#having said i would disappear i have things to dislodge from my drafts

[joys-of-everyday]

SJ and the Pitfalls of Toxic Masculinity

Liking women wasn’t shameful in the least, but treating a woman as your savior, shrinking into her embrace in search of self-confidence—Shen Qingqiu needed no one to tell him how incredibly shameful that was. So he would rather die than tell anyone, particularly not Yue Qingyuan.

- Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu Extra

Hot take: og!SQQ had toxic ideas about masculinity, and it ruined him.

SVSSS is all about the ✨Toxic Masculinity✨ but this seems to be more associated with SY than SJ??? So yeah, lets talk about SJ (my poor meow meow).

There’s actually some subtlety here, because talking about SJ and masculinity naturally involves an interplay between historical and modern views on masculinity in China, which is something that has developed over time and has influences from other cultures (e.g. the west and our views on masculinity). (Interesting thing if you haven't already come across it) I am… not qualified to read the subtleties here.

To note, SJ is coded as masculine… sort of. He’s the head of the scholarly peak, a master of the Four Arts, which is one facet of ideal masculinity in traditional Chinese values. (Fluttering a fan around was very gentleman-like. Although also, expressing your emotions through poetry and copious amounts of tears was very masculine back in the day. 'Traditional masculinity' has and always will be an elusive ideal.) But I get the feeling nowadays ‘scholarly’ has more feminine connotations than ‘martial’, albeit a slightly weaker one than in the west. Also, on the topic of toxic masculinity, certain groups of people Who Shall Not Be Named would like you to believe that Real Chinese Men are stoic warriors and ‘gayness is a western thing’ (my rage is unreal but we will not talk about that).

Anyway, broad strokes, broad strokes.

Arrogance and Insecurity

A big part of toxic masculinity is a need for social recognition, to be the ‘alpha male’ (not an ABO pun and on a side note I literally cannot take anyone talking about alpha males seriously now, for many reasons, but this is the funniest).

SJ is obsessed with his cultivation, but more pertinently, he is obsessed with his reputation. He demonstrates this in a few ways. Firstly, he works his ass off, which is not bad in itself, but he does this to the extent it is detrimental to his health (that grindset lol). Secondly, he projects a certain image with his actions and mannerisms: reading in order to seem intelligent, looking down at people to seem superior etc. Thirdly, he responds to any perceived slights of his ability with violence. (Fighting with LQG is an example, but also drawing a sword on SQH when he pointed out that he was reading an upside-down book.)

Now interestingly, the unanimous vibe that Cang Qiong seem to get from SQQ is that he is ‘arrogant’. When in truth, all of this is compensating for his insecurity.

Shen Qingqiu was overly suspicious, always feeling as if everyone was talking behind his back about how he was still incapable of forming a core, didn’t accept his position, wanted to sabotage him in secret, and so on and so forth.

- Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu Extra

Sadly, SJ is justified in being afraid of other people’s opinion. His comfort and security rely entirely on his status, which in turn rely on other people’s opinion of his competence. Of course he wants to get to the top – he’s been under other people’s power before, and suffered terribly as a result. Why should he not desperately defend what he has worked so hard for? Yet ultimately it works against him, because when he’s in serious trouble, he hasn’t been able to build the human connections he needs to get help.

The problem is with the system. The idea that having strength allows you to do whatever you want hurts not only the people regarded as inferior, but also creates a collective sense of anxiety for those who find themselves ‘at the top’. Anyone can be kicked down and treated like scum. Everyone is afraid.

Dominance and Bullying

The phrase ‘toxic masculinity is fragile’ quite often, but to elaborate, these kinds of rigid ideas of masculinity are by nature constantly under threat. Because any crack in the perfect shell is regarded as failure, it requires constant, aggressive maintenance, which takes the form of bullying the weak in order to elevate oneself.

SJ’s treatment of LBH is complicated, but here I want to draw attention to a different character – Ming Fan.

SQQ (SY) would have you know that MF is not a bad kid, other than the fact he’s a huge bully to LBH. And in part that comes from jealousy of NYY’s crush on him, but what allows it to happen is the way SJ runs the peak. It's interesting to note that so much of SJ's bullying of LBH happens through MF, whether it be giving him the faulty cultivation manual, giving him chores or physically assaulting him. In doing this, SJ creates a system that firmly establishes himself at the top, likely in order to give himself some semblance of security.

But ironically, this is the very system that SJ has suffered under his entire life, recreated to it's extreme on the peak that he controls. When he was completely under the power of others (QJL, LBH) he suffered. When other people were under his power, he inflicted suffering. He encouraged other people to do the same. Again, the whole thing is a scam! He is putting all of his energy into things that aren't helping him, things that ultimately bring him down.

Real Men Don’t Cry – the Dangers of Emotional Repression

SJ has many, very justifiable reasons in life to be upset and angry. The things he went through are both terrible and extremely unfair. Being angry at everything is not a healthy outlet for these feelings, but he hasn’t exactly been taught an alternative either. On the streets, tears would have gotten him absolutely nothing. Anger at least gave him energy to fight back.

And this destroys him. He is angry at the fact he had no one in his life who loved him, his talents were wasted because of QJL/WYZ, nobody takes his abilities seriously… and with no healthy way of expressing this, he goes onto bully LBH. LBH then returns to destroy him, literally. More subtly, he is unable to express his fear and anxiety in healthy ways, so acts standoff-ish and aggressive to his those around him. As his relationship with them deteriorates, his fear and anxiety increases. Feedback loops.

