers. We don't normally experience ourselves as biological systems, and when those systems begin to break down, what we feel is something very close the center of what horror means. Ergo, a lot of the minute-to-minute task of horror construction is in building and sustaining dread, such that the audience is actively anticipating breakdowns in the established and ordered systems that they occupy.

These two halves of horror are, rather beautifully, in a very profound tension with one another. To do horror, you must invite your audience to anticipate a breakdown in the systems of the world, and then surprise them with it! Sometimes, it can even feel like a game or friendly contest between the audience and the writer, particularly with audience members that are longtime horror fans. Solving this problem as a writer requires a lot of creativity and verve, and it's tremendous fun.

You can do really good horror by thinking deeply about the assumptions your audience is making, and attacking those assumptions from angles that they never considered before, such as Freddy Kruger slaughtering teens in their dreams rather than invading their homes through the window. Or, as I mentioned before, you can build your own set of assumptions and rely on audience buy-in to your constructed world. You can, and indeed almost have to, develop a really good sense of pacing, so that the audience has time to cultivate their own fear but not enough time to fight back against it.

There's also a stunt play you can use, which I've seen done particularly well in Japanese horror, Thomas Ligotti's writing, and a few other places, where you violate assumptions from the other side. A big tentacle monster isn't (necessarily) a horror event, but a big tentacle monster with a human face almost always is. Taking a "mere monstrosity" and adding a shock of recognition to it, taking the unfamiliar and making it queasily intimate. That's what your hangman-in-a-classroom scene was doing I think.

So, to poke at that example you gave a little bit further: the way I'd build horror in that scene in terms of details would be to undermine the audience's sense of what a classroom is "supposed to be", in ways that felt dangerous. This would depend on the medium, I'd go for whatever was most vivid with the tools available to me. If visual, I'd have flickering lights rather than steady, rusty and broken desks rather than new, filth and decay on the walls. I'd fill student notebooks with horrible children's drawings of violence or nameless black shapes scribbled in crayon. I'd add faintly visible shapes on the chalkboard, almost-rubbed-away chalk that left a faint impression behind, showing lessons or scenes that violated basic human dignity. All that would exist in support of the central spook, which is an evil spirit playing familiar children's games.

Writing Psychological Horror Is Hard

Writing horror is hard for me.

I think it is perhaps the clearest example, at least when I'm the subject, of the difference between being the author and being the audience. I find it extremely difficult to know what will creep out someone who doesn't know all the behind-the-scenes details of what is happening. This is despite my considerable experience as a consumer of [psychological / environmental] horror media.

When I think about the things that scare me, or maybe "unsettle" is a better word, it usually comes down to two things: 1) narratively plausible violations of the laws of nature; and 2) foreboding, i.e. the slow-building setup that something bad is coming—something that is specific enough to be apprehensible but still ambiguous enough to be cloaked in mystery.

But! Not just any attempt at these things will actually work. There is definitely a secret sauce that makes some efforts fail and others succeed.

In the game Oxenfree, probably my favorite horror game of all time, there is a scene on the "Find Clarissa!" subplot where Alex et al. are in something akin to a classroom in an abandoned military base on an uninhabited island, and a discordantly upbeat and normal-sounding midcentury-style gameshow host is talking to them through a haunted radio asking them questions in a game of Hangman (whose figure is gradually being drawn by invisible means on the chalkboard), while a lamp overhead illuminates the room in a very unnatural light as it swings back and forth for no apparent reason. And this was one of my favorite moments in the entire game, because it was really scary. It benefitted from the existing atmospheric horror build up in the events immediately preceding it, and also benefitted from not being a narrative climax; it actually ratchets up the tension in the story even higher, without resolving anything (other than itself).

But I think that if you went purely by my description, you would be hard-pressed to create a scary implementation of this scene. I certainly would be—and I know that for a fact, because I have more or less tried it!

