#for all my girlies with severe abandonment trauma

[redglittercoffin]

it's killing me to see you go / come on don't leave me like this / some day when you leave me / if you walk away i'd beg you on my knees to stay / help me hold on to you / i'm so terrified of if you ever walk away / i didn't have it in myself to go with grace / one day i'll watch as you're leaving and life will lose all its meaning

[beseeingyouinmydreams]

If I see one more person say Kate & Maya have no blame in this I might scream.

He went to rehab and got out last year sober. She continued to drink around him, go party (spend his money and seek attn every chance she got) tell me how a recovering addict fresh out of rehab is going to resist temptation when the gf is CONSTANTLY DRINKING.

I’m sorry but your partner who you love sooooo much is fresh out of rehab has severe addiction issues tried AGAIN to do rehab( sadly at that point I think he was so far gone, he checked out after two days) and she STILLLLLLL didn’t change up behaviour. Still kept alcohol around still stayed with him, before he got REALLY bad. Then left him in a foreign country with Fckn Roger who clearly had no issues with Liams addictions until he abandoned him drug induced in a (shady)hotel room without alerting authorities. But she left him there knowing the label and management had recently dropped him knowing he clearly was still not ok. I DONT CARE that he was a grown man and made his own decisions. He clearly wasn’t capable of that.

Maya has every hand in this damn situation. She threw the man off a cliff into a pack of fckn rabid wolves ( the Internet) when she reopened the publicity and hate train over her dumb ass book. Nothing anyone says will change my mind on her part in this. Man had lost management and label and she dragged up publicity over a book that had died. Shr wanted him to leave her alone THE MAN WAS SCREAMING FOR HELP. & she couldn’t keep his name out of her mouth. She wanted attn. she had her space to talk about her issues. She did that when it dropped then brought it all back up and brought One D into the mix…. After knowing what one d fans and the internet had done to Liam after fully knowing his mental health and addictions while knowing he wasn’t ok. Girlie straight pushed every button she needed. And when we go back further she’s no better than Kate in terms of alcohol and drugs. Enabled him constantly drinking with and around him, constantly needing to party and get attn. and I’ve seen more than a few times she’s had drug problems as well. But she’s so innocent.

I am utterly sick of people saying he did this himself he chose his actions. NO his past and traumas and the issues and actions of those around him for the last few years did this. He wouldn’t have been in that state had the above not been an issue. Had the people in his every day immediate life for the last so many years been better fckn people and actually cared. His problems didn’t start the day he passed. He in truth had been LONG gone for quite a few months. The fact he was able to get that far gone that soon after rehab, last year is so messed up. He wasn’t alone in this he had “supportive” people every day Roger and Kate his team …. He came out of rehab clean and wanting a fresh start. The people in his life FAILED HIM. His family knowing and trying to help they didn’t live with him to see his every day. They knew and tried to help but when those in youre daily life are failing and enabling you and he was as gone as he’d been for months……

This was all preventable in every single way. I’ll never stop saying it. It was utterly senseless. I’m so angry more than any other emotion. And as heart broken as I am. In some way I’m glad he’s gone. I don’t know that things could’ve gotten any worse than what’s come out but I do know at least now the leeches and fame sucking people he had around him daily can all go to hell and can’t abuse and use him. No one can hurt him anymore. Man’s at peace and that’s more than they’ll ever be.

[sailorrhansol]

One in the Grave | 01

❀ Pairing: Vampire!Vernon x Dhampir!Reader (f) 

❀ Summary: Immortal problems require immortal solutions, but you never expected the unlikely help from a vampire lord and the destruction that might come with it. 

❀ Series Word Count: 8,143

❀ Genre: Supernatural, Dystopian,

❀ Type: Unlikely allies to lovers, slow burn, angst, eventual smut

❀ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

❀ Chapter Warnings: My baby girl has PTSD!!! Very much forgetting where she is sometimes and thinking she’s back in The Bad Place, mentions of past torture and abuse (recalls someone breaking her bones over and over), mentions of mind control/compulsion, mentions of murder, gross ass vampires being killed grossly and sometimes the word choice is icky like did I need to use the word sinew? No but I did. A lot of references to Trauma and Being Traumatized, Jeonghan is funny but also diabolical about said Trauma, lots of blood because this is a vampire fic, fight scenes that idk if they make sense, mentions of disease, like hints of mentions of there being like DiRtY bLoOd classism what else… reader hates herself and it’s Saur Obvious. Reader sort of has an accidental terminator setting when she gets too into fighting and goes Sicko Mode and punches through a vampires chest to rip its heart out idk thats kind graphic

❀ A/N: This chapter took me forever to write because I re-wrote sections so many times, but I'm finally happy with where I ended up. I deviated from my outline almost immediately, but this beginning to this story feels more natural than the original! I am so excited to be writing this and to take you on a very dramatic journey through this vampiric, dystopian world.

A/N 2: Huge thank you to the best beta team a girlie can ask for in @daechwitatamic and @eoieopda because without them, so much of this would not make sense.

❀ Disclaimer: Disclaimer: All members of Seventeen are faces and name claims for stories. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios. Moreover, none of my works accurately reflect, represent or take a stance on the nuances of Korean culture, cities, people etc. Seventeen members are not Seventeen culturally, intellectually, physically, or representationally in my stories, and should be considered name and face stand-ins for made up characters.

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I need not fear the dark. I need not fear the pain. In the dark, I was made. In pain, I become anew. I am the Grim. 

Darkness seeps from the damp walls next to you. The air is foul and wet, leaving a sour taste on your tongue, nearly cloying the back of your throat. There’s no part of the Undercity that isn’t dripping with rot. It clings to your boots as you slip through the tunnels, settling on your skin as you turn a corner.

Water drips in several of the tunnels. You can hear the soft splash as the drops hit the puddles, the only sound in the deep dark. You frown - you know you’re not alone. The underground paths leading to the heart of the Undercity might seem empty, but they are never what they appear to be.

On instinct, you take a left. Even in the dark, you can see the general lay of the land, a complex network of abandoned, vampire-made passageways under the city of Black Harbor. The tunnels go farther than the city walls, stretching beneath the human districts in the Tombstones and ending at random stop points in the Wilds. 

Another left and you’ll be heading east toward the coast. Even the old vampires would lose their way in the tunnels - everything looks and smells the same. You’re not one of them, though, and you’ve learned these tunnels by heart. Could navigate them even without your sharp vision. 

A wet step catches your attention. You stop and crouch low, looking ahead. Dark shapes blend together. Even with enhanced vision, you can only see so far in the Undercity, the general darkness blending together. 

But you can hear. 

Another wet step catches your ears. You close your eyes and focus on the sounds. The steady drip drip drip of the pipes brackets the sound of a soft hissing - not hissing. Sniffing. Scenting.

Without wind in the Undercity, you don’t have to worry about the breeze carrying your scent. Still, the things lurking in the dark, especially recently, are better at smelling the difference between what’s alive and what’s dead. You straddle the line between, but you’re alive enough. 

Slowly, your hand reaches up behind your back, grasping the leather handle of your blade. The scenting stops and you hear a soft grinding sound, like teeth gnashing, followed by slow steps. You pull your blade out the rest of the way, twisting it in your hand and taking a slow, deep breath. 

The steps stop for a moment - and then something is running, the wet slap deafening in the silence of the tunnels. You poise yourself, leaning a little forward, ready to throw your weight into your strike. You’ll need to be fast.

Out of the darkness, a loping humanoid shape appears. The Rabid looks more or less human from a distance, but as it gets closer, you see everything wrong with it: crimson eyes as a result of broken blood vessels, bulging veins as a result of swelling before the host died, rows of serrated teeth, and twitching, dislocated limbs.

Nothing about a Rabid is human. Nothing about a Rabid is really a vampire, either. Though they’re a vampire species, they lack the fundamental ability for cognitive function, and are thus only driven by the need to feed insatiably. 

Human-shaped but twisted by post-mortem metamorphosis, whatever person they used to be before Red Fever infected them and killed them is gone. In the place of what used to be a person is a genderless cryptid with muscular, half-rotted bodies and nails like talons. They’re more bedtime story monsters than they are anything else, and you’re running around their home in the dark. 

The feral hunger works in your favor. The Rabid misses on its first swing as you duck, throwing your weight into your thrust as you plunge the sword through the creature’s abdomen. It screams, striking at you again but you’re already moving, keeping your momentum going as you pull the weapon with you, the sucking sound of the blade pulling from its stomach sickening. 

It isn’t the worst sound you’ve heard, and you don’t let it stop you as you spin on your heel, slicing wickedly at the Rabid’s head. It ducks, though, sensing the attack as it scrambles away from you, curling inward as it bleeds from the middle. The wound won’t kill it, but making them bleed is key.

Blood is imperative to a Rabid’s strength. The more blood they’ve ingested recently, the stronger they are. Severing limbs and damaging the heart that pumps blood through the system - or removing it entirely - is important. 

The creature turns to face you again. You spin the blade, point it toward the Rabid and take a wide stance, one foot forward and one foot backward with your weight centered on the back foot. Any other foe with a thinking, calculating sense would try to assess. The Rabid does not, driving forward again with a snarl, jaw extending beyond a normal human’s with the intention to bite down wherever it can. 

