#but it’s still moreso good than horrible! so it’s fine in my book

[kinonicaltrickster]

yall want some kin edits

[st-just]

Barely coherent rambling about nation-states, culture, the Hapsburgs, and Canada

Because why have a blog except to occasionally purge one of the essays floating around half-formed in your brain. To be clear, it’s still half-formed, just on tumblr now. 1,666 words, here’s the Deveraux essay mentioned. Book is Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs: To Rule The World

So I’ve had like, nationalism on my mind recently.

And so there’s a kind of recurring beat in left-of-centre American political discourse (like, not ‘internet rnados screaming at each other’ discourse, ‘people with doctorates or think tank positions having debates on podcasts or exchanging op eds’ discourse) where you have some people on the radical end list some of the various horrible atrocities the country is built on, the ways that all the national myths are lies, and how all the saints of the civic religion were monsters to one degree or another – this can come in a flavor of either righteous anger or, like, intellectual sport. And then on the other end you have the, well, Matt Yglesiases of the world. Who don’t really argue any of the points of fact, but do kind of roll their eyes at the whole exercise and say that sure, but Mom and Apple Pie and the American Way are still popular, and if you’re trying to win power in a democracy telling the majority of the population that their most cherished beliefs are both stupid and evil isn’t a great move.

Anyway, a couple weeks back Deveraux posted an essay for the 4th of July (which I don’t totally buy, but is an interesting read) about why the reason American nationalism is so intensely bundled up into a couple pieces of paper and maybe a dozen personalities is precisely because it isn’t a nation at all. Basically, his thesis is that in proper nation-states like England or the Netherlands or wherever, there really is a core population that is the overwhelming demographic majority and really have lived in more or less the same places since time immemorial, and that once the enthographers and mythologists finish their work, all those people really do identify with both the same nation and the same state as its expression. America, by contrast, is by virtue of being a settler nation whose citizenry was filled by waves of immigrants from all the ass ends of Eurasia in a historical eyeblink, even before you add in the native population and descendants of slaves lacks any single core ethnicity that is anywhere close to a majority, as well as any organic national traditions or claims to an ‘ancestral homeland’ that aren’t obviously absurd (and we are trying to include the descendents of slaves and the native population these days, to varying levels of success). All this to say that his point is America is a civic state, not a national one, with the identity of ‘American’ being divorced from ethnicity and instead tied to things like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the whole cult around the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and [FDR and/or Reagan depending on your politics].

Which, like I said, don’t totally buy, but interesting. (to a degree he overstates how homogenus ‘actual’ nation-states are, he makes America sound very special but if his analysis holds that it’d presumably also apply to several other former settler colonies, in the American context there’s a fairly solid case to be made that the whole ‘nation of immigrants’ story and the racial identity of whiteness were constructed to function as an erratz national ethnicity, with incredible success, etc, etc).

But anyway, if we accept that the American identity is bound up in its civic religion and the mythologized version of its political history, it’s absolutely the case that there’s several segments of the left who take incredibly joy in tearing said civic religion and national mythology apart and dragging whatever’s left through the mud. I mean, hell, I do! (reminder: any politician whose ever had a statue dedicated to them was probably a monster). And, well, call it a greater awareness of historical crimes and injustice, or the postmodern disdain for idols and systems leaking out through the increasingly college-educated populace, or the liquid acid of modernity dissolving away all unchosen identities, or a Marxist cabal undermining the national spirit to pave the way for the Revolution or whatever you like, but in whichever case, that critical discourse is certainly much more prominent and influential among left and liberal media and politics types that is was in decades past.

And, okay, so I finished Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs a few days ago. And I mentioned as I was reading it that the chapters on the 19th and 20th centuries reminded me quite a bit of courses I’d taken in school on the late Ottoman Empire and Soviet Union. Because all three are multi/non-national states (Empires, in Deveraux’s terminology, though that’s varying degrees of questionable for each, I think. Moreso for the Hapsburgs than the rest) who outlasted their own ideological legitimacy. And in all three cases it just, well, it didn’t not matter, but even as all the ceremonies got more absurd and farcical  and the politics more consumed by inertia punctuated with crises, things kept limping along just fine for decades. Even in the face of intense crisis, dissolution wasn’t inevitable. (The Ottomans are a less central example here, admittedly, precisely because of the late attempt to recenter the empire on Turkish nationalism. But even then, more Arab soldiers fought for the Sultan-Caliph than ever did for the Hashemites, and most prewar Arab nationalism was either purely cultural or imagined the Empire reformed into a binational federation, not dissolved).

But as Rady says in the book – losing WW1 crippled Germany, it dissolved Austria-Hungary. And in all three cases, as soon as they were gone, the idea of bringing them back instantly became at least a bit absurd.

And okay, to now pivot to talking about where I actually live but about whose politics I (shamefully) know significantly less than America’s. I mean, maybe it’s because most of my history education from public school was given by either pinko commies or liberals still high off ‘90s one-world universalism, or maybe it’s just a matter of social class, but I really can’t remember ever having taken the whole wannabe civic religion of Canada seriously (the only even serious attempt at sacredness I recall was for Remembrance Day). Even today, the main things I remember about our Founding Father is that he was an alcoholic who lost power in a railroad corruption scandal.

Really, in all my experience the only unifying threads of national/particular Canadian identity are a flag, a healthcare system, those Canadian Heritage Minute propaganda ads, a bill of rights from the ‘60s, and an overpowering sense of polite smugness towards the States.

And that last one (or, at least, the generally rose-colored ‘Canada is the good one’ view of history) is taking something of a beating, on account of all the mass graves really rubbing the public’s noses in the whole genocide thing. At least among big segments of the intellectual and activist classes, most of the symbols of Canadian nationhood are necessarily becoming illegitimate as Canada is, in fact, a project of genocidal settle colonialism.

But it really is just purely symbolic. Most of the municipalities who cancelled their Canada Day celebrations are going to elect Liberal MPs and help give our Natural Governing Party its majority in the next election, no one of any significance has actually challenged the authority of the civil service or the courts. And, frankly, most of the people who are loudly skeptical of all the symbols of the nations are also the ones whose political projects most heavily rely on an efficient and powerful state bureaucracy to carry out.

(This is leaving aside Quebec, which very much does have a live national identity insofar as the vigorous protection of national symbols is what wins provincial elections. If I felt like doing research and/or reaching more there’s probably something there on how pro-independence sentiment has largely simmered down at a pace with the decline of attempts to impose a national Canadian identity).

I mean, Canada does have rather more of a base for a ‘national’ population core than the US (especially if you’re generous and count the people who mark French on the census as a core population as well). At the same time, no one really expects this to continue to be the case – even back in Junior High, I remember one of the hand outs we got explaining that due to declining fertility most or all future population growth would come from immigration (I remember being confused when my mother was weirdly uncomfortable with the idea when it came up). I suppose our government gets credit for managing public opinion such that anti-immigration backlash hasn’t taken over the political conversation. Which you’d think would be a low bar but, well.

But anyway, to try and begin wrapping this rambling mess up – it does rather feel like Rady’s portrayal of the late Hapsburg empire might have a few passing similarities to the future of Canada. A multinational state whose constitution and political system and built on foundations and legitimized by history that no one actually believes in anymore, or at least no more than they have to pretend to to justify the positions they hold, but persisting because it’s convenient and it’s there and any alternatives are really only going to seem practical after a complete economic collapse or apocalyptic war. (Though our civil service is a Josephist’s dream by comparison, really.)

Or maybe I’m premature, and the dominant culture will just be incredibly effective at assimilating immigrants into that civic identity. Anecdotally, the only people I know who are at all enthusiastic about Canada as an idea are first generation immigrants. I could certainly just be projecting, really – I’ve never really been able to get all that invested in the nation-state as an idea of more moral power than ‘a convenient administrative division of humanity’, and certainly liberating ourselves form the need to defend the past would certainly rectifying certain injustices easier.  

Or maybe I’m just being incredibly optimistic. Half the economy’s resource extraction and the other half’s real estate, so decent odds the entire place just literally goes up in flames over the next few decades. BC’s already well on its way.

[madame-x]

hello, hello, hello !! i am here with my fifth muse (who i’ve been wanting to play for literally a month now dkfjgbkjsdfg so the muse is very, very, VERY strong with this one) and you can find more about her under the cut!!

trigger warnings: drugs, overdose & abuse

nina eloise connolly here was born and raised in a small town in the middle of nowhere. a little farm town where there were more cows and horses and goats than there were people

she’s the second eldest out of 4 kids and the first daughter

you’d think that the first daughter and the mother would be really close but NOPE like her parents..... should never have been parents in the first place becuse they love the pipe and the bottle more than they’ve ever loved their own kids 

sometimes things were find in that household, but most of the time, it wasn’t. her mother was a quiet drunk, moreso when she was high but her father’s a pretty volatile person and wasn’t above laying his hands on his children to release some of his pent up anger 

her older brother, the eldest of the connolly children, took up most of the abuse but sometimes nina was there too because she hated that her brother had this tendency to play the hero 

by the time she was 13, her dad died because of an overdose, and you’d think her mother would actually step up and become a mother but even though she TRIED or said she would and even managed to be clean for a couple of months, she still hit that pipe every once in awhile and it was just a vicious cycle 

eventually, nina just stopped caring, stopped hoping that she’d actually stick to her word because it was just a constant barrage of disappointment every single time

nina was working by the time she was 12, babysitting the kids nearby and just taking every chance she could get to get out of that house. she hated being there. she hated being around her mom. she hated feeling like her entire life was a burden when she never asked to be born in the first place, she hated just how relieved she feels that her father is no longer with them..............which made her feel horrible as a daughter

in school, nina is like whip-smart but she was always the girl who had potential and it was actually comical how frustrated the teachers get when it came to her and how she could go places if she just applied herself 

she wanted to tell them that the last thing she wanted was to deal with schoolwork when they barely have food on the table because her parents spent all their money on their next heroin hit 

she worked at the stables owned by a filipino couple for some extra money and her love for horses just grew like she adores the animals, loves just how majestic and free they are, and she sometimes sleeps over at that stable just because she doesn’t wanna go home to her house 

the filipino couple lets her ride a mare that nina has pretty much come to think of as her own and they urged her to try and become a professional equestrian but nina didn’t have it in her to stay there in that tiny, tiny town and stick close to her family when all she wanted to do was leave

which was exactly what she did as soon as she graduated high school. she packed up her stuff, went with a friend to new york and that’s where she’s been the past couple of years 

there was this weird limbo of time after graduating high school and before starting college that was just her working her butt off to save up enough to allow her to go to college and learning to play the piano because she wanted to actually be good at something other than riding (which she misses terribly)

during her first semester, she ended up meeting this cop who she ended up falling in love with and inspired her to shift her course to criminal justice which was a good move tbh because she’s always been a lover of mystery and murder documentaries (not like her parents were alarmed or anything since they never really cared about her existence except to complain or get angry about)

she got her degree, ended up marrying her cop boyfriend and then proceeded to work in new york as a private investigator once she passed the state exam to get her license, though she and her husband worked in different precincts

they had a pretty good marriage for awhile but she noticed when she was in her late twenties that her husband kept wanting them to have babies. at first, it was just questions here and there whether she’d want to -- the answer was always ‘not now’ -- until eventually he started demanding it from her which caused such a rift between them 

nina wanted to focus on her career because she absolutely loved her profession and she definitely wasn’t ready to settle down and be a mom, especially when she has no idea if she’d actually be a good one since she never had a good example of on in her life 

the final straw came when she received a job opportunity to work in charming two years ago and her husband FORBADE it. according to him, she wasn’t ALLOWED to go since they already had a great life in new york. he didn’t understand why she’d give that up to work in a small town on the other side of the country.

it was then that nina realized just how suffocated she was under all his demands -- wanting her to be the perfect wife for him, wanting him to have his children and she usually ended up tiptoeing around the issues and the fights until he’d calm down but not this time. she WANTED to go to charming and actually make a name for herself, and the more he said that she couldn’t, the more she wanted to, the more she fought on him about how it was her life and she had every right to choose what to do with it

they ended up divorcing right before she moved to charming two years ago for such a fresh start since she didn’t know anybody AT ALL 

personality & extra!! 

she................. loves books more than she loves people. bonus points if it’s a mystery novel because she always tries to solve it before she reaches the end 

LITERALLY has a large af corkboard in her room, red string and all because she..... is that person when it comes to her cases omg

she’s part of a ragtag group of people who call themselves a band who performs at bars here in charming every other weekend for free beer. they know they have 0 chances of actually making it big but that’s totally fine with her since it’s more of a hobby anyway. she’s the pianist and back up vocals!!

she and her ex-husband do not talk. like at all. looking back, she doesn’t understand how she let that marriage go for as long as she did and why she allowed him to think it was okay to pressure her into having kids when she had said from the start that she didn’t really have any intentions of becoming a mother

she’s never done drugs and she has no plan to. she looks down on the gang solely because she doesn’t understand how they can sleep well at night knowing they’re getting richer by ruining other people’s lives through those drugs. she understands that the drugs were what killed her father and ruined any chance her parents had at becoming good parents so she tends to stay as far away from them as possible 

her only vice is alcohol (but she rarely gets drunk because she doesn’t like how much it reminds her of how her parents were like when they were drunk) and smoking which she does when she’s stressed (which, depending on the case she’s working on, might be all the time)

her life is pretty much like a french movie - lots of smoking, lots of kissing, lots of staring off into the distance, tinged in like this weird gray color

she just !!! tries to keep herself composed and classy because the years of being called trailer trash are long gone now and those years of being called that just made her want to become a better person and she’s SO PROUD OF HERSELF for working her ass off so she could get to where she is now

that also means that she doesn’t really talk about her past a lot because she’s ashamed of being tied into that kind of lifestyle. when you ask her about her family, she’ll only talk to you about her siblings and that’s pretty much it. even the people she’s close to, she only mentions her parents in like.... VERY RARE moments of vulnerability and then she’s quick to change the subject because she....... doesn’t want to dwell on any of it. she’s very closed off in that sense and is an expert in deflecting conversation so that it like veers towards you and she’ll very happily listen instead

she talks to her sister a lot because she stayed behind in their tiny town because she 1. doesn’t want to leave and 2. actually likes looking out for their mom who somehow managed to stay clean when nina had already been in new york for a couple of years. 

up to this day, she has never spoken to her mom. never even invited her to her wedding (though it was just in the courthouse but then was also just like a really tiny get together with a couple of their friends) and she just doesn’t believe she’s actually clean. she doesn’t know how to pair the image of a ‘good mom’ to the mom that she had growing up

(also *cue eleanor shellstrop moment* where she’s like hella bitter that she changed when it was just her sister there which meant that either she hadn’t been ready to change then when nina still wanted a mom or just never actually believed nina was good enough to be changed for)

is a pretty decent cook lbr but she loves pasta and pizza more than anything even tho she knows they’re not healthy

she just has this love for like art in every form, like she already shows her love for music by being in that band but she also paints sometimes but she can’t sketch to save her life like she’s just always wanting to try new things because like she’s really digging the fact that she CAN now. she has the absolute freedom to do whatever it is that she wanted and that’s so LIBERATING

literally has a horse tattoo on her side because she just ADORES them and it looks like this 

she highkey volunteers at the stables here in charming too just because she wants to keep being around them, sometimes still rides here and there 

she’s also like fairly moody but i think it would just be hard to tell because she’s fairly expressionless most of the time (or tries to be) 

100000% bi

can be hella calculating tbh but don’t let that offend you because she’s like VERY into mysteries so if she thinks you’re one, that means she’s very intrigued by you!! 

she tries very hard not to be flaky but it’s hard when she doesn’t want to be around people most of the time BUT will do her best to be there for her friends because she adores them all so much

some connections for her!!

her first friend in charming!

ride or die!!!

a drunken hookup/mistake (like i mentioned that she doesn’t drink until she’s drunk plus she doesn’t sleep around all that much either so she highkey would have considered what they did a mistake omg) 

a hookup that was not a drunken mistake omg (but like i said, she doesn’t sleep around a lot so imma just limit this to like... 2)

enemies (probably in the gang lbr)

unexpected friendships!!!

opposites attract!!! someone who could be so extroverted and would help her get out of her (self-made) shell just a little 

maybe someone she dated when she first got here but it didn’t work out for some reason? 

people in the band!! (gonna send a wc for this to the main) 

someone involved in a case at one point or maybe paid her to find something out for them !!!!!

fellow book NERDS

horse people RIDE UP (i was gonna say rise up but somehow....... this works)

people she works with!!!

neighbors!!!

someone who might be friends/related to her ex-husband (who will stay an NPC)

people she knew back in new york 

literally just come at me if you have ideas because i’m pretty sure i’ll be 10000% up for them

[artnerd1123]

A Familiar World

All Nerds Start Somewhere ——————————————

A regular trip to the library brings two sorcerers more than just new books...