What is it that makes something profoundly unsettling in that oh-so-delicious manner of a good horror story? Well, the academic answer is that it's appealing to our instincts of danger: dangerous environments (like rocks or cliffs or plants, or, indeed, "the dark"), dangerous predators, dangerous people, dangerous forces (like fire and wind and water), and dangerous sicknesses (e.g. infectious disease). Most horror taps into at least one of these primal apprehensions in the human psyche. And to succeed it has to feel real, the way a roller coaster feels like you're really falling. But I don't think "the academic answer" really sheds all that much light on the mystery of actually composing horrifying situations and events.

A lot of the craftsmateship is a balancing act.

For example: You don't want to hit the audience over the head with obvious bogeymates—jumpscares for the sake of jumpscares, as it were, or having your big scary cryptid jump out in its full costume in broad daylight and look absurd—but I have also found, through experience, that it is very easy to hide horrifying details too well, to be too subtle about it—and it is extremely difficult for me to get a sense, on the audience's behalf, of how subtle is too subtle.

That leads me to an important insight: Part of the secret sauce of horror is contextually embedding horrifying story elements into a broader context. A "haunted stick of furniture" isn't going to get many people a-quailin' in their boots. It has to be more about how that object is embedded in the story. You know, like a haunted couch, or a haunted table: How do you make that scary? I don't think it can be scary on its own. Not consistently and convincingly. Instead you have to set it up ahead of time in some way(s), by providing information to the audience that you are then going to subvert or manipulate later. Yet it is all too easy to do this in a way that comes across like a paint-by-numbers exercise: "Wait a minute! Wasn't this couch pointing the other way earlier?! GASP!!" No one is gonna be scared by that. It's not enough.

Ultimately, I think scaring people successfully, in the psychological horror sense, therefore involves an element of overwhelming their ability to cope with and anticipate environmental changes, which assumes an elaborate environmental structure that you're going to have to set up, in non-obvious ways, earlier in the story. You have to give them expectations about how things will change and then either gradually go beyond that magnitude of change or else go in a different direction of change entirely—usually the former. Psychological horror is all about the fear of the jumpscare that never comes.

But I'm also just spitballing for the purposes of this essay. I don't really know. I struggle with this stuff!

It really is an art form to be able to scare people in this way.

Additional, medium-specific difficulty comes in the fact that the written media that I work in does not have access to a scary soundtrack or sound effects or voices, or to scary visuals and visual effects. Written text does have the corresponding advantage of having unfettered access to the reader's imagination, allowing them to essentially self-select the personally scariest interpretations of some of the details of a scene. But taking full advantage of this power is not easy at all; you have to put the right kinds of details in, and you have to do so in a digestible format, all without cluttering the flow of the story.

I have been doing a lot of Galaxy Federal writing lately, and have been trying to write some of the "scarier" bits and pieces in it, and I almost resent how totally clueless I am in regards to whether I am hitting the mark to my satisfaction! 😮

[ghostdrinkssoup]

okay so I watched ouef (s1 ep4) last night and I only vaguely remembered it as the episode with the lost boys and the creepy family dinner, but now that I’ve rewatched it I’m losing my mind over how much it actually sets up/foreshadows mizumono, especially thematically. considering this, it’s surprising how little this episode is talked about so I’ve decided I’m gonna unpack it myself because I honestly see it as mizumono’s necessary counterpart. it’s first half, if you will

so let’s talk about oeuf

I think part of the reason why a lot of early s1 isn’t discussed as widely as the rest of the show (especially late s2 and s3 in general) is because of the prescriptive use of genre conventions that underpin the “monster of the week” format that, upon first glance, makes s1a seem a little less interesting. it strongly follows the rules and expectations of the standard crime procedural that we’ve come to expect from a show like this: first there’s a murder, then our cast of characters go to investigate, slowly unravelling the mystery while learning some lesson along the way, until finally they catch the bad guys and the episode ends with justice prevailing, resolving the initial injustice of the crime. overall we’re left feeling satisfied, but it’s nothing to write home about

