#because you’re not necessarily talking about the same thing despite the pretense that you are

[the-witchhunter]

And I’m just saying, source material is generally worth checking out

Because presumably you like the characters and it’s more content of the characters! Yay! More stuff!

But it’s also just interesting to look at a primary source, because fanfiction often bases itself off of other fanfictions so what you look at isn’t even a secondary or third source, but closer to a 34th source, which is a neutral statement, they can be highly enjoyable but there’s notable differences between them and the sources material

I enjoy Disney’s “Hercules” but l also think it’s worth looking at some of the Ancient Greek sources

The fact that there are conflicting versions isn’t something that deters me but it’s something I find interesting because maybe it was a shift in the culture, maybe this author had specific hang ups but also I would not expect everyone to know every version of every Greek myth

It’s the same with comics you’re going to get something out of fanfiction but there’s a lot of things you miss out on because a lot of context is missing

Idk I’ve drank a lot of wine but people like comics for a reason and like to talk and share with others

You can get bits and pieces from fanfic just like you can learn about Greek mythology through Percy Jackson but if it’s your only exposure to these characters and ideas you’re understanding of things will be very different from someone that has read a lot of the classic myths

The problem with trying to map out the DC fictional cities is that, they are always changing, sometimes Gotham is in New York, sometimes Metropolis is across the river from Gotham and sometimes it's half-way across the states, depending on which comic/movie/show you're watching. So technically, everyone is right about where they think the cities are, statistically speaking there's a canon where that's where they are.

Yep!!! Most DC locations are very generalized. they are somewhere in California or somewhere on this coast. It’s a mess. Quite a lot of the maps you see online are speculated locations for the cities to be located.

DC rule #1: Continuity is a sham. Everything is canon and also not and also it is but only slightly.

My main view on all comics is to just build your own personal canon. There’s 75 years worth of comics. There’s no way you’re gonna read ALL of it. Pick and choose the comics you like and ideas you enjoy and build your own personal view of the character and world. Mine might be different than yours and that’s ok, that’s how comics are meant to be.

If ya think metropolis is on the east coast? Sure. Why not. Go for it. In DC time is a thick soup and the world is Mr. Mxyzptlk’s playground. Anything is possible.

[shihalyfie]

Yamato, Adventure’s most dramatically emotional cast member

The “edgy cool bishounen rival” has been such a staple of shounen anime for years that the moment you look at Yamato and his position next to Taichi, it’s easy to go “ah, yep, there it is.” But just like how Taichi’s actually very different from the shounen hero stereotype, Yamato, despite what his first impression and character design might suggest, is in fact the complete opposite!

Actually, I’ll start this off with an interesting story from Yamato’s own voice actor, Kazama Yuuto:

Yeah. When my agent asked me which role I wanted to try out, I thought I couldn’t do a pretty boy character like him, so I was really astonished when I was chosen for the role. Afterwards, when I asked Kakudou-san [the director] about it, he said that he’d decided on me the instant I’d come in... I’d heard that Yamato was a cool character, which I thought was a part of him that didn’t agree with me. So there was that factor in the beginning. But I learned that he was actually quite similar to me, and a surprisingly passionate guy.

I don’t generally have a huge tendency to include voice actor comments in analysis about writing, but I do think it says a lot that even his own voice actor walked in expecting the typical “pretty boy rival” character to the extent that he felt he’d have difficulty doing the role at all, only for the actual nature of Yamato’s character to catch him off guard! Because, yeah, that really is the case: Yamato’s first impression really is very deceptive, and his actual personality is, indeed, full of open passion and emotion in nearly every way.

Yamato in Adventure

...No, really, it really does not take long for it to be very clear that Yamato’s immediately not like the stereotype his character archetype would suggest, considering that even as early as Adventure episode 2, he was depicted as very obviously being open about his opinions, even if that made him quick to criticize.

When you talk about “rival” characters, usually, the reason such characters seem cold and standoffish is that there’s a certain degree of pride to them, or, in other words, they want to keep up a facade of being “cool” and rational and thus aren’t quick to show their emotions. But Yamato isn’t like that at all! From the very beginning, he speaks often, is very open and honest about his thoughts, and doesn’t seem to even really care what others think at all.

The Adventure novels do, in fact, make clear that he was more closed-in prior to arriving in the Digital World, and these bursts of emotion were actually unusual behavior for him at the time -- but it’s not because he’s prideful or anything! Firstly, it wasn’t necessarily that he deliberately cut himself off from others -- rather, he was still willing to engage in some degree of friendly interaction:

It wasn’t because he was lonely. In fact, many of his classmates would greet him with a friendly “Yo!” or “Hi~!” when they came across him and, naturally, Yamato would respond back with a smile.

And, in fact, said novel indicates that there’s a lot going on deeper than him merely suppressing his emotions for the sake of it:

The people around Yamato may have thought that he was a cold, aloof person, but that was only because he didn’t show what he thought to other people. When had he become like that? He hadn’t been like that when he was younger. But after his parents decided to divorce and his mom took Takeru by the hand and left home… Don’t go! Please don’t go! Don’t leave me! The truth was, he had wanted to plead with her and cry — but he couldn’t. Part of it had to do with his father standing by his side. Maybe his mother had secretly wished for Yamato to say that to her. But at that moment, Yamato had thought that he would never show weakness in front of his mom, even if he died from it. It was his own decision to follow his dad. Ever since coming to the Digital World, even Yamato was surprised by how much emotion he expressed. All of the emotion that he’d held back while at home, at school, had come bursting out without pause.

It’s also important to understand the reasons why he blows up so easily at Taichi in Adventure episodes 3 and 6 and whatnot -- he does it because he’s constantly looking out for the others and worried about their welfare. Pretty much all of the arguments he has with Taichi for the majority of the series involve him objecting to his perception of Taichi as insensitive, because Taichi has a tendency to tease others or bid for everyone to keep pushing forward into dangerous situations or when they’re tired. So, really, Yamato gets angered and emotional and picks his fights with Taichi because he cares too much, not because he’s deliberately trying to cultivate an image of being detached. Once they were outside the range of his family and their classmates and stranded in another world, Yamato’s bleeding heart instantly won out, and he started advocating for the welfare of everyone else.

This is why Yamato’s the one who gets the Crest of Friendship, because even though he starts off by putting up a defensive wall between himself and the others and seems very difficult to deal with, even when he gets angry and upset, he’s constantly upset on other people’s behalf. Even from the very beginning of the series, he’s actually one of the most caring people in the cast!

Really, the entire first few introductory episodes with Yamato can be pretty succinctly described as Yamato coping really badly with all those years of emotional suppression and letting it out in some pretty severe outbursts, especially when it comes to Takeru, whom he’d never been able to properly take care of as an older brother due to their parents’ divorce. (And while he’s definitely a little better at managing it, Takeru himself is actually also doing a pretty bad job with that whole emotional suppression and lack of catharsis thing.) Standoffish and cold? Nah -- not when Yamato has the single highest count of openly breaking down and crying out of the whole cast in Adventure.

And, for all it’s worth, remember that stereotypical “cold rival” characters in this kind of shounen series would normally be very ashamed at others seeing them so emotional, but Yamato...doesn’t really seem to care about the others seeing him do some really embarrassingly reckless stuff during his episodes of exploding over Takeru’s welfare. Once it’s past him, he doesn’t really dwell on it and moves on. Again: Yamato isn’t the kind of person who actually cares that much about what other people think of him.

Adventure episode 18 is an often-overlooked episode when it comes to Yamato, but it’s significant because it makes it clear that he doesn’t really have a problem being conversational and friendly with others (especially since, remember, any emotional suppression had more to do with the trauma and sensitive feelings surrounding his parents’ divorce and a desire to not show weakness) -- he starts a very lighthearted, friendly chat with Koushirou over why they’re looking for their Crests, and even admits that the reason he wants his own Crest is that he’s self-conscious about the idea of everyone else changing and improving as people while he gets left behind. That’s a really personal thing to admit, and arguably something very sensitive! It’s something you wouldn’t even blame him for potentially being self-conscious about! But he’s perfectly humble in admitting that this is something he wants to improve in, and carries on this entire conversation in a light-hearted, cheerful manner.

This episode takes place during a time where everything seems to be “safe” (they’re within Piccolomon’s barrier and finally have a proper place to sleep), and are on the verge of finding their own Crests in a situation that does not ostensibly involve running for their lives, so this is when you get to see Yamato in a relaxed situation. And, really, he’s very friendly and open, with no restraint about it. He really isn’t the kind of person to be condescending or cold by nature!

It’s even more incorrect to pin Yamato as someone who tries to act more on rationality (again, like the “cold rival” stereotype would suggest) because, in fact, he’s the kind of person who gets completely carried away by his own caring for others to the extent of irrationality. For instance, in Adventure episode 23 when his conflicting loyalties to Takeru versus wanting to help Jou in his situation get all mixed up, and he tries to buy into PicoDevimon's trick to turn Jou against him as a solution to taking sides before Jou clearly indicates this is the case, and Yamato doesn't hesitate to feel really bad about it. Openly so. Condescension? Nah.

No, really, I could just keep taking screenshots from Adventure all day if you want evidence of “Yamato is openly and passionately emotional to explosive degrees because he cares too much about others, and makes no real pretense of hiding it.” If you’re still not convinced, I don’t know what to tell you.

When Yamato infamously succumbs to Jureimon’s bait in Adventure episode 44 and ends up picking a fight with Taichi -- possibly his most self-centered action in the entire series -- it’s interesting to see that Jureimon does use the word “rival”, the same word used in anime trope lingo to describe “the person you’re constantly fighting with and competing with in order to improve yourself”. The reason why this is fascinating is that Adventure is making a point here that this kind of “stereotypical anime rival” relationship would be extremely unhealthy for these characters.

No, really: at least as far as Yamato’s concerned, and what defines the kind of “friendship” these particular kids need, what these kids need is mutual emotional support, not engineered conflict that can be passed off as “they fight but it’s a sign of how much they know each other!” Remembering that Adventure is, in many ways, a series that prioritizes wanting to focus on portraying the intimate nature of human behavior, it’s not surprising that it goes out of its way to make clear that centering your relationship with a friend around needing to “outdo” them is a really bad thing. (Observe how 02′s Daisuke and Ken also don’t fit the “rivals” archetype at all and are merely a straightforward relationship of best friends in little to no conflict, despite occupying the stereotypical position.)

But Jureimon successfully digs into all of Yamato’s insecurities about his perceived lack of self-improvement and his tendency to compare himself to the polar-opposite Taichi in terms of Taichi’s charisma and way of (ostensibly) playing better to Takeru’s dislike of being coddled. And so, the engineered conflict happens, and, of course, it traumatizes everyone around them. When Yamato finally manages to get over himself after some timely intervention from “the one who seeks stability” (Homeostasis) in Adventure episode 45, everyone in the group is miserable from the ordeal.

Adventure episode 51 basically lays down the two major issues Yamato had been facing up until that point, and ties it into a neat bow: the reason Yamato had become so obsessed with self-improvement was because he wanted to prove he was "independent" and "not weak", but in the end, he still sees himself as an inferior person compared to everyone else -- culminating in him eventually seeing Taichi as a better person than him. Gabumon reaches out to Yamato by clarifying Yamato’s right to not compete, but be unique; it’s not about competing or being a “better” or “worse” version of others, it’s finding his important niche in the group or in the world with the things only he’s good at. Yamato says it in explicit words in Two-and-a-Half Year Break:

Dad doesn’t remember. On the day when we had to decide whether Takeru or I would go with him… Neither Dad or Mom could decide, so I did. I thought, this way, Takeru would be able to stay with Mom. I chose for myself. And after that, I always chose for myself. Or that’s what I’d planned to. Even though I was called a Chosen Child, it was me who was going to choose what to do. No way was I going to be used for other people’s convenience. Maybe that’s why I went so far to keep myself from making friends. But in the end, I acknowledged that what I was doing was unreasonable. After all, I’m not living in this world by myself. If I hadn’t met Gabumon, I never would have realized that. The person I am right now, is not alone.

As long as Yamato only ever sees himself as a replaceable piece meant to fill in the same niches as everyone else, he’ll continue to be horribly critical of himself for not being a perfect person and ultimately being “useless” or “not necessary”. But it’s not about being perfect or a better or worse replacement, it’s about embracing himself and what he can do in his own way, and, indeed, at the end of the episode, Yamato’s arrival on the scene makes it clear that the group ultimately needs both of them, not just one.

It’s also interesting in that, whereas most of the kids (especially in the Adventure finale) are very open about their own feelings to their own partners, Yamato and Gabumon are capable of “communicating” in some sense just by Yamato playing the harmonica. But it’s perhaps because Yamato is normally so open and passionate about his own feelings that such a tacit method is something they can do -- they’ve already bared themselves to each other so many times already, that in the end, all they need to do is just enjoy the abstract things together.

Yamato in 02 and after

So by the time we get to 02, any trace of coldness or detachment from Yamato has completely vanished.

I cannot emphasize this enough: completely vanished. Even in the middle of being a heartthrob for the teenagers in school thanks to his good looks and work with his band, he’s open and lacking in condescension whatsoever, and it’s basically like seeing the openly friendly Yamato from Adventure episode 18 for a whole series. Actually, it already says a lot that he’s in a band, considering it feels like shifting his music activities to a full-on band is there to make a deliberate statement that Yamato is now much better at socializing and working in organized groups now -- it’s a far cry from having to work solo or independently, and it’s significant that “the person who wanted to be able to do everything by himself” is now interested in doing something a bit more cooperative. (And to lend further to the idea he’s sentimental and constantly thinks of others, his band, the TEEN-AGE WOLVES, is all but confirmed to be named in indirect tribute to Gabumon.)

He’s open, conversational, makes a lot of silly faces throughout the series, and basically the only thing he has left that remotely resembles the “pretty boy rival” stereotype is that he’s deep in the aesthetic. But even then, you get the impression that he just does that because he genuinely likes it, not because he’s trying to be “cooler than you” or anything. And it’s easy to see why: Yamato, quite simply, got over himself. He stopped restraining himself all the time in his attempts to become a perfect person, and simply let himself loose to express himself how he wanted, and ultimately became a perfectly sociable and friendly person who’s now even popular at school!

Yamato’s punch on Taichi in 02 episode 10 is often taken as evidence that Taichi and Yamato embody the “rivals who constantly get in fights but are somehow still friends” trope, but this tends to avoid the actual context of the rest of the scene -- in fact, Daisuke himself rightfully points out that if Yamato had done this out of any actual anger or condescension, this would have been a really cruel thing to do to Taichi when he’s already going through so much. But Yamato’s not doing this out of resentment or condescension, he’s doing this for Taichi’s own sake to help him get out of his stupor, and the important part here is that he immediately holds out a hand to him afterwards. Or, in other words, this isn’t something they’re doing out of conflict, but out of communication, and it’s now at the point where Taichi understands Yamato’s intent, and Yamato knows that what he wanted to do would be conveyed to Taichi, without words.

That is why Taichi and Yamato are finally so close now: they understand each other’s feelings. They’re not competing with each other. They’re not resenting each other. They’re sympathetic and forgiving of each other, and they communicate, verbally or otherwise.

It’s followed by a scene in 02 episode 11 that’s also often construed as Taichi and Yamato advocating fighting as part of a healthy friendship, but, again, this omits context: they talk about their fighting in past tense! They’re referring as fighting having been part of the things they had to do to understand each other now, when they clearly aren’t in that kind of conflict anymore. The idea they’re espousing is that Daisuke and Takeru need to let out their feelings and have some catharsis if they want to truly understand each other (which is, indeed, how Taichi and Yamato eventually settled their differences) and hopefully get to a position of mutual understanding, instead of the others forcing them to have peace for the sake of peace and not letting their feelings get out on the table. (And, ultimately, Daisuke spends the rest of the episode thinking about Takeru’s position, and none of the 02 kids ever end up in this bad of a brawl for the rest of the series, yet manage to build a friendship in spite of that -- so, yes, the important part was that they had their feelings out in the open and got catharsis, not fighting in itself.)

Yamato also has an interesting role in the 02 drama CDs, including one entirely devoted to him (Letter). Said drama CD has quite a few things to note:

Gabumon says that Yamato being rather silent and not speaking up about what he’s thinking is unusual behavior for him.

As much as Yamato’s managed to do a better job opening up in general, he’s still suffering from extreme self-worth issues, considering himself as worthless if he’s not able to do anything for a girl in the hospital, even though it’s of course completely reasonable he can’t do much. Despite that, he continues to emotionally fixate on her welfare and basically self-flagellate and do a lot of pretty emotionally occupied things in the process.

Speaking of getting emotionally occupied, as much as he ends up snapping a bit at the people on the beach who keep annoying the hell out of him, he eventually feels so bad for the shaved ice seller that he forces himself to eat it just for him. (Even though it’s freezing.)

Yamato’s a really poetic person. Almost sappily so.

On top of that, Armor Evolution to the Unknown gives us an ever-so-slight glimpse of his dating life with Sora -- which, while he hadn’t been super-flagrant about, he also hadn’t been hiding either (he’s clearly willing to engage in a bit of PDA as per 02 episode 43), and, if the admittedly-kind-of-crack drama CD is to believed, he’s actually very emotionally passionate about his relationship to her, and very dedicated! Beyond just the (very sudden) passionate declaration of love to her in the middle of tap dancing, when Sora is found to have been worrying about him being cold lately, he immediately goes out of his way to try and make things right and prove his love...

Yamato’s initial appearance in Kizuna pretty much defines in a nutshell what his and Taichi’s relationship eventually turned out to be: they’re willing to banter because they’re comfortable with each other, but when it all comes down to it, they appreciate and trust each other deeply. Again, the point is that Yamato and Taichi are emotionally there for each other, considering that (even if he ribs Taichi a bit for it) Yamato’s willing to come all the way down to meet Taichi for late-night beer and talk to him through his emotional troubles.

And, yes, Yamato’s still there to be a concerned minder for Taichi and to make sure he doesn’t get too inconsiderate of what he’s doing -- but there’s no conflict over it, just the two of them balancing their necessary roles as part of the group and keeping each other in check. Again, as was made clear back in Adventure, it’s not about one person being more necessary than the other, it’s them both working together to fulfill their own roles.

As one of the central characters in the movie, Yamato’s also having an existential crisis of adulthood, and in his case, it’s that he’s playing everything too much by ear but isn’t really sure what he wants to commit to. He’s still enjoying music as a hobby, but it’s apparent he doesn’t want to commit to it as a career (which is, well, quite the common thing for those who have hobbies in middle school) -- and moreover, the novel indicates that it’s not bringing him happiness the way it used to. (The movie goes out of its way to depict Yamato feeling isolated with both a harmonica and a band, referencing that neither Adventure nor 02′s ways are doing it for him anymore.)

Beyond the motorcycle we see Yamato driving a few times in the movie, the official website profile makes it clear that this is one of his major new interests, and it’s presumably why he’s also attending an engineering school -- he can’t decide on a long-term goal, so he’ll at least experiment with the thing he likes. Yamato’s always been someone who thinks with emotions and feelings, so it fits him.

We also learn that he’s surprisingly studious, and is picking up some things that run contrary to his image (the glasses!), including the fact he seems to like school enough that he wants to do more school while he figures out what he wants to do. This is something that happens in real life for a certain kind of person in a career-based existential crisis -- as many people as there are who play very badly with educational structures, there are also people who rely very heavily on the structure of college or grad school basically handing you tasks to do on a plate, and find the job market to be scarier than staying within that bubble. It’s not too unreasonable to imagine that Yamato, who in certain ways has never really been the kind of person to assertively have an idea of “this is what I want to do!” and generally works by immediate feelings instead of long-term goals, would end up becoming that kind of person. As he says, it’s really just him trying to postpone the inevitable decision and get a grace period.

Since “shutting out one’s own partner (and therefore one’s own inner self)” is key to the cause of partner dissolution, Yamato’s way of it isn’t as direct as Taichi or Sora (who end up actively shutting out their partners in a bid to become an adult), but is most certainly there -- especially when he’s the one who drops a mocking line about the idea of bringing Gabumon to his school. (It’s not about whether it’s actually doable or not; it’s the fact that he laughs and scoffs at how stupid this is.) The fact he treats friends drifting apart as an “inevitable” thing, and eventually is shown very obviously to be keeping Gabumon out of the phone conversations (in stark contrast to the 02 quartet going out of their way to keep them involved on the other end) ultimately boils down to: neglect. Yamato’s coasting by on everything he likes, but it also means he’s just letting everything happen, instead of consciously pursuing things and passionately following things with gusto, the way he used to.

But we do see Yamato’s single-minded and passionate side come out again -- while Taichi shuts down and ruminates on what to do about his impending loss of Agumon, Yamato’s the one who desperately runs around trying to figure something out, recruiting the 02 quartet into it, losing sleep over it, and eventually having a passionate confrontation with Taichi as the climax approaches. (Note that this, again, is not a real conflict in nearly the same way the two of them would be spitting insults at each other all the way back in Adventure; it’s just the two baring their own feelings, and Yamato quickly accepts Taichi’s answer very easily because he, too, feels the same. Again: they’ve become very good at communicating.)