The masterpost for AFW can be found here. The chapter post for AFW can be found here.

——————————————

This isn’t a traditional chapter by any means, but it’s definitely one I had fun with!!! Especially cuz my pal @vaaloirr​ co-wrote it with me! Since Alex and Journal are friends and eventually bfs in canon, we wanted to get some content out for them. What better way than fixing up n posting rps? :D

Also, it’s a good excuse for some baby lucy. What a cute kitty she is ;w;

Y’all will prolly see more of these as we get to em!!! Enjoy a first meeting for now ;3c

                                                    ————

Belle: Settling in is always strange. It’s even moreso in a new town, so much different than one’s old home. There’s so many different faces. Different places. Everything is new, and nothing’s quite the same. And, of course, it’s to be expected when you move from the country to a forest. The new town was nestled between trees, with huge crowds and buzzing magic. Home never would’ve thought of such a thing. ... ah, right. Home. That was another part of settling in. It meant completely changing your definition of “home.” For Journal Drapht, home was where his books were. And what better place to help him establish that than the library?

Journal had just finished browsing for the day. He’d spent most of his time over at the magic books, of course. There was so much more he could learn here! No way he was about to squander that. Not when he needed all he could get. He’d found enough beginner spells to have him set for weeks. It was perfect. What was also perfect was the legends section. He’d never seen that many books in one place in his life! And they were all about stunning magic, or awe inspiring show sorcerers, or- better yet- all sorts of terrifying monsters. Yeah, the library was perfect. It came as no surprise that Journal’s stack of books was a mile high. He was just doing his best to carry it all to the desk. “Next time I’ll get a fuckin... wagon... sheesh,” he grunted. Hopefully they’ll let me check all these out…

Vaal: Settling in was a strange thing indeed, especially when your idea of 'settling in' was getting settled in an apartment for a week before heading to the next town. Staying in one place for more than a couple of weeks was... strange. Especially for someone who had spent most of the last, what, ten, eleven years on the road? It was an adjustment in and of itself. Never mind all the new people, new places, new... everything. He'd only been in merchant towns a handful of times. At least all the rotating sets people sort of emulated the effect of moving constantly. Though, Alex Manson wasn't at the merchant town, at the moment.

The one thing Alex could complain about consistently when it came to his town was the lack of library. There was only one library, the school library, and if you didn't attend the school, you couldn't check anything out. And book merchants weren't always around. But! Thankfully, there was a good library in the next town over. It was. A whole day's worth of walking to get there, but that was fine. Sort of. His legs really didn't like him after these trips. And then there was the walk back. Ugh. Slightly less fine. But he had books to return. Lots... and lots of books. With a combined two days to get there and back, he wanted a supply of books that was worth the effort. He had a carriage bring him here, and he could walk back without the books. He had a sizable stack, one that blocked his vision, as he walked in. Okay, just gotta... find the desk... At least he had his little familiar in his hood, purring quietly. She seemed to enjoy the walks. She might have been asleep for all he knew. He couldn't leave her home... she got anxious without him. And it was good to get her out of the apartment every now and then. Show her that the world is bigger than their little two person apartment.

Belle: Journal tried to keep moving slow. He didn’t want to lose any books accidentally. It would be rather hard to pick them back up without dropping them all over. Rather unfortunate, then, that the slower he went, the more tedious it felt. He could hold a stack of books for hours! His arms wouldn’t get tired for a while. But he could not stand moving slow. It was so... unproductive. He had so many things to do at the apartment. He couldn’t afford to go slow. The sorcerer’s pace quickened a bit. He tried glancing around his book stack, but he couldn’t see anything. Great. Hopefully people would move out of the way. He just kept walking quickly. After all, who wouldn’t move when they see a person with a huge stack of- WHACK! Journal let out a yelp as he collided with an unseen obstacle, stumbling backwards. His books went spilling everywhere as he fell. He landed hard on his tailbone. “Oof- ghhh- owww-“ he groaned, wincing. That’s gonna bruise... He sat up shakily, rubbing his backside. What had he run into...? Was there a pillar, or-? The sorcerer’s face went pale when he registered the other person. Who he’d... smashed... into... Oh. Oh no. “... shit. H-hey, uh- I’m- im really sorry, are you ok???” He asked anxiously, stumbling over himself. What a horrible mess he’s made of things…

Vaal: Alex just walked... ever so carefully... he didn't want to bump into anyone, or anything. Not only did he have all these books, but he had Lucy curled up in his hood. She didn't need to be jostled. Now where was the Revaew damned desk- shouldn't it be close to the front door? Did he already pass it??? Revaew, that would be just like him. He had too many books! He brought too many back, because he wanted to get it all done in one trip, when he could have done it much more manageably in two, sure he'd have to pay a fee for bringing them in late, but it would be better than this! A lot of things would be better than this. He just hoped that he wouldn't bump into anybody. Hopes that were almost immediately dashed. Alex yelped as well when he suddenly ran into something. He wasn't going that fast, was he? He couldn't have been! Did somebody in a hurry bump into him? That had to be it, right? Well, either way, his books were all over the floor now. "Ah fffffu... Revaew..." He groaned, reaching a hand up to his ribs. Yeah, that was going to bruise. He glanced up at the voice. Oh. He did run into another person. Well. This was going to get awkward fast. "I'm fine, just a little bruised..." He replied, letting out a sigh. He was hearing something else too. Sounded like... like... whimpering... what would- Oh. The sorcerer immediately reached into his hood, checking for Lucy. She was still there! Thankfully, she hadn’t fallen out. He took her out of her little space, held her in his arms, gently bobbing the shaking little familiar up and down. "It's okay, it's okay-" He whispered, trying to calm her a little bit.

Belle: Journal sighed as well, shifting uneasily. At least the stranger didn’t seem angry. Or upset. Not on the surface, anyway. That was... nice. He winced again at the sight of all their books. They’d gotten all mixed up, hadn’t they? That was gonna be fun to sort out. He opened his mouth to ask about it, but never got the chance. His brows furrowed in utter confusion as the stranger pulled a cat out of his hood. A blue cat. One that was not all too furry, and quite distressed. What in the...? Is that a familiar??? he wondered, baffled. They reminded him of Roo. Another cat one...? Are... are all familiars just... cats??? A reasonable assumption for one who’s only met two familiars. But that didn’t matter right now. The distressed noises were tugging at his older sibling instincts. “Oh no... Did your familiar get scared?” He asked hesitantly. Worriedly. “Maybe hum for her a little. I-it might help, since she’s against your chest- she can feel whatever sound you make.” Did he know this from experience? Perhaps. Baby siblings need care as much as baby kittens. ... they were such a cute familiar... “... What's their name? They’re a cute lil thing,” he said softly. Just watching curiously. Seems the presence of a baby has distracted him from anxiety.

Vaal: Alex continued to bob Lucy up and down and whisper little reassurances. She was in a new place, she was jostled when he fell, and she was rudely awakened from her nap by said fall... not a great day for the little lass. He raised a brow at the others... suggestion? ... oh. Kay. He started to hum a little bit, nothing really... from a song, or anything, just. Something that sounded like. Something. He didn't know, he didn't hum much. But it did seem to help. The little familiar started to shake a little less, and she curled up a bit closer to her originator's chest. She stopped whimpering, so that was a good sign. After a moment, she started to slowly glance around, and her eyes almost immediately fell on the stranger. Who was that??? He seemed interested in... something. He glanced back up at the stranger in question when he asked his question. "... her name's Lucy." He said, quietly, shifting his hold on her a bit so she could be a little more comfortable. "And she is pretty cute, yeah..." He added, smiling softly. The familiar just curled up a bit in response. She gave a little wave, and then started to climb up onto the sorcerer's shoulder, perching herself there. Alex just let out a sigh, and looked at all the scattered books. Revaew, those were gonna take forever to sort out... Lucy's attention was still firmly on the other sorcerer though, her gaze filled with the mix of anxiety and curiosity you would expect a kid to have when meeting someone new.

Belle: Journal smiled a bit at the name. Lucy. A very nice name. Seemed fitting for the lil gal. He gave her a small wave and smiled in return. “Hi Lucy... sorry about the rude awakening...” he said quietly. She looked shy, and he didn’t blame her. Some kids were just nervous around strangers, and that was ok. At least her shoulder perching was cute. He gave her another smile before turning his attention to the books. ... they really were a mess. A big mess. Sheesh. He couldn’t even tell which books were his, now that he was looking at them. Amazing. Hopefully the stranger would know which were his... “I-I really am sorry about the mess,” he sighed, looking to the stranger. “I was carrying too many books for my own good. Do you know which of them are yours, uh-“ he paused. The sorcerer realized he didn’t know the other’s name. Whoops. “Oh- er- where are my manners- I-I haven’t even given you my name-“ he chuckled sheepishly. “I’m Journal. As in the kind you write in. What’s your name...?” Hopefully the name alone didn’t weird him out…

Vaal: Alex glanced up at the sorcerer again when he started to talk. Oh. Okay, apparently they were going to be talking. He was kind of hoping they could just both start to pick up and sort out their books in silence, but. Apparently he just. Wanted to keep talking to him. Okay then. And here he thought the only person he was going to be talking to was the person at the front desk. "... I'm Alex." He replied, trying not to sound as nervous as this made him feel. Lucy just stayed perched on his shoulder, looking to the other quietly. You could get a good sense of her size there. She was about as big as her originator's head, which of course made it easy to, say, fit in his hood. She was just curious about what Journal was all about. He seemed nice! The blue haired sorcerer glanced around at the books scattered on the floor. "... mine were mostly DragonStone books." He mumbled, already starting to pick a few up. "I had a couple of other stories though... and a few magic books for practice..."

Belle: Journal tried for a reassuring smile as the other- alex- spoke up. Alex! Another nice name. He seemed pretty nice, too. Though he did look sort of anxious... Guess that’s one thing we have in common, he thought grimly. But that wasn’t where the similarities ended. The sorcerer blinked in surprise as Alex continued. Magic books? Stories? DragonStone books??? Good lord, no wonder they were all mixed up. They had the exact same books. Maybe even literally. Oh Revaew, how cool would that be? He’d have found a fellow book nerd. He fidgeted a bit, trying not to look too excited. “W-well, uh, you might wanna make sure you’re picking up the right books,” he said hesitantly. He glanced down at the pile. Sure enough, there were two of the third DragonStone book. He held them up for Alex to see. “Iiii... had the same stuff.” He chuckled sheepishly. “Y’all read dragonstone? I thought I was the only one in town who read those!” There was a haltingly hopeful look in his eyes. Five minutes in, and Alex has already managed to bring out the nerd in him.

Vaal: Alex raised a brow when Journal mentioned that he might have to make sure he's picking up the right books. What? What did he mean by that? Of course, his answer came quickly. He blinked, looking pleasantly surprised. "Oh. Well. Would you look at that..." He mumbled, sounding a bit pleased with this development. "Yeah, yeah I read DragonStone. I just finished the fourth book, and I'm hoping to grab as many more volumes as I can..." He cleared his throat, as his tone started to shift to a more awkward one. "B-but I don't actually... live in uh. In this town. I live in the next town over...? To the west-ish? My town just... doesn't have a library. So I come to this one." Lucy was just looking quietly amazed at these developments. Wow! They read the same books! Maybe they'd be friends??? Alex could use more friends. She thought to herself. And I'd like more friends too... After a moment, she hopped off her originator's shoulder, and wandered over towards the other sorcerer. "H-hi!" She said, giving another wave. "It's! Really nice to meet you!" Her voice had all the charm of a nervous little kid trying their best to make a good first impression. Alex was happy to see her making an effort to make a new friend. It was heartwarming.

Belle: Journal lit up at Alex’s positive answer. Hey!!! He did find another nerd! Nice! Now if only he knew how to charm his way into talking with Alex about their shared interest... not that. He should be using charm. That only worked to keep people off his case back at his old town. And, unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Alex lived here. Drat. Sighing, he shrugged, handing Alex one of the books. “That’s fair. We’ve got a pretty good library here. I think I spend more time wandering around here than I do at home,” he joked. It was almost true, though. If he wasn’t training with his magic, he might as well just stay here all day... just sorting through books, like he was now... A quiet thump pulled him from his thoughts. He looked up curiously, gaze catching on the icy familiar making her way over. Oh? What was she up to? He smiled gently at Lucy when she spoke. She even sounded adorable… what a sweetheart. He liked her already. He set down his books so he could give her some proper attention. “Well, hey there lil lady,” he replied softly. Still smiling. “It’s nice to meet you too. You just along for the ride? Or are you lookin for some books too?” He briefly considered giving her a pat, but decided against it. He didn’t know if she was ok with those. “I bet I could point you towards some good ones, if you wanted!”

Vaal: Alex snorted when Journal mentioned that he probably spent more time here than at home. Yeah, he felt that. He really felt that. He had to spend a lot of time here to make the trip worth it, to be honest. "Yeah, I spend... a lot more time here than I probably should." He replied, handing him a magic book he knew he didn't have. "I kinda have to, because... well, it takes a day to get here... and then a day to get home... if I spend like... five minutes here, then the trip just doesn't feel worth it, y'know?" Lucy's little icy tail was thwipping from side to side as the sorcerer spoke. He sounded! Really nice! And he liked so many of the same books... at the question, she gave a little smile. "I like the dragonstone books too!" She replied, picking up the second book off the floor. "This one's my favorite so far..." Alex raised a brow at the others’ little conversation. Hmm. He should. Probably say something too, huh? "... my favorite book so far is the third one." He added, as he was getting all the books that he was sure were his in a neat little stack. "But that could change... there's plenty more in the series. I'm really liking it so far, though... really good books... especially when you animate 'em." Did he sound nervous? And anxious? Yes, and yes. But he was trying.