nonetheless, it is very important that nbc hannibal follows this formula in s1 because it allows it to meet audience expectations while also setting up the building blocks for its later acts, which, as we know, (mostly) abandons this scaffolding entirely. you can’t break the rules unless you know the rules, and s1 proves this by luring us in through its promise of convention. you could argue that, in its own way, s1 is the show’s own person suit

that’s not to say the “monster of the week” formula completely hides the show’s gothic side. beyond the show’s visual aesthetics (dark colours, artistic murders, etc) and the almost supernatural quality of will’s empathy, each episode/murder so far has had an underlying “fairytale-like” quality to it that’s achieved through the use of specific allusions/familiar images. first it’s will describing abigail as willy wonka’s golden ticket, then it’s the mushroom garden, then sleeping beauty wakes from her coma, and now we have peter pan and the lost boys. considering how the rest of the show plays out, especially s3 where hannibal literally describes the italy trip and his perception of life as a fairytale, this seems intentional to me. I mean, he and will literally adhere to the beauty and the beast archetype, with both fitting either role depending on what aspect of their relationship you’re looking at

that’s all to say, it’s notable that mizumono acts as the literal gateway between the familiar world of s1 and 2 and the phantasmagoric beauty of s3, stripping both its main characters and the show itself of their person suits, which isn’t as jarring as it should be due to the particular way s1 is structured

which takes us back to what I really want to talk about: ouef

the episode opens in baltimore, where will tells hannibal this:

as will speaks, we see his house, lit up and observed at a distance in the middle of nowhere, caught in the vast, misty darkness he describes. linking the house with the boat is important, since this dual image develops throughout the rest of the episode. thematically, ouef is about family, as is represented through the monster of the week: the woman kidnapping the lost boys and manipulating them into killing their families. but as we said before, this scaffolding is designed to set up character specific concepts and themes that’ll be relevant later. for now, will’s home is only a safe space for him at an observable distance — only “safe” because it looks like a boat at sea, which is a positive association for him

houses traditionally represent the self. it’s an image commonly linked to identity, both on a literary level and oftentimes when interpreting dreams. and of course, when talking about the house we naturally think of family. will can only appreciate the intimacy of both himself and his personal connections from an observable distance. he does not feel safe doing otherwise. it’s why his house is located so far away from the rest of society: he’s in hiding

from here, hannibal is quick to change the subject, stating that will “stood in the breathing silence of garret jacob hobbs’ home”, or, metaphorically speaking, hobbs’ identity. in episode one, will saw the truth of hobbs more so than he’s ever seen (or embraced) the truth of himself. he was not at a distance. he was not safe

then hannibal asks, “did they speak to you?”

and will responds, “with noise and clarity”

he then follows this by saying he “tried so hard to know garret jacob hobbs. to see him” beyond the police tape and dead girls and photographs, all of which he considers superficial details. this particular phrasing is significant, since it directly parallels what hannibal later tells will in mizumono after he learns of his betrayal: “I let you know me. see me.” this scene lays out the dominoes for this chain reaction, all of which results in s2’s climactic moment, by showing hannibal’s desire to be seen, even if he doesn’t fully realise it yet, and will’s desire to connect with others like himself, if they even exist. as I’ve said before, will does not think monstrosity and humanity are separate concepts

so, by wanting to see beyond hobbs’ person suit, which in of itself is a metaphor for conformity, expectations, and the false self, will set aside his own denial and discovered something very ugly about himself. he murdered hobbs in his own home and, for the briefest moment, caught a glimpse of the truth of himself. “see?” haunts will for this reason. it’s something he carries for the rest of his arc

it’s important that this all happened in the kitchen, but I’ll get to that later

but returning to the scene. hannibal asks will how he felt seeing marissa, the girl hannibal killed last episode. there’s an unspoken question here: did you try hard to get to know me too? did you know me? see me? would I ever allow you to do so? under the copycat guise, and the person suit, is knowing me even possible? as we learn in mizumono, the answer is yes