Yamato does eventually let Gabumon back into his periphery instead of neglecting him so much, and their final scene together in the movie involves them resuming their old method of tacit communication that they’d once shared together, with Yamato playing the harmonica. It’s a sign of Yamato finally embracing those things in the past that used to make him happy rather than cultivating an uncomfortable relationship with it just because he’d kicked it out of his career prospects, and ultimately coming to terms with what he likes and what makes him happy.

And speaking of career prospects...

The question of “why did Yamato become an astronaut?” is one that’s infamously weirded out people all over the globe because of how much it clashes with his image, and how much of a kind of “out-there” thing it is that had virtually no precedent whatsoever in Yamato’s prior hobbies. (Although, if you really think about it, space travel isn’t that huge of a hurdle as it sounds for a world like this where Digital Gates exist to bend space-time; you just send a probe with a Digital Gate link up there...) The original meta reason was, simply, that it was a holdover from one of the original ideas for the third Adventure series, in which they would be investigating forces that were obstructing evolution from space. (The original logical progression was that Adventure would have a threat from the Digital World, 02 a threat from the real world, so the theoretical third series would be space...) When you think about which of the original Tokyo Chosen Children would be the most likely to actively pursue this route, it actually is likely to be Yamato, given that Taichi is more of a person who’s an overall leader and coordinator, whereas Yamato, who’s much more up-front aggressive and openly passionate, would be more likely to want to tackle the situation with his own hands.

Kizuna -- or, more specifically, its novel -- offers another (and not mutually exclusive!) explanation:

While studying at graduate school, Yamato came up with a dream he had for his future. He wanted to study cosmology, and become an astronaut. The way there would not be easy. There was a whole mountain of things he’d have to do to get there. But Yamato had a certain ambition in mind. Someday, he was going to go to space with Gabumon. Whenever he thought of that future, Yamato was willing to do anything to get there.

Remembering that Yamato was at an engineering school (presumably originally from the motorcycles connection), it seems that he eventually “ran into” the career option by chance and happenstance, and thought about it and decided he wanted to follow it for the sake of going with Gabumon. It’s a very “romantic” and sappy kind of “out-there” dream, and, actually, that’s the point -- Yamato is a ridiculous romanticist, the kind of person who waxed about barbecue back in Adventure episode 6, and compared his relationship with Takeru to Hikoboshi and Orihime back in 02 episode 17, and spouted a bunch of poetic words at the sea during Letter. And, remember, he’s always been openly shameless and passionate about everything he’s felt and liked, and has never cared what other people would think.

And in the context of Kizuna, where Yamato was slowly losing touch with himself and his passions and eventually lost Gabumon as a result, it’s a very important sign that everything’s on its way back to healing, and that he’ll be able to achieve that future where they meet again.

[rosalind-of-arden]

Protecting Santi from Wolfe’s little rebellions

So I’ve been thinking about that handcuff scene in Paper and Fire. You know the one. “Wolfe in chains, Santi acting utterly unlike himself... And the four of them in a locked room.” Very long post below.

tl;dr: Wolfe can get away with “little rebellions” because the Artifex can’t openly arrest or kill him (Thanks Keria and Qualls!). Santi absolutely needs to maintain his image as the loyal and highly skilled soldier everyone thinks he is. If the Curia doubts Santi, Santi is dead. Wolfe needs to be cuffed in this scene to maintain plausible deniability for Santi. He stays that way until Santi is sure neither Jess nor Glain will tell the Curia that Santi is in on any scheming to rescue Thomas.

I already picked at this scene quite a bit back when I did my reread posts, but let’s do it some more, specifically trying to work out what Wolfe and Santi are thinking. Jess, of course, is not at all a reliable source on this. Having Jess as the POV character in his book is a lot like having a chess game as narrated by someone who only barely knows how to play and can’t see half the board.

But there are clues. Let’s start with Ink and Bone, chapter 15. There’s the dramatic reveal of Wolfe’s backstory and the fight that turns physical, yes, but also this little nugget:

“I’m coming,” Santi said. “And don’t argue with me about how you can’t protect me - I know you can’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m coming.”

But wait! Santi is the one always trying to protect Wolfe, not the other way around! Or is he? Let’s look at a couple other data points:

Santi to drunk Wolfe in France: “If you don’t care about your future, think of theirs. Think of mine.”

Wolfe’s journal: “I should leave you, Nic” because “I will make you break your own vows to the Library to save me from myself.” “Leaving you means giving up on a better world.”

Here is what Wolfe is protecting. Not Santi’s physical safety, necessarily, but Santi’s future with the Library. Wolfe is a heretic. His career is shot and at least 2 of the Curia want him dead. Despite that, Santi is a high-ranking military officer in good standing, one the Curia is extremely reluctant to lose, but one who would lose that safe and influential status if the Curia were to decide he is involved in Wolfe’s heresy.

Wolfe and Santi both know that Santi’s job is one of the things keeping them safe. They also know that Santi’s job is their only shot at changing the system from within. Santi has a lot of influence and is high enough in rank to be promoted to the Curia. That makes protecting Santi’s job a priority for Wolfe and Santi.

How do they do that? By making damn sure Santi isn’t seen as complicit in any misbehavior on Wolfe’s part. Santi can look the other way when Wolfe engages in his “little rebellions” because Wolfe can take the fall.

But wait, you say, Wolfe is on thin ice with the Curia, Wolfe can’t get in any more trouble! They’ll kill him! It seems that way, but consider what happens when Wolfe gets caught misbehaving. Keeping Danton around gets Danton killed, but Wolfe himself hears only the same threats he’s been hearing. Similar results from protecting Morgan. And Jess. The kid gets hurt. Wolfe gets more of the usual threats. Wolfe doesn’t necessarily know that Qualls has threatened to leak secrets if Wolfe is imprisoned again. He might not even know how much leverage Keria has to protect him. But he’s certainly worked out that while they’ll try to arrange “accidents”, the Artifex and Archivist won’t take overt action against him. Paradoxically, Wolfe enjoys a certain amount of freedom to be his rebellious self.

So keeping his students’ secrets? Perfectly fine, Santi can say he didn’t know. Going to rescue Thomas from immanent arrest for inventing a printing press? Risky for Wolfe, but potentially survivable if Wolfe goes alone. He’s already survived knowing how to build a press and keeping students’ secrets, so there’s a chance he gets out of this, too. Santi, on the other hand, could very well be killed outright for getting involved in this. Jess doesn’t pick up on it, but I suspect this is why Santi stays outside to guard the door while Jess and Wolfe go into Ptolemy House. If he’s outside, Santi is away from the printing press and can claim not to know about it if he’s caught.

That, and the fact that the Library already snatched the press, are probably the only reasons Santi survives this. Look at how he and Wolfe act when they’re arrested: Wolfe crying, Santi saying it’s worth what happens next. They think they’re going to die. They only live through this because the Artifex and Archivist have no evidence Santi knows about the press.

Now then, on to the handcuff scene. First of all, let’s assume that Wolfe and Santi learn things from Thomas Rescue Attempt #1. We also know that they suspect Thomas is alive, and that Wolfe has already tried recovering memories of the prison. Put this together, and we can conclude that Wolfe and Santi have talked about what to do in a variety of scenarios in which one or the other is caught behaving suspiciously.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that as far as Wolfe and Santi know, both Jess and Glain might be reporting to the Curia. As readers, we know that the Artifex did recruit Jess to spy on Wolfe. It just never went anywhere because Jess was kept away from Wolfe. We’ll also see Captain Feng trying to recruit Glain to Team Archivist/Artifex in the next chapter. Wolfe and Santi know enough about Library politics to have reasons to suspect both kids are compromised.

So look at how the arrest happens. Santi marches in to the rescue, then immediately orders Wolfe arrested. Wolfe is not at all surprised by this. Why? Because he and Santi already talked about this. Maybe this exact scenario, if they had any warning of what was going to happen. (Say, the Artifex coercing Wolfe to go to the training ground, and/or Wolfe plotting to meet Jess.) Maybe they’ve just contemplated similar possibilities. Maybe they calmly planned out tactics, maybe Santi just threw up his hands and yelled “look, if I catch you where you’re not supposed to be I’m going to have to arrest you!” Who knows. Regardless, Wolfe saw it coming and was prepared for it. Look how calm he is in the cuffs. That’s because he’s doing it to protect Santi.

But then there they are in the room with the kids, and this happens:

He lifted his bound wrists silently, and, when Santi shook his head, dropped them back with a heavy clank of metal to the table.

Though he’d brought the chair over, Santi didn’t sit. “You’re still under arrest, Scholar Wolfe,“ he said in a quiet, calm voice that raised the hackles on the back of Jess’s neck. “You’re going to stay what way. You know why.”

Note the nonverbal communication about the cuffs. Wolfe is already convinced Jess and Glain aren’t a threat, so he’s ready to drop the arrest pretense and get out of the cuffs. Santi refuses, and Wolfe accepts that. He doesn’t argue. At most, he passive-aggressively bangs the cuffs on the table. Wolfe understands that Santi isn’t ready to trust the kids yet, and he agrees to go along with it. Santi’s “You know why,” is also a reference to whatever they’ve discussed in advance.

Santi’s outburst after this, and the argument with Wolfe about Wolfe’s risk-taking, are off script, and a very tempting distraction for us as readers. Look, dads fighting, let’s be just like Santi and lose focus of their real objectives in this scene. But notice how Wolfe keeps trying to redirect things. He gets a couple sharp words in, yes, but he doesn’t stick with the argument for long. Instead, he redirects the focus to Glain and Jess. Because that is the actual point here: figuring out whose side Glain and Jess are on and what they’re planning.

Another interesting point: Santi’s warning to Jess about the risk he’s taking in showing them the book. “I’m still an oath-sworn member of the Library High Garda.” Here’s Santi back on track and focused on what he needs to be right now. While the kids remain potential threats, he has to be a good soldier. He can’t let smuggling slide. Or at least, he can’t be caught letting smuggling slide.

Another one: Wolfe does not tell Glain what his invention was. Another layer of plausible deniability. Everyone is safer if no one in that room can say that printing was discussed.

And finally, after much discussion of evidence and the kids repeatedly expressing their determination to rescue Thomas, we get this:

Santi and Wolfe exchanged a look. Wolfe inclined his head a little to the side, with a strange, crooked smile. “You see? They’re as bad as we are.”

“Worse.” Santi sighed. He rose and unlocked Wolfe’s restraints

Here’s that nonverbal communication about the cuffs again. Wolfe is again asking if Santi is ready to trust Jess and Glain. This time, Santi agrees. Two readings here: one, Santi is now convinced that Jess and Glain are firmly on his and Wolfe’s side and no longer a threat. Plenty here that the kids said and did that could have accomplished that. Or, two, Santi has conceded this fight to Wolfe. Whether Santi trusts the kids or not, Wolfe is determined to go forward with this, and Santi is going along with it, just like Thomas Rescue Attempt #1 at the end of Ink and Bone. Either way, there’s no more reason for Santi to play the well-behaved soldier.

Now, purely for speculation, what might the contingency plan have been if Wolfe and Santi decided not to trust the kids? My guess is Santi would turn all of them over to whoever people arrested for fucking with training exercises get sent to. Probably the High Garda commander? This would keep Santi safe: he did the lawful good thing, no evidence to the contrary. Anything he said in that meeting could be passed off as an attempt to draw information out of the suspects. At this point, Wolfe would face some unpleasant mental health consequences, but he would probably get out of the ordeal alive for reasons discussed above. The kids' fate is more up in the air, but Santi is willing to write them off, and if they weren’t trustworthy, Wolfe would be, too.

Anyway, after this, we see Santi continuing to maintain his public image right up until they get to Rome and it’s time for Thomas Rescue Attempt #2: The One That Succeeds. He keeps his distance from the kids. He has Zara and Troll run interference and pass messages. He is very unhappy to see Jess at his door, yet again. To anyone watching, Santi is a good, loyal soldier.

So there it is. The grand theory of the cuffs and Wolfe and Santi’s defensive strategies. Or at least one possible interpretation of things.

[obsessedwithbbandsuju]

Worth It

“You ever wonder what it’s like to be dead?”

Pairing: Kwon Jiyong/Son Taeyeon

Warnings: ANGST. And I mean serious angst, with obvious allusions to depression and suicidal thoughts. Mentions of death are prominent. Codependence also, maybe. Keep in mind that this is not necessarily a healthy mindset if gone wrong. Also, there’s swearing, plus some content that might be taken as slightly NSFW.

___

oppa: a term used by a female to refer to a male, older than her, that she is close to

eonni: a term used by a female to refer to another female, older than her, that she is close to

___

They were sitting on Jiyong-oppa’s bed, with Taeyeon’s back to but not quite touching the headboard, and the entire apartment was silent. Even outside they could hear no sound, like the city of Seoul had been uncharacteristically considerate and decided to quiet down to give them some peace. Maybe it was beyond egotistical of Taeyeon to even imagine the idea of an entire city doing anything for just the two of them, but that was the thought that came to her mind, and she couldn’t help it. Besides, it wasn’t like she’d ever been the humblest person in the world.

“…Hey.”

Jiyong-oppa looked up from his notebook, cradled in his lap as he was doodling what was presumably potential designs for Peaceminusone. Taeyeon was glancing up from her laptop, too, having been jotting down some lyrics. Their eyes met.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“You ever wonder what it’s like to be dead?”

Jiyong-oppa paused, considering her inquiry. An onlooker might have balked from the conversation that was going between them – just a moment before, they’d been working separately for hours on end, not saying a single word and not even glancing at the other despite the fact that they were facing each other on the bed, and close enough for their outstretched legs, resting limply on the mattress, to be intertwined – and now they were finally acknowledging each other’s presence, the first words exchanged between them being about what it would be like to be dead.

But Taeyeon wasn’t sure that either of them even had the capacity to understand how weird this could seem any longer. It was so perfectly ingrained in her – talking to Jiyong-oppa about the thoughts that went through her head – that she’d long since forgotten the feeling of fear that he would judge her. Regardless of if those thoughts were about death, or books, or parenthood, or human selfishness, or relationships, or anything else.

“More than once,” he admitted, even though the word admitted implied some kind of shame or embarrassment, any reservation about telling her the fact, and that couldn’t be further from what was in his voice or demeanor at the moment. He sounded casual – no, he was casual – just as casual as she was, asking him the question. Actually, stated was a much more accurate way to describe the action that saying those three words had been.

Taeyeon arched her eyebrows slightly, a wordless beckon for him to continue. Jiyong-oppa shrugged.

“I don’t know. Mostly I think it’ll be like sleeping, I guess. Nothing. No memories, or feelings. Or consciousness.” His tone was matter-of-fact. That answer hadn’t changed since the last time she had asked him this question. Taeyeon strained to remember when that might have been. Six years ago? Seven? Five? She was losing track.

Just like back then, he had the same thoughts she did on the matter.

“My father said he found that idea scary,” she said absentmindedly, the childhood memory tickling at the back of her skull. She didn’t recall the context of his words, or why her forever-distant father would tell her something so personal. Maybe he hadn’t even been telling her directly – maybe she’d overheard it, or found it written somewhere. That was probably it – no way her father would have opened up to her about something like that.

“Understandable, I guess. Do you?” Jiyong-oppa’s tone was mild. There was curiosity in his eyes, but a mundane kind of curiosity that reminded Taeyeon that this was far from their first time talking about this.

“A little?” She wasn’t sure. She supposed it was a scary idea, and one that had the potential to make her panic – because really, the idea of being conscious of absolutely nothing for the rest of forever was an unnerving one. But quicker than the fear of that was the logical fact that she didn’t have any reason to be afraid, because she wouldn’t even have a mind left to do that with. If death erased all of her, it would erase her ability to feel anything right along with the rest of her, too.

And even barring that, there was the fact that…

“But on the other hand, I think having no consciousness for the rest of eternity would be weirdly comfortable. Maybe even comforting. Don’t you think?” That was true, too. It’d be peaceful, just like sleeping, only there was no chance or need to ever wake from it. Life was pretty exhausting, after all.

“Yeah.” Even though Jiyong-oppa sounded more or less flat, Taeyeon could hear the sincerity in that single word. She wondered why he didn’t bring up the fact that she’d already asked him this before, and that he’d already asked her this in the past, too – that they both already knew what their answers were, and somehow even knew that those answers wouldn’t be changing anytime in the near future.

Well, she didn’t really wonder. She already knew the answer, after all: there was an odd comfort in it, just like the odd comfort of death that she’d mentioned. Even though the topic could be considered macabre, talking about it with each other had a comfortable lull settling over both of them. That was probably so because, in a way, she thought, they were just talking about another of the many similarities shared between them. The fact that they would inevitably die soon – and it really was so soon, in the grand scheme of Earth’s history, the universe’s history – the same as everyone else on the planet. More than that, the fact that they thought similarly even about dying and its unavoidability.

Jiyong-oppa tossed the notebook onto the stand next to the upper part of the bed, the motion somehow lazy despite the quick movements involved. His aim was precise, and the notebook landed with a sharp slapping sound against the hard marble. Taeyeon blinked.

“…Hey, Taeyeon?”

“Yeah?”

“You think living until we have to die is even worth it?”

Taeyeon arched her eyebrow, glancing down at her computer screen to make sure the progress she’d made was saved before she closed the laptop and set it aside on the same stand Jiyong-oppa had put his notebook, albeit with considerable more care than it had received. That was a question they’d never asked each other. Somehow, they both knew it wasn’t a matter that was entirely foreign between them, but it had never been verbalized. She could feel Jiyong-oppa’s gaze on her, steady. Expressionless, but not closed off – on the contrary, it was genuine, in fact, because his sincere feelings about the question really were that bland. She knew that from experience, and she understood what that felt like because it was the same for her. Maybe it wasn’t healthy, but it was what it was.

“Who knows?” She placed her elbows on the thighs of her outstretched legs and settled her chin into her palms, ignoring the pain of the bones digging into flesh. “I doubt there’s even a right answer to that.”

His lips quirked, but he said nothing as she elaborated.

“I mean, it’s tiring to live. You and I know that both of us have more than our fair share of moments where we wonder why we bother.” Where did she – where did they – even start with those? The thought was enough to make her lips curve upward very slightly. Taeyeon liked to remind herself to keep her privileges in mind, no matter how strong the occasional urge to start purposefully dropping plates on the ground and watch them shatter got; she was successful, she was fairly rich, she was cisgender, she was considered attractive, she had dear friends, she and her group had a fanbase that she was unspeakably grateful to. She knew Jiyong-oppa kept that all in mind, too, and neither of them would ever presume to compare their plights to those of the truly, legitimately unfortunate. That didn’t mean that life wasn’t a pain in the ass for both of them, though.

“Yeah. It fucking sucks.” Jiyong-oppa’s statement was bland despite the profanity, like he was talking about the weather. Then again, they both sounded like this a lot, especially when it was just the two of them, especially when it was at night, when the rest of the world was asleep, and all the pretenses and all the need to have the pretenses began slipping away. They would all be back eventually, firm and steady and without a crack – they had to be, after all – if the public saw them like this then the consequence could be their careers at the worst. If that happened, they were really fucked.

“Sad to say that you’re right. But there are nice, beautiful things about life too, you know?” A strand of hair fell over Taeyeon’s eyes as she let her body slump against the headboard fully. Folding his legs and closing the distance between them somewhat so she was within his armlength, Jiyong-oppa reached over and tucked the lock away, secure behind her ear. His fingers brushed against her cheek – they were warm, just like his eyes. Taeyeon stared back at him, neither of them blinking, but the contact wasn’t awkward in any way.

“Such as?” he asked, cocking his head slightly to the side.

Taeyeon didn’t answer immediately, didn’t really feel like either of them felt the need for her to. Driven by impulse more than anything, she opened her arms. Without a beat of hesitation, Jiyong-oppa wriggled forward into her embrace until his head was resting on her chest, tucked under her chin, and his slim upper body settled between her spread legs. Taeyeon inhaled deeply, the weight of his body on hers bringing her its usual steadfast comfort. Adjusting himself a little, Jiyong-oppa wrapped his arms around her waist, blowing contentedly against the flesh of her throat.

“Soojin, for one,” she said. “Yuna. Sunbin. Minhee-eonni. You.”

“How flattering,” Jiyong-oppa mumbled into her neck. “You think I’m nice and beautiful?”

“Only because you think the same about me.” He let out a quiet hum of agreement that vibrated against her. Taeyeon paused for a moment, putting one hand on the back of his head and stroking. His hair was soft, the strands sifting between her fingers. “Books I like. Music I like. My career’s a blessing when it’s not shitty. People are pretty lovable when they don’t suck ass.”

“Wow, this is shocking progress,” he commented, with that slight air of cheekiness that only she seemed to ever be able to detect. “Here I remember fourteen-year-old you ranting to me about how much you hate people.”

“I’m an introvert. I still do. But I love them sometimes, too,” Taeyeon replied. “Besides, don’t pretend like you don’t know exactly what I mean.”

“Yeah… I agree with you.”

Taeyeon snorted. “About you knowing exactly what I mean, or…”

“About your answer. Life is a shithead sometimes and I don’t always feel the urge to waste all the effort it takes, but it’s enjoyable too. Or can be, at least.” He raised his head, and their noses nearly touched. Taeyeon’s eyes flitted to his lips, a fact that she didn’t bother to hide. Especially when she could clearly see his eyes going to the same place on her anatomy.