SJ puts on a mask of anger and stoicism to the point that everyone around him (including himself) is convinced that he is unrepentant and evil. Suppresses and suppresses until it breaks him, until he has nothing – not his comfort, nor status, nor the one that he truly cared for:

He had single-handedly facilitated Luo Binghe’s today, and now who had single-handedly created this outcome for him? Yue Qingyuan was never supposed to have an end like this. In order to come to a decades-late appointment, to fulfill a completely useless promise. A broken sword and a dead man. It shouldn’t be like this.

A Note on Ambivalent Sexism

It’s funny because I think there’s a fandom vibe that SJ was the secret feminist of SVSSS. Don’t get me wrong, I love this in fanfics. Badass feminist SJ all the way. But my honest opinion is that I don’t think that was the case.

More explicitly, I don’t think SJ took women seriously. NYY, for example. Certainly, SJ valued NYY. But the expression of this care involved doting on her, hiding his treatment of LBH from her, and not particularly pushing her to grow. And PIDW!NYY wasn’t implied to be the most mature of the lot. Okay, while we don’t know a lot about PIDW!NYY (narrator unreliable), it’s probably safe to say some distance from SJ helped her a lot.

Another point – the Qiu massacre. SJ killed the men, but not the women. And while this says more about his distaste for men, it also indicates (possibly - I will float this idea but I won't die on this hill) that he straight up doesn’t see any woman as an enemy, or capable of being a threat. Which is possibly a natural conclusion he’s drawn from his experiences (QHT was not very perceptive, or very threatening) but also inaccurate as a worldview.

And his attitude towards the women he sees as saviours? Has the same vibe as ‘it’s so embarrassing to be protected by a girl’.

Okay, so being doted on and not being killed are positives compared to being abused or murdered, but this kind of attitude is the opposite side of the same coin to ‘women are incompetent and inferior’. And when it comes to raising kids, not allowing them to grow can be extremely harmful as well. See e.g. Ambivalent sexism.

Although I do want to mention that I do not think SJ was like… actively misogynistic. I think he genuinely liked women more than men. The point is you can be sexist without realising it.

Conclusions

To conclude, SJ had ideas of success and self-worth associated with toxic masculinity which were instrumental in his downfall.

Masculinity doesn’t have to be toxic. While the Cang Qiong family aren’t exactly the healthiest bunch, YQY’s calm and patient leadership, LQG’s steadfast loyalty, LBH’s ability to cry like a maiden and still be the strongest… these are all traditionally masculine traits that can be very positive. These are also people who can have feminine traits and explore their gender identity without being prissy or weak.

It's the great tragedy of SJ that he had many positive characteristics. He was talented, intelligent, articulate, perceptive, loyal, and caring… under the right circumstances, he could have grown into a great person.

And maybe he still had that chance, right until the end.

[snazzy-suit]

Fool Me Once, Fool Me Thrice Chapter 7.4 Deleted Scenes

Oh hey it’s a thing! Some of y’all showed interest in seeing the deleted stuff I mentioned, so I’m posting ‘em as promised. If you haven’t read part 4, I highly recommend you do that first.

These were all cut pretty early, so they didn’t get any revision. In other words: they be rough af. Enjoy!

===

“Plunger Scene”

I hadn’t originally planned for King Boo to land a successful hit on Luigi. In fact, it had been the other way around. As I said in the notes of part 4, I was going to have Luigi throw King Boo with the Plunger Shot, but ultimately got rid of it because it just didn’t feel right (and I didn’t think Hellen would sit quietly by and watch her idol get smacked around).

For kicks, I also included the alternative way King Boo reveals the fate of Luigi’s family and friends. 

=

“Did... did you just stick a plunger to my face?”

Luigi shrinks in on himself, shoulders rising until they are level with his ears.

“It was an accident?” he offers uncertainly.

King Boo’s eyes narrow into a glare. Despite the plunger on their face, the king still somehow manages to look menacing.

“This won’t be,” he hisses.

King Boo lunges at the plumber, foregoing the portrait entirely. Luigi reflexively activates the Poltergust’s intake, but instead of catching the monarch in its gale, it latches on to something else—the knotted end of the plunger’s rope. Luigi reels back with a start, and is surprised when the plunger holds firm. The sharp tug startles King Boo enough that the spirit aborts their attack, instinctively resisting the opposing force. Suddenly, Luigi and King Boo find themselves in an incredibly bizarre game of tug-o-war. The plumber begins to feel his shoes lose their purchase, and as he slowly skids across the floor, Luigi realizes he could (and probably should) shut off the intake and let the rope go.

He doesn’t.

What happens next, Luigi can’t even begin to explain what possessed him to do it. He briefly allows himself to stumble forward, tricking the monarch into thinking he had lost their little impromptu game. King Boo eases on their pull, and the second Luigi feels the lost tension in the rope, he acts. Luigi firmly plants his feet in a wide stance and jerks the rope upward with all his might. The ghostly monarch soars into the air with a startled squawk. Luigi swiftly spins on his heel, yanking a flailing King Boo above him in a wide arch—the latter skimming the bottom of the chandelier as they reach the zenith of their trajectory. With an involuntary battle cry, Luigi slams King Boo onto the ground as hard as he can. A loud crack splits the air—the sound accompanied by shattering dishware and ornaments falling from the nearby buffet tables. Luigi, still adjusting to the new Poltergust, accidentally releases the plunger, sending King Boo crashing into the hotel entrance and knocking himself onto his backside.  

The plumber blinks slowly from his sprawled position. He looks from the dazed king to the caved-in floor spider-webbed with cracks. Luigi spies the dislodged plunger lying in the mess that spilled from the shaken tables. He isn't sure what amazes him most, that such an innocuous thing could assist in causing so much damage, or that he was able to throw King Boo like that all on his own. He’ll have to tell his brother about it later—Mario would have loved to see that.

Luigi grins. He has to admit, it was very cathartic.

The elation from his successful maneuver is short lived. King Boo quickly shakes off their daze and rises from the floor with a furious snarl, spurring Luigi into scrambling to his feet. The monarch’s eyes burn with unkempt rage, but there’s surprise there too, and something else... Fear? It’s gone so fast that Luigi thinks he may have imagined it.

“How?” King Boo snarls. “How do you have a Poltergust with you?!”

King Boo’s fervid ire has the plumber trembling again, but it’s not quite as bad as before. Luigi squeezes the Poltergust’s wand, intake nozzle at the ready.

“The professor never leaves home without it,” Luigi replies, “And I’m not leaving here without him.”

The spectral monarch’s anger evaporates into shock. They open their mouth as if to speak—perhaps to ask how Luigi knew E. Gadd was here in the first place—but the question dies on their tongue as a look of epiphany abruptly crosses their face. King Boo’s features relax, melting into something cavalier. What little satisfaction Luigi got from catching the king off-guard gives way to unease.

“Oh?” King Boo asks casually. “Just the professor?” He grins. “Does that mean I can keep the others?”

Luigi suddenly recalls the other vehicles he had seen in the parking garage with utmost clarity. Dread weighs heavily in his gut.

“Others?” he dares to ask.

King Boo gestures at a point behind Luigi. The plumber turns to look. Some distant part of him would later realize how stupid it had been to take his eyes off the monarch, and just how lucky he was that King Boo hadn’t taken advantage of his carelessness. Currently, Luigi feels the furthest thing from lucky. Horror fills him to the brim. This time, Luigi does drop the Poltergust’s nozzle.

There, floating in a neat arc above Hellen Gravely, are portraits containing Luigi’s friends and family.

===

“Olive Branch Scene”

There was a brief moment where I considered having Luigi attempt to make peace with King Boo, but I decided it was too soon for the string bean to extend an olive branch (we all know King Boo wouldn’t have accepted it, anyway). Plus, I already have another installment drafted that covers when King Boo and Luigi first agree on a “truce”. Having the concept of peace introduced this early would kind of take away from it (you’ll see what I mean when we get to that chapter).

=

Luigi tightens his grip on the Poltergust’s wand, anger bleeding through his fear. Lightning crackles to life about the plumber’s hands, unbidden. King Boo grins.

“Oh dear, have I upset you, Luigi? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you angry before. It’s adorable! Like a tiny chihuahua yapping at lion.” The spirit chuckles. “But I think we all know what happens to the chihuahua, don’t we?”

Luigi bites back an angry retort. He quietly sighs—eyes closed—and takes a deep, composing breath as he reigns in his anger. The building electricity fizzles out. Luigi pointedly ignores King Boo’s disappointed huff while he collects himself.

“We don’t have to do this,” he says at last.

King Boo’s malicious grin falters. Confusion replaces triumph.

“What?” the monarch asks, looking genuinely perplexed.  

For a moment, Luigi shares the monarch's confusion, surprised at his own words. Initiating peaceful negotiations had become almost second nature to Luigi since he began mending the relationships between mortals and spirits. Despite his unpleasant history with King Boo, the plumber turned mediator had found himself habitually going through the motions of his newfound career. Luigi nearly retracts his engager, but a ludicrous thought has him hesitating.

What if he tried…talking to King Boo? Tried reasoning with them?

Luigi frowns internally at the idea. There’s no way it will work…right? It would be a waste of time and breath…wouldn’t it?

He decides it couldn’t hurt to try.

“We don’t have to do this,” Luigi repeats. He slowly—hesitantly—returns the Poltergust’s wand to its holster and raises his hands in a placating gesture. “We don’t have to fight.”

Hellen and King Boo exchange bewildered looks. The spectral monarch stares back at Luigi, gob smacked.

“Are...are you surrendering?”

Luigi quickly shakes his head, alarmed by the suggestion.

“What? No! I’m just—” the plumber cuts himself off. He takes a deep, composing breath. “I’m asking you to let us go.”

King Boo stares at the plumber uncomprehendingly. Luigi is about to repeat himself when the monarch abruptly bursts into laughter. A distant tittering informs Luigi that Hellen shares the king’s mirth.

“Luigi, you continue to surprise me. I never realized you had such a bizarre sense of humor,” he cackles, wiping away an imaginary tear.

“I’m being serious.”

The spirit’s mouth clamps shut. Luigi quickly presses on, lest he be dismissed before he can even make his case.

“Return my friends to me, let us leave in peace, and I won’t try to capture you or any of the other spirits in this hotel.” Luigi gestures vaguely around him. “No one has to get hurt. No one has to lose their freedom. We can put all of this behind us and move on with our lives—err, afterlives.” He laughs nervously.

No one laughs with him.

===

“Baby’s First Banter Scene”

I thought of a dumb joke reminiscent of King Boo and Luigi’s usual banter, but because the Plunger Scene got removed, it, too, was scrapped. 

=

“It sounds like you’re in good hands, Luigi. I would stick around and join in on the fun, but thanks to your cheap, apish assault, I need to go make an appointment with a chiropractor.”

Despite the severity of the situation, Luigi can’t help but wrinkle his brow at King Boo’s absurdity.

“You don’t have a spine,” he says flatly.  

“Neither do you, but I’m not so rude as to call attention to it, now am I?”

Luigi sighs internally. He had walked right into that one, hadn’t he?

“Well then! Now that everything’s settled, I really must be going—these portraits aren’t going to hang themselves.” With a wave, the portrait prisons containing Luigi’s friends and family drift after the monarch as he slowly begins to ascend. King Boo spares the plumber one last sinister grin before he disappears through the ceiling. “See you soon, Luigi.”

And with that, they are gone.

[onceuponanaromantic]

A Guide to Magic (Rewritten)

Author’s note: I went and rewrote A Guide to Magic to make it flow better! It’s still slightly out of proportion and I’ll probably have another draft soon but I hope you enjoy this one! I’m leaving the previous bits of draft up but this is the latest version!

Summary: The Witch has watched. The Witch has watched as the Faerie were slandered. The Witch has heard what the humans do and say. 

The Witch is here to fight and to win.

“They won’t listen to you while you’re illegal.”

“Well, my existence is illegal as far as I know.”

 The cloak rippled in the wind. Moonlight glinted off the rain-covered rooftops that the hooded figure walked on. Below, a human girl tried to keep up, footsteps pattering across the roads down below.

 “You saved me. I know you can’t possibly be evil.”

 The hooded figure barked out a laugh seeped in bitterness.

 “Never said I was evil. Just illegal. There’s a difference there, you do realise that. Some things can be both legal and evil at the same time.”

 The human girl stopped to pant and immediately lost track of the dark figure which flew across rooftops as if gravity was a rule that didn’t apply to the figure.

 The girl knew. The girl knew she wasn’t the first the Witch had saved and that went against everything that had been said about the Witch. She had admired the Witch before that day, but even so, when everyone is saying that the Witch had magic, true magic… It was hard not to believe the rumours. And she had seen it that night, seen the Witch weave chains in and out of her finger tips, turning them into nothing more than ribbons which fluttered into the river.

 And yet, when she had been held down and unable to escape, the Witch had appeared. The Witch had heard her soundless cries and she had come. Chains had appeared in the Witch’s hands as if out of thin air and she had wrapped them around the men holding her, pulling them tight and locking them. Then, the Witch had leapt to the rooftops, barely stopping to nod at her.

 She had heard the Witch was powerful, heartless, mystical and terrifying. She hadn’t heard the Witch was kind too.

 The girl stared out into the darkness, wondering if she would ever get the chance to thank the Witch.

 (She wouldn’t ever know that the Witch was the curious, odd Aster Carrow she knew from school.)

              Fireworks, when set off, make a rather lot of noise. Magicians, when setting off said fireworks, tend to do things like cackle.

             Or maybe that was just Ro.

             Aster stumbles into the kitchen before sleep has properly left her. She goes in just in time to see her other parent, Robin, gesture at Ro with a spatula while flipping pancakes with their other hand.

             Ro is still laughing as they catch a couple of pancakes mid flip and pushes it towards Aster. Aster, who, as expected, is face down at the table, lifts her head long enough to take a bite of a pancake. Then, she slams her head back down on the table, nearly causing everything to rattle.

             Ro prods her. “Growing girls need to eat oh.”

             Aster lifts her head long enough to take another bite and wave absently at Ro with one hand. Her parents were still bantering back and forth. Robin was saying something about powder and Ro was piling more fruits than should humanly be possible on hers.

             “Do you want to come for the show after school today?”

             Aster felt the last bits of sleep leave her. “Are you using the fireworks later?”

             Ro laughed and ruffled Aster’s hair, then proceeded to braid it while still eating.

             “Depends on if you’re coming.”

             The enthusiastic sounds that came from Aster’s mouth could not rightly be qualified as words but they got the meaning across all the same.

             Robin’s reminder not to choke as she left for school was ignored amidst the remaining mouthful of pancake and a huge grin.

              Aster huffed as she slid into her seat, groaning and kicking her feet up. The people around her would have been annoyed if they hadn’t been so enthralled by the show at hand. No one seemed bothered by the darkening sky as the stage was backlit by the sunset.

             An old man murmured, apparently to himself. “I never figured out if those two were together.” Aster appraised him, noting the wrinkles in his suit and the tremble in his fingertips. His eyes were a watery brown as he gazed back at the stage. Aster thought she remembered him from the last time she came.

             She wondered what he thought ‘together’ meant. Sure, they might not be together in the traditional romantic sense but they had their own relationship that defied human convention. They got along far better than most romantic couples from what Aster had witnessed. They checked off all the milestones. Being married, raising a child, and they even had a house too.

             Then again, magicians did live to defy convention.

             And that wasn’t all that they had up their sleeves.

             “And for the final act, we need one volunteer!” Ro called from the stage as the dove from the last act flew off.

             A crowd of hands shot up. Robin pretended to look through the guests as if deciding, before pointing directly at Aster.

             “How about… the young lady in the blue dress?”

             The people around Aster went into a flurry, looking around as Aster got up, feigning surprise.

             With a flourish, Ro pulled out a hat and waved it at Aster. “There’s something inside the hat and we need you to pull it out. Okay, just reach in and pull the thing inside out until it’s all out.”

             Aster nodded and pulled. Scarves flew out of the hat, getting steadily brighter and brighter, more scarves than should have been able to fit in the hat in the first place flying out.

           Ro pretended to be confused. “Hmm. Try blowing on it?”

             Aster took a deep breath, and pretended to blow as hard as she could on the scarves.

             With a bang, a firework went off. It flew up into the dusk sky and burst into a starburst of green sparks. The audience gasped and stared up as the sparks twinkled before finally fading out into smoke.

             Ro and Robin bowed as the audience applauded.

             Aster left the stage and got her bag from the audience. The audience was chattering non-stop about the fireworks. Aster hid her laughter at some of the more ridiculous theories on how it had been done, and made a mental note to tell her parents about them.

             The old man from earlier raised an eyebrow at her and smiled as she slung her bag on her shoulder.

             “You would know about whether they were together eh? You would know all sorts of things, you would.”

             Aster grinned back and nodded. The old man laughed and shooed her off. After all, some things are better left unexplained.

             Backstage, Aster helped her parents keep their various equipment from the show. As expected, Ro and Robin found the speculations hilarious.

           “Do you want to go to the forest for dinner oh?”

             “Your attempts to dislodge your head are not necessary but appreciated, dear.”

              Aster would never understand why people found the forest scary, especially at night.  Perhaps, it was because like what her classmates said, it was because she was odd.

             Aster didn’t find herself odd. The forest ground seeped magic from spillage from spells. The hoots of owls and chitters of mice greeted Aster and as was polite, she answered in kind. Her cousin’s laughter filled the entire clearing and the marks of life were scattered all across the trees.

             The forest was never the same twice in a row.

             She slid next to one of her cousins, sending a pulse of magic in greeting and settled on a log to listen to one of her relatives talk about magic. Then, she realised they were talking about luck magic and asking her about it.

             Aster felt a small round ball of guilt settle into her throat. Lying about her activities as the Witch never felt right or comfortable but she couldn’t exactly get her family involved. It was illegal, no matter how much she would defend what she did. She knew what was said about the Witch and she couldn’t. She couldn’t subject her family to hearing that on top of the things that was already said about them.

             Aster bit into her rinti and swallowed hard, coughing to hide the difficulty she had swallowing.

             She heard a laugh over at the side and turned to see Robin poking at the tiny lights around them. Robin, being human, couldn’t see in the dark and as an ex-physics professor, was still trying to figure out how magically generated light worked.

             As bad as she felt, she refused to stop. Not when these were the beings the humans called ‘heartless’, ‘fickle’ and ‘cruel’.

             Having a boot on your back really did inhibit one’s breathing. Especially when that boot was connected to an adult man. The fact that said adult man was yelling for the Witch to come out very much did not help.

             “WITCH. COME OUT NOW OR I WILL CRUSH THE GIRL.”

             Yeah, Aster sometimes did regret getting a reputation for helping people as the Witch.

             Aster shot sparks through the luck matrix and threaded it as much as she could while still struggling for breath. Her eyes were tearing up so she couldn’t see how many people were gathering or what they were doing. Aster finished her weaving and flicked it out.

             A tree branch fell with a snap and the man startled. Aster seized that moment to roll and kick out. A roll of thunder went through the air and clouds began to gather.

             Aster forced a laugh out as she raised a glamour around her features. Thank wind and fire no one knew who the Witch really was. Aster dusted herself off as if it had been effortless.

             “What a pity. I liked that jacket.”

             Realisation was beginning to dawn on the man. Another roll of thunder went through the air and the rain began to fall. The man yelped.

             “You!”

             Aster forced a smile on her face. A magician must misdirect. A magician was acting for their audience. A magician’s job was always to make the show go on, no matter what.

             “Me.”

             A lightning bolt struck.

             A crash of thunder deafened.

             The Witch made her second disappearance of the day.

           Being bruised all over was not fun. Being exhausted and soaked and having not changed out of disgusting clothes was not the most pleasant feeling Aster had ever felt.

             Aster, to put it lightly, felt like shit.

             School. Ew.

             Aster took a deep breath and cringed as her entire body rebelled. Another breath. Again.

             She inched her entire body out of bed and into the shower. Hot water flowed over her body and she felt her muscles relax. Some of the ache seeped into the water.

             And then she looked down and realised her entire body was covered in purplish bruises and reddened wounds. The next thing she thought of was, no way was she making it to school at this rate. Of course, that was immediately followed by a new thought.

             Her parents were going to worry. And she felt like so much shit she couldn’t bring herself to care.

             Aster forced herself to leave the shower and put the lightest possible clothing on so that they didn’t press on her wounds. Her entire body protested as she slid clothes onto her body and walked down the stairs.

             The silence should have tipped her off that her parents weren’t home.

             There was a note left on the kitchen table, along with a bowl of lemongrass soup that was still warm. Aster settled herself down to read the note. The sweep and slight smears of the ink indicated that it was likely Robin who wrote the letter and that it was probably written in the early morning. The lightening towards the end showed that it probably had been written in a rush and that Ro had needed to use her magic to get the ink back into recognisable lines.

             The note itself read: Gone to ask Hecate something. Will be back by nightfall.

             Aster murmured the name ‘Hecate’ to herself. She had heard the name before but she didn’t know where. The name indicated something to do with magic so the next question was if ‘Hecate’ was a magician or a faerie.

             Either way, her parents said they were going to be back by nightfall. So, if she didn’t want to go to school today, she could just say she wasn’t feeling well and had chosen to stay home.

             Not that that was untrue. She noted that her bones still felt like they had been forcibly reassembled. The lemongrass soup had helped though and she did feel energy slowly returning to her.

             Aster returned to her room, still thinking. It’s not as if anyone would particularly miss her. She did enjoy learning but she didn’t enjoy sitting still for long periods of time and being scolded for asking questions. The first time she had been scolded, she hadn’t understood. She understood that her parents wanted her to experience both the human way and faerie ways of education but she much preferred the faerie way and didn’t understand why she had to go through the human way.

             It’s not as if her classmates were nice either. She knew the things both the students and teachers said about her. She knew they thought she was curious and odd and that Ro and Robin were equally strange.

             They were magicians. No one knew quite what to make of them.

             Aster shuffled a deck of cards back and forth. Her classmates had attempted to bully her once. It hadn’t happened twice. They avoided her though, left her alone during breaks and whispered about her.

             She never did stop fidgeting, but she did learn to be more discreet about it.

             She didn’t understand a lot of what her human classmates did. She didn’t understand her teachers either. She didn’t know why she couldn’t ask questions in the middle of the lesson or why things she knew for a fact to be true made her teachers snap.

             “Miss Carrow, we do NOT say such things!”

           “Miss Carrow, it is extremely impolite to interrupt others.”

                       She didn’t even understand why they had to call her ‘Miss Carrow’. Her name was Aster.

             Aster ran through magic tricks in her room, trying to design something truly impressive. She knew how to make things appear and disappear and appear to move. But that was all boring. She wanted something exciting that would really impress her parents.

             She stopped dead in her room.

             She had an idea.

           “Aster?”

             Ro knocked on her door. Aster looked up from her trick. It wasn’t done yet and it was… oh it was nightfall already.

             She had forgotten lunch.

             Oops.

             Aster opened the door, to see Ro and Robin. Ro extended her arms, offering a hug, which Aster gratefully took. Robin patted her back. They were interrupted by Aster’s stomach growling, causing Ro to laugh and let go.

             She sat in the kitchen while Ro cooked, and started talking to Robin about the trick she had been working on. Robin just listened as she spoke about the details she had been trying to work out, nodding and making comments. Ro hopped in with suggestions every so often while still cooking.

 But mostly, they just let Aster ramble on and on.

 Robin and Ro sat with Aster, only getting up to get more tea or more food all the way until the early hours of the morning before Aster finally felt tired enough to go to sleep. By the time Aster finally felt ready to rest, she wasn’t thinking about her injuries and tiredness.

             The Witch laughed as the police attempted to arrest her.

             Fire appeared to be trailing around her as she ran through the museum, flickering and bright. The police were too scared of the fire to come too near her, and she was twisting too fast for them to trap.

             The exhibits themselves gleamed as they reflected the fire, warming all around her.

             The Witch held tight on what she had come for as she darted out of the museum. Extinguishing the flames in one go, she climbed up and leveraged on a nearby tree to leap onto the roof.

             Once on the roof, she crouched and flew across rooftops. She was still amused that the police hadn’t figured out that she escaped by the rooftops but then, that might just be the luck she wove around her.

             She let sparks fly through the luck magic lattice, trusting that the luck she had built up would remain strong. Her luck magic had been getting a lot of practice as the Witch. Idly, she wondered if anyone actually knew that as impressive as the Witch’s actions were, as terrifying and as irritating to the general government it was, it was mostly stage magic and luck.

             Possibly any faerie or any magicians if they ever bothered to look carefully at the Witch’s actions.

             Of course, the Witch was mostly dedicated to preventing and disrupting the government’s attempts to hurt the magical community for human needs. She hadn’t meant for the Witch to become so infamous, but by water was she going to take advantage of it.

             She wondered why the name on one of the plaques from earlier, a ‘Des’ seemed familiar. For the life of her, she couldn’t place where she heard it.

             While she was still deep in thought, she reached her house and slipped in through the window. She eased her door open, checking for anyone, only to come face to face with someone she had never met before.

             She would like to claim that she had been very calm about it.

             She yelped. Unfortunately. And proceeded to fall on her ass.

             “Aster?”

             Robin appeared just in time to witness her humiliation.

             Well, at least she had amused the stranger if the laughter was any indication. The stranger was smiling brightly and her eyes were upturned. She couldn’t place the stranger’s age if she had tried. She would have said the stranger was young, but that didn’t fit. She would have tried saying the stranger was old but that didn’t fit either. The stranger was in a dark green tunic with a light skirt, which… oh. The stranger was probably faerie or familiar with faerie. The stranger also had a heart-shaped face and thin, elegant fingers which were surprisingly strong when they reached out to help her up from the ground.

             “Aster, meet Hecate. The First Witch--“

           “And Aurum’s wife oh.”

           Robin shrugged. “And Aurum’s wife. Hecate, meet Aster. Our daughter. Who occasionally goes out at night and calls herself the Witch.”

             “Pleased to meet you, Aster. My name is Hecate.”

           “I’m… my name is Aster. Yeah. Right. That’s my name.”

             It took a few moments to register what Robin had said. Then, Aster nearly fell down again.

             Robin seemed oblivious to their daughter’s internal crisis and continued walking ahead down the stairs, still talking to Hecate all the while.

             Aster quickly caught up, as soon as she got her balance back and strode down the stairs. Hecate slowed down to wait for her midway down the stairs.

             “I do apologise.” Hecate said, when Robin stopped talking for a moment. “Aurum and I meant to come yesterday but Aurum was having a bad pain day so we had to delay for a day. She felt better this afternoon so we made the trip then.”

             Aster was still slightly in shock over having met the foremost authority on magic itself and one of the most influential researchers. With one of the other most iconic researchers apparently sitting in her dining room. She had literally just met the First Witch. Really, that was why she stumbled on the last 2 steps of a staircase she had used for most of her life and tumbled down.

             Instead of hitting the ground, she hit a soft surface and hovered there. She felt the remaining wounds on her body heal up and she looked up.

             “Don’t worry, that happens to me all the time.”

             Another ageless being approached her and tilted her back on her feet. Hecate helped steady Aster, before walking next to her to the dining table in the kitchen.

             “Aster dear, this is the coolest and most incredible and most amazing Aurum oh. She’s the most brilliant and awesome being I know and she’s also somehow my wife. Aurum, this is Aster.”

             From up close, Aurum’s eyes had smile lines. Her face was narrower, sharper, but she has the same ever-present smile as Hecate did. Her hands had calluses when Aster grasped it, and the pulse of magic she felt was the warmest and most safe feeling she had ever felt short of her own parents’ magic.

             “Okay Hex. I love you too. Pleased to meet you, Aster. My name is Aurum.”

           “Aster. Yes. That’s my name. Pleasure you meeting. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

             Aster wondered somewhere at the back of her mind if there was an off switch on mouths and existences. She really wanted to use that switch right then.

             As they settled around the table, Hecate swooped in to hold Aurum’s hand. Ro and Robin just looked at the wide-eyed look on Aster’s face and grinned at each other.

             Aster managed to do the thing where you convince your mouth to speak in complete sentences.

 “How long have you known I was the Witch?”

 Ro and Robin looked at each other.

 “Since sometime early last year oh? It’s not exactly a secret though.”

           “Huh?”

           “Aster dear, you realise that the entire faerie community knows that you are the Witch right.”

           “Wait seriously?”

           Robin just looked at their daughter. “Did you really think you were being discreet? You were literally broadcasting your magic signature and more importantly, using stage magic and props that only Ro and I use.”

             Ro placed a hand on their spouse’s. “I think we broke her.”

             Hecate was too busy muffling a laugh to say anything. Aurum just rolled her eyes fondly. “I suspect my wife thinks it’s funny that you chose ‘Witch’ specifically.”

             “Wait, what’s so funny about it?”

             “More like, she came up with it herself to describe any being that could use magic that didn’t fall into any particular group.”

           “Right because when I was younger, I lived with demons. But I wasn’t a demon by birth. Then, I met Aurum as a researcher and she was faerie. In order to get access to our shared lab and for communication, we just bound our souls together. That meant I was part faerie now too. And didn’t fit any formal category. So, I just started calling myself a witch when asked.”

           “My wife thought it was hilarious because you’re basically saying that stage magic is as good as any other type of magic. Which it is. It’s just really funny because stage magic was initially used to hide faerie magic and normalise it when the first faerie returned. Because if humans saw their own doing what appeared to be impossible, it was a lot easier to hide the faerie when they did come. Which I believe is in fact the case with Rowan.”

             Ro nodded seriously, though still smiling faintly.

             Aster sat there in silence.

             Hecate stretched and pulled Aurum up.

 “Now, I believe you had a trick that you came up with? I hope you don’t mind us being part of the audience.”

-Fin-

[uozlulu]

I was like why am I so funky trunks today? Asides from you know getting up at like 6am and not really sleeping well because I was concentrating so hard on getting up at 6 in the morning.

Then I remembered what I wrote yesterday and I think it just put my in a super funky headpsace. So I'll post the scene because I feel like that will help me relase some of this funkiness.

This is for the AU ending fic, which is meant to be a fic in which the characters work to some semblance of a happy ending. This particular section deals with a panic attack. General canon typical content warnings can apply to this.

This of course is unbetaed and just a first draft so it's subject to change or getting cut from the fic when I go through it once the first draft is done.

EDIT: Lack of paragraph breaks fixed. Sorry about that. I forgot I copy/pasted into HTML mode. 

Okay, first before I copy/paste, some background to get anyone reading up to speed on where this sequence occurs. After Ash gets on the plane impulsively to go to Japan, he and Eiji go to Izumo and then on to Matsue where they've been living above the photography shop Eiji's been working at. Before this sequence, it was New Year's and Eiji had gone back to Izumo to visit family especially since it's likely Eiji will move with Ash when Ash gets accepted to a university.

Anyway, so this sequence takes place around say Jan 3 or so-ish.

====

Even though Ash lived in Japan now, there was always American music playing somewhere. There was not as much in Matsue as there had been in Tokyo, but there was always someone near campus playing something for the whole world to hear. As stood at a street corner waiting to cross and he heard the song coming slowly from behind. It was a popular song and getting close to ten years old now. Ash’s shoulders tensed. His spine felt cold. The hair on his arms stood on edge. Normally he would feel numb and his brain would seem to go into the clouds to observe him from above, but this time his brain stayed put and his stomach ached.

 The light changed and Ash cleared the crosswalk in a few long strides. The music followed. Ash breathed through his nose and glanced over his shoulder. It was a student with his hair done up in gel. His Walkmen headphones were around his neck with the volume on full blast so the headband would not ruin his pompadour. Ash turned down a street to get away from it, but the music followed. He stopped at a vending machine and waited for the punk to pass, but there was no one following. The song looped in his head. He could feel silk sheets and grimy hands. He could hear the wheeze of the director and he could smell cigarettes. Ash hit the vending machine with his fist so hard it dislodged a soda. His brain could not let go of the song. His brain could not let go of the memories.

 Ash grabbed the soda from the machine and then he dropped it to the ground. It was too long. It was too smooth. It was too wet and too cold. It reminded him of props he wanted to forget. Ash looked at the broken glass on the pavement. He thought about grabbing a piece to use in case he had to. He knew he would not need it. He continued on his way before he did something stupid. He felt like he could throw up. He tried to think of other songs. All the songs his brain could come up with were just as terrible as the one his brain kept playing. Ash did not know why he could not detach himself from it. He did not want to go back to the apartment yet but he did not want to run into anyone he knew. He stuck to side streets as best he could and tried to move away from the general university area.

 When Eiji came home, Ash was not there. He put his bag in his room and set about doing laundry. He heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and the front door slam. Eiji grabbed the broom and ventured towards the main part of the apartment.

 Ash brushed by him, his shoes still on. Ash said nothing. He slammed the door to his room behind him.

 Eiji blinked. He looked at the trail of slush on the floor and at the door.

 “Fuck!” Ash said in English and he was back out of the room with his shoes in hand. He walked around the slush trail and dropped his shoes at the door.

 Eiji set the broom back where it belonged and ventured out into the living area.

 Ash’s hands gripped his hair, pulling so tight he might just rip strands from his head. His hands slipped away when he noticed Eiji and he held one of them up towards Eiji. “Don’t touch me,” he said.

 “I won’t,” Eiji said in English. All thoughts of how reuniting after New Year’s disappeared from his mind. He knew the expression on Ash’s face. He knew the tension in his posture.

 Ash moved past Eiji and returned with a dirty bath towel. He started cleaning up the slush. His movements were harsh and fast. Eiji moved back a little to stay out of the way. Then Ash abruptly stopped wiping the floor and took a deep breath. “Jesus fucking….” He murmured. He sat on the floor and put a hand over his face. “What the fuck am I doing?”

 Eiji picked the towel up and dropped it over the last of the slush. He looked at Ash. Every answer he could come up with sounded wrong.

 “It’s just a song,” Ash murmured. He let his hands rest on his lap. He stretched his legs out. He looked up at Eiji.

 Eiji still did not know what to say. He decided to sit across from Ash, keeping a distance between them.

 “Tell me about the trip,” Ash said. “Tell me whatever you want. Just talk.”

 Eiji licked his lips. He started with the train ride as uneventful as it was. Hatsuko met him at the station and they went the family home. He talked about preparations they made for the holiday, but left out waking up hearing a gun that was not there. He talked about the shrine and the rituals. Eiji pulled his fortune out of his pocket. “I got this,” he said and held it up. He read it to Ash.  

 Ash nodded. “I have one too.” When Eiji looked at him curiously he said, “Your friends came to go to the shrine, so I went.” He stood up and went to his room and returned with his fortune. He handed it to Eiji and sat beside him, keeping a significant gap between them.

 Eiji read it over. It claimed Ash could expect good health and good academic achievements. “What did you think?” he asked.

 “It was worth going,” Ash said.  He took the fortune back when Eiji handed it to him. He set it on the floor and pulled his legs closer, resting his arms on them. He ran a hand through his hair.

 They were quiet for a long time. Eiji could remember the speed at which Ash sometimes would turn the radio in New York. He asked Ash once why since Ash usually would flip stations calmly, but Ash had told him it was bad music.

 “You’re so strong,” Ash said quietly.

 Eiji looked at him. Ash had his arms folded over his knees. He was looking at his feet. Eiji looked down at his own hands. “I am not,” he said. He felt Ash’s gaze on him. He ran one thumb along another. “Sometimes it is too much. Sometimes I wake up confused. I think someone is trying to shoot me. I remember bad things and I cannot forget.” Eiji made a few circles in the air with his finger. “A loop,” he said. “Sometimes I am with you sometimes I am not. I try to,” he thought of the right word, “overcome.”

 Ash frowned. He let one of his legs stretch out and leaned back, letting his posture open. “Coming to Japan was supposed to help,” he said.

 “Maybe it will,” Eiji said. He laid down on the floor and put his hands over his eyes, pressing down gently. He lowered his hands and let them rest on his abdomen gently. The kitchen floor was cold. It was strangely welcoming.