#but like. the exact opposite emotion.

[screechthemighty]

Hello God of War enjoyers, Sindri enjoyers, and "Kratos being a good bro" enjoyers, I have returned with part 2/3! If you missed part one, you can check the tag "fic: the balance of life is in the ripe and ruin" on my blog OR you can check out the AO3 link in a reblog!

the balance of life is in the ripe and ruin: part 2/3

content warnings: depictions of OCD including anxiety spirals and compulsions; grief due to family loss; brief dissociation; major spoilers for ragnarok. (also sindri's coping methods aren't necessarily how you're supposed to deal with OCD, but therapy doesn't exist so he's working with what he's got here)

.

The wolves weren’t so bad, as it turned out. Speki and Svanna slept outside and pretty much left Sindri alone when Kratos told them to. Getting used to Mimir took less time than Sindri had expected. On top of that, Kratos was tidier than Sindri expected and he didn’t get visitors often. Mostly it was just Freya and Angrboda, both of whom gave him some space. It was peaceful out in the Wildwoods; for a few days, Sindri felt like he could breathe.

Then, of course, the thoughts of the house came creeping back. The house and the floorboards. The urge to go back and start scrubbing came. He tried to ignore it, distract himself until the thoughts went away, but it was only a temporary solution. The more it happened, the more his fear started turning to frustration.

I don’t want to live like this. I can’t live like this.

“I am this close to just replacing the fucking floors,” Sindri said one night over dinner. It was the first thing either of them had said; Kratos was back from some lengthy expedition to Vanaheim, and Sindri had spent most the day with one foot in a panic attack. That didn’t exactly make for sparkling dinner conversation. “I don’t want to look at them anymore.”

Kratos nodded contemplatively. It took him a minute to look up from his stew, as if he were digesting what Sindri had said along with the food. “We could do it.”

“Do what?”

“Replace the floors.”

He was being completely serious. And suddenly, the idea seemed like much less of a bitter joke.

.

Of course, it took Sindri barely any time to regret agreeing to it. Being back at the house set the fear and racing thoughts loose again, so badly that he froze in the doorway and couldn’t move. He was scared to turn around and look at Kratos. He couldn’t handle seeing that oh so he’s crazy-crazy look on the god’s face. “Uhm.” Sindri took a deep breath. “It’s. It’s fine. I can do this.”

No, he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry…”

“We still have to find suitable materials,” Kratos pointed out calmly. “If you remember what you used last time, we do not have to enter.”

Right. Yeah. “I think I do,” Sindri said. He tried to be businesslike about it. Right, yeah, of course, they’d have to source the materials for the sealant, talk to Ratatoskr about digging into the branch again, consider sourcing stone or wood or something and bringing it there. This is the logical next step. Definitely not avoiding anything. “I can figure it out.”

Kratos grunted and reached over Sindri’s head to close the door–slowly at first, then more definitively when Sindri didn’t try to stop him. “Come.”

SIndri didn’t feel like he could breathe again until they were back in the Wildwoods, but at least Kratos wasn’t looking at him like he was a lunatic.

.

Figuring out and gathering everything they’d need took longer than it had last time, probably because Kratos was constantly being dragged off to help with some problem or another. The delay had mixed results. Some days still brought the panic and racing thoughts; most of the time, though, Sindri knew that even those panicked moments were better than what he’d face when the floor did come up.

You’ll have to face it one day,

Maybe, but he was content to put that day off for a little while longer.

.

He finally saw Lúnda again during the material gathering process. Sindri knew it was unavoidable, but after last time, he wasn’t looking forward to the conversation.

“You, uh…” Lúnda sucked on her teeth and examined him carefully. “You get your head back on straight?”

Sindri laughed bitterly. “My head’s never been on straight,” he said. “Didn’t Brok tell you that?”

The scurrying of paw steps interrupted the conversation. Both wolves came running over–one with a ball in her mouth, the other desperately trying to steal it. Both froze a safe distance away when the ball hit the ground, their eyes fixing on Sindri. “Okay, okay…” Sindri unhooked a took from his belt–a modified scoop with a long handle–and used it to pick up the ball. “Do you guys ever get tired?”