Spinning to the side, your sword arm follows your momentum, coming down hard on the back of the Rabid’s neck. You hear the crack of bone as it cuts, your sword carving easily. The head separates from the rest of the body, thudding against the wet floor of the tunnel. 

There’s no time to worry about burning the body yet. More hisses slither up the tunnel and the wet slap of feet rushing toward you is warning enough that other Rabids have been alerted. 

That’s fine. You step away from the slain beast and face the source of the noise, taking your stance again, muscles coiled, heart pounding as your blood rushes. You feel the adrenaline mount, hitting your system like a high, pulse throbbing, focus narrowing.  

Kill. Kill. 

The impulse is fleeting, there and gone again. You grimace and swallow down the instinct to fall into a blind rage. Using bloodlust to fuel your fighting is a side effect of how you’ve been conditioned and taught - one you’re trying to get rid of. It might make you fight better, but it’s hard to escape the undercurrent of the frenzy once you let it pull you under. 

They charge, hissing and snarling as they go. There is nothing planned or in sync about their attack. Rabids may sometimes linger near one another or nest together, but there’s no pack mentality, no strategy to the way they move. It makes it easy to take them down, but easy to get overwhelmed if there are too many.

Three isn’t bad. You cut through them with concise, sharp movements. Fighting Rabids isn’t like fighting sentient creatures. It’s not a dance, but there is a chopping rhythm to it, a hack and step that feels like a pattern as you go. 

Step step slash. Step step stab. Step step duck. Step step slash. 

When it’s done, sweat beads at the back of your neck. Silence falls in the damp passageways of the Undercity. You stand, hardly winded with your sword dripping in ichor, looking down both of the hallways that bracket you on either side. 

Nothing else comes. 

You flick your sword hand, freeing it from some of the gore before digging into one of your pockets, fishing out a small bottle and cloth. Carefully you uncap the bottle and tilt your blade point down, pommel near your face. You squeeze liquid out over the metal, hearing the hiss as the antiseptic eats at the foul blood on the weapon before stoppering and putting it back in your pocket. 

With delicacy, you wipe the cloth on the flat of the blade, cleaning it. Sheathing the blade, you reach into another pocket, pulling out a small tablet of firestarter. You snap it in half and toss it onto the pile of bodies, flames catching immediately. 

The sudden light makes your vision flash white for just a moment before it adjusts. The darkness hovers at the edge of the light like a hungry, creeping thing. In the firelight, you see the dispatched bodies of the dead, once victims to the virus that killed them and turned them into the mindless, frenzied creatures that lurk in the Undercity tunnels and the Wilds. 

Not even the rats come down here. At least, the uninfected ones don’t. Even a rat makes a good meal for the feral creatures of the Undercity. 

There was a time when you would have fed on the rats in the Undercity. A time you were so hungry, you gave into your primal instincts. A time when you were so hungry for love and approval from your master that you would do - and did - anything for it. Giving into bloodlust when fighting and becoming a mindless tool was easy, back then. 

Fresh air greets you as you climb the rusty, iron ladder to the surface. It’s cold outside, autumn wind stinging the sweat on the back of your neck when you finally pull yourself out of the hole and flip the heavy, metal lid over one of many entrances to the Undercity. 

An empty quad of an abandoned school surrounds you, crumbling brick buildings empty save for rotted furniture and dust, walls blown in and cracked from some skirmish during The Fall. The schoolyard grass is overgrown, brushing against your hips as you begin your routine, movements down to a science. 

First, you pull the bottle of antiseptic out of your pocket and clean your hands before pulling out cleaning supplies from your pack. Then, you pull off all your clothes, cool air making the hair on your arms stand on end. The cold gets worse when you begin to wipe your skin with sticky antiseptic pads, tossing them into a pile on the ground as you go. 

The routine is robotic. Disinfect. Take off your clothes. Disinfect. Put on new clothes. Disinfect. Put old clothes in a bio-safe bag to clean them later and burn the wipes. 

Getting the virus isn’t likely for you, but you never take the chance, especially living in the human districts on the outskirts of the city. Red Fever hasn’t plagued the mortal population in a few years, but a single outbreak could make the community collapse.

And the vampires in the city wouldn’t help. They never do, even as those living under their jurisdiction get picked off by Rabids, vampires undermining the law, and other things lurking in the ruins just outside of Black Harbor. 

No blood tax, no protection.

The sentiment makes you grit your teeth as you watch the antiseptic wipes turn to flames, then to embers, then to ashes. You can smell the fumes fade with the wind, along with the sound of a soft footfall. 

You wheel around, unsheathing the weapon at your feet as you spin, pointing the tip of your blade at the figure behind you. Jeonghan seems unphased, looking down the sharp edge of the sword with a lopsided grin. 

“Sloppy, little sister.”

“Oh fuck you.” Your muscles unclench and you spin the weapon, sheathing it. Jeonghan’s hands are in his pockets, eyes twinkling as he watches you. “What do you want?” 

“I can’t check up on you?”

“Not usually, no.”

Jeonghan doesn’t check up on you. At least, not in the way you imagine normal siblings might. Jeonghan isn’t a normal sibling, though. He’s hardly a sibling at all - you share a bloodsire, not a biological parent. Blood kin would be a more apt term for the familial bond between you.

Still, when you think back on your life, Jeonghan has always been there. Fills the corners of your memories as a steady hand, a vicious thorn in your side, a confidant, an enemy, a rival.

“You like visiting the Undercity these days. Perhaps I, too, am nostalgic.” 

“I don’t visit for nostalgia,” you snap. You strap the sword belt across your chest, the weight against your back a great comfort. “Don’t goad me.” 

Jeonghan looks the same as he always has in the last hundred or some odd years. He’d stopped aging - as most dhampirs do - sometime in his thirties. His round, youthful face, and gentle eyes hide the demon within. Hundreds have fallen prey to Jeonghan’s saccharine smile and false, gentle disposition. 

Wolf in lamb’s clothing. 

“You’re no fun. Junhui is so much nicer to me when I visit.”

“Jun is nice to everyone.” 

“Maybe you should take notes. Your neighbors might like you more.” You pause, looking at him with narrowed eyes. His grin spreads. “You think I don’t know where you live?” 

“What do you want?” 

“I need your assistance.” 

“Doubt it.”

“Not everyone is a monster-slaying machine like you are. Some of us actually take the time to enjoy our freedom.”

Freedom. 

A word you don’t quite understand. You might have gotten rid of the master holding your leash, but her influence is still heavy enough to control everything you do, even now. Freedom doesn’t exist for someone like you. Not really. You’re shackled by your inability to make your own choices, and the only things you’re good at are the things Lilith made you learn. 

I need not fear the dark. I need not fear the pain. In the dark, I was made. In pain, I become anew. I am the Grim. 

Most of your life has been spent in the service of killing your blood mother’s enemies, helping her carve her empire out in the world left over from the destruction of humankind. You’d also helped defeat her, but the absolution of ridding the world of her is not nearly enough to wipe out the long list of foul deeds to your name.

“You don’t have to help me.” Jeonghan’s voice brings you out of your thoughts. “However, I do not like the idea of going into a Rabid nest alone.”

“You want my help with a Rabid nest? Why?”

“There’s something inside of the building that a client needs. Some Rabids happen to have made it a home.”

You study him. He’s dressed in all-black dress pants and a black button-up, an equally black blazer thrown on over it. Jeonghan looks the part of casual elegance, a fine piece of art that is out of place in the middle of the abandoned bones of what was once a school, you think.

“Why me?”

“I need a weapon.” His mouth quirks. “Plus, I like you.”

“No, you don’t.” 

“I do! You’re my favorite sister.” 

“I’m the only sister you have that’s still alive.”

He holds up a finger to present his counterargument. “I killed our last sister but I haven’t killed you. If that’s not favoritism, what is?” 

You walk past him, heading toward Black Harbor. “I want half of whatever you’re being paid.”

“Thirty percent.” 

“Thirty-five.”

“Deal.”

Jeonghan catches up to you easily, hands still tucked into his pockets in that casual way of his. His hair is a little longer than you remember, tucked behind his ears as he smiles, happy to have you onboard for whatever it is he’s roped you into. 

It isn’t the first time he’s sought you out for assistance - especially for killing - and you know it won’t be the last. Of all your blood kin, Jeonghan is the one who keeps in contact with you the most. Junhui might be sweet and fond of you, as is his way, but you’re too volatile for him, made to be loved at a distance. 

None of your siblings love you, though. You don’t think any of the children of Lilith have the ability to love. It was bred out of you early and punished if it tried to crawl back in. Even loyalty to anyone but your master in the Undercity was punished. 

Neither of you asks how the other is. Jeonghan won’t answer you honestly and you suspect he knows exactly how you’ve been. The not-so-retired spymaster has a network of little spiders in his web, scrambling back and forth to feed him information on any number of people. 

You wonder if this is what freedom means to him. After living his entire life in the service of your shared sire, Jeonghan seems to have mastered his destiny, using the skills he was taught to climb the ranks among the vampires of Black Harbor and sit pretty. Still, in a way, he’s reverted to old habits just like you have, buying and selling secrets to keep himself safe like he did in the old days.

Maybe freedom is an illusion. 