Belle: Journal smiled wider as Lucy and her originator spoke up. He still had books to gather, but he’d stacked enough that they weren’t everywhere anymore. He could just talk with these two. It was nice. He’d missed talking with... well. With friends. Lucy’s declaration made him chuckle. That book was huge compared to her! So cute. Though, Alex’s last comment gave him pause. Animate? “... well, I’m really fond of the fifth one, honestly,” he replied. Holding up his hands, he grinned knowingly. “No spoilers! But it really is a doozy, I’ll tell ya that. ‘S a fun one to read by lamplight. Especially if it’s midnight. Gotta get that atmosphere, eh?” He sounded plenty confident as he spoke. The series was one he loved, after all. Even his anxiety couldn’t ruin that. ... however, it popped back up a little bit. “I uh... I just... have one question for you,” he spoke up timidly. “What’s, uh... what did you mean by animate? If- If I said that right?” He ran a hand through his hair, his smile turned nervous. He always got this way about magic. It was a longtime hyperfixation of his, but he still knew less than he’d admit. “I’ve never heard of that before. Is it a book thing...?”

Vaal: Alex smiled at the little 'no spoilers' comment about the fifth book. He appreciated that. It would be so easy to spoil it. He probably would have accidently spoiled it, with how much he loved the books... and how much he loved talking about them... the mention of not knowing about animating books caused his expression to shift to a more confused one. He had... magic books. So. Obviously he knew magic... ... maybe he was new to it... He thought, internally debating how to answer. "Hmm... well..." He started, a little bit unsure how to explain it. His social anxiety certainly wasn't helping. "It's- it's like- well, you know spells where you like... uh... fuck..." He paused, and took a breath. "You know, like, illusion spells? Like, easy ones that look all smokey? Animating a book is basically doing that. It's a simple little spell where you enchant the book, then it opens, and... like... little figures pop out, and it plays out all the scenes in the book. So. You get to watch what happens, instead of just. Read." He shrugged. "It's pretty neat." "It's super cool!!!" Lucy added, bouncing on her feet. "That's why I like the second one!!! I think it's the best one if you animate it!" The sorcerer snickered a bit at her energy. She was so cute. He was really glad she seemed to be having a good time, despite the... rocky start. "We like to have little animated book nights after long days. It's a good way to unwind."

Belle: Journal listened closely, head tilted to the side. He nodded along as Alex explained. Ok... smoke spells, yeah. Those were what he’d started with. So it should be easy. And it was- what??? You could cast those on books??? How had he never figured that out??? His look of nervous intrigue shifted to utter fascination as Alex and Lucy continued. “Oh shit- that sounds awesome??? That’s- that’s really something you can do???” He chattered eagerly. “Damn, I know what I’m doing tonight. I might as well go through the whole DragonStone series again! Thanks!!!” He paused for a second, seeming to realize Lucy was listening. “Uh- Sorry about the language. Force of habit,” he said sheepishly. He glanced over at his book stack. Animating books... oh, he was already ecstatic. But… he didn’t know if he wanted to... Y’know. Leave the library yet. He had his book stack, sure. But he also had two new... hopefully friends...? “... hey, uh, since you two like dragonstone, could I... uh... make a recommendation?” He asked hesitantly. “Or a couple? Since, uh, since this is your book day and all. Maybe I could... I dunno, show you the best spots to find books in that shelf maze back there?” His smile was still confident, but his gaze was shy. He didn’t wanna overstep boundaries. He just wanted to hang around a bit more. “I don’t have anything else to do today. Not till I get back to my apartment, anyways.”

Vaal: Alex chuckled a bit at Journal's excitement, seemingly glossing over the swear. He had sworn around Lucy a few times. She knows that 'shit' is a bad word, she's not gonna say it. He's let that slip out more than a few times."No problem, I'm sure you'll have a great time." He replied, letting out a little sigh as he continued sorting through his books. Okay... that should be all of his books? He hoped they were. He didn't want to grab Journal's DragonStone books. They were the same books, yes, but he was returning his. He started to check the inside cover of the books for any 'return by this time' stamps when the other spoke up again. He raised a brow. That was... a nice offer, to be sure. Hmm. He thought about it for a moment, as he continued looking through everything. "Hmmmm... I mean, I don't see why not...?" He replied, glancing at Lucy. She seemed excited at the idea. "Thank you, I guess." The familiar just made a little face at her originator before turning to the sorcerer. "I think that's a great idea! Alex always complains about getting lost in here." She glanced at him again, snickering at the face he was pulling. "He'd get lost on his way to this town if there were any turns on the road here!" "I-I would not???" He sputtered indignantly. "My sense of direction is not that  bad!" "What about that time we spent a whole day walking around town because you forgot where the apartment-" "I will ground you."

Belle: Journal looked delighted when Alex said yes. He tried to hide it, but the happy glow in his expression was going nowhere. He! Was gonna! Get to share good books!!! Not to mention he could hang out with Alex and Lucy! Hopefully he could call them friends properly by the time they had to leave. That would be nice. Even if... Y’know. They didn’t live here. That’s a problem for later. As Alex and Lucy bickered, he had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. These were his favorite sorts of conversations to hear. You just knew  there was a story behind em. Even if they’re only mentioned in passing. “Well, I dunno if I can help with the town problem,” he started, getting up. “But I can certainly help with the library one! How about I stick my books in a reserved spot, and you turn yours back in? And then I show you around?” His eyes sparkled eagerly, one hand gently patting the top of his book stack. Ah, yes. The excited pats. “It’s easy once you pick up what spots the different genres are in!”

Vaal: By end of the little bickering session, Alex had his arms crossed, giving Lucy a stern look. The familiar was just sticking her tongue out at him like the little kid she was. Adorable. Absolutely adorable. He simply nodded at Journal's words, picking up his stack of books, and prompting the little familiar to climb up and get settled in his hood again. Though she had her head rested on his shoulder now, wanting to see everything going on instead of just napping the day away. "Sounds good, sounds good..." He said, looking around the pile of books he had. "Lets just hope I don't fall over again..." The sorcerers managed to find the front desk fairly quickly, now that they weren't. Well. On the floor. Falling over apparently helped them get their bearings. Alex got all his books returned and sorted out, still feeling a bit sheepish about just how many he had. And he was probably going to leave with just as many. After everything was sorted out, he turned to Journal, looking... nervously neutral, but still optimistic. He was letting a little smile creep across his face, but that was about it. He was just nervous about looking too excited. Anxiety issues. Lucy looked excited enough for both of them, though. "Okay, uh... feel free to uh. Show us around, I guess."

Belle: Journal hefted his book stack up with ease, following happily after Alex. The librarians on duty ended up making him just. Take a box. It would be easier for them to keep an eye on the books he wanted if they stayed together. Especially since they could put boxes behind the counter. Journal just apologized sheepishly for how many he had. Evidently, it isn’t he thinks about until checkout time. By the time Alex was ready, Journal was practically bouncing in place. He didn’t want to look too eager either, but a tapping foot and shining eyes betrayed him. He just!!! Loved the library! He loved the books! He had a new- er- acquaintance?- who wanted to be shown around and also loved books! And he had a cute familiar! What was there he shouldn’t be excited about? He lives out of town, his mind grumbled. Shut it, he thought in return. “Sooo... I think we can start with legends, since that’s always nice,” he said nonchalantly. He motioned for Alex to follow him, heading confidently towards the shelves. “And then move over to magic books, and then the series like DragonStone...” Excitement crept into his voice the more he spoke. He kept glancing at Alex and Lucy as he walked- both to make sure they kept up, and to gage interest. He wanted to make sure they liked whatever he was chattering about. Hopefully this was helpful and nice for the two of em…

Vaal: The two of them happily followed along, Lucy obviously looking happier than Alex, but he was letting that little smile on his face get bigger as they walked into the maze of shelves. Yeah, he would already be lost if it wasn't for Journal. Speaking of Journal, he was... he was pretty nice. He was a nice guy, maybe a little nervous? But he could understand that. It'd be nice to have a friend in this town. It'd be uh. Nicer to have a friend in his current hometown, but a friend in the next town over was still pretty good. Better than no friends, that's for sure. "I think that sounds good." He replied, giving the familiar on his shoulder a couple of pats. "I don't think I need more magic books right now? But it never hurts to look over a few... just in case there's something interesting that I wanna learn." He shrugged, almost throwing Lucy off balance. "I'm more interested in the legend and DragonStone stuff, to be honest..." He was also interested in having someone to talk to about those legends and DragonStone stuff, but he felt like that'd be a little weird to just... say. To somebody he just met.

Belle: Journal paused talking to listen as they walked. Ah! Good to know. And good for his excitement, honestly. He hadn’t had an opportunity to really get into legends until... well. Until a month ago, really. He had many widely known legends to catch up on! Lots of things to learn! It made him happy. And fueled his dreams of recreating them onstage, one day. Alex likes dragonstone, legends, magic... he’s really nice... has a sweet familiar... and I found him in a library. Could I find a better friend if Revaew herself made one for me? he wondered to himself. What came out, though, was none of that. He spoke as he kept walking, making little gestures as he did so. “Oh! Right, of course! I was just gonna take you around so you knew where stuff was,” he chuckled sheepishly. “We can definitely loiter in the legends section...” He fell silent for a moment. Considering. “... it, uh, it’ll be nice to have some company looking at them, honestly. I’m not as knowledgeable as I’d like to be,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head. “If- if it’s ok to do that! I mean, we’re doing a tour to get you acquainted, not for legend hour.” Unless you’d like that, his gaze seemed to say. Revaew. He was so awkward. Hopefully Alex could pick up the hint... if not, that was ok! Just... having a buddy would be nice. That’s all.

Vaal: Alex was happy to be wandering the library with someone- two someones, even! It was Lucy's first trip to the library, though he thought she was going to be asleep the whole time. He wished she didn't have such a rude awakening, though. At least she seemed to be enjoying herself regardless. He visibly perked up a bit more at the mention of loitering in the legends section, and gave a chuckle at the mention of not being as knowledgeable as he'd like to be with legends. "I know a lot about legends, honestly." He replied, his face making it clear that he was starting to reminisce. "I got to hear about a lot of them from my uncle..." He cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. Okay, that's enough, he didn't ask for your life story. "A-anyway, I'd love to, uh, loiter in the legends section for a bit. Would you mind, Lucy?" "Nope, that sounds good!" She said, giving a little smile. "As long as we can pick up the other DragonStone books for animated book night, I'm happy!" He chuckled. "Yeah, that's what I figured, but I thought I'd ask."

Belle: Journal perked up a bit at Alex’s mention of hearing legends from an uncle. So they were passed on orally... from family, too... explains how I knew nearly nothing but the horror stories, he grumbled mentally. But Alex wasn’t here for childhood losses. No, he was here for loitering in the legend section. And Journal was too. “Hell yeah, legend loitering,” he smiled, giving Alex a thumbs up. “Maybe you could be the one recommending legends for me, eh?” His tone was joking, but also hopeful. “I’ve, er, kinda been hoping for someone to talk legends with. I mean!!! My roommate is nice! But he’s... well. We’re, uh, still getting used to each other. A-and that’s not the point.” He chuckled ruefully as they walked into the section. He stopped to just... admire the books. There were so many... they were so different... so cool... even the scarier ones... He looked back at Alex with a contented smile. “... welp. We’ve got time. Books are all ours.”

Vaal: Alex nodded at Journal's mention of a roommate. Yeah, he could get that, sort of. It was just him and Lucy in his apartment, but he still had to get used to being in an apartment for more than a weekend. He was still adjusting. Every morning he had been waking up expecting his uncle to come in and tell him that they had to pack up. But no. He was. Staying. In one place. Hopefully he could get used to it. If he couldn't, he could probably just move around more, like most questors do... though, he would prefer to stay in one spot. For Lucy's sake. He wanted her to grow up in a home, not a house. Or, apartment, rather. He wanted a lot of things for her... hopefully he could provide. He looked over all the books on the shelves, his eyes betraying his excitement, the familiar on his shoulder looking more visibly amazed. He gave a whistle, prompting her ears to twitch a bit. "So many books, probably not as much time as I'd like..." He mumbled jokingly. Well, sort of. He was amazed by how many titles he recognized... his smile suddenly widened as he noticed one book in particular. "Oh! Hey!" He grabbed the book, his smile softening as he turned the cover over. It seemed to be a kids story about a kid and a dragon. "I remember this book... I used to read this all the time, back when I... I..." His voice trailed off as his smile faltered a bit. He shook his head, trying to brush it off before Journal could notice. "... i-it was my favorite childhood story." Lucy was just looking over aaaaall the books, her expression one of absolute childlike wonder. Look at! All!! Of those books!!! There were so many!!!

Belle: Journal was practically glowing with happiness as Alex and Lucy looked on. They were excited! It made him feel nice. He hummed contentedly as he perused the shelves. So many names... he felt like he’d hardly made a dent in all these legends. But the ones he knew, he knew by heart. And he was slowly adding to his mental library. When Alex spoke up, he glanced over curiously. Oh! A legend book!  Looked like a kid’s book, and from Alex’s words, he was right. Though... was something wrong? Journal blinked, and Alex looked ok again. He... wouldn’t mention it. He knew how it was with slip ups. The sorcerer just smiled in return, leaning over to take a look. “Ooh, looks sweet!” He replied. “Like a classic kid’s book. I think I had one like that... hang on, lemme look at the shelves...” He stepped away to search. It wasn’t long before he trotted back over to Alex, a book in hand. “Here! This is the one I read to death when I was little.” He held it out. It was about a show sorcerer, from the looks of it. Full of many adventures. It was one of those books he’d kept wedged behind his bed frame at home… memories. Journal shrugged timidly. “It’s... uh... kiiinda the only legend I really knew since... somewhat recently,” he admitted, sighing. He waved a hand, as if to brush it off. “Which! Is why! I’m glad the library has so many!” He swept his hand toward the shelves, tension leaving in favor of childlike eagerness. “‘S plenty to learn and to read and to fall in love with. ‘M real happy about that.” He glanced at Alex, a trace of nervousness in his gaze. He liked legends. He was already showing him around the library. Maybe he could... “... hey... uh... I know we literally just bumped into each other, but. Uh. Would you maybe wanna talk legends if we met up again...?” He asked nervously. “Or- like- Y’know, if we were pen pals we could write back and forth, if- if that’s cool. J-just an idea, it’s fine if you don’t wanna or anything!” Oh Revaew, please let that not have been awkward...