Speki and Svanna’s eager whines answered the question. Sindri rolled his eyes and flung the ball. “Go on, get!”

And they were off again, nearly knocking each other over as they ran. “Smart,” Lúnda said.

“Yeah, you should see the distance Kratos gets with it.” Sindri slipped the tool back in place. “I’m not…delusional, all right? I just…” He couldn’t look at her as he spoke. “I get these thoughts in my head and if I don’t do something about them, they don’t go away. Even when I do, they don’t always go away for good.” They never did, really, but he was sure this already sounded bad and nonsensical. No sense in making it worse. “So I know. I know he’s gone.” Saying it still made him feel sick, but at least he could say it. “It was just…either the floors or I lose my mind.”

“...Wow. That sounds…”

“Hard? Terrifying? Yeah, welcome to my life. It’s not so bad now. I think I just needed to get out of that house.” He finally looked at her. Lúnda’s eyes were sympathetic, not confused or repulsed. He’d take that, but first… “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Lúnda shrugged. “It’s all right. I’m just glad to see you doing a little better is all.”

Was he?

Sindri pondered it as the wolves raced back over. “Well.” He scooped the ball back up and threw it again. “I’m sure not doing worse.”

And that was definitely better than nothing.

.

The day finally came. They had everything they needed. All they had to do was start.

One small problem: Sindri couldn’t get through the door again.

He’d let Kratos in first this time, which was already wreaking havoc on his nerves. The war god had avoided the Spot so far without being asked, but…no, no, Sindri hated this. He hated all of it.

“We still have to move the furniture,” Kratos said. Then, a bit more forcefully, “Sindri.”

“Huh? What?”

“One chair.” Kratos’s tone was firm, but shockingly patient. “You can move it, or I can. Or we can go home.”

One chair. Just the one. He could do that, right?

“Uhm. Okay. Yeah, you…you can…” He swallowed nervously and gestured outside. “Y-yeah.”

Kratos nodded. He picked up the armchair from the corner, only moving it outside when Sindri didn’t object. He set the chair down. “How do you feel?”

“...scale of fine to worst day of my life? Uh.” Sindri glanced back inside the house. He couldn’t make his legs move. “Probably that time you were asking about Mimir’s eye?”

“Do you want to go home?”

“I…” Yes, but he also didn’t want to draw this out too long. “...one more? Let’s do one more.”

He could handle one more, right?

They got three chairs out before Sindri had to call it quits. No one was more surprised by that than he was.

Weirdly, even that small start made the return trip seem less terrifying.

.

By the time Kratos got all the big furniture out, Sindri’s panic hadn’t risen past mild discomfort. It’s not that bad, see? Don’t be a chickenshit.

He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Okay. Okay, don’t overthink it, just go. One thing at a time.

He kept moving, focusing on the list of smaller items that needed moving so they wouldn’t get dirty. One item. Then the next. Then the next.

Just don’t think! Brok told him that all the time. You thinkin’ so much, that’s the problem. You know what you’ve gotta do, so just do it.

It was never that simple for Sindri, but he tried. He really tried.

He was successful right up until he had to cross to the right side of the room. Near the Spot.

Be careful, don’t step on it, be careful, you’ll hurt him, be careful!

The panic got so bad, he ended up leaving the house. He stood outside and took deep, desperate breaths. Something about the air on the World Tree was…different. Crisp like mountain air, but not so thin. He tried to focus on that instead of his racing thoughts.

They stopped a lot faster this time.

See? Toldja. You think too damn much.

The sound of Kratos clearing his throat caught Sindri’s attention. “We can stop…”

“No,” Sindri blurted. “No, I can do it. I need to do this.”

“...hmm.” Did he look impressed? Was that an impressed look on his face? “Very well.”

Sindri took one last breath before going back in.

He still gave the spot a wide berth, but every item got moved. Sindri knew it was probably a bad idea to start believing in omens, but he really hoped that was a good one.

.