His breath fluttered against her cheek. Removing her other hand from the small of his back, Taeyeon placed it instead on his face, her thumb settling under his eye. Wordlessly, she pressed their foreheads together, and Jiyong-oppa’s hand came to curl around hers. Even though his hands weren’t particularly large, they were still larger than hers. Taeyeon liked how his fingers fit snugly over hers when they compared hand sizes for fun, knowing all the while what exactly the difference would be.

“You think we’d be together after we die?” he asked softly, like the question itself was a secret.

Taeyeon found that her voice came out hushed, too. “Probably not.” The answer was honest, but laced with reluctance. It might be hypocritical of her to be reluctant to admit something that she thought was true – after all, she had never liked fantasies, had promised herself that she’d do her best never to allow herself to be fooled by them – but she couldn’t help it. Death and the lack of consciousness that it brought might sound comforting, but that most definitely didn’t appeal to her.

Jiyong-oppa made a soft noise of agreement, somewhere between dejected and noncommittal. “You’re right that death might be relaxing in a way, but since we won’t be together, I guess it would be better to put up with life.” As he spoke, he inched upward, and Taeyeon made no move to stop it. She only had time to dip her head once to show her agreement before slowly, languidly, their lips came together, melding into one. Even as her eyes slid closed, Taeyeon could feel the gentle brush of his fingers against the skin of her throat and pulse point.

His kisses, the touch of his hands – well, just him – was different. She’d been in romantic relationships with other people before, but she’d never felt so secure with anyone else. Jiyong-oppa had an uncanny way of making her feel stable, grounded; it had always been that way since they were young and bumbling and green. Taeyeon wasn’t sure she was recognizable from the little child she’d been back then, but she knew she did share a similarity with her: that Jiyong-oppa was her constant, unspoken as that fact went, just like she was his.

Even now, when they were older and talking about dying. Even now, when neither of them could really place their relationship. They weren’t even officially together, Jiyong-oppa wasn’t her boyfriend and Taeyeon wasn’t his girlfriend, but they definitely weren’t just friends, either. Friends didn’t moan softly as their lips slotted against each other’s, soft and reassuring and so, so warm, like Jiyong-oppa moaned just now, breaking away just for a second to suck in air before diving in again. Friends didn’t cling to each other’s bodies with desperation and fervor, like Taeyeon’s hands groping at Jiyong-oppa’s face and nape. Friends didn’t spend nights curled up together like Taeyeon and Jiyong-oppa had spent the previous week and would undoubtedly spend tonight, sometimes with his face buried in her neck and their fingers intertwined together and sometimes with his arms around her waist and his body pressed flush against her back, strong and safe.

They separated just slightly, shoulders heaving, noses brushing. Taeyeon’s temperature felt distinctly higher than it had been before their kiss.

“I won’t die yet,” Jiyong-oppa said, his voice soft, throaty. “The world’s worth it for me, if you’re in it.”

Taeyeon closed her eyes and leaned into him, removing her hands from his face in favor of wrapping her arms around him and squeezing. Even though he didn’t say it, she heard the plea in his words, in his tone. She had to admit, the thought of leaving him alone – it did scare her. It terrified her, in fact.

Jiyong-oppa returned the embrace just as fiercely, his breathing steady against the shell of her ear. The only thing just as terrifying as the thought of leaving him alone, Taeyeon realized, was the thought that he might do so to her.

“I won’t die yet either,” she whispered. “If you’re here, the world’s worth it for me too.”

[adventure-hearts]

20th Anniversary = 20 questions (Day 14 / 21)

FEB 14: FAVOURITE SHIP / OTP

All right. I know what is expected of me. Time to give one for the team.

*cracks knuckles*

It’s a strange time to be a Sora/Yamato fan. Just when everyone had kind of grown out of the shipping wars and when most have accepted that the Epilogue outcome was going nowhere, we got new canon that ended up challenging many people’s expectations and not paying too much attention to the ship. The Result: some of the people who are more invested in the canon portrayal of Sorato are the ones that were left more disappointed. 

But this isn’t going to be a discussion of the “Highschool is Complicated!” approach that tri. (and so far, Kizuna’s promo) have taken.��No, fam, this is a good old-fashioned analysis about why this ship freaking works.

*

I’ve been uninspired lately, and it’s been a while since I wrote a proper, long Sora/Yamato analysis. Consider this post a sequel to my very first meta, one of the very first things I wrote when I started AH. You can also check the sorato / soraxyamato tags to read few smaller pieces I’ve written since. 

I think it’s time to move on from the whole “here’s 97699 hints and foreshadowing you missed in the original series”. By now, everyone knows the appeal of the couple is based on their parallel journeys, the symbolism of the crests, the perfect balance that it gives to the triangle, their similar yet compatible personalities... I don’t feel the need to keep justifying it or trying to convert people. 

For the Kizuna Countdown, I’m going to write a few words about Yamato and Sora’s mutual understanding and uncanny empathy for each other, focusing in particular on the portrayal of their relationship in tri., and even more specifically about their scene in Chapter 6, which, is to my mind, one of the best canon Sora/Yamato scenes we ever got in canon. I’ve actually written briefly about it before, but I’m just going to analyze it again, because it’s such a perfect moment of shipping bliss. 

It is my contention that tri. didn’t give us much, but the little it did give was spot on.

The scene takes place early in Chapter 6, after Taichi’s disappearance. Yamato has assumed the role of the leader and is making sure the group moves forward and keeps fighting, in spite of what happened. However, although he is acting calm and pragmatic and determined, other feelings lurk inside. For a split second, Yamato drops his mask and looks back at the mountain where Taichi went missing, and his true feelings emerge to the surface.

Everyone else seems oblivious to this moment of vulnerability. Except for Sora. Yamato tries to hide it, embarrassed that she caught him, but eventually relents. This shit doesn’t work with her. While everyone moves on, Yamato and Sora stay back to have a one-on-one.

At this point, I have to address the elephant in the room, which is that tri. makes zero acknowledgment of the current relationship status of these two, or even about whatever happened between them during 02. 

Is this a scene between boyfriend and girlfriend? (tri. surely peppered the episodes with enough material not to completely erase this interpretation — arriving together all time, etc.). And if they’re not together, do they have a romantic history? Did the 02 fling go nowhere? Are they exes? Who broke up with whom? (lbr, Sora did.) Are there lingering feelings between them? (This, I will argue, is obvious — from Yamato’s side, at least)

The fact is we don’t know the answers to any of these pertinent questions. It’s let to the viewers to imagine the background of the relationship according to their own interpretations. It’s a bad writing decision, obviously. But I believe that, despite of this uncertainty, this scene still works wonderfully to establish and develop why Sora/Yamato makes so much sense.

Back to the scene. Sora doesn’t even need to ask Yamato what’s up. She immediately knows what is going to his head. In fact, she is the one who verbalizes what he doesn’t dare to. Yamato is surprised that she read through him so well.

Then Sora decides to do the most “unhealthily-Sora-thing” she can do. She tells Yamato he can go find Taichi, if he wants to, and that everyone else will be fine. It’s obviously not true. Sora is putting Yamato’s emotional needs first, ignoring her own.  She knows that the whole “let’s save our tears for later and fight on” is something he’s doing for the sake of others, not necessarily what his heart wants him to do.

But Yamato doesn’t even think twice. He immediately reaffirms his choice. He’s not leaving the group at this crucial time, when he has a job to do. It’s the right thing to do, it’s what Taichi would want. Yet, he is conflicted. Part of him is pulling in the opposite direction, as his natural instinct (his Crest, remember?) is pulling him towards his friend. The fact that Yamato is making a decision with his head rather than with his feelings is a huge sign of growth for him. But it’s a tough choice, and he’s not immune to the inner conflict and the responsibility of stepping into Taichi’s shoes, as later scenes in the episode will show.

Sora is reaction to this is just The Best. She doesn’t judge. She gets it. After all — and every tri. scene is always echoing what came before, always sending us back to moments in the previous series — this has happened before. Once, it was Sora who made a different choice. She was the one who left to find Taichi, and the group suffered (as did she, who had to be alone with her grief). At another point, Yamato also left the group — not to find others, but to find himself.  Then, Sora was the one who provided reassurance and who understood why he needed to go. This is to show that, if anyone understands the urge to leave, it’s Sora. She’s giving Yamato permission to make a different choice, taking the pressure off his shoulders. So that when he decides to stay, it’s much more powerful.  

Sora then decides to open up. She’s very cautious about it, but she ends up admit she’s struggling with all the loss they’ve been experiencing lately. Yamato admits he feels the same.

This a pretty vulnerable moment for Sora. As previously established, she’s one of the characters who represses her emotions the most, preferring to focus on others instead of herself. In such a moment of crisis, of course she’s doing her best to hide her fears. She’s far from an optimist, but her job is to keep morale up, to reassure others. So, for her to expose her own doubts to someone else is also a big step.

I’d just like to point out that the framing of this scene is really interesting. Next time you’re watching it, notice where the characters stand at the beginning and at the end. 

When Sora starts talking about her feelings to Yamato, their backs are turned to each other. She’s looking at the mountain behind them, he’s staring at the goggles in his hand. Taichi is on both of their minds, as their pain about his disappearance rise to the surface. This is a point when each of them is kind of lonely in their own grief.

But when Sora asks if Taichi is dead, Yamato turns around immediately, focusing on her. She doesn’t want to believe he’s dead, but she doesn’t want to fool herself either. You can feel her despair at the moment, so carefully controlled until now.

Then Sora turns to him, tears in his eyes. A pretty vulnerable moment for both, when every pretense is dropped.  They are facing each other, now. 

And Yamato just… gives her the most affectionate smile ever.

Smiling! When she’s crying! I can hear some people sharpening their pitchforks as we speak. Our Yamato would never respond so callously to her pain! Just go and hug her, you big dork!

But think for a second.  

Yamato gets that she isn’t asking him a question, not really. She’s just telling him how she feels. Yamato gets that trusts him enough to drop the mask that everything is okay. He gets that doesn’t necessarily expect him to lie or to comfort her… she just needed him to listen.

Flashback to Chapter 4:  Sora’s complaint was that she wasn’t listened to, that her feelings weren’t being taken into consideration, that no-one seemed to care. The conflict back then was caused because Yamato and Taichi couldn’t see through her silence, and also because that she would refuse to talk about what was bothering her, and expected others to guess.

But now Yamato has grown, Sora has grown. They got to a place where they feel totally at ease admitting their deepest, darkest feelings to each other. They know the other will listen and empathize.

They’ve reached a moment of pure mutual understanding. Yamato totally gets Sora, is flattered that she trusted him, and he is full of tenderness for her. That’s why he’s smiling.

Yamato just asks if she’s okay and she thanks him, for listening. 

By the end of the scene, they are facing each other, a lot closer, looking at each other with adoring eyes affection and trust. 

That’s what Piyomon sees when she and finds them together. Piyomon goes into Protective Mother Hen mode and decides to interrupt this lovely moment. To ad insult to injury, he Yamato aghast at the accusation that he would break into “a cheesy love song.” (Would he? HAS HE?)

To sum up, I find this small scene to be a perfect example of why Sora/Yamato is so compelling to me, and why I think tri. (in spite of its issues) was such a wonderful addition to the history of this couple.

The trust and love between them (whether romantic or not) are palpable. Look at Yamato’s smile (and all the looks he gives her during tri.) The boy freaking adores her. Sora is more guarded, but actions speak louder than words. Lots of people complain Yamato and Sora “came out of nowhere” and “have no relationship outside of Taichi”. I redirect you to this scene. There’s history and depth between these two.

The scene also shows that their personalities are different enough to cause friction, but similar enough so that, when they are open and honest enough, they can understand each other’s thoughts and feelings easily and completely, without much need for words. This is important, since both Sora and Yamato aren’t good at expressing their feelings in a healthy and open way, although they are so empathetic and passionate. Yamato and Sora have never been a case of “opposites attract”. Similar personalities can cause their own set of issues, but they can still make for a compelling and fulfilling kind of relationship.

It also explains why gravitate towards one another and why they have what it takes to make each other happy in the future. Yes, they are probably the two people who are more invested in Taichi’s fate and the ones who are more concerned in keeping the group together under these specific circumstances. But who else would see though Yamato’s tough resolve and allow him to confess his inner conflict freely? Who else would let Sora vent out without jumping in with words of empty comfort? (The Digimon partners don’t count!) They give each other exactly what they need, in this specific moment and (one can only imagine) in other similar hard times. They make each other feel safe, understood and, ultimately, loved.  Not a bad place to start.

*Dido’s White Flag plays in the distance*

[palmerasenfuego]

An Open Letter to His Cop Father

My hope is to make clear, maybe for the first time, my perspective on a variety of points of contention between you and me, not so that we can reconcile them necessarily, but so that I won't feel the need to tiptoe around you any more. Addressing this problem I have with codependency and self-censorship has been my task ever since I left my ex, and I think you yourself would agree that in the last year and a half, I have become much more vibrant and present than I ever was as the kowtowed ghost who let his controlling girlfriend dictate the terms of his existence. In the following letter I strove to be unsparing, but only for the sake of clarity. I don't hold any resentment towards you. I want to take ownership of my own role in our dynamic so that we can move into the future, unencumbered.

A few months ago, you and I argued over my career with regard to the classes I plan on taking for my Masters in library science. After we'd each calmed down, you said that you were only suggesting I keep my options open, as we'd both noted that the future of public libraries, and indeed social services generally, is uncertain at best and possibly doomed. You merely meant to suggest that I look into classes that would prepare me for information career opportunities in the private sector, in the probable case that public libraries no longer exist in the future.

At the time I didn't want to argue any more, and I agreed that you had made good points. I would keep my options open. What you didn't understand, however, was that I only grew "defensive" about my plans after I thought I presented them as exactly what you claimed to be suggesting—that is, I would look into a variety of library and information science related fields while keeping my focus, somewhat idealistically, on public libraries. But then you interjected, as you so often do, with all the reasons why my plan might not be such a great idea. Had I considered the uncertain future of public libraries? (Of course I had.) Wouldn't a librarianship at a prestigious museum be a more stable and lucrative career? (Maybe, but nothing's a safe bet.) 

Because I stood my ground, because I intend to fight for what I believe in while I still can, you accused me of being 'defensive.' There's always an underlying tension between us, you said, which is something I don't deny. Why do I always seem resentful? you asked. You accused me of only viewing you as a resource to draw on without any care for you as my father, a totally unfair and manipulative thing to say of your son who followed you and your other son for a decade, watching you coach his brother’s baseball team, without him; your son who desperately wished his father understood his art and literature recommendations, but knows they'll usually go unheeded; your son who, despite knowing what his father did to his mother, and resenting that his father won't speak with his mother at all, still loves his father. 

You can't seem to recognize sometimes that your mistakes could have had any effect on the way you and I relate, and I think you think any antagonism between us is me blindly rebelling, an absurd image to have of me, the most docile black sheep any flock has ever had. To be clear, what causes the tension between us is a feeling in me that I won't even be heard if you've previously decided you're in the right. So rather than speak up, I generally keep my mouth shut, which is not healthy for me, nor is it productive of the kind of relationship I'd hope to have as an adult with my father. 

You would prefer that I not stake my future on public librarianship, because you would not do that. Therefore, I shouldn't do that. I don't care whether you disagree with me. Ultimately, none of this letter is about convincing you of anything. What I want to address is that I have never felt like my voice would be heard, by you or anyone, really, which is in part a result of having my perspective so often subjected to critical (over)analysis from you, as in our argument over public libraries. Or, it’s a result of having my enthusiasm mocked anytime you and my brother didn't appreciate something I did. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece of American art, and you Philistines didn't watch more than 15 minutes of it, but to this day you make fun of me for wanting to watch it with you. 

When we had disagreements over any supposed transgression on my part, you quickly dropped the pretense towards being a concerned parent to assume your interrogation persona, with me the guilty-until-proven-innocent suspect. One of the oldest tricks to get someone to fess up is asking the same question several times, forcing the suspect to repeat their story. Any time you seemed suspicious I wasn't answering your questions straight, it would be "You sure? Positive? Nothing else?" The only thing missing was the aluminum chairs and the spotlight in my face. All disagreements were structured this way, with you above, already having the answers, and me below, forced to acquiesce to the judgement presumed. Attempts to defend myself when I felt I was unfairly accused were met with the reprimand to not "talk back," something I've internalized deeply, corrosively, finding myself drawn, in friendships and in love, to those who shout me down or laugh me out. As a result, my natural cowardice and timidity have festered for years.

You have long urged me, since childhood, to be more assertive, less passive, to stop "playing the victim," and these were not unfair or inaccurate criticisms. Like Kafka with his father, none of this is to say I blame you for the effect you've had on me and my inability to speak up. I was a timid child, easily influenced by social pressure and a need for approval, most especially from you. From my child's view I was enamored of what you seemed to represent, which I suppose is unremarkable, as sons and fathers go. Perhaps also unremarkable of fathers and sons is how elusive your approval seemed to be. There was never outright disapproval of me from you, and I always knew you "supported" me. But let's not pretend like we at times did not and do not appear alien to one another. Which is normal, healthy, so long as it's accepted, because we’re separate people, but the trouble fathers and sons get into is they each seek validation from the other—the father struggles to impose his own standards on the son and see his progeny flourish as so judged by the standards imposed, and the son seeks to establish himself as his own person, separate but unable to escape the looming shadow of his father, the son's primary model for what a person is.

One instance where I probably tried to voice an objection to your discipline, an instance where I knew the gravity of the issue you wanted to convey but disagreed that what I'd done deserved such a strong reprimand from you, was when I drew a Klansman in my notebook, being the bored and doodling 8th grade boy that I was, watching a documentary about the Klan in history class. I wasn't approving of the Klan by drawing a man in a pointed hood, but to your credit, you saw an opportunity to make clear the need to take seriously the violence and oppression that African-Americans have faced in this country, and to never trivialize symbols of that violence and hatred. (Fatefully, I was similarly firmly scolded by my mom when she saw a swastika in one of my notebooks, which is when I learned my Polish grandmother escaped the Nazis as a small child in the belly of a freight ship, traumatized by the sight of dead stowaways floating past her, and this after the death of her brother at the hands of fascist thugs.)

When the black community today raises the cry "Black Lives Matter," what they want is a reckoning from American society for the way that black life has historically been deemed disposable. Africans were ripped from their mother country, brutalized on a treacherous trans-Atlantic voyage, and sold off in a land where the climate and environment were entirely alien, their various languages as unintelligible to one another as to their masters. They were subjected to centuries of horrific slavery, whippings, rape, and familial rupture. Any who managed to escaped their bondage risked dogged, murderous pursuit by slave patrols. The de facto opponents of slavery won a civil war and slavery was abolished, and for another century black people were terrorized with lynchings by whites (who were never prosecuted), all while being denied economic opportunity and treated as less-than-second-class citizens in public spaces, not to mention suffering a complete lack of political representation. It wasn't until 1968 that the political rights of African-Americans were codified into federal law, but the mere granting of rights does nothing to address the long term devastation wrought on the black community, which built this country for free, this country that so long denied them not only equal rights and opportunity, but denied them their humanity. And to this day, black people go murdered, in broad daylight, in their cars, or while they sleep, both by the police and by others, without justice. "Black Lives Matter" needs to be said because American society does not seem to acknowledge that black life matters, despite America's lofty ideals for itself as a place of equal protection under the law. If black lives matter, then all lives matter, but not all lives matter until black lives matter. 

Saying "Blue Lives Matter" is to be presented with that history, turn it around and say "Yeah, well what about us cops?" No one chooses to be black; all cops choose to be cops. If you want the profession of policing to have the respect you demand people give it, then cops should be aware what they're signing up for: a thankless, demoralizing job that answers to the public, and not the other way around. To say "My job is hard so we matter too!" when, after centuries of oppression, the black community says, "Our lives matter!" is a gross exercise in bad faith. This is why "Blue Lives Matter" is offensive, utterly bankrupt beyond the expression of resentment towards an imagined enemy. American society has no doubts about the value of the lives of police officers. What easier way is there to bring the full force of the American justice system, with a swift investigation and aggressive prosecution, than to murder a cop? The justice system has time and again demonstrated the societal value of police officers' lives. The same can not be said of black lives, which is why "Blue Lives Matter" is far more trivializing of the racism still faced by black people in America than some 13-year-old kid's drawing of a Klansman.  

Part of me worries that writing this is futile, that you'll see this as another instance of me "talking back," i.e. saying what challenges your airtight prosecutor's argument. Another part of me thinks what I’m saying resonates with your bedrock American and Catholic values. After all, I had to get my principles from somewhere. But if this doesn't move you, I will rest well knowing that at the very least I'm not shutting myself up any more, and that I'll finally be coming to you as a man and not as your child, facing you squarely, head no longer bowed.

I love you.