Vaal: Alex wasn't sure if Journal didn't notice his slip up, or if he just wasn't prying. If it was the former, he was glad, if it was the latter, he was thankful for the consideration. Either way, he raised a brow when he suddenly trotted off, and it was still raised when he came back. Though he quickly started smiling again when he saw what book it was. "Hey! I know that one!" He exclaimed, as he quickly started reminiscing again. "I used to read that one a lot... it was one of my uncle's favorites too." He gave a sigh, his mind trailing off as all the good old memories came flooding back. Any memory with his uncle was a good one. At the mention of pen pals, though, he blinked. Pen pals? Like, keeping in contact? Well... they just met, but. He seemed nice. And they seemed to have quite a few things in common, so... "... I mean, I don't see why not." He answered, giving a slightly nervous, but still genuine, smile. "It'd be nice to have someone to talk books with! And maybe I can show you that book animating spell, it's a, uh, pretty simple one." He definitely felt like things were moving a little fast, but then he remembered a saying his uncle had: 'Friendships can happen in a month or a minute.' This just so happened to be the latter. And he was alright with that. Lucy, meanwhile, was still enraptured with all the books. As the two were talking about pen pals and all that, she pulled a book that caught her interest from the shelf, and showed it to Alex, nearly bonking him in the back of the head with it. "Can we take this one?" She asked, giving him those hopeful little kid eyes. "I thought it looked neat..." It seemed to be a little mystery book about a sorcerer thief who left glass flowers as a calling card. He raised a brow at it, and gave a little smile. "... I mean, it does look neat... sure! It'd make for a good book night treat."

Belle: Journal’s smile was both delighted and relieved at Alex’s response. He hadn’t managed to mess up his question, and he’d gotten a pen pal! Nice. I mean, technically nettles is a pen pal. But. Still. I can talk legends and books and magic with my new one, he thought happily. The sorcerer was content to chat with Alex about details as his familiar looked over the shelves. Her sudden book snatching and eager words made Journal chuckle. “Oh, I’ve seen that one around! Haven’t had the chance to read it yet,” he hummed. “If it’s good, let me know! I can, uh, add it to my ‘to read’ list.” As if that wasn’t long enough already. “... Y’know, I bet we could both swap a couple book recs, now that we’re here...” He sighed softly as he looked around again. So many books... so little time... At least he had company today. It felt a lot nicer to browse books with these two. And they would probably be there for awhile. That was perfectly fine with him.

Vaal: Alex wasn't really expecting to get a pen pal today, just some books, but it definitely wasn't something he was against! Besides, it would probably be a little easier on his social anxiety to get to know Journal through letters at first. Of course they'd hang out sometimes, but... well, he assumed they would, anyway. That's like. The end goal of pen pals, right? To get to a point where you can hang out as often as you write to each other? He really didn't know, he's never had one before. He was probably really overthinking this. He smiled again at the mention of book recs. Ooooh yeah, he definitely had some stuff to recommend. Another good thing about this! He could share all his favorite books with someone! And maybe talk about them too, if he liked them as much as him. Though he might not, because... well... He liked some of these books a lot. He could talk for hours about a single book no problem. "Well... if you like DragonStone, then I might know a couple of other books you might enjoy too..."

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Red to Brown

Summary: I wrote this for RiKai Week. And it was supposed to be a companion piece to my "Underwater", where in that Naminé--while visiting Verum Rex--is still hung-up on Sora, even though KHIII made it all SoKai time all the time, and she eventually realized she needed to get over him for that reason and did. This was supposed to be Riku in Shibuya still hung-up on Kairi and needing to get over that, which he does, but it ended up a little weird with some SoRiku in it, too (that he also gets over) and a little Riku/Shiki and Neku/Shiki. Also, beware of TWEWY spoilers if you haven't played/finished that game.

(And I am hoping on doing another piece that’s more wholly RiKai for the week, too.) "Riku, why do you think Sora would be here?" Shiki asked kindly but uncertainly, as she cocked her head to the side and met his gaze with a concerned one of her own from behind her glasses. Right now, Riku, Neku, and her were at some burger place called "Sunshine", as Shiki and Neku tried to give him the lowdown. When Riku had first come to Shibuya, Shiki had been the first person he’d seen—that he thought was kind of fitting, because he’d always liked her—and while he hadn’t recognized her at first (because she somehow moreso resembled Xion than Kairi now), he’d heard her talking and recognized her voice and seen her lugging around her Mr. Mew. And then… then the things that Riku hadn’t allowed himself to feel at the Keyblade War hit him at full force, and he’d dropped himself at Shiki’s feet and begged her to help him get into the Game to find Sora. Then, Shiki had turned towards her orange-haired friend beside her in an embarrassed and panicked way—as she’d moved her hands this way and that—and had asked him, “What should we do, Neku?” And Neku—moving a strand of hair from out of his eyes—had just muttered, “Sunshine. Now,” and had helped Shiki get Riku to his feet. And as soon as Shiki had touched Riku (perhaps he was touch starved and had needed that comfort there?), Riku was very much himself again. And was that way right now, as they discussed things over food. "A wizard- a wizard that I know said he would be here," Riku answered, as he tried something called "French fries" for the first time in his life; and they were actually so good, he thought he might have died and gone to heaven. If only he had... it would certainly make his job of finding Sora easier that way. "And I guess I just had faith in that, that's all." "Riku," Neku whispered darkly, as he hid his eyes beneath his bangs and seemed to be wanting to say even more than he was. “You know that you have to be dead to play the Reapers' Game, right? —err, for the most part—so are you saying that-" "...Yeah. Sora's dead. And you're probably not going to believe any of this... but we were in a war and we alldied. But K-K... Kairi—Sora's girlfriend, that is—kept him tethered to life and Sora then... somehow rewrote time to bring us all back. But the cost for that was his own life. And he would've died from what he already did there, eventually… but our number one enemy had to put the final nail in the coffin by killing Kairi and making Sora use the power one more time to rescue her. Once he brought her back to our Islands... he vanished." Shiki was bawling her eyes out at this news. Tears streamed down her eyes, as she covered her mouth and made a choking. And Neku just looked like he wanted to hit something—as he muttered something about this “being like that time again”—which Riku couldn't blame him for. Once he'd made sure that Kairi was okay after losing Sora, he had punched every wall that he could find. "That's not- that's not fair!" Shiki exclaimed, standing up and throwing her hands onto the table—apparently she didn't mind making a scene at all anymore if it was for Sora’s sake, and that made Riku like her all the more... but was Riku imagining it, or had Joshua just come into the restaurant for a second and pressed one button on his phone before leaving? —"I mean, life isn't fair. Those of us who have played the Reapers' Game know that most of all. Neku didn't deserve to be murdered twice... Beat’s family didn’t need to insult him, making him then storm out and Rhyme have to come follow him just as a car was careening towards her... that though Beat tried to stop, couldn't do so and it killed them both. Joshua shouldn’t have had the RG treat him so badly, that he didn't want to be a part of it anymore. And my own really big misunderstanding with Eri was dumb, and it led to me going outside without my wits about me and falling and getting a concussion and waking up in the UG. And Sora was a really sweet guy who helped us all and deserved so much better than we got. So what can we do for you guys, Riku? Riku swallowed against a lump in his throat with everything that Shiki had just told him. He’d assumed his friends who had played the Reapers’ Game lives must have been bad, if they’d died so young to be in it to begin with. But he hadn’t thought they were like this. It reminded Riku of before his adventures had started, when he had thought that the worst thing in his own life that could surely hit him was an early death. And while since then, Riku, Sora, Kairi, the King, Naminé, Donald, Goofy, Roxas, Xion, Axel, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus had definitely gone through even weirder horrible things than all of this, it didn’t lessen any of the sympathy that Riku felt for Shiki and her friends here. Instead, he only felt empathy for them. “I have… a strange request,” Riku said to Shiki and Neku, after he’d gone over to Shiki and run a soothing hand down her back and helped her back into her seat—Neku’s eyebrows had risen into his hairline as Riku did this, but he didn’t care. Shiki had seemed like she’d been having a panic attack for Sora’s sake and Riku wanted to help her—“Master Yen Sid was wrong before, but maybe he’ll be right about this one thing: he said that there are alternate versions of Shibuya—maybe of all the worlds—that at least one person here can get to? Do you think you can find this person and get them to take me to one? If Sora isn’t in this Shibuya, maybe he’s in one of the other ones.” Neku and Shiki shared a look here and soon began talking to each other in hushed whispers. Riku tried hard not to eavesdrop on them, since that was rude, and instead took quite a few swigs of the coke that he’d gotten with his burger and fries… but he thought he heard them debating which person they should ask: Joshua or a “Mr. H.” Shiki was leaning towards Joshua, since Riku at least knew him. But Neku said something that Riku couldn’t decipher, and then something about how Josh apparently could interdimensional leap, but couldn’t exactly control it so it would probably be best if they asked Mr. H. “Except that no one knows where Mr. H. is right now, Neku. He became a fallen angel after all he did for us in the First Game. You know that, of course. But he may have earned his title again after he brought Shibuya back from being Erased. So he may be contending with the Angels right now… or he may be in the UG, or somewhere in RG Shibuya. Since we at least know Joshua’s in the UG in the Room of Reckoning, and was even just here and changed our Frequencies so we’re in the UG now, I feel like I should go look for him there and go get his advice. So I’m going to do that. The less time we waste right now—when time if of the essence—the better!” And not allowing another word in edgewise from either of the boys, Shiki took off to do just that. And Riku couldn’t help smirking as she did so, as this attitude of hers reminded him quite a bit of Kairi. As Shiki went, Neku watched Shiki’s retreating form anxiously—and Riku guessed it maybe had something to do with Joshua, since he himself knew how pushy and dangerous feeling that boy seemed to be with all of his power. But Neku seemed to think this even moreso than Riku did, if the way he’d reacted to Joshua’s name being said a few times today was any indication—but finally seeming to decide that she was going to be okay, Neku leaned back into his seat and mumbled, “Fine. If she’s right and the Josh thing works out, that’s great. And I guess it’s better than me going to see him. I’m still pissed off that he didn’t seem to care at all when Coco killed me recently. But I don’t want to talk about him… Riku, you tell me about this Kairi girl and why you like her.” To say Riku was taken aback by this sudden line of questioning would have been a massive understatement. And he was shocked that Neku was bringing it up at all, since he didn’t seem to be the type who liked to pry into other people’s lives or have them look too deeply into his. But then again, Riku saw a psychology book of Neku’s opened up on their table—was he going to school for that now?—so maybe that was the answer to why the boy was now doing something that Riku would have assumed was out of character for him. “I’ll- I’ll tell you!” Riku stammered hastily—and surprisingly loudly—before he could take it back. “But only because I feel like my not talking about Kairi, and lying about some things, is keeping me from being able to find Sora. “Where do I even start? Kairi came to our world from another one—and in that way, she was the first clue to Sora and I that there was something bigger and greater out there—so of course I had to like her for that: this girl who wasn’t just the promise of an adventure, but perhaps the embodiment of it. And over time—as I grew closer and closer to her and her kind heart—my feelings grew, so much so that I really wanted to tell her I liked her when she was fourteen and I was fifteen… but didn’t, because I knew if given the choice, she and Sora would probably be together. “So jealousy grew in my heart, and I started doing bad things. Like, world ending kind of things and I didn’t even care. And because of my actions—literally throwing our Island home away, so we could get onto seeing other worlds already—Kairi lost her heart, and I was desperate to get it back, so I became even more of a monster. I would’ve killed this puppet that had been animated if I could give its heart to Kairi… I sided with an evil fairy who I knew wanted to take over the worlds, just because she promised she’d help me with Kairi. And I even tried to kill Sora as he fought me… “I fell into a trap where I became possessed, because of my stupidity and lust for power and desire to hear how great I was—and oddly enough, it was only then that I started coming back into myself—Kairi awoke because of a self-sacrificing move of Sora’s. And the man who had taken me over, Xehanort, tried to hurt her and I was able to fight him back just long enough that she could run away… and then I started fighting back in general. “Alongside Sora, I did the first really good thing on my journey—I locked myself, because I had to for it to work, behind the Door to Darkness, that would have continued spilling more evil out into the world if it had remained open and I was resigned to my fate there… but then I got a second chance to fight the darkness, and be who I was again, by taking on a place called ‘Castle Oblivion.’ And there, I was ashamed of the things I had done to Sora and Kairi. And I did hate my actions towards Kairi, too, because if I had succeeded and revived her… she would’ve hated the things I did to accomplish it. “So while I desperately wanted to see my friends again and make amends… for about a year, I told myself I had no right to that… even if a guise of Kairi is who told me I could use the light and darkness back-to-back… and even if I did at least try and keep an eye on her for a while, and ran into her again while she cried and begged me to stay—forgiving me for all I’d done and breaking me of my desire to leave ever again. “I know… I know she’d been a little afraid of me when I started to change, right before I destroyed our Islands, and who could blame her? So that massive leap of faith she made for me when she came back into my life meant so much… maybe- maybe that’s why when I passed out in the Castle That Never Was, it was with her name on my lips. “And then when we got home from the Castle That Never Was, we had some months together like we used to, and it was great… I haven’t seen her as much lately, because I’ve been busy on adventures with Sora and had him on my mind some lately—but even then, Kairi isn’t too far behind. My Data-self wanted to make sure to tell Data Sora about hurt that Kairi’s experienced, and when I met someone who had never once had anyone look past their appearance to see who they were, I thought of how lucky I was that Kairi had done that for me. And… my greatest failure is that in this Keyblade War, I let other responsibilities go to my head and I didn’t protect her—instead leaving her with a novice—which then led to everything else. And maybe- maybe I’m thinking if I bring Kairi’s Sora back to her, she might finally give me a chance.”” Neku was quiet for a long moment, as he let all of this sink in—and Riku was glad that he hadn’t interrupted him with too many questions, like “What’s a Data self?”, because some of this stuff was hard to explain, okay?—but finally, after removing earbuds from his ears and giving Riku his full and undivided attention, Neku spoke, “What I think is this, Riku: While I don’t want to tell you to give up on the romance you feel for this girl who seems to make your life worth it—believe me, I get it—and I’m only taking your word on the Sora and Kairi relationship here… Maybe you’re wrong and being too self-conscious and Sora and Kairi really aren’t together, and Kairi likes you. I don’t know… “The way you just talked about Kairi… I think you’re mostly over her, even if don’t realize it. The more you got into your story… the less you had to tell about her, and it even seems you’re really more about Sora now. I’m not saying you still don’t love her as a friend or sister—and I know how hard it is to let go of a safety crutch—but I think if you do… and let yourself believe that you’re not so selfish anymore, as to be looking for Sora just to impress Kairi—or even just to have Sora for yourself--you’ll find him.” And deep down, Neku was right… and Riku knew that he was, and had perhaps even sensed so for a long time. Because just as Neku got done telling him all of this, a man with short brown hair, glasses, a goatee, and a cup of beans in his hand appeared out of the ether and told Riku that while Sora wasn’t in RG or UG Shibuya, he was in High Plane Shibuya and could take him there.

[yperifaneia]

basics ! MODERN VERSE

FULL NAME.  Madarame Ikkaku

NICKNAME.   The Dragon { stagename - he’s not thrilled about it lol }

GENDER.  Male.

HEIGHT.   5'11½" ft / 182 cm

AGE.   25. ZODIAC. Scorpio.

SPOKEN LANGUAGES. English / Japanese. He is fluent in both. He was raised on Japanese by his parents, but he hasn’t lived in Japan since he was 2 years old, he went to an American public school ( both elementary and high school ) and learned English there. He often translated for his parents.

physical characteristics !

HAIR COLOR.  If he didn’t shave his head he’s have black hair.

EYE COLOR.   Grey. In direct light they are very cool/light, but they can also approach black. SKIN TONE.    Light, with a yellow undertone.