The blasted landscape around you doesn’t change as you walk eastward. Nameless buildings and road structures spread out in either direction. Cracked, broken, and decayed is an apt description for most things outside of the city, especially the closer you get to the Wild. 

You turn northeast, heading toward the bridge that leads into Black Harbor. It’s roughly an hour's walk directly into the city from the abandoned schoolyard where you entered the Undercity. It isn’t the only entrance to the underground network, nor is it the closest, but it’s the most reliable and you don’t have to worry about anyone sneaking up on you.

Unless they’re a former resident themself, which are in rare numbers. 

“Where is this Rabid nest?” you ask as the night deepens. The cool air kisses the back of your neck and lifts strands of Jeonghan’s inky hair. Above, the moon is swollen and momentarily hidden behind thick clouds. 

“The old museum right outside the West End.” 

You glance sideways at him. “That museum was an epicenter of outbreaks. No wonder there’s a nest.” 

“Good thing we’re immune then, hmm?”

“We’re not immune, Jeonghan. Resistant and immune aren’t the same thing.” 

He shrugs his shoulders. “I survived the disease for two hundred years in the Undercity. And you have your nice little disinfectant wipes, don’t you?” Jeonghan pauses and looks you up and down, pointing at the ashes of your burnt pile. “Why do you do that, by the way? To protect that fragile little human community you live in?”

Yes, you want to say. Instead, you say nothing at all. Jeonghan might be half-human like you, but he has little empathy for them in general, unlike you. He tends to align himself with whoever he benefits the most from, and the humans have certainly never been in a position to help him out. 

Not that they would. Most humans don’t assign a difference between vampires and dhampir. Your human neighbors might tolerate your presence, but it’s just that - tolerance. As soon as they feel threatened by you, they’ll hire someone to try and kill you, as is the way in the Tombstones.  

Jeonghan scoffs. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your sentiment.”

“Rather auspicious for you, wouldn’t you say brother?” 

He grins but doesn’t respond, tilting his head up toward the sky. 

Gravel crunches beneath your feet. You keep a sweeping gaze on the quiet world around you. Crickets quiet as you pass, waiting until you’re out of range before taking up their song again. When the clouds move away from the moon, the world turns grey. 

Nothing disturbs the two of you on your walk. You spot a feral pack of cats with sharp eyes watching from the long grass. You can sense them assessing you, deciding if you’re prey or predator. They remain in their clutch of darkness. Predator, then. 

Jeonghan doesn’t strike up a conversation again as you walk. Instead of trying to get him to divulge details, you go through what you know about the old museum near the West End. It was a hot spot for breakouts early on during The Fall, and after Black Harbor became a city-state, it remained an issue under the jurisdiction of the Chwe family for years. 

A center of resources, it had been targeted early on as humans tried to build communities and safeholds in a rapidly apocalyptic world. The museum has the space to house the  resources, and protection that people brought to form a community, turning it into a quarantine zone at the very start of The Fall. Any building large enough to house a community center had people flocking to build safe zones, eager to recommission the square footage and walls into quarantined housing and living centers.

And they fell just as quickly. 

Disease has no consideration for isolation, though. Particularly one as contagious and debilitating as Red Fever. In most cases, people killed themselves once they realized they had the fever. Suffering through the hemorrhaging and the madness wasn’t worth the small chance of turning into a vampire post-death, and carriers were too dangerous to be kept alive anyway. Accusations of sickness were as deadly as catching the virus itself. 

The museum still remained a problem even after the collapse of its original community. Humans like to stick to what they know, rebuilding on old ground and trying to salvage what was left before them. Perhaps the human communities there could have flourished if the guard in the West End did anything to keep the Rabids and the rogue bands of vampires from decimating them, but anything outside of the official city limits of Black Harbor was only under the jurisdiction of the Chwe family, not the protection.

Those who wanted to be saved had to pay the blood tax, and most people weren’t even eligible for the blood tax, as picky as the vampires were with their qualifications and standards for clean, safe blood. 

Salt tinged the air as you approached the official demarcation line of the Tombstones. It wasn’t an official name, but there was no point in giving it a real name - it was expendable ground, as far as Lord Chwe and his family were concerned. 

Old, rusted piles of metal were pushed to the edges of the pavement to make way for the few operational vehicles that dared to travel outside of the city, creating the illusion that the road was lined by dead, decayed beetles. 

Sounds from the city drift over the water and toward you. Lights in the distance glitter over the wall, skyscrapers bright against the dark swath of sky. The dichotomy between visions of human destruction and vampiric ascension always strikes you, the discordant images the perfect depiction of your two worlds.

“Why don’t you visit Jun anymore?” Jeonghan’s question catches you off guard. You tear your eyes away from the shimmering city to look at the dhampir next to you. His hands are still tucked in his pocket, the picture of cool and casual. 

“I don’t think he wants me to.” 

Jeonghan frowns. “That seems unlikely.” 

“I assumed I reminded him too much of ho- of the Undercity.” 

“I still think of it as home too, sometimes.” You don’t answer for a moment, unsure where the conversation is leading. Jeonghan is a storm of unpredictability, his desires changing direction with the wind. “Is it because you feel guilty?” 

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who wants my help.”

“I’m in the business of asking questions, little sister. Consider it the desire to see my siblings happy. One seems dead set on never shedding the victimhood of her past and one is too afraid to tell his siblings he’s lonely out of fear of rejection.” 

You ignore the barb. “Good. Loneliness is temporary. He’s better off without me around.”

He makes a sound of disgust. “You were always such a self-righteous wretch. Spare me the I have done evil and should avoid the world speech.” 

“You asked me!” 

“I thought after fifty years you might be less insufferable!” He shoots back, taking his hands out of his pocket to throw them up. “I should have known better. Now come on, if you’re so hellbent on living your life in permanent apology, you can come kill these Rabids for me.”

“I’m insufferable?” 

Irritation shoots through you as Jeonghan speeds up, ignoring your question. The wind is stronger near the coast, ripping at the end of his blazer and lifting his hair. You scowl behind him, fists clenching and aching to punch him in the back of the head.

Jeonghan thinks everything is so easy. You’ve never known him to feel things as trivial as guilt or empathy, able to rationalize his way out of feeling a modicum of responsibility for anything he does. 

So why do you help him? You always find yourself asking the same question every time he appears with a task or to poke at you. The answer, you think, is simple enough: he’s a constant. He was there when you were born, he was there when you were molded, and he was there when you suffered. 

Suffered together. 

Despite the way Jeonghan trivializes your grief, there are few people left in the world who can relate to you. Junhui shares the same past, but you don’t know how to face him. Don’t know how to look the gentlest of your siblings in the eye without feeling like you’re reminding him of everything he’s suffered.

And Jeonghan’s presence is comforting, in a way. The familiarity makes you feel easy, though dealing with him is anything but. 

You don’t know whether he feels the same sense of attachment to you or not. You’re unsure most days whether he sticks his nose in your business for the brief familiarity of it or because he considers you an asset to his growing power. 

The latter is the most likely. 

Wind scatters leaves across the pavement. Ahead, the museum looms like a skeleton bathed grey in the night. Somewhere, metal groans and creaks as it moves in the breeze. It makes you think of a phantom moaning, a shiver sliding down your spine as Jeonghan walks straight for the doors of the building. 

The doors to the museum are shattered. Glass and gravel crack beneath Jeonghan’s feet as he climbs the steps and stops just beyond the entryway, his hands tucked into his pocket as he cranes his neck upward to assess the full scope of the building. 

You pause next to him. You inhale again. You don’t get much of a scent on anything but the ocean air, but it doesn’t mean there’s not something deep in the guts of the building. 

“Well?” you ask, looking at Jeonghan. “Do you know where in this building you need to look? It’s pretty large.” 

“Hall of Human Life.”

“That’s… ironic.”

His grin is beatific. “Shall we?” 

As someone who frequents a variety of abandoned buildings, you’ve always been of the opinion that all empty buildings have the same dead, empty feel to them. You’ve long thought that none was more or less creepy than the others, but now you know you were decidedly incorrect. 

There is something haunting about the museum. Evidence of human life is everywhere as you pass destroyed exhibits on life and science, but also sections you can tell were made for the communities that tried to set up here. 

Sections of the building had been remade to house living quarters and even what appears to be a botanical section. Untended, the plant life has consumed the west end of the building, mostly weeds and unuseful vines stretching their fingers across cracked tiled and concrete. 

Your swordhand flexes, ready to reach behind your back at a moment’s notice. You don’t hear or smell Rabids, but you come across the evidence of them soon enough - scattered bones and human carcasses, rotted blood stains on the floors and steps as you descend deeper into the darkness of the building. 

It’s hard to discern what any of the exhibits used to be. Time and civilization have erased all but the bones of each, leaving you to guess what they are as you pass. You’re about to ask Jeonghan if he has any idea where the Hall of Human Life is when you smell it.

“Blood,” you murmur, hand going to your blade and pulling it silent from the sheath. “East.” 

He glances at you and sniffs. “I don’t smell anything.” 

“You aren’t a trained bloodhound.” 

You’d trust Jeonghan if he were profiling someone and detailing every part of their life, psychology and desires. His skill has always been of a manipulation and information collecting sort, not the hunting and stick-a-knife-in-someone sort. 