[namjoonchronicles]

heart wide open | sj

pairing: seokjin x you

genre: medical, angst like hella, mature themes

words: this baby is 9k+

warning: mentions of death, abortion, immorality, social status, medical malpractice, disrespect towards family constitution etc.. Written out of unhealthy rage and mind. seokjin is a doctor AND an heir. 

summary: Seokjin is a snotty, spoiled rich boy, greedy and insensitive boy; and you somehow got him kneeling...little did he know that he was in for a ride.

"His appearance is... how should I say," the hoarseness of your voice pierce through the phone, "...cloaked in a prim pretense of vast distaste in what he does, and I think we have a winner." You enveloped your lips around the bud of a cigarette and blow a cloud of nicotine in the air of your desk, flicking the ashes on the ashtray with a satisfied grin, drawn on your face.

And that was how it all began. The facade.

Curiosity was man's greatest downfall. His unassuming gaze, unchallenged ego will become the tools that will bring you, your most provocative provocation. The bubbling excitement in the pit of your heart begins to rattle in a momentous thrilling sensation that the room could feel. You will handle him the way you will always handle your unfortunate conquests. But this time, you will give him everything your past flings never had--your name. You were vastly certain that in every turn of events that unfolds had made him destined to meet you. It is almost unfortunately fortunate for him, that you will give him everything a man could desire, but also, gave him absolutely nothing, lesser than a beggar.

Seducing Dr. Kim Seokjin will be a fun endeavor.

A messy stack of papers thrown, sliding across, stopping at the edge of the table. Jungkook massages the bridge of his nose and you placed your hand on those papers, when Jungkook sighed heavily, "How will you attempt to capture this callous man?"

Maintaining the smile laced with relentless manipulation, you lean to the back of your chair and spun around to give Jungkook your back. With the view of the back of your head, Jungkook heard you calmly say, "...your job is done." The flips of papers turned, the sound of the ceiling fan spinning and the faint sound of classical music in the background was the only thing Jungkook heard in exchange of his questions. Proposing masked defiant, cheeked furrowed with strong purpose and emotions, chafed in the restraints imposed on him, Jungkook leaves the room, along with his buried roses of hope that eventually, he might be the one knowing all the things you were hiding, but he leaves without his answers, and doesn't intend to come back. Above all, you wanted it that way. Selfish, unrelenting detachments, your heart of glass and head of stones will never allow any part of you to be seen by the world. Holding onto jars of secrets that eats you alive, was the only life you knew how to live.

You will obtain Kim Seokjin one way or another. "Curiosity was man's greatest downfall." The only way to obtain a man's attention is, to be unlike the others he had.

Kim Seokjin.

He dashes through the odds of clamming, deceitful eyes of desire, becoming the walking epitome of the phrase: Irresistible magnetism. Clothed in a bewitching manner of a fictional character, Seokjin was unhealthily desired by all gaze that befalls upon him. His powerful strides and terrible good looks are what the nurses call, heavenly beaconing. Naturally, full-volumed lips pout when at rest, probably taste like rose petals to those wanting more than what was given. "Nurse Jung, I have that operation room ready at the said time, right? I shall tolerate no delays..." he slides his arm on the counter at the twinkling eyes of the young nurses in-charge of scheduling the operation theatre. "Yes," he heard and moves away. That's when the nurse left her desk and jogged after Seokjin's long legs, that sped away without any means to slow down, she breathlessly asked, "...and as usual, students wanted excess to your surge--"

"--I don't entertain children, I made that quite clear, in our many encounters, haven't I. I am never going to change my mind," He stated, bluntly and walked straight down the empty hallway of the hospital leading to the staffs' bathroom, leaving Nurse Jung behind. He darted into the first cubicle and set the toilet seat cover down and sat. Right at noon, he received a message from a distant relative about the death of a member of his family and the bank of a fund transfer from Yokhan Pharmaceutical Industries. He threw a fist in the air, exhilarated from the amount of money he is getting from the commission of using the medications from Yokhan Pharmaceutical, although the hospital he works in, already have stronger and potent drugs to use. He kept introducing the said medication and made his patients pay more than required for the prolonged unnecessary and elongated 'treatments'. This is, of course, goes unnoticed by many members of the medical center board since Seokjin continuously mention how he is bringing profit to the hospital through this wretched malpractice.

But his appeal in making profits didn't go unnoticed by most of the team from the pharmacy. And he despises having to beg for his medications, so he bribed one of the key members of the pharmacy who was eager to 'eat ass' if it means he could be friends with the most popular member of the medical society, Dr. Kim Seokjin. He noticed Taehyung's eagerness to solicit to the board members and uses the young men's impaired friendship skills to gain benefits. With Taehyung's unquestionable loyalty and waning life principles', he was able to gain medications despite the director of Pharmacy not being very fond of him. Healthcare was business for Seokjin and it will never change. His unremorseful attitude even though there was a death in the family, goes hidden in his prim pretense in his occupation. He is a tactless and callous man of the healthcare with a medical degree. Unfitting, isn't it? A dry detached man working in the most emotionally and physically taxing field that requires humanly judgments in the everyday encounter. And Seokjin's emotional incapability is sheathed with his vast medical knowledge he forced himself to memorize with.

Blatantly ignoring the message from the family, he leaves the hospital's staff bathroom, only to be captured by a slender figure in her doctor's coat, placing her pristine hand atop of Seokjin's chest, silencing him with a deep, not-just-friends kiss on his lips. Seokjin was pushed against the wall of the empty pantry, next to the vending machine by the bathroom door, obscenely touched by this female doctor, with his eyes wide open, catching the CCTV at the back of her head. "...what the fuck, stop," his words were muffled and he had to pull away by force. "Please, it's been weeks...we have not seen each other in weeks," she pleads, tugging his coat, scratching her manicured nails against Seokjin's dress shirt, breathlessly pleading with everything she has and Seokjin remains unbothered. Seokjin took her in his able arm, rests her head on his broad shoulder and whispered, "You come to me one more time," Seokjin pauses, "...I'm going to make you disappear. I'm gonna have you fired for malpractice. Don't forget, there's only one copy of our sex tape." He yanks the female's hair back and her grasp on him loosens as he brushed his shoulder against hers and continued walking. Unremorseful.

He ran his fingers through his brown locks and glared at the CCTV. "Fucking bitch." He muttered. "Making me lose my money." Because he knows he needs to pay the security team leader a handsome amount of money to delete that footage that could have ended his career as the nation's leading cardiologist working in Emergency Unit. Slapping a stack of money on the security director's desk, Seokjin kept a cold unforgiving gaze. The middle-aged man took it with a wide grin, groaning pleasantly, "Oh dear doctor, you didn't have to. But since you insist, how can I say no." Seokjin leaves the room immediately, without prolonging the conversation because he dislikes talking to people not on the same level as he is. He is a doctor, he does not talk to people from the low class. In his shallow mind, he believes social classes are important to maintain orders in the world. A belief that his fellow colleague doesn't necessarily agree on despite being on the same social status as Seokjin is and his name is, "Dr. Namjoon... fancy to see you here. Working overtime?" He greeted the tall lad with glasses, from a distance away.

Namjoon darts his eyes to the side pressing his dimple to show ultimate distaste before turning to face Seokjin again, with a fabricated smile. "...No, senior. Working on time. Like the rest of us," Namjoon passes a knowing look to a fellow Emergency Unit medical officer, Dr. Min Yoongi as the latter hastes away after prompted by a nurse. There must be another emergency. Yoongi hasn't had his lunch and Namjoon was going to get it with him, but their plans are shattered because Yoongi needs to work and it was all due to someone not being exactly responsible. "Cheer up, it's not a straining field if you learn how to have a little fun... you're so stiff and uptight. I like you better when you're drunk," Seokjin delivers a brotherly slap on Namjoon's upper arm with a sweet smile. He blinks to Namjoon's ring finger and notices something, "Don't tell me," he pauses and shifts his weight to one foot, "...don't tell me she called off the wedding." Namjoon darted his gaze to the end of the hallway and then to his leather shoes, jutting his chin out and clenching his jaw before answering, "...she did."

Seokjin bursts in tumultuous laughter. Namjoon did not join him. "Wow..." Seokjin cackled, wiping the tears in the corners of his eyes, "I didn't expect that she would..." He roars in laughter again, "...she was really no fun! I think I did you a favor, Namjoon. Think about it." Namjoon glares at the floor instead of Seokjin, remaining absolutely calm for the storm raging in his heart. He lost the love of his life because of what Seokjin did. "What favor," he brazenly asked, and Namjoon never once talked back to Seokjin, taking Seokjin by surprise, "...I lost my future wife." Seokjin leans to the side to catch Namjoon's solemn expression, smile still wide on his own face as if he had done absolutely nothing wrong. "...Dude. If you married her, you would never have a threesome. She's conservative as fuck, traditional. It's the millennials baby, no one does monogamy anymore...grow the fuck up," Seokjin straightens up and fisted his knuckle to knock against Namjoon's temple.

"...you're not as smart as I thought you are, Namjoon. And that's sad because I see potentials in you. You being drunk are handsy, and very receptive. You think it's my fault that she left, you were the one who walked into that hotel room. I simply gave you the key, but it was your choice to enter," Seokjin peered at Namjoon, challenging. "Know your fucking place in this hospital, Namjoon. One word from me, and you're gone. How unfortunate will that be, knowing you just got here with my father's consent. Be smarter than that," Seokjin gave a kissy sound on his lips and brushed his shoulder against Namjoon unwavering stance. Fist held tight to his side, Namjoon attempted to unravel the twisted knot in his neck by making a half-circle with his head. Seokjin thinks he is above everyone. His father is a powerful politician with incredible power to make anyone disappear. He was dubbed as 'The Midas Fingers' for his ability to bring wealth to anyone he mentions and chose as friends. But his views are heavily influenced by his youngest son, Kim Seokjin.

The youngest of two boys, the cardiologist of the nation, is late for his grandfathers' funeral. "Call him." His father commanded and that's when he walked in black ties and suit. Boldly, he strode through the invitees consisting of socialites and wealthy families from all around South Korea. "Sorry I was late," he exclaimed to his father,"...I wasn't planning to come." His father who heard what he said, clears his throat as Seokjin came to stand next to him. "...What's the point, the old man doesn't even like me? I bet have less than 25% of his wealth he accumulated from you," Seokjin whispered as the priest begins to talk about the good of the deceased. Seokjin was passed a folded paper containing the eulogy of the deceased that he reluctantly accepts. He taps the mic twice to make sure it was working and scanned the room of people waiting for benefits of attending this ceremony.

He begins with a clear of the throat and a sip of water, preparing to 'cloth' himself with pretentious remorse, maybe shed a little tear. The ceremony will be broadcasted around South Korea and telecasted as he is the important 1% of the society. And everyone wants to know about the most desired bachelor in the country three years running. "He..." Seokjin's voice croaked from the sweet candy he had in the car a few minutes before he arrived, and the audience whirred mourningly--thinking that it must be hard for him to lose an important family member--when all Seokjin was concerned about was to end the ceremony as quickly as he can to catch a birthday party starting at 10 pm at local nightclub. "Let me try one more time," he sniffed, "...I am Kim Seokjin, grandson of the deceased and I'm a doctor." The audience stayed very still, although grey thoughts were surrounding the large memorial hall. "I got the message at noon but I was in the surgery saving lives. The irony," he added a dry chuckle to propose sadness essence to the tone, "Saving strangers when your own family passes without you knowing... it took awhile for me to process the information and the drive here was longer than I intended, more difficult than I could ever imagine."

He inhales, and turns away from the mic, before clearing his throat, "Sorry," he needlessly apologized, "...Grandpa, you are the person who helped me with my first step, teaching me all the greatest thing about the country I lived in, the hard-earned democracy that countless lives were sacrificed by the means of freedom of thoughts and speech.

My grandpa’s generosity, work ethic, humility, and selflessness are all qualities that I admire him for, and qualities I myself aspire to. In conclusion, Grandpa will be missed dearly. I hope to someday become half the man he was. People like my Grandpa are one in a million, billions, perhaps. His electric presence reels in every curious eye and led his world in the most graceful manner, a human could possibly.

Albert Einstein once said, “Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.”

So let us celebrate Grandpa’s life and continue his legacy. Thank you, Grandpa. I love you, and will miss you." The audience hung their heads low and was in silence for about a minute before Seokjin leaves the stage and dashed straight to the exit then into the bathroom. He splashes water to his face to clean the tears he 'shed' and flushes the eye lubricant bottle into the toilet, watching it being swallowed, never to be seen again. Then he walks outside the hall, clicking his sports' car engine to hurl, while the halls were saying grace. He knows that his father's close acquaintances will cover for him, explaining his disappearance as a 'need of privacy' when he is making his way to the nightclub, a few minutes after his grandfather's eulogy was delivered. Entering the nightclub with a black face mask on, he sheds his blazers for a black silk dress shirt and a chrome heart necklace. Upon entering he was greeted by the bouncers who don't even know who he is but know that he is not to be questioned, understanding his exclusivity with a simple passing of cold gazes.

And that's when he found you. You briskly stride pass him with a vixen like manners, lingering gaze and an evil curve of your lips, the childlike contour of your body rendered him to decide that you were not his type at all. And yet, his eyes couldn't leave you. You halted his steps but he did nothing more but a glance. If you keep this up, he will never succumb. He is used to someone dressing up this way, so you need something different, something extraordinarily ordinary to capture his attention. Something, very...plain. But before you completely disappear from his sight, you heard a girls' voice calling his name upon walking into a private entertainment room. "I need to talk to you," this girl breathed, desperately. From the corners of your eyes, she could pass for a model with those long legs and gorgeous hair. You imagined her tugging on Seokjin's sleeve and you intend to listen to more so you hid behind the wall and eavesdropped. "Not here," Seokjin, pulled down his mask, and grabbed the girls' thin wrist, dragging her outside to the balcony, the first floor of the booming club. Where no one was, or so he thought.

You followed discreetly, taking off your heels and hid underneath an unused bar. "What is it," Seokjin's voice was stern and the girl begins to sniff. "I'm pregnant..." she looked intently to Seokjin and you clasped your mouth to keep yourself silent. Seokjin rolled his head back, hissing, "You said you were on pills! I warned you I wasn't going to pull out." She sniffs again, spilling the words of 'please'. "...For all I know it might not even be mine, everyone knows you fuck around with anybody," Seokjin swatted her hands away, heartlessly. "How could you. I leave everyone for you. I gave you everything..." She broke in a stupendous roar, upon the shuddering air. Seokjin did not waiver one bit. He was mindful of what is not his mistake. It was hers. She was supposed to be on pills. "Abort it..." she raspily says in a whisper, "...you abort it for me. You know best." Seokjin turns to her with an unreadable expression and he said, "...I will not do such a thing and sacrifice what I've worked so hard for."

The girl dropped to her knees, "I will tell the world what you did to me." And he quipped, "And I'll tell the world that you lied. Because honey, I'm the most eligible bachelor in town right now, the most kind and promotes abstinence, no one will believe a thing you say. Shall I remind you all the wretched things you do, just to get some penny in your panties, you slut?"

And he says it in a way that doesn't fit his angelic demure. She collapsed into a dreary and hysterical depression as Seokjin leaves the scene to resume his purpose being there, enjoying a birthday party, in the most subtle way he can. Because he is still feigning sadness for his grandfathers' death in the eyes of the public. Even in front of his so-called friends. "Sorry, for what happened to your grandfather..." they all say, "Let's cheer up!" Piercing the air with their bottles of hard liquors, getting increasingly drunk as minutes passed but Seokjin remained unbothered by every hit of alcohol he plunged into his stomach, lips stern with profound sturdiness, he hits the stagnant part of his life, delve into the loneliness despite being surrounded by people.

He mocks the study of psychology; disbelieving that mental illness is an illness at all, and here he is feeling exactly as the textbook says.

When the girl who claimed she was pregnant begin to gather herself, so did you. She left and you climbed out of your hiding place and smiled. "He is the one." 

Spiraling down the path wickedness, you brought your feet to the family's residents feeling rather bold as you await Seokjin to come to your side. He shut the car door and scanned momentarily to this nice neighborhood. His face was curious, like everything else about you, he was inclined to know more and more. "Dr. Kim Seokjin...please come in." Your mother greeted at the door. You knew your mother was incredibly smitten by what she saw. The future son in law was everything she ever wanted in life, what she dreamt of. Now she has something to be proud of. Her daughter is marrying the most eligible bachelor in town, Dr. Kim Seokjin. She always emphasizes the title 'Doctor' to her friends and close relatives, and she can't believe she is finally seeing the most wanted doctor in the city. Her excitement sprites through her veins and spilling through her words and the air around her. Your father wasn't as expressive as your mother was, but he was smiling too. He greeted Seokjin with a firm, manly handshake and invited you both in.

"What took you so long to come over?" Your mother spoke, gleefully at Seokjin, touching him once in awhile, sitting next to him on the dining table. "...Ask her, I was eager to meet you guys but she was persistently saying no to every advances I make," Seokjin didn't feel out of place, he fitted right in. A family constitution he never experienced. "...She can be too careful sometimes," your mother bashfully say, and you returned her a stricken thin smile, "But with a doctor, you shouldn't be overly careful, my daughter." Your mother proceeds to invite him for a sleepover, there's a guest empty room that's always ready for anyone who came. At first, he said no, and with a tiny nod from you, he finally surrenders to your mother. Your father still gave him tight-lipped conversations. While Seokjin is swooning your mother by hardly doing anything but a small sharing of his medical knowledge, your father looks at you worriedly. Noticing this, your father excuses himself and you to talk outside, by the swing in the garden.

"Join me on the swing?" He said, and carefully led the way. The night was scattered with stars and the moon shined ever so brightly, appearing to be closer than they technically are and you smiled, pleasantly at the sight. It really has been awhile.

Sitting right next to your father, he sighed. "The air is refreshing..." he began. You nodded and gathered your hand to your lap. "You're about to be married. It seems like just yesterday you're asking me for an ice cream on a tricycle I got you for your fifth birthday...I can't believe how times have passed. When I look at my wrinkling hands and my greying hair, I realize that I've spent more times with my work than I do with you and your mom..." He reminisces and sat there, and listened. "...I can't say I'm not excited, but I wasn't exactly around to say I've helped her raised what you've become," he added. You felt your heart sunk when he said so because it wasn't true. You understood why he had to be away. He had to be away to put food on the table. "I'm sorry to break your heart like this, dad..." you thought as you watched his side profile. You didn't remember him being this old. How times have passed.

He looks up with his tired eyes at the same night sky, and he sighed before asking you gently, "It's love isn't it?" You stared blankly at him with your glassy eyes because in your heart you know it wasn't. You weren't in love with Seokjin.

You were using him.

Two in the morning and he texted, "Can I come see you?" You saw the shadows of his feet underneath the gap of your door and you weren't even sleeping because you were typing on an article you were supposed to email in three days. "It isn't locked," you replied and the knob twisted. He brought his pillow with him and proceed to timidly walk into your room. His face was pouty and innocent, as he sat on the well-made bed, testing the waters. The boldness and unforgiving look he used to bore,  had long disappeared. "...Why are you not asleep yet?" He asked, gently, like a child. "I'll sleep when I want to, just because you're allowed in my room, doesn't mean you're entitled to tell me how to live my life..." you shot, bluntly. He visibly gulped from the reflections of him you caught from your dressing table mirror. "The fact that you're sitting on my bed without my permission is distressful enough for me. Don't make me kick you out and leave you hanging," you exhaled through your nose and saw him lifting himself from your bed and down to sit on the floor, next to it.

"...What do you want." You stopped typing momentarily and Seokjin straightens up. "I was... hoping if I could stay the night here."

"You are." "No, I mean. In your room."

You didn't give him a definite answer but continued working without saying another word and that's when he figured that he pitches into his curiosity, "Did I say something wrong at dinner?"

You tipped your eyes upward and spun the chair towards his direction and Seokjin succumbed under duress, casting his eyes towards the floor. "Why on earth would you say that, sweetie?" Your sudden change of tone relaxes him but also leaves him guarded. The confusion excites him. "I don't know, you just seemed very different after we leave dinner," upon hearing this from him, you gradually leave your desk and make your way towards him. He lifts his head up to look at you, and those orbs begin to cast their spell on you so before it could empower you, you tenderly thumbed his cheek and leaned down for a kiss on his nose, not on the lips as he anticipated. "Wouldn't my parents be surprised to find the guest room empty the next morning? You naughty boy, you are very daring," you beacon him to crawl into bed with you and he lays his head on your stomach while you play with his hair.

"...say I have surgery." He proposed a white lie, with such innocent face. You continued to chuckle warmly. "You do love me right?" He hesitantly asked. You stared blankly at the wall before you, while playing with his black locks, burying his face on the side of your waist, "...of course." You answered dryly. Only you know the real answer.

The marriage happened, and bit by bit, you changed your personality. The bubbly, irresistible string of laughter is gone, you became silent from each approach he makes, making him wonder why has the relationship gone stagnant. "Why did you never tell me about your parents until now?" He asked, meekly. "What do you mean by that?" You mindlessly scroll down to your phone, reading today's news that you missed because of this meeting. "It's been three months since we got married. Your mother thinks we're still engaged to be married, don't you talk to your parents at all?" He boldly asked. You tipped your gaze to shoot against the blank TV screen you have in your childhood room. Quite spacious since you were an only child. Chewing the insides of your cheeks, you try to hide the fact that you were unpleased. He was really pushing his boundaries despite your warning glances thrown at him, through out the evening. "...Just go with it. You and I, we both know that our parents doesn't really pay attentions to what we do say. If she calls you a future son-in-law, you go along with the statement. We'll have a second wedding, if we need to."