BODY TYPE.  Built/athletic. He has taken care of his body from a very young age and tends to eat a healthy diet. He rarely skips his exercise routine. He cares less about his physique and more about what it can do though. His muscle is moreso functional muscle than aesthetic muscle.

ACCENT.   He speaks with a drawl. He grew up in ghetto neighbourhoods as well as while speaking a very different language as his second language. Native Japanese speaking people are also able to tell his Japanese is different, even if it isn’t heavily accented at all.

VOICE.    A very average register. Can get very raspy especially when he is yelling. His voice is frankly little-used lol he prefers to act rather than to talk a lot. DOMINANT HAND.  Ambidextrous. He started to train with two handed weapons and staff-like weapons at a young age. He does prefer his right hand though.

POSTURE.   Generally good, but very casual and chill. Doesn’t sit properly most of the time. does a lot of ‘manspreading’.

SCARS.   He has many smaller scars that aren’t very noticeable, and one large scar from his left shoulder downwards across his torso to about his navel. 

TATTOOS.  He has the edges of his eyes tattooed red. As well as a large red dragon across his back. 

BIRTHMARKS.  None he finds noticeable.

MOST NOTICEABLE FEATURE(S).   His eyes are probably the most noticeable, as it is not very usual to tattoo that part of your body. Besides that they are very piercing. 

childhood !

PLACE OF BIRTH.    Japan. He lived in a smaller township a while away from Kyoto. Near Mount Hiei. HOMETOWN.    His hometown is the same town he was born. It was a real ‘everybody knows everybody kind of town. If he went back there is a good chance people that live there will remember his parents. Unfortunately he has yet to figure out what the name of the town was.  BIRTH WEIGHT.   Average, even though his mother was worried because of their poor living situation BIRTH HEIGHT.    Average as well.

MANNER OF BIRTH.  Natural. At home. The towndoctor was there, but it was an easy birth, especially for it being a first child.

FIRST WORDS. His first words were kaasan, neko and tousan in that order. His father worked a lot and he spent more time around his mother and the cats in the garden.

SIBLINGS.  None.

PARENTS.   Deceased. They were very caring and loving parents though.

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT.    Both his mother and father were very involved with his well-being. So much that after the war that somewhat derailed Japan, they decided to use all their resources to emigrate to the states. They got there with only a few family artifacts and very little money. It resulted in both his father and mother having to work very long hours as soon as he was in school and could take care of himself. They saved all their spare money to send him to school. In the end he dropped out to pursue professional sport though.

adult life !

OCCUPATION.  He works as an (illegal) underground fighter. Currently at Hueco Mundo, but he’s been at different underground clubs since he started in the business.

CURRENT RESIDENCE.   He lives in an apartment complex in a neighbourhood between ghetto and inner city. It is not the worst environment but also not the best. He and Yumichika practically live together, but Yumichika still has his own apartment in the same complex.

CLOSE FRIENDS.  He doesn’t have very many friends. He considers Nnoitra { @despairforme } a workfriend, and he is of course friends with his boyfriend { @narkissismos } besides them there is his gymbuddy, Renji { my own muse @monkifuraibo hah }, and thats about it.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS.  Taken. Ikkaku is with Yumichika { @narkissismos }.

FINANCIAL STATUS.   Middle-lower class. He makes enough money to survive every month and have a little left over to put away in a bank account, but he’d frankly be a big accident away from bankruptcy. 

DRIVER’S LICENSE. Doesn’t feel the need for one. Though he could probably drive fine if he put his mind to it. 

CRIMINAL RECORD.  None. He tends to err on the careful side of the law. Though there are incidents that might have gotten him an assault charge if anyone had reported it.

VICES.  He drinks whenever he feels like it, though he usually knows when to stop. Yumichika can be either a ridiculously good impulse control, or a horrible enabler.

sex and romance !

SEXUAL ORIENTATION.  Greysexual. He doesn’t feel the urge to have sex as much, but he does it out of convention { it is what is expected of him } and because it feels good to get off. ROMANTIC ORIENTATION.   Demi-romantic as well as homo-romantic. Ikkaku knows he is only ever loved one person { yumichika }, that person was a man, ergo he is gay. He doesn’t really know the demi label, but it does apply to him. PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE.    Dom/sub. He likes being in charge and control when they do have a tryst.But Yumi knows more about sex and he follows his lead a lot.

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE.   Dominant. Yumichika is often initiator though, and also tends to be more adventurous with it. Where ‘where people are’ is concerned, Ikkaku more often tops { almost always }. Ikkaku also goes along with a lot, but sets obvious boundaries. 

TURN ON’S.   This is a very short list. Yumichika. His mood has to be good, for example if he’s just won a big fight. But then Yumi is the only one that really gets him going.

TURN OFF’S.  High emotionality. He can’t have sex when he is very angry or upset, or even very excited about something --> his mind is busy with something entirely different. He also doesn’t like crying. 

LOVE LANGUAGE.  Ikkaku is very physical in his affection. Small gestures. Touching Yumi’s lower back in passing, forehead and temple kisses when he passes his boyfriend sitting on the couch. Pulling him into his lap, wrapping his arm around him in bed while theyre both doing their own thing. He does also tell Yumichika he appreciates him in his own way. He says what he thinks a lot. He’ll say yumichika looks beautiful when he thinks so, tells him he loves him when he feels it, that kind of thing. It is very sweet to see how it flusters Yumi still.

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES.  He is rather chill. He doesn’t mind going along with what Yumichika wants in a lot of cases. There are very few things they really argue about, different from a bit of bickering about little things. Ikkaku will check Yumichika when he is out of line though and functions as a bit of a voice of reason. Ikkaku is very emotionally healthy, even if he can be a bit of a closed book, there is no lock on him. Whenever Yumichika wants to know something he only need ask and Ikkaku will share with him. He has the tendency to be a bit jealous when people flirts with Yumi { he is very beautiful, it can’t be helped }, but overall their relationship is very healthy.

miscellaneous !

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG.   oof... Harder Better Faster Stronger - Daft Punk

HOBBIES TO PASS TIME.   He writes, and reads, and practices old martial arts. He also likes watching action movies and documentaries. 

MENTAL ILLNESSES.   None. He is surprisingly healthy.

PHYSICAL ILLNESSES.  Not an illness, but an injury. When he was younger (19 or so) and he had started his professional martial arts career, someone used an illegal move on him, and his shoulder was dislocated. It is still a weak joint now and it bothers him when he overworks it, or the weather is bad. He has a brace for it. 

FEARS.  None. He is very chill and takes things in its stride. Even death is something he doesn’t really consider yet. If there is something that might count it is that he is worried something might happen to Yumichika because he is very obviously gay-coded, and people are homophobic.

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL.   High. He is very comfortable with who he is and with his abilities.

VULNERABILITIES.   Physically, his shoulder. Otherwise, he tends to take things /too/ easy, he can be a bit lazy. He can underestimate others at times and overestimate his own abilities. He also has a tendency not to know when to stop. 

Tagged by: I took it from @despairforme and it was super fun so !!

Tagging: @narkissismos @grimmjxw @kazeshinigami I kind of want to see yours now too ! But only if you want to/have the time :)

[denouxments]

amber heard. cisfemale. she/her. — did you see { elizabeth trevor }, i haven’t seen the { thirty-one } year old in a while! you know, they’re a { fashion designer }, and have been living in jersey city for { eight years }. some say they’re { fussy & fanciful }, but i think they’re { vivacious & compassionate }. regardless, i’m glad { eliza } is here.

backstory

here comes my actual waifu for laifu, eliza ( i would actually die for her, okay ) ! you can find her dossier page HERE and her pinterest board HERE ( she’s one of the muses i’ve had for a literal decade, so why there isn’t more stuff in here ? couldn’t tell ya )

okay so she’s kind of a princess. okay not really, but she is the only scion to a very wealthy family in the drilling & realty business in london. they’re essentially right on the cusp of being granted a dukedom. so, yeah, a pretty deep money line there, and everyone thought the line was going to die because her mom was told she couldn’t have kids. but then eliza showed up and they loved her !!

they loved her a little too much tbh. they weren’t around a whole lot due to business, so she was primarily left in the care of nannies in the estate. they had strict rules: she was to be homeschooled. her parents dictated everything she watched and all the books she consumed. she was not allowed out unsupervised, and all of her friends were picked out, in a sense. 

they expected eliza to be happy with this life, but unfortunately the trevors were granted with a social creature of a daughter, and all she wanted was to roam away from the gilded cage she was placed in. she wanted friends that she chose. she wanted the ability to go to public school. she didn’t care for trinkets or material possessions; she wanted freedom 

it took a long time, but eventually she convinced her parents to let her attend a private, all-girls boarding school so that she could have . . . some form of a social life.

she made a couple genuine friends, but for the most part the other girls didn’t take too kindly to her. she never returned their cruelty, but that was mostly because she didn’t understand that it was cruelty. that’s just how friends talked to each other, right ?

eliza essentially took all the prim and proper training she had gotten and threw it in the trash. she was still sweet and courteous, but her curious nature made it so she wasn’t the best at following the rules, and she really had an issue with social cues and personal space

she had . . . okay grades. she was really more focused on finally able to be social

across the lake from this boarding school was the all-boys sister school. ( there’s a movie i i was inspired from, but i can’t remember what it was rip ) there were occasional late night rendezvous between some adventurous girls and some adventurous boys. it was one of these rendezvous that allowed eliza to meet aiden gallagher.

aiden was everything eliza had read in fairytales. he was princely and charming and 3 years older and so, so handsome. he was always 2nd best to his best friend, but to eliza he was everything

aiden and eliza spent the better part of their upper-secondary years together, but of course her parents wouldn’t approve, seeing as they were surely planning to marry her off to a duke or something, so they had to keep it secret. 

then the two became engaged and she couldn’t keep it a secret anymore. unfortunately, her fears were correct. not only did her parents not approve, but they forbade her from seeing aiden ever again. 

welp, too bad mum and dad, cuz eliza ran away with aiden to the united states, leaving her fortune, her family, and everything else behind for a grungy little apartment in nyc

most would say that having to start over would be difficult as hell, but for eliza it was just another adventure. she was finally free from the gilded cage she was set in and she was ready to live her life to the fullest. aiden followed his dreams of starting a bar in the hustle and bustle, meanwhile eliza landed a job as a model. it was good money, and the 2 managed to be okay

after 3 years of being engaged, eliza was starting to get a bit antsy. whenever she asked, aiden would always say that they’d get married when they were ready. well dude ! she was ready ! after a few sets of bickering and perseverance, she finally managed to get a date out of him

girl went ALL THE FUCK OUT. by this point she’d gotten a more 9-5 job as an assistant contemporary and ballroom dance instructor, so she started saving up money from that and modeling for the big, fabulous wedding she so wanted. she probably spent a small fortune on planning for this wedding

big day comes, okay. she’s got her dream venue, her dream dress, a prince charming, she is READY. but you know who isn’t? aiden. he’s not ready. not only is he not ready, but he fell in love with someone else. he leaves eliza at the alter and she doesn’t know What To Do

she doesn’t even get her stuff from his place. she just goes and stays at one of her bridesmaid’s place. 

she’s in a state of shock for weeks, and its during this period of time that she realizes that she literally does not know what her dreams were besides living happily ever after with this guy. she doesn’t know what she’s doing, where she’s going to go. she’s totally lost at this point

feeling like she doesn’t have anything else, she goes back home. its rough, especially not being in contact with her parents for 4 years. she’s their only baby and they love her, so of course they let her back ( though there are plenty of ‘told you so’s’ tacked on )

she goes back to studying for her role to take over as the heiress to the family fortune. she’s miserable, but she doesn’t know what else to do so she just accepts her lot in life

during her free time, she sneaks away to work at charity events under the guise of good public relations. she also finds herself doodling fashion designs, as she’d always enjoyed that realm of life. the hobby gradually becomes a passion, but she doesn’t realize that its something she could see herself doing for forever until . . .

she’s with her family for 2 years when she finds out that her fears from years ago are more true than she could have ever realized. not long after her 23rd birthday, her family gets into a bit of a scandal with their drilling business. its pretty bad. looks like the money vat they’ve got going is going to dry up. as a way to try and salvage something, her parents call on an old friend who is part of a minor dukedom asking if maybe they’d be willing to marry off their son to eliza.

eliza does NOT like this. she’s always wanted to marry for love, not for money, but her parents need her and she’s still super Lost so . . . fuck it right ?

not fuck it. she hates the guy. she’s trying so hard to resign herself but he’s infuriating and she just needs to Go so, uh, guess it’s her turn to run from the alter !! its like this whole eye opening experience for her. like she Wakes Up and realizes what she wants. while she does definitely want to get married, she definitely down’t want This. 

so she’s Gone and this time she’s definitely not coming back. she’s essentially ruined her family’s life in her eyes and she really cannot handle that shame. 

she moves back to the east coast, but this time she crashes with an old friend that has found her way to jersey city. eventually she gets her own place though, a nice apartment in a highrise. its very different from the estate she grew up in, but its better because it isn’t a cage

she gets back into the fashion industry, but this time its moreso in the designer aspect. her modeling turns into helping the other girls look 10/10 and its Nice. she’s pretty sure she’s found what she wants to do. so much so that she winds up starting her own brand

that’s been going on for about 5 years now, and its going pretty freaking swell !!

its been 8 years since her last near marriage, and to be honest she hasn’t had any truly serious relationships since aiden, which was almost 17 years ago. she’s dated and been with folks, but nothing that’s made her feel the way he did. its kind of a bummer because she always planned to be married before 30, but its fine, yknow !! she can just be a . . . successful career woman. she’s definitely NOT sad about it ( she is rip. she wants kids and a white picket fence and a guy that makes her feel like a PRINCESS )

that was a LOT i am SO SORRY

personality

an actual fucking sundrop okay. she brings so much light into my life and she’d probably bring a lot of light into your muses’ lives

super generous and kind. super charitable and wants everyone to be happy and smiling

still doesn’t get a lot of social cues and still kinda has that personal space issue when she gets super excited ( loves to hug and hold hands. physical touch is . . . so important )

honestly think like . . . giselle from enchanted at the end of the movie and also rapunzel from tangled. elle woods is also pretty accurate for certain moments. but with Sleek Business Woman Aesthetic

honestly if it was up to her she’d show up to work in a cute blouse and skirt combo but bare feet :/

if you couldn’t tell, she’s a horribly hopeless romantic. she wants a prince charming so bad, but due to her previous romantic experiences she’s more careful and doesn’t fall in love as easily as she used to

can be kinda judgy of others sometimes, especially about their fashion sense ( the actual fashion police has arrived )

doesn’t do well with people that try to get rises out of people for fun

determined to a fault, considering a lot of her ideas are unrealistic. 

sometimes she makes it work and then other times she can be found crying in the bathroom of her office because everything fell through

can sometimes get her priorities backwards :/ can blow off important things, or push the work onto other people because she has other things she’d rather do or thinks are more important ( even though they really aren’t )

has all the proper training to be a debonair, posh woman, but chooses instead to be as down to earth as possible. you can’t take the fashion style away from her though

has quite a few hobbies due to her time alone. her favorite hobbies are fashion design ( her passion ! ), dancing, and sfx makeup ( yes, you read that right. special effects makeup )

you’d think because of her disney princess aesthetic she’d be a charming singer . . . no. she is tone deaf. can’t even play instruments. would literally fuck up the triangle. its bad.

she can be coordinated in dancing and stitching, but in her day-to-day life she is SO clumsy

loves kids ! loves family ! loves so much ! wants that life so bad !

gives off such an intimidating vibe nowadays but is literally just . . . a marshmallow

kinda misses her parents, kinda doesn’t. mostly just . . . ignores that she ever even had parents

she has a pet cat named leia who is the best and looks like the cat from this instagram

does not at all ever talk about her background. if someone were to recognize her she’d rather they just . . . shhhhhh please ( actually highkey using a fake surname asdjflasj )

she cured my depression, okay

connections

an assistant at work for her to use and abuse but for her to not realize she’s doing it because she’s kinda nice about it but yeah there are some Issues there

PALS. GOOD FRIENDS. A GREAT SQUAD. SHE NEEDS BUDS

maybe the old bridesmaid that moved to jersey city that she moved in with after the duke incident

some exes that lasted a couple months

some dudes that finally showed her just how dickish some guys could be :/

coffee catchup friends~

someone she just Does Not get along with, really brings out the mean bitch in her

someone she’s tutoring in dance ( cuz she still tries to fit that hobby into her schedules like a Fool )

ride or die bff

someone she’s friendzoned

maybe someone she’s interested in and they’re also interested in her but because of Reasons they’re not together and its just a lot of back and forth and AHHH will they won’t they basically

a pal that gets her out for some drinks and dancing and tries to get her to flirt around but she just Can’t

if your muse has kids plz let her near them so she can cry and go through 20 midlife crisis. also works for her to know your muses’ parents if your muse is on the younger side. she just needs to cry

if someone wanted to bring in aiden or the girl he left her at the alter for i would literally cry great tears of joy. just hmu before you do so obvi

anything please i just want everything thank you <3

[its8simplejulesblog]

As I Write This

My laptop is on my lap and my feet are crossed on my brilliantly teal blue yoga mat. I often think about what in my right mind made me interested in ever starting yoga but I’ve found in life that there are some things that don’t need to be explained. I had an interest in pursuing it and I did, it’s as simple as that. I didn’t, however, ever think it would turn into what it has turned into today. 