will says he feels guilty and I don’t think he’s lying here the same way he lied when he told abigail murder is the ugliest thing in the world last episode. there’s a difference between feeling guilt and feeling remorse. he thinks he caused marissa’s death, and he feels guilty because he knows he isn’t feeling (or reacting) the way he should be. killing hobbs felt good, remember? he saw hobbs, and in turn himself, with “noise and clarity” and had a moment of chilling self awareness he can’t shake. this is what he feels guilty about. it’s not about “not saving her” it’s about the threat of his self-destructive nature burning everything around him, which is what he fears. he feels monstrous inside, due to his own sense of vindication and inclination towards righteous violence

for the rest of this scene, I’m going to pick apart the dialogue in a kind of skeleton structure so we can take what information we need from what they say. their conversation goes as follows:

“sometimes I felt like we were doing the same things at different times of day. like I was eating or showering or sleeping at the same time he was.”

→ will feels like he’s doing the same things hobbs was (showering/sleeping/eating) even after he was dead because he’s now sensing hannibal, the copycat. or rather, his own copycat/foil. they’re already connected and they already feel the same (he feels like he killed marissa even though hannibal killed marissa)

“even after he was dead?” / “even after he was dead.”

→ so it’s hannibal he’s connecting to now, even subconsciously

“like you were becoming him?”

→ the introduction of the “becoming” motif which, as we all know, is a central theme and another reference to their foil dynamic (hannibal has already said he and will are the same). note hannibal’s tone when he says this: he’s speaking quicker, unable to stop questioning. there’s another conversation happening just below the surface of this one. he’s curious about will and his ability to connect, which was established earlier in episode 2

“I know who I am. I’m not garret jacob hobbs”

→ links back to the first episode where will, out of his own free will, chooses to shoot hobbs. remember that in the opening scene of that same episode he himself tells his students that, according to his own worldview, by understanding the murder, we understand the man. this isn’t a matter of confusing his identity with that of a killer: will knows exactly who he is, and that’s what scares him. he’d rather stay in denial

it’s also noteworthy that will’s refusal to be seen as hobbs, or a copycat of him, mirrors hannibal’s refusal to be associated with him too, as we saw in episode three when he tells abigail “I am nothing like your dad.” it implies that reading either of these characters as a mirror of someone else (other than each other, of course) would be a misstep. for both will and hannibal, hobbs is just another layer of the person suit. something that’s brutally stripped in mizumono, as I said before

we learn all this in one scene alone. like I said, this episode is complex and packed. the rest of the episode simply expands on the concepts introduced in this one conversation. I won’t go into every scene because this post would turn into an academic paper, but I do want to spend time dissecting a few key scenes which I feel directly link back to mizumono specifically and highlight why this episode is so important: the family dinner scene, hannibal breaking into will’s house, will’s therapy sessions with hannibal, and hannibal and abigail making breakfast together

how will analyses the family dinner, as well as what we learn from this scene, adds to our understanding of how these characters interpret family as a whole. after all, this episode is about “the lost boys” which, to me at least, will and hannibal both are. it’s their lack of real connection that causes them to treat abigail in the idealised way they do, similar to how the woman tries to make her own found family with the kidnapped boys (although this parallel better fits hannibal than will)

within his reconstruction of the crime scene, will sits at the head of the table, saying he’s “brought his family to this home invasion.” of course he’s impersonating the killer here, but this use of the home again (and family) is enough to pay attention to

power and control is also brought up in this scene. will says he controls the turners with “threats of violence. threats that turn to action” which is how hannibal operates (although more psychologically considering his demeanour, he doesn’t seem threatening at first and rarely loses his cool) but he can’t control people that way, least of all will. in the end threats of violence don’t even work, because the more worked up you get the less in control you actually are

will then shoots mrs turner, who, as we later learn, forgives the act since she loves her son. forgiveness (and acceptance) being synonymous with love literally underpins the conflict of s3, which is triggered by hannibal asking will if he’ll forgive him for murdering abigail in mizumono, but it’s first shown here, of all episodes, in the story’s set up. because of this, hannibal killing abigail and stabbing will recalls this episode, perhaps more as an echo than a direct link, but is strengthened nonetheless by this subtle build. added to this, it’s notable that the threat of violence here is also due to a type of betrayal (“family dinner, I wasn’t invited”) but the lost boy sits at the head of the table anyway, where he belongs, much like hannibal does, both at the end of this episode and as the “paternal” father figure throughout most of the show