"Can't we just tell them the truth?" Seokjin pleading eyes, rendered you silent. So you did, you told them the truth.

Your mother set the plates on the table and Seokjin climbed down the stairs, hair still dripping wet from the shower. He hid behind the wall and listened. "...That's fantastic news but it would have been easier if you've just told us. Now how do we explain to the relatives that you've already been married?" Your mother sounded delighted but wasn't very elated, that was until she saw Seokjin walking in. "Are you pregnant?" She asked.

"N-" "Yes."

Seokjin shot his confused glance at you. "How many months?" Mother replied, although she looks terribly overjoyed by it. "11 weeks." You darted. Your mother clapped her hands, hopping in place with a big smile. She fetches the house phone and began dialing, "I have to tell everyone!" She leaves the kitchen. And Seokjin caught you clasping your hands together. "Honey?" He called for you. "Be quiet..." you muttered. "What are you doing?" He asked.

You lowered your head. Slowly, you turned away from him, lifting yourself from the tall stool and walked away, but Seokjin caught your wrist and held on firmly, and "...We don't even sleep together. We never even had s--"

"Stop it. Shut up." "Why are you lying? I want to know why you're lying." "Divorce me if you want. I dare you."

This was not the first time you used the word 'Divorce' to end a fight. It happened numerous times before.

Again and again, Seokjin let it slide. He knew for certain, that his life was going to take a different path now.

Pathetically, he told himself that even if the child isn't his, he was going to take care of it. Karma. That's what he thought. The women he is very much in love with is doing this to him for what happened in the past. He realises it. If this was a punishment from the heaven, then, he will gladly embrace it. On a dinner night with his colleague, you were speaking to the other wives of the surgeons there, and they handed you an alcohol. Seokjin saw you taking a glass of it and excused himself from the current conversation he was having, to take away that glass from you. "There's alcohol in that cocktail," he sounded clipped and as another waiter passes you, you extended your arm to another glass and took a daring sip while holding your gaze on Seokjin's worried pair of eyes.

"Wow, what a loving husband. I never thought you were like this," Dr. Min Yoongi's wife smiled, and patted your hand. "...Lucky you. Seokjin almost never attend dinners like these until you came around."

"Did he now? You'll be seeing my face more often from now onwards, Mrs. Min," you gracefully told her and Seokjin hasn't left your side. When they called the couples for a dance, you took Seokjin's hand and dragged him to the dance floor. In strangers eyes, you both had the most perfect marriage ever, only exist in fairytales. But Seokjin underwent emotional duress almost everyday that he would care less to dwell about, knowing how chafing it is to take back what he so boldly declared: Mental illness is an illusion. You were seen smiling at him, talking in sweet whispers but what the conversation was really about is threatening, full-blown threats. "...Why did you take alcohol when you're pregnant?" He softly asked, feeling your temple resting against his chin, while he rocks your body in a smooth intoxicating sway. "Why do you care." You shot. "Look, I don't mind if it isn't mine. I'll take care of it, just like my own... We all make mistakes... We can start over, I'm not perfect either, I do wretched things in the past," he pulled away and spoke to you.

"You must be delusional to be thinking that I'm going to give you a chance. Why would you raise something that isn't yours?" You quipped. And he said the darndest thing, that kept you awake, weeks after he said it, "Because I love you. I really love you. I'm stupidly, hopelessly, deeply... in love with you."

Realising that Seokjin will not back away from the marriage, you sought after Jungkook. "What do you propose I do?" He asked, pushing his hair back, groaning in his leather seat of his tiny and run-down office. The 'Private Investigator' sticker is peeling off at the edges, he slaps your envelope of money on the desk, next to his abundant files, of cheating husbands and extra-marital cases. "...Miscarriage. Make me a miscarriage portfolio," You released your lips from your teeth and stood up from the chair. "You're going too far with this," Jungkook exhales sharp, through his nose, he watches you leave his office, and exclaimed, "Faking a miscarriage costs you double!" You waved your hand and left without turning behind you, not even once. You already had an idea, and Jungkook just had to proceed with the portfolio. But how do you fake a miscarriage, when you're not even pregnant?

With a little digging, you found out that Dr. Min Yoongi wasn't exactly fond of Kim Seokjin. But due to the good friendship you sustained with his wife, you had convinced Yoongi to bring Seokjin for an alcohol night with the pretense of wanting to surprise him once he got home. You told Yoongi to get him as drunk as he can, just enough to lose bodily coordination. With a little help from Jungkook, he managed to insert a psychedelic drug into Seokjin's last drink and became his designated driver for the night, inserting another dose to his 'energy' drink. When he got home, thoroughly disoriented, you pretended to carry him inside.

But even then, Seokjin was able to make up your face.

"Oh, hi... you're very pretty. Do you have a boyfriend?" He slurred as Jungkook passed his limp body to you. "Are you sure you got him drugged?" You whispered, hissing. "Slightly above the recommended dose, but boy, can he drink. I'll send the portfolios to you tomorrow," You heard Jungkook say.

"I'm your wife." You darted at Seokjin and he drunkenly smile, in reply. Jungkook shut the door and left with his car. "Shit, I have a hot wife," he wriggled his head at you, trying to stabillize himself, "The world is going in circle, sweetie... I can hear colours." You took him up the stairs and once you got to the first level, you let go off him and threw yourself off, rolling down. You purposely didn't wear any panties during your period, so you had blood trails, dripping down your thighs to mimic a miscarriage. The force made you expel more blood even though you were unhurt. Your focus was that the CCTV caught you falling, right after Seokjin was out of the frame so it seemed that Seokjin had pushed you. Laying in the pool of your own blood, you called your trusted friend, Mrs. Min Yoongi. When she got there, she was horrified and took you to your clinic, which had already been bribed by Jungkook to hand over a miscarriage portfolio. "You have another miscarriage. You have to report to the police," the fake doctor said, and Mrs. Min heard every word.

"Are you telling me, that this is not the first time?" Mrs. Min was horrified, and tried calling her husband but you stopped her. "Please, no. Seokjin will hurt me more, if he knew," You lied. Everything was going according to plan.

Seokjin woke up with a buzz in his head, laying face down on the floor. His blood shot eyes and busted lips, the ache in his body he didn't remember having, starts to piece themselves as the drug began to wane off. He carried himself down the stairs, visions still quite blurred until he steps over something very sticky. He knelt down, holding on to the rails and saw, blood. Trails of blood, a pool of them on the base of the stairs and called out for you. "Honey! Honey, there's blood on the floor, where are you?!" He yanks open the front door to see policemen gathering in front of his bungalow.

"You are under arrest for inflicting physical harrassment towards your wife and her unborn child.

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court.

With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?"

The most sought-after bachelor, the city's most talented cardiologist, spend a night in jail. Jungkook snapped his head to you, "Now what?" You gave him a sweet smile, "Now, I play angel."

Placed under steel seat, of the interrogation room, Seokjin was drilled to answer questions the cops darted on him.

"Were you drunk when you returned home last night?" "I suppose." "Did you intentionally hit your wife when you're drunk?" "I'd...I would never! I would never hurt her."

The detective threw him captures from the CCTV footage that showed a sequence of you carrying him up the stairs and then you came tumbling down helplessly, with him out of the frame. He lifts his cuffed wrist to pull the photos nearer to him, so he could see clearer. He looks up, pleading. "...I'm. I didn't push her. She's my wife," Seokjin shook his head, his hair was messy and he looked like he was about to lose his mind. "...I didn't do it, I'm innocent." He repeatedly say, and a knock interupted the interogation. A uniformed man came to give the detective an envelope. "...He has a lawyer now, and the result from the lab is back. It's positive," the uniformed man left after saying those words and Seokjin snapped his head up, repeatedly asking, "What's positive? Tell me what's positive?"

The detective took one glance and slap the stack of papers to Seokjin's angelic face. "Your urine was tested positive for happy pills Nimetazepam, doctor," the detective mocked him. "I've been framed, I've never taken drugs, someone must have placed them in my drinks," Seokjin begged for it to be investigated and then your father walked in. His father-in-law. "My daughter dropped all charges against him," he clears his throat and glided his eyes towards his son-in-law who is now on the floor, tugging at the detectives trousers. He walked out from the interrogation to see you, they uncuffed him and you didn't blink once. You were taking in every view of it, how disporpotionate he looked, his messed up hair, his bruised face, and his ruined future. "If he continues to hurt you, divorce him." Your father adviced, linking his hand behind him, and walked away when Seokjin approached. Your mother rushed through the entrance and gave him a slap across his face.

You dropped your head to stop yourself from smiling. "Bastard." Your mother cursed at him. Then you put on a sad expression and reached him, to caress his face and pulled him into an embrace. He weakly buried his face into the crook of your nape. You reasted your head on his sturdy chest and sighed, "Let's go home." Using your father's power and his, the criminal record was erased. He regained his job and you lived your life normally as a married couple. As he gathered his reputation again, you ensured he come home to a good meal.

Be a good wife, finally. This time, you'll tell him everything, and you'll ask him to file for a divorce.

He was silent most of the time. During the dinner, you carefully told him everything, A to Z.

"Why did you do that? Why did you ruin my life?" He softly asked, a voice coming from a broken man. "I wanted to show my parents that doctors aren't angels," you stabbed your brocolli and shove them inside your mouth, unremorseful, "...They always think so highly of doctors that they forgot, doctors can make mistakes too. They usually mock me because I dreaded away from becoming a doctor eventhough I could. Tell me how my friends are lucky to be one, reminding me what trash I've become for being less than what they wanted me. A stupid writer, they call me."

Vividly, you remembered every salty glances they threw at you. How you were a disgrace to the family. Throwing away your chances to be a medical officer, by performing poorly in your foundation studies. You remembered the days where you ran away from home, wanting to be in a writing school because you aspired to be a writer, hiding in petrol stations bathroom, living as a nomad for what you wanted to become. And they caught you again, threw you in pharmacy school and this time you aced it. You thought they would be happy, but the man you were in love with, were engaged to a doctor, a paeditrician. They threw his wedding invitation in your face. "This wouldn't happen if you were a doctor. Why would he marry anyone less than that?" Your mother spat in your face. You ran away again, you leave town. You bought a second-hand car with the money your father secretly gave you, from a young man you knew working as a private investigator--Jungkook.

It was the beginning of a relationship fairly understood by the world. You were a writer and he did the digging. He had to keep his hands dirty, so yours could stay clean. Before long, you were writing more and more about controversial matters under a penname. That's how you got your money. The car, the apartment. You decided that it's time to show your mother, how successful you are, despite her opposition. So you ordered Jungkook to find you a "...callous doctor." The search was not easy, but Jungkook delivers. He always do. Jungkook massages the bridge of his nose and you placed your hand on those papers, when Jungkook sighed heavily, "How will you attempt to capture this callous man?"

A tear escaped the corner of your eyes as you stare blankly towards the wall, "To obtain someone you never had, you have to do something you've never done." Seokjin stared at his untouched food as he listened. "The accident, was it intentional?" He asked.

You let a dry chuckle escaped. "My greatest masterpiece."

Seokjin just left his bungalow, with two large containers of his homemade kimbap and on his way on the usualy route to the hospital when he revises the schedule of the day through his phone planner. "There's a high community gathering today, I wonder how long it's going to take," he murmured. He glances to the back to see his diligently made rice rolls and smiled proudly at the thought of people who would be enjoying his homemade food. The potluck is going to be different today since he is participating. After the death of the family, and a foreign feeling settling in his heart, he wanted to participate, to do something he had never done before. To be kind.

That's when his car jerked ahead, making his forehead slammed against the steering wheel. He groaned, his face turning red. Blood ran down his brows, and he hissed in pain. His phone fell to the floor of the car and he yanked the car door open. People began to honk and at the same time, a speeding motorcycle passed through his car door, showing him the middle finger for stopping at the green light. You walked out in red deep v-neck line knee-length dress, and beige strap on heels, looking very prim and gingerly graceful. "Oh my goodness! I'm so very sorry, my car's timer just jerked ahead, I..." you frantically began to explain and gasped when you see the trail of blood down his chin, "You're bleeding!" You hurried back to your car and grabbed a box of tissue, successfully tearing your body-hugging dress in the process at the thigh, and handed them to him. Seokjin furrowed brows are now a bit relaxed, "..That's fine. I'm a doctor." He said.

"Oh Lord, I have to call the hospital that I'm going to be late but my phone died," you squeezed the heel of your palm and almost sobbing. "Use mine, are you... are you going to the high-community gathering in the hospital nearby? The pot-luck?" He asked as he fetched his phone from the floor of the car and you said yes, immediately. "What a coincidence, I'm working there and is heading to the gathering as well, we should car pool." He kindly suggested. "What about the car?" You asked. "Do you have insurance?" He shot back, scrolling down his phone and dialling his insurance company. "...I'm not sure, I bought it from a friend," you felt your heart sank because of how little you knew about it, eventhough your father is a lawyer. "...That's alright, we both can use mine, they'll get it towed and off the streets, people are starting to get antsy," he bowed to each car passing by and some of the people are snapping picture of him, he must be really famous.

They didn't curse at him, but at you. Telling you to drive better, and that you're blind.

And Seokjin took you to the safe side of the road, collecting his kimbap containers but having trouble to carry both while maintaining a phonecall with the insurance company, "...yes, next to the hospital, just the junction before. There's two car. A Mercedez and an old Ford. Certainly, we'll be here. But we have an appointment to get to, so please hurry," you extended your arm to help him carry one container as he conversed with the staff. You both took a taxi and safely got into the gathering without a scratch. Seokjin had stitches but it wasn't very serious and you went straight to the gathering.

When he got back from the emergency room, he saw his kimbap was barely eaten. The rest of the food that came in the potluck was almost empty. He felt his efforts were going to waste. He took one whole plate of kimbap and took them to the park, to eat alone, away from the crowd. "What's the use of being kind..." he told himself.

"There you are!" He heard a chirpy voice and snapped his head to the direction. "...Where were you when everyone is slicing the cake," you walked towards him and handed him a slice of cake on a plastic plate on top of his two, now-empty containers.

"I saved you one, noticing that you weren't around," you smiled widely at him. "Where's the kimbaps?" He asked, glancing at the empty containers you were holding. "They finished it. They love it very much. They didn't think you could make it, so I said I did, we made it together," you explained, and, "I hope you're single, because they looked confused." Seokjin chewed very slowly, blinking to the floor next to your feet. "I feel very sorry to trouble you today, and I hope I was able to make it up to you and buy you coffee... maybe?" You hesitantly asked, "And also we can talk about the insurance and what I needed to pay, without involving the police? Perhaps, if you'd like..."

In Seokjin's mind, memories of you being cursed at by the roadside and how sorry you looked began to soften his heart. When he saw you carried the containers to aid him, when you brought him a slice of cake, he didn't have the heart to say no. The thought him smile, when he heard himself say, "You think I have the heart to say no?"

The coffee meeting became a date. And he likes it very much. He saw how you spoke to the waitress, so kindly, thanking her. How you both fought to pay the bills. You were so graceful and he was smitten. When the car was fixed, he felt like he was going to lose this acquintance, so he asked you, "...can we be more than this?" The moment you said yes, he felt his heart leaped. And by the moonlight underneath a blossoming sakura tree, you both shared a kiss. And it was the first time, Seokjin felt a kiss that was not rushed and not filled by lust, but by pure love. That's what he thought at the time. He got addicted before long. Your embrace, your words, your kisses, they were something else. Sometimes you were plain and he was surprised how it made him elated to see you in your unglamorous moments. It's like you allowed him and only him to see that you could just be you, comfortable. He is seeing both sides of you: the pristine one and the lazy one. He was amazed by the fact that he didn't mind it at all.

Seokjin was in love. Heavens, he was in love.

Is still... in love. 

You took your plate and slide the divorce paper on the table within his reach before leaving the dining table. You strode this spacious bungalow, walked up the same stairs you threw yourself off, and felt free. With the view of the back of his head, you glanced away, feeling a burden uplifted your shoulders although your heartbreaking, pieces of it, scattered on the floor. With every firm step you took further away from Seokjin, you tattled, fooled yourself that you never once had loved him. You didn't know when it happened, but it did.

When did this fake love, became real?

You entered the bedroom, you never shared with him all the while you were married to him and realizes just how much he suffered from your greed, just to prove how wrong your parents were. He was unfortunately in your tunnel vision of revenge.

Because of your selfishness, his life was ruined. Who are you to judge his wrongdoings? Who are you to decide that he was going to pay for his sins?

Yes, he was not a perfect human being. Yes, he did terrible things. Yes, he was a wretched creature with no conscience.

You hated the fact that you did all kinds of things to have the consequences in your favor.

But secretly you thanked Seokjin for being the reason behind Namjoon's called-off wedding. 

After the heartbreak you suffered from Namjoon's empty promises, you admit that you went overboard. When you loved someone so much, trusted so much, invested so much, and in return, you received nothing, left behind--it breaks you. It breaks your soul. It burns them to ashes. It made you numb, merciless, a heart of stone.

You had the hotel room card delivered to Namjoon through Seokjin, passed by a waitress. You ensured Namjoon's was caught in the most promiscuous circumstances. You already knew where to touch to have him spinning in pure ecstasy, and the rest was history.

The way he was so responsive to your familiar touches, draws you to do more than what was intended. Your tear-stained face cracked and you smiled grimly against Namjoon's motionless body, lying asleep, face down on the bed. Scratches down his back, hickeys, his trousers around his ankle. Belts on the floor, along with his dress shirt. You twisted his engagement ring and stared at the little circle underneath the night lamp, sitting on the bench the hotel had by the large window.

Playfully, you slide the ring to your ring finger. It was bigger than your slender fingers but it gave you slight happiness. Although short lifted. "You shouldn't hurt me, Namjoon. You said you will love me no matter what, but when I lowered my standards, you left me," you tutted your tongue, and took another sip of hard liquor that does nothing to your sanity.

You had become numb, staring at his messy bed hair, knocked out by the drinks he was forced to take. "...You fucking left me and go to that pediatrician because she fits your standard. Now you'll feel how I feel. And to make matters worse, I'm going to marry your arch enemy, your senior."

You tipped the final drop of alcohol and took Namjoon's phone to send a location to his current fiancee. Before you left, you leave behind a ruined thong that you drenched in water, inside his pocket and a kiss mark on his dimple, along with his engagement ring.

Namjoon's wedding was canceled and you feed on the euphoric sensation you put on yourself. It gave you a high you can never find from anything else.

To know that you've ruined someone's life beyond repair. It excites you.

You thought you’d be happy. Avenging your rights. Hurting someone who hurts you but. You can't feel anything. Nothing at all. But what’s done is done, so you smiled. I don’t have to be happy to smile. I can pretend as much as I can love. This is the right thing to do. 

And that's how you convinced yourself. But why does it feel so wrong?

Why are you crying when you’re smiling? Why are you hitting your heart with your own fist? For it to beat again? For you to remember how to love again?

Why are you sad?

The moment you set your bottom to the bed, Seokjin pushed the door open. "Give me one month," he breathlessly says, his eyes fell on your exposed knees and then to your eyes, "Sleep with me. And if I can change your mind, we'll put the divorce behind us and start again..."

You gaze up at him, "What are you saying, are you telling me that you want to be with me? But wh--" Seokjin silenced you with a searing kiss, pushed your whole body down with his own, and took you. Took your everything, the way he had been imagining. He wanted this for so long, the abstinence has made him direly impatient but he took careful and calculated steps with every advances.

"This time, I want all of it. All of you," he thumbed your cheek, his warm breathe fanning against your skin, as he spoke to your lips, "Don't hold it against me."

"Are you going to fuck me?"

"No..." he raspily replied, "...I'm going to make love to you."

Because he believed that you were in love too. He caught a glint in your eyes that suggests that he might have taken over the throne of who used to be there. Although it was brief, he was sure of what he saw. You insisted that you didn't care about him, but there's honesty in your pretense. Truth in your fabricated affections.

You were kind, but a bloke had broke you, beyond fixation.

There was good in Seokjin that you saw, and made clear.

When he breaks down, losing his first patient after many years of successful surgery, when he lost a child brought into the emergency unit, he didn't hesitate to come over to your apartment, seeking comfort. At first, he didn't know how to ask for it, but gradually, you began to understand things he didn't even say out loud. That's what made him ask.

Asked you to marry him.

In the dim lighting of your apartment, with only the moonlight to witness, he asked you in a small whisper, laying fully clothed on your bed, just breathing, he asked, "...will you be my wife?"

His politician father was wary at first, but eventually, Seokjin convinced him that you were incredible. You wanted a small wedding, just the two of you and he complied. Exchanging vows under the visions of heaven, you two were legally married.

He boasted you with his co-workers and his colleague began to notice changes. He was not as repulsive as he was before. He was becoming kind. He was a changed man.