When I tell you that I practice yoga what do you immediately think of? I know initially for me I thought essentially of vsco girl contortionists which, unfortunately for me, did not match my vibe. I am neither flexible nor necessarily affluent and aesthetically pleasing. In fact, I still can’t touch my toes (September 6th update: I can touch my toes now! Vsco girl here I come). I thought of entitled white women that rattled on about manifestation and things that truthfully sound like a load of garbage. However, I went in with an open mind and that’s all you must do. Your practice is entirely selfish in the best way. It is about you and only you and your metaphysical connection with yourself. 

So what does that look like? Well I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t look like a pretzel all of the time..if ever. In fact, the important part about yoga is that it is equally a connection between mind and body. It is you talking with yourself and quieting your mind and if that takes you touching your feet to your head then fine, but that’s not the case for me. Quite simply, yoga and meditation take the form of acknowledging your consciousness. There is often the misconception that you have to meditate only in utter silence sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed. That’s not true. I know people that are most appreciative out in nature, and they meditate while walking. Some mediate while playing sports or playing the guitar and laying down on a carpet. The importance is that you take the time to recognize and prioritize the thing that makes you most content. 

In the heart of my minds eye (Julia wtf..why are you speaking like this) I see yoga and meditation as voluntary gratitude. This is something that I really came to define as my personal practice. This is why I enjoy and look forward to yoga and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether I can touch my toes or not. As my own personal definition, I recognize yoga as experiencing and accepting the world exactly as it is and this often begins with the metaphysical, rather than the physical. 

In everything that we do, we can direct our thoughts. Whether you currently think so or not, your body will never feel good if you don’t mentally feel good. I know a lot of people that use the excuse/ example of saying, “well when you get sick your body deteriorates and because your body deteriorates you have to stay inside and because you have to stay inside you can get sad and depressed.” To which I would argue that never in a thousand years would I say that being sick in and of itself causes me to be more sad than I already might have been. If anything, it just highlights whatever negativity was already there. 

Our bodies are representations of the internal, not the other way around. I believe this is why I find psychology and sociology so intriguing, and are frustrated when it is refuted and defined as a “fake science.” In my eyes, empirical science is only half of the story. I know that while data is important (I DO always gush about statistics after all) inquisitive research means even more. In our minds we are all different. We experience the exact same situation differently, we react to them differently, this is something that could never be empirically explained and to that I revere the scientists that are denied credibility solely because they cannot produce equations on paper. 

If you’re a close friend of mine you’d know that I’ve been struggling with my self worth recently. This manifests itself in my constant requests for confirmation that my friends are not bored of me and that I’m still interesting and worthwhile. This feeling is like a groundhog because as quickly and passionately as it pops up it will go away and I continue with my life, but that’s the thing about the subconscious, it doesn’t “go away”. When Punxsutawney Phil announces the coming of the next season he doesn’t just pop underground and cease to exist. Every single thing that we worry about is housed in ego and as our egos like to title themselves our “identity” you can’t shut that up and suddenly become a shell of a (wo)man. 

For that very reason, I’ve come to adore the job that I do as a social policy research assistant. At it’s very core is the act of interviewing those that you would never even THINK you had anything in common with. The project I’m currently working with is with the elderly and disabled, two things I’d pretty confidently claim I am not. And yet, constantly their words set of alarms in my mind. Not a warning bell, not a “get the hell out of there it’s going to suck to be old” bell either, but moreso, a glimpse into all that life has to offer in the most inspirational way. 

Yesterday I was speaking to the kindest woman I have ever spoken to. She was orphaned at 17 and her mother had died of cancer and she had been suffering from a disability to the point where she is currently homebound at the age of 57. Was this disheartening Yes, but what did we talk about? We talked about the fact that she had multicolored crystal prisms all over her house. We talked about the fact that whenever she was depressed she reminded herself that everything she was feeling was temporary and she would see color again soon. We talked about how because of all the things she had been through she developed a passion for service through the mother of her ex-boyfriend who took her in and forced her to carry on. We talked about how she was proud of me and thought I was perfect for this inquisitive role (remember I have never met this woman) and should continue on being curious and kind as I have so much life ahead of me. This is what meditation is all about. You don’t have to sit in silence, but rather reflect on what the world around you means. 

She told me she wanted to give me a prism :) 

I mediate through reading. My entire LIFE books have been healing for me. I have found that I look forward to being in my own head and learning constantly learning about anything and everything because every book, in its own way, is applicable to life. And its for that reason, when my dad and I walked into 2nd and Charles the other day, that I had this urge to look for “Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert. To be truthfully honest, I had seen a tik tok about it about a week before, that was kind of like a parody for the movie trailer and for some reason it stuck with me to the point where an entire week later I was roaming the aisles for this book. 

If you didn’t know, 2nd and Charles is a second-hand book store so there is never any guarantee that something you’re looking for is there. In fact, I had been roaming for about as long as my impatient temperament could take when I turned around by accident and there it was on the tippy top of the shelf behind me. I couldn’t tell you what drove me to grab this book at this exact time in my life, but I have never been more thankful for a book in my entire life. 

Elizabeth Gilbert simultaneously writes like God and your older sister. Her language is divine and it rocks you from the very essence of your soul but she’ll also talk about how much sex she’s had and how bloated she was after eating more pasta than anyone should ever eat and how she didn’t give a fuck. And, I don’t do this often, but I found myself repeatedly stopping to type quotes in a note on my phone. If you haven’t yet heard of it (I’d be surprised) but “Eat, Pray, Love” is about a woman in her mid thirties who lived the ideal life in New York but ended up going through a nasty divorce with her husband and went through a complicated affair after the fact. 

I think that a lot of people misjudge this book as being equivalent to a rom-com like cringey love affair of superfluous nonsense and un relatable emotional sentiments. That couldn’t be further from the truth. This book was raw. She is often sobbing on her bathroom floor or crushed with suicidal depression. She is infinitely lonely and feels so small and it is nothing short of a mirror into all of our lives at some point. She goes to the countries to work herself out of this nightmare after a notably horrible episode on her bathroom floor where she finally admits to herself that she refuses to live her current life anymore. In Italy, India, and Indonesia she details her experiences in the pursuit of pleasure, devotion, and balance of a means of essentially finding her purpose. 

When I say pleasure, you’ll probably think of Rome and romance and sex and pretty people. Those things definitely weren’t absent in her description (Except the sex because she decided to remain celibate for the year), but her pleasure presented itself in the most genuine form. Through her appreciation and slow consumption of good food, her slow meander through Italian architecture, her sunset discussions with new friends. These are things all the more important to being content. 

I personally enjoyed her description of India the most as it brought me back to my experience with yoga and the individualized nature of the practice. Liz studied at an Ashram (a religious temple) under a guru for multiple months. It is at first torturous for her to find the the faith and courage to let herself go to some divinity that is not tangibly seen but she so acutely describes how important it is to quiet your mind to the chaos of the world. Once you do so, you really realize the lack of weight it ACTUALLY has on your life. This means that the way you perceive your situation will dramatically change the way you act and feel and treat others, something I have constantly been repeating in my other posts. Similarly, one of my favorite aspects of this section is her description of religion not as a border of political and historical idol complexes of rules and punishments, but a thin golden thread woven together with hundreds of other thought processes to form a spiritual connection between self and the divine. 

In Indonesia she balances the two through helping others. I won’t go too much into detail but everything is so perfectly combined. So much so that I have tenfold more a desire to go to these three places than anywhere I might have mentioned before in my discussions of travel now. 

In reading her words, she mad me cry and compose myself only to cry even more. That’s the beauty of a book that is so well renown, yet applies to every reader’s individual experience. I felt like she was addressing me directly. I really felt like someone or something was speaking through her directly to Julia Larock and I have read plenty of books and have never once felt like that. Specifically, here are a few quotes that really punched me in the face: 

“There are only two questions that human beings have fought over, all through history: How much do you love me? and Who is in charge?” 

“Vipassana meditation teaches that grief and nuisance are inevitable in this life, but if you can plant yourself in stillness long enough, you will, in time, experience the truth that everything (both uncomfortable and lovely) will pass”

“How do the survivors of terminated relationships ever endure the pain of unfinished business? From that place of meditation, I found the answer- you can finish it yourself, from within yourself. It’s not only possible, it’s essential”

And so as I finished inhaling her words after hours and hours of reading today I decided to try a new kind of yoga. Not that I had been doing it incorrectly before, but I wanted to focus my meditation more on gratitude. So I rolled out my mat and put on my meditation music playlist on spotify (don’t make fun of me it’s a real thing and it will change your life) and just sat. I originally tried to close my eyes, but that actually distracted me more so I kept them open (that’s the thing about meditation, you just do whatever works for you) And this time I actually let my mind wander, but only to a positive place. A place of thankfulness and peace. A place where every negative aspect of my life still existed, and I let it enter my mind, but it never once turned into the chaotic anger that it once was, the shame was there but I controlled it, the hurt arrived but it was nothing compared to what else I saw. 

I saw Ryan giving me the longest hug of my life while I sobbed in the West Chester parking lot, I saw my mom stroking my hair while I sat on her lap and told her about my day, I saw my brother and I playing rock band and taking it way too seriously, I saw my Disney roommates and I celebrating Christmas together, I saw Steven and I discussing how similar we are, I saw myself walking hand and hand with some of the young children I met on the dirt roads after church in the Dominican Republic, I saw Lauren and Steph and I screaming when we saw each other in the Longwood parking lot, I saw walking on the boardwalk with Lauren and Amanda scaring me from behind, I saw myself playing golf with Graham and Cameron, I saw myself having photoshoots with Jaelyn, I saw myself handing out drinks to Brewed customers that wanted nothing more than to tell me their entire life stories, I saw all my robotics friends supporting each other at competitions, I saw all of my fellow TFA interns drunk at our staff social (oops ;) hehe ) I saw my dad telling me he was proud of me, I saw Zach taking care of me even though we just met, I saw the hoards and hoards of kids in China writing me love letters and calling me a Disney princess, I saw the zoo in Australia where we took little Ethan for the first time, I saw Eloise telling me she was pregnant and I could be an aunt to her daughter, I saw my cousin Genevieve telling me that she wanted me to come to Cape Charles with her family because “whenever you’re with us the vibes are good.” 

And I literally just sat there and cried. 

Maybe it would have been a little bit eerie if anyone walked into my room, but it was a silent cry. I wasn’t sobbing or dramatic or weepy, there were just tears, because there was so many thoughts flashing in my mind and I probably only sat there for 15 minutes. And towards the end, over top of it all, I kept hearing the words “I’m speaking to you.” It was kind of like a mantra because I heard it in my own voice, but it wasn’t necessarily coming from just me. It was like in my own voice I hear, “I’m speaking to you, I believe you, this love that you see in these memories, hold onto that because this is all I want for you.” 

And that’s all I want for me too, and for everyone really. Because at the end of the day when we better ourselves we better everyone. 

When I finally dragged myself off the mat I picked up my phone for the first time in a few hours today. There was a text there from Casey, who is the youth group pastor with the group I used to be apart of at UD. He told me that he was thinking of facilitating a mental health support group this fall and he wanted me to advocate for it and be a part of spreading the word about it because I’ve been blessed with so many connections. What a situationally ironic time for a text like that, after just sitting in gratitude for those in my life. I told him that I’d absolutely love to be a part of that and now here I am, writing this. 

I’m not going to try to be disgusting and poetic and say that my life is changed and nothing will ever be the same. I’m positive I’ll still get upset and angry about the same things in my life. The difference though is that I don’t see that as an impenetrable barrier, but more like a hurdle where all you need to do is put some pressure on yourself to get yourself in the air. 

And once I’m in the air I’ll bring out the prism that was just given to me and it’ll create color. 

[little-writings]

A Deal Gone Wrong (Jumin x MC)

Mafia! AU: After a narcotics deal goes awry, you get thrown deeper into the Han’s family business.

Word Count: 1254

AFJKDLSAFJ I got really tired for some reason this afternoon and IDK why still even now, but it’s vaguely still around. Also, my arm is weirdly killing me???? Doesn’t really work out too good when you play the violin on a daily basis. Anyhow

—————————————————————————————————-

“We have to stop by a client’s on the way back to my home I’m afraid,” Jumin said, guilt scattering his face for a moment. “I hope you don’t mind.” 

“Oh no, it’s fine!” You exclaimed, leaning forward in the car seat. “What does the client need?” 

“It’s moreso…what I need.” He adjusted the ends of his gloves, frowning. “They’ve been abusing my family’s narcotics trade, attacking other valuable clients to get their own when they can’t afford it.” 

His family’s business, to say the least, left you uneasy.

And you could see how it dragged him constantly, you being the only thing to light his days.

And even if it left you unsettled, you loved him more than words could describe, and so did he.

You weren’t leaving. 

“And when can they not afford it?” 

“These days…?” He scoffed. “Always.” 

The vehicle skidded to a halt in front of a refined set of apartments, similar to yours although clearly far more opulent. 

Driver Kim give a faint nod of knowing, giving a comforting grin in your direction. 