They started on the edges of the room and worked their way in.

Some days they made good progress. Some days, barely anything got done. It wasn’t always the irrational anxiety that slowed him, either. Sometimes it was grief. It’d hit him all over again, the sorrow and anger so fresh he felt like he might drown in them.

“I hate him,” Sindri said one day. He felt like a geyser with a pressure cap over it; his body wanted to cry, but for some reason he just couldn’t. “I hate him so much, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.” He’d smashed that stupid marble. Odin was gone. It just wasn’t enough. Maybe nothing would’ve been enough. “I don’t know what to do with it. It’s just…there now.”

Maybe that was why he’d been so angry at Kratos and Atreus after it happened. All that rage and nothing to do with it…it had to go somewhere. They were close by, easy targets, culpable in his eyes. If he couldn’t make Odin hurt, he could make them hurt.

Right. Because that’s fair.

Kratos hummed. His hands traced over the scars on his forearms. They didn’t seem so…stark as they had before. Sindri remembered how red and inflamed they could look over Fimbulwinter, seeming to re-open and heal at random. They hadn’t been that bad in months. “It will fade,” he said. “You can turn it into other things. Just…do not let it turn back on yourself.”

“Or anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me again.”

“I know.” Sindri stared out over the swirling voids above them. Sometimes they looked beautiful. Some days they just looked cold. He wasn’t sure what today was like. “Any word…?”

Kratos shook his head. “He has far to travel. The coming winter may slow him…” His voice trailed off. When Sindri glanced his way, the war god was staring down at his hands, his face hard to read again. He didn’t seem distressed, though.

“He will return,” Kratos finished finally, with that same quiet certainty he’d displayed before. “Do you think you can continue today?”

Sindri glanced back over his shoulder. The inside of the house looked cold, unwelcoming. “...no” he said finally. “No, I think I’m done for today.”

Kratos was right: he should channel all that anger into something else. Usually, it was the floor. He’d started easing back into smithing work, too, picking up projects late in the evening when he was sure he would be left alone. It helped, most of the time, but something told him that wouldn’t work today. The load was too much.

Time to go home and hope the next day would be better.

.

They dug up the Spot last.

Sindri insisted on burning the flooring. It was the best compromise he could think of: he couldn’t keep it there, but if he treated it as an extension of Brok by giving it a burial…it’d be gone, right? Nothing else to worry about. And it worked, in a way. His mind didn’t rebel against the idea the way it did stepping on the wood.

It also backfired spectacularly, because suddenly he was burying his brother for a second time. And somehow, it hurt more than the first.

He burned the pieces alone. He’d been worried he’d break down, and he wasn’t sure he wanted an audience for that. He didn’t, though. It wasn’t the numb feeling that had overtaken him at the first funeral. The world felt stretched out, thin, unreal. It was like his soul had come untethered, watching what happened from a distance.

How many times am I going to lose him?

Funny thing: he could imagine Brok’s response so clearly. Just the one time, you idiot. I ain’t gonna be more gone than I was before. It’s all in your head.

“Yes, dumbass,” Sindri muttered. The sound of his own voice drew him back, even if only a little. “That’s where your thoughts usually are.”

For a moment, the only sound was the crackling of the fire. Sindri closed his eyes and tried to focus on that sound. He just needed one thing to be real. Even if the realest thing was…

You’ll be all right.

He didn’t believe it, not really.

But if he imagined it in Brok’s voice, he could get close.

.

Fall turned to winter, one that seemed far less harsh after three years of cold.

He started going out into the world more. Worked alongside Lúnda. Did repairs for Kratos and Freya’s armor. He and Agrboda collaborated on a piece. She really was a talented artist. She seemed sure Atreus was safe, too. (Sindri felt like there was a story with them, but he decided not to pry. Not his place, not his business, though he was pretty sure he knew what was happening there.)

The floor slowly filled itself in. By the end of winter, only the Spot was left. And that was where the work stalled.

He spent more time in the house, even sleeping there some nights. He went longer and longer stretches of time without breaking down. But he couldn’t bring himself to finish.