Namjoon walked into his office one day as you were leaving, you exchanged unassuming glances to your ex-lover and Seokjin introduced you both, "Meet Mrs. Kim." You extended your hand to capture Namjoon's and he hesitantly shook your hand. "Nice to meet you," you thinned your eyes at his nametag and smiled brightly, "...Dr. Kim Namjoon."

Namjoon heard his name called very differently in the back of his mind. Breathlessly, raspily, and the way your moan usually sounded so sinful to him, like music to his ear. Maybe the reason he was drawn by the mysterious women that night was because of the familiarity of her advances. Maybe he was not really over her, maybe he was not over you. He lets his standards clouded everything he ever wanted in life that when something threatens to degrades his future, he cuts them off without considering your feelings. Your smile is brighter now that he's gone. He remembers how does hands feel in his, and the laughter that comes from you, how he used to be the only one listening to it. He was terribly obsessed with you, but now he can't be that person anymore. You're someone's wife.

Seokjin is having everything Namjoon could have had. "Congratulations, on your marriage," Namjoon gritted his teeth at the sight of you and Seokjin, clenching his jaws. Seokjin was too happy to realize. "Thank you, you're very kind..." You said, flashing him a teethy grin. "Are you single?" You asked Namjoon and the boy nodded, slowly. "...Don't worry Namjoon, you'll find someone you deserve," Seokjin patted Namjoon's shoulder to comfort him, genuinely. Namjoon gazes up to you and hissed, "Maybe."

The whole ordeal was damaging for both sides. Being with Seokjin made you realise that the essence of marriage should not be casted so low. He said to you, "Don't play someone elses' feelings, just because you're unsure about yours..." How true was that statement. What a chaos a heartbroken girl brought to her life just because she wasn't ready to let go someone who clearly didn't deserve her. How lowly it was for her to place her happiness in the hands of others, how disappointing it was to create such gameplay, just to prove her point... You didn't have to do any of that. But you let your mind overcome your heart that you felt the bleeding in the blood chambers but kept pushing when you knew you should stop. You should have stopped and moved on. But if you did, you wouldn't find Seokjin. And no one would know, how kind Seokjin could be. 

He blasted your heart wide open.

[qqueenofhades]

folie á trois

Or, the world sucks, let’s write more smut. Garcyatt (Flynn/Lucy/Wyatt) and yes, it goes all ways. Because angst and reasons and I will always hold onto these idiots being an OT3 in my heart. For @extasiswings​, @onlymorelove​, @gwennieliz​, and @frankfreakincastle​.

Rated E.

AO3.

With Lucy and Wyatt, it’s one thing.

They started out a little rocky, sure, but that didn’t last very long. When you’re thrown together in the circumstances that they are, you learn overnight how to trust each other, and let everything else come later. More or less, anyway. Wyatt helps Lucy face her fears in Nazi Germany; she does the same thing for him during the siege of the Alamo. They’re teammates, of course, but there’s something there that isn’t between them and Rufus. Wyatt has unresolved issues over Jessica’s death, to say the least, but he can’t help but be drawn to Lucy. She’s bright and beautiful and strong as hell, they are literally crashing through time and space at each other’s side, and Wyatt’s pragmatism balances Lucy’s compassion. They just work well together.  They can turn to each other with questions that nobody else in the world has. Their attraction is not unexpected, and it blooms quickly, even if unacknowledged by both of them. They are both too focused on this ludicrous job to do much with it.

Still, though. You can only ignore something like this for so long before it will find ways to pop up when you least expect (or frankly, want) it. They have been orbiting around each other, drawn by the other’s gravity, the promise of comfort and safety and solace among the burning ruin of their old world. Why wouldn’t they want it, even if (much as they promise themselves) only for one night?

The kiss to put Bonnie and Clyde off the scent was a pretense, even if they both realized fairly quickly that they’d have to insist on it. The one in old Hollywood is less so.

Wyatt’s hands on Lucy’s hips, her arms around her neck, the lingering whiff of perfume and cigarette smoke in the air, the way they both stop breathing momentarily, the way even their endlessly spinning, upturned world seems to halt around them – neither of them can forget this one, or brush it off, or think less of it. Can’t ignore the half-tender, half-hungry ache where their hands touch, their eyes linger, the way they would give anything for Rittenhouse to cut it out for half a goddamn minute so they could even have a chance to see what might happen. Possibilities. It hangs over them, it’s always been something they’ve been latently aware of, but this is when it feels like more than that.

If it was that simple (ha, simple) it might have been, despite everything, straightforward. A man, a woman, and a mutual attraction. Most ordinary stories start out that way.

This, however, is – as well noted – anything but ordinary.

With Lucy and Flynn, it’s altogether different.

They start out as sworn enemies, and things don’t necessarily become any smoother from there. He tells her she’s more important than she knows while they’re standing by the burning Hindenburg, and follows it up by shooting Abraham Lincoln in front of her. And yet, complicated and fraught and dangerous as it is, there is clearly an attraction between them. It is everything her bond with Wyatt is not: raw, rough, uncontrolled, dark – and more than a little off limits, for more than one reason. To look at Flynn is to know what a bad idea it is to get closer. Even when Lucy is stealing glances at him under her eyelashes in 1780, when she’s watching him water the horses and he’s telling her about wanting to be a cowboy, that he can’t go back to his wife and daughter even if he succeeds, it’s not an intimacy that invites sustainability. Especially when Flynn, naturally, follows it up by kidnapping her. Lucy would be perfectly justified to tell him to get lost and never look back.

Except the next time they see each other, in 1927, she orders him to make his minion let go of her, and he does. And in 1954, she talks him out of his long-conceived revenge plot in just a few minutes, when she asks if God brought them together. And when they meet in 2017 for the first time, when their enmity has turned almost totally into an easy familiarity, bordering on flirtatiousness, when he tells her that she herself gave him the journal –

(Of course that crashes and burns and goes terribly to hell.)

Even after they fish Flynn out of jail and make him part of the team, he seems hell-bent on continuing to punish them as much as Rittenhouse, Lucy in particular. Yet there’s a reflexivity to his lashing out, a terrible sadness, that makes it clear he’s doing it only because he has no idea how else to live anymore. Lucy keeps trying, but she also can’t hold his hand if he’s going to throw a temper tantrum while they’re attempting to save the world as we know it. Flynn is undoubtedly effective, even if he takes just as few prisoners as before. The rational, sane part of Lucy knows that she should forget about this attraction, even more than she needs to put aside her draw to Wyatt. Really. Garcia Flynn. Garcia Flynn.

The rest of Lucy – especially after he saves her in Salem, punches his way through pretty much every Puritan in the damn town to get to her – wants nothing more than to tell Rittenhouse where to stick it, by having Flynn stick it somewhere else.

And then with Flynn and Wyatt – oh God, where do you even start?

They start out trying to kill each other, and it stays pretty much exactly the same from there. After multiple rounds of fistfights, gun battles, wrestling matches, snark-fests, staredowns, and other repeated and explicit expressions of how much they just cannot fuckin’ stand each other, anyone would be justified in taking them exactly at their word. For Flynn and Wyatt to exist in the same space is for them to be fighting, in low-or-high-level ways. Excepting the three seconds they fought back to back in David Rittenhouse’s parlor of nightmares, and the time Lucy forced them to work together in 1954, this has been the rule.

And yet. Even in the middle of that, in bits and pieces, they have become slowly aware the other isn’t entirely what they thought. Flynn told Wyatt what happened to his wife and daughter, and – albeit with ulterior motives up the butt – tried to help Wyatt save Jessica. They have tussled and tugged and twisted each other, physically and mentally, and Wyatt – bless his five-foot-ten heart – tends to come up on the literally short end of the stick. By all appearances, he’s completely relieved when Flynn finally gets thrown in the slammer, even if he knows it’s hard for Lucy. Finally. That’s gotten rid of that guy. Took long enough.

Of course, it only takes one disastrous mission for Wyatt to be the one to suggest getting Flynn out of there after all, even if he knows this will once more be a living hell for him. And of course, as noted, it is. Would it kill Flynn, would it actually, physically kill him, not to exceed maximum dickpacity at all times? Would it?

(And yet, there are moments when Wyatt becomes aware that Lucy isn’t the only one Flynn looks at with that tongue-in-the-mouth expression, the one that is clearly not far from picturing her without her clothes. Even more confusingly, he isn’t altogether sure he wants it to stop.)

(With all that bickering and fighting and fragile, unspoken kindred-spiritness, it would be more surprising if there wasn’t something, however much ignored.)

Ignoring it, after all, seems to be the attempted play for all of them. And hey, it works.

To a point.

It’s the night after Rittenhouse has come very close to destroying the Lifeboat – the one fragile metal eyeball that conveys various configurations of the unhappily-foursome Time Team through history after them, the one thing which they really can’t do without. The gang has made it back to 2018, but barely, and Rufus is shut up with it, trying to triage the damage and reboot the mainframe before the data loss becomes critical. Possibly Flynn, Wyatt, and Lucy should be helping him rather than sitting in the next room and drinking, but Wyatt and Lucy know bupkis about the delicate technical workings of the Lifeboat, and Rufus would be exactly as happy about Flynn trying to “help” him out as he would be to be sodomized with a cactus. They’re all in a weird mood anyway. There are moments when they actually click as a team, and moments – well, most of them – when they don’t. This misfortune, though, has pushed them briefly into more alignment than usual, and they’re almost enjoying each other’s company, maligning Rittenhouse and periodically suggesting they look in on Rufus, before agreeing once more he’s better off without them. There is a lot of booze, because frankly this shit is ridiculous, and they are not expected to suffer it totally sober.

After several drinks, the mood in the room is downright cordial – more than that, even. There’s an undeniable current that catches at them when they glance at each other, and in the way it does, alcohol has lowered everyone’s inhibitions, made them more sloppy about glancing away in time. Nobody has any clue what might be about to happen, but they seem to be aware that there’s a chance something might. As casually as possible, Wyatt drifts over to the door and turns the lock, as if Rittenhouse might come bursting in, when he’s actually trying to prevent Rufus from seeing something that might be burned into his brain. He’s still standing there when Lucy says, with the exaggerated precision of the rather drunk, “I think we should probably go home, shouldn’t we?”

Wyatt turns around with a raised eyebrow. “So someone’s calling a cab, then?”

There’s a pause as everyone considers that. It’s pretty obvious that they’re in no state to drive, and unless Connor Mason feels like using one of his doubtless several expensive supercars to ferry three-quarters of the plastered Time Team home to sleep it off, they can either Uber it or walk. Leaving Rufus behind to work late into the evening seems cheap – they might not be helping out much here, but at least they’re here. For, you know, moral support. So he can walk in and see them faithfully there, know they’ve got his back. It’s the principle of the thing.

Flynn, for his part, doesn’t say anything, until Wyatt unwillingly wonders where exactly home is for him, these days. He doesn’t have his super-secret villain lair or the Mothership. His previous accommodation used to be an undisclosed location. Did Mason Industries buy him a shitty apartment as part of the “sorry about that SWAT team” arrangement they swung with him? Does he just go to a motel room and stare at the wall until the next call comes?

“We can stay,” Wyatt says, almost impulsively. “Rufus might – ”

There’s a pause, and then his companions nod, earnestly and drunkenly. Of course, Rufus. That’s why they’re staying. It’s almost adorable.

“Well, we should – ” Trust Lucy to try to stay focused on the mission, even at the present moment. She gets up, then stumbles, and Flynn reflexively flashes out a hand, catching her elbow. It’s not a particularly compromising touch, and yet both of them freeze. They briefly both seem to have forgotten how to breathe.

Lucy is standing, yet she’s not much taller than Flynn is seated. She looks down into his face, and Flynn is the first to look away, look down, almost ashamed. What just passed between them, Wyatt can’t be entirely sure, but he has something of an idea. Something stirs in his stomach, dark and strange and hungry. The world twists sideways in a way it didn’t a moment ago.

Telling himself (oh, familiar refrain) to ignore it, Wyatt rationalizes that it’s the gentlemanly thing to assist a lady who might be light on her feet, even if Flynn already has that covered. He strides over in as straight a line as he can. “Lucy, you all right there?”

“Fine.” Lucy sounds oddly breathless, as Flynn is still holding her elbow (he seems to have forgotten how to let go) and now Wyatt is standing close as well. Her eyelashes flutter, her gaze flickers between them, until the energy is both strong and unmistakable. Both Wyatt and Flynn seem to be holding in check, waiting for Lucy to tell them if they’re mistaken or not. She is the connecting tissue, the hypotenuse that draws this triangle together, the star which both of them have followed. If she says jump, they’ll ask how high. It’s just how it is.

Lucy’s tongue unconsciously wets her lips. She shoots a glance at the door, as if judging the likelihood of a Rufus entrance. This isn’t exactly the prime setting for scenes of passionate romance – it’s just a generic waiting room, with uncomfortable laminate couches and beige area carpet, the table scattered with the booze bottles in various stages of empty. Sunset at a Tuscany villa, it is not. And yet. They’ve been plenty of strange and fabulous places by now. The sheer mundanity of the setting is, in a way, a gift in itself.

Slowly, Lucy’s fingers tighten on Wyatt’s sleeve, and on Flynn’s arm. For her part, she also isn’t sure what she’s asking for, only that now that she has, she doesn’t want to pretend she didn’t. Flynn slowly rises to his feet, towering over both of them, but his gaze is intent and silent and almost tangible, physical, on her skin. Lucy doesn’t want to decide which of them to kiss first, so she reaches up and puts a hand on each of their heads, pulling them down toward her. As if they can hash that out between themselves, but she needs it anyway.

Wyatt and Flynn each kiss half of her mouth, both of them uttering startled noises in the back of their throats, but it’s not as if they have any remote capacity to do anything but that. Flynn’s hand presses into her back, as Wyatt’s cups her head, and Lucy stands on her tiptoes, turning her head first toward one, then the other. Wyatt’s kiss is gentle and warm and tender, unspeakably sweet, a desperately needed balm for a bruised and weary soul. Flynn’s kiss is like lightning and thunder and a cloudburst over the desert, hot and bright and relentless as a falling star.

Lucy is the one to give a choked sigh this time, fisting her hands in their shirts, as their arms come around her and each other in a tangle. They go slowly to their knees, Flynn more or less on the bottom – he’s the largest, Lucy thinks, it’s only fair. He has her in one arm and Wyatt in the other, the latter two on hands and knees before they slide down closer. Lucy tucks herself into Flynn’s side, hand running along his chest, at the untucked edge of his shirt, the sharp line of his hipbone. He bucks inadvertently up into her, which has the effect of knocking Wyatt off balance. Because of course of all the people in the world, only Wyatt Logan and Garcia Flynn would trip and accidentally fall onto each other’s mouths, that is exactly what they do.

Both of them freeze again, for a split second. It’s not clear if either of them have ever kissed another man before, much less what they think about it being this one. They can be seen debating whether to pull away and go for the tired old “no homo” card, truthfully or not. But that likewise does not last very long. Wyatt pulls himself up, grips Flynn’s face in his hands, and kisses him altogether differently from how he kissed Lucy: hot, rough, biting, tasting, taunting. It’s not so much a kiss as a declaration of war and a proposal of a truce all at once. Flynn’s free hand comes up and grips the back of Wyatt’s neck, shifting him closer, their eyes half-closed. Even if it’s come in fighting, the two of them know each other’s bodies the best of anyone here. The tension is coiled and curled and unfurling, thighs pressed between the other’s, mouths opening, hands grabbing. For a moment, for two, they almost forget about Lucy altogether.

It’s a dazzled half a minute later when they finally, slowly pull apart, eyes opening to stare at each other, Wyatt’s hand alongside Flynn’s face, Flynn looking like he’s been hit with a speeding – well, pick your period vehicle. As if to check that they did not in fact just dream that, they duck heads and kiss again, slightly less bite-y this time, before recalling Lucy and turning toward her. They roll over on the floor, Wyatt kissing her mouth as Flynn slides down her, pressing kisses into the unbuttoned part of her blouse, undoing the other buttons, and making a leisurely exploration down her stomach. Lucy wriggles and sighs, one hand coming down to clutch hold of his dark head while her other pulls Wyatt closer. They keep kissing, Lucy’s back arching, which gives Flynn a better angle at her hips. He starts to tug at the zip of her jeans, then stops, as if coming to his senses. “Lucy,” he mutters. “Lucy, do you really want – ”

In answer, Lucy pulls him back between her legs, never breaking her kiss with Wyatt. Flynn hesitates, then fumbles at her jeans, probably less efficiently than he could, as if once more giving her a chance to change her mind. She pulls away from Wyatt long enough to utter a deprived little whimper. “Garcia – ”

It isn’t entirely the first time she’s called him by his first name, but it’s rare enough that it catches his attention. He looks up at her, waiting, and she lifts herself, angling herself toward him. With fingers that have turned to mud, he undoes the jeans, slides them down her slender hips, and hooks down the lace-edged panties. When a final questioning look has produced the same answer, he leans down and licks her very, very lightly.

Lucy makes a noise that is hell on his determination to do this – for once in his miserable life – carefully. He reaches up to grip one hip, thumb in the hollow of the bone, holding her in place as he makes a thorough exploration of her. She is wet and sweet and slippery on his tongue, as he curls it against her clit, then noses down to her entrance and ventures to taste inside her. She makes another of those maddening noises, grips his hair, and clearly does her utmost not to smash his face into her, but needing more friction, more pressure. Wyatt is kissing at her cleavage, her bra straps sliding down her arms, as he takes a nipple into his mouth and toys it. The dual sensation leaves Lucy flushed and gasping and prostrate, shivering, starving.

After a few more minutes at their respective places, Flynn and Wyatt switch, almost as if they actually planned this. But enjoyable as it is to be physically adored and intensely pleasured by two men who, let’s face it, nobody is kicking out of bed for eating crackers, Lucy has had enough of lying there like an objet d’arte to be passively admired. She sits up and pushes Flynn down onto his back, then climbs up to straddle him, grinding on him hard through his jeans, which have also managed to slide low on his hips. She lifts herself off long enough to slide them further, then settles squarely athwart him, pressing his hardness against her through his briefs. Flynn makes a noise as if he genuinely fears his heart might give out on the spot.

Wyatt, never one to resist needling Flynn, spots an opportunity. He slides up behind Lucy, kisses the back of her neck and runs a hand down her stomach, then shifts around and settles alongside Flynn, using one hand to grip Lucy’s thigh and intensify each of her movements. With the other, he gathers Flynn’s head up to his mouth and resumes kissing him like a straight uppercut to the jaw. It is clearly a revelation to both of them that they enjoy this almost as much as hitting each other – dare one even say, more. Wyatt works his slow way down Flynn’s neck as Lucy keeps up her grinding, the sort of teamwork they’ve always been good at, no matter the situation. If this now means making Flynn hot under the collar in an altogether different way than previously – well, it’s not too surprising.

Therefore, it’s Flynn’s turn to grab hold of both of them and try to roll back on top, but Wyatt and Lucy don’t let him do that. God forbid Flynn give up control for more than five minutes, and they’re not done with him yet. Lucy leans down atop him as he pulls one arm free, gets hold of her head with one hand, and they dive into a devouring and savage kiss. Wyatt slides around from behind and pushes Flynn almost upright (it takes a lot of pushing – he’s obnoxiously tall), wrapping his arms around his waist. Lucy wraps her legs around both of them, Flynn’s arms encircle her, and everyone loses track of their own boundaries just then. Wyatt kisses Flynn’s neck and shoulders, Flynn kisses Lucy’s mouth, Lucy leans over to kiss Wyatt as well, and distantly and vaguely, Wyatt hopes the Lifeboat is seriously gorked after all. Not fatally. Just enough to keep Rufus occupied for another, oh, forty minutes at least.

That scrap of rationality is, however, quickly eradicated in the ongoing distractions of the moment. They end up all together on the floor again (this cheap-ass carpet is going to leave rug burn, Wyatt thinks – Connor Mason is a damn billionaire, why couldn’t he upholster his waiting rooms more comfortably for the event of his employees having an impromptu ménage a trois?) and their legs get tangled together on all sides, their arms the same. Everything is kisses and hands and strokes and darting touches, Lucy’s leg hiked up as Wyatt’s chin rests on her stomach and Flynn’s chin on Wyatt’s back. At one point Flynn ends up on top, and has just enough time to look triumphant before Wyatt rolls him flat, slides down him, and discovers the best way of all to make Garcia Flynn shut the fuck up. (Also Wyatt, because his mouth is full, but never mind.)

Flynn swears in one of his multiple foreign languages, grabbing at Wyatt’s shoulder, but Lucy catches both of his wrists, pushes them over his head, and holds them there while she kisses him thoroughly. Flynn is actually almost whimpering. Poor Flynn. His predicament is terrible, after all, and Wyatt is catching onto this whole idea rather quickly. Maybe this isn’t his first time batting for the same team, or maybe he’s just a fast learner. Either way, the results are indisputable.

Flynn has just about lost his damn mind (and other things) entirely when Wyatt relinquishes him at the very edge of satisfaction, sitting up and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes are hooded, cheeks flushed, shirt hanging off his shoulders. Hey, it’s the first time he’s decisively beaten Flynn in – well, possibly ever. You gotta let him enjoy the little things.