“Stay here.” He stated, looking towards you, his brow furrowing. “Please, for my sake.” 

“Are you sure it’ll be alright?” You scrunched up your nose, taking his hand. “I don’t want you going in if you might get hurt.” 

“I’ll be fine.” He replied, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead before slipping out. 

You noticed him turn back the jacket of his suit, the smallest bit of a grip to a pistol entering your view.

You tensed. 

“Jumin,” You spoke up, watching as his head whipped to you. “be careful okay?” 

He gave the smallest bit of laughter. “I’m honored that you’re worried about me darling.” He dropped his shoulders. “I don’t deserve it honestly…” 

Before you could go against his statement he cleared his throat. 

“I’ll be right back.” 

You gawked as he made his way inside, an eerie silence taking over the area as though horrible things were only guaranteed to come. 

You began to fiddle with your fingers, desperately searching amongst the windows for some sort of sign from him. 

You couldn’t tell if a sign would be good or bad, however. 

And it only seemed to get worse by the growing minute. 

You tapped your legs against the car floor, your gaze darting between others as though they had a sort of answer. 

There was no sign of him from your angle of the apartments, but you swore even if just for a second, that a ring pierced your ears. 

But still, nothing.

“If it’s any consolation, I think he’ll be alright.” Driver Kim reassured you, dropping his hands from the steering wheel. 

“How many of these things have you come with him for?” 

“Many, I’ve worked with the family since Jumin first came to America,” He sighed. “It’s hard at first…to handle the reality of some these things, but you’ll get used to it.” 

“Is there any way he could get out?” 

“With his father being the boss? He’s expected to take over when he passes. Especially with him being the only child of Mr. Han…I’d say impossible.” 

You bit your lip, fingers trembling. “Does he want out…?” 

“He doesn’t express his feelings to me. I don’t think he wants me anymore involved than I am now. But, I think so- personally.” 

“…T-Thank you.” 

“Of course ma’am.” 

And so you sat, no longer fidgeting quite as much as you used to. 

And eventually, he did come back.

He drew his hair back, a dark glaze in his eyes.

He was no longer wearing his gloves.

Thoughts began to drip into your head as to why, a sickening feeling crawling along the edges of your mind. 

“I’m sorry I took so long,” He muttered, sitting beside you.

“Is that all Mr. Han?” Driver Kim asked, tipping his head back. 

“Yes, I believe so, thank you.” 

When he turned to you, you noticed the soft and light glimmer painting him. 

And you smiled, pushing your worries away. 

“Did it all go okay?” 

He hesitantly nodded. “…I hope it did.”

You noticed the exhaustion that drenched his tone, his body lurching back in the seat as the wind blew through his messy strands. 

You sank against him, entwining your hands as you rested your head in the crook of his neck. “I’m sure it did. It’s over now.” 

And perhaps for the time being it was over. 

It had seemed that way for the next few hours, the two of you in Jumin’s office as you yourself went about reading various books about his former home, beside him.

You had assumed the creaking throughout the house had been from age or maybe his cat, Elizabeth 3rd. 

You were very wrong in your assumption. 

The door was thrashed open, a man with fresh tear stains having been the perpetrator. 

His clothes and hair were ragged, a wild and savage expression contorting him. 

He shot daggers at Jumin, shakily aiming a pistol towards him.

“Y-You killed my brother!” 

Jumin hid you behind him almost immediately, scowling. 

“You need to leave. Now.” 

“I-I bet y-you’d like that wouldn’t you?” The man howled. “J-Just for me to f-forget about this?” 

“I would say that’s in your best interest.” 

“And if I d-don’t?” 

“I just said leaving was in your best interest.” 

“A-And what if I shoot y-you?” 

He didn’t respond, merely raising his eyebrows in doubt. 

“W-Why…?” The man whimpered, chin quivering. “W-Why’d you do it…?” 

“Your brother threatened my family and my other clients. We warned him and he refused.” 

“D-Didn’t you ever think about those t-that cared about him?” 

“He clearly wasn’t thinking about it. Why should I?” 

“D-Don’t talk l-like you knew him!” 

“I did know him.” 

“N-No you didn’t!” 

He pulled the trigger, his weary, unsteady aim instead hitting the wall.

Just beside you.

You screamed.

As though just the idea of you being harmed, was the straw that broke the camel’s back, your fiance quickly shifted.

The man staggered backward, yelling. “I-I’m not afraid to do it!” 

“You’re not?” Jumin growled, a low rumble in his throat. 

“N-No!” 

“MC,” He spoke your name, a warmth catching him at the sound of your name before dispersing. “Come here.” 

You awkwardly walked forward, staring with horror at the stranger.

You stood beside him, watching in confusion as he pulled you close, taking one of his hands to cover your eyes. 

“W-What…? J-Jumin?” You whispered, drawing your fingertips against his knuckles, a lump growing in your throat. 

He felt colder than ice.

“Well, I’m not either.” 

And you knew in that moment, why he covered your eyes as he snatched out his gun and promptly pulled the trigger. 

[scummy-writes]

Hello~ ^^ for fun can I request what if the rfa members met Mc under different circumstances, such as not from her joining the chat but other ways. Maybe she worked briefly at Jumin's company for example or helped checked up on Elizabeth when she was ill (idk u go nuts on the circumstances) but after all of that, just for fun, what if when they were all chatting in the chatroom they found out they all met her in one way or another. I just wonder how they would of react to mc under normal yknow

_φ(*￣ω￣)ﾉ This is cute, and I usually have a few guilty pleasure daydreams of this happening to me. I can’t think of a scenario of them all knowing her. Maybe if this was all the same person? And just stretched over a time of a few months so it makes sense?

Zen

- He usually went to a local gym to work out with the machines he couldn’t afford. I mean, he’s gotta look nice, right?

- He wasn’t used to seeing women there, and he definitely wasn’t used to seeing women in baggy clothes staring at the machines

- He didn’t give it much thought. You were trying to build up some confidence- You’d get on it eventually! But he wasn’t going to stare. He needed to hurry up. He didn’t have long to work out today.

- Over the next few days, he always saw you shyly attempting to get on the machines, but he never saw you get on one

- One day, he saw you sitting on a bench outside, just looking down and thinking

- “Hey, do you mind if I join you?” 

- You looked a little spooked, but you nodded and he sat down beside you and introduced himself.

- The two of you sat quietly for a moment, before he finally decided on what to say.

- “You know, I’ve noticed you looking at the machines. I just want you to know that no one is going to judge you here, okay? Some other gyms may, but this one has been the kindest I’ve been to.”

- You didn’t really react much, just kinda still stared at your feet with a blush on your face

- “Hey, listen. I know it’s scary, and I know you’re worried of what people may think. But if anyone says anything bad, just find me! I usually come around this time every day! I can help you figure out some of the machines, alright?”

- You finally looked at him and gave him a small smile. You looked a little sad, but he hoped his words helped.

- That day you ended up excusing yourself (with a thanks) and heading on home

- But the next day he didn’t see you. Or the day after that.

- He chalked it up to you just being too shy. Which was fine- No one really liked showing off at the gym unless they were in super great shape.

- He thought about you from time to time, but imagine his surprise when the girl in the chatroom knew him after he sent a selfie!

- He was...actually really happy to know you were doing okay. He was worried about you after how sad you looked!

Yoosung

- He never really paid attention in most of his classes

- Sure, he tried! But...He was tired, and zoned out a lot.

- He knew you from his sociology class. He thought it’d be neat, but he ended up not understanding most of it.

- You, though, were one of the few people that actually spoke up in the class. Debated certain subjects with the teacher- asked really good questions

- And you were one of the people who didn’t let the teacher know he forgot homework, even though you talked to him so much.

- Basically, he thought you were really smart. But...Totally out of his league. Girls like you never really played video games, or liked guys who played...

- (He got himself a little annoyed thinking about that, he was in the middle of class! No time to get sad!!)

- The two of you ended up bumping into each other in the library one day. There was one copy of a certain book the sociology class wanted you to write a paper on. And it was due tomorrow!

- Of course you had it, and he was stuck trying to thumb through his phone or other books to hopefully just get a snippet of information he could use for his paper.

- “Yoosung?”

- He nearly yelped. He wasn’t expecting anyone to talk to him! Even you, for that matter!

- “Are you working on the paper too? I can share this book with you, if you need it. Maybe we can help each other out?”

- You were his fucking savior.

- The two of you ended up spending a few hours working on the essay- You even helped him with his if he promised to proof-read yours. He was lowkey kind of jealous that you did your papers at last minute, but got a better grade than him.

- But afterwards, he was just too shy to try talking to you again

- So when he heard your name in the chat, he went off on how he knew a girl by the same name

- “Oh, I know a guy named Yoosung too! We, ah, don’t really talk, but he’s in one of my classes.”

-”...Sociology?”

-”OMG”

- Now he was even more determined to try and talk to you

Seven

-Look, he had to get all that Dr Pep from somewhere

- He was a regular at the little grocery store you worked in. He usually came around the same time, always paid with cash, and almost always got a shitton of Dr Pep

- God forbid you guys have a sale on it

- But he was nice, sweet. Always cracking jokes, always willing to try and make you laugh if you were looking rough

- There were a few times when he’d step in-between a you and an angry customer, and you were always so thankful because he usually made a dumb joke or two to lighten up the situation

- Pretty soon he had learned your name, and he usually came through your line, because you’d actually laugh at his jokes

- (I mean, the others did too, but your reaction to his horrible puns was a groan and a facepalm- He loved it)

- “I got all my dr pep to put a pep in my step!”

- “Man...Man, come on. I mean, I just had two buggies worth of groceries. You’re gonna do this to me?”

- Huge shit eating grin. Of course he was!

- When he finds out it’s you in the chatroom, he instantly wants to protect you even more.

- And, of course, the puns are now neverending. He had a list saved up for you, buddy, you were never going to escape them now

Jaehee

- Sometimes, when you were in need of good coffee and free wifi, you stopped at a local coffee shop. You’d spend a while in there, and occasionally you’d run into this very busy woman.

- Okay, moreso you thought she was cute, so you lowkey looked at her every now and then the few times your paths crossed

- She’d usually get coffee and something small, sit, and pour over paper work while chugging that damn coffee down like a pro

- The two of you only interacted once- It was a crowded day and you were sitting at the only table that had an extra seat, so...She asked to join you

- You stuttered while saying yes, but she didn’t question it.

- She did catch you glancing at her every now and then, and she eventually called you out on it.

- “I’m just curious, I’m sorry.”

- “No, it’s fine. It’s just a few reports for the company I work at. I have to go in soon, but the office is out of good coffee, so...”

- The two of you talked a bit, not too much because she needed to focus on her work, but it was safe to say you had a huge crush on her

- She might have thought it was a bit cute you were so curious about her

- So when she sees the messages saying that you remember who she is, from the coffee shop, she is blushing like mad

- Someone remembers her? Her??

- But she’s secretly happy. Is this a chance to get a friend for the first time?

Jumin

- Granted, you didn’t work right beside him, but you worked in a department that knew his name....very....very...well.

- Nevermind the fact it was mainly tossed around like a curse

- I mean... Jaehee wasn’t the only one who had to deal with the cat projects he wanted to do

- You were decent at your job! Still young, still struggling with being an intern, the first time you ever had a serious job like this

- So the first time you bumped into him in the elevator, you tried your best not to stutter as you greeted him.

- “What department do you work in?”

- (The department that hates your fucking guts)

- “Oh, Uhm. The one you created, for your, erm, personal projects.”

- “Ah, how is the wine going?”

- “It’s...It’s going, haha. I’m actually turning a report in now.”

- (God, why were elevators so slow??)

- “Oh, you write the reports?”

- “Well...A lot of them, not all of them.” You thought about some of the harsh notes he had left on them, and tried not to break a sweat

- “I see, well. They’re all very good in the end. I appreciate the work your group is doing.”

- And bam, the elevator stopped for you and you just. Booked it.

- (Where the fuck are your anxiety meds holy fuck)

- When you enter the chatroom, and see it’s him, you are already kissing your future job goodbye. He was going to fire you so fast

- But.... he didn’t recognize you. Not by your name alone, at least

- When Seven pointed out you worked for him, Jumin just...Left the chatroom

- (The next time he got on, he had already read through your resume twice and talked about your current absence as well with your dept.)

[handofvictory]

Hi I redid Allen's questionnaire but did better this time.

What is your characters name? Does the character have a nickname?:

Allen Cooper. He lacks a nickname, though he has the title of Shadowblade.

What is your characters hair color? Eye color?:

His hair is black, and his eyes are now purple since he's become a shadow ascendent.

What kind of distinguishing facial features does your character have?:

… I’m not sure how to answer the question, honestly.

Does your character have a birthmark? Where is it? What about scars? How did he get them?:

He doesn’t have a birthmark, but boy does he have scars. He has been whipped for his crimes more than once, and in some universes that’s not all that happened to him. The scars of his beatings are large and ugly, and will never truly fade. He has scars on his hands from various incidents, many he can’t even remember. He has managed to avoid receiving any scars on his face.

He also has scars on his soul from his torture from the Legion, as well as from being thrown into the Void. He has suffered immensely and has the marks to show it.

Who are your characters friends and family? Who does he surround himself with? Who are the people your character is closest to? Who does he wish he were closest to?:

Allen's family would have to be Ellisse, Devon, and Malkhaz, whether or not he fully acknowledges any one of them. His friends would be Dar'nul and Althrich, more probably pending. Hand of Victory is in general a family to him, which he sort of accepts.

Allen honestly considers himself close to just about everyone he bonds with (due to how few he really bonds to), though to Devon moreso than others. There's a common bond between the two of them, and Devon is a father figure to him who has guided him through a lot of his problems and continues to help him to this day.

Ellisse and Malkhaz are sibling figures to him, and he has specific feelings regarding the two of them.

Ellisse he viewed as a savior for a long time, much as he knew it was unfair to her. To him, she was his chance to seek redemption, which he had no clue how to find or even how to start to look. He latched onto her and assumed that by following her, he might find change. He has since let go of that a lot thanks to serious amounts of recovery, but he still cares for her deeply as a sister.

With Malkhaz, he has chronically worried about failing him, and that fear is still there. Memories of his old teacher still haunt him, and he worries that the example he'll impart to Malkhaz will be the same one his teacher gave him. He didn't think of Mal positively initially, but he still did his best for him and tried to encourage his growth, and as a result he grew on him.

Allen doesn't actively seek relationships, but he does wish to mend his relationship to other guild members.

Where was your character born? Where has he lived since then? Where does he call home?:

He was born in some obscure kingdom I have yet to name that's based off of Latin America. Nowadays he's an adventurer, but the guild's home base counts as a consistent place he can call home.

Where does your character go when hes angry?:

Allen is chronically angry, so he doesn’t really “go” anywhere. He does try to go somewhere quiet and secluded to calm down when it gets to be too much for him, but that’s frequently unsuccessful and he becomes angrier as a result.

What is his biggest fear? Who has he told this to? Who would he never tell this to? Why?:

He fears losing all the progress he has made in his recovery and his redemption. He fears going back to the way he was, at which point he'd rather just kill himself because that is not a life he wants to live again. He hasn't said this to anyone, but the most likely one to hear about it would be Devon (followed by Dar'nul, oddly, then his two siblings maybe).