He follows you silently, slipping a deadly throwing star from his sleeve. You raise a brow. “I’m surprised you're armed.”

“I’m always armed, little sister.”

The sound of something snapping catches your attention and you hold out your hand, stopping him. Even he knows to obey you here. You listen and hear the sounds of crunching. Something breaking. Chewing, you realize. It is the sound of bones being snapped and the grind of teeth. 

For a second, you’re not in the museum anymore. You’re in a dark room, the snap of bone sharp and loud against your ears. The sensation is worse than the sound, though. You feel the bolt of sharp, uncontrolled pain shoot through your leg from your thigh to your hip. It is agonizing, stopping you from thinking of anything else but the outrageous pulse of pain. 

Your hand shoots to your thigh, feeling the phantom pressure of the foot as it fractures your femur again, the sneered voice telling you to stop your screaming as it steps down again, broken bone stabbing-

Jeonghan’s voice startles you. “You’re not there.”

Glancing to the side, you see Jeonghan watching you. His expression is unreadable, dark eyes pinning you to the place you stand. You realize your hand is hovering over your leg and you swear you feel the ghost of pain from the break. From the sound of the snap. 

You don’t remember Jeonghan being there for that. Lilith had ordered Silas to break your bones over and over again. To make you used to the pain. To rebreak them when they healed. If you were ever captured and tortured, you needed to know pain. It needed to be an old friend, not something that could break you. 

Then again, you’re sure Jeonghan’s been broken too. All of your siblings have known the torture of Silas, the perfect tool of to train Lilith’s children to develop no fear against pain. 

There’s a flicker of kinship with Jeonghan until he mutters, “Experience trauma on your own time. I need you focused.”

Right. You’re here to help him do a job for money, not because you’re spending time together bonding as blood kin. When you really think about it, little adventures full of violence are the way you two often bond, even when you were under the thumb of Lilith. 

Instead of shooting an insult at him, you creep forward, knees slightly bent and ready to spring. He follows you, a lithe shadow as you slip into the darkness.

Blood permeates the air in the underground level of the museum. At the foot of an unlit staircase, you step into a lobby of sorts. There are multiple metal, double doors leading into a room beyond. Over the doorway is a broken sign with missing letters: all man Li. 

You snort and Jeonghan gives you a questioning look. You point toward the letters with your sword and whisper, “All man lie. All men lie.”

“Poetic. I suppose it was once Hall of Human Life.” You nod. “Rather inconvenient.” 

Here, the sounds of multiple mouths chewing on flesh is louder. Wetter. You grimace and hope that the victims were dead long before they were dragged back to be made a meal of. Most Rabids won’t bring food back to a nest, too hungry and eager to eat right when they kill.

Blood is heavy in the air. Jeonghan’s nose flares and you know he smells it too. The scent is sweet like mulled wine with a hint of underlying fruit. Human. They always smelled sweet to you, something about them fragrant. A flicker of hunger burns through you and then is snuffed out. You don’t need blood and you don’t want it, especially with no way of knowing where it’s been or who it's from. 

Getting infected doesn’t matter to Rabids. They’ve already suffered Red Fever and died, turning into  mindless, feral vampires. To you, making sure you don’t contaminate yourself will be important, no matter how high your tolerance to the disease is. 

Jeonghan taps his wrist as though he’s wearing a watch. You hold out a hand to tell him to be patient. You don’t know how many Rabids are on the other side of the doors, but from the grunting and amount of blood you can smell, you think it’s at least five. Maybe more. 

Freshly fed Rabids will be a bitch to fight. You’ve never been inside the Hall of Human Life, but you don’t like the idea of walking into the nest blind and trying to fight without knowing how much space you have to fight. You also don’t want to fight where they have access to blood when they need it. 

You settle on an idea, though you don’t like it much. 

“Do you know what you’re looking for?” He doesn’t answer, side eyeing you. “I just need to know how long you think it will take once you’re in the room.” 

“I know what I’m looking for.” 

“Great. Go hide in that far corner by the bathrooms.”

He frowns. “Why - what are you doing?” 

Without a second thought, you bring your free hand up to the sword and run your palm across it. You barely feel the sting of the cut, watching as the blood pools in your palm, welling up. 

Silence. 

Jeonghan realizes it too, bolting from the foot of the stairs to the dark corner of the lobby and into the bathrooms just as the sound of hissing rises up behind the doors. You take a step backward, foot on the bottom stair as you watch the door. You need the Rabids to frenzy and hunt you  - you should be able to make it to the main lobby or outside, giving you room to fight and -

They burst through the doors. You turn on your heel and jump, clearing the steps easily. They’re snarling behind you, tripping over themselves as they chase after the scent of live, fresh blood. 

You squeeze your fist as you go, making sure to keep them on your trail while you tear through the museum the way you came. It has the desired effect, working up the monsters into a violent mania as they close in on you. 

Looking over your shoulder to see how many of them isn’t an option. You just keep running, nearing the front of the museum as you take a corner, skidding as you go. The front doors are just ahead, the moonlit world just beyond. You pump your legs harder, tearing over the concrete floor.

Just as you vault over the threshold of the door, something hits you from the side. The force is jarring, your teeth snapping together in an explosion of pain as you hit the ground, sword slipping from your grasp. You barely manage to avoid cracking your head on concrete.

Instinct takes over. You thrust a hand forward, catching the Rabid by the throat as it gnashes its teeth at you. The others are at the door now, screaming and howling like a savage pack of wolves. Even dazed, you find the sense to throw your weight against the creature, rolling over and throwing it off of you.

Your attacker hits the steps but scrambles back toward you. It doesn’t matter. You only need a moment to roll and collect your discarded sword, swiveling on a knee as it lurches at you. Steel connects with flesh and severs the head easily. 

There’s no time to celebrate. You dive from the stairs, careful not to stab yourself in the stomach as another Rabid swings a clawed hand at you. Panting, you get to your feet, turning to face them as you skip backward toward the street. 

Ten Rabids fan out on the steps, but they pause their attack. You grip your sword, waiting for them to keep the feral pursuit. Instead, they seem to be waiting for something, swiveling their heads and looking around. 

You don’t like that. Rabids don’t hunt in packs, despite sometimes sharing a nest, and the image of them all hesitating together in sync is alarming. Worse, you realize they’re starting to make sounds, an intonation deep in their throat that almost reminds you of frogs in the rain during summer. Their heads pivot, looking at you and then looking at one another as they softly call to one another like they’re… talking. 

A chill runs through you. You’ve never seen them talk before, and certainly not before attacking. They should be in a blood frenzy, killing each other to get to you, even. 

One of them lets out the loudest shriek you’ve ever heard, your ears ringing. You nearly drop your sword in surprise. You take several steps back, suddenly unsure of your situation. 

The Rabids begin to slink down the steps. As they do, a figure appears on the roof, its shadow dark against the brightness of the moon. For a split second you think it might be Jeonghan, but then it leaps, flying over the heads of the skulking Rabids to land only a few feet away from you.

“What the fuck are you?” you mutter, pointing your sword at it. 

And it is an it. You have no idea what it is. The creature looks like a Rabid. It has blotchy skin where the fever bursted capillaries and blood red eyes, but it stands straighter than Rabids, eerily still, regarding you - and there’s a crude sword at its hip. 

You’ve never seen them carry weapons before - they shouldn’t know how to use them. They were named Rabids because they lack the function of their frontal and parietal lobes, making them lesser vampires that can only operate on base animal instinct, driven entirely by the vampiric nature to consume. 

Rabids communicating is alien enough, but carrying a sword? You have no idea if it knows how to use the weapon, but when it unsheathes the sword and takes a stance, you can’t help but feel a tiny pulse of doubt. It uses that moment to attack, striking forward stiffly as though to gut you. 

At the same time, the non-intelligent Rabids attack. Cursing, you dodge the stab and run, trying to put distance between you. The leader stalks after you, weapon in hand; its gait smoother than the broken movements typical of the species but not exactly fast. 

One of the non-intelligent ones gives chase to your flight, giving in to bloodlust. You face it and sidestep easily, bring your sword down on the back of its neck as you do. It cleaves cleanly, blood spraying upward. Two more of them lose their grip on logic and follow suit, only to join their slain nestmate on the ground.

The leader snarls angrily - not at you but at the other Rabids. They chatter and skitter back, letting the one with the sword take charge again, flanking it like they’ve been chastised. 

You keep your weapon pointed at the leader. They attack together again. This time, you’re ready for it, meeting your opponent’s blow. The ring of metal echoes and you feel the force of the hit vibrate down your arm. You don’t let it stop your momentum, leaning to plant a hard kick in one of the other’s chests.

A rib cage cracks. You don’t stop. You duck under a claw and parry another attack, always moving, always fluid. You dispose of another Rabid before blocking another sword swing.

With a growl, you push your weight into the block, surging against the lead Rabid. It’s not a good swordsman, and though its reflexes are better than its wild counterparts, you shove the lead Rabid several feet away from you, tripping it up and sending it careening. You can’t take the opportunity to finish it off as the non-intelligent Rabids press in. Thankfully one gets too close and you cut through its neck.

Something zings past your head, hitting one of the remaining creatures in the throat. It cuts through easily, the body and head falling in separate directions. You turn around to see Jeonghan on the stairs, silver shurikens flashing in his hands. 

“Your friend has a sword,” he calls, looking at the intelligent Rabid and pointing. “How did it get a sword?” 

“Let me ask,” you call back. Some of the Rabids slink toward your brother, splitting up to fight both threats. “Hey, where did you get the sword?”

The lead Rabid doesn’t answer. “He didn’t say!” you shout back to Jeonghan over your shoulder. “Should I ask in Lilin or-”

The lead Rabid cuts you off as it attacks, swinging blindingly fast, grunting as it does. It manages to strike your ribcage, sword too dull to pierce skin but you feel the rupture of blinding pain as it breaks your ribs. A wild shriek of rage escapes your throat as you stumble away from it, gasping. 

Breathing hurts, the stabbing ache stunning you for a second. The Rabid seems to be satisfied - if they can feel at all - and it enrages you. Better creatures and fighters have never landed a blow on you, and a thoughtless creature catching you off guard is…

Shameful. 

If this were another time, you’d have been beaten for this kind of embarrassment. Letting a less skilled opponent get the jump on you because you were joking is unacceptable. The shame quickly gives way to anger. Anger gives way to wrath. Your shaking hands still suddenly, and you feel your rage center your focus to a needle-thin point. 

You’re no longer in the middle of the street fighting a nest of Rabids. Now, you’re in the cold undertow of something you try to never let out, that you try to keep buried down deep within you. 

Kill kill kill.

Metal meets metal. You barely remember lifting your sword to attack, slamming your weapon down into the lead Rabid’s sword so hard that the beast makes a sound of surprise, dancing away from you a few feet. You stride toward it, undeterred, a vice grip on your weapon as you stalk forward. 

Kill kill kill.

Another blow sends your opponent's sword flying. You don’t follow through with your weapon. Instead, you punch forward with your free hand, barely feeling the crack of bone against bone. You break through muscle and sinew, feel the scrape of ribs as your fist bursts through the lead Rabid’s chest. 

Its heart only pulses for a moment in your hand, throbbing faster than your own heartbeat. The lead Rabid doesn’t move, body frozen as the source needed to pump its blood is suddenly gone. It dies on your arm, the deadweight pulling your limb down as you slide it off of you. 

Kill kill kill.

You turn and see Jeonghan fighting admirably despite being outnumbered. You prowl toward the Rabids, hissing and drawing the attention of the ones closest to you as you go. 

You hate them. You want to destroy them. You want to win and kill and-

One leaps at you and you cleave downward. It isn’t an elegant swing, but it’s efficient and strong. Blood wets your skin and you swing again, hearing metal meet flesh. A high-pitched whining rings in your ears. You taste ichor in your mouth but you don’t care, sliding to a knee as you cut through the leg of a Rabid. It goes down and you follow through with the neck. 

Kill kill kill. 

You hack through its neck again. And again and again and again.

Suddenly the Rabid isn’t a Rabid. It’s a cherub face with red painted lips and sleepy, green eyes. It’s apple cheekbones and pearly fangs. It’s silky auburn hair and the smell of sugar and vanilla. 

Lilith. 

You hack again and again and again. 

Kill kill kill. 

If you don’t kill her, she’ll own you forever. It has to be permanent, but making it permanent is so hard. Her command to spare her burns through you, liquid hell in your veins as she says your name, over and over and over, trying to grip your thoughts and -

Someone shouts your name. 

The memory fades. You aren’t killing Lilith and you aren’t in the palace of the Undercity. You’re not a scared little dhampir trying to claw her way free from mind control. But you are covered in blood and your thoughts are a little hazy as you look up, dazed. 

Jeonghan stands a few feet away from you. Right. Jeonghan. Jeonghan is here with you and you are helping him retrieve something from a Rabid nest. You’re not there, you are here. Above ground. And Lilith’s dead.

“Get up,” Jeonghan mutters through clenched teeth. For a second, you think he’s disgusted with you. That he’s realized how deep your inability to control your fear and memories goes. Then he flicks his eyes toward the city. “The West End guard is here.” 

When you turn toward the city, shocked, you realize Jeonghan is right. Members of the city guard loyal to the Chwe family step into the ring of carnage, all six of them quiet and poised. The one at the point is tall and broad, dark hair swept neatly out of his tan face, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade. You’d think he was handsome if didn’t look like he was going to kill you. 

“Well,” the guard chuckles. “Looks like this Rabid frenzied and killed the rest of them before we got here. That makes this easy.”

It takes a moment for his words to register. To lock in what he means. Rabid. They think you’re a Rabid.

“I’m-” your voice is raw and broken. You heave in air and then gasp when it feels like a knife has slipped between your ribs, remembering they’re broken. You immediately fall into a triage routine, regulating your breathing to ensure none of your breaths are too deep or too often. “Not Rabid.”

The guard at the front unsheathes his sword. It’s beautifully made, and you see the Chwe family crest glint on the hilt. “I know a Rabid when I see one.” 

“Really, Mingyu?” a new voice asks, deep and soft. “Have you ever heard a Rabid speak? Then again, they’re apparently wielding swords.” 

A man steps around the guard - Mingyu - and looks you up and down. He’s made up of midnight - dark hair, darker eyes, dark presence, though his skin is smooth and pale as the moon. His mouth quirks to the side and he tilts his head, watching you with mild interest. A lock of dark hair falls into his eyes.

He’s beautiful. It’s your first thought and you immediately hate him for it. Vampires that look like him know what they look like, and they use it to their full advantage. The Undercity was swimming with ethereal faces and diabolical desires. 

“Dhampirs,” the pretty one muses. “Huh. How fascinating.” 

“A dhampir?” Mingyu asks again, face scrunched up and unsure.

“Use that big nose of yours,” one of the other guards taunts Mingyu. “You can smell the blood.”

“Shut up, Chan. I can’t smell anything but that fucking awful cologne you wear.” 

“My cologne is not awful!”

The pretty vampire glances at his bickering guards and then back to you. “You’ll have to excuse the manners.” His eyes dart to your chest and he looks puzzled. “Your heart is beating too fast for a dhampir. Perhaps you are infected.”  

“She’s broken a fair few of her ribs and her wrist.” You look up in surprise, almost having forgotten Jeognhan was there. He is stone still, face unreadable as his gaze darts back and forth between them all. “She also just killed about eight of those things - bit of an adrenaline junky, this one. I’d like to take her to a blood bank to assist with her healing process, if I may, My Lord.”

He would? How Not-Jeonghan of him. Your realization of him using my lord is delayed, the word choice hitting you as the pretty vampire waves his hand. “We’ve got blood; we can treat her. If you don’t mind, we’d like to ask some questions about… well, this. The offer for treatment is contingent that neither of you are infected, of course.” 

Jeonghan’s expression is tight but he bows his head, posture stiff. “Your timing is auspicious and your kindness a welcome gift. You have our most eternal gratitude. We would be happy to answer questions, Lord Chwe.” 

“Vernon,” the vampire says, gaze flickering back to you and darkening a little. “You can call me Vernon.” 

TAG LIST:

@hipsdofangirl @jacixbliss @chronicfic @jespecially @asyre @todorokiskitten

[marlasomething]

JonDaisy Week D.1 - Somewhere Here P.1: Deep Inside Me Fester Memories

Summary: After turning the world back, only Daisy and Jon manage to survive. Now, together, they will have to learn to let go of their guilt and to grief but also to live.

Relationships: Jonathan “Jon” Sims/Alice “Daisy” Tonner

Prompts: Favourite scene + Second chances (for @jondaisy-week​)

Word count: 476

CW: mentions of death, mentions of trauma, mentions of police brutality

Also on AO3!

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that they had been the only ones to survive and, yet, there they were. After they had managed to turn the world back to what it used to be, everything had imploded around them. Even though the whole point had been to reverse the world to a more mortal version, a version in which the Fears had no place on their own…the transformation on itself was so strong that only someone with inhuman resistance would not become a bulging mess of flesh and bone fragments splattered on the ground.

Daisy and Jon had been the only ones far away enough from their human past-self to not be crushed by the energy wave. And, now, they had to learn to live with this chance that they had given; completely human again.

The first thing they had done, before they had even felt they were able to maintain a conversation without starting to yell at each other or weeping on each other’s shoulders, it had been to decide to move not only out of London, but of the whole island. Their ferry for Ireland parted the following morning and they were doing the ride with the soon to be abandoned car Daisy used to carry around when she was still part of the Force.

At the mere fact of climbing out into the vehicle, Jon froze; he recalled the last time he had been there, when his life almost ended. He could still feel the helplessness poisoning his very soul.

“Jon, ready?” Daisy’s voice is now softer, even if tired, but Jon shivered all the same as he stared at the trees where they had stopped to have lunch (or the joke of a meal their still severely reduced stomachs could handle) and liberate their urinal track.

These were those trees . If he dug deep enough, he would find Mike Crew’s body. He heard Daisy approaching from behind him. She might be overall lighter now, but every dry leaf she stepped on; she had lost all control of her previous stealth.

“Jon…I…” she looked at the ground, guilt covering her scared features. “I know there is no excuse…if you want to go, mourn on your own; or finding others…”

He quickly held her hands, worried.

“I am never forgetting what you did, I might never forgive it either; but you have changed, you have fought the worst inside of you and you are…my best friend. You deserve this chance” he smiled and his lips trembled a bit when he said best friend . A stupid, silly, teenagesque-girly hope was born inside of Daisy.

Then, she recalled again what once had happened in that very same forest and recoiled from Jon’s warm yet bonny touch.

He might be ready to give her a second chance, but she wasn’t there yet.

[nogoawaytism]

RWBY is exactly a sandwich with white bread, mayo, bologna, and American cheese imo.

Jaune I can see being like an inverted trope at the beginning of the series sure, but it's not like the underdog-becomes-a-big-hero trope is anything new, it's been done to death. There's several instances where his friends laugh at him for having a "feminine" trait, which doesn't really make sense considering how Remnant is stated to be very freedom-of-expression. I mean, even if those scenes were intended to be harmless jokes they came off as mean-spirited to me, c'mon guys, don't be mean to your friend! There's nothing wrong with Jaune having a few "girly" interests. And now Jaune is just a stereotype who constantly overshadows the FUCKING MAIN CHARACTERS.

Yang was both a "bubbly bimbo" and someone with insecurities and abandonment issues from the start. You can be both! There is also nothing wrong with Yang having feminine traits, and it's so weird to imply that someone with trauma can't have an outlet to enjoy themselves. Now she's neither, she no longer has these insecurities, and she's not a fun character either. Hey, remember how there was the seeds to this good arc about her PTSD in V4? Oh wait, we never saw that again.

Oh my God, Ruby. I don't know where to go on this topic. The show presents her in vastly two different lights: The one where she is literally perfect and shouldn't change at all, and the one where she isn't allowed to just FEEL about what she's gone through, the loss of her best friend, or the impending doom of the whole world. Stop yelling Ruby, you'll hurt Jaune's feelings! :( And then the whole shite with presenting A SUICIDE ALLEGORY as the way to fix all your problems, ugh. Fun fact: Today in one of my classes my teacher pulled a statistic from 2014- it is estimated that every twelve minutes, one American successfully commits suicide. This is from nearly ten years ago, and I can only imagine that this has gone up thanks to the pandemic. It is INCREDIBLY insensitive to portray a topic like this so flippantly! ESPECIALLY WITHOUT THE PROPER FUCKING WARNINGS. They pulled some similar bullshit with Cameron McCloud in GEN:lock, but that didn't gain nearly as much traction because RWBY has a much bigger fanbase. This is such a horrible message to be sending to anyone, especially teenagers, and I think we have the right to still be angry.

Not to mention that NONE of the other topics that RWBY covers are presented well. We have a terrible racism arc in which it's bad for oppressed people to be rightfully angry and upset because of how terribly they've been treated. We have a terrible arc about a trolley problem with Ironwood where it's bad for someone with heavy PTSD and their entire world crashing down on them to be stressed and upset. Also, Ironwood losing an arm = loss of humanity! Yay!

Oh hey! The company also has a racist and homophobic history, actively houses rapists, and crunches their workers! I bet they're great candidates for writing tough topics with nuance!

Shows, movies, books, games, from all over the world have presented these topics much better! Yet RWBY is the one piece of media that is like a buffet with lots of flavors yes please add, etc. Tell me you have little media exposure without telling me you have little media exposure, imo.

THE BAR IS IN HELL.

Where do I begin on this one...

(sorry for the shit screencaps)

"if you want a bologna, american cheese & mayo sandwich on white bread then rwby ain't for you"; no, rwby is exactly for you because that is the complexity of the writing team behind this show. white bread, cheap bologna & painfully all american cheese who've treated every complex topic in this show with all the tact of a bull in a china shop.

the racism arc, characters disabilities, queer relationships, queer characters, intersections of race & class, intricacies of human relationships & philosophical concepts like the trolly problem — all handled with the grace of a drunk toddler. all spoiled, handled downright offensively, used to perpetuate stereotypes or misconceptions about people in these topics. all while the creators have been virulently racist, queerphobic, exploitative & exposed as such year after year with little change made because their audience will not demand such.

so no, rwby has exactly the audience it deserves. white, bigoted & willing to overlook abuse in order to get their dollar store bologna & plastic american cheese fake anime.

[agent-cupcake]

Hey AC! I love your blog and was wondering if I could get your opinion on something. I've seen some people complaining that Ingrid and Hilda are treated by the fandom, with Ingrid stans saying that Hilda is also racist towards Almyrans (which, granted, she is) but doesn't get nearly as much hate about it as Ingrid does. But personally I feel like their attitudes and the way they react towards Dedue/Cyril are wildly different and Hilda generally seems less hateful/irrational about it. Thoughts?

This is... kind of a touchy topic... I like it though! It’s worth discussing, especially since I feel like it’s broke criticism to simply deflect blame onto a character in order to prop up another.  Full and obvious disclosure: I very much dislike Ingrid and very much love Hilda. That said, I don’t think it’s fair to compare them for the sake of which is worse. I fall into the trap of character criticism through comparison far too often and it's not really valid unless you can fully explore each character in their own right beforehand. Which is why, while writing this, I came to the conclusion that the ways these two characters are interpreted and the reason people view their racist tendencies differently has far more to do with the characters themselves than their actual beliefs.

From first impressions to subsequent playthroughs, this is pretty much how I feel about Ingrid: she brings up her hatred of the Duscur people and Dedue unprompted and uncontested several times at the very beginning of the game, putting it front and center to her character. This is important, it sets a foundational component for how I could come to view her. According to her introduction, she is honorable and respectful, a model lady knight trope. But, as mentioned, she's really racist. Literally standing around thinking about how awful it is that Dimitri would trust a man of Duscur because they are all bad people. Yikes. And nobody calls her on it. Again, this is very important for perception. People judge Sylvain for his bad behavior in a much more harsh way than they do Ingrid for her vitriolic loathing for another classmate who we have seen as nothing but respectful. It's weird. And then, despite the fact that her close friend Sylvain was able to reason out that it’s not possible for the Duscur people to be at fault for the Tragedy, despite the fact that the prince of the country she supposedly hopes to serve with unwavering respect and loyalty has made it clear that he does not believe that Dedue or Duscar are responsible for the Tragedy, and despite the fact that Dimitri, her close friend and the one most affected by the Tragedy (seriously, she lost a guy she might have married and he lost his best friend, mother, and watched his father be killed in front of his eyes) continuously insists that neither Dedue nor Duscur are at fault, she loudly and openly believes that the ensuing massacre of Duscur was deserved and Dedue is inherently culpable simply because of his race. Her motivations for this hatred feel even more cheap considering her dogged hero worship for Glenn was born out of the fact that she was promised to him, making the fact that she’d use his death as reason enough for the destruction of countless innocent lives even more unsympathetic in my eyes. I mean, seriously, she was around 13 and he was older than her, how close could they have truly been? Dimitri says they were in love, but she was a child. Abandoning my modern sensibilities about age of consent or whatever, kids at that age don't have the emotional or mental capability. Maybe this is just nitpicking, but I have a very hard time caring about that relationship. But, if her actual justification is because of what happened to Faerghus as a result of the Tragedy and feels duty-bound as a knight to find justice through the systematic destruction of the Duscur people, then it just circles back to confusion considering the future leader of said country doesn't hold Duscur or Dedue responsible. The importance of perception comes in because despite these paper thin excuses and her seemingly willfully ignorant hatred, she is never challenged on her racist beliefs. The reason she seems to change her mind about Dedue and consider that maybe excusing a genocide is wrong stems from guilt that Dedue continuously comes to her aid in battle at the potential cost of his own life. I can understand, to a certain extent, why she might feel the way she does. But, again, I have such a hard time with any justification when nobody that she's close to is even nearly as hateful as her, there is plenty of evidence (evidence that the people close to her have found!) to provide a very reasonable counterclaim to Duscur's guilt, and that none of that even matters when it would require her to openly contradict the prince of her country to make the claim that Dedue was in any way complicit in the Tragedy. Which would be fine if she wasn't established as the model Lady Knight archetype, which also brings us into Ingrid's moral high horse. Admittedly, I hate the Lady Knight trope. I have a significant bias against these types of characters. However, I really do think that this moral crusade is where she lost me completely. Without even a shred of empathy or self awareness, she lectures Sylvain about his shitty behavior even though their circumstances are at least somewhat similar and he has his reasons (bad ones, maybe, but ones worth understanding if she actually cares about him), she lectures Felix about not being interested in knightly endeavors (an aspect of his character that is born of the trauma she has appropriated), and she lectures Claude about behavior that is befitting of a man in his position. Not because she cares about the girls Sylvain is hurting, not because she thinks there are any grave stakes from Felix choosing to do his own thing, and not because she knows that Claude's behavior affects his ability to lead, but because she doesn't like these behaviors and thinks they should be fixed. Yet, at the same time, she believes Dedue deserved to lose his family, country, and culture based on his birth and nobody ever does anything to morally correct her, it is something she eventually is forced to acknowledge on her own. It's frustrating, infuriating even, that the game lets her get away with being so grossly hypocritical. And, all the while, she is being painted as sympathetic. Again, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for her about Glenn, and I certainty don't feel sympathetic towards her issues about marriage because there's never any actual tension there. Of course she won't be forced to marry, she's a Lady Knight. Beyond being unsympathetic, I also find her massively unlikable. Awful design, poor voice direction, food-loving-as-a-personality-trait, the fact that she's written as one of those stock "feminist" characters who hate makeup and girly things until it benefits them, and constantly butting in on other characters to give her opinion without taking any criticism herself are all aspects that I just personally dislike. Ultimately, Ingrid being racist is only a symptom of the many reasons her character is one of my least favorites. Most of these points can be countered by someone who doesn't take issue with the things that annoy me and to point out that Ingrid DOES get over her racist beliefs. It's not fair to say that she doesn't change but, for me, the damage was already done by the time she became tolerable so I still have a hard time appreciating her. My assumption would be that there are a lot of other people who feel similarly to me regarding their dislike of Ingrid so they focus on one easy character flaw, her being racist at the beginning of the game, as a reason to validate their dislike of her overall.

On the other hand, Hilda's racism isn't a main trait of her character. It's related to her overarching character flaws, but she doesn't bring it up unprompted and can actually be pretty much missed without the Cyrill supports. Like you said, Hilda does seem less hateful and irrational, it doesn't take willful malice and an active rejection of reason for Hilda to dislike the Almyrans, they pose a genuine and provable threat to her family and territory, seemingly senselessly testing the borders and throwing away lives for the sake of conquest. To be clear, her "you're not like those OTHER Almyrans" schtick is legitimately nasty. Her behavior is gross and condescending and it really underscores the fact that Hilda is ignorant, lazy, inconsiderate, and incredibly comfortable in her privilege. She accepts what she's been told at face value because she's too lazy to look into it further. Cyrill does tell her she's stupid to think that way, though. Which is satisfying because Hilda in those supports is insufferable, it really highlights the worst aspects of her character, dismissive, manipulative, and very selfish. However, for me, she's also very likeable. I'm not interested in going over my opinions on her like I did with Ingrid as I don’t feel it’s as important to my point but a few reasons I really like her is because I think Hilda has a fantastic design, cute supports, amazing voice work, and is secretly sweet in a way that absolutely tickles my fancy. I am sure many people do not agree with me, which is fine. Additionally, just as Ingrid grows out of her racist beliefs, so does Hilda. They both end the game as more tolerant and caring people. Still, for the same reason a person could argue that Ingrid is actually great and I'm being unfair, they could argue that Hilda is terrible and I'm too biased. That's fair and true..... but I think the fact that Hilda is more generally appealing in conjunction with the less obvious nature of her racist attitude makes people less likely to dismiss her as a racist in the same way they do Ingrid. Unless they dislike Hilda, in which case, it’s all fair game.

Anyyyways, a main takeaway from this is that I highly doubt people are truly arguing on the individual basis of who's more racist, but that they're engaging in the age old waifu war. As with many characters in this game, it's easier to argue moral superiority when you can't quite articulate what you like or don't like about a character. Or, even worse, when you're arguing opinion. Even now, as is clear by reading this, I am arguing my opinion of why I don't like Ingrid. Not because she's racist, but because of the character traits and writing choices that make her unlikable to me. I like Hilda because, flaws and all, I find her to be compelling and enjoyable. From the people that I know, at least, that is basically how the Ingrid stans v Hilda racism argument is structured, even if they dress it up in different language.

By the by Hilda never talks about how the Almyrans deserve to be wiped out. I think that probably sours a lot of people's opinions of Ingrid no matter what happened afterward but that’s fine we can just pretend that didn’t happen

[leesuhyo]

Let’s talk about trauma.

(TW for trauma, obviously) 

My parents always tell me how I was a quirky and cheerful child when I was little. Now the quirkiness is only there when I fake it. 

I started school at the age of three. Kindergarten was fun, people there was okay. Sometimes they were mean, but it’s fine. I was happy. My teachers were nice.

Timeskip to primary school at six. Initially, I thought people would be the same, since it was the same school and all of my kindergarten friends were there. I thought the teachers would be nice.

They were not. 

You learn quickly to not step out of line, because there would be consequences. If you even whisper in the corridors after assembly, detention for you. If you were even late to school for a minute, you stand next to the stairwell where the whole school gets to look at who is late, even though most people don’t. If you made a mistake, the teacher stands you outside the staffroom, and yells so loudly people in the upper and lower floors could hear. 

Public humiliation was the most common form of punishment. It wasn’t encouraged, but girls can be mean at that age. Gradually peer pressure usually sets the norm. 

If you don’t have a ‘friend group’ you’re weird. 

Soon you learn to avert people’s eyes, even if they don’t have ill intentions. 

You learn to jump whenever a teacher walks too close to you while lining up, because they scrutinise you, and drag whoever’s talking out and give them a severe scolding. 

You learn to run to school, desperately trying not to be late because even if you were late due to traffic, you were still punished 

You learn to fit into the norms, painfully, because your peers laugh at you if you don’t.

 You learn to mistake even light-hearted teasing as scolding, because it usually starts that way. They ask you a rhetoric question, and it spirals into yelling. 

You learn. 

And that’s how the trauma sets in.

Secondary school at twelve. Pretty much nothing changed, except there is more homework, and more classes. More teachers to take note of, who to avoid and who to curry favour with. You learn to manipulate teachers to your favour, until you’re their favourite student. Even though you hate their subject. 

You then learn more about the world. But not the right way, because this is a Catholic school. You learn that homosexuality is a sin. That mental illnesses exist, but they’re bad. That the internet is dangerous. That swearing is bad. And so on.

You also learn that boys are weird, because this was a girl’s school and there were no men, except for male teachers. Your classmates say all sorts of strange things about boys. They’re weird, but they’re cute. Going to after-school tutorial classes with students from that boys’ school down that road makes you feel weird, and you feel instinctively defensive despite them not looking at you. 

Sixteen. First year of public exams. You sleep at 2am, drag yourself out of bed at 7am to arrive at school at 8am. You’re tired all the time, but your peers are tired all the time too. I slept at 1am. Oh yeah? Well I slept at 2am. The continued toxic cycle of bad habits. 

The only source of happiness around you comes from your favourite singer, because back then you’re struggling to find friends after your best friend transferred schools due to her depression. You try to write down a list of reasons of why you liked him to remember how to feel. Ew, what are you doing? 100 reasons why I like ____? That’s so creepy. You stay silent, turn a new page, and continue writing stories to drown out the maths lecture going on. 

You start healing a little when you were sixteen. You start to get angry at social issues, and managed to find your own group of misfits who doesn’t want to follow the norm. You start to feel at home at your drama group, where you applied for, out of a leap of faith. 

Do you want to study overseas? 

Seventeen. Your mother suggested for you to study overseas, and you don’t want to, because you only just found your friends. But you don’t have a choice, because your old school doesn’t have the only subject you’re good at. You found out later through a scolding in the corridor by the headmistress that in fact, they did have that subject after you applied for it, and you’re a traitor for ‘betraying the school’s trust’. 

Seventeen. You start studying at a new school in another country twelve hours’ flight from home, a new environment. And you’re panicking because you had arrived two weeks late and everyone has friends. You throw yourself into your schoolwork to distract yourself from the creeping depression, and stay close to the teachers. You avoid your classmates, girls who seemed so much confident of themselves and boys. Suddenly your determined plan to make a new role for yourself seem insignificant. 

And then one of the girls started approaching you. You feel wary because your past experience taught you girls cannot be trusted. But she was friendly, and you decided to get a little closer. Nonetheless, your only trusted figure is your house parent, who is so kind as to stay behind every night to listen to your crying and ranting. 

Halfway through the year. Your older cousin, an established and popular prefect at the school, became one of your topic starters and you decided to let your guard down a little. You’re still wary of the group of girls who were first introduced to you though, because they wear makeup, they were interested in fashion, they were girly and popular, people your past experience had taught not to associate with. 

(You also learn that the teachers are nice. They aren’t strict authority figures, and were bewildered why you didn’t go to them for help when you needed it, because you learnt to keep quiet and just power your way through things. You slowly learn to stop flinching at a raised voice, and even found your teachers for insignificant things. Staying behind to talk about his favourite book, for example.) 

Christmas came, and you became reluctant to leave the school to your parents. After Christmas break though, you were reluctant to go back to the school because you had no friends. Nonetheless you went back, and made new friends in the year above you. You slowly grow back into the community and even laughed with your new friends. 

And then your house parent told you she’s changing jobs. You cried a lot, but she promised to write. She tells you to seek out one of the school nurses. You did. To this day she’s still your confidant. 

Then coronavirus struck. Your closest friend decided not to go back, because her parents were afraid of her staying in a high-risk country. You throw yourself into prepping for your university applications, because that’s the only goal in front of you now. 

It was announced prefects were being chosen. In your old school leadership positions were widely sought after and considered a badge of honour, so you try to take on as many as possible. The teachers told you it was a bad idea, but you did it anyways. It was only later you realised, the responsibility attached was more than the honour it gives. 

(You weren’t chosen for prefect, but it was okay. The teacher was biased anyways)

September 2020. Coronavirus is still an issue, but you decided to go back to school. You were still afraid, but you had friends ( - acquaintances, really) and a few valuable leadership positions that gives you a purpose. You steel yourself anyways, because the dormitory you were about to move into don’t have any of your old friends. 

October 2020. You have new friends. You managed to piece your life together, and for the first time, you actually have a decent social life. But beneath the facade, you’re still afraid. You’re still nervous. You’re still afraid of getting close to people, because what if they abandon you?  

But it didn’t matter. You’re healing. 

[teabooksandsweets]

Just to clarify a few things regarding my own stance on current and general discussion in the Narnia fandom: (I have said some of this before)

I am excited about the upcoming Netflix adaptation, glad it will be completely independent from prior adaptations, and - until I have reason to do otherwise - expect the best of it.

There is no such thing as “forced diversity”. If anything, a lack of diversity is the only forced (and unrealistic) thing, and all these “fandom confessions” insisting historical accuracy (do you seriously believe that?) or accuracy to the books (you are fine with Lucy being played by a brunette even though she is stated to be blond - why does Lucy have to be white then?) are tiring.

The only thing that would bother me (regarding “agendas”) are either a Narnia that is not Christian, but conservatively Christian and complete distortion of the themes and values Lewis actually included, or a secular Narnia, to fix that complete distortion of the themes and values Lewis included that some people read into the books. Anyway, I don’t even think either will happen, so I’m good.

In fact – Lewis approach to Christianity, and the themes he included, are controversial and wonderful, especially the end of LB, and the story of Emeth.

I don’t think Lewis was sexist in the least, and I will not go away from that stance no matter what comments my posts on this matter get. Also: every single female character - hero or villain, main or side character - is a wonderfully written, complex individual with more life and amazingness (or badness - in the "good writing” sense) to her than many so-called “strong female characters”. And they are delightfully different from one another, too, with no “good kind of girl” or “bad kind of girl” pushed into it.

Susan was never kicked out of Narnia, she stopped believing in Narnia, stopped believing in her own memories. We don’t know if she actually stopped believing in a “normal” religious sense or not, and we don’t know if she stopped believing in Narnia because of some sort of trauma or not. All of this is interesting and worth exploring, but not definite canon. We don’t even know if, in a way, she tried to do what Aslan told her or if she just brushed off Narnia entirely. What we do know is she stopped believing, thought Narnia to be a game.

She was also not “kicked out” for materialism. However, since an earlier statement of myself could be misunderstood (due to my bad phrasing) that I think she abandoned Narnia for materialism: I do not. What I meant is only that “nylons and lipsticks and invitations” were meant to be material/materialist things rather than sexual things in it their nature. I don’t, however, think they play a great role in Susan’s lack of faith at all.

I also don't think Lewis was sexist for writing this. And I don't think Jill said so because she “hates girly girls” or has a “not like other girls” attitude – we sadly don't know anything about the years between SC and LB and about the relationship Jill had to the Pevensies. Jill probably was – at least partly, considering she seems to have a similar background to Eustace – raised and taught to think like that, but didn't on her own, and I think what she said about Susan was merely her failing to understand what made Susan loose her faith in Narnia, combied with her personal observations of Susan. It wasn't the nicest thing to say, but the amount of hate she gets for this one line is unproportional and unfair.

It's actually shocking that some people actually think the Scrubbs were actually really cool and Lewis just treated them unfairly. The Scrubbs didn't even believe in their own values and views, while at the same time they were never even stated to be in any way bad. Some people are really like “oooh Lewis was such an evil Christian he taught children that not smoking is bad.” No. That’s not what it’s about.

Also, know, Lewis didn't complain that the Scrubbs sent their son to a school were he wasn't abused. He mentioned that Eustace didn't get spanked at school (and didn't say that that was bad) and he complained, that the Scrubbs did send their son to a school were several children were abused by other children, with support by the teachers, and if you researched the tiniest bit about Lewis' own experience in boarding school, then the extent of what was implied to have happened in Experiment House will make you seriously rethink your approval of the Scrubbs – and especially that place!

It's a shame that the word “Pevensiecest” even exists.

Puddleglum is one of the most important, most powerful, most wonderful characters in the world of Narnia and in fiction in general.

The Christian themes in Narnia can not be seperated from the books, but at the same time, Narnia is not only for Christians. These two facts are not opposites! Lewis' approach to Christianity makes them actually depend on each other. (They are also not propaganda!)

[selfshippinglover2222]

Ocs for my Main f\os

You guys can request which one I use during asks-I’ll oblige.

The main one I write with is Emilia Harima-Nickname Emi.

She looks like this Picrew: https://picrew.me/image_maker/43383-Only imagine a scar over the right side of her forehead over her eye down to her chin, and past her lips in a scarred mock smile.

Shes 5′3 with light blue eyes and a heavy lower lip shape. Her hair is blond and curly-As well as cut to be just around her midneck (Couldnt make the picture have it the right length).   Her chest is rather small chest size but a fuller bottom. Its not overly so-However she does have a small amount of pride for it.

Emi is known to be a humorous girl. To most people she is a teasing and lighthearted girl-Openly Bisexual and flirts with any attractive man\woman she comes across.

However once she is dating someone-She is loyal and overly protective to a fault. She will defend her partner even when they are in the wrong and will go as far as to physically attack the offender if she feels it is necessary. 

Her past is dark-And it differs from which ever universe you are to put her in. She is not necessarily haunted by it-But it does leave its mental and emotional scars.

Emi is known to cruse and speak in shortened wordings (’cause, gonna, wanna) and is usually very informal-However she does show respect to certain people-Those she admires she will be very formal to.

A  rough fighter-She usually will use her physical strength and anything she can find nearby as a weapon when she fights. She doesnt care about pain-it doesnt really effect her at all.

Emi can get sadistic if she lets herself-She may not even show much care afterwards. But she usually tries to let it be under control-For shes trying to move past it.

Emi has a tendency of letting her emotions rule over her head-So if she gets angry at someone she may call them out of their bullshit is a brutally honest manor.

Dont ever allow her to cook-She will burn it, ruin it, or freeze it somehow. The worst cook you’ll ever meet.

She absolutely hates any sort of girly clothing and makeup-its a trigger for her. She cant stand wearing it and it will cause all sorts of trauma for her if you force it on her.

So normally she wears mens clothing or large hoodies.

A cat is very similar thing-Its also a big issue for her to see one in long terms. However despite this-People tend to say she has cat like tendencies because  of her mischievous nature and playful personality. 

Due to circumstances of her past-She has sever Aquaphobia (The phobia of Water). It causes her to freeze up and have cases of a anxiety attack. Because of this she avoids any body of water-Including bathtubs. She has poor hygiene because of this.

She is holding a blue rose simply because blue is the color I associate with her!

Akio\Manami is a newer character so I havnt gotten the hang of her yet-So I may be less frequint in writing her alone:

Manami\Akio is a 4′9 tan skinned girl. She has a normal chest size-Nothing out of the ordinary and normal body. Long silver hair, that is pulled into high pigtails and  dark green eyes.  Her lips are full and she had little freakles littered across her face and shoulders. (Couldnt get it in picture sadly.) Her eyesight is horrible and she wears half rimmed black glasses.

She is someone who has Multiple Personality Disorder-And the two personalities clash with one another very much.

Akio is very shy and extremely anxious around other people. Often times she’ll cling to one person and hide behind the ‘safety blanket’ she has in them. Not very social and prefers quiet places she is known to be a loner.

Places that are to loud often scare her-And people that are to touchy and get in her personal bubble intimidate her.

However she does have a more dark-side (as all my Ocs do)-She is creepily perceptive and can easily tell what your feeling or where your weaknesses lay. She will mentally write everything down and never forget it-Just in case its needed for later. (And if push comes to shove she will use it with a creepily innocent air around her)

She is also not afraid to get physical-However she is more into katanas with precise aim-and poisons.

Akio-despite her abilities-is also very naive and wont understand it if someone was to flirt with her-Taking it either to litteral or not getting it at all.

Her nievity extends to most other areas of her life-Including cooking and relationships with people.

Her cooking skills are questionable but not nearly as bad as Emis-She just doesnt understand what to do with most of the cooking tools. 

Manami on the other hand is loud and easily angered. She is not above making rude remarks if she has too-And is feircly protective over anybody in her friend circle.

It takes a lot to get her to open up-And she will try to push you away. But once you do she is caring and very sisterly. 

Manami will probably keep her loved ones wants and needs in her mind for most of the decisions she makes that would somehow effect them. But would never admit it-She would deny it with all she has.

Would protect you with her life-She has 0 cares about her own safety when if comes down to yours.

While Akio would normally take the role of the ‘protected’ Manami takes the role of the ‘protector’. 

Her harshness may cause friction with certain people however-And she wont care one bit.

Manami-Like Akio-is partial to blades. However poisen is a 50\50 chance for her to use.

Also Manamis humor is very sarcastic and almost dry-Although she can have a mischievous side if she is with the right person.

Manami and Akio both wear traditionally feminine cloathing.

They co-exist with each other pretty fine. Manami considers Akio a part of her-Her only perminate friend. And Akio seems to find comfort and safty from Manami.

Both will take over if they feel the other needs it.

Akio has Autophobia due to the past she and Manami share-And will have a sever physical reaction if she feels she will be abandoned. (The phobia of being abandoned)

I picture both Manami and Akio as Demisexual and Romantic-So it will take a strong emotional bond to make her want to do any sort of romance with you as well as sexual acts.