It just didn’t feel like the right time.

[gingermintpepper]

Sometimes I am so overwhelmed by my fondness for Phoebus Apollo.

Re-reading the Iliad is always such a treat for me because I just love seeing Apollo's arc parallel Achilles' so entirely. There are a ton of examples I can pull from but I'm mostly thinking of that very first argument between Achilles and Agamemnon about returning Chryseis and how Achilles accosting Agamemnon quickly gets derailed when Agamemnon threatens to take Achilles' own prize from him (which prompts Achilles to say that his hard work isn't being respected, that he's earned this, that the men themselves agreed to let him have Briseis and Agamemnon doesn't have the right to overturn their communal decision, that he'll take his men and leave if Agamemnon refuses to respect him and the men out there dying on Menelaus' behalf of a plague propagated by his unworthy brother of all people) and how that comes around in Book 21 when Poseidon levies a challenge at Apollo's feet for more or less the same reasons but Apollo flat out refuses to lose sight of his purpose in the war. Even after Artemis herself calls Apollo's pride into question and tells him that if he chickens out of the duel, he better never boast again, Apollo refuses to fight against Poseidon, very staunchly citing that, to the gods, to him, the war is a job, that it is mortals who are emotionally invested in the outcome of this battle and that their squabble is not worth disrespecting his uncle over.

And I love that so much because if any of the gods had a reason to be as petty as possible about this war, it was Apollo. Disregarding how much he adored the royal family, disregarding how much he adored Hector specifically, two of his beloved sons were brutalised by Achilles, the premiere Greek fighter, his temples had been sacked and defiled, his image was being completely disrespected and yet, despite everything, the one line he refused to cross was taking out any of the frustration he was feeling on his family - even if it was the uncle that was openly and frequently disparaging him and antagonising him.

And I just think that's so so neat.

[makotonaegiunderstander]

something I’ve been thinking abt is how many people think Makoto is immune to despair. I don’t think he is. I think becoming the ultimate Hope was BECAUSE he felt despair. He wouldn’t have fully reached that point without Junko. Makoto becoming such a beacon was his last attempt to avoid completely falling and it wasn’t because he didn’t feel despair, it was because he was too damn stubborn to allow everything to go to waste and he refused to sacrifice his beliefs for someone else’s. His inner monologue tells me he DID experience the same new low the other suvivors did in the final trial, but at the point where he had the choice to give up and die, he looked at the others and he looked at Junko and he couldn’t allow it to happen, not out of self preservation, but because the idea that Junko would have control over their lives made him FURIOUS. and that utter refusal to die kicked in, wether luck or otherwise, and he made the concious effort for one last push while something in him was breaking. He had to be broken in order for the Ultimate Hope to come through so aggressively, bc it could only exist in the face of the Ultimate Despair. He snapped the same way she did, but in the other direction. In what could have been his final moments he chose to embody everything Junko wasn’t, and every single optimistic and luck fueled ideal in him suddenly charged forward and pushed him. It was a combination of the final straw and a choice. Makoto isn’t immune to feeling despair, he’s just too stubborn to fall into it of his own volition. I think that’s why I like that scene in DR3 so much. People were SO SHOCKED Makoto actually fell for the tape, that he actually became despair for a moment. I saw people getting mad or disappointed, saying it was pathetic and Makoto seemed to fall from some sort of pedestal for them. Honestly part of me wonders if that sort of mentality, which clearly people had in universe, affected Makoto a bit. Like he started to see himself as less of a person, subconsciously. Prompting him to take more risks, less self preservation, act way more bold. It seems he has to be reminded a lot not to put himself in danger by his friends, to not do something too reckless. All over the place I would see in regards to that scene either this frivolous ‘oh this was just angst drama with no meaning behind it’ or ‘he can do better than that. he’s so weak’ or ‘come on, there’s no way he’d fall into despair, he’s the Ultimate Hope!’ This kind of mentality, which was kind of ironic considering Ryota was there the entire time saying the same thing and treating Makoto the same way. Like Makoto was superhuman. Like Makoto didn’t feel despair the same way ‘normal people’ did. In a way that was also how Munakata saw Makoto. Makoto stopped being a PERSON to the world when he became Ultimate Hope, he became a concept, a belief system, much the same way Junko ascended beyond herself. But the difference is that treating Makoto that way is the opposite of the reason Makoto became such a representative for hope. He wasn’t doing something no one else could. He was doing something everyone had the chance to, he just… was a little more optimistic, a little more stubborn, a little more ‘gung-ho’ about things. He just took the lead where no one else did, where no one else knew they even COULD in the face of Junko’s unstoppable force. She had overcome the biggest threats and obstacles in the world, what could one person do? And the answer Makoto found was, anything. Everything. It doesn’t all rest on Makoto, he’s just the one that was inspired to try to do what seemed like the impossible. But as evidenced by the change in his friends after that trial, it’s clearly not something only Makoto is capable of. The others pulled out of despair thanks to Makoto, but it was their choice to do so.