Lucy sits back on her heels too, thoroughly enjoying the sight they are presented with – if they knew that all they had to do to defeat the big bad time terrorist was to fuck him, they would have. . . well, probably not done it before now anyway. God, the lot of them are stubborn. Her pulse is hammering in her fingers and her throat and her chest, she has possibly never seen anything so incredibly arousing in her life, and one way or another, she wants the main event of this party. Flynn is still dazed and wheezing and probably seeing double, and the humane thing to do is let him have a moment, so Lucy moves, almost shyly, toward Wyatt. It’s not as if this is a likely moment for any of them to discover scruples, but still.

Wyatt reaches out for her, taking her by the hips, as she stops in front of him. Their eyes meet, and hesitant, timid half-smiles cross their faces. “You sure, Luce?” he murmurs, slurring his words just a bit, between alcohol and lust and late nights and wanting this probably forever, but never saying so. She can sense he’s asking himself as much as her. “You sure?”

In answer, Lucy moves up against him, wrapping her arms around his neck, and he catches his breath, gazing at her with that quiet, simple adoration. Her panties are already most of the way down her thigh, and it doesn’t take long for him to undo his belt and shuck his. He moves closer to her, between her legs, and nudges at her. Both of them turn halfway, as if inviting Flynn to watch, as Wyatt – slowly at first, carefully, reverentially, as if doing this too fast might make him wake up, and he wants to stay asleep just a little longer – slides into her.

Lucy bites a gasp, gripping his thighs, steadying herself. They stare into each other’s eyes, know that this has long been coming, as she moves her knees apart and he takes hold of her hips. He draws her onto him until he rests his chin on her shoulder, both of them breathing hard, coming to terms with this connection in the way they have with all their others. Flynn seems to have somewhat recovered himself by now, but he doesn’t move, watching them as if oddly unsure if he should interrupt. If this is what they want, he’ll stay out of it.

“You,” Wyatt manages, in one of the more considerable efforts for intelligible speech in his life. “Here.”

Flynn hesitates a final instant, then moves closer. Wyatt ventures a thrust, quick and slick and sweet, and both he and Lucy gasp. Then he pulls out of her, turns her, and holds her against him, her back pressed into his chest. He caresses her arm and shoulder and breast, kisses the nape of her neck, and lifts her slightly, as Lucy reaches out with her other arm to wrap around Flynn’s shoulder, drawing him against her, and then – after the finest and most minute of hesitations – into her.

Flynn does not enter her the same way Wyatt did, with that restrained softness and care. He comes in all at once, just like he always has, filling and stretching her to the point of a sweet burn, their foreheads brushing and their mouths open, as her fingers grip in his hair and his hands search for purchase somewhere, anywhere. They end up settling on Wyatt, the three of them swaying on the spot, Wyatt sliding between Lucy’s thighs from the back, as he and Flynn lean over her shoulder to kiss one more time. They might tell themselves it’ll just be tonight, but it will almost surely end up being just one more lie.

Flynn moves, strong and deep and thorough, sliding and rasping on Lucy, as Wyatt matches the pace from the other side. They grasp hold of each other, working – for once – in perfect harmony. You can almost hear the distant strains of Elton John in the background.

It’s a tumbled, messy, three-way thing, the end of it. They wind up on the floor again, losing track of who is who, what is what – it barely seems to matter, anyway. Flynn bites at Lucy’s shoulder, and Wyatt bites at Flynn’s, and Lucy is pressed into both of them, and they collapse in a total boneless tangle, heaving for breath, undone, unmade. The silence thunders, except for their hammering hearts.

It takes a long time to untangle, to badly and slowly draw apart, to chase down scattered clothing. Their fingers don’t work as they used to, and nobody can catch their breath. Their cheeks are flushed, their mouths bruised, their eyes shining, faces tracked with sweat, hair tousled and necks marked. Even if they don’t say a word, if Rufus walked in right now, he’d not be in a whole lot of doubt about what just happened.

Wyatt, Lucy, and Flynn get to their feet. Make a perfunctory effort at clearing up the booze bottles. Really hope Mason doesn’t have CCTV in his waiting rooms, because that would just be awkward. The world feels strange and unsettled and fragile as thin glass. As if, no matter the absurdity that is their real life, this is something else again.

They check. Rufus is still working, God bless his heart. Saving their asses while they are doing decidedly different things with them. None of them deserve Rufus.

(None of them want to tell him, either. Though they are, of course, less subtle than they think. It’s entirely possible he’ll guess anyway. Yet it almost sounds nice to have that kind of problem. A problem that ordinary people have, wondering whether a mutual friend will catch onto their romantic shenanigans, rather than the fear that any mistake could doom the entire world and all of time and space. One that, one day, they might even allow themselves to have.)

But not yet.

Not just yet.

They have to fight until the war’s done, and it isn’t.

[zydrateacademy]

First Impressions - Agents of Mayhem

I’ve lately not been doing proper Impressions post and instead opting for full blown reviews lately. It has improved my writing skills thanks to some general feedback from a few mates at a game review site (not a very popular one so it’s not exactly worth mentioning on a resume, as it were). Still, I think I’ll jump back in because my thoughts on Agents of Mayhem are not very complex, though neither is the game. Now I loved the Saints Row franchise and their style is certainly pervasive in Mayhem but I am still under the impression that it’s not sure what it wants to be. It goes the route of a mature Saturday morning cartoon but lacks the self-awareness that Saints Row had. While the last SR game pretty much abandoned all pretense of reality and opted to go straight for the fun factor (which it succeeded at greatly, I adore the Fourth), it still fails to go all the way. Despite a major amount of humor, Mayhem seems to try to take itself too seriously... somehow. It’s clearly not trying to but it’s a weird case. I got it for half off and then eventually just bought all of the DLC (that’s currently available as of this writing) and I’m frankly, more in it for the gameplay than anything else. When a Tumblr acquaintance tried to sell me on the concept of the game they talked about its great cast of characters with a few LGBT+ types running around. While it is refreshing to be able to play an open lesbian, I guess I kind of went in expecting a Mass Effect-esque storyline of romance and intrigue. Instead, Mayhem seems to make the same mistake both Titanfall games do, and most dialog is spent over radio chatter while driving to an objective or actively in a full-on firefight. I main Braddock who talks down to her alleged girlfriend, the mission-control mate named “Friday”, where I can barely tell they’re in a relationship at all. Any hints on sexuality in other characters is mostly just throwaway lines, otherwise you pretty much never see any of them interact together beyond dramatic radio shows that only half my mind is paying attention to while the other half is trying not to crash into every civilian, car, and tree that’s in my way when my car inevitably spins out from hitting one of those three. I can’t say the writing is weak as it’s often amusing but, as I said, I hardly find time to pay attention to it. The RPS review of this game did make note of one thing I entirely agree with; the game doesn’t do much in the way of combat feedback. RPS talked about how it’s hard to tell if you’re actually getting hit and this is absolutely true. Combat is hectic and most of my attention is just trying to find where all the enemies are, finding cover, and then picking them off as available. My eyes are almost never on my health bar and I don’t ever really get any notation when my shields are down. Compare to Borderlands, which gives you a border screen flash when shields go down, and then a red border of varying severity when your health starts dropping. Mayhem has none of this except one screen-border visual when I’m at about twenty percent and that’s pretty much all I get. Some unit gunned down Fortune, who has a sort of mid-tier health pool (as in not the squishiest) and she dropped to her knees and forced me into another character. As of this writing I still don’t even know what killed her, but Braddock still cleaned up after her all the same. Most of my gameplay, like any other open ended game is clearing the map and pretty much concentrating on unlocking my full hero set, including all of the DLC’s. I hear the ninjagirl is good but she’s yet to pop up for me, I assume I have to burn through a series of the main quest as I did to unlock Red Card, Oni, Daisy, etc. It doesn’t have a clear indication if I’ve cleared an area though, there’s no sectors or purple overlays like the SR games had. Instead there’s a microscopic icon next to each objective where I have to mouse over every single one to see if Mayhem controls it or not, and considering I just kind of do things as they come up, It’s not always clear to me what I’ve already done or not. The game does one neat thing; enemies are sort of leveled with your squad and there’s even a subtle carry mechanic. Y’see, you don’t necessarily have to swap out heroes constantly (which is a seamless and instant process, like swapping a weapon in other games) if you have one person that kicks enough ass as it is. Sure, Braddock doesn’t burn through shields as well as Fortune does but she can do damn near everything else on her own (so far). As a result, I can main Braddock and plug in two weaker people and just go do a few missions with them in tow, and they’ll hoover up mission experience regardless of their own presence. Still, I like several of the characters and I want to try them out. I remember mentioning in my AC:Origins review that I was underwhelmed but Origins was still a solid and fun game in its own right and I saw it to the end, which is cool because I haven’t even beaten Syndicate yet (or Rogue). Mayhem is keeping my attention as I have several hours on it and it feels like half of it is spent in a car, and I feel the game’s traversal could really benefit from SR4′s superpowers. My overall point though was that I feel like I will see Mayhem to the end regardless of my first impressions. Some of these points may be repeated on a formal review, where I’ll talk about the leveling system, agency mechanics and all that. As it is, the game is a pretty solid “meh” and I’m glad I waited for a sale.

[fukasenanairo]

Some thoughts on YP’s official translation and possible explanations

This post attempts to address a few complaints on the official manga release by Yen Press, and why I believe YP’s work is an insufficiently-edited take that actually tries to adhere to the original as closely as possible.

You might have seen me around, but I used to do some minor translations for this fandom. It is not to an extent as some of the more dedicated translators, and I am under no illusion that I am an authority in anything BSD-related. However, I can offer my two cents in a time where everyone is confused, enraged and/or anxious about the official translations and what may come next.

Now first of all, opinions are divided on the quality of the official translation. Some think it’s the most horrible thing since gacha games, others like it because it’s funny and quirky, the rest couldn’t care less or don’t want to comment in fear of sparking an all-out war. Personally, I believe the translator’s choices backfired on him somewhat, but it is by no means as bad as everyone seems to be saying.

A note on the translator: I will not reveal his name, but a quick search told me he has quite a reputation. To my knowledge, he has worked in the translation business for roughly 9-10 years, and has done translations for games and light novels including Kagepro and Nier: Automata. This is not to say he cannot make mistakes, but rather you should be very careful before you criticize him.

As for the list of complaints I see the most often (if I missed something, feel free to comment and I will try to address you personally).

1.      The translation sucks!

2.      Why do I need to break out a thesaurus every time I try to understand something?

3.      Why does Dazai talk like ______?

4.      For that matter, why do I want to punch a wall every time they say something?

5.      That’s not what ____ means in the original Japanese!

6.      Why do fan translations have them talk normally and the official does that?

7.      What should I do if the translation is so headache-inducing and I want to introduce BSD to my friends?

8.      But what if I want to support the series and can’t stand the official translation?

1.      The translation sucks!

This is the complaint I see most often, and the one that is the most puzzling. To ‘suck’, a translation needs to be 1) inaccurate or 2) did not portray the original meaning. While YP’s work does make me feel iffy because they try to purple prose it up, I cannot say it’s wrong. The most I can say that it’s weird and needlessly complicated, and could have used an editor. This is the only complaint I have against Yen Press, and that does not make them bad.

Now if you hate the translation because it doesn’t click with you, then that’s your thing. To be honest, I don’t like the official translation either, but I don’t necessarily have to read it, and neither do you. Other translators exist. Japanese-learning resources exist.

2.      Why do I need to break out a thesaurus every time I try to understand something?

That is a very good question, one that a lot of Japanese fans would like to ask as well. Let me tell you about the first time I sought out the raws for this manga, after I read chapter 29 (the latest chapter at the time). I had no clue what game they were playing. The authors go out of their way to use difficult, even outdated, kanji in a medium that’s supposed to be easier to read. Here is a list someone compiled:

Some characters have noticeable quirks (Akutagawa has his infamous ‘yatsugare’, and if you read EGS, you’ll have seen them once complain that “No one talks like Kouyou in the 21st century”.) Is it annoying? Do you just groan at some of those ridiculous words no one uses in the modern age? I can assure you, on the other side of the world, someone is feeling just the same way about the original.

3.      Why does Dazai talk like ______?

Dazai’s speech is notably...strange. To be honest, I don’t know why he got hit the worst with the ye olde speech syndrome. However, there is a question from this 2014 interview that would put his speech in more perspective.

Interviewer: What is the world view you’re mostly going for?

Asagiri-sensei: “Stylish Taishou”. The stage is the modern age, but I thought it would be an interesting remix to combine the air of the authors, who lived in the Taishou era, with the stylish atmosphere of the modern age, using old-fashioned expressions and difficult kanji.

So if you think this Dazai is talking like someone straight out of a Victorian era novel, congratulations! The translator did his job. Taishou, from around 1912-1926, is marked by rapid Westernization, a continuation of the movement Fukuzawa Yukichi advocated at the end of the Meiji era. This is the period where a lot of Japanese authors started reading Western works like Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka or Emile Zola’s works, and consequently influenced by them. We do have a few authors (Mori Ougai, Natsume Souseki etc.) who were active around the Meiji (reform) era and some (Dazai Osamu, Nakahara Chuuya, Nakajima Atsushi etc.) who were mostly around Shouwa (militarist) era, but generally the atmosphere should be Taishou, the age of modernization and Westernization. I hope it adds to your enjoyment when you look back at the translation, official or otherwise.

4.      For that matter, why do I want to punch a wall every time they say something?

Pretension. The text is unbearably pretentious – is what I thought. The wording is needlessly complicated. However, there is an example I usually use to explain this.

The word YP used to describe Dazai’s ability is “Annuls any ability he touches”. I needed to throw something when I saw that, because you can use “Nullify” and achieve the same effect.

And then I read the original. It’s sprinkled with kanji no one would see in anything they usually read. And I thought, isn’t the effect the same? The words mean the same. 珈琲 means コーヒー means ‘coffee’. 凡百 can be read as あらゆる means ‘everything’. But tell me, which would you prefer to read? And which do you think is in the original?

(By the way, the 凡百/あらゆる appears in the Japanese text of Yumeno Kyuusaku’s Dogra Magra. I remember seeing 珈琲 in Odasaku’s works. They’re all present in the actual authors’ works.)

So the YP translation uses SAT words the same way the original would use words you see in old novels and N1 exams. It pisses people off, of course. I didn’t read manga for a mental exercise. However, we can agree that for Bungou Stray Dogs, which tries to achieve a scholarly effect because of its characters, this is nothing unusual and even part of its charm. Afford it the same amount of concentration as you would a novel, and if you cannot, refer to the fan translation.

5.      That’s not what ____ means in the original Japanese!

First, I’d like you to have a sufficient knowledge of Japanese to understand exactly what it means in the original before you make such a claim. If you do, feel free to comment on something you think is wrong. I’ll listen you out and amend my post as needed.

That aside, when I hear this, the worst offender is usually Dazai’s weird way of referring to Atsushi as ‘lad’. While weird, it is not incorrect. ‘Lad’ is an informal way to refer to a young man. Dazai’s speech is largely boyish and informal. I can question the translator’s choice and poor editing, but I will not say that’s not what it means. You may not like it, but that’s what the fan version is for.

6.      Why do fan translations have them talk normally and the official does that?

As you can see, translators take plenty of liberties. On one hand you have fan translations who either work on a tight schedule or seek to make the text easy to understand, on the other you have the official that tries to keep the air of the work to varying degrees of success. Think of it as two ways to enjoy the work.

7.      What should I do if the translation is so headache-inducing and I want to introduce BSD to my friends?

The anime, thankfully, is a faithful adaptation of the original work with wonderful voice acting and easy to digest subtitles. The fan scanlations are speedy, high-quality, and supported by most of the fandom. Lastly, the plot is interesting, and the characters are colorful. Give your friends a heads-up about the official translation – “the wording takes some getting used to” – and help them understand why it is the way it is, if you must.

8.      But what if I want to support the series and can’t stand the official translation?

Because the fandom has grown over the years, there is a huge collection of official merchandise in many countries. If buying Japanese books are not an option, keychains, acrylic stands, figures etc. do not require Japanese knowledge and do support the original author. I especially recommend the official artbook – I do not regret a single cent I spent to buy it. The paper quality is top-notch, the art is stellar, and the comments (if you can read them) are a treat.

You should, as always, give feedback if you think it will prevent newcomers from reading BSD. Tell YP that while you understand why they made the choices they did, some of the word choices will turn people off, and offer some corrections as examples. People listen to you if you understand both sides of the argument and offer constructive efforts. Even if you don’t understand why, ask! With how much YP has done to reply to complaints, I’m sure they will not mind explaining.

However, I will advise against telling people not to buy the official or calling YP bad while not knowing why they decided to translate it like it is. Tell people why you do not like it, warn them that liking it is an acquired taste because of the reasons above, but let them read and come to their own conclusions.

9.      Conclusion

I believe the BSD fandom is really lucky. Despite its initial difficulties, Japanese fans have stuck with its unique way of portraying the manga’s atmosphere. The English fans have dedicated translators who love the series so much they try to translate every available material.

The official translation may not be easy on the eyes, but it offers another perspective to the series many did not know about before. Like it or hate it, I believe you can learn to tolerate it. You can learn advanced/hard to understand words (you’ll use some of them in the SAT for the kids who are taking it) and just have an entirely different experience. While I was searching for the list of outdated kanji, I found a question where someone asked “Where can I find manga with interesting advanced kanji like Bungou Stray Dogs?” I think it’s a great attitude to take in regard to the translation as well.

And finally, Yen Press listens. The “Chuoya” thing was an honest mistake they fixed. They listened to complaints and toned down the pretension in volume 2. Rather than digging for faults and bemoan your ill fortune, I hope that you can believe in the winds this series is riding on, and wish the best for it.

[mintchocolateleaves]

Cost of Freedom (7/??)

Summary: In which Kaito learns the reason behind May 3rd. Prison ! AU.

[Beginning]     [Previous Chapter]     [Next Chapter]

With fifty-two days until the deadline on their escape, Kaito finds himself buried under questions that he has no answers to. It’s almost as if he’s slowly drowning in uncertainty, each mystery boiling his blood, his skin itching from the rawness of it all.

It is like he’s readying himself for a test but hasn’t been told what he needs to know in advance. Instead of feeling certain that everything is going to work out eventually, he is left reeling, confusion blurring his thoughts, twisting them until they are only recognisable in the form of anxiety.

Usually energetic, he spends days feeling listless, lacking his usual vigor, maskless and uncertain what he’s doing. It’s the result of being locked up all the time, his freedom gone as if he is a domesticated animal, a bird trapped in a cage that is rusting.

“How much longer,” he asks one day, “until we can leave?”

They are both in the prison yard, feeling the sun beat against their neck, and Kaito is sprawled against the dirt, eyes closed as Kudo sits beside him. People give them a wide berth, decide to leave them both alone, and Kaito know’s by now not to expect anyone to come talk to them.

“I told you,” Kudo sighs, “by May 3rd at the latest, it’s not going to be after then.”

Kaito cracks open an eye, squints against the glare of the sun. “What’s so special about the third of may?”

Kudo smiles. It’s strained, and goddammit, Kaito just wants him to stop with all of the masks. If this is what Aoko meant in the past when she’d said it was difficult to read him, then he’s ready to apologise tenfold. “It’s always good to work with a goal in mind.”

“Would it kill you to be honest with me?” Kaito says. He doesn’t quite expect his voice to come out so agitated, had been under the belief that he’s been suppressing his feelings enough to keep the pretense of calmness - but apparently not.

Kudo flinches away, turns. He says, “We just need to leave before then, okay?”

“I don’t trust you Kudo.” Kaito breathes, and it’s like the words unravel off of his tongue before his brain can fully process them. “I can’t, because you don’t tell me anything.”

The is a sharp inhale from beside him, and Kaito is surprised at how he’s remaining in one place despite the cold look Kudo sends him.

“You don’t exactly tell me things either KID,” Kudo growls, animosity lacing his tone. “Like… What exactly is this Pandora that you’re so obsessed with? And what’s going on with you, you were fine and now suddenly you seem like someone’s taken the life from you?”

Kaito sits up, and now he’s glaring too. “How do you know about Pandora?”

“All of that tapping you do, it’s always the same sequence, repeated over and over again, spelling out that stupid word!” Kudo snaps. “I don’t expect you to tell me about that, so why do you expect me not to do the same?”

“Because you are not the one who’s got to worry about whether us escaping will lead to more people dying!” Kaito cries. He’s glad that people keep their distance from them, because his pitch is rising, louder and louder, filled with more emotion than he can realistically handle.

It is like a crescendo of noise, and he cannot process his emotions because he does not have an off button.

“You think I want to leave so I can kill more people?” Kudo asks, and he is quieter now. His glare has faded away, his skin paling until he is colourless, washed out in the same way a corpse is. The hurt in his voice is gut-wrenching to hear, but Kaito is at his limit of feeling guilty.

“Well do you?” Kaito asks, and he feels faintly like his heart might give out with how heavily it is pounding in his chest. “Because you’re not exactly forthcoming with any useful information. Forgive me for being skeptical.”

Kudo stands, glances at Kaito for a single before tearing his gaze away. It’s almost as if he can’t bear to look at him - Is it because he can’t keep up the appearance of pretending to be upset? Or is it because he’s trying to avoid falling into despair?