Does he have a secret?:

Not really. He doesn't tell everyone everything, but he's not really secretive either.

What makes your character laugh out loud?:

I have no clue how to describe his sense of humor but it's considerably easier to get him to laugh nowadays, even with dumb jokes.

When has your character been in love? Had a broken heart?:

He's never been in love, although he's been heartbroken by various traumatic events in his life. Losing his family twice comes to mind.

Then dig deeper by asking more unconventional questions:

What is in your characters refrigerator right now? On his bedroom floor? On his nightstand? In his garbage can?:

His room is a mess, but not a COMPLETE mess. Papers are on the floor, a book is on the nightstand, candy wrappers in the trash, along with other forms of garbage. He also has several books on the floor, and his room is completely disorganized.

Look at your characters feet. Describe what you see there. Does he wear dress shoes, gym shoes, or none at all? Is he in socks that are ratty and full of holes? Or is he wearing a pair of blue and gold slippers knitted by his grandmother?:

He wears leather boots that tend to be worn, but are still completely functional. Whenever they start losing their function, he makes new ones. His pants tend to be tucked into his boots.

When your character thinks of his childhood kitchen, what smell does he associate with it? Sauerkraut? Oatmeal cookies? Paint? Why is that smell so resonant for him?:

Allen doesn’t remember much of the kitchen from his childhood, but if he were to try hard enough, the smell of tomatoes would come to mind, and he has no clue why.

Your character is doing intense spring cleaning. What is easy for him to throw out? What is difficult for him to part with? Why?:

Allen finds it difficult to do any serious cleaning. If it isn't garbage, he finds it near impossible to throw out. He also has a difficult time motivatinf himself to clean. This is caused by his depression, but also he has spent his entire life only owning what he could carry, and so he tends to try to keep whatever he can.

Its Saturday at noon. What is your character doing? Give details. If hes eating breakfast, what exactly does he eat? If hes stretching out in his backyard to sun, what kind of blanket or towel does he lie on?:

Assuming he has nothing to do (which is not often the case), Allen is probably reading some historical fiction with some kind of food on the highest spire of either Dalaran or Silvermoon. The food is likely a candy or a sweet (coffee cake, for example). He may also have tea with him.

What is one strong memory that has stuck with your character from childhood? Why is it so powerful and lasting?:

The second time he lost his family sticks out to him, primarily because he tried to keep them together, and ended up badly beaten as a result. He remembers the aftermath, wherein his life was saved by Wolfgang. He then insisted that Allen owed him, and he suffered horribly under his tutelage for years without ever fully recovering from his loss.

Your character is getting ready for a night out. Where is he going? What does he wear? Who will he be with?:

If it's a night out, he's probably being dragged out by someone else. He himself has no ideas in mind as to where he would go, and would probably let Devon dress him up, because otherwise he would just show up in the blandest clothing imaginable.

Character Questionnaire 2 These questions are frequently used in interviews so you may want to pretend you’re interviewing your characters.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?:

"I’m not proud of what I’ve done."

What is your idea of perfect happiness?:

"General peace, I guess...?"

What is your current state of mind?:

“Tired.”

What is your favorite occupation?:

"Being a monk was... nice. I don't think I'll properly go back to it, but it was a good change of pace that I shouldn't have abandoned."

What is your most treasured possession?:

“... nothing, at the moment. I just enjoy having things, to be honest...”

What or who is the greatest love of your life?:

"I'm not answering this."

What is your favorite journey?:

“… I don’t think I could pick a favorite, I’m usually just here for the ride.”

What is your most marked characteristic?:

“Uh. I used to say it's my eyes, but I'm not sure anymore.”

When and where were you the happiest?:

“I'm not answering this.”

What is it that you most dislike?:

“... hm. I despise loud, sudden noises, and I hate [cotton] fabrics. Itches like hell.”

What is your greatest fear?:

"I don't know anymore. I think I've seen too much."

What is your greatest extravagance?:

“I suppose any time I buy myself something to eat, otherwise I try to spend only when I have to.”

{

Which living person do you most despise?:

Sigh. "I don't have the energy to hate anyone specifically. Catahecas comes closest, I suppose, but even then, I'm just too... tired to make note of him when he's not in proximity to me, or when I'm not joking about how loathesome he is to guildmates."

What is your greatest regret?:

"Everything. Just... everything. Let's leave it at that."

Which talent would you most like to have?:

“I don't think I can think of anything. Maybe be a good speaker.”

Where would you like to live?:

"I think where I currently live is fine."

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?:

Allen looks to the side and seems to become lost in thought. His expression becomes somber, and he's unresponsive for a bit. The question is never answered.

What is the quality you most like in a man?:

His cheeks darken, and he clears his throat. "Next question."

What is the quality you most like in a woman?:

His cheeks darken a little further. “Next question!"

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?:

Gestures to his entire self.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?:

"It's hard to think of one, seeing as I have a hard time actively hating people. I suppose I avoid people who would take advantage of me or my loved ones the most."

What do you most value in your friends?:

“… kindness, compassion, a willingness to listen, that sort of thing...”

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?:

"I can’t say I have one."

Whose are your heroes in real life?:

"I suppose there are people in my life who count, but I... don't really see them as heroes per se. They're extremely important to me, but not... heroes."

Which living person do you most admire?:

“Shut up.”

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?:

“I don’t see how any of them could be overrated, they’re virtues for a reason.”

On what occasions do you lie?:

"When necessary. I don't like doing it, though. I then have to go along with the lie and it becomes a chore I don't want to do. I'd rather be honest if I can."

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?:

“Any time I talk about my past. 'In my lifetime' I should really just tell myself to shut up.”

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?:

“I'm working on changing what I can, but I would make myself less judgemental.”

What are your favorite names?:

“… names for what? You need to be more specific here, because I don’t think about peoples names all too much.”

How would you like to die?:

“Painlessly. Just... painlessly."

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?:

Allen sighs. "I've never been given the choice, to tell you the truth. I don't think many people do. I think I'd rather just play the hand I'm dealt rather than imagine what could have been."

What is your motto?:

“Mottos are overrated.”

[drashleighreid]

all of them :)

Sorry it took me so long to answer these lol1) What images do you have set for your desktop/cell phone wallpapers?My lock screen is sasha and my home screen is sandra lol 2) Have you ever had a crush on a teacher?did my horrible embarrassing crush on my gi count lmao 3) What was your last text message?me asking my mum how her day was going lol 4) What do you see yourself doing in 10 years?I wanna be living in LA working on movie sets or a studio in any capacity possible !! I'm !!! 5) If you could be anywhere else right now, where would you be?honestly ?? Nowhere LA is just..... 😭😍 I wanna be here forever and always 6) What was your coolest Halloween costume?I haven't done Halloween a lot so probably Alice in wonderland. I have a lot of cool ideas but never really get the chance 7) What was your favorite 90s show?SO MANY!! maybe friends?? But also Rugrats cat dog the nanny the x files Daria Arthur Sabrina ??? What a time to be alive 8) Who was your last kiss?umm?? I think someone in a club tbh lmao 🤷🏻‍♀️9) Have you ever been stood up?Uh not really?? I've gotten completely ready for something then had friends flake on me 10) Favorite ice cream flavor?Cookie dough!!!!11) Have you been to Las Vegas?no :--( I need to tho!! Gotta go to that flagship Taco Bell !!! 12) Your favorite pair of shoes?Luv my Adidas or my birks!! 13) Honestly, have you ever cheated on your significant other?No14) What is your favorite fruit?Mango!!!!15) Have you talked to anyone on tumblr that you could see yourself dating/having sex with? If possible?I don't think so 16) Are you into hookups? Short or long term relationships??? Who knows depends on the person 17) Do you smoke? If so, what?no. Sometimes w if it's available but very rarely 18) What do you do to get over your anger?listen to music and lay down, go for a drive, work out. 19) Do you believe in God?to some capacity. I'm more agnostic than anything. 20) Does the person you're in love with know it?No bc they're all celebrities who don't know who I am 21) Favorite position?Sleeping22) What's your horoscope sign?Scorpio 23) Your fears?I'm claustrophobic and have a fear of vomit and cockroaches lmao 24) How many pets do you have? What kind?None :---( 25) What never fails to turn you on?what 26) Your idea of a perfect first date?something fun!! Something active and cool!! Something where you can talk maybe like an arcade or smthn 27) What is something most people don't know about you?hmm.. a tough one. can't share all my secrets 28) What makes you feel the happiest?Travelling!! Airports!! Really good food!! Dogs!! 29) What store do you shop at most often?Probably target lmao 30) How do you feel about oral? Giving and/or receiving?👍🏼31) Do you believe in karma?Yes binch 32) Are you single?ye 33) Do you think flowers or candy are a better way to apologize?Flowers34) Are you a good swimmer?I won't drown but I probably wouldn't win many races either 35) Coffee or Tea?Cawfee!! 36) Online shopping or shopping in person?Depends on my mood and what I'm shopping for. I like both. 37) Would you rather be older or younger than your current age?I like my current age!! Younger if I could fix some shit ,, older if I'm where I wanna b then 38) Cats or Dogs?Doggos!! 39) Are you a competitive person?Depends on the thing. I'm lowkey competitive I won't #fight but I secretly rly wanna win everything 40) Do you believe in aliens?yes!!! Especially today !! Intergalactic alien day 41) Do you like dancing?Yes!! 42) What kind of music to you listen to?All kinds !! My music taste is a MESS 43) What is your favorite cartoon character?I relate to Lisa Simpson 44) Where are you from?nowhere bitch !! ?? I'm from Aus this question is weird tho rn bc I'm in living limbo n dont have a 'home' !! 45) Eat at home or eat out?Eat out!! Or get take out and eat at home watching Netflix 46) How much more social are you when you're drunk?A bit more depends on my mood n stuff and who I'm around 47) What was the last thing you bought for yourself?Taco Bell lmao 48) Why do you think your followers follow you???? no clue tbh ,, I feel like a lot of the followers I have now are just og from the vivaziva days 49) How many hours do you sleep at night?Can't function without 8-9 hours of beauty sleep !! 50) What worries you most about the future?not accomplishing my goals or being successful !! Not being happy or content ever w who I am and what I'm doing w my life !! 51) If you had a friend that spoke to you the same way you speak to yourself, how long would you be friends?we'd b friends she cool and tries to keep me in line52) Are you happy with yourself?there are things I can improve on. I'm not sure I'll ever be satisfied but I can keep trying and someday I'll b there 53) What do you wish you didn't know?The plot lines of my fave shows movies and books so I could experience it again. 54) What big lesson could people learn from your life?That life is ab priorities !! 55) If you could live in any home on a television series, what would it be?Hmm !! Maybe the friends apartment ,, or Mauras house !! Or Gabrielle's house from desperate housewives ,, 56) What's your favorite Website?Fanfic dot net 57) What's the habit you're proudest of breaking?Idk ??? people pleasing 58) What was your most recent trip of more than 50 miles?Does flying count ??? MCI-LAX 59) What's the best bargain you've ever found at a garage sale or thrift store?hmm?? Probably some jackets. I'm not good at finding bargains 60) What do you order when you eat Chinese food?I don't like Chinese food... I'll make stir fries at home w rice and veggies n a spicy sauce 61) If you had to be named after one of the 50 states, which would it be?The only one that doesn't sound awful to me rn is alaska lol. 62) If you had to teach a subject to a class, what would it be?English !! 63) Favorite kind of chips?Tortilla bitch 64) Favorite kind of sandwich?Veggie patty!! Or avocado on toast if that counts 65) Which do you use more often, the dictionary or the thesaurus?Thesaurus 66) Have you ever been stung by a bee?Yea67) What's your favorite form of exercise?Martial arts or dancing 68) Are you afraid of heights?no69) What's the most memorable class you've ever taken?umm... at school prob gender studies but my immediate thought was this bikram yoga class I did like 5 years ago that was like a masterclass taught by some important dude and when we were meditating at the end he was talkin ab how we should imagine ourselves floating in the perfect temperate water and the sky is filled with stars and they're reflecting off the water and ur just surrounded by stars everywhere and the water is lapping at ur skin and it's peaceful n beautiful and it just rly painted a picture for me and it was such a #moment that I always remember how euphoric I felt in that moment meditating and imagining what he was describing and every time I'm stressed or am meditating or just laying in bed I picture that I'm floating in this big ocean surrounded by stars and it's just stuck w me for a long time 70) What's your favorite breakfast?Acai bowls !! Or avocado toast !! 71) Do you like guacamole?BITXH yes .. so much72) Have you ever been in a physical fight?When I was like 10 lol 73) What/who are you thinking about right now?Doing this thing but I immediately thought of Sasha a bc I was looking at pics of her before this to put on to customised popsockets I'm thinking of getting lol 74) Do you like cuddling?Depends on my mood 75) Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?Probably 76) Have you ever experienced one of your biggest fears?Idk I'm claustrophobic and I used to be moreso than I am now and I used to nearly have panic attacks when taking off on flights bc I knew I couldn't get up and off the plane. I don't get those anymore on flights but I still avoid elevators and things like that if I can. 77) Favorite city you've been to?LA !!! Or London 78) Would you break the law to save a family member?Maybe 79) Talk about an embarrassing moment?ummmm. Probably something in school . I can't think of anything super embarrassing that's happened to me recently I'm not rly fazed by a lot. I'm most embarrassed just thinking of the person I was like 2-3 years ago lol 80) Are there any causes you strongly believe in?Veganism!!! 81) What's the worst injury you've ever had?Knock on wood I've been very fortunate in my life w injuries. All I can think of is when I was in eighth grade I used to bike to school w a friend and when I was pedalling up this rly steep hill my gears fucked up and gave out and my foot slipped off the pedal because I was pushing so hard and the pedal ground up the back of my foot and ankle and leg and I got a huge scrape on the front of it as well form the road and I still have a big lumpy scar on the back of my ankle from it lol 82) Favorite day of the week?Idk or care tbh !! Sunday maybe bc there's an aesthetic 83) Do you consider yourself sexually open minded?yes 84) How do you feel about porn?I feel like this requires like a novel length response. The industry is problematic in certain ways but the practice of watching it is fine 85) Which living celebrity would you like to know?Sasha Alexander !! 86) Who was your hottest ex? no one on here would know anyone I'd say anyway?! 87) Do you want/have kids?not really, not right now, maybe someday,88) Has anyone ever told you that they wanted to marry you?well 89) Do you get easily distracted?I get bored quick 90) Ass or titties?Ass91) What is your favorite word?Colloquial 92) How do you feel about tattoos?Luv em!! Too indecisive for any but they're cool to look at lol93) Do you have any pets?Not personally...... yet 94) How tall are you?5'6.595) How old are you?2296) 3 physical features you get complimented on a lot?Umm ,, eyes, hair, and boobs probably lmao 97) Is there anything you're really passionate about?Veganism !! ;) also movies/tv shows, travelling, middle aged actresses 98) Do you have trust issues?Somewhat 99) Do you believe in love at first sight?Never experienced it but that doesn't mean anything 100) What are some words that you live by? Why?'The cure for anything is salt water; sweat, tears, or the sea' bc it's tru I grew up near the ocean. Also 'if you always do what you've always done you'll always get what you've always got' also truThanks so much !! xx