as will says, this whole sequence portrays family values. twisted ones, but values nonetheless. it’s why I’m more inclined to connect this episode to the s2 finale than I am the s1 finale (although it’s still relevant) because this episode is so strictly about family. mizumono is the same but in reversal: the ideal family hannibal dreams and tries to take control of, since he had no control of his own as a boy, is shattered before his eyes

the other largely significant moment in this episode is when hannibal breaks into will’s house and pierces his thumb on the hook, tying the fishing/boat imagery back to the house again and foreshadowing will as the “lure” (his s2 persona)

what’s important about this scene is that hannibal enters will’s world (his isolated identity) to plant the evidence that’ll later frame him for all the s1 murders, leaving traces of himself on will so that, for a moment, will too becomes the copycat. again, not the exact truth of him or his nature, but a fragmented replica. inauthentic. fake. another layer of the person suit, except this time it’s hannibal’s forced on will

but what’s interesting is that hannibal also gets caught in will’s web. there’s a lot of focus on the hook specifically, and the camera lingers on the feathers, which hannibal takes the time to touch and look at, until finally, he pricks his thumb and draws blood

the irony is that in this moment, before the game even really begins, hannibal loses. he’s already hooked himself. we saw hints of this in the first scene of this episode, how his fascination with will is unlike any other attachment, or lack of attachment, he has, and it encapsulates the whole reason for his downfall: his attachment and obsession. it’s beyond his control (“you cannot control with respect to whom you fall in love”) and humanises him in darkly twisted way. he cannot control his feelings, and he doesn’t know what to do with this

his fate is sealed in this episode, but he doesn’t realise it until mizumono

again, the boat imagery is another interesting thing to note. fishing/boats/anchors are all introduced in this episode as mild, safe things (seeing the house as a boat makes will feels safe, wanting to teach abigail how to fish, hannibal saying will needs an anchor, will and his dad at the boatyard, etc) but fishing has an insidious side, too. one hannibal isn’t aware of. it has a meek mask, and in its own way, acts as another type of security. does will feel safe within his own sense of control, too? that’s the whole point of the person suit, isn’t it? it’s an important question, because the fallout is explored in mizumono. like I’ve said all throughout this analysis: everything here is being set up for a single climactic moment

will also sails to florence later in a boat he builds. he returns to hannibal’s home in s3, sitting in the kitchen with abigail’s ghost, but it isn’t home if hannibal isn’t there, so he sails to find him. I hate to say it, but will’s insane little sailing trip to italy is actually symbolic too if you interpret hannibal as will’s home, and by going to find him will, in turn, is also going home

the scene ends with hannibal sucking the blood from his thumb, before we transition to the blood streaked family portrait, opening the next scene. having the frame of hannibal bleeding being immediately followed by the bloody family portrait seems deliberate to me, since, as we know, he kills abigail later and destroys their “family” because will “makes him bleed”. again, tying the events of mizumono back to the family values introduced in this episode

also, in the script the sound hannibal makes when he sucks the blood from his thumb is described as “not unlike a quick kiss” which is an odd way to phrase it within the literal context of this scene, but makes a lot of sense when you consider what it means symbolically. it’s a small detail, but it recontextualises will “luring” him in as a romantic act, as well as a romantic betrayal

continuing on, what family means to hannibal and his desire to both connect with will and manipulate abigail are both interweaved as the episode progresses. hannibal says that “children transport us to our childhoods”, reframes the idea that will’s family, who will jokingly refers to as a pack of strays, also includes abigail (and without saying it, himself) and that the woman who’s kidnapping the lost boys is engaging in a “perversion” of motherhood. all these things evidently reflect hannibal himself, and the specific trauma he experienced losing his parents and, more to the point, his younger sister. we don’t learn the specifics of this backstory until much later on in the story, but his behaviours (and the trajectory of his character arc) are influenced by it regardless