“They were all criminals.” The ex-detective says, “I’m sentenced with killing six criminals, so why would I try to escape when everyone here fits my MO?”

Kudo doesn’t turn back as he storms off, and Kaito is left to stare after him. As soon as he steps back inside C-block, Kaito draws himself up, jumping on the balls of his feet.

Is it that difficult to just say ‘don’t worry, I won’t kill anyone?’

The thief doesn’t know. All he can do is imply Kudo’s meanings, intended double-meanings thrown into every word. News articles had said that he’d valued the truth over everything else, and well - maybe part of making sure everything he says is true is making sure nothing is certain.

“Jeez,” Kaito rubs at the back of his neck, staring at the open doors, “he’s so annoying.”

Except, he’s more worried than annoyed.

“This place is driving me insane,” Kaito sighs, turning in the direction of the laundry room. It’s the subtle things that make him feel out of touch with reality. The way the wind whispers against his neck, taunting him with it’s freedom, his fellow prisoners and their eyes follow him.

Mostly it’s the hollowness, the boredom that wraps around him in an embrace, and the feeling that it will never let go.

Kudo doesn’t show up for laundry duty, which means that the guards stack Kaito with double the work. He groans, complains over the fact he’s got twice as much to do because Kudo’s being a jerk, but ends up biting his tongue the moment one of the guards gives him the option of helping out or spending a day in solitary.

(Kaito would like to point out that this is unfounded seeing as all he was doing was cursing Kudo, it’s not quite worthy of solitary. But hey, what does he know?)

As he’s folding blankets, he finds that his mind slips into a steady rhythm, his hands working without needing any direct instruction. It gives him time to think.

Aoko’s request of the difference between Kaito and KID isn’t something he necessarily wants to think on, but it’s the first place his mind wanders. He doesn’t know exactly what Aoko means by them being two different things, but is that simply because he’s spent too long immersing himself in both?

“What is so different about the two?” He mutters, racking his brain. Both are magicians, both have never thought much for the rules. Both like to prank others, although KID’s were always on a greater scale and they were designed to fool hundreds.

Kaito’s tricks were always just that… tricks. But KID creates magic, creates illusions because he is an illusion himself.

Is that the difference Aoko was talking about? That one is real and the other is a concept?

No. That’s not it. After all, people are just concepts melded together into a living personality - there’s a distinct contrast between the two.

He decides to think of something else instead. Rather than try to strain his mind, he decides to think on the significance of May 3rd.

Kenpo Kinenbi takes place on the third, is in the middle of golden week. A national holiday brought in after the war, constitution day celebrates new principles brought in after the end of the war… well, Kaito doesn’t think that there’s anything special about it.

Only… There’s something about the day that would make their hiding a lot more easier. It would be easier to disappear when most of the country is travelling over the holidays, and it’s typically busiest on May 3rd. It’s a possibility, but something in the back of Kaito’s head tells him it’s not the only reason.

There’s too much urgency for that to be the only reason. There has to be a reason why Kudo’s gotten so emotional over the date, despite usually keeping a collected voice.

“I’ll get it out of him eventually.” Kaito promises himself, grabbing a blanket, “and tomorrow, he’s going to do my share of the laundry.”

Kudo is not in their cell when he goes back after lunch, but Kaito’s not worried. He’s either in solitary - again because apparently he spends a lot of time there - or he’s actually decided to go down to their kitchen duty.

Wherever he is, Kaito doesn’t care. Let Kudo wash double the dishes, it was his idea for them to help out, after all.

He sits back on his bunk, skims through one of Kudo’s books and finds that it’s extremely tiring sitting by himself. Maybe if he had playing cards to perform tricks with, or a coin to practise sleight of hand with, it wouldn’t be so tedious inside the cell, but words have never been enough to keep him entertained.

Kaito misses being part of a crowd.

“Damn that detective,” Kaito says and he’s not exactly sure whether he’s cursing Hakuba or Kudo, “keeping me cooped up like this.”

Ah, Hakuba then.

“And that idiot, always creating more questions than answers. Damn them both.”

And Kudo.

He decides that the only interesting option will be to go down to the kitchen and attempt to find more information on the prisoner who’s left him in a fit of confusion.

Kudo is not in the kitchen, nor is he in the cafeteria. Solitary then, Kaito supposes.

“That idiot,” Kaito sighs, “causing all this trouble for me.”

Behind him, snickering catches his attention. He leans against the wall temporarily, listening in to the conversation behind him.

'I can’t believe they’d try to mess with a guy like that.’

'They’re not messing with him, they’re just giving him a taste of what’ll happen next.’

Kaito takes a deep breath, glances around until he meets the gaze of the group who’re crowded in a circle. One of them catches his eye, smiles over at him - he’s never learned the man’s name, hasn’t really cared enough to learn it.

It’s not like he’s going to be here long enough to make fake friendships.

“Don’t you worry KID,” the guy says, “you won’t have to deal with him long.”

Kaito scowls, turns around. And then - then he hears the cry. It’s choked pain, low and guttural, almost like a wounded animal. Someone laughs.

He turns, follows after the sound until he’s in the kitchens stock room, glancing at the backs of four men each one glowering down at a figure: Kudo. He’s holding his throat, coughing on dry air.

“Wh- What are you doing?” Kaito says, racing forwards. He shoves past the prisoners, dropping down in front of Kudo, glancing at the raw fingermarks against his neck.

“We’re just training him,” one of the men says, and… wait, is that Yoshida at the side of the group? Didn’t he learn enough after losing one eye? “You know, for when it actually happens.”

“For what happens?” Kaito says, shielding Kudo from the others.

“You didn’t know?” Laughter echoes the room, “we’re just training him for the same thing that awaits every serial killer. We’re all very eager to buy tickets, Kudo, wouldn’t do well for you to get to hurt now.”

Kaito watches them as they leave.

And slowly, it clicks.

“They’re going to hang you.” He turns back to Kudo, eyes wide. It’s the standard punishment for serial murders, for them to be executed. And with six murders under his belt, Kudo is going to die.

Kudo glances at him, and Kaito can see he’s trying to hide his wounds - not the physical ones, but the emotional ones that he’s harboring. No wonder he doesn’t want to talk about it, things don’t hurt as much if you leave them alone to form a scab.

“That’s why your parents want you to escape, that’s why you’re so urgent…” Kaito whispers, “because you’ll be killed.”

“They… can’t until I… turn eighteen,” Kudo rasps, “but when I do…”

May 3rd. The day before Kudo’s birthday, the day he becomes a legal adult, the day they can finally start pushing the process for his execution. Any day after would possibly be his last. It makes every breath harder to bear.

From the moment he first met him, Kudo has made it clear that people should be punished. It’s why he fought back against Yoshida, it’s why he tries to maintain order in the prison. For him, someone who’s so hellbent on justice to try to escape his own punishment…

“You didn’t kill them, did you?”

Kudo coughs. It is only now that Kaito can see the tears lurking behind his eyes. He looks helpless, staring up at the thief - it reminds him of himself, the moment he’d found out about his father’s murder, the way he’d felt when they’d buried him in the ground.

“I didn’t.”

[ferdbird]

The Mob Psycho 100 analysis that nobody asked for

 Finale (Episodes 11/12), Opening, Overall:

The battle with Claw is a metaphor for society and social pressures; Discussion of arrogance, the role of innocence in human lives, symbolic significance of characters, the meaning of the human existence

Disclaimer: spoilers and lots of bullshit (but with evidence)

Consider the first line from the MP100 opening (Junichi Sasaki, “99”):

If everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be

—a phrase that correlates well with the following:

“Humans are humans; nothing more, nothing less.” —Reigen Arataka, episode 12

Though this exact line only appears in the final episode, from the very beginning, the show (mostly Reigen) has emphasized the dangers of arrogance and the delusion it brings—from Teruki’s early fantasies of superiority and Ritsu’s intoxication from his newly unleashed power, to the student council president’s similar exhilaration from oppressing his fellow classmates.

So it’s not surprising this idea resurfaces once more at the end of episode 11, but this time in the context of the battle scene with Claw. Recall that a flashback occurs after Mob develops 99% murderous intent (殺意), followed shortly by Reigen slapping him back to his senses. Reigen’s message to Mob, that he no different from “people who run fast…people with body odor,” reinforces the message that humans aren’t inherently unique and should not deceive themselves as being such.

特別じゃなくっても

It’s okay not to be special

And thus, Reigen instead guides Mob to focus on “living positively” instead of continually comparing himself to others.

The re-appearance of the idea of “specialness” (and Reigen’s subsequent rejection of it) coincides with Mob’s inner torment, which is revealed shortly before the flashback begins. Torn between the decision of killing his enemies or saving his friends, Mob is brutally pushed towards an act that even for self-defense, would inevitably result in trauma, guilt, and emotional pain (similar to PTSD for a veteran after a war, as put by several Crunchyroll comments). Furthermore, the psychological damage would be even more amplified because of Mob’s innocence and fragility.

But that innocence could also be described as one of Mob’s greatest virtues—one which Reigen is fully aware of and determined to protect. During Mob’s struggle to find the meaning and direction of his own life, Reigen repeatedly encourages Mob to embrace his differences and recognize that he’s no different from other human beings. It’s no coincidence that the flashback with Reigen’s message of positivity overlaps with the battle with Claw, in which Reigen urges him to live simply to (“Become a good person. That is all”)—without the need to kill anyone or fight using his special powers. To Reigen, preserving Mob’s innocence and youthful hopefulness is tantamount to anything. Thus, he offers to take the ugly burden of reality on his shoulders and tells Mob to leave everything to the adults, even if that adult is forced into a fight that he’s not sure that he can win.

The—for lack of a better term—evildoing that tempts Mob as he watches his friends get hurt can be interpreted for a metaphor for society itself (or the common mindset of the people within it) and the burden it puts on its people. Hence, Reigen’s main message, “When things go south, it’s ok to run away,” has a dual meaning. It’s okay to run from not only the evil-doings of Claw on the surface, but also the joint pressure put on people by both society and human nature—to stand above everyone else, the desire to become “special.” Thus, Reigen is telling us, not just Mob, to avoid allowing ourselves to cave in to the pressure of forcibly becoming special, and trying to be someone we’re not.

逃げだしたってOK

It’s okay to run away

それが出来るなら　間違わない

If you’re still capable of it, it won’t be a mistake

It’s an idea we’ve seen repeatedly, such as when Ritsu and the president try to trample over their classmates, to both feel the euphoria of superiority and conceal their own crippling fear of being helpless and unimportant. “If I can protect them, I don’t care what happens to my opponents” (spoken by Mob when threatened by Claw) and “If I can stand at the top, I don’t care what happens to my opponents”—Reigen realizes both these situations are the same. Both lead to the same consequence; ultimately, a life of unabating regret and the sorry realization that the unfulfilling world they’d been trying so desperately to change hasn’t moved a bit.

But despite their good intentions, Mob nearly caves in under the pressure of Teru and Ritsu, both of whom were once very much misled by their belief in their invincibility and desire for recognition, so it’s not unreasonable to say that Teru and Ritsu themselves are the very symbols of the inescapable pull that “uniqueness” has on mankind. This pull comes in a variety of forms— our desires for wealth, fame, praiseworthy careers. But what we truly seek is acknowledgement, whether it’s from a parent, an unattainable true love, or simply society itself.

This continual struggle parallels that of the Claw members as well, whose human side is revealed in episode 12 when Reigen unravels their similar delusions. Like Reigen’s accusation that they were “plotting world domination when you haven’t even seen the world,” we develop a similar mindset as we seek for recognition in our daily lives. When we become so averse to other possibilities, we too develop “tunnel-vision” and a provincial outlook on life that only hinders our self-improvement, not raise ourselves to new heights. From a cynical standpoint, humans are greedy, egoistic creatures. We possess the natural quality of pride, not necessarily a bad trait at all, but when unchecked turns to arrogance— an ambition and desire for dominance and excellency that keeps expanding once from even a little taste of power.

MP100 reinforces the idea of  “blank slate,” the fact that, once again, human beings are no more than mere commoners. Yet without the awareness of our un-uniqueness and true meaning of a fulfilling life, the ambitions we’d thought to be so powerful are nothing more than the shoulder pads of Muraki (the Claw member whose specialty is cloning himself)—accessories without purpose, only serving as burdens to weigh us down.

So this raises the question: is it so important to be different?

Reigen represents the answer— an alternative to Claw’s path of destruction— to live positively and live to the fullest, as he’s told Mob. The childlike innocence Mob exhibits (as shown by his hopeful, sparkling eyes, eager to listen and follow Reigen’s wisdom) may be a symbol of the naive but hopeful future young children also see for themselves. Perhaps the show is hinting that there is an innocence and a hopeful appreciation for life and the future that people possess in their youth that eventually gets crushed and desensitized by those pressures we feel from the environment and the people around us.

喜び　悲しみ　かかえても

Even if you’re burdened by happiness and sadness

Your life is your own, OK?

It’s also important to note that unlike Claw, Reigen doesn’t abuse the drastic power difference between him and the Scars. He deflects their attacks, knocks them off their feets, but relies mostly on “adult talk” to reason them out of their plans. Thus, there is also a level of maturity that is necessary for an awareness about oneself and one’s position in the world (as opposed to the childlike foolishness of the Claw members). It’s equally important to be strong enough to accept help from others to find our resolution, and to be put back in our place when we go astray.

If you can notice [you’re] not alone

Maybe you will find your own answer

Like Mob’s % increments, we are also holding in conflict, hatred, and sadness that builds on us as we age. But Reigen—and MP100 in general—reminds us to remember the hope and innocence that Mob possesses (and that we must protect because Mob is freaking precious) and relate Reigen’s advice to our own lives.

The very fact that Mob’s “explosive power” (all his repressed emotions) turned into 1000% gratitude is proof of Reigen’s wisdom. If a phenomenon as incredible as that can happen, then the show is telling us that yes, people can change as well, with not the power of stomping over other people, but the power to adapt to new situations and to change our own lives.

In fact, back in episode 3, most likely the true reason Dimple’s religious cult failed—aside from the obvious fact that Mob deactivated the hypnosis—was simply that people can’t be forced to “laugh.” We can’t be forced constantly maintain a pretense of happiness and put on a fake smile because everyone around us is. Only when we live by our own terms can we be satisfied with life, grow with all the pain and turmoil that accompanies it, and truly gain a reason to smile.

To live in the moment and to exist in reality, not for the sake of trampling over others to reach the pinnacle of society, but for ourselves— that is Mob’s message.

To summarize that final idea, let’s look to the last line of “99”:

それぞれの答え　見つかるだろう

Everyone will surely find their own answer.

…Which leads me to believe this entire anime is a giant metaphor for existentialism.

If you’ve made it to the end of this, I’d love to hear input and other opinions as well : ) And remember, don’t point knives at people.

[bwprowl]

Life is Strange reviewed two years after it came out because I just played it and I wanted to review it

(Spoiler-Free)

Life is Strange, an episodic adventure game from the same guys that made that Remember Me game that no one played, originally came out in 2015. I was aware of it but wasn’t playing it at the time so I didn’t engage in any of the discussion around it, but I recall that it ended up being quite popular and spawned a pretty big fandom. While I think I do miss a lot of the initial appeal of being able to discuss it with a large group of people as it was coming out, getting around to playing it now is still something I’m glad I did. The game’s definitely an experience, even if it’s not a perfect or even always a particularly happy one.

You control Max, a disaffected hipster girl taking a photography class at an artsy Oregon high school who stumbles her way into a wide-reaching web of teenage angst that ends up evolving into a murder mystery. She’s urged into action by reuniting with her childhood friend Chloe after an intense encounter where Max discovers she has the ability to rewind time. This ability forms the crux of the adventure gameplay, and it’s impressive how much the game leans into it and lets you use it. You can rewind at virtually any point, moving characters and objects back into positions they were previously, talking with people to get information out of them then doing the conversations over with new knowledge, and generally solving puzzles in creative, fourth-dimensional ways. You also use your power with the game’s other big mechanic: choices. At several points in the game you’ll be tasked with making divergent decisions. You make your choice, and are able to see the immediate consequences of your actions play out, so you can rewind, try again to see what happens with a different decision, and use all that info to decide which choice you want to stick with.

The time-travel mechanic fares pretty well as a game gimmick. It’s interesting to have a game where the use of continues is an in-universe convention. Failing at major tasks just prompts you to rewind and try again, so even though you are effectively restarting a ‘failed level’ each time, it doesn’t feel quite so monotonous as in other games, and helps it keep the feeling of being a continuous, unbroken sequence. Being able to rewind time generally also lets you take all the time you want to figure out puzzles, even ones that would normally be time-sensitive, like figuring out how to rescue someone caught on railroad tracks with a train closing in on them. It also means you can repeatedly attempt many minor side-challenges, like warning someone to look out for a football, as many times as you like without having to restart a section over every time.

One of the big selling points of Life is Strange is ‘All your decisions will have permanent consequences’, and this is technically true, in as far as say, choosing to write some graffiti on a wall will have the consequence of that graffiti being on the wall the next time you see it. In practice, the way this works is things you do and say to characters will come up with them again when you interact with them later, which can change the way encounters play out and even how you have to go about some things gameplay-wise. A lot of it is just flavor, changing what angry text messages you get from characters and the like, though there are a few big decisions that will have major ramifications on how the rest of the story plays out, and you’ll experience these as early as Episode 2. There are times when the game feels like it’s showing off, characters talking to Max and bringing up multiple things she did in rapid succession, then telling you that those specifically are why other things are happening. Other than that though, the game’s story still follows the same path and basic beats regardless of which choices you make. This issue comes to a head in the final chapter and especially the ending, but more on that later.

In spite of being less divergent than you’d think for a game about making choices and rewriting time, the story it’s all in service of is a good one. It expectedly features numerous twists, and while some are easy to see coming if you’re experienced with this kind of fiction, others still managed to shock me pretty well. It has a well-paced build to it, with Episodes 1-3 introducing all the characters and conflicts and immersing you in the world, before the fourth episode (which is almost as long as the three before it combined) ushers in a ton of revelations and major events, all leading to grand, stunning finale in the fifth. It’s very hard to put each chapter down before you’ve finished it, and is the type of game you might be predisposed to just play straight through in one sitting, if you’ve got the time, it’s that compelling. Sadly, due to the superficial way the choices affect the story, there’s less replay value than you might initially think.

In regards to those choices and how they lead to the game’s end, as alluded to above, by Episode 5 Life is Strange has blown up its world and mostly disregarded any pretense of decisions affecting the story’s final outcome. There is one big choice at the very end that dictates which of two endings you receive, but without spoiling anything, neither ending is really in a situation to explore any differences in details that might result from the decisions you made. Episode 5 in general seems to take the player to task on the idea of choices in video games, repeatedly pointing out that what you did didn’t *really* affect the story much, and actively denying attempts at the idea of getting a ‘best’ ending. There’s a sequence where Max is called out for using her powers just to get everyone to like her, and while I don’t think it went far enough into the metatext of why we make choices in games, it still made its position apparent: you shouldn’t make decisions just because you’re trying to get a reward or a good ending or because you think that’s the way the game’s story ‘wants’ to go. You should make your decisions based on what you want to do, and accept the consequences. Sometimes helping a guy trapped in a burning building is its own reward, regardless of if you get an achievement for it.

Despite this nominally uplifting concept driving it, Life is Strange still comes off perhaps unnecessarily mean at times. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a game so thoroughly effective at guilt-tripping the player. I mentioned how the time-rewinding lets you ‘try out’ each choice in a scenario, and while you might think that being able to see the immediate consequences of your actions would make it easier to decide which one you want, it actually just makes you second-guess everything you do even more. The game piles onto this! Every time you pick one decision, Max remarks to herself something along the lines of “Well that didn’t turn out perfectly. Should I rewind and try again?”, so you do that and go the other way, and she says the same sort of thing! What do you want from me, Life is Strange?

This guilt-tripping expands past the immediate choices. As mentioned above, characters may bring up in conversations how Max did or didn’t help them. There is an extended sequence at the end of Episode 2 that largely exists to get the player to kick themselves for any opportunities they didn’t take to help out and get to know better one particular character. Even the game’s two final endings, despite (I think) intending to be a meditation on accepting the consequences of your choices, still split themselves between impossible decisions that are going to leave you feeling guilty somehow regardless of what you did.

All this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; indeed it’s impressive that a video game can wring enough immersion out of me as a player that I actively feel bad about things I virtually did to pretend people. But it definitely demands a warning for anyone going into the game that it doesn’t have a chance of being a choose-your-own-adventure quest for the best ending. Life is Strange doesn’t want you hunting for the true path to getting everything right, it just wants you to make choices in the story and experience all the bad shit that happens as a result of any of those choices.

Life is Strange can be a depressing, heavy experience at times. It’s to the point that you’ll appreciate the chapter-based structure simply for giving you a moment to step away and breath after the climax of each portion of the story. But if you have no trepidation about going into an interactive story experience that actively sets out to screw with your feelings, it’s a rewarding one to go through, and I recommend it. It’s definitely one of the more inventive, unique uses of the Adventure game format in a long time, and the relatively short time you spend with it will at least give you a lot to think about afterwards.