“But… this world is so huge, and we’re so small. What can we do…? No, we can probably do anything. Yeah! We can do anything!”

[frondere]

thinkin....of frakenstan....stancest...au.....

[fictiongods]

Did I have to write a color poem for my creative writing class? Yes, yes I did. Did I make the entire poem technically about fuffy cause they won’t let me rest? Yes, yes I did.

[carrot-felisidad]

I want MDZS but in Nie Huaisang's POV, with all his art-kid shenanigans and internal evil monologues. The show will become extremely bipolar, because he's looking at his fans in one scene then will become Death Note cinematography the next.

Nie Huaisang, in flower background: Aw what a cute fan, the design depicts a simple field but the coloring process is really complex...

Nie Huaisang, in a sudden black background and he is illuminated in red light ala Light Yagami: ... Complex like my 13-year plan of data gathering and implanting scenarios that will become inevitable events that will ruin my nemesis beyond repair, his mind, his body, and then his soul... Mwahaha mwahahha hahahahahahaha

Nie Huaisang, in sudden blue background as he looks at the sky: I miss Da-ge

NIe Huaisang, in sudden orange comical background: Ah! Time for cultivators' conference and act dumb.

[sugarsweetvirgo]

Eve: Bottling up negative emotions is bad for your health, so you shouldn't do it.

Seto: I know, that's why I bottle up all my emotions, both positive and negative, so it cancels out.

Eve: Th-that's not how that works-

Actually, the two are pretty open with each other.

[kakusboyfriend]

Citrus time.

Decided to redesign his patterns to match Orchard's, and I think they're finally looking Concise ^_^ also, outfit update! The indigo emblem is on his back 💜

[cabeswaterdrowned]

was bored and did this ya books tier ranker … this is like the only ranked like this I’ve seen include individual books from series rather than just the first idk if I like that more or less

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

things that really suck: when a fucked up fictional dynamic is genuinely upsetting to you in a way that'd normally be much easier to engage with and process if you dead doved it, except the ship in question has been ruined for you by Bad Associations so that is a no-go and you're left to deal with the upsetting shit raw. ugh

[lunanoc]

i'm gonna have Things to say about the zhh drama once i'm done watching it in full but at episode 20 and i cannot believe they just spent something like 10 episodes on a bs filler arc only to go "so that happened... anyway moving on" like it didn't just take a sledgehammer to zhang family lore for no reason and took a swing at xiaoge's and wu xie's to some extent character and general dmbj plot continuity while it was at it

[dogearedheart]

🏞🏞🏞

[haunted-xander]

Got hit with sudden xbc3 brainrot and it motivated me to finally make the comic idea I got after completing Alexandrias ascension quest!

[pink-vulpix]

.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

i make jokes like "izaya and shinra both have aspd except izaya hates it and shinra posts gore on reddit" but i think the real crux of the matter is that izaya fundamentally dislikes being on the fringes of society and longs for connection in any way he can get it, while shinra is prefectly content to exist outside of society because of his laser focus onto celty. because even if he doesnt have people, he has something. while izaya has nothing.