in contrast, will doesn’t seem all that interested in the concept. he sees family as an “ill fitting suit” (yet another reference to the person suit) and it’s an entirely foreign concept to him (it’s foreign to hannibal too, since they’re the same, but I digress). still, he tries to connect to abigail anyway, but this isn’t motivated by a want for authentic family or someone who understands him, but rather an ideal. will doesn’t want to see the truth of himself, it scares him. he doesn’t want to see the truth of abigail, either. he doesn’t want to see her as her father’s lure (again, fishing imagery) but as something innocent and divorced from what he knows of himself. he ironically buys her fishing gear in this episode (although he never gives it to her) in an attempt to associate her with the same meek mask we discussed earlier. but as we know, this “safety” too has layers

buying abigail a gift also mirrors what hannibal says to will in mizumono: “I gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it.” the rare gift is family, which is given value when will says “I can’t give them back what they just gave away” in relation to the lost boys and their dead mothers. it’s again another part of the family values introduced in this episode: family is a rare gift, but it’s not something you can force, which both hannibal and will try to do with abigail (like the mother tries to do with the lost boys)

the “I can’t give them back what they gave away” is particularly important, since it implies permanency and an inability to reverse the action. the gift of family and connection is only rare because once it’s taken from you you can’t have it back; you can’t reverse time; you can’t take back control

this is the crux of hannibal’s entire arc. the belief that he is in control of his life, since, in his mind, he’s godlike and exists beyond human folly and attachment, underpins every single one of his actions leading up to mizumono. for this reason, it’s significant that the teacups are introduced in this episode as a means (and symbolic prop) to control abigail. they are later related back to time but this is meant to be a symbol of hannibal’s power. he directly says that he wants to give abigail her ‘power back’ earlier in the episode, but he’s really just empowering himself. he projects his attachment to mischa onto her, something he pretends doesn’t affect him and he is above of (his approach to dealing with trauma is clear through his interactions with abigail — he thinks she shouldn’t be immersed in the tragedy of the past and should just ‘move on’)

in truth, hannibal wants to recreate the moment of tragedy (both his tragedy and abigail’s tragedy) in order to reverse time and have the perfect family, despite being incapable of this. he’s trying to escape how his trauma makes him feel powerless by attempting to take power back, no matter how futile it is

he attempts to do this here, in his home, by making them breakfast, since in his mind by feeding abigail the same (and last) meal she had with her family, he is in turn engineering a kind of ‘rebirth’ for her. he reassures that although this was the last meal she had with her family, it’ll be the first with him, and tries to take away her bad memories by replacing them with positive associations. the reversal of time is even clear in how he makes breakfast for dinner, flipping literal time on its head for his amusement

for the audience, in this scene we learn he’s a more skilled manipulator than the woman who took the lost boys, since he’s forcing this “blur” between abigail’s father and himself through the use of psychedelics and fostering dependency. he wants to replace hobbs without necessarily becoming him. again, he’s his copycat, not his replica

the fact that this all takes place in the kitchen is also important. it’s the same place hannibal will later kill her, proving he can’t reverse time and he isn’t in control, and that she was never reborn, and he was never her father. and returning to the beginning of this analysis (I said I’d come back to this) will also killed hobbs in his own kitchen, where he finally sees the truth of himself. in mizumono, a reversal occurs: hannibal is now confronted with the truth of himself and, like will, accidentally finds something very ugly by exposing himself

the episode ends with will separated from the ‘family’ and resting with his dogs, similar to how mizumono ends with will lying in his own blood, alone. in summary, oeuf quietly introduces and foreshadows key plot, character, and thematic elements through the conventions of the crime genre, and it’s fascinating to me how many links can be made between this episode and the bloodbath in mizumono

even down to the episode title: the newly formed egg and all the consequences that are to follow its hatching