#apart from himself. the shadowy figure he fights is literally what he becomes at the finale of trollhunters;

[peachcitt]

jim going into the deep: fights a shadowy figure

krel going into the deep: witnesses his friends and family’s deaths and fights the man who has mortally injured his parents and is currently attempting to destroy his home

[creweemmaeec11]

My Demonic Lullaby

A hero x demon snippet partly inspired by both @the-modern-typewriter and @amethystpath-writes hero and demon snippets. This idea actually predates my sleep paralysis snippet, but I never got around to writing it till their snippets got me back on the hero x demon train 😂 Next part to follow soon hopefully!

Insomnia really sucked, Ellory decided. He was already *exhausted* from the fight with one of the cities top villains earlier that day. He was aching all over, his head was throbbing, it was already 3am and yet he *still* couldn't fall asleep.

The hero rolled over onto his back with a groan, both from annoyance and the pain of moving. His ribs ached, still, open cuts stung. His hands came up to rub his face and eyes.

"What I wouldn't give to be able to sleep like a normal person," Ellory mumbled under his breath.

He closed his eyes, flipped his pillow for the * fourth* time that night, and thunked his head back down to the bed.

"Seriously," he muttered to the empty air, "what is it going to cost for me to sleep?"

Ellory had asked the question more to himself, as if asking his brain what he had to do to finally get the rest he so desperately craved.

He wasn't expecting an *actual* answer.

"Need some help?" a low and smooth voice asked from what sounded like the corner of the room.

Ellory tried to snap his head in the direction of the voice, only to be unimpressed by the fact he couldn't move.

"*Oh you have GOT to be kidding me*" Ellory mentally groaned, "*I ask to sleep and what do I get? Sleep paralysis, and even a disembodied voice hallucination to go with it!*"

Suddenly the voice chuckled, "Not quite,"

Now, the hero wasn't new to sleep paralysis. He didn't get it often, but every now and then it would creep its way in. This was the first time it had ever happened *before* going to sleep though. It was also the first time he'd ever hallucinated.

Ellory knew that there were others who had crazy hallucinations, even knew one hero who said they got them almost every night. (Even though they gave Ellory a weird look when they said they'd been getting better recently) Luckily for him though, prior to tonight, the worst he'd ever seen was a shadow or two.

His eyes turned, glancing over as best he could to the corner of his room. Despite the darkness, he could see some vaguely human-shaped swirling shadow. The only way he could make it out at all was because it was somehow even *darker* than the shadows around it.

Luckily, the shadow was just kind of standing there, and despite what his other hero friend had said, it didn't look very scary...

The hero mentally sighed again, letting his eyes slip closed. He was *so* tired. Why couldn't he just sleep?!

"That would probably be the insomnia," the voice stated sarcastically.

"*Thank you captain obvious,*" the hero mentally retorted, before stopping, "*great, now I am literally having a conversation with myself. Maybe villain DID hit me in the head too hard today,"*

The disembodied voice snickered again. Though highly amused, it wasn't mocking or unkind.

"No, you're head is fine. But you never answered my question," the shadow-thing said, its vague shape shifting over, more into Ellory's sight.

Whatever hallucination his brain had come up with didn't seem to be going away any time soon.

"*And that was?*" the hero replied. He had nothing better to do than to just amuse... well, himself; he supposed.

"Would you like some help sleeping?"

"*I would LIKE to be asleep already! And real sleeping, not this nonsense,*"

"I can help," the voice offered, seemingly as the shape took a step forward.

"*Oh I'm sure you can*" the hero replied sarcastically, "*If so, then why aren't you?*"

"You need to say yes for us to make a deal,"

Whatever hallucination Ellorys brain had decided to come up with, it certainly picked... an interesting voice. There wasn't anything wrong with the voice itself, in fact, it was quite pleasant to listen to. It sounded slightly masculine, low and gentle, yet not raspy in the slightest, like whatever this illusion was had never had a sore throat in their life. The weird thing, was it sounded confident and in control, but *wasn't*. The hero had been around villains enough to detect when a false bravado was just that; fake.

Especially with nothing else to do but listen, Ellory was able to easily pick up on the slight hesitations, the shaky undertones, and even the way the tones shifted, despite his sleep-deprived state.

Why would his brain come up with such a random yet weirdly detailed hallucination?

Maybe he *had* hit his head more than once.

"*A deal?*" the hero groaned again, "*Just sleep already!*"

"I can ensure you get a good night's rest every night, if you'd like...just tell me; do I have your permission to help you sleep?"

"*Yes! Please!*" Ellory internally cried. He was arguing - no, *begging* - his own hallucination. That's what tonight has devolved to.

"Very well then," the disembodied voice hummed. The last thing the hero remembered was opening his eyes to see the shadow move closer before things went black.

The next thing Ellory knew, he awoke the next morning, feeling shockingly well-rested.

What a weird dream he'd had last night.

The hero moved to get up, before remembering he was injured and braced for the wave of pain... only for nothing to come.

He looked down, lifting up his shirt to examine his abdomen and... what the hell?

What had previously been a sprawling mess of deep slashes, purplish-black bruises and swelling was now nothing more than a few scrapes, small cuts and the occasional tender spot.

Ellory skimmed his fingers across the surface of his skin, baffled.

Had it just looked worse in the dark? That made no sense.

Regardless, he wasn't about to complain, and he didn't have time to dwell on it. Being a hero meant busy days.

Unfortunately, as the week progressed, the strange occurrences only escalated.

While walking down the stairs the following day, Ellory tripped, nearly going head over heels, before something seemed to suddenly catch him, turning him in the air and standing him upright again.

It had happened so fast. Maybe his reaction times were better than he'd thought? Regardless, Ellory just brushed it off.

But then the following day, one of the cities villains threw a knife at him. He would have reacted to it too slowly if the knife hadn't suddenly stopped in the air mere millimetres in front of him before dropping to the ground with a clatter.

Now he was officially a little weirded out.

But the events just kept happening.

Doors were opening in front of him, only to close when he walked through. He'd knocked a glass of water off the counter, only to look down and see it had landed perfectly, not a drop spilt. His mail from the apartment mailboxes had appeared on his kitchen table when he didn't remember going to get it. Lights were flicking on and off when he'd enter or leave a room. One night he'd even realized he felt a bit chilly, only to hear the heater turn on seconds later.

One night, he fell asleep on the couch, only to wake up with a blanket over him he *swore* wasn't there when he fell asleep.

And yet, the hero had also been getting a great rest every night, drifting off almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

It wasn't until today, however, that Ellory really began to panic.

The hero had been on the rooftop of an office building, with a villain *on top* of him. (These events had really throw Ellory off his game)

This specific villain, however, wasn't particularly nasty, and Ellory had successfully reasoned with them before, and so despite the knife to their throat, they weren't quite panicked yet.

Said knife was still being held a couple inches away from their throat, more of a warning to stay down than an actual threat of "I'm one word away from slitting your windpipe open,"

"You, are becoming an increasing pain in the ass,"

The hero gave a small smile, "trust me, the feeling is mutual, but you know I can't let you do this,-"

He was cut off by the villain thrusting the knife much closer, "I wasn't aware you-"

Suddenly, without warning, the villain was launched back into the air, catapulted off him. Ellory watched them skid across the roof where they landed a couple meters away.

Whatever the villain saw when they looked back up made the colour drain from their face. They immediately pushed themselves up to their feet, staggered back a few steps, eyes wide, before they turned tail and fled.

The hero was frozen.

*What the hell?!*

Ellory looked down at his shaking hands.

*What the hell just happened?!*

Quickly, the hero got to his feet and took off home, completely panicked. He ran as fast as he could, as if something was chasing on his heels, breathing down his neck. It felt like his own shadow wanted to catch him.

*Something was wrong* *Something was really wrong*

As soon as he made it into his apartment, Ellory ran into his bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror.

He looked normal, though slightly red, which was just the consequence of being so out of breath. He was panting, breathing heavily and shaking. His hair was also a mess, a combination of both the frantic running and previous fight.

He could hear the frantic drumming of his heart in his ears.

Ellory took a deep breath, trying to ground himself. Grip tightening on the counter's edge.

Bending down into the sink, he splashed his face with cold water.

He was patting his face dry with a towel when a voice behind him startled him.

"I'm sorry...."

Ellory's head shot up. In the mirror, he could see a dark shadowy figure in the corner of the bathroom behind him.

The hero immediately whirled around, but was greeted by nothing more than an empty bathroom. His eyes wandered around warily, but not a thing seemed out of place.

Great, was he hallucinating now too?

He sighed, relaxing from the scare before turning back to the mirror and-

Ellory froze.

There in the mirror, in the same spot as before, was the shadowy figure.

He glanced back and forth between the mirror and back corner, but the dark humanoid shape was only visible in the reflection.

There was a few moments of silence as the hero simply stared, brain reeling, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

The shape was in constant motion, shadows swirling gently, like a foggy aura surrounding a much darker silhouette. The constant movement made it near impossible for the eye to focus on any one part of it, as if trying to see the individual particles in a stream of smoke.

The silhouette inside the aura was a bit more defined, at least around the head and shoulders. Apart from the clearly humanoid shape, the darker mass had no other identifiable features; except for its eyes, which were like two white voids, with a slightly darker pupil in the center.

Said eyes met Ellory's momentarily, before being cast downwards almost sheepishly.

That's when it clicked. The sheepish posture. This was the same shadowy figure from nearly a week ago.

He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He couldn't think of anything to say.

The figure seemed to take the action to mean he'd had enough time to process.

"I'm sorry for scaring you," they apologized, sounding genuine.

The hero blinked.

*This was really happening*

"What..." the hero managed, barely getting the words out of his mouth. His brain had stalled.

"I was only trying to help," the shadow went on to explain sheepishly.

Something in the hero's stomach seemed to drop, "What... what are you?" He asked nervously.

"I think you know what I am," the demon replied quietly.

Ellory swallowed.

"Why can I only see you in the mirror now when I could see you fine last time?" He asked as if that was the most pressing question at the moment. Perhaps it was the only question he could handle the answer to right now.

"You may want to change your definition of 'fine', you were experiencing sleep paralysis last time,"

Finally, Ellory's brain seemed to catch up, "Why are you here again?"

The shadow in the corner seemed to still slightly, "I'm here because we made a deal,"

Deal...? They didn't make any... wait-

"You tricked me?!"

"Hey!" The demon snapped indignantly, posture suddenly defensive, "Not entirely! I've kept up my end of the deal! You haven't had any trouble sleeping this week have you‽"

Well, no... but...

The hero couldn't help but swallow nervously again, "so then what's *my* end of the deal?"

The shadow's posture instantly deflated again, "just let me hang around, basically..."

Hang around what? His house? Surely not because the demon had been there when he was fighting the villain so clearly-

"You possessed me!?" Ellory realized, eyes widening.

"No!" They replied, sounding almost horrified at the idea, "possession would be taking over control entirely! I'm just... taking up residence in the back corner?"

"What!?"

"Please don't send me back!" The demon pleaded. Their voice was suddenly so *desperate* sounding. The hero could even see the desperation in their white eyes. "I'll do whatever you want I promise! I'll go back into hiding and won't do anything! You won't even know I'm here I swear! I-"

The shadow was full-on rambling now, sounding more and more desperate with every word.

It was probably absurd that his heroic instincts flared, but he couldn't help it! This... being(?) really sounded like they were in trouble. Like they were genuinely scared.

"Hey, hey, it's okay-" Ellory interrupted, holding his hands up and taking a step forward. His heart sank when the figure flinched back, sinking in on itself and pinning its eyes closed as if bracing for something.

When nothing happened after a moment, the demon risked opening their eyes again. Still, they never said anything, just sheepishly stood in the corner as if waiting for a verdict, looking like they wanted nothing more than to hide in their own shadow.

Ellory took a deep breath, surveying the situation. The creature in front of him certainly didn't seem dangerous... and he hadn't tried to hurt the hero at all. Being able to sleep without any problems was also a nice bonus...

"so your... not... going to hurt me or anything?"

The shadow shook its head almost frantically.

"Ok..." Ellory took another deep breath, "As long as you don't hurt me, and don't do anything unless I tell you to, you can stay, okay?"

The demon in the corner immediately perked up, eyes brightening, "r-really?!"

The hero nodded.

"Thank you!" The shadow cheered, and Ellory would swear he could almost see a smile, "Thank you so much! You won't regret it I promise!"

And then just like that, there was a poof of smoke and the demon's reflection vanished, leaving a confused hero that still had a million questions alone in the bathroom.

MASTER TAGLIST:

@llamaly @why-am-i-on-this-website-anyway @larinzz @sharraus @asrasmysoulmate @kaiwewi @akawrites000 @sunflower1000 @aroacewitchyacademic @aquarellesirene @lbelle0527 @trappedgoose-in-a-writblr-room @freefallingup13 @enemies-to-idiots-to-lovers @homosexual-having-tea @friiday-thirteenth @chocomarsgalaxy @ravenshadow17 @daydreamed-snippets @stankyt0es @jinx1365 @rainy-knights-of-villany @fromtheo-withlove @maybe-a-cat42 @the-sky-writes @watercolorfreckles @noirewaves @digitalart-tw @itsleighlove @chibicelloking @distractedlydistracted @kitsunesakii @daedae127 @wish1bone1 @avery1s @vampart @ilikebooksbuttheresnousernames @defectivehero

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Go the Distance

Prompt: Hello, I absolutely adore your work 🥺😍🥺 your Sanders Sides angst is just so goooood!!! If you're up to it, I'd love to request a fic <3 Virgil has noticed [side(s?) of your choice; they're all good choices, I can't decide ;-;] has been distant and avoiding him and he just can't figure out what he did wrong but it's actually because [side] loves him and are trying to take some time to 'get rid of/push down their feelings' The angster the better but don't push yourself ^ Feel free to add or change whatever Have a great day and no worries if you don't do this 💜💜💜~@im-an-anxious-wreck 💜🖤

Thanks for the prompt babe you’re the best

Read on Ao3

Warnings: self-doubt, some lite™ angst

Pairings: prinxiety, background platonic dlampr because found family dynamics motherfuckers

Word Count:  4191

Virgil and Roman's relationship hasn't always been, well, great. But it's been getting better!

Or, at least, it was.

Listen, Virgil knows he and Roman haven’t exactly had the most…painless history. Virgil’s introduction to the series was Thomas telling Roman his dream was to get rid of him and, well, Roman was first and foremost loyal to Thomas. Then the whole…insult thing, ducking out, and the absolute mess of the callback wedding debacle, it’s not exactly been smooth sailing.

 But—okay, and maybe they’d been a little harsher about things than absolutely necessary, and maybe Roman got hit with the consequences of their fights more than Virgil, and maybe Virgil hadn’t exactly been…overwhelmingly accepting of all of Princey’s little ticks.

 But they’d still been talking!

 After the wedding, no one was on good terms with anyone save Patton and Janus—and wasn’t that the shock of a lifetime—and Remus and Virgil. Because they made the smart choice and decided ‘nope, fuck that, I’m out.’

 It was a good choice. You have any idea how high their scores are in GTFO now? The first rundown’s a fucking cakewalk.

 Anyway.

 They’d been talking! Virgil still doesn’t know exactly what happened right after—he saw the video, of course he saw the video, but Roman sunk right to his room and there’s a good twelve hours between that and the next time Virgil saw him—but Roman had come out and approached him!

 Probably because he was still hurt by the end of the video—which oof, Virgil does not blame him for, that was harsh—and his only options were Logan, Virgil, and Remus and Logan, um, didn’t want to see anyone for a while and Remus is Remus.

 Side note: those two have been getting on better. Something about their twin Creativity thing meant Remus knew that Roman was hurting bad before even Thomas did.

 But Roman did seek him out, asking him quietly if he had a moment, just a moment, to sit together. Virgil had shrugged and passed it off as nothing only for Princey to literally sit on the floor and not make a fucking noise. He’d frowned and poked his shoulder, asking if he was alright.

 “Perfectly fine, Dark and Stormy,” Roman had said lightly, “and I’ll leave you in a moment.”

 “But you’re…” Virgil had waved to his silent form. “…not acting like you normally do.”

 Roman had laughed. “And here I thought I’d never hear you say you missed me being loud.”

 “Now let’s not jump to conclusions.”

 Sure enough, a few more seconds had passed and Roman had gotten up, quietly bid Virgil good day, thanked him, and left.

 You bet your ass Virgil sunk straight into Patton’s room to ask hey what the fuck did you do to Roman.

 Patton had sighed and said that they’re not sure what to do now—‘they’ being Janus and Patton. Virgil, still recovering from the whiplash of those two being close had shaken his head and told them to get it the fuck together.

 If he sunk into Remus’s room to ask how to take care of Roman, that’s his business. It’s also his business if he tackled Princey in a hug two minutes later.

 So. Talking.

 Roman, for all he talks, doesn’t really say much. The few things he does say are easily passed off as jokes, off-handed comments that no one really pays much attention to.

 Not that anyone pays nearly enough attention to Roman, come on, guys, he makes it easy.

 But Roman talked to Virgil. He’d come in and sit and Virgil would sit next to him, trying to make sure his arm didn’t burst into flames from where it was pressed against Princey—the dude’s a fucking space heater, okay?—just to listen. Some of the time it was Disney rants—okay, most of the time it was Disney rants—but some of the time…

 “Virgil?”

 “Yeah?”

 Roman looked down at his costume. Today was repair day, unofficially called when Virgil’s hoodie ripped during the night and Roman’s sword cut through his sleeve. Virgil looked up from his own mass of fabric, needle stuck in carefully so he wouldn’t prick himself. He frowned at the look on Roman’s face.

 “What’s up, Princey?”

 “Do you think my logo looks bad?”

 Virgil blinked in shock. Roman didn’t look up and see the surprise on his face, instead running his thumb slowly over the patch on the costume.

 “What the fuck are you talking about, Princey?”

 “It’s so complicated,” Roman said, still looking down, “Logan and Patton have really simple ones. You have a pretty simple one.”

 “Janus doesn’t. Remus doesn’t.”

 “Yeah, but they’re…”

 Virgil frowned deeper, putting his hoodie on the ground and shifting closer to Roman. The prince didn’t even look up, still clutching his logo in his hands.

 “They’re what, Roman?”

 Roman swallowed. “…allowed.”

 A growl sounded from Virgil’s throat before he knew what was happening.

 “And you’re not?”

 “Hmm?”

 “And you’re not allowed, Roman?” Virgil gripped his shoulder. “Look at me, Princey.”

 Roman looked up. Virgil swallowed another growl at the despondent look on the prince’s face. Instead, he gripped Roman’s shoulder tighter.

 “No one,” he said firmly, “is allowed to tell you your logo is bad. You hear me?”

 Roman blinked.

 “I mean it, Roman,” he said, softening his voice a little, “it’s you. It’s yours, no one’s allowed to tell you it’s wrong.”

 “So that’s…okay?”

 “Yeah, Princey, it’s okay.”

 “Oh.” Roman looked back down at his costume. “Okay. Thank you, Virgil.”

 “Anytime.”

 Virgil would come to be astounded at how much he means that.

 Because, really, now that Roman’s talking? Virgil’s fucking shocked that they didn’t realize how much Roman actually has to offer.

 First off, Princey’s smart as hell. Sure, L’s the resident braincell but you can be big of brain and dumb of ass at the same time.

 If Logan tries to tell you he’s not a dumbass sometimes he is wrong.

 Roman can puzzle solve with the best of them. Do you have any idea how much brainpower it takes to write a story? A script? Understand how all those moving parts fit together and make sense as a whole? Virgil sure as hell didn’t. He spent one afternoon trying to help Roman only for it to end up as Roman explaining what he was doing and Virgil frantically trying to keep up. Don’t even get him started on how impressive the Imagination stuff is.

 “It’s my job, Fall Out Brood,” Roman laughs every single time Virgil expresses how fucking cool this is, “have to be good at something.”

 And Roman is. He’s good.

 Second: Patton may be the heart, Logan may be the brains, but no one is as good at reassuring him as Roman. Probably has something to do with the Creativity gig. Roman had asked, politely, if Virgil would be comfortable telling him what to do when he gets really anxious, whether to leave him alone, get him somewhere safe, get him things, what have you. Virgil had told him, bemused, only to be shuttled into somewhere that screamed safewarmcomfortableeverythingisokay the next time he had a panic attack. Roman, with the lack of shame truly becoming of a theatre kid, had no problems cheering him up by loudly declaring he would fight whatever shadowy figures plagued his little nightmare, swatting at the air with his sword until Virgil’s sobs had turned into giggles. He never made Virgil talk about anything if he didn’t want to, didn’t try to sit and work through things if they weren’t ready, and never touched him unless he’d gotten the okay. The first time Virgil told him he’d be fine with receiving hugs in the aftermath was the warmest he’d felt in years.

 Princey gives really good hugs.

 Third: Roman’s fucking funny.

 Remember the whole ‘smart as hell’ thing? Know how Logan’s funny as fuck too when he lets himself be?

 Virgil’s lost count of how many times he’s had to gasp out for Roman to shut the fuck up because his sides hurt too much from laughing. He ends up sprawled across the fucking floor or the couch or Princey’s bed, dying very happily but painfully because Roman won’t stop making him laugh.

 Most of the time it’s due to something they’re watching and Roman’ll notice some detail that he picks apart until they’re both howling or Virgil will make one sarcastic comment that turns into a full fucking bit for like…ten minutes. Roman will just keep riffing off of the smallest thing until he’s laughing too hard to keep going—not very likely—or Virgil will flail out desperately and smack him—much more likely.

 Princey said he makes fun of the things he loves.

 …maybe that’s why he doesn’t make fun of Virgil anymore.

 Virgil curls tighter around the pillow, clutching it to his chest. As he rubs his cheek against it, he grimaces. It’s too rough. It’s not warm enough. It doesn’t smell right.

 They’d been talking. It had been good.

 But that was before.

 Before Roman had cautiously approached Logan with an apology, the offering of a new planner for him, the promise to listen to him, hear him out, give him space to speak. Logan had accepted.

 Before Roman had opened the border between his and Remus’s side of the Imagination, sending a little puppy scuttling over to his brother’s castle with a note, a dagger, and a vial of acid. It returned as a kitten with a beautifully poisonous rose.

 Before Roman had finally, finally, after days of trying, opened the door when Patton knocked, letting him come inside so they could talk, about everything that happened since…well, ever. They hadn’t stopped hugging long enough to walk down the stairs.

 Before Roman had let Janus, Janus, take care of him.

 And now…

 Now Roman didn’t want to be in the same room as him.

 It feels as if they’re walking on eggshells around each other again, Virgil appearing in a room only for Roman to completely disappear, getting up and leaving a conversation entirely just to avoid him, Virgil knocking on Roman’s door only for Roman to shout that he’s busy, not to come inside, Virgil, trying, trying to figure out where Roman’s gone, what’s happened, only to receive the cold shoulder.

 A problem none of the other Sides seemed to be having.

 He clutches the pillow to his chest.

 Did he—did he do something wrong?

 Does Roman—does Roman not like him anymore?

 Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed so hard about talking to the others. Roman needed space, needed time, he didn’t need someone else breathing down his neck. He should’ve let Roman set the pace, listened more, been kinder to him when he needed reassurance.

 Maybe he shouldn’t have made Roman think it was his fault that the others were taking so long, or suggested that if he wanted things to get better he should try talking first. Roman had been taught by everyone else that things were his fault already, Virgil didn’t need to jump on that train too.

 Maybe he should’ve been kinder to Roman, less focused on making the others understand that they hurt Roman. Everyone in the Mindscape knew that Roman was hurt, Virgil should’ve helped fix that, taken care of Roman, not pushed the blame onto everyone else.

 Maybe Roman didn’t like what he had to say about Disney films. They were Roman’s comfort watches, the last thing he needed was for someone to cruelly rip away his enjoyment of one of the few things he could enjoy.

 Maybe Roman didn’t like Virgil’s way of taking care of him. Virgil never pushed, never did Roman the courtesy of asking, like Roman did with him, just assumed he knew best how to comfort someone and left it there. Roman might’ve needed more hugs, more time, less distraction, just something other than what Virgil gave him.

 Maybe Roman didn’t like how much Virgil ended up hoarding him to himself. Not letting him go to the others for comfort, just to work things out. Maybe he thought Virgil was just keeping him upset so he could hang out with him more.

 Or maybe…

 Virgil muffles his sob in the pillow.

 Maybe Roman needed or wanted him anyway.

 Maybe Roman was just waiting until he could get the comfort he actually wanted. Maybe he waited until the others were easier to talk to so he could go back to what he really needed. Maybe Virgil was just a placeholder until Roman could get hugs from Patton and Remus, talk with Logan and Janus, not him. Never him.

 Maybe that’s…okay.

 It’s not, it won’t be fucking okay for a long time, but one day, it will be okay.

 Virgil curses and throttles the pillow in his arms, wishing for it to be real, to be warm, to be a chest of white and gold and a splash of red, for it to wraps its arms around him and say it’s okay, shadow-ling, I’m here, I won’t leave you, shh.

 But it’s just a pillow.

 Has his room always been this cold?

 Have Disney movies always looked this flat?

 Has music always sounded this gray?

 Has Virgil always been this alone?

 He can hear them in the living room below him. He can hear Roman and Logan throwing quips back and forth, can hear Remus tackling his brother into the wall, and Roman protesting. He can hear Janus scolding Remus and checking to make sure Roman’s not injured, can hear Roman wave him off gently and go right back to verbally sparring with Logan. He can hear Patton laughing too hard, falling off the couch and begging the two of them to let up, let him breathe, can hear Roman coo and call him sweet, adorable, in that soft voice he only uses when he’s talking to someone he cares about.

 Can’t hear any of them worrying about where he is.

 Maybe it’s better this way.

 He got greedy, took too much of what was never his to take, what wasn’t given to him freely. He latched onto the first thing he thought was for him and didn’t stop to think that it wasn’t. He may think he’s been included in the famILY but he knows he’s still an outsider.

 He may be Virgil now but deep down he’ll always be Anxiety.

 So here he will stay, in the cold of his room, in the dark of his face smushed into a pillow that will never be real. He will stay and he will be happy.

 But not today.

 He sniffles and smears his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie, not bothering to pull away from the pillow long enough to wipe tears properly. His limbs start to protest as he hugs it tighter, tighter, tighter, but it’s no use. He can feel his own arms through the pillow. There isn’t enough—there’s too much give in the pillow. It’s just a fucking pillow but it’s not enough.

 Another laugh from downstairs and Virgil growls, burying his head in the pillow until he can’t hear himself think.

 Can’t hear anything but his own muffled sobs ringing in his ears.

 Can’t hear anything other than the thought swirling around and around his head that he’ll never be enough, that he’ll never be wanted, that he’ll never be anything other than Anxiety.

 Can’t hear the soft knock at the door.

 “Virgil?”

 The voices in his head must be getting pretty powerful because he’s certain he can hear Roman calling for him. He buries deeper in the pillow.

 “Virgil? Virgil, can you hear me?”

 Yes, he thinks, yes, I can hear you, which means I’m not crying hard enough.

 “Can I come in, shadow-ling?”

 Yes, he thinks, come in and make me forget that you don’t need me anymore.

 He must really be losing it because he thinks he can hear the door open and close again with a soft click, followed by a sharp intake of breath and a soft coo.

 “Oh, shadow-ling,” the imaginary Roman murmurs, “come here, little Stormcloud.”

 Oh, his imagination is being cruel to him right now because the sensation of warm arms around his waist and shoulders fucking burns. He buries his face in the pillow until he can’t tell which way is up anymore, not sure how he’s tricked himself into imagining Roman’s cradling him but too unwilling to let the illusion go.

 “That’s right, Stormcloud, relax for me, I’ve got you, I’m right here, shh, shh, you’re alright,” the imaginary Roman keeps whispering in that cruelly soft voice, “you’re doing great, shadow-ling.”

 Virgil wants him to be real. So bad he aches from it. But he knows he’s not.

 What happens next breaks his fucking heart.

 The imaginary Roman kisses him.

 It’s chaste, a barely-there brush of his lips against his forehead but it tears a whine out of Virgil’s throat before he can stop it. The imaginary Roman hushes him gently, pressing another kiss to the part of his cheek not buried in the pillow and it taunts him with how real it feels. The slightly chapped lips, the warm rush of air as Roman breathes, the light brush of his nose as he pulls away.

 It’s too much.

 It’s too much and he wants it to be real so badly but he knows the instant he pulls away it will vanish and that might just break him.

 Then he realizes the imaginary Roman is talking to him.

 “Breathe, Stormcloud, you’ve got to breathe,” he coaxes, “I know it’s tempting to stay buried in a pillow all day, but you can’t breathe properly like that, sweetheart.”

  No, no, don’t call me sweetheart, I’ll break.

 “Shadow-ling, Stormcloud, my darling,” the imaginary Roman says instead, “come on…”

 Well, now he’s disappointing imaginary Roman too. Figures. He can’t do anything right.

 “Of course you can,” the imaginary Roman pleads, “just breathe for me, shadow-ling, I’m right here, I’ve got you, you can keep your eyes closed if you need to, just breathe.”

 Another whine. Another kiss pressed against his head. The whine grows louder.

 “Shh, shh, my darling,” imaginary Roman murmurs, “breathe, come on, just—trust me, okay? Can I ask that of you, Stormcloud?”

 And goddamnit, this is why Virgil can’t do anything.

 Virgil trusts him.

 So he prepares himself for heartbreak and lifts his head.

 “Thank you, shadow-ling,” imaginary Roman—wait, he’s still here?—murmurs, rubbing his back, “there you go, now just breathe—oh! Oh, come here, lean on me, I’ve got you.”

 Having listed to the side horribly, Virgil lands against a solidwarmsafereal chest and—and—

 “R-Roman?”

 “Yes, my darling,” not imaginary Roman says, still kissing Virgil’s forehead, “I’m here, I’m here.”

 White-hot rage burns Virgil’s tears.

 He lets out a yell and shoves, not caring that it throws them both horribly off-balance, threatening to send him tumbling to the floor. He hears Roman cry out, trying to keep ahold of him, but he scrabbles and gets his hands around the bedpost and pulls.

 “Virgil—Virgil stop, you’re going to hurt yourself—“

 “Why do you care?” The rage coats his tongue. “You fucking left, you—you—you fucking didn’t care about me anymore, you decided you didn’t want me anymore and you fucking left so don’t try and care now!”

 “Virgil—sweetheart, I—“

 “Don’t fucking call me that!” He keeps his eyes squeezed tight. “You didn’t give a fuck about me when you left, when you got your fucking family back, you think—you think you can just waltz back in like you didn’t abandon me?”

 “Virgil—“

 “Because you did, Roman!” Virgil blindly shoves at where the prince was before, knocking him into the wall. “You fucking left me as soon as you got the others back like I—like I never did anything for you and now you—now you can’t even look at me.”

 “I’m looking at you now.”

 Virgil laughs.

 He throws his head back and howls until his chest and throat ache.

 “You didn’t give a shit when the others started talking to you. You just fucking up and abandoned me like you never cared about me in the first place. You replaced me with them or—or abandoned me as your placeholder and I’m fucking hurt, Roman.”

 “I know.”

 “Then why did you do it?”

 Silence.

 Virgil’s heart stops.

 No.

 No, no, no, no—

 He fucked up.

 He fucked up so bad.

 Roman left.

 Roman’s not here anymore.

 Roman left again, he made Roman leave, he—he fucked up so bad, he shouldn’t have yelled, he’s fucked up, he hurt Roman, no, no, no, no—

 On instinct, his hands hook into claws.

 Only to be caught by warmsolidreal hands and brought to something soft.

 “Don’t,” comes Roman’s softsaferealhurt voice, murmuring in his ear as he holds him still, “don’t scratch, sweetheart.”

 “Don’t—“

 “I know, I know,” Roman says immediately, “you said not to call you that. I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.”

 …what?

 “I didn’t realize I was hurting you,” comes the voice again, “that’s no excuse, I know, but please, Virgil, I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to abandon you.”

 Virgil swallows. “What the fuck do you call it then?”

 “I didn’t want to push my luck.”

  What?

 “You were being so good to me, Virgil,” Roman murmurs, oblivious to the internal struggle Virgil’s currently facing, “so kind, so supportive, that I…I realized I wanted to ask more from you. Things I had no business asking. And the longer you kept on being you, the harder it was to resist the urge to push and risk shattering everything you’d let me build with you.”

 “What—“ Virgil swallows— “what the fuck did you want?”

 Roman stills in front of him. With his eyes still shut, he can’t tell what’s going on, but when Roman speaks next his voice is hoarse.

 “Before I ask,” comes the whisper, “I want you to know that you have every right to say no. You can push me away, shove me out of your room, stay angry at me for as long as you want. I’ve hurt you, badly, and I have no right to ask this of you. I want you to know that. That I’m okay with you asserting that right.”

 Fuck, Princey.

 “…what do you want?”

 A pause. Then a soft rush of air, right on his face.

 “May I kiss you, Stormcloud?”

 Oh.

  Oh.

  Oh, no.

 “R-Roman?”

 “That’s it,” Roman murmurs and oh, his mouth is right next to Virgil’s, “that’s what I want, shadow-ling.”

 He shifts a little until Virgil can feel Roman’s warmth.

 “That and everything that goes with it.”

 “Why—why did you leave? I-if that’s what you wanted?”

 “Because that would mean to push,” Roman says immediately, “and the last thing I wanted was to push you away. I thought if I could…rein it in, control it, I could…I wouldn’t hurt you.”

 A soft chuckle.

 “Look how well that turned out.”

 “But the others—“

 “I needed Remus to tell me what was going on,” Roman says wryly, “Janus to point out that I was okay in wanting something, Patton to help me figure it out, and Logan to kick my ass into doing it.”

 “To…to ask me?”

 “Yes, Stormcloud,” comes the whisper, “to ask you.”

 “And if I say yes?”

 He can feel Roman’s lips turn up.

 “…then I’ll kiss you, Stormcloud.”

 “Are you really here?”

 The question bursts out of him before he can stop it, immediately biting his lip in reprimand for letting it.

 “Open your eyes, Virgil,” Roman says softly, “look at me.”

 He shakes his head, not wanting it to be imaginary. Not now, not after this. Roman squeezes his hands.

 “Look at me, Stormcloud,” he whispers, “look at me.”

  Fuck it.

 Roman smiles at him, real and warm and soft and here. He squeezes Virgil’s hands again and takes the smallest step closer.

 “I’m here,” he says, wrapping Virgil’s arms around his neck, “I’m right here, shadow-ling.”

 He’s here.

 This won’t fix everything. But it’s one hell of a start.

 “Ask me again.”

 “May I kiss you, Stormcloud?”

 Virgil shakes his head. “Not like that. Ask me properly.”

 Confusion dances on Roman’s face before realization hits. His smile widens and he brings a hand to Virgil’s head. Virgil clutches Roman tight as he gets dipped into the prince’s arms. Roman leans forward until his mouth almost catches Virgil’s.

 “May I kiss you, sweetheart?”

  “Yes.”

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[fallout-drabbles-n-stuff]

How does the companions react when exploring a building full of dangerous paranormal activity with sole? ( i played a horror mod in which i hoped i couldve went with my companion but the mod didnt let me so big 00f)

(Yesssss 😈)

Cait:

“Nope, uh-uh, i ain’t up for this shite.”

She took one good look at the eerie, almost alive looking faces of a set of mannequins and promptly decided that she wouldn’t even attempt it. She doesn’t scare easy but when it comes to fighting the invisible? Fuck no.

Curie:

“..........oh no.”

She was so certain that the paranormal didn’t exist, claiming all phenomena could be explained with factual, scientific evidence. However no “science” could explain the chair suddenly being thrown across the room. After witnessing such a random spurt of violence from an unseen assailant, her doe like eyes only widened more. She isn’t ashamed to admit she’s wrong in this instant.

Danse:

“Stay close to me, something seems off...did you hear that?”

He’d try so hard to be that typical “macho man” and protect you but truthfully he was quivering in his power armour. He despises anything remotely creepy, so seeing the apparition of a sinister child suddenly materialize a foot away from him...let’s just say the Paladin almost fainted.

Deacon:

“Shhh, stay calm. It’s going to be alright, don’t be afraid of Casper.”

Deacon would honestly freak you out more than the ghost. How did he even know what Casper was? Regardless, he’d be incredibly calm in the face of the supernatural and consequently would be able to subdue the spirit.

Gage:

“Fuck this, I done seen what happened back at that shitty manor outside the park...never again.”

Gage used to be a non-believer but after a rough visit at Grandchester Mansion...he believes, and he hates them. He’ll even swallow his pride and admit that he can’t go through with the mission, refusing to follow you until you reassure him that you won’t go.

Hancock:

“Oh please, spirits ain’t got nothing on the living. At least ghosts have a narrow list of what they want..”

He’s another one of the people that genuinely isn’t scared of the paranormal. True to his word, he acknowledges that the living are more capricious and usually operate however they desire. That’s scary. Sorry Casper, you just don’t scare that ghoul.

Macready:

“Oh fu..I mean, frick- actually you know what? No! None of this, please...”

As soon as you mention there being rumors of ghosts or supernatural activity, he might as well have ran away. At least then he would’ve spared himself his dignity. He practically begged you not to go in and if you manage to get him to go...he’ll be clutching his rifle the entire time, trying to picture himself in his happy place.

Maxson:

“These..um..things, are not actually real- or so I thought..”

It was very rare that Maxson did field missions without a team at his back, but you had proven yourself to be more than capable so he trusted you. That being said, he practically laughed when you admitted to there being paranormal activity in the building you took him to. However his doubts were quickly shattered when the mischievous spirit haunting the place threw a table directly at him. There wasn’t any logical explanation....and next thing you know, the fearsome elder is holding onto you like a frightened child.

Old Longfellow:

“I need you to reach into my bag...and get the salt, real slow like.”

He’s old, he’s seen just about everything the world could throw at him. That means that he’s also learned a few tricks in his time, ones that evidently help him combat the supernatural. Provided you follow his orders, he’ll form a salt circle around the both of you and wait for the spirit to lose interest.

Piper:

“You see it too..right?”

She’d be totally astonished. She’s seen some crazy things in her days, heck, her job gave her new things each day to rant and rave about. However...this certainly tops it. You and her had been retrieving a certain item said to posses special abilities in a ran down apartment building, only to stumble upon a shadowy figure stalking the two of you. She felt so sorry though she was going to cry.

Preston:

“I know it’s supposed to be scary, but trust me on this one, relax and we’ll be fine...”

He wasn’t entirely sure how he was so okay with the presence, perhaps a piece of him knew that it was just another person..a much more unfortunate one, but still a person. So, somehow he’d manage to keep cool- convincing the spirit that he had no intentions to harm- as a matter of fact- he wanted to help them. At the end of the day when it was all over, he’d sit with a drink and be forced by his own mind to contemplate the afterlife.

Sturges:

“I think I’ve seen enough, can’t we just blow this popsicle stand?”

He’d have the kind of reaction would one probably expect to seeing a literal ghost faze it’s way into reality. The color drained from his face, his hands trembling and his body set swaying with every step he took. At first he’d try to play it cool, trying to hint at leaving...and that’s when he fell to the ground like a ton of bricks.

You were not happy.

X6-88:

“Well, I’m out. Let’s go.”

He’d promptly empty a round of fusion cells into the apparition, causing the smell of burnt wood to become unbearable as the shots seared through the door the being was standing in front of. After he realized it didn’t even slow the figure down, he grabbed onto you and teleported back to safety. Later that night he decided he didn’t like ghosts that much...they don’t bleed.

[woopboopboop]

as the seasons pass

A/N: feels like this is the longest one shot i’ve ever written and feels like it took the longest time too. maybe the time illusion finally gets to me. this one is actually inspired by a prompt; ‘Your wife changes her hair color every season and her personality adjusts slightly. You’re secretly only in love with Autumn wife. She just came home sporting her Winter color.’ thought i give it a shot and here it is! 

TW: ANGST, heavy issue, mental health, strong language. this piece might not be for everyone as it can be very triggering. if anything, proceed with caution.

[harry and his love are helpless when she changes her hair colour (and herself) every season]

It was autumn.

 That is when he first met her and had immediately made a fool out of himself. He was too engrossed in whatever was on his phone that he didn’t realised he was literally walking into someone. He was ready for her to be mad at him when gasp left her mouth. She had the right to; given the coffee stain on her shirt and a copy of her South of the Border, West of the Sun lying face down on the pavement as a result of their collision.

He was waiting for any fiery comments that match her red-orange hair but her reactions were total opposite. She gave him a small smile, waving him off when he suggested to take responsibility of the situation. It was only after his consistent and numerous reassurances that it was indeed his fault that she said yes.

 “Yeah… sure.”

She finally agreed to him even though she was a little bit unsure. On the other side, he was fighting off his growing grin. Without him knowing, just like the falling leaves during autumn, he too, was falling for her.

She then said yes to the following meet ups. Yes to the dates. Yes to the kisses when the autumn sun found residence on the horizon. Yes to dressing up in ridiculous costumes. Yes to every chance that they get to be together. Yes when he asked for her hand in marriage years after.

He didn’t notice it at first. Not after the first few years of being husband and wife. And certainly not during their dating years. The change was unidentifiable since they were too busy making time for each other despite them both having chaotic and contradicting schedule plus they were living apart from each other.

Now that they are living under the same roof, he sees the pattern as the seasons pass. As winter, spring, summer and autumn are the opposite ends of each other, so does her personality during those time of the year.

Summer brings out the wild side of her. She takes every risk that is in her way and most of the times, it involves mixing alcohol. The later is not an alien topic for Harry since he himself enjoys drinking except for the burning sensation that it comes with.

 But not her. Not the summer her.

He finds himself carrying her home drunk one too many times, cleaning the messes that she left around their house after one night of drinking and holding up her dirty blonde hair while she hurled whatever is in her stomach into the toilet bowl. When asked why does she do this to herself, she mumbles that it is for no reason and that she likes how it burns in her throat.  

“Oh c’mon! Live a little, h!” She exclaimed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Harry shook his head, feeling a mixture of worry, sad and confused brewing in his chest before proceeding to change her clothes and bring her to bed.

Even though she is a handful during summer, there is still her somewhere in the wildness. She is vibrant and full of life. Closer and temperate.

Winter is the worst of all for him. And it is for her too. Just like a migratory bird fleeing and searching for a warmer weather, she flew away when winter visits, leaving only the shell of her by his side. He would say that the distance that grows between them is understandable and try to aid it with hanging out together and frequent phone calls especially when they are hundred thousand miles apart. She is aware that their relationship is straining and frigid during it and despite him being understanding, she knows that it becomes more and more unbearable. But he always stays as he promised in his vow and she couldn’t be more grateful for it.

When spring comes, so does she. It’s like the spring version of her makes up for everything. Her eyes are dewy and apologies dripping from her lips like honey as she stands before him, tucking a loose strand of brown hair behind her ear.

People would say that it is mere manipulation from her side. That he is too wrapped around her finger to snap out of what seem to be a cruel cyclic heart game. That he can’t rationalise that she is different person every season and there is nothing healthy about the change. He is aware to be honest and contemplating. It’s just that he couldn’t help but feel the love blossoming once more just like the flowers during spring and as the ground is thawing, so does his heart. And by autumn, he is deeply, ardently in love like before.

 Among all of this, he loves autumn the most. The autumn her. Not that he doesn’t accept her for who she is during the other seasons but it is the most her out of all. Stripping from the carefree spirit she sported during summer into someone who is still beautiful and playful but more reserved with rosy nose and warm heart.

Today marks two days before winter. Harry is home while his love is out. She told him earlier that she is going on an errand. He knows well what is going to happen as soon as she steps into the house later on. He is preparing mentally on how it will be for them based on how it has always been. During winter, there are common sights of shutdown, isolation, growing distance, anger, silence and frustration.

She is also preparing herself for when the time finally comes. Preparing for when he decides that it’s best for them be apart and she completely understands the decision. It will hurt, of course but at least she is the one who will be on the receiving end. Her heart gets heavy every time she sees how he is tip toeing around her. At times she catches him quickly wiping away the stray tears on his cheeks before turning to her with smile on his face.

Does she feel like she is a burden to him? Yes.

Is she aware of his struggles regarding the seasonal shift in her? Definitely.

Is she aware of the efforts that he makes for her? Certainly.

Does she tell him that she appreciates all of the things that he has done for her? Probably not enough.

Every thank you’s, be it verbal or through actions, doesn’t seem to compensate for his efforts in making her feel better. With the blizzard emerging in her head, she is unable to tell him whatever is going on in her mind and her heart. If she does, it doesn’t make the situation any better because she will either sounds irritated or uninterested.

The clicking and shutting sound of the front door stops him from strumming. Just like his initial thought, she comes back to the house with different hair colour. Her hair is bleached white. A striking comparison to the dark, shadowy parts of her that has started to engulf her being. When she kisses him, he waves off the fact that her body is held at a distance from him and the kiss is more of a peck on the lips.

It’s something atleast.

 //

Two weeks in, Harry starts to stare at himself in the mirror. Pondering if it’s his fault instead that his love is withdrawing away from him and the world. Thus, he tries harder. Let her pick what movie to watch, cook not only during dinner but also lunch and breakfast if he doesn’t have studio sessions or interviews to attend to, buy her flowers or other gifts, shower her with more love, spend more time. Not that he hasn’t been doing all of this before. It’s just all the things that he used to do with her during spring, summer and autumn are done more regularly in winter.

But every time she looks his way, she looks at him the same. Her gaze is not of one who is loving nor condemning his actions. It’s just empty.

And she hates it. She absolutely hates the fact that she can’t control herself and always inflicts pain on him. She has no problem reigning the summer storm, dancing in the spring rain and she is even unbothered by the autumn chill. But why does she have to surrender into the coldness of winter and be one with it?

You’re a cold bitch she tells herself.

You’re heartless, cold bitch.

You’re nothing but a burden. He tries so hard to make things better but you can’t even show your love back.

You’re heartless, cold, ungrateful bitch.

“Love?” She hears him calling out for her. In her peripheral vision, she sees him standing at their bathroom door. Eyebrows knitting together, eyes are still very much sleepy, trying to muster what is she murmuring under her breath.

Sometimes, when the nights are longer, when the branches outside knock at the window, when the wind changes from softly whirling to strongly howling outside their house, he feels the other half of the bed empty as he sits awake. She is somewhere in the house, staring into nothingness and occasionally mumbling something under her breath.

He always tries to coax her to go back to bed. Squeezing her shoulder while running his thumbs up and down. At times he is successful even though after that they will go back to sleep with untouching body.

“Are you – is there something bothering you?”

A stupid question Harry thought. But it is a needed one because he knows even though she despises how the question carries a powerful weight, she still is truthful to him. It might not seem like an okay situation for anyone who sees her looking into his eyes and smiling at him for a fleeting moment before brushing past his tired figure and go straight to bed with her back facing him. But the quick smile from her is enough to settle the gnawing feeling inside.

 //

Somewhere in mid winter, she loses it. She is always on the edge Harry notices. But now the blizzard that howls inside her is being unleashed and its coldness is spreading to him. What supposed to be a relaxing dinner turns into an intense screaming match. They are fighting from home to the restaurant and from the restaurant back to home.

She is already so exhausted with voice straining. He is no different with his red eyes and heavy breathing. The reason behind the fight and its content are long forgotten and it has taken a total different path than it usual does. Usually he gets a grip of this kind of situation. Yes, they have multiple fights before but he is able to take control as to not let it get too much. But not tonight. He ends up sleeping in the spare room.

It feels different. Not having him in the same bed as her.

She is aware that she is being selfish and greedy towards him. Wanting him to be with her but at the same time pushing him away.

What the hell do you want? She hisses at herself.

Their fight throughout the course of the evening comes alive before her eyes and she regrets every harsh word thrown at him earlier. He doesn’t deserve that. Never. Not when he has been doing everything he can by putting her first on his list.

She shakes her head as she positions herself to sit against the headboard, knees tuck closely to her chest. The dimly lit room and its chillness should lull her to sleep but with racing thoughts and restless feelings, she finds it difficult to sleep. With head rested against the headboard, she looks up to the ceiling. Blinking every time her eyes are out of focus. It’s not long before the heavy feelings creep up on her, forming a lump on her throat and burning her eyes.  

She swallows down the lump harshly and blinks hard in hope that she can deter the heaviness over. However, it’s inevitable. When her lips start quivering, few tears slipping away, her ears ringing, she knows it can’t be stop. The only thing that she can do is to let it go. So, she does and she is shaking uncontrollably while flinging her hands to cover her face in order to suppress her sobs.  

“Love? Hey, hey,��� he soothes. “What’s wrong?”

She feels the bed dips in front of her. His sudden presence ceases her crying and the sobs that he heard when he was walking towards their shared bedroom to check in on her has quiet down a bit. It’s the expectedly unexpected moment like this that he is unsure on what to do. Uncertain if he is making the right choice or will he just end up pushing her over the edge once more. She is so stoic and blank during winter, barely talking and moving. To have this sudden outburst is so unusual in the household that he doesn’t know what kind of approach to take.

“You – you can tell me – talk to me,” he says with a hushed tone, searching for the right words to say. He turns his body so that he is sitting facing her. Waiting for her to give any sort of response is nerve wrecking. Breathing deeply, he cautiously tugs her wrists away from her face, placing both gently by her sides on the mattress before retracting his hands to his lap.  

The sight in front of him is truly heart breaking.

“Please, love,” he whispers not trusting his own voice. One lone tear making its way down his face and he quickly wipes it with his wrist. He supposed to be the stronger half during time like these. But he can’t bring himself to look at her sad and exhausted face for too long before breaking down on his own.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She whispers through her tears. She must’ve looked and sounded pathetic she thought. She usually keeps this sort of sight to herself during nights where everything felt too much and she can’t help but hide herself in the bathroom until the raging blizzard in her turns into soft blowing wind.

“I’m so sorry.”

To have him see her like this is the last thing in her list. After all that he has gone through with her during hard times, after the fight earlier, he should’ve been resting. But here he is, sitting crossed legs in front of her, red-rimmed eyes and curls dishevelled.

He shakes his head and swallows. Clearing his throat and silently prays that he doesn’t crack. “No, no. None of that.” He lifts his hands from his lap for a few inches before letting it fall again, squeezing them in a tight fist. He wants to hold her so bad but he is uncertain if she will be okay with it. So, he holds himself instead.

She lets out a shaky breath trying to steady herself in front of him. The hesitancy that he has makes her crumbles once more, choked sobs falling from her mouth. She shakes her head, looking away.

“I’m sorry I’m like this. I’m so – sorry you have to deal –” she breathes in shakily, wiping away tears with her palms before continuing, “deal with all of this. I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

“Stop. Don’t you ever say that.” The words delivered are stern. For as long as they have been together, he knows how hard she can be on herself. It’s baffling, really because he sees her trying her best in life but she fails to see it.  

“It’s the truth, h and you… you know it” She sniffles, meeting his gaze before turning away as she shifts slowly, mirroring his sitting position.

It is indeed the truth. That everything is a mess. That they are a mess. But it doesn’t matter as long as they are together. “It’s the truth –,” he says, slowly reaching for her hands. And when she doesn’t flinch, he takes it in his hold, “ – and I’ve come to terms with it.”

Did you listen to that? You are making his life harder than it already is.

“Look at me.” He gives her hands gentle squeeze because he feels that she is beginning to drift away. He can see she is biting her bottom lip a little too hard, jaw clenching. “Please?”

Their eyes don’t lock immediately but hers rather trail from where he rubs her knuckles to his eagle tattoo before finally settling on his pleading green eyes.

“I… I want to take care of you.” He swallows. “You are my wife. I promise you in sickness and in health, remember?”

She shakes her head at that but she is not answering his question. It’s more of she is unable to comprehend why is he able to be so considerate and willing to stay despite her literally shutting him out for a long time.

“You are so good to me and – I’ve been nothing but terrible to you.” She grimaces at the thought, whimpering. “You are always taking care of me but I – I haven’t been doing the same and… and two people in marriage doesn’t do that, h. Married couples take care of each other.”

The words hurt but as it flows, some weight lift off of her chest.

“Yes but you are sick and it’s my turn to take care of you. And I don’t mind, at all. Because I love you.” His eyes water further as he feels sobs building up in his chest as he goes on.

“Harry, I’ve been shutting you out every time and it makes you so sad.” He is about to cut her off, denying her words when she quickly dismisses him.

“No. Don’t say you are not. I’ve seen you cry when – you think I’m not looking. Heard – heard you’ve been worrying about me through phone calls too. I know… I know it seems like I’ve been in my own head all the time but I see… you. And tell me, Harry. Look at me and tell me that you are not sad.”

Her sentences break occasionally as she chokes on her own sobs. At that point, there is no use for him to twist her words so he tells her what he feels.

“I am but that’s because it breaks my heart to know that you are sad all the time. You, love, you are my other half and whatever you feel… I feel it too. Might not be the same but it’s similar.”

You hear that? You make him sad. He is not happy and you make him like this. It’s only a matter of time before he leaves.

“I don’t make you happy.” She trembles. “I don’t make – God, I’m so sorry, h – I want – want you to be happy. I promise you that but I don’t –” Her thoughts are running wild, words fighting off each other to escape from her throat causing her to fail in talking and breathing.

“Breathe, love.”

Her shoulders shake as she sobs uncontrollably into her hands, gasping. His hand quickly finds place at the side of her arms, rubbing up and down slowly in an attempt to soothe her and he closes the distance between them until their knees are touching each other. He feels the tears in his own eyes making their way down his face while he swallows the lump in his throat. He is scared because she has never been like this.

Her hands then fall to his lap, grasping on his sweatpants while tears trickle down on her arms and some on the cotton fabric. A string of whispered sorry’s falls out of her mouth as she let her body falls forward into his hold.

“Hey… hey… it’s okay.” He is shushing her through his own tears, despising how there is little to none that he can do to comfort her. At that point, he is taking any kind of opportunity that he has to offer her solace. And if that means he has to hold her trembling body while she put her head against his collarbone until the next day, then so be it.  

She breathes in sharply and lifts her head from his collarbone to get a clear look of his face. “You are so understanding and loving and such beautiful person and I – I understand if you… Other people can treat you better.”

He is shaking his head to her words, further furrowing his eyebrows. Bringing his hands to her cheeks, he wipes her tears with his thumbs. It’s quiet for a moment. The room is chilly and the only heat radiating is from their flushed skin.

“I’m not leaving if that’s what you’re thinking. I love you… only you. And I want to be here with you. Nowhere else.” He promises, keeping steady gaze on her eyes.

“But I’m – making things harder than it already is,” she whimpers, trying to retract from his touch but he is not letting her go.

He moves his hands to the side of her neck, holding her face firmer. “Listen to me. I don’t care,” he says, stopping for a moment to make sure she is there with him. To make sure she is looking back at him.

“I don’t care. It’s hard because everything worth it is hard. And you, love, you are always – always worth it.”

She quiets and some part of her starts relaxing. Both of them are looking at each other, observing each other exhausted stances. He brings his lips to her forehead, kissing her softly.

“I love you,” he whispers against her skin as she blinks her last tears away.

Having to hold her close after long winter nights is the warmest feeling ever. Instead of just having a quarter of her by his side like he always does in winter, he is having more than that from her tonight. She falls asleep with her head on his chest, his heartbeat lulling her to sleep. He stares at the ceiling, thinking of her flushed cheeks, the way she sounded when she was crying, every sniffle, every sob, every voice crack and anything in between.

//

She has been out for hours and it’s the first time she went out for reasons other than work since she entered the house sporting her bleached white hair few months earlier. He wonders if something inside her has stirred after those nights ago. The clicking and shutting sound of the front door stops him from strumming. She comes home, kisses him on the lips a second longer. He can tell that she is hesitant but it’s something at least. Small steps.

“I – um… Sorry I was out for a long time,” she says, sitting next to him. The guitar on his lap is long forgotten, placed on the coffee table in front of them. All that matter at the moment is her. So he is focusing all his attention to his love.

“It’s okay,” he assures her. He then notices a package on the floor not far from her and nods towards it, “Can I take a look?”

She has a small shy smile on her face when she reveals few medications in it. “I’m trying to get better,” she whispers, “I promise.”

There is a tad of disappointment in her that she addresses to herself. It’s sad to see that doing something that she should’ve been doing for a long time, a necessity, makes him smile brightly and proudly. He is scrambling for the right words to say and before he can voice out his heart, she hugs him, nuzzling into his neck with arms around his shoulder.

“Thank you for helping me,” she mutters, “For everything.”

As they hold each other, they are aware that there are still numerous blizzards that they need to go through and tame. It’s not going to be easy. They are not going to suddenly be complete. But they are both learning and that’s what matters.

 And as the seasons pass, there are more parts of her coming back to him.

[cartoonsliveon]

I did a thing. I turned the dream I had, described in this post , into a fanfic. But with a twist ending that I can’t resist writing. And I swear. I promise @h-theartist, that no one is going to die. It’s not going to be as angsty as the lightspeed AU...... Hopefully.

"I grow tired of this,” Tenebrous said softly, in a tone that had the light airiness of a sigh but too much weight to be anything else but a warning. 

He regarded Hiro with heavy disinterest, no longer amused by the young teen and his friends attempts at heroics. It would be very easy to destroy all of them now, including the robot. A simple touch and they would all become nothing. But he wasn’t here for them. And although it would do him better in the long run to dispose of the heroes now instead of allowing them to become a greater nuisance, that wasn’t his objective. He was here only for the girl, and he has wasted more than enough time already, by destroying bookshelves and furniture, in trying to complete this goal.

He turned now to meet the terrified stare of his young target. The sixteen year old took a small step back, looking from Tenebrous to the fallen Hiro and Baymax half buried under books and broken bits of wood, then back up at Tenebrous. Tenebrous was used to seeing fear in the eyes of his enemies and targets. What is there not to fear about a man literally made of shadows and darkness? He’s a shadow that doesn’t need to follow the movements of a separate body. 

Karmi couldn’t help the tears that started rolling down her face as she whimpered, tensing as her back hit a wall. She felt paralyzed under Tenebrous’s gaze, knowing she should run. But even though her common sense screamed to do it, she couldn’t get her body to respond. As if the weight of Tenebrous’s stare had the power to keep her in place. 

She could only watch as he came closer and closer, and all of Big Hero 6 laid defeated. Captain Cutie trapped under pieces of several bookshelves, possible trapped under Red Panda as the robot tried to carefully manuever itself free without hurting its leader. Chop Chop struggling on the ground, wrapping up in little bands of shadow that pinned his arms to his side. Fire Jumper and Tall Girl were trapped in a dome made of the same.... substance?.... as the bands keeping Chop Chop immobilized. And Speed Queen was-

“Eep!” Karmi flattened herself against the wall as the little yellow disc flew out of no where from the corner of her eye, hitting Tenebrous in the wrist as he reached out to grab her. A larger yellow blur swept across her vision for a moment, before it solidified into a more recognizable figure. 

Gogo grabbed hold of the villain’s wrist with one hand, and his shoulder with the other, using all of her strength to push back against Tenebrous. Neither Gogo or Karmi had noticed though, that Tenebrous’s form had been slowly losing its shape, the darkness losing its structure as it reached out for Karmi. 

The darkness didn’t care though, it latched onto Gogo the same way it would have latched onto Karmi, engulfing her hands and racing past her wrists to overtake her elbows. Karmi watched in silent horror, as Tenebrous’s body turned more and more into a mass of darkness with wispy dark clouds clinging to the edges. 

“Get.... off..” Gogo demanded, struggling to pull herself free from the darkness that was now traveling up her neck and down to her waist and hips.

 In the back of her head, something in her registered that this was absolutely pointless. The darkness had an iron tight grip on her, so no matter how hard she tried to pull away, her arms wouldn’t budge. It felt like her back was flat against a concrete wall, with no room to give. And trying to push Tenebrous away was just as equally useless, her hands didn’t touch anything of substance. There felt like there was nothing beneath her palms, nothing but air.  

“GOGO!”

Karmi blinked, not look at Captain Cutie as he struggled to climb out from under the books and broken bookshelves. She was too busy staring, as everyone else was, as the darkness completely swallowed the yellow speedster up. Her brain sputtered as several realizations began to slowly and terrifyingly dawn on her. But the one that stood out the most, that overwhelmed every other thought racing through her head, wasn’t her piecing together the identities of her favorite super heroes. No. The one thing that continued to race and race through her head, was that she couldn’t tell what part of the darkness had been Tenebrous and what was suppose to Gogo as it sank closer to the ground and then pulled itself up again, pulling into and against itself.

“Baymax! Rocket fist!”

The darkness shifted, turning what was becoming Tenebrous’s head towards the frightened boy and his robot. Hiro felt a wave of goosebumps start crawling down his back as he held the shadow’s gaze, watching as the eyes reappeared. Tenebrous made no move to get out of the way or make himself smaller. Instead, his body continued to take shape. The constant pulling amongst the shadows that made up his body was dying down, something that drove an icicle of dread through Hiro’s chest.

Tenebrous couldn’t help the smug look that stretched across his shadowy face, clasping his hands firmly behind his back. He wanted to savor the moment of shock and horror that would cross the fourteen year old’s face when he saw the rocket fist go right through him and crash into the opposite wall. Watch the hope and despair wash over him before finally returning to the task at hand.

That smug look vanished though, feeling the force of it as it flies into him, and doesn’t exit through him. Tenebrous can feel it, trapped within him, pulling him along with it like he’s a streamer at the end of a kite or the tail or a rocket. He can feel it, deep inside, something holding on tightly to that robot’s fists. A part of him is latched on to that thing and it won’t let go. He can’t bring himself to let it phase through him. It just... won’t. 

“Let go,” He hisses, feeling as though the fist is trying to pull him apart. He can’t bring whatever it is in him to let it go. Why won’t he let go? Why can’t he let go? “Let it go.”

And to the shadow man’s surprise, it works. But the pain that comes with it is agonizing. His knees hit the wooden floor, right arm wrapping around his abdomen, too overcome by pain to move. He’s not entirely sure if he’s screamed or not, but he’s struggling to catch his breath as his body shakes. The entire library is engulfed in silence, the only noise being the rocket fist as it slams into the wall. 

Tenebrous turns to look behind him, taking a shaky breath. His eyes widen, pain flaring through his entire body with a vengeance. He can’t tell if its a reminder of what he just experienced or a mere echo. That wasn’t what he meant by let it go. No... that-that shouldn’t even be possible.

“AAAAGGGHHHH!”

Fred’s battle cry startled the villain back to the present. Tenebrous looked up, just in time to a blaze of fire come towards his way. He raised his arms up, wrists crossed. And silently cursed himself for not realizing sooner that, in his agony, he lost focus and released the heroes he’d trapped with his powers. But, no shadowy dome appeared to protect him and instead the shadow man rolled as quickly as he could out of the way. The heat burning across his back and the back of his neck. Fred landed amongst the flames, and Tenebrous felt immediately uneasy when the most talkative of the group was deadly silent.

He heard the faint buzzing noise of Wasabi’s blade, before he hissed in pain as one swiped painfully across his shoulder. The other,however, swiped painlessly through his body as Tenebrous had intended. But that didn’t stop him from backing up from Wasabi, eying the man’s weapons apprehensively. Something was wrong, very wrong. This has never happened to him. None of it. And yet... 

Tenebrous looked up instinctively, towards the discarded rocket fist and the crater it left in the wall. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the young woman, cradled protectively in Honey Lemon’s lap as Karmi hovered by the red head’s shoulder. He growled, cursingly silently before he regarded the other heroes. Wasabi and Fred stood, one on the far left and the other on the far right, preparing for the next move. And from behind him, the heavy footsteps giving them away, was the giant robot and Hiro. 

Under normal circumstances, this would hardly be considered a challenge. But these were not normal circumstances. Tenebrous could not rish being defeated. Not by a child and his friends. No.... As much as it pained Tenebrous to consider, it seemed that today was truly a first for everything. The villain turned, fixing Gogo with a cold stare that sent shivers down Karmi and Honey Lemon’s spines, before his body began to sink into the ground. It was as if he were a melting popsical, his body losing its shape slowly at first but quickening the process with each passing moment. There was nothing but a puddle where Tenebrous was standing, a puddle of darkness that shot off, disappearing into the shadows cast by the remaining pieces of furniture not broken from the fight.

Wasabi, Fred, Hiro, and Baymax stared at the spot where Tenebrous disappeared through, all of them taken aback by what they had just witnessed. A heavy silence fell over them for all of two seconds though, until Hiro jumped off of Baymax’s back and raced towards Honey Lemon, Fred and Wasabi close behind, and Baymax waddling after them. Hiro slid onto his knees besides Honey Lemon, not caring in that moment if Karmi was standing literally right behind Honey Lemon. Gogo’s armor had been completely stripped of its yellow color, leaving behind a black tincture that Hiro couldn’t explain.

“Gogo?” Hiro says it softly, hesitant only because his heart just won’t stop racing. Gogo’s head is tilted down, Hiro can’t tell if her eyes are closed or half lidded. He can tell that she’s trying to catch her breath, but not because she can’t breath. Who knows what kind of adrenaline is racing through her right now, “Gogo are you-”

It’s at that moment that Gogo looks up to meet Hiro’s gaze, and he feels the words die in his throat. Her brown eyes are loss in the darkness that’s overcome the white of her eyes. Her eyes are all darkness, to the point where Hiro’s not sure if you can actually see her irises and pupils. A knot forms in his stomach though.

“Hiro?” Gogo raises an eyebrow, an action that sends chills throughout Fred’s body. And not the good kind, “What’s wrong?”

She doesn’t understand why no one is saying anything, or why Wasabi looks so freaked out he’s going to fall into hysterics, she reaches out to grab Hiro by the shoulder and shake him a little, “Hiro what’s wr-”

Her eyes widen as she watches her hand pass through Hiro’s shoulder, fingers sticking out the other side. And she suddenly becomes acutely aware, as fear washes over her, that she’s now not only literally sitting in Honey Lemon’s lap instead of on top of her legs, but there isn’t even the faintest hint of a shadow being cast by her arm across the floor.

-------

So... this was literally something I was thinking about in my dream as I watched my subconscious make the executive decision to instead make Karmi and Gogo swap bodies. Where either Gogo is just absorbed into the darkness that makes up Tenebrous and that’s that (which is very sad and very angsty and I don’t think I could do that after everything I do to her in the lightspeed au) or she’s yanked out of it somehow, but there are some... consequences. Because Tenebrous has never had anyone able to fight him back and escape his powers like that. He absorbs his victims into his shadowy body. 

And Gogo’s not only been able to somehow get out (pure stubbornness and refusing to submit), she got away with some of his powers. He’s lost complete control of his powers and Gogo’s got some of it.

 *cue dramatic music* 

I haven’t decided yet though if Gogo would be able to control Tenebrous or if they could be able to control each other. Like Gogo could turn off his intangibility. Or, if she uses her intangibility he can’t use his. And if he makes a dome of shadows, she can’t do the same in that moment. A part of me is also toying with that idea as well as the idea that, since neither of them have a shadow, they sort of are that for each other. Gogo lost her shadow when she got swallowed up and pulled out. Tenebrous is made of shadows, he wouldn’t have one hanging out at his feet. So like, occassionally they do little movements out of no where because the other person is doing it. Which would help explain sort of why Gogo has this affect over Tenebrous and why he might have it over her.

Either way though, Tenebrous is pissed. Our evil, super powered mercenary (haven’t decided yet why he was hired to attack Karmi, could be a number of reasons) is not at all happy about this. And he’s going to get his powers back, one way or another. 

[loyally-unfaithful]

—; hey, i don’t need any love or future , (3)

word count: 3.1k

pairing: sky high | keith goodman/gn!reader

genre: angst, hurt-no-comfort

summary: even if it meant that he spent more time away from you, than with  you—for the safety of everyone living in this city, including you, he will keep going. if it were to protect everyone here, if it were to protect you, he will keep going. for your smile, for your laughter, his sun.

if it were for your happiness, he will keep going.  

a/n: i have literally never written an action scene send help ,,,, there is only so many ways for me to describe air in a threatening way dkslfjalkfjand

also, wiki says sky high's hobby includes thinking,,,, hmmm he thonking

he is surprisingly perceptive and oblivious at once, in equal measures, scary haha

he was heading home, so how did he even get here in the first place?

he’s not as naive as people may think. sure, he has his moments; sure, his airheadedness may have been an integral part of his personality. perhaps keith could even be qualified as foolishly optimistic. but the hero’s occasional obliviousness is what made him him, it was what made him charming. it was what endeared him to you. but clueless and lacking tact he was not. it was hard to be when one has been in the industry for as long as he has. certes, he may not have as many years under his belt as wild tiger or rock bison, but he has gone through his fair share of rodeos. enough time for the novelty and the lustre to wear off. enough times for him to get acquainted with the notion that being a hero isn’t all that simple and evident—not that the blond was looking for an easy way to further his own reputation or to revel in the limelight. but after enough times, once the glitter and sparkle has worn off, the personal sacrifices made often outweighed what was won as the career grew to become increasingly demanding.

it isn’t just as easy as appealing to sponsors and scoring points. it’s not just as effortless as repeating the speech you prepared beforehand and rehearsed out loud in front of your own reflection. it isn’t just a matter of apprehending “bad guys”, branding yourself as the paragon of virtue and justice by capturing what people would label as scums. after all, he knows better than to assume that right and wrong, good and bad, are two clear cut binaries. the world isn’t black and white, the world isn’t as easily divided into two groups—those who are right and those are wrong, those who are good and those who are evil—as he may have naively thought when he began his career. it’s cliche’d, it’s overused, it’s been repeated so often that it has lost its meaning and has become redundant: the world is every shade of grey, every criminal that he captures all have their circumstances, everyone has their reasons. sure, some are out only due to a wanton lust for chaos, but it would be unjust and unwise to assume that every thief, every con artist, every murderer, are the same.

that’s why the hero wants to give all of them the benefit of the doubt, offer them a second chance, or a third, or how many times it takes for them to redeem themselves.

the evening had not been that different for the hero: he too longed to be back by your side, much preferring to spend the night differently. glancing at the clock on his hud, the blond figured that you would be asleep. you were waiting back at home. faintly, a smile appeared on his face. with a subtle shake of his head, he pushed away his selfish desires and willed himself to focus on the task at hand, attentively watching over this city. to his surprise, but not his displeasure, the patrol had proved itself to be unusually uneventful and rather dull, marked by an incredible lack of events or occurrences that required his intervention. no criminals to be seen, no signs of any incidents occurring. even if it was dull, it comforted the hero that he didn’t have to act: it meant that everything was alright. pleased with what he had seen so far, he decided to turn around and head back to his flat, calling it a night.

he was heading home, so how did he even get here in the first place?

his patrol was about to come to an end without much fanfare when he caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure lurking in an abandoned construction site near his apartment in the corner of his eye. for the most part, the person’s identity was concealed by the all-consuming darkness and were it not for the built-in night vision in his helmet he would’ve never noticed them. the unknown figure’s movements were precise, too precise, purposeful as they silently jumped from platform to platform and expertly navigated the unfinished building. from where he flew, the only thing visible to him was their back, but something about the way they manoeuvred around the rubble, about the way they kept glancing side to side to observe their surroundings, made them suspicious. deciding that they were worth keeping an eye on, the hero moved cautiously, quietly, and sought to increase the distance from them to observe them from afar, as the figure was already on high alert. it was tricky, but he tried to get a better look at the questionable person, and perhaps even discern their identity, without alerting them. pivoting to the right angle, he caught sight of their face and though hidden behind his helmet, his eyes widened in recognition: that mask!

« stop right there! »

halting in their sprint across the beam, the figure abruptly swiveled their head in time to catch sight of and dodge a particularly vicious whirlwind. their combat boots skidded loudly on the concrete as they landed on a roof. dust settled back on the floor after being disturbed by the person’s display of acrobatics. from their slightly crouched position, the person slowly lifted their gaze at their attacker. whatever light the moon provided illuminated the figure, bathing them in an eerie blue glow, and the hero was finally able to get a clear look at the individual, which confirmed his suspicions. there was no mistake: the silver gas mask, the crimson symbol running down its left-hand side. there was no mistake.

« intercessor! he called out, loud and clear. »

though they never called themselves such, criminals and law enforcement members alike dubbed them so because of the type of operation they engaged in: serving as the bridge, a mediator, between gangs and criminal groups; offering them resources and intel; smuggling out weaponry and equipment, or even providing information on other organisations, locations, or heroes. a bit of an outlier, the criminal has only just recently appeared in the public eye, but has never made any attempt to involve themselves with the general public, avoiding from being seen for too long or to even reveal the alias they went under. despite their recent emergence, it’s been assumed that they’ve been active for at least a few years—if the testimony of captured criminals and graffiti of their symbol, the same symbol as the one on their mask, a stylised illustration of an open eye with a streak of red paint (perhaps representing a tear), were anything to go by.

though it had been nothing but a hunch, something about the criminal was very familiar to him. something about the way they moved and fought reminded the hero of a case he had been assigned to earlier in his career. but the two did share any other resemblance beyond that, so he pushed that observation to the back of his mind.

on a surface level, it seemed like they were harmless as most of their operations were covert, never directly endangering the city, but they would ultimately compromise its safety as they indirectly aid more malicious criminals in their goals. the hero frowned behind his mask. for that reason, they must be stopped before that happens.

« now that i am here, your villainy has come to an end! »

the hero warned them, making his voice be heard. even when the cameras were not on him, he unconsciously followed the dramatic performance he had practiced over and over, and assumed a dramatic stance, one hand on his hips and the other pointing at the criminal in question, attempting to exert pressure to make them give up without putting up a fight.

« a hero? the criminal’s distorted voice echoed discordantly, unfazed. leave me be, static reverbated harshly in the empty building as they ordered him. i’m not looking for a confrontation. »

their words coincided with their established modus operandi: operating under the darkness, out of sight, and escaping if they were to be spotted, rather than seeking out confrontation. however, despite their stated disinterest in engaging the hero in a fight, they poised their hands and prepared themselves to retaliate. momentarily taking a blue glow, they summoned two strong gusts of wind of their own and released them on the waiting hero. despite the ferocity of the attack, he easily evaded them with the help of his jet pack and advantageous position. the criminal clicked their tongue, annoyed at their failed frontal attack.

as expected, despite their shared next power, it seemed that the criminal was not as experienced as their opponent—both in terms of handling their ability and combat experience, they fell short. frustrated, they lifted their arms once more and made it clear that they were determined to continue their assault until the hero left them alone. swinging their arm up, they commanded a vortex to strike the hero, managing to graze his arm. shrugging it off, he created a strong blast and asked them to stand down. they sidestepped, and returned the hero’s attack. the latter dodged it with ease.

« it would do you well to give up. he cautioned, striking his signature salute. my greatest wind velocity for today is at an all-time high! »

warning going unheeded, the dodger concentrated the air around their palm into a compact sphere, forcing the volatile energy into a small projectile waiting to be released. and released it will be, as they threw shot after shot at the hero. soot momentarily obscured both of their sight, their attack stirring the dusty ground under them. as it cleared, the criminal was pleased to see that at least some of their blasts landed.

« try me. they sneered. »

if only they would make it easier for the both of them and give up.

the hero resigned himself to a lengthy altercation—it seemed he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his promise, and he hoped you wouldn’t notice that he would be back later than usual—and gave his own reply to their challenge, taking the form of two columns of air which twisted dangerously fast towards the intercessor. despite the viciousness of the attack, the criminal still managed to avoid getting caught by the skin of their teeth. recovering quickly, they repeated their previous attack, though it failed to work as well as the first time, which had caught him slightly off guard. he didn’t know what the thief thought was going to happen, attacking him head on like that.

nevertheless, he chalked it up to inexperience and dived to apprehend them.

backstepping, they summoned an upward wind to throw off the hero. despite being blocked momentarily, he continued to pursue them all the while making attacks of his own. but somehow, they manage to evade him, leaping out of his way. the blond’s persistence paid off as the dodger made a displeased sound as they took in their predicament, forced to go on the defensive. preoccupied with manipulating the air around them to make a makeshift shield, they could no longer attempt to run. it seemed as if their attempt to throw him off did not work to dissuade him but neither did his tenacity at convincing them to give up, and both were now at a standstill—their shared ability nullifying their attacks: as he’d attempt to catch them, they’d parry him. as they attempt to push him away, he’ll bolt out of their way. they continued this performance, as if they memorised their role on the stage perfectly.

but at last, as they tried to maintain their distance, the criminal managed to push the hero farther back away from them with an especially violent swat and, thinking that the extra distance afforded them more time, the intercessor caved under the pressure and started to attack erratically, overwhelmed by the increasing need to escape.

this was his chance!

while his opponent was flustered, he will capture them and call the authorities, who will take care of the issue from there.

lowering his guard, the hero ambitiously descended to capture the villain. making something that sounded like a laugh, the thief created a large barrier around them, an arc of powerful wind that violently threw the hero back. the hero’s balance having been thrown off, they feigned a head on attack which the former automatically blocked. his attention drawn elsewhere, they prepared a second vortex which took the blond by surprise.

were they faking their incompetence and making amateur mistakes on purpose? then that erratic onslaught was intentional… it was a lure and he fell for it. the rough winds buffeted him, and he rushed to recover.

the criminal flinched slightly as the attack connected, taken aback that the tactic had worked and that they had managed to actually injure the hero, but soon precipitated to take advantage of the hero’s current predicament.

« perhaps it’d do you well to not underestimate your opponents… they taunted, saving face. »

seeing that the hero was stunned, the intercessor took it as a chance to escape and resumed their sprint through the unfinished apartment complex. throwing caution to the wind, they ran without looking back, hoping to lose the hero as they dashed over to a particularly dark corner.

« i don’t intend to let you go! »

seeing as they had exploited the hero’s lowered defense, they shouldn’t have brought theirs down so easily: his voice carried in the empty air surrounding them, and the criminal picked up their speed—not expecting the hero to shake off the attack so quickly. however, as they climbed on a particularly unsteady beam, the hero went through with their threat, which took the form of a large ball of ferocious air that he slammed on his opponent. in a vain attempt to dodge the new onslaught of vicious attacks, the thief slipped and lost their footing, crashing down a few stories without much grace.

« alright… »

he tried to boost his own spirit, exhaustion getting the best of him, but knows that he hasn’t won yet. he sighed. not until he confirms that the criminal had been stopped and handed over to the authorities. not until he returns home. not until he returns to your embrace. you. home. it’s late and he’s starting to feel slightly worn out.

in hindsight, he could’ve accidentally given the criminal the chance to escape, but he flew down to the base of the construction at a rather unhurried pace. to be fair, finding the criminal after their fall wasn’t that difficult of a feat: all he had to do was fly over to where he saw them crash and follow the tracks to where they must’ve dragged themselves as a futile last ditch attempt to escape the hero, the uneven footprint revealing that the criminal was now limping,

he landed smoothly on the unsteady terrain and began his search for the fallen thief, thanking the night vision once more for making his job easier.

as he moved deeper into the unfinished complex, having to stop once in a while due to the building’s questionable structural integrity or obstacles created by the recent fall, he finally reached the dead end that the criminal trapped themselves in. having found the cornered person, he now has to make the right choice. part of the ceiling had caved in, and as he ducked to enter the room a stray gust brushed the side of his helmet. an attack? no, it was a warning. but, it was half-hearted. it missed him by a long shot and hit the wall beside him, and through his peripherals, he could see that the impact had barely shaken it—his opponent had lost all their intent to fight. collecting himself, he turned to properly face the criminal he pursued.

he freezes.

the hero was prepared for many things, for many different difficult situations he could’ve found himself in: he was prepared to fight back in case the adrenaline made the perpetrator lash out, he was prepared to begin his spiel to convince them to redeem themselves (after going through their sentence, of course). however, he wasn’t prepared to hear a shaky gasp and whimper in a voice that became increasingly familiar, in a voice that he had come to be fond of, as he got closer. he wasn’t prepared for the person he would face.

making the right choice is hard. would it be easier if he had a next power that helped him see the future? could such a power exist? regardless, that’s not what he has. making the right choice is hard, and he has to base his decision on what he has and what he knows at the time. making the right choice is hard. making the right choice is even harder as a hero, when every action, every word, every decision, is recorded and broadcasted for millions to see. no, it’s not easy, there’s a new weight to his choices. the consequences and the impacts are heavier than if he were just another person. he’s not nearly naive enough to believe that every single choice he has made was the most just, he’s not nearly naive enough to believe that they all led to the best of all the possible outcomes. there will always be factors that he needs to take into account and there will always be things that he has missed. not just facts and circumstances, but also his own personal bias.

the right choice was difficult because it’s a struggle between two beliefs. right now, his conscience is split between two ideals, two wants, two rights.

time is often critical, and hesitance can make all the difference in the world. « it’s time to surrender, you’re under arr— ». but for the first time in a long time, he faltered. his throat felt dry, and he can’t find it in him to summon his voice.

after being a hero for so long, making split second decisions has become second nature to him, an instinct, but for the first time in a long time, he faltered. for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t sure what was the right choice.

he’s heard somewhere that everyone considers themselves the hero of their respective lives, and that they see themselves as the “good guy”. he supposes he can apply this to himself, he hopes that what he is doing is ultimately for a good cause, that he will make a change and leave this world better than when he entered it. did they think the same? was this the case for every villain he has met? was this the case for the criminal he finds himself petrified before? was this the case for you?

he was just heading home, so what choices led him here?

a/n: idk i like the idea of soulmates sharing the same next power

LIKE MY WORK? CONSIDER BUYING ME A COFFEE // CHECKING OUT MY MASTERLIST | LINKS CAN BE FOUND ON MY DESC

[oiralinsanity]

The Blood Drop of Subcon

Part 4

"So let's get this straight." Moonjumper spoke to the shadow version of himself. "The spell actually worked, except it failed to transfer the entirety of our soul into our shadow."

"Seems so." Snatcher replied, sipping on one of the two cups of hot chocolate the hatted kid brought to them. The two spirits had held themselves up in her bedroom, unable to stand the loud grinding of gears from the engine room next to the main living room.

"In turn, the part of the soul that made it into our old shadow became you, The Snatcher," Moonjumper reiterated what the duo had managed to figure out through the lengthy conversation being held on the way back to Earth. "And the part of the soul that got stuck in our old body became me, The Moonjumper."

"I guess so." Snatcher commented.

"I don't know how we screwed that spell up so badly that it split our souls apart." Moonjumper rested his cheek in his hand. "There's been no such recounts of this spell ever splitting a soul between the body and its shadow. It was either the soul made it into the shadow or it didn't. So what happened?"

Snatcher took another sip from his cup. "Perhaps the water messed up a part of the ritual circle?" He suggested.

"No, that wouldn't be it." Moonjumper countered. "Screwing with even a part of the circle would destroy the process entirely. Neither of us would be here if that happened, so it must have been something else."

Moonjumper slowly sipped upon the chocolate drink, not used to consuming anything besides souls and bodies for apparently over seven centuries. That was one of the many things that stressed his mind at the very time, learning that literally 731 years had passed since he woke up in his white hell and that each escape were spaced a year apart.

"Say, how did you come across this ship and her captain?"

"Oh God." Snatcher moaned in despair. "Do you really want to know this story? It's truly embarrassing."

"I do, I do!" Moonjumper exclaimed. "I must know how my shadow managed to come to my rescue!"

"She's basically an alien." Snatcher caved. "Came from some distant part of the universe. From what I've been able to sneak in from reading her diary when she wasn't onboard, don't tell her, some Mafia Goon broke her window and caused her fuel source to fall down onto the planet."

Snatcher continues. "Some of her fuel fell into my territory, and she goes to venture into it. I got one of my minions to trick her into following them into a trap, and I managed to get her into signing away her soul for some jobs I needed done."

"So why does she still have her soul?" Moonjumper asked his old shadow, having taken noticed to the odd inconsistency of his story.

"Oh, this is where it becomes some major bullshit." Snatcher huffed. "After she had completed all of the contracts I had available at the moment, and let me tell you, I almost lost my voice due to how many times she activated my traps, I tried to kill her."

Snatcher looked down at his almost emptied cup. "I would have succeeded had it been for one of these flasks-" Snatcher paused to summon one of his flasks of an explosive blue liquid as an example. "Breaking like it was suppose to. Instead, she takes the unbroken one and uses it against me! And you know what turning blue does, imagine being permanently blue for a fucking battle!"

Moonjumper snorted. "You're telling me that you got your ass kicked by a kid!"

"HEY! IT WAS A GOOD THING TOO!" Snatcher bellowed. "Had I won, she wouldn't have been able to save both time and the world from this little mustache tyrant girl!"

"I apologize, explain?" Moonjumper asked.

"Sorry." Snatcher spoke, realizing he forgot to explain the true potential of the girl's fuel source. "Her fuel source, for some reason, doubles as some sort of time manipulative device. They're pretty much capable of rewinding time."

Snatcher got up close to Moonjumper's moon face. "Although for your sake and mine, I recommend not messing with them. That girl will kill you and then follow you to hell to kill you again! Fuck, she'll even fight the devil along the way if she felt like it."

"O... K...?" Moonjumper spoke uneasily. "Um, aren't you going to put that away.?" He said, pointing at the flask The Snatcher still had out.

It took a while for The Snatcher to figure out that the flask, which contained an explosive mixture in it, wasn't a good idea to keep out on a spacecraft where it could potentially blow a window out and suck all the air into the vacuum of space, and so summoned it back into his pocket dimension. All that followed was silence.

~~~

The automatic doors opened to revealed the young captain, arriving with an update. "We have arrived at Subcon Forest. Please gather your stuff and make your way to the main room to exit!"

"I'm sorry," Moonjumper spoke up at the sound of hearing his old home's name. "Did you just say Subcon Forest?"

"Yep!" The hatted kid said sticking her tongue out playfully. "This is where my contractually obligated BF-"

"FOR THE LAST TIME!" Snatcher interrupted her. "THAT CONTRACT WAS MADE VOID THE MOMENT YOU STARTED CHANGING THE FINE PRINT ON IT!! WE ARE NOT BFFs!!!"

The room stood silent for a moment before Moonjumper spoke up and asked, "Can I be her BFF?"

Which caused The Snatcher to scream in anger. "That's IT!! I'M GOING TO MY HOLLOWED TREE!!" And with that, he floated furiously out of the spaceship.

The remaining two members of the ship watched as the shadowy spirit left the room. The hatted girl glanced over to Moonjumper, who looked as though he was nervous.

"Anything wrong?" She asked the moon-faced spirit.

"It's-" The Moonjumper stuttered a moment. "It's just been so long since I last saw this forest, I don't know what to expect." He watched the kid think for a moment, placing a finger at the corner of her mouth.

"What if I gave you a tour?" The girl finally spoke. "Show you around the forest so you can see what's changed, and I could possibly get a history lesson from a former resident of its brighter days?"

The girl made the last part of her suggestion as more of a plea, since most of the residents of Subcon Forest either remembered little of their past life, didn't want to talk about it (Or couldn't even speak at all)...

Or would tell her no when she tried to ask.

And she did not want try with Vanessa, not after having to go through her manor while under The Snatcher's contract.

That did remind her of something she saw though. While she was in the attic, she had noticed on the wall away from the Time Piece a pair of eyes and a toothy mouth painted on it, and they did look like that of The Moonjumper's. Perhaps the two were related in some way.

The Moonjumper looked at the girl. While he might be able to figure his way around the dark forest after a while of traveling throughout it, he could use a bit of a refresher course of the area.

~~~

"Boss! Boss! Wake up!!" A Minion yelled, waking The Snatcher up from a nap.

If there was one thing that could possibly top getting beaten by a kid twice (Officially), it was being awoken from a nap.

"There's a new spirit in the forest, and it's talking with the kid!" The Minion yelled, worried for the hatted girl's safety.

"Is he wearing a red coat?" The Snatcher asked his Minion, who nodded back. "And does he have a moon-shaped face?"

The Minion nodded again, confused at how their boss managed to know all this just after being woken up.

"That would be Moonjumper." The Snatcher sighed as he slumped back into his previous position before he was rudely woken up. "He's a new arrival. Kid had to bring me to the moon in order to retrieve him."

"The moon?" His Minion asked. "Why was he all the way up there?"

"Apparently," The Snatcher explained. "He's the one who has been making The Blood Drop of Subcon. Turns out, it was a freaking distress signal!! Who would have thought!?"

"Then why did it always disappear every year?" The Minion asked, probably trying to understand the whole situation.

"He kept saying something about a 'White Hell' that always sucked him back in." The Snatcher answered, annoyed. He picked up his minion by the back of their hood. "Now if you excuse me, SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO SLEEP!!"

The Minion was slung out of the hollowed tree onto the dirt ground outside, skipping like a rock on the water.

Part 1/Part 2/Part 3/Here/Part 5

[mobius-prime]

175. Sonic the Hedgehog #107

Crouching Hedgehog, Hidden Dragon (臣人豪猪臧龍) (Part Two)

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Yes, those are the same Chinese characters as last time. I was kind of hoping they would have used different ones so we could have a second nonsense phrase to laugh over, but alas. The morning after the dragon's attack, Sonic and Tails are playing video games when they're called to a morning meeting with Station Square's president. Once in the meeting, the president begins to explain his strategy for taking on the dragon, but Sonic is less than interested.

Sonic suddenly realizes he recognizes the team as the one that captured him at the beginning of Sonic Adventure 2, and promptly bursts into hysterical laughter, remembering how easily he disarmed them last time. Sally is quick to salvage the situation by claiming that it's Mobian tradition to laugh at their allies as a show of respect, and a confused president and annoyed Paladin Team look on as every Mobian at the table howls with laughter to keep up the ruse. Sonic, however, is not pleased with the tough-guy, humorless attitude that every member of the team exudes, and Sally, Rotor, and Antoine stay behind in the city as Sonic, Tails, and Bunnie airdrop in with the team to Pyro Island, where the dragon is believed to be hiding out. The Mobians are cheery, singing and chatting with one another, but the leader of Paladin Team admonishes them for not taking things seriously. While everyone is distracted, two of the Paladin Team members lag behind everyone else, not realizing that there's a shadowy, snakelike figure stalking them from behind. As the Mobians and humans begin to argue, they suddenly notice the disappearance of two of their team members.

While the humans angrily head out to find their missing team members, Sonic, Tails and Bunnie press on into the trees, trying to figure out where a dragon might hide. Tails spots a cave behind a waterfall, and they duck inside, to be immediately greeted by… Dulcy! It's been a while since we've seen her! Her arm is in a sling, but otherwise she seems fine and happy to see them. Suddenly, the red dragon emerges from behind her, but Dulcy quickly explains that this is Zan, and she's in a relationship with him. However, he begins to act aggressive, insisting that the others are their enemies and shouldn't be here, to her dismay.

Well, that changes things a bit. Everyone tries to convince Zan to settle down so they can talk things out peacefully, but Zan becomes even angrier when Dulcy agrees. He's interrupted from scolding her for relying on them when a net entangles his mouth, shutting him up, and the humans all rush in with guns drawn, ready to kill both dragons. Sonic utilizes his super speed to take apart all their guns before they can fire, but then Zan breaks free of his muzzle, gloating that now that they're unarmed he can kill them easily. Sonic steps in the middle to prevent that from happening either, and then Dulcy, from the back, quietly speaks up.

So this isn't the only "surprise domestic abuse" plot in a Sonic canon. Anyone who's played Sonic and the Secret Rings knows that an abusive romantic relationship plays a big part in that game's plot as well. But it still does come as a big shock here. Sonic freaks out, infuriated that Zan would hurt his friend, and begins wailing on him, while Tails and Bunnie rush outside to check on Dulcy. She repeats certain stock phrases that are common of abuse victims, such as "he loves me" and "maybe it's my fault," while Bunnie reassures her that she's not at fault at all and deserves better than to be treated this way. It's honestly a decent portrayal of the guilt that abuse victims become stuck with, just very condensed, because this comic doesn't have time to throw in a whole long subplot about Dulcy's emotional recovery. Instead, it takes a fast-track approach, as while Sonic and Zan fight, Paladin Team sets up explosives and blows up the entire cave, with Sonic and Zan still in it! That'll solve it!

Everyone outside is horrified and rushes forward to try to dig them both out, but Sonic emerges safely, tunneling his way out from under the rock. However, Zan isn't so lucky. The team contacts the president, informing him that the dragon that menaced them is dead and the city is safe again, and he agrees formally to take in the Overlander refugees, while Sonic, Tails, and Bunnie stay with Dulcy at the ruins of the cave till nightfall, letting her mourn despite the abuse.

Fittingly, our character file for this issue is for Dulcy! She's an outlier in almost every way compared to the other characters so far. Since she's a dragon, you'd expect her to be bigger than the others, but I wasn't expecting her to be so massive. She's a whopping 240 cm or 7'10" tall, and weighs 111.8 kg or 245.9 lbs! That's easily taller than Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma, the tallest characters in the games (not counting bosses such as Iblis or Dark Gaia), though not nearly as heavy as either of them. Her wingspan also comes out to 169 cm or exactly five feet, which correspond well enough to how they're usually drawn as proportionately small. However, that's not the most interesting thing about her file. Based on her behavior and this recent relationship of hers, how old would you say Dulcy is? Seventeen? Eighteen?

She's thirteen.

I was honestly shocked when I found this out. This means that most of the previous times we've seen her, she was literally only twelve, not even a teenager yet. This actually puts a lot of her behavior into perspective - her somewhat crybaby attitude and nervousness in the face of danger, all that is due to literal immaturity. This means she was only about two years old when the war against Robotnik started, with her birthday being August 23. The file explains that when Robotnik began his coup, he heavily targeted dragons before any other creatures due to their sheer power. One such dragon, Sabina, sought protection for her daughter Dulcinea (Dulcy's real name) among the Kingdom of Acorn before she too was captured. Dulcy grew up over the years and helped the Freedom Fighters, though she mainly lived outside on her own due to her massive size. Interestingly enough, the file also attempts to provide a bit of a retcon for the whole "dragons can sense truth" plot hole that I pointed out all the way back during Endgame, instead suggesting that Dulcy in particular is just a very trustworthy individual who doesn't like telling lies and has an instinct for knowing when someone is being truthful, which I can accept. It's a lot better than the handwave from before, anyway.

Reunification (Part II)

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Dawn Best Colors: Robbie O'Quinn

Lien-Da is pissed. Apparently, she actually didn't expect Knuckles to be able to reverse the effects of the Quantum Beam, despite Dimitri not only promising Knuckles he'd do so himself, but even encouraging Knuckles to do so on his own. Dimitri is also shocked, though more at the sheer extent of Knuckles' power, which exceeds even his own when he was Enerjak.

What, Lien-Da? You think you're gonna recruit Remington or something? Remington's an upstanding guy, man, I think your chances are… uh… well, I suppose we mustn't forget about the time traveler girl who apparently thinks he's gonna murder Knuckles. Remington asks her for her name and she gives the name "Jani-Ca," though internally she notes that she's trying to hide her own identity, meaning this isn't her real name. Wynmacher and Lara-Le rush up, concernedly asking after Knuckles, and while Remington states he hasn't seen him, Jani-Ca hides her surprise at seeing a younger version of her grandmother. Wait - grandmother?! Then that means she's…

The Chaotix are back as well, having landed right back in the ruins of the Grand Conservatory, with their dialogue again suggesting that they haven't been away for long due to the slower time scale within the Twilight Zone. In Haven, the various members of the Brotherhood are dismayed to find the place trashed from Knuckles' earlier bursts of uncontrolled power, though they instead suspect the Legion's hand. They notice that Matthias and Hawking are no longer there, realizing that they've both died and headed on to the "next evolution," AKA echidna heaven. They sense one more soul with them, whom we know is Tobor, but they can't figure it out. Locke briefly worries that it might be Knuckles before hearing Knuckles' ghostly voice reassuring him that he's fine and currently in the city. Far from reassuring Locke, this only makes him worry that instead of his great plans for Knuckles to be a savior, instead his worst fears have come to pass. What, Locke, you starting to think that maybe genetically engineering and irradiating your unborn baby wasn't a good idea after all?

*sigh* So, yes, everyone, this is Knuckles' future daughter Lara-Su. Anyone who knows Penders and his whole lawsuit debacle will know exactly who this is. Now, she's kind of an unpopular character because of this (and because many people essentially dismiss her as Penders' Mary Sue OC), and there are definitely valid criticisms to be made about her inclusion into the comics, but I'm not going to immediately jump into hating her just because of the circumstances of her creation. After all, we still know basically nothing about her, not even how she came to be, and anyway you all know that I prefer to judge a character or story on its own merits and not on how likeable its creator is.

Everyone's conversations are interrupted by a flash of light, and Dimitri materializes in the middle of the group. Remington, of course, steps forward intending to arrest him, but Knuckles stops him much to his shock. Dimitri grins in a super-duper-not-an-evil-villain way and says that Knuckles has finally seen that he and his Legion only wish to rejoin the rest of echidna society, and that they're prepared to do whatever it takes to reintegrate…

[perispinel]

OK K.O. Episodes Review!

I got Hulu Live just to watch em! 

Gar Trains Punching Judy: A great funny episode, with the starring role of Melissa Villasenor doing some great work which I greatly enjoyed! It was also a pretty meaningful episode, showing Gar getting himself a bit more emotionally stable after all the hardships of his life- and all in all, it was funny seeing how K.O. was just plopped into this plot without really having any big role in it! 10 outta 10 for this one!

Beach Episode: This is a pretty nice, chill episode I think- I like the idea of them having a second job exclusively for the summer at the beach, even if it probably won’t appear again after this! Beach episodes are always fun, and this is no exception! I love Enid’s Naruto-style training, along with her Jaws-style revenge! And the fact that Raymond’s “swimsuit” is just a speedo and nothing else is just feeding into that fanart and that Radmond~ that Baywatch reference managed to be simultaneously subtle and glaringly obvious, and the landfill plot comes off as a lot less preachy when it’s combined with all this silliness with all the fun beach combat. ANyone else love that Raymond of all people is the one to agree with working together? All in all, this was a great episode, ten outta ten! (P.S. Rad and Raymond were put on the same board, coincidence or ship tease?) OK A.U.: Heck yeah, a canon alternate universe! This is definitely not the way I expected this episode to begin, with a “our life is much harder than yours” kinda plot, but it is a great way to begin an episode about being transported to another universe! I kinda hope that the Alternate Universe Warlock becomes a popular character in the fandom due to how easy he’d be to use for fanfiction!  I love this perspective into what its like to be a Boxbot- unlike Mr. Gar, he doesn’t show any sympathy and is perfectly willing to reboot you if you ever disobey! It makes being a Boxbot seem kinda scary, although that was kind of a given. And man, I love the way these humanizations of the Boxbots look, exactly how I would’ve imagined them! I loved how the original moral ended up being completely thrown away when it turns out that when he created this alternate universe, he didn’t give them the same memories. And nice callback to the “Let’s Watch the Pilot” episode! ten outta ten, hopefully this becomes a popular one! 

K.O.’s Health Week: This episode has such a Sesame Street vibe to it, or like an episode of a cartoon from the ninetees where they were forced to give out morals without any relevance to the plot or characters. In fact, I am totally certain that this is meant to be a parody of those kinda kid’s shows, with K.O. in place of someone like Elmo or Sonic from Sonic Sez. This episode is definitely establishing K.O. as having some pretty wacky toonforce, being able to just climb into someone’s mouth and shrink into the size of a tiny toothbrush to literally wipe out plaque. This episode seems like it was both meant as a way to teach cute lessons to kids and as a way to show K.O.’s trait of wanting to be a hero to anyone. I enjoy the way they managed to rope in the Boxbots into the plot, and both this and Beach Episode show that in the right circumstances, they can get along well! It looks like this episode might’ve been more than just a silly “the more you know” gag- it was showing that K.O. needs to take care of himself! It’s nice to see that even though the Boxbots still got pummelled, they were on good terms with K.O. by the end. Maybe eventually we’ll have a plot with the Boxbots questioning their villainy? Anyway, ten outta ten for this! 

Rad’s Alien Sickness: I absolutely love this already, with Venomous and Fink getting their own villainous intro to signify their new role in Boxmore! I had no idea we would get to the point of biological warfare being used against the Bodega Trio, but Venomous is the kind to definitely pull that off! It seems maybe they were using Rad’s persistence against him in order to make them fall apart, which is pretty clever for someone who hasn’t been there for that long. Their depiction of Rad’s sickness managed to be pretty gross without being overly realistic, as all fluids are replaced with just blue. I love how K.O. has proved to be the perfect pal, helping his friends with whatever is ailing them, and the fact that he got desperate enough to use leeches and crystals is adorable and funny. Anyone else surprised to hear the term “enabler” used in a kid’s cartoon? And I just love the fourth wall breaking of them saying they barely see Ernesto! Honestly, this episode just proves how much better of a villain Venomous really is, as he basically using his real villain skills to do what Boxman always wanted to do- almost, at least! Well, ten outta ten, I can’t wait for the finale! (not sure whether that cocooning thing is more funny or creepy.)

Dark Plaza: It should typically be a good sign when an episode begins with a cheesy laughtrack and everyone being happy, but the last episode to do that was Let’s Take a Moment, an episode packed with big reveals and twists, so I am already feeling something coming. And already I was right, with Foxtail and Elodie showing up with a bunch of construction workers and giant pointy ships! THis episode is already getting heavy, with the supposed hero wanting to bulldoze Lakewood Plaza to start extracting glorbs and Carol’s secret being revealed to Gar! Oh boy, I love the parallels- in the heat of the moment, Gar is telling off Carol and saying something he’s bound to regret while it rains down hard, just like Carol did all those years ago. Gar seems to have completely given up and is gone, time will only tell if it lasts. Oh boy, subversion of expectations- instead of T.K.O. coming out to save the day, he’s stopped from fighting, and two months pass to reveal that they actually did win! Villains win! I mean, heroes win really, but you get it. It’s pretty dope that the heroes have formed a resistance, and they have such cool new outfits which I bet will get plenty of fanart! The fact that Mr. Gar had the blueprints to the Plaza encoded with holographic morse is pretty clever, and I am into this fun heist mission being pulled off!  Ms. Mummy’s appearance was a surprise indeed, and I also didn’t think we’d get to see P.K.O. again, but this episode is full of surprises! The callback to the Key to the Plaza from the Plazalympics is pretty cool, as I was almost certain that was just a gag. It probably originally was a gag, but now it’s not! I also love the fact that Plazamo from Crinkly Wrinkly’s story turned out to be real, and he wasn’t just making stuff up- he just has a weird way of remembering things. I am very hopeful that Elodie will come around- she seemed remorseful back then when she actually destroyed the plaza, but it seems now she’s been completely turned. This episode is doing well to prove both how tough K.O. is and how powerful Foxtail is, and I love it! 

Nice to see Mr. Gar return to save the day, and Carol too! And man, Elodie is stone-cold brutal- turning on her own superior just to prove she can, and that all in all she still loves Enid. It’s also sweet that they’re still having such an emotional moment with her even after all she’s done- Foxtail did have good intentions, after all. I think that all in all, that was a pretty good season finale. I expected something with Shadowy Figure, and sadly we didn’t really get any hints at it, but I’m sure next season is gonna do something about that. Eleven outta ten! 

[patchdotexe]

Tell us more about shadowy

cracks knuckles. anon you have just opened the pandora’s box of leos infodumping

so, to set the stage here: he’s part of a setting called Shattered Worlds, in a totally different continuity from Chaosverse (where Checkpoint / askchaosverse takes place). there’s totally different rules and worldbuilding and all that, and while it TECHNICALLY takes place in the same multiverse (and has some characters in common, if EXTREMELY AU) it’s… also basically shoved in the twilight cage and locked off from everything else. it’s also a setting from 2007 that lasted until 2014, so it’s about to get wild

(it’s also gonna be under a cut bc this is gonna get VERY long. tl;dr: he’s a universe-destroying asshole that stumbled across an artifact of immense power, lost control of it, blew himself up, and is behind the entire plot of Shattered Worlds, both directly and because of consequences of him exploding. also he’s kind of an AU shadow/mephiles? i guess???)

Shadowy is something called an Outsider, which are… well they never got defined very well, but they’re a species that’s mobian-passing (and apparently is all hedgehogs, seeing as the 3 established Outsiders are hedgehogs?) and have the ability to jump from universe to universe at will, among other individual powers like Chrome’s telekinesis. they mostly use this to kinda hang out on various versions of Mobius, blending in as being an average mobian and either solving problems or causing them. Shadowy’s of the latter kind. they can be identified as an Outsider by their weird eyes, although that can get a bit blurry sometimes because theres some other SW characters that get them under specific circumstances which… usually involve an Outsider doing something.

anyway the point is Shadowy’s kind of a dick. the downside of being an outside force to the multiverse as we know it is… he doesnt really have any attachment to it? he’s not really a god but he’s near-invulnerable, can just bounce out of a universe as soon as he starts facing any consequences, and kind of sees everything as a game where he can just knock a few pieces over, see what happens, and then leave to do the same somewhere else but with a different method. he’s bored. the full effect of what he does doesnt really matter to him, he just entertains himself by making a mess of things. he’s also, like, a teenager with phenomenal cosmic power, which always goes well

so Shadowy’s running around from universe to universe, just kinda fucking with people to see how much he can get away with, when one of his worldhops kinda… fails. and instead of going through a portal directly from one universe to another, he falls into the void between worlds: Nullspace.

(”wait isn’t that a thing in sonic forces though” i came up with nullspace in like 2010 and can dig up old posts from my first blog talking about it, and there’s only gonna be more similarities to forces as this goes on, its COMPLETELY baffling and i swear to god it is a total coincidence that im still not over)

anyway so Shadowy accidentally dumps himself into the void, gets lost, but finds something that had gotten sealed there ages ago, potentially by another Outsider: something called the Phoenix Orb. im bolding it because its very important. this is like, THE plot macguffin. it’s also basically the Phantom Ruby, because as soon as Shadowy gets his hands on it he goes from “asshole” to “asshole with total control over reality”. and he REALLY wants to see what this shiny rock can do, so he goes back to his deal of universe-hopping and picks a world he thinks will be very interesting to fuck with.

meet Robo (left) and Recky (right)! Robo wants to be a hero. Recky becomes a supervillain to spite him. Robo assembles a team of random furries and they all go on a bunch of adventures, including meeting clones of themselves, having an EX Gear race, getting lost in the desert, and various other shenanigans, usually involving fighting Recky and his cronies O-Mel and Blade.

then Shadowy shows up.

Recky’d gotten himself in a tight spot, so he wasn’t exactly going to turn down help when a random hedgehog showed up and allied himself with him. …sort of. Shadowy was just kind of a pest to Team Ultimate Robo (or TUR for short), and sometimes would even intervene on their side if things went south. it was kind of hard for anybody to tell what side Shadowy was really on.

finally, though, Shadowy had all his pieces in the right place and set his plan in motion. he approached Robo and took advantage of the metal sonic’s insecurities and tragic backstory, and convinced him to ditch his team in favour of destroying Mobius with him. Recky found out and alerted the rest of TUR, and they teamed up to race Shadowy&Robo to the Eclipse Cannon before Robo used it to wipe out everything.

while Recky was up in space, O-Mel and Blade decided to stick to Recky’s original plan and kidnapped the members of TUR that had stayed behind on Mobius to.. i dunno, do something. mind control them into working for Recky, probably? back at the ARK, Shadowy got his face kicked in by Robo after he was snapped back to his senses, and fled back to Nullspace to recover and plan his next move. Robo had just made things personal… and Shadowy hadn’t taken full advantage of his new powers yet.

Robo freed the captured TUR gang and made a big distraction for them to escape, and in the confusion Shadowy appeared and kidnapped a specific hedgehog to use as bait. it worked, and Robo gave chase to try and rescue her. using the Phoenix Orb, Shadowy took control of SK and gave her enough power to near-totally destroy Robo, then sent her off to do the same to the rest of TUR. she basically got turned into Infinite, complete with having a realitywarping gemstone shoved in her chest.

it was a pretty solid plan, except it quickly fell apart when SK started fighting back for control and tried using the Orb’s power to attack Shadowy instead. he was losing control of the situation, and the two of them ended up in a struggle with Shadowy desperately trying to get the Orb back before she figured out how to use it. in a last-ditch desperate effort, Shadowy used the Orb’s power he could still draw on to forcibly fuse himself with SK in hopes that, if he couldn’t get it away from her, he could at least take control of the fusion and go from there…

…and things very quickly went from bad to worse.

turns out taping together an Outsider, a hedgehog with a shitton of Chaos powers and potential, and an artifact with total complete control over reality, is not good for the universe. or any universe. enter the Shadowy Phoenix, who kinda goes full Solaris except with like… realitywarping instead of time control. the creation of the Phoenix was literally shattering the world around them, and neither SK or Shadowy were in control– it was basically just the Orb itself running rampant and at threat of not only destroying TUR’s Mobius, but the entire multiverse if it wasn’t stopped.

so it got stopped. and exploded. the sudden death-explosion of a superdimensional being tore reality apart and flung everybody across the multiverse, with both Shadowy and SK gone… until SK suddenly showed back up 3 years later with no memory and with a shard of the Orb still stuck inside her. this is when the main Shattered Worlds plot kicks off!

as for Shadowy, it’s… not really clear what happened to him.

[jovial-renegade-art]

Writing thingy majig

Warning that my grammar is absolutely awful and my writing is kinda garbage 99% of the time and I’m literally just pounding out the next paragraph or two without any editing because I’m Lazy but I have Ideas I wanna use. Here we go.

The first thing that Felix noticed from his perch was that it was chilly. Though made to be durable and protective, his suit wasn’t always particularly warm. On cold NYC nights like this he often wished he had a coat he could wear, or a different suit better fit for the weather. He had neither, and with a sigh he simply accepted the fact that he would be freezing for the next few hours.

That was fine, he didn’t mind. It was in the job description. Rain or snow, sunshine or none, it was his business to protect the people and unfortunately crime didn’t halt for bad weather, so he couldn’t either. The spider himself made a quick jump from his current location, across a relatively short gap by his standards. His body left solid ground and flew, almost floating in the air, towards the next destination. He relished the feeling of falling. Since becoming the Amber Spider, and protector of his city, he’d learned to love the idea of descending to almost certain doom. He’d learned how to fall correctly, and he’d learned how to move from building to building like the city was his own personal playground.

Before it was too late he reached out for a hold. Having his...unique set of skills allowed for fast grabs on nearly anything. His hands stuck and his body caught. It looked downright painful to others but for him it was nothing. The way he suddenly stopped falling, and stuck to pure red brick. The way his shoulder seemed to stretch and lurch, and how he hung limply before begginibg to climb. His limbs were used to the pressure, his body had learned to cope with sudden shock and was even evolved to the jumping-grabbing movements he often chose over simply swinging with webs. Sure it would be Easier to navigate that way, but it never quite felt right. Aside from the queer feeling he always got, he was nearly always exposed when he chose to swing. Jumping, crawling, were far less noticeable by his standards. Felix enjoyed his stealth, he couldn’t help it, it was just the predator in him.

It took no time at all to scale the brick, surly gaining looks from innocent people gazing from their apartment windows. No one would say much, after a few years of the local vigilante pulling such stunts it wasn’t news to anyone when they caught a glimpse of him scattering past the window. They knew he was simply patrolling, watching, waiting to snare the nearest threat. It was at 2:46 AM when he the peaceful night was disturbed. Loud crashing, the sound of someone calling out for help. For somebody, anybody to come to the rescue.

Felix made quick work of the trip, almost a blur among the dull moon and neon lights that covered this part of town as he jumped from roof top to roof top. A flip here, a roll there, a hasty made grab every few jumps where he mistook a distance. Never falling, though, he was soon where he needed to be.

The darkness was his cover. His dull coloring always came in handy, blending in with the shadowy bricks as he made his way down. Head first, black lenses of his built in goggles barely reflecting light as he watched the scene below him. Studying the situation briefly before he acted, as to figure out just who was in trouble.

There was an obvious struggle, a classic case of a mugging. A group of men praying on a young, smartly dressed man. For someone looking so intelligent he surely made a poor decision walking alone this late, while looking so..vulnerable. The man was outnumbered 1 to 4. Only one was doing the threatening, no doubt the others just served as a reason not to try and fight back.

“Please, I’m not looking for trouble dude l’m Just trying to get home.” The young man stated. It didn’t take a genius to discern the fearful tone of his voice. Felix wanted to tell him to be sterner, and stand up for himself a bit, but he knew deep down it was likely better that the unknown man Did try and reason.

“If you’re not lookin’ for trouble then do what we say, it’s Not that hard. We want your money, not your life, but I’m not afraid to take Both.” The lead man said this without a hint of mercy in his tone. He knew better than to wait too long, he’d made his demand and he intended to get his payday.

“Listen I don’t get paid till Next week, this is all I have, honest. Don’t take it-“

“Shut the Fuck up. Did I ask for your story?” The figure took a step forward, a now obvious knife was brandished threateningly, “hand over the Fuckin’ cash before I have to make you-“

Not much else was gotten in before the Amber Spider decided he’d seen enough. He knew who was who, and he knew what he needed to do. His plan was set, his mind was clear, and his body was flying off the brick. Emerging from the shadows you would think a grown man dressed in a spider suit would amuse most.

But If anything was clear by the sound of the ambiguous scream that would soon follow- these men were Not in for a good time.

[kikuism]

get to know my ocs

so here’s some stuff about my ocs. a more or less comprehensive guide. if you’re curious about them, you’re welcome to check this out!!

vatra / 12 (16 after timeskip)

she’s on the left here and the second one here!! pinterest board 

about: hot-headed ball of rage!! will not pass up any opportunity to kick your ass. hordes gold. she’s just as bad as smaug. 

she and her twin sister aralu were taken in by fumio (who becomes their adoptive older brother) when their parents abandoned them because uh, twins = bad omen? early on she discovers she has fire powaaas! it’s like firebending except it takes a toll on her body; her fire is a living writhing thing inside her stomach, and if she gets agitated to an extreme level (extreme anger, happiness, sadness, etc), it will react badly. usually in the form of smoke creeping up her throat. and that’s not comfortable, so she figured out early on to channel it to come out of her palms instead. it pisses vatra off a lot because she’s actually a walking time bomb, she can’t not control herself, so it’s a real test to her patience and a real exercise to keep herself (and her fire) in check. 

she also clips her vowels and basically speaks like someone on the streets, because that’s who she hangs around all the time,much to the worry of her sister. she loves picking out fights and setting bets. she always comes home bloody and smelling awful. 

she also has a huge, very fragile ego, and will literally beat herself up to prove that she’s right in any given situation. she also doesn’t ask for help, thinking she can carry everything on her own shoulders. she has a lot of pride and that ... y’know ... that isn’t a good thing. the smallest grievance will make her snap.

she’s a mischievous little shit at times, but mostly she’s just. angry. like she’s always pissed about something. but really, she’s just impatient and tired with her life at home; she wants to go out and explore. she wants to use all the coiled energy in her joints and just go outside. 

but she is fiercely protective of her little family, even though she’d lick the soles of her shoes than admit that to them. she also believes in merit and hard work, and scoffs at things like lucky charms and miracles.

fun facts: has all the social grace of a stumbling cow, oh no bby what is u doin

aralu / 12 (16 after timeskip)

she’s on the right here and the first one here!! pinterest board

about: sweetheart, mom friend, wouldn’t hurt a fly!! she’s so gentle and soft and so unlike vatra that fumio can’t believe they’re even related. 

early on, when she’s just a smol thing, she wanders too deep into a mysterious forest trying to catch butterflies -- or, they look like butterflies. the ball of light she’s reaching for is actually an ancient guardian deity. it decides to take refuge inside her, to escape its fate of having to watch over the forest for eternity. when she reaches out to touch one, there’s a flash of light, and the next thing she remembers is being shaken awake by an alarmed fumio and an angry vatra demanding where she’d been; she doesn’t remember anything, and eventually they all just forget about it. 

when she’s 12, the spirit decides to make itself known to her. she freaks out, she thinks she’s been cursed, but despite its appearance (blue grayish wisps that congeal to make the shape of an eye) it’s actually friendly and curious and a little sassy and just wants to experience the mortal world the way a mortal would. aralu and the spirit soon become fast friends. when it wants to come out, it does so through her palm, so whenever she leaves the house, aralu wraps some gauze around her hand so as not to draw attention to the shadowy slit. 

besides that, she’s the mom of the house, keeps it clean and livable, makes the meals, paints and decorates. she’s the Voice of Reason and is always trying to control vatra’s shit (and it works, because she’s the only person who can keep her in check), though it’s one helluva job.

fun facts: she can get just as annoyed and angry as her sister!! takes a lot to push her there, but if you do, well good luck son

fumio / 23

ahhhh i haven’t gotten him commissioned yet, but!! he has medium brown hair which he pulls back in a scruffy tail, bangs he’s constantly blowing off his forehead, worry lines on his forehead, and the warmest green eyes that hold the entire world. pinterest board

about: fumio is the twins’ adoptive older brother! he found them in a box in some abandoned alley/part of town and was horrified that someone would just leave two babies out in the cold. 

he’s only 13 when he takes them in, and since his own parents couldn’t afford to take care of so many mouths, he decided to move out and do it himself. he loves the twins with his whole life and does everything to make sure they are well taken care of. 

fumio is naturally prone to anxiety, and because of his jangled nerves he has a lot of ticks -- tapping fingers, pushing his spectacles up his nose when they don’t need to be, moving his foot, etc. by trade, he’s an artisan, and while he does love building and taking apart things to see how they work, his true passion is reading and scholarship. in their little house, they have a whole room dedicated to his big dusty tomes which he and aralu love to pore over together and discuss. 

he’s constantly fascinated with the world around him, especially with the advent of european traders that are coming into japan. he and aralu are very curious about ‘the outside world’, and always talk about how different it might be from their own land. 

fumio has a lot of self-esteem issues; he thinks he isn’t doing enough for the twins, he thinks he isn’t doing enough in his job, etc, and that stresses him out a lot; in truth, he doesn’t know how much he’s loved!! and how much his customers love his products. he oughta have more faith in himself!!

fun facts: can play instruments really well!! aralu dances, and vatra glares from the corner the nights they decide to put on a show after supper.

jin / 23

ahhhhh, my fave? i have written 200k words about her so uh, she’s the third one here!! mostly androgynous, but slightly feminine eyes. she’s also hella toned!! vatra is jealous. pinterest board 

about: hoooo boy, so she’s a wandering genderfluid ex-samurai who left her old life in europe for a fresh start in japan. jin is a quiet, reserved soul who comes off as polite but really is a little anti social and prefers to observe from the distance. occasionally spouts philosophical wisdom. 

she ran away when she was 14 and had it pretty rough because of her red hair; japan was very superstitious and skeptical about foreigners, so they hated her for her hair color and it basically very hard for her to come out of that mindset where she flinches every time someone looks at her. she slept on the ground and ate scraps and tried rubbing dirt and mud onto her scalp to hide the red. 

eventually she learns to boil walnuts to make a black dye, and she uses that to this day. she decided to join the samurai ranks to start her new life, but after a few months of service, when her master is killed, she runs for it again and decides it’s not for her. so she takes her horse and they just .... wander. village to village. that becomes her life. eventually, she hears word of a serial killer, someone from the yakuza, and they’re paying a handsome reward to whoever can bring him down and bring him to the town square. she takes it upon herself to do it, because her money is dwindling. she almost dies and he leaves her to bleed on the grass. 

she’s saved by an old man who kicks her out as soon as she wakes up, so, injured and aching and hungry, she decides that another night on the ground is going to kill her. she makes it to yoshiwara, the red light district, and even though sex repulses her, she spends whatever last bit of money she has on a brothel just for the extra comfort that is known over there. the manager chooses a prostitute her age to entertain her; kamiko leads her to her room and she’s sweating buckets. long story short, she and kamiko become friends, and kamiko asks her all about her home and in turn tells her all about how to get around here in japan. 

kamiko becomes her first friend, even though kamiko herself starts developing feelings for her. eventually, two years pass, and jin decides to leave, because she can’t stay there forever, and she wants to go out into the world again, yearning for adventure. kamiko is upset, but she makes her promise to come back every year. jin doesn’t -- she comes back five years later, and hoo boy there is some tension between her and kamiko now.

i like to think she’s very reserved, mostly due to the fact that she was--and still is--largely by herself. she had to teach herself everything she knows about survival, and she hasn’t had the best experience with people because of their stigma toward outsiders--so she generally keeps out of their way and keeps to herself, and only engages when necessary. t

hat’s not to say she’s completely cut-off … i imagine her as being naturally curious, and thus observant, of the people around her. she has a soft spot for children, and is endlessly fascinated by their innocence and lack of awareness of the reality of maneuvering the world independently. 

she learned the language largely through observation, and since she realized talking like a commoner was going to harm the way people looked at her even more, she went the extra mile to learn the nuances and polite form of speaking, to better her chances of getting somewhat accepted into society. so when she speaks, it’s formal and concise. and so are her mannerisms.

her morality is a grey area. i feel like she tries her best to stay her hand to avoid unnecessary attention, but if an insult hits close to home, she won’t hesitate to draw her blade. she’s kept up a steady ego throughout her tumultuous time in japan, but she’s unaware of how little it can take to pierce through its cracks. i also think that in dire situations, she won’t think twice about doing whatever is necessary to ensure her survival.

fun facts: she dresses in male clothing, and has had to put up a male front for so many years that she takes the male pronouns without batting an eye. internally, though, she is always aware of her female sex, and she clings to it. 

kamiko / 23

she’s the last one here!! pinterest board 

about: kamiko!! is an absolute flirt and will stop at nothing to get in your kimono. she lives to tease people and find what makes them tick. in that way, she’s a little bit cunning, but honestly, she thrives off being around other people and can literally talk to anybody and talk her way out of any situation. she also has a dominating personality, so it’s hard to persuade her to do something, or make her see things from your perspective.

her parents sold her into the yoshiwara when she was just a little girl (a very common thing in edo period japan) to become a ‘refined’ prostitute (because they were also trained in the arts of calligraphy, singing, dancing, etc) and she’s basically never been outside its walled gate. that’s perfectly fine with her though, because when jin basically tells her ‘damn u live like this’ she scoffs and goes, ‘i’m insured a roof over my head, an education, fresh food and clothes so stfu.’ she really doesn’t feel as though she’s trapped and does not yearn to go out into the great outdoors at all; she excels at her job and steadily climbs the ranks to become a very high level courtesan, whose fees are exuberant and whom clients have to visit three times before being either accepted or rejected. 

kamiko is a very blunt person and doesn’t sugarcoat her words, so it can seem like she’s kind of a bitch, but when she gets close to someone (which doesn’t happen a lot, since her whole life is basically one client after the other, coming and going just as quickly), maternal instincts start to surface.

when she gets to know someone, and becomes closer to them, her usually larger-than-life persona dims down to someone who’ll listen and offer advice, and extend a helping hand if need be. but because she gives so much of herself to others, kamiko doesn’t really know how to process her own emotions when she’s sad or scared, so that is kind of a sticky thing for her. 

fun facts: absolutely terrified of heights, secretly wants to go see mt. fuji

kikuhiko / 16 (18-19 after timeskip)

call him kiku! that’s what everyone else does. softer and more diminutive than other boys his age. has feminine features, especially in the eyes and in the way he dresses (patterned, bright kimono with long billowy sleeves as opposed to the solid dark ones guys usually wear). he has this luxurious silky black hair parted to the side (i think??) and brown eyes. (here he is on the left)

about: kiku is one of the children of the emperor, so that means he’s a prince (right??). he doesn’t really relish this title, though. kiku couldn’t care less about politics and power -- he’d rather walk around the palace gardens and feel the breeze on his face and the grass beneath his feet. 

he’s always been a soft, shy, sensitive boy and i think he’s ashamed that he doesn’t have steely nerves like his older sister, naomi, does. he also likes boys, and that’s another reason he leaves any chance he gets, because his mother is always trying to pair him up with someone or the other, and it frustrates kiku because he doesn’t know how to tell anyone any of it. that’s why he uses every chance he gets to go outside and just -- think. get away from the stuffiness of the palace. 

kiku longs to know what it’s like to be outside, to leave what he calls a ‘real’ life. he’s very empathetic and hence cries easily. he’s always kind of conflicted about himself -- about the person he is and the person he wants to be. 

his brows are always a little furrowed, and he’s always sort of twiddling his thumbs; he’s a very inward person. on the outside, he’s a stumbling, blushing mess, but on the inside, he’s always imagining and dreaming and wondering and his mind is a very loud place. 

fun facts: he can make his origami come to life! any paper he folds into whatever animal, he can breathe life into it. he loves to prank his sister like this; it scares her to death when she sees a paper crab crawling toward her.

kouhaku / 16 (18-19 after timeskip)

“call me kou,” he says quietly, to literally everyone. this boy is such an enigma ... is he just like that or does he do it on purpose? maybe we shall never know. he has brown hair which is pulled back into a small tail, and pale eyes because he is blind. (here he is on the right)

about: kou is one of the healers at the palace. because he uses magic in his work, patients are only sent to him in special situations. he has his own special chamber underground, and kiku comes to see him nearly everyday because the sweet boy is in love with him and crushing so hard that kou can’t help but tease him a little about it, because his aura flares and zaps and sings so much -- kou can see auras, that’s how he ‘sees’ the world around him. everything gives off auras, even furniture; those are static and dim, so they’re a little harder to make out, but kou can immediately sense when someone is in a room with him, because the aura of a person is so much more vivid and complex and louder. 

kou is generally a quiet, thoughtful person, and there’s this ancient quality about him, especially in his voice; it’s somber with a lilt. a kind of heaviness, wariness to it. he’s always mixing vials and potions in his chamber, but that doesn’t mean he’s some old geezer with a love for chemistry. also has an inflated sense of self sometimes :’))

kou actually loves teasing people any chance he gets, finding their ticks and exploiting them and watching their auras react. he teases kiku endlessly about his crush on him, toes the line and leaves him with these accidentally-on-purpose fleeting touches that make kiku lose his mind, poor boy. but kou does have some feelings as well -- he finds it endearing how kiku is so fascinated with his work, and that he spends all the time with him that he does. 

fun facts: pads around barefoot all the time, because he’s a nerd and also to feel closer to the earth 

[davidmann95]

why os batman great?

I tend to focus on the guy in the red cape at the expense of my second-favorite character, but let’s make something very, very clear: in terms of the sheer scale on which he and his iconography have imprinted onto the popular consciousness, the ratio of output to quality across all mediums for a character that’s experienced the kind of proliferation he has, and his ability to not only endure but remain at the forefront of the genre he practically co-founded across decades, Batman is easily the greatest superhero of all time.

Explaining why that’s the case is tricky to truly, substantively get right, because there’s a difference between what makes him great as a character, and what’s made him the most popular character in the world. Not to remotely denigrate the attention span/intellect of the average moviegoer or suggest they don't 'get it', but I have to imagine most people don’t love Batman because they've extensively thought about his complex motives and the fascinating symbolism that rules his world, but because he drives the world’s dopest car over to his job of suplexing crime into the pavement, which is valid because that rules. So we’ll start at the immediate mass-appeal stuff and work our way down, and the big one is something we’ve already touched on:

Batman’s cool as hell

There are certainly contrarian souls who would argue that Batman is not, in fact, relentlessly awesome. Think about him for a couple seconds, they might note, and he’s a silly manchild living in his parents’ underground basement who can only emotionally engage as an equal with literal children; they might drive the point home that his particular brand of macho hyper-capitalist performative Hard Man edginess is both shallow and ultimately passe. And if you’re engaging in a character-centered examination of his archetype as in The Lego Batman Movie or Morrison’s work with the character, those are fine points. But in terms of whether or not he’s surface-level cool? Pull your head out of your ass, peel open your eyes, and engage with the larger culture for a second: Batman is as close to objectively rad as it is possible for a concept to be.

Batman wears black body armor and drives awesome cars and sounds like Kevin Conroy. Batman lives in a mansion that also has a cave in it, and wears the slickest suits when he’s not being Batman, because Batman can buy anything. Batman is ripped and sexy.* Batman knows every martial art and parkour and can blend into the shadows, and he has a belt of James Bond gadgets. Batman is a genius who’s always ten steps ahead and can escape any trap. Batman has a pitch-black sense of humor. Batman is vicious even as he’s utterly cool in the face of danger. Batman fights horror movie villains of the supernatural, monstrous, fetishistically disturbing, and plain ‘ol slasher varieties, and wins (when he’s not busy dancing across the rooftops in pursuit of a leather-clad Anne Hathaway/Michelle Pfeiffer/Julie Newmar). Batman’s climbed his way back from chemically-induced psychosis, a shattered spine, and the gates of death, all by wit and sheer brutal force of will. Batman has a city that’s New York and Chicago and Vegas and Hell rolled into one, and when he’s needed it literally blasts his logo onto the sky in public acknowledgement of his supreme coolness, but he also travels the world to other cool-looking exotic locales so he can be cool there too. Batman has theme songs by Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer. And crucially, in spite of all of this, Batman is tormented. You can argue the validity of those conventions on an intellectual level, but what it amounts to is that Batman is a kickass figure of the night who’s the best at everything and has the best of everything, snarling all the while even as he keeps an air of amused detachment about the whole affair, and those are archetypes that humanity’s long since given the thumbs up as constituting capital-c Cool. We like people who can kick ass, the outlaws, the capable and the mysterious, so long as they’re in good stories that let us buy it. And more than anyone in pop culture aside from maybe Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine - and that dude’s done, while the Dark Knight forever remains - he’s That, the superhero.

* Yes, his depiction is more typically centered around a straight dude perspective of male physical perfection than anything actually particularly sensual or alluring, but the intent’s clearly there, and when you’ve been played by Clooney and Affleck I figure you get to claim ‘sexy’ as a fair semi-universal descriptor.

Batman is spooky

Of course, if cool was all there was to Batman’s general persona, he wouldn’t be cool at all, he’d be Poochie in a Dracula cape (which given it will presumably last until the heat death of the universe is a premise The Simpsons will inevitably have to get around to at some point, so remember you saw it here first). But what backs it up and lets people take it seriously is that he’s spooky. Not necessarily frightening - though he can most definitely be that too - but there’s an ethereal, shadowy aspect to his world that goes beyond the fright mask. It can take many forms for many situations and versions of him and his setting: lurking on a gargoyle over an alleyway, waiting for some poor unsuspecting punk to try and stick up an innocent family only to drag him ten stories up and leave him sobbing for his mother; karate-chopping his way through deathtraps and colorful henchmen, which for all its unabashed fun still carries the air of Halloween pageantry and neuroses let loose; haunting the grimiest parts of an urban hellhole, waiting to burst through the window of a roach-infested apartment or a musty disused warehouse to break bones and spill blood; appearing from nowhere, grappling with mind-bending chemical trips and fighting to stay one step ahead of killers in the shadows, dueling mad rich perverted cultists and literal demons of the underworld, overlooking a shadow city forever in flux to reflect the horrors of the moment. Even at his most innocent, there’s something irreducibly seedy and violent and enigmatic about Batman, and that not only provides immediate distinction and character to him and his surroundings - one that distinguishes both from their contemporaries - but legitimizes the entire enterprise as something that can be taken seriously.

Batman is playful

At the same time, Batman’s fun - even at his most serious he uses Batman-shaped boomerangs, and drives a cool car even though gliding and swinging lets him better avoid traffic. He needs to be fun for the kind of ubiquitous pop appeal he has, and it’s built in on every level of the brand no matter how far away you try and veer from it, letting a character rooted in loss and declarations of bloody revenge work just as well for four-year-olds as forty-somethings. The cave, the costumes, the sidekicks and signal and colorful rogues and utility belt and trophies, they give his world a size and dimension that lets him dip his toe in nearly any genre, with his inherent seriousness backing him up to let you buy him in any of those narrative territories. At the end of the day, the people shaping Batman at least subconsciously know it’s all a game, and in letting him have that kind of fun he’s granted versatility and the ability to invigorate as well as stun audiences.

Batman is emotionally, symbolically raw

And sitting at the heart of it all, giving him the gas in the engine that propels all of the above forward, is that he comes from the most viscerally, broadly relatable place of any superhero. The only one who approaches him is Spider-Man, and even there the meaning of his tragedy is somewhat displaced - there’s loss and guilt, yes, but that’s merely the catalyst for a message of responsibility. Here, that Bruce Wayne loses a concept everyone is on some level familiar with, of the happiness and comfort and stability that family is supposed to provide, is itself the point. He grabs the emotional lever right at the animal hindbrain and pulls until it snaps off: everything has gone wrong, and someone must pay for making things this way. Then for good measure he actually does make them pay while adhering to a righteous moral code that defies all he fights against, elevating himself from spooky fun action hero into myth. He’s surrounded by a city where abstract horrors consolidate down into entirely literal figures - for instance, in Gotham the fear that we can be outfoxed, overwhelmed, and systematically taken apart in service of evil stroking its own ego because we just aren’t good enough to survive is a dick in a neon green hat who likes crossword puzzles (as opposed to Superman’s world of much more personal and basic human concerns blown up to cosmic scale) - and he in turn becomes a myth of us persevering through the worst to fight back.

Batman is genuinely a good character

I place this last because this is really the nuts-and-bolts level. It’s essential, none of the above would work for 79 years and counting without it, but it’s not something many but the hardcore (which includes the comic readers by default at this point) consciously think about. But on the ground floor beneath everything else, Batman’s not just an effective piece of branding, atmosphere, and emotional manipulation, but a good character. In his motivations, with the anger that compels him often making many miss that underneath, he far more powerfully wants to ensure that no one else goes through what he did. The childishness of his methods and mindset regarding ‘the mission’ meeting the maturity of his dedication and brilliance, and the humor that can come from that disconnect (especially when his alternating disgust and amusement with his daytime masquerade as a normal person gets involved). The tentative, essential friendships he’s built with the likes of Gordon and Superman. The fatherly connection with Alfred, and the see-saw of the latter’s feelings of guilt, responsibility, and pride in his charge. The spark of his rivalries at their best. The detective work that can be as thrilling as a good punch-out when pulled off right. The forever changing complexity of the Family, a web of Robins and Batgirls and assorted hangers-on with him at the center, their existence and growth a chart of his own emotional progress and regression. His jet-black wit and self-awareness, his ability to empathize with fellow victims, his difficulties in trusting and openly loving those around him when his world is built on the knowledge of how easily those can be stripped away and how badly it hurts. The paranoia, the compassion, the drive and endurance. Beneath all the trappings, Bruce Wayne is just plain and simple a really, really good, interesting, multi-faceted character, fine-tuned under decades of creators and by his existence facilitating the creation and development of countless *other* good characters. And that’s really all it takes underneath it all to prop up a symbol that’s built empires, redefined cultures, and changed lives: the idea of a good man who refused to give up in the face of a cruel world when it forever scarred him, and made himself something greater to fight back and help others not have to go through it alone. That’s why Batman’s great.

[cheshirecatlife]

Eruriren Weekend ~ Past Title: Until The Bombs Drop Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Choose Archive Warnings Relationship: Erwin Smith/Eren Jeager/Levi Word Count: 9045 Summary: It's Leningrad 1942 and Levi, perishing on the wounded streets, finally follows the path he had never wish he had taken. The army. But, along the way, a few people make it all that more bearalbe. Suddenly, war doesn't seem to matter as much. Extract: Levi had never found a reason to stay in the house, now more so than ever. It was just cold in there, anyway, he thought as he sat on the stairs- thawed with cruel ice. Inside was frozen, outside was frozen and the streets of Leningrad were bare. People were gone, dead or fighting. Starved to death or shot. A bullet only took one hit to kill, infections were spreading like wildfire and even a small cut could cause the severest of illnesses. That was if the cold didn't get to you first. Hunger or cold battled for the deaths of millions, picking off each one by one yet so rapidly that it looked like they were dropping in unison. Dying so quickly you could mistake it for bombs if not for the distant crashes. The bombs were still far, obliterating the outskirts of the city. But they were approaching. Quickly. Levi was starving but he didn't want food. He didn't have the energy. His hunger-riddled brain was muddling needs with wants until the lethargy dragged him into the state of unconsciousness. Sleeping with his eyes open. Sleeping whilst walking. Sleeping when you couldn't bear the cold any longer. Dead when you couldn't bear the hunger any longer. Levi shivered, his woollen coat doing little to protect him from the biting Leningrad winds. They were always like this in winter but with a warm home, the fire blazing, he had never found it much of a problem- that was until he caught a cold, at least. But, now, with his fingertips blue and his nose such a violent red you could mistake it for food. People thought anything was food now. Animals were food. Plants were food. Pets were food. Leather was food. Clothes were food. Everything. Was. Food. The rest of the slum had scurried off to the defenses but Levi hadn't budged. If he was going to die, he was going to do it here, not on a lonely battlefield under a foreign sky. He had never left his home, never walking further than three streets down where the furthest shop, the grocers, was. The one that was now empty, out of stock and ransacked. The store owner had passed whilst still at the till, he had been giving any spares to his family- not enough for himself. The slum was dead anyway, literally and metaphorically. The people were gone, the ones that stayed barely alive, maybe not even. His apartment block, which used to hold dozens of people, now contained just him. As did the next. Families didn't live here. Families were some of the only people who bothered to stay behind. That and cowards. And Levi certainly didn't have family. He had been searching for food, he remembered suddenly. His energy had been lost on him and he had sat down to rest. They all knew that a rest meant nothing of the sort. He saw the woman on the set of steps next to him, frozen over- her rotten corpse portraying the shards of ice like an art piece. With food on his mind and nothing available, he set for wallowing in his hunger, feeling the tearing of his stomach as it searched for food that wasn't there. That wouldn't be there. Not for another couple days, anyway, when one of the supply trucks finally made it over the icy stretch of the river and rations were given out again. Most people had saved their rations. Most people were living off what was few but there. Levi, he was living with nothing. Nothing at all. No bread stuffed in his pockets, no hidden honey jar for emergencies. Nothing. The grips of death clutched on him like a vice, the shadowy figure blocking his vision- black spots gradually filling his vision. He was dying, he realised. And, it didn't feel too bad. Except, he was a coward and cowards don't die. Cowards live for fear of death. The brave ones accept it. Levi wasn't brave. Levi was afraid. He was a strong coward, a contradiction that made too much sense in a time of confusion. Everything was contradictory now. A whole city was living off nothing, corpses walked and the fed still danced. The people were scared but they didn't give in. They lived. They lived with nothing to let them live. He wants to pity himself for being stuck in this state of starvation but he can't, the only ones who have food are the rich and even then, they hardly have anything either. Some of them still don't have anything at all. The clever ones are the ones living the best. The ones that know how to steal, how to con and how to persuade. They are the ones who live. That was not Levi. That was not brash, crude Levi whose aim before this was to at least get a job, for his country. For Stalin. It still hadn't happened. He didn't fit in right. He didn't try hard enough. He fought for what he believed in. At the moment, he couldn't think of anything that fits into that. Levi doesn't know how he manages to stand after that, how he managed to blink the black from his eyes. He pries his hands away from the ice and into the whipping wind, not an improvement- at least the ice had numbed his frail fingers. He looked down at himself, concentrating on his legs. They were barely there anymore. He looked like a skeleton, a living skeleton. He looked ill. He wasn't self-conscious, though, he fits in perfectly alongside everyone else. Stumbling on the ice, he gained his balanced and trudged along the abandoned streets. It was desolate, the wind his only accomplice as it whipped him from head to toe. It scratched at his dry skin like sandpaper and burned his eyes like fire. The wind was cruel, battling hunger in its want for death. What draws Levi eye, though, is no longer his own living corpse but the flyer fluttering around, barely remaining pinned to the crooked-stone wall. On it, in huge letters, wrote 'JOIN THE ARMY' and underneath, in letters hardly legible to his weak eyes, it continued to explain why he, just he, was needed. This was for him, he thought, some self-obsessed part of his mind taking over. He was no longer in control of himself. His mind or body. He leaned forward, squinting to read the print that would have been so clear only a year before. They told him of his fighting comrades, the wicked enemy, and the saviour that he would be if he were to enlist. He almost forgot of the death he had heard of. Forgot this was a lie. He didn't understand why the propaganda posters were still around. Everyone who wanted to go had gone. Or so Levi thought. 'Mikasa, why won't you just let me enlist! See this! They need me!' Levi wasn't the only self-obsessed person, it seemed. The boy, a combination of shaggy, brown hair and undefinable eyes, raved on to the girl who stared at him with a heavy gaze, one word exuding from her: no. They both looked starved, faces like skulls and muscles reduced to bone. But, they looked far more alive than many. They were some of the well-off. He could see it, in both of them, they were clever ones. He watched them, following the story in his mind. The boy was the basis of the operation, stealing and conning as if his life depended on it- in fact, it did- and then, the girl, she reigned him back before anything could go wrong. She was just as strong but far more subdued, she would do anything for him. That much, at least, was clear to Levi. This girl would put the boy above her, she would die for him. She was dying for him, Levi realised. Where she keeled over, he stood straight. Where her eyes were dim, his shone. She was feeding him her own food. She had just enough to live, just enough to be able to protect him. But, the rest went to him. He used to fight it, Levi imagined, and then he had begun to give in. All from a still image, Levi had gained so much information. His mind was so muddled that it was seeing the impossible. It was seeing a false reality. He didn't realise they were looking at him until he moved his eyes back down the where the poster now lying in his hands. 'You joining too?!' The boy shouted with far too much excitement. Levi resisted holding his hands over his ears to block out the noise, it hurt so much. His ears were fragile, only adjusted to the distant booms. Everything was distant now. Why did this boy sound so jovial about something as grim as the army? Levi didn't question, though, as he shrugged. He wasn't ready to speak, not yet. He wasn't even sure if his lips could move. He hadn't moved them in days and the ice had probably frozen them together. There was no need to move them, he didn't eat, he didn't speak. He just survived. Not lived. Survived. 'Look, Mikasa! I'm not the only one! I need to go, I need to help them!' The boy argued to the girl whose name must have been Mikasa. The boy was delusional, it seemed. Even Levi realised that even if the poster was persuading him, he wasn't needed. He would become canon-fodder. Useful, he guessed. But not important. This kid's sense of self-righteousness was a little too much. 'I can go with you...' He trailed off awkwardly, the eyes of indefinable colour staring straight into his, dull upon bright, a contrast that fit together so perfectly. 'Levi.'

[chiseler]

Teinosuke Kinugasa’s CROSSWAYS (1928)

Teinosuke Kinugasa

Imagine your typical Japanese silent movie – and you’d have to imagine it, as only approximately 1% of the country’s output produced before the 1930s survives and precious little has made it to the home-viewing market – and you might well picture straightforward filmed renditions of Kabuki plays or action-packed swashbucklers featuring samurais leaping vigorously around the screen flourishing wooden swords.

This was the field from which the director Teinosuke Kinugasa emerged, initially as an actor, or more specifically, an oyama performer (sometimes read as onnagata, literally “woman’s form”) specialising in female roles, then de rigeur for a nascent industry tied to the traditional theatrical conventions that kept women from both stage and screen. Born the same year that cinema arrived in Japan in 1896, following his debut with the anonymously-directed The Seven-Colored Ring in 1917, he made dozens of such appearances.

We can imagine he must have cut a suitably demure figure, clad in decorative kimono, neatly coiffured and fan fluttering over a porcelain painted face. Alas, the writing was on the wall for this pantomime style. The tsunami of silver screen sirens in the foreign films pouring into the country was ample evidence that such performative parodies of femininity were no substitute for the real thing. When the studio to which he was under contract, Nikkatsu, started hiring actresses on a regular basis following Yaeko Mizutani’s breakthrough role in Winter Camellia (Kantsubaki, 1921), Kinugasa fruitlessly led a dozen or so of his fellow oyama on strike. While the onscreen Japanese femme morphed into the more cosmopolitan, alluring and sexually assertive figure of the moga (modan garu or “modern girl”) across the course of twenties, Kinugasa migrated behind the camera, churning out over fifty films from his directing debut with Spark (Hibana, 1922) until the end of the decade and many more in the ones that followed.

Most of these fell within the field of pulp period sword-fighting movies known as chanbara (an onomatopoeic word in Japanese for the sound of blades clashing). Indeed, Kinugasa might be as obscure a figure to film historians today as contemporaries like Daisuke Ito and Masahiro Makino – prolific journeymen capable of occasional flashes of genius whose almost exclusive operations within the field of the samurai drama and, during the 1960s the yakuza film, barely registered on foreign shores – were it not for one particular title.

A Page of Madness (Kurutta ippeji, 1926) is a film that seems to have emerged from the void. It stands unique, not just in Japan but anywhere in the world, as the first feature to attempt to convey complex psychological content without any textual intertitles and purely by cinematic technique, according to the filmmaker-theorist Vlada Petric. Scripted in collaboration with the author Yasunari Kawabata, who in 1968 would become Japan’s first Nobel literary laureate, this pioneering piece of cinematic avant-garde relays the tale, in fractured flashback, of a retired sailor who takes a job in a lunatic asylum to look after his mentally-disturbed wife.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) is often check-listed as an influence, though the comparisons are superficial and Kinugasa stated he’d never even seen the film. Rather than the distorted sets of Wiene’s early expressionist masterpiece, Kinugasa’s evocation of insanity comes in a barrage of jarring juxtapositions of striking, near subliminal images that thrust the viewer into the pandemonium of its asylum setting, with its inmates clamoring at the bars. There is little in the way of narrative, so to speak, the characters’ flashbacks and feverish flights of fantasy presenting a meta-critic of the madness of the age in a dream-logic manner that is impressionistic and disorienting. Kinugasa himself cited Eisenstein’s newly-translated essays on the theories of montage as an important influence, although he would not have had any direct acquaintance with the Soviet’s films themselves, banned from importation as they were following Japan’s passing of the Peace Preservation Law in 1925 due to their purportedly subversive content.

No Japanese studio in the 1920s would have backed a project like this. It was left to Kinugasa to raise the meagre budget, and to use his connections in the industry to ensure a limited release for Page of Madness. Despite some positive reviews, its initial impact in Japan and the rest of the world was negligible. Barely a handful of domestic productions made it before the eyes of Eurocentric film critics and cultural commentators in this period and, unreleased outside of Japan at the time, Page of Madness was certainly not among the rare few that did. By the time the talkies arrived, Kinugasa was back at work within the studio system. His passion project was soon forgotten, shelved within the Shochiku company’s warehouse at their Shimokamo studio facilities in Kyoto where it had been shot. In 1950, the warehouse went up in flames, and the last known print went with it.

That Page of Madness ever saw light of day in the first place is miracle enough. A second miracle occurred when over 20 years later, in 1971, Kinugasa discovered the original negative misplaced in a rice barrel in the storage shed of his country house. A new print was struck, leading to a wave of international screenings and critical reappraisals of Kinugasa’s place in film history. Ironically, Page of Madness went on to become one of the best-known and widely-shown Japanese silent films.

But history is a fickle thing. Few remember now that Page of Madness was not Kinugasa’s only attempt at expanding the language of Japanese cinema. Just two years after its release, after retreating back into the comfort zone of commercial studio production to realize some further twenty period potboilers, the director embarked on the production of what he would describe as a “samurai film without swords”, cast in the more readily-recognizable tenebrous sturm und drang of German Expressionism. The resulting film, released under the title of Jujiro (Crossways or Crossroads), follows a more conventional dramatic arc than its experimental predecessor, and is perhaps more significant in that it was the first Japanese film to be screened widely outside of Japan.

Set in the 18th century capital of Edo’s entertainment district of Yoshiwara, the story again adopted a non-linear flashback approach in detailing the misadventures of a young man, Rikiya, who lives in poverty in a ramshackle attic apartment with his sister, Okiku, who herself is besieged by the regular predations of their landlord to settle their outstanding rent. Besotted with the unattainable courtesan O-Ume at the local fairground, he steals the kimono his sister is making to present to the object of his obsession. Unfortunately, a cocksure rival for O-Ume’s affections publicly humiliates him by tearing it to shreds in front of the baying crowd where she plies her trade before temporarily blinding him by flinging ash into his eyes. The irate Rikiya retaliates by lunging his sword toward his rival, who promptly falls to the ground in jest. Believing he has committed a murder, Rikiya flees back to his sister and awaits his fate.

Crossways at times presents the same visual tour-de-force as Page of Madness, notably in the series of hallucinations that accompany Rikiya’s nursing back to health by his sister – a striking montage of superimpositions and dissolves of spinning archery targets and gaudily painted geishas parading around the carnivalesque fleshpots of Yoshiwara. The fairground locale is dominated by a prevalence of lanterns, spinning balls and other circular motifs rendered as dynamic abstractions, to delineate it from the brooding atmospherics of the interior scenes.

Crossways travelled further afield as well. Kinugasa had barely waited until the end of its theatrical run before taking his fate in his hands and hopping on the Trans-Siberian Express with a print of the film in the hope of selling it in Europe. His mission was successful, as it found a natural home from home when it opened in Berlin under the title Im Schatten des Yoshiwara (The Shadows of Yoshiwara). It went on to play a number of major metropolitan centres in Europe, including Paris and London.

Sadly, the Variety review that accompanied its New York premiere in July 1930 under the title Slums of Tokyo, suggests that North American critics were not quite ready for Kinugasa’s vision, summarising it as “…terribly slow and draggy. Full of heavy acting, appealing looks, much weeping, gestures etc. all at slow pace and mostly in close-up. The ordinary picture audience over here would find it unbearable. The film doesn't even live up to its title.” The charge that “the story is somewhat incoherent, due primarily to what appeared bad cutting” could well be due to the intervention of its American distributor Joseph Fleischer. A Japanese DVD release of the film lists its five reels as running 74 minutes, whereas Variety cites a runtime of 60 minutes. Nevertheless, the dismissal that the “photography is modelled along the lines pioneered by Germany… of the foggy, shadowy effect with frequent unexpected switches and flashbacks” hints at a general condescension, not atypical of the trade paper during this period, toward those national industries exploring different aesthetic and narrative possibilities beyond those traded in by the dominant Hollywood dream machine. One wonders what the anonymous Variety critic might have made of Page of Madness had it made it to New York at this point.

There was a time when Page of Madness was subject to regular one-off screenings across the world, its extraordinary visuals providing a perfect foil for musicians across a number of genres to riff to, although the film now appears to be in a licensing limbo due and we’ve yet to see a legit DVD release. Meanwhile, a print of Crossways with English intertitles currently lies neglected in the British Film Institute’s archives, all but overshadowed by the reputation of its better-known bombastic predecessor.

As for Kinugasa himself, one could well describe the bulk of his considerable subsequent output, right up to his final film, the Soviet coproduction of The Little Runaway (codirected with Eduard Bocharov, 1966), as undistinguished and certainly never gaining the same traction worldwide as these two avant-gardist one-offs, were it not for the surprise international acclaim of one later title. Japan’s first ever Eastmancolor production, Gate of Hell (Jigokumon, 1953) was garlanded by Western critics gushing with a newly discovered post-Rashomonenthusiasm for Japanese exoticism. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1954 and Oscars for Best Foreign Film and Best Color Costume Design at the following year’s Academy Awards. Back in Japan, few were as bemused by the plaudits for this ponderous 12th-century period drama as Kinugasa himself, who dismissed it as one of his worst.

by Jasper